I think it is imperative for all thoughtful Americans to understand fully both sides in today’s fraught, partisan political atmosphere. Seriously, conservatives have values, too, and in fairness, we should extend them the courtesy of learning exactly what they hold dear.
As promised, the House Intelligence Committee released its report on the Ukraine investigation on Tuesday. It was another of those days when everyone on TV was madly reading a pile of documents trying to find any nuggets of new information while at the same time attempting to give the public a sense of the larger narrative. This time there was no William Barr on hand to spin things in favor of the president, so the media managed to tell the real story. It is actually more devastating than anticipated.
To make the whole thing even more frantic and surreal than it already was, on split-screen TV President Trump could be seen in England making an utter fool out of himself and the nation at the NATO summit. He was predictably unable to maintain a sense of dignity or pride, lying and whining at every turn. It was a very strange news cycle, to say the least.
The Intel Committee report was proclaimed by most legal observers to be a very thorough and professional document. In a nutshell, it says:
Trump’s scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign. The President placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the U.S. presidential election process, and endangered U.S. national security.
It also makes a strong case that the president and his henchmen obstructed Congress, intimidated witnesses, became the first administration in history to thoroughly stonewall obstruct an impeachment inquiry, and quite likely lied about that “I want nothing” phone call. It unravels all the byzantine relationships between Fox News lawyers, right-wing journalists and various Ukrainian political figures with their own axes to grind.
In a surprise revelation, it appears likely that the ranking Republican member of the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., was in on the scheme at least as long ago as last spring. The report includes phone records that indicate Nunes was speaking to Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas, his Ukrainian-born colleague who was recently indicted by the Southern District of New York. Oddly, in all those hearings over the past few weeks during which Nunes ranted and raved about various made-up conspiracies, he never uttered a word about knowing any of the people involved in all this.
As of Tuesday night, the committee voted for the report to be delivered to the House Judiciary Committee under Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., for consideration of impeachment articles. Those hearings begin Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, since Daddy was out of town, Trump’s most obedient servant, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, took the opportunity to try to reclaim some self-respect, telling reporters that indeed “it was the Russians” who meddled in the 2016 election. “I’m 1,000% confident that the hack of the DNC was by Russian operatives, no one else,” Graham said.
Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah went further, departing from delusional GOP orthodoxy to declare, “I saw no evidence from our intelligence community, nor from the representatives today for the Department of State, that there is any evidence of any kind of that suggests that Ukraine interfered in our elections.” It’s unlikely these comments mean much, but it’s telling that the “Hillary and Ukraine framed Russia and Trump” story — being pitched so hard in recent days by Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana — may not hold up among the entire Republican caucus. It looks more like they’re going with “Trump is just a crusader against corruption wherever he sees it,” which needless to say is hilarious.
In case you were wondering if any of this is getting under Trump’s skin, it is. Even before the House Intel report was released, he had already lost his composure. Appearing for various photo-ops with world leaders, he spoke at length to the press, making some of the most embarrassing comments he’s ever made in a foreign country. (Which is a really high standard.) Rather than taking the wiser course and saying nothing about impeachment, he leaned in hard:
Trump on Adam Schiff: “I think he’s a maniac. I think Adam Schiff is a deranged human being. I think he grew up with a complex for lots of reasons that are obvious. I think he’s a very sick man.” pic.twitter.com/Ta591vESgj
That is a perfect example of projection. They’ll be using that example to teach university psychology courses for decades to come.
But our Great Leader was just getting started. During the first of his meetings, he “defended” NATO by criticizing his former BFF, French President Emmanuel Macron, for calling the organization “brain dead.” Trump described those comments as “very, very nasty” and “disrespectful,” the kind of language he customarily reserves for women who displease him. No doubt that caused many of those watching to spontaneously spit out their beverages at the spectacle of this guy possessing the gall to chastise anyone for being nasty and disrespectful. He later refused to commit to NATO’s collective defense pledge if whatever country was under attack wasn’t “paid up” on its dues, revealing once again that he remains obstinately ignorant about how NATO funding works.
Later on, when he appeared with Macron, he proclaimed again that most of the ISIS prisoners captured in Syria are Europeans and insolently “offered” to send them to France. Macron wasn’t having it and went right back at him, correctly noting that most of the ISIS prisoners are from Arab or Muslim nations and only a small minority are from Europe. The French president also made it clear, in so many words, that Trump’s monumental blunder by allowing Turkey to invade northern Syria had made things worse.
Trump also said he still has “confidence” in North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un but then called him “Rocket Man” again. He cozied up to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a source of much angst among the members for his recent public gestures toward Russia.
Trump wasn’t done. He offhandedly said he might wait until after the 2020 elections to strike a trade deal with China, sending the stock market plunging. When asked whether the U.S. supported Iranian protesters who are challenging their government on a large scale, he responded: “I don’t want to comment on that, but the answer is no. But I don’t want to comment.” Both he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had publicly stated the opposite the day before.
Then it got better. Trump launched into an incoherent brag about U.S. pillage in Syria, which would be a war crime:
We have taken the oil. I’ve taken the oil. We should have done it in other locations, frankly, where we were. I can name four of them right now, but we’ve taken the oil … our great soldiers are right around the oil where we’ve got the oil.
He said that in the future, when there is a “Democrat” president and a Republican Congress, the Republicans will “hopefully” impeach that president. “They’ll do the same thing because somebody picked an orange out of a refrigerator and you don’t like it, so let’s go and impeach him,” he said.
That’s just a random sample of crazy highlights from the president’s first day at the NATO gathering. So, yes, I’d say there’s little doubt that the impeachment process is making him even more unhinged than usual. From the reactions of his peers, it appears he has lost whatever bizarre mystique he might have once had:
If you ever wondered what world leaders chat about in private, well here at NATO they’re gossiping about #Trump.
Leaked Video shows Canada’s Trudeau (with a 🍺), France’s Macron, UK’s Johnson making fun of Trump’s long pressers and his staff reactions: pic.twitter.com/5E0KISv1jo
Our president is an utter fool. Those guys all know it, and so does the leadership of the Republican Party. Imagine how much better off the whole world would be right now if that party’s elected officials would do their constitutional duty and put an end to this nightmare.
Update: Trump found out about that video and took his ball and flounced on to Air Force one to have himself a good old-fashioned cry.
“He’s two-faced,” Trump said, before adding, “I find him to be a very nice guy but the truth is I called him out on the fact that he’s not paying 2% and I guess he’s not very happy about it.” Trump has long griped about NATO members paying less than their “fair share” toward the alliance, and brought up the issue repeatedly over the two-day anniversary meeting this week.
Trudeau, speaking with French President Emmanuel Macron, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, said that Trump “was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top.”
“You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor,” Trudeau said at another point in the video, raising his eyebrows and motioning with his hand for effect.
None of the politicians in the hot-mic video, which emerged on social media Tuesday evening, mentioned Trump by name. But Trudeau reportedly said later Wednesday that it was Trump’s surprise announcement of the location for next year’s Group of Seven summit that made “his team’s jaws drop to the floor.”
He blames Trudeau but the fact is that his pal Boris Johnson was laughing at him too, along with Macron. They all laugh at him. Of course they do.
Here’s an interesting idea for Democrats to ponder: Suppose President Trump is impeached and then Nancy Pelosi does not immediately send the case to the Senate, but instead declares that it would be wrong to hold a trial in the heat of an election year, and that it could be picked up later.
Of course, Mr. Trump would yell bloody murder about his “right” to a speedy trial, but this is a political not a criminal matter, and no such right exists. Besides, didn’t Mitch McConnell invoke the same in the Merrick Garland case?
This would leave Mr. Trump twisting in the wind while the Dems pursued their winning kitchen table agenda. Of course, a Democratic victory would make the case moot, while a Democratic defeat would leave the option open to try to remove him.
Democrats will be serious and sober. Lacking any real defense, Republicans will put on a circus.
Democrats hope to convince us all why the man in the video clip below, Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States, should be removed from office.
Trump on Adam Schiff: "I think he's a maniac. I think Adam Schiff is a deranged human being. I think he grew up with a complex for lots of reasons that are obvious. I think he's a very sick man." pic.twitter.com/Ta591vESgj— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 3, 2019
It’s a wonder Trump did not project those words out his eyes in beams of light onto a nearby wall.
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Tuesday night invited psychiatrist Lance Dodes, a former assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, to assess Trump’s mental/emotional state in light of those comments.
Yes, it’s projection, says Dodes. Trump “tells other people that they are what he is.” Dodes believes (as this blogging amateur has said before) that Trump is emotionally and developmentally stunted.
Dodes calls Trump’s level of development “primitive.” Trump is a sociopath who runs a “very simple program” and is “limited by the capacity of a person with early emotional development.”
Asked about the developmental path that produced someone like Trump, Dodes responded, “It’s very early. Almost all people don’t have this problem … The early capacity to have empathy for other people, to identify them as being worthwhile and caring about them, happens in all human beings at a very early point. He doesn’t have that.”
It’s not all Trump doesn’t have.
Former Deputy Director of Intelligence Susan Gordon told an audience Trump is the first in her experience with “no foundation or framework to understand the limits of intelligence,” its purpose, or how the intelligence community discusses it.
Trump’s lens for viewing the world is economic rather than military or political, Gordon said. Officials had to retool briefings to present them framed for a person “who is interested in making trades and deals.”
“One, ‘I don’t think that’s true,'” Gordon told the Women’s Foreign Policy Group.
“The one is ‘I’m not sure I believe that,'” Gordon continued, “and the other is the second order and third order effects. ‘Why is that true? Why are we there? Why is this what you believe? Why do we do that?’ Those sorts of things.”
Basically, coming he views policy solely from an economic perspective: What’s in it for me?
Gordon, who was in line for the top intelligence job following the departure of Dan Coats, resigned in August after learning that the president sought to bypass her elevation.
While the House ponders whether Trump is fit to remain in office, Trump, the man who swore that with him occupying the Oval Office, the world would no longer laugh at us (meaning at him), is attending the NATO summit in London.
Will aides be able to keep Mr. Insecurity from seeing this?
This is quite the video from the CBC showing Trudeau, Macron, and Johnson discussing what appears to be Trump. pic.twitter.com/QDgIXwEwlk— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 4, 2019
The President engaged in this effort to intimidate these public servants to prevent them from cooperating with Congress’ impeachment inquiry. He issued threats, openly discussed possible retaliation, made insinuations about their character and patriotism, and subjected them to mockery and derision—when they deserved the opposite. The President’s attacks were broadcast to millions of Americans—including witnesses’ families, friends, and coworkers.
It is a federal crime to intimidate or seek to intimidate any witness appearing before Congress. This prohibition applies to anyone who knowingly “uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades” another person in order to “influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding.” Violations of this law can carry a criminal sentence of up to 20 years in prison.|
The report called out specific ways he intimidated witnesses before during and after the most recent hearings. What it doesn’t include is his history of doing this during the Mueller investigation. I want witness tampering to be part of his impeachment because he needs to be punished for it. As the report says:
The President’s campaign of intimidation risks discouraging witnesses from coming forward voluntarily, complying with mandatory subpoenas for documents and testimony, and disclosing potentially incriminating evidence in this inquiry and future Congressional investigations.
Impeachment isn’t just a technical legal process. It’s a political process. And it’s an on-going media event.
The logic of the law rules the courtroom. For the politic part of impeachment the public needs more. The public needed to see the damage to individuals from his attacks on them. They needed to hear how he put himself first, instead of the country.
The public needed to hear people describing how Trump demanded favors and tribute for his own personal benefit. People know Presidents use the power of the office to threaten countries. But it was different in this case because the power was used just to benefit Trump.
People saw and heard the competence and sincerity of the professionals testifying. They also saw and heard Trump’s craven, baseless attacks on Amb. Yovanovitch and Lt. Colonel Vindman.
These attacks disgusted people of almost all political stripes. Even Fox News thought Trump’s tweets strayed dangerously close to witness intimidation.(link)
Chairman Schiff stopped the hearing to read Trump’s tweet and address it because he knew it was important. I’m glad he did. It allowed the country to see how intimidation impacts people. People can imagine themselves in this position. Many deal with some level of intimidation in their daily lives.
Monday also brought a story of Trump’s attacks on former FBI lawyer Lisa Page. link
My heart drops to my stomach when I realize he has tweeted about me again. “It’s almost impossible to describe” what it’s like, she told me. “It’s like being punched in the gut. My heart drops to my stomach when I realize he has tweeted about me again. The president of the United States is calling me names to the entire world. He’s demeaning me and my career. It’s sickening.”
“But it’s also very intimidating because he’s still the president of the United States. And when the president accuses you of treason by name, despite the fact that I know there’s no fathomable way that I have committed any crime at all, let alone treason, he’s still somebody in a position to actually do something about that. To try to further destroy my life. It never goes away or stops, even when he’s not publicly attacking me.”
Trump used Page’s story to attack her via Twitter.
When Lisa Page, the lover of Peter Strzok, talks about being “crushed”, and how innocent she is, ask her to read Peter’s “Insurance Policy” text, to her, just in case Hillary loses. Also, why were the lovers text messages scrubbed after he left Mueller. Where are they Lisa?
I read under that tweet people continuing to attack Page. They used the tweet as an opportunity to reinforce their false information about what she did. When the IG report comes out and clears her, will they stop repeating that misinformation? The main stream media repeated it because it’s “news.” But even if they debunk it they are still repeating it. What is to be done?
Trump’s Mob. Movies vs. real life
This weekend I watched The Irishman. It showed the intimidation tactics used by the mob. I watched men–it was always men–threaten and kill people. The killing sent a message to others. “This guy disrespected someone higher up. This is the price he paid. Don’t disrespect us or you will pay the same price.”
Now I could draw the parallels between how the mob rigged the Presidential election to get JFK in power and how Russian helped Trump, but that’s an uneven parallel. The point I want to make is this: Trump’s part of a mob. His lawyers are mob lawyers, including Bill Barr.
Fox News is Mob Media. They are the mobsters who repeat the slurs and attacks on people who go against The Boss. They spread the intimidation and fear to keep others in line.
Who is Trump’s mob boss? Look at who he shows respect to. We don’t know exactly who has the most leverage over Trump but his actions point to a combination of Putin and Russian oligarchs. To extend the analogy they are the men “Downtown.”
How Do We Fight Mobs?
The Irishmen showed us the story from the mob’s point of view. It was interesting, but I really don’t want to root for the men who kill others because someone didn’t show enough respect to The Bosses or hurt the profits of The Bosses. In the movie Scorsese freezes the scene at certain points to identify real-life characters and how and when they were killed. It’s jarring, but it made a point about how the mob punishes people. Loss of life.
He also showed how our society punishes people for breaking certain laws. Some characters went to prison after the FBI built a case against them. Incarceration. Loss of freedom.
In the end Scorsese attempted to show how families punish people who do terrible things in the service of people who demand loyalty and respect on the way to increasing their personal profit. Loss of affection
I focus on witness intimidation because it is signature mob move. It has its own lingo and history of success. We all know the phrase, “Nice family you have there, it would be a shame if anything happened to them.” It was almost exactly what someone said to Stormy Daniels.
“A guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,’” she said. “And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ And then he was gone.” Time Who directed that threat to her? Individual One ordered it.
Reminder: Michael Cohen is in prison.
Cohen committed crimes following the directions of his boss. Host his freedom for that decision.
As a society we aren’t going to go out and shoot people in the head, like the mob, so we use other tools. I look forward to Trump losing his freedom.
How Trump’s Mob Media Helps Him
Trump knows the various forms of secret leverage Putin and the Russian oligarchs have over him, and I’m not just just talking about the Pee Tape. Trump has likely made many off the record, non-recorded agreements with Putin that we don’t know about. But some leverage they have over Trump can be exposed. For example, multiple people within the IRS and his accounting firm KNOW who Trump owes money to, but they can’t reveal it legally.
This is the reason the Trump Mob wants to frighten whistle-blowers so much.The Trump Mob WANTS potential witnesses to “get the message” not to go against The Bosses. Trump talks about people being killed for “spying” His junior mobsters like Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan and their aides, pick up on the intimidation theme and they keep trying to get the whistleblower’s name out in public. From the report.
In more than 100 public statements about the whistleblower over a period of just two months, the President publicly questioned the whistleblower’s motives, disputed the accuracy of the whistleblower’s account, and encouraged others to reveal the whistleblower’s identity. Most chillingly, the President issued a threat against the whistleblower and those who provided information to the whistleblower regarding the President’s misconduct, suggesting that they could face the death penalty for treason.
Violent threats are powerful, but Trump and his mob also know how to threaten people’s jobs, careers, reputations and income. Those threats are especially powerful in a white-collar world. For all his bragging talk Trump wouldn’t really hold the gun to shoot someone, but he’ll use his Twitter account to kill their reputation and bury them with massive lawsuits.
The charges about witness intimidation are directed toward Trump for his impeachment, but we should also remember that people who are NOT the President and commit similar crimes can and should be charged.
Reminder: Roger Stone was convicted of witness tampering and will lose his freedom.
If Trump’s mob lawyers efforts to block evidence fail, he will look to the mob lawyer at the head of the DOJ. Barr is working hard to figure out how Trump’s crimes are not really crimes. Part of that is a technical legal issue. But they also have to developing the narratives that excuse his actions. A big part of it involves persuasion of the public, who don’t know the law. This is where the Fox Mob News comes in. If Fox can’t help downplay the actual crimes they work on the “everyone does it” line. Or they focus on people on the left and accuse them of the crimes that Trump commits. We have seen all of these methods. But as I pointed out above, even the people from Fox News didn’t like Trump’s attacks on witnesses, especially when they are in the military, like Lt. Col. Vindman.
Fighting Fox Mob Media is hard. One way to do it is to point out the success of prosecutions of people like Roger Stone and others in Trump’s orbit who have committed mob like crimes. The public understands how threats and intimidation works. They also like to see when bullies get their comeuppance.
Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina was supposed to be a man of integrity. He’s retiring so he doesn’t even have to worry about rabid Trump cultists taking him out. And he and John Warner of the Senate Intelligence Committee have done the full investigation and know what happened — and didn’t happen — in 2016. So, when asked about this cockamamie conspiracy theory about Ukraine, I think most of us hoped he would play it straight.
No such luck. When asked about it yesterday, he wobbled and wavered and basically acted like just another GOP coward:
I noted on twitter that most of our allies probably also wanted Clinton to win so calling that interference is a pretty expansive indictment. A twitter follower called @brravehart09 pointed out that this also means all the foreign politicians who endorsed Donald Trump interfered in the election as well. Here’s just the partial list he found on Wikipedia:
And there was this guy, of course:
REPORTER (Jeff Mason from Reuters): President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?
PUTIN: Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the US/Russia relationship back to normal.
Romney said today there is no evidence of Ukrainian meddling. He’s the only Republican to admit it.
Look who was deeply involved with Giuliani, right wing hack John Soloman, and his Ukrainian-American henchmen. Buried within the House Intelligence Committee Impeachment Report, was this:
Oh look. Here’s more:
These phone records seem to have been provided, at least partially, by Lev Parnas. Nunes spent each and every day of the hearings spreading bogus conspiracy theories. And it looks very much like he was part of the president’s plot from the very beginning.
When asked about this development, Adam Schiff said today:
“In terms of the Ranking Member, it won’t surprise you that I’m going to reserve comment. It is, I think, deeply concerning that at a time when the President of the United States was using the power of his office to dig up dirt on a political rival that there may be evidence that there were members of Congress complicit in that activity.”
This was a guy who was caught working with the White House to obstruct Justice in the Russia investigation. He merely pretended to “recuse” himself from the rest of that probe before the Republicans lost the House but stayed on the committee and the ethics committee let him off the hook. He still has the highest security clearance in the government.
When you let Republicans get away with their crimes they just keep committing them.
In a nutshell, he was trying to rig the 2020 election
by digby
And he still is.
Faced with the revelation of his actions, President Trump publicly and repeatedly persisted in urging foreign governments, including Ukraine and China, to investigate his political opponent. This continued solicitation of foreign interference in a U.S. election presents a clear and present danger that the President will continue to use the power of his office for his personal political gain. — The House Intelligence Committee impeachment report, released today:
The impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election. As described in this executive summary and the report that follows, President Trump’s scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign. The President demanded that the newly-elected Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly announce investigations into a political rival that he apparently feared the most, former Vice President Joe Biden, and into a discredited theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election. To compel the Ukrainian President to do his political bidding, President Trump conditioned two official acts on the public announcement of the investigations: a coveted White House visit and critical U.S. military assistance Ukraine needed to fight its Russian adversary.
During a July 25, 2019, call between President Trump and President Zelensky, President Zelensky expressed gratitude for U.S. military assistance. President Trump immediately responded by asking President Zelensky to “do us a favor though” and openly pressed for Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden and the 2016 conspiracy theory. In turn, President Zelensky assured President Trump that he would pursue the investigation and reiterated his interest in the White House meeting. Although President Trump’s scheme intentionally bypassed many career personnel, it was undertaken with the knowledge and approval of senior Administration officials, including the President’s Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. In fact, at a press conference weeks after public revelations about the scheme, Mr. Mulvaney publicly acknowledged that the President directly tied the hold on military aid to his desire to get Ukraine to conduct a political investigation, telling Americans to “get over it.”
President Trump and his senior officials may see nothing wrong with using the power of the Office of the President to pressure a foreign country to help the President’s reelection campaign. Indeed, President Trump continues to encourage Ukraine and other foreign countries to engage in the same kind of election interference today. However, the Founding Fathers prescribed a remedy for a chief executive who places his personal interests above those of the country: impeachment. Accordingly, as part of the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in coordination with the Committees on Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs, were compelled to undertake a serious, sober, and expeditious investigation into whether the President’s misconduct warrants that remedy.
In response, President Trump engaged in an unprecedented campaign of obstruction of this impeachment inquiry. Nevertheless, due in large measure to patriotic and courageous public servants who provided the Committees with direct evidence of the President’s actions, the Committees uncovered significant misconduct on the part of the President of the United States. As required under House Resolution 660, the Intelligence Committee, in consultation with the Committees on Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs, has prepared this report to detail the evidence uncovered to date, which will now be transmitted to the Judiciary Committee for its consideration.
Based on witness testimony and evidence collected during the impeachment inquiry, the Committees released the following findings:
I. Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States—acting personally and through his agents within and outside of the U.S. government—solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The President engaged in this course of conduct for the benefit of his reelection, to harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and to influence our nation’s upcoming presidential election to his advantage. In so doing, the President placed his personal political interests above the national interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the U.S. presidential election process, and endangered U.S. national security.
II. In furtherance of this scheme, President Trump—directly and acting through his agents within and outside the U.S. government—sought to pressure and induce Ukraine’s newly-elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to publicly announce unfounded investigations that would benefit President Trump’s personal political interests and reelection effort. To advance his personal political objectives, President Trump encouraged the President of Ukraine to work with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
III. As part of this scheme, President Trump, acting in his official capacity and using his position of public trust, personally and directly requested from the President of Ukraine that the government of Ukraine publicly announce investigations into (1) the President’s political opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. and his son, Hunter Biden, and (2) a baseless theory promoted by Russia alleging that Ukraine—rather than Russia—interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. These investigations were intended to harm a potential political opponent of President Trump and benefit the President’s domestic political standing.
IV. President Trump ordered the suspension of $391 million in vital military assistance urgently needed by Ukraine, a strategic partner, to resist Russian aggression. Because the aid was appropriated by Congress, on a bipartisan basis, and signed into law by the President, its expenditure was required by law. Acting directly and through his subordinates within the U.S. government, the President withheld from Ukraine this military assistance without any legitimate foreign policy, national security, or anti-corruption justification. The President did so despite the longstanding bipartisan support of Congress, uniform support across federal departments and agencies for the provision to Ukraine of the military assistance, and his obligations under the Impoundment Control Act.
V. President Trump used the power of the Office of the President and exercised his authority over the Executive Branch, including his control of the instruments of the federal government, to apply increasing pressure on the President of Ukraine and the Ukrainian government to announce the politically-motivated investigations desired by President Trump. Specifically, to advance and promote his scheme, the President withheld official acts of value to Ukraine and conditioned their fulfillment on actions by Ukraine that would benefit his personal political interests:
President Trump—acting through agents within and outside the U.S. government—conditioned a head of state meeting at the White House, which the President of Ukraine desperately sought to demonstrate continued United States support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression, on Ukraine publicly announcing the investigations that President Trump believed would aid his reelection campaign.
To increase leverage over the President of Ukraine, President Trump, acting through his agents and subordinates, conditioned release of the vital military assistance he had suspended to Ukraine on the President of Ukraine’s public announcement of the investigations that President Trump sought.
President Trump’s closest subordinates and advisors within the Executive Branch, including Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Energy J. Richard Perry, and other senior White House and Executive Branch officials had knowledge of, in some cases facilitated and furthered the President’s scheme, and withheld information about the scheme from the Congress and the American public.
VI. In directing and orchestrating this scheme to advance his personal political interests, President Trump did not implement, promote, or advance U.S. anti-corruption policies. In fact, the President sought to pressure and induce the government of Ukraine to announce politically-motivated investigations lacking legitimate predication that the U.S. government otherwise discourages and opposes as a matter of policy in that country and around the world. In so doing, the President undermined U.S. policy supporting anti-corruption reform and the rule of law in Ukraine, and undermined U.S. national security.
VII. By withholding vital military assistance and diplomatic support from a strategic foreign partner government engaged in an ongoing military conflict illegally instigated by Russia, President Trump compromised national security to advance his personal political interests.
VIII. Faced with the revelation of his actions, President Trump publicly and repeatedly persisted in urging foreign governments, including Ukraine and China, to investigate his political opponent. This continued solicitation of foreign interference in a U.S. election presents a clear and present danger that the President will continue to use the power of his office for his personal political gain.
IX. Using the power of the Office of the President, and exercising his authority over the Executive Branch, President Trump ordered and implemented a campaign to conceal his conduct from the public and frustrate and obstruct the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry by:
refusing to produce to the impeachment inquiry’s investigating Committees information and records in the possession of the White House, in defiance of a lawful subpoena;
directing Executive Branch agencies to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of all documents and records from the investigating Committees;
directing current and former Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with the Committees, including in defiance of lawful subpoenas for testimony;
and intimidating, threatening, and tampering with prospective and actual witnesses in the impeachment inquiry in an effort to prevent, delay, or influence the testimony of those witnesses.
In so doing, and despite the fact that the Constitution vests in the House of Representatives the “sole Power of Impeachment,” the President sought to arrogate to himself the right to determine the propriety, scope, and nature of an impeachment inquiry into his own misconduct, and the right to deny any and all information to the Congress in the conduct of its constitutional responsibilities.
At a party with their long-time mutual pal Jeffrey Epstein
Trump is lying about his relationship with Prince Andrew. Obviously.
TRUMP: “I don’t know Prince Andrew, but it’s a tough story. It’s a very tough story.
FOX NEWS: Immediately cuts to a photo of Prince Andrew, Melania, and Trump hanging out together at Mar-a-Lago during a party that Jeffrey Epstein also attended. pic.twitter.com/fS6vbSt9Rh
Note the tone. It’s the one he always uses when he is trying to distance himself from his criminal accomplices:
Trump says he “didn’t know anything” about his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, sharing polling data with a person connected to Russian intelligence pic.twitter.com/wgbHsTh3vD
Sitting next to a glass of Diet Coke, Donald Trump appeared to be less informed than his beverage.
Asked about ISIS fighters, Trump claimed that most of those being held in Syria were from Europe. He then tried sarcasm with Macron: “Would you like some nice ISIS fighters? I can give them to you. You can take every one you want.”
Macron said, “Let’s get serious.”
And of course, factually? Trump was WRONG.
More embarrassing moments on Day 1. Oh my dear God:
Trump on Adam Schiff: “I think he’s a maniac. I think Adam Schiff is a deranged human being. I think he grew up with a complex for lots of reasons that are obvious. I think he’s a very sick man.” pic.twitter.com/Ta591vESgj
President Donald Trump: “I had legal scholars looking at the transcripts the other day and they said ‘these are absolutely perfect, Trump is right when he uses the word'” pic.twitter.com/hQHJErl3oD
TRUMP: “I don’t know Prince Andrew, but it’s a tough story. It’s a very tough story. I don’t know him, no.”
FOX NEWS: Immediately cuts to a photo of Prince Andrew, Melania, and Trump hanging out together at Mar-a-Lago during a party that Jeffrey Epstein also attended. pic.twitter.com/zBIfDBSFXN
TRUMP: “Hopefully in the very long distant future you’ll have a Democrat president. You’ll have a Republican House. They’ll do the same thing. Because somebody picked an orange out of a refrigerator and you don’t like it, so let’s go and impeach him.” #wutpic.twitter.com/6ZTn7aptIn
Speaking above a ticker that shows the Dow down more than 400 points today, Trump ludicrously claims that “I don’t watch the stock market.” pic.twitter.com/ArQ0uHejVk
TRUMP: “Climate change is very important to me. I’ve done many environmental impact statements over my life and I believe very strongly in very, very crystal clear, clean water and clean air. That’s a big part of climate change.” pic.twitter.com/aUR441egxN
So far, this is shaping up to be one of the worst of Trump’s summits mainly because he’s buckling under the pressure. I don’t think it’s going to get any better.
