Month: November 2019

On Tuesday Vindman and Pence aid Jennifer Williams testified in open hearings. As did Volker and Tim Morrison.

On Wednesday Sondland testified and said that Trump has established a quid pro quo arrangement with Ukraine. This was seen as surprising, even blockbuster testimony, because Sondland’s opening statement blew up Trump’s defenses against the quid pro quo. Wittes even argues that Sondland admitted that Trump committed bribery.

On Thursday Fiona Hill testified, in what may be the last day of open hearings before an impeachment vote. Hill warned against politicians who “promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests,” meaning the idea that Ukraine was involved in 2016 election interference. She also said that Trump involved US foreign policy in a “domestic political errand.”

It appears that the House will not get testimony from Giuliani, Pence, Pompeo and Bolton, leaving some gaps in the record. Even Trump-critical Republican House members like Will Hurd are saying their is not enough evidence to justify impeachment.

The New York Times reports that the Ukraine conspiracy theory that Trump is still pushing about the 2016 election was developed and propagated by Russian intelligence.

Emails reveal that Pompeo was in communication with Giulliani in March during the time when they were trying to oust Ambassador Yanakovitch and spread the Ukraine 2016 conspiracy theory.

Lindsay Graham asked the State Department to hand over documents that will help him investigate Biden and Ukraine.

In this piece, Frum attempts to analyze the GOP defense and mindset for impeachment: “The accusations against Trump are direct and intelligible to any open mind. The defense of Trump resembles the Star Wars saga: a universe of storytelling, in multiple parts, much of it comprehensible only if you venture beyond the visual franchise to a huge appendix of fan fiction and Wikipedia pages.

“The House Republicans’ underlying argument is too jumbled and confusing even to be agreed with. It can only be absorbed. It is to be repeated, not to be analyzed. It is not even really an argument at all. It is a hypnotic litany, a creed of faith—a faith all the more compelling for defying sense and experience.  

“At Fox News, on talk radio, and on the web, American conservatives have built a communications system that effectively consolidates in-group identity. Much of the time, the talkers and listeners do not themselves understand what they are saying. They use key words and phrases as gang signs: badges of identity that are recognized without necessarily being understood.”

In other news:

Trump intervened on a Navy decision to demote a SEAL who was accused and acquitted of war crimes. The Secretary of the Navy is so far refusing to accept Trump’s twitter statement as a order.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 41.9%

Episode 19

Rank: 6

Decline: -2.10%

Lowest Approval: 40.7%

Date Range: September 28-October 26, 2019

Key Events:

Impeachment: Trump admits to asking Ukraine to investigate Biden; Pelosi announces formal Impeachment hearings; call summary released, with Trump asking Zelensky for a favor; Whistleblower complain released; Three House committees subpoenaed Giuliani; Pompeo and Pence are involved, refuse to cooperate; Trump asks China to investigate Biden; private messages about the Ukraine deal between Volker, Taylor and Sondland are released; News that Perry is involved and House subpoenas him; 2nd whistleblower comes forward; 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; The SDNY filed an indictment against two associates of Giuliani; Yanakovitch testifies in closed session; More close door testimony: Hill, Kent, others; Congressional Democrats meet with Trump and walk out; Mulvaney press conference; Bill Taylor close-door testimony; Trump allies storm the closed door hearings to protest the process; News that Ukraine was aware of the hold on aid in August,

Policy: Trump’s call with Turkey and announcement of Syria pull out; Bipartisan House vote against Trump’s Syria decision

Analysis: The number of causes for Trump’s approval decline has grown by one with this episode, as the direct cause of the decline is something new to his presidency: Impeachment. Although it is important to remember that during this dip the Trump Administration received a couple weeks of sustained bad news cycles, including stiff Republican push back, over the decision to pull out of Syria and allow the Turks to attack the Kurds. The approval dropped sharply in the week after Pelosi announced impeachment, which was also the week in which Trump and the White House admitted to what he was being accused of and released official evidence as well. The next sharp decline happened two weeks later, after daily reports of what was being learned in closed door House testimony, and after acting chief of staff Mulvaney gave a press conference in which he admitted to the quid pro quo (the Syria new cycle was also happening this week).

A decline with a rank of 6 is significant. A dip this sever has not occurred since January 2019, which was due in part to the government shut down. And only 6 of the 19 dips have been worse than this one.

The dip ended October 26, Week 145, after lasting 5 weeks. Interestingly the slight uptick in approval has corresponded with open House hearings. During this time we have not learned much that was not reported from the close-door hearings which happened during the dip. So for two weeks the hearings were televised and people could hear from the original sources, instead of reading about it in the paper or hearing pundits report what happened. Public hearings just closed this week (Week 148) and we will see if the fact that “old” information was televised will cause a new dip in Trump’s approval. The day after public hearings ended, Trump’s approval had almost ticked back up to his stasis point of 42% (41.9%).

The House began releasing impeachment interview transcripts, starting with Ambassador Yovanovitch. New transcripts were released each day this week.

Here are the highlights from the transcript of Taylor’s testimony.

Here is a list of the top five impeachment revelations from this week.

Sondland corrected his earlier testimony and is now describing a quid pro quo he pushed with Ukraine: “I said that resumption of the U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks” including a script for Zelensky to deliver about Burisma and 2016 election interference.

The New York Times reports that Ukraine came very close to giving into Trump’s demands: “Nearly all Mr. Zelensky’s top advisers favored his making the public statement, said one of the officials who participated in the debate. United States military aid, they agreed, as well as diplomatic backing for impending peace talks to end the war outweighed the risks of appearing to take sides in American politics…. Finally bending to the White House request, Mr. Zelensky’s staff planned for him to make an announcement in an interview on Sept. 13 with Fareed Zakaria, the host of a weekly news show on CNN.” Aid was released on September 11.

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Trump Job Approval: 41.4%

On Sunday Trump took a victory lap press conference after the dead of the ISIS leader. It is a noted irony that the factors that lead to al-Baghdadi’s death are international alliances and cooperation that Trump has undermined, especially with the Kurds.

On Tuesday a DOD official, Alexander Vindman, who worked in the White House and was on the July 25 call testified before the House. In his opening statement, like Taylor last week, he stressed the geopolitical importance of Ukraine as a bulwark against Russia: “a strong and independent Ukraine is critical to U.S. national security interests because Ukraine is a frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression.” And he stresses the importance of support for the new Ukrainian president Zelensky: The U.S. government policy community’s view is that the election of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the promise of reforms to eliminate corruption will lock in Ukraine’s Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity.”

Like Tayler, he describes “outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency. This narrative was harmful to U.S. government policy.”

On the July 10 meeting with Ukaninan officials: “Sondland started to speak about Ukraine delivering specific investigations in order to secure the meeting with the President, at which time Ambassador Bolton cut the meeting short. Following this meeting, there was a scheduled debriefing during which Amb. Sondland emphasized the importance that Ukraine deliver the investigations into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma.”

Vindman testified that on the July 25 call with Zelensky Trump mentioned recorded calls of Biden Jr. discussing corrupt acts and Zelensky saying the name Burisma, both of which were stricken from the released record of the call.

Another detail that came out of the Vindman testimony is that after he went to White House lawyers to warn that Trump “did something wrong” on the July 25 call, John Eisenberg placed the call summary in the secret classified server: “Vindman’s account marks the first known instance in which a witness before the impeachment inquiry has provided a firsthand account linking Eisenberg to the decision to move the problematic transcript to a highly classified server.”

On Thursday (Halloween) the House voted to approve the next rounds of the impeachment investigation. No Republicans voted in support. Here is a list of what is in the House resolution. It moves the inquiry to its public phase, authorizing public hearings, the filing of a report and release of transcripts. It allows for an opening 45 minutes of questioning by staff lawyers before the regular members have to alternate between Democrat and Republican.

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Trump Job Approval: 40.9%