10/3/19: Today we consider some of the fast-breaking developments in the
investigation of President Trump.
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“I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
Ambassador Taylor
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That is, the latest investigation, the one involving his shakedown call to Ukraine. Not the one involving the meeting with Russians and top campaign guys in Trump Tower in June 2016. Or the one where he paid off a porn star and a Playboy Bunny. And not the one about his taxes. Or the one where two dozen women accused him of sexual harassment and Summer Zervos is suing his ass.
At this point it seems safe to say someone needs to explain the rule of law to Donald J. Trump.
We learn that awful truth again this morning when the president strides across the White House lawn and stops to inform reporters that he wants China to investigate a political opponent and his son.
Yes, Trump fans. Your fat, orange boy just said he’d like a commie government to get the goods on American citizens.
The president, of course, has been in meltdown mode for more than a week, ever since it dawned on him that his blunders were likely to lead to impeachment. So the rule of law looms larger in import with each passing day.
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Trump would really like this guy to help him win the next election: President Xi Jinping. |
A few examples:
In his latest fury, Trump has suggested that the whistleblower may be guilty of treason.
He wants to go back to the way it used to be – when the punishment for such a crime was hanging.
The president has said he wants to know who gave the whistleblower information and says those people are like “spies.”
Okay, we’ll need more rope.
The president has called the whistleblower’s complaint a “total fiction” and insists it has no resemblance to the “perfect” call he made to the president of Ukraine. And he has, naturally, squirreled the transcripts of that call away, where only his aides and maybe FLOTUS can see them.
Unfortunately, if we’re trying to explain reality to the
American people, it doesn’t help that only 40% of Republicans think
Trump mentioned Joe Biden and his son during the
Ukrainian call. Here, we can definitively say, that if Republicans would read
the call memorandum released by the White House, that number would shoot up to 92%, assuming the rest
had crippling comprehension problems.
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Six out of ten Republicans are woefully ill-informed. |
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Mike Pompeo “forgets” he was on the July 25 call.
IN THE MEANTIME, our tangerine-tinted leader has been on a roll. He fumed that Chairman Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee (now nicknamed “Shifty Schiff”) should also be booked for “treason” because he misquoted Trump’s words in the call to President Zelensky.
Again, the penalty for treason would be death. Or as Trump might call it, “Bringing jobs back to the rope factory.”
He also told reporters “a whistleblower should be protected, if the whistleblower is legitimate.” But the whistleblower who lodged a complaint against him is “a so-called whistleblower,” “biased” and “a political hack.”
So: No protection for him or her!
(Death by hanging again?)
In a snippet of positive news, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) pushed back on that idea – that only a whistleblower with the seal of approval from Trump should expect protection and anonymity. In a statement he released on his U.S. Senate website, Sen. Grassley explained:
This person appears to have
followed the whistleblower protection laws and ought to be heard out and
protected [emphasis added]. We should always work to respect
whistleblowers’ requests for confidentiality. Any further media reports on the
whistleblower’s identity don’t serve the public interest –
even if the conflict sells more papers or attracts clicks….
When it comes to whether someone
qualifies as a whistleblower, the distinctions being drawn between first- and second-hand
knowledge aren’t legal ones. It’s just not part of whistleblower protection law
or any agency policy. Complaints based on second-hand information should not be
rejected out of hand, but they do require additional leg work to get at the
facts and evaluate the claim’s credibility.
In not-so-good “rule of law” news, President Trump clearly
missed what Sen. Grassley said. Today, he stated publicly, without there having
been a trial, that a U.S. citizen, Hunter Biden, received “a payoff” from the
Chinese. He said that former Vice President Biden and his son were guilty of
corruption in Ukraine. “Nobody has any doubt,” he added. He said – again without
evidence – that the whistleblower complaint was no good, because Chairman
Schiff “helped him write it.” Ukraine, he told reporters – all but begging a
foreign nation to help him out in the 2020 election – should “launch a major
investigation” into Joe and his son.
Fresh revelations continued to dent the president’s defenses. On September 22, we know Martha Raddatz asked Secretary of State Pompeo what he might know about the July 25 call. Pompeo acted like she had hit him on the head with a croquet mallet and said the call was news to him.
Apparently, it was quite a whack to the noggin.’ Ten days passed before Pompeo admitted yesterday, Oh, yeah. That call.
He was listening on that call.
At the same time, Rudy Giuliani’s name popped up all over the news. First, he admitted that he had compiled a dossier of material, garnered from Ukrainian sources, “proving” that VP Biden and his son had been up to no good. One impeccable source was Paul Manafort, currently lodged in federal prison. Rudy and Paul communicated through Paul’s lawyer.
Let’s pause a moment and allow that to sink in.
We should also throw in some old news to spice up our story. Don’t forget, President Trump said he could pardon himself! And don’t forget, Trump always admitted a pardon remained on the table for Manafort, assuming that Manafort kept his mouth shut about Trump.
(He did.)
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Volker cautioned the Ukrainians not to get involved.
ON THURSDAY, the former U.S. special envoy to the Ukraine testified for hours behind closed doors. Not much information has leaked; but it has been reported that Ambassador Kurt Volker had specifically warned Giuliani that his sources in Ukraine were no good.
Volker also told lawmakers he cautioned the Ukrainians not to get involved with meddling in the next U.S. election. That supports the whistleblower’s allegation that Volker had “provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the President made.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), clearly in need of hearing aids, emerged after several hours of testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. He informed reporters that he had not heard a syllable to support the idea that Trump withheld military aid to an allied nation to leverage help in the 2020 election. This, despite the fact Volker supplied text messages involving communications with Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in the Ukraine, and Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union. Sondland, who made a fortune in the hotel business, but had never been a diplomat, got the job by donating $1 million to Trump’s 2016 inaugural committee.
(That’s fairly standard practice when it comes to awarding
ambassadorships to plumb positions: like France or England. Career diplomats
get to be ambassadors to countries like Mali or Tuvalu. Or Iraq.)
The context of the emails is not entirely clear. But if what ABC is reporting is correct, what Taylor was worried about is obvious:
(Volker comes in late on the three-way talk.)
TAYLOR: The nightmare is they
give the interview [Team Trump is pressuring Zelensky to go on CNN and mention
an investigation into the Bidens] and don’t get the security assistance. The
Russians love it. (And I quit.)
(A
bit of cross talk takes place.)
TAYLOR: The message to the
Ukrainians (and Russians) we send with the decision on security assistance is
key. With the hold, we have already shaken their faith in us. Thus my nightmare
scenario.
…
TAYLOR (three minutes later):
Counting on you to be right about this interview, Gordon.
SONDLAND: Bill, I never said I
was “right”. I said we are where we are and believe we have identified the best
pathway forward. Let’s hope it works.
TAYLOR: As I said on the phone,
I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political
campaign.
SONDLAND: Bill, I believe you
are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been
crystal clear: no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to
evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms
that President Zelensky promised during his campaign. I suggest we stop this
back and forth by text. If you still have concerns, I recommend you give Lisa
Kenna or S a call to discuss them directly. Thanks.
TAYLOR: I agree.
In other words, Taylor, the professional, thinks it’s clear
military aid is being withheld in return for Ukrainian help in a U.S. political
campaign. That’s what the whistleblower alleged.
Taylor was serving as charge d’affaires to the Ukraine, having taken over that post in June. The previous U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, had been recalled in May, several months early. Giuliani admitted on Thursday, that Yovanovitch was dumped after he told the president she was blocking his attempts to investigate Democrats like former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
BIDEN!
Is this difficult to grasp????
*
FINALLY, we learn that a second whistleblower complaint is
in the works. This one involves a person working for the I.R.S., who alleges
political appointees have interfered with the normal auditing process of Trump’s tax
returns.
BLOGGER’S NOTE: In the email exchanged noted
above, Ambassador Sondland states quite clearly that he believes there is “no
quid pro quo” involved in the hold on military aid to Ukraine. Republicans will
latch onto this statement like barnacles.
Later, Sondland will say, having heard other
witness accounts, that he realizes there was a quid pro quo.
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