Tuesday Reads: Trump Infects the U.S. Military with His Political Corruption
Posted: November 26, 2019 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Alexander McCoy, Charlotte Clymer, Donald Trump, Eddie Gallagher, Geneva Convention, James Waters, Mark Esper, My Lai Massacre, Navy Seals, Political Corruption, Richard Spencer, Universal Code of Military Justice, war crimes 22 CommentsGood Morning!!
Today fallout continues from Trump’s pardons of accused and/or convicted war criminals. Yesterday Dakinikat wrote about the firing of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer over an internal review board investigation of Eddie Gallagher, a Navy Seal who was convicted of posing for a trophy photo of a dead ISIS fighter. Gallagher was also accused of stabbing to death the teenager in the photo was acquitted.
In today’s New York Times, two former Navy secretaries Richard J. Danzig and write: Trump and the Military Do Not Share the Same Values.
“Get back to business!” With this tweet, President Trump directed his secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, to stop the naval officers charged with oversight of the SEALs from disciplining one of their own. That order was confirmed on Monday by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and over the weekend, Mr. Spencer was fired.
Richard Spencer
There are three problems with Mr. Trump’s action. The first is that it is very much the Navy’s business — and every military’s business — to maintain, as the military so often recites and Mr. Spencer put it in his final letter to the president, “good order and discipline.” In conducting their “business,” our military services are not and must not be commanded in support of political ends, as Mr. Trump was apparently doing here.
How the president chooses to value order and discipline in his White House, and if at all, is of real concern to all Americans. But the military is not an extension of his White House. Some may argue that all actions by a president may have some political component, yet instead of constraining that component, this action by this president celebrates and encourages it.
The second problem intensifies the first. Contamination from the president’s approach is amplified when his judgment is largely shaped by television commentators and his decision announced by tweet. The military has well-established procedures for assuring good order and discipline. They begin by eliciting a judgment by peers. No one is as well positioned to balance the exigencies of combat and the demands of law and ethics as a panel of fellow sailors, Marines, airmen or soldiers….
Mark Esper
Finally, there is the judgment itself. An American service member shared a photograph of himself with a corpse along with the message: “I have got a cool story for you when I get back. I have got my knife skills on.” Our president’s endorsement of the perpetrator will be taken as a representation of our values. Our own troops, many of them teenagers, will be misled by the president’s sense, or lack of sense, of honor.
Paul Waldman at The Washington Post: How Richard Spencer’s firing illustrates some of Trump’s most corrupt impulses.
One key reason Donald Trump’s presidency has been so damaging is that he has a way of corrupting all the people and institutions he comes in contact with, infecting them with his virus. No one remains untouched.
As the sudden firing of Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer shows, that includes the military. Spencer’s story also bears a remarkable resemblance to the Ukraine scandal, in the way people with their own agendas played on Trump’s most repugnant impulses to manipulate him.
Spencer’s firing has its roots in the case of Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who became a Fox News hero. Gallagher’s long and complicated case began when members of his own unit accused him of a series of war crimes, including firing on civilians and murdering a wounded teenage Islamic State fighter receiving medical treatment from his unit.
Gallagher allegedly stabbed the wounded fighter multiple times, then took a picture with his corpse and texted it to friends, with the caption “Got him with my hunting knife.” He was also charged with covering up his crime by threatening to kill members of his platoon if they reported it. They did anyway….
Eddie Gallagher
Trump pardoned him, along with two other service members who had also been accused of war crimes.
Those pardons generated enormous controversy both inside and outside the military, but they were not surprising. From the time he began running for president, Trump has shown nothing but contempt for ideas like military order and discipline, respect for human rights and standards of wartime conduct. He has advocated torturing detainees, suggested that a way to fight terrorism would be to murder the families of suspected terrorists and mused about committing genocide. Accused war criminals are his kind of people.
There’s much more at the link. I hope you’ll go read the rest.
CBS News: Ousted Navy Secretary Richard Spencer defends handling of Navy SEAL case.
Spencer stepped down at the request of Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Sunday amid an ongoing controversy over Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, whose case attracted President Trump’s attention.
Esper told reporters Monday that he fired Spencer after “losing trust and confidence in him regarding his lack of candor.” He accused Spencer of secretly proposing a deal to the White House that would allow Gallagher to retire and retain his Trident pin, which denotes his status as a SEAL, a move Esper said was “completely contrary” to what the two had discussed.
In an interview Monday, Spencer told CBS News he spoke with White House counsel Pat Cipollone on November 15 and proposed an arrangement in which Gallagher would be allowed to retire as a SEAL if the president agreed not to intervene in the case and “let the Navy do its administrative work.” Spencer said Cipollone called back the same day to decline the offer, saying the president would be involved.
“In order to preserve the resiliency of the naval institution, I had to step up and do something when it came to the Gallagher case,” Spencer said.
Spencer acknowledged not telling Esper about the proposal.
Navy Seals on the front lines in Afghanistan
“I will take the bad on me, for not letting him know I did that,” Spencer said. “But as far as I was concerned, at that point, the president understood the deal. Arguably, he doesn’t have to deal with anyone. He said, ‘I’m going to be involved.’ He sent a signed letter to me, an order with his signature on it, saying, ‘Promote Edward Gallagher to E7,'” the rank of chief petty officer.
Esper acknowledged Monday that when confronted about his secret negotiations with the White House, Spencer “was completely forthright in admitting what had been going on.”
Read more at the link.
The Independent spoke to veterans about the situation: US veterans say Trump views military ‘as tool for massacres’ after reinstating accused war criminal to Navy.
Numerous veterans spoke out about the move to The Independent after Secretary of Defence Mark Esper confirmed he was ordered by the president to retain Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher’s status in the elite service, as well as his Trident pin, a prestigious special warfare insignia.
“Ever since Donald Trump became president he’s been tearing the military apart, putting troops in the difficult position of needing to choose between obedience to his unhinged orders, and staying true to our code of honour,” said Alexander McCoy, a former Marine and political director of the veteran group Common Defence. “By pardoning war criminals because Fox News told him to, Trump showed he sees our military as a tool for massacres, not as the professional, honourable force we aspire to be.” [….]
The president’s demands could cause “significant long-term damage to the Naval Special Warfare community,” according to James Waters, a former Navy SEAL platoon commander and White House staff member in the Bush administration, who told The Independent: “The only people who weigh in on whether a Navy SEAL deserves to keep his Trident are people who have their Trident.”
James Waters, former Navy Seal and GW Bush WH staffer
“Every SEAL knows he must ‘earn your Trident every day’ – even after officially qualifying – and the same standard should apply here,” Mr Waters said. “Unless you’ve been through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training and served in the Teams and know the specific facts related to a person’s performance, you’re not qualified to weigh in.” [….]
“There’s a reason we have the Geneva Convention. There’s a reason we have the Universal Code of Military Justice. There’s a reason we have the morale and ethics that we learn in training,” said Josh Manning, a former Army intelligence officer. “For Trump to just step in and undermine centuries worth of morale and discipline undercuts the very military that he’s trying to command.” [….]
Charlotte Clymer, an Army Veteran and press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign, said Mr Trump appeared to be “hell-bent on exploiting” the military justice system for his own purposes.
“My colleagues and I, those still serving and not, are openly horrified by the way this coward has explicitly condoned war crimes, seemingly to pander to people who don’t understand how this undermines our moral authority,” she told The Independent. “I’ve talked to other service members and veterans, and none of us are sure how this could get worse.”
They’re suggesting that Trump wants to take us back to Vietnam years when we had shameful incidents like the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
In a final outrage, Trump now says he wants to use the pardoned war criminals in his 2020 campaign. Daily Beast: Trump Tells Allies He Wants Absolved War Criminals to Campaign for Him.
If Donald Trump gets his wish, he’ll soon take the three convicted or accused war criminals he spared from consequence on the road as special guests in his re-election campaign, according to two sources who have heard Trump discuss their potential roles for the 2020 effort.
Despite military and international backlash to Trump’s Nov. 15 clemency—fallout from which cost Navy Secretary Richard Spencer his job on Sunday—Trump believes he has rectified major injustices. Two people tell The Daily Beast they’ve heard Trump talk about how he’d like to have the now-cleared Clint Lorance, Matthew Golsteyn, or Edward Gallagher show up at his 2020 rallies, or even have a moment on stage at his renomination convention in Charlotte next year. Right-wing media have portrayed all three as martyrs brought down by “political correctness” within the military.
“He briefly discussed making it a big deal at the convention,” said one of these sources, who requested anonymity to talk about private conversations. “The president made a reference to the 2016 [convention] and where they brought on-stage heroes” like former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, who refused to execute detained civilians ahead of a devastating Taliban attack.
So next year he wants to celebrate men who chose to execute civilians and detainees?
What stories are you following today?
Lazy Caturday Afternoon Reads
Posted: November 23, 2019 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Foreign Affairs, U.S. Politics 36 Comments
Good Afternoon!!
I’m feeling under the weather today, but I’ll do the best I can to share some interesting reads. I think everyone has probably been following the breaking news pretty closely this week, so I’m just going to post some random stories.
I’m no fan of Joe Biden, but I still found this article in The Atlantic interesting and even moving. John Hendrickson who had a very bad stutter as a child, convinced Biden, to talk about his own history of stuttering: What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say.
His eyes fall to the floor when I ask him to describe it. We’ve been tiptoeing toward it for 45 minutes, and so far, every time he seems close, he backs away, or leads us in a new direction. There are competing theories in the press, but Joe Biden has kept mum on the subject. I want to hear him explain it. I ask him to walk me through the night he appeared to lose control of his words onstage.
“I—um—I don’t remember,” Biden says. His voice has that familiar shake, the creak and the croak. “I’d have to see it. I-I-I don’t remember.”
We’re in Biden’s mostly vacant Washington, D.C., campaign office on an overcast Tuesday at the end of the summer. Since entering the Democratic presidential-primary race in April, Biden has largely avoided in-depth interviews. When I first reached out, in late June, his press person was polite but noncommittal: Was an interview really necessary for the story?
Then came the second debate, at the end of July, in Detroit. The first one, a month earlier, had been a disaster for Biden. He was unprepared when Senator Kamala Harris criticized both his past resistance to federally mandated busing and a recent speech in which he’d waxed fondly about collaborating with segregationist senators. Some of his answers that night had been meandering and difficult to parse, feeding into the narrative that he wasn’t just prone to verbal slipups—he’s called himself a “gaffe machine”—but that his age was a problem, that he was confused and out of touch.
Detroit was Biden’s chance to regain control of the narrative. And then something else happened. The candidates were talking about health care. At first, Biden sounded strong, confident, presidential: “My plan makes a limit of co-pay to be One. Thousand. Dollars. Because we—”
He stopped. He pinched his eyes closed. He lifted his hands and thrust them forward, as if trying to pull the missing sound from his mouth. “We f-f-f-f-further
support—” He opened his eyes. “The uh-uh-uh-uh—” His chin dipped toward his chest. “The-uh, the ability to buy into the Obamacare plan.” Biden also stumbled when trying to say immune system.Fox News edited these moments into a mini montage. Stifling laughter, the host Steve Hilton narrated: “As the right words struggled to make that perilous journey from Joe Biden’s brain to Joe Biden’s mouth, half the time he just seemed to give up with this somewhat tragic and limp admission of defeat.”
What follows is a fascinating and enlightening discussion between the two men about the pain of being mocked and bullied as children and continuing to struggle with expressing themselves as adults. It won’t make me vote for Joe Biden, but it did give me some insight into his history of verbal gaffes and some sympathy for his struggle with words.
The New York Times: ‘Tuesday Afternoon Impeachment’ Is as Big as ‘Monday Night Football’
On the third day that impeachment hearings blanketed American televisions, from morning talk shows to late-night monologues, Representative Devin Nunes came out with a public service announcement.
“TV ratings are way down, way down,” Mr. Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, declared — on live television — to a pair of witnesses seated before him in Congress. “Whatever drug deal the Democrats are cooking up from the dais, the American people aren’t buying it.”
Mr. Nunes was wrong.
In fact, America’s impeachment drama, titled “Days of Our Impeachment” on a recent “Saturday Night Live,” is drawing “Monday Night Football”-level viewership. On some days, its ratings have topped popular procedurals like “NCIS.”
After five full days of hearings across two weeks, the average live TV viewership for impeachment has been roughly 12 million people, according to Nielsen. Ratings have dipped slightly from a peak on Day 1, Nov. 13, which drew an audience of 13.1 million, but the drop-off is less than what many sitcoms see after a season premiere.
And the numbers for cable news are superlative: Last week, Fox News notched its highest-rated week of the year in terms of total viewership. MSNBC enjoyed the best week in its 23-year history for total viewers.
We definitely need more hearings, but for now Schiff’s committee is going to work on a report that will be submitted to the Judiciary Committee so they can decide on articles of impeachment.
Susan Glasser thinks Trump and the GOP’s “facts be damned” approach is working: The Awful Truth About Impeachment.
A couple of weeks ago, before Dr. Fiona Hill, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, and Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch showed Americans what it means to speak unapologetically wonkish truth to Trumpian power, before the Republican donor turned diplomat Gordon Sondland gave a bad name to rich-guy dilettantes everywhere and tried to redeem himself by throwing Trump and his senior advisers under the bus, I wondered whether President Trump was already winning. From the start of the inquiry into his scheme to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations for his personal political benefit, the President has defined winning as making sure that impeachment remained an entirely partisan issue, with Democrats pushing it and Republicans standing with him to oppose it. By that standard, he was winning before the hearings—and he is still winning after them. If anything, his political hand is now even stronger as Republicans, presented with incontrovertible facts, have chosen not to accept them—and to become even more vociferous in Trump’s defense….
On Thursday morning, in what was meant to be the powerful culminating moment of the hearings, Hill gave a searing statement to Republican members of the panel about the big lie behind Trump’s demand that Ukraine investigate its own alleged intervention in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, an obsession of the President’s because he hoped to disprove the massive Russian interference on his behalf in that campaign. Trump and his defenders, she made clear, are simply trafficking in Russian-fuelled conspiracy theories. It is a “fictional narrative,” Hill told the committee calmly and authoritatively, a hoax “perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.” What’s more, Russia’s sweeping effort has been confirmed by the U.S. intelligence community, as well as by Congress and the very Intelligence Committee holding the hearing. “The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016,” Hill, who served as Trump’s top National Security Council expert on Russia until she announced her resignation, in July, said. “It is beyond dispute.”
Republicans, though, chose to dispute it. They had accepted this fact in the past, but now it was politically inconvenient for the President. Trump did not want to believe it, and so Republicans wouldn’t, either. If anyone thought that Hill’s stirring insistence on the facts would have any effect, that notion was quickly dispelled. By 11:23 a.m., the Trump campaign had sent out a “rapid response” to its e-mail list, with the subject heading “Ukrainian election interference.”
Read the rest at The New Yorker.
Jack Holmes at Esquire on Trump’s crazy Fox News rant yesterday: President Fox News Grandpa Had Himself a Morning on Fox & Friends.
If you are in any way tethered to observable reality, you will have noticed that this was not a good week for Donald Trump, American president. A parade of witnesses testified under oath that he’d engaged in a corrupt scheme to force a foreign government to attack American democracy for his personal benefit. Luckily for him, he’s not tethered at all, and neither is his favorite teevee network, The Fox News Channel. The impeachment hearings over the last fortnight have exposed that we do indeed live in two worlds: one, where members of Congress interviewed witnesses familiar with events, under penalty of perjury, to better understand what happened; two, the world of CrowdStrike, and Bruce and Nellie Ohr, and the Steele Dossier, and the “nude photos,” and whatever the hell else the reprehensible Devin Nunes kicked off every hearing by ranting about.
It was that world in which the president elected to keep himself safely ensconced on this Friday morning, as he joined his best friends in the whole world—the Fox & Friends—to discuss the week’s events. But as you will see, his view on events is no longer merely filtered through the kaleidoscopic bullshit of The Fox News Channel. He is now living in an entirely alternate reality, one where Ukraine attacked us in 2016, not Russia, who were framed, and Ukraine was in some kind of cahoots with the Democratic National Committee, and then the DNC gave the Ukrainians a server, which the Ukrainians refused to give the FBI, and if we could just get the server, which he asked President Zelensky for “very directly,” then we’d all get to the bottom of this little spy caper.
That is to say: the president is a Fox News Grandpa who phones into his favorite teevee show and sounds like one of the more deranged callers on C-SPAN who’s cut off midway through their third sentence. Trump was on-air for nearly an hour.
Andrew Feinberg at he Independent: After a damaging week and a bizarre Fox rant, psychiatrists and GOP strategists are worried for Trump.
….when Friday finally arrived without an impeachment hearing to capture anyone’s attention, Trump decided to air the grievances he’d been nursing for past 10 days, with — as the Beatles put it — a little help from his [Fox and] Friends.
For just under an hour, whatever dam that had held back the presidential logorrhea that had accumulated while most eyes were trained on the Capitol broke with spectacular results.
And as the faces on hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade vacillated from excited to fascinated to very concerned, Trump spewed forth some of the same conspiracies that a succession of witnesses had debunked at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
From his baseless claim that former President Barack Obama had wiretapped him to the equally baseless claim that Ukraine — not Russia — interfered in the 2016 election and there’s a server secreted away in the former Soviet republic which can prove it, it was a parade of Trump’s favorite fever dreams.
He even threw in some self-incrimination for good measure by directly tying his attempt to withhold $391 million in military aid to Ukraine to his desire for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government to investigate that non-existence server. He then admitted — for the second time — that he’d fired former FBI Director James Comey to stave off an investigation into him.
Read the rest at the link.
A relaxing musical interlude:
More stories to check out:
CNN: Trump makes at least 18 false claims in ranting Fox & Friends interview.
Rolling Stone: Handwriting Expert Says Trump’s ‘I WANT NOTHING’ Note Bears ‘The Sign of a Liar’
The New York Daily News: Giuliani Ukraine pal has given ‘hard evidence,’ including videos, to Trump impeachment investigators, wants to testify.
NBC News: Documents released to ethics group show Giuliani, Pompeo contacts before Ukraine ambassador ousted.
Daily Beast: Trump’s Gatekeeper Put Rudy in Touch With Pompeo: Emails.
Time: Exclusive: CEO of Ukraine State Gas Firm Preparing to Testify in Giuliani Probe
The Washington Post: The 66-year alliance between the U.S. and South Korea is in deep trouble.
How about some more music?
Have a nice weekend Sky Dancers!!
Thursday Reads/Impeachment Hearings Live Blog
Posted: November 21, 2019 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics 18 Comments
Trump talking points. He can’t even spell Zelensky.
Good Morning!!
Whew! Yesterday was a simply mind-boggling day that is guaranteed to go down in history–if Russia (and/or China, Turkey, North Korea) doesn’t succeed in winning a second term for Trump. Gordon Sondland threw everyone under the bus–he testified that “everyone was in the loop”–Trump, Mulvaney, Pompeo, Perry, Giuliani–and theirs was not an track in our foreign policy but the main track. And more is coming today.
The New York Times: Impeachment Inquiry Updates: Fiona Hill and David Holmes to Testify.
Who: Ms. Hill and Mr. Holmes will testify during a morning session. There is no afternoon session scheduled.
What: The House Intelligence Committee, led by its chairman, Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, will continue to examine the case for impeaching Mr. Trump. The Republican minority, led by Representative Devin Nunes of California, will again work to poke holes in testimony implicating the president.
When and Where: The morning proceedings start at 9 Eastern in the House Ways and Means Committee chambers. It will most likely last until the afternoon.
NPR: What To Watch For In Impeachment Hearing With Fiona Hill, David Holmes.
[Fiona] Hill is expected to tell lawmakers about the concerns she had with the merits of the Ukraine affair, in which Trump sought concessions from Ukraine’s president in exchange for engagement and continued financial assistance that had been authorized by Congress.
The U.S. had been sending aid to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in 2014 to help its military against Russian and Russian-backed forces still operating in the east.
The national security establishment opposed the freeze of that aid for several weeks this summer.
Hill told impeachment investigators in her closed deposition that she resented the smear campaign run against the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Hill also is a key witness about the former national security adviser, John Bolton, who has been described as an important player in the Ukraine saga but from whom Congress has not heard directly….
[David] Holmes is a diplomatic staffer who went to lunch in July in Kyiv with the ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland.
During that encounter, Sondland called Trump on his mobile phone to talk about the “investigations” that Trump wanted from his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Holmes said in his deposition that Sondland t.old him Trump only cared about “big stuff” that affected him, like what Holmes called the “Biden investigation” Trump wanted from Ukraine.
Sondland says he didn’t know in real time that the investigation connected with the word “Burisma” — a Ukrainian company that for a time paid the son of former Vice President Joe Biden — was, in effect, code for the Biden family.
CNN has Hill’s opening statement: Former top Russia adviser to reject GOP claim that Ukraine meddled in US politics.
A former top White House official will offer on Thursday a full-throated rebuttal to the narrative pushed by President Donald Trump and his GOP allies about Ukraine’s role meddling in American politics, according to a source familiar with her testimony.
Fiona Hill, who served as Trump’s top Russia adviser until she left the administration this summer, will also warn the House Intelligence Committee as part of the impeachment inquiry that the Kremlin is prepared to strike again in 2020 and remains a serious threat to American democracy that the United States must seek to combat, the source said.
Yovanovitch testimony: November 16, 2019
In her brief opening statement, Hill will offer a strong pushback to the claims peddled by Trump, his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and some congressional Republicans that Ukraine may have interfered in the 2016 elections to help Hillary Clinton.
Multiple witnesses have said that the moving forward on the 2016 election interference investigation — along with a probe into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter — amounted to conditions placed on the country before roughly $400 million in military aid for the country was released and a key meeting in Washington between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could take place.
Both Giuliani and Trump have urged the Ukrainian government to announce probes into any role the country may have had in the 2016 elections, something Trump brought up himself in his now-infamous July phone call with Zelensky.
But Hill in her testimony will argue that such a theory amounts to a fictional narrative at a time when the US should be focused on the real threat: Russia, which she warns could once again seek to interfere in the 2020 elections while the US is focused on Ukraine.
During Sondland’s testimony yesterday, Trump made a complete spectacle, screaming ineffectually at the assembled press on the White House lawn.
That is really really not normal. This man needs a complete neurological exam STAT. Speaking of Trump’s obvious dementia symptoms, Newsweek offers this quote from the new book by Anonymous: Trump Regularly ‘Can’t remember what he’s said or been told,’ White House Insider Says.
President Donald Trump regularly struggles to “remember what he’s said or been told,” an anonymous senior government official behind a new exposé on the inner workings of the White House has claimed.
Much of the nearly 260 pages of the anonymous official’s tome, A Warning, which hit bookshelves on Tuesday, has been dedicated to sounding the alarm about Trump’s alarming behavior.
While the anonymous author, who is described only as a “senior official in the Trump administration” admits they are not “qualified to diagnose the president’s mental acuity,” they can say that “normal people who spend any time with Donald Trump are uncomfortable by what they witness.”
“He stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated, and has trouble synthesizing information, not occasionally but with regularity,” the official warns.
Often, they say, “the president also can’t remember what he’s said or been told.”
“Americans are used to him denying words that have come out of his mouth,” the senior official writes. “Sometimes this is to avoid responsibility.”
However, they say it often “appears Trump genuinely doesn’t remember important facts.”
One clear example of that, the official recalls, is when the president claimed he was not sure if he had “ever even heard of a Category 5” hurricane, despite having been briefed on at least four other Category 5 hurricanes during his time in office.
“Was he forgetting these briefings?” the author questions. “Or more problematic, was he not paying attention at all? These are events that affect millions of Americans, yet they don’t seem to stick in his brain.”
The official writes that while Trump has often claimed to be highly intelligent, they say they have “seen the president fall flat on his face when trying to speak intelligently” on a number of topics on which he claims to be an expert.
“You can see why behind closed doors his own top officials deride him as an ‘idiot’ and a ‘moron’ with the understanding of a ‘fifth or sixth grader,'” the unnamed senior official says.
More at the link.
One of the biggest reveals from Sondland’s testimony was that Mike Pompeo was involved in the entire Ukraine affair. The New York Times: Pompeo Emerges as a Major Trump Enabler in Ukraine affair.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has for months deflected questions about whether the Trump administration demanded political favors from Ukraine in exchange for military aid. He has refused to explain why he recalled the American ambassador, declared that it was “inappropriate” for his diplomats to testify before Congress and declined to hand over documents to impeachment investigators.
On Wednesday, Gordon D. Sondland, the American ambassador to the European Union, filled in the blanks: He said Mr. Pompeo and his top aides “knew what we were doing, and why,” and recited emails he wrote to Mr. Pompeo about the quid pro quo demanded by President Trump. “Everyone was in the loop,” Mr. Sondland said.
Mr. Sondland’s testimony has undercut any notion that Mr. Pompeo, the administration’s most powerful national security official, was not a participant in Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine. It also firmly places him at the center of one of the nation’s biggest foreign policy controversies in nearly two decades, since the debate over the intelligence that led to the war in Iraq.
Whatever Mr. Pompeo’s future plans, Mr. Trump’s secretary of state is now tied intimately to the Ukraine controversy. Even before Mr. Sondland’s testimony, Mr. Pompeo was rumored to be seeking an exit from the State Department, perhaps to run for a Senate seat in Kansas, his adopted home state, with an eye toward a presidential bid once Mr. Trump leaves the stage.
Lock. Him. Up.
I’ll end with two breaking news stories.
AP: AP source: FBI has asked for interview with whistleblower
The FBI last month requested an interview with the whistleblower whose complaint fueled the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump and Ukraine, a person familiar with the situation said Wednesday.
An agent from the FBI’s Washington field office reached out to the whistleblower’s lawyers last month to seek an interview about the substance of the complaint, according to this person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the request with The Associated Press.
The person said it was clear from the FBI that the whistleblower was not regarded as the target of any investigation but rather a potential witness. It was not immediately clear what specifically the FBI might be looking into. The requested interview has not taken place.
Could this be related to the reportedly ongoing counterintelligence investigation?
The New York Times: Prosecutors Subpoena Trump Fund-Raisers Linked to Giuliani Associates.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan issued subpoenas in recent weeks to several players in President Trump’s fund-raising apparatus as part of an investigation into two associates of Rudolph W. Giuliani who have been charged with violating campaign finance laws, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The subpoenas went to a lobbying firm run by a top fund-raiser for Mr. Trump, Brian Ballard, and to two people who have helped raise money for America First Action, a super PAC created to support the president and allied candidates, the people said.
Mr. Ballard and the America First fund-raisers worked to varying extents with Mr. Giuliani’s associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, American citizens who helped Mr. Giuliani wage a pressure campaign on Ukraine that is now at the center of the impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump.
The recent activity by prosecutors and F.B.I. agents shows that they have cast a wide net as they collect evidence about Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, who were arrested last month. It also comes as the same prosecutors look into whether Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, violated a federal lobbying law in some of his dealings with Ukrainians.
Lock Giuliani up with Pompeo.
Please treat this post as an open thread/live blog for today’s hearings.
Tuesday Reads: Week 2 of Impeachment Hearings and Trump’s Health
Posted: November 19, 2019 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, impeachment hearings, Trump's health 27 Comments
Good Morning!!
Today’s impeachment hearing begins at 9AM and may last into the night. NPR: Impeachment Hearings Resume With White House, State Department Witnesses.
House Democrats are set to kick off week two of their open impeachment hearings on Tuesday with witnesses who listened firsthand when President Trump spoke with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on July 25 — a key moment in the Ukraine affair.
And members of Congress also said they’ve added a new witness to those slated to appear this week: David Holmes, the diplomatic aide posted to Ukraine who appeared for a closed-door deposition last week, now is scheduled to appear in an open hearing on Thursday morning.
Alexander Vindman
The hearing on Tuesday scheduled to start at 9 a.m. is set to open with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an Army foreign area officer who serves on the National Security Council, and Jennifer Williams, a foreign service officer detailed to the staff of Vice President Mike Pence.
Vindman and Williams were among the White House staffers who listened in on the phone call.
This afternoon, beginning at 3PM:
Kurt Volker, the former State Department envoy to Ukraine for its peace negotiations and Tim Morrison, a former National Security Council aide.
Volker was at the center of the alternate policy channel for Ukraine run by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Volker helped broker an important meeting between Giuliani and an aide to Zelenskiy this summer.
Morrison was among those who heard the Trump-Zelenskiy call firsthand when it happened and although he testified that he was concerned about what might have happened if it became public, he saw nothing illegal.
Kurt Volker
There will also be public testimony on Wednesday and Thursday. NBC News:
The committee will hear testimony from [Gordon] Sondland on Wednesday morning, and then testimony from Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs and David Hale, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, later in the day.
On Thursday, the panel will hear from Fiona Hill, the former NSC senior director for Europe and Russia who testified that Sondland had told Ukrainian officials they needed to proceed with “investigations” to line up a White House visit for Ukraine’s president. David Holmes, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine official who overheard a July phone call between Sondland and Trump where the president was demanding “investigations,” will testify alongside Hill, the committee announced Monday.
The Washington Post: Lt. Col. Vindman to describe his alarm over president’s call with Ukrainian leader, girding for Republican attack.
Meanwhile Trump’s response to his possible impeachment is to attack the witnesses and dump them from their jobs.
Jennifer Williams
The Washington Post: Attacking witnesses is Trump’s core defense strategy in fighting impeachment.
Eight weeks into the House impeachment inquiry, President Trump and many of his allies have seized on a core defense strategy by attacking career public servants who are testifying as witnesses in the probe and spreading disinformation about their motives as “unelected bureaucrats.”
The tactic was deployed in a prominent way Monday when Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) laid out criticisms against Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official who is poised to give key public testimony Tuesday. Johnson wrote without evidence that Vindman may be a member of a rebellious “deep state” that “never accepted President Trump as legitimate” and is working in secret to end his presidency.
“I believe a significant number of bureaucrats . . . resent [Trump’s] unorthodox style and his intrusion on their ‘turf,’ ” Johnson wrote to the top Republicans on the House Oversight and Intelligence committees. “They react by leaking to the press and participating in the ongoing effort to sabotage his policies and, if possible, remove him from office. It is entirely possible that Vindman fits this profile.”
Johnson’s letter intensifies a campaign of attacks on Vindman from Trump and his allies, which has included speculation about the decorated war veteran’s patriotism from conservative commentators and a White House statement on Friday criticizing his job performance. Moves such as these have gained significant traction with Trump’s base, feeding into an echo chamber that stokes supporters’ resentments, broadcasts a single pro-Trump message and demonstrates the power of the online juggernaut Democrats will confront during Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign.
Gordon Sondland
Much of this messaging has taken aim at the career public servants cooperating with the House impeachment inquiry.
Sharing a sentiment on Friday that gained viral popularity among his father’s supporters, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted that “America hired [Trump] to fire people like the first three witnesses we’ve seen.” He was referring to former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, acting ambassador to Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr. and top State Department official George Kent, all of whom testified last week.
CNN: Trump’s aides eye moving impeachment witnesses out of White House jobs.
President Donald Trump’s aides have explored moving some impeachment witnesses on loan to the White House from other agencies, such as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, back to their home departments ahead of schedule, according to people familiar with the conversations.
As public hearings bring the officials’ allegations to his television screen, Trump is asking anew how witnesses such as Vindman and Ambassador Bill Taylor came to work for him, people familiar with the matter said. He has suggested again they be dismissed, even as advisers warn him firing them could be viewed as retaliation.
The possible move of officials out of the White House could still be viewed by some as evidence of retribution for their testimony. Trump’s frustration at his own officials comes as he attacks witnesses on Twitter, including during Friday’s public hearing with the ousted ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Trump appears to have adopted a strategy of maligning the officials, despite some allies encouraging him not to.
David Holmes
The uncertain fate and public thrashing of these officials has created a thorny situation for a White House wading through the impeachment process. Trump’s impulse to dismiss them hasn’t been realized, but he’s made clear nevertheless he views them as unwelcome.
It’s one of the persistent anomalies of the impeachment inquiry: most of the witnesses airing concerns at Trump’s approach to Ukraine remain employed by him, despite his claims they are “Never Trumpers” and his overt suggestions they’ve already been fired.
In other news, Trump has not been seen in public since Saturday when he was rushed to Walter Reed hospital for an unscheduled medical examination.
The Washington Post: Trump’s health under scrutiny again after unplanned visit to Walter Reed.
President Trump’s impromptu weekend visit to a doctor brought fresh questions about the status of his health after the White House released a memo late Monday denying “speculation” that he had been treated for a medical emergency.
Trump, 73, made an unscheduled trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Saturday, a visit that remained shrouded in secrecy for two days as Trump stayed away from the public eye and the White House dodged questions about his health.
In a memo released by the White House late Monday, Trump’s doctor, Sean Conley, wrote that Trump’s “interim checkup” over the weekend had been “routine,” and was only kept secret because of “scheduling uncertainties.”
“Despite some speculation, the President has not had any chest pain, nor was he evaluated or treated for any urgent or acute issues,” Conley wrote in the memo. “Specifically, he did not undergo any specialized cardiac or neurologic evaluations.”
Sure, Jan.
While Trump claimed that he had begun “phase one” of his annual physical, Conley said Trump would have a “more comprehensive examination” next year. Trump described his condition on Twitter as “very good (great!)”; Conley’s memo did not characterize the president’s overall health. It did include cholesterol figures that had dropped since Trump’s last physical exam in February.
It is unusual for a president to undergo a physical exam in multiple stages months apart, and the circumstances surrounding Trump’s visit renewed questions about the White House’s handling of his medical information, according to several experts.
Time: Trump’s Unscheduled Hospital Visit Raises Suspicions About His Health.
A lack of notice. Past failures to level with the American people. A tough week for the White House as public impeachment hearings got under way.
Add it all up, and President Donald Trump’s unscheduled weekend visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center raised suspicions about his health, despite White House officials’ insistence that the president was merely getting a head start on his annual physical.
Laura Cooper
For any president, a sudden trip to the hospital would raise questions. But such scrutiny was magnified with a president who has a history of exaggeration and playing loose with the facts, giving skeptics room to run with their own theories.
“The one thing you can be absolutely sure of is this was not routine and he didn’t go up there for half his physical,” tweeted Joe Lockhart, a press secretary under President Bill Clinton, who was himself impeached for perjury and obstruction. “What does it mean? It means that we just won’t know what the medical issue was.”
The president’s medical appointment wasn’t listed on his Saturday public schedule, and his last physical was just nine months ago. Press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the 73-year-old president was “anticipating a very busy 2020” and wanted to take advantage of “a free weekend” in Washington to begin portions of his routine checkup.
She did not specify which tests he’d received or explain why the visit had not been disclosed in advance. Trump’s 2018 and 2019 physicals were both announced ahead of time. Grisham said after the visit that the president had gotten “a quick exam and labs.”
Fiona Hill
Jack Schaeffer at Politico: Yes, It’s OK to Speculate on the President’s Health.
Approximately 1,000 days and 13,500 documented faleshoods into his presidency, Donald Trump paid a two-hour visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Saturday afternoon under unusual, unprecedented circumstances.
Trump’s exam was not on his public schedule and no advance notice of the event had been given, unlike his two previous physicals; the exam fell on a Saturday rather than a weekday; and according to CNN, Walter Reed medical staff did not get its usual staffwide notice of Trump’s visit. Reportedly, the local police got no advance warning of the Trump motorcade’s arrival, and reporters were directed not to report his trip until he arrived at Walter Reed.
This touched off a weekend flurry of speculation in Washington about what was actually going on, and Twitter erupted with inventive theories of why a 73-year-old man might suddenly visit a hospital. With a private citizen, that kind of speculation would have been wildly inappropriate. With this White House, it’s almost a national obligation.
David Hale
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement claiming Trump was taking advantage of a “free weekend here in Washington” to begin parts of his annual physical exam—even though his last “annual” physical came in February 2019. While it’s not inconceivable that Trump would motorcade 11 miles to suburban Maryland on the spur of the moment on a Saturday afternoon to get a jump on his February physical, it’s not how things are normally done with the U.S. president. White House facilities are equipped to perform many routine lab tests. Trump seconded his press secretary’s explanation shortly after midnight on Sunday, tweeting that this was “phase one” of his yearly physical. “Everything very good (great!). Will complete next year,” Trump continued.
But Trump and Grisham’s rationalizations for his spur-of-the-moment visit just don’t add up. Given what we know about Trump’s medical health—he’s obese and was judged in 2018 of being at moderate risk of having a heart attack in the next three to five years—we have every reason to question the Trump-Grisham account. That Trump has proven himself a liar several thousand times over during his presidency and his long-running caginess about his medical state contribute to the doubt.
Read the rest at Politico.
Today’s hearings are about to begin, and I’ll be watching as much as I can. If you’re watching too, please share your reactions in this open thread.
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: November 16, 2019 Filed under: morning reads 20 Comments
Good Morning!!
Yesterday was quite a day in Washington DC. Ambassador Marie Yovanovich testified in an open impeachment hearing yesterday, and at the end the audience rose and applauded her. Republicans were not pleased.
After the open session, another State Department official testified that he had heard Trump loudly asking about the “investigations” he had pressured Ukraine to do for him. During her testimony, Trump attacked Yovanovich in a tweet, committing witness intimidation in real time and possibly adding another article of impeachment.
Also during the hearing, long-time Trump pal and rat-fucker Roger Stone was found guilty of 7 felonies.
The Washington Post: Roger Stone guilty on all counts of lying to Congress, witness tampering.
Stone, in a gray-blue suit, stood at the defense table with his left hand in his pants pocket, watching impassively as the verdicts were read. He sighed and frowned as he left the courtroom, offering a half-smile to reporters who had covered the proceedings, while his wife hugged crying supporters….
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson set Stone’s sentencing for Feb. 6 and allowed him to remain free until then. Stone faces a legal maximum penalty of 50 years in prison — 20 years for the witness tampering charge and five years for each of the other counts, although a first offender would face far less time under federal sentencing guidelines.
After the impeachment open session, another State Department official testified that he had heard Trump loudly asking about the “investigations” he had pressured Ukraine to do for him.
The Washington Post: A Friday night surprise: David Holmes throws a wrench in Trump’s impeachment defense. Aaron Blake outlines the “key points in Holmes’ opening statement:
At three distinct points, we have seen [Ambassador Gordon] Sondland’s testimony called into question. The first time was when other witnesses said he talked about a quid pro quo with Ukrainian officials on July 10, which Sondland soon confirmed via clarified testimony. The second was this week, when Taylor disclosed that Holmes had overheard a Sondland call with Trump on July 26 that Sondland had failed to mention and in which Trump asked about the investigations he was asking for. “Sondland will address any issues that arise from this in his testimony next week,” his lawyer said Wednesday.
And now Holmes undermines a central claim in Sondland’s testimony: That Sondland didn’t know that Trump and his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani’s interest in investigating a Ukrainian company that employed Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden had anything to do with the Biden family.
The Guardians by Jerzy Marek
“I noted that there was ‘big stuff’ going on in Ukraine, like a war with Russia,” Holmes says of his conversation with Sondland on July 26, “and Ambassador Sondland replied that he meant ‘big stuff’ that benefits the president, like the ‘Biden investigation’ that Mr. Giuliani was pushing.”
The quote about the “Biden investigation” is key. Sondland said in his deposition that he had pushed for an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which had employed Hunter Biden, but that he didn’t know there was any connection to the Bidens.
More key points at the link. Sondland will testify next week, and he may be in danger of a perjury charge.
Nancy Pelosi had some harsh words for Trump in an interview with CBS News: Nancy Pelosi says Trump’s attacks on witnesses “very significant” to impeachment probe.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that President Trump’s ongoing attacks on witnesses in the impeachment probe — including his tweets about former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch Friday — are “very significant” as the impeachment probe progresses.
“Why do you think he was tweeting about her?” Brennan asked Pelosi, in reference to Mr. Trump’s tweets during Yovanovitch’s testimony Friday.
She added, “Of course, presidents appoint ambassadors, but people don’t insult people, especially when they’re giving testimony before the Congress of the United States. I think even his most ardent supporters have to honestly admit this is the wrong thing for the president to do.” [….]
“He should not frivolously throw out insults, but that’s what he does. I think part of it is his own insecurity as an imposter. I think he knows full well that he’s in that office way over his head. And so he has to diminish everyone else,” she added.
Wow! That’s exactly what he is–an imposter. (Emphasis added)
Yesterday Trump released the first call he had with Ukraine president Zelensky so Devin Nunes could read it at the Yovanovich hearing, but it didn’t really help his case. Trump’s advisers had recommended that he talk about corruption with Zelensky, but Trump never mentioned it. Politico reports:
White House national security advisers suggested President Donald Trump raise the broad issue of corruption in his first call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on April 21, but Trump chose not to, according to a person familiar with the matter.
One of Republicans’ central defenses in the impeachment inquiry has been that Trump cares deeply about corruption in Ukraine, which is why he asked Zelensky in July to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s dealings with the country.
That the president did not adhere to his National Security Council’s advice to discuss corruption with Zelensky during their April call appears to undermine those claims.
Late last night, Vicky Ward broke more news at CNN: Exclusive: After private White House meeting, Giuliani associate Lev Parnas said he was on a ‘secret mission’ for Trump, sources say.
Among the many guests who had their pictures taken with President Donald Trump at the White House’s annual Hanukkah party last year were two Soviet-born businessmen from Florida, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.
In the picture, which Parnas posted on social media, he and Fruman are seen smiling alongside Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Rudy Giuliani, the President’s personal lawyer.At one point during the party that night, Parnas and Fruman slipped out of a large reception room packed with hundreds of Trump donors to have a private meeting with the President and Giuliani, according to two acquaintances in whom Parnas confided right after the meeting.Word of the encounter in the White House last December, which has not been previously reported, is further indication that Trump knew Parnas and Fruman, despite Trump publicly stating that he did not on the day after the two men were arrested at Dulles International Airport last month.
By Didier Lorenco
Parnas told friends that Trump had sent him on a “James Bond”-type secret mission.
Eventually, according to what Parnas told his confidants, the topic turned to Ukraine that night. According to those two confidants, Parnas said that “the big guy,” as he sometimes referred to the President in conversation, talked about tasking him and Fruman with what Parnas described as “a secret mission” to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.To Parnas, the chain of command was clear: Giuliani would issue the President’s directives while Parnas, who speaks fluent Russian, would be an on-the-ground investigator alongside Fruman, who has numerous business contacts in Ukraine.“Parnas viewed the assignment as a great crusade,” says one of the people in whom Parnas confided. “He believed he was doing the right thing for Trump.”
A couple more stories before I wrap this up:
The scariest Attorney General we’ve ever seen gave a very creepy speech last week. The New York Times: Barr Suggests Impeachment Inquiry Undermines Voters’ Intent.
Attorney General William P. Barr on Friday vigorously defended President Trump’s use of executive authority and suggested that House Democrats were subverting the will of voters by exploring whether to remove the president from office for abusing his power.
Mr. Trump campaigned on a vow to upend Washington, and voters were aware of his agenda when they elected him president, Mr. Barr said.
“While the president has certainly thrown out the traditional Beltway playbook and punctilio, he was up front about what he wanted to do and the people decided they wanted him to serve as president,” Mr. Barr said in a speech at a conference hosted by the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group influential in Republican politics.
Mr. Trump’s opponents “essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple by any means necessary a duly elected government,” Mr. Barr added….
Speaking for an hour at the upscale Mayflower Hotel a few blocks from the White House, Mr. Barr hit back at the president’s critics on an array of fronts as he argued that Mr. Trump, in his capacity as president, has not overstepped his authority.
While Mr. Barr never uttered the word impeachment, he castigated those he sees as stalling Mr. Trump’s agenda. He defended the president’s right to set policies, steer the country’s diplomatic and military relations and keep executive branch conversations confidential from congressional oversight.
“In waging a scorched-earth, no-holds-barred war against this administration, it is the left that is engaged in shredding norms and undermining the rule of law,” Mr. Barr said.
He noted that opponents labeled themselves “the resistance” immediately after Mr. Trump was elected and accused them of “using every tool and maneuver to sabotage the functioning of the executive branch and his administration.
President Obama warned Democratic presidential candidates about going too far left. The New York Times: Obama Says Average American Doesn’t Want to ‘Tear Down System.’
Former President Barack Obama offered an unusual warning to the Democratic primary field on Friday evening, cautioning the candidates not to move too far to the left in their policy proposals, even as he sought to reassure a party establishment worried about the electoral strength of their historically large primary field.
Speaking before a room of wealthy liberal donors, Mr. Obama urged Democrats to remember the long, combative slog of his primary campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2008, arguing that the 16 month battle ultimately made him a stronger general election candidate.
“For those who get stressed about robust primaries, I just have to remind you I had a very robust primary,” he told the group of several hundred donors and organizational leaders in Washington. “I’m confident that at the end of the process we will have a candidate that has been tested.”
Yet, he also raised concerns about some of the liberal ideas being promoted by some candidates, citing health care and immigration as issues where the proposals may have gone further than public opinion.
While Mr. Obama did not single out any specific primary candidate or policy proposal, he cautioned that the universe of voters that could support a Democratic candidate — Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans — are not driven by the same views reflected on “certain left-leaning Twitter feeds” or “the activist wing of our party.”
“Even as we push the envelope and we are bold in our vision we also have to be rooted in reality,” Mr. Obama said. “The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it.”
I have to say I agree with Obama. I think candidates should be focusing on the damage Trump has done and will continue to do if he gets a second term.
That’s all I have for you today. What stories are you following?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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