The Commentariat -- January 17, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Show Trial of the Century. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump plans on adding former independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr and the defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz to his legal team for his trial by the Senate, a person briefed on the plan said Friday. Mr. Starr, whose investigation into President Bill Clinton's sexual relationships led to his impeachment, will be joined by Robert Ray, who succeeded Mr. Starr as independent counsel and wrote the final report on Mr. Clinton, the person said. Rounding out the team will be Mr. Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor emeritus who became famous as a defense counsel for high-profile defendants like O.J. Simpson. The White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, and Mr. Trump's personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, will lead the legal team." CNN's story is here. No mention of whether or not there will be dogs & ponies. ~~~

~~~ Emily Shugerman of the Daily Beast: "Donald Trump is lawyering up for his impeachment trial with a team that looks surprisingly similar to that of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The president bolstered his legal team Friday with attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr, who helped Epstein evade prison time in a now infamously lenient plea deal with Palm Beach prosecutors. Epstein originally faced multiple charges of soliciting and trafficking underage girls, but escaped with just 13 months of house arrest in a deal that caused Trump's Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to resign under pressure last year. A suit unveiled by Virgin Islands prosecutors this week alleges Epstein continued to traffic and abuse girls as young as 12 on his private islands until 2018, a decade after Starr and Dershowitz helped him walk free." Read on.

Pompeo Speaks. Matthew Lee of the AP: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday broke nearly 72 hours of silence over alleged surveillance and threats to the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, saying he believed the allegations would prove to be wrong but that he had an obligation to evaluate and investigate the matter. In interviews with conservative radio hosts, Pompeo said he had no knowledge of the allegations until earlier this week when congressional Democrats released documents from an associate of ... Donald Trump's personal attorney suggesting that Marie Yovanovitch was being watched. He also said he did not know and had never met Lev Parnas...." Mrs. McC: I suspect Pompeo chose these venues because (a) no tough questions and (b) harder to tell someone is lying if you can't see his face.

Trump's Enemies List Is Bill Barr's To-Do List. Jonathan Chait: "No single case is egregious enough to prove bias on its own. The pattern of selective prosecution under Trump's Department of Justice, and his fanatically partisan Attorney General William Barr, has become evident in a series of cases that all resemble [the probe of Jim Comey's possible leaks, NYT story linked below]. The connecting thread is that Trump's enemies are scoured for any violation that can be found, and held to the strictest letter of the law, while his allies are given broad latitude.... In theory, there would be nothing wrong with the Department of Justice tightening up its standards of conduct. But all the evidence points to the conclusion those standards are being raised only for Trump's political enemies.... The flagrant nature of the 2016 anti-Clinton [emails!] leaks show just how unseriously the bureau has taken its rules on leaking.... The message Trump has sent to his bureaucracy is unmistakable. Political loyalists will be granted broad latitude, and displays of troublesome independence will be held to the strictest accountability." ~~~

~~~ David Knowles of Yahoo! News: "... Lev Parnas said he was giving media interviews about his role in President Trump's attempts to convince Ukrainian officials to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden because he wanted to protect himself from Attorney General William Barr.... Trump, Parnas said [to Rachel Maddow], was made more powerful 'when he got William Barr.'... On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also criticized Barr in harsh terms. 'Does anyone think that the rogue AG is going to appoint a special prosecutor?' Pelosi said ... in reference to the revelations stemming from Maddow's interview with Barr. 'No, because he's implicated in all of this. This is an example of all of the president's henchmen. And I hope that the senators do not become part of the president's henchmen.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It's easy to think of Parnas as Rudy's goon or Trump's goon. But in fact, especially in understanding the structure of power, he is -- in his own way -- just as smart about it as Jonathan Chait, and Chait, IMO, is a very smart guy. ~~~

~~~ Betsy Swan of the Daily Beast: Lev "Parnas told The Daily Beast that his former friends' reaction to his arrest has strengthened his resolve to speak out. Parnas said that after he and his associate Igor Fruman were arrested at Dulles Airport on Oct. 9 and charged with campaign-finance violations, he was disappointed with [Rudy] Giuliani's silence. He said Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing -- a Trump-friendly husband-and-wife legal team with deep and longstanding ties in Washington's conservative legal world -- also kept mum about their relationship with him. That silence, he said, left him feeling betrayed.... He noted that the trio rarely shy away from defending controversial clients and allies on TV. But in his case, Parnas said, they were silent."

Elizabeth McLaughlin & Mark Osborne of ABC News: "The U.S. military confirmed late Thursday that some American troops were evacuated for blast injuries sustained in Iran's ballistic missile attacks on bases in Iraq last week. Ten service members injured at Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq were flown out of the country on Wednesday, and another service member was flown out on Jan. 10. 'While no U.S. service members were killed in the Jan. 8 Iranian attack on Al Asad Air base, several were treated for concussion symptoms from the blast and are still being assessed,' said Capt. Bill Urban, spokesman for U.S. Central Command.... In the wake of the attack, which was done in retaliation for the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani..., Donald Trump said no one was injured.... TBI [traumatic brain injury] would not meet the threshold for the Pentagon to be notified of the injuries, and that's why the department was only told on Thursday [about the injuries], officials said." Mrs. McC: So one of the few times Trump has made an untrue statement that wasn't his fault.

Cleve Wootson, et al., of the Washington Post: "... a Washington Post-Ipsos poll of African Americans nationwide ... [found that] while personally optimistic about their own lives, [they] today offer a bleaker view about their community as a whole. They also express determination to try to limit Trump to a single term in office. More than 8 in 10 black Americans say they believe Trump is a racist and that he has made racism a bigger problem in the country. Nine in 10 disapprove of his job performance overall. The pessimism goes well beyond assessments of the president. A 65 percent majority of African Americans say it is a 'bad time' to be a black person in America."

Georgia. AP: "A computer security expert says he found that a forensic image of the election server central to a legal battle over the integrity of Georgia elections showed signs that the original server was hacked. The server was left exposed to the open internet for at least six months, a problem the same expert discovered in August 2016. It was subsequently wiped clean in mid-2017 with no notice, just days after election integrity activists filed a lawsuit seeking an overhaul of what they called the state's unreliable and negligently run election system. In late December 2019, the plaintiffs were finally able to obtain a copy of the server's contents that the FBI made in March 2017 and retained. State officials have said they've seen no evidence that any election-related data was compromised. But they also long refused to submit the server image for an independent examination." Mrs. McC: So this is Republican election officials trying to hide a hack or hacks of their system. If you're still thinking maybe Stacey Abrams really got more votes in the 2018 gubernatorial election -- an election in which her opponent Brian Kemp was "managing" the vote count -- keep on thinking.

~~~~~~~~~~

I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet, yesterday

It's almost as if he's obsessing over something he doesn't understand at all. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Michael Shear & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "The Senate formally opened the impeachment trial of President Trump on Thursday, bracing for a grave and deeply divisive debate over his fate as senators swore to deliver' impartial justice' and installed Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to preside over a proceeding with little precedent. In a somber ceremony that initiated only the third presidential impeachment trial in the nation's history, Chief Justice Roberts vowed to act 'according to the Constitution and the laws.' He then administered the same, 222-year-old oath of impartiality to the senators, setting in motion the final stage of a process that has roiled a polarized Congress, and could shape the outcome of the 2020 elections, along with Mr. Trump's legacy."

~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Sadly, Roberts -- as expected -- wore a plain judicial robe, unlike his predecessor William Renquist, who had gold stripes sewed to sleeves of his robe. His inspiration: "one worn by the Lord Chancellor in a local production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe,: which Renquist had seen. Of his experience in overseeing the impeachment trial, Renquist riffed on a line from "When Britain Really Ruled the Waves" in Iolanthe: "I did nothing in particular, and I did it very well." One might think Renquist thought the Clinton impeachment and trial amounted to a grand farce -- one that unfortunately lacked appropriate musical accompaniment. ~~~

~~~ AP: "The Senate is one man short on the opening day of ... Donald Trump's impeachment trial. Republican James Inhofe is back in Oklahoma 'to be with a family member facing a medical issue,' his office says. Inhofe says he'll return to Washington in time for the start of opening arguments on Tuesday."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "... as senators formally convened on Thursday as a court of impeachment in the case of Donald John Trump, new revelations were still emerging and important questions remained unanswered. The latest interviews by Lev Parnas..., as well as documents released by House investigators, only reinforced the reality that there is more still to be learned.... Underscoring the fluidity of the story was the release on Thursday of a damning new report by the independent Government Accountability Office. [story & document linked below]... And the recent offer to testify by John R. Bolton, the president's former national security adviser who privately denounced the geopolitical 'drug deal' orchestrated by Mr. Trump's other advisers, only underlines that many of the key players in the tale of intrigue have yet to publicly disclose what they know.... It is clear the Senate is opening a trial in a far different position than it did in 1868 when it determined [Andrew] Johnson's fate or in 1999 when it considered charges against [Bill] Clinton...."

~~~ Nicholas Fandos & Michael Shear of the New York Times with live updates (Thursday): "For the second time in two days, the seven House members who will serve as prosecutors made a solemn march through the Capitol to the Senate chamber, this time to formally announce the charges against President Trump and initiate only the third presidential impeachment trial in American history....

"Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the lead impeachment manager, said his team would consider whether to press the Senate to call Lev Parnas to testify once the trial begins.... Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Lev Parnas, the Soviet-born businessman who says President Trump was fully aware of efforts to dig up damaging information that would help him in the 2020 election, would be 'a credible witness'during the impeachment trial, though she stopped short of saying he should testify.

"It was a straightforward question being put to nearly every Republican senator in the Capitol on Thursday: Should the Senate consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial? But when Manu Raju of CNN, a well-respected congressional reporter, put it to Senator Martha McSally of Arizona, the first-term Republican who is up for re-election this fall went on the attack. 'You're a liberal hack,' she said. 'I'm not talking to you. You're a liberal hack.'" Mrs. McC: I've seen Raju on CNN many times. He's a straight reporter, not a "liberal hack." (Also linked yesterday. There are numerous updates to liveblog since first linked.) ~~~

~~~ Charlie Nash of Mediaite: "CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer condemned Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) for calling CNN senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju a 'liberal hack' on Thursday -- describing the attack as 'disgusting.'... [Blizter said to Raju on air,] 'Instead of answering a fair question, she simply called you a "liberal hack." It was disgusting, it was awful. She should know better. Certainly, you're one of the most respected congressional reporters up on Capitol Hill.'" ~~~

~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: Instead of being ashamed and embarrassed that she snapped at Raju without cause, McSally is fundraising off video of the incident. Sargent calls this "beyond pathetic. Note that it is now seen as 'liberal' to merely ask a Republican senator whether she feels any obligation to consider the full set of facts...."

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said on Thursday that it's 'likely' she would support calling witnesses after the initial phase of the impeachment trial but has not yet made a decision on any particular individual. 'While I need to hear the case argued and the questions answered, I tend to believe having additional information would be helpful. It is likely that I would support a motion to call witnesses at that point in the trial just as I did in 1999,' Collins said in a statement, referring to the Clinton impeachment trial." ~~~

     ~~~ Ed Kilgore of New York: "As the impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins, a lot of attention is being paid to Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who has made a lot of ambivalent noise about possibly cooperating with Democrats on allowing new evidence and witnesses to appear during the trial, against the wishes of her party leader, Mitch McConnell. Now comes news from Morning Consult that as her moment of truth approaches, Collins has displaced McConnell as the senator with the highest disapproval rating back home[.]" As Kilgore points out, Collins is losing ground from all sides, so no matter what she does re: impeachment, she can't please everyone.

Dahlia Lithwick of Slate assesses Republican Senators' approach to impeachment. She focuses on McConnell & Collins, but she doesn't let others off the hook.

Animal House. I smell a rat here. The guy is crooked as a snake. -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Trump), commenting on new evidence provided by Lev Parnas, yesterday on Fox "News"

"But He Didn't Commit a Crime!" -- Another Faulty Trump Defense Topples. Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The Trump administration violated the law in withholding security assistance aid to Ukraine, a nonpartisan federal watchdog agency said on Thursday.... The Government Accountability Office said the White House&'s Office of Management and Budget violated the Impoundment Control Act when it withheld nearly $400 million for 'a policy reason,' even though the funds had been allocated by Congress. The decision was directed by the president himself, and during the House impeachment inquiry, administration officials testified that they had raised concerns about its legality to no avail.... The White House budget office promptly rejected the report's conclusions.... Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland..., on Thursday called the G.A.O. report a 'bombshell legal opinion.' It 'demonstrates, without a doubt, that the Trump Administration illegally withheld assistance from Ukraine and the public evidence shows that the president himself ordered this illegal act,' he wrote on Twitter." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Politico's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The GAO's decision report is here, via Politico. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "The GOP has made the idea there was no crime a central argument in its impeachment defense of President Trump. The articles of impeachment, Republicans argue, don't actually accuse Trump of a specific, statutory criminal act, so the process is illegitimate. This, of course, ignores that you don't need a crime to impeach. But that strained argument was just severely undermined. The Government Accountability Office ruled Thursday the Trump administration's withholding of aid to Ukraine violated the law, because Trump can't use his policy priorities to supersede the constitutional power of the purse that Congress enjoys.... [In his decision,] GAO general counsel Thomas H. Armstrong delivers rebukes to Trump and his administration, saying it has failed to abide by the law, failed to substantiate its actions and failed to cooperate by providing the necessary documentation.... Now [impeachment managers] can plausibly argue Trump took an illegal action here as part of his pressure campaign on Ukraine." (Also linked yesterday.)

Ashley Parker, et al., of the Washington Post: "The rapid sequence of events in mid-May marks one of the earliest known moments when [Rudy] Guiliani's shadow campaign to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations that would benefit Trump inextricably merged with official U.S. foreign policy -- and, if [Lev] Parnas's account is accurate, appeared to move the levers of the American government. In the process, the vice president was dangled as a bargaining chip -- perhaps unwittingly -- to exert leverage over a foreign government, according to Parnas.... Text messages and other documents released by the House this week, as well as congressional testimony during the impeachment inquiry, corroborate the timeline that Parnas detailed in interviews with MSNBC and CNN about the episode -- and show how a rogue operation engineered by Giuliani began subsuming official U.S. policy.... While Giuliani emphasized his Ukraine trip was intended for Trump' personal benefit, Parnas said he went to Ukraine empowered to invoke core powers of the U.S. government -- military aid, official travel, a White House visit -- to force the Ukrainians' hand.... [Parnas told Giuliani he had failed in his attempt to get a commitment from a top Zelensky aide to get a statement that Ukraine would investigate Biden.] Pence's top Russia adviser, Jennifer Williams, said she was surprised the following morning to receive a call from an assistant to Pence's chief of staff informing her that preliminary plans for Pence to travel to Ukraine for the inauguration had been canceled, she later testified to Congress." ~~~

~~~ Marshall Cohen of CNN: "Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, told CNN that he witnessed ... Donald Trump telling a top aide that the US ambassador to Ukraine should be fired.... 'In the conversation, the subject of Ukraine was brought up,' Parnas said. 'And I told the President that our opinion that (Ambassador Yovanovitch) is badmouthing him -- and that she said that he's gonna get impeached -- something like that....' Parnas continued, 'and his reaction was, he looked at me, like, got very angry, and basically turned around to (then-White House aide) John DeStefano, and said, "Fire her. Get rid of her."' It was of several instances when Trump attempted to fire then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Parnas told CNN's Anderson Cooper in the latest installment of a wide-ranging interview that aired Thursday night." Mrs. McC: Here are the videos of the interviews CNN has made available:

Mrs. McCrabbie: In yesterday's Comments, I noted that Lev was following the old mob script of retaining a lawyer "recommended" by the boss -- in this case, John Dowd, who represented Trump during Mueller's investigation -- and that this arrangement usually did not work out well for the accused. In the second part of his interview with Rachel Maddow, which aired Thursday night, Lev elaborates on this. The full episode is here, though unavailable @5:45 am. (You have to have a cable teevee "subscription" to view it.) The Hill has an abbreviated report on Parnas' description of Parnas' relationship with Dowd. It supports my supposition. In the interview (but not in the Hill report), Parnas said that Dowd called Jay Secolow, another of Trump's personal attorneys, while at a meeting with Parnas, and they told him not to testify to the House Intel Committee because Parnas had "three-way [attorney-client] privilege" regarding his interactions with Trump via Giuliani. Former prosecutor Barbara McQuade, appearing on Lawrence O'Donnell's show said that was plausible, just as prosecutors could not force a lawyer's secretary to testify about what he knew about the lawyer's client. ~~~

~~~ Here is video of Parnas explaining to Maddow how Trump kept trying to fire Yovanovitch. Yes, yes, it's a comic horror story (thanks for the phrase to Dwight Garner's review of the Rucker-Leonnig book, linked below).

American Oversight (via digby): "We lined up the newly released Parnas messages with the records we obtained from the State Department through FOIA litigation, as well as other records and reports. The timeline is troubling.... Many of the messages between [Lev] Parnas and Robert Hyde, a Trump donor who was apparently assisting Parnas in Ukraine, were sent in late March 2019 -- dates when [Rudy] Giuliani was in touch with Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, according to records we obtained." The report includes the details. (Also linked yesterday.)

I don't know him at all, don't know what he's about, don't know where he comes from. -- Donald Trump, regarding Lev Parnas, to reporters, Thursday ~~~

~~~ David Jackson of USA Today: "... Donald Trump and aides sought Thursday to distance him from a Soviet-born businessman who said Trump knew all about efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating U.S. political rival Joe Biden.... 'I don't believe I've ever spoken to him,' Trump told reporters about Lev Parnas.... In an interview with CNN, Parnas said that every time Trump denies knowing him, 'I'll show him another picture. He's lying.'"

Stephen Colbert's monologue is not only funny but helpful as he includes tidbits of impeachment news I haven't linked:

** Where's Mikey? Jennifer Hansler of CNN: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has maintained a persistent silence as stunning new evidence has emerged suggesting the former ambassador to Ukraine may have been illegally surveilled before she was forced out of her job by ... Donald Trump. The State Department has not publicly commented on any developments in the more than 36 hours since a new tranche of documents revealed that former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch may have been monitored at the behest of associates of ... Rudy Giuliani. The lack of a response is even more striking following a Thursday morning announcement that Ukrainian authorities have launched a criminal probe into that potential surveillance -- before any such announcement from the US government." ~~~

~~~ There's This. Allan Smith & Tom Winter of NBC News: "The FBI paid visits to Republican congressional candidate Robert Hyde's Connecticut home and business on Thursday, a senior law enforcement official said. The agent's visits came days after the House Intelligence Committee released texts Hyde sent an associate of Rudy Giuliani..., suggesting that he had Marie Yovanovitch, then the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, under surveillance.... Connecticut Republican Party Chairman J.R. Romano asked Hyde to end his campaign, saying his 'antics' were a distraction."

MEANWHILE, at "Justice." Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors in Washington are investigating a years-old leak of classified information about a Russian intelligence document, and they appear to be focusing on whether the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey illegally provided details to reporters, according to people familiar with the inquiry. The case is the second time the Justice Department has investigated leaks potentially involving Mr. Comey, a frequent target of President Trump, who has repeatedly called him a 'leaker.' Mr. Trump recently suggested without evidence that Mr. Comey should be prosecuted for 'unlawful conduct' and spend years in prison. The timing of the investigation could raise questions about whether it was motivated at least in part by politics.... Mr. Trump has repeatedly pressured the Justice Department to investigate his perceived enemies. In 2018, he told the White House counsel at the time, Donald F. McGahn II, to prosecute [Hillary] Clinton and Mr. Comey. Mr. McGahn refused...." TPM has a summary report here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: That "could raise questions" construction, which reporters commonly use, is a cop-out. Obviously, the matter does raise questions, or the report probably would not have made the front page of the New York Times. Indeed, Goldman goes on to name some of the questions the investigation raises.

Philip Rucker & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post in a WashPo excerpt from their new book A Very Stable Genius, describe a July 2017 meeting with Trump at the Pentagon that did not go as planned. The meeting was supposed to be a tutorial on U.S. foreign relations for the stunningly ignorant, impulsive & brash president*: "Rather than getting him to appreciate America's traditional role and alliances, Trump began to tune out and eventually push away the experts who believed their duty was to protect the country by restraining his more dangerous impulses." By the end of the meeting, Trump had worked himself up into "one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn't taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them.... 'I wouldn't go to war with you people,' Trump told the assembled brass.... 'You're a bunch of dopes and babies.'" ~~~

~~~ Dwight Garner of the New York Times reviews A Very Stable Genius: "... this taut and terrifying book is among the most closely observed accounts of Donald J. Trump's shambolic tenure in office to date.... It reads like a horror story, an almost comic immorality tale.... Throughout he is misinformed and confused while at the same time utterly certain of himself."

Spencer Ackerman & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "More than a month after requesting information from the Department of Justice about the president's decision to give clemency to convicted or accused war criminals, two Senate Democrats [-- Patrick Leahy (Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) --] continue to be stonewalled by the administration.... The lack of answers from the Justice Department, which is supposed to play a key role in pardon reviews, is likely to fuel allegations that Trump recklessly decided on a round of clemency that has disgusted many in the military community.... The two senators cited a department manual instructing the pardon office to review 'all petitions' for clemency and 'in every case' prepare recommendations. They referred to the pardon office as an 'institutional safeguard' against abuse of a broad presidential authority."

Ryan Browne & Geneva Sands of CNN: "The Pentagon received a Department of Homeland Security request Wednesday to build and pay for hundreds of additional miles of border wall on the southwest border, according to the Department of Defense. The request is for roughly 270 miles of border barrier and other infrastructure to be built in areas that are considered drug corridors, a mix of rural and urban areas, a senior Department of Defense official told CNN. Because the request is to ostensibly help combat drug smuggling, the Pentagon will be allowed to construct these barriers under its pre-existing '284' counter drug authority, which allows the Defense Department to build barriers, lighting and roads for the purpose of countering drug trafficking, according to the official.... In order to pay for hundreds of miles of additional border wall, the Defense Department will likely have to divert funds from other military accounts in order to provide adequate funding, something it did previously to pay for $2.5 billion of wall that was authorized via the counter drug account.... The reprogramming of money from various military accounts into the counter-drug account to fund the border wall proved controversial among many lawmakers on Capitol Hill who threatened to strip the Pentagon of its ability to move money in the future."

Sabrina Rodriguez of Politico: "The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed ... Donald Trump's signature trade deal with Mexico and Canada, helping him fulfill a 2016 campaign promise in a rare bipartisan vote. It's a big win for the president going into his reelection campaign, as he seeks to prove that his disruptive trade agenda is delivering results. But it'll take years of costly work before American workers and businesses begin to benefit from the new trade pact with Mexico and Canada, which passed the Senate in a 89-10 vote.... Some Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, voted against the pact for not doing enough to protect American jobs or address environmental issues.... The USMCA will not go into full effect until Canada approves the pact when its House of Commons reconvenes in late January." (Also linked yesterday.)

Timothy Williams of the New York Times: "Virginia on Wednesday became the 38th state to approve the Equal Rights Amendment, a symbolic victory for those who for generations have been pushing for a constitutional guarantee of legal rights regardless of sex. Virginia's decision does not seal the amendment's addition to the United States Constitution. A deadline for three-quarters, or 38, of the 50 states to approve the E.R.A. expired in 1982, so the future of the measure is uncertain, and experts said the issue would likely be tied up in the courts and in the political sphere for years. But the symbolism of the action in Virginia was significant after a struggle that had been raised, hard fought and, at times, forgotten over nearly 100 years.... Women packed the galleries of the State Capitol as the debate unfolded.... Some members of the House of Delegates, which for the first time in its 401-year history is led by a woman, Eileen Filler-Corn, brought their young daughters to witness the vote." The Hill's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Virginia. Timothy Williams, et al., of the New York Times: "A sense of crisis enveloped the capital of Virginia on Thursday, with the police on heightened alert and Richmond bracing for possible violence ahead of a gun rally next week that is expected to draw white supremacists and other anti-government extremists. Members of numerous armed militias and white power proponents vowed to converge on the city despite the state of emergency declared by Gov. Ralph Northam [D], who temporarily banned weapons from the grounds of the State Capitol.... The unease increased after the F.B.I. announced the arrest on Thursday of three armed men suspected of being members of a neo-Nazi hate group, including a former Canadian Army reservist, who had obtained weapons and discussed participating in the Richmond rally. The men were linked to The Base, a group that aims to create a white ethnostate, according to the F.B.I." Mrs. McC: Um, the "gun-rights" rally is scheduled for Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. Just a coincidence, I guess. The Daily Beast has a story about the arrests.

The Commentariat -- January 16, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Chief Justice, Senators Take the Impeachment Oath:

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Sadly, Roberts -- as expected -- wore a plain judicial robe, unlike his predecessor William Renquist, who had gold stripes sewed to sleeves of his robe. His inspiration: "one worn by the Lord Chancellor in a local production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe," which Renquist had seen. Of his experience in overseeing the impeachment trial, Renquist riffed on a line from "When Britain Really Ruled the Waves" in Iolanthe: "I did nothing in particular, and I did it very well." One might think Renquist thought the Clinton impeachment and trial amounted to a grand farce -- one that unfortunately lacked appropriate musical accompaniment.

~~~ Nicholas Fandos & Michael Shear of the New York Times with live updates: "For the second time in two days, the seven House members who will serve as prosecutors made a solemn march through the Capitol to the Senate chamber, this time to formally announce the charges against President Trump and initiate only the third presidential impeachment trial in American history....

"Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the lead impeachment manager, said his team would consider whether to press the Senate to call Lev Parnas to testify once the trial begins.... Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Lev Parnas, the Soviet-born businessman who says President Trump was fully aware of efforts to dig up damaging information that would help him in the 2020 election, would be 'a credible witness'during the impeachment trial, though she stopped short of saying he should testify.

"It was a straightforward question being put to nearly every Republican senator in the Capitol on Thursday: Should the Senate consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial? But when Manu Raju of CNN, a well-respected congressional reporter, put it to Senator Martha McSally of Arizona, the first-term Republican who is up for re-election this fall went on the attack. 'You're a liberal hack,' she said. 'I'm not talking to you. You're a liberal hack.'" Mrs. McC: I've seen Raju on CNN many times. He's a straight reporter, not a "liberal hack." ~~~

"But He Didn't Commit a Crime!" -- Another Faulty Trump Defense Topples. Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The Trump administration violated the law in withholding security assistance aid to Ukraine, a nonpartisan federal watchdog agency said on Thursday.... The Government Accountability Office said the White House's Office of Management and Budget violated the Impoundment Control Act when it withheld nearly $400 million for 'a policy reason,' even though the funds had been allocated by Congress. The decision was directed by the president himself, and during the House impeachment inquiry, administration officials testified that they had raised concerns about its legality to no avail.... The White House budget office promptly rejected the report's conclusions.... Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland..., on Thursday called the G.A.O. report a 'bombshell legal opinion.' It 'demonstrates, without a doubt, that the Trump Administration illegally withheld assistance from Ukraine and the public evidence shows that the president himself ordered this illegal act,' he wrote on Twitter." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Politico's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The GAO's decision report is here, via Politico. ~~~

~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "The GOP has made the idea there was no crime a central argument in its impeachment defense of President Trump. The articles of impeachment, Republicans argue, don't actually accuse Trump of a specific, statutory criminal act, so the process is illegitimate. This, of course, ignores that you don't need a crime to impeach. But that strained argument was just severely undermined. The Government Accountability Office ruled Thursday the Trump administration's withholding of aid to Ukraine violated the law, because Trump can't use his policy priorities to supersede the constitutional power of the purse that Congress enjoys.... [In his decision,] GAO general counsel Thomas H. Armstrong delivers rebukes to Trump and his administration, saying it has failed to abide by the law, failed to substantiate its actions and failed to cooperate by providing the necessary documentation.... Now [impeachment managers] can plausibly argue Trump took an illegal action here as part of his pressure campaign on Ukraine."

American Oversight (via digby): "We lined up the newly released Parnas messages with the records we obtained from the State Department through FOIA litigation, as well as other records and reports. The timeline is troubling.... Many of the messages between [Lev] Parnas and Robert Hyde, a Trump donor who was apparently assisting Parnas in Ukraine, were sent in late March 2019 -- dates when [Rudy] Giuliani was in touch with Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, according to records we obtained." The report includes the details.

Sabrina Rodriguez of Politico: "The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed ... Donald Trump's signature trade deal with Mexico and Canada, helping him fulfill a 2016 campaign promise in a rare bipartisan vote. It's a big win for the president going into his reelection campaign, as he seeks to prove that his disruptive trade agenda is delivering results. But it'll take years of costly work before American workers and businesses begin to benefit from the new trade pact with Mexico and Canada, which passed the Senate in a 89-10 vote.... Some Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, voted against the pact for not doing enough to protect American jobs or address environmental issues.... The USMCA will not go into full effect until Canada approves the pact when its House of Commons reconvenes in late January."

Timothy Williams of the New York Times: "Virginia on Wednesday became the 38th state to approve the Equal Rights Amendment, a symbolic victory for those who for generations have been pushing for a constitutional guarantee of legal rights regardless of sex. Virginia's decision does not seal the amendment's addition to the United States Constitution. A deadline for three-quarters, or 38, of the 50 states to approve the E.R.A. expired in 1982, so the future of the measure is uncertain, and experts said the issue would likely be tied up in the courts and in the political sphere for years. But the symbolism of the action in Virginia was significant after a struggle that had been raised, hard fought and, at times, forgotten over nearly 100 years.... Women packed the galleries of the State Capitol as the debate unfolded.... Some members of the House of Delegates, which for the first time in its 401-year history is led by a woman, Eileen Filler-Corn, brought their young daughters to witness the vote." The Hill's story is here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Zach Montague of the New York Times: Today, "the seven House managers will return to the Senate chamber to read aloud the articles of impeachment. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will make the trip across the street to the Capitol from the Supreme Court to be sworn in as the presiding officer of the trial and administer oaths to all 100 senators, who will raise their hands and swear to do 'impartial justice,' then take turns signing a book attesting to their oath.... The managers are expected to arrive for the reading at noon, and Chief Justice Roberts is expected around 2 p.m. The oath-taking and book-signing will follow.... By Senate rules, once Chief Justice Roberts is sworn in, a summons is to be issued to the president, who will have the opportunity to address the charges laid out in the articles of impeachment. The Senate is also expected on Thursday to set due dates for trial briefs from the House managers and the president's counsel, providing some clarity on when initial filings must be submitted. Once summoned, Mr. Trump is expected to respond in written form. The response may be read out over the course of several days."

House managers deliver Articles of Impeachment to the Senate:

Nicholas Fandos & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to send the Senate two articles of impeachment against President Trump, appointing seven Democrats to prosecute the case and initiating only the third presidential impeachment trial in American history.... Only one Democrat, Representative Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota, joined every Republican in voting 'no.'... The [impeachent] managers are scheduled to reconvene in the Capitol at 5 p.m. to finalize the articles with Ms. Pelosi in a formal 'engrossment ceremony' that will mark the beginning of an elaborate, and highly orchestrated, ritual. From there, accompanied by the House clerk and sergeant-at-arms, the managers will file from the House, through the old House chamber and the Capitol Rotunda to the Senate, where Democrats will present the articles to the secretary of the Senate. But the trial itself is not expected to start until Thursday, when the managers will most likely exhibit the articles inside the Senate chamber. Once they do so, the Senate will summon Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to preside and all senators will take an oath to administer 'impartial justice.' The Senate must promptly issue a summons to Mr. Trump informing him of the charges and requesting a response. Republican leaders have said the proceeding will not begin in earnest until next Tuesday, after the long holiday weekend." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Olivia Beavers & Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tapped seven impeachment managers on Tuesday.... Some members who the Speaker tapped were considered shoo-ins, including Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who both had leadership roles during the impeachment inquiry into Trump's contacts with Ukraine. Others picked for the high-profile role of managers include Democratic Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), Val Demings (Fla.), Sylvia Garcia (Texas), and Jason Crow (Colo.)." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) named the lawmakers who will prosecute the case in a Senate trial that will begin in earnest next week. In impeachment parlance, they are known as managers. They are tasked with persuading 67 senators to convict Trump and remove him from office on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. 'The emphasis is on litigators, the emphasis is on comfort in the courtroom,' Pelosi said of her selections. Here's who they are and why Pelosi probably picked them for the most consequential part of the entire impeachment process." ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' liveblog on impeachment for Wednesday is here. The Washington Post's liveblog is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

The Impartial Jury Foreman. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday ripped House Democrats and made the case for the upper chamber acquitting President Trump as he waits for the articles of impeachment to be transmitted. McConnell, speaking from the Senate floor, did not directly call for senators to vote to acquit Trump but argued that senators cannot follow the House's lead and agree that the president deserves to be impeached and ultimately removed from office. '... If the Senate blesses this unprecedented and dangerous House process by agreeing that an incomplete case and subjective basis are enough to impeach a president, we will almost guarantee the impeachment of every future president,' McConnell said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Emma Dumain & Alex Daugherty of the Miami Herald: Rep. Val Demings, a "Florida congresswoman who on Wednesday became an impeachment manager in ... Donald Trump's upcoming Senate trial, wants to remove the lead juror: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.... Her opposition to McConnell's participation in the Senate trial that is set to start next week stems from the Kentucky Republican boasting that he won't be impartial in deciding whether Trump should be acquitted or convicted. 'I'm not an impartial juror,' McConnell said at a press conference in December. 'This is a political process. There is not anything judicial about it. Impeachment is a political decision.' Demings released a statement on Dec. 13 declaring McConnell unfit to vote in Trump's impeachment trial after Senate leader went on Fox News to further detail his coordination with the White House on impeachment strategy."

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The Senate is still discussing whether it will hear witness testimony from John Bolton, the former national security adviser, who has said he would comply with a subpoena during the impeachment trial. But he's planning to reveal some of what he saw regarding the Ukraine matter in his upcoming book, according to people familiar with the plan. Mr. Bolton's book, due to be published by Simon and Schuster, is almost finished, according to people familiar with his plans, and is set to be on sale well ahead of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions this summer. The book is going to ... expand on at least some of what he saw regarding Mr. Trump's efforts to pressure Ukrainian officials into announcing an investigation into Hunter Biden...." Mediaite has a summary report here.

Marianne Levine & Burgess Everett of Politico: "The Senate is prepared to enforce strict measures on reporters' access during ... Donald Trump's impeachment trial.... The Senate sergeant-at-arms and U.S. Capitol Police are looking to drastically curtail press access to lawmakers.... Among the potential restrictions, according to aletter sent to Senate leadership from the Standing Committee of Correspondents, are confining reporters to a press pen on the second floor of the Capitol and limiting their ability to walk with senators from the Senate subways.... But not all Republicans are on board. Some pushed back Wednesday, following news that access to senators will be significantly limited during the Senate impeachment proceedings. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, known for his folksy style and colorful quotes, complained that the restrictions send the 'wrong message.'"

Ken Vogel & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Lev Parnas, the Soviet-born businessman who played a central role in the campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate political rivals of President Trump, completed his break with the White House on Wednesday, asserting for the first time in public that the president was fully aware of the efforts to dig up damaging information on his behalf. In an interview with The New York Times on the day the House transmitted articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump to the Senate, Mr. Parnas also expressed regret for having trusted Mr. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani.... Mr. Parnas made his remarks as House impeachment investigators released more material he had turned over to them. The material ... provided additional evidence that the effort to win political advantage for Mr. Trump was widely known among his allies, showing that Mr. Parnas communicated regularly with two top Republican fund-raisers about what he was up to. Text messages and call logs show that Mr. Parnas was in contact with Tom Hicks Jr., a donor and Trump family friend, and Joseph Ahearn, who raised money for pro-Trump political groups, about developments in the Ukraine pressure campaign.... The records seem to expand the circle of people around Mr. Trump who were aware in real time of the pressure campaign.... When asked by The Times how he knew that Mr. Trump was aware of the pressure campaign, he said that Mr. Giuliani assured him that was the case." ~~~

~~~ Phil Helsel of NBC News: "Lev Parnas..., says, 'President Trump knew exactly what was going on. He was aware of all my movements. I wouldn't do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president. I have no intent, I have no reason to speak to any of these officials,' Parnas, who faces campaign finance charges, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in an interview set to air Wednesday night. 'I mean, they have no reason to speak to me. Why would President Zelenskiy's inner circle or Minister Avakov or all these people or President Poroshenko meet with me? Who am I? They were told to meet with me. And that's the secret that they're trying to keep. I was on the ground doing their work,' Parnas said.... Asked whether Trump specifically was aware that he and Giuliani were working on the effort in Ukraine specifically to hurt Joe Biden, Parnas said yes. 'Yeah, it was all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and also Rudy had a personal thing with the Manafort stuff. The black ledger,' Parnas said." Mrs. McC: There's a lot more, and it's explosive. Here's a small portion of the interview:

~~~ Jeffery Martin of Newsweek: "In an interview with Rachel Maddow Wednesday night, Lev Parnas said that Vice President Mike Pence was given the task of telling Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy that if he did not announce his government's investigation into the Bidens, the U.S. would not provide any military aid. When asked if Pence was aware of the quid pro quo, Parnas said, 'I'm going to use a famous quote from [Ambassador Gordon] Sondland. Everybody was in the loop.' Parnas said that Pence was scheduled to be a guest at Zelenskiy's inauguration.... But Parnas told Zelenskiy's senior aide Sergei Schaffer that if the investigation were not announced, then the relationship between Ukraine and the U.S. would become 'sour.' 'The announcement was the key at that time because of the inauguration and I told him Pence would not show up, nobody would show up to his inauguration,' Parnas said. 'It was particularly Vice President Mike Pence.' Pence's visit to the inauguration was canceled the day after Parnas met with Schafer.... To my awareness, Trump called to say "Make sure Pence doesn't go [to the inauguration]."' Parnas said he was positive Pence canceled his trip to the inauguration because of the disagreement between the U.S. and Ukraine." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I've joked about President Pelosi, but what a responsible Congress would do now is (1) remove Trump from office, (2) investigate the veracity of Parnas' claim about pence and impeach pence if verified, and (3) swear in either Pelosi or, if there is one, president* pence's appointed veep. Of course, none of this will happen because that "if" clause depends upon "responsible."

     ~~~ Right now, you can watch the full interview here. The full show will be here (@6:15 am ET, it's not up yet); however, to watch it here, you have to have access through your cable network & sign in, which is kind of a pain. More of the interview will air on Maddow's show tonight. ~~~

     ~~~ Justine Coleman of the Hill has a summary report.

~~~ Devin Nunes Tries out the "I Forgot" Defense. Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: "Moments after [Lev] Parnas told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that the president 'knew exactly what was going on' with Ukraine, Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum asked [Rep. Dennis] Nunes about phone records that show he spoke to Parnas, noting he previously said he couldn't 'recall' having a phone conversation with the Giuliani henchman. Claiming that the information was 'brand new' at the time and he just didn't 'recognize the name Parnas,' the pro-Trump congressman added that he was able to recall 'where he was at the time' and now 'remembered that call, which was very odd and random.' Asked whether or not they spoke about former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, Nunes asserted that the first time he 'heard the name Yovanovitch was not until this impeachment sham started.'" Mrs. McC: Nunes, you recall, sat through the House Intel Committee hearings as ranking member, never letting on that he himself had been in on the Ukraine scheme.

Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "House impeachment investigators released a new set of evidence that was obtained from Lev Parnas, an indicted former associate of ... Donald Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani -- including voicemails, photos, and text messages between Parnas and high-level figures within Trump's orbit. The material includes voicemail messages Parnas received from Giuliani and Victoria Toensing, a prominent Trump-aligned lawyer, both of whom have been identified as players in an effort to force the removal of the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, during the spring."

Paul Sonne, et al., of the Washington Post: "New materials released by House Democrats appear to show Ukraine's top prosecutor offering an associate of ... Rudolph W. Giuliani damaging information related to former vice president Joe Biden if the Trump administration recalled the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.... Among the revelations in the documents released Tuesday: a message from Giuliani to [Lev] Parnas saying he had involved a person he called 'no 1' -- possibly Trump himself -- in an effort to lift a U.S. visa ban on a former Ukrainian prosecutor who was planning to come to the United States to make claims about Biden.... The materials show that Parnas, a Russian-speaker who helped coordinate Giuliani's outreach to Ukrainian sources, was directly communicating with an array of top Ukrainian officials. Among them was Yuri Lutsenko, at the time Ukraine's top prosecutor and a close political ally of then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who was running for reelection. Lutsenko wanted to get rid of Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador, in part because she had been critical of his office and supported a quasi-independent anti-corruption bureau he despised.... The newly released documents also detail Giuliani's involvement in trying to secure a U.S. visa for Lutsenko's predecessor, Viktor Shokin, who has alleged that Biden asked Poroshenko to fire him because he was investigating the owner of Burisma at the time."

Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "The previously untold story of how Giuliani and his associates reached out to ... Ukrainian tycoon [Dmytro Firtash] -- whom the former New York mayor had previously blasted publicly for alleged ties to organized crime -- shows the lengths Giuliani went to in his campaign to defend Trump in the Russia investigation and undermine former vice president Joe Biden.... The Firtash executive who met with Giuliani in Paris was an aspiring Ukrainian politician named Dmitry Torner, later accused by Ukrainian authorities of escaping incarceration in Moldova and living under a new name. The following month, Giuliani sat down in London with other Firtash representatives.... Later that summer, Firtash's attorneys filed a court document that Giuliani touted publicly as support for his claims about Biden. In a statement, Giuliani said he did not remember meeting Torner or details of his meetings in Paris and London and had limited interest in Firtash. 'I never met him. I never did business with him,' he said of Firtash. He did not respond to follow-up questions after The Post obtained photos of [Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman & Torner together in a Paris cigar bar].

Philip Bump of the Washington Post highlights a letter from Rudy Giuliani to Volodymyr Zelensky that makes it fairly impossible for Trump to throw Giuliani under the bus, as Trump attempted to do in an interview with Bill O'Reilly. In the letter, which is reproduced with the post, Giuliani writes, "I am private counsel to President Donald J. Trump. Just to be precise, I represent him as a private citizen, not as President of the United States.... In my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent, I request a meeting with you...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Nahal Toosi & Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "Democrats are vowing to investigate allegations that people linked to ... Donald Trump's personal lawyer had placed the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine under surveillance. Documents released by House impeachment investigators late Tuesday indicate that Lev Parnas ... corresponded with Republican congressional candidate Robert Hyde about tracking the movements of the ex-envoy, Marie Yovanovitch. In often coarse terms, the pair nodded to an effort to oust her from the role.... Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote a letter Wednesday to the State Department seeking records related to Hyde, Parnas and Yovanovitch. Engel wrote that he was especially alarmed by messages in which Hyde suggested he had 'a person inside' who could offer information on the ambassador; Engel questioned whether that person could be based at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.... New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote his own letter to the State Department demanding 'an immediate briefing and accounting' by officials in the diplomatic security division and others about what they knew and did to protect Yovanovitch."

~~~ Jonathan Chait: In "a series of messages between [Lev] Parnas, who met with Trump on several occasions and claims the president personally directed his mission in Ukraine, and Robert Hyde..., Hyde made several chilling remarks that seemed to indicate that he was surveilling Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and prepared to do something to her. Reading these messages makes clear Hyde was planning to do something unpleasant to Yovanovitch, apparently in tandem with some kind of security personnel he contacted, perhaps Russian ones[.]... Several months later, even after she had been removed from her post, President Trump appeared intent on doing some kind of harm to Yovanovitch. 'Well, she's going to go through some things,' he told Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in his July 25 phone call.... The Parnas-Hyde texts are evidence of how the whole scheme played out on the ground, which is basically as an episode of The Sopranos. And as the sordid evidence of the scheme continues to pour out, it remains the position of the Trump administration and nearly every elected Republican that Congress is not entitled to to any additional testimony or documents." Worth reading for the thread of Hyde's messages. Chait also goes into the evidence in the letter from Giuliani to Zelensky. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Lee Fang of the Intercept: "The man who relayed information about Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch's location to Rudy Giuliani's Ukrainian associates was a known stalker with mental health issues. Newly released private WhatsApp messages between Lev Parnas ... and Robert F. Hyde, a donor to ... Donald Trump's campaign and aspiring GOP lawmaker, reveal what appears to be an effort to surveil the former ambassador to Ukraine.... The messages, released Tuesday by the House Intelligence Committee relating to its ongoing impeachment inquiry, show Hyde claiming to know Yovanovitch's location and movements in Kyiv, while implying that he was in contact with local security services in Ukraine who could be paid to go after the ambassador. The startling messages show the extent to which the Giuliani associates were willing to at least entertain extreme tactics.... The Intercept obtained police records showing that Hyde violated a restraining order issued by a Washington, D.C., Superior Court judge at the request of a Republican consultant who says that Hyde stalked her and intimidated her family over the last year. In one of the reports, an officer disclosed that Connecticut police confiscated Hyde's firearms in connection to his violation of the restraining order. Hyde was reported to authorities for 'unsettling behavior' and trespassing at a church in Connecticut, according to a separate police report last summer.... Hyde publicized that he was placed in a psychiatric facility in Florida last May, following an incident at the Trump National Doral Miami resort." There's more. ~~~

~~~ David Corn of Mother Jones: "Robert F. Hyde, a former landscape company owner and the latest oddball figure to enter the Trump-Ukraine scandal, has attempted to ride the Trump presidency into a new career as a lobbyist, public affairs operative, and all-around GOP player.... [T]here was one real connection Hyde did make -- and it was with a mysterious Chinese immigrant named Cheng Gao who donated almost a quarter of a million dollars to Trump and the GOP.... Hyde posted a video on his Twitter feed showing how in April 2019 he managed to introduce Gao to Trump at Mar-a-Lago.... In May, not long after he scored that Trump handshake for Gao, Hyde was taken into police custody at the Trump National Doral in Miami and involuntarily confined to a medical facility.... Hyde, according to a police report, said to the cops that 'e-mails he sent ... may have placed his life in jeopardy.'... The night before this incident, Hyde sent Mother Jones a long, rambling text message in which he boasted of his role in helping Trump during the 2016 campaign and implied that his life was at risk." --s<

AP: "Ukrainian police say they have opened an investigation into the possibility that the former U.S. ambassador came under illegal surveillance before she was recalled from her post. The announcement Thursday came two days after Democratic lawmakers in the United States released a trove of documents that showed Lev Parnas, an associate of ... Donald Trump's personal lawyer, communicating about the removal of Marie Yovanovitch as the ambassador to Ukraine. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry, which runs the police forces, said in a statement that Ukrainian police 'are not interfering in the internal political affairs of the United States. However, the published messages contain facts of possible violations of Ukrainian law and of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, which protect the rights of diplomats on the territory of another state,' the statement continued. The Interior Ministry also said it has invited the FBI to take part in the investigation."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Aaron Rupar of Vox has a good post on how the mainstream media in general, and in this case, NPR in particular, sanitize and normalize Trump's wild, incoherent rants. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Mrs. McC: During the first year-plus of his term, almost all major-media outlets labored to "interpret" Trump's rants by making some sense of what he was saying, which of course had the effect of normalizing his speeches and remarks. But I have noticed that, after maybe two years, reporters at some major outlets, including the NYT, finally started writing about Trump's "disjointed rambling" and "anger" and so forth even in straight news reports. Too little, too late. (Also linked yesterday.)

"He Was at Times Dangerously Uninformed." Ashley Parker of the Washington Post reviews a new book -- A Very Stable Genius -- by WashPo reporters Philip Rucker & Carol Leonnig that reports on incidents and remarks showing what an ignoramus Trump is -- and how this affects U.S. foreign policy. ~~~

     ~~~ Alex Ward of Vox has a summary report. He zeroes in on Trump's wish to repeal the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, inasmuch as the act makes it more problematic for Trump's companies to bribe foreign officials.

Nahal Toosi of Politico: "The State Department abruptly canceled two classified congressional briefings Wednesday that were supposed to focus on embassy security and the U.S. relationship with Iran, Capitol Hill aides said, infuriating lawmakers and staffers seeking answers on the fallout from ... Donald Trump's decision to kill a senior Iranian general. The cancellations also coincide with the release of documents suggesting that associates of Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani had put the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine under surveillance -- an issue that touches on both embassy security and the president's impeachment. 'Staff are furious,' a House aide said about the scuttled embassy security session. 'This briefing is required by law every month, and today's was the most important we've had scheduled in a long time. The State Department has given us no explanation whatsoever.'"

Ana Swanson & Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "President Trump signed an initial trade deal with China on Wednesday, bringing the first chapter of a protracted and economically damaging fight with one of the world's largest economies to a close. The pact is intended to open Chinese markets to more American companies, increase farm and energy exports and provide greater protection for American technology and trade secrets. China has committed to buying an additional $200 billion worth of American goods and services by 2021 and is expected to ease some of the tariffs it has placed on American products. But the agreement preserves the bulk of the tariffs that Mr. Trump has placed on $360 billion worth of Chinese goods, and it maintains the threat of additional punishment if Beijing does not live up to the terms of the deal." A CNN report is here.

Extorting Allies. Reuters: "The Trump administration has threatened to impose a 25% tariff on European automobile imports if Britain, France and Germany do not formally accuse Iran of breaking the 2015 nuclear deal, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed European officials. The three European countries triggered a dispute mechanism under the agreement on Tuesday, amounting to a formal accusation against Tehran of violating its terms and could lead to the reinstatement of United Nations sanctions lifted under the accord.... It was not clear if the threat was necessary since the Europeans had signaled an intention to trigger the dispute mechanism for weeks, the newspaper reported." --s ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Katrin Bennhold & Jack Ewing of the New York Times: As the U.S. pressures Germany to ostracize China's tech giant Huawei, China is pressuring Germany to use Huawei technology in its autos. "VW, Daimler and BMW sell more cars in China than anywhere else and many already cooperate with Huawei...."

Leo Hindery, Jr., in The (Iowa) Gazette: "[T]he dirty secret of the economy under Trump is that while major corporations have had reasons to celebrate, rural communities in the heartlands have gotten stiffed. Case in point: Iowa. Research shows that in the state the bulk of the economy's benefits are being enjoyed by the richest one percent of Iowans, and much less so by the state's small businesses and farmers who are fighting for scraps.... This pattern could not be starker: The President and his supporters in Congress continually promise a lifeboat to those struggling to stay afloat but then they barely throw them a line.... Democratic candidates must be laser-focused on the rural economy as they look to persuade Iowa voters. They must connect with the Iowans who continue to be left behind -- not for the sake of scoring political points, but because the state's local farmers and small businesses deserve so much better." --s

Katy O'Donnell of Politico: "The Department of Housing and Urban Development will allow Puerto Rico to access more than $8 billion in blocked disaster aid funding, ending a monthslong hold by the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter. Puerto Rico, which suffered devastating losses from Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, has received just $1.5 billion of the roughly $20 billion in congressionally authorized disaster funds that HUD is supposed to administer. The delay in receiving the additional funds had incensed both U.S. lawmakers and commonwealth officials.... Democrats had cranked up the pressure on the White House to release the money in the wake of the earthquakes, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California on Thursday calling on administration officials to 'cease and desist that illegal activity.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race

Kyle Blaine, et al., of CNN: "In a tense and dramatic exchange in the moments after the Democratic debate Tuesday night, Elizabeth Warren accused Bernie Sanders of calling her a liar on national television. Sanders responded that it was Warren who called him a liar and said they should not talk about it right then.... Sound of the moment was caught by CNN's microphones and found Wednesday." The story includes a transcript of the exchange. ~~~

Washington "Post Opinions invited the Democratic presidential candidates not on the stage in Des Moines on Tuesday to add their thoughts to a key exchange in the debate. Here are the responses from five of them." (Also linked yesterday.)

Michelle Lee of the Washington Post: "Donors to President Trump's reelection are now permitted to give nearly $600,000 per year, boosting the president's ability to raise money from wealthy supporters months before the general election contest begins in earnest. Under an agreement announced Wednesday by Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, a single donor can give as much as $580,600 this year to support Trump's reelection -- higher than the committee's previous caps on contributions.... It is the latest example of the dramatically expanding fundraising power of national party committees, made possible through pivotal legal changes in 2014 that loosened restrictions on individual contributions. While a person can give a maximum of $5,600 to Trump's campaign committee, a donor can legally give 103 times more in support of Trump's reelection through the new joint fundraising arrangement.... But because there is no nominee yet, none of the current Democratic candidates can benefit from [a joint] fundraising [agreement]." The DNC, though, has been raising money through a joint agreement, as did Hillary Clinton in 2016. Via safari. A Raw Story summary report is here.

Jason McGahan of the Daily Beast: "Ex-Stormy Daniels lawyer and Trump antagonist Michael Avenatti was led out of the State Bar Court in Los Angeles by federal agents on Tuesday evening. The arrest occurred outside the disciplinary hearing in which the State Bar of California has accused the hard-charging, tough-talking attorney of using a doctored document to scam a client out of nearly $840,000, funneling money from a lawsuit settlement fund to his own personal use. The State Bar of California, the official attorney licensing agency, has sought to put Avenatti on 'involuntary inactive status,' setting in motion a timeline for disbarment proceedings. During a break in testimony, members of the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, who are prosecuting Avenatti in a separate criminal matter in Orange County, parleyed with Avenatti's team of lawyers and took the lawyer into custody." (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Virginia. Tess Owen of Vice News: "In response to what he described as 'credible intelligence' of threats of violence at an upcoming gun rights rally in Richmond, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has declared a state of emergency and will temporarily ban individuals from carrying firearms on Capitol grounds. The governor said at a press conference Wednesday that authorities believe 'armed militia groups plan to storm the Capitol' during the January 20 rally." --s ~~~

~~~ Timothy Johnson of Media Matters: "Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars outlet have been hyping the prospect of violence in Virginia, particularly at an upcoming pro-gun rally, as the commonwealth considers passing stronger gun laws. Jones and his associates are also preemptively claiming that any violence that does occur at the rally, planned for January 20 outside the Virginia Capitol, will be a 'false flag,' a similar claim to what he's said about violence that occurred at the deadly 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Jones said that he and 'dozens of our people' will be at the January 20 rally, and he has invited white nationalist Richard Spencer to join him. One of Jones' other rally invitees, conspiracy theorist Matt Bracken, has made frequent appearances on Jones' outlet Infowars to espouse violent rhetoric while discussing Virginia's gun laws and has even showed people how to best equip their assault weapons for battle."

Way Beyond

Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia abruptly resigned on Wednesday, shortly after his political patron, President Vladimir V. Putin, sent the country's political elite into a swirl with proposals for sweeping constitutional changes that could extend his hold on power for many years. Mr. Medvedev's cabinet also resigned. In a statement issued by the Russian news agency Tass, Mr. Medvedev, a lawyer who has known Mr. Putin since they worked together in St. Petersburg in the 1990s, linked the unexpected resignations to an overhaul put forward earlier on Wednesday by Mr. Putin." A Politico story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

The Commentariat -- January 15, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Nicholas Fandos & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to send the Senate two articles of impeachment against President Trump, appointing seven Democrats to prosecute the case and initiating only the third presidential impeachment trial in American history.... Only one Democrat, Representative Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota, joined every Republican in voting 'no.'... The [impeachent] managers are scheduled to reconvene in the Capitol at 5 p.m. to finalize the articles with Ms. Pelosi in a formal 'engrossment ceremony' that will mark the beginning of an elaborate, and highly orchestrated, ritual. From there, accompanied by the House clerk and sergeant-at-arms, the managers will file from the House, through the old House chamber and the Capitol Rotunda to the Senate, where Democrats will present the articles to the secretary of the Senate. But the trial itself is not expected to start until Thursday, when the managers will most likely exhibit the articles inside the Senate chamber. Once they do so, the Senate will summon Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to preside and all senators will take an oath to administer 'impartial justice.' The Senate must promptly issue a summons to Mr. Trump informing him of the charges and requesting a response. Republican leaders have said the proceeding will not begin in earnest until next Tuesday, after the long holiday weekend."

Aaron Rupar of Vox has a good post on how the mainstream media in general, and in this case, NPR in particular, sanitize and normalize Trump's wild, incoherent rants. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Mrs. McC: During the first year-plus of his term, almost all major-media outlets labored to "interpret" Trump's rants by making some sense of what he was saying, which of course had the effect of normalizing his speeches and remarks. But I have noticed that, after maybe two years, reporters at some major outlets, including the NYT, finally started writing about Trump's "disjointed rambling" and "anger" and so forth even in straight news reports. Too little, too late.

Washington "Post Opinions invited the Democratic presidential candidates not on the stage in Des Moines on Tuesday to add their thoughts to a key exchange in the debate. Here are the responses from five of them."

Olivia Beavers & Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tapped seven impeachment managers on Tuesday.... Some members who the Speaker tapped were considered shoo-ins, including Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who both had leadership roles during the impeachment inquiry into Trump's contacts with Ukraine. Others picked for the high-profile role of managers include Democratic Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), Val Demings (Fla.), Sylvia Garcia (Texas), and Jason Crow (Colo.)." ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' liveblog on impeachment is here. The Washington Post's liveblog is here.

The Impartial Jury Foreman. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday ripped House Democrats and made the case for the upper chamber acquitting President Trump as he waits for the articles of impeachment to be transmitted. McConnell, speaking from the Senate floor, did not directly call for senators to vote to acquit Trump but argued that senators cannot follow the House's lead and agree that the president deserves to be impeached and ultimately removed from office. '... If the Senate blesses this unprecedented and dangerous House process by agreeing that an incomplete case and subjective basis are enough to impeach a president, we will almost guarantee the impeachment of every future president,' McConnell said."

Jonathan Chait: In "a series of messages between [Lev] Parnas, who met with Trump on several occasions and claims the president personally directed his mission in Ukraine, and Robert Hyde..., Hyde made several chilling remarks that seemed to indicate that he was surveilling Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and prepared to do something to her. Reading these messages makes clear Hyde was planning to do something unpleasant to Yovanovitch, apparently in tandem with some kind of security personnel he contacted, perhaps Russian ones[.]... Several months later, even after she had been removed from her post, President Trump appeared intent on doing some kind of harm to Yovanovitch. 'Well, she's going to go through some things,' he told Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in his July 25 phone call.... The Parnas-Hyde texts are evidence of how the whole scheme played out on the ground, which is basically as an episode of The Sopranos. And as the sordid evidence of the scheme continues to pour out, it remains the position of the Trump administration and nearly every elected Republican that Congress is not entitled to to any additional testimony or documents." Worth reading the thread of Hyde's messages. Chait also discusses the letter from Giuliani to Zelensky. ~~~

~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post highlights a letter from Rudy Giuliani to Volodymyr Zelensky that makes it fairly impossible for Trump to throw Giuliani under the bus, as Trump attempted to do in an interview with Bill O'Reilly. In the letter, which is reproduced with the post, Giuliani writes, "I am private counsel to President Donald J. Trump. Just to be precise, I represent him as a private citizen, not as President of the United States.... In my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent, I request a meeting with you...."

Katy O'Donnell of Politico: "The Department of Housing and Urban Development will allow Puerto Rico to access more than $8 billion in blocked disaster aid funding, ending a monthslong hold by the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter. Puerto Rico, which suffered devastating losses from Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, has received just $1.5 billion of the roughly $20 billion in congressionally authorized disaster funds that HUD is supposed to administer. The delay in receiving the additional funds had incensed both U.S. lawmakers and commonwealth officials.... Democrats had cranked up the pressure on the White House to release the money in the wake of the earthquakes, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California on Thursday calling on administration officials to 'cease and desist that illegal activity.'"

Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia abruptly resigned on Wednesday, shortly after his political patron, President Vladimir V. Putin, sent the country's political elite into a swirl with proposals for sweeping constitutional changes that could extend his hold on power for many years. Mr. Medvedev's cabinet also resigned. In a statement issued by the Russian news agency Tass, Mr. Medvedev, a lawyer who has known Mr. Putin since they worked together in St. Petersburg in the 1990s, linked the unexpected resignations to an overhaul put forward earlier on Wednesday by Mr. Putin." A Politico story is here.

Jason McGahan of the Daily Beast: "Ex-Stormy Daniels lawyer and Trump antagonist Michael Avenatti was led out of the State Bar Court in Los Angeles by federal agents on Tuesday evening. The arrest occurred outside the disciplinary hearing in which the State Bar of California has accused the hard-charging, tough-talking attorney of using a doctored document to scam a client out of nearly $840,000, funneling money from a lawsuit settlement fund to his own personal use. The State Bar of California, the official attorney licensing agency, has sought to put Avenatti on 'involuntary inactive status,' setting in motion a timeline for disbarment proceedings. During a break in testimony, members of the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, who are prosecuting Avenatti in a separate criminal matter in Orange County, parleyed with Avenatti's team of lawyers and took the lawyer into custody."

~~~~~~~~~~

Democratic Presidential Debate

Matt Viser, et al., of the Washington Post: "A whittled-down field of Democratic presidential candidates on Tuesday focused on their shared disdain for President Trump and elaborated on a host of policy differences domestic and foreign in an Iowa presidential debate whose most animated moment turned on whether a woman could become president." ~~~

~~~ Here's that "animated moment":

Daniel Strauss of the Guardian: "A post-debate confrontation between progressive senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders capped the final Democratic debate before the Iowa caucuses after an evening of infighting on foreign policy, healthcare, and what makes a candidate most fit to defeat Donald Trump. In a sign of the depth of the tension between Sanders and Warren, at the end of the debate, as candidates were shaking hands, the Massachusetts senator walked over to the Vermont senator. Sanders outstretched his hand; Warren did not. It was not immediately clear what the two said but after a few short, apparently stern words from both sides they shook their heads and walked in opposite directions." Here's that moment:

Eric Levitz of New York has a good "takeaways" rundown.

Ryan Lizza of Politico: "Democratic voters..., in polls and interviews have consistently been bewildered by the size of the field and turned off by petty fights between candidates that do little to clarify their differences. The CNN-Des Moines Register debate Tuesday night at Drake University did not feature the expected -- choose your favorite journalistic cliché -- no holds barred/gloves-are-off/there will be blood on the floor exchanges between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, or either of them and Joe Biden."

Two Things. Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: (1) Several teevee pundits noted that one reason Democrats may have gone easy on each other is that second-place matters a great deal in Iowa; if a caucus-goer's favorite candidate doesn't get 15% of the votes in that locality, she has to move to a candidate who met the 15% threshold. Therefore, it's a mistake for a candidate to alienate voters by slamming their favored candidate, as that could keep them from choosing you second. (2) Haven't seen this anywhere: I watched the debate to see who I thought could (a) beat Trump and (b) seem credibly "presidential." I thought Warren did the best job there, something I would not have said several months ago.

Here's the New York Times' real-time snark analysis. Here are the Washington Post's live updates.

Mrs. McCrabbie: Debate preceded by most embarrassing rendition of the national anthem since Roseanne's notorious performance in 1990.

Libby Watson of the New Republic: "Millions have watched as the media asks, on behalf of the American people, things that only people in the media think are important.... The same gestures towards your dad's idea of Sensible Policymaking that routinely oozes out of the Beltway thinkpiece class and onto the pages of our finest newspapers was once again seamlessly shunted onto cable television. If the unstated premise of every debate question is 'How can you assure us you will continue a sufficiently right-wing status quo,' it's hard to see how things will ever change.... If the Democratic Party thinks it is important for us to have 20 debates, for example, perhaps at least one or two could be hosted by a left-wing outlet not bent on assessing the relative conservatism of the liberal party's candidates." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Watson is right, but the Democratic National Committee -- which sets the rules for the debates -- is run by establishment Democrats, and they're going to favor candidates like Hillary Clinton, as they did in 2016, and Joe Biden, as they are doing now. Their big "reform" in this cycle was cutting Fox "News" from the debates, so Chris Wallace couldn't ask Joe any tough questions. The DNC likes what CNN is doing. Of course, if Bernie or Elizabeth became president/the establishment, that could shift slightly leftward. ~~~

~~~ Frank Rich (written before the debate): "I have not been an admirer of [Cory] Booker's easy-listening campaign, but it says everything you need to know about the DNC's debate criteria that he did not make it into this debate and that Tom Steyer did. So now Booker, a United States senator and former Newark mayor of actual substance and proven political chops, is out of the race altogether, and Steyer, a poseur with zero achievements and no known adherents, hobbles on, thanks to heavy self-spending on campaign ads that boosted his name recognition in two states' polls. It's a joke, and the public knows it. Another joke is the focus on the caucuses in Iowa, a 91 percent white state that, like the white and unrepresentative New Hampshire primary, is another glitch in the system by which the Democrats choose a national ticket." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I have thought for several years that Booker was a lightweight phony, and I suspect he chose to run, as Rich aptly puts it, an "easy-listening campaign" because that's what he calculated Iowa & New Hampshire voters wanted. He may have been right about that, but my guess is that the voters saw through the phony.

Alex Thompson & Holly Otterbein of Politico: "The controversial talking points attacking Elizabeth Warren that Bernie Sanders' campaign deployed were given to teams in at least two early voting states on Friday, three Sanders campaign officials confirmed. Volunteers and staffers used the script on Saturday while canvassing for votes, meaning the talking points were more official than what Sanders previously suggested after Politico reported on the language. The campaign pulled back the script -- which described Warren's appeal as limited to the highly educated and financially well off -- later on Saturday after the story published. Sanders initially appeared to blame the controversy on rogue employees. 'We have hundreds of employees.... And people sometimes say things that they shouldn't,' Sanders said Sunday in Iowa. His press aides never denied the veracity of the document."

Zack Budryk of the Hill: "A clip emerged Tuesday of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) saying in 1988 that he believed a woman could be elected president, just a day after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Sanders told her in 2018 that a woman couldn't win the presidency. 'The real issue is not whether you're black or white, whether you're a woman or a man. In my view, a woman could be elected president of the United States,' Sanders, at the time a high-profile supporter of Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential bid, said in the clip. 'The real issue is whose side are you on? Are you on the side of workers and poor people, or are you on the side of big money and the corporations?'"

More on the presidential race linked below.

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "The House will vote on Wednesday to send the Senate impeachment charges against President Trump, allowing a long-awaited trial to begin, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Democrats privately Tuesday, according to officials in the room.... In a closed-door gathering with Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday morning, Ms. Pelosi detailed her plan to move on Wednesday to appoint the team of lawmakers who will prosecute the case against Mr. Trump, known as the House managers in his impeachment trial. The officials who described her private remarks spoke on condition of anonymity. Unless things change, her timetable means that the House managers would ceremonially walk the articles of impeachment from the House chamber to the Senate well later in the day Wednesday, formally presenting them and prompting a trial to commence. The speaker said she was not yet ready to share the names of the lawmakers she would select as managers...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Cristina Marcos, et al., of the Hill: "But the resolution slated to hit the House floor on Wednesday is expected to name the impeachment managers." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Washington Post (@5:50 pm ET Tuesday): Speaker "Pelosi will hold a news conference Wednesday morning to announce the impeachment managers, her office said in a statement. The announcement, set for 10 a.m. in the Capitol Visitor Center, will precede a vote later Wednesday on the resolution that will trigger a Senate impeachment trial."

Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico provide an outline of how the impeachment trial will run.

Lev Saved a Lot of Stuff. Stefan Becket & Olivia Gazis of CBS News: "House Democrats released a trove of documents from an indicted businessman [Lev Parnas] who helped Rudy Giuliani in his campaign to pressure Ukraine, including previously undisclosed handwritten notes and a letter Giuliani addressed to the Ukrainian president-elect requesting a meeting shortly before his inauguration.... Chairman Adam Schiff sent the material to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler on two flash drives, writing in a letter that the Intelligence Committee 'continues to receive and review potentially relevant evidence" in its investigation into President Trump's dealings with Ukraine.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Among [the documents] were handwritten notes scrawled on a sheet of hotel paper at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Vienna that mention getting President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, and a May 2019 letter from [Rudy] Giuliani requesting a meeting with Mr. Zelensky in which he said Mr. Trump had 'knowledge and consent' of his actions.... The material built upon details undergirding the charges against Mr. Trump, and highlighted how much is still to be learned about the scope of a scheme that the impeachment charges call a blatant effort to solicit foreign help in the 2020 election.... 'There cannot be a full and fair trial in the Senate without the documents that President Trump is refusing to provide to Congress,' [senior House Democrats] said [in a statement]."

     ~~~ The Hill has the docs here. ~~~

~~~ Rudy's Guys Spied on U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch. Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "New documents released by House Democrats on Tuesday offered fresh detail on the shadow diplomacy campaign at the center of President Trump's impeachment, including text messages suggesting that the former United States ambassador to Ukraine was under surveillance while in Kyiv. In a series of cryptic text messages, Lev Parnas ... communicated with another man who appeared to be monitoring the movements of the ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch. The texts, exchanged in March on the WhatsApp messaging service, indicated that the other man, Robert F. Hyde, was in touch with people in Ukraine who were watching Ms. Yovanovitch." The story has been substantially updated. For instance, there's this: “In a brief interview conducted via text on Tuesday, Mr. Hyde, a Republican congressional candidate in Connecticut, denied that he had tracked Ms. Yovanovitch's movements in Kyiv, and called Representative Adam B. Schiff ... a 'commie.'" The AP's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: So it appears we know now why the State Department ordered Yovanovitch to "get on the next plane" out of Kiev on account of concern for her security: Trump's own mobsters were tailing her in a fashion worthy of a B movie and perhaps had plans to harm her. It would not surprise me at all to learn that U.S. agents in Kiev picked up on the surveillance of Yovanovitch: spies following spies following the ambassador. "The Trump Story" should be shot in film-noir black-and-white.

~~~ Justine Coleman of the Hill: "Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch called for an investigation Tuesday into 'what happened' after newly released evidence suggested that her movements were being monitored. Yovanovitch requested the investigation through her lawyer Lawrence Robbins, who issued a statement on her behalf." ~~~

~~~ David Corn of Mother Jones offers a brief introduction to the new guy in Trump's gang of shady characters: Robert Hyde. "... a 2019 police report ... suggests that Hyde might have been a peculiar choice for Parnas to work with on his Giuliani-led Ukrainian op. The report notes that Hyde had a disturbing episode at a Trump resort for which he had to be taken into custody by police and brought to a medical facility under a state law that allows for involuntary confinement of people who might pose a risk to themselves." Mrs. McC: You have to check police blotters & law enforcement investigation records to get to know the guys in the Trump mob.

Brian Faler & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden in Washington Tuesday ... has put House Democrats' suit for Donald Trump's tax returns on hold ... until there's a decision in a dispute over whether former White House Counsel Don McGahn must testify before Congress.... In the McGahn case, a three-judge panel heard oral arguments earlier this month, and a ruling is possible by the end of this month.... Whoever loses the case before the three-judge panel is likely to appeal that decision, first to the entire D.C. Circuit panel of judges and ultimately to the Supreme Court."

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Former national security adviser Michael Flynn asked a federal judge Tuesday evening for permission to withdraw his plea of guilty to lying to the FBI in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's probe of Russian election interference, alleging that prosecutor breached his cooperation agreement by demanding his false testimony. The stunning reversal -- more than two years after Flynn pleaded guilty Dec. 1, 2017, and just two weeks before he faces sentencing -- threatens to sidetrack if not derail the prosecution of the highest-ranking Trump official charged and one of the first to cooperate with Mueller's office. Any change in plea must be approved by a judge." The Hill's report is here.

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "As many as 10 Republican senators are considering bucking President Trump on a resolution that would limit his ability to take military action against Iran. The increasing number is the latest sign of growing GOP frustration over the Trump administration's justification for the drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is circulating a bipartisan resolution that would direct Trump to remove U.S. forces from any hostilities against Iran within 30 days of its enactment.... It needs only a simple majority to pass." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The Senate is poised to formally counter President Trump's ability to initiate further military action against Iran, as four Republicans now say they will vote with Democrats to pass a resolution invoking Congress' war powers. 'Congress cannot be sidelined on these important decisions,' said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who on Tuesday declared her support for the measure, joining Sens. Todd C. Young (R-Ind.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and all 47 Democrats. A vote could come as soon as next week."

Ivana Kottasová, et al., of CNN: "Several people have been arrested in Iran over the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned that those responsible would be punished. Gholamhossein Esmaili, the spokesman for Iran's judiciary, was quoted by the semi-official FARS news agency Tuesday as saying that an into the crash had started and several arrests had been made. He did not provide details on how many people had been arrested or what their roles in the incident may have been." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Malachy Browne, et al., of the New York Times: "The New York Times has verified security camera footage on Tuesday that shows, for the first time, that two missiles hit Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 on Jan. 8. The missiles were launched from an Iranian military site around eight miles from the plane. The new video fills a gap about why the plane's transponder stopped working, seconds before it was hit by a second missile.An earlier Times analysis confirmed what Iran later admitted: that an Iranian missile did strike the plane. The Times also established that the transponder stopped working before that missile hit the plane. The new video appears to confirm that an initial strike disabled the transponder, before the second strike, also seen in the video, around 23 seconds later." ~~~

Erin Banco & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "... Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) ... and Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) ... [are] calling on financial regulatory agencies to investigate whether associates and attendees at ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago illegally traded in defense company stocks or commodities after he gave them a heads up that he was planning something 'big' in response to Iran's killing of an American contractor in Iraq. The Daily Beast previously reported that Trump told allies at his Palm Beach club that he had something 'big' in the works to address Iran's aggressive behavior in the region and that they would read about it 'soon.' The president specifically mentioned to some of his associates at Mar-a-Lago that he'd been in contact with his senior national security and military advisors on possible plans to hit back, two sources told The Daily Beast. He did not mention specific plans of attack or human targets for a military response, the sources noted."

The Daily Beast publishes an "adapted excerpt" of a book by Joe Palazzolo & Michael Rothfeld that describes how Michael Cohen, David Pecker, & others shut up Stormy Daniels in the days before the 2016 election. There was something of a bidding war for her story.

** Kevin Sieff of the Washington Post: "For the first time ever, the United States is shipping asylum seekers who arrive at its border to a 'safe third country' to seek refuge there. The Trump administration hopes the program will serve as a model for others in the region. But during its first weeks, asylum seekers and human rights advocates say, migrants have been put on planes without being told where they were headed, and left here without being given basic instruction about what to do next. When the migrants land in Guatemala City, they receive little information about what it means to apply for asylum in one of the hemisphere's poorest countries. Those who don't immediately apply are told that they must leave the country in 72 hours. The form is labeled 'Voluntary Return.'... Human rights organizations in Guatemala say they have recorded dozens of cases of asylum seekers who were misled by U.S. officials into boarding flights, and who were not informed of their asylum rights upon arrival.... An an Asylum Cooperation Agreement [that the U.S. forced on Guatemala] is bringing migrants to a country that is unable to provide economic and physical security for its own citizens -- many of whom are themselves trying to migrate." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I know it's wrong to make Holocaust analogies, but it's tempting. It's also wrong to want to pummel Trump, Stephen Miller, et al., but this makes me furious.

Alex Johnson & Laura Strickler of NBC News: "Carla Provost, one of the longer-serving members of ... Donald Trump's administration, is stepping down as chief of U.S. Border Patrol, a spokesperson for the agency said Tuesday. There was no immediate indication who will replace Provost, a 25-year veteran who is the first woman to lead the agency, officials said.... Border Patrol chief becomes one of at least 14 top Homeland Security positions that remain vacant or are occupied by acting officials, beginning at the top with Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of homeland security."

Paul Sonne, et al., of the Washington Post: "Lawmakers from both parties criticized White House plans to take an additional $7.2 billion this year from Pentagon funds to pay for President Trump's border wall project, as more congressionally approved renovation and construction plans for U.S. military installations risked losing their funding.... Senior Republicans grumbled about the plan but mostly put the blame on Democrats, who agreed to provide $1.4 billion in border barrier funding this year -- far less than the $5 billion Trump requested." A related Hill story is here. A Politico story is here.

David Lynch of the Washington Post: "On Wednesday, Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He are scheduled to sign a partial trade deal, calling a truce in a conflict that has shaken the global economy. Yet ... many of the trade war's casualties have been left on the battlefield. Even as the White House celebrates the president's negotiating accomplishment, the 'phase one' deal offers little relief for countless American businesses -- including chemical makers, apparel retailers and auto parts manufacturers -- that will still face the same punishing tariffs they have confronted for some time." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Lynch writes, "Wednesday's White House ceremony will mark a political triumph for the president as he prepares for a reelection fight." Really? That's only if the media make it out to be a "triumph." From what little I've read about the deal, it's about as impressive as Infrastructure Week. Let's hope the nightly news leads with shots of Pelosi's walking the Articles of Impeachment across the hall to Mitch -- or with whatever new catastrophe Trump launches tomorrow. ~~~

~~~ Welfare for White People. Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "There is ... at least one place where Trump's welfare chauvinism has taken hold -- his multibillion-dollar payments to farmers harmed by the president's trade war with China. In the context of his larger attack on the social safety net, those payments, a direct subsidy to a narrow group of favored Americans, are the closest thing to the kind of help Trump promised during the campaign.... The vast majority of payments have gone to white farmers, with large landowners the greatest beneficiaries. It's true that most American farmers are white. But disparities exist nonetheless. In Mississippi, for example, 14 percent of farms are run by black operators, but those farmers have received 1.4 percent of the aid that has been distributed in the state."

Eric Geller of Politico: "Apple on Tuesday rejected the Justice Department's claim that it has refused to help investigators unlock two iPhones that belonged to the shooter in the Pensacola, Fla., naval base attack. The iPhone maker said that Attorney General William Barr was wrong to claim Monday that the company 'has not given us any substantive assistance' in accessing phones associated with the December shooting. 'We reject the characterization that Apple has not provided substantive assistance in the Pensacola investigation,' Apple said in a statement to Politico. 'Our responses to their many requests since the attack have been timely, thorough and are ongoing.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Alex Henderson of AlterNet, republished in the Raw Story: "... this week, things turned ugly after [U.S. Rep. Matt] Gaetz [R-Fla.] attacked [Florida] Republican State Rep. Chris Latvala for tweeting a photo of him meeting with the Rev. Al Sharpton.... Latvala (the 38-year-old son of former Florida State Sen. Jack Latvala, now 68) responded by accusing Gaetz of inventing a sleazy game for Florida legislators that included a sexual scoring system. In 2013, Politico's Marc Caputo reported that according to the rules of the alleged game, legislators received one point for sleeping with a lobbyist, two points for sleeping with legislative staff, three points for sleeping with another legislator and six points for sleeping with a married legislator." The TwitterSpat went on from there.

More on the Presidential Race

Tucker Higgins & Annie Nova of CNBC: "... Democratic presidential contender Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Tuesday that she would begin to forgive student loan debt on the first day of her administration, using legal tools that would allow her to bypass Congress. The announcement, which comes just weeks before voting begins in the first primary and caucus states, adds urgency to legislation she introduced over the summer to cancel the bulk of the nation's outstanding student loan debt. That bill, introduced with Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., would forgive up to $50,000 in student debt for individuals with household incomes under $100,000. But Warren wrote in her plan on Tuesday that the U.S. Education Department already has authority to cancel student debt, 'and we can't afford to wait for Congress to act.'"

Mrs. McCrabbie: Here is, what?, the 20th article I've seen and not linked about how regrettable it is that presidential candidates of color keep dropping out of the race and/or there will be no candidates of color on tonight's debate stage. Yeah, that is regrettable, but it is black voters who have flocked to Joe Biden and are keeping him on top of the heap. He's their choice, fine, but let's not complain about "the lack of diversity" among the top candidates when the largest group of "diversity" voters is voting for any white guy.

Jack Nicas & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Apple is privately preparing for a legal fight with the Justice Department to defend encryption on its iPhones while publicly trying to defuse the dispute, as the technology giant navigates an increasingly tricky line between its customers and the Trump administration. Timothy D. Cook, Apple's chief executive, has marshaled a handful of top advisers, while Attorney General William P. Barr has taken aim at the company and asked it to help penetrate two phones used by a gunman in a deadly shooting last month at a naval air station in Pensacola, Fla."

Bridgegate Redux. Ryan Hutchins of Politico: "Most of the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court expressed skepticism Tuesday about the federal government's case in the infamous 'Bridgegate' scandal, several of them peppering a Justice Department lawyer with questions as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie watched from the front row. A number of the justices, weighing some dense legal issues that surround the convictions of two former Christie allies, seemed to find merit in the defendants' arguments that they did not defraud the government of its 'property' by closing off two local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge.... Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan all asked numerous, sharp-edged questions about those arguments, while Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Ruth Bader Ginsburg each asked at least one tough question of the government."

Contributor Jeanne points to this post by Driftglass on Rick Wilson's analysis (and book!) on when the GOP went wrong (spoiler: 2010). Mrs. McC: What I didn't know about Wilson is that he made those despicable ads about Max Cleland & Jeremiah Wright. The Cleland ad, in particular, is unforgivable. (Also linked yesterday.)

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Lachlan Cartwright of the Daily Beast: "In a long-simmering rift between factions of the Murdoch family over climate change, Rupert's younger son, James, and his activist wife, Kathryn, are attacking the climate denialism promoted by News Corporation, the global media group, and also by the Fox News Channel overseen by James' older brother, Lachlan. 'Kathryn and James' views on climate are well established and their frustration with some of the News Corp and Fox coverage of the topic is also well known,' a spokesperson for the couple exclusively told The Daily Beast as wildfires rage in Australia. 'They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Maryland. Alex Pareene of the New Republic on Gov. Larry Hogan, "the most popular crook in America.": "Larry Hogan is a Republican governor of a solidly Democratic state. He is also, according to one survey, the single most popular governor in the country. In a state where only 37 percent of likely voters approve of Donald Trump, 73 percent of Democrats approve of Hogan.... Hogan, who ostensibly left his brother in charge of his real estate brokerage firm when he was elected, has, in fact, maintained ownership and control while serving as governor; the trustees he handpicked to run his company have continued to keep him apprised of its business dealings. And as governor, he has advanced highway and road construction projects that directly boosted the value of land owned by his company. Those efforts have proved extraordinarily lucrative: During his first three years in office, Hogan reported $2.4 million in income, more than four times his salary. No other governor in the history of the state has made as much.... Hogan ... is exactly the 'normal' to which politicians like Joe Biden promise to return us when they try to speak into existence a Republican Party that they can 'work with.' Here he is: a self-dealing crook whose racist policymaking will speed the destructive effects of climate change...."

Wisconsin. Scott Bauer of the AP: "A Wisconsin appeals court on Tuesday put on hold an order to immediately remove up to 209,000 names from the state's voter registration rolls, handing Democrats who had fought the move a victory in the battleground state. The appeals court sided with the bipartisan state elections commission in putting the brakes on removing any voters while the court fight continues. It also put on hold a ruling from Monday in which a judge found the commission and its three Democratic members in contempt for not proceeding with removing the voters. The orders effectively hit the pause button on the fast-moving case and means there will be no immediate change to the state's voter registration rolls.... A judge last month sided with conservatives and ordered the removal of the voters. When the bipartisan elections commission deadlocked on proceeding with the purge, the judge on Monday found it and its three Democratic commissioners in contempt, and again ordered the voters'; names removed."

Way Beyond

Russia. Vladimir Isachenkov of the AP: "President Vladimir Putin proposed Wednesday to tweak the Russian Constitution to increase the powers of parliament and the Cabinet -- a move that could herald his intention to shift into a new position to stay at the helm after his current term expires. Speaking in his state of the nation address before top officials and lawmakers, Putin suggested amending the constitution to allow lawmakers to name prime ministers and Cabinet members. The right currently belongs to the president. 'It will increase the role of parliament and parliamentary parties, powers and independence of the prime minister and all Cabinet members,' Putin said. At the same time, Putin argued that the president should retain the right to dismiss the prime minister and Cabinet ministers. He said that the president also should have the power to name top defense and security officials. Putin emphasized that constitutional changes must be put to a nationwide vote. Putin's current term expires in 2024...."