Meanwhile, in Turkey

 

We've still got a long way to go

Yes, he can be impeached more than once

Hopefully, he won't have to be. He'll be gone.

In 2016, Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked then-Vice-President Joe Biden to lean on federal prosecutors who were investigating a Turkish bank for financial crimes and to hand over a dissident cleric living in the United States. The requests seemed to be on Biden’s mind when he publicly addressed reporters and piously explained that, in the United States, the justice system doesn’t work like that. “I suspect it’s hard for people to understand that as powerful as my country is, as powerful as Barack Obama is as president, he has no authority under our Constitution to extradite anyone,” Biden explained to reporters. “Only a federal court can do that."

  NY Magazine Intelligencer

I think you can see where this could be going.

Well, the justice system works like that now.

The New York Times has a comprehensive report on Erdogan’s successful efforts to recruit top Trump administration officials into his corrupt scheme.

Scandals tend to be complicated, especially scandals involving banks. But this one is extremely simple. The basic elements:

1) The Justice Department was prosecuting financial crimes by a Turkish bank.

2) Turkey’s president asked President Trump to quash the investigation.

3) Trump has personally received more than $1 million in payments from business in Turkey while serving as president. 4) Two attorneys general loyal to Trump, Matthew Whitaker and William Barr, both pressured federal prosecutors to go easy on the Turkish bank.

[...]

“In mid-June 2019, when [Geoffrey] Berman met with Mr. Barr in Washington, the attorney general pushed Mr. Berman to agree to allow the Justice Department to drop charges against the defendants and terminate investigations of other suspected conspirators,” the Times reports. When Barr subsequently fired Berman, who resisted his pressure, Justice Department officials cited his stubbornness on the Turkey case “as a key reason for his removal.”

[...]

The misconduct found by the Times is actually much worse than the hypothetical behavior Biden said would lead to impeachment for two reasons. First, it undermines Trump’s own foreign policy.

I think that's a misreading of Trump's foreign policy. His foreign policy is to get whatever he can personally out of foreign connections.

The crimes for which the bank, Halkbank, was being investigated relate to violating American sanctions on Iran. After the Obama administration relaxed sanctions on Iran as part of a nuclear deal, the Trump administration ramped up those sanctions and used them as the lynchpin of its strategy in the region.

[...]

And second, Trump’s own financial interest is a factor Biden did not imagine in 2016. When Trump was asked about Turkey in 2015, he conceded that he had a conflict of interest. “I have a little conflict of interest because I have a major, major building in Istanbul,” Trump told Breitbart. “It’s called Trump Towers — two towers, instead of one. … And I’ve gotten to know Turkey very well. They’re amazing people. They’re incredible people. They have a strong leader.”

Now that's his foreign policy.

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

Right up Trump alley

Are they getting advice from Bill Barr?

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

Despots' deals

[Southern District of New York leader Geoffrey Berman] has repeatedly pushed for actions on certain politically sensitive cases in opposition to Justice Department leadership, most notably the indictment in October of the state-owned Turkish bank, Halkbank.

According to a person familiar with the discussions, Barr personally spearheaded an effort last year to negotiate a settlement with the bank that would have allowed it to sidestep an indictment after Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pressed Trump in a bid to avoid charges. Berman, however, insisted on criminal prosecution, according to the people familiar with the matter.

[...]

Those types of actions have pacified Berman's staff in New York, who recall a message that Berman, a Trump appointee, delivered soon after taking his oath of office in 2018: "I want to be clear: Politics is not going to have a role in what we do. We're going to keep doing business as we always have." 

  CNN

Berman may be finding himself fired by tweet if he's not careful.

There's more in this article on Barr's position as Trump's political pusher:

In the past two weeks, the Justice Department has twice ordered US attorney's offices around the country to participate in what some of them perceive as politically charged actions, according to people familiar with the matter.

First, the department ordered prosecutors to hold news conferences, make statements and use social media to promote Barr's initiative to crack down on "sanctuary cities," according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The Justice Department later retracted the demand, the person said. Still, at least two US attorneys wrote op-eds.

The department also instructed federal prosecutors to write op-eds to push for passage of pending legislation on fentanyl. More than a dozen US attorneys complied with publishing op-eds or written statements. The person said that historically prosecutors have been instructed to avoid commenting on pending legislation. 

Elsewhere, in Connecticut, Pittsburgh and St. Louis, the US attorney's offices have picked up investigations that are in line with what the President has wanted, looking into the origins of the investigation into the 2016 election, examining the Ukraine dealings of the son of Trump's political rival Joe Biden and reviewing the Michael Flynn prosecution.

[...]

The fears over potential political interference are particularly acute in New York, where prosecutors with the US attorney's office in Manhattan handle high-profile cases with a broad range of geopolitical implications, including terrorism prosecutions as well as investigations involving foreign governments and financial institutions, all of which can intersect with White House interests.

Manhattan prosecutors have also generated cases that are of concern to Trump personally, including the prosecution of Cohen and an investigation of the Trump Organization that ended without charges.

And for the past few months, prosecutors there have been investigating Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, as well as Trump's inaugural committee.

Still, despite the alarm sounded in recent days, Southern District of New York prosecutors believe that their leader, Geoffrey Berman, has defended the office's relative autonomy, particularly since Barr's arrival, according to people familiar with the matter.

Barr, these people said, has attempted to micromanage certain cases, asking more questions and for more frequent updates than his predecessors on matters from Berman. 

[...]

New York federal prosecutors' independence -- so staunch, they joke, that their version of notifying Justice Department leadership about a consequential decision is to leave an after-hours voicemail on someone's desk phone the evening before they're about to take a significant action -- has been tested under the Trump administration.

And it will only get worse.

UPDATE:

Meanwhile in Syria and Iran

And in Turkey...

De-escalation means invasion now?

Trump's term as president will certainly fill volumes of history books, if the earth survives.

UPDATE:

A worried mind

Whichever politician is currently afraid of or said something bad about him is the one whose district is the worst in the US.  He's fixated on Nancy now.  Pretty sure she never HAD control over her district in California.  What does he think she can do about it?

Oh, look...he's not TOTALLY consumed by impeachment worries:

I'm sure.

His spelling isn't getting any better.

Pretty sure no one is making him "costantly defend" himself.  No wonder he has to flush the toilet so many times; his bowels are always in an uproar.

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

UPDATE:

Imperialism loud and clear

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

Tariff Man strikes again

President Trump on Monday announced plans to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum from Brazil and Argentina, opening a new front in his global trade war even as he seeks to resolve other trade disputes ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump announced on Twitter that he would levy tariffs after imposing quotas on steel and aluminum from Brazil and Argentina in early 2018. While both the quotas and the tariffs they would replace were issued under national security powers, Trump said Monday he was acting in response to the sliding value of each country’s currency against the dollar.

"Brazil and Argentina have been presiding over a massive devaluation of their currencies. which is not good for our farmers,” Trump tweeted.

  The Hill

So, steel and aluminum tariffs will help our farmers?

Trump in March 2018 levied tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent on steel and aluminum, respectively, imported from Europe, Canada, Mexico, China and several other nations. The White House issued those tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which empowers the president to impose duties on imports to protect U.S. national security.

Which was also bullshit.

The White House trade office has not yet published a formal notice to increase tariffs, even though Trump tweeted Monday the hikes would be effective immediately.

So maybe it didn't even happen.

Trump’s surprise move to penalize two ailing economies, including one of a close ally, surprised trade experts.

Trump’s targeting of Brazil stunned some trade watchers because of his apparently close relationship with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro, who has been frequently compared to Trump, has forged close ties with his U.S. counterpart and appeared stunned by the announcement, according to The Washington Post.

“If necessary, I’ll call Trump. I have an open channel with him,” Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasilia, according to the Post.

[...]

Trump has sought to downplay the blowback of his trade policies for farmers and manufacturers by pointing to the success of the broader economy under his watch, in particular the stock market. The president touted the steady rise of the stock market in his Monday announcement, but the move caught markets off guard, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 268 points despite strong Black Friday weekend sales.

[...]

Imposing new tariffs on other countries “could be a way” for Trump “to show that he's willing to keep being tough without actually hitting China directly, which could be politically unfeasible at the moment,” said Rachel Pierson, managing director and head of research at Beacon Policy Advisors.

“The [U.S.-China] relationship is fragile now, and there's been some talk that trade discussions between the two countries have stalled.”

[...]

Pierson also suggested that the tariffs could be an attempt to undercut Brazil and Argentina as the countries fill the void left by American farmers in the U.S.-China trade war.

[...]

The president temporarily hiked tariffs on steel and aluminum from Turkey in August 2018 as the Turkish lira plummeted amid a domestic financial crisis.

Trump reversed his decision in May after Turkey released a jailed American pastor, but the federal Court of International Trade ruled last month that the president violated his tariff authority by increasing those tariffs beyond the designated timeline in Section 232.

That ruling could raise questions about Trump's latest move.

Pierson said that the court ruling against Trump over tariffs on Turkish goods makes the president’s decision to target Brazil and Argentina “vulnerable” to a legal challenge.

[...]

The steel tariffs were not the only trade move Monday. After markets closed, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said it had determined that a French tax on digital services unfairly targeted American tech companies and proposed tariffs of up to 100 percent on $2.4 billion of French products.

Which is really just Trump asking for strikes at Macron.

Trade watchers sought to make sense of Monday's moves.

Why?

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

NATO news

Donald Trump arrived in the UK to meet Nato allies who are fearful that he could pose a serious threat to the survival of the alliance if he wins re-election next year.

Days before Wednesday’s leaders’ meeting just outside London to mark Nato’s 70th anniversary, the US announced it was cutting its contribution to joint Nato projects.

Nato officials say the cut (which reduces the US contribution to equivalence with Germany’s) was mutually agreed, but it comes against a backdrop of Trump’s longstanding ambivalence about the value of the alliance, and suggestions that US security guarantees to allied nations were dependent on their military spending.

John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser until September, heightened fears among allies about the president’s intentions in a private speech to a hedge fund last month, in which Bolton (according to a NBC report) warned that Trump could “go full isolationist” if he wins re-election next November, withdrawing from Nato and other international alliances.

[...]

The New York Times has reported that Trump has said privately several times that he would like to withdraw from Nato.

[...]

Before leaving Washington on Monday, Trump repeated his complaint about “other countries that we protect, that weren’t paying”.

“They were delinquent. So we’ll be talking about that,” he told reporters, though he noted that allies were now spending $130bn more than before he took office, a development he took credit for.

[...]

A European diplomat in Washington pointed out that under the Trump administration, the US military presence on the alliance’s eastern flank has been stepped up, but expressed concern that such reinforcements were driven by other administration officials seeking to compensate for Trump’s personal affinity for Vladimir Putin and his denigration of his European allies.

“The greatest fear is what he would do in a second term. He would be more free from constraints,” the diplomat said, adding that he was under pressure from his capital to assess what a second Trump term would look like. “It is impossible to predict,” he said.

  The Guardian

But we all know it would be bad.

NATO allies are closing in on a deal to contribute more to allied running costs to reduce the United States’ share of funding, three diplomats familiar with the matter said.

Agreement would meet a demand by U.S. President Donald Trump, though France has made clear it will have no part in the deal, which the alliance hopes to reach before its 70th anniversary summit in London next week.

[...]

The agreement would mean European allies, Turkey and Canada contribute more towards the annual $2.5-billion budget to run the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters, international staff and military assets under NATO command.

Compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars that allies spend on their armed forces each year, it is a small sum. But it is one that allies hope would silence Trump’s statement in July 2018 that the United States “pays tens of billions of dollars too much to subsidize Europe”.

“It is a political gesture,” one senior NATO diplomat of the possible deal. “There is no alliance without the Americans.”

France opposed the proposal long before President Emmanuel Macron described the alliance on Nov. 7 as “experiencing brain death”, French diplomats have said.

[...]

Paris will not block the proposal, but will abstain, the three NATO diplomats said. France’s defense spending is higher than Germany’s as a percentage of economic output, data shows. Paris says it will also meet a NATO target to spend 2% of national output on defense by 2025 at the latest, while Germany will reach that level only in 2031, according to French and German officials.

[...]

Italy has yet to decide its position.

[...]

All 29 NATO member states contribute to the budget on an agreed formula based on gross national income, but this formula would change after the proposed reform.

“It will be a more cumbersome mechanism,” a second NATO diplomat said.

Under the proposal being negotiated for the 2021 budget, the U.S. contribution to the alliance’s annual budget would fall to around 16% from 22%. Germany’s would rise to the same level as the United States and others’ contributions would also rise.

Only seven NATO countries currently meet or exceed the NATO target of spending 2% of national output on defense - the United States, Britain, Greece, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

  Reuters

The NATO budget is separate from the 2 percent of gross domestic product that each NATO member has agreed as their goal for defense spending by 2024.

Mr. Trump regularly complains about defense spending by other NATO members, but other countries in the alliance have increased their military spending since the Russian annexation of Crimea five years ago by about $130 billion, a NATO diplomat said, a figure that Mr. Stoltenberg is expected to announce next week.

[...]

At a news conference with Mr. Stoltenberg after their meeting in Paris, Mr. Macron defended his own criticism about NATO. The French leader, in an interview with the magazine The Economist, said that the alliance was approaching “brain death” because of a lack of coordination.

He was particularly irked that Mr. Trump had told President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey that he would pull American troops out of Syria without having spoken to other NATO members.

[...]

In [a] gesture to President Trump, NATO announced on Thursday that it had agreed to reduce the United States’ contribution to the alliance’s relatively small central budget, a move aimed at ensuring a calm leaders’ meeting next week in London.

[...]

NATO leaders are trying to keep Mr. Trump from disrupting this meeting, a short one to celebrate the alliance’s 70th anniversary, as he did the last Brussels summit meeting in July 2018.

  NYT

Talk about your unreasonable hopes.

Donald Trump has lashed out at Emmanuel Macron on the first morning of a two-day Nato meeting, saying the French president’s description of Nato as brain dead was insulting and a “very, very nasty statement”.

[...]

“Nato serves a great purpose. I think that’s very insulting.”

He added: “Nobody needs Nato more than France. It’s a very dangerous statement for them to make.”

[...]

At a news conference alongside the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, the US president also accused Macron of trying to break away from Nato, as well as running a failing economy.

Trump has described Nato as obsolete on previous occasions.

  The Guardian

Obsolete is ok. Brain dead is nasty. Got it.

Macron made his criticism of Nato in an Economist interview partly to reflect his frustration that Turkey, a Nato member, had entered northern Syria in October without coordination with any Nato partner apart from Trump. Macron believes the invasion has undermined the fight against Islamic State.

[...]

Defending his decision to pull US troops out of north-east Syria, and to green-light the Turkish invasion, he said: “I wanted to get our soldiers out of there, but I wanted to keep the oil.”

Why does no one bring that up? He keeps saying it, and everybody just seems to let it ride.

He also reeled off a string of insults against France, saying: “I think they have a very high unemployment rate in France. France is not doing well economically at all.

“It is a very tough statement to make when you have such difficulty in France, when you look at what is going on with the yellow vests [anti-government protesters].

“They have had a very rough year. You just can’t go around making statements like that about Nato. It is very disrespectful. I’m looking at him [Macron] and I’m saying that he needs protection more than anybody, and I see him breaking off [from Nato]. So I’m a little surprised at that.”

Not nasty at all.

“When I came in, I was angry at Nato, and now I’ve raised $130bn,” Trump said, referring to the sum Stoltenberg says Canada and European members will have added to their defence budgets by next year.

“And yet you still have many delinquent – you know, I call them delinquent when they’re not paid up in full,” the US president said.

And here is where people should stand up and recite the list of contractors Trump has stiffed.

Trump also said a trade agreement with China might have to wait until after the US presidential election in November 2020, denting hopes of a quick resolution to the dispute that has weighed on the world economy.

Every time he touts a great deal with China, nothing happens. Every time.

The Trump attack came only hours after divisions opened up elsewhere in the alliance, with Turkey vowing to oppose a NATO plan to defend Baltic countries unless the alliance backs it in recognizing the Kurdish YPG militia as a terrorist group.

The YPG’s fighters have long been U.S. allies on the ground against Islamic State in Syria. Turkey considers them an enemy because of links to Kurdish insurgents in southeastern Turkey.

[...]

In an interview with Reuters, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned Ankara that “not everybody sees the threats that they see”, and he urged it, in the name of alliance unity, to stop blocking the Baltics plan.

Queen Elizabeth will host the leaders at Buckingham Palace. But even the British hosts, for generations among the most enthusiastic champions of the trans-Atlantic partnership that NATO represents, are disunited over their project of quitting the EU and distracted by a rancorous election due next week.

“The question is, as we celebrate 70 years, are we waving in celebration or do people think we are drowning?” said a senior European NATO diplomat.

  Reuters

Brain dead.

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

Trump's press conference with Recep Erdoğan

Trump says he’s confident Turkey will uphold what it’s supposed to uphold. He doesn’t specify what he thinks it’s supposed to uphold.

 “I’m a big fan of the president,” Trump says of Erdogan.

“You’re doing a fantastic job for the people of Turkey,” Trump tells Erdogan’s team.

Erdogan is advocating his Syria offensive, saying he is “fighting terrorism in a very resolute fashion.” He denounces the activities of the Kurdish YPG, with which the US has been allied.

Trump gives the first question to OANN, the network that makes Fox look like Jacobin.

Trump repeats his usual false claim about how the (highly accurate) whistleblower was highly inaccurate. He’s said this 40+ times now. Trump says his usual things about how the impeachment push is a sham and hoax. He laments that it is wasting “gentleman” Erdogan’s time.

“Turkey captured everybody that escaped, plus an additional group,” Trump claims of ISIS prisoners.  Trump says Erdogan is taking care of not only a lot of refugees but a lot of Kurds.

Trump invites Erdogan to select a reporter to ask a question. He adds, “A friendly person from Turkey, please. Only friendly reporters.” Trump keeps pronouncing it Erdogone.

The rest of the world, with the exception perhaps of Trumpalos, says Erdowan.

Trump calls Erdogan a “great president.”

Trump gives his second question to John Roberts of Fox. Roberts asks an important question about the phone call between Trump and Sondland that Taylor described today. Trump said, “I know nothing about that.” He adds, “I’ve never heard it.” “Not even a little bit.” 

And let that be a lesson to you why OANN gets the first question now and not Fox.

Trump says many Kurds live in Turkey and “they’re happy and they’re taken care of. Including health care.” He says it’s “really a misnomer.”

What do you want to bet Fethullah Gülen gets turned over to Turkey before Trump leaves office?

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

UPDATE:

Great relationships

Also...

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

Bolton would like a subpoena

First, his lawyer teased Bolton's knowledge of something tantalizing. Now this.

Former national security adviser John Bolton reportedly criticized President Trump's foreign policy last week, accusing Trump of being motivated primarily by personal or financial interests in his dealings with Turkey.

NBC News reported Tuesday that Bolton made the comment at a private gathering last week in a global investment event organized by Morgan Stanley, at which he also reportedly took shots at Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who remain White House aides.

[...]

His remarks come as Trump has faced heavy criticism for ordering a U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria, where Turkish forces have invaded Kurdish-held areas.

  The Hill

Not to mention an impending visit by Turkey's leader.

House Democrats have attempted to obtain testimony from Bolton for the ongoing impeachment inquiry against the president, though those efforts have not yet been successful.

Yes, he balked, and Schiff wasn't willing to put a hold on impeachment proceedings to get him there. If Bolton really wants to testify, he needs to volunteer.

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

Erdoğan is coming to meet Trump tomorrow

Why not?  We tolerated it last time he was here.

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

Because oil everywhere belongs to the United States

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

Erdoğan backing over Trump

He drove over Trump forward, now he's backing over him to make sure he stays down.

The Turkish president has threatened to press ahead with an operation against Kurdish-led forces in Syria “even more strongly” if promises made by the US regarding the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters have not been met by the time a five-day ceasefire expires.

[...]

Ankara has stuck to its original proposal of a 270-mile long (440km), 20-mile deep buffer zone, but the SDF has only acknowledged the 75-mile area between Ras al-Ayn and Tel Abyad.

[...]

Up to 1,300 fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are yet to vacate Ankara’s proposed border “safe zone”, as per the terms of a ceasefire announced by the US vice-president, Mike Pence, in Ankara last week, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters before flying to Russia.

Erdoğan is meeting Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Tuesday for talks expected to focus on the size and scope of the planned buffer zone before the pause in fighting ends at 10pm local time (1900 GMT).

[...]

As a result of the Turkish offensive, Syria’s Kurdish officials struck a deal with Assad, their former enemy, for military reinforcements in the border area.

[...]

Despite the ceasefire, intermittent fighting between the SDF and Ankara’s Syrian rebel proxies has continued.

  The Guardian

So, not a ceasefire.

Kino Gabriel, the SDF spokesman, confirmed over the weekend that all its fighters had evacuated the town of Ras al-Ayn, one of the two border towns bearing the brunt of the Turkish attack, as part of the US-brokered pause.

Redur Khalil, a senior SDF official, also said that following the evacuation of the remaining civilians and fighters from Ras al-Ayn, his fighters would pull back from the strip of land between the town and Tel Abyad, which is also under Turkish attack.

[...]

The US-brokered agreement struck last Thursday did not specify the zone’s size. Previous agreements between Washington and Ankara over a “safe zone” along the Syria-Turkish border have floundered over diverging definitions of the area.

So, not really a deal.

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

Someody took this one off his account

It was replaced with this one, which also avoids the lie about bringing soldiers home.

I'm going to guess that's one lie that wasn't so much a lie when he said it as it was him saying something that he wants people to believe before getting it passed by the generals.

But not knowing the name of his own Secretary of Defense is surely a cause for concern.  Especially when he doesn't realize that the name he's using is a language.

And to top it all off...

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

UPDATE:



UPDATE 10/21:

Delegation to Turkey

Campaign promise failure

In his first public comments since news broke early Monday of the troop withdrawal, Trump said he understood the concerns raised by his fellow Republicans, but added that it was time to fulfill his campaign promise to bring the troops home.

“We want to bring our troops back home and I got elected on that,” Trump said during a news conference Monday. “I fully understand both sides but I promised to bring our troops home.”

  Fox News

All of the nearly 1,000 U.S. troops withdrawing from northern Syria will head to western Iraq to continue the campaign against Islamic State militants, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Saturday.

[...]

Esper told reporters en route to the Middle East Saturday that the U.S. withdrawal will take weeks not days.

He said the mission for those troops would be to “help defend Iraq” and carry out a counter-ISIS mission.

  NBC

Since when is Iraq home?

There's about 1,000 servicemembers who got faked.

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

UPDATE: