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Trump is the first U.S. president ever to support a civil war against his own people. (Not counting Jefferson Davis.) |
9/27-29/19: Fast moving developments Friday, on into the
weekend, did little to improve President Trump’s mood.
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“We call on the Administration to make clear that retaliation for political reasons will not be tolerated.”
The American Academy of Diplomacy
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The American Academy of Diplomacy warned that his administration was treading on dangerous ground in its treatment of former U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Ms. Yovanovitch had been removed from her post in May, allegedly for mucking up Rudy Giuliani’s goofy plans.
Of particular concern was Trump’s statement during his phone call to President Zelensky, that Yovanovitch was “bad news,” and was going to “go through some things.” Payback, one assumed, for crossing Rudy.
The Academy, representing diplomats from past administrations, Democrat and Republican, made its position plain:
The threatening tone of this
statement is deeply troubling. It suggests actions outside of and contrary
to the procedures and standards of a professional service whose officers, like
their military counterparts, take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Whatever
views the Administration has of Ambassador Yovanovitch’s performance, we call
on the Administration to make clear that retaliation for political reasons will
not be tolerated.
Kurt Volker, one of two diplomats who was reported to have tried to limit the damage Giuliani was doing, now resigned.
Trump’s first tweet on September 27, focused for some unfathomable reason on a spelling issue and CNN, and came at 6:02 a.m. “To show you how dishonest the LameStream Media is, I used the word Liddle’, not Liddle, in discribing Corrupt Congressman Liddle’ Adam Schiff,” in an earlier tweet, the president complained. “Low ratings @CNN purposely took the hyphen out and said I spelled the word little wrong. A small but never ending situation with CNN!”
(Yes. He spelled “describing” wrong, while complaining about
CNN and a missing hyphen, which was really an apostrophe.)
*
The old Giuliani would prosecute the new Giuliani.
TRUMP TOOK an ugly turn for the worse Saturday morning. His third tweet of the day, carried his attacks to a dangerous new low:
The problem, of course, is that tweeting like a madman could not make Trump’s problems disappear. He was almost sure now to be impeached; and he was going to have to testify under oath.
NBC reported that Giuliani’s former colleagues at the Department of Justice believed he may have committed a series of crimes.
“This is certainly not the
Giuliani that I know,” said Jeffrey Harris, who worked as Giuliani’s top
assistant when he was at the Justice Department in the President Ronald Reagan
administration. “I think the Giuliani that I know would prosecute the Giuliani
of today.”
…NBC News reached out to seven former colleagues of Giuliani’s. Of the six who offered comments on or off the record, none defended him…
Bruce Fein, who worked at the
Justice Department with Giuliani in the early 1980s, said he believes Giuliani
could be prosecuted for breaking federal election laws.
“He was soliciting a foreign
government to help Trump’s 2020 campaign. That’s a problem,” said Fein, a
former special assistant to the assistant attorney general for the Office of
Legal Counsel under President Richard Nixon and associate deputy attorney
general under President Ronald Reagan.
“Federal election laws make it illegal to solicit anything of value from a foreign government or persons to influence the outcome of an election.”
“There’s obviously lots that’s very troubling there.”
Saturday and Sunday, the president took a series of swift kicks to the nuts. We learned that the whistleblower was a C.I.A. agent assigned to duty at the White House. He or she followed proper channels in taking concerns to the director of the C.I.A. Another hit to the gonads followed. The White House was forced to admit…well, okay…we did move transcripts of conversations (including the one alluded to in the whistleblower complaint) to a “more secure and classified computer system.”
Were any other records moved to the secure system, out of sight, out of mind, as it were? According to a former White House official calls involving Trump and Vladimir Putin were also moved.
There were fresh rumblings of discontent inside the GOP. Fox News quoted former Sen. Jeff Flake as saying, during a Q&A session at the Texas Tribune Festival, that if there was a secret vote for impeachment in the U.S. Senate, Trump would be toast. “I heard someone say if there were a private vote there would be 30 Republican votes. That’s not true,” Flake said. “There would be at least 35.”
Rep. Mark Amodi, a Nevada Republican, was the first member of
his party in the House of Representatives to publicly support an impeachment
inquiry. To be clear, he wasn’t saying Trump was guilty. He was saying he was a “big fan of oversight.” “Using government agencies to, if it’s
proven, to put your finger on the scale of an election [emphasis added],
I don’t think that’s right,” Amodi explained. “If it turns out that it’s something along those lines, then there’s a
problem.”
A surprising number of Republican lawmakers, when asked to comment, insisted they were really sorry. They were about to skip town for summer recess and hadn’t had time to read the whistleblower’s nine-page complaint. Sen. Tom Cotton, normally happy to cheer any and all actions taken by President Trump, up to and including the president pardoning himself, went with “no comment.”
Speaking to a reporter, Sen. Ben Sasse offered warning to GOP colleagues. “Republicans,” he said, “ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons to say there’s no there there when there’s obviously lots that’s very troubling there.” In addition, “The administration ought not be attacking the whistleblower as some talking points suggest they plan to do.”
It wasn’t just Democrats who sniffed a foul odor emanating from the Offal (Oval) Office. Gene Hartigan, former chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party, outlined for reporters a path forward that might save the party.
“There seems to be enough
material evidence to prove that what he did, he did,” Hartigan said [referring
to President Trump].
The former chair says
Republicans should realize that this is the end game for Trump – opening the
door for Mike Pence to take over the Oval Office, a more traditional Republican
Hartigan believes could work with Democrats to pass legislation and possibly get
elected president.
“I think it’s time for Mitch
McConnell to gather together enough Republicans to work with the Democrats in
the Senate to approve impeachment,” Hartigan said. “And I think that could
happen.”
Sunday, of course, the drumbeat of bad news continued. It was revealed that Rudy had planned to attend a conference in Armenia, sponsored by the Russian government, where he would be paid handsomely to give a speech. In the sudden glare of publicity he claimed he had no idea the conference would include an appearance by Vladimir Putin. On second thought, he said, he wouldn’t go.
One of the “enemies of the people” pointed out, cruelly, perhaps, that if you checked the website for the conference, it listed Putin and several other Russian officials who planned to attend.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski got pinned down by members of the free press and had to admit that Trump’s phone call was “very concerning.”
Former Republican Gov. William Weld said the call was “grounds for removal from office.”
Sen. Romney offered up the idea that most of his GOP
colleagues were still backing Trump, not because they approved of his conduct,
but for selfish reasons. “I think it’s very natural for people to look at circumstances
and see them in the light that’s most amenable to their maintaining power and
doing things to preserve that power,” he said. Profiles in Cowardice,
you might call it.
Sunday morning, Rudy was still Rudy-ing.
He showed up on ABC’s This Week. Had he messed up in any way, the host, George Stephanopoulos, wondered? Rudy demurred. “Everything I did was to defend my client and I am proud of having uncovered what will turn out to be a massive pay-for-play scheme,” he said.
Trump spent the last Sunday in September the way he spends most Sundays in all the seasons of the year. He skipped church, tweeted religiously, and worked himself into a funk. By afternoon he was tweeting dire threats aimed at…
North Korea?
Putin?
Opioid manufacturers?
Nope. His threats were directed at Chairman Schiff and the whistleblower – and admit it, even if you like Trump, you’re not surprised.
First, Schiff:
His lies were made in
perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He
wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the
President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest
level for Fraud & Treason [emphasis added].....
(To
understand what upset Trump, see Schiff’s tweet; 9/25/19; also 9/30/19.)
Next,
the whistleblower:
....In addition, I want
to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND & THIRD HAND INFORMATION,
but also the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely
incorrect, to the “Whistleblower.” Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President?
Big Consequences!
If that wasn’t bad enough, the President of the United States
was so angry by bedtime that he decided it might be a good idea to threaten the
American people as a whole.
To give you an idea how far the president had descended,
former U.S. Air Force pilot and GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger responded within the
hour:
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