“The Trump administration has said it does not consider the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 to be a genocide, contradicting a unanimous vote by the U.S. Senate,” the BBC reports.
Archives for 2019
Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 192
November Surprises
Trial Balloon · Ep. 192: November Surprises
Trump Invokes Kavanaugh to Fight Impeachment
Politico: “At the heart of the strategy from the Trump campaign and the GOP is a belief that the more Trump and his allies embrace impeachment — framing it as the inevitable outcome of a system run by partisan elites — the more voters beyond the president’s base are likely to gravitate toward that message.”
“They compare the current moment to last year’s scorched-earth fight to appoint Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.”
Paul Manafort Hospitalized
Paul Manafort has been hospitalized for a “cardiac event” while serving his over seven year sentence for charges related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, ABC News reports.
“Manafort was scheduled for a court appearance on Wednesday but his attorney was informed that he would not be appearing.”
John Roberts Could Allow Witnesses at Senate Trial
CNN: “Under the plain terms of the U.S. Constitution and Senate rules, Roberts could wield a powerful gavel and rule on evidence and witnesses. Senate impeachment canon, dating to 1986, says the presiding officer ‘may rule on all questions of evidence.’ The chief justice’s decision would stand unless overruled by a formal majority vote of the full Senate.”
“Roberts could, if he were so inclined, assume an outsized role in Trump’s fate.”
“But that would be a break from precedent and contradict Roberts’ own reserved manner. His predecessor in the role, Chief Justice William Rehnquist who oversaw the 1999 Bill Clinton impeachment trial, refused to assert great authority, saying in one episode he would claim authority only when ‘its exercise were clearly warranted.'”
Schiff Renews Demand to Declassify Testimony
House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff has renewed his request for Vice President Mike Pence to declassify additional testimony from aide Jennifer Williams, saying it is “directly relevant to Congress’s consideration of articles of impeachment against President Trump,” The Hill reports.
Schiff argued the trstimony “raises profound questions” about what Pence knew of Trump’s efforts to push Ukraine to open investigations into the Bidens.
Giuliani Says Trump Still Supports His Dirt Digging
Rudy Giuliani told CNN that President Trump has been “very supportive” of his continued efforts to dig up dirt on Democrats in Ukraine, including his most recent trip to the Eastern European country.
Said Giuliani: “We’re on the same page.”
Rick Gates Sentenced to 45 Days In Prison
Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates was sentenced to 45 days in prison — to be served on weekends — on Tuesday in a Washington, D.C. federal court, Axios reports.
He also received three years of probation and a $20,000 fine.
Quote of the Day
“It’s not that I don’t have any point of view, it’s just that I’m not willing to share that point of view till I’ve had the chance to talk to others and get their perspectives.”
— Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), when asked by CNN if he wants witnesses at a Senate impeachment trial.
‘A Dire Threat to the Rule of Law’
William Webster: “The privilege of being the only American in our history to serve as the director of both the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. gives me a unique perspective and a responsibility to speak out about a dire threat to the rule of law in the country I love. Order protects liberty, and liberty protects order. Today, the integrity of the institutions that protect our civil order is, tragically, under assault from too many people whose job it should be to protect them.”
“The rule of law is the bedrock of American democracy, the principle that protects every American from the abuse of monarchs, despots and tyrants. Every American should demand that our leaders put the rule of law above politics.”
Russian Network Spread Smear of Ambassador to Ukraine
Washington Post: “The story that appeared on The Hill website on March 20 was startling. Marie Yovanovitch, the American ambassador to Ukraine, had given a ‘list of people whom we should not prosecute’ to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, according to a write-up of an interview Lutsenko gave to the conservative columnist John Solomon.”
“Five days later, an image of that purported list appeared in a post on the website Medium and on a number of other self-publishing platforms in locations as disparate as Germany, South Africa and San Francisco. In less than a week, the Medium essay had been translated into Spanish and German and posted to other websites.”
“Now, a social media analysis firm, Graphika, has traced those posts to a Russian disinformation campaign — in the first evidence that a network of accounts involved in spreading disinformation before the 2016 election also participated in circulating the false claims about Yovanovitch that led earlier this year to her recall from the U.S. embassy in Kyiv.”
McConnell Rejects Schumer Effort to Call Witnesses
In his fiery speech, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected Sen. Chuck Schumer’s efforts to tie a resolution on impeachment trial procedures to an effort to call several current and former White House officials to testify, ABC News reports.
Said McConnell: “Those who have been eagerly hoping for impeachment are starting to scramble.”
Person of the Decade (and Not In a Good Way)
Walter Shapiro: “If there was a moment that defined the decade, it was a Capitol Hill meeting in early September 2016 when top Obama administration officials (including Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and FBI director James Comey) briefed congressional leaders on the Russian hacking of the election.”
“But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in particular, challenged the intelligence findings and refused to sign a joint letter singling out Vladimir Putin…”
“In many ways, McConnell is the Person of the Decade when it comes to the destruction of democratic norms. From cynically depriving Merrick Garland of a confirmation vote for a seat on the Supreme Court to turning the Senate into a no-dissent rubber stamp for a Republican president, McConnell symbolizes the vicious partisanship of a dismal decade.”
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House to Vote on Spending Bill This Afternoon
The House of Representatives is expected to vote this afternoon on a government spending deal, although President Trump has not said he would actually sign the bill.
Brendan Buck, a former aide to former Speaker Paul Ryan tweets: “I really love how because DJT said he won’t sign another omnibus, Congress is just cutting the omnibus into two bills, sending them to him at the same time, and hoping he won’t notice or care that it’s still just actually one big omnibus.”
Were Christopher Steele and Ivanka Trump a Thing?
Greg Olear looks at the evidence.
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Conservatives Form Super PAC to Take On Trump
“A small group of President Trump’s fiercest conservative critics, including the husband of the president’s own chief adviser, is launching a super PAC designed to fight Trump’s reelection and punish congressional Republicans deemed his ‘enablers,'” CNBC reports.
“The new organization, known as the Lincoln Project, represents a formal step forward for the so-called Never Trump movement, which has been limited largely to social media commentary and cable news attacks through the first three years of Trump’s presidency. Organizers report fundraising commitments exceeding $1 million to begin, although they hope to raise and spend much more to fund a months-long advertising campaign in a handful of 2020 battleground states to persuade disaffected Republican voters to break from Trump’s GOP.”
Mormon Church Stockpiled $100 Billion
The Mormon Church amassed $100 billion in tax-free funds “intended for charitable purposes,” a whistleblower claimed in a report to the Internal Revenue Service obtained by the Washington Post.
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Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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