TWGB: Impeaching Trump By Accident?

 

We are not at a serious point in this Biden impeachment inquiry--that much is sure. In the spirit of Jim Jordan, who has unseriously referenced random unrelated things like the 1/6 pipe bomb, the bag of coke in the White House, and the leaked Dobbs opinion, to do what other than pretend the Biden Administration is awash in scandal, I don't know, let me get my inappropriate rhetoric on:

You know how we have all these options in the "dairy" section of the supermarket these days? Vegan and lactose-free vegetable-and-nut based milk substitutes showing up on our shelves to give options to people who either can't or prefer not to drink animal milk? Anyway, I see these varieties and am pretty happy that people have choices to fulfil their own unique dietary requirements and tastes. Almond and oat milk both taste pretty good to me. But I see some people complain: How can you milk a soybean? How can you milk a cashew? 

Well, I don't know about that. What I do know is that in this impeachment inquiry, the House Republicans don't have beans and they don't have nuts, so I don't know where they think the milk is coming from, but the cow done died ages ago. 

And that is why in the image above, Rep. Raskin is smiling and Comer looks like his life is flashing before his eyes. 

Guiliani and the TrumpWorld Rabbit Hole

 

You know, the Mother Jones piece on Giuliani being the subject of a whistleblower investigation regarding whether he either knowingly or unwittingly became a laundromat for Russian disinformation against Joe Biden really takes me back to exactly when any rational person would have thought this was happening in 2019, when the first impeachment was going on. If you think about TrumpWorld a lot, and I do, you really only find yourself going "Dmitry Firtash or Pavel Fuchs?" 

See, the difference between a Trump fan rabbit hole and a Trump scholar rabbit hole is knowing where the rabbits actually are, having seen the rabbits. The Trump fan rabbit hole is where one just keeps digging. To be a little less circumspect in the discourse, Lev Parnas remembers, and he would know: Giuliani would listen to anyone who would say something bad about Biden, even if it was false. We've known for years now that Giuliani was trying to dig up/create a false impression for Trump's 2020 re-election. He didn't care who it came from.

You know, just like the 2016 Trump campaign didn't care where Wikileaks got their DNC hack stuff from. All fun and games until it becomes a national security issue:

TWGB: The RNC Banana Stand

 

Once upon a time, I used to work irregular hours so I would catch these judge shows on daytime tv before work, and found that there was a common scenario of women who would trust these boyfriends who would just be down on their luck, and out of a job for a little while, and next thing they know, their dude's phone and car note is in their name and messing up their credit...

I guess what brings this to mind is that the RNC is footing the bill for some of former President Donald Trump's legal costs pertaining to his real estate business. The international, multi-billion dollar supposedly flush Trump Organization. 

Like, okay? Because, this is really quite wild to me:

The RNC is not paying some of the president’s other bills, such as those for his court battles over the House Jan. 6 committee’s requests, said the person familiar with the RNC’s decision. 

“As a leader of our party, defending President Trump and his record of achievement is critical to the GOP,” the party said in a written statement. “It is entirely appropriate for the RNC to continue assisting in fighting back against the Democrats’ never ending witch hunt and attacks on him.”

So get that? The stuff that has directly to do with his campaign (which would be their somewhat tangentially-related motive to pay for; especially since so many others in the party are involved, no?) they aren't interested in, and the stuff to do with his personal business they do?  Is that not backwards? Like, defend his "Stop the Steal" bullshit as just the cost of doing business with a grifter during a political campaign (totally legit political party expense) and let Trump sink his ownself over his admittedly lifelong shoddy business practices(avoiding inspection of whether a party leader was using political funds for a wholly personal business) --wouldn't that make more sense? 

I mean, it seems like Trump's business practices were bad and look bad. You've got your bank fraud on one hand, your tax fraud on the other. Assorted insurance frauds. It's fairly extensive. But Trump has only ever been involved in two elections! That we know about, because maybe he lent his notorious creative financing models to the RNC and they became a great dirty outlet for money laundering including from foreign/illicit sources (which is a fraught allegation I will leave to your dot-connecting abilities and stuff already federally charged about). 

So here's my ridiculous and probably just wildly speculative take on this: is it possible that the RNC is footing Trump's legal bills because he has something over them? Because really, a political party with any grit at all could cut loose a politician who lost his last election (badly!) and made a spectacle of himself in the process. Unless they thought he'd make a spectacle of them in return because they were a hollow, money-directed enterprise with no principles whatsoever. 

Just a thought. I mean, it's not like his first impeachment wasn't entirely about extortion, right?

Right?

UPDATE: It boringly enough could just be a bribe on the RNC's part to keep him from forming another party, but honestly? Do they think he's really capable? (I dunno. I would just like to see it.)

Take Her Out

LISTEN: Recording appears to capture Pres. Trump at private dinner saying he wants Ukraine ambassador fired. https://t.co/9jqfYz99pR

— ABC News (@ABC) January 25, 2020

This seems even more disturbing after the news that the Ambassador was possibly surveilled by some party (possibly affiliated with Trump, the brand, the presidency, and the ongoing political campaign thereof) while doing her job in Ukraine, because "take her out" has more than one meaning.

Obviously, as with the firing of, say, FBI Director Jim Comey, Trump has the right to fire some personnel at his pleasure. Except that he seems to be announcing he wants her gone in a way that implies more than just firing. And he seems to not want to do this through ordinary procedures. You combine this with the language from the "perfect phone call" that she is "about to go through some things" and it starts seeming like a horror movie. The issue of Yovanovitch's service in Ukraine then isn't about whether the president has a right to remove someone from their position--he does! But why he seems to be responding to personnel requests from some rando donor at an event that he now claims he didn't even know is a really good question, especially when that person has been indicted for. among other things, working on behalf of one or more Ukrainian officials to get the Ambassador fired. And also slopping lots of money into Republican campaigns.

There are a lot of problematic takeaways here. Is Trump unduly influenced by the donor pool of folks around him during his weekend stayaways golfing and hobnobbing and whatnot, because he really is the worst case scenario of opsec fail and emoluments clause-flouting.

But for the people who just got super-offended that it was implied they were scared of what Trump might do if they voted against him--here's a word: Mobster. Trump talks like a mobster. Maybe he did, unbeknownst to you all, say something to a rando donor-type guy along the lines of "heads on a pike". Because the kind of guy who brags about whether a terrorist he put a hit on was crying even if Trump didn't have virtual eyes on, or who brags about pussy-grabbing, or who makes improbable stories up during his campaign rallies about big men who never cried before etc. and the military being out of ammunition before he came along, and other improbable and self-aggrandizing bullshit, always tries to make himself sound like he toughest of guys. During Celebrity Apprentice--he said "You're fired." During this video, he says "Take her out!" That sounds more suggestive than wanting a firing. Intentionally?

And his stated reasons have to do with thinking she didn't like him enough. Like, that she didn't hang his official portrait in her office soon enough. What kind of crap is that?

This video came out and cast a weird light (albeit not one no one realized was likely) on how this president operates that the senators deliberating Trump's removal should well consider. They should not be under the mistaken notion that this is a one-off. His level of access to people like Parnas and Furman and the likelihood of additional video or audio recordings of problematic dialogs are very high.

All the more reason to deliberate after a long dive into Trump's associations, with witnesses and docs. Because things exactly like this are out there. This is just a sample.

Also, this is the exact reason that Pompeo needs to answer for his lack of support for an Ambassador who went through this situation. He clearly did not show support for this Ambassador.

Three-Way Privilege

Linking Pat Cipollone’s letter to Lev Parnas and his defense is devastating to the President’s claims pic.twitter.com/39vMJYubHC

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) January 17, 2020

Look, before tonight, I just thought of "three-way privilege" as a thing some couples engage in to keep things interesting when toys won't suffice. But this has always been a very fascinating part of the plot, to me--it's like somebody came up with the idea after discovering what attorney-client privilege was and said "what if you were going to do crimes, but all of the people you did crimes with....were your lawyers?"

I know this is probably a serious reach, and I didn't even take first-year law. I took first-season "Law and Order". So, was this just the kind of "shit that won't stick" argument thrown up to keep the patsies shtum up until they got banged up?   Sounds like it to me, and apparently, sounds like it to Parnas, too.

I'm not actually going to be able to contribute anything non-snarky about this. Sorry.

This Seems Fitting

Lev Parnas on the #Ukraine scandal: "President Trump knew exactly what was going on.” #Maddow pic.twitter.com/60WxyLsq0P

— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) January 16, 2020

Maybe it's just me, but isn't it completely fitting that Lev Parnas gave a televised interview the very evening after House impeachment managers were chosen and the articles of impeachment were carried to the Senate? Just as if to underscore the importance of the Senate obtaining as much information as they can to fulfill their necessary duty?

Okay, I'll admit--Parnas is not a completely perfect witness because he's a conspirator. However, look at who he's torching up here: he says Trump knew what was going on. He says Pence had to have known what was going on. He says Barr was definitely in on it (and I do believe it would now behoove Mr. Barr to recuse himself, right?). He isn't exactly doing that for his health. I mean, he's doing it very publicly as a form of self-protection, but there are reasons why one would not make such claims without documentation. And so far? He basically just corroborating and filling in details that had to be true based on the timeline, and even suggested by the transcript (call summary) put out by the White House. After all, Trump himself advised that the ambassador would be going through some things in his call to Zelenskyy. He also in that very call suggested that Zelenskyy get in touch with either his personal attorney Giuliani or AG Barr--which I do not believe he would have offered if Barr was not in the loop.

For what it's worth, no reasonable person should believe that the story stops with Parnas or that more information is not forthcoming. After all, we're still hearing information being released from the Mueller report. Mike Flynn is still up to some kind of legal shenanigans with the withdrawal of his plea deal.

But speaking of reasonable people--let's look at "reasonable" Sen. Susan Collins as providing one example of why the Senate might still half-ass their job and acquit Trump:

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said on Wednesday she doesn't think newly released evidence, which happens to show Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump were deeply involved in the effort to force Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, should be allowed at the Senate impeachment trial.

"I wonder why the House did not put that into the record and it's only now being revealed," Collins said, referring to documents Democrats released on Tuesday from Lev Parnas, the indicted Giuliani aide who turned over his notes and text messages with Giuliani and other Ukrainian officials as part of the impeachment investigation.

Parnas only just released the documents to the House Intelligence Committee because federal authorities had seized them as part of its investigation into Parnas' political activity. Parnas was ultimately indicted for breaking federal campaign finance law.

When it was pointed out to Collins that this information had only just been obtained by the House by court order, she blamed...the House. Did she genuinely not know this information was only just obtained? (Clueless? Not paying even marginal attention?) Or was she pretending she did not know because she would prefer not to deal with the subject and felt rather annoyed she had a job to do? (There is always retirement if the business of the Senate doesn't amuse, Ma'am.) And this type of response--fake cluelessness, denial, shifting of blame, has been normalized. It's truly appalling.

So let's call the revelation of more information even as the articles have finally reached the Senate be seen as a fitting reminder--it looks bad because it is bad, and will look worse. There's a lot of blame to go around--but it should rest on those involved in doing the bad things. Not the people pointing it out.

TWGB: On Delay

There has been some dispute that Nancy Pelosi was correct in making the decision to hold on to the articles of impeachment until achieving some likelihood of there being an actual serious trial undertaken in the Senate, with witnesses and the whole shebang. I'm of the opinion that Pelosi knows exactly what she's doing, and that it would be wrong to try and "characterize the strength" that she brings. More developments have unfolded in this time that have proven her surmisal correct--given enough time, more shoes would drop. 

And so they have--like the docs that showed that the Pentagon was concerned that the president-initiated hold on the aid to Ukraine would be in violation of the Impound Control Act, and which added to the already-incriminating timeline. 

As it turns out, our understanding of what Trump, his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and others were engaging in in the region is still expanding. House Dems have now released some information received from indicted co-conspirator Lev Parnas, which really casts a disturbing light on these events. Among these documents is a letter from Giuliani in his capacity as Trump's lawyer (specified by him as a capacity separate from Trump's office--as in, on Trump's own business, not the country's) seeking a meeting with Ukraine President Zelenskyy, and also information that strongly suggests that Ambassador Marie Yovanovich was basically being stalked and that it was possible some harm might come to her (which definitely lends some depth to her own testimony of the urgency with which she was told to leave Ukraine). 

And this is just a piece of the information yet to be revealed from the Parnas trove. This individual apparently knows about some creative campaign funding that has taken place with respects to certain GOP figures. 

Not hearing more from obvious people who should be able to better depict Trump's involvement in the scheme (such as John Bolton or Michael Duffey) starts to look like a cover-up when so much illicit activity was clearly taking place. It makes apparent co-conspirators out of Senators who are just fine with keeping the discussion away from the curious eyes of the public. 

It is an important political calculation for them to consider as we shift our attention to the elections. It seems like Russia is, once again, looking to do 2020 candidate Trump a solid by hacking the energy company that placed Hunter Biden on their board. (This, in retrospect, only legitimizes the claims that Russia put their thumb on the scale in 2016--and now they are just protecting their investment.) 

Republican Senators might by and large prefer not to take action that looks like they are not supportive of Trump, but they should look again. It's their own behinds that might be hanging out.