This is where we are, America

Like father, like son

He's too stupid to shut up.

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

UPDATE:

Disgusting - continuing witness intimidation coming out of the White House

UPDATE:

More on Vindman testimony

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a decorated Army officer who served as the National Security Council’s director for Ukraine, told lawmakers that he went to the lawyer, John Eisenberg, to register his concerns about the call, in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens, according to a person in the room for Vindman’s deposition on Tuesday.

Eisenberg recorded Vindman’s complaints in notes on a yellow legal pad, then conferred with his deputy Michael Ellis about how to handle the conversation because it was clearly “sensitive,” Vindman testified. The lawyers then decided to move the record of the call into the NSC’s top-secret codeword system—a server normally used to store highly classified material that only a small group of officials can access.

Vindman did not consider the move itself as evidence of a cover-up, according to a person familiar with his testimony. But he said he became disturbed when, a few days later, Eisenberg instructed him not to tell anyone about the call—especially because it was Vindman’s job to coordinate the interagency process with regard to Ukraine policy.

[...]

An NSC spokesperson and Eisenberg did not return requests for comment.

  Politico

I bet not. And I suspect he'll be getting a subpoena soon.

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

Absolutely nuts

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council’s top Ukraine expert, told lawmakers that after attending Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s inauguration in May as part of a delegation led by Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Vindman had been looking forward to debriefing Trump and giving a positive account of Zelensky’s vision for Ukraine’s future.

[...]

But he was instructed “at the last second” not to attend the debriefing, Vindman told lawmakers, because Trump’s advisers worried it might confuse the president: Trump believed at the time that Kashyap Patel, a longtime [Rep Devin] Nunes staffer who joined the White House in February and had no discernible Ukraine experience or expertise, was actually the NSC’s top Ukraine expert instead of Vindman.

Vindman testified that he was told this directly by his boss at the time, NSC senior director for European and Russian affairs Fiona Hill.

Hill told Vindman that she and national security adviser John Bolton thought it best to exclude Vindman from the debriefing to avoid “an uncomfortable situation,” he said.

[...]

Vindman’s exclusion sheds even more light on the unusual steps top NSC officials were taking as early as May to avoid angering or annoying Trump on Ukraine issues — and the unusual level of access Patel had to the president.

[...]

Vindman also testified that he was told Patel had been circumventing normal NSC process to get negative material about Ukraine in front of the president, feeding Trump’s belief that Ukraine was brimming with corruption and had interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Democrats.

[...]

Patel joined the National Security Council’s International Organizations and Alliances directorate in February and was promoted to a senior counterterrorism role around the same time as Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky.

[...]

Patel had previously served as Nunes’ top staffer on the House Intelligence Committee and worked to discredit the FBI and DOJ officials investigating Russia’s election interference.

  Politico

America is lost.

John Yoo is still a jackass

Mr. Torture is Fine is now digging himself into a deeper hole.  These people are like talking to a drunk worm.  You can't make any headway because they're off their nuts and they just wriggle away from anything you point out.

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

Surprise, surprise

Those ellipses in the transcript of the "perfect" phone call were to remove Biden and Burisma.

Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, told House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that the White House transcript of a July call between President Trump and Ukraine’s president omitted crucial words and phrases, and that his attempts to include them failed, according to three people familiar with the testimony.

The omissions, Colonel Vindman said, included Mr. Trump’s assertion that there were recordings of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. discussing Ukraine corruption, and an explicit mention by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, of Burisma Holdings, the energy company whose board employed Mr. Biden’s son Hunter.

Colonel Vindman, who appeared on Capitol Hill wearing his dark blue Army dress uniform and military medals, told House impeachment investigators that he tried to change the reconstructed transcript made by the White House staff to reflect the omissions. But while some of his edits appeared to have been successful, he said, those two corrections were not made.

  Guardian

This corrects the misunderstanding I had from someone's tweet that he wanted to keep the name Burisma out of the transcript, which didn't make sense.

UPDATE 11/1719:

Biden adviser Jennifer Williams' testimony:

Imagine that.

Impeachment hearing testimony today: Sr White House official Alexander Vindman

“I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine,” Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official overseeing Ukraine policy, plans to tell investigators, referring to Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into Joe Biden and his son.

[...]

“I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained,” Vindman plans to say.

“This would all undermine U.S. national security,” Vindman adds. “Following the call, I again reported my concerns to NSC’s lead counsel.”

[...]

>Vindman, who will become the first White House official to testify as part of the impeachment inquiry, also plans to say that he reported Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky to the NSC’s top lawyer after listening in on the conversation from the White House situation room alongside other U.S. national security officials.

[...]

Vindman plans to testify that he first reported his Ukraine-related concerns to the NSC’s lead lawyer in early July, after a meeting between Ukraine’s top national security official and cadre of senior Trump administration officials, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Ambassadors Kurt Volker and Gordon Sondland.

Vindman says that when the Ukrainians raised the prospect of a Trump-Zelensky meeting — a crucial step for Ukraine as its newly elected leader sought to showcase a united front against Russia — Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, interjected “to speak about Ukraine delivering specific investigations in order to secure the meeting.” At that moment, Vindman says, then-national security adviser John Bolton “cut the meeting short.”

At a subsequent debriefing, Vindman says, Sondland “emphasized the importance that Ukraine deliver the investigations into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma.” Vindman says he confronted Sondland and called his statements “inappropriate” because “the request to investigate Biden and his son had nothing to do with national security.” Those concerns, he says, were echoed by Fiona Hill, who at the time served as the NSC’s top Russia policy official.

[...]

Both Vindman and Hill met with NSC lawyers on the same day, July 10, after Bolton abruptly ended the meeting with Ukraine’s top national security official, Oleksandr Danylyuk.

[...]

Sondland, for his part, told lawmakers earlier this month he didn’t remember discussing the Bidens with State Department or White House officials.

And he was at the capitol yesterday going over his testimony to figure out how he's going to weasel his way out of it when they call him up again.

His opening statement leans heavily on his military service and a “sense of duty” to his country.

“I am a patriot, and it is my sacred duty and honor to advance and defend our country, irrespective of party or politics,” Vindman writes in his opening statement, adding that his family fled the Soviet Union when he was just 3½ years old. Vindman was also wounded in an IED attack while serving in Iraq and later received a Purple Heart.

[...]

Vindman also says in his opening statement that he would be appearing before investigators under subpoena — an indication that he expects the White House to try to prevent him from testifying. He also says he is not the whistleblower who initially reported concerns about the White House’s handling of Ukraine to the intelligence community’s inspector general — though many of his concerns mirror the complaint that put the House on a path toward impeachment.

[...]

Vindman’s testimony also appears to corroborate aspects of William Taylor’s testimony before impeachment investigators last week. Taylor, the top American diplomat in Ukraine, directly connected Trump to a quid pro quo with Ukraine involving military aid and a White House meeting with Zelensky.

The White House accused Taylor of being part of a “coordinated smear campaign” against the president, calling his testimony “hearsay.”

[...]

A fellow White House official, Tim Morrison, who also serves on the National Security Council, is expected to testify on Thursday, and his lawyer has already indicated that Morrison plans to speak to lawmakers under subpoena, even if the White House objects.

  Politico

UPDATE:  Vindman's opening statement.


 And quick as you can say Jack Sprat...