Will they destroy each other before they destroy our country?

It’s one thing to have the conservative Wall Street Journal amplifying the whistleblower’s complaint that, “(T)he 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 old-school conservatives like Bill Kristol running ads directed at Republican members of Congress in hopes of getting them to stand up to Trump’s abuse of power. It’s another, however, to have Fox News hosts openly going at one another’s throats over their support, or lack of support, for Donald Trump. And that’s where we are today, as an ever-growing number of Americans come out in favor of impeachment.

While, to my knowledge, no Republican members of Congress have yet to come out and say that they’d vote with the Democrats on impeachment, it does feel as though things are moving in that direction. [Michigan’s Justin Amash is pro-impeachment, but he officially left the Republican Party a few months ago.] Republican Congressman Will Hurd just tweeted out that, “We need to fully investigate all of the allegations in the whistleblower report to get to the facts, and protect this individual in the process.” And, earlier today, Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger just referred to one of Trump’s tweets as being “beyond repugnant.” These aren’t exactly aggressive stands, but they could signal a growing willingness among some to at least consider what a post-Trump Republican Party may look like. And, outside of Congress, things seem to be moving a little faster, with Republican Governors Phil Scott (Vermont) and Charlie Baker (Massachusetts), having both come out in favor of the impeachment inquiry.

With all of that said, there are a lot of things we could talk about tonight, but there are five things that I wanted to note — small things that could perhaps signal bigger rifts within the Party of Trump.

1. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell not only voted in support of Senator Chuck Schumer’s unanimous consent request for the release of the whistleblower documents last week, but today he said that, if the House passes articles of impeachment, he’d have “no choice but to take it up” in the Senate. This isn’t getting a lot of coverage, what with Giuliani having just been served a subpoena today and news breaking that Secretary of State Pompeo was on the call between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky, but it seems like pretty huge news, especially given how vehemently the Majority Leader has fought to keep bringing things to the floor that might be seen as damaging to Trump. [McConnell also changed course last week, and got behind legislation to allocate $250 million in funding for states to help protect against outside interference in the 2020 voting.] At any rate, it’s something to watch.

2. Trump is apparently frustrated with his Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, for not having a plan to contain the damage done by the whistleblower’s complaint and the transcript of the Zelensky call. I don’t imagine the conflict will force Mulvaney to go running into the arms of the resistance, but it’s interesting to note all of the little conflicts that are coming to the surface as members of the administration seek to assign blame. One would imagine it might just be a mater of time before one of them decides to push back against the President.

3. When all of this started breaking last week, Trump was very quick to suggest that his Vice President, Mike Pence, may also be worth looking into. “Look at Mike Pence’s phone calls,” Trump said to reporters asking about his call with Zelensky. I don’t know that it makes sense to try to decipher statements made by Donald Trump, but it seems likely this was reminder to Republicans that, if they turn on him, in hopes backing Pence in 2020, that he has it within his power to take Pence down with him, leaving them without a candidate.

4. Rudy Giuliani keeps telling anyone who will listen to him that he only got involved in the Ukraine because the State Department told him to. Here is in on Fox News, showing texts from U.S. special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker, who resigned from office shortly after this segment aired. Again, it’s difficult to say for certain what Giuliani is thinking when he says things like this, but you can be certain that it’s not exactly appreciated by Mike Pompeo or others at the State Department, who’d rather not be pulled into a growing scandal. [It’s illegal, by the way, for employees of the State Department to be engaged in political activities.]

5. Attorney General William Barr was apparently “surprised and angry” that Donald Trump noted him by name in the Zelensky call, stating that he and Giuliani were his point people in the plot to have Ukraine deliver dirt on Joe Biden in advance of the 2020 election. Will it be enough to force Barr to turn on Trump? Probably not. But, like these other things, it’s interesting to note that Trump’s Attorney General is letting it be known that he’s displeased with the way things are going down.

I suppose it’s possible that Trump may be able to bullshit, threaten and obfuscate his way out of this, but, if I were a betting man, I’d say that he’s finally reached the end of the line. And I can’t help but think, especially considering the character of the men involved, and the fractures that are already developing, that we’re soon going to see people turning on one another in more pronounced ways.

[I was going to go with an image of a snake eating itself, but then the last scene of Reservoir Dogs came to mind. If there’s a better image to convey what’s happening right now within Donald Trump’s Republican Party, let me know and I’ll swap it out.]

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Donald Trump wants Congressman Adam Schiff investigated for treason

Just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get any more crazy…

Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about the inner workings of our nation’s big political parties, but it seems to me that when the President of the United States begins alluding to putting his perceived adversaries to death, his party should probably at least consider cutting ties, right? Or is conventional wisdom that it’s OK, up until they point when the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is actually being led to the electric chair?

As for the whistleblower representing the President’s conversation in “a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way,” have you all read both the whistleblower’s complaint and the White House summary of the call in question? The two documents are nearly indistinguishable from one another. There is, quite literally, no room between them. I know the President’s supporters on the right are making a big deal of the fact that the whistleblower didn’t witness the crime himself, but he nailed every single fucking point, which pretty much proves to me that his half-dozen or so sources were solid.

And, as for Schiff, what did he do but call an investigation into a matter that a Trump appointee (the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community) found to be both “urgent” and “credible”a matter which Trump’s Director of National Intelligence said was worthy of investigation?

The whistleblower, by the way, is absolutely right to have entered protective custody. Donald Trump is going to get someone killed with his increasingly violent rhetoric… We are entering a very dangerous time in American history… Donald Trump will not leave the White House without a fight. He doesn’t care about preserving American institutions. He doesn’t care about civil war. He only cares about himself, and he will do whatever it takes in order to avoid prosecution. And American citizens are going to pay with their lives.

Shame on every Republican who has refused to speak up and do the right thing. May god take mercy on their souls.

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Notes taken during the May 10, 2017 meeting between Trump and the Russian Ambassador to the United States may exist, and may show that Trump said he was fine with their election interference

On May 9, 2017, President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, the man who, up to that point, had been leading the investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 election. Trump, the very next day, welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin’s Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak into the White House for a meeting that the administration had ostensibly hoped to keep quiet. Thankfully, though, the Russians took photos… and then proceeded to share them on social media. [That’s one of their photos at the top of the page.] Here, with more on that, is an excerpt from something that I’d posted at the time.

…Trump must be trolling us, right? I mean who in their right fucking mind, on the day immediately after he fires the man heading the investigation into whether or not his campaign team colluded with the Russians to steal an election, not only invites into the White House the very Russian Ambassador who’s widely thought to have helped orchestrate the whole thing, but bans the American press, allowing in only Russian news agencies? I mean, this is the very same guy, Sergey Kislyak, that Michael Flynn was fired for having lied about having talked with during the campaign. This is the guy who many think coordinated the whole “we’ll hack the election if you lift the sanctions” deal at the heart of this whole fucking thing. And Trump invites him into the White House on the day after he fires FBI Director Comey in hopes of killing the investigation. It’s absolutely insane. This would be like if Obama, at the height of the Tea Party madness, joined the Black Panther Party, donned a dashiki, released his Kenyan birth certificate, and started to speak exclusively in Bantu… I can’t help but think that Trump is doing everything in his fucking power to get himself thrown out of office, but that, despite his best efforts, the Republicans in Congress, after twenty some years of intellectual rot, can’t appreciate just how absolutely insane all of this is. I mean, could that be possible? Could all of this is just a desperate cry for help? Or is Trump just trying to fuck with us, attempting to suck the very last gasp of life out of the resistance by demonstrating that, whatever he does, no matter how heinous, there will be no consequences? Was this Trump’s end zone dance on the throat of the American democracy?…

Well, as you might recall, shortly after news of this meeting broke, word came out that, during their discussion, Trump had shared highly classified intelligence with the Russian delegation. Here’s another excerpt from something that I posted at the time.

…Not only did Trump invite Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin’s Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak into the White House the day after firing James Comey, the man responsible for directing the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians to sway the outcome of our last presidential election, but, now, according to the Washington Post, we’re learning that, during that meeting, Trump passed “highly classified information” along to the Lavrov and Kislyak that could jeopardize both our international intelligence relationships and our campaign against ISIS.

….So here’s the question of the day. How can a party that took the White Hosue by railing against the email security of Secretary Clinton, suggesting that her lax server oversight could result in sensitive intelligence falling into the hands of our enemies, possibly withstand the news, which, by the way, has now been corroborated by Reuters, that Trump straight-up passed along classified information to Lavrov and Kislyak, jeopardizing our campaign against ISIS, as well as our relationship with a valued ally. [Is it any wonder why, as the Wall Street Journal reported back in February, that intelligence professionals have been keeping sensitive information from the Trump administration?] And, to make maters even worse, it would appear that Trump didn’t even share the information in the context of a meaningful conversation about ISIS. If the news accounts are to be believed, he just threw this piece of sensitive intelligence data out as an illustration of how awesome our intelligence gathering capabilities are. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,” he reportedly said to the Russian delegation right before launching into the specifics about the ISIS plot uncovered by a foreign intelligence partner. He essentially gave up the identity of a foreign asset in or to impress the Russians..

And, right after that hit the news, as you might also recall, the administration put White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster in front of reporters to say that the story, as reported, was false. “The President did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known,” he said, adding that the conversation was, “wholly appropriate.”

Well, guess what? It looks now as though it might not have been “wholly appropriate” after all. In the wake of the revelation a few days ago that the Trump administration maintains a private server where notes on the President’s conversations with world leaders are hidden away from members of the intelligence community, people with knowledge of this May 10, 2017 meeting at the White House, have begun to suggest that memos exist which make it clear that Donald Trump not only handed over classified information, but told the Russians that he was OK with their election interference. The following is from today’s Washington Post.

…President Trump told two senior Russian officials in a 2017 Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries, an assertion that prompted alarmed White House officials to limit access to the remarks to an unusually small number of people, according to three former officials with knowledge of the matter.

The comments, which have not been previously reported, were part of a now-infamous meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in which Trump revealed highly classified information that exposed a source of intelligence on the Islamic State. He also said during the meeting that firing FBI Director James B. Comey the previous day had relieved “great pressure” on him.

A memorandum summarizing the meeting was limited to a few officials with the highest security clearances in an attempt to keep the president’s comments from being disclosed publicly, according to the former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters…

For what it’s worth, when Trump brought the Russians into he White House to tell them that he was unconcerned about their election interference, and essentially giving them the go-ahead to keep at it, he already knew the extent of what they’d done. Some five months prior to that meeting, in January, 2017, the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency issued a joint report stating that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election,” and that he did so in order to help elect Trump. And nothing has happened since to alter that unanimous assessment of our intelligence agencies. [The Mueller report begins with the following. “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion,” it says.]

It’s also worth nothing that Trump’s apparent comment on May 10, 2017 to Lavrov and Kislyak runs contrary to his public statements on the 2016 election. I guess we’ll have to wait and see the notes from the White House server, but it would sound as though Trump told Lavrov and Kislyak that he knew what they had done, and was fine with in. In public, however, Trump has maintained that he believes Putin when he says that Russia had nothing whatsoever to do with our 2016 election interference. Here’s one of my favorite Trump quotes. It comes from his Helsinki press conference alongside Putin in July, 2018. “My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me, and some others, (and) they said they think it’s Russia,” he told the press. “I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.

I could go on, but you get why this is important, right? The day after he fired Mueller, Donald Trump snuck the Russians into the White House, and told them that he’d fired the Director of the FBI, and that he was OK with what they’d done. Then, the recorded comments of the meeting were hidden from view of the our national security agencies. It may not technically be treason, as we weren’t officially “at war” with Russia at the time, but it comes pretty damn close.

Oh, and it’s being reported tonight that the Trump administration, given all of this news, is… you guessed itreviving the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account. [If you can believe it, they’ve apparently retroactively classified emails shared by Clinton and others so that they can pursue then in court.]

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Holy shit. Today was too much… The whistleblower’s complaint goes public, and Trump responds by referencing the execution of traitors

The above quote comes directly from the whistleblower’s complaint, which came out this morning, just as acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Joseph Maguire was getting ready to testify before the House Intelligence Committee. If you haven’t read it by now, or listened to it, you really should… Speaking of which, a number of cowardly Republican members of Congress are claiming not to have read the whistleblower’s complaint, as they clearly don’t want to answer questions about the details, which are incredibly disturbing, and paint the portrait of a thoroughly corrupt administration that’s completely out of control. [If you have a moment tomorrow, and you’ve got an elected official who is claiming not to have read the whistleblower’s complaint, I’d encourage you to call their office and offer to read it to them. It’s only nine pages long.]

And, after you’ve read the whistleblower’s complaint — which, again, was found to be both “credible” and “urgent” by Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (IGIC) appointed by Trump — I’d suggest watching the video of acting DNI Maguire being questioned by members of the House Intelligence Committee, and telling them that the whistleblower, in his opinion, “did the right thing” and “followed the law every step of the way.”

[Maguire, for what it’s worth, never sufficiently explained why his first call, upon receiving the whistleblower’s complaint, was to the very members of the Trump administration, who, in the complaint, are accused of having hidden, and likely destroyed, information concerning the President’s communication with Ukrainian officials, instead of going directly to Congress, as stipulated by law. And he didn’t give a satisfactory answer when asked why he’d worked with the Trump administration and the DOJ to keep the information hidden from Congress for an entire month. Maguire did, however, stand up for the IGIC and the whistleblower, who he repeatedly said did everything by the book.]

Trump, apparently didn’t agree with his DNI’s assessment, essentially saying in a closed-door session this afternoon that the members of the intelligence community who confided in the whistleblower should be executed for having committed “treason”, which is pretty much textbook witness intimidation. [How many more people are likely to come forward now that the President is talking about executions, the DNI is making it clear that the administration can kill whistleblower complaints, the New York Times is threatening to identify whistleblowers?] Here, if you’ve yet to hear it, is the audio of Trump alluding to executions.

And, of course, Donald Trump wasn’t just saying shit like this in private. He was also all over social media, screaming in all-caps about how the Democrats needed to be stopped, how this was all an attempt on their part to destroy the country, etc.

I know we’ve been over this several times this past week, but, for those of you who might be new to this, here’s what actually happened… Members of the Trump administration attempted to enlist the help of Ukrainian President Zelensky to manufacture dirt on Joe Biden in advance of the 2020 election. In the course of this campaign, Donald Trump called Zelensky, referenced how much we’d done for Ukraine in terms of foreign aid, how little they’d given back to us, and how we now need a “favor” from them. He then asked Zelensky to initiate an investigation into Joe Biden and his son. It should be noted that, prior to the call in question, Trump, without explanation, put a hold on nearly $400 million in foreign aid that had been allocated by Congress. The, after this call between Trump and Zelensky, according to the whistleblower’s complaint, members of the Trump White House attempted to erase any record of it having happened, moving records to a private server. But, approximately half a dozen members of the intelligence community, having witnessed what happened, brought these facts to the whistleblower, who then attempted to share them with Congress through accepted channels. The whistleblower, it’s worth noting, did not “leak” anything. He or she followed the accepted internal process, outlining the concerns and taking them to the ICIG, who found them to be both urgent and credible. The ICIG then took the whistleblower’s complaint to the DNI, and the DNI, instead of taking the complaint to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, as is mandated by law, took it to the White House and the DOJ… in spite of the fact that the complaint clearly states that a campaign has been underway in the White House to erase evidence of the entire episode. So the DNI, on behalf of the White House, then helps keep the complaint under wraps for approximately one month. The DNI, however, is called before Congress, the whistleblower, though their attorney, reaches out to request a meeting with the House Intelligence Committee, and someone in the administration makes the call that they’d be better just releasing the complaint, which happened this morning. And, now, with nothing at all left, those loyal to the administration are presenting not to have read the complaint, and going after the whistleblower, calling him or her a political operative, a spy working for the Democrats, etc. And it’s likely to get a whole lot uglier.

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Trump actually thought the ‘transcript’ would help

With the whistleblower getting ready to go before Congress, his Director of National Intelligence testifying tomorrow, and Pelosi dropping the impeachment bomb last night, I guess Trump felt as though he had to do something, so, this morning, he released a summary of a call he had with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, back on July 25. [It’s being called a transcript, but it’s a five-page summary of what we’re told was a half-hour call.] Well, if the intention was to demonstrate that the Democrats were making a mountain out of a molehill, it didn’t exactly work. The summary of the call was much more damning than most of us expected, and it really makes you wonder how much worse the actual complaint submitted by the whistleblower must be. [The administration is required by law to submit the whistleblower’s complaint to the Congressional intelligence committees. Thus far, they’ve refused, however, to do that. Instead, they shared this summary of one call between Trump and Zelensky.]

You can read the whole thing by following the above link, but here’s the crux of it… Donald Trump tells Zelensky that “The United States has been very, very good to Ukraine”, notes that Ukraine hasn’t exactly been reciprocating, and, then, like a mob boss, says “I would like you to do us a favor.” And, at this point, Donald Trump tells Zelensky that his government should be investigating Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and, if you can believe it, Hillary Clinton’s email server.

There are a bunch of different things we could discuss at this point, but I’d like to focus on the role of Attorney General William Barr, who Trump notes several times in his call with Zelensky… Trump asks Zelensky if he’ll talk with Barr and Giuliani, and says that they’ll be in touch with him to discuss the Biden investigation. “Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man,” Trump says. “I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General… There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son… whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great… if you can look into it.”

First, Barr’s involvement brings to mind this exchange he had with Kamala Harris on May 1, when he refused to answer whether or not the President had ever asked him to investigate an American citizen. I guess we now know why he hemmed and hawed the way he did.

And, second, it’s curious that it’s now Barr’s Department of Justice that’s been keeping the whistleblower’s complaint from Congress, saying that it doesn’t warrant investigation, in spite of the fact that the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community (who happens to be a Trump appointee) has called the complaint both “credible” and “urgent”. One would think, as Barr is clearly involved in this, he probably shouldn’t be the one making the call as to whether or not the activities outlined are illegal, violated campaign finance law, warrant investigation, etc.

For what it’s worth, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were apparently sent the whistleblower’s complaint earlier this evening. Republican Senator Ben Sasse, who read the complaint, had the following to say: “Really troubling things here. Republicans ought not just circle the wagons, and democrats ought not have been using words like impeachment before they knew anything about the actual substance.” So, as bad as the White House summary of the Zelensky call was, it looks like things are about to get a whole lot worse. When it’s a Republican saying that this is “really troubling”, and that conservatives should think twice about “circling the wagons” around Trump, I’d say that’s not a very good sign for the President, even if the Republican in question is Ben Sasse.

Oh, and speaking of Republicans beginning to stand up to Trump, it sounds as though the President’s acting Director of National Intelligence may have almost resigned today over concerns that the administration may attempt to force him to stonewall Congress during his testimony tomorrow. If true, this could mean that he’s made up his mind not to go down with the ship. And, if is, I’d like to hear what he has to tell the members of the House Intelligence Committee about why, instead of bringing them the whistleblower’s complaint directly, as required by law, he took it to Barr. Could it be that someone higher up instructed him to do that?

One last thing… It’s probably also worth noting, as we’re discussing Republicans turning on one another, that a very subdued Donald Trump today told reporters that they “should ask for” Mike Pence’s conversations with Ukraine.

It certainly feels as though we’re headed for a series finale, doesn’t it?

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