Bill Taylor gave blockbuster private testimony on Tuesday that laid out Trump’s Ukraine deal in real time. Among other things he claims that Sondland told Ukrainian officials that aid money was being held up unless they investigated the Bidens. He also clearly implicated that Volker was pushing the scheme as much as Sondland. Here is the full 15 page transcript of his opening statement.
On Wednesday two dozen Trump allies in the GOP House caucus stormed the closed door Intelligence Committee hearings and disrupted an interview with a DOD official for several hours.
The New York Times reports that Ukraine knew about the aid hold in early August: “In conversations over several days in early August, a Pentagon official discussed the assistance freeze directly with a Ukrainian government official, according to records and interviews. The Pentagon official suggested that Mr. Mulvaney had been pushing for the assistance to be withheld, and urged the Ukrainians to reach out to him.”
The Washington Post reports that the Trump Administration also delayed some trade deals with Ukraine in August.
Here is a good piece on what it is like for Ukrainian soldiers fighting their war against Russia and how the aid freeze effected them psychologically: “Since taking office in May, Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has wanted the United States to take a more active role in pressuring Russia to withdraw its forces from eastern Ukraine — which the Kremlin does not even acknowledge are there — and accept a peace deal to end the conflict.”
The New York Times reports that DOJ has turned its inquiry into the origins of the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation into a criminal investigation, which will allow them to subpoena and indict people: Among other things, “Mr. Durham has also asked whether C.I.A. officials might have somehow tricked the F.B.I. into opening the Russia investigation.”
According to Politico: probing a conspiracy theory for which there is little if any evidence, according to several people with knowledge of the matter: that a key player in the Russia probe, a professor named Joseph Mifsud, was actually a Western intelligence asset sent to discredit the Trump campaign — and that the CIA, under Brennan, was somehow involved” in tricking the FBI
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Trump’s Job Approval: 40.7%
NOTE: There was a sharp drop in the approval rating one week after Pelosi formally announced impeachment, but this was followed by a slight rebound. However in the past two weeks there have been two more steep declines , possibly due to the continued Ukraine revelations and/or the Syria pull out. Trump’s approval has not been this low since the Government shutdown in January. As of now the decline severity rank is a 6, signifying an above average decline.
Fiona Hill testified on Monday. She said Bolton told her that Mulveney and Sondland Ukraine plan was a “drug deal” he wanted no part in.
On Tuesday, Giuliani declared that he will not comply with House subpoena for documents. So too did Pence, the Defense Department, and the Office of Management.
A state department official, George P. Kent, testified that after a May 23 meeting called by Mulvaney, three people–Sondland, Perry and Volker–effectively took over managing Ukraine and career people like him were told to “lay low.”
The House voted with overwhelming Republican support to disapprove of Trump’s actions on Syria.
On Wednesday another State Department official testified in closed session before the House. He said he quit in opposition to the firing of the Ukraine ambassador and the politicization of the State Department in general.
It is not apparent that declarations form Trump and the White House from last week that they will block all cooperation has not in fact blocked cooperation: “One by one, a parade of Trump administration career diplomats and senior officials has offered a cascade of revelations. Those accounts have corroborated and expanded upon key aspects of the whistle-blower complaint that spawned the impeachment inquiry”
This famous picture was taken on Wednesday during a white House meeting between Trump and Congressional democrats. Trump was belligerent and Pelosi and her team eventually walked out.
Thursday: Mulvaney gave a press conference in which he admitted that the White House held up the Ukraine aid money over the election interference favors: “Did he also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the D.N.C. server?” Mr. Mulvaney said, referring to Mr. Trump. “Absolutely. No question about that.” He added, “That’s why we held up the money.” He later walked back the statement, though even few Republicans took the walk back seriously.
Mulvaney also announced that the next G7 summit would be at trump’s Doral resort. By Saturday Trump scrapped those plans, after much pushback. According to the Washington Post: “several GOP lawmakers have reached out to White House officials to urge Trump to reconsider his Doral decision, which they worry smacks of corruption.”
The Washington Post interviewed over 20 GOP members in Congress: “There’s now a growing sense among a quiet group of Republicans that the president is playing with fire, taking their loyalty for granted as they’re forced to ‘defend the indefensible.'”
On Friday General McRaven published an op-ed against Trump in The New York Times: “if this president doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, both domestically and abroad, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office — Republican, Democrat or independent — the sooner, the better. The fate of our Republic depends upon it.”
AP reports that Giuliani and Rick Perry were not just pushing Ukraine to investigate Trump political opponents, but were also involved in a group of Trump allies who were trying to install a more friendly management team to a Ukraine gas company called Naftogaz: “This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies…” One of Perry’s past political donors is involved: “The Associated Press has interviewed four people with direct knowledge of the attempts to influence Naftogaz, and their accounts show Perry playing a key role in the effort.”
Also this from the AP: “In a private meeting with Zelensky, Perry pressed the Ukrainian president to fire members of the Naftogaz advisory board. Attendees left the meeting with the impression that Perry wanted to replace the American representative, Amos Hochstein, a former diplomat and energy representative who served in the Obama administration, with someone “reputable in Republican circles,” according to someone who was in the room…. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said he was floored by the American requests because the person had always viewed the U.S. government “as having a higher ethical standard.””
A second whistleblower has come forward, and is being represented by the same legal team as the first. He or she claims to have first hand knowledge of the Ukraine deal.
Monday
The House subpoenas the Pentagon and Budget Office for information about Ukraine.
Tuesday
The White House sent a letter to the House saying they will refuse to turn over any documents, witnesses or participate in any way with impeachment: “In order to fulfill his duties to the American people, the Constitution, the Executive Branch, and all future occupants of the Office of the presidency, President Trump and his administration cannot participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry under these circumstances.”
Thursday
The SDNY filed an indictment against two associates of Giuliani who were arrested trying to flee the country Wednesday night. They were charged with illegal campaign contributes from a Russian foreign national and conspiracy. They also were involved in the Ukraine situation by being part of the pressure campaign to remove the ambassador.
There was also news this week of an Oval Office meeting between Trump, Giuliani and Tillerson in which Tillerson was pressed to interfere in a DOJ case against a Turkish national. He refused.
The fired Ukrainian ambassador Marie Yavanovitch testified before the House. She said she was removed based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
In other news:
Sunday night Trump announced that he was withdrawing support from Syrian Kurds and opening the door for Turkey to invade. After intense pushback from GOP in Congress, he seemed to equivocate: “As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!).”
Here is a remarkable sentence about how the Pentagon has been keeping its Syria policy quiet from the president since he ordered a full withdrawal in December: “military officials decided they would keep quiet about Syria. The strategy extended all the way to combat outposts in the country, where Special Forces officers were reminded that their mission could end quickly if the commander in chief was publicly reminded that there were still 1,000 troops there”
A judge ordered that Trump must turn over eight years of his tax returns to the Manhattan DA for the Stormy Daniels case. Trump’s legal team appealed to the 2nd District Court.
DHS secretary MacAleen resigned on Friday: “A person close to McAleenan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he resigned Friday after weeks of growing disenchantment with his standing in the administration. He was never formally nominated for the job and there was no indication he would be.”
A former national security advisor for Trump, Thomas Bossert, has given interviews saying that Trump is pushing a “completely debunked” conspiracy theory that Ukraine and not Russia was involved in the 2016 election. While he is”deeply disturbed” he does not think what Trump has done is impeachable.
Over the weekend the Washington Post and the New York Times reported that Pompeo has recently renewed an internal State Department investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email usage: “as many as 130 officials had been contacted in recent weeks.”
Retired GOP senator Jeff Flake came out in favor in impeachment: “We have learned from a whistleblower that the president has abused the power of his office to pressure a foreign government to go after a political opponent. A rough transcript of the telephone call has removed all ambiguity about the president’s intent… With what we now know, the president’s actions warrant impeachment. …At this point, the president’s conduct in office should not surprise us. But truly devastating has been our tolerance of that conduct…. Trust me when I say you can go elsewhere for a job. But you cannot go elsewhere for a soul.”
New York Times broke news that Trump and Barr were pushing Australia to help them debunk the Mueller probe: “President Trump initiated the discussion in recent weeks with Mr. Morrison explicitly for the purpose of requesting Australia’s help in the Justice Department review of the Russia investigation..Mr. Barr requested that Mr. Trump speak to Mr. Morrison.”
Here is the Washington Post story on Barr, suggesting he is working in support of John Durham’s investigation of the intelligence agencies role in investigating Russian interference in 2016: “Barr has already made overtures to British intelligence officials, and last week the attorney general traveled to Italy, where he and Durham met senior Italian government officials and Barr asked the Italians to assist Durham, according to one person familiar with the matter. It was not Barr’s first trip to Italy to meet intelligence officials, the person said. The Trump administration has made similar requests of Australia, these people said.”
Wall Street Journal reports that Pompeo was on the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky.
Tuesday
Pompeo sent a letter to Congress saying he would not allow State Department officials to testify before Congress. Three House chairmen wrote back: “Any effort to intimidate witnesses or prevent them from talking with Congress — including State Department employees — is illegal and will constitute evidence of obstruction of the impeachment inquiry.”
Washington Post reports that Pence was used by the White House to pressure Ukraine, but Pence’s team claims he was unaware of the Zelensky phone call and the Biden favor request.
Thursday
Trump told reporters on the South Lawn that he wants both Ukraine and China to open investigations into Joseph and Hunter Biden.
Giuliani gave an exclusive interview with the Wall Street Journal in which he said the Trump ordered the removal of the US ambassador to Ukraine because she was not in support of the Biden investigation.
The New York Times reports that the ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker drafted a statement for the Ukrainian president in the weeks after the July 25 call: “The statement would have committed Ukraine to investigating the energy company Burisma, which had employed Hunter Biden, the younger son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. And it would have called for the Ukrainian government to look into what Mr. Trump and his allies believe was interference by Ukrainians in the 2016 election in the United States to benefit Hillary Clinton. The idea behind the statement was to break the Ukrainians of their habit of promising American diplomats and leaders behind closed doors that they would look into matters and never follow through.”
The House released the private messages between US diplomats wherein they are describing pressuring Ukraine to investigate 2016 and Biden in exchange for support from the White House. Here are some key messages that establish quid pro quo:
In Other News:
Politico reports on new Trump property details that have surfaced in House investigations: “the committee received information that two entities — a trade association and a foreign government — booked a large quantity of rooms but only used a fraction of them.” The report contains this impeachment nugget: Pelosi “may quietly allow a couple other issues to be included. Those could include Trump illegally making money off his presidency and obstruction of justice in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether Trump associates colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election.”
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Trump’s Job Approval: 41.6% (dropped to 41.2% for one day)
an analysis of “Operation: Annihilate!” the last aired episode of Season One of Star Trek
a fitting season finale (even though 60s TV did not really do those as we understand them) because it has a grand scale and important character development for all three leads–Kirk, Spock and McCoy–which is unusual
a strong science-fiction outing with an alien that spreads “mass insanity” throughout the galaxy–and they look like flying jellyfish.
On Sunday Trump admitted to asking Ukraine to investigate Biden.
Monday
On Monday seven freshmen Congressmen (including Sherril of NJ11) said of Trump’s Ukraine gambit: “If these allegations are true, we believe these actions represent an impeachable offense.” They also wrote: “Congress must determine whether the president was indeed willing to use his power and withhold security assistance funds to persuade a foreign country to assist him in an upcoming election.”
According to the Washington Post: “Pelosi, according to multiple senior House Democrats and congressional aides, has asked colleagues whether they believe that Trump’s own admission that he pressured a Ukrainian leader to investigate a political foe is a tipping point. She was making calls as late as Monday night to gauge support in the caucus, and many leadership aides who once thought Trump’s impeachment was unlikely now say they think it’s almost inevitable.”
The New York Times has a good summary of the timeline of the decision to freeze the Ukraine aid money of 391 million just days before the phone call: “Lawmakers pressed the administration on why the Ukraine aid was being held, but were first told the assistance was being reviewed to determine whether it was in the best interest of foreign policy. Other administration officials said, without detail, there was a review on corruption in Ukraine, according to current and former officials. Then, as August drew to a close, other officials told lawmakers they were trying to gauge the effectiveness of the aid, a claim that struck congressional aides as odd, the officials said. But Vice President Mike Pence later said that the review was based on concerns from the White House about ‘issues of corruption.'”
Here is the aid money in question: “The assistance came in two pots overseen by different agencies — $250 million from the Defense Department’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and $141 from the State Department’s foreign military financing program. The funds were intended to help train and equip Ukrainian forces in their fight to stave off Russian incursion.”
Tuesday
After a build up all of Tuesday in which more House Democrats voiced support for impeachment, Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry at a press conference at 5pm.
The Washington Post has an interesting story, in which officials are quoted saying they tried to stop a Trump meeting or call with Ukraine because they feared this would be the outcome; “Rudy — he did all of this,” one U.S. official said. “This s—show that we’re in — it’s him injecting himself into the process.”; Although the question of a linkage or leverage never came up in the formal NSC discussions, participants began to believe that Trump was “withholding the aid until [Ukraine] gave him something on Biden or Manafort.”
Lawfare had a piece hot off the presses Tuesday afternoon recommending five articles of impeachment topics: obstruction of justice; unlawfully using power of the office to start investigations of opponents; misuse of foreign policy and congressional money in the Ukraine case; impeding congressional investigations through refusal to hand over witnesses and documents; lying to the public.
Nate Silver on why this time might be different: “The public was largely not persuaded about the wisdom of impeaching Trump on Russia. And Ukraine provides a much clearer story, in some ways: Trump allegedly pressured a foreign leader to undermine one of his chief rivals in the 2020 election. It’s not a case of the cover-up being worse than the crime, or of Trump attempting to obstruct the investigation, or of actions that took place before Trump took office. It’s a direct, recent and relatively simple throughline.”
Ignatius brings the issue to a fine point: “Why is this more than just another Trump vs. Democrats mud fight? Because the Ukraine issue is about compromising U.S. national security — and direct pledges to allies — for the president’s personal political gain.” He also includes some specific reporting about how badly needed battlefield equipment (L3 Technologies comms devices) was delayed, and how Lindsay Graham directly told the White House to release the aid.
Wednesday
Here is the call summary the White House released Wednesday afternoon that contains much of the language between Trump and Zelensky on the July 25 phone call. It was immediately interpreted as very damming evidence against Trump.
David French: “When Trump demanded reciprocity, he made it clear what reciprocity meant, and it meant in part an investigation of a leading Democratic candidate for President. Under these facts, an impeachment inquiry is an entirely appropriate response.”
Lawfare: “That text unambiguously reflects conduct intolerable in a president in a number of different respects. And it does so in five brief, easy-to-understand pages, in which Trump clearly seeks to recruit a foreign head of state to violate the civil liberties of American citizens and uncover dirt on a potential political opponent in the 2020 presidential election.”
ABC News reports that some Ukrainian aids interpreted Trump’s request as a quid pro quo: “It was clear that [President Donald] Trump will only have communications if they will discuss the Biden case,” said Serhiy Leshchenko, an anti-corruption advocate and former member of Ukraine’s Parliament, who now acts as an adviser to Zelenskiy. “This issue was raised many times. I know that Ukrainian officials understood.”
Details dribbled out on Wednesday evening after the whistleblower complaint was released to Congress, including: “Mr. Atkinson eventually concluded that there was reason to believe that the president might have illegally solicited a foreign campaign contribution — and that his potential misconduct created a national security risk” IG Atkinson believed that Trump may have violated two layers of the low: one, soliciting foreign assistance to influence a political campaign; two, “that Mr. Trump’s potential misconduct might expose him ‘to serious national security and counterintelligence risks.'”
Bouie games out what he thinks Barr, whom Trump mentioned in the call, would have done: “it’s not hard to imagine how Barr might use “revelations” from the Ukrainian government to pursue an inquiry into the former vice president and his son, releasing information at a pace that feeds the story, strengthens the appearance of impropriety and ultimately undermines Biden’s campaign.”
By Wednesday night there were 218 House lawmakers in support of impeachment, which is all that is needed to pass articles of impeachment.
Thursday
The whistleblower complaint, released Thursday morning, has as its first sentence: “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”
And then the new and significant revelation: “the transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature. One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.”
Bill Barr is also mentioned. Here is an interesting footnote: “In May, Attorney General Barr announced that he was initiating a probe into the “origins” of the Russia investigation. According to the above-referenced OCCRP report (22 July), two associates of Mr. Giuliani claimed to be working with Ukrainian officials to uncover information that would become part of this inquiry. In an interview with Fox News on 8 August, Mr. Giuliani claimed that Mr. John Durham, whom Attorney General Barr designated to lead this probe, was “spending a lot of time in Europe” because he was “investigating Ukraine.” I do not know the extent to which, if at all, Mr. Giuliani is directly coordinating his efforts on Ukraine with Attorney General Barr or Mr. Durham.”
Acting DNI Maguire testified before the House today and made the case for why he held up handing over the complaint to Congress. In short he believed there were executive privilege concerns, and the White House and DOJ told him he did not need to turn it over.
Friday
Kurt Volker resigned on Friday after Giuliani outed his involvement in the Ukraine scandal by showing his text messages on TV and tweeting them out. Giuliani was apparently trying to prove the he was not acting alone but in conjunction with the State Department.
Immigration
A judge blocked the administration’s attempt to overturn toe Flores Decree.
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Trump’s Job Approval: 42.8% (reached 43.1% for one day during this week)
Trumps Acting DNI Joseph Maguire is refusing to turn over a whistle blower complaint to Congress even though the Inspector General has said the information should be turned over. Schiff is demanding the DNI come before the House on Thursday to answer for this omission.
On Wednesday night the Washington Post reported new details: that the whistle blower was saying that Trump made a promise to a foreign leader. The complaint was filed August 12, 2019: “White House records indicate that Trump had had conversations or interactions with at least five foreign leaders in the preceding five weeks.” It is so far unknown which of those leaders is mentioned in the complaint.
Here is the Lawfare legal analysis of the whistleblower statutes: “In the current circumstances, so far the Trump administration is honoring neither the letter of the law nor the spirit of good faith cooperation that the relevant case law contemplates. Maguire seems not to have notified the committee, in any form, that a credible issue had arisen. He blew through the statutory deadline with seemingly no attempt to communicate with the committee. It seems the only reason the committee found out about the issue was because of a letter sent to the committee chair by the intelligence community. “
Inspector General Atkinson spent three hours before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday. He refused to disclose the nature of the complaint saying he was not authorized to do so, but he also disagreed with a DNI lawyer’s decision that the information should not be released to Congress. The Washington Post also reports that the country involved in the complaint is Ukraine.
Thursday night Giuliani gave a CNN interview where he admitted to pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden’s son.
Friday The Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post report more details. On a July 25 call with the president of Ukraine, Trump urged him to work with Giuliani on the Biden case eight times: “Days after the two presidents spoke, Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, met with an aide to the Ukrainian president in Madrid and spelled out two specific cases he believed Ukraine should pursue. One was a probe of a Ukrainian gas tycoon who had Biden’s son Hunter on his board. Another was an allegation that Democrats colluded with Ukraine to release information on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort during the 2016 election.”
Wittes: “If it is true that the president used the threat of withholding congressionally authorized funds to—in the Post’s words—“extort” a foreign leader into investigating a domestic political opponent and his family, that would constitute an impeachable offense, indeed an offense that positively demands impeachment from any Congress that wishes to be taken seriously.”
He goes on to explain three reasons why it would be impeachable: “first, because it would involve the extortion of a foreign leader for personal and political gain; second, because it would involve the solicitation of a foreign government’s involvement in a U.S. election; and third, because it would involve the solicitation of a foreign government’s investigation of a political opponent in a fashion that grossly violates the civil liberties of a U.S. person, namely Biden’s son.”
David French: “There is not a Republican alive who would find it acceptable for a Democratic president to press a foreign country to work with his personal lawyer to investigate a domestic political rival.”
In Other News
Oil fields in Saudi Arabia were attacked by drones. Trump tweets and statements suggested that he was prepared to commit military forces to retaliate against Iran: “There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!” And: “The fact is the Saudis are going to have a lot of involvement in this if we decide to do something. They’ll be very much involved. And that includes payment. And they understand that fully.”
Trump was in California this week on a fund raiser but also to pitch some of his border wall. An Australian journalist was taken aback: “I was still taken back by just how disjointed and meandering the unedited president could sound. Here he was trying to land the message that he had delivered at least something towards one of his biggest campaign promises and sounding like a construction manager with some long-winded and badly improvised sales lines. I’d understood the dilemma of normalising Trump’s ideas and policies – the racism, misogyny and demonisation of the free press. But watching just one press conference from Otay Mesa helped me understand how the process of reporting about this president can mask and normalise his full and alarming incoherence.”
We also learned that the military has spent almost $200,000 at Trump Turnberry since August 2017.
Politico has another story about the Air Force fueling in Prestwick near Trump’s golf course: “The frequency of the [fueling] stops and overnight stays has increased steadily each year, from 95 stops and 40 overnights in 2015; 145 and 75 in 2016; 180 and 116 in 2017; 257 and 208 in 2018; and 259 stops and 220 overnights through August 2019.” The reporters also found evidence of more stays at the Trump hotel, although the number is now unknown.
The New York Times reports on the Trump Organization’s partnership with the Prestwick airport going back to 2014. The Air Force is also saying their review will account for the number of times airmen were billited in Turnberry.
Politico continued to report news on the Turnberry scandal, including proof of four times military stayed the night at the Trump hotel from September 2018 to June 2019. At least 60 service members were involved.
By Thursday we learned: “The U.S. Air Force has lodged crews at President Donald Trump’s Scotland resort up to 40 times since 2015, a figure that is far higher than previously known.”
On Tuesday Trump tweeted that he was firing John Bolton. Bolton tweeted that he resigned. In any case he is out as national security advisor.
Frum on Bolton: “Speak! Speak! Tell the truth, all of it—not just adjectives and conclusions, but the actual details of the self-dealing by Trump, of the security risks he presents, of his inattention and ignorance. Speak so that people feel it, so that people understand it, so that people can do something about it while there is time. “History isn’t kind to the man who holds Mussolini’s jacket,” Ted Cruz reportedly told friends in 2016. Cruz was right.”
Here is the New York Times report on how the Taliban summit came to be: “Thus began an extraordinary few days of ad hoc diplomatic wrangling that upended the talks in a weekend Twitter storm. On display were all of the characteristic traits of the Trump presidency — the yearning ambition for the grand prize, the endless quest to achieve what no other president has achieved, the willingness to defy convention, the volatile mood swings and the tribal infighting.”
This week we learned that the Russian spy who offered intel on Putin’s order to hack the DNC and to support Trump was urged by the CIA to allow them to extract him from Russia. At first he refused but then in 2017 he consented: “The decision to extract the informant was driven “in part” because of concerns that Mr. Trump and his administration had mishandled delicate intelligence, CNN reported. But former intelligence officials said there was no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source, and other current American officials insisted that media scrutiny of the agency’s sources alone was the impetus for the extraction.”
Trump directed Mulveny to have the NOAA reverse it’s contradiction of his Alabama weather forecast, and Wilbur Ross followed up by threatening jobs at NOAA.
Impeachment
According to the New York Times, House Democrats return to Congress this week with a plan to broaden their impeachment inquiry: “a robust four-month itinerary of hearings and court arguments that they hope will provide the evidence they need to credibly portray Mr. Trump as corrupt and abusing his power.”
Aid money for Ukraine which Trump held up for months was finally released on Thursday.
More poor economic indicators: “The American manufacturing sector contracted last month, a key measure showed on Tuesday, heightening fears that the trade war with China could bring on a recession.”
In one of the weirdest stories of the week, to cover for having erroneously reported that Dorian would affect Alabama, he took a sharpie to a NOAA hurricane projection map and showed it to reporters.
Trump continued argue he was justified about the Alabama tweet through the end of the week, including having the NOAA release an unsigned statement backing up the statement.
On Friday night Politico reported that the Air Force diverted flights to support a failing airport near the also struggling Trump resort in Scotland. The New York Times confirmed the story, adding that the military contract to use the airport was signed in August 2016.
The New York Times reported on how Trump’s properties have been cashing in: “To ethics lawyers, the most extraordinary aspect of the daily merging of Mr. Trump’s official duties and his commercial interests both in Washington and around the world is that it has now become almost routine…. At least 90 members of Congress, 250 Trump administration officials and more than 110 foreign officials have been spotted at Trump properties since 2017, according to social media posts and counts by various watchdog groups.”
Pence’s visit to Ireland included a stay at a Trump hotel even though it is on the opposite side of the country from his meetings with leaders in Dublin. There were also shifting explanations for the stay. Congress is investigating.
Trump tweeted that he called off a Camp David summit with the Taliban due to an American solider killed in Afghanistan.
Immigration
The Pentagon is shutting down programs to reallocate money to Trump’s border wall. Here is a list of all the programs being cut: “Nearly every facet of military life, from a canceled dining center in Puerto Rico to a small arms firing range in Tulsa, Okla., to an elementary school in Wiesbaden, Germany, will be affected by the transfer of $3.6 billion”
The deportation orders on medical cases was reversed.
Policy: House holds Barr and Ross over Census; fizzled ICE raid; immigration news on dead child, improperly deported citizen, stricter deportation rules, terrible conditions in detention facilities; Trump administration and Pelosi agreed to a budget deal to avoid hitting the debt limit; Coats steps down; Trump announces replacement but then withdraws it four days later; news that 900 children had been separated in the last year; recession chatter resulting in stock market slump; new stricter rules for who gets a green card; some tariff are delayed till after Christmas; White House moves to counter recession; Buying Greenland spat with Denmark; Issues rule overturning Flores Decree; EPA rule change on methane; news about taking money and land for border wall, and deporting extreme medical cases
Taboos: Trump tweet “go back” to Squad; Hose votes to condemn his racist language; “Send her home” chant at rally; Trump’s Baltimore tweet; El Paso shooting; More reporting on Trump’s rhetoric and the El Paso shooting, and his response; spat with Ohmar and Talib over visiting Israel; Trump calls Fed Chair an enemy of America; G7 Summit, talk of hosting next one at a Trump property
Russia Investigation: Mueller testifies before House; FBI IG report on Comey
Defections: Scaramucci defection; Joe Walsh calls for primary of Trump; Joe Walk announces he will run against Trump; Mattis starts book tour
Analysis: This dip was spread over seven weeks, which is longer than a typical dip. There are two phases. In the first half, the dip was spurred in part by Mueller’s congressional testimony in which the Mueller Report was in the news, and also by Trump’s taboo statements about the Squad and Baltimore. This was capped off at the end of the third week by the El Paso shooting. In the two weeks that followed there was a lot of conversation in the media about how Trump’s rhetoric partly inspired the gunman, with the “invasion” talk and the Squad chants fresh on everyone’s mind. Still, at this point the dip seemed to have stalled. In the sixth week of the dip there was serious concern and much reporting on a coming recession, which may have sustained the dip a bit longer.
