Category: Politics

Closing arguments were given in the Senate on Tuesday.

Frum: “Yet the impeachment process has achieved something. It has removed deniability from the Republicans. They were enablers; now they are accomplices. They are all Carmela Soprano in the classic scene with the psychiatrist who speaks the truth about her criminal husband: “One thing you can never say: that you haven’t been told.” The Republican Party as an institution has utterly merged itself into the Trump cover-up machine, and there is no escape for any of them.”

Peter Wehner: “what they don’t tell themselves, probably because it would be too psychologically shattering, is that they have become fully complicit in a corrupt enterprise called the Trump presidency. (Romney is the rare exception.)”

Wittes critiques arguments made by senators Alexander and Rubio for why they voted not to have witnesses: “…would be a more compelling argument if Rubio proposed to deploy any of the “multiple ways … to constrain” the president to which he refers. But he does not…. Indeed, Rubio’s position is not that it is the voters, not senators, who should depose Trump and that he will thus campaign against Trump in Florida. And while Alexander likewise argued on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “the people” are the appropriate remedy for Trump’s behavior, he also does not propose to avail himself of that remedy. Both men support Trump’s reelection, meaning that they actively oppose the use of the remedy they suggest as the alternative to removal by impeachment—which is to say that they do, in fact, oppose accountability for what Trump did.”

Here is audio from the last day of arguments. You can also listen to audio from all the previous days of the trial on this podcast.

Trump gave his State of the Union Tuesday evening.

Trump was acquitted on Wednesday afternoon. All Democrats voted for both impeachment articles, and Mitt Romney voted for the abuse of power article.

Here is the text of Romney’s speech. Koppins was granted an interview with Romney on the day before the vote: “I found Romney filled with what seemed like righteous indignation about the president’s misconduct—quoting hymns and scripture, expressing dismay at his party, and bracing for the political backlash.”

Then on Friday, Trump fired Vindman and his twin brother from the National Security Council, and Sondland: “President Trump wasted little time on Friday opening a campaign of retribution against those he blames for his impeachment, firing two of the most prominent witnesses in the House inquiry against him barely 48 hours after being acquitted by the Senate.”

A Clevland-based pastor Darrel Scott, one of Trump’s prominent black supporters, is running a sham charity organization called Urban Revitalization Coalition. Its purpose is to hold Trump events in black cities and give out cash prizes of $300-$500 to black residents in hope it will sway them to vote for Trump. The effort is intended to decrease the Democrat vote total from urban areas: “The group’s “Christmas Extravaganza” event in Cleveland last month featured a $25,000 giveaway and an appearance by Ja’Ron Smith, a deputy assistant to the president. A Cleveland native who worked on Trump’s criminal justice reform, Smith is among the highest-ranking black officials in the White House.”

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Trump’s Job Approval: 43.8%

On Sunday night the New York Times published a scoop about John Bolton’s book in which he confirmed that Trump was engaged in a qui pro quo with Ukraine: “President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens”

In a sign that the entire book or key portions of it have been leaked, on Monday evening the same New York Times reporters released another story about it, this time involving Barr: “John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, privately told Attorney General William P. Barr last year that he had concerns that President Trump was effectively granting personal favors to the autocratic leaders of Turkey and China, according to an unpublished manuscript by Mr. Bolton. Mr. Barr responded by pointing to a pair of Justice Department investigations of companies in those countries and said he was worried that Mr. Trump had created the appearance that he had undue influence over what would typically be independent inquiries, according to the manuscript. Backing up his point, Mr. Barr mentioned conversations Mr. Trump had with the leaders, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Xi Jinping of China.”

These revelations prompted some GOP senators to call for witnesses in the impeachment trial: “I think it’s increasingly likely that other Republicans will join those of us who think we should hear from John Bolton,” Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, told reporters. He later told Republican colleagues at a closed-door lunch that calling witnesses would be a wise choice politically and substantively, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Trump’s defense concluded their three days of testimony on Tuesday.

Senators got to ask questions on Wednesday.

The White House claimed on Wednesday that Bolton’s book contains a lot of classified material. Bolton’s lawyers disagree.

On Friday the Senate voted not to call witnesses, with only Collins and Romney voting with the Democrats.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 43.4%

Wittes’s analysis of Trump’s initial legal defense briefs submitted to the Senate: Read together, Cipollone’s October letter and this new document written with Sekulow set expectations for the president’s defense: barely contained, and barely coherent, rage—a middle finger stuck at the impeachment process, rather than any kind of organized effort to convince senators or the public that the president’s conviction would be unmerited, imprudent, or unjust.

On Wednesday the House managers presented their opening arguments. Adam Schiff gave a powerful two hour speech that others are praising as one for the history books.

After three long days, the House managers closed their opening statements on Friday night. According to this New York Times reporter: “The sense in the Capitol was that the trial was heading toward its predictable conclusion, Mr. Trump’s acquittal, as early as next week.”

Schiff is widely regarded as the manager who gave the most effective speeches.

Trump’s defense team began their opening arguments on Saturday.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 43%

Trump’s last approval decline (Episode 19) corresponded with the breaking news cycle wherein we learned the details of the Ukraine scheme for which he was eventually impeached. That decline was of above average severity (6 out of 10) on my ranking system, and was a significant drop of 2.10% points. But since that decline ended in late October 2019, his approval rating has fluctuated a lot while rising on average a total of 2.70%. In the week of his acquittal in early February 2020, there is talk of Trump having some of his best approval ratings (Gallup has him reaching a “personal best” of 49% in one poll). What is going on?

Over the 6 weeks after the last dip, he rose 1.60% points, but not consecutively. He would rise for a couple weeks, then drop slightly for a couple weeks, repeat. The decline adds up to .50% points. Then in the week of the House Impeachment vote, the approval jumps 1.50% in one week, reaching 43.3%. At the time I thought this jump was just noise since a jump of that much that quickly is rare. It has only happened four times (Weeks 33, 54, 67, 108). And sure enough, over the next three weeks the approval rating dropped exactly 1.50%, erasing the sudden gain. But then, starting in the week of January 12, the approval rating increased 1.60%.

Here is a graphic of this change:

As stated above, Trump’s approval has increased 2.70% on average between Week 144 and 158. This is a significant climb. However, this increase seems at this point (in the middle of Week 159) to be inconsistent, with lurches up and then down and then up again, as opposed to a steady, reliable increase in support. It may be noise, and the weeks after 159 may show another approval from of 1-1.5% and a return to Trump’s normal equilibrium of between 41-42%.

On the other hand, Trump’s approval may be entering a new, higher equilibrium in this 2020 election year. For three of the last eight weeks, Trump has been above 43%. This has not happened at any point in the past year, nor in Trump’s second year. In fact, Trump has not been above 43% since the first 8 weeks of his presidency (January-March 2017).

To sum up: The Ukraine scandal hurt Trump, but he has recovered any approval that was lost. The jury is still out on whether the complete impeachment process has helped Trump, but his approval rating has reached new heights since the formal proceedings began, even if it is too early to tell if those gains are solid and have staying power.

On Tuesday night the House released new evidence on Trump and Ukraine. Documents revealed that Giuliani was having Parnas and others follow Yanakovitch in Ukraine before her firing. And another document reveals Trump may have been more involved than previously known: “One of the new documents shows Mr. Giuliani saying that he had Mr. Trump’s blessing to seek a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president-elect, last spring, potential new evidence on the eve of the president’s impeachment trial.”

Mr. Giuliani has previously said he was acting at Mr. Trump’s direction in his dealings with Ukrainian officials, but the letter released on Tuesday is the first public document that says he was doing so.”

Greg Sargent breaks down the significance of these documents:

“They leave almost zero doubt that the scandal that got President Trump impeached will continue getting worse — substantially so — for him and his defenders.
The Giuliani letter undercut Trump’s main defense: “Giuliani explicitly states that he was representing Trump “as a private citizen, not as the president of the United States,” and also that Giuliani was carrying out this mission with Trump’s “knowledge and consent.”

Sargent points out that the House Foreign Relations Committee is now asking the State Department to turn over any information about threats to Yanakovitch, what Pompeo knew, and how they responded. The chair issued a statement: “This unprecedented threat to our diplomats must be thoroughly investigated and, if warranted, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Parnas went on Maddow Wednesday and Thursday nights for an interview. Parnas also gave an interview to the New York Times on Wednesday:

• “asserting for the first time in public that the president was fully aware of the efforts to dig up damaging information on his behalf.”

• “Text messages and call logs show that Mr. Parnas was in contact with Tom Hicks Jr., a donor and Trump family friend, and Joseph Ahearn, who raised money for pro-Trump political groups, about developments in the Ukraine pressure campaign.”
  “Mr. Parnas said that although he did not speak with Mr. Trump directly about the efforts, he met with the president on several occasions and was told by Mr. Giuliani that Mr. Trump was kept in the loop. Mr. Parnas pointed in particular to text messages, released by the House this week, in which Mr. Giuliani refers to an effort to obtain a visa for a former Ukrainian official who leveled corruption allegations against Mr. Biden.”

• “Before taking his first trip to Ukraine in February 2019, Mr. Parnas said that he met with Mr. Giuliani at the Grand Havana Room, a smoke-filled private club high above Midtown Manhattan, and relayed a concern that he and an associate, Igor Fruman, lacked the diplomatic credentials to carry out their task. Mr. Parnas said he proposed that the president designate them “special envoys” to ensure their safety and access. Then, Mr. Parnas said, Mr. Giuliani walked away to call Mr. Trump, and returned with a new plan: He would represent Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, as well as the president, a move that might afford their shared mission the confidentiality of attorney-client privilege. Mr. Giuliani has denied Mr. Parnas’s account.”

Here are some Parnas takeaways from the Washington Post: “a newly revealed document, a message from the Ukraine prosecutor: “I’m sorry, but this is all simply b——t,” Lutsenko wrote on March 13 in Russian. “I’m f—–g sick of all this. I haven’t received a visit. My [boss] hasn’t received jack all. I’m prepared to [thrash] your opponent. But you want more and more. We’re over. ” This shows that Trump was never concerned about corruption but about Biden, which Parnas said in the interview. He also implicated Bolton, Pence, Barr and Nunes as being “in the loop.”

The New York Times reports that in November 2018 Russia began hacking Burisma: “experts say the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens — the same kind of information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment.”

On Wednesday evening the House voted to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate, and Pelosi named the impeachment managers.

The Senate opened its impeachment trial on Thursday, which John Roberts swearing in the senators and having them state their oath to render “impartial justice.”

On the same day the GAO rendered a verdict that the OMB broke the law by withholding the Ukraine funding.

On Friday the White House named Trump’s defense team, which will include Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz.

We also learned that 8 Americans were injured in the Iran strike and evacuated, despite the administration saying there were no injuries.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 42.3%

Iran pulled out of all the rules and requirements in the 2015 nuclear deal. And Iraq voted on a non-binding resolution to force all American troops out of the country.

Analysis: “Iran’s announcement essentially sounded the death knell of the 2015 nuclear agreement. And it largely re-creates conditions that led Israel and the United States to consider destroying Iran’s facilities a decade ago, again bringing them closer to the potential of open conflict with Tehran that was avoided by the accord.”

DOD Secretary Esper contradicted Trump by saying that the military would not strike cultural sites.

Tuesday night Iran fired ballistic missiles into Iraqi bases that house the American military, a direct retaliation for killed Suleimani.

Wednesday morning Trump gave an address stating that the US will not retaliate.

David Sanger in the Times: The speech was, in many ways, the sound of muddled policy. It showed that after three years in office, Mr. Trump has yet to resolve the two conflicting instincts on national security that emerge from his speeches and his Twitter feed: bellicosity and disengagement.

Impeachment News

By Friday, after a week of back and forth dueling statements with McConnell, Pelosi said she would have the House send the impeachment articles to the Senate next week.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 41.8%

Iraqi protestors laid siege to the US embassy in Baghdad, sparked by a US airstrike against Iranian targets in Iraq.

Thursday night news broke that US drones killed Iran’s top military leader. Here is reporting on the initial justification: “Mr. Trump, speaking to reporters in a hastily arranged appearance at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, asserted that Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who directed Iranian paramilitary forces throughout the Middle East, “was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him.”… But General Milley, Mr. Pompeo, Mr. O’Brien and other senior administration officials did not describe any threats that were different from what American officials say General Suleimani had been orchestrating for years.”

The Washington Post’s initial report on the decision included this: “Trump was also motivated to act by what he felt was negative coverage after his 2019 decision to call off the airstrike after Iran downed the U.S. surveillance drone, officials said. Trump was also frustrated that the details of his internal deliberations had leaked out and felt he looked weak, the officials said.”

The New York Times reports that the Pentagon gave Trump a menu of retaliatory options, and that killing Suleimani was the extreme option “to make other possibilities appear more palatable.”:
“By late Thursday, the president had gone for the extreme option. Top Pentagon officials were stunned.”
The article quotes one unnamed official who said Suleimani actions were “business as usual.” It goes on to say “That official described the intelligence as thin and said that General Suleimani’s attack was not imminent “

3,500 troops are being sent immediately to the Middle East, most likley Kuwait “in one of the largest rapid deployments in decades.”

On Saturday Trump tweeted a threat to Iran that 52 targets have been identified for airstrikes if Iran retaliates: “targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.” Many are pointing out that if this were to actually happen it would be considered a war crime against the Geneva Convention.

On Sunday he reiterated his plan to destroy cultural sites: “They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people,” the president said. “And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”

In Other News

North Korea continued to make threats of a new missile tests.

John Roberts issues his annual report on the state of the judiciary: “Those principles leave no place for mob violence. But in the ensuing years, we have come to take democracy for granted, and civic education has fallen by the wayside. In our age, when social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale, the public’s need to understand our government, and the protections it provides, is ever more vital. The judiciary has an important role to play in civic education.”

The New York Times reported on new details about the White House’s Ukraine scheme, further implicating Mulveney, Bolton, and Pompeo.

Meanwhile on Friday the Senate made no progress toward setting rules for the impeachment trial.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 42.5%

Iran killed a military contractor in Iraq on December 27. The US retaliated by killing 25 Iranian security officers on December 29.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 42.6%

Trump submitted a letter Tuesday night, on the eve of his impeachment: “Fortunately, there was a transcript of the conversation taken, and you know from the transcript (which was immediately made available) that the paragraph in question was perfect. I said to President Zelensky: “I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.” I said do us a favor, not me, and our country, not a campaign.”

The full House impeached Trump Wednesday night. No Republicans voted for either article. Two democrats voted against the first article, and three voted against the second.

Pelosi announced that the House will not send the articles to the Senate for trial, and she will not name impeachment managers, until the Senate presents its plan for a trial.

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Trump’s job approval: 43.3%

Impeachment

On Monday the Judiciary Committee held a hearing were democratic and republican lawyers made the case for and against impeachment, setting up a committee debate for later this week on articles.

Here is a more descriptive take on what happened Monday: “Procedural skirmishes dominated the first several hours of today’s hearing, but they pale in comparison to the stakes of the broader impeachment inquiry. As Democrats have moved from the dramatic accounts offered in the Intelligence Committee to the far drier presentations in the Judiciary Committee, they seemed to have conceded that the moment for persuading the public on the case for impeachment has largely passed—at least in the House.”

On Tuesday the House released a draft of two articles of impeachment, one for abuse of power over the Ukraine scheme and one for obstruction of congress.

Lawfare’s initial analysis says the House Democrats made political concession by keeping the scope narrow and therefore did not go far enough: “By focusing narrowly on Ukraine, the House risks forfeiting the ability to tell the full story of Trump’s efforts to leverage the power of the presidency to target his political opponents.”

Reporting by the New York Times details internal Democrat deliberations about whether to include an article of impeachment over obstruction of justice the Mueller uncovered: “The final decision, agreed to by all six committee leaders, came down to this: The vast majority of Democrats agree that the allegations of wrongdoing toward Ukraine are overwhelming and pressing as well as a continuing threat to the nation. The same could not be said of attempts by Mr. Trump to interfere with Mr. Mueller’s work.”

The House Judiciary committee began debating the articles Wednesday evening, with markup of the amendments beginning on Thursday, lasting 14 hours until 11pm. At that point, Chairman Nadler said the vote would happen on Friday morning to allow members to “search their consciences” before making a decision.

The final vote happened Friday morning, with both articles passing on a straight party line vote.

Russia News

Also on Monday the Justice Department Inspector General released his long awaited report on the FBI’s behavior during the 2016 election: “We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced” officials’ decision to open the investigation, the report said. Nor did he find that the Steele dossier had a part in opening the investigation.

Here is a key quote from the IG report: “We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced Priestap’s decision to open Crossfire Hurricane. The evidence also showed that FBI officials responsible for and involved in the case opening decisions were unanimous in their belief that, together with the July 2016 release by WikiLeaks of hacked DNC emails, the Papadopoulos statement described in the FFG information reflected the Russian government’s potential next step to interfere with the 2016 U.S. elections. These FBI officials were similarly unanimous in their belief that the FFG information represented a threat to national security that warranted further investigation by the FBI. Witnesses told us that they did not recall observing during these discussions any instances or indications of improper motivations or political bias on the part of the participants, including Strzok. … We . . . concluded that the FBI had sufficient predication to open full counterintelligence investigations of Papadopoulos, Page, Flynn, and Manafort in August 2016.”

And then Wittes’s take: “Note an interesting feature of this passage. The investigation was not an investigation of the Trump campaign. It was four investigations of individuals—Carter Page, George Papadoupolos, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn—associated with the campaign but about whom there was specific reason for concern. In other words, investigators were not spying on the Trump campaign. They had concerns about specific people and their relationship with Russia, just as the FBI has always said.”

Comey: “On Monday, we learned from a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, that the allegation of a criminal conspiracy was nonsense. There was no illegal wiretapping, there were no informants inserted into the campaign, there was no “spying” on the Trump campaign…. Those of us who knew that truth had to remain silent while a torrent of smears and falsehoods flowed from the White House, from some congressional committee chairmen, the attorney general and Fox News personalities. “

After the IG report, Barr criticized the IG and FBI director Wray.

Immigration News

According to a report by the Texas Tribune: “Newly obtained government documents show how the Trump administration’s now-blocked policy to separate all migrant children from parents led social workers to frantically begin tracking thousands of children seized at the southern border and compile reports on cases of trauma. …Reports of traumatized children were forwarded to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties… the office failed to assist children whose suffering was documented in hundreds of similar complaints the office received last year.”

The article also reports that separations, though rare, were happening earlier than is generally known. An email dated September 2016: “The best thing that could happen is for the OFO to stop the practice of family separation,” a child refugee field specialist added to the top of an email containing instructions for reunifying families that he sent to colleagues on Sept. 20, 2016.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 41.8%