Lazy Caturday Reads

P.D. James

Good Afternoon!!

For quite awhile now I’ve been distracting myself from the horrors of the daily news cycle by reading thrillers and detective stories. I’ve even read some “cozy” mystery series featuring cats. You might be surprised how many mystery authors are also cat lovers. So I decided to illustrate this post with some of those writers with their cats.

Unfortunately, the Trump crises march onward without pause and I can’t ignore them completely. Here’s what’s happening this morning.

At Vanity Fair, Gabriel Sherman reported some troubling evidence of Trump’s “mental decay”: You Won’t Believe What Trump Said About His Middle Name.

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, Vanity Fair special correspondent Gabriel Sherman, who was attending the Globes for his show, The Loudest Voice, relayed a story that sums up the Trump presidency and the mess we’re currently living in. Standing near the bar, Sherman ran into Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, and the two started chatting. Sherman asked Luntz when he last saw the President. “Last week, at the White House Christmas party,” Luntz said. Sherman asked what the two men talked about, to which Luntz replied that he had asked Trump what his middle initial “J” stands for. “Genius,” Trump responded.

Why aren’t DC political reporters calling more attention to Trump’s cognitive decline the way they glommed all over Hilary’s weakness from pneumonia in 2016? I recall much more reporting on Reagan’s forgetfulness than we’ve seen about Trump’s obvious symptoms of dementia.

Are Trump’s lies getting more outrageous too? It’s difficult to tell, but I think they are. Either it’s due to his cognitive issues or he’s simply realized that he can get away with anything. For an example see this story in The Washington Post: Trump now claims four embassies were under threat from Iran, raising fresh questions about intelligence reports.

Read more details at the WaPo link.

Patricia Highsmith and Aurora the Queen of Cats

Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine: Trump’s Rationale for Killing Soleimani Is Falling Apart.

When the administration shared its intelligence with select members of Congress, many of them came away unimpressed, if not outright disgusted. Rep. Gerry Connolly described the presentation as “sophomoric and utterly unconvincing.” Even Republican Senator Mike Lee, heretofore an unquestioning Trump supporter, called it the worst briefing, at least on a military issue, he’s seen in the “nine years [he’s] been here.” This is the equivalent of a person who owns 14 house cats reporting that they walked out of the theater halfway through Cats.

Exactly what the administration said, or failed to say, remains classified. But the administration’s public explanations have hardly added clarity. Trump’s initial remarks did not mention any new threat to a U.S. embassy. The next day, he said, “We did it because they were looking to blow up our embassy,” presumably in Baghdad. Last night, at a rally in Toledo, he expanded the threat to “embassies,” multiple. In a new interview with Fox News, he has specified the threat as being to four embassies. Oddly, these details seem not to have been included in the briefing to Congress, which raises the question of why information is too classified for members of the U.S. government, but low-level enough to share with the Fox News audience….

Other ancillary details have made the case look more questionable still. Trump reportedly told associates he acted in part to placate Republican Senators whose support he needed to shape the Senate impeachment trial. The Washington Post reports today that, on the same day as the Soleimani strike, another American mission attempted, but failed, to take out a different Iranian commander in Yemen, where Iran is involved in a civil war. This seems like a strange coincidence if the second target was also linked to an imminent threat to the U.S. “This suggests a mission with a longer planning horizon and a larger objective, and it really does call into question why there was an attempt to explain this publicly on the basis of an imminent threat,” Iran scholar Suzanne Maloney told the Post.

Ruth Rendell

Some background on the Iranian leader targeted in Yemen from the Post story mentioned above: On the day U.S. forces killed Soleimani, they targeted a senior Iranian official in Yemen.

On the day the U.S. military killed a top Iranian commander in Baghdad, U.S. forces carried out another top-secret mission against a senior Iranian military official in Yemen, according to U.S. officials.

The strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, a financier and key commander in Iran’s elite Quds Force who has been active in Yemen, did not result in his death, according to four U.S. officials familiar with the matter….

The State Department offered a $15 million reward last month for information leading to Shahlai and the disruption of the Revolutionary Guard’s financial mechanisms. The announcement said that Shahlai is based in Yemen and has a “long history of involvement in attacks targeting the U.S. and our allies, including in the 2011 plot against the Saudi ambassador” at an Italian restaurant in Washington.

U.S. officials have alleged that Shahlai, born around 1957, is linked to attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq, including a sophisticated 2007 raid in which Iranian-backed militiamen abducted and killed five Americans troops in the city of Karbala.

In a news conference last year, the U.S. special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, said the United States remains “gravely concerned by his presence in Yemen and potential role in providing advanced weaponry of the kind we have interdicted to the Houthis,” who continue to battle a Saudi-led coalition for control of Yemen.

Iran has provided support and training to the Houthi rebels in their fight with the coalition led by Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional foe.

It is unclear why the operation did not succeed. The State Department and White House declined to comment.

Rita Mae Brown

Who knows what the Trump gang is up to, but I’ll bet it has something to do with Saudi Arabia, since they are the ones running the war in Yemen. One thing we can be sure of: it’s all going to come out eventually, and it will be ugly.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that Nancy Pelosi may send articles of impeachment to the Senate next week:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Friday that the House will consider a resolution next week to appoint impeachment managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate, setting the stage for a historic trial of President Trump.

Her announcement, in a letter to Democratic colleagues, came shortly after the House ended its workweek without taking a vote on the matter. As recently as Thursday, Pelosi (D-Calif.) had continued to insist that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should release a resolution laying out rules of a trial before the articles are transmitted.

Also at the Post, George Conway and Neal Kaytal have some strategic suggestions: How Pelosi should play her impeachment cards.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has announced that she plans to transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate, but that does not mean she has lost in the seeming standoff with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) over whether to call witnesses at the Senate trial. McConnell has said “there’s no chance the president’s going to be removed from office” and “there will be no difference between the president’s position and our position.” In response, Pelosi still has cards in her hand — if she plays them — because the House approved two articles of impeachment against President Trump.

Lilian Braun Jackson

The first article of impeachment effectively charges the president with shaking down Ukraine; the second impeaches him for his unprecedented obstruction of Congress. That gives the speaker room to maneuver. She could choose to tweak her announcement and send only the second article, on obstruction, for trial. Or she could transmit them both — along with a House-approved provision advising the Senate that if it fails to obtain adequate witnesses and documents, the House will reopen the investigation into Article I and subpoena that material itself.

Separating the two articles — our preferred approach — would make perfect sense. When it comes to the second article, all the evidence about Trump’s obstruction is a matter of public record. There’s nothing more to add, so the second article is ripe for trial. But as to the first, although there is plenty of evidence demonstrating Trump’s guilt, his obstruction has prevented all of the evidence from coming to light.

Since the House voted to approve the articles of impeachment last month, new revelations of Trump’s involvement have emerged, including emails showing that aid was ordered withheld from Ukraine 91 minutes after Trump’s supposedly “perfect” phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, has said he is willing to testify before the Senate if subpoenaed, and Bolton’s lawyer has said he has new information, yet McConnell has balked at assurances that Bolton would be called.

How can one conduct a “trial” without knowing this evidence? As lawyers, we have never heard of a trial without witnesses.

Read the rest at the WaPo.

Ann Rule

More stories to check out, links only:

AP: White House considering dramatic expansion of travel ban.

Buzzfeed News: The Trump Administration Has Been Preparing To Expand The Travel Ban, Documents Reveal.

CNN: Why Trump’s changing Iran story is costing him support in Congress.

The Washington Post: Trump angered by House ally’s [Matt Gaetz] push to limit his authority on Iran.

The Daily Beast: Hannity Appears to Threaten to Give Out GOP Senators’ Phone Numbers if They Allow Impeachment Witnesses.

The Guardian: How to dump Trump: Rick Wilson on Running Against the Devil.

ProPublica: We Found Major Trump Tax Inconsistencies. New York’s Mayor Wants a Criminal Investigation.

The American Independent: Wisconsin dairy farmers suffer massive blow thanks to Trump’s trade war.

The Daily Beast: Bloomberg Spent $200 Million and Isn’t on Track to Score a Single Delegate.

 

Thursday Reads: The Political Press Slowly Comes Back to Life

Good Afternoon!!

The long holiday news blackout is finally drawing to a close. A big story just broke at Just Security: Exclusive: Unredacted Ukraine Documents Reveal Extent of Pentagon’s Legal Concerns.

“Clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold.”

This is what Michael Duffey, associate director of national security programs at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), told Elaine McCusker, the acting Pentagon comptroller, in an Aug. 30 email, which has only been made available in redacted form until now. It is one of many documents the Trump administration is trying to keep from the public, despite congressional oversight efforts and court orders in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation.

Earlier in the day on Aug. 30, President Donald Trump met with Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the president’s hold on $391 million in military assistance for Ukraine. Inside the Trump administration, panic was reaching fever pitch about the president’s funding hold, which had stretched on for two months. Days earlier, POLITICO had broken the story and questions were starting to pile up. U.S. defense contractors were worried about delayed contracts and officials in Kyiv and lawmakers on Capitol Hill wanted to know what on earth was going on. While Trump’s national security team thought withholding the money went against U.S. national security interests, Trump still wouldn’t budge.

Thanks to the testimony of several Trump administration officials, we now know what Trump was waiting on: a commitment from Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.

But getting at that truth hasn’t been easy and the Trump administration continues to try to obscure it. It is blocking key officials from testifying and is keeping documentary evidence from lawmakers investigating the Ukraine story. For example, this note from Duffey to McCusker was never turned over to House investigators and the Trump administration is continuing to try to keep it secret.

Just Security has been reviewing the unredacted documents.

The documents reveal growing concern from Pentagon officials that the hold would violate the Impoundment Control Act, which requires the executive branch to spend money as appropriated by Congress, and that the necessary steps to avoid this result weren’t being taken. Those steps would include notifying Congress that the funding was being held or shifted elsewhere, a step that was never taken. The emails also show that no rationale was ever given for why the hold was put in place or why it was eventually lifted.

What is clear is that it all came down to the president and what he wanted; no one else appears to have supported his position. Although the pretext for the hold was that some sort of policy review was taking place, the emails make no mention of that actually happening. Instead, officials were anxiously waiting for the president to be convinced that the hold was a bad idea. And while the situation continued throughout the summer, senior defense officials were searching for legal guidance, worried they would be blamed should the hold be lifted too late to actually spend all of the money, which would violate the law.

The emails also reveal key decision points, moments when senior officials hoped the hold might be lifted. This includes Vice President Mike Pence’s September meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which a senior defense official expected would resolve the funding issue, raising the question: Why? What was supposed to come out of that meeting that would pave the way for Trump to lift the hold? What was Pence expected to communicate?

But, the hold wasn’t immediately lifted after Pence’s meeting with Zelenskyy. Instead, the president finally released the money on Sept. 11, just as the whistleblower complaint was about to break into the open.

Read much more at the link and or check out these Twitter threads:

https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1212764116647120896

This is all more fuel for the impeachment fire and more justification for Nancy Pelosi’s decision to hang on to the already passed impeachment articles for awhile.

Eleanor Clift at The Daily Beast: How Long Can Nancy Pelosi Hold Back These Articles of Impeachment? Longer Than You Think.

“This is working beautifully for her, and for the country,” says Norm Ornstein, a political scientist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “In the weeks since the House voted for Impeachment, there have been more damning emails, and there’s no reason to believe we have seen the end of it.”

Delaying the trial allows more evidence of wrongdoing by the president and his allies to surface and potentially sway public opinion and perhaps even some Senate Republicans.

After the House voted the articles, the conventional wisdom was that Democrats needed the Senate to act quickly so a trial would conclude before the 2020 primaries got underway. That thinking has now shifted. “A trial at some point is almost inevitable,” says Ornstein. “But I don’t see any reason to push it forward as long as Democrats have the upper hand.”

Pushed for a time limit, Ornstein told The Daily Beast that he thinks Pelosi can extend through February, “keeping all options open,” he said. “In moments of this kind, my lodestar is whatever Pelosi does is best.”

Tom Mann with the Brookings Institution and co-author with Ornstein of the 2012 book about Congress, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, said in an email that he’s “sure Pelosi is adjusting her cost/benefit analysis and consulting widely every day. McConnell’s outrageous behavior gives her cover to stretch this out to force genuine consultations on rules and witnesses for the trial. If and when she finds the political costs are likely to outweigh the benefits, she will refer the articles to the Senate. But not until then.”

Anyone who bets against Nancy is a damn fool.

The Washington Post Editorial Board: The Senate and the public need to hear from Mulvaney and Bolton.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is withholding two articles of impeachment from the Senate, pending assurance that the Republican leader of that body, Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), will agree to a full and fair trial of the House’s charges against President Trump. Whatever else may be said about the speaker’s move, and however long her holdout lasts, it has certainly taken advantage of some inevitable holiday-season downtime to focus attention on the Senate’s role in the process. So far, that has meant much-needed discussion of Mr. McConnell’s obvious — and obviously political — intention to go through the motions of a trial on the way to an acquittal.

Now fresh reporting from the New York Times has emerged to strengthen the Democrats’ minimum condition of a real trial: The Senate must seek witness testimony from key players in Mr. Trump’s attempt to strong-arm Ukraine into announcing an investigation of his political rival, former vice president Joe Biden, using congressionally appropriated military aid and promises of a White House visit as leverage. The Times reports, based in part on previously undisclosed emails, that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tried to freeze the military aid on Mr. Trump’s behalf as early as June, prompting puzzlement and backlash within the administration — to the extent that Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security adviser John Bolton convened a White House meeting with Mr. Trump to urge release of the aid. Mr. Trump, apparently fixated on the idea that Ukraine had tried to defeat him in 2016, balked, asserting, contrary to Defense Department certifications, that Ukraine was hopelessly corrupt.

Trump’s foreign policy is a raging dumpster fire:

David Sanger at The New York Times: Trump Bet He Could Isolate Iran and Charm North Korea. It’s Not That Easy.

While the Iranian-backed attack on the United States Embassy in Baghdad seemed to be under control, it played to Mr. Trump’s longtime worry that American diplomats and troops in the Middle East are easy targets and his longtime position that the United States must pull back from the region.

In North Korea, Kim Jong-un’s declaration on Wednesday that the world would “witness a new strategic weapon” seemed to be the end of an 18-month experiment in which Mr. Trump believed his force of personality — and vague promises of economic development — would wipe away a problem that plagued the last 12 of his predecessors.

The timing of these new challenges is critical: Both the Iranians and the North Koreans seem to sense the vulnerability of a president under impeachment and facing re-election, even if they are often clumsy as they try to play those events to their advantage….

The protests in Iraq calmed on Wednesday, and Mr. Kim has not yet unveiled his latest “strategic weapon.” But the events of recent days have underscored how much bluster was behind Mr. Trump’s boast a year ago that Iran was “a very different nation” since he had broken its economy by choking off its oil revenues. They also belied his famous tweet: “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”

Today the most generous thing one could say about those statements is that they were wildly premature. Many foreign policy experts say he fundamentally misjudged the reactions of two major American adversaries. Neither seems to fear him, precisely the critique he leveled at Barack Obama back in the days when Mr. Trump declared America’s toughest national security challenges would be solved as soon as a president the world respected was in office.

The core problem may have been Mr. Trump’s conviction that economic incentives alone — oil profits in Tehran and the prospect of investment and glorious beach-front hotels in North Korea — would overcome all other national interests.

Trump only cares about money and his own selfish needs; he doesn’t understand that other may be driven by ideology or moral values.

More stories to check out:

The New York Times Editorial Board: Shock Waves From American Airstrikes in Iraq May Have Just Begun.

The New York Times: ‘It’s Creepy’: Unexplained Drones Are Swarming by Night Over Colorado.

Greg Sargent at The Washington Post: A dishonestly edited video of Joe Biden signals what’s coming.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/02/dishonestly-edited-video-joe-biden-signals-whats-coming/

Farhad Manjoo at The New York Times: Only You Can Prevent Dystopia. How to survive the internet in 2020. (It’s not going to be easy.)