Organizing Principles

Ukraine & Impeachment

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.

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Trump’s Approval Rating: 42.2%

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.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 41.6%

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.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 41.5%

Episode 18

Rank: 4

Decline: -1.40%

Lowest Approval: 41.3%

Date Range: July 20-August 31, 2019

Key Events:

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.

Trump ended this year’s G7 Summit saying that he will invite Putin to the summit hosted in American next year. He also plans to host at his Doral resort in Florida.

On Thursday the Trump Administration announced a rule change fro the EPA: “The Environmental Protection Agency, in a proposed rule, will aim to eliminate federal government requirements that the oil and gas industry put in place technology to inspect for and repair methane leaks from wells, pipelines and storage facilities.”

On Sunday morning, Joe Walsh announced his primary campaign against Trump.

Mattis broke his silence this week, doing an interview with the Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic.

The FBI’s IG released a report criticizing Comey’s release of his memos about his encouters with Trump. Wittes gives this criticism of the criticism.

Immigration News

The Washington Post reports that Trump is pushing staff and his DHS to speed construction of border wall, even if they have to break laws and “take the land” to do it: “When aides have suggested that some orders are illegal or unworkable, Trump has suggested he would pardon the officials if they would just go ahead, aides said. He has waved off worries about contracting procedures and the use of eminent domain, saying “take the land,” according to officials who attended the meetings.”

The Boston Globe and then the Miami Herald reported this week that Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement have sent deportation letters to families who are in the country because their children are undergoing life-saving medical treatments. Here is the New York Times report on the situation.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 41.3%

According to the New York Times: “White House officials have begun preparing options to help bolster the American economy and prevent it from falling into a recession, including mulling a potential payroll tax cut and a possible reversal of some of President Trump’s tariffs, according to people familiar with the discussions.”

A news analysis of the New York Times: “In the space of a few hours, he declared that his own central bank chief was an “enemy,” claimed sweeping powers not explicitly envisioned by the Constitution to “order” American businesses to leave China and, when stock markets predictably tumbled, made a joke of it…. Even some of his own aides and allies were alarmed by his behavior, seeing it as the flailing of a president increasingly anxious over the dark clouds some have detected hovering over an economy that until now has been the strongest selling point for his administration. They privately expressed concern that he was hurting the economy and was doing lasting damage to his own prospects for re-election.”

Trump canceled a trip to Denmark because the prime minister rebuffed his offer to purchase Greenland.

Trump called Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats disloyal to Israel.

Immigration News

On Wednesday the Trump Administration announced a new rule that overturns the Flores agreement, allowing children and families to be detained together indefinitely: “Mr. McAleenan said families would be detained until they were either released after being awarded asylum or deported to their home countries. Some families might be awarded parole to leave the facilities while the courts decide their fate, he said.” A court review is expected.

Here is a good history of the Flores consent decree.

ABC News reports that two children had both parents detained for 8 days after the Mississippi ICE raids.

The Trump Administration is shutting down all New England asylum cases, diverting them to the southern border. There are 40,000 pending New England cases.

ProPublica reports that some Trump immigration policies are being rushed to the point of having sloppy mistakes. The recent rule change on immigrants using public services: “The regulation’s full text, detailed in 217 pages of three-column text in the Federal Register, contradicts its own implementing language regarding how the new rule will apply to military families. … And the form that’s supposed to implement the rule doesn’t distinguish between families of service members who are citizens and service members who are not citizens — although the form’s instructions do…. At one point, the preamble to the regulation says that “active duty service members, including those in the Ready Reserve, and their spouses and children” are exempt from their use of public benefits being counted against them, implying that the exemption applies to all military families. In fact, it does not. Deepening the confusion, USCIS has a form for applicants that doesn’t reflect the two standards mentioned in the rule.”

Veterans Affairs did not vouch for vets affected by the rule change while the DOD did vouch for active duty service members and their families: “As a result, the regulation, which goes into effect in October, applies just as strictly to veterans and their families as it does to the broader public, while active-duty members of the military and reserve forces face a relaxed version of the rule…. Active-duty military members can accept public benefits without jeopardizing their future immigration status; veterans and their families, however, cannot.”

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Trump’s Job Approval: 41.6%

Episode 17

Rank: 4

Decline: -1.20%

Lowest Approval: 41.20%

Date Range: May 11-May 25, 2019

Key Events:

Policy: The Washington Post reported that last year the Trump Administration was planning a mass arrest and deportation of immigrant families; The White House is putting together a war plan to counter Iran that calls for 120,000 troops to be deployed to the Middle East; talks with China collapsed (again) last Friday, some Republican senators are publicly expressing concern over Trump’s trade war and tariff tactics: “The Trump administration has identified at least 1,712 migrant children it may have separated from their parents”; 6th child has died in CBP custody

Taboos: Trump’s visit to Japan over Memorial Day weekend, the White House had the USS John McCain cover the name of the ship with a tarp

Russia Investigation: Hundreds of former federal prosecutors signed a letter that said Mueller had enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction; The Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Burr, issued the first subpoena for a Trump family member, Don Jr; Deutsche Bank investigators triggered several suspicious activity reports for Trump and Kushner finances; Mueller gave first public statement

Non-Russia Related Legal Troubles: Mnuchin finally formally refused to hand over Trump’s tax returns ; The New York Times obtained copies of Trump’s tax returns from 1985-1994– 1 billion in losses; A series a legal blows to Trump attempting to fight congressional investigations came this week: The decision in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York could clear the way for Deutsche Bank and Capital One to hand over the president’s financial records

Defections: GOP congressman Justin Amash became the first Republican congressperson to call for Trump’s impeachment.

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This dip follows two weeks after the Mueller Report dip, and it matches that dip for severity, both of them having a rank of 4 and reaching a nadir of 41.2%. This was a period in which everyone was coming to terms with the details of the report, and much media coverage was devoted to those details. While Mueller did make his first public remarks during this dip, the dip had already occurred by the time he spoke and the rebound would begin the following week. It is possible that the dip happened only because of the sharp, brief rise in approval in between the dips, although it is hard to explain that rise. In those two weeks (Week 119-120) there was no much positive news coverage or events that might explain the rebound. it could just be that this was a noisy polling period in which a lot of news covered was spun around between the Mueller Report and Barr’s attempts to spin it. In any case, the Mueller dips to 41.2% were reversed over the next seven weeks as Trump’s approval climbed back up to 43% in Week 130. At this point the 18th dip began, and Trump slid back down to 41.1%.

Episode 16

Rank: 4

Decline: -1.00%

Lowest Approval: 41.20%

Date Range: April 6-27, 2019

Key Events:

Policy: government admits it will take years to track all the families they separated at border; judge halts remain-in-Mexico policy; Trump vetos Yemen bill

White House Chaos: Chinese woman sneaks into Mar-a-Lago; security clearance whistle blower talks to congress; Neilson resigned, in a removal of other officials in national security; reports of plans to bus immigrants to liberal cities and closing the border; talk of a purge and harsher policies to come; Grassley calls publicly for Trump to stop firing people from DHS

Russia Investigation:Nadler requests full Mueller report; some of Mueller’s team message to reporters that Barr’s letter is not telling the whole story; Barrs’ first testimony after releasing letter; Mueller report released; Pelosi talks down impeachment; Nadler subpoenas McgGahn; Trump officials on background discuss dangers Russia poses to 2020; reporting on Rosenstein keeping his job last year

Non-Russia Related Legal Troubles: Congress requests Trump’s tax returns from the IRS; Mnuchin refuses to turn over Trump’s taxes; Trump says he will refuse all Congressional inquiries

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This dip corresponds with the release of the Mueller report. 9 previous dips (56%) have been more severe, while 6 have been the same or less severe. By comparison, when Barr first announced Trump-favorable interpretation on Mueller’s report on March 24th there was no change in Trump’s approval rating for the entire week afterward. And the following week there was a brief bump of only .3 points, and from that point the 16th decline began. So the Mueller report is associated with a decline but it’s less than average severity.

Episode 15

Rank: 3

Decline: -1.30%

Lowest Approval: 41.40%

Date Range: February 23-March 16, 2019

Key Events:

Policy: 16 states sue over Trump’s emergency border wall declaration; more reports about children still being separated at the border; House overturns Trump’s emergency declaration; Trump holds second North Korea summit, which is called off; reporting that Trump ordered Kushner to be given a security clearance; Senate overturns Trump’s emergency declaration

Russia Investigation: McCabe book tour about Rosenstein wearing a wire, 25th amendment, recounting the chaos after Comey firing, national security implications; reports of Mueller releasing his report soon; NYTimes expose on Trump’s history of attacking the Russia investigation; Mueller submits final Manafort sentencing memo; Manafort sentenced to four years; Manafort’s second and final sentence; House votes to release the Mueller report

Non-Russia Related Legal Troubles: Cohen testifies in closed and open hearings; publicized checks for hush money; House Judiciary sends 81 subjects requests for information; Cohen produces more hush money checks; Pelosi says no to impeachment; The New York attorney general subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank related to three large loans the bank extended to President Trump

The New York Times studied significant overlap between right wing propaganda and the El Paso shooter’s manifesto: In the four years since Mr. Trump electrified Republican voters with slashing comments about Muslims and Mexicans, demonizing references to immigrants have become more widespread in the news media… Before the first groups of Central American migrants received heavy news media coverage in 2018, words like “invaders” or “invasion” were rarely used by American outlets. In the last year, the use of such terms has surged, with references to an immigrant “invasion” appearing on more than 300 Fox News broadcasts.

Here is a story about what happened to baby Paul Anchondo’s family before and after the shooting.

Scaramucci has fully defected from Trump due to recent events where Trump has used “so charged and so divisive rhetoric,” and is doing interviews saying the Republicans need to place someone else at the top of the ticket for 2020.

There was a lot of chatter about the likelihood of a recession next year based on new economic indicators, and world wide markets slumped on Wednesday.

More recession fears, via the Times: President Trump’s on-again-off-again execution of the trade war with China and other countries has fed uncertainty into businesses’ decision-making. Corporate investment spending is softening, despite the big tax cut that Mr. Trump said would boost it. And the combination of central banks that are at the outer limits of their ability to stimulate growth, and an inward turn by many countries, could make governments less effective at responding to a downturn.

The Washington Post reports that Trump is rattled by news of a recession that will hurt his reelection chances: “Trump has sought to use his Twitter pulpit to drown out negative indicators. On Thursday, he promoted the U.S. economy as “the Biggest, Strongest and Most Powerful Economy in the World,” and, citing growth in the retail sector, predicted that it would only get stronger. He also accused the news media of “doing everything they can to crash the economy because they think that will be bad for me and my re-election.”… Trump has a somewhat conspiratorial view, telling some confidants that he distrusts statistics he sees reported in the news media and that he suspects many economists and other forecasters are presenting biased data to thwart his reelection…”

Trump convinced Israel to bar Democratic Congress members Talib and Ohmar from entering the country: “By enlisting a foreign power to take action against two American citizens, let alone elected members of Congress, Mr. Trump crossed a line that other presidents have not, in effect exporting his partisan battles beyond the country’s borders.”

Former tea party Congressman Joe Walsh published an op-ed in the New York Times calling for credible conservative candidates to primary Trump.

Immigration

The Trump administration issued new rules for who gets a green card: “Poor immigrants will be denied permanent legal status, also known as a green card, if they are deemed likely to use government benefit programs such as food stamps and subsidized housing. Wealthier immigrants, who are designated as less likely to require public assistance, will be able to obtain a green card…. immigration advocates warned that vast numbers of immigrants, including those not actually subject to the regulation, may drop out of programs they need because they fear retribution by immigration authorities.”

ProPublica has a story about ICE making false claims against asylum seekers: “the system she’d once known, as flawed as it was, had turned into a black box she no longer understood, with an ever-shifting array of rules and policies that granted untold discretion to the government. She couldn’t even get ICE attorneys to comply with a fundamental tenet of a fair system: providing proof of their case, evidence they could fight against… [Pena] and her colleagues were counting hundreds of new cases of family separation along the border that occurred after the “zero tolerance” policy supposedly ended in June 2018. But no one could track what the government was doing with every case.”

Trade War

The Trump administration announced delaying some tariffs until after the Christmas buying season so that American consumers won’t be affected when doing their Christmas shopping.

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Trump’s Job Approval: 42.1%