Instant Karma
by $8 blue check mistermix| 95 Comments
This post is in: Impeach the Motherfucker!, Impeachment Hearings
by $8 blue check mistermix| 95 Comments
This post is in: Impeach the Motherfucker!, Impeachment Hearings
by $8 blue check mistermix| 118 Comments
This post is in: Impeach the Motherfucker!
One of Josh Marshall’s readers who’s also a federal prosecutor sent in an email setting up a possible showdown where John Roberts would be making rulings on whether players like Bolton and Mulvaney could be forced to testify. His theory is that, with everyone watching, Roberts will be a pretty straight referee who will allow subpoenas for those who haven’t testified yet, and force the Senate to vote to overrule him. Read it all here.
This made me wonder about witnesses in general. Let’s look at what happened at Clinton’s impeachment:
A resolution on rules and procedure for the trial was adopted unanimously on the following day; however, senators tabled the question of whether to call witnesses in the trial. The trial remained in recess while briefs were filed by the House (January 11) and Clinton (January 13). […]
Over three days, February 1–3, House managers took videotaped closed-door depositions from Monica Lewinsky, Clinton’s friend Vernon Jordan, and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal. On February 4, however, the Senate voted 70–30 that excerpting these videotapes would suffice as testimony, rather than calling live witnesses to appear at trial. The videos were played in the Senate on February 6, featuring 30 excerpts of Lewinsky discussing her affidavit in the Paula Jones case, the hiding of small gifts Clinton had given her, and his involvement in procurement of a job for Lewinsky.
In other words, the Senate adopts its own rules for impeachment, and given the makeup of the Senate, it’s unlikely that they will call witnesses if they think it will damage Trump.
If someone knows more about this, please sound off in the comments, but from what I see, there ain’t no savior rising from these streets.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 132 Comments
This post is in: Impeach the Motherfucker!
This Buzzfeed piece is getting a lot of attention today. Here’s an example:
As for articles mentioning the witnesses by name, Vindman and Yovanovitch have been targeted the most heavily. The second-most-shared story about Vindman was a Breitbart piece titled “Alexander Vindman Admits Making Up Parts Of Trump Call Summary” (97,300 engagements). The top story about Yovanovitch was by the New York Post, titled “Marie Yovanovitch Admits Obama Admin Prepped Her On Hunter Biden” (141,100 engagements), which was shared 15,000 times from the Texas for Donald Trump 2020 Facebook page and 10,000 times from the Silent Majority page.
The point of the piece is that in the Facebook/right-wing bubble, all the little bullshit droppings left by Nunes, Jordan, etc. are magnified into stories that are then shared by people who didn’t watch the hearings.
We all know that there’s a hard floor for Trump’s support in the upper-30s to low 40-s. My question after reading the story is whether the shares that are documented in the piece mainly have an audience of upper-30 percenters, or if they’re swaying the undecided or the uninformed. I’m thinking the former, not the latter.
Another way of saying this is that I’m perfectly willing to accept that the Republicans aren’t going to do shit about Trump in the House or the Senate, that Fox News viewership is up, that shit-sharing on Facebook is up, and that generally the core Republican base is going to shrug off impeachment. I’m not willing to say that those facts further damage our chances in the 2020 election, or that impeachment didn’t hurt Trump. I’ll wait to see some polls and fundraising numbers, because those matter a hell of a lot more than shares in the Facebook Republican bubble.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 224 Comments
This post is in: Impeach the Motherfucker!
Smilin’ Gordon Sondland’s mass execution of the upper echelons of the Trump Administration was just interrupted by a potty break, so here’s a thread for when they get back. As Nunes predicted in his opener, Sondland is going to get smeared today, but I don’t think he meant it the way it’s going to happen.
by Betty Cracker| 133 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, Impeach the Motherfucker!, Politics
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?
by Adam L Silverman| 145 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Foreign Affairs, Impeachment, Open Threads, Politics, Russia, Silverman on Security
CNN’s Manu Raju obtained the opening statement of David Holmes in his deposition before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence this afternoon. He is the career foreign service officer assigned as the Political Officer at US Embassy Kyiv. He also read the statement on air. Holmes works for Ambassador Taylor, the Acting US Ambassador to Ukraine, who testified yesterday that Holmes and one of his other foreign service officers had overhead an unsecured phone call on 26 July between US Ambassador to the EU Sondland and the President at a restaurant in Ukraine. This call took place the day after the President’s call with President Zelensky of Ukraine where the President tried to extort him Zelensky into interfering in the 2020 election.
The call that Holmes overhead WAS NOT on speaker phone. Rather, the President was so loud that he could hear him through Ambassador Sondland’s ear piece. It is important to note here, that US government issued unclassified smartphones for official use have the bluetooth deactivated as it is considered insecure. If you’re issued a US government smartphone, you get a wired earpiece as part of the equipment package. We already know that the President was speaking on his own unsecured cell phone at the White House, but Raju’s reporting of Holmes’ opening statement seems to indicate that Sondland was also using his own personal cell phone to conduct official business. Or what he and the President considered official business, but is really a crime, as well as a High Crime and Misdemeanor. We now have an eyewitness (earwitness?) to these events, which won’t actually tamp down the President’s, his surrogates’, and his supporters’ complaints even though it should, because those complaints aren’t being made in good faith.
I obtained a copy of David Holmes' opening statement, saying that he heard Trump telling Gordon Sondland: "So, he's gonna do the investigation?" Sondland tells Trump: "He's gonna do it" and that Zelensky will do "anything you ask for." pic.twitter.com/24RgVCvzoy
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 15, 2019
His “phone was not on speakerphone, I could hear the President’s voice through the earpiece of the phone. The President’s voice was very loud and recognizable, and Ambassador Sondland held the phone away from his ear for a period of time, presumably because of the loud volume.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 15, 2019
Here’s the 10-page statement: https://t.co/HnkBJB821s
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 15, 2019
Bolton indicated at the meeting that the lifting of the aid would hang on whether Zelensky was able to "favorably impress" Trump, when they were scheduled to meet in Warsaw in September. https://t.co/cQ0E9L8Qtx
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 16, 2019
I’m uploading a copy of Holmes’ opening statement here.
Mr. Holmes deposition is not particularly good for either the President or Ambassador Sondland who, it appears, will likely need to revise his testimony again.
According to David Holmes’s opening statement obtained by @mkraju and @jeremyherb, Holmes could hear Sondland tell Trump on the phone that President Zelensky “loves your ass.”
Trump responded “So, he’s gonna do the investigation?”
“Sondland; “He’s gonna do it."
— Mike Warren (@MichaelRWarren) November 15, 2019
It is now corroborated and very bad for the president https://t.co/x1TpBlHGZL
— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) November 15, 2019
A source familiar with WH discussions said aides to the president are not happy that Sondland apparently shared his call with Trump with others: “the president speaks loudly. Sondland should know that.”
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 16, 2019
Mr. Holmes is now scheduled to testify in open session next week. Tomorrow, Mark Sandy a senior career official at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will be deposed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence ahead of what will surely be scheduled public testimony next week. Mr. Sandy was directly involved in the criminal orders that Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney gave that forced OMB to hold up the congressionally appropriated and mandated aid to Ukraine.
Read more: A top official at the Office of Management and Budget indicated he is willing to testify in the House impeachment inquiry, his attorney said. https://t.co/84WLRDMCeA
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 15, 2019
There is a second foreign service officer assigned to Embassy Kyiv, Suriya Jayanti, who overhead the unsecured phone call between Ambassador Sondland and the President on 26 July 2019. I haven’t seen any reporting yet as to whether she will be deposed by HPSCI.
The President’s very bad week is about to become an even worse weekend. Information from tomorrow’s depositions, for instance Mr. Sandy’s opening statement, will be released and picked over just in time for the Sunday news shows. The worst thing that could happen to the President has happened: he has lost control of the news cycle. He is unable, at least for now, to program it. And it is going to freak him out, enrage him, and drive him to commit even more self-destructive acts.
We should all hope that these self-destructive acts are limited to the political and the personal. It is going to be a long, bumpy weekend. So strap in, stay frosty, and keep your heads on a swivel!
We are off the looking glass and through the map!
Open thread.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 106 Comments
This post is in: Impeach the Motherfucker!
Since it looks like time for another thread, here are a few things I noticed watching a good part of the hearings today.
First, is there an Occam’s Razor for goobers? Maybe Gomer’s Butter Knife? Because the Republican Committee Counsel is a real fucking goober, asking pointless questions and running himself into corners like a haywire Roomba. So, either he’s an idiot, or he was on some kind of leash. I think Gomer’s Butter Knife would dictate that the answer is both: he’s not that smart (because a smart person wouldn’t want the job) and morons like Nunez have him on a leash.
Second, “moderate” Elise Stefanik, from my great state (NY-21), was definitely walking the tightrope. First, she participated in a dumb fucking stunt that anyone with a brain could tell was for the consumption of Fox News:
Then, she went out of her way to laud Yovanovich with praise, and finished her precious time by reading some horseshit about the whistle blower into the record. Look, I’m loyal but reasonable! Don’t primary me!
Stefanik has been elected three times in a R+4 district by at least 10 point margins. It’s a tough district for Democrats: it has Fort Drum and the Adirondacks, which are both fairly conservative places, yet it has had a Democrat (Bill Owens) get elected there three times (first in a special when Obama appointed John McHugh to be Secretary of the Army, then twice in the general). I don’t think her 2020 race will be as easy as her last three.
What are your thoughts?
Update: Here’s a link to donate to Tedra Cobb, Stefanik’s Democratic opponent in NY-21.