Unfit for Office
George Conway: “You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, and you don’t need to be a mental-health professional to see that something’s very seriously off with Trump—particularly after nearly three years of watching his erratic and abnormal behavior in the White House. Questions about Trump’s psychological stability have mounted throughout his presidency. But those questions have been coming even more frequently amid a recent escalation in Trump’s bizarre behavior, as the pressures of his upcoming reelection campaign, a possibly deteriorating economy, and now a full-blown impeachment inquiry have mounted. And the questioners have included those who have worked most closely with him.”
“No president in recent memory—and likely no president ever—has prompted more discussion about his mental stability and connection with reality.”
“The president isn’t simply volatile and erratic, however—he’s also incapable of consistently telling the truth. Those who work closely with him, and who aren’t in denial, must deal with Trump’s lying about serious matters virtually every day.”
Book Alleging Biden Corruption Lifted Passages
“A book that has fueled corruption allegations at the center of an unfolding impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump appears to have lifted portions of text from news articles and Wikipedia pages without proper citation or attribution,” the Daily Beast reports.
“The Daily Beast found more than a dozen instances in which Secret Empires, the bestselling book by investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, copied complete sentences or sizable portions of them verbatim or near-verbatim from other sources.”
More Americans Support Impeachment
Americans by a 45% to 38% plurality now support a vote by the House of Representatives to impeach President Trump, a USA Today/Ipsos Poll finds, as allegations continue to swirl around an embattled White House.
By a similar margin, 44% to 35%, those surveyed say the Senate, which would then be charged with holding a trial of the president, should convict Trump and remove him from office.
Trump’s Impeachment Defiance Spooks Key Voters
“President Trump was in trouble with women voters long before House Democrats launched a formal impeachment inquiry against him last week. Since then, his standing has grown only worse,” Politico reports.
“Nearly a half-dozen polls conducted since last Tuesday, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi directed her colleagues to proceed with pursuing Trump for potentially impeachable offenses, have shown women voters rallying behind her decision, exacerbating concerns among White House allies that white women who helped carry Trump to victory in 2016 can no longer be counted on next November.”
“The development comes as independent voters and college-educated whites — two more demographic groups that could make or break Trump’s reelection bid — have shown signs of softening their resistance to impeachment.”
Biden Builds a Super Tuesday Firewall
“Joe Biden’s campaign is ramping up its investment in the Super Tuesday states, anticipating a Democratic race that narrows to two candidates by early March,” Politico reports.
“The increase in staffing across the 14 states that will vote March 3 comes as Biden’s polling numbers have declined and Elizabeth Warren’s have surged, particularly in states like Iowa and New Hampshire where she’s heavily invested in field organization.”
“The former vice president’s campaign is still counting on strong finishes in the four early nominating states. But in the event of weaker-than-expected performances, a built-out Super Tuesday organization would provide a fail-safe for Biden.”
Tracking Views on Impeachment
FiveThirtyEight is tracking the impeachment polls: 46.7% of Americans currently support impeachment, while 45.1% oppose it.
Biden Vows to Fight Trump’s Attacks
Hours after President Trump described him as “stone-cold crooked,” Joe Biden vowed on Wednesday the Republican president is “not going to destroy me,” Reuters reports.
Said Biden: “I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going to destroy me. And you’re not going to destroy my family. I don’t care how much money you spend or how dirty the attacks get.”
He added: “He’s afraid of just how badly I would beat him next November.”
A One Man War Room
New York Times: “Mr. Trump has long believed that he is the best communicator in the White House, but as the presidential campaign picks up its pace and the prospect of his impeachment becomes more real, he seems to be its only empowered communicator, a one-man war room responding to developments almost hour by hour. And that is making many Republicans anxious.”
“For now, the White House has no organized response to impeachment, little guidance for surrogates to spread a consistent message even if it had developed one, and minimal coordination between the president’s legal advisers and his political ones. And West Wing aides are divided on everything from who is in charge to whether, after two years of the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, impeachment even poses a serious political threat to the president.”
Giuliani Consulted Manafort on Ukraine
Washington Post: “In his quest to rewrite the history of the 2016 election, President Trump’s personal attorney has turned to an unusual source of information: Trump’s imprisoned former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.”
“Rudy Giuliani in recent months has consulted several times with Manafort through the federal prisoner’s lawyer in pursuit of information that would bolster his theory that the real story of 2016 is not Russian interference to elect Trump, but Ukrainian efforts to support Hillary Clinton.”
Odd Markings Fuel Doubts About ‘Rough Transcript’
Washington Post: “Current and former U.S. officials studying the document pointed to several elements that, they say, indicate that the document may have been handled in an unusual way.”
“Those include the use of ellipses — punctuation indicating that information has been deleted for clarity or other reasons — that traditionally have not appeared in summaries of presidential calls with foreign leaders.”
“In two of the cases when ellipses were used, they accompanied Trump’s reference to cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which is at the center of a conservative conspiracy theory about a computer server central to the company’s investigation of the Russian hack of Democratic Party computers that, according to those pushing the theory, is hidden away in Ukraine.”
“The use of ellipses in this passage fueled questions about what may have been removed and why.”
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Ex-National Enquirer Editor Tries to Kill Farrow’s Book
“Former top National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard is using high-powered law firms that practice in Britain, Ireland, Australia, and the United States in an attempt to quash Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow’s much-anticipated exposé Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators,” the Daily Beast reports.
Impeachment Bombshell That Wasn’t
New York Times: “Some Democrats prepared for an explosive revelation that might show top administration officials had tried to obstruct their work. Speaker Nancy Pelosi told lawmakers on a caucus conference call that news reports were confirming that the heart of the briefing was about the White House retaliating against State Department staff who complied with the investigation. Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called Mr. Linick’s request ‘significant’ and told lawmakers to ‘stay tuned.'”
“So what congressional aides received — a roughly 40-page packet of documents sheathed in a manila envelope decorated with cursive script and manipulated to look aged, with a return address portraying that it had come from the White House — may have been a bit of a letdown.”
Republicans Fear What Comes Next
“What you most hear from congressional Republicans on impeachment this week is the sound of silence,” CNN reports.
“GOP sources say they have a good reason for that fear. They have no idea what else House Democrats’ investigation will uncover or what comes next.”
“Along with that fear is frustration with President Trump: his ranting in performances full of false claims, like Wednesday in the Oval Office and White House East Room, and stream of consciousness rapid-fire tweets — curse words and all — are not exactly an anti-impeachment road map for his fellow Republicans.”
Trump Involved Pence In Pressuring Ukraine
“President Trump repeatedly involved Vice President Pence in efforts to exert pressure on the leader of Ukraine at a time when the president was using other channels to solicit information that he hoped would be damaging to a Democratic rival,” the Washington Post reports.
“Officials close to Pence insist that he was unaware of Trump’s efforts to press Zelensky for damaging information about Biden and his son.”
Plans to Expand Trump’s Scottish Resort Rejected
The Scotsman: “The Trump Organization’s plans for a major expansion of its flagship Scottish resort by building swaths of housing and luxury villas have been thwarted, further jeopardising efforts by the US president’s company to stem multimillion pound losses at its most prestigious overseas property.”
U.S. Plans to Collect DNA from Detained Immigrants
“The Trump administration is moving to begin collecting DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of people booked into federal immigration custody each year for entry into a national criminal database, an immense expansion of the use of technology to enforce the nation’s immigration laws,” the New York Times reports.
