Impeach the motherfucker

Another lie - imagine that

At the heart of the impeachment inquiry, members of Congress may have been mistakenly led to believe that there were two phone calls between President Donald Trump and Ambassador Gordon Sondland in early September—with the second call having the possibility of helping the President’s case. That’s not what happened. There was only one call, and it was highly incriminating.

The call occurred on September 7th. In this call, Trump did say there was “no quid pro quo” with Ukraine, but he then went on to outline his preconditions for releasing the security assistance and granting a White House visit. The call was so alarming that when John Bolton learned of it, he ordered his’ deputy Tim Morrison to immediately report it to the National Security Council lawyers.

Sondland has testified there was a call on September 9th in which Trump said there was “no quid pro quo,” but that he wanted President Zelenskyy “to do” the right thing.

[...]

As this article was in the publication process at Just Security, the Washington Post published a report raising doubts about the existence of [that] call. The analysis that follows is consistent with the Post’s report and, among other points, shows why Sondland’s “no quid pro quo” call is in fact the same as the September 7th call that Morrison reported to NSC lawyers on September 7th.

[...]

In the face of [...] damning and conclusive evidence, the White House and House Republicans have been forced to retreat to their current defense: that President Trump himself has not been proven to have done anything wrong, because there was no witness who testified to having personally heard the President announce that he was seeking a quid pro quo from Ukraine, in exchange for release of the security assistance.

[...]

Multiple witnesses also testified that EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland had told them that, in his conversations with the president, Trump had described his requirement for Zelenskyy to publicly announce the investigations into Biden and 2016. However, to the extent that no witness testified to having personally heard Trump request a quid pro quo in regards to the security assistance, there are two reasons for this.

The first is that, with a single exception, every individual who interacted directly with President Trump refused to comply with House subpoenas for their testimony.

The second is that the single exception who did testify, Ambassador Sondland, did not testify accurately when he said that President Trump had never asked him for a quid pro quo from Ukraine. In fact, President Trump had personally informed Sondland of his specific demands for a quid pro quo from Ukraine – and the White House National Security Council is sitting on documents that confirm it.

[...]

Sondland has, at times, been ambiguous as to when exactly this phone call took place, and has vacillated between the dates of September 6-9. But in the version of events that Sondland most frequently describes in his testimony, he says that he made the “no quid pro quo” call on September 9th. Sondland has testified it was a brief conversation, in which he asked President Trump a single question:

I asked him one open-ended question: What do you want from Ukraine? And as I recall, he was in a very bad mood. It was a very quick conversation. He said: I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. I want Zelenskyy to do the right thing. (Sondland Depo. at 106)

It is this testimony from Sondland that the White House and House Republicans have clung to, in support of their claim that the impeachment inquiry has failed to show misconduct by the President. ’’

  Just Security

Just to recap: Ambassador Bill Taylor told Sondland that the withheld aid to Ukraine was beyond problematic, and the story is that Sondland then contacted Trump who said there was no "quid pro quo", which he reported back to Taylor.  Apparently, Mr. Sondland was lying again.

President Trump has taken to regularly invoking Sondland’s testimony at rallies and at press events, asserting that Sondland’s description of the “no quid pro” call exonerates him.

[...]

Overall, it must be noted, Sondland’s testimony was incredibly damning for Trump. However, it was not quite as damning as it should have been. Because in reality, as shown from the testimony of other witnesses, the “no quid pro quo” call did not take place on September 9th. What’s more, the call was not prompted by any text from Bill Taylor. And lastly, Sondland’s testimony about the “no quid pro quo” call omitted the most important part: the part where President Trump informed Sondland that the security assistance would be at a “stalemate” until President Zelenskyy stood in front of a microphone and personally announced that he was opening an investigation into Trump’s political rivals.

The “no quid pro quo” call did not take place on September 9th, as Sondland claimed at one point in his testimony; instead, it took place on September 7th. This is shown from the testimony of Tim Morrison, Senior Director for European Affairs for the National Security Council, and Charge D’Affaires Bill Taylor, both of whom were briefed on the call by Sondland shortly after it occurred.

This detail is critically important, not because the precise date of the call is significant in and of itself, but because of what it shows about the true content of that call – the substance of the conversation that Morrison and Taylor described in their testimony, and that Sondland omitted from his.

So even after the "three tries" at getting Sondland's "forthcoming" testimony, he was still lying. Don't tell Representative Maloney.

(Still my favorite clip.)

Though Ambassador Sondland testified that, to the best of his recollection, the “no quid pro quo” call occurred on September 9th, Sondland was also quick to point out that as a result of his inability to review certain State Department records, his “memory admittedly has not been perfect.” (Sondland Testimony of Nov. 20, 2019) Still, Sondland said he had a distinct reason for remembering the date of this particular call: it was prompted by what Sondland described as a “fairly shocking” and “alarming” text message he received from Charge Taylor, in a group chat that included Ambassador Kurt Volker. It was in response to this text, Sondland said, that Sondland made the call to President Trump:

So rather than ask the President nine different questions – is it this, is it this, is that – I just said what do you want from Ukraine? I may have even used a four letter word. And he said I want nothing, I want no quid pro quo, I just want Zelensky to do the right thing, to do what he ran on or – or words to that effect. (Sondland Testimony of Nov. 20, 2019)

Because Ambassador Volker’s text exchanges were one of the few documentary records produced in response to the HSPCI’s subpoenas, we have a copy of the text exchange Sondland referred to. Per Volker’s records, Taylor’s text was sent at 12:47am on September 9th.

[...]

After speaking to President Trump, Sondland testified, he texted a response to Taylor at 5:19am,[1] which Sondland described as a “paraphrase” of what Trump had just told him: “The President has been crystal clear: no quid pro quos of any kind.”

With these text records to support his account, Ambassador Sondland testimony’ that this this call took place on September 9th went largely unchallenged during the hearings before the HPSCI. But despite the text recordings – which would seemingly corroborate Sondland’s memory and provide him precise evidence about when the call occurred – Sondland’s testimony has had a curious uncertainty too. For instance, in Sondland’s amendment to his closed-door testimony, he avoided identifying the precise date for the call altogether, instead giving a range of possible dates – from September 6th to September 9th – and then noting that his lack of access to his phone records prevented him from identifying the date with more certainty.

[...]

And, in his public testimony before HPSCI, when asked to confirm that this call had indeed taken place on September 9th, Sondland repeatedly invoked his lack of access to the records to explain his inability to say with certainty if the call occurred on September 6th or September 9th.

[...]

CASTOR: Okay. And then in your September 9th communication with The President during your deposition that was a striking moment when you walked us through your telephone call with President Trump on September 9th.

SONDLAND: By the way I still cannot find a record of that call because the State Department or The White House cannot locate it. But I’m pretty sure I had the call on that day.

Sondland’s testimony about the White House’s inability to locate records of this call is also curious. On the one hand, the failure to preserve such critical records might appear to be something like obstruction, if not the outright destruction of evidence. On the other hand, the White House informing Sondland that it “cannot locate” a record of the September 9th call makes perfect sense – if in fact no call occurred at all between Sondland and Trump on September 9th.

[...]

After Fiona Hill resigned in mid-July as the NSC’s Senior Director for European Affairs, Tim Morrison took over her role, and for the next three months, he received updates on Ukraine-related matters from Ambassador Sondland. In his closed-door testimony, Morrison described how, on September 7th, he received a call from Sondland, who wanted to update him on a call he had just had with President Trump:

In the phone call, he told me that he had just gotten off the phone — the September 7th phone call — he told me he had just gotten off the phone with the President. I remember this because he actually made the comment that it was easier for him to get a hold of the President than to get a hold of me, which led me to respond, “Well, the President doesn’t work for Ambassador Bolton; I do,” to which Ambassador Sondland responded, “Does Ambassador Bolton know that?” But that’s why I have a vivid recollection of this. And he wanted to tell me what he had discussed with the President. … He told me [ ] that there was no quid pro quo, but President Zelenskyy must announce the opening of the investigations and he should want to do it. (Morrison Depo. at 190) (emphasis added)

[...]

In Morrison’s public testimony, he once again placed the “no quid pro quo” call on September 7th.

[...]

In this call, Sondland told Morrison of Trump’s demand that President Zelenskyy personally announce the Burisma/2016 investigations, and upon hearing this, Morrison said, he had a “sinking feeling.” (Morrison Depo. at 145) Morrison was concerned President Trump’s “requirements” could not be met in time for the hold on the military assistance to be lifted.

[...]

In other words, on September 7th, when Sondland was briefing Morrison about Trump’s demands for Zelenskyy to announce the investigations, there were only eight days left before the security assistance evaporated all together. Ukraine only had eight days left to provide Trump with something that would satisfy his demands.

And Morrison had another reason for knowing the precise date this call occurred – because as soon as the call was over, he went to the NSC lawyers to report it.

[...]

In addition to Sondland giving incorrect testimony about the date of the “no quid pro quo” call, Sondland was also incorrect about what had prompted the call in the first place. His September 9th text exchange with Bill Taylor could not have been what caused him to call President Trump, because that call had happened at least two days before the text. Instead, Sondland had called Trump in order to confirm whether a proposed modification to the quid pro quo arrangement would be acceptable to Trump.

[...]

Whether due to a faulty memory, or due to intentional deceit, Sondland’s testimony about the “no quid pro quo” call omitted the most critical part of the conversation: President Trump’s rejection of the compromise offer for the Prosecutor General to announce the investigations, and his demand that Zelenskyy himself do it. The “no quid pro quo” call was, in reality, a “here is the specific quid pro quo I want” call. And, by erroneously placing the call on September 9th, Sondland helped obscure these omissions from his testimony, by divorcing the call from its actual context in the ongoing negotiations with Ukraine over what form of quid pro quo would be acceptable. More importantly, it also gave the appearance that the call Sondland was describing was somehow different from the call that was described by two other witnesses – both of whom testified that the call included an explicit demand by Trump for a quid pro quo.

When Sondland briefed Morrison and Taylor on the “no quid pro quo” call on September 7th and 8th, he included details that caused both Morrison and Taylor to be alarmed, as was John Bolton when he was informed of it.

[...]

Still, as much as these omissions from Sondland’s testimony may have benefited President Trump, ’the differences between Sondland’s testimony and the testimony of the other witnesses are cosmetic. In substance, Sondland does not dispute the accuracy of the testimony given by the other witnesses.

[...]

Sondland does remember a phone call in which someone told him about the quid pro quo that Trump was demanding – Sondland just ’can’t remember if it was President Trump that he had this conversation with. (Though whether the conversation was with Giuliani or President Trump makes little difference, since Sondland testified that he understood Giuliani was conveying the President’s conditions.)

But Morrison and Taylor both confirmed, in their testimonies, that it was President Trump. And Sondland has agreed that he has no reason to doubt the version of events described by Morrison and Taylor.

[...]

Finally, it’s worth noting that Sondland’s phone call with President Trump is not the only presidential phone call that Sondland now has difficulty remembering. When Sondland and Taylor spoke on September 8th, it wasn’t just Sondland’s call with President Trump that Sondland needed to tell Taylor about – Sondland also needed to update him on his calls with President Zelenskyy.

In fact, according to Sondland’s text message to Taylor, there had been “multiple convos” with Trump and Zelenskyy that he needed to brief Taylor on.

Does Mr. Sondland need to make a fourth correction in his tesimony? If so, he better do it in writing, because he'll not want to answer to Representative Maloney again.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Being president is costing him money

At least that's what he's always telling us.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Whole Food Markets wants you to know...

If we're talking foords, tripe of the Year more like.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Trump Doctrine: Pillge and Plunder

And we're all the worse off for it.

The Turkey in Chief

This was on Trump's Twitter account the day before Thanksgiving.

Jesus Christ.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Respected again

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend

This is becoming a "thing" with Republicans

Trump now wants to dictate state representation

Tensions rose between President Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) during a meeting at the White House on Sunday over who should be appointed to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.).

[...]

The reported disagreement centered around Trump advocating for Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), the top Republican on the powerful House Judiciary Committee and one of his most vocal defenders in the lower chamber, while Kemp is said to be leaning toward business executive Kelly Loeffler to fill the position.

The meeting ended swiftly, with Trump alleging it could be risky to appoint Loeffler as she has less political experience than Collins, according to the Journal.

  The Hill

Risky to whom?  Sounds like another Trump threat to me.

A woman who might not lick his boots versus a man he already knows will.

Since when does the president of the US get to choose a state's representatives to Congress? Things have gone way off the rails in this country, folks.

“President Trump had a very nice meeting at the White House on Sunday with Gov. Kemp of Georgia,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the Journal in a statement. “They discussed many things including his potential appointment of a senator and the timing of the appointment. Various names were discussed. It was a very friendly meeting.”

Either she didn't write that, or she's started talking exactly like Trump.

Trump has intensified his lobbying for Collins to be appointed to the position in recent weeks. Collins, who is expected to play a leading role in pushing back against Democrats’ impeachment efforts, could be a key ally in voting against impeachment if it moves to the upper chamber if he’s appointed to replace Isakson.

I can't keep saying "unbelievable", but unbelievable.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 12/4:  Kemp did not back down.

UPDATE 1/9/20:  She's back in the news.  And not in a good way.

Philip Reeker and Mark Sandy testimony, and John Solomon

Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary of European and Eurasian Affairs, testified privately last month that a “media storm” of negative but “highly inaccurate” stories targeting Marie Yovanovitch led to her recall from Kyiv in May, even as veteran State officials sought “a formal statement from the department” in her defense.

"There would be no statement," Reeker told investigators, according to a transcript of his testimony released Tuesday by Democrats leading the impeachment inquiry into Trump. "We would continue to use the press guidance that we had that had been cleared."

  The Hill

Mike Pompeo is up to his sweaty palms in this. Nunes and all the Republicans who sat through all those public hearings trashing every witness knew all of this the whole time. No wonder Adam Schiff didn't cut them an inch of slack.

[Reeker's testimony] supported the narrative delivered by a number of other veteran diplomats testifying in the impeachment investigation who have painted a graphic picture of efforts by Trump’s allies — led by his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani — to go after Yovanovitch, a career diplomat described by Reeker as “one of the foreign service great leaders.”

Reeker testified that the public effort to target Yovanovitch began weeks earlier with a column from John Solomon, a conservative opinion writer formerly with The Hill, who had interviewed Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine’s top prosecutor at the time. Lutsenko told Solomon that Yovanovitch had given him a list of figures he was not to prosecute, even as U.S. policy sought to rein in corruption in a country well known for it.

Both Yovanovitch and the State Department have denied the allegation, and Lutsenko has since walked it back.

Reeker dismissed it as an outright fabrication.

[...]

Nonetheless, the charge caught fire in the conservative press, attracting the attention of Trump’s allies and stirring more stories in the right-wing media.

And who, I wonder, put Solomon on that path?*

Reeker testified that it was the “understanding” of the State Department that the hold on military aid had originated with Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s acting chief of staff, and that Giuliani was fueling the narrative that Kyiv was undeserving of the funds by “feeding the president a lot of very negative views about Ukraine.”

“What we sensed was a very negative stream coming from Mr. Giuliani to the president,” he said.

The Ukraine meddling theory has been widely debunked, not least by a host of U.S. intelligence agencies that found Russia to be the culprit. Yet Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that there are legitimate reasons to pursue Trump’s suspicions that Kyiv — not Moscow — was behind the interference.

[...]

In his testimony, Sandy [a senior official at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB)] appeared to further link the president to claims that he directly ordered nearly $400 million in U.S. aid to be withheld as leverage to get Kyiv to open the two politically motivated investigations.

The official said the hold began to grip individuals in OMB, enough to motivate two staff members to resign in part because of their frustration with the aid being withheld. One such person was an OMB lawyer, Sandy said.

I don't believe we heard that before. I could be wrong.

Sandy said he was not given a reason for the aid hold.

The career civil servant said he was informed of the Ukraine hold in a July 12 email from Robert Blair, his supervisor, who served as a senior adviser to Mulvaney. Sandy said he was told that the president “is directing a hold on military support funding for Ukraine.”

Sandy testified that OMB began the process of implementing the hold on July 25, which fueled much concern and frustration in the office.

The day that Trump made that "perfect" call to Zelensky to personally extort him.

The move came a month after Mike Duffey, another one of Sandy's superiors, informed him in a June email that Trump had expressed “an interest in getting more information from the Department of Defense” regarding the security assistance program.

Sandy described the circumstances as unusual and said he brought his concerns to Duffey to tell him that if the funds were held too long, they could expire on Sept. 30, which would possibly “be a violation of the Impoundment Control Act.”

The funds were released Sept. 11.

Right after the press got wind of the deal and Schiff announced an investigation.


*

Scott Wong approached Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) on Friday amid the hubbub of an impeachment hearing. The lawmaker asked Wong where he worked. The Hill, where he’s a senior staff writer. Upon hearing this response, Speier quipped, “I’m not speaking to The Hill anymore. Sorry.”

There you have it: The legacy of John Solomon, a veteran Washington journalist who served simultaneously as an executive vice president at the Hill and as spinner of a flimsy and tendentious trail of reporting that the real collusion in the 2016 presidential election featured the Democrats and Ukrainian officials.

[...]

“I just find it reprehensible that any newspaper would just be willing to put that kind of crap out that is not — has no veracity whatsoever, and not check to see if it had any veracity,” Speier said, according to audio reported by Politico’s Michael Calderone. “And then it becomes a talking point. And he becomes a nonpartisan commentator. It’s corrupt. It’s just corrupt.”

When the Erik Wemple Blog reached Wong by phone, he referred us to his supervisor, citing a company policy that the Hill’s reporters shouldn’t speak to reporters.

  WaPo

That's rich.

Witness after witness — all of them under oath — has slammed Solomon’s series of articles for containing a tenuous connection to actual events. “It was, if not entirely made up in full cloth, it was primarily non-truths and non-sequiturs,” said George Kent, a senior State Department official, in reference to a key Solomon article from March 2019.

[...]

For good measure, Yovanovitch denied a rumor — also raised in Solomon’s reporting — that she had bad-mouthed President Trump in Ukraine by saying his orders must be ignored because of his likely impeachment. “I did not and I would not say such a thing. Such statements would be inconsistent with my training as a Foreign Service officer and my role as an ambassador,” said Yovanovitch.

There’ll be no endorsement here of Speier’s action. We’d prefer a world in which public officials accepted all reasonable questions regardless of their provenance. Yet the petit flare-up may serve to shake the leadership of the Hill out of its denial regarding Solomon’s work. Though Solomon departed from the organization earlier this fall — the circumstances of the split remain unclear — he has left behind the stink of a rotten fish in the site’s archives. And it’s wafting into the corridors of Capitol Hill.

Maybe the impeachment investigation needs to include testimony from Solomon - where did he first hear these unfounded rumors about Yovanovitch that he printed without investigating?

In Wong’s exchange with Speier, the reporter stressed that he works on the Hill’s news side, whereas Solomon was an “opinion contributor,” a risible title invented when Solomon’s conspiratorial “news” stories so alienated staffers that they demanded distance from the veteran Washington scribe. According to Calderone, Speier dismissed the distinction. As she should have.

[...]

Meantime, Solomon isn’t budging. “I stand by each and every one of the columns that I wrote,” Solomon said in a statement — a statement provided to . . . the Hill.

You've got to say one thing about Trumpers: they rarely back down.

On Nov. 19, House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., opened the second week of public impeachment hearings by citing Solomon’s scoops and findings as fact.

"Solomon’s reporting on Burisma, Hunter Biden and Ukraine election meddling has become inconvenient for the Democratic narrative," Nunes said in his statement, which came just one day after The Hill announced it would be reviewing, annotating and correcting Solomon’s columns.

[...]

The veteran Washington, D.C., reporter has become a regular on Fox News and a go-to source of information for Trump.

[...]

His columns alleged corruption by Biden and a former ambassador and accused Democrats of working with Ukraine to hurt Trump’s chances in 2016. They gained traction as Trump, his allies and various Fox News hosts talked about them on TV and social media.

[...]

Solomon worked for years at the Associated Press and briefly at the Washington Post before moving to the Washington Times, where he was editor in chief. He later spent time at Circa and the Center for Public Integrity before joining The Hill in 2017.

[...]

In 2017, he played a major role in pushing the inaccurate Uranium One conspiracy, alleging that Hillary Clinton sold a share of America’s uranium to Russia in exchange for a massive donation to the Clinton Foundation.

  Politifact

He should have spent more time at the Center for Public Integrity.

In 2018, The Hill began labeling Solomon’s articles as opinion.

That's rich. Don't can the guy because his stories don't pass the factual reporting test. Keep printing them and call them opinion.

Then, in March and April 2019, Solomon published a series of columns alleging conspiracies involving Democrats and Ukraine.

One of his key sources, apparently, was former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer.

Bingo!

Solomon left The Hill in September for undisclosed reasons, and Fox News soon hired him. He has stood by his work as "completely accurate and transparent," even as one impeachment witness after another has questioned his findings.

[...]

He has had an assist from Fox News host Sean Hannity, Giuliani and Trump, who tweeted about Solomon’s work four times and recently suggested he should win a Pulitzer Prize.

Flynn sentencing delayed again

I'm beginning to think Flynn is never going to be sentenced.  They'll just keep kicking it down the road until he dies.

U.S. prosecutors and the defense team for Michael Flynn have asked a federal judge to suspend Flynn's sentencing until after the internal Justice Department watchdog report on the Russia probe was released.

President Trump’s former national security adviser is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 18, but prosecutors had a deadline of Monday to recommend whether they want to go for prison time instead of probation as originally decided, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And, here's the bus now

UPDATE:

Trump denied directing Rudy Giuliani to go to Ukraine to look for dirt on his political rivals, in an interview with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.

[...]

Asked by O’Reilly what Giuliani was doing in Ukraine, Trump said “you have to ask that to Rudy.”

“Rudy has other clients, other than me,” the president added. “He’s done a lot of work in Ukraine over the years.”

  Bloomberg

Yeah, let's have a look at that July 25 phone call from Trump to Zelensky...

“Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy,” [...] “If you could speak to him that would be great.”

Final deposition transcripts

Mark Sandy

Philip Reeker

Take down Mike Pompeo, too

Mike Pompeo is the secretary of state, and before that, he was the CIA director. That means he is privy to the best government information that exists — including extensive information collected by U.S. intelligence services — showing that Russia, not Ukraine, is the country that interfered in the 2016 election, on President Trump’s behalf.

[...]

Pompeo was asked this question: “Do you believe that the U.S. and Ukraine should investigate the theory that it was Ukraine and not Russia that hacked the DNC emails in 2016?”

“Any time there is information that indicates that any country has messed with American elections, we not only have a right but a duty to make sure we chase that down,” Pompeo replied.

  WaPo

Crooked as Trump himself.

Pompeo suggested that his time as CIA director persuaded him that many countries and nonstate actors tried to interfere in our election.

Pompeo added that when “we have information that so much as suggests that there might have been interference, or an effort to interfere in our elections, we have an obligation” to combat “these malevolent actors trying to undermine our Western democratic values.”

“America should leave no stone unturned,” Pompeo also said.

That’s weaselly language, and it stops just short of endorsing the idea that Ukraine hacked our elections. But it absolutely does endorse the idea that this question continues to be worthy of investigation.

[...]

[I]t allows Trump and his propagandists to argue that he was right to pressure Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to “investigate” this matter, on the grounds that he was the victim and merely wanted to get to the bottom of his victimization.

[...]

Indeed, Pompeo has repeatedly conceded — see here and here — that Russia did interfere in our elections in 2016. So Pompeo is now feeling his way toward a new and emerging position among Republicans: Yes, Russia was the primary country that interfered in our elections, but maybe, just maybe, Ukraine might have as well.

None of which would in any way absolve Trump of the crime of extorting Ukraine's president to provide a baseless smear of criminality of Trump's political opponent.

But now this is coming from the secretary of state — and the former CIA director. To reiterate, he knows what the intelligence shows on this topic. And there is zero indication that it does show any validity to the notion that Ukraine might have interfered in our elections.

Indeed, if they had any evidence of that, we would have seen it. They would be broadcasting it from the rooftops.

[I]ntelligence officials just briefed Republican senators on this point, telling them that not only is the 2016 Ukraine conspiracy theory nonsense, but that it’s also been a mainstay of Russian self-absolving propaganda and disinformation for years.

Pompeo knows this — yet he’s subtly validating the theory anyway.

[...]

All of this is another reminder that this whole scandal goes far beyond Trump and even his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, the ringleader of the whole Ukraine extortion scheme. It involves multiple Cabinet officials and top advisers, and large swaths of the government.

And they all have to go. To jail, preferably. Listen to Neal Katyal, former Acting Solicitor General, discuss the impeachment issue.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Oh my. Baltimore doesn't love Melania

She'll never go out in public again.  And he'll be on Twitter trashing Baltimore (again).

And who the hell booked her to Baltimore?  Stephanie Grisham?  That's still her top staffer, I think.  After Trump trashed Baltimore ("rat-infested", "dangerous", "filthy") to put down Elijah Cummings, I wouldn't think it would take much of a genius to know there'd be risk.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Jerry Nadler's Judiciary Committee announced its first hearing

But why are they bowing to GOP pressure?

The hearing will be titled, “The Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald J. Trump: Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment.” The witnesses, who have yet to be announced, will face questions from lawmakers about technical aspects of the impeachment process, including what constitutes a high crime or misdemeanor as defined in the Constitution.

[...]

[A]hearing schedule that would ensure the House could wrap up the impeachment inquiry by the end of the year — a priority for senior Democrats.

  Politico

Do a thorough job, not a rush job for political purposes. If you're having a hearing to argue the merits, it merits thoroughness.

The Judiciary Committee is expected to hold at least one more hearing allowing Democrats to present their case against Trump, which could come the second week of December. Trump’s lawyers will also have an opportunity to respond, although it is unclear if the president will participate.

I'm sure he won't. How is that not clear to anyone?

And since this is not the trial phase of an impeachment, but still the investigatory phase to decide if there will be articles of impeachment, why the fuck are the president's lawyers involved? Because Trump, Inc. has been bitching for weeks that they're not getting a fair shake, when they clearly are. Stop bowing to those lawless fucks. The House Judiciary Republicans have lawyers. They're the ones who should be arguing the merits of impeachment. Trump's lawyers are there for the fucking trial, FFS.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Trump and his lawyers won't be there.

Dirty Money

There's a segment on Netflix' Dirty Money series called "The Confidence Man" about Donald Trump.  And now I know what look he's still trying to achieve.

Yeah. Real close.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Nunes-Parnas connection (timeline)

“Following a brief in-person meeting in late 2018, Parnas and Nunes had at least two more phone conversations, and…Nunes instructed Parnas to work with [Nunes' top aide Derek] Harvey on the Ukraine matters,” according to Parnas’s attorney Bondy, CNN reports.

Nov. 6, 2018: Midterm elections – Democrats win a majority of seats in the House

November 2018: Parnas helps arrange meetings and calls in Europe for Nunes and his aide, Derek Harvey, the Daily Beast’s Betsy Swan reports.

Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 2018: Nunes, Harvey reportedly meet Shokin secretly in Vienna

Nunes and three aides, including Harvey, travel to Europe, according to congressional travel records.

The timing of the trip was designed to keep its details secret from Congress, Lev Parnas’ attorney Bondy told CNN. “Mr. Parnas learned through Nunes‘ investigator, Derek Harvey, that the Congressman had sequenced this trip to occur after the midterm elections yet before Congress’ return to session, so that Nunes would not have to disclose the trip details to his Democrat colleagues in Congress,” said Bondy.

Nunes meets with the highly corrupt former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin in Vienna to dig up dirt on Biden, according to Parnas, who says he is willing to provide congressional testimony under penalty of law (CNN). Parnas helps arrange the meeting.“Nunes had told Shokin of the urgent need to launch investigations into Burisma, Joe and Hunter Biden, and any purported Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election,” Bondy tells CNN.

(Asked during a Nov. 24, 2019, interview on Fox News whether he met with Shokin in Vienna, Nunes refused to answer.)

The Washington Post cites “an individual close to Shokin” as saying the prosecutor has never heard of Nunes and that no such meeting took place.

Sometime shortly after Dec. 3, 2018: Harvey meets Parnas at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, where they discuss claims about the Bidens as well as allegations of Ukrainian election interference, according to Bondy (CNN). In a follow-up communication, “Bondy said that in a phone conversation Nunes told Parnas that he was conducting his own investigation into the Bidens and asked Parnas for help validating information he’d gathered from conversations with various current and former Ukrainian officials, including Shokin,” CNN reports.

[...]

Spring 2019: The creation of a “team”: Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman, Solomon, diGenova, Toensing and, occasionally, Nunes’s top aide Harvey

“Parnas became part of what he described as a ‘team’ that met several times a week in a private room at the BLT restaurant on the second floor of the Trump Hotel. In addition to giving the group access to key people in Ukraine who could help their cause, Parnas translated their conversations, Bondy said,” according to CNN.

The team includes six regular members: Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman, John Solomon, Joe diGenova, and Victoria Toensing. Nunes’s top aide, Harvey, occasionally joins the meeting as Nunes‘ proxy, according to Parnas (CNN; Washington Post)

[...]

Nunes aides plan a trip to Ukraine in the spring to speak with two Ukrainian prosecutors who claimed to have evidence to help Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, CNBC reported, citing Bondy on information that Parnas is willing to provide in congressional testimony. But Nunes staff allegedly call off the trip when they realize Schiff would get wind of the plan. Instead, Nunes’s office asks Parnas to set up telephone or Skype calls with Harvey.

[...]

Late March: Nunes’ senior aide Harvey speaks with Kulyk and Kholodnytsky (arranged by Parnas) After the trip to Ukraine is scrapped, Parnas arranges for Harvey to speak by phone and Skype with two Ukrainian officials who said they had evidence that could help Trump’s reelection campaign, Bondy told CNBC. The late-March conversations included one over Skype with Ukraine prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytsky. The second was a phone call Parnas arranged for Harvey with Kostiantyn Kulyk, a deputy in the Ukraine Prosecutor General’s office. Both Kulyk and Kholodnytsky have been accused of corruption and pursuing politically motivated prosecutions. The New York Times has reported that Kulyk created a seven-page dossier on Biden in late 2018 filled with disinformation and theories that played a role in ousting Ambassador Yovanovitch.

[...]

March 28, 2019: Giuliani’s and Nunes’ phone calls with Pompeo

On Thursday, March 28, two phone calls are added to Pompeo’s calendar: a 20-minute phone call with Giuliani on Friday, March 29, and a 20-minute phone call with Nunes on Monday, April 1, according to State Department records (FOIA release).

[...]

July 2019: Firtash hires Giuliani associates and sets to work on getting dirt on Bidens

[...]

It’s unclear whether the activities involving [Dmytro] Firtash [who is in Vienna avoiding extradition to the US] intersect with Nunes. The same cast of characters who met regularly as a group — Giuliani, Fruman, Parnas, Solomon, Toensing and diGenova — were involved in the Firtash scheme, and Nunes repeatedly amplifies their work including [Hill reporter John] Solomon’s articles, which Nunes read into the congressional record during the impeachment hearing.

[...]

Nov. 13-21, 2019: During testimony from U.S. officials in the House impeachment inquiry, Nunes repeatedly refers to the discredited allegations about Joe Biden and Burisma, as well as the conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. “At no point did Nunes ever mention that he or his staffers met with the three Ukrainian officials, some of whom were mentioned by name during testimony,” CNBC noted.

  just Security

Mr. Nunes has been a bad boy.

It's not the first time.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Tucker Carlson is still a dick

And liar.

A joke?  You be the judge...

It appears Tucker Carlson and Gym Jordan take their public speaking lessons from the same person.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And...one more poll post

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Perhaps the answer to the previous post's question

President Donald Trump has been working to defend himself against the ongoing impeachment inquiry by citing polling he says shows support for impeachment is on the decline. While some polling does in fact show a decrease in support for impeachment, it is not “dropping like a rock” as the president has claimed, nor have polls “turned very strongly against Impeachment.”

And it isn’t clear Trump is referencing numbers from any actual polls, like the data he cited Monday that he said shows support is “down into the 20’s in some Polls.”

  Vox

It's very clear to ME that he isn't.

In fact, polling suggests support for impeachment is holding fairly steady. It remains particularly strong among Democrats, with a mid-November Morning Consult poll finding 82 percent of Democrats supporting impeachment and a mid-November NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll finding 86 percent of Democrats in support. A FiveThirtyEight meta-analysis Monday finds an average of 80 percent of Democrats support impeachment.

[...]

[A]n October 8 Quinnipiac University poll that found 85 percent of Democrats wanted to see Trump impeached and removed from the White House.

[...]

The November Morning Consult poll found 11 percent of Republicans supporting impeachment; the NPR/PBS/Marist poll saw 7 percent saying the same. FiveThirtyEight finds the average of pro-impeachment Republican sentiment to be around 12 percent. In early October, Morning Consult 12 found percent of Republicans supported impeachment, NPR/PBS/Marist 6 percent, and FiveThirtyEight found about 14 percent.

So it would seem civilian Republicans are not ALL Trump bootlickers, unlike Congressional ones.

Overall, support seems to have slipped slightly; Morning Consult’s mid-November poll recorded it at 48 percent, NPR/PBS/Marist put it at 45 percent, and FiveThirtyEight’s analysis at 46 percent. Contrast this with the early October figures, when Morning Consult found 50 percent overall support for impeachment, NPR/PBS/Marist 49 percent, and FiveThirtyEight 48.8 percent.

Beyond slight declines in Democratic and Republican support, there has also been a decrease in support for impeachment among independent voters — something that the president has celebrated on Twitter, retweeting allies like Rep. Mark Meadows who have pointed out this trend.

And those, we're supposed to believe, are the ones that matter.

Meadows cited a November poll from Emerson College that found 34 percent of independents in support of impeachment, down 14 percentage points from the level of support registered in the college’s October poll.

This poll is something of an outlier, however. Other polls have revealed shifts in support more in line with the changes recorded among Democratic and Republican voters: NPR/PBS/Marist found a 6 percentage point decrease (47 to 41 percent) from October to November and Morning Consult a 4 percentage point decrease (44 to 40 percent).

What none of these polls show is support for impeachment in the 20s, as Trump has claimed.

[...]

Recent trends are not necessarily cause for alarm among Democratic leaders, particularly as it remains to be seen whether recent downturns last or are fleeting. Support for impeachment has fluctuated before, and it is important to note available polling was conducted toward the beginning and middle of public impeachment inquiry hearings, not following them.

And the reporting I'm seeing that seems to downplay public support for impeachment, as the CNN one above, are claiming that the hearings didn't change the numbers. I'll wager there are a lot of people who haven't even yet absorbed all the testimony.

I'd also like to remind everyone, impeachment hearings are not over. We only just got the reports about Nunes' involvement and Lev Parnas' desire to testify.  And Jerry Nadler's Judiciary Committee takes up the baton some time after Thanksgiving.

UPDATE:

Why do I keep hearing there's no real public support for impeachment?

If you read this CNN article, the numbers they cite show that the number of people who favor impeaching and removing Trump is growing and yet the way it's spun, it actually sounds like the public doesn't really want the president impeached.

Fox News of course, is reporting that the idea is even losing support.

But let's have a look at some polls:

And here's a 538 aggregation of a number of polls (in their words: "all the polls we can find"):

Can he be any dumber?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He's fighting for FUTURE presidents and the OFFICE

I guess we'll never know what they might say as long as you prevent them from testifying.

He's just worried about future presidents.

Even his own mindless followers don't believe this shit, I feel sure.

UPDATE:

New federal law aims to prevent animal cruelty

Fair point, Susan.

I'm all for preventing cruelty to animals, and so I have another question:  will beef, pork, and chicken-rearing factory farms and processing plants have to shut down?

No, of course not.  Only "certain acts" of cruelty are penalized.

The bipartisan bill, Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, criminalizes certain acts of animal cruelty.

[...]

The bill, introduced in the House by Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., and Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., is an expansion on the 2010 Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act, which made the creation and distribution of "animal crushing" videos illegal.

  ABC

That was a thing?  Jesus, people don't deserve to live.

Are state laws not good enough to prosecute?

At least lawyers will be kept employed.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The whole Trump cabal has prion disease

I'm not even providing the link for that nonsense.  Trust me, I listened to it, that's exactly what he did say.  He also said Uber is the big winner in this whole Don McGahn must testify ruling.  Because McGahn will have to get to Congress to testify....and apparently he's forced to take Uber???

Whatever is in the water coolers at Fox and the Republican Congressional offices, it's eating their brains.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Dear Mr. Trump, we tried

It's just those nasty reporters who hate you and America.

Professional services provider Caliburn International, which includes in its portfolio government contracts to detain unaccompanied migrant children, has canceled plans to host its 2019 holiday party at one of President Trump’s golf clubs, according to CBS News.

A company email, sent Monday after initial reports of the plan leaked to the press, said the location would be changed from Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, according to CBS.

"Our team leaders have made the decision to change the venue so that our employee holiday event is focused on the spirit of compassion and thankfulness to our employees who work every day supporting missions of humanitarian service, national security, and medical care around the world," the company said in the email, according to CBS.

  The Hill

I have a question: Will those 4,000 kids they have locked up get a holiday party at some swanky place, too? How about throwing THEM a party at the Trump National Golf Club?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Speaking of Sarah Sanders...

It seems she needs to get out more.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

There's an easy remedy, Sarah

Then don't be one.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

There goes another one

Purging continues apace in the White House.

The White House’s chief operations officer is leaving the administration, the White House said on Monday.

Daniel P. Walsh, whose title was deputy chief of staff, was in charge of the administration’s foreign trips, made decisions about the use of government resources by White House aides, oversaw the White House military office and played a critical role in the attempted planning of the Group of Seven summit at the president’s Doral resort, which was scuttled amid backlash over the emoluments clause.

  WaPo

So why is he leaving? Got sick of being used?

Walsh was in charge of the July 4 Celebration of America on the Mall in Washington, which was derided by critics but seen internally as a rousing success, and was involved in most presidential rallies.

Walsh was one of the few officials in the West Wing who were present on Day One — and had been a federal government employee for 28 years, officials said.

[...]

“Dan Walsh is a fantastic member of the team, and has served the White House and my Administration with the utmost professionalism and honor,” Trump said in a statement to The Washington Post. “He has accepted a great job in the private sector, as almost all of my people who develop experience in the White House have done.”

[...]

White House officials said they had identified a likely internal replacement for Walsh that would be announced in the coming days but declined to say who would take the job.

Why not? And why is Dan Walsh cutting and running?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Wrong headline

The Hill has an article titled: Kennedy walks back comments on potential Ukraine interference: 'I was wrong'. Never trust headlines.

Appearing on CNN, [Republican Senator John] Kennedy acknowledged that he was "wrong" to say just a day prior that there weren't definitive answers on who hacked the DNC ahead of the 2016 election. Kennedy claimed he'd misheard a question from Fox News anchor Chris Wallace while appearing on "Fox News Sunday," causing him to answer incorrectly.

[...]

Wallace noted the intelligence community's conclusion in Sunday's interview, but Kennedy pushed back, saying that "it could also be Ukraine."

[...]

"I was answering one of his questions, and he interjected with a statement and asked me to react to it. What I heard Chris say was only Russia tried to interfere in the election, and I answered the question. That’s not what he said," Kennedy said on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time," noting that Wallace's question focused on DNC servers.

"Chris is right. I was wrong," he said. "The only evidence I have, and I think it’s overwhelming, is that it was Russia who tried to hack the DNC computer. I’ve seen no indication that Ukraine tried to do it."

[...]

But the Louisiana senator doubled down on the unsubstantiated theory that Ukraine may have tried to interfere in other ways, saying that there is “proven and unproven” evidence that both Ukraine and Russia meddled in the election.

  The Hill

The whole Kennedy interview with him doing (even a poor) imitation of political mumbo-jumbo is much more enlightening:

When Cuomo asks him what proven and unproven evidence exists, he mentions three articles without giving the viewers any indication of what exactly the evidence is in those articles, and also mentions that Poroschenko, who was president of Ukraine at the time, "did not support President Trump."

I think it's important to note here, that whatever a foreign leader feels about a candidate is NOT election interference. "Everybody meddles" is NOT election interference.  Covert acts to manipulate the vote - THAT's election interference: eg. hacking the DNC, the RNC, John Podesta, election systems in every state, donating heavily to and using the NRA to get access to US political organizationsd, and running fake Facebook accounts stirring up protests, to name some of the things the Russians did.

When they're not outright lying, the Trump cabal (which, includes Republicans) frames issues in deceptive ways.  And now they're reduced to: you can't KNOW who all meddled, as if that somehow negates the Russian campaign to destroy Western alliances with Trump and Republican compliance.

Nothing could better epitomize the ideal outcome of the Kremlin’s barrage of conflicting narratives, its dezinformatsiya, or disinformation designed to create a false impression that the truth is simply unknowable.

Gone are the days when the GOP dared to confront the Kremlin.

[...]

Fiona Hill, who served as the leading Russia expert on Trump’s National Security Council staff, issued a stark warning during her testimony in the impeachment hearing: “Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that is being perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”

  Daily Beast

And that got her indignant responses from nearly every Republican on the Committee: No Republican is saying that Russia DIDN'T interfere was their comeback.

Last Thursday, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (once a close friend of McCain) launched a probe into former Vice President Joe Biden’s dealings with Ukraine. His efforts were lauded almost instantaneously on the Russian state television program Vesti Nedeli. And lo and behold, that very same day Russian state media announced the alleged beginning by the Ukrainian parliament, or Rada, of an investigation into the Ukrainian energy company Burisma as well as Hunter Biden, who sat on its board, and his father.

[...]

The said “investigation” is in fact merely an audit. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka has said repeatedly that there are no criminal cases or any other cases initiated against Burisma or Hunter Biden.

[...]

It’s the capitulation to the Kremlin by the virtual entirety of the obsequious GOP that really draws attention now as Trump’s impeachment by the House and trial by the Senate loom on the near horizon.

[...]

The Kremlin, which seized and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, sees Ukraine as the highly coveted jewel of the post-Soviet region. But Russia’s influence over its largest European neighbor can be restored only by undermining the American involvement. Putin personally pitched in to paint a negative picture of Ukraine, when President Trump inexplicably sought his “guidance” on how to deal with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

[...]

Putin and Trump reportedly have discussed allegations of Ukrainian interference in U.S. elections. In a 2017 Oval Office meeting, Trump told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s election interference. At the G20 in June of this year, Trump grinned and playfully wagged his finger as he told Putin: “Don’t meddle in the election."

[...]

The Kremlin has strived continually to drive a wedge between the United States and Ukraine in order to get the country back firmly into Russia’s sphere of influence.

[...]

Russia’s unprecedented interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has been described, with reason, as “the most successful influence campaign in history, one that will be studied globally for decades,” and it is far from over.

Instead of counteracting Russia’s malign influence, American foreign policy under Trump is seemingly being guided by it and leaders of the Republican Party are doing their best to aid and abet that program.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

And in other legal news...

Many of those documents being held by the Trump administration that Schiff couldn't get have been ordered to be turned over to the Center for Public Integrity which filed suit to get them.

I assume they'll appeal this decision, too.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Judiciary Committee to get McGahn - maybe

Former Trump White House counsel Donald McGahn must comply with a House subpoena, a federal court ruled Monday, finding that “no one is above the law” and that top presidential advisers cannot ignore congressional demands for information. The ruling raises the possibility that McGahn could be forced to testify as part of the impeachment inquiry.

U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of Washington found no basis for a White House claim that the former counsel is “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony.”

  WaPo

Aka: above the law.

The House Judiciary Committee went to court in August to enforce its subpoena of McGahn, whom lawmakers consider the “most important” witness in whether President Trump obstructed justice in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Trump blocked McGahn’s appearance, saying McGahn had cooperated with Mueller’s probe, was a key presidential adviser, and could not be forced to answer questions or turn over documents. Jackson disagreed, ruling that if McGahn wants to refuse to testify, such as by invoking executive privilege, he must do so in person and question by question.

[...]

The judge ordered McGahn to appear before the House committee and said her conclusion was “inescapable” because a subpoena demand is part of the legal system — not the political process — and “per the Constitution, no one is above the law.”

The president has yet to learn that, as he has yet to be held accountable for anything.

“However busy or essential a presidential aide might be, and whatever their proximity to sensitive domestic and national-security projects, the President does not have the power to excuse him or her from taking an action that the law requires,” Jackson wrote in a 118-page opinion. “Fifty years of say so within the Executive branch does not change that fundamental truth.”

And McGahn isn't even in the administration any longer.

William A. Burck, McGahn’s attorney, said Monday: “Don McGahn will comply with Judge Jackson’s decision unless it is stayed pending appeal. DOJ is handling this case, so you will need to ask them whether they intend to seek a stay.”

No, we don't need to ask. We already know.

After the ruling, the Justice Department, which represents McGahn, said it would appeal.

See?

Even if McGahn were to appear before the committee, but decline to answer in full or on some matters, his case sets up a potentially landmark Supreme Court test of the Constitution’s checks and balances, pitting Congress’s impeachment and oversight authority against the powers of the presidency.

With a court packed to be biased toward the executive.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.