Breaking news from CNN:
Washington (CNN) The House of Representatives is now investigating whether President Donald Trump lied to special counsel Robert Mueller in written answers he provided in the Russia investigation, the House’s general counsel said in federal court Monday.
“Did the President lie? Was the President not truthful in his responses to the Mueller investigation?” House general counsel Douglas Letter told the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit about why the House now needs access to grand jury material Mueller collected in his investigation.
As we know, it’s all the same story, really. The Ukraine scandal is an outgrowth of the earlier Russia scandal. It had three goals: 1) soothe Trump’s ego for needing a Putin booster seat to win in 2016, 2) justify rolling back sanctions on Trump’s benefactor, and 3) tee up interference in the 2020 election.
There will be anxious speculation on whether bringing any question from the Mueller probe into the current impeachment inquiry risks “complicating the narrative.” I think any risks are outweighed by the benefit of establishing that Trump’s eagerness to accept foreign help, lies and obstruction are an ongoing danger.
Another possible implication: What if the impeachment inquiry and subsequent trial in the Senate are protracted enough to start affecting Democratic primary campaigns? Pelosi said yesterday that the inquiry might stretch into next year. McConnell will use every perverse trick in the book to keep the several senators who are running off the campaign trail, if he thinks that would help Republicans.
If it looks like we’re heading that way, what should Democrats do? Folks without senate jobs would have Iowa all to themselves, which isn’t a level playing field. Maybe Tom Perez could make it clear the party frowns on non-senatorial Democrats taking advantage of their primary opponents’ absence? (Yeah, that’s gonna happen.)
What say you?
piratedan
what say I?
I say gather the Trump Administration up, put ’em into a rocket and shoot their ass to Mars, I’m sure that NASA would be happy to find the money somewhere, maybe they can even take it from money appropriated for the Wall.
MattF
A lot of politics is dealing with happenstance. Life isn’t fair, and the motherfucker needs to be impeached as convincingly as possible.
rikyrah
OF.COURSE.HE.LIED.
come on, now.
this isn’t hard.
Jay C
Maybe: but the only “narrative” I can see referencing the Mueller Report might impact is the Republican/Administration line that kept compulsively barking that the Report COMPLETELY EXONERATED!!! President Trump an CONCLUSIVELY PROVED NO COLLUSION!!!
Spanky
I need to hear Ken Starr’s wisdom on this before I decide.
satby
Senators need to do their jobs, which is be in the Senate if there’s a trial. Which I think most of our Senators would want to do anyway.
Surrogates like Obama could fill in after we have a nominee, other surrogates who have declared support for specific candidates before.
Democratic voters want the Orange menace gone, any Senator or Representative that missed those votes would probably be penalized for missing them.
dmsilev
As far as the primary goes, the Senators should do their jobs and let surrogates/supporters/etc. do the campaigning. If that offends the precious sensibilities of the Iowans, too bad.
Hildebrand
‘I am doing the necessary work to show that no one is above the law.’ That, and a good ground game, will do the heaviest of the lifting. The candidates will be fine.
WaterGirl
That takes you to whatever URL they have entered, and they surely have not done so for our “benefit”.Thecode for “add approved comments to recent comments” is apparently executing before WordPress automatically moves it to spam, which is why they are showing up. Being worked on as we speak, so in the meantime, please do not let curiosity get the better of your good judgment.Betty Cracker
I wonder if this is related in any way to the Stone verdict. IIRC, the evidence in that case makes it clear the Trump campaign knew about the Wikileaks’ plan to dump hacked DNC emails online way earlier than previously acknowledged and that there’s strong circumstantial evidence of coordination between Stone and the Trump campaign vis-a-vis the leaks.
Elizabelle
This was really good. David Leonhardt in the FTF NY Times:
Mueller and Comey Failed Their Tests. She Passed Hers.
Marie Yovanovitch chose her country over what others might think of her.
There’s the gauntlet. Which side do you want to be on? It could not be clearer.
Betty Cracker
@satby: Agreed that the senators will want to do their jobs and voters will expect them to. But the Iowa voting is in early February, so every candidate will want to be in Iowa, and you know McConnell will do everything he can to keep them in DC if he thinks that will help the Republicans. Say the trial stretches out several weeks over January, and the non-senators are campaigning their asses off in Iowa. That wouldn’t be fair, IMO, but I’m not sure how to address it.
VOR
@Betty Cracker: Yes, Josh Marshall had a piece on this. As I understand it, there was testimony that Roger Stone spoke to Trump about Wikileaks from Rick Gates who was present with Trump during the Stone-Trump call. First hand knowledge. But Trump told Mueller in writing that he knew nothing about any contact between Stone and Wikileaks. Shocked, shocked that Trump would be less than 100% honest.
delk
Democratic Senators will have their choice of the myriad of mics that will be shoved in their direction every day of an impeachment hearing.
piratedan
@Betty Cracker:
not only the Trump Campaign, how much involvement was there from the GOP national committee? How much did Reince, McConnell, and McCarthy know? in what ways did the Trump campaign coordinate and contribute this information with other GOP campaigns around the country?
JGabriel
Betty Cracker @ Top:
Keep it in the House. Keep investigating. Through the primaries if necessary. If sending it to the Senate will otherwise complicate the primary, then keep investigating until it won’t. Like the way House Republicans screwed around with the 2016 election with Benghazi, e-mail servers, and so on. Keep every corrupt action and corrupt thing Trump and the GOP have done in the news.
Eventually, maybe Republicans will get to the point where they are begging Democrats to send it to the Senate. Or begging Trump to resign and end the ever-ratcheting damage.
None of the viable candidates are in the House. So keeping the process there, and out of the Senate, until Democrats are ready is a workable strategy.
JMG
@Betty Cracker: Works both ways. On the one hand, Senators engaged in a solemn fulfillment of their Constitutional duties. On the other, various candidates eating unhealthy foods in small Iowa towns. Also this, if there’s an impeachment trial, NOTHING else will be discussed by national political media. Iowans are just like the rest of us, they watch lots of TV, especially in the winter.
Elizabelle
I think it’s more important to do impeachment right than to pander to Iowa.
A state which should not even be first in the nation (looking at you too, New Hampshire). I hope this is the last election cycle that we give Iowa and New Hampshire their prominence. They are nonrepresentative, and are historic artifacts that do more harm than good in the 21st century. Go with some states that have large cities, and no more caucuses.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: It is. The evidence that was presented in the Stone trial by the prosecution makes it clear that the President’s written answers to Mueller were incorrect on several key points. Whether that would cross the threshold for a criminal perjury charge is debatable, because those answers were submitted as “to the best of my (Trump’s) recollection”. But that is not an issue for impeachment, which can just focus on this as an attempt to further obstruct Mueller’s investigation. It is also going to open the door for the House members that Pelosi has put in charge of managing the impeachment process to call the prosecutors and investigators on Mueller’s team and have them testify.
Elizabelle
@JGabriel: Good point. No reason to rush this thing. Keep it in the House, and build, build, build.
Do you all think we will have Trump’s tax returns sooner rather than later? How long can the Supreme Court delay that date with destiny??
Eljai
It’s not complicated at all. I was alive in the 90s and I can tell you that lying under oath is definitely an impeachable offense. It wasn’t the sexy-time stuff that got Bill Clinton — it was the lying under oath. According to conservatives, it’s like the worst thing you can do.
Elizabelle
I thought Kay’s comments in this morning’s thread about the resilience of the State Department, unlike some of the other government agencies (and leadership at DOJ) were really on point.
You should check them out, if you did not see the thread yet.
balloon-juice.com/2019/11/18/monday-morning-open-thread-gonna-be-another-busy-week/#comments
SFAW
I have no doubt that Chuck Schumer will take McConnell “to the woodshed,” to explain that Moscow Mitch better not try to pull any shit like that.
I swear, I crack myself up sometimes.
RedDirtGirl
@Spanky: That’s very wise!
wvng
@Elizabelle: Yovanovitch, Taylor, Vindman, Kent, and all the others who have chosen to honor lawful subpoenas are demonstrating the definition of public service and honoring their oaths of office. They know the risk this means for themselves and their families and are doing it anyway. I am in awe.
JPL
@Eljai: It the worst thing a democratic president can do. IOKIYR
JPL
The president must be feeling better since he met with the Fed Chair, Powell this morning.
PPCLI
@Betty Cracker: Yes. Trump wrapped the statement in an “I don’t recall…”, but there’s only so much magic that qualifier can perform. The claim that it would just slip Trump’s mind that he had advance info about what Wikileaks would do and when is too preposterous to stand much scrutiny to anyone who isn’t a Trump cultist, though no doubt the Republicans will defend it.
syphonblue
Did Donald Trump lie?
Spoiler alert: He did
rikyrah
@JGabriel:
Keep investigating through Super Tuesday.
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
Kay is usually on point, and her observations were good about the State Department
Omnes Omnibus
I don’t think that the DNC should get involved in the primary process. They will just rig it for HRC.
Seriously though, Senators can do both. If the process reaches the Senate during the primaries, they will have to deal with it. If there is a flood in South Bend, Buttigieg will have to deal with it. How they do will influence people’s votes.
Chief Oshkosh
If the data indicate that impeachment needs to be expanded to cover other actions that appear to be high crimes and misdemeanors, then it needs to be expanded.
If the political ramifications are that some incumbents are affected, then they should be able to campaign on that (as others in this thread have suggested). I think that the longer the impeachment goes on, the better the politics are for the Democrats, overall. In fact, I’d always assumed that Speaker Pelosi’s plan was to have them go on into the Spring, maybe even into Summer. But again, my preference is that the Democrats simply and honestly investigate potential wrongdoing. If there is so much wrongdoing that they’re still investigating during the first and second terms of President Warren/Harris/Biden/Buttigieg/Castro/Klobuchar/Booker/Yang/TBN, so be it.
UncleEbeneezer
@JGabriel: Agreed. Draw it out as long as it can be justified by information/charges, and public interest. Hand it to Senate in October of 2020 if possible.
Ella in New Mexico
Would #1 take care of #2?
Were seeing how Republicans are taking the current Impeachment focus on the Ukraine issue and trying to take it completely out of any context or conspiracy by repeatedly boiling it down to a single “perfect phone call” that “doesn’t warrant Impeachment”.
If we go ahead and incorporate even just a bit of the most damning evidence that came out of the Mueller investigation and create a nice little flowchart connecting 2016 to now, plus throw in some of the other crimes Trump clearly committed (Emoluments Clause violations, Obstruction of/misleading/lying to Mueller, Un-indicted Co-Conspirator in Cohen case, etc. ) maybe we can get so far ahead of the pathetic Republican excuses-as-defenses it’ll look inevitable he’s doomed and FatOrangeFartFace will just get REALLY sick and resign BEFORE the Primaries.
PPCLI
I look forward to hearing Trump refuse to testify about his phonecalls with Stone on the grounds that it would violate ratfucker-client privilege.
kent
The other possibility is that the candidates left in Iowa will be complaining that no one is paying the slightest attention to what they are doing in Iowa because every camera and media outlet, including those in Iowa, is focused on the historic events in DC. And the Dem Senators in DC are getting 99% of the air time, even in Iowa.
We are in uncharted territory. I don’t think anyone knows how this is going to actually play out.
feebog
Lay every damn thing out in articles of impeachment. If it takes until March or April to complete the job, so be it. Expose all the lies. All the corruption. All the self dealing and crimes. All. Of. It.
satby
@Omnes Omnibus: there is highly likely to be a flood in South Bend. River’s at a very high stage right now and may continue to be for months. But the new mayor will be sworn in in January, so whether it’s Buttigieg per his successor who handles it is anyone’s guess.
JGabriel
@rikyrah:
Whatever works. I’m not dogmatic about the timing.
Just do the investigation right, and let Pelosi and Schiff determine the best time and manner in which to forward impeachment articles.
I’m sure the question of when the articles should be forwarded, to minimize GOP Senate malfeasance in the primaries, has not escaped their attention.
PPCLI
@Adam L Silverman: Also it gives them a further, particularly compelling reason to demand the unredacted Muller report, if they start looking into this.
Betty Cracker
@JGabriel: Excellent point. So far, the inquiry has been terrible for Trump. Just read about a poll this morning that shows a majority — 51% — support his impeachment AND REMOVAL, and something like 70% agreed pushing Ukraine to “investigate” the Bidens is wrong.
I suppose it could all go to shit and the numbers could change. But right now, there doesn’t seem to be a mandate to wrap it up quickly.
jonas
@Adam L Silverman: I have a feeling before all this is over, Mueller’s going to have some splainin’ to do about why he overlooked or let slide so much brazen lying, obstruction, and other malfeasance during his investigation. It can’t just have been “well, you can’t charge the president with anything, so why bother bringing it up?”
Ohio Mom
IIRC, Obama has said he won’t get involved in the primaries but will campaign hard for the nominee. I suspect our other best substitutes will do the same.
Seems fair to me, even as I worry that my favorite possibilities are all Senators.
The Moar You Know
Dear Republicans:
You thought you could just have a quick vote and be done by Christmas. Not gonna happen, fuckers. We’re going to keep throwing anvils at your shitty president until Election Day. Gonna keep his ass tied up in paperwork, subpoenas, and legal bullshit for the rest of his term. Maybe we’ll take pics of his rancid pecker just “to confirm” some of what we’ve been told.
After all, Newt and Ken showed us the way lo these score years ago. Did you somehow think we wouldn’t do the same to you?
jc
What should Dems do? They should tell the truth as aggressively as the ‘R’s lie. In their face. Call the president an un-American, lying dog.
The truth in front of our noses: Donald Trump’s behavior is disgustingly corrupt and impeachable, whatever his defenders do or say
nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-the-truth-in-front-of-our-noses-20191117-ztrkifsw4vbinmd3byexvvts6q-…
Avalune
@syphonblue: I don’t think that’s how spoilers work.
Baud
@JGabriel:
Right. Don’t unduly curtail it or unduly draw it out.
MCA1
@PPCLI: Not to mention his colossal narcissism wouldn’t allow him to claim that he just forgot something like that, should we get there. He could easily be pulled into a “You’re damned right I ordered the Code Red” situation.
mad citizen
Also in the Keep Investigating, keep it in the House for a good while camp. Until the Rs are ready to be reluctant Patriots. There is plenty to investigate. I want to see the taxes, emoluments and other financial interests in the public light. What are the motives of the Trump Crime Family?
As Neil Young once said, in Crazy Horse mode: It’s All One Song.
satby
I also think that if things look sufficiently bad and that knowledge penetrates the TOTUS’s thick skull (or that of Jarvanka) that he’s likely to go on an “official” visit to some country we can’t get him back from.
The man is first and foremost a coward.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: And, that 70% means some non-trivial fraction of Trumpies thinks He Did A Bad Thing. I’m actually a bit surprised the fraction is so large.
JGabriel
@UncleEbeneezer:
Maybe, but I’d prefer the Dems don’t wait that long. We don’t want Trump to have enough time to plot and put in motion more election-rigging schemes.
I think rikyrah’s suggestion above, of waiting until Super Tuesday to forward impeachment articles to the Senate, might be a good idea. But, ultimately, I kind of trust the professional pols, particularly Pelosi and Schiff, to make the right strategic moves on this one.
Baud
My hunch (and hope?) is th there will be another bombshell. Ukraine can’t be the only country Trump has tried to shake down. Someone knows something worse. The question is whether that information will see the light of day.
satby
@Baud: I thought I saw reporting that he tried with China too.
MCA1
Agreed with those saying Senators should be focused on their day jobs, and that the eyes of the nation being on an impeachment trial in the Senate should generally negate any negatives to a candidate running from the Senate based on lack of personal visits to Iowa.
One factor worth consideration, though: I don’t think McConnell actually wants to drag out a Senate trial on this for any longer than he absolutely needs to. The visuals coming from last week’s hearings out of his GOP colleagues were astoundingly bad. And not just because the House population has more idiots per capita than the Senate population. It’s primarily because the Republican Party is not actually articulating any defense of Drumpf. So they come off as incapable of rising to the level of gravity of the proceeding. McTurtle’s vulnerable comrades in the Senate do not want the spotlight they’re going to get when this thing moves across the street. The faster he can get it to a vote, with as few facts laid out as possible, the better for engandered Republican Senators, unless they decide they want to vote to convict. At which point it’s probably better for the GOP to get it all over quickly, anyway, and leave as much time as possible to try and save the White House in the Fall with someone other than Orange Julius.
gvg
If it turns into a problem for our Senators running, I think it will also be a problem for their Senators running for re election and also their House members. If there is lots of bad info coming out and the republicans are obviously covering it up & thus look bad to their voters, then the Republicans aren’t going to let McConnel keep them in Washington. It will also threaten McConnel will lose the majority in the Senate, and that is very important to him. If there ISN’T a lot of bad info coming out or being found out, then of course the democrats should cut off the investigations. I don’t see this as likely, but that is the other side of the coin. Investigate and see what happens. I don’t think we can worry about the campaigns, and I actually think the Senators have an advantage over non Senators.
mad citizen
The Teapot Dome crimes happened in 1921-23, Harding died in ’23, but the Senate investigation went on into 1924, and ultimately the trials for two major figures were in 1929 and 1930. It was a long-running scandal.
Marcopolo
I’m sticking to my current plan of not worrying about the affect anything that has not already happened will have on some speculative future. It just takes to damned much energy, I don’t get any pleasure out of what-ifing a situation that I think is existentially threatening to our country, and there is too much other important shit to do with less than a year to the election. My two cents YMMV.
As for adding another count to the impeachment charges—Hell yeah! Lying under oath in the course of an investigation was good enough for a charge against Clinton & it is good enough for a charge against Trump.
Off to rake the effing leaves for the second time this week, everyone have a great afternoon.
Mr. Mack
I think it’s right the candidates left back in Iowa with little or no media coverage could likely suffer the most. Really, this seems about trying to keep our media interested, and they have to be loving this fight. Breaking News! feeds that beast. They would rather not schlep around Iowa diners. This is far sexier.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Hello, John Bolton:
It sort of looks like the Dems are going to blow Bolton off since they don’t really need his testimony to establish Trump’s corrupt intent in the Ukraine scandal — and maybe also because they don’t trust Bolton. But Bolton’s Turkey remarks were…interesting, as was the fact that Trump overturned established policy toward that country and gave the green light for screwing the Kurds after a single phone call with Erdoğan.
jl
@Baud: ” My hunch (and hope?) is th there will be another bombshell. ” I read a report that Perry and Giuliani were lining up secret GOP buddies to get both front feet in the money trough of the Ukrainian national natural gas company. I’m interested to see if there how big and serious a deal that was. If so, maybe the plan was to do what they were falsely accusing Joe and Hunter Biden of doing, but on a much bigger scale, and hope that the smears against the Bidens would be a good cover for that? Regardless of their reasoning, if that was the plan, the Trumpsters are bonkers and dumb. The Ukrainian government was going to pop up and smear Biden for a year whenever Trump felt like it, with no investigation. Or they were going to run a bogus investigation. And while they were falsely smearing the Bidens, bit GOP money daddies would be coming and going to a big Ukrainian company and siphoning off big bucks? And this wouldn’t blow up in Ukraine? They thought Zelensky was a Putin for a Erdogan who could completely shut down the opposition or reporters from snooping around and asking questions? So, that is one thing to watch for.
MattF
Statement from the Fed after unannounced meeting between Trump and Powell:
It may be of interest that the meeting took place in the WH residence, and not in the Oval Office.
waysel
@Mr. Mack: Better restaurants in DC, too.
Avalune
Seems like a possible downside of the keep it kicking around in the house plan would be that it would be pretty easy to make that look like dems are taking so long because they have nothing and they are having to dig until they do.
jl
@MattF: Another Trump appointee turns out to be a Deep State mole. Sad.
I have to wonder how Powell, more or less a continuation of Yellen leadership, got through the Trump flunky filter. OTOH, Trump’s ideas for nominations were so horrendously and obviously unfit, too many big money GOPers, who don’t want their money messed with too much, just told Trump ‘No’ and he had to settle for competence.
Cheryl from Maryland
I say let Pelosi and the House investigate as they see fit. If the Senate trial happens during the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary and people (both in those states and the pundits) think someone cannot run without fluffing those voters 24/7, then that’s another reason those states should not go first. I want a candidate that will do his/her job! Plenty of opportunities for Harris, Klobuchar, and Booker to be on the TV showing off their skills rather than in the nowhere land they are now. And McConnell better be careful — even if the Senate acquits, having the trial during 2020 is a double-edged sword and could help the Senate flip blue — plenty of opportunities for Ernst, Collins, Gardner, Conyer, McSally, Hyde-Smith, Graham, even McConnell himself, to look like fools, pawns or mealy-mouthed nothings.
Groucho48
I had suggested a while ago that we time the House impeachment effort to end just before the summer recess. Leave McConnell with the choice of waiting until after the recess for the Senate to act, allowing Dem Senators to talk about the unrefuted House Articles, and Rep Senators totally on defense, or, ploughing on through, preventing the many more Republican Senators from campaigning than Dems over the summer.
Nancy didn’t listen to me <g>, so, it’s probably too late to drag the proceedings on that long, but, maybe go to Easter recess?
JGabriel
@Betty Cracker, @Elizabelle: Danke.
The Moar You Know
@MattF: The fucking coward Powell is going to cut rates again. There is no compelling need whatsoever to do this, but he’s going to do it anyway.
You never see the Fed extending Dem presidents the same courtesy, even when we appoint them.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: Yup.
FTFNYT:
Yup.
Senators can campaign and do their jobs. It’s not like they have to take a steamboat or wagon train to Iowa.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mr. Mack
The more I think on it…it’s really a very easy choice, and has the added benefit of being the right thing to do. People are risking their lives, perhaps even their families lives, their pensions and careers and lastly their reputations by coming forward. To ask a sitting senator to stop campaigning to fulfill a constitutionally mandated duty seems completely reasonable.
jl
@Betty Cracker: For some reason, seems like Bolton wants to find a way to get in on wreaking some damage on the Trumpsters, without damaging his acceptability to hard core conservatives.
My best guess is that Bolton thought Trump was just a big a liar on his foreign policy as he was on his economic policy (throw in just a enough progressive talk to dupe the marks who didn’t go for the racist pitch all that much), and he would get some war on. From his comments, Bolton was incompetent and ruinous attempts at rank corruption that endangered his long run plan for US using war as first option in foreign policy as SOP.
Shalimar
I think what I have thought for months, they should keep investigating Trump crimes until at least February or March before voting to impeach and send it to the senate. Let the senators campaign.
jl
@jl: Meant to type ‘Bolton saw’ not ‘Bolton was’
patrick II
@rikyrah:
OF.COURSE.HE.LIED.come on, now. this isn’t hard.
Of course, it’s hard. Getting Republicans to agree that Trump isn’t a Christian holy man sent to save us from the sin of secular humanism is hard, let alone that he may have committed crimes.
Another Scott
@jonas: I think Mueller did a great job and laid the crimes out clearly. He said he was obstructed in just about every turn.
And it seems pretty clear that he was kneecapped by Barr who almost certainly told him to wrap it up.
Mueller did what he could within the constraints that Rosenstein put around him (especially in the 2nd memo).
Now, getting Rosenstein and Barr to testify, that would be interesting…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@Another Scott: Yes, probably, but nothing prevented Robert Mueller from being more forthcoming and cooperative in his testimony. Nothing prevented him from laying that out in an opening statement. What prevented him from doing those things was his failure to grasp the moment and be the person, or one of the people, who tried to move us forward even if it came at a cost to his own reputation among those he has long counted as colleagues, like William Barr. I am sure he has his reasons and I am sure no one will care what they are 10 years from now.
JGabriel
@The Moar You Know:
Because Democrats don’t appoint toadies. Though I do wish Dem appointees would be a little quicker to lower interest rates when we’re dealing with a slowing (or slowly growing) economy.
jimmiraybob
@rikyrah:
I could not have said it better. Transparency is not an endless stream of lies.
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: IIRC, McCain staged that disastrous stunt when he and Obama were in a two-person, general election race, which is a completely different situation. Also, they were both senators.
I’m not saying a senate trial that ran though the entire month of January would definitely upend this volatile primary. But given the unsettled nature of the race AND the fact that the early voting states — particularly Iowa — are notoriously focused on in-person campaigning and organizing, people who can continue holding rallies, etc., six days a week in those states might get a leg up on candidates who have to be in the senate when it’s in session.
jonas
Yup. Every accusation is a confession with these people. Every. Damn. Time.
Spanky
@MattF: Maybe that’s where Trump is hooked up to a Xanax drip.
On the Senate issue, I think that if McConnell messes with the schedule to the point that it causes Republican losses, McConnell could lose the leadership even if he maintains a majority. He’s vulnerable, and one or 2 “reasonable” Republicans (you know who they are) could make a run at him.
jimmiraybob
@The Moar You Know:
The developing Trump MO is to have his goons gather as much compromat as possible and intimidate, extort and blackmail. I assume that there’s something about Powell’s background that would not be flattering if it was dragged into the sunlight.
clay
Trump too sick to get out of bed? Has he actually been seen since his unscheduled check-up?
Irresponsible to speculate? Irresponsible not to…
Shalimar
@MCA1: Interesting thought for 2020: States have rigged it so Trump will be the Republican nominee, unopposed in most cases. Just because McConnell allows him to be impeached doesn’t change that. It would be interesting to see the party abandon him but Trump continue to run. There is nothing in the constitution saying someone who is impeached and convicted can’t run again.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Nobody knows what will happen, of course. And past performance is not a predictor of future success.
I just don’t think that what a trial at a particular time does to the Democratic race is something all that important. All the candidates should expect stuff out of left field because we do know that that stuff is coming.
Clinton’s trial ran from January 7 – February 12, 1999. From a timeline I was able to find, it looks like there was a lot of down-time in those 5 weeks.
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
The House impeachment enquiry should be allowed as much time as it needs, regardless of whatever is going on re the election process. Deliberately timing the impeachment vote to favour the Democratic party makes the impeachment process a political football. The Republican party already did that with Bill Clinton; if the Democrats do it too, the process becomes validated as a partisan tactic instead of a vital means of protecting the nation from unfit officials.
NotMax
@Shalimar
Senate rules regarding the process include an option to add a ban on holding office post-conviction.
trollhattan
@feebog:
This. Nothing less.
chris
Frankensteinbeck
My dream plan would have the House vote during the general Presidential campaign, so that when Mitch acquits in a pathetically obvious act of partisanship, it can be hung around his neck in his own election. I doubt the House investigation can be dragged out that long without looking desperate and losing public support, alas. The timing was set by Trump’s typed public confession to asking another country to interfere in a US election.
@Elizabelle:
I think this is extremely unfair to Mueller. Mueller did his job, exactly, by the book. His report is hundreds of pages of ‘Trump is guilty as fuck, so go say that in court because the rules don’t let me do it myself.’ It’s damning as Hell. He has no control over the fact that the media and most of the US population yawn over big documents full of details. Comey did the opposite. He inserted himself into the Clinton investigation and broke norms to act based on his misogynistic conscience. If he’d done his actual job by the book, we wouldn’t have this problem.
@jonas:
He didn’t. He laid it all out in his report and, as above, asked the people with authority to do so to prosecute. Nobody listened to what he actually said.
MCA1
@Shalimar: Yes, please?
Though once out of office, he may find he has little time to run a blow up the GOP internecine warfare campaign in between arraignments.
Mary G
I’m comfortable with leaving the timing of things up to Nancy “just win, baby” SMASH. And Mayor Pete has pulled ahead in Iowa so senators who are in their cushy DC environs with all the reporters in the world mobbing the halls outside to talk to could do the Clinton “Comeback Kid” thing to change the frame. More fun than hiking around Iowa in the snow and cold.
kent
One possible silver lining to having the impeachment trial during the Iowa Caucus and NH Primary is that it might completely diminish the importance of those results. That might be a best-case scenario if the national media and the rest of us say..OH well, Mayor Pete winning Iowa didn’t really count because all the real contenders were busy with the nation’s business and the primary race doesn’t really start for real until Super Tuesday….Or something to that effect.
I’m not saying that would actually happen. But it is certainly possible. And it would certainly give all the Senators in the race the reason to dismiss Iowa as irrelevant. No one really knows how this is going to play out.
JPL
@chris: The Supreme Court has not taken any action with respect to that New York case.
Not sure what that means, if anything.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: I sort of disagree. Mueller did his job by the book, but he could have fought harder to pursue every thread instead of knuckling under to the “wrap it up quickly” edicts out of political hacks who were the direct beneficiaries of the decision to end the probe with the evidence they were able to obtain without fighting everything out in court.
Mueller was under no obligation to mostly stay silent when his pal Barr wildly mischaracterized the findings of the report in his bogus summary and pre-release press conference, which allowed the media narrative to take hold. He could have made an opening statement in the House when called to testify, underscoring the obstacles Trump associates threw up that didn’t allow him to reach firm conclusions.
Mueller is not responsible for the shitty DC media, but he’s been involved in politics long enough to know exactly how that shit would play out. Maybe he was fine with it. I don’t think history will be especially kind, particularly in view of the courage we’ve seen from people in the State Department, who had lots more to lose.
Immanentize
If the Court decided to hear the case, they could delay it forever if they sided with Trump. If they took the case and Trump lost, they would likely delay its release until July of next year, unless they returned it to the lower court for more consideration which would delay it past the election.
If they take the most legally sound path and deny review, that should happen in a month or two — by the end of the year. So, not that much longer….
Fleeting Expletive
@Cheryl from Maryland: I want to embroider your words on a pillow. Well said.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize:
Fingers crossed, Imm. Fingers crossed.
JPL
@Immanentize: The AJC.com said that they did not address the NY State case. Trump asked that they intervene in that case also.
SFAW
@Shalimar:
Not a lawyer, nor Constitutional expert, but I thought impeachment (and conviction) proscribes future holding of office.
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: Yep, this tracks largely with my view, which is that Mueller fell back on excuses like “decorum” and “staying in his lane” in order to avoid burning too many political and social bridges. He might not even realize that’s what he was doing, which also suggests that he did not recognize the true peril of the situation.
gvg
@Shalimar: Yes there can be. An option of the Senate trial of the impeachment charges is they can say whomever cannot run for Federal office again. They can also fail to include that in their vote, but they can. If they actually vote against Trump, they would be fools not to include that. I guess technically they can vote to convict but not remove, however I also think that is unlikely.
Shalimar
@SFAW: Alcee Hastings was removed from office as a judge and subsequently elected to the House.
Another Scott
@SFAW: Article I – Section 3:
Cheers,
Scott.
gvg
@Barbara: I think Mueller could have done more, but I also think the ultimate problem is that DOJ opinion that they can’t indict a sitting President which I think is wrong because no one is above the law seems like an obvious thing. I think this has to be addressed with actual legislation.
I do see how it could seem easy to be abusive. During Clinton’s time, it was easy to picture our time being wasted with nonsense. I guess lawyers will have to come up with some sort of review process. There is also the other side of the problem, where right now the DOJ is supporting a lawbreaking president, because he is their boss and got to appoint the head of their agency. But that opinion has to be over turned.
rp
@Betty Cracker: Yes — the mistake wasn’t the report IMO, it was how he handled Barr’s summary. He really dropped the ball and did the country and his reputation a disservice by not pushing back hard on the disinformation.
geg6
@Shalimar:
Well, it does allow the Senate to disqualify the person from running again and, apparently, can do so with a simple majority vote.
Immanentize
@Shalimar:
This is not accurate. The constitution specifically allows preventing future office holding as a punishment:
Jay
Immanentize
@chris: @JPL:
It means that at least one or more justices want some more time to read the pleadings before the case is conferenced — and they do not want to allow the case to become moot by the action of Mazars turning over the documents before a petition reaches the court. It is a status quo move freezing everything in place for a while.
PPCLI
@Immanentize: And though Trump has drained all the Honor and Trust from the Presidency, he has made it an office where you can Profit hands over fists.
SFAW
@Shalimar:
@Another Scott:
Thanks. I had (mis)read/interpreted that part of Section 3 to mean the “convict” would be proscribed, not could be proscribed. One of the reasons I didn’t pass the Bar. Well, that, plus never having gone to law school.
J R in WV
@Elizabelle:
Wife, as a professional editor / hobbiest pedant, will tell you repeatedly that a gauntlet is a glove, and a gantlet is where you run down a bunch of people with sticks hitting you. I really don’t care much, and the term is beginning to enter common usage, to meh.
Comey had one job, to follow FBI and DOJ rules about investigations and elections, and he broke those rules over and over again. Fuck him.
Mueller appears to have run a pretty clean investigation, but allowed the memo establishing his special office to control his investigation, and then allowed fellow conspirator Barr to fabricate a totally false summary about his 400+ page report.
If he had spoken up immediately after Barr’s published lies about the Mueller report, he might have saved his report from becoming a dust-bin file 13 mirage. But, for whatever reason, he did not do that.
Instead he allowed a conspirator to falsify the conclusions of his way too limited report, and render it useless as far as striking down a president elected by the electoral college under a false flag, a con-man with a record of criminal behavior going back decades.
And now, here we are. Yuck.
Betty Cracker
@Shalimar: Yep. I’d be surprised if anything but death had the power to separate that crook from a government salary and the grift opportunities government service presents to crooks.
Immanentize
@PPCLI: Hmmmm, maybe he did read the constitution — sideways.
Elizabelle
@J R in WV: Cannot argue with your assessment.
And gantlet it is. Thanks.
geg6
@Jay:
I saw that a little while ago, I think, on TPM. Heh. Methinks some “reporters” at the NYT (*spits*) should watch this carefully. I won’t mention any names, but we all know who, don’t we? Hint: Ven Kogel and Haggy Maberman have similar names.
trnc
I don’t get the attitude of people checking off state visits and personal appearances by candidates. I have somehow been able to cast votes for prez without ever personally seeing the candidate I voted for. Somehow, the televised interviews, debates, established voting and/or policy records, etc provided all the information I needed. Then again, I guess I’ll never know if I truly missed a gigantic character flaw that I might have picked up by being in a nosebleed seat in the same stadium as the candidate.
At any rate, any Iowan who doesn’t understand “I wish I could be there, but I’m busy earning my paycheck with the most important task I may ever have as senator” may not really be a democrat or independent.
Jay
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: Well, not exactly. You RUN a GANTLET, but to indicate a challenge, you throw down a GAUNTLET, or glove.
So, you’ve mixed your metaphors, basically. But no biggie.
catclub
I think this would have the effect of reducing the importance of the Iowa caucuses. Which is a good thing in my book. I think everybody knowing that the Iowa event was unfair will let them downweight it.
NotMax
@J R in WV
Thank you. Gantlet/gauntlet is one among a kennelful of pet peeves.
Jay
amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/01/sacramento-rally-fbi-kkk-domestic-terrorism-california?__twi…
chris
@Immanentize: Thank you for the explanation.
Barbara
@gvg: “If it weren’t for that memorandum there is no question that I would have indicted the president under the standard that I would apply to any other citizen as a federal prosecutor.” Versus the wishy washy drivel he gave us. I am not angry with him because I never put as much faith in him as others did, and as far as I was concerned, President Pence isn’t much better. But still, I know intentional pretzel logic when I see it.
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: Oh yeah. Looked at my comment again. It was more like, the gauntlet has been thrown. Who do you want to associate with — the good side or the bad guys?
But running a gantlet is def part of the assessment. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, I guess…. Two threads up, we have quick video of Amb Yovanovitch being spontaneously applauded as she makes her way to her table at the Blues Alley jazz club in Georgetown in DC.
I like that; it’s positive and also a finger thrown at Trump, Pompeo, Barr, Giuliani, all the bad guys.
Jay
Full thread highlighting the greatest non-hits,……….
FTFNYT.
J R in WV
@Jay:
Personally, I would think whoever made the decision to investigate the left wing protestors rather than the fascist criminals should be investigated for conspiracy with the Nazis. Certainly their performance review should show a giant black mark, and they should be transferred to a small town in N Dakota as a single agent with a minder.
sdhays
@gvg: I fall more on the side of Mueller’s time as Special Counsel as a failure, on balance. He did his job fairly competently, but he failed to rise to the threat he was grappling with. And his (non) response when Bill Barr completely lied about his report was unforgivable. I think if Mueller had been FBI Director instead of Comey, we would currently have a President HRC, but as SC, he sucked.
But I agree with you about the memo. Too many of our laws are written to give discretion to reasonably, patriotic individuals because it’s really hard to create a process that is immune from abuse. We see the same thing with the laws regarding succession and appointments. Dump has basically stopped bothering to appoint people because he can just have everyone “acting”. That’s not acceptable, but it’s also not acceptable that McConnell’s Republicans did everything they could to have as much of the Obama Administration as possible vacant by slowing down the approval process.
How do you design processes which give enough power to Congress to stop executive corruption while also preventing an unscrupulous Congressional faction from abusing its power to sabotage the Executive?
rikyrah
@jl:
I don’t know about Rudy, but, Perry’s buddy got a 50 YEAR CONTRACT THAT HE WASN’T QUALIFIED TO GET. -according to Maddow.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Walking, talking, gangs of criminal extortionists, fit only for indictment, trial, and long, long prison terms, preferably at Florence CO supermax. Safer for them, safer for us!