So let’s say you and I come up with an elaborate (or not so because we’re morons) plan to rob a Bank.
That’s a crime. We’re conspirators in a crime.
Now, if you shoot someone dead I’m part of Conspiracy to Murder (as well as Armed Robbery and a bunch of Firearms Felonies) even though I never planned on killing anybody and never did myself.
Oh, and the same applies to the Getaway Driver.
Rudolph Giuliani and Gordon Sondland and Mike Pence and Kurt Volker attempted to bribe and extort Zelensky. They’ve admitted it.
Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.
Why a 17-year-old is a better economist than Steve Mnuchin.
I’ve never been a fan of Davos, that annual gathering of the rich and fatuous. One virtue of the pageant of preening and self-importance, however, is that it brings out the worst in some people, leading them to say things that reveal their vileness for all to see.
And so it was for Steven Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary. First, Mnuchin doubled down on his claim that the 2017 tax cut will pay for itself — just days after his own department confirmed that the budget deficit in 2019 was more than $1 trillion, 75 percent higher than it was in 2016.
Then he sneered at Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist, suggesting that she go study economics before calling for an end to investment in fossil fuels.
Well, unearned arrogance is a Trump administration hallmark — witness Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, claiming that a respected national security reporter couldn’t find Ukraine on a map. So it may not surprise you to learn that Mnuchin was talking nonsense and that Thunberg almost certainly has it right.
Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress have long been considered criminal and merit impeachment.
Watching CNN last week, I learned that I’m partly responsible for President Trump’s legal defense.
On the screen was one of the president’s lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, explaining his new position that impeachment requires “criminal-like behavior.” When the legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin interjected that “every single law professor” disagreed with him, Mr. Dershowitz rejoined that one professor — me! — was “completely” on his side.
Mr. Dershowitz encouraged Mr. Toobin to read a law review article I wrote on the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, in which a former Supreme Court justice, Benjamin Curtis, successfully argued that no one should ever be punished for doing something that wasn’t a crime. Mr. Dershowitz apparently thought my article supported his view that even if Mr. Trump did everything the House has accused him of doing, the president shouldn’t be convicted because he hasn’t been accused of criminal behavior.
As an academic, my first reaction was to be grateful that someone had actually read one of my articles.
But as a legal academic, my second reaction was confusion. Even if you think impeachment requires a crime, as I do, that belief hardly supports the president’s defense or Mr. Dershowitz’s position. President Trump has been accused of a crime. Two in fact: “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress.”
The Senate is poised to deliver another blow to voter confidence in our system.
Our electoral process has become corrupted, with politicians seeking to block some from the ballot and plutocrats seeking to beguile those who would vote.
Now, with the Trump impeachment, we are seeing that the structure of government is also showing signs of fracture.
There has been no doubt, since the White House released the quasi-transcript of the phone call between Donald Trump and the president of Ukraine, that Trump had been engaged in a corrupt act when trying to pressure the Ukrainians to announce an investigation of the Bidens. Indeed, this month, the Government Accountability Office determined that Trump broke the law when withholding funds to Ukraine as part of his pressure campaign.
Then, Trump did everything within his power to conceal what he had done when the House of Representatives launched its impeachment investigation.
Now, Senate Republicans stand poised to cement in precedent, by way of an acquittal, that the president who thought himself king, who considers himself above the law, is in fact above the law. Oaths be damned. Constitution be damned.
The current system is a form of white privilege that warps the process.
The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary owe their first-in-the-nation status partly to circumstance. Decades ago, Iowa’s caucus was the initial step in a long, complex process that the state used to award delegates, which meant that the voting had to happen early in the year. New Hampshire was mostly trying to save money — by scheduling its primary on the same day as many annual town meetings, which were held before the spring mud season.
But circumstance has not kept Iowa and New Hampshire at the front of the line. An aggressive protection of their own self-interest has. As primaries and caucuses became a bigger part of national politics in the 1970s, officials in Iowa and New Hampshire have fought hard to stay first. [..]
It’s all worked out very nicely for the two states. A typical voter in Iowa or New Hampshire has up to 20 times more influence than somebody in later-voting states, one study found. Sometimes, the two states have turned a parochial issue (ethanol) into a national priority. Local hotels, restaurants, pollsters and television and radio stations have received millions of dollars in extra business.
This system has worked out much less well for the other 48 states. They have voluntarily surrendered political influence — and allowed the presidential nominating process to become warped.
Democratic House managers should ask the chief justice to issue subpoenas for John Bolton and others.
An overwhelming number of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, believe the Senate should hear from relevant witnesses and obtain documents during President Trump’s impeachment trial. Striking new revelations about the president’s role in the Ukraine affair, as reported from an unpublished manuscript by John Bolton, underscore the need for his testimony and that of others.
Yet Republican members of the Senate have signaled that they intend to uphold Mr. Trump’s unprecedented decision to block all of this material.
But it turns out they don’t get to make that choice — Chief Justice John Roberts does. This isn’t a matter of Democrats needing four “moderate” Republicans to vote for subpoenas and witnesses, as the Trump lawyers have been claiming. Rather, the impeachment rules, like all trial systems, put a large thumb on the scale of issuing subpoenas and place that power within the authority of the judge, in this case the chief justice.
Most critically, it would take a two-thirds vote — not a majority — of the Senate to overrule that. This week, Democrats can and should ask the chief justice to issue subpoenas on his authority so that key witnesses of relevance like John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney appear in the Senate, and the Senate should subpoena all relevant documents as well.
Is Elon Musk bribing our Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio or what?
A Tunnel? A Tunnel?!
This is going to connect the (much reduced) West Bank to Gaza.
Too moronic to dignify. A totally transparent attempt to distract from Bibi’s and UCcBP’s incredibly serious legal problems by proposing a horrifically bad idea.
“This plan will double Palestinian territory and set the capital of the Palestinian state in eastern Jerusalem where the United States will happily open an embassy,” Trump said. “Our vision will end the cycle of Palestinian dependence on charity and foreign aid.”
The plan also includes a map of a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank, with a proposed tunnel to connect the West Bank and Gaza Strip. There would also be land swaps south of Gaza to give the Palestinians more territory.
Sorry about the source. So unbelievably stupid I couldn’t find it anywhere else.
Today is the last of the 3 days allowed under the rules for Opening Statements from Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio’s defense team.
Like Herod, I am unimpressed.
Not that I’m casting UCcBP (Haven’t you been reading? The Media has gone all acronyms and Mr.) in any martyr role, just saying he’s not so good at Transformations and Water Walking. I’m thinking he went to one of those Magic Schools for Failsons and Squibs.
So, you are the Christ, you’re the great Jesus Christ
Prove to me that you’re divine – change my water into wine
That’s all you need do, and I’ll know it’s all true
C’mon, king of the Jews!
Jesus, you just won’t believe the hit you’ve made round here
You are all we talk about, the wonder of the year!
Oh, what a pity if it’s all a lie
Still, I’m sure that you can rock the cynics if you try
So, you are the Christ, you’re the great Jesus Christ
Prove to me that you’re no fool – walk across my swimming pool
If you do that for me, then I’ll let you go free
C’mon, king of the Jews!
…
So, if you are the Christ, yes, the great Jesus Christ
Feed my household with this bread – you can do it on your head!
Or has something gone wrong? Why do you take so long?
C’mon, king of the Jews!
Hey! Aren’t you scared of me Christ? Mr Wonderful Christ!
You’re a joke, you’re not the Lord
You are nothing but a fraud!
Take him away – he’s got nothing to say!
Get out, you king of the Jews! Get out of my life!
Agree totally with that “Get Out” thing. Don’t care where you go, just don’t stay here.
In the last 24 hours the ground has shifted because of the Bolton Book. Some Republican Senators have realized that and decided that the level of known unknowns is uncomfortably high, “supposedly”.
There is speculation votes have moved on witnesses. I’ll believe it when I see it and I’m not holding my breath.
“From a quid pro quo aspect of the phone call,” Graham said in a statement released by his office, “there’s nothing there.”
Speaking to Axios a month later, though, Graham suggested that his exoneration of Trump didn’t extend much further than that call.
“If you could show me that Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call,” Graham said, “that would be very disturbing.”
On Sunday, news broke that such evidence existed, in the form of a revelation from a new book by former national security adviser John Bolton. In the unreleased book, Bolton alleges that he was told by Trump in August that aid to Ukraine would be held until Ukraine began investigations sought by Trump that would benefit the president politically. In other words, Trump wanted a this-for-that, what the ancient Romans would call a “quid pro quo.” Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland made that explicit in a conversation with a senior aide to Zelensky on Sept. 1, telling the aide that movement on the investigations would free up the aid.
The Bolton revelation has shaken up the impeachment trial underway in the Senate. Not too much, mind you; there is still only a chance that Bolton will be asked to offer testimony and only the most remote of chances that the Senate will vote to remove Trump from office. But the Bolton news did offer an uncomfortable contrast for a number of Trump allies between what they said about quid pro quo last year and what they should now understand about the situation.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), for example, was explicit after the rough transcript came out. “There was no quid pro quo,” he said to reporters. “You’d have to have that if there was going to be anything wrong.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said something similar: “It would be troubling if any president did a quid pro quo with tax dollars … but so far we don’t have evidence that’s happened.”
“[W]hat’s apparent,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said in a statement, “is there is no quid pro quo that the president asked for anything in return for U.S. aid to Ukraine. It was a fairly straightforward, diplomatic conversation.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) suggested that the Democrats had moved too quickly on impeachment. “Democrats started an impeachment process before they knew the facts,” he said in a statement. “Nothing in the transcript supports Democrats’ accusation that there was a quid pro quo.”
Others similarly set “quid pro quo” as the line beyond which Trump’s behavior would be considered unacceptable.
“I don’t see a quid pro quo in here,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told a local news station. “I see a conversation between two leaders that is pretty broad-ranging. I just don’t think this rises to impeachable on the conversations I’ve read.”
“If you read the transcript closely there is no quid pro quo,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said in a statement. “I looked at it, and I thought surely there had to be more in there to invest this much time and energy.”
Others were slightly more moderated but ended up in the same place.
“The memorandum released by the White House today reveals no quid pro quo,” Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) said in a statement. “While the conversation reported in the memorandum relating to alleged Ukrainian corruption and Vice President Biden’s son was inappropriate, it does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.” Note the through line: There’s no quid pro quo and does not rise to being impeachable.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) made a similar distinction.
“I don’t see the quid pro quo that the Democrats are claiming,” he said in an interview on Fox News. “In fact, I actually believe that if Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats had taken another 24 hours to make their decision and actually looked at the facts, which is the transcript itself, they might not have moved forward, because there is no quid pro quo.”
“I just don’t understand,” he added later, “how they can say it’s because there’s a quid pro quo and then we find out there’s not a quid pro quo that they are still proceeding.”
“So just a few days ago the Democrats were breathlessly on TV saying, ‘You’re going to see an illegal quid pro quo. It’s going to prove that,’ ” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said in a separate interview on Fox. “Well, you look at the transcript — there’s no illegal quid pro quo in that transcript.”
If you weren’t counting, that’s 10 Republican senators who expressed at least some concern about a quid pro quo in relation to Ukraine before the revelation that Bolton alleges precisely that. While those senators are of particular interest at the moment, of course, they aren’t the only allies of Trump’s whose position on quid pro quo has been somewhat undermined.
Yesterday the ‘D’ List Dream Team pretty much ignored it but like a festering boil it’s only gotten worse and the big question for Republicans is where they want to be when it pops.
Note: My Doctor associate (not Dr. Pimple Popper which is a truly horrifying and disgusting show on one of those Discovery Channels) tells me the proper term is “draining”.
Trying to raise executive privilege claims to prevent Bolton from testifying was already a stretch. The privilege cannot be used to cover up wrongdoing. And asserting it got a whole lot harder in the past 24 hours, thanks to Trump’s decision to publicly tweet about conversations with Bolton, and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s written statement about what he heard Bolton say. Moreover, Trump can raise whatever privilege he likes: Bolton as a former official can testify anyway. That sounds like what he is prepared to do.
What would House managers ask Bolton under oath? Oh, plenty, including:
Did Trump tell you there would be no aid to Ukraine unless two investigations, one into CrowdStrike and one into the Bidens, was announced?
When and where did he tell you? How many times did he tell you? Please show us your notes that confirm your testimony.
Did Trump say he wanted investigations or just the announcement of investigations?
Did you or anyone in your presence tell the president this was wrong? Illegal? Contrary to U.S. policy?
Did you or anyone in your presence tell the president that delaying aid would benefit Russia?
Why did you tell former White House national security staffer Fiona Hill to talk to the lawyers? What other National Security Council employees did you tell to talk to the lawyers?
Did you ever follow up with NSC legal adviser John Eisenberg?
Did the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky contain information that would warrant stashing it on a super-secret server?
Why did you say you wanted no part of the “drug deal” that Mulvaney and U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland were cooking up?
Aside from CrowdStrike and the Bidens, did the president show any interest in corruption? If so, what did he do?
Is Vladimir Putin corrupt? Did the president ever raise that topic with him?
When to your knowledge did Ukraine become aware aid was tied up? What concern if any did Ukraine officials express to you or your staff? Did Ukrainian officials express awareness that they were under pressure to comply with Trump’s demands?
Did you ever explain to Trump that the CrowdStrike conspiracy was Russian propaganda? What did he say?
Did you ever explain that former vice president Joe Biden was carrying out U.S. policy and the policy of Western allies when he pushed for former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin to be replaced?
Have you ever heard a president before this one condition official U.S. action on an investigation of a U.S. citizen who is a political opponent?
Was this episode a factor in your decision to quit?
What is the damage to U.S. foreign policy if foreign leaders think they can provide dirt on the U.S. president’s political opponents in exchange for favorable acts?
You get the idea just how damaging Bolton’s testimony likely would be. The only question is whether you and the Senate have to wait for the book to come out to hear definitive evidence of Trump’s impeachable conduct.
I’m not holding my breath. Glass Half Full though.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Space Shuttle Challenger explodes; Sir Francis Drake dies; José Martí born; Vince Lombardi is named head coach.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Like bones to the human body, the axle to the wheel, the wing to the bird, and the air to the wing, so is liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect.
One thing that people are not paying attention to is that by only consuming 2 – 3 hours on Saturday, the Republican Managers have forfeited up to 6 hours of their 24 total given the 3 day restriction unless they want to run waaay late.
I suppose I can catch the boys on YouTube.
Of course their case is so weak they might be forced to adjourn by dinner.
President Trump’s lawyers’ repeated assertions Saturday that they would not take much time on their case confirmed that they know the result is in the bag and that they have embarrassingly little to say in Trump’s defense. The central problem for them remains: How do you contest the facts, or claim an absence of evidence when you won’t allow in available evidence?
As Democratic senators think ahead to question time, they might start formulating questions that perform one of five functions.
First are the questions that expose the lies:
Why did you falsely state that Republicans were not allowed into the SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility)?
Why did you, Mr. Philbin, falsely say the Mueller report did not find “collusion,” which is not a crime and Robert S. Mueller III specifically wrote would not be the purpose of his investigation? Didn’t he find massive evidence that Russia wanted to help Trump and Trump wanted the help?
When you played the tape to accuse House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff of falsifying the July 25 call record, didn’t you hear him say this was not verbatim?
Didn’t Trump reject the offer to participate in the impeachment? Can you identify a single material way in which this impeachment diverged from the procedures of previous impeachments? Should the president get to set the rules? Doesn’t the Constitution say the House can set all the rules?
Did President Bill Clinton get to cross-examine witnesses as independent counsel Kenneth Starr was interviewing them, or is impeachment akin to an indictment where the defendant is not invited?
Are you saying CrowdStrike was a legitimate source of inquiry? Hadn’t everyone with any knowledge of the subject told Trump it was ridiculous? Isn’t it Russian propaganda?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky still hasn’t gotten his White House visit yet, right? Visiting on the sidelines at the United Nations isn’t the same, is it?
Second are the questions that obviously require new documents and witnesses:
Where are the witnesses to the July 25 call who said it was “perfect”?
Why can’t we hear from John Eisenberg about why he stashed the July 25 call record in a super-secret server and said it was a mistake but left it there?
What did the president’s asking President Zelensky about a false, Russian-backed conspiracy theory have to do with rooting out corruption in Ukraine? (This one comes from former DOJ spokesman Matthew Miller.)
Could John Bolton explain: Why Trump’s sudden interest in Ukraine corruption? Why did he tell the aides who heard about the “drug deal” to go to talk to the lawyers? Why was it contrary to U.S. interests to hold up aid, and why Trump didn’t care if it was? Could he tell us that the president was repeatedly told both the Biden investigation and the Crowdstrike conspiracy were bogus? Did you quit or get fired?
Could Michael Duffey at the Office of Management and Budget and Robert B. Blair at the White House shed light on the origin and purpose of the holdup in aid?
Mick Mulvaney admitted to a quid pro quo and then walked it back. Could he tell us why? Could he tell us if Trump directly ordered the hold-up in aid?
Did Trump’s team ever make a case-by-case assessment of a claim of executive privilege to each document and witness’s testimony? Why did you never formally assert executive privilege?
The House presented 10 reasons backed up by facts as to why the aid holdup was not for a proper purpose. Where is your rebuttal? Isn’t there a difference between holding up aid as an exercise of national security in broad daylight and doing it secretly to extort a foreign leader for political gain?
Why can’t we get the documents that even you agree are non-privileged (or have been waived) and let Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. rule on the rest?
Personally I don’t think the 3rd set of Questions are all that important, even as ‘gotchas’. ‘So What?’ is a game Republicans play, though Jen is very Conservative.
Third are the questions that can be termed “So what?”:
What difference does it make if Mr. Schiff mocked the president?
What difference does it make if Democrats hate Trump?
What difference does it make if Trump said “no quid pro quo” when in the same breath he said Zelensky needed to announce the investigations?
As I said, pretty weak and petty. To continue!
Fourth are the questions that expose the logical inconsistencies in the defense case:
If Trump was concerned about corruption in Ukraine, why ask a private attorney to go investigate it and why focus Zelensky only on topics that benefited Trump politically?
Isn’t it the job of U.S. law enforcement to investigate potential wrongdoing by Americans?
How could you say it is corrupt to seek to oust a corrupt prosecutor, a move the U.S. government and the Western alliance supported? At the time Viktor Shokin was fired, he was not actually investigating Burisma, right?
If Trump is concerned about adult children benefiting from their father’s name, why did he allow his sons to run his company during his presidency and give his unqualified children a place in his administration?
How could Trump be interested in corruption when he only mentioned the Bidens and CrowdStrike and then released the money without any additional anti-corruption steps? Why did he release the funds without insisting on any additional burden-sharing by allies? Did a single White House official do anything new on corruption or burden-sharing with regard to Ukraine between July 25 and the date the aid was released?
Finally, here are the questions that go to “Holy cow, we cannot leave this guy in office!”:
Regardless of what you say the president did with respect to Ukraine, will the president commit to not asking a foreign government to investigate his political opponents or otherwise intervene in the election going forward?
Does the president intend to block all further subpoenas on the question of Ukraine for the remainder of his presidency?
Will the president stop taking foreign policy advice from Rudolph W. Giuliani and Vladimir Putin?
Yeah. Well. Some of them are better than others, but if you wanted to play a drinking game…
It would depend on how you framed the penalty whether it would be wet or dry.
Forks necessary for the consumption of the meal are on the Left, organized by the order of courses to be served with the first being furthest from the center. Plates are stacked in a similar manner, if a bowl is required it’s usually provided by the Server and sits on top of a plate which may be in the stack or may come with the bowl. Knives are arranged closest to the plate on the Right (out to in in order used) with your array of Spoons positioned after that. Napkin goes on top of the Plates or placed or tucked on the Left. While Dining it belongs in your lap (And take your elbows off the table and sit up straight! Don’t chew with your mouth open either!). Ancillary equipment (Bread Plate, Dessert Plate, Shell Bowl, Butter Knives and other specialty Cutlery and Hardware) goes on the Top of the Setting, farthest away from the Diner, as does a Water Glass and a Wine Glass (how many depends on how strict you are about mixing and the number of Wines being served).
How many times are you going to close your eyes to the criminality of Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio?
Last week was all about Lev, the Interview and then the Tape.
More damning than Lev thought. Gotta give the man credit, he’s a low life Thug but when he says he has receipts he does.
Next up… Bolton’s Book.
The Times got hold of a draft that had been sent for Secrecy Vetting so it clearly came from someone in the Government, not the Publisher.
Nothing much new in it if you’ve been following along in the funny papers but it does conclusively confirm the facts accepted by everyone except Republicans.
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, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.
The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense: that the holdup in aid was separate from Mr. Trump’s requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his perceived enemies, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, who had worked for a Ukrainian energy firm while his father was in office.
Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.
…
Over dozens of pages, Mr. Bolton described how the Ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the White House in September. He described not only the president’s private disparagement of Ukraine but also new details about senior cabinet officials who have publicly tried to sidestep involvement.
For example, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani that the ambassador to Ukraine was corrupt and believed Mr. Giuliani may have been acting on behalf of other clients, Mr. Bolton wrote.
Mr. Bolton also said that after the president’s July phone call with the president of Ukraine, he raised with Attorney General William P. Barr his concerns about Mr. Giuliani, who was pursuing a shadow Ukraine policy encouraged by the president, and told Mr. Barr that the president had mentioned him on the call. A spokeswoman for Mr. Barr denied that he learned of the call from Mr. Bolton; the Justice Department has said he learned about it only in mid-August.
And the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was present for at least one phone call where the president and Mr. Giuliani discussed the ambassador, Mr. Bolton wrote. Mr. Mulvaney has told associates he would always step away when the president spoke with his lawyer to protect their attorney-client privilege.
…
Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, said the Bolton manuscript underscored the need for him to testify, and the House impeachment managers demanded after this article was published that the Senate vote to call him. “There can be no doubt now that Mr. Bolton directly contradicts the heart of the president’s defense,” they said in a statement.
Republicans, though, were mostly silent; a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, declined to comment.
Mr. Bolton would like to testify for several reasons, according to associates. He believes he has relevant information, and he has also expressed concern that if his account of the Ukraine affair emerges only after the trial, he will be accused of holding back to increase his book sales.
…
Key to Mr. Bolton’s account about Ukraine is an exchange during a meeting in August with the president after Mr. Trump returned from vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. Mr. Bolton raised the $391 million in congressionally appropriated assistance to Ukraine for its war in the country’s east against Russian-backed separatists. Officials had frozen the aid, and a deadline was looming to begin sending it to Kyiv, Mr. Bolton noted.
He, Mr. Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper had collectively pressed the president about releasing the aid nearly a dozen times in the preceding weeks after lower-level officials who worked on Ukraine issues began complaining about the holdup, Mr. Bolton wrote. Mr. Trump had effectively rebuffed them, airing his longstanding grievances about Ukraine, which mixed legitimate efforts by some Ukrainians to back his Democratic 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, with unsupported accusations and outright conspiracy theories about the country, a key American ally.
Mr. Giuliani had also spent months stoking the president’s paranoia about the American ambassador to Ukraine at the time, Marie L. Yovanovitch, claiming that she was openly anti-Trump and needed to be dismissed. Mr. Trump had ordered her removed as early as April 2018 during a private dinner with two Giuliani associates and others, a recording of the conversation made public on Saturday showed.
In his August 2019 discussion with Mr. Bolton, the president appeared focused on the theories Mr. Giuliani had shared with him, replying to Mr. Bolton’s question that he preferred sending no assistance to Ukraine until officials had turned over all materials they had about the Russia investigation that related to Mr. Biden and supporters of Mrs. Clinton in Ukraine.
…
Mr. Bolton also described other key moments in the pressure campaign, including Mr. Pompeo’s private acknowledgment to him last spring that Mr. Giuliani’s claims about Ms. Yovanovitch had no basis and that Mr. Giuliani may have wanted her removed because she might have been targeting his clients who had dealings in Ukraine as she sought to fight corruption.
…
Mr. Bolton also said he warned White House lawyers that Mr. Giuliani might have been leveraging his work with the president to help his private clients.
And I’ll point out as a bit of trivia that the Times has switched to calling him “Mr.”.
I am given to understand there is some dispute about whether Ketchup is an allowable condiment for Hot Dogs.
No more or less than it is on Hamburgers.
At Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, home of the original Hamburger, a Burger “with the Works” is a slice of yellow American Cheese, a slice of Tomato which is nice when in season, and a slice of Onion which is more or less hot depending on season. Feel free to mix and match. There might be Salt and Pepper floating around, I misremember. It is very small and crowded.
Did I mention it’s served on dry toast?
Yes, smuggling in packets you stole from other Burger joints makes you weak and worthless.
Me personally? Depends on the Bun. Ketchup and Brown Mustard always. I’m not above adding Cheese, Kraut and Chopped Onion or even Chili (though I have to be careful because of my allergies) to my Dogs. Bacon, Cheese, and Sliced Onion to my Burgers and if the Tomatoes are nice they add but mostly they turn into slippery goo that slides your Slider (Hah!) all over the place.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Soviet troops liberate concentration camps; Paris peace accords are signed; Astonauts die on Apollo one; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart born; Composer Jerome Kern born
