The testimony Tuesday of Bill Taylor, the US charge d’affaires to Ukraine, has rocked the political establishment. Taylor told the House he encountered an “irregular” channel on Ukraine, guided by Rudy Giuliani, that produced “a weird combination of encouraging, confusing, and ultimately alarming circumstances.” Taylor is the guy in those text messages who described the administration’s handling of Ukraine’s request … Read More
(Mock) Indictment of Fruity-G
This comes from former prosecutors at Just Security. If this were an actual indictment, many of the names would be replaced with generic identifiers, such as Candidate-1 or Company-A. The Justice Department requires this practice to protect the reputations of individuals and entities that are not charged with any crimes. A jury is told the identities of these individuals and … Read More
Signs Of Desperation From Trump And His Supporters
The New York Times editorial board correctly asserts that the “storming of the SCIF” by Freedom Caucus members yesterday was done only because Trump-supporting Republicans are getting drowned in bad testimony, so they attack the process (an old defense lawyer trick): The entire spectacle was a circus — which was the point. This was a publicity stunt aimed at delegitimizing the … Read More
Podhoretz: Trump Will Be Impeached
Jesus. If you told me ten years ago that I would be quoting at length, with approval, a Podhoretz column, I would never stop laughing. But here we are. And his view is largely becoming the consensus view in the Capital, even by Republicans (which Podhoretz is). Trump’s defenders are dwindling, especially in the Senate. And he knows it. And … Read More
Breaking: Gaetz And Other Republicans Perform Desperate Stunt [And Other Impeachment news]
About two dozen House Republicans, chanting “Let us in! Let us in!” tried to storm the secure room where a Defense Department official arrived this morning to testify in the impeachment inquiry, refusing to leave even after they were turned back by Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that was leading … Read More
Today In Impeachmentland
Today, William B. Taylor Jr., the United States ambassador to Ukraine, becomes the latest Trump administration official to make his way to Capitol Hill to offer his account to impeachment investigators as they search for answers about Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine. Taylor is expected to be questioned about a series of text messages from September revealed by a former colleague, Kurt … Read More
Mulvaney Says It Out Loud
Yesterday marked the day when even Donald Trump’s own people placed him squarely at the center of the impeachment inquiry into his efforts to extort Ukraine for personal political gain. White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney made a stunning admission of a quid pro quo by confirming that President Donald Trump froze nearly $400 million in U.S. security aid to Ukraine in part … Read More
The July 25 Phone Call Was Act Two
Today, The Washington Post reported that it wasn’t just Rudy Giuliani and his merry band of international criminals who were running U.S. policy in Ukraine. Instead, that role was also shared by Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Special Envoy Kurt Volker, and—as earlier head-scratching statements had suggested—Energy Secretary Rick Perry. And all of them were apparently assigned their roles not via direct contact … Read More
The Case Against Rudy And How Citizens United Got Us Here
Since the NYT revealed that SDNY is investigating Rudy Giuliani for what they call “lobbying” laws, Mr. Lutsenko initially asked Mr. Giuliani to represent him, according to the former mayor, who said he declined because it would have posed a conflict with his work for the president. Instead, Mr. Giuliani said, he interviewed Mr. Lutsenko for hours, then had one of his … Read More
Hill Testifies; Rudy In Deeper Trouble (And Other Impeachment Updates)
The White House did not try to block Fiona Hill from testifying yesterday, it did tell Hill’s lawyers about four areas that could potentially fall under executive privilege. Those areas involved direct communications with the president, diplomatic communications, meetings with other heads of state and staffing the president had on calls with foreign heads of state. Hill’s lawyers wrote back … Read More
Fiona Hill Testifies Today
Fiona Hill, the White House’s former top adviser on Russia, arrived on Capitol Hill this morning to testify in the ongoing impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s criminal enterprise currently operating out of the Oval Office. It is being reported that Hill’s testimony “has caused concern among those close to Trump because she played a central role in the administration’s Russian and Ukrainian policy.” … Read More
The President’s Joint Defense Agreement With The Russian Mob
Marcy Wheeler wrote all of this: If we survive Trump and there are still things called museums around that display artifacts that present things called facts about historic events, I suspect John Dowd’s October 3 letter to the House Intelligence Committee will be displayed there, in all its Comic Sans glory. In it, Dowd memorializes a conversation he had with HPSCI Investigation … Read More
Impeachment Inquiry Updates:
Things are moving very quickly. Nobody is talking about this, but this story caught my eye: Attorney General William Barr reportedly met with media mogul Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday night, The New York Times reports. The Trump official and the Fox News owner reportedly met at Murdoch’s home in New York. It’s unclear what they discussed, or if anyone else attended the … Read More
Vienna Waits For You
This started as a simple string, A whistleblower and a phone call. Now it’s… well, tangled. Not the phone call part. Or the impeachment inquiry. But the Rudy angle. Where to begin? So yesterday, the two Florida clowns, Giuliani associates Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, who were arrested at the airport before they could flee. They had lunch with Giuliani at the … Read More
Yup. Sure Looks Like Trump’s Entire Ukraine ‘Anti-corruption’ Team Was Corrupt—And Funded By An Unnamed Russian Source
It was already clear that the whole scheme that Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani had cooked up in Ukraine was to extort an entire nation and grossly distort U.S. foreign policy merely for the purpose of smearing Joe Biden. But a series of arrests and grand jury indictments on Thursday drove home the point that Giuliani wasn’t alone in his shuttle-shakedown between … Read More