Month: October 2019

Will the military do what Trump said they would do back in 2016? (Break the law if he orders them to?)

by digby

That was from the 2016 campaign when Trump was asked if he would order the military to commit war crimes. He said yes and that he expected them to follow his orders because he is a leader.

He walked that back a couple of days later saying that he would not order the troops to break the law, but I think we’ve seen since then that Trump’s definition of what the law is:  “l’état, c’est moi.” So that doesn’t get you very far.

I wrote yesterday about the uniformed DHS Trump cultists going rogue. Guess what? They might not be the only people in uniform who are devoted to their Dear Leader in a truly disturbing way.

Don’t read this article from the Daily Beast before you go to bed. You will have nightmares:

Earlier this week Donald Trump, commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, tweeted that his impeachment “will cause a Civil War” from which the country might never recover. Picking up on remarks made by an evangelical pastor on Fox News, Trump did not just say his removal would lead to a huge electoral defeat for the Democrats, or even mass demonstrations. He said “civil war”. Americans taking up arms against other Americans in his name.

“Civil War 2” started trending on Twitter. So, for a time, did #CivilWarSignup.

In the modern era, real civil wars have been the great affliction of Third World countries—conflicts that split nations and societies along political, ethnic or religious fault lines. They are very often accompanied by martial law and resolved by military intervention. Is this what the president has in mind? Where would the U.S. military stand in such a situation? A view from the inside indicates the armed forces are as divided as the rest of the country—and divided is a dangerous place for the U.S. military to find itself.

After spending 19 years in Washington with intelligence jobs in Congress, at the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (focusing on counterterrorism and counterintelligence), I had the opportunity to join the commander’s Red Team at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida.

Within a few years, however, CENTCOM’s senior leadership told us Red Team’s “alternative analysis” was “confusing” the commander. (Truth was, they really didn’t want any competing analysis contradicting what the traditional intelligence analysts were selling.) I was told I would now be an Intelligence Planner. Intelligence Planners provide critical intelligence support to military operations. (CENTCOM has responsibility for most of the Middle East, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the fight against ISIS.) I remained at CENTCOM for 12 years.
[…]
Recent polling shows that among military veterans, approval ratings for Trump are higher than among the civilian population. In my experience, the support for Donald Trump among a large segment of the U.S. military is downright cult-like.

None of this makes sense. Trump is everything the U.S. military should despise: a draft dodger, adulterer, flabby, lazy, unread, a tabloid joke for decades, and TV reality show star. During the 2016 campaign, Trump sought to brandish his non-existent national security chops by insulting Barack Obama’s generals. “I know more about ISIS than the generals do. The generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point where it’s embarrassing for our country.” He hinted that as president, he would fire them. “They’d probably be different generals,” he said at NBC’s pre-election Commander-in-Chief Forum.
[…] 

From Michael Flynn, the rogue retired general closest to him, Trump learned just how deep the military’s disdain was for Democrats—and for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama specifically. Trump learned from Flynn that there were grievances and resentments within the military establishment to be exploited. Highly intelligent active duty and retired military officers with outstanding service records (not “deplorables”) could be heard at CENTCOM repeating far-right-wing conspiracy theories like: “Hillary murdered a lot of people” and “Obama is a Kenyan Black Muslim,” “The FBI and the CIA are corrupt,” “The media is fake news.” Trump’s attacks and abuse of their former bosses, and even of a Gold Star family, didn’t seem to impact their opinion of him.

Once Trump was elected, they wholeheartedly bought into his claims that the “deep state” and the “fake news media” were now plotting a coup against him. Some would call themselves “nationalists,” not having the basic understanding of the difference between “nationalism” and “patriotism.” (The political divide also cut across racial lines. African-Americans serving in the military had a deep admiration and affection for the first black commander in chief, not shared by their white counterparts. One Army major, an Iraq War veteran, gave voice to many others in the military, telling me, “The military hates Obama.”)

CENTCOM’s environment, and especially that of the Joint Intelligence Center (JIC) which houses all the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analysts, felt political the moment you walked through its doors. Televisions in the lobby, the reception areas, in private office spaces, and even in the employee and visitor’s cafe—were tuned to FOX News. It was Orwellian in its pervasiveness. People at their desks were streaming FOX News while reading Drudge and Breitbart. (By 2018, more of the common areas began showing sports or weather channels to get away from the politics, which had made some uncomfortable.)

It was the doggedness with which Trump went after Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that made him their hero. The FBI couldn’t be trusted any longer after letting “Crooked Hillary” off the hook, so anything the FBI and CIA revealed about Russian interference in the 2016 election automatically lacked any credibility. None of it was believed.

This was especially alarming coming from intelligence analysts who were parroting Trump’s insults of the former Intelligence Community chiefs who had sounded the alarms regarding the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians. A very senior NSA liaison intelligence officer said he had proof the hacking of Hillary Clinton’s emails was “an inside job” and not really WikiLeaks and the Russians. It was hard to understand why these military intelligence experts felt compelled to denigrate so vigorously the assessments of the rest of the intelligence community, specifically when it came to Trump—nor the ferocity with which they personally defended him.

In their private time many watched internet trolls. “Did you see this! Hillary has Parkinson’s disease!” Were our military intelligence analysts a victim of the same Russian influence campaign that affected so much of the civilian population? Like a scene from The Manchurian Candidate, if you criticized Trump, they answered with “Hillary” did this, or “Obama” did that. It was almost as if they’d been programmed.

The parroting of Trump took other disturbing turns. One also began to hear in casual conversation analysts at CENTCOM making disparaging remarks against the Western coalition partners—the Canadians, Brits, French, Germans—and against NATO in general, as “deadbeats.” Officers back from visits to Gulf States boasted how mutual the relief was in the region that Obama was gone, Hillary had lost, and there was “a new sheriff in town.”

The Arab Gulf states couldn’t believe their luck—especially the Saudis. No one would bother them anymore about human rights. They would get the military assistance they wanted unconditionally, and, if they played their cards right, they could even get Trump to attack Iran.

The Israelis were downright joyful over Trump’s election. Even during the media outrage over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi hands, one analyst argued, “He wasn’t even an American citizen,” parroting what he had just heard Trump say over FOX News—as if that should have made a difference when chopping up a journalist.
[…]
The gulf between the civilian world and the military has been growing since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—wars that have touched more American families than at any time since Vietnam. Vietnam created a huge cultural divide in the U.S. that Richard Nixon successfully exploited, earning him one of the largest electoral victories in American history. But something more sinister may be afoot as we approach the 2020 election. Trump has done what Nixon ultimately could not do. He has, so far, avoided real accountability to Congress. He has successfully blurred the lines between lies and truth in the minds of the American public. He has undermined the institutions that have kept the U.S. safe since World War ll.

The extent of the visceral hatred much of the military feels for Democrats, the “deep state” and the “fake news media” is a new phenomenon. The belief that there is indeed a coup being orchestrated against President Trump is a weapon Trump has in his arsenal, depending how far down the road to authoritarianism he decides to go. But Trump would need to deeply fracture the military first, and that is something to watch for. Most members of the armed forces are honorable, patriotic Americans who would never take part in such a scheme, despite their support for Trump. But a significant portion just might.

Good lord. 

Back in the day, we scruffy bloggers made a very big deal out of the fact that Rush Limbaugh was being piped in to the troops over in Iraq. This was why.  The same brainwashing and exploitation of the racist, misogynist impulses of some men in larger society were bound to affect some people in the military as well. And so it has. Trump’s cult has a military arm.

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His “great and unmatched wisdom”

by digby

Your president ladies and gentlemen:

….the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2019

Tom gave a good rundown of the issue this morning including the official White House statement Trump had his flunkies distribute last night after Trump spoke with Erdogan. That tweet is how the president reacted to the bipartisan criticism he’s been getting for this abrupt, impulsive decision.

He gave Erdogan the go-ahead, said fuck you to our allies, the Kurds, and now the various agencies are flailing about trying to figure out how to handle this.

The entirety of the United States government doesnt have a damn clue what it is that POTUS just did with Turkey and Syria. SRS is spinning in backgrounders. Military is bewildered. No one knows.

— Aaron Stein (@aaronstein1) October 7, 2019

This is as crazy as it gets.

And yet … Republicans will protect him anyway.

By the way, apropos of nothing, this move will benefit Russia above all. Of course.

Update:

Here’s a statement from the State Department:

The Department of Defense made clear to Turkey – as did the President – that we do not endorse a Turkish operation in Northern Syria. The U.S. Armed Forces will not support, or be involved in any such operation. 

In conversations between the Department and the Turkish military we have consistently stressed that coordination and cooperation were the best path toward security in the area. Secretary Esper and Chairman Milley reiterated to their respective Turkish counterparts that unilateral action creates risks for Turkey.  As the President has stated, Turkey would be responsible, along with European nations and others, for thousands of ISIS fighters who had been captured and defeated in the campaign lead by the United States.  

We will work with our other NATO allies and Coalition partners to reiterate to Turkey the possible destabilizing consequences of potential actions to Turkey, the region, and beyond.

Uhm. That’s 100% bullshit. Here’s what the White House said last night:

Update 2:

Chaos ensues. The following tweet was deleted:

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Trump’s unprecedented power grab

by digby

He’s an original, that’s for sure:

One day in October 1992, four Republican congressmen showed up in the Oval Office with an audacious recommendation. President George Bush was losing his re-election race, and they told him the only way to win was to hammer his challenger Bill Clinton’s patriotism for protesting the Vietnam War while in London and visiting Moscow as a young man.

Mr. Bush was largely on board with that approach. But what came next crossed the line, as far as he and his team were concerned. “They wanted us to contact the Russians or the British to seek information on Bill Clinton’s trip to Moscow,” James A. Baker III, Mr. Bush’s White House chief of staff, wrote in a memo later that day. “I said we absolutely could not do that.”

President Trump insists he and his attorney general did nothing wrong by seeking damaging information about his domestic opponents from Ukraine, Australia, Italy and Britain or by publicly calling on China to investigate his most prominent Democratic challenger. But for every other White House in the modern era, Republican and Democratic, the idea of enlisting help from foreign powers for political advantage was seen as unwise and politically dangerous, if not unprincipled.

A survey of 10 former White House chiefs of staff under Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama found that none recalled any circumstance under which the White House had solicited or accepted political help from other countries, and all said they would have considered the very idea out of bounds.

They clearly didn’t understand that the president has an “absolute right” to use his “unmatched wisdom” in any way he deems necessary. Kind of quaint when you think about it.

Keep in mind that the person who continuously whispers in the president’s ear that he has unlimited power is none other than Bill Barr. I wrote about one Barr episode back in 1992 when he was working for Bush Sr:

[I]n Barr’s previous tenure as attorney general, under George H.W. Bush, he tasked the U.S. attorney in Arkansas with digging up Whitewater dirt on then-candidate Bill Clinton during the 1992 presidential campaign. 

As the legendary Gene Lyons noted in the Arkansas Times back in 2016, that U.S. attorney knew that the story was bunk as well as inappropriate and refused to proceed, telling Barr he would not be a party to such an overtly political act, and pointing out that “even media questions about such an investigation … all too often publicly purport to legitimize what can’t be proven.“ Indeed they do.

I’m going to guess he wasn’t one of the people who counseled Bush Sr about asking the Russians for assistance in smearing Clinton.

Trump will tell his ecstatic cult members that his actions are the actions of a “winner” who won’t let America be “taken advantage of” anymore like those previous losers. And he’s not just talking about being “taken advantage of” by foreign countries. He’s talking about being taken advantage of by simpering losers who insist that the president doesn’t have unlimited power to do anything he pleases. And they will cheer and cheer.

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Trump, Barr, Pompeo all drinking Pap’s coffee

by digby

My Salon column this morning:

Here’s what’s okay: If we feel there’s corruption, like I feel there was in the 2016 campaign — there was tremendous corruption against me — if we feel there’s corruption, we have a right to go to a foreign country. And just so you know — just so you know, I was investigated. I was investigated. Okay? Me. Me. In my campaign — I ran, I won. I was invest- — you won’t say that, will you? I was investigated. I was investigated. And they think it could have been by UK. They think it could have been by Australia. They think it could have been by Italy. So when you get down to it, I was investigated by the Obama administration. By the Obama administration I was investigated. — President Trump, October 4, 2019

Last Friday I wrote about the origins of the Joe Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theory, when the same professional hitmen who pushed the “crooked Hillary” story about alleged influence-peddling with the Clinton Foundation produced a book alleging that Biden had leveraged his power as vice president to help his son’s business. (The evidence shows that not only did Biden not do that, the actions he took were actually detrimental to his son’s case.)

All that is almost hilarious in light of this AP report that broke late on Sunday night in which it was revealed that close associates of Trump’s fixer Rudy Giuliani and Energy Secretary Rick Perry have been doing some lucrative influence-peddling of their own, trying to leverage their relationships for shares in a natural gas company in Ukraine. Trump is now trying to blame Perry for that misguided phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to the impeachment inquiry. It’s never a dull moment in this Ukraine scandal.

It’s clear, however, as the quote above shows, that while Trump was happy to tar his political rival Joe Biden, his true interest in Ukraine lies in his ongoing obsession with a daft conspiracy theory that he and Russia were both set up by the FBI, the CIA and the foreign services of several key U.S. allies, along with Ukraine, the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. The ostensible goal was to destroy his campaign and if that didn’t work, his presidency. Trump seems to have convinced Attorney General Bill Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and at least a few U.S. senators that this is a legitimate line of inquiry.

Barr has been running around the world, accompanied at times by the special prosecutor he assigned to investigate the matter, interviewing the heads of the intelligence services of various allies. He asked the president himself to intervene with certain heads of state to get their cooperation with the probe.

The specific aspect of the conspiracy theory that took Barr to Italy this past week was laid out in detail by Lucian K. Truscott IV in Salon on Sunday. In a nutshell, it all revolves around onetime Trump “coffee boy” George Papadopoulos and Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious “professor” who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton — which Papadopoulos in turn drunkenly shared with the Australian high commissioner to the U.K. in a pub a few weeks later. That led to the Aussies sounding the alarm to the U.S., which led to the FBI taking a look to see whether Russians were trying to interfere in the presidential election.

Giuliani has been running his mouth about this for months calling Mifsud a “counterintelligence operative, either Maltese or Italian” and Papadapoulos has been tweeting as if he’s a high level investigator for the Department of Justice:

AG Barr has been on official travel in Italy for the past two days. As I explained months ago, on Fox and in my book, Mifsud was an Italian operative handled by the CIA. Italy holds the keys to the kingdom. Right government, right time. 🇺🇸🇮🇹— George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) September 27, 2019

He’s quite the super-sleuth. It’s his wild imagination that has fueled this particular conspiracy theory, along with the bizarre 4chan storyline that suggests the security firm CrowdStrike framed Russia on behalf of the DNC. Trump mentioned that in the phone call with Zelensky, but seems to have embellished the conspiracy theory even beyond the ludicrous narrative right-wingers had previously laid out.

According to NBC News, when the president said “I guess you have one of your wealthy people. … The server, they say Ukraine has it,” people who knew the context thought that “Trump’s call felt detached from any sense of logic.” How unusual.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., seems to think this whole thing makes sense, however. He appeared on “Meet the Press” on Sunday and shared his thoughts on the matter:

WATCH: @SenRonJohnson is asked why he winced & brings up a "conspiracy theory."@chucktodd: "I have no idea why we're going here. … Can we please answer the question I asked you instead of trying to make Donald Trump feel better here that you're not criticizing him?" #MTP pic.twitter.com/TavQVrTCqt— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) October 6, 2019

If that sounded a bit scattered, here’s Pompeo pretending that everyone in the administration is just doing their jobs:

“It is not only appropriate, but it is our duty to investigate if we think there was interference in the election of 2016,” Mr. Pompeo said in Athens. “I think everyone recognizes that governments have an obligation — indeed, a duty — to ensure that elections happen with integrity, without interference from any government, whether that’s the Ukrainian government or any other. And so inquiries with respect to that are completely important.”

He added: “There’s been some suggestion somehow that it would be inappropriate for the United States government to engage in that activity, and I see it just precisely the opposite. I see our duty to engage in activity that ensures that we have fair, free elections.”

Keep in mind that Pompeo was first appointed as Trump’s CIA director, and led his own investigation which found no wrongdoing by the agency. Yet he came out and gave that sanctimonious little speech legitimizing this loony conspiracy theory. Even he has to pay homage to Trump and his consigliere Giuliani’s febrile fantasies. Frankly, he doesn’t seem to mind.

The Wall Street Journal reports that U.S. allies are becoming increasingly irritated by this ridiculous crusade. Barr is going outside the normal channels, riling up internal politics in their countries and basically making a hash of America’s foreign policy. He and Pompeo may just be trying to soothe Trump’s massive ego — or maybe they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid too. In the end, that doesn’t much matter. The most powerful nation on earth is clearly being run by a bunch of kooks. It’s hard to see why anyone else would ever trust us again.

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“A moment of American betrayal”
by Tom Sullivan

President Trump had another of his infamous calls with foreign heads of state on Sunday. In speaking with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump agreed to withdraw U.S. troops from the Syrian border clearing the way for a Turkish offensive into northern Syria.

The White House Sunday evening re-declared victory over ISIS and announced U.S. troops will withdraw from the border area. The executive press office issued the following statement:

“The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial ‘Caliphate,‘ will no longer be in the immediate area,” the White House said.

The withdrawal leaves the United States’ Kurdish allies in northern Syria vulnerable to attack by Turkish forces.

Trump remarked last summer that Erdogan “has a big problem with the Kurds … and he was going to wipe out the Kurds, who helped us with ISIS.” Trump claimed he told Erdogan, “You can’t do it. And he didn’t do it.”

That was June.

The Washington Post last week quoted Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Sean Robertson as saying “any ‘uncoordinated military operations by Turkey would be of grave concern as it would undermine our shared interest of a secure northeast Syria and the enduring defeat of’ the Islamic State group.”

That was Friday. Then Trump had a phone call.

The Post reports this morning:

The fast moving developments threatened a fresh military conflagration in a large swath of northern Syria, stretching from east of the Euphrates River to the border with Iraq. Syrian Kurds had established an autonomous zone in the area during more than eight years of Syria’s civil war.

Ankara, however, has been increasingly unnerved by the Kurdish presence, and the close ties between U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a militant group that has fought a long insurgency against the Turkish state.

For months, Erdogan has been threatening an imminent invasion, as Trump administration officials attempted to work out an accommodation that would satisfy Turkish demands for border security while providing a measure of protection for the U.S.-allied Syrian-Kurdish force.

But on Sunday, the United States appeared to throw up its hands. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the Turkish leader would “soon be moving forward” with dispatching troops to battle the Kurdish forces, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. Ankara views the group as a terrorist-linked entity, but they have fought closely with the U.S. military as a primary partner against the Islamic State.

Trump “agreed to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria in late 2018, after speaking with Erdogan, but then reversed himself after pushback from advisers and Republican allies concerned that Turkey would slaughter America’s Kurdish allies,” The Week recounts. Trump last night gave Erdogan a green light.

Syria Kurdish official told us, reacting to Trump’s overnight decision. 
“The Americans are traitors. They have abandoned us to a Turkish massacre.
We can no longer fight against isis and have to defend ourselves. This could allow isis to return to the region.”— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) October 7, 2019

A moment of American betrayal – and these moments matter. The US partnered with Syrian Kurds. Together they fought and defeated the isis state. Now Trump is abandoning the Kurds to allow a Turkish invasion. (And don’t forget the Kurds are guarding thousands of isis members…)— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) October 7, 2019

The Kurds fear “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide,” and a “Turkish massacre,” NBC News’ Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel reports. Kurdish fighters’ attention now turns to their own survival. If ISIS returns to the region, the Americans will be the ones responsible, a Kurdish official tells Engel.

"A state of absolute concern, panic even, among our very close Kurdish allies after this overnight surprise decision." — @RichardEngel pic.twitter.com/JfOga4jEVB— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) October 7, 2019

This morning, Trump issued a series of tweets washing his hands of the situation. “Wag the dog” stories are sure to fly this morning. As distractions from the House impeachment inquiry go, slaughter of U.S. allies with Trump’s blessing is a huge one.

Given the impeachment quagmire Trump has created for himself, it is only a matter of when and where some MAGA true-believer decides it is time to water the tree of liberty with other Americans’ blood. People are going to die. But it seems Trump’s Syria decision will prompt slaughter of U.S. allies overseas first.

Even Trump’s white lap cat, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is balking, as is a fuming Brian Kilmeade of “Fox & Friends.”

Helluva Monday and a helluva distraction.

It’s all one scandal

by digby

I’ve been saying this for a while (even earlier today) but Jeffrey Toobin lays it all out in the New Yorker in a way that I hope people will take seriously:

[T]he Russia and Ukraine scandals are, in fact, one story. Indeed, the President’s false denials in both of them capture the common themes: soliciting help from foreign interests for partisan gain, followed by obstruction of efforts to uncover what happened. Both, too, share roots in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Mueller’s two indictments of Russian interests—the first involving the use of social media and the second the hacking of Democratic Party e-mails—are perhaps the most detailed chronicle ever published of foreign interference in a U.S. political campaign. Trump’s team was appreciative. When a public-relations adviser to a Russian oligarch’s family e-mailed Donald Trump, Jr., offering dirt on Hillary Clinton that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” the candidate’s son gave a straightforward reply: “If it’s what you say I love it.”

Just two years earlier, Putin had invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. The government in Kiev went back and forth between leaders who wanted to accommodate Putin’s regime and others who wanted to enlist the help of the West to push back against it. The political consultant of choice for the pro-Russian faction was Paul Manafort, who served as Trump’s campaign chair in the summer of 2016. As Mueller documented, Manafort passed proprietary campaign polling data to pro-Russian Ukrainians. The campaign-era Trump portrayed in the report suffered from one major limitation: he wasn’t President. He clearly welcomed Putin’s assistance, and promised a better relationship with Russia, but he was still just a businessman from New York. The whistle-blower’s complaint is the epilogue to Mueller’s report: the coming of age of an aspiring colluder.

It’s important to note, as well, that, in the Ukrainian chapter, Trump has done Putin’s bidding, to the extent that he can, going so far as to embrace a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 campaign. The rest of the U.S. government has never been as enamored of Putin as Trump is. That includes Republicans in Congress, who joined the Democrats in voting for military aid to Ukraine. Trump wants no part of conflict with Putin, but the aid package tied his hands. There was a revealing moment in his joint news conference with Zelensky at the United Nations last month. Almost as an aside, Trump said, “I really believe that President Putin would like to do something. I really hope that you and President Putin get together and can solve your problem.” Ukraine doesn’t have a “problem” with Putin—it has an invasion by Putin.

In the July 25th phone call, Trump did what he couldn’t do as a candidate: he tried to leverage the power of the Presidency to extract partisan political advantage. Texts of U.S. officials, released last week, further suggest an attempted quid pro quo. On September 1st, William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Kiev, asked, “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” Gordon Sondland, a former Republican fund-raiser who is Trump’s Ambassador to the European Union, replied, “Call me.”

Mueller did chronicle Trump’s efforts, as President, to interfere with his investigation. Trump made repeated attempts to rein in or fire Mueller, and was saved from that misconduct only by the refusal of people around him (including Don McGahn, his White House counsel; Rob Porter, his staff secretary; and even Corey Lewandowski, his otherwise zealous onetime campaign manager) to carry out his directives. The lesson of the past few weeks is that those restraining figures have left the building, literally and figuratively. Trump is currently surrounded by people like Barr and Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, who are willing to debase their offices to indulge Trump’s abuse of power. The unhinged arias of Rudolph Giuliani, his personal lawyer, are a constant from the Russian chapter to the Ukrainian. In customary fashion, Trump has sought to normalize his corruption, by bragging that he could recruit even more countries, including China, to conduct political investigations for him. That’s still an abuse of power, even though he’s now doing it in public, rather than bothering to try to hide it.

Toobin points out that this behavior is accelerating. And it’s now in the hands of the congress to do something about it.

The Republicans are so far proving that all the predictions of their blind, servile partisanship are true. So impeachment will be about educating the public and laying out the high crimes of the president so that there is a clear marker for the future of how this president abused his office for personal gain. Hopefully, we have one more chance for a fair election or all of this is probably moot.

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He should have listened to Mother. She never liked Trump.

by digby

I guess nobody cares about this sort of blatant inconsistency but it’s good to document it anyway:

“The fact that my predecessor had a son who was paid $50,000 a month to be on a Ukrainian board, at the time that vice president Biden was leading the Obama Administration’s efforts in Ukraine, I think is worth looking into.” – VP @mike_pence

Drain the swamp! pic.twitter.com/CU1NHPmUAS

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 3, 2019

Here’s Pence back when he pretended to have morals and ethics. During one of the vice-presidential debates, Pence said, “This is basic stuff. Foreign donors — and certainly foreign governments — cannot participate in the American political process.”

Oh. pic.twitter.com/S3n35vxfzv

— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) September 25, 2019

And here’s Huckleberry Graham just two years ago:

2017 Lindsey Graham felt very differently about whether or not it was OK for a politician to engage a foreign government in American politics than 2019 Lindsey Graham. pic.twitter.com/xmAMjE09qH

— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) September 25, 2019

We’re way beyond hypocrisy at this point. These conspiracy theories are wrecking the country’s foreign policy and national security. Pence is clearly joined at the hip with Trump and can never say a word against him. Graham, however, is really going the extra mile to get himself re-elected. I almost wonder if he hasn’t actually drunk the kool-aid, though. This is getting ridiculous.

Just a few months ago He said this:

pic.twitter.com/O5U8ZvoBSn

— David Edelstein (@david_edelstein) October 1, 2019

Today:

Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

And in case you missed it, he’s threatening the whistleblowers:

“Here’s what’s going to happen: if the whistleblowers’ allegations are turned into an impeachment article it’s imperative that the whistleblower be interviewed in public, under oath, and cross-examined,” Graham told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” promising that “if that doesn’t happen in the House, I’ll make sure it happens in the Senate.”

Graham pointed to the need for Trump to be able to confront his accusers, saying, “There can be no valid impeachment process unless the president can confront the witnesses against him.”

Valerie Plame redux …

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Why would anyone doubt the 2016 collusion after what we’ve seen this week?

by digby

Jim Jordan and others went on TV and said his comments about China investigating Biden earlier were just a joke.

No they weren’t. This is from this morning:

….and separately got 1.5 Billion Dollars from China despite no experience and for no apparent reason. There is NO WAY these can be legitimate transactions? As lawyers & others have stated, as President, I have an OBLIGATION to look into possible, or probable, CORRUPTION!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2019

….And by the way, I would LOVE running against 1% Joe Biden – I just don’t think it’s going to happen. Sleepy Joe won’t get to the starting gate, & based on all of the money he & his family probably “extorted,” Joe should hang it up. I wouldn’t want him dealing with China & U!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2019

Can anyone still doubt that the man who wrote those tweets colluded with Russia in 2016?

In light of that I thought I’d just post this explanation of the “collusion” part of the Mueller Report as a reminder:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report focuses only on whether crimes were committed. It addresses two Russian conspiracies to interfere in the 2016 election—one involving a social media influence campaign and the other involving the hacking and dissemination of stolen emails. The Report then addresses whether Trump Campaign associates knowingly entered an agreement with the Russian government to assist those conspiracies.

As many experts have noted, what’s missing from the Mueller Report is the Special Counsel’s counterintelligence findings. We don’t know what the Special Counsel’s Office or the FBI have assessed, for example, with respect to whether Trump associates engaged in reciprocal efforts with Russian agents without entering a criminal agreement to do so, whether Americans have been witting or unwitting Russian assets, and what leverage or influence Moscow may have over particular individuals.

As a shorthand, we may use the term “collusion” to refer to these kinds of activities, which would be implicated in a counterintelligence analysis—though, as Asha Rangappa and I have written, the more analytically precise issues to consider are whether Trump Campaign associates “coordinated with, cooperated with, encouraged, or gave support” to the Russia/WikiLeaks election interference activities. Those are important questions regardless of whether such activities amounted to crimes, regardless of whether individuals’ actions and intentions can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, regardless of whether Americans acted as unwitting Kremlin assets in support of Russian operations, and regardless of whether individuals and organizations can be prosecuted without endangering First Amendment interests.

Although the Mueller Report does not squarely address these questions of “collusion” that fall outside the scope of potential criminal liability, it can be mined for substantive information that provides some meaningful answers.

What follows is a detailed guide to the Mueller Report’s evidence on collusion. The analysis discusses affirmative evidence and countervailing evidence in the Report, references the Special Counsel’s court filings and reliable news reports that help shed additional light on information in the Report, and identifies significant loose ends that the investigation was unable to answer.

I. Summary of Major Findings

The redacted Mueller Report documents a series of activities that show strong evidence of collusion. Or, more precisely, it provides significant evidence that Trump Campaign associates coordinated with, cooperated with, encouraged, or gave support to the Russia/WikiLeaks election interference activities. The Report documents the following actions (each of which is analyzed in detail in Part II):

1. Trump was receptive to a Campaign national security adviser’s (George Papadopoulos) pursuit of a back channel to Putin.

2. Kremlin operatives provided the Campaign a preview of the Russian plan to distribute stolen emails.

3. The Trump Campaign chairman and deputy chairman (Paul Manafort and Rick Gates) knowingly shared internal polling data and information on battleground states with a Russian spy; and the Campaign chairman worked with the Russian spy on a pro-Russia “peace” plan for Ukraine.

4. The Trump Campaign chairman periodically shared internal polling data with the Russian spy with the expectation it would be shared with Putin-linked oligarch, Oleg Deripaska.

5. Trump Campaign chairman Manafort expected Trump’s winning the presidency would mean Deripaska would want to use Manafort to advance Deripaska’s interests in the United States and elsewhere.

6. Trump Tower meeting: (1) On receiving an email offering derogatory information on Clinton coming from a Russian government official, Donald Trump Jr. “appears to have accepted that offer;” (2) members of the Campaign discussed the Trump Tower meeting beforehand; (3) Donald Trump Jr. told the Russians during the meeting that Trump could revisit the issue of the Magnitsky Act if elected.

7. A Trump Campaign official told the Special Counsel he “felt obliged to object” to a GOP Platform change on Ukraine because it contradicted Trump’s wishes; however, the investigation did not establish that Gordon was directed by Trump.

8. Russian military hackers may have followed Trump’s July 27, 2016 public statement “Russia if you’re listening …” within hours by targeting Clinton’s personal office for the first time.

9. Trump requested campaign affiliates to get Clinton’s emails, which resulted in an individual apparently acting in coordination with the Campaign claiming to have successfully contacted Russian hackers.

10. The Trump Campaign—and Trump personally—appeared to have advanced knowledge of future WikiLeaks releases.

11. The Trump Campaign coordinated campaign-related public communications based on future WikiLeaks releases.

12. Michael Cohen, on behalf of the Trump Organization, brokered a secret deal for a Trump Tower Moscow project directly involving Putin’s inner circle, at least until June 2016.

13. During the presidential transition, Jared Kushner and Eric Prince engaged in secret back channel communications with Russian agents. (1) Kushner suggested to the Russian Ambassador that they use a secure communication line from within the Russian Embassy to speak with Russian Generals; and (2) Prince and Kushner’s friend Rick Gerson conducted secret back channel meetings with a Putin agent to develop a plan for U.S.-Russian relations.

14. During the presidential transition, in coordination with other members of the Transition Team, Michael Flynn spoke with the Russian Ambassador to prevent a tit for tat Russian response to the Obama administration’s imposition of sanctions for election interference; the Russians agreed not to retaliate saying they wanted a good relationship with the incoming administration.

During the course of 2016, Trump Campaign associates failed to report any of the Russian/WikiLeaks overtures to federal law enforcement, publicly denied any contacts with Russians/WikiLeaks, and actively encouraged the public to doubt that Russia was behind the hacking and distribution of stolen emails.

The details follow at the link.

Someday we may understand why the Mueller Report really landed with such a thud. I suspect it’s mostly because we had already heard much of it in the press and expectations were that there would be a lot of new information. Barr’s end-run certainly contributed. And I think there was a belief that maybe he was just too dumb back then to know that he was doing anything wrong.

Nope. There is no excuse now. He thought it was fine then and even after everything that happened he’s just plowing ahead doing it again.

And the Republican Party is rolling with it.

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This is what Trump supporters watch and find convincing

by digby

You’ll notice that Howard Kurtz sits there like a droopy, rotting potted plant:

John Amato:

He joined Howard Kurtz on Fox News’ Media Buzz and Kurtz asked him about the impeachable crime of investigating a political rival, “When he came on the camera and urged China and Ukraine to investigate the Bidens — he [Trump] doesn’t see anything wrong with it, he admitted it… Didn’t he undercut your defense?”

Giuliani replied, “The President of the United States has every right to ask countries to help us in a criminal investigation that should be undertaken.”

Giuliani is counting on none of the Fox News viewers to remember that there is no criminal investigation; that it was investigated and found to have no substance; and most importantly, that Rudy Giuliani is not part of the United States government in any way and has no standing.

It happens to involve a political opponent, Kurtz interjected.

“I can’t help that. I mean, suppose the political opponent committed murder. What are we supposed to do if he’s a political opponent? Don’t investigate them?”

Amato suggests that this “murder” example could easily filter into the fever swamps a la Vince Foster and who knows? It wouldn’t surprise me. Things are getting just that crazy.

By the way, the entire Republican Party except maybe Mitt Romney (for the moment) is lining up behind this lunacy.
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Barr’s Bizarro World crusade

by digby

Following up on the post below, featuring Ron Johnson’s ludicrous conspiracy mongering, Here’s a New York Times rundown on Bill Barr’s mission to prove that the Intelligence Community in cahoots with Australia, Italy, the UK and Ukraine to set up Trump in 2016 and blame Russia for it.

They are actually doing this:

After a jet carrying Attorney General William P. Barr touched down in Rome late last month, some diplomats and intelligence officials at the American Embassy were unsure why he had come to the Eternal City. They were later surprised, two officials said, to discover that he had circumvented protocols in arranging the trip, where he met with Italian political and intelligence officials.

Everything about the visit was unusual — perhaps most of all, the attorney general’s companion and his mission. Mr. Barr and a top federal prosecutor, John H. Durham, who is reviewing the origins of the Russia investigation, sought evidence that might bolster a conspiracy theory long nurtured by President Trump: that some of America’s closest allies plotted with his “deep state” enemies in 2016 to try to prevent him from winning the presidency.

Mr. Trump has embraced the theory in his interactions with world leaders since the days after the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, testified to lawmakers in July that his investigation found insufficient evidence to charge any Trump associates with conspiring with Russia to help subvert the election. An emboldened Mr. Trump — who could benefit politically if Mr. Durham were to unearth facts that undermined Mr. Mueller’s investigation — began pressing close allies to cooperate with the review.

The trip to Italy generated criticism that Mr. Barr was doing the president’s bidding and micromanaging a supposedly independent investigation. But Mr. Barr seems to have embraced his role, signaling that he has made the investigation a priority and is personally overseeing it.

Now, glimpses of the Durham review are emerging. Investigators have interviewed F.B.I. officials about their work in 2016, examined intelligence files from around that time and cast a wide net in setting up interviews with a foreign cast of characters who played disparate roles in the pre-election drama.

One of Mr. Trump’s efforts to aid the review, a discussion with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine one day after Mr. Mueller’s testimony, so unnerved White House officials that it sparked a whistle-blower complaint, as well as formal impeachment proceedings and questions about whether the president hijacked American diplomacy for political gain.

Mr. Barr has portrayed the review as an attempt to ferret out any abuse of power by law enforcement or intelligence officials. But it is also a politically charged effort that takes aim at the conclusions of the American law enforcement and intelligence communities about Russia’s election interference based on years of work by multiple agencies.

The review could fray diplomatic relations with overseas partners and affect Mr. Trump’s political fortunes. And it is testing traditional boundaries drawn to keep the powers of American law enforcement out of electoral politics.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. This article is based on documents and interviews with current and former American and foreign officials as well as others familiar with the Durham review.

The review already created a minor diplomatic dust-up when Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and one of the president’s closest allies in Congress, fired off a letter to leaders of Britain, Italy and Australia on Wednesday, urging them to help “investigate the origins and extent of foreign influence in the 2016 election.”

All three countries play some role in a counternarrative pushed by the president’s supporters that the real story of election sabotage in 2016 was not the well-documented saga of Russian internet trolls and leaked stolen emails, but anti-Trump elements in the intelligence and law enforcement agencies working with sympathetic foreign allies to try to block Mr. Trump’s victory.

Mr. Graham asserted without evidence in his letter that an Australian former diplomat was involved in the supposed plot. Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Joe Hockey, responded sharply, rejecting Mr. Graham’s description of the role of the diplomat, Alexander Downer.

The president further stoked the flames on Friday, suggesting a broad foreign plot against him. “And just so you know — just so you know, I was investigated,” he told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. “I was investigated. O.K.? Me. Me. I was investigated. I was investigated. And they think it could have been by U.K. They think it could have been by Australia. They think it could have been by Italy.”

 The Republican party is going to go all-in on this lunacy.

Is it not yet clear that they will never step in to stop him? I’m sure you can see where this is going.

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