;)
The Commentariat -- November 19, 2019
Michael Shear of the New York Times is live-updating the hearings. Lede @ 1 pm ET: "The top Ukraine expert at the National Security Council testified that President Trump's call with Ukraine's president in which Mr. Trump asked for investigations of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was 'inappropriate' and 'a partisan play,' as Republicans raised questions about his loyalty and professionalism." Mrs. McC: Well-worth reading if -- as I did -- you missed the morning's testimony. The Republicans on the committee, especially Nunes & Jordan, have embarrassed the nation yet again. ~~~
~~~ Times reporters are making their snarky comments here. (Also includes video feed.) Sample: Katie Rogers: White House staff are using "the official White House account for a political attack." David Sanger (in a tweet): "... in a qtr. century here I have not previously seen an official WH account or press release questioning the competence of an official currently working in that WH. If they had concerns about his judgment, why was he there?"
~~~ Update. Mrs. McCrabbie: As far as I can tell, @ 4 pm ET, the Times reporters do not seem to be remarking on the afternoon hearing, although they indicated earlier that they would. The Times live updates, however, are continuing, with Peter Baker taking over.
~~~ The Washington Post's live updates, by John Wagner & Colby Itkowitz, are here. There's a video livefeed here & on the front page of the WashPo. ~~~
~~~ Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman told a House investigative committee Tuesday that he spoke to an intelligence official about President Trump's July 25 request that Ukraine investigate his political opponents, but he declined to identify the official when pressed to do so. His refusal came as Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the House Intelligence Committee's ranking Republican -- who kicked off the hearing by calling for the testimony of the whistleblower whose complaint launched the impeachment investigation -- asked witnesses to identify anyone outside the White House with whom they shared details of Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Republicans used the exchange to raise questions about whether Vindman was the source for information that ended up in the whistleblower's complaint, which alleged that Trump appeared to have abused his public office for personal political gain." ~~~
~~~ Politico's highlights report is here. ~~~
~~~ Axios reprints the transcript of Alexander Vindman's opening statement.
~~~ Tina Nguyen of Politico: "On another day of wall-to-wall impeachment hearings..., Donald Trump convened his Cabinet to push the message that he's focused on everything but impeachment. The focus didn't last long. He could not resist the urge to share his take on the news of the day -- and finally comment on the fevered speculation that he'd experienced a medical emergency over the weekend.... It was Trump's first public appearance since his mysterious and unscheduled trip to Walter Reed Medical Center on Saturday, a sudden hospital visit that spurred rampant speculation about his health in recent days." Trump denounced Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, the "dangerous" press, said he doesn't know who Alexander Vindman is. "Ahead of the meeting, the White House said 'the American people will hear updates on the Trump Cabinet's whole-of-government approach to supporting America's veterans.' Trump himself did not discuss veterans during the 16 minutes the press was present." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump said the when he told Melanie he was going to Walter Reed for a physical, "My wife said, 'Oh darling, that's wonderful.'" I suspect Trump thinks that's the way wives should address their husbands & the way wives should react to whatever decisions their husbands make. I'd be surprised if Melanie really said "Oh, Darling, that's wonderful." ~~~
~~~ Oh Wait, There's More. Caitlyn Oprysko of Politico: "Speaking before a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Trump ... told reporters that he was greeted by a panicked first lady and communications department when he arrived back at the White House due to media coverage of the trip. 'I went for a physical. and I came back and my wife said, "Darling are you OK?... Oh they're reporting you may have had a heart attack,"' Trump explained." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: So with a fine medical team in the White House capable of administering standard tests, Trump went on an unscheduled, off-the-record trip to Walter Reed, without informing staff there he was on his way, and without even telling his wife. A real husband would discuss his plans with his wife beforehand. Even if the visit to Walter Reed were necessitated by a medical emergency, a real husband (and/or -- in this case -- his staff) would make sure his wife knew what was happening. Instead, we're supposed to believe the "sick, dangerous" press had "panicked" Melanie, who had no other way of knowing what was going on. Not only is Trump a liar, he doesn't seem to know how stupid his lies are.
Deirdre Walsh of NPR reports the schedule of witness testimony, which begins today at 9 am ET with Col. Alexander Vindman & ends Thursday with testimony from Fiona Hill, scheduled to begin at 9 am ET. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Jamie Gangel & Kristen Holmes of CNN: "The House Intelligence Committee will have David Holmes, the counselor for political affairs at the US Embassy in Ukraine, testifying alongside former White House official Fiona Hill on Thursday, according to the Democratic aide. The addition of Holmes means nine individuals will testify publicly as witnesses in the House impeachment probe this week. Holmes' testimony is making some GOP members worry about how far [Gordon] Sondland will go in his public testimony on Wednesday and two senior Republican sources say that some House Republicans are worried about how Sondland will handle himself at the hearing." ~~~
~~~ If Sondland shows up Wednesday & testifies truthfully, what are the odds that Trump will tweet-fire him mid-hearing?
Peter Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "Kurt D. Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine, plans to tell lawmakers on Tuesday that he was out of the loop at key moments during President Trump's pressure campaign on Ukraine to turn up damaging information about Democrats, according to an account of his prepared testimony. As the House Intelligence Committee opens its second week of public impeachment hearings, Mr. Volker will say that he did not realize that others working for Mr. Trump were tying American security aid to a commitment to investigate Democrats. His testimony, summarized by a person informed about it who insisted on anonymity..., will seek to reconcile his previous closed-door description of events with conflicting versions offered subsequently by other witnesses. Mr. Volker will be one of four witnesses appearing before the committee on Tuesday.... Mr. Volker, who offered a blander description of the meeting in his original testimony, plans to say on Tuesday that he does not challenge any of the new testimony but did not remember hearing the comments." The story also covers other developments in the impeachment inquiry. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: If you want to get into the weeds, Ryan Goodman, in Just Security, will take you there: "Volker's testimony was unfavorable to the President and Giuliani in many respects. However in other important instances, Volker denied allegations about his own wrongdoing and the existence of the alleged pressure campaign against Ukraine.... Comparing Volker's testimony to other witnesses raises very serious concerns about Volker's truthfulness before Congress. To be more specific, it appears that Mr. Volker lied to Congress in violation of federal criminal law (18 USC 1001). The most serious instances include his flat denial that the Ukraine "investigations" were discussed in a July 10 meeting at the White House, his denial of his own knowledge or involvement in efforts to urge Ukraine to investigate Biden, his denial of his own knowledge or involvement in a quid pro quo scheme, and his claim that efforts to get Ukraine to make a public statement about the investigations ended in mid-to-late August." Goodman has produced a 60-page side-by-side chart comparing Volker's testimony to that of other witnesses. Emphasis original.
Washington Post Breaking: "Democrats on Monday released the transcripts of last week's depositions of [David] Holmes[, a senior political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv,] and David Hale, undersecretary of state for political affairs."
Here's the transcript of David Holmes' testimony, via NPR. Mrs. McC: I'll put up analyses of his & David Hales' testimony when they becomes available. ~~~
~~~ Mary Jalonick of the AP: "The phone call State Department official David Holmes overheard between ... Donald Trump and Ambassador Gordon Sondland during a lunch in Ukraine was so distinctive -- even extraordinary -- that no one needed to refresh his memory, according to testimony released late Monday in the impeachment inquiry. 'I've never seen anything like this,' Holmes told House investigators, 'someone calling the President from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful language. There's just so much about the call that was so remarkable that I remember it vividly.'" ~~~
~~~ Kyle Cheney & Rishika Dugyala of Politico: "... Donald Trump's call to the cell phone of a U.S. ambassador -- a call that included a discussion of 'investigations' Trump was asking Ukraine to launch into his Democratic rivals -- was at risk of being monitored by Russia, [David Holmes] told House impeachmen investigators.... Holmes ... said it immediately made him nervous because two of the three mobile networks in Ukraine are Russian-owned. 'We generally assume that mobile communications in Ukraine are being monitored,' Holmes said, according to a transcript of his Nov. 15 closed-door testimony, released late Monday.... Holmes said after the exchange he reported the call to his supervisor, Kristina Kvien. The [telephone] exchange is a crucial piece of firsthand evidence of Trump's effort -- aided by a shadow diplomacy campaign led by his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani -- to pressure Ukraine to launch an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats."
~~~ The transcript of David Hale's testimony is here, also via NPR. ~~~
~~~ Here's a bit from the Washington Post (at 8:30 pm ET Monday): David "Hale said that during a meeting on April 25, [also linked above] officials discussed the fact that Trump had 'lost confidence' in then-ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and how they could remove her in a way that 'limited the controversy, and .. the damage that might do the ambassador's own reputation and to the State Department and to the embassy in Kyiv.' So, he said, the decision was made to bring her back to Washington to discuss with her 'how best to achieve that.' He said he was not aware of any evidence to support the allegations against Yovanovitch. 'No one to my knowledge believed that they had seen anything that would suggest that the ambassador had done anything wrong,' he said. In fact, he said, 'I felt she had been doing an exceptional job.'" ~~~
~~~ According to the Politico report by Cheney & Dugyala, linked above, David "Hale said he 'advocated strongly for resuming [military] assistance' [to Ukraine] but didn't have confidence that would happen: The OMB 'had guidance from the President and from Acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney to freeze the assistance,' he said."
Jeffery Martin of Newsweek: "In a letter dated Monday to Republican Congressmen Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan responding to their request for information regarding the Ukraine call that led to impeachment proceedings against ... Donald Trump, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, also a Republican, said the impeachment inquiry is 'a continuation of a concerted, and possible coordinated, effort to sabotage the Trump administration.'... Johnson cast aspersions onto the character of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman who is expected to testify in the impeachment proceedings Tuesday. In the letter, Johnson related the events of a briefing he attended with [Col. Alexander] Vindman on May 20. While Johnson believed that supporting Ukraine was 'essential' in the United States' competition with Russia, Vindman allegedly disagreed. 'He stated that it was the position of the NSC that our relationship with Ukraine should be kept separate from our geopolitical competition with Russia,' Johnson wrote.... Johnson went on to say Vindman belongs to 'a significant number of bureaucrats and staff members within the executive branch [who have] never accepted President Trump as legitimate and resent his unorthodox style and his intrusion onto their 'turf."'" ~~~
~~~ Zachary Basu of Axios has Johnson's full screed letter here.
Desmond Butler & Michael Biesecker of the AP: "U.S. State Department officials were informed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was feeling pressure from the Trump administration to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden even before the July phone call that has led to impeachment hearings in Washington, two people with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press. In early May, officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, including then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, were told Zelenskiy was seeking advice on how to navigate the difficult position he was in, the two people told the AP. He was concerned ... Donald Trump and associates were pressing him to take action that could affect the 2020 U.S. presidential race, the two individuals said.... State Department officials in Kyiv and Washington were briefed on Zelenskiy's concerns at least three times.... The briefings and the notes show that U.S. officials knew early that Zelenskiy was feeling pressure to investigate Biden, even though the Ukrainian leader later denied it in a joint news conference with Trump in September. Congressional Republicans have pointed to that public Zelenskiy statement to argue that he felt no pressure to open an investigation.... In the impeachment hearings, Democrats have countered that Zelenskiy's public comments came when he was trying to calm the waters with the U.S. president in the immediate wake of the transcript's release."
Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday said he will 'strongly consider' giving written or in-person testimony in the House impeachment inquiry, despite his repeated refusal to cooperate with the investigation thus far. Trump responded to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) suggestion on 'Face the Nation' a day earlier in which she said the president could 'come right before the committee and talk... or he could do it in writing.'" Mrs. McC: Yeah, Donnie, just as you repeatedly said you could hardly wait to testify to Bob Mueller. Yesterday, after strongly considering swimming from Kennebunkport to Brittany, France, and rejecting the idea, today I'm going to strongly consider climbing Mount Everest alongside all the other climbers. (Also linked yesterday.)
Quinta Jurecic & Benjamin Wittes in The Atlantic: "The Trump defensive playbook has a few distinctive plays. There's the allegation of a deep-state conspiracy. The demonization of an individual career official. The assertion that the relevant investigation was conceived in sin and is hopelessly tainted by it. The focus on throwing handfuls of spaghetti at the wall, rather than stitching together a coherent alternative narrative.... As the impeachment inquiry gains steam..., Donald Trump and his defenders are running their old playbook [from the Mueller probe].... It is too soon to tell whether the playbook is working.... The stability of the president's approval ratings ... suggests that, at a minimum, it is not not working -- at least not yet. The playbook may be even more implausible intellectually than it was the first time around. It may be infuriating. And it is certainly demagogic and immoral in its deceit and slander. But it has played an effective role in Trump's resilience to date. So why not try it again?" --s ~~~
~~~ Kevin Liptak & Pamela Brown of CNN: "... Donald Trump's aides have explored moving some impeachment witnesses on loan to the White House from other agencies, such as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, back to their home departments ahead of schedule, according to people familiar with the conversations. As public hearings bring the officials' allegations to his television screen, Trump is asking anew how witnesses such as Vindman and Ambassador Bill Taylor came to work for him, people familiar with the matter said. He has suggested again they be dismissed, even as advisers warn him firing them could be viewed as retaliation. The possible move of officials out of the White House could still be viewed by some as evidence of retribution for their testimony. Trump's frustration at his own officials comes as he attacks witnesses on Twitter, including during Friday's public hearing with the ousted ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Trump appears to have adopted a strategy of maligning the officials, despite some allies encouraging him not to."
Sad! Carol Lee, et al., of NBC News: "The impeachment inquiry has created the first rift between ... Donald Trump and the Cabinet member who has been his closest ally, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to four current and former senior administration officials. Trump has fumed for weeks that Pompeo is responsible for hiring State Department officials whose congressional testimony threatens to bring down his presidency, the officials said. The president confronted Pompeo about the officials -- and what he believed was a lackluster effort by the secretary of state to block their testimony -- during lunch at the White House on Oct. 29, those familiar with the matter said.... Trump particularly blames Pompeo for tapping Ambassador Bill Taylor in June to be the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, the current and former senior administration officials said.... The impeachment inquiry has put Pompeo in what one senior administration official described as an untenable position: trying to manage a bureaucracy of 75,000 people that has soured on his leadership and also please a boss with outsized expectations of loyalty." Thanks to Patrick for the link. See also his commentary in yesterday's thread. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "Trump is taking a beating from diplomats and other State Department officials who have testified that Trump did indeed try to extort Ukraine into providing dirt on Joe Biden in return for military aid. Since Trump can't admit that his problems stem from the fact that he actually did something wrong, it must be a problem with the State Department instead. Right? So now Mike Pompeo is caught in Trump's crosshairs[.]"
Jonathan Allen of NBC News: "Two days after a whistleblower secretly filed a complaint about ... Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine in August, two top congressional staffers arrived in Kyiv on a routine business trip that ended up setting off alarm bells on Capitol Hill. The aides ... had been dispatched to make an on-the-ground assessment of the cash Congress has been pumping into former Soviet states -- including Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine -- to aid their defenses against Russian aggression. But ... the staffers were shocked to learn from U.S. embassy officials that there was no new money coming into Ukraine.... What's more, the two Appropriations staffers, Becky Leggieri and Hayden Milberg, couldn't even get an explanation for the hold-up, because embassy officials didn't know the reason.... That set off a scramble in Washington to find out what happened to the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that had been specifically earmarked by Congress for Ukraine.... The hunt to find out why the money wasn't moving played out on Capitol Hill and across several federal agencies at the same time the whistleblower complaint was quietly winding its way through separate government channels in August and early September, and it illustrates the difficulty anyone connected to the administration would have in hiding a plot to withhold federal funds." (Also linked yesterday.)
Rudy Giuliani, Cybersecurity Expert. David Sanger of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani ... makes a living selling cybersecurity advice through his companies. President Trump even named him the administration's first informal 'cybersecurity adviser.' But inside the National Security Council, officials expressed wonderment that Mr. Giuliani was running his 'irregular channel' of Ukraine diplomacy over open cell lines and communications apps in Ukraine that the Russians have deeply penetrated. In his testimony to the House impeachment inquiry, Tim Morrison, who is leaving as the National Security Council's head of Europe and Russia, recalled expressing astonishment to William B. Taylor Jr., who was sitting in as the chief American diplomat in Ukraine, that the leaders of the 'irregular channel' seemed to have little concern about revealing their conversations to Moscow. 'He and I discussed a lack of, shall we say, OPSEC, that much of Rudy's discussions were happening over an unclassified cellphone or, perhaps as bad, WhatsApp messages, and therefore you can only imagine who else knew about them,' Mr. Morrison testified.... 'And I found that to be highly problematic and indicative of someone who didn't really understand how national security processes are run.'"
Rene Marsh, et al., of CNN: "Federal prosecutors in New York who are investigating Rudy Giuliani are seeking to interview people with knowledge of Ukraine's state-run oil-and-gas company, Naftogaz, according to two people familiar with the matter, suggesting investigators have opened a line of inquiry into whether Giuliani and his associates sought to secure energy deals by asserting influence on the company.... Naftogaz stands at the center of an effort by Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, and their purported natural-gas company, Global Energy Producers, to replace Naftogaz's chief executive officer with someone who would be more beneficial to their own business interests earlier this year.... An American energy consultant who operates in Ukraine, Dale Perry, described [Lev & Igor's] efforts to oust Naftogaz's CEO, Andriy Kobolyev, who is known for his anti-corruption reforms at the company...." ~~~
~~~ Jonathan Chait: Friday, CNN reported that "[Lev] Parnas and [Igor] Fruman, along with their partner, Rudy Giuliani, met with Trump in the White House during its annual Hanukkah party. Parnas told two people that Trump tasked them with pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.... Here Trump recruited a pair of sleazeballs with ties to the Russian mafia to communicate with the Ukrainian government on his behalf. 'President outsources his foreign policy to gangsters' is the sort of charge that ought to draw more attention than it has.... Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani ... were also looking to line their own pockets in the process.... Despite the pretext of fighting Ukrainian corruption, Trump's allies were undermining reforms in Ukraine and recorrupting institutions that had been turned into instruments of the rule of law.... Lurking in the shadows of the [Ukraine] scandal is an ulterior motive: Giuliani, Parnas, and Fruman were extorting Ukraine in the traditional, moneymaking way also.... If there's any way the Ukraine scandal can get materially worse, it would be Trump directing a scheme to not only gain a political advantage but to enrich his partners, or even himself."
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Impeachment investigators are exploring whether President Trump lied in his written answers to Robert S. Mueller III during the Russia investigation, a lawyer for the House told a federal appeals court on Monday, raising the prospect of bringing an additional basis for a Senate trial over whether to remove Mr. Trump.... Mr. Trump wrote that he was 'not aware during the campaign of any communications' between 'any one I understood to be a representative of WikiLeaks' and people associated with his campaign, including his political adviser Roger J. Stone Jr., who was convicted at trial last week for lying to congressional investigators about his efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks and his discussions with the campaign." A CNN report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Jeff Stein & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Two senators are looking into a whistleblower's allegations that at least one political appointee at the Treasury Department may have tried to interfere with an audit of President Trump or Vice President Pence, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, a sign that lawmakers are moving to investigate the complaint lodged by a senior staffer at the Internal Revenue Service. Staff members for Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (Ore.), the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, met with the IRS whistleblower earlier this month, those people said. Follow-up interviews are expected to further explore the whistleblower's allegations.... Trump administration officials have previously played down the complaint's significance and suggested that it is politically motivated.... The IRS whistleblower complaint was first disclosed in an August court filing by Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.... Neal made the disclosure in court filings as part of his battle with the Trump administration over the president's tax returns, which the Treasury Department has refused to furnish. At the time, Neal said the whistleblower complaint raises 'serious and urgent concerns' about the integrity of the IRS audit process." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Senate Finance Committee staff members met this month with an Internal Revenue Service whistle-blower who has alleged that senior Treasury Department officials tried to exert influence over the mandatory audit of President Trump's tax returns, a congressional aide said on Monday. The whistle-blower contacted the staff of the House Ways and Means Committee over the summer and accused political appointees in the Treasury Department of improperly involving themselves in the audit and putting pressure of some kind on senior officials in the I.R.S.... A person familiar with the complaint has said that it did not directly implicate Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in the political meddling." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course it could not be possible that (1) the whistleblower's complaint is accurate and (2) Trump directed a political appointee to mess with his audit. ~~~
~~~ Harper Neidig of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Monday issued a temporary stay of an appeals court ruling that granted House Democrats' access to President Trump's financial records.... The subpoena from the House Oversight Committee will be unenforceable while the Supreme Court decides whether to take up the case. Developing." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Monday temporarily blocked an appeals court ruling that required President Trump to turn over financial records to a House committee. The brief order gave no reasons and served to maintain the status quo while the justices decided how to proceed. In a letter to the court earlier on Monday, lawyers for the committee said they did not oppose a brief interim stay. In entering one, the chief justice ordered the committee's lawyers to file papers on whether to grant a longer stay by Thursday. If the justices grant a longer stay, they will next consider whether to hear Mr. Trump's appeal. The case, concerning a subpoena from the House Oversight and Reform Committee, is one of two cases before the Supreme Court in which Mr. Trump is seeking to halt disclosures of his financial records by his accounting firm, Mazars USA. The other case concerns a subpoena from Manhattan prosecutors to the firm seeking eight years of his personal and business tax returns." (Also linked yesterday.)
Betsy Swan & Erin Banco of the Daily Beast: "Paul Erickson, the former boyfriend of convicted Russian agent Maria Butina, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering, according to a plea agreement filed in a South Dakota federal court Monday afternoon. In a two-page statement detailing the factual basis for the plea, Erickson said he conned someone only identified as 'D.G.' into wiring him $100,000 under the pretense that the money was for a real estate investment in North Dakota. As part of the plea filed in U.S. district court in South Dakota, Erickson admits the money was not for a real estate deal. He also notes that he wired $1,000 of the money to a person called 'M.B.'... Erickson was indicted in February on allegations that he ran a criminal scheme from 1996 to 2018 in which he was accused of using a chain of assisted living homes called Compass Care.” Erickson also ran at least two other fraudulent schemes, according to prosecutors. Mrs. McC: Sadly, "M.B.," the recipient of the $1,000 wire transfer, was not "Marie Burns," but was likely Maria Butina.
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "The White House sought on Monday night to quell a torrent of speculation about President Trump's health two days after a mysterious, unannounced visit to the hospital, denying that he was treated for an emergency and insisting that it was just 'regular, primary preventive care.... Despite some of the speculation, the president has not had any chest pain, nor was he evaluated or treated for any urgent or acute issues," Cmdr. Sean P. Conley, the president's Navy physician, wrote in a memo released by the White House in an unusual late-night statement. 'Specifically, he did not undergo any specialized cardiac or neurologic evaluations.'" ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I haven't been paying attention, but a pundit on the teevee last night noted that since Trump's surprise visit to Walter Reed on Saturday, Trump has not appeared in public. He's scheduled to run a Cabinet meeting at 11:30 am ET today. ~~~
~~~ Update. Toluse Olorunnipa & Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "Trump, 73, made an unscheduled trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Saturday, a visit that remained shrouded in secrecy for two days as Trump stayed away from the public eye and the White House dodged questions about his health.... On Monday, he remained out of public view, holding his meetings behind closed doors. He met with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell inside the White House residence rather than the Oval Office.... The White House has adequate equipment and facilities to treat most minor illnesses and conduct routine tests."
What a Surprise! CBS News: "A CBS News investigation has uncovered a possible pay-for-play scheme involving the Republican National Committee and President Trump's nominee for ambassador to the Bahamas. Emails obtained by CBS News show the nominee, San Diego billionaire Doug Manchester, was asked by the RNC to donate half a million dollars as his confirmation in the Senate hung in the balance, chief investigative correspondent Jim Axelrod reports.... In an email..., [RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel] asked Manchester [just as his nomination was coming up for a committee vote], 'Would you consider putting together $500,000 worth of contributions from your family to ensure we hit our ambitious fundraising goal?'... He wrote back to McDaniel:... 'As you know I am not supposed to do any, but my wife is sending a contribution for $100,000. Assuming I get voted out of the [Foreign Relations Committee] on Wednesday to the floor we need you to have the majority leader bring it to a majority vote ... Once confirmed, I our [sic] family will respond!'" Manchester copied "staffers of two senators who controlled his nomination, Kentucky's Rand Paul and Idaho's Jim Risch, alerting them to his willingness to donate more after confirmation.... Risch alerted the White House, which then asked Manchester to withdraw." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, the most surprising part is that the White House asked Manchester to withdraw, which he did. However, Risch probably made clear to the Trumpies that Manchester would never be confirmed; the committee had already held up the nomination for 2-1/2 years, and this pay-for-play gambit was the nail in the coffin.
Stephanie Nebehay of Reuters: "The United States has the world's highest rate of children in detention, including more than 100,000 in immigration-related custody that violates international law, the author of a United Nations study said on Monday.... Children should only be detained as a measure of last resort and for the shortest time possible, according to the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "The Trump administration is preparing to publish a rule that would send migrants who pass through Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras before seeking asylum in the United States back to those dangerous Central American countries to claim asylum there instead." ~~~
~~~ Sofia Menchu & Ted Hesson of Reuters: "The U.S. government said on Saturday that it had no plans to send asylum seekers to remote regions in Guatemala after the Central American country floated the plan during negotiations for a bilateral migration agreement this week.... Incoming president Giammattei criticized the lack of transparency around how the deal is being finalised and told reporters at a press conference on Saturday that his government would evaluate any agreement that was struck by his predecessor. Guatemala's tiny refugee agency ... has around 10 officials.... Guatemala&'s Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart ... said the regions could include, but would probably not be limited to, the Peten jungle, a sweltering area in northern Guatemala that borders Mexico and is known to be frequented by drug cartels." --s ~~~
~~~ Abigail Hauslohner of the Washington Post: "Though President Trump has made cracking down on immigration a centerpiece of his first term, his administration lags far behind President Barack Obama's pace of deportations. Obama -- who immigrant advocates at one point called the 'deporter in chief' -- removed 409,849 people in 2012 alone. Trump, who has vowed to deport 'millions' of immigrants, has yet to surpass 260,000 deportations in a single year. And while Obama deported 1.18 million people during his first three years in office, Trump has deported fewer than 800,000. It is unclear why deportations have been happening relatively slowly." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Katie Rogers & Jason LeParle of the New York Times look into Stephen Miller's "intellectual ties to the world of white nationalism.... Katie McHugh -- the former Breitbart editor who leaked the messages, some 900 emails sent from March 2015 to June 2016 -- said in an interview last week that 'it's easy to draw a clear line from the white supremacist websites where he is getting his ideas to current immigration policy.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
David Zucchino & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "The Taliban on Tuesday freed two Westerners they had held for more than three years in exchange for the release of three senior insurgent leaders, officials said, in a deal that officials hoped could pave the way for Afghan peace talks with the Taliban.The Westerners were released to American forces by the Taliban, and included an American, Kevin C. King, 63, and an Australian, Timothy J. Weeks, 50, teachers at the American University in Kabul who were abducted in 2016." The AP report is here.
Jennifer Hansler, et al., of CNN: "US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday announced a major reversal of the US' longstanding policy on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, rejecting a 1978 State Department legal opinion that deemed the settlements 'inconsistent with international law.' The announcement, which breaks with international law and consensus, is the latest in a string of hardline, pro-Israeli moves that are likely to inflame tensions between the Trump administration and Palestinians and widen the divide between the Trump administration and traditional US allies in Europe." The New York Times story is here.
Eli Lee of CREW: "[T]he Department of Justice recently issued a legal opinion that appears to exempt a Saudi-owned oil company's lobbyists from registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), according to a CREW analysis of lobbying disclosures and DOJ records. The lobbyists have instead been permitted to disclose their work under the less rigorous Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA). As a result, information that would have been disclosed under FARA -- including detailed lists of the lobbyists' meetings with government officials -- has effectively been withheld from the government and the public, thus hiding details of a lobbying campaign that could be considered part of Saudi Arabia's U.S. influence efforts. More broadly, the DOJ's legal opinion appears to establish a general loophole in FARA that allows corporations that are wholly owned by a foreign state-owned company to obscure the full extent of their influence efforts in the United States." --s
Dan DeLuce, et al., of NBC News: "Senior Trump administration official Mina Chang resigned from her job at the State Department two and a half hours after NBC News went to her spokesperson to ask about newly discovered false claims she had made about her charity work. NBC News had previously reported that Chang, the deputy assistant secretary in the State Department's Bureau of Conflict and Stability Operations, had embellished her resume with misleading claims about her educational achievements and the scope of her nonprofit's work -- even posting a fake cover of Time magazine with her face on it." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: We've known for years that Donald Trump has embellished his résumé & hung fake pictures of himself on the cover of Time in some of his resorts. Why doesn't he resign? (Okay, that was rhetorical. I know he has no shame.)
Your Tax Dollars Hardly Working. Elaina Plott of The Atlantic: Rudy Giuliani's son Andrew "has served in the Office of Public Liaison, beginning as an associate director, since March 2017, making him one of the longest-serving members of the Trump administration.... [H]e earns a salary of $90,700.... [S]everal of the current and former administration officials I spoke to for this story said Giuliani helps arrange sports teams' visits to the White House.... 'He doesn't really try to be involved in anything,' one former senior White House official told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity.... And as the person with one of the better golf handicaps in Trump's inner circle, Giuliani sometimes traveled with the president for the sole purpose of joining him for a round or two. Ultimately, Giuliani's face time with Trump in that first year rivaled that of far more senior officials." --s
Michael Balsamo & Tom Hays of the AP: "Two correctional officers responsible for guarding Jeffrey Epstein when he took his own life are expected to face criminal charges this week for falsifying prison records, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The federal charges could come as soon as Tuesday and are the first in connection with Epstein's death. The wealthy financier died at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York while awaiting trial on charges of sexually abusing teenage girls. The officers on Epstein's unit at the federal jail in New York City are suspected of failing to check on him every half-hour, as required, and of fabricating log entries to claim they had. Federal prosecutors offered the guards a plea bargain, but the AP reported Friday that the officers declined the deal."
In yesterday's thread, Anonymous recommended a special by NBC News' Richard Engel on Trump's withdrawal from Syria, allowing Turkey to attack Kurdish allies of the U.S. If you subscribe to MSNBC on a cable or satellite service, you can view it here after signing in. (It's possible you'll have trouble signing in. For quite awhile, my sign-in via Xfinity didn't work, but it's been working for a couple of months.) As Anonymous suggested, you also may be able to access the report onyour TV via your provider's on-demand facility; the show is called "On Assignment with Richard Engel."
Beyond the Beltway
Mississippi. Ashton Pittman of the Jackson Free Press: "Shanda Yates, a 38-year-old Jackson-area attorney, has ousted Billy Denny, a top Republican in the Mississippi House of Representatives who first won his seat in 1987 -- when Yates was just 6 years old. The Democratic political newcomer beat the longtime House District 64 incumbent by about 51% to 49%, the Hinds County Election Commission confirmed to the Jackson Free Press after finishing counting provisional ballots on Monday.... Yates won by 168 votes." ~~~
~~~ The Trump Effect. Ashton Pittman: "Donald Trump's visit to Tupelo [Mississippi] earlier this month may have boosted Mississippi Democrats more than Republicans in the northeast part of the state, Chism Strategies, one of the state's top polling and political strategy firms, says. The president's Nov. 1 visit boosted Republican voter turnout in Northeast Mississippi by 5%, but gave Democrats in the region a 12% boost, the firm's Brad Chism wrote in an 'Open Letter to Mississippi Democrats' late last week.... While ... every ... Democratic candidate statewide lost, Chism pointed out some 'silver linings' -- including Democrat Hester Jackson-McCray's defeat of an incumbent GOP Mississippi in a DeSoto County House District that Republicans won by 36 points in 2015." --s ~~~
~~~ Louisiana. safari: Another insight from the article above: "[Louisiana governor John Bel] Edwards' decision to expand Medicaid in the state, which [Republican Bobby] Jindal had blocked, proved popular in the state, after it opened health-care access to more than 470,000 Louisiana residents. A study since found that expansion 'led to a $1.85 billion direct economic impact' in the first year, helped the state save $317 million, and& created 19,000 new jobs."
Share Article 