The Commentariat -- September 29, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post on how Nancy Pelosi is turning to Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff to run the preliminary -- and probably definitive -- "fact-gathering" phase of the impeachment inquiry instead of to the Judiciary Committee, which would normally head such an inquiry. Mrs. McC: There's a piece on how Republicans were so upset with Schiff's opening statement in the Maguire hearing. I heard Schiff's statement in real time & found nothing wrong with it, so I listened again. Trump & his allies are really grasping at straws to demand Schiff's resignation because they didn't like the way he characterized Trump's call to Zelensky. It was accurate.

Kylie Atwood & Evan Perez of CNN: "Former US Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker plans to appear at his deposition next Thursday in front of three congressional committees, according to a source familiar with his plans. The source would not say if the White House is seeking to use executive privilege to constrict Volker in terms of what he can say or provide. Volker's appearance before the Intelligence, Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs committees was announced just hours before the news broke Friday evening that he had resigned."

Zack Budryk of the Hill: "Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) said Sunday the government 'should be protecting' the whistleblower behind a complaint alleging President Trump pressured Ukraine's president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter.... 'Having laws in place to ensure that folks throughout the government are able to get to the right committees information they think may be wrongdoing is important. There are troubling issues within the whistleblower report but they are allegations and I think that's why we should explore these allegations through hearings,' he added." Mrs. McC: Hurd, a former CIA officer, is retiring from the House.

Jacob Knutson of Axios: "White House senior adviser Stephen Miller claimed on 'Fox News Sunday' that the whistleblower who filed a complaint about President Trump's interactions with Ukraine is a 'deep state operative' who does not deserve to be honored for forwarding a 'partisan hit job.'... Miller has no evidence of who the whistleblower is. He also cited the intelligence community inspector general's finding that the whistleblower displayed 'arguable political bias,' but dismissed the IG's assessment that the complaint was 'credible' -- which has also been backed up by acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire." ~~~

     ~~~ Zack Budryk of the Hill: "White House policy advisor Stephen Miller sparred with Fox News's Chris Wallace on Sunday over a whistleblower complaint against President Trump that has led House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to announce a formal impeachment inquiry last week, saying Trump was the 'real whistleblower.' Miller blasted the complaint, which largely aligns with a White House summary of a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as a 'little Nancy Drew novel' that 'drips with condemnation, condescension and contempt for the president.... Wallace ... repeatedly pressed Miller on why the president had enlisted his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to get information on former Vice President Joe Biden's son's dealings in Ukraine. 'The president has got the State Department, he's got the CIA, he's got the Pentagon he's got a number of other agencies, why did he use three private lawyers to get information on Biden?' Wallace asked. Miller demurred on that question as well as Wallace's questions on why the White House delayed military aid to Ukraine, citing political corruption, despite the Pentagon certifying steps the nation had taken to address corruption. Wallace eventually called Miller's answers an 'exercise in obfuscation, 'while the White House official shot back, saying there was 'a tone of judgment' in Wallace's questions...."

I don't want to be glib about this matter, but last year, retired former Sen. Judd Gregg wrote a piece in The Hill magazine saying the 3 ways ... to impeach one's self. And the 3rd way was to hire Rudy Giuliani. -- Former Trump advisor Tom Bossert on "This Week" today ~~~

~~~ Chris Francescani of ABC News: "... Donald Trump's first Homeland Security and counterterrorism advisor, who resigned after a year in the office, said on 'This Week With George Stephanopoulos' on Sunday that he is 'deeply disturbed' and 'frustrated' by the 'entire mess' that began in July with Trump's phone call with a young Ukrainian president.... Former Homeland Security advisor Tom Bossert, now an ABC News contributor..., described the allegations against Trump as extremely serious. '... it is a bad day and a bad week for this president and this country -- if he is asking for political dirt on an opponent. But it looks to me that the other matter, that's far from proven, was whether he was doing anything to abuse his power and withhold aid, in order to solicit such a thing,' Bossert said.... Bossert was sharply critical of Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was also a guest on the show." ~~~

     ~~~ So Then. Lucien Bruggeman of ABC News: "Rudy Giuliani ... defended himself Sunday on 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos' from accusations lodged by a former White House official that he has trafficked unfounded theories about foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election.... Giuliani ... [told] Stephanopoulos, 'Tom Bossert doesn't know what he's talking about... I'm not peddling anything.' [Giuliani] also sought to defend his role in pressing Ukrainians to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.... 'This is not about getting Joe Biden in trouble,' Giuliani said. 'This is about proving that Donald Trump was framed by the Democrats.'... Giuliani also sought to undermine a whistleblower complaint.... 'The whistleblower says, "I don't have any direct knowledge, I just heard things,"' Giuliani said. 'I'm not saying [the whistleblower] was false, I'm saying he could have heard it wrong.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Rishika Dugyala of Politico has a more colorful recounting of Giuliani's "This Week' appearance: "On Sunday -- armed with document after document that he held up to the camera -- ... Donald Trump's personal attorney doubled down on his corruption charges against former Vice President Joe Biden and the connection between the Democratic Party and Ukraine. He also cast doubt on whether he would testify before a House panel.... Giuliani started his attacks on the Obama White House and Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. He denied ever courting the theory that Ukrainians hacked the Democratic National Committee and then framed the Russian government. Pivoting, he said there was still 'a load of evidence that Ukrainians created false information for the Obama White House. He also alleged 'the collusion that they claim happened in Russia happened in the Ukraine with Hillary Clinton.'... If Trump hadn't asked Ukraine to investigate Biden in his July 25 phone call, Giuliani said Sunday, 'He would have violated the Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution.'... Throughout the interview, Giuliani and host Goerge Stephanopoulos had fiery back-and-forths, disagreeing about media partisanship and the factual accuracy of some of Giuliani's claims." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: So the new "strategy" is to claim that Trump had a Constitutional duty to send his personal lawyer around the world ginning up dirt on his political opponent? That should work.

Sarah Cammarata of Politico: “Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday repeatedly dismissed the whistleblower's complaint against ... Donald Trump as 'all hearsay.' 'This seems to me like a political setup. It's all hearsay. You can't get a parking ticket conviction based on hearsay. The whistleblower didn't hear the phone call,' the South Carolina Republican said on CBS's 'Face the Nation,' adding he has 'zero problems' with the president's phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Graham pushed back against host Margaret Brennan's assertion the whistleblower complaint largely matches the White House summary of the call. The evidence laid out in the complaint, she added, is based on information gathered from numerous White House officials. 'This whole thing is a sham ... Who is this whistleblower? What bias do they have? Why did they pick this whistleblower to tell a hearsay story? The transcript does not match the complaint,' Graham said. 'This thing stinks.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Oops! Graham is acknowledging that numerous officials -- "they" -- supported the whistleblower's complaint & "picked" him from among themselves to make the complaint.

Tim Murphy of Mother Jones: "The Post story catches the president explicitly telling the hostile power that attacked his political rival and interfered with the cornerstone of American democracy that is was all totally fine with him. It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to wonder what that means for 2020." --s

Jennifer De Pinto, et al., of CBS News: "More than half of Americans [55%] -- and an overwhelming number of Democrats [87%] -- say they approve of the fact that Congress has opened an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. But as the inquiry begins, there is no national consensus on how to assess the president's actions. Partisans have immediately and predictably split: most Democrats call the president's handling of matters with Ukraine illegal, and deserving of impeachment. Most Republicans call his actions proper -- or, even if improper, then still legal -- and feel they're an example of things that past presidents typically did, too."

Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine exploded into public view this month, with the revelation that Trump pressured the country's new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to work with Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr to dig up dirt on ... Joe Biden and information to discredit Mueller's probe.... But the former New York mayor's involvement in Ukraine and other former Soviet bloc countries has been more extensive and even more sketchy than these disclosures indicate." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Friedman covers many of Giuliani's previous ventures & adventures in the old USSR. No wonder he saw nothing wrong with taking a paying gig with at a Kremlin-backed "conference" just as his part in Trump's impeachment scandal hit front pages across the U.S. "Colluding with Russia the entire former Soviet bloc" is what Rudy does for a living.

~~~~~~~~~

"Treason, Bribery, or Other High Crimes," Ctd.

Joshua Yaffa & Adam Entous of the New Yorker explain why it was vital for Volodymyr Zelensky to please Trump & how Trump & his regime jerked around Zelensky. "The United States is currently the only Western nation that is providing military aid, including sophisticated weaponry, to Ukraine. 'What Zelensky needs to prove to his people, and also to signal to Moscow, is that he has juice with Trump,' a former senior Obama Administration official said. 'For Zelensky, all forms of U.S. support are matters of national life or death....'"

Still a Racist. Can you imagine if these Do Nothing Democrat Savages, people like Nadler, Schiff, AOC Plus 3, and many more, had a Republican Party who would have done to Obama what the Do Nothings are doing to me. -- Donald Trump, in a tweet, Saturday ~~~

~~~ Phil McCausland of NBC News: "... Donald Trump blasted six members of the House of Representatives as 'savages' on Saturday morning. 'Savages' began to trend on Twitter following the president's post, which comes amid an impeachment inquiry over his dealings with Ukraine. Some Twitter users pointed out that Trump's latest broadside against Democrats focused on four women of color as well as the two heads of committees helping to lead the impeachment inquiry...."

"A Triumph of Omertà over Patriotism." Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare: Shortly after the Washington Post reported Friday night that "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... [WashPo story linked here yesterday], "I received a message from a person directly involved with the FBI's decision to open a counterintelligence and obstruction investigation of President Trump in the immediate aftermath of the firing of FBI Director James Comey. To say this person, who had clearly learned about the matter for the first time from the Post, was angered by the story would be to understate the matter. The message read in relevant part: 'None of us had any idea. Multiple people had opportunity and patriotic reason to tell us. Instead, silence.'... It seems obvious, in the context of these concerns, that information that the president informed Russian officials that he did not care about Russian election interference would have been key to this analysis on the FBI's part -- and, later, on the part of Robert Mueller.... This raises a significant question to me about the completeness of the Mueller's collusion analysis." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The Mueller team should have asked those who were aware of the content of the conversation among Trump & the Russians, "What-all else did Trump say in his meeting with Lavrov & Kislyak?" Since the Trumpies were cooperating (or coöperating) with Mueller, I think they would have got the goods. If the Mueller team asked & ignored Trump's extended olive branch to the Russians, even worse. I fault Mueller & Co., not the Trumpies. I suspect from the get-go Mueller wanted to go easy on Trump himself because he didn't want to "overturn an election." Indicting hangers-on like Manafort, Smith, Cohen & Flynn was Mueller's way of justifying his job without upsetting the status quo. ~~~

~~~ On the Other Hand.... Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: The Washington Post story "alleges that there is a memorandum summarizing the White House meeting [among Trump, Lavrov & Kislyak].... That May 10 White House meeting was the subject of intense scrutiny by the Mueller probe because it went directly to the question of why Comey was fired. Now the question becomes, if there was a memorandum of that meeting, how is it possible that it was not produced to Mueller?... It's awfully hard to believe that Mueller didn't ask for any readout or memorandum from that meeting.... The notion that Mueller missed this altogether borders on the incredible." It's possible the memo was highly-classified because in the meeting, Trump revealed highly-classified info to the Russians. Tobias Barrington Wolff, who teaches constitutional law at University of Pennsylvania Law School, told Lithwick. Wolff said that "even if the May 10[, 2017,] memorandum was properly classified, 'This emphasizes the point that Mueller's conclusions were based on imperfect information precisely because of White House and Trump misconduct.'" ~~~

     ~~~ On the Other Hand (I'm running out of hands here)... Mrs. McCrabbie: Lithwick notes that the Mueller report cites an email dated 5/10/17 from "Ciaramella to Kelly, et al..., [as] the only document that seems to have been produced in reference to the May 10 meeting." Really? Trump meets with two top Russians in the Oval Office and there's no formal document memorializing the meeting? That seems like a line of inquiry right there. Lithwick wants to know who hid the memo. Me too. But I'd also like to know if Mueller's agents asked for other transcriptions or recordings of the 5/10/17 meeting -- as well as if they asked principals to elaborate on the Trump-Russians chat.

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: So Friday night, I wrote this: "Nothing but prying the reins of power from [Trump's] tiny hands will keep him from engaging in more & more 'PERFECT' hijinks." Now I read this: ~~~

~~~ Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "President Trump, who has alleged that Hunter Biden got the Chinese to put $1.5 billion into an investment fund, said during private remarks this week that he raised the matter with a U.S. executive who has served as his intermediary on trade talks with Beijing. Trump's comments could attract interest in light of the impeachment inquiry underway by House Democrats.... Given Trump's comments, investigators may want to learn whether the president similarly sought information about the Bidens in China. In remarks to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations on Thursday morning, Trump said he discussed Biden's China work with Stephen Schwarzman, the chief executive of the investment company Blackstone. 'I was with the head of Blackstone ... Steve Schwarzman,' Trump said, according to a video of the remarks.... After alleging that Hunter Biden got $1.5 billion from the Chinese, Trump said he asked Schwarzman, 'Steve, is that possible?'... The executive responded: 'Maybe I shouldn't get involved, you know it's very political.'&" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McC: The most amazing part is that Trump admitted that AFTER he learned he would be impeached for the very same behavior on the very same subject: Hunter Biden. Maybe his hands are so tiny because they're implants: he burned off the originals by repeatedly slapping them down on a hot stove.

Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Three days after his now infamous phone conversation with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Donald Trump abruptly fired his director of national intelligence [-- Dan Coats --] in favour of an inexperienced political loyalist. According to a New York Times report, the White House learned within days that the unorthodox call on 25 July with Zelenskiy had raised red flags among intelligence professionals and was likely to trigger an official complaint. That timeline has raised new questions over the timing of the Trump's dismissal by tweet of ... Coats, on 28 July and his insistence that the deputy DNI, Sue Gordon, a career intelligence professional, did not step into the role, even in an acting capacity. Instead, Trump tried to install a Republican congressman, John Ratcliffe, who had minimal national security credentials but had been a fierce defender of the president in Congress. Trump had to drop the nomination after it emerged that Ratcliffe had exaggerated his national security credentials.... Despite the collapse of the Ratcliffe nomination, Gordon was forced out. She was reported to have been holding a meeting on election security on 8 August when Coats interrupted to convince her that she would have to resign." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I've assumed from the get-go that Coats' firing & Gordon's resignation had something to do with the call to Zelensky. Coats & Gordon can both testify if they're called.

~~~ SNL should have added Sen. Lindsey Graham to their cavalcade of Trump phone buddies. David Smith of the Guardian: "The New York Post's PageSix reported that Graham was overheard on a [commercial airlines] flight coordinating talking points with the White House. 'We're told that the South Carolina pol was on a JetBlue flight ... and was chatting loudly with "Jared" -- presumably White House adviser Jared Kushner -- before takeoff,' it said. 'It was a "full-blown, loud conversation' according to an airborne spy. 'His phone rang and he answered, "Hey, Jared!" He was ... saying he's going to be on Face the Nation on Sunday. He said, "Listen -- this is what I'm going to lay out,"' we're told.' The report added that Graham was overheard saying: "This is Kavanaugh on steroids! This is hearsay -- and this person has bias."'" The New York Post story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: You mean Jared was at the office? He & Ivanka usually go on vacation when Trump gets in big trouble.

Ivan Nechepurenko of the New York Times (Sept. 27): "Amid the uproar over President Trump's call to the leader of Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Friday that it hoped the contents of Mr. Trump's phone conversations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would not be made public -- a disclosure that would likely generate far more attention.... Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov was asked if he worried about the confidentiality of the American president's contacts with Mr. Putin. 'We would like to hope that we would not see such situations in our bilateral relations, which already have plenty of quite serious problems,' he said in a conference call with reporters. He emphasized that accounts of phone conversations between leaders were classified." Here's NBC News' Sept. 27 story. Mrs. McC: Sorry, I thought I linked this or another report covering Peskov's comments earlier, but I see I didn't.

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm sure Putin isn't the only world leader who isn't going to want to chat with Trump after this. Apparently Zelensky spent Friday apologizing to European leaders for comments he made about them to Trump in the July 25 call. But the Gang of Eight needs access to real transcripts or recordings of all the conversations Trump had with foreign heads-of-state, and if any portions of those conversations incriminate Trump in any regard, the public has a right to know what he said & in what context.

Marcy Wheeler: "Bill Barr continues to excel at placing carefully worded self-exonerations in the press. Consider this AP story, purportedly telling how helpless little Billy Barr has been put in an uncomfortable situation because Trump treats him the same way he does Rudy Giuliani, as his personal lawyer.... Much of the [AP] story describes Barr as the passive object things happen to, not as the agent of his own circumstances. The AP describes him finding himself in a political firestorm and coming under scrutiny rather than acting in scandalous ways that merit such scrutiny.... The money quote ... is from someone identifiably close enough to Barr to know he was 'surprised and angry' but who claims not to be authorized to speak 'publicly.'... It does not matter at all whether Bill Barr was surprised to hear the President roping him into framing his opponent's son (though we should not believe he was surprised until the Attorney General says that publicly himself, preferably under oath).... What matters is whether Barr learned he was named in the transcript before the DOJ made the decision there was no crime there. What matters is whether Barr knew he was implicated before making the decision not to recuse in advance of a prosecutorial decision made while lacking all the facts. What matters is whether Barr knew he was named in the transcript before getting an OLC opinion justifying withholding the complaint." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: AND let's give Michael Balsamo of the AP today's Annals of "Journalism" prize.

Dana Bash & Pamela Brown of CNN: Donald Trump and some of his aides are all upset that acting chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney "did not have a strategy for defending and explaining the contents of those documents as soon as they were publicly released.... The sources say Mulvaney is taking the heat for that.... The frustration over a lack of a response plan poured over into a series of meetings at the White House Friday between the President and top aides, including his personal counsel and White House lawyers, to figure out a strategy moving forward." Mrs. McC: My strategy would have been to hand Trump a Sharpie & a neatly-typed resignation letter on presidential* letterhead with some characteristic misspellings, weird capitalization & lots of exclamation points!!!!

Rich Schapiro of NBC News: "... several legal experts who used to work with[, Rudy Giuliani,] the former U.S. attorney-turned New York City mayor-turned chief ... Donald Trump defender told NBC News they believe his conduct likely broke the law. '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.... 'I think the Giuliani that I know would prosecute the Giuliani of today.' Harris and the other former Justice Department lawyers said they believe Giuliani has potentially exposed himself to a range of offenses - from breaking federal election laws to bribery to extortion -- through his efforts to assist the Ukrainians in probing Joe Biden.... 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."

Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nevada) "supports an 'oversight process' to determine whether President Trump broke the law when he asked a foreign leader to look into a political opponent's activities. Just don't call it an impeachment inquiry.... [Amodei] used language during a phone call with reporters on Friday night that suggested he supported the Democrats' investigation into Trump.... But after news outlets began reporting that Amodei was the first House Republican to side with Democrats on opening an impeachment inquiry, Amodei and his staff pushed back -- hard. Sure, they argued, the congressman wanted to find out what occurred between Trump and the Ukrainian president. But that's not the same as wanting the House to begin impeachment proceedings.... For Republicans in Congress, it underscores the delicacy of this moment as they balance their allegiance to Trump with their constitutional duties." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Amodei has a point. Republicans and, for that matter, Democrats, should be given the wiggle room to say they support "oversight," or however they want to word it, but not impeachment. That's the only way to get members of Congress on the fence eventually to jump to the impeachment side. The lede in this report by Kate Sullivan of CNN gets it right: "Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei said Friday he supports the process playing out in the formal impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, but said he does not support impeaching the President."

BUT THE EMAILS! Greg Miller, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is investigating the email records of dozens of current and former senior State Department officials who sent messages to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email, reviving a politically toxic matter that overshadowed the 2016 election, current and former officials said. As many as 130 officials have been contacted in recent weeks by State Department investigators -- a list that includes senior officials who reported directly to Clinton as well as others in lower-level jobs whose emails were at some point relayed to her inbox, said current and former State Department officials. Those targeted were notified that emails they sent years ago have been retroactively classified and now constitute potential security violations, according to letters reviewed by The Washington Post.... State Department officials vigorously denied there was any political motivation behind their actions, and said that the reviews of retroactively classified emails were conducted by career bureaucrats who did not know the names of the subjects being investigated. In virtually all of the cases, potentially sensitive information, now recategorized as' classified,' was sent to Clinton's unsecure inbox."

Caitlin Emma of Politico: "... Donald Trump has signed a short-term spending bill that averts a government shutdown and extends current funding levels and programs through Nov. 21, according to a White House spokesperson. The continuing resolution, H.R. 4378 (116), buys more time for bicameral negotiations on a dozen fiscal 2020 spending bills that would provide updated funding levels for 15 federal departments and dozens of smaller federal agencies. Current federal funding runs out at midnight Monday."

Mark Stern of Slate: "Thomas Homan, the Trump administration's acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from January 2017 to June 2018, helped to transform the agency into an arm of Donald Trump's nativist agenda.... On Thursday, asked to answer for his agency's conduct and policies in a congressional hearing, he responded with a meltdown that perfectly captured a lawless organization's rejection of any rules or authority that might limit its power.... The most indelible moment arrived when Homan's time expired -- and he refused to stop speaking. [Rep. Pramila] Jayapal[, chair of the subcommittee,] attempted to gavel him down, but he continued to insult her.... Earlier this month, Homan engaged in a similar performance, attempting to shout down Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after his time expired. Like Jayapal, Ocasio-Cortez had to gavel him down.... It was hard to miss the symbolism of Homan training his rage and condescension on two women of color.... He is a man who is used to wielding power against people who look like Jayapal and Ocasio-Cortez." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: There are millions of very nice white guys in this country. But I'm sorry, just to be on the safe side, I don't think I'd put any of them in charge of anything having to do with immigration unless they had remarkable records of helping "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's effort to expand use of a process that fast-tracks undocumented immigrants for deportation without the involvement of immigration courts. The 'expedited removal' procedure has previously been used to quickly send recent border-crossers back to Mexico, with policies limiting its use to individuals apprehended within 100 miles of the U.S. border and who are determined to have crossed into the U.S. illegally in the past two weeks. However, in July, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced plans to eliminate those constraints, allowing use of the fast-track process for any immigrant suspected of being in the U.S. illegally for less than two years. In a 126-page ruling issued just before midnight Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson halted the policy shift, declaring that the Trump administration's decision-making process leading to the change appeare to have violated federal law. She said the decision seemed arbitrary and faulted officials for failing to carry out a formal notice-and-comment practice required for major changes to federal rules."

Beyond the Beltway

New Jersey. Joe Brandt of NJ.com: "The former New Jersey police chief caught on recordings making hateful remarks against African Americans once shared his thoughts about the 2016 election ... [after slamming the head of] a black suspect [into a doorjamb]. 'I' telling you, you know what, Donald Trump is the last hope for white people, cause Hillary will give it to all the minorities to get a vote,' former Bordentown Township Chief Frank Nucera said, according to a transcript displayed at trial.... Nucera' federal trial on charges of hate crime assault and lying to the FBI entered its third day Wednesday with more testimony from the police K-9 sergeant who made dozens of recordings of his former chief. Sgt. Nathan Roohr is federal prosecutors' star witness in their case against Nucera, who resigned as Bordentown Township chief in Feb. 2017 when he learned the FBI was investigating him.... 'Frank Nucera lunged his hand forward, grabbed [Timothy] Stroye, the side of his head like a basketball, and slammed it into the metal doorjamb as he entered the doorway,' Roohr [testified]. The comments about Trump came later...." Via the Washington Post.

Way Beyond

Hong Kong/China. Eileen Ng of the AP: "Protesters and police clashed in Hong Kong for a second straight day on Sunday, throwing the city's business and shopping belt into chaos and sparking fears of more ugly scenes leading up to China's National Day this week. Riot police repeatedly fired blue liquid -- used to identify protesters -- from a water cannon truck and multiple volleys of tear gas after demonstrators hurled Molotov cocktails at officers and targeted the government office complex. It was a repeat of Saturday's clashes and part of a familiar cycle since pro-democracy protests began in early June. The protests were sparked by a now-shelved extradition bill and have since snowballed into an anti-China movement."

U.K. Michael Savage of the Guardian/Observer: "The UK's most senior civil servant is under pressure to investigate Boris Johnson's financial backers following cross-party claims that unnamed individuals stand to benefit from the prime minister’s willingness to pursue a no-deal rexit. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has written to the cabinet secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, asking if there may be a conflict of interest in Johnson's acceptance of support from hedge funds that could gain from an economic shock. Earlier on Saturday, Philip Hammond, the former chancellor, suggested Johnson was pursuing the interests of financial backers set to gain from a no-deal Brexit, in a major escalation of tensions in the prime minister's own party." ~~~

~~~ Ivana Kottasová of CNN: "British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been referred to a police watchdog over his alleged relationship with an American businesswoman when he was mayor of London. On Friday, the Greater London Authority (GLA) said in a statement that it has asked the Independent Office for Police Conduct to assess whether it is necessary to investigate Johnson for the criminal offense of misconduct in public office. 'Allegations have been brought to the attention of the Monitoring Officer that Boris Johnson maintained a friendship with Jennifer Arcuri and as a result of that friendship allowed Ms Arcuri to participate in trade missions and receive sponsorship monies in circumstances when she and her companies could not have expected otherwise to receive those benefits,' the monitoring office of the GLA said in a statement." Mrs. McC: Yeah, and if you squint hard enough, Arcuri even looks like Stormy Daniels. ~~~

~~~ Johnson Threatens Top Judges. James Randerson of Politico: "Top judges should be subjected to U.S.-style 'accountability' Boris Johnson suggested following the decision by the U.K.'s Supreme Court to quash his decision to suspend parliament. The U.K.'s highest court ruled unanimously on Tuesday that the prime minister's decision to prorogue parliament was 'unlawful' leading to MPs being recalled the following day. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Johnson insisted that he respected the court's judgment 'very humbly and very sincerely.' But he suggested there would be 'consequences' following the judges decision to intervene in such a highly political question." ~~~

~~~ Jacopo Barigazzi & David Herszenhorn of Politico: "Seen from Brussels, the U.K. is a failed state -- at least at the moment. The EU and its 27 remaining member states& have all but lost faith in the British political system to deliver clarity on Brexit any time soon, according to interviews with officials and diplomats. That has left most in Brussels expecting that the October 31 deadline will need to be extended, but still bracing for the chance of a no-deal catastrophe. And even if disaster is avoided, the EU27 are wondering if another postponement will serve any useful purpose. The unprecedented U.K. Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday that Prime Minister Boris Johnson illegally shut down parliament injected further confusion into what was already a bewildering and highly unpredictable situation. And it confirmed the sense among many in Brussels that the political situation in the U.K. has only grown more dysfunctional since Johnson took over as prime minister. His combative rhetoric in recent days -- repeating talk of 'surrender' and dismissing an MP's account of death threats she'd received as 'humbug' -- and the backlash against it has only added to the sense of uncontrolled chaos in London."

The Commentariat -- September 28, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: So Friday night, I wrote this: "Nothing but prying the reins of power from [Trump's] tiny hands will keep him from engaging in more & more 'PERFECT' hijinks." Now I read this: ~~~

~~~ Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "President Trump, who has alleged that Hunter Biden got the Chinese to put $1.5 billion into an investment fund, said during private remarks this week that he raised the matter with a U.S. executive who has served as his intermediary on trade talks with Beijing. Trump's comments could attract interest in light of the impeachment inquiry underway by House Democrats.... Given Trump's comments, investigators may want to learn whether the president similarly sought information about the Bidens in China. In remarks to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations on Thursday morning, Trump said he discussed Biden's China work with Stephen Schwarzman, the chief executive of the investment company Blackstone. 'I was with the head of Blackstone ... Steve Schwarzman,' Trump said, according to a video of the remarks.... After alleging that Hunter Biden got $1.5 billion from the Chinese, Trump said he asked Schwarzman, 'Steve, is that possible?'... The executive responded: 'Maybe I shouldn't get involved, you know it's very political.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McC: The most amazing part is that Trump admitted that AFTER he learned he would be impeached for the very same behavior on the very same subject: Hunter Biden. Maybe his hands are so tiny because they're implants: he burned off the originals by repeatedly slapping them down on a hot stove.

Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Three days after his now infamous phone conversation with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Donald Trump abruptly fired his director of national intelligence [-- Dan Coats --] in favour of an inexperienced political loyalist. According to a New York Times report, the White House learned within days that the unorthodox call on 25 July with Zelenskiy had raised red flags among intelligence professionals and was likely to trigger an official complaint. That timeline has raised new questions over the timing of the Trump's dismissal by tweet of ... Coats, on 28 July and his insistence that the deputy DNI, Sue Gordon, a career intelligence professional, did not step into the role, even in an acting capacity. Instead, Trump tried to install a Republican congressman, John Ratcliffe, who had minimal national security credentials but had been a fierce defender of the president in Congress. Trump had to drop the nomination after it emerged that Ratcliffe had exaggerated his national security credentials.... Despite the collapse of the Ratcliffe nomination, Gordon was forced out. She was reported to have been holding a meeting on election security on 8 August when Coats interrupted to convince her that she would have to resign." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I've assumed from the get-go that Coats' firing & Gordon's resignation had something to do with the call to Zelensky. Coats & Gordon can both testify if they're called.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Treason, Bribery, or Other High Crimes," Ctd.

Kate Riga of TPM has a definitive timeline of the Trump-Ukraine scandal. --s ~~~

~~~ William Saletan of Slate outlines the timeline of the quid pro quo.

Stunning Confirmation of the Whistleblower's Revelations:

** Shane Harris, et al., of the 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.... According to [a] fourth former official, Trump lamented to Lavrov that 'all this Russia stuff' was detrimental to good relations. Trump also complained, 'I could have a great relationship with you guys, but you know, our press,' this former official said, characterizing the president's remarks.... H.R. McMaster, the president's then-national security adviser, repeatedly told Trump he could not trust the Russians, according to two former officials.... The president and his top aides seemed not to understand the difference between Voice of America, a U.S.-supported news organization that airs in foreign countries, with Russian efforts to persuade American voters by surreptitiously planting ads in social media, [a former official] said." It isn't clear if officials hid the notes on this meeting in the same "code-word classified system reserved for the most sensitive intelligence information" which the whistleblower asserted officials improperly used to conceal other communications in which Trump made politically-insenstive remarks. ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a Raw Story summary of the WashPo report. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: There were four people who were willing to talk to the Washington Post about Trump's dismissal of Russia's election interference -- to the Russians themselves. Yet Robert Mueller's team, who presumably had access to all four of these people, either (1) never wrested these elements of Trump's remarks to the Russians or (2) didn't think Trump's blessing Russian interference was important enough to mention in their report. You know, Bob, we'd like our money back. ~~~

~~~ Pamela Brown, et al., of CNN: "White House efforts to limit access to ... Donald Trump's conversations with foreign leaders extended to phone calls with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the matter. Those calls -- both with leaders who maintain controversial relationships with Trump -- were among the presidential conversations that aides took remarkable steps to keep from becoming public. In the case of Trump's call with Prince Mohammed, officials who ordinarily would have been given access to a rough transcript of the conversation never saw one, according to one of the sources. Instead, a transcript was never circulated at all, which the source said was highly unusual, particularly after a high-profile conversation. The call - which the person said contained no especially sensitive national security secrets -- came as the White House was confronting the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which US intelligence assessments said came at the hand of the Saudi government.... It's not clear if aides took the additional step of placing the Saudi Arabia and Russia phone calls in the same highly secured electronic system that held a now-infamous phone call with Ukraine's president and which helped spark a whistleblower complaint made public this week...." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "The White House put some reconstructed transcripts of delicate calls between President Trump and foreign officials, including President Vladimir V. Putin and the Saudi royal family, into a highly classified computer system after embarrassing leaks of his conversations, according to current and former officials.... In the case of the calls with the Saudi royal family, the restrictions were set beforehand, and the number of people allowed to listen was sharply restricted. The Saudi calls placed in the restricted system were with King Salman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Prince Khalid bin Salman, who at the time was the Saudi ambassador to the United States.... The practice began after details of Mr. Trump's Oval Office discussion with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, leaked to the news media, leading to questions of whether the president had released classified information, according to multiple current and former officials.... The White House had begun restricting access to information after initial leaks of Mr. Trump's calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia. But the conversation with Mr. Lavrov and Sergey I. Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the United States, prompted tighter restrictions." ~~~

~~~ Pamela Brown of CNN: "The White House is acknowledging for the first time that officials did direct the Ukraine call transcript be filed in a separate classified system. In a statement provided to CNN, a senior White House official says it was under the direction of National Security Council attorneys: 'NSC lawyers directed that the classified document be handled appropriately.' The admission lends further credibility to the whistleblower complaint description of how the transcript with the Ukrainian president, among others, were kept out of wider circulation by using a system for highly sensitive documents." (Also linked yesterday.)

POTUS* Unable to Make Sense. Sounding more and more like the so-called Whistleblower isn't a Whistleblower at all. In addition, all second hand information that proved to be so inaccurate that there may not have even been somebody else, a leaker or spy, feeding it to him or her? A partisan operative? -- Donald Trump, in a tweet this morning

Just as a note, Donald, to the only part of your tweet I can understand, your own DNI said the whistleblower's assertions were "accurate," or in his words, "in alignment with" your little shakedown of President Zelensky. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Cristina Cabrera of TPM: "On Monday, Trump suggested he had withheld the aid to Ukraine only because he wanted to make sure the funds weren't going to a corrupt government.... But a letter from the Defense Department sent to Congress in May, first obtained by NPR, shows that the Pentagon had 'certified' that Ukraine had taken sufficient measures to combat corruption and was therefore was eligible for aid -- before Trump's call." --s

~~~ Roger Cohen of the New York Times: "President Trump is disturbed and growing more so. When he feels cornered, his symptoms run wild. As a narcissist, the thing he finds most intolerable is any suggestion that he cannot get away with whatever he wants. So he tweets: 'IT WAS A PERFECT CONVERSATION WITH UKRAINE PRESIDENT!'... The conversation was indeed perfect -- as a basis for impeachment, that is. It was so perfect that, according to the account of the whistle-blower disturbed by the insanity of the Trump White House, senior White House officials 'intervened to 'lock down' all records of the phone call.'...Now the shrieking maniac is shrieking louder, shrieking of spies and treason.... Trump also said: 'I didn't do anything. I don't know if I'm the most innocent person in the world.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "I didn't do anything." I suspect Trump really believes he did nothing wrong. Because "I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president." If he didn't think he was within his rights, he would not have released the transcript of the "PERFECT CONVERSATION." That's the most important reason to impeach & remove him from office. Nothing but prying the reins of power from his tiny hands will keep him from engaging in more & more "PERFECT" hijinks. (And, yeah, it may take U.S. marshals to escort him from the place.) ~~~

     ~~~ Tim Egan of the New York Times: "The first question I had after reading the White House reconstruction of the July 25 phone call ... was: How could they release this? 'It turned out to be a nothing call,' Trump said. He also described it as 'beautiful' and 'perfect' and asked for an apology from his critics. This was a 'nothing call' only to a man with nothing for a moral foundation.... This was 'beautiful' and 'perfect' only to someone who has crossed so many lines in his life that he has no idea where the boundaries are.... Trump sees this as no big deal because he's always gotten away with his many transgressions, floating above the law in a padded world of privilege and prevarication." ~~~

~~~ ** Jonathan Chait: "Trump has never recognized any distinction between his public and private life.... He treated the government as if it were his property. The Ukraine scandal is another case of Trump treating the executive branch as though it had been acquired by the Trump Organization. It ... would be perfectly fitting if, as now seems possible, it is ultimately the instrument of his demise.... But just as Watergate demystified the White House staff as bumblers, the Ukraine scandal has revealed Trump and his allies are suffering from Fox News poisoning. The bizarre conspiracy theories that the rest of us took to be devious propaganda had a profound impact on the president and his inner circle. They are not-very-bright guys who also happen to be genuinely nuts.... The formulation of moral concepts is not a function [Trump] can perform. His brain is no more capable of distinguishing right from wrong than your microwave oven can tell you what's on Netflix. No American president has more richly deserved impeachment."

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "As soon as it was clear that the House would go after Trump for his actions regarding Ukraine, he panicked -- even trying to implicate his vice president in the scandal. 'I think you should ask for Vice President Pence's conversation, because he had a couple of conversations also,' Trump said at a news conference during the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York on Wednesday. Since then, he (along with personal lawyer and co-conspirator, Rudy Giuliani) has done little more than lash out, using Twitter to send angry messages about his political opponents.... Democrats don't actually have a choice. They have to impeach, regardless of the politics, regardless of where it leads.... And if I'm right, and impeachment sends Trump into new lows (he has already joked about executing spies), then Democrats might help themselves next November by taking this inquiry as far as it can go."

Rachel Frazin of the Hill: "The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for documents relating to the Trump administration's dealings with Ukraine.... The subpoena notice, drafted in consultation with the Intelligence and Oversight committees, accuses Pompeo of refusing to turn over requested information to Congress amid the Democrats' nascent investigation into Trump's dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 'Your continued refusal to provide the requested documents not only prevents our Committees from fully investigating these matters, but impairs Congress' ability to fulfill its Constitutional responsibilities to protect our national security and the integrity of our democracy,' wrote Reps. Eliot L. Engel, head of Foreign Affairs; Adam Schiff, chairman of the Intelligence panel; and Elijah Cummings, who leads the Committee on Oversight and Reform." Here's the New York Times story. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update: "The lawmakers also notified Pompeo in a separate letter that they had scheduled depositions for five State Department officials between Wednesday and Oct. 10. Those officials are Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine; Kurt Volker, a former NATO ambassador who is Trump's special representative for Ukraine negotiations; State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent; State Department counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl; and Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union. Volker resigned from his role in the Trump administration on Friday. If he appears before Congress, he will do so as a private citizen." ~~~

~~~ ** Matthew Lee of the AP: "Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO caught in the middle of a whistleblower complaint over the ... Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine, resigned Friday from his post as special envoy to [Ukraine], according to a U.S. official. The official said Volker told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday of his decision to leave the job, following disclosures that he had connected Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani with Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his family over allegedly corrupt business dealings. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Mr. Volker ... offered no public explanation but a person informed about his decision said he concluded that it was impossible to be effective in his assignment given the developments of recent days. His departure was the first resignation since revelations about Mr. Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine's president to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other Democrats.... [Rudy] Giuliani has seized on Mr. Volker's [communications with] him to assert that he was acting at the behest of the State Department." The article describes in some detail how Volker figured into the Trump-Giuliani cash-for-dirt scheme. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Volker is not a Trumpy. A couple of TV pundits opined last night that Volker likely resigned to give himself the freedom to testify before House committees without restrictions that the State Department might impose.

~~~ Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's words about Marie L. Yovanovitch, his former ambassador to Ukraine, were ominous.... He told Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, that she was 'bad news.' 'She's going to go through some things,' he added. In fact, she already has gone through quite a bit. Over the past several months, Ms. Yovanovitch, a decorated 33-year veteran of the State Department, has been vilified in the right-wing news media, denounced by the president's eldest son as a 'joker,' called a Democratic stooge by the president's personal lawyer and then abruptly recalled from Kiev this May, months ahead of schedule. Her supposed sin, never backed up by evidence, was that she had shown disloyalty to Mr. Trump, disparaging him behind his back. Her friends, who say her professionalism and history of diplomatic service make that highly unlikely, have another theory: She had turned into collateral damage in efforts by Mr. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani ... to damage the reputation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jennifer Hansler of CNN: "Diplomats are rallying to the support of former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch after the release of a whistleblower complaint shed further light on the circumstances of her unexpected removal. The allegations raised in the complaint, in combination with ... Donald Trump's comments about the career diplomat revealed in the White House transcript of a call between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, lend further credence to the claim that Yovanovitch's removal from her post last May was politically motivated." (Also linked yesterday.)

Rebecca Morin of USA Today: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday accused Attorney General Bill Barr of going 'rogue' after earlier this month the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel determined not to share a bombshell whistleblower complaint with Congress.... 'I think where they are going is the cover up of the cover up, and that's really very sad for them,' Pelosi said. 'To have a Justice Department go so rogue, well they have been for a while, and now it just makes matters worse that the attorney general was mentioned..., and yet the Justice Department directed the director of national intelligence to take this to the White House.' Barr was referenced four times in the July call [between Trump & Zelensky], with the president repeatedly offering Zelensky to enlist Barr -- as well as the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani -- to help investigate a Ukrainian energy firm in an effort to try to damage Biden." (Also linked yesterday.)

Julia Davis of The Daily Beast: "Elements of the bombshell whistleblower report outlining various aims pursued by the Trump administration with respect to Ukraine keep connecting back to Russia. Several of the reported objectives of President Trump, his administration officials, and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani would benefit the Kremlin, and not the United States or its national security." [Article is firewalled] --s ~~~

~~~ Kate Riga of TPM: "A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed 'hope' Friday that the U.S. would not publish calls between Putin and President Donald Trump like it did with the call memo of Trump's conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky." --s

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Washington Post: "Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose actions as President Trump's personal lawyer have helped set in motion an impeachment inquiry, is set to appear as a paid speaker at a Kremlin-backed conference in Armenia on Tuesday -- an event expected to include the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials.... According to an agenda for the event posted online, Giuliani is set to participate in a panel led by Sergey Glazyev, a longtime Putin adviser who has been under U.S. sanctions since Russia's invasion of Ukraine five years ago. Giuliani's decision to take part in the conference astounded national security experts..... The agenda for the Eurasian conference shows Giuliani is the only American scheduled to speak at the gathering." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ ** Hahahaha. Reversal of Fortunes. Update (about 20 minutes later!): "Rudolph W. Giuliani ... abruptly canceled his scheduled paid appearance at a Kremlin-backed conference in Armenia next week. Giuliani, who confirmed to The Washington Post on Friday morning that he would attend the event, reversed himself that evening after The Post reported on his participation in the meeting, which Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials are expected to attend.... 'I didn't know Putin was going,' he said in a brief interview, adding in a text: 'Discretion is the better part of valor.'... In an interview Friday before canceling his plans, Giuliani angrily rejected questions about whether it would be appropriate for him to attend the event at which he also appeared last year. 'I will try to not knowingly talk to a Russian until this is all over,' he retorted." ~~~

Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "Representative Mark Amodei of Nevada on Friday became the first Republican member of the House of Representatives to back the rapidly escalating impeachment inquiry -- but he said he was reserving judgment on whether President Trump should be impeached. Mr. Amodei, 61, a four-term congressman from Carson City, is the chairman of Trump's re-election campaign in Nevada...." The Nevada Independent story is here.

Hill: "A new Hill-HarrisX survey on Friday found support for impeachment proceedings against President Trump has risen 12 points compared to a similar poll conducted three months ago. The survey was conducted on Sept. 26-27, just days after House Democrats started a formal impeachment inquiry over a whistleblower complaint involving Trump's communications with Ukraine. The poll showed 47 percent of respondents support that decision, up 12 points from a similar survey in June, which asked whether Democrats should begin impeachment proceedings. Meanwhile, opposition to impeachment dipped 3 points to 42 percent, while 11 percent of those polled in the new survey said they weren't sure or didn't know." (Also linked yesterday.)

Adam Edelman of NBC News: "More than 300 former national security and foreign policy officials signed a letter released Friday labeling ... Donald Trump's growing Ukraine scandal a 'profound national security concern' and praising congressional Democrats for formally launching an impeachment inquiry. 'President Trump appears to have leveraged the authority and resources of the highest office in the land to invite additional foreign interference into our democratic processes. That would constitute an unconscionable abuse of power. It also would represent an effort to subordinate America's national interests -- and those of our closest allies and partners -- to the President's personal political interest,' the letter's authors wrote." The letter is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Fred Kaplan of Slate argues that the House Intelligence Committee hearing questioning new acting DNI Joseph Maguire "was a shoddily run affair, an ill-prepared ramble through the maze of process and possible cover-ups rather than a laser-focused inquiry into the damning substance of the documents that lay before the committee, containing charges that have shocked even jaded observers. If one purpose of open hearings is to educate the public, much of which doesn't yet support impeachment, then this first salvo was at best a waste of airtime.... Before this inquiry goes much farther, the House committees need to hire lawyers to direct the questioning.... It's also time to haul out the Capitol Hill marshals and charge uncooperative witnesses with contempt. Certainly Lewandowski should have been charged, fined, maybe jailed." Mrs. McC: Amen, brother. (Also linked yesterday.)

Jonathan Easley of Politics USA: "FEC Chair Ellen L Weintraub had to tweet out the entire FEC weekly digest after Republicans blocked her from publishing it because it contained a draft rule banning foreign election interference. 'This week, I published a "Draft Interpretive Rule Concerning Prohibited Activities Involving Foreign Nationals" on the web site. GOP FEC Commissioner Caroline Hunter took the altogether unprecedented step of objecting to its being added to the Digest and blocked publication of the whole Digest as a result.' [-- Ellen Weintraub in two tweets]."

Mrs. McCrabbie: Two weeks ago, I linked this Friday night, Sept. 13, report by Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The nation's top intelligence official is illegally withholding a whistleblower complaint, possibly to protect ... Donald Trump or senior White House officials, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff alleged Friday. Schiff issued a subpoena for the complaint, accusing acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire of taking extraordinary steps to withhold the complaint from Congress, even after the intel community's inspector general characterized the complaint as credible and of 'urgent concern.'" My first thought was, "Boy, I hope this is about Trump, but it's probably about Wilbur Ross or some undersecretary I've never heard of." Even if the complaint was about Trump, I figured it would be along the lines of his spending too much money on gold-plated commemorative executive order pens. Sometimes I'm happy to be wrong.

Remembering Individual 1 -- Vestiges of Another Trump Scandal. Emily Rueb of the New York Times: "Stormy Daniels, the pornographic film actress who said she had an affair with Donald J. Trump before he became president, reached a $450,000 settlement on Friday with the City of Columbus, Ohio, after suing over her arrest at a strip club in July 2018. The arrest made headlines across the country, raising questions about whether politics had been at play and why it was a priority to send four vice detectives to a strip club. Within 24 hours, Ms. Daniels was charged with three misdemeanors, bailed out and released, and the charges were dropped. The Columbus police later said the arrest had been a mistake." The NBC News story is here.

A Trump-NRA Quid Pro Quo that Will Cost American Lives. Maggie Haberman & Annie Karni of the New York Times: "President Trump met in the White House on Friday with Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive of the National Rifle Association, and discussed prospective gun legislation and whether the N.R.A. could provide support for the president as he faces impeachment and a more difficult re-election campaign, according to two people familiar with the meeting.... In a statement Friday evening, an N.R.A. spokesman confirmed the meeting took place but insisted The Times's account of the meeting was 'inaccurate.' He pushed back on the account of some officials that any offer of support for the president was in exchange for opposition to gun laws."

Miriam Jordon of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Friday rejected new regulations that would allow the government to hold children and their parents in detention for indefinite periods, one of the Trump administration's signature efforts to curtail the large number of families arriving from Central America. Describing the government's defense of its proposed new policy as 'Kafkaesque' in some of its reasoning, Judge Dolly Gee of Federal District Court for the Central District of California said it was up to Congress, not the administration, to supplant a 20-year-old consent decree that requires children to be held in state-licensed facilities and released in most cases within 20 days." The AP story is here.

The Trump Kleptocracy, Ctd. Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "For years, the Interior Department resisted proposals to raise the height of its towering Shasta Dam in Northern California. The department's own scientists and researchers concluded that doing so would endanger rare plants and animals in the area, as well as the bald eagle, and devastate the West Coast's salmon industry downstream. But the project is going forward now, in a big win for a powerful consortium of California farmers that stands to profit substantially by gaining access to more irrigation water from a higher dam and has been trying to get the project approved for more than a decade. For much of the past decade, the chief lobbyist for the group was David Bernhardt. Today, Mr. Bernhardt is the Interior Secretary. It is not the first time that the Interior Department under Mr. Bernhardt's leadership has taken actions that benefit his former client, the Westlands Water District...."

Sarah Ferris of Politico: "The House on Friday voted to once again overturn ... Donald Trump's national emergency declaration to build a border wall, sending the legislation to Trump who is sure to veto it. Eleven Republicans and one Republican-turned-independent sided with every Democrat to block Trump's maneuver to circumvent Congress and divert billions in Pentagon funding to his wall.... The Senate approved the measure earlier this week after 11 Republicans joined Democrats, underscoring the somewhat bipartisan nature of the rebuke. Congress voted to terminate Trump's national emergency earlier this spring but failed to win enough support to override the president's veto. When Trump vetoes the measure again, it will mark the sixth veto of his presidency."

Presidential Race 2020

Peter Stone of the Guardian: "Leading coal, oil and gas CEOs and some industry lobbyists are ponying up millions of dollars to help Trump win in 2020, after reaping a regulatory windfall that has benefited some of their bottom lines during Trump's first term. However, many of these pro-fossil fuel victories came via executive orders and regulatory actions and could be reversed if a Democrat wins in 2020 -- perhaps showing why the fossil fuel industry is backing Trump's re-election so aggressively." --s

David Sanger & Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times: "Joseph C. Wilson, the long-serving American diplomat who undercut President George W. Bush's claim in 2003 that Iraq had been trying to build nuclear weapons, leading to the unmasking of his wife at the time, Valerie Plame, as a C.I.A. agent, died on Friday at his home in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 69."

The Commentariat -- September 27, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Rachel Frazin of the Hill: "The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for documents relating to the Trump administration's dealings with Ukraine, indicating Democrats are wasting no time diving into the formal impeachment inquiry they launched just this week. The subpoena notice, drafted in consultation with the Intelligence and Oversight committees, accuses Pompeo of refusing to turn over requested information to Congress amid the Democrats&' nascent investigation into Trump's dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 'Your continued refusal to provide the requested documents not only prevents our Committees from fully investigating these matters, but impairs Congress' ability to fulfill its Constitutional responsibilities to protect our national security and the integrity of our democracy,' wrote Reps. Eliot L. Engel, head of Foreign Affairs; Adam Schiff, chairman of the Intelligence panel; and Elijah Cummings, who leads the Committee on Oversight and Reform." Here's the New York Times story.

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Washington Post: "Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose actions as President Trump's personal lawyer have helped set in motion an impeachment inquiry, is set to appear as a paid speaker at a Kremlin-backed conference in Armenia on Tuesday -- an event expected to include the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials.... According to an agenda for the event posted online, Giuliani is set to participate in a panel led by Sergey Glazyev, a longtime Putin adviser who has been under U.S. sanctions since Russia's invasion of Ukraine five years ago. Giuliani's decision to take part in the conference astounded national security experts..... The agenda for the Eurasian conference shows Giuliani is the only American scheduled to speak at the gathering." ~~~

     ~~~ ** Hahahaha. Reversal of Fortunes. Update: "Rudolph W. Giuliani ... abruptly canceled his scheduled paid appearance at a Kremlin-backed conference in Armenia next week. Giuliani, who confirmed to The Washington Post on Friday morning that he would attend the event, reversed himself that evening after The Post reported on his participation in the meeting, which Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials are expected to attend.... 'I didn't know Putin was going,' he said in a brief interview, adding in a text: 'Discretion is the better part of valor.'... In an interview Friday before canceling his plans, Giuliani angrily rejected questions about whether it would be appropriate for him to attend the event at which he also appeared last year. 'I will try to not knowingly talk to a Russian until this is all over,' he retorted.”

Hill: "A new Hill-HarrisX survey on Friday found support for impeachment proceedings against President Trump has risen 12 points compared to a similar poll conducted three months ago. The survey was conducted on Sept. 26-27, just days after House Democrats started a formal impeachment inquiry over a whistleblower complaint involving Trump's communications with Ukraine. The poll showed 47 percent of respondents support that decision, up 12 points from a similar survey in June, which asked whether Democrats should begin impeachment proceedings. Meanwhile, opposition to impeachment dipped 3 points to 42 percent, while 11 percent of those polled in the new survey said they weren't sure or didn't know."

Adam Edelman of NBC News: "More than 300 former national security and foreign policy officials signed a letter released Friday labeling ... Donald Trump's growing Ukraine scandal a 'profound national security concern' and praising congressional Democrats for formally launching an impeachment inquiry. 'President Trump appears to have leveraged the authority and resources of the highest office in the land to invite additional foreign interference into our democratic processes. That would constitute an unconscionable abuse of power. It also would represent an effort to subordinate America's national interests -- and those of our closest allies and partners -- to the President's personal political interest,' the letter's authors wrote." The letter is here.

POTUS* Unable to Make Sense. Sounding more and more like the so-called Whistleblower isn't a Whistleblower at all. In addition, all second hand information that proved to be so inaccurate that there may not have even been somebody else, a leaker or spy, feeding it to him or her? A partisan operative? -- Donald Trump, in a tweet this morning

Just as a note, Donald, to the only part of your tweet I can understand, your own DNI said the whistleblower's assertions were "accurate," or his words, "in alignment with" your little shakedown of President Zelensky. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

More Confirmation of the Whistleblower's Assertions. Pamela Brown of CNN: "The White House is acknowledging for the first time that officials did direct the Ukraine call transcript be filed in a separate classified system. In a statement provided to CNN, a senior White House official says it was under the direction of National Security Council attorneys: 'NSC lawyers directed that the classified document be handled appropriately.' The admission lends further credibility to the whistleblower complaint description of how the transcript with the Ukrainian president, among others, were kept out of wider circulation by using a system for highly sensitive documents."

Rebecca Morin of USA Today: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday accused Attorney General Bill Barr of going 'rogue' after earlier this month the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel determined not to share a bombshell whistleblower complaint with Congress.... 'I think where they are going is the cover up of the cover up, and that's really very sad for them,' Pelosi said. 'To have a Justice Department go so rogue, well they have been for a while, and now it just makes matters worse that the attorney general was mentioned..., and yet the Justice Department directed the director of national intelligence to take this to the White House.' Barr was referenced four times in the July call [between Trump & Zelensky], with the president repeatedly offering Zelensky to enlist Barr -- as well as the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani -- to help investigate a Ukrainian energy firm in an effort to try to damage Biden."

Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's words about Marie L. Yovanovitch, his former ambassador to Ukraine, were ominous.... He told Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, that she was 'bad news.' 'She's going to go through some things,' he added. In fact, she already has gone through quite a bit. Over the past several months, Ms. Yovanovitch, a decorated 33-year veteran of the State Department, has been vilified in the right-wing news media, denounced by the president's eldest son as a 'joker,' called a Democratic stooge by the president's personal lawyer and then abruptly recalled from Kiev this May, months ahead of schedule. Her supposed sin, never backed up by evidence, was that she had shown disloyalty to Mr. Trump, disparaging him behind his back. Her friends, who say her professionalism and history of diplomatic service make that highly unlikely, have another theory: She had turned into collateral damage in efforts by Mr. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani ... to damage the reputation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr." ~~~

~~~ Jennifer Hansler of CNN: "Diplomats are rallying to the support of former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch after the release of a whistleblower complaint shed further light on the circumstances of her unexpected removal. The allegations raised in the complaint, in combination with ... Donald Trump's comments about the career diplomat revealed in the White House transcript of a call between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, lend further credence to the claim that Yovanovitch's removal from her post last May was politically motivated."

Fred Kaplan of Slate argues that the House Intelligence Committee hearing questioning new acting DNI Joseph Maguire "was a shoddily run affair, an ill-prepared ramble through the maze of process and possible cover-ups rather than a laser-focused inquiry into the damning substance of the documents that lay before the committee, containing charges that have shocked even jaded observers. If one purpose of open hearings is to educate the public, much of which doesn't yet support impeachment, then this first salvo was at best a waste of airtime.... Before this inquiry goes much farther, the House committees need to hire lawyers to direct the questioning.... It's also time to haul out the Capitol Hill marshals and charge uncooperative witnesses with contempt. Certainly Lewandowski should have been charged, fined, maybe jailed."

~~~~~~~~~~

"Treason, Bribery, or Other High Crimes," Ctd.

Way Cheaper & More Effective than Bob Mueller.* Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "From the moment he learned about President Trump's attempts to extract political dirt on former vice president Joe Biden from the newly elected leader of Ukraine on July 25, the CIA officer behind the whistleblower report moved swiftly behind the scenes to assemble material from at least a half-dozen highly placed -- and equally dismayed -- U.S. officials.... [Since he delivered his complaint] to the intelligence community's inspector general on [August 12]..., the whistleblower has by some measures managed to exceed what former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III accomplished in two years of investigating Trump: producing a file so concerning and factually sound that it has almost single-handedly set in motion the gears of impeachment."

     * This isn't quite true. Mueller's prosecutors also extracted millions in asset forfeitures from Paul Manafort though the monies go into & come out of different pots. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In a comment yesterday, I noted the alarming fact that, while dozens of federal officials knew about Trump's shakedown of Zelensky, only one of these public servants blew the whistle. Well, now I've heard two former intelligence officers & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post speculate that the whistleblower was operating as a sort of "team leader" of a group of officials who wanted to bring Trump's illegal & unethical political ops to light. This view certainly is supported by the apparent number of people the whistleblower cited who could back up his findings. So maybe the situation is less dismal than I thought.

** The whistleblower's full complaint released by the House yesterday (so not firewalled) is here. OR you can listen to a somewhat dramatic reading of it (thanks, Rachel Maddow):

~~~ Here's the letter from intelligence Inspector General Michael Atkinson to DNI Jerry MaGuire, dated August 26, to which he attached the whistleblower's complaint.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "The alarm among officials who heard the exchange [between Trump & Zelensky] led to an extraordinary effort to keep too many more people from learning about it. In the days to come, according to a whistle-blower complaint released on Thursday, White House officials embarked on a campaign to 'lock down' the record of the call, removing it from the usual electronic file and hiding it away in a separate system normally used for classified information. But word began to spread anyway, kicking off a succession of events that would eventually ... put Mr. Trump at risk of being impeached.... While the White House disparaged the whistle-blower's complaint as full of secondhand information and media-reported events, it did not directly deny the sequence of events as outlined. Moreover, other officials amplified the narrative on Thursday with details that were not in the complaint. For instance, they said, at one point an order was given to not distribute the reconstructed transcript of Mr. Trump's call electronically, as would be typical. Instead, copies were printed out and hand delivered to a select group." ~~~

     ~~~ Trump Not Impressed with Baker's Reporting. Obama loving (wrote Obama book) Peter Baker of the Failing New York Times, married to an even bigger Trump Hater than himself [Mrs. McC: Susan Glasser of the New Yorker], should not even be allowed to write about me. Every story is a made up disaster with sources and leakers that don't even exist. -- Donald Twump (typo, but cute), in a tweet this morning ~~~

~~~ Josh Dawsey & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "The White House has taken extraordinary steps over the past two years to block details of President Trump's phone calls with foreign leaders from becoming public, following embarrassing disclosures early in his administration that enraged the president and created a sense of paranoia among his top aides. The number of aides allowed to listen on secure 'drop' lines was slashed. The list of government officials who could review a memo of the call's contents was culled. Fewer copies of transcripts went to agencies, and they were stamped with 'EYES ONLY DO NOT COPY.' And some officials who deliver call memos had to sign for the records to create a custody record if they were to leak, according to people familiar with the moves who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe them.... The effort at secrecy surrounding the call [with Zelensky] was not surprising from the Trump White House, where the president often makes impolitic or inappropriate comments...."

Washington Post Editors: "THE WHISTLEBLOWER complaint released on Thursday adds vital -- and damning -- context to the rough transcript of a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.... The carefully constructed complaint shows that this coercion was not limited to one phone call but consisted of a series of acts over time. It reports that White House officials understood Mr. Trump's behavior to be improper and tried to conceal the wrongdoing. And we learn that the Justice Department has been more deeply involved in the affair than it had previously acknowledged. The complaint significantly bolsters the case that the quid pro quo of the July 25 phone call was a promise by Mr. Zelensky to investigate Mr. Biden in exchange for an invitation to meet Mr. Trump at the White House.... Mr. Trump's abuse of power had a host of enablers. Congress should hold them all to account."

Adam Goldman, et al., of the New York Times: "The whistle-blower who revealed that President Trump sought foreign help for his re-election and that the White House sought to cover it up is a C.I.A. officer who was detailed to work at the White House at one point, according to three people familiar with his identity. The man has since returned to the C.I.A., the people said. Little else is known about him. His complaint made public Thursday suggested he was an analyst by training and made clear he was steeped in details of American foreign policy toward Europe, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of Ukrainian politics and at least some knowledge of the law. The whistle-blower's expertise will likely add to lawmakers' confidence about the merits of his complaint, and tamp down allegations that he might have misunderstood what he learned about Mr. Trump.... Lawyers for the whistle-blower refused to confirm that he worked for the C.I.A. and said that publishing information about him was dangerous." ~~~

     ~~~ This story has been updated, with Julian Barnes as the lead reporter. New Lede: "The White House learned that a C.I.A. officer had lodged allegations against President Trump's dealings with Ukraine even as the officer's whistle-blower complaint was moving through a process meant to protect him against reprisals, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The officer first shared information about potential abuse of power and a White House cover-up with the C.I.A.'s top lawyer through an anonymous process, some of the people said. She shared the officer's concerns with White House and Justice Department officials, following policy. Around the same time, he also separately filed the whistle-blower complaint. The revelations provide new insight about how the officer's allegations moved through the bureaucracy of government." The Hill summarizes the update here. Update: And CNN has done its own reporting here.~~~

     ~~~ New York Times: Many readers, including some who work in national security and intelligence, have criticized The Times's decision to publish the details, saying it potentially put the person's life in danger and may have a chilling effect on would-be whistle-blowers.... Dean Baquet, The Times's executive editor..., responded..., 'We decided to publish limited information about the whistle-blower -- including the fact that he works for a nonpolitical agency and that his complaint is based on an intimate knowledge and understanding of the White House -- because we wanted to provide information to readers that allows them to make their own judgments about whether or not he is credible.'" ~~~

~~~ Danger? What Danger? ~~~

Basically, that person [the whistleblower] never saw the report, never saw the call, he never saw the call -- heard something and decided that he or she, or whoever the hell they saw -- theyre almost a spy. I want to know who's the person, who's the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that's close to a spy. 'You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now. -- Donald Trump, to staffers at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. (link is to a Guardian liveblog @13:40) ~~~

~~~ Trump Tells Diplomats Whistleblowers Should Be Shot. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump on Thursday morning told a crowd of staff from the United States Mission to the United Nations that he wants to know who provided information to a whistle-blower about his phone call with the president of Ukraine, saying that whoever did so was 'close to a spy' and that 'in the old days,' spies were dealt with differently. The remark stunned people in the audience, according to a person briefed on what took place, who had notes of what the president said. Mr. Trump made the statement ... at the event intended to honor the United States Mission. At the outset, he condemned the former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s role in Ukraine at a time when his son Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. Mr. Trump repeatedly referred to the whistle-blower and condemned the news media reporting on the complaint as 'crooked.'... The event was closed to reporters, and during his remarks, the president called the news media 'scum.'..." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Here's a New York Times "partial transcript of Mr. Trump's remarks [at the U.S. Mission gathering]. Portions related to the whistle-blower and the Ukrain matter are in bold." Includes audio. ~~~

     ~~~ Update 2. Bloomberg has obtained a video. Here's a YouTube clip that begins with Trump's deriding Joe & Hunter Biden & ends with the whistleblowers-as-spies remark. ~~~

     ~~~ Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "To be clear, the president of the United States thinks someone should be killed. If not that whistleblower..., then the people who talked to the whistleblower should be dead.... It's delusional to think that news of the call slipped out due to one or two 'spies.' A wide group of people responsible for Ukraine policy knew about it.... People talked because we can't run a government or state-to-state relationships based on some ridiculous and private scheming between the president, his friend/lawyer and a corrupt attorney general.... If the president wants to blame someone for his present difficulties, he should blame himself for setting up a Keystone Kops version of a spy mission." ~~~

     ~~~ digby: "So the president threatens the whistleblower and the NYT publishes information about him the same day?... They need to provide this person protection right away. Even if Trump doesn't give the order there are plenty of violent yahoos out there, foreign and domestic." ~~~

Threats of violence from the leader of our country have a chilling effect on the entire whistleblower process, with grave consequences for our democracy and national security. -- Reps. Adam Schiff of California, Eliot Engel of New York and Elijah Cummings of Maryland ~~~

~~~ Juan Cole: Trump "is desperate to prevent more whistleblowers from surfacing and revealing more crimes or more details about the Zelensky shakedown. So he characterizes legitimate whistleblowing as espionage against the US government and hints around at execution, to warn any others who might think about stepping out of line. In saying he wants to know the identity of the whistleblowers' sources, Trump is signalling to his toadies, such as Rep. Devin Nunes, and whispering in their ears that they should leak the names as soon as they know it. If Trump manages to out the whistleblower's sources and damage their careers, they can discourage all those who like getting a paycheck from stepping forward." ~~~

~~~ Zachary Cohen of CNN: "The acting US spy chief broke with ... Donald Trump and some Republicans who've criticized and questioned the motives of an intelligence community whistleblower who filed a complaint against the President, when Joseph Maguire said Thursday that he believed the 'whistleblower did the right thing' and 'followed the law every step of the way.' Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, also acknowledged at a public hearing before the House Intelligence Committee that his office consulted with White House counsel after receiving a complaint detailing allegations about Trump's communications with Ukraine, because calls with foreign leaders usually fall under executive privilege. Maguire repeatedly defended his handling of the complaint, telling lawmakers he followed the law in an 'unprecedented' situation despite claims to the contrary by Democrats that he infringed on their right to review the allegations." (Also linked yesterday.)

Asawin Suebsaeng & Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "As ... Donald Trump wrapped up his swing through New York City on Thursday, he stopped by the luxury restaurant Cipriani to deliver remarks at a high-roller breakfast fundraiser. Fresh off meetings at the United Nations, it was clear the president couldn't take his mind off a certain anonymous whistleblower whose recently declassified complaint has threatened to blow up his administration. According to an attendee at the breakfast, Trump brandished a printed copy of the memo of his now-infamous Ukraine phone call, flaunting it as he blasted Democratic lawmakers for being mean to him. After waving the document around and receiving cheers from the gathering of Republican donors and supporters, the president boasted about how much money -- $13 million in 24 hours -- he had raised for his reelection effort, the attendee noted."

Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Thursday that President Trump's conversation with Ukraine's leader ... was 'not OK.' Turner openly criticized Trump as he began his questioning of acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire at a House Intelligence Committee hearing concerning a whistleblower complaint about Trump's July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.... GOP lawmakers have largely stood by Trump and dismissed Democrats' calls for impeachment in the wake of the whistleblower complaint. But a handful have expressed concern with the allegations, including Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), another member of the Intelligence Committee. 'There is a lot in the whistleblower complaint that is concerning. We need to fully investigate all of the allegations addressed in the letter, and the first step is to talk to the whistleblower,' Hurd, a former CIA officer who is not seeking reelection, tweeted at the start of Thursday's hearing." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In fact, Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out that during the hearing, none of the Republicans on the committee defended Trump. They defended Maguire; they insulted Democrats, but they didn't have a word of support for the Dear Leader. Though I'd guess this was a group strategy, it certainly is an ominous omen for Donaldo.

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times liveblogged impeachment updates Thursday. Here are portions of a few entries: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused the White House of engaging in 'a cover-up' of the Ukraine affair, citing a whistle-blower complaint that said Trump administration officials worked to 'lock down' all records of a call between President Trump and Ukraine's president.... The use of the word cover-up seemed designed to hark back to the era of Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than face impeachment." AND "Joseph Maguire, the intelligence chief at the center of the fight over a whistle-blower complaint about President Trump's dealings with Ukraine, said the whistle-blower 'acted in good faith' and called the case 'unique and unprecedented.'... He told Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat of Illinois, that he would not have accepted the post of acting director of national intelligence if he knew of the case." (Also linked yesterday.)

David Remnick of the New Yorker interviews Nancy Pelosi about her rapid evolution on impeachment in an essay titled "Nancy Pelosi: Extremely Stable Genius."

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A crucial cache of evidence in hand, House Democrats moved quickly on Thursday with an impeachment inquiry they said would be focused tightly on President Trump's dealings with Ukraine, using an incendiary whistle-blower complaint as a road map for their investigation." ~~~

~~~ Heidi Przybyla, et al., of NBC News: "The path forward for a formal impeachment process against ... Donald Trump is taking shape among House Democrats, with aides and lawmakers describing the whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump tried to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate a political rival as both a primary focus and a tipping point. 'The consensus in our caucus is that focus now is on this allegation,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday. 'All of the other work that relates to abuse of power, ignoring subpoenas of government, of Congress, abuse -- contempt of Congress by him -- those things will be considered later.'"

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "In the Ukraine scandal, evidence of comprehensive corruption goes far beyond Trump.... In the reconstruction of Trump's call with Zelensky that was released by the White House, Trump repeatedly said that he wanted Ukraine's government to work with [Attorney General William] Barr on investigating the Bidens. Barr's office insists that the president hasn't spoken to Barr about the subject, but given the attorney general's record of flagrant dishonesty -- including his attempts to mislead the public about the contents of the Mueller report -- there's no reason to believe him.... Barr's ethical nihilism, his utter indifference to ordinary norms of professional behavior, means that he's retaining the authority to stop investigations into crimes he may have participated in.... That makes the impeachment proceedings in the House, where Barr will likely be called as a witness, the last defense against complete administration lawlessness."

Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "... the White House lawyers in the middle of the latest scandal to threaten Donald Trump's presidency ... are under intense scrutiny as a formal congressional investigation gets underway in a matter that, on the face of it, doesn't look good for those involved. Democratic lawmakers driving the newly emboldened Trump impeachment inquiry want answers from Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, about his team's role in trying to manage the Ukraine affair, including their involvement in locking up records of a phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian president. Bigger-picture, they also want to know whether his attorneys were working on the taxpayers&' dime to whitewash any misdeeds by the president rather than protecting the institution of the presidency itself.... The second issue involves the role the White House lawyers played in delaying the whistleblower's complaint to Congress." ~~~

~~~ Pema Levy of Mother Jones: "According to the [whistleblower's] complaint, White House lawyers ordered that the transcript, which records Trump pressuring President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to conduct investigations that would benefit his political messaging, be stored in a special classified database managed by the National Security Council [e]ven though the transcript did not contain the kind of classified information usually held in that system.... Worse, the whistleblower says he was told this was 'not the first time' the system had been abused under Trump to hide politically sensitive information.... Not only could such officials face repercussions for abusing the classification system, the documents they improperly filed, if revealed, could contain a wealth of information on embarrassing or illegal administration actions."

America's Mayor. Elaina Plott of the Atlantic: "When I reached [Rudy Giuliani] by phone this morning, following House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff's release of the full whistle-blower complaint..., he was, put simply, very angry. 'It is impossible that the whistle-blower is a hero and I'm not. And I will be the hero! These morons -- when this is over, I will be the hero,' Giuliani told me. 'I'm not acting as a lawyer. I'm acting as someone who has devoted most of his life to straightening out government,' he continued, sounding out of breath. 'Anything I did should be praised.' Giuliani unleashed a rant about the Bidens, Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, Barack Obama, the media, and the 'deep state.'... Giuliani said he's looking forward to watching the State Department 'sink themselves' as officials try to create distance from him.... When I asked him about this specifically, Giuliani nearly began shouting into the telephone." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I suspect Rudy the Hero is going to wish he hadn't said, "I'm not acting as a lawyer," right about the time he gets a subpoena from a House committee. Adios, fake lawyer-client privilege. ~~~

~~~ Here's a Surprise. Michael Warren of CNN: "Rudy Giuliani tells CNN he has 'no knowledge of any of that crap' in the newly released complaint from an American intelligence community whistleblower. Asked Thursday morning about details from the complaint that multiple US officials were 'deeply concerned' about his activities speaking with Ukrainian officials and nationals, Giuliani called the charge 'total nonsense.' Giuliani spoke to CNN multiple times on Thursday morning from what he said was his room at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC." Mrs. McC: Is Trump comping the room? (Also linked yesterday.)

Shannon Pettypiece, et al., of NBC News: "White House officials were scrambling Thursday to figure out how to counter the House Democrats' impeachment inquiry, with one source familiar with the situation describing a sense of 'total panic' over the past week at the lack of a plan to address the new reality.... Another person familiar with the discussions described the mood inside the White House as 'shell-shocked,' with increasing wariness that, as this impeachment inquiry drags out, the likelihood increases that the president could respond erratically and become 'unmanageable.'" ~~~

~~~ Oh, Great. Dana Bash, et al., of CNN: "Corey Lewandowski, the political operative who helped elect Donald Trump, has had conversations with White House officials in recent days about potentially taking a position inside the administration to help the President confront a looming impeachment fight. The discussions, including a Thursday afternoon meeting at the White House, reflect the growing recognition among Trump's allies and advisers that he is without a clear strategy for managing the crisis, which exploded in stunning fashion this week. Trump's 2016 campaign manager would be in a crisis management type role, and the idea as it currently stands would be for Lewandowski to assemble a team that mirrors the one that existed in Bill Clinton's White House when he was facing his own impeachment." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: According to NBC News' report, linked above, "But Lewandowski told NBC News that it was not accurate to suggest he would lead such an effort." Since Lewandowski said in sworn Congressional testimony that "I have no obligation to be honest with the media," you can take his denial for what it's worth.

Li Zhou of Vox: "Senate Republicans [are] questioning the credibility of the whistleblower. 'What's concerning to me is it's based upon secondhand and third-hand reports ... so you got to get more facts behind it,' Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Vox. 'He's not a whistleblower, by definition he's not a whistleblower, because he was reporting hearsay,' emphasized Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA). It's true that much of the information that was gathered by a whistleblower was based on secondhand accounts. But a large portion of the report -- at least pertaining to what Trump said on a July call with Ukrianian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- has already been corroborated by the White House itself. The allegations centering specifically on requests that Trump made of Zelensky during the call, for example, match up neatly between the whistleblower account and the administration's own summary. [Mrs. McC: The whistleblower had not seen a readout of the call.] A statement from Trump-appointed Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who deemed the complaint both urgent and credible, also rebuts attacks on the whistleblower."

Matt Murphy of (Massachusetts) State House News: Massachusetts "Gov. Charlie Baker appeared Thursday to back the decision of Congressional House leadership to open a formal impeachment inquiry into ... Donald Trump following the revelation that Trump tried to enlist the Ukrainian president to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. In Everett where he was promoting new housing production, Baker said he was not familiar with 'all of the written materials and allegations that are out there so far,' but had read and heard enough to be alarmed by the president's behavior." ~~~

~~~ Wilson Ring of the AP: "Vermont's governor became the first Republican chief executive to support an impeachment inquiry against ... Donald Trump but cautioned that he wants to know more before any further actions are taken. Gov. Phil Scott said at a news conference Thursday that he wasn't surprised by the news that Trump repeatedly urged Ukraine's president to 'look into' Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden because he's 'watched him over the years.'"

"The president has launched a fresh assault on fair elections." Unfortunately, this isn't happening a long time ago in a universe far, far away. pic.twitter.com/EUuAptsKJv

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) September 27, 2019

Susan Glasser of the New Yorker: "On Wednesday morning, [Donald Trump] released the full White House account of his July 25th phone call with the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump, his allies, and his advisers ... insisted [the account] would undercut the impeachment inquiry into the Ukraine matter before it even started.... Instead, the document released by his own staff added new information to the scandal, revealing that Trump had not only requested an investigation of Biden and his son Hunter but had specifically asked Zelensky to coöperate with his private lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, and the Attorney General, William Barr, on it. The President's language was hardly subtle.... 'I would like you to do us a favor though,' the President said, in a line that seems destined to land in the history books.... Trump added later in the conversation, 'it's very important that you do it.' This was not the exculpatory moment that Trump had claimed it would be. Impeachment may have been an uncertain outcome before 10 A.M. on Wednesday. Afterward, it was a near-certainty.... The next season of the Trump show has begun." (Also linked yesterday.)

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: Shep Smith & Tucker Carlson are feuding, "Sean Hannity told friends the whistle-blower's allegations are 'really bad'... And according to four sources, Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch is already thinking about how to position the network for a post-Trump future.... Among the powerful voices advising Lachlan that Fox should decisively break with the president is former House speaker Paul Ryan...."

David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has set the cap on the number of refugees admitted to the United States next year at 18,000, the lowest level since the program began four decades ago, officials said Thursday. The new limit represents a 40 percent drop from the 2019 cap and marks the third consecutive year that the administration has slashed the program since the United States admitted nearly 85,000 refugees in President Barack Obama's final year in office. In addition, the Trump White House announced an executive order aimed at allowing local jurisdictions more leeway in rejecting refugees who are being resettled across the country, although experts said such powers are less relevant at a time when the number of refugees being admitted has dwindled sharply." BuzzFeed News' story is here. ~~~

~~~ Eric Levitz of New York: "The conflict between Donald Trump's disparate goals is straightforward: The birth rate in the United States is dramatically falling, while its population is rapidly aging. These demographic trends are afflicting much of the developed world, and have taken an especially severe toll on Europe's economic fortunes. To this point, the aging of the baby-boom generation has done less damage to America's prosperity because our nation has been exceptionally attractive to -- and welcoming of -- working-age immigrants from overseas. But in the Trump era, that is beginning to change. While White House senior nativist Stephen Miller failed to get his plan for halving legal immigration through the Senate, the Trump administration has succeeded in scaring away those huddled masses yearning to fill the gaps in America's graying labor force.... It will be exceedingly difficult for America to sustain its living standards or preeminence on the world stage unless it makes expansionary immigration a priority of public policy."

Felicia Sonmez & Eli Rosenberg of the Washington Post: "The Senate on Thursday confirmed Eugene Scalia to succeed Alex Acosta, the labor secretary who resigned in July amid an outcry over his role in a plea deal for the multimillionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Scalia is a partner at the Washington law firm Gibson Dunn, where he has represented companies such as Walmart, Ford and UPS in workers rights claims. He is also the son of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia was confirmed Thursday on a 53-to-44 vote. Democrats have argued that Scalia's record as a corporate lawyer has shown him to be 'anti-worker.' In remarks on the Senate floor Thursday morning, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) contended that Scalia fought to protect the interests of chief executives and the wealthy elite and opposed worker protections throughout his career, describing his nomination by President Trump as a 'disgrace.'" Politico's story is here.

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "The Senate passed a stopgap spending bill Thursday, days before the deadline to prevent a government shutdown. Senators voted 82-15 on the continuing resolution (CR), which will fund the government through Nov. 21. Lawmakers had until Monday night to prevent the second funding lapse of the year. The measure, which passed the House last week, now heads to President Trump's desk, where White House officials have said they expect him to sign it." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "The Senate passed a stopgap spending bill Thursday to keep the government open through Nov. 21, punting tough decisions over President Trump's border wall and other funding disputes until just before Thanksgiving." (Also linked yesterday.)

Mike Schneider of the AP: "The gap between the haves and have-nots in the United States grew last year to its highest level in more than 50 years of tracking income inequality, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Thursday. Income inequality in the United States expanded from 2017 to 2018, with several heartland states among the leaders of the increase, even though several wealthy coastal states still had the most inequality overall, according to the figures.... Even though household income increased, it was distributed unevenly, with the wealthiest helped possibly by a tax cut passed by Congress in 2017, said Hector Sandoval, an economist at the University of Florida." (Also linked yesterday.)