The Commentariat -- November 24, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Ashley Parker & Dan Lamothe of the New York Times: "Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper asked for the resignation of Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer on Sunday after losing confidence in him over his handling of the case of a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes in Iraq, the Pentagon said. Spencer's resignation came in the wake of the controversial case of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who was accused of war crimes on a 2017 deployment. He was acquitted of murder but convicted in July of posing with the corpse of a captive. Esper asked for Spencer&'s resignation after learning that he had privately proposed to White House officials that if they did not interfere with proceedings against Gallagher, then Spencer would ensure that Gallagher was able to retire as a Navy SEAL, with his Trident insignia. Spencer's private proposal to the White House -- which he did not share with Esper over the course of several conversations about the matter -- contradicted his public position on the Gallagher case, chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement." An Axios report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Everyone who comes in contact with Donald Trump turns to dust.

In case you were wondering, "Whatever does the White House have to hide?" here's a teensy taste: ~~~

~~~ ** Josh Dawsey, et al., of the Washington Post: "A confidential White House review of President Trump's decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine has turned up hundreds of documents that reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification for the decision and a debate over whether the delay was legal, according to three people familiar with the records. The research by the White House Counsel's Office, which was triggered by a congressional impeachment inquiry announced in September, includes early August email exchanges between acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials seeking to provide an explanation for withholding the funds after President Trump had already ordered a hold in mid-July... One person briefed on the records examination said White House lawyers are expressing concern that the review has turned up some unflattering exchanges and facts that could at a minimum embarrass the president.... Mulvaney's request for information came days after the White House Counsel's Office was put on notice that an anonymous CIA official had made a complaint to the agency's general counsel about Trump's July 25 call to [Ukraine President] Zelensky...."

Hong Kong. Ken Moritsugu & Eileen Ng of the AP: "Partial returns early Monday from Hong Kong's local elections showed that pro-democracy candidates won more than a third of the seats in balloting that was seen as a test of support for the anti-government protests that rocked the Chinese territory for more than five months. Among the winners in Sunday's vote that drew a massive turnout were former student leaders and a candidate who replaced prominent activist Joshua Wong, the only person barred from running in the election. Rally organizer Jimmy Sham, who was beaten by hammer-wielding assailants last month, also triumphed, as did a pro-democracy lawmaker who had part of his ear bitten off by an assailant. So far, pro-democracy candidates have won 159 out of 452 seats in 18 district council races. Hong Kong's largest pro-Beijing political party suffered the biggest setback, with more than 100 of its 182 candidates defeated."

Chandelis Duster & Kristen Holmes of CNN: "House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff left the door open to the possibility of more hearings or depositions in the impeachment inquiry said that Democrats will not 'wait months and months while the administration plays a game of rope-a-dope in an effort to try to stall.' Schiff indicated on Sunday in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union" that Democrats would not be taking former national security adviser John Bolton to court for his testimony. Schiff also said Bolton should have the 'courage' to testify like former National Security Council Russia expert Fiona Hill and others. And if he chooses not to testify, Bolton will have to explain to the country 'why did he wait to tell' his story in his upcoming book rather than to the public 'when it mattered.'"

David Gura of NBC News: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is back home and resting after being hospitalized on Friday. Ginsburg, 86, has been released after being admitted with chills and a fever, a spokesperson for the Supreme Court said on Sunday."

U.K. Robert Booth of the Guardian: "Prince Andrew is to withdraw from scores of charities in a move that appeared designed to protect the monarchy from further humiliation over his association with Jeffrey Epstein. Buckingham Palace confirmed on Sunday that the Duke of York is 'standing back from all his patronages' but indicated he still hopes to return to a public role at some point by saying the move was only temporary." ~~~

~~~ No Birthday Bash for Andy. Nick Enoch of the Daily Mail: "The Queen has scrapped plans to host a party for Prince Andrew to mark his 60th birthday in February. Instead, the monarch is said to be arranging a small family dinner for the Duke, according to The Sunday Times. His birthday is on February 19."

Emma Newburger & Brian Schwartz of CNBC: Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg entered the 2020 presidentia race on Sunday following weeks of speculation about whether he would join the crowded Democratic primary. [A] television ad touts Bloomberg's record as mayor and promises 'to rebuild the country and restore faith in the dream that defines us: where the wealthy will pay more in taxes and the middle class get their fair share; everyone without health insurance can get it and everyone who likes theirs, keep it; where jobs won't just help you get by but get ahead.... And on all those things, Mike Bloomberg intends to make good,' the ad said. The new ad is part of his $31 million television ad buy." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. The New York Times story is here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Admiral, Navy Secretary Revolt Against Commander-in-Chief*. Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "The secretary of the Navy and the admiral who leads the SEALs have threatened to resign or be fired if plans to expel a commando from the elite unit in a war crimes case are halted by President Trump, administration officials said Saturday. The Navy is proceeding with the disciplinary plans against the commando, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who counts Mr. Trump as one of his most vocal supporters. The threats by the Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer, and Rear Adm. Collin Green are a rare instance of pushback against Mr. Trump from members of the Defense Department. Chief Gallagher was accused of shooting civilians, murdering a captive Islamic State fighter with a hunting knife in Iraq, and threatening to kill SEALs who reported him, among other misconduct. His court-martial ended in acquittal on those charges. But the Navy ultimately demoted the chief, who was convicted of one charge: bringing discredit to the armed forces by posing for photos with the teenage captive's dead body. Last Friday, Mr. Trump reversed that demotion, angering Navy officials, who had little choice but to accept the reversal. Nonetheless, they continued with their plans to expel Chief Gallagher from the unit. On Thursday, the president intervened again in the case, saying that the commando should remain in the unit.... A White House spokesman did not respond to requests for comment." ~~~

     ~~~ Or Not. Update. Spencer Is Not That Principled. Karen DeYoung & Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer said Saturday that he would comply with any order by President Trump regarding the case of a Navy SEAL whose continuance in the elite unit is being reviewed by the service after a controversial murder charge. 'I work at the pleasure of the president,' Spencer said, denying reports that he has threatened to resign. 'I do not interpret what the president does. I do what he says.' But Spencer said he did not consider a presidential tweet to be an order.... 'The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher's Trident Pin,' the SEAL insignia, Trump tweeted on Thursday. 'This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!'" ~~~

~~~ Courtney Kube & Carol Lee of NBC News: "Military leaders hoping to keep the Secretary of the Navy from quitting lobbied ... Donald Trump aboard Air Force One to stop intervening in the case of a Navy SEAL accused of murder, say five current and one former military and defense officials.... Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist, Army Chief of Staff General [James] McConville, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, and Sgt. Major of the Army Michael Grinston spoke with the president about the process on Air Force One Thursday night...." ~~~

~~~ New York Times Editors: "That Mr. Trump would pardon men accused or convicted of war crimes should come as little surprise, given that he campaigned on promises to torture the nation's enemies and kill their families. Mr. Trump in May became the first modern president to pardon a person convicted of war crimes, when he pardoned Michael Behenna, a former Army lieutenant, who had been convicted of killing a prisoner in Iraq.... Absolving people who commit war crimes does great harm to society in general, and the men and women who served honorably.... A nation has to know that military action being taken in its name follows morally defensible rules -- that soldiers do not, for instance, kill unarmed civilians or prisoners. To excuse men who have so flagrantly violated those rules -- to treat them as heroes, even -- is to cast the idea of just war to the winds. It puts the nation and veterans at risk of moral injury, the shattering of a moral compass."

Maybe Everything You Need to Know about Donald Trump. Eric Levitz of New York: "Donald Trump said Friday that Xi Jinping would have 'obliterated' Hong Kong, and killed 'thousands' of its people, if he had not personally asked the Chinese leader to refrain from mass murder. Trump went on to call Xi 'a friend of mine,' and an 'incredible guy.'"

Zeke Miller of the AP: "Vice President Mike Pence worked to reassure the United States' Kurdish allies in an unannounced trip to Iraq on Saturday, the highest-level American trip since President Donald Trump ordered a pullback of U.S. forces in Syria two months ago. Flying in a C-17 military cargo aircraft, Pence landed in Irbil, capital of Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, to meet with Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani. The visit was meant to hearten the United States' regional partners in the fight against the Islamic State group after the U.S. pulled troops northern Syria, leaving America's Kurdish allies there to face a bloody cross-border Turkish assault last month. Asked by reporters if the United States was facing a sense of betrayal from Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish allies over Trump's actions in Syria, Pence said both groups, including Syrian Kurdish forces 'who fought alongside us,' had no doubts about the U.S. commitment to them. 'It's unchanging,' Pence said." Mrs. McC: Right.

Charles Pierce of Esquire: "This was the Friday news dump to end all news dumps.... Beyond the obvious conclusions -- that the president* is guilty as hell, and he is using as his primary defense a disinformation project devised in Moscow, and, in the interest of advancing the latter, he tried to shakedown a vulnerable ally under literal siege by the military forces of the government that dreamed up the president*'s primary alibi -- this sudden avalanche of information fairly screams out for the inquiry to play out as it will play out, and that short-circuiting its process is both bad detective work and bad politics. Just on Friday, we learned that Nunes and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were roped into this mess, too." --s

Edward Wong & Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "Internal State Department emails and documents released late Friday further implicate Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a campaign orchestrated this year by President Trump and his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to pressure Ukraine for political favors." Besides proving Pompeo & Rudy Guiliani spoke in the month before Pompeo ordered Ambassador Marie Yovanovtich out of Ukraine, "the documents also show that the State Department sent members of Congress a deliberately misleading reply about Ms. Yovanovitch's departure after they asked about pressure on her.... The documents, and recent congressional testimonies in the impeachment inquiry, tie Mr. Pompeo closely to efforts by Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani to persuade the Ukrainian government to announce investigations that could help Mr. Trump politically.... The documents bolstered testimony delivered Wednesday by Gordon D. Sondland, the American ambassador to the European Union.... He told lawmakers ... that Mr. Pompeo had full knowledge of the campaign and even approved certain hard-line tactics.... The documents, testimony and interviews with Mr. Giuliani paint a portrait of a secretary of state who not only had intimate knowledge of the pressure campaign against Ukraine and the effort to undermine and remove a respected ambassador, but took part in her ouster despite warnings about the campaign from lawmakers and a half-dozen former ambassadors to Ukraine." See yesterday's Commentariat for related stories.

Marty Johnson of the Hill: "Rudy Giuliani ... elaborated on his 'insurance policy' Saturday, tweeting that he has files in his safe 'about the Biden Family's 4 decade monetizing of his office.' 'TRUTH ALERT: The statement I've made several times of having an insurance policy, if thrown under bus, is sarcastic & relates to the files in my safe about the Biden Family's 4 decade monetizing of his office,' Giuliani tweeted. 'If I disappear, it will appear immediately along with my RICO chart,' he added.... Earlier in the day, the former New York mayor appeared on Fox News, where he said that he has 'insurance' in case Trump decides to throw him under the bus. 'I've seen things written like he's going to throw me under the bus. When they say that, I say he isn't, but I have insurance,' Giuliani told Fox News's Ed Henry."

Chris Sommerfeldt & Dave Goldiner of the New York Daily News (Nov. 22): "One of the Florida businessmen who worked with Rudy Giuliani on his hunt for Ukrainian dirt on Democrats has turned over a trove of 'hard evidence' to impeachment investigators -- including photos and videos, one of his lawyers said Friday. Lev Parnas, who was criminally charged last month in a sweeping campaign finance scheme that overlaps with the House impeachment inquiry, had so much evidence it had to be sent to investigators in several batches, the attorney, Joseph Bondy, told the Daily News. Bondy said he has also tried to schedule a time for Parnas to testify under oath before the House Intelligence Committee about the 'first-hand knowledge' he says his client has about President Trump's bid to pressure Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden's family and other Democrats before the 2020 election. However, impeachment investigators have yet to take up Parnas' offer, even though the subpoena he was issued last month demanded he come in for a closed-door deposition on Oct. 10, Bondy said. Parnas couldn't make that deposition because he was in custody in Virginia awaiting arraignment in New York on the campaign finance charges, Bondy said."

Brent Larkin of Cleveland.com: "Jim Jordan ... [is] now the second most contemptible human being in the entire U.S. government.... And now it's fitting that Republicans have given this seven-term sycophant a starring role in the televised House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump. The assignment comes as Jordan is being credibly accused by some of knowingly turning a blind eye to ... sexual assaults and ...rapes of student[s].... That makes Jordan an ideal candidate to lead the defense of a malignant president who has bragged about physically abusing women and who has been accused by two dozen women of sexual assault or misconduct.... When Jordan slithers out from under his rock each morning, dons a shirt and tie - sans the jacket, lest he be mistaken for Joe McCarthy - his life's work is to besmirch everything America stands for in service of Donald Trump.... Jordan is the ideal bootlicker." Read the whole post. --s

Evan Semones of Politico: Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), "the top Democrat on the House armed services committee, said Saturday that Republican Rep. Devin Nunes is likely to face an ethics investigation over allegations he met with an ex-Ukrainian prosecutor at the center of the impeachment inquiry into ... Donald Trump.... CNN reported late Friday that [Lev Parnas,] an associate of Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, has information on meetings Nunes allegedly had with former Ukrainian prosecutor general Victor Shokin.... Nunes called the CNN report 'demonstrably false' in an interview with Breitbart." ~~~

~~~ Tareq Haddad of Newsweek: "Devin Nunes ... is reportedly threatening to sue CNN and The Daily Beast after the publications reported damaging allegations that could implicate him in the ongoing impeachment probe the committee is currently conducting. Nunes ... faced calls to recuse himself and even to be investigated after it was alleged that he himself met with Ukrainian officials in order to discuss digging up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden. If accurate, the claim would implicate Nunes in the events his committee is investigating.... Nunes told Breitbart News that he now plans to sue the publications, although he did not specify what was he believed to be factually incorrect with any of their reporting."

Ellen of Crooks & Liars: "[Friday] night, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs lobbed a softball to Press Secretary (and obvious liar) Stephanie Grisham that all but asked her to shoot down [John] Bolton's accusation [that the White House had refused to give him access to his personal Twitter account.]... Rather than refute the accusation, Grisham suggested Bolton's 'advanced age' is to blame[.]... If your Spidey senses aren't already tingling from Grisham's dodgy and outright ridiculous smear about a man who has been active on Twitter for almost a decade and has more than 847,000 Twitter followers, then The New York Times should set you straight: Bolton had turned over control of his account to the White House. He was no longer able to access that account shortly after tweeting his accusation that Trump had lied about firing him. According to the Times, the White House had evidently changed his password and verifying email address." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Bolton is two-and-a-half years younger than Grisham's very stable genius boss Donald Trump, who seems to be able to handle a Twitter account.

Andrew Taylor of the AP: "Negotiations on a package of spending bills to fund the federal government have produced a key breakthrough, though considerably more work is needed to wrap up the long-delayed measures. Top lawmakers of the House and Senate Appropriations committees on Saturday confirmed agreement on allocations for each of the 12 spending bills, a step that allows negotiations on the $1.4 trillion budget bundle to begin in earnest to try to pass the measures by a Dec. 20 deadline. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., announced the agreement on Saturday through aides."

Presidential Races 2016, 2020

AP: "Michael Bloomberg will not accept political donations if he runs for president and he will not take a salary if he wins, according to senior aides who offered new details on Saturday about the New York billionaire's plans to navigate his wealth as he marches toward a formal 2020 announcement.... In recent days, he has created a presidential campaign committee wit the Federal Election Commission and qualified for the primary ballot in at least three states. Bloomberg's team has reserved more than $30 million in television ads set to begin running Sunday in several primary states."

Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "On Saturday, Deepa Seetharaman of the Wall Street Journal profiled James Barnes, a former Facebook employee who was credited by the Trump campaign as their inside man and 'MVP' at the social network -- and who is now fighting to defeat the president in 2020. 'James Barnes left Facebook this spring, and said he is now dedicated to using the digital-ad strategies he employed on behalf of the Trump campaign to get President Trump out of office in 2020,' wrote Seetharaman. 'Mr. Barnes, who had been a lifelong Republican, has registered as a Democrat and recently started working with a progressive nonprofit called Acronym, where former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is on the board.'" The WSJ story is here.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Friday night after experiencing chills and fever earlier in the day, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said on Saturday.... Justice Ginsburg's symptoms abated after treatment with intravenous antibiotics and fluids, [the spokeswoman] said, adding the justice expected to be released from the hospital as early as Sunday morning."

William Broad of the New York Times: "The world's first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the New Mexican desert -- a result of a highly secretive effort code-named the Manhattan Project, whose nerve center lay nearby in Los Alamos. Just 49 months later, the Soviets detonated a nearly identical device in Central Asia, and Washington's monopoly on nuclear arms abruptly ended. How Moscow managed to make such quick progress has long fascinated scientists, federal agents and historians. The work of three spies eventually came to light. Now atomic sleuths have found a fourth. Oscar Seborer, like the other spies, worked at wartime Los Alamos, a remote site ringed by tall fences and armed guards. Mr. Seborer nonetheless managed to pass sensitive information about the design of the American weapon to Soviet agents. The spy fled to the Soviet Union some years later; the F.B.I. eventually learned of his defection and the espionage but kept the information secret. His role 'has remained hidden for 70 years,' write Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes in the current issue of Studies in Intelligence, the C.I.A.'s in-house journal; their article is titled 'On the Trail of a Fourth Soviet Spy at Los Alamos.'"

Way Beyond the Beltway

U.K. Adam Blenkov of Business Insider: "Boris Johnson's Conservative Party election campaign received a six-figure donation from [Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of the Russian oligarch Vladimir Chernukhin] and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The prime minister's party received £5.7 million in donations in the first week of the campaign, mostly from senior business figures and hedge funds, more than 25 times the amount raised by the opposition Labour Party.... Chernukhin previously paid £160,000 for a tennis match with Johnson and £135,000 for a night out with former Prime Minister Theresa May.... The committee looked into donations from nine Russian sources.... Johnson blocked the report [by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee about potential Russian interference in recent UK elections], which was set to be published before the election campaign, because of fears that the information would damage his chance of winning the UK general election next month, sources told The Times." --s

The Commentariat -- November 23, 2019

** Adam Serwer of the Atlantic: "The high crime that the president has committed is not against Ukraine, but against America.... Trump's defenders, having previously insisted that there was no 'quid pro quo' involved in the president's effort to extort Ukraine using taxpayer dollars, are slowly shifting to insisting, as much of the president's base already believed, that Trump did nothing wrong. This is of a piece with the general anti-democracy trend in the Republican Party, which justly fears that the majority of the country no longer supports its agenda, and that extreme measures must be taken to shield its grip on power from democratic accountability.... [Republicans believe] the party's political opponents are ... fundamentally illegitimate, faithless usurpers.... This has manifested in the quasi-religious dogma that Trump represents the will of Real America, and therefore defiance of his will is itself a form of treason.... Trump is the nation, and the nation cannot commit treason against itself. On the contrary, it is Joe Biden who is guilty of betrayal, defying the tribune of the people by seeking to run against him.... The more evidence of Trump's misdeeds the Democrats uncover, the more they reveal themselves as traitors."

Today's Red Scare, Ctd. Rachel Maddow did a pretty good job of demonstrating how Trump & his Republican backers are acting as Russia's American propaganda team. Links to stories supporting Maddow's segment follow:

** Trump, Republicans Are Russian Trolls. Julian Barnes & Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "The Republican defense of Mr. Trump became central to the impeachment proceedings when Fiona Hill, a respected Russia scholar and former senior White House official, added a harsh critique during testimony on Thursday. She told some of Mr. Trump's fiercest defenders in Congress that they were repeating 'a fictional narrative.' She said that it likely came from a disinformation campaign by Russian security services, which also propagated it. In a briefing that closely aligned with Dr. Hill's testimony, American intelligence officials informed senators and their aides in recent weeks that Russia had engaged in a yearslong campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow's own hacking of the 2016 election, according to three American officials. The briefing came as Republicans stepped up their defenses of Mr. Trump in the Ukraine affair. The revelations demonstrate Russia's persistence in trying to sow discord among its adversaries -- and show that the Kremlin apparently succeeded, as unfounded claims about Ukrainian interference seeped into Republican talking points. American intelligence agencies believe Moscow is likely to redouble its efforts as the 2020 presidential campaign intensifies. The classified briefing for senators also focused on Russia's evolving influence tactics, including its growing ability to better disguise operations.... Mr. Trump ... has also spoken with Mr. Putin about allegations of Ukrainian interference." Emphasis added. The Week has a summary of the NYT report. ~~~

~~~ Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump unleashed a series of falsehoods on Friday in an effort to invalidate the impeachment inquiry and counter sworn testimony from officials in his own administration, after a week of damaging public hearings. In a 53-minute phone interview with 'Fox & Friends,' Mr. Trump accused David Holmes, a political counselor to the American ambassador in Ukraine, of fabricating a phone call between Mr. Trump and the American ambassador to the European Union. Mr. Holmes told impeachment investigators that he had overheard the president ask the ambassador, Gordon D. Sondland, about Ukrainian investigations into his political rivals, a consequential detail in the Democrats' impeachment inquiry. 'I guarantee you that never took place,' Mr. Trump said. He added that he barely knew Mr. Sondland.... In his own testimony, Mr. Sondland corroborated Mr. Holmes's account.... Mr. Trump also said he knows the identity of the anonymous whistle-blower whose complaint prompted the impeachment inquiry -- and asserted that the details in the complaint were 'fake.'... He also said Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election with the goal of helping Hillary Clinton, an unsubstantiated theory." Trump also seemed to say that he had no idea how Sondland got involved in the Ukraine scandal. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Quint Forgey of Politico: "One day after the wrap of the first phase of public impeachment hearings..., Donald Trump unloaded to Fox News, declaring he wants a Senate trial, pushing a debunked theory that Ukraine has a DNC server, and deeming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 'crazy as a bedbug.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ ** Daniel Dale & Tara Subramaniam of CNN: " Fox & Friends tried harder than usual -- not especially hard, but harder than usual -- to challenge ... Donald Trump. It did not work very well. Trump ranted dishonestly for much of his 53-minute Friday interview with his favorite morning show, repeatedly refusing to let the show's co-hosts get in a word in edgewise. When they did manage to make a semi-critical point, Trump brushed them off. When co-host Steve Doocy asked Trump if he was sure about his claim that the Democratic National Committee had given an important computer server that was hacked in 2016 to Ukraine (they had not), Trump said, providing no evidence and citing no sources, 'That's what the word is.' When co-host Brian Kilmeade corrected Trump's claim that European countries haven't provided aid to Ukraine, Trump didn't respond. (Kilmeade had quickly moved on to the next question.) When Kilmeade corrected Trump's claim that he has 'pulled out' of Syria, noting that Trump is keeping hundreds of soldiers in the country, Trump again said nothing. (Kilmeade quickly moved on again.) Trump made at least 18 false claims in the interview -- and that's our initial count. We're still looking into some other claims." The reporters list the lies & provide the facts. It's a pretty good read. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie Translation: "That's what the word is." = "Putin told me so." ~~~

~~~ Abbey Marshall & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "... Donald Trump unleashed fresh attacks on Marie Yovanovitch Friday, the former U.S. ambassador he ousted in May..., accusing her of refusing to hang a photo of himself in the Ukrainian Embassy and saying she 'was not an angel.' 'This ambassador that, you know, everybody says is so wonderful, she wouldn't hang my picture in the embassy,' Trump said in a phone interview on 'Fox & Friends,' without offering any evidence of his claim.... The claim ... echoes similar complaints from earlier in his tenure when Trump's official portrait was reportedly missing from thousands of government offices -- until the White House released portraits of the president nine months after he was sworn in.... 'She said bad things about me,' he continued.... 'She wouldn't defend me. I have the right to change an ambassador.'... Trump ... decr[ied] Yovanovitch as an 'Obama person,' and saying his staff instructed him to 'be nice' because she's a woman. 'This was not an angel, this woman, OK?' he said. 'There are a lot of things that she did that I didn't like and we will talk about that at some time, but I just want to let you know, this was not a baby that we're dealing with.'... [He went on.] Yovanovitch responded in real time to the president's broadside, saying, 'It's very intimidating.' House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff quickly scolded Trump, telling Yovanovitch that lawmakers take 'witness intimidation' very seriously." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Of Course It Was a Lie. Geoff Bennett of NBC News [@11:50 am ET Friday]: "Lawyers for former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch say ... Donald Trump's claim that she refused to hang his picture in the U.S. embassy in Ukraine is false. 'The Embassy in Kyiv hung the official photographs of the president, vice president, and secretary of state as soon as they arrived from Washington, D.C.,' a person connected to her legal team said[.]" Mrs. McC: Okay, this is a he-said/she-said situation. Whom do you believe?

~~~ Jonathan Chait: "Yesterday, Fiona Hill testified that President Trump and his allies have circulated 'a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,' absolving Vladimir Putin of interference in the election by claiming Ukrainians, not Russian hackers, actually stole Democratic emails in 2016. Republicans indignantly denied the charge.... This morning, Trump gave an interview to Fox & Friends repeating the very theory Republicans so angrily denied he has ever promoted. As the friendly hosts looked on apprehensively, Trump began unspooling a wild theory he has mentioned before, and invoked on his phone call to Ukrainian president Zelensky. The theory posits that Ukrainians hacked Democratic emails, framed Russia, and kept the server they hacked to hide their crime." Chait points out a couple of other glaring inconsistencies in Trump's morning rant. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Johnson, Grassley Troll for Russia. Marianne Levine of Politico: "The Republican chairmen of two Senate committees are urging the FBI and Justice Department to provide more information about Alexandra Chalupa, a former consultant for the Democratic National Committee who has come under GOP scrutiny amid the impeachment inquiry. In a letter sent Friday to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray, Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa cited a 2017 Politico report that Chalupa met with Ukrainian officials to discuss ties between Russia and ... Donald Trump and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.... Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Grassley, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, also sent a letter Thursday to the National Archives and Records Administration asking for records of any White House meetings in 2016 between Obama administration officials, representatives for the Ukrainian government and DNC officials." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Johnson was almost certainly among the senators whom U.S. intelligence officials informed that Russia has been trying to frame Ukraine for 2016 election hacking. Grassley, as a prominent Senate chairman, probably was informed, too. So these two jamokes are asking for these documents, knowing full well that they're acting on a conspiracy theory that they know is a Russian disinformation campaign.

Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "Former vice president Joe Biden lashed out Friday at Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, a longtime friend and once-close Republican ally, as Graham stepped up efforts with other GOP senators to make Biden's son Hunter a focus of the impeachment proceedings.... Graham (R-S.C.) requested new documents Thursday from the State Department, attempting to uncover additional information related to Hunter Biden's activities when he was on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. 'Lindsey is about to go down in a way that I think he's going to regret his whole life,' Joe Biden said on CNN. Asked by host Don Lemon what he would say to his longtime Senate colleague, Biden responded, 'I say: "Lindsey, I just -- I'm just embarrassed by what you're doing, for you. I mean, my Lord."'... The increasingly personal and angry nature of the impeachment proceedings threatens to undercut a key message of Joe Biden's campaign -- that comity and civility can return to Washington after President Trump's departure and that he's the man to make that happen. At the Democratic debate Wednesday night, Biden largely refrained from criticizing Republicans, even when moderators asked why he thought he could work with them given that several longtime GOP friends are calling for investigations of his family." ~~~

~~~ Marc Caputo of Politico: "Joe Biden's presidential campaign accused Sen. Lindsey Graham of having 'forfeited his conscience' for requesting State Department records concerning the former vice president's efforts to oust a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor in 2016. The broadside against Graham signaled a new phase of the Biden campaign's counterattack against ... Donald Trump -- whose attempts to have Biden and his son investigated in Ukraine have led to his looming impeachment -- by pointing out that congressional Republicans saw no scandal regarding the Bidens until it became a political issue for Trump." ~~~

~~~ This is how Lindsey used to feel about his friend Joe circa 2016. Maybe he still feels that way. But a Trumpletoady's gotta do what a Trumpletoady's gotta do:

Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: Mick "Mulvaney and top White House officials have hosted weekend getaways for Republicans at [Camp David], seeking to butter up Republicans before the big impeachment vote. The casual itinerary includes making s'mores over the campfire, going hiking, shooting clay pigeons and schmoozing with Trump officials, some of whom stay overnight with lawmakers. During dinners, Trump has called in to compliment members personally. [Trump doesn't like the rustic retreat, which is short on gold & marble fixtures.]... The Camp David excursions are one prong of a broad White House charm offensive, meant to hold House and Senate Republicans in line through a House impeachment vote and a trial in the Senate that appears all but inevitable.... In all, Trump has met with or reached out personally to 100 GOP members of the House since the impeachment inquiry was launched, and 50 of the 53 Senate Republicans have attended a White House lunch -- where chicken is often served -- with the president." The Hill has a summary of the WashPo report here.

Gabby Orr of Politico: "As White House aides and senior administration officials scramble to keep his administration afloat, Trump has become monomaniacally focused on impeachment.... 'His top priority right now is making sure voters know this is the single greatest scam in the history of politics,' said a Republican close to the White House.... Even when Trump has been at work in the West Wing, aides say his preoccupation with impeachment creeps into every discussion.... On the policy front, Trump has delegated issues that are critical to his reelection to high-ranking officials, acting agency heads and members of his family -- freeing up his schedule to allow for more campaign events and less time dealing with the technicalities and complications of the policy-making process.... '... He cares about his grievances and his reelection, and that's it,' said Chris Whipple, an expert on presidential schedules...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

This is what's going out to local newspapers across the U.S.: ~~~

~~~ Julie Pace of the AP: "After two weeks of riveting public hearings in the House impeachment inquiry into ... Donald Trump, there is a mountain of evidence that is now beyond dispute. Trump explicitly ordered U.S. government officials to work with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani on matters related to Ukraine, a country deeply dependent on Washington's help to fend off Russian aggression. The Republican president pushed Ukraine to launch investigations into political rivals, leaning on a discredited conspiracy theory his own advisers disputed. And both American and Ukrainian officials feared that Trump froze a much-needed package of military aid until Kyiv announced it was launching those probes. Those facts were confirmed by a dozen witnesses, mostly staid career government officials who served both Democratic and Republican administrations. They relied on emails, text messages and contemporaneous notes to back up their recollections from the past year. Stitched together, their hours of televised testimony paint a portrait of an American president willing to leverage his powerful office to push a foreign government for personal political help." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Josh Marshall received an e-mail from a former DOJ attorney explaining why s/he (the e-mail writer) thinks Pelosi & team are not pursuing subpoenas for Bolton, Mulvaney, et al. Thanks to Anonymous for the link. Mrs. McC: Without having any knowledge of how this worked, I have been thinking along the lines the e-mail writer -- who does know how it works -- suggests. The downside of this approach, which neither Marshall nor the e-mailer addresses, is that the House managers would have to interrogate Trumpist officials cold during the Senate trial; that is, without knowing what their answers would be. And of course Trump's defense team will be able to cross-examine the witnesses, which they would be able to do in any event. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Trump's Lost Peggy Noonan. Sky Palma of the Raw Story: "In a column for The Wall Street Journal today..., Peggy Noonan argued that when it comes to the charges against President Trump that he pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals in exchange for military aid, 'the case has been made.'... She wrote that ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland 'was both weirdly jolly and enormously effective in doing Mr. Trump damage' and was 'completely believable.' But it was former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill who really impressed Noonan -- she was 'all business, a serious woman you don't want to mess with.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "The U.S. State Department has released thousands of pages of documents from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requested by American Oversight. They are documents that Congress has demanded but the State Department refused to hand over, so American Oversight sued under the FOIA laws and was able to obtain the documents [Mrs. McC: under a judge's order & about an hour-and-a-half before the deadline the judge gave State]. While American Oversight's website is down due to the traffic, they are available for download and review on Document Cloud. According to Austin Evers, executive director of AO, the emails link Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Rudy Giuliani, but they also link ... Donald Trump through his Oval Office assistant.... 'The documents show a clear paper trail connecting not just Rudy Giuliani to Mike Pompeo but being connected by the Oval Office,' said Evers in an MSNBC interview with Ali Velshi. 'President Trump's personal assistant Madeleine Westinghouse serving as a conduit when Rudy Giuliani can't get through to Pompeo through, quote, regular channels. The president's personal assistant makes that connection happen. Based on the timing which is around March of this year it looks apparent this was a connection to ensure that Rudy Giuliani's smear campaign against a sitting U.S. ambassador made it to Mike Pompeo's desk. This is just the first set of disclosures American Oversight's litigation is going to expose." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Good work by Burris. She got this story up in record time. Nobody else has it as of 11:30 pm ET. We can look for follow-ups Saturday as reporters comb through the docs. ~~~

~~~ Update. Phil Helsel & Abigail Williams of NBC News: The released documents "appear to show two calls between Giuliani and Pompeo in March, around a month before former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch ... was abruptly called back to the U.S. in April and then removed from the post. David Hale, undersecretary of state for political affairs, testified on Wednesday that Pompeo and Giuliani spoke on the phone twice in late former personal assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, helping to connect Giuliani to Pompeo after there was trouble establishing a connection. The documents do not say what Giuliani and Pompeo discussed."

Lev Willing to Out Devin. Vicky Ward of CNN: "A lawyer for an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani tells CNN that his client is willing to tell Congress about meetings the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee had in Vienna last year with a former Ukrainian prosecutor to discuss digging up dirt on Joe Biden. The attorney, Joseph A. Bondy, represents Lev Parnas, the recently indicted Soviet-born American who worked with Giuliani to push claims of Democratic corruption in Ukraine. Bondy said that Parnas was told directly by the former Ukrainian official that he met last year in Vienna with Rep. Devin Nunes. 'Mr. Parnas learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December,' said Bondy. Shokin was ousted from his position in 2016 after pressure from Western leaders, including then-vice president Biden, over concerns that Shokin was not pursuing corruption cases." Mrs. McC: Wowza! Wouldn't that make for a fun Intel Committee hearing? ~~~

     ~~~ Grant Stern of Occupy Democrats: Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) "pointed out the surprising fact that the House Intelligence Committee's ranking Republican member might have to appear as a fact witness in the panel's impeachment inquiry.... Lev Parnas handed a bombshell exclusive story to The Daily Beast last night [also linked here yesterday] when his lawyer admitted that he set up meetings and calls for an investigation conducted by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) in Europe last year while he was traveling on an official congressional delegation.... Swalwell, who entered the Beast's story into the official record of the inquiry and said, 'Now, if this story is correct, the Ranking Member [Nunes] may have actually been projecting. And in fact, he may be the fact witness if he is working with indicted individuals around our investigation.'... It appears that [Parnas's] cooperation has a real chance to expose Rep. Nunes to a blistering deposition for the ongoing impeachment inquiry, under oath, in front of his own congressional committee." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah, a "panel" of witnesses consisting of Parnas & Nunes would be even better.

Kevin Freking of the AP: "Former national security adviser John Bolton said Friday in a series of cryptic tweets that he's regained control of his personal Twitter account, asserting the White House refused to provide access to it after he resigned in September, a charge ... Donald Trump rejected." The New York Times story, which is more extensive, is here.

Sarah Ferris & Ally Mutnick of Politico: "Vulnerable Democrats are watching in horror as GOP impeachment attacks deluge their districts back home. And they want a much stronger counteroffensive from their own party and its allies. Some of those Democrats raised their concerns with party leaders this week as they prepared to leave for Thanksgiving recess, fearing that voters will be bombarded by anti-impeachment ads as families gather around the TV for parades and football, according to multiple lawmakers and aides." --s

Josh Marshall of TPM: "The Ukrainian [Andrii Telizhenko] at the center of the 'Ukraine collusion' conspiracy just posted a picture of himself hanging out with John Voight at the Trump DC hotel. Because of course he did." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McC: That's Jon Voight. Trump just awarded the National Medal of Arts to Voight, a long-time winger.

** Adam Goldman & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A highly anticipated report by the Justice Department's inspector general is expected to sharply criticize lower-level F.B.I. officials as well as bureau leaders involved in the early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation, but to absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against President Trump, according to people briefed on a draft. Investigators for the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, uncovered errors and omissions in documents related to the wiretapping of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page -- including that a low-level lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, altered an email that officials used to prepare to seek court approval to renew the wiretap, the people said. Mr. Horowitz referred his findings about Mr. Clinesmith to prosecutors for a potential criminal charge.... More broadly, Mr. Horowitz's report, to be made public on Dec. 9, portrays the overall effort to seek the wiretap order and its renewals as sloppy and unprofessional, according to the people familiar with it.... At the same time, however, the report debunks a series of conspiracy theories and insinuations about the F.B.I. that Mr. Trump and his allies have put forward over the past two years, the people said, though they cautioned that the report is not complete." ~~~

~~~ Ellen Nakashima, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department's internal watchdog is expected to find in a forthcoming report that political bias did not taint top officials running the FBI investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016, while at the same time criticizing the bureau for systemic failures in its handling of surveillance applications, according to two U.S. officials." ~~~

     ~~~ The CNN report, by Evan Perez & Caroline Kelly, is here.

Jeff Stone of Cyberscoop: "The accused Russian scammer [Aleksei Burkov] at [the] center of a geopolitical standoff pleaded not guilty Friday to allegations that he operated two hacking forums where members bought and sold payment data worth roughly $20 million.... The 29-year-old St. Petersburg native arrived in the U.S. on Nov. 12 from Israel after a prolonged extradition battle in which the Russian government tried coercing Israeli officials into sending Burkov to Russia, rather than the U.S.... A 2016 indictment against Burkov made public& this month accuses him of operating two web forums dedicated to cybercrime..., [One ultra secret] forum [that isn't named] ... was used by 'elite cybercriminals to meet in a secure location' where they could trade stolen data.... In November 2015, a member of this 'elite' forum advertised a database containing information about 191 million Americans, including names and birth dates.... Chris Vickery, an independent security researcher, says he found the same database, which also contained voter information, such as party affiliations and whether an individual voted in recent elections. Vickery later traced the database to a religious group, United in Purpose, dedicated to electing conservative politicians." --safari: There is a lot of chat on twitter that this case could be the prologue to the Russian disinformation campaign.

Gaslighter-in-Chief. Michael Calderone of Politico: "CNN's Jake Tapper thinks fact-checking Donald Trump is no longer enough -- and he's created an hourlong special exploring the effects on foreign policy, business and the national culture of the president's compulsive lying.... Tapper thinks the media is well past the point of giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. His special, therefore, represents a new benchmark in the mainstream media's adjustment to Trump's norm-shattering presidency." Tapper's special will be on CNN at 9 pm ET Sunday.(Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jay Greene & Aaron Gregg of the Washington Post: "Amazon on Friday cited comments by President Trump at a rally and to journalists as it pursues its challenge to the Pentagon's surprise decision to award a lucrative contract to rival Microsoft last month. For the first time, Amazon directly linked comments by the president to the award of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, also known as JEDI, to Microsoft last month. Though Amazon filed its protest under seal, it also notified the Court of Federal Claims that it intends to use four videos as exhibits, including one of Trump at a February 2016 campaign rally, as well as one of a Fox News host urging him to prevent the Pentagon from awarding the contract to the online retail giant. The e-commerce giant formally filed a protest with the Court of Federal Claims to challenge the award of the cloud-computing contract, following through on a threat it made last week. It said it did so under seal to protect trade secrets."

Will Wright & Bill Estep of Lexington Herald Leader: "Trade tariffs implemented by ... Donald Trump have hurt Kentucky's wood-products industry in serious ways.... U.S. wood exports to China are down 43 percent nationwide since the tariffs on wood products were imposed, said Dana Lee Cole, executive director of The Hardwood Federation.... The losses in Kentucky exports likely mirror the national figure, said Bob Bauer, head of the Kentucky Forest Industries Association. The tariffs haven't just driven down sales of Kentucky wood products to China. The levies also have forced producers to cut prices in order to prop up their remaining sales, meaning the tariffs are hurting their profit margin."--s

Jim Wyss of the Miami Herald: "Two of Colombia's top diplomats [Colombia's Ambassador to the United States Francisco Santos and the country's Foreign Minister-designate Claudia Blum] -- caught in a moment of candor in a surreptitiously taped conversation -- declared the U.S. State Department 'destroyed.'... Santos said that a decade ago, when he visited Washington, 'It was predictable. You knew how things worked. Now that's all over.' As an example, Santos said that the ambassador from Singapore to the U.S. had confided that during the Obama administration he used to visit the State Department once a week, but now hadn't been there in eight months 'because it doesn’t count.' While he said that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo still carried weight in Washington, his underlings had no power, and that real policy decisions were being made by the National Security Council." --s

As a follow-up to some of the commentary in yesterday's thread: ~~~

~~~ Michelle Castillo of CNBC (Sept. 2018): "Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's love for ancient Roman emperor Augustus Caesar offers some insights into how he views being a leader.... Zuckerberg's interest in ancient Rome began in high school and has continued throughout his life, he said. In addition to naming his second daughter August, he spent his 2012 honeymoon in Rome. 'My wife was making fun of me, saying she thought there were three people on the honeymoon: me, her, and Augustus,' he said. 'All the photos were different sculptures of Augustus.'" Zuckerberg elaborated on his admiration for Augustus during an interview with The New Yorker. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Australia. Nick McKenzie, et al. The Age: "A Chinese spy has risked his life to defect to Australia and is now offering a trove of unprecedented inside intelligence on how China conducts its interference operations abroad. Wang 'William' Liqiang is the first Chinese operative to ever blow his cover.... [H]e has revealed in granular detail how Beijing covertly controls listed companies to fund intelligence operations, including the surveillance and profiling of dissidents and the co-opting of media organisations." --s

The Commentariat -- November 22, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump unleashed a series of falsehoods on Friday in an effort to invalidate the impeachment inquiry and counter sworn testimony from officials in his own administration, after a week of damaging public hearings. In a 53-minute phone interview with 'Fox & Friends,' Mr. Trump accused David Holmes, a political counselor to the American ambassador in Ukraine, of fabricating a phone call between Mr. Trump and the American ambassador to the European Union. Mr. Holmes told impeachment investigators that he had overheard the president ask the ambassador, Gordon D. Sondland, about Ukrainian investigations into his political rivals, a consequential detail in the Democrats' impeachment inquiry. 'I guarantee you that never took place,' Mr. Trump said. He added that he barely knew Mr. Sondland.... In his own testimony, Mr. Sondland corroborated Mr. Holmes's account.... Mr. Trump also said he knows the identity of the anonymous whistle-blower whose complaint prompted the impeachment inquiry -- and asserted that the details in the complaint were 'fake.'... He also said Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election with the goal of helping Hillary Clinton, an unsubstantiated theory." Trump also seemed to say that he had no idea how Sondland got involved in the Ukraine scandal. ~~~

~~~ Quint Forgey of Politico: "One day after the wrap of the first phase of public impeachment hearings..., Donald Trump unloaded to Fox News, declaring he wants a Senate trial, pushing a debunked theory that Ukraine has a DNC server, and deeming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 'crazy as a bedbug.'" ~~~

~~~ Abbey Marshall & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "... Donald Trump unleashed fresh attacks on Marie Yovanovitch Friday, the former U.S. ambassador he ousted in May..., accusing her of refusing to hang a photo of himself in the Ukrainian Embassy and saying she 'was not an angel.' 'This ambassador that, you know, everybody says is so wonderful, she wouldn't hang my picture in the embassy,' Trump said in a phone interview on 'Fox & Friends,' without offering any evidence of his claim.... The claim ... echoes similar complaints from earlier in his tenure when Trump's official portrait was reportedly missing from thousands of government offices -- until the White House released portraits of the president nine months after he was sworn in.... 'She said bad things about me,' he continued.... 'She wouldn't defend me. I have the right to change an ambassador.'... Trump ... decr[ied]Yovanovitch as an 'Obama person,' and saying his staff instructed him to 'be nice' because she's a woman. 'This was not an angel, this woman, OK?' he said. 'There are a lot of things that she did that I didn't like and we will talk about that at some time, but I just want to let you know, this was not a baby that we're dealing with.'... [He went on.] Yovanovitch responded in real time to the president's broadside, saying, 'It's very intimidating.' House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff quickly scolded Trump, telling Yovanovitch that lawmakers take 'witness intimidation' very seriously." ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Chait: "Yesterday, Fiona Hill testified that President Trump and his allies have circulated 'a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,' absolving Vladimir Putin of interference in the election by claiming Ukrainians, not Russian hackers, actually stole Democratic emails in 2016. Republicans indignantly denied the charge.... This morning, Trump gave an interview to Fox & Friends repeating the very theory Republicans so angrily denied he has ever promoted. As the friendly hosts looked on apprehensively, Trump began unspooling a wild theory he has mentioned before, and invoked on his phone call to Ukrainian president Zelensky. The theory posits that Ukrainians hacked Democratic emails, framed Russia, and kept the server they hacked to hide their crime." Chait points out a couple of other glaring inconsistencies in Trump's morning rant.

~~~ Gabby Orr of Politico: "As White House aides and senior administration officials scramble to keep his administration afloat, Trump has become monomaniacally focused on impeachment.... 'His top priority right now is making sure voters know this is the single greatest scam in the history of politics,' said a Republican close to the White House.... Even when Trump has been at work in the West Wing, aides say his preoccupation with impeachment creeps into every discussion.... On the policy front, Trump has delegated issues that are critical to his reelection to high-ranking officials, acting agency heads and members of his family -- freeing up his schedule to allow for more campaign events and less time dealing with the technicalities and complications of the policy-making process.... '... He cares about his grievances and his reelection, and that's it,' said Chris Whipple, an expert on presidential schedules...."

This is what's going out to local newspapers across the U.S.: ~~~

~~~ Julie Pace of the AP: "After two weeks of riveting public hearings in the House impeachment inquiry into ... Donald Trump, there is a mountain of evidence that is now beyond dispute. Trump explicitly ordered U.S. government officials to work with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani on matters related to Ukraine, a country deeply dependent on Washington's help to fend off Russian aggression. The Republican president pushed Ukraine to launch investigations into political rivals, leaning on a discredited conspiracy theory his own advisers disputed. And both American and Ukrainian officials feared that Trump froze a much-needed package of military aid until Kyiv announced it was launching those probes. Those facts were confirmed by a dozen witnesses, mostly staid career government officials who served both Democratic and Republican administrations. They relied on emails, text messages and contemporaneous notes to back up their recollections from the past year. Stitched together, their hours of televised testimony paint a portrait of an American president willing to leverage his powerful office to push a foreign government for personal political help."

Josh Marshall received an e-mail from a former DOJ attorney explaining why s/he (the e-mail writer) thinks Pelosi & team are not pursuing subpoenas for Bolton, Mulvaney, et al. Thanks to Anonymous for the link. Mrs. McC: Without having any knowledge of how this worked, I have been thinking along the lines the e-mail writer -- who does know how it works -- suggests. The downside of this approach, which neither Marshall nor the e-mailer addresses, is that the House managers would have to interrogate Trumpist officials cold during the Senate trial; that is, without knowing what their answers would be. And of course Trump's defense team will be able to cross-examine the witnesses, which they would be able to do in any event.

Trump's Lost Peggy Noonan. Sky Palma of the Raw Story: "In a column for The Wall Street Journal today..., Peggy Noonan argued that when it comes to the charges against President Trump that he pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals in exchange for military aid, 'the case has been made.'... She wrote that ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland 'was both weirdly jolly and enormously effective in doing Mr. Trump damage' and was 'completely believable.' But it was former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill who really impressed Noonan -- she was 'all business, a serious woman you don't want to mess with.'"

Gaslighter-in-Chief. Michael Calderone of Politico: "CNN's Jake Tapper thinks fact-checking Donald Trump is no longer enough -- and he's created an hourlong special exploring the effects on foreign policy, business and the national culture of the president's compulsive lying.... Tapper thinks the media is well past the point of giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. His special, therefore represents a new benchmark in the mainstream media's adjustment to Trump's norm-shattering presidency." Tapper's special will be on CNN at 9 pm ET Sunday.

As a follow-up to some of the commentary in today's thread: ~~~

~~~ Michelle Castillo of CNBC (Sept. 2018): "Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's love for ancient Roman emperor Augustus Caesar offers some insights into how he views being a leader.... Zuckerberg's interest in ancient Rome began in high school and has continued throughout his life, he said. In addition to naming his second daughter August, he spent his 2012 honeymoon in Rome. 'My wife was making fun of me, saying she thought there were three people on the honeymoon: me, her, and Augustus,' he said. 'All the photos were different sculptures of Augustus.'" Zuckerberg elaborated on his admiration for Augustus during an interview with The New Yorker.

~~~~~~~~~~

This Was the Week You Could Be Proud of House Democrats.

And I did say to him, "Ambassador Sondland, Gordon, I think this is all going to blow up." And here we are. -- Fiona Hill, part of a response to Stephen Castor, counsel for GOP ~~~

Nicholas Fandos & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Testifying on the final day of the week's public impeachment hearings, [the White House's former top Europe and Russia] expert, Fiona Hill, tied Mr. Trump's pressure campaign on Ukraine to a dangerous effort by Russia to sow political divisions in the United States and undercut American diplomacy. Her testimony before the House Intelligence Committee was an implicit rebuke to the president, suggesting that when he pressed Ukraine to investigate the theory that Kyiv rather than Moscow undertook a concerted campaign to meddle in the 2016 campaign, he was playing into Russia's hands for his own political gain. Dr. Hill's account of how Mr. Trump's team carried out what she called a 'domestic political errand' that diverged from his own administration's foreign policy amounted to sharp -- albeit indirect -- criticism of the president she served, and it brought home the grave national security consequences of the effort."

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post's five takeaways from Hill's & Holmes' testimony are pretty helpful. Best parts: where Blake recounts how confidently the witnesses pushed back on Republican questions based on false assumptions. ~~~

~~~ "A Domestic Political Errand." Kevin Liptak of CNN: "Fiona Hill's extraordinary answer about her relationship with the American ambassador to the European Union was ultimately a finely distilled description of what the impeachment hearings are all about: ... Donald Trump's pursuit of a 'domestic political errand' that came at the expense of American foreign policy. It was stunning in its clarity, but also that it came during the Republicans' turn for questioning." ~~~

~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "On Wednesday, Gordon Sondland..., deeply implicated [Mike] Pompeo in the whole saga, testifying that Pompeo fully understood the dimensions of the scheme that Sondland was implementing to pressure Ukraine into carrying out President Trump's political bidding.... Pompeo appears to have assented to the use of the machinery of the State Department to help Trump solicit foreign interference in a U.S. election.... This point was underscored with great force on Thursday by Fiona Hill..., who bluntly said that the nation's foreign policy had been subsumed into what she called a 'domestic political errand.'... The struggle to get our heads around the magnitude of this scandal requires us to grapple with the degree to which large swaths of the government have been placed at the disposal of Trump's corrupt political ends." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course the corruption is hardly limited to Trump & his gang of lackeys in the administration. ~~~

~~~ "Fanatical, Corrupt, or Both." Paul Krugman: "... what we're actually witnessing is a test of the depths to which the Republican Party will sink. How much corruption, how much collusion with foreign powers and betrayal of the national interest will that party's elected representatives stand for? And the result of that test seems increasingly clear: There is no bottom.... Trump is a symptom, not the disease, and our democracy will remain under dire threat even if and when he's gone.... The modern G.O.P. as a whole is overwhelmingly fanatical, corrupt, or both. Anyone imagining that the mountainous evidence of Trump's malfeasance will lead to a moral awakening, or that Republicans will return to democratic political norms once Trump is gone, is living in a fantasy world.... The big question is whether America as we know it can long endure when one of its two major parties has effectively rejected the principles on which our nation was built." Krugman argues that even Republicans who are retiring can't be swayed to do the right thing because they're looking forward to their post-Congressional career as corrupt lobbyists. ~~~

~~~ Frank Rich: "... Republicans [don't care] about the facts or the gravity of the crime being investigated..., and they will continue to defend Trump even if those testifying under oath include an eyewitness to a criminal conspiracy hatched in the White House like Sondland, or patriots like Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, and Marie Yovanovitch, who not only provided irrefutable evidence of the crime but detailed the existential threat that crime poses to America."

Witness Explains Impeachment Proceedings to Dummies. Axios: "In a stunning moment at Thursday's impeachment hearing, former top White House Russia adviser Fiona Hill asked whether she may respond to Republican attacks, after three GOP congressmen in a row used their five-minute question allotments to criticize the impeachment inquiry and its witnesses. 'I don't believe there should be any interference of any kind in our election. ... That's actually why as a nonpartisan person and as an expert on Russia and an expert on Vladimir Putin and on the Russian security services, I wanted to come in to serve the country to try to see if I could help.... We're here to relate to you what we heard, what we saw and what we did.& And to be of some help to all of you in really making a very momentous decision here. We are not the people who make that decision.'"

Zachary Basu of Axios: "Former White House top Russia adviser Fiona Hill testified Thursday that it is 'not credible' that EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland did not understand that the investigation President Trump was pushing for into Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma was equivalent to an investigation of the Bidens.... Sondland and former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker both testified that they did not understand the Burisma investigation to be related to the Bidens until September, when the White House released the transcript of a phone call showing Trump discussed the Bidens with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. This is in spite of the fact that Rudy Giuliani was frequently tweeted and appearing on Fox News to push allegations about the Bidens and Burisma. Sondland and Volker both said that if they had known Trump was pushing for an investigation of his domestic political rival, they would have objected." Mrs. McC: Uh-huh.

Michael Shear of the New York Times live-updated Thursday's hearing. "In her opening statement, [Fiona] Hill takes a veiled swipe at [John] Bolton's refusal to testify in the impeachment inquiry, saying that she plans to answer questions about 'what I saw, what I did, what I knew, and what I know' about the Ukraine situation before she left the National Security Council last summer. 'I believe that those who have information that the Congress deems relevant have a legal and moral obligation to provide it,' she plans to say in a likely reference to Mr. Bolton." (An earlier version was linked yesterday.)

The New York Times' snark section is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

The Washington Post's liveblog is here. John Wagner: "President Trump lashed out at Democrats, calling them 'human scum,' as two more key witnesses testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday as part of an escalating impeachment inquiry." (Also linked yesterday.)

Here are Politico's live updates of the hearing.

Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "... Donald Trump's former top Russia aide plans to go after Republican lawmakers on Thursday for pushing what she dubs a 'fictional narrative' about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election. In her opening statement before House impeachment investigators..., Fiona Hill plans to say that such claims embolden Moscow and are being weaponized to distract from Russia's malign global influence at the behest of its president, Vladimir Putin. 'These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes,' she will say, calling out 'some of you on the committee' and asking them to 'not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.'... Hill, a longtime Russia hawk, plans to sound the alarm more broadly about Russia's aggression in the region, in addition to its ongoing efforts to interfere in U.S. elections and weaken America's global influence.... 'The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today,' she plans to say. 'Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

NPR has both Hill's & Holmes' opening statements here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Mrs. McCrabbie: One thing we have found out in listening to the impeachment hearings is that the career diplomats are w-a-a-a-y smarter than the political employees. The career officials are, not surprisingly, better informed, but they're also more insightful & more intellectually nimble. This could help explain why Trump's appointees so mistrust the "deep state." They don't like it when the help is sharper than they are. I got the impression when career diplomats spoke highly of political employees they were being, well, diplomatic.

Mrs. McCrabbie: In case you find yourself in Kiev, and don't mind dropping $70 on an appetizer (it's an appetizer! you can share!), you might want to dine at SHO, where Sondland stops for lunch. Adam Taylor of the Washington Post reports. (Also linked yesterday.)

Either This ... Marianne Levine, et al., of Politico: "Top White House officials and Senate Republicans on Thursday agreed that a full trial should be conducted if the House impeaches ... Donald Trump, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. A group of Republican senators met Thursday morning with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to discuss impeachment strategy.... Senators also informed the White House that there simply aren't the votes to approve a motion to dismiss the trial; it would take just three Republicans to block any impeachment vote on the Senate floor.... [Mrs. McC: That is, Senate Republicans don't have 51 votes to dismiss the impeachment referral & avert a trial.] A White House official said the meeting 'wasn't so much about the details, it was about the Democrats' weak case and we want to show just how weak it is.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: How weak the case is? Apparently they watch only Fox "News." ~~~

~~~ OR This ... Seung Min Kim & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "A group of Republican senators and senior White House officials met privately Thursday to map out a strategy for a potential impeachment trial of President Trump, including rapid proceedings in the Senate that could be limited to about two weeks, according to multiple officials familiar with the talks. The prospect of an abbreviated trial is viewed by several Senate Republicans as a favorable middle ground -- substantial enough to give the proceedings credence without risking greater damage to Trump by dragging on too long.... Other options, including a longer trial, were also discussed and still could happen, officials said.... The president is 'miserable' about the ongoing impeachment inquiry and has pushed to dismiss the proceedings right away, according to people familiar with Trump's sentiments, who requested anonymity to discuss the president's views."

Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday requesting documents related to former vice president Joe Biden and his communications with Ukrainian officials, a step seen as a GOP effort to counter the House impeachment investigation of President Trump. The inquiry by Graham (R-S.C.) is focused on any calls Biden may have had with Petro Poroshenko, then the Ukrainian president, regarding the firing of the country's top prosecutor, as well as any that referenced an investigation of Burisma the Ukrainian natural-gas company that employed Biden's son Hunter Biden. Graham's document request suggests he is seeking to legitimize Trump's accusations that Biden ... put pressure on Ukraine to fire its lead prosecutor to protect his son, a claim without evidence that has been disputed by officials familiar with the investigation." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Gee, Mike, you stonewalled the House; are you gonna stonewall the Senate, too? No? Also too, let's not forget that Uncle Joe keeps telling us that once he is elected president, comity will be restored in our capital city and all will be right in the land. I'm sure Joe was very nice to Lindsey when they were in the Senate together. Lindsey just showed us how much reciprocity Joe's generous old boys' backslapping generates among his Republican "friends."

Follow the Money. Kate Scannell & Vicky Ward of CNN: "Federal prosecutors in New York have subpoenaed several individuals active in ... Donald Trump's fundraising machinery as part of their investigation into the associates of Rudy Giuliani, the President's personal attorney, according to people familiar with the investigation. Prosecutors sent subpoenas in recent weeks to Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm run by Brian Ballard, a top Trump fundraiser, and FBI agents have knocked on the doors of others involved with Republican campaigns, the sources said. One of the subpoenas asked for communications and documents relating to Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman -- the two Giuliani associates arrested last month on campaign finance charges -- along with a fundraiser at America First Action, a super PAC supporting Trump, and Giuliani himself." --s

Lev Had a Seat at the Table. Betsy Swan of the Daily Beast: "When Rudy Giuliani met with a senior Ukrainian official in Madrid earlier this year and urged him to investigate the Bidens, Lev Parnas was at the table, according to Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian official. Parnas' presence at the meeting, which has not been previously reported, indicates that he may have significant visibility into Giuliani's efforts to pressure Kyiv to investigate a company linked to one of ... Donald Trump's political rivals.... About a week [after Trump's July 25 phone call with President Zelensky], Giuliani traveled to Madrid. On the trip he and Parnas met with Yermak, the Zelensky aide. Giuliani told Yermak that the Ukrainian government needed to investigate Burisma and the allegations about 2016. 'I talked to him about the whole package,' Giuliani told The Washington Post in September.... Afterward, Yermak began working on a statement Zelensky could release saying the government was investigating corruption. Giuliani said the statement needed to specifically mention Burisma and 2016, according to [House testimony of Kurt] Volker. And he made it clear that Ukraine's president would not be welcome at the White House until such a statement was released, Gordon Sondland ... said in his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee this week."

Mrs. McCrabbie: I was not the only person who thought Trump's script should be set to music:

somebody on twitter today: trump's weird hand-scrawled denial today sounds like a ramones song.

me: pic.twitter.com/mynZjx0E0M

— Alex Kliment (@SaoSasha) November 21, 2019

     ... More here.

Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Now that House Democrats have wrapped up public hearings on ... Donald Trump's pressure campaign to get Ukraine to launch politically advantageous investigations, there are plans to hold at least one public impeachment hearing on Trump's misdeeds as alleged in the special counsel's report. House leadership signaled the plans in court filings and oral arguments this week, as the Democrats' attorneys fought to get [former White House attorney Don] McGahn's testimony, as well as access to more of the evidence [Robert] Mueller used to write his final report."

Katelyn Polantz & Evan Perez of CNN: "A former FBI lawyer is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN. The possibility of a substantive change to an investigative document is likely to fuel accusations from ... Donald Trump and his allies that the FBI committed wrongdoing in its investigation of connections between Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign. The finding is expected to be part of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's review of the FBI's effort to obtain warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide. Horowitz will release the report next month.Horowitz turned over evidence on the allegedly altered document to John Durham, the federal prosecutor appointed early this year by Attorney General William Barr to conduct a broad investigation of intelligence gathered for the Russia probe by the CIA and other agencies, including the FBI. The altered document is also at least one focus of Durham's criminal probe."

Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "President Trump signed a short-term spending bill Thursday to keep the government open through late December, staving off a shutdown that would have begun at midnight. Trump's signature on the stopgap spending bill came following Senate passage of the legislation on a bipartisan 74-to-20 vote. The House passed it earlier in the week in the midst of public impeachment hearings. Without the legislation, government funding would have expired Thursday at midnight, forcing multiple agencies to begin to close down operations and send federal workers home. The bill extends government funding through Dec. 20, setting up a fight over money for Trump's border wall that could happen around the same time the House is voting on articles of impeachment against the president. It is the second stopgap spending bill Congress has been forced to pass to keep the lights on in government for the 2020 budget year that began Oct. 1."

Emily Stewart of Vox: "Remember Tim Apple -- the alter ego Trump created for the Apple CEO [Tim Cook] earlier this year? Well, he's struck again. And he's letting the president blatantly lie about the goings-on at his company in order to use Apple as a marketing tool for his presidency. On Wednesday, Cook accompanied Trump, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin..., and ... Ivanka Trump, on a tour of a manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas. Both at the plant and after, the president suggested that the plant had just opened and that it was the result of his presidency. No one at Apple corrected him, even though it's not at all the case: The plant, which is run by a company called Flex, has been making Mac Pro computers there since 2013." --s

Good Grief! Dave Philipps of the New York Times: "President Trump on Thursday reversed a decision by the Navy seeking to oust Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher from the elite commando force. Chief Gallagher has been at the center of a high-profile war crime case and was granted clemency by the president on Friday. He was notified on Wednesday that the Navy planned to start the process to remove the Trident pin that symbolizes membership in the SEALs. Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Trump announced on Twitter it would not happen, saying 'The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher's Trident Pin. This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!' The whipsaw reversal, after the Navy believed it had official approval, is just the latest twist in the unusually public melee over Chief Gallagher's court-martial, which at times has pitted the commander-in-chief directly against senior Navy leaders." Mrs. McC: Turns out Trump knows more than the generals AND the admirals; also he is is good with war crimes. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Idrees Ali & Steve Gorman of Reuters: "A short time [after Trump issued his Twitter Command], Gallagher was told face-to-face by a representative of Green's special warfare command at Naval Base Coronado, near San Diego, that the review would proceed as planned, according to Gallagher's lead defense attorney, Timothy Parlatore.... Rear Admiral Charlie Brown, a Navy spokesman in Washington, issued a statement Thursday evening indicating the Navy was looking for a formal directive, as opposed to a presidential tweet." ~~~

~~~ Dan Lamothe & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "How Trump came to believe that the Pentagon could not handle the cases [three U.S. service members accused of war crimes] fairly, and ultimately issue the pardons, reflects his tendency to accept the advice of people outside his administration [like Pete Hegseth, a Fox News personality]. The president mostly left defense officials out of his discussions about the issue until a few weeks ago and told his top advisers that his supporters would back the move, according to five officials familiar with the situation." Here's who begged Trump not to pardon the Army criminals: Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, both Army veterans & Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Mrs. McC: Bear in mind that Trump doesn't care any more about these guys than he does about the people they (allegedly) murdered. He just thinks pardoning military criminals will play well with his base of miscreants.

Amanda Holpuch of the Guardian: "The under-fire [racist bigot] White House adviser Stephen Miller said in a 2016 radio interview [with Steve Bannon] that immigration could see America lose its sovereignty and be 'decimated', echoing racist and white nationalist themes at the heart of a current scandal that has seen growing demands for him to resign. In the 17-minute radio interview with Breitbart in February of that year, Miller claimed that Obama-era trade and immigration policies, which had bipartisan support, would 'decimate' the US, give amnesty to dangerous immigrants, and end US sovereignty." --s

Charles Pierce of Esquire: "Somewhere out there in our politics, there are Democratic politicians who believe this all will break when and if we are rid of the current president*. These Democratic politicians are wrong and should not be taken seriously." Pierce provides lotsa rightwing whacko examples. --s

Presidential Race 2020

Burgess Everett & Marianne Levine of Politico: "Tulsi Gabbard trashed the Democratic Party as 'not the party that is of, by and for the people,' accused Kamala Harris of trafficking in 'lies and smears and innuendo' and attacked Pete Buttigieg as naive. Her performance at Wednesday's debate earned an attaboy from the Trump War Room. And some rank-and-file Democrats are at wit's end with the congresswoman who Hillary Clinton called 'the favorite of the Russians.' 'The question is whether she seriously hopes to be the nominee or if she has another agenda ... her attacks on other candidates and her positions on issues seem very personal, not so much about a set of policies or worldview,' said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).... Given Gabbard's obvious play to appear at war with the party establishment, several senators declined to discuss her candidacy -- before panning her privately.:

Bryan Anderson of the Sacramento Bee: "... Donald Trump won't have to release his tax returns to get on California's 2020 primary ballot following a unanimous ruling from the state Supreme Court on Thursday that invalidated a new state law. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 27 into law in July to compel presidential and gubernatorial candidates to release five years of tax returns to get on California's primary ballot. Jessica Patterson, chairwoman of the Republican Party then sued the state. The court ruled the added requirement for tax returns 'is in conflict with the (state) constitution's specification of an inclusive open presidential primary ballot.'"

Way Beyond the Beltway

Israel. David Halbfinger of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted Thursday on bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges in a set of long-running corruption cases, immediately throwing his political future into doubt and heightening the uncertainty and chaos surrounding Israel's fitful, yearlong struggle to choose its next leader.... The cases against Mr. Netanyahu involve allegations of giving or offering lucrative official favors to several media tycoons in exchange for either favorable coverage in news outlets or gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. He has rejected the charges as false and politically motivated. Mr. Netanyahu is not legally required to step down. But with Israel's political system already in uncharted territory, having failed to settle upon a new prime minister despite two elections and three attempts at forming a government since April, the criminal case against him could make it far more difficult for him to retain power." The NBC News story is here. The Haaretz story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: See safari's comment on this in today's thread. Can't be sure, but I think safari is being sarcastic.

Spain. Óscar López-Fonseca & Fernando Peréz of El País: "Spain's High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, has opened an investigation into the alleged activities of a group linked with the Russian intelligence service during the 2017 Catalan breakaway bid, three sources have confirmed to EL PAÍS...The case centers on an elite military group called Unit 29155, which intelligence services from several countries have linked to alleged attempts to destabilize Europe." --s