Impeachment Day 12: Drip, Drip, Drip Will Lead to Flip, Flip, Flip
It’s another day ending in “y,” and there are plenty of developments on the scandals surrounding the current administration.
As I’ve said on numerous occasions, impeachment is a process. And it involves more than Congress. As the investigation proceeds, the drip, drip, drip of information changes the perception the public has about the man in the office. Public pressure on elected officials at all levels begins to mount. (That's where you come in!)
At some point further along in the game, some of those surrounding the target will chose to abandon their posts. A few of them will attempt to salvage their careers/reputations by switching sides. This is the phase I think we’re just entering.
Richard Nixon’s downfall included the indictment of 69 people, with trials or pleas resulting in 48 being found guilty, many of whom were top administration officials.
Here are today’s nuggets...
The Washington Post reconstructed a blow-by-blow account based in large part on text messages released by Congress earlier this week.
Newly released texts exchanged by Sondland, Volker and other U.S. officials during this period read like a government-sanctioned shakedown. Again and again, they make clear that Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, would not get military aid or the Oval Office invitation he coveted until he committed to investigations that Trump hoped would deliver damaging information on former vice president Joe Biden and undermine the origins of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Rather than official State Department email, the text exchanges between the diplomats took place over WhatsApp, a U.S. official said.
The New York Times reveals the existence of a second whistlebower. That person has yet to decide whether to file a formal complaint and testify before congress. Considering the Trial by Tweet the president has engaged in, their reticence is not surprising.
The official has more direct information about the events than the first whistle-blower, whose complaint that Mr. Trump was using his power to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals touched off an impeachment inquiry. The second official is among those interviewed by the intelligence community inspector general to corroborate the allegations of the original whistle-blower, one of the people said.
Bloomberg News disclosed one of the president’s responses to the escalating crisis.
President Donald Trump has ordered a substantial reduction in the staff of the National Security Council, according to five people familiar with the plans, as the White House confronts an impeachment inquiry touched off by a whistle-blower complaint related to the agency’s work.
NBC News went with a story saying the Department of Justice blocked a criminal referral from the CIA’s top lawyer arising from information disclosed by the whistleblower.
Weeks before the whistleblower's complaint became public, the CIA's top lawyer made what she considered to be a criminal referral to the Justice Department about the whistleblower's allegations that President Donald Trump abused his office in pressuring the Ukrainian president, U.S. officials familiar with the matter tell NBC News.
The move by the CIA's general counsel, Trump appointee Courtney Simmons Elwood, meant she and other senior officials had concluded a potential crime had been committed, raising more questions about why the Justice Department later declined to open an investigation.
The phone call that Elwood considered to be a criminal referral is in addition to the referral later received as a letter from the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community regarding the whistleblower complaint.
We learned the President’s concern about corruption is a joke, as MSNBC reporter Eamon Javers asked about other instances where the White House has expressed concern with other nations.
https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1180149731303071744?s=20
Support for Trump’s impeachment is rising. (And will continue doing so)
The rapid gain in public support for the impeachment of Donald Trump is already pretty stunning. A Politico/Morning Consult poll released this week found a majority of voters—51%—now support an impeachment inquiry into Trump (a plurality of 46%-43% also support impeachment proceedings against Trump, a step beyond an inquiry). The spike in support for taking some sort of impeachment action against Trump continues in poll after poll. A USA TODAY/Ipsos poll released this week also found a plurality of Americans favor a vote to impeach Trump, 45%-38%, with a similar plurality favoring a Senate conviction, 44%-35%.
Vice President Pence’s activities have been added to the investigation, as three sources told CNN the VP was provided a transcript of Trump's call with Zelensky in his briefing book the day after the call.
The subpoenas were issued on Friday night by the House Intelligence Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee, and Committee on Oversight and Reform in letters addressed to Pence and Mick Mulvaney, the White House Chief of Staff.
Read the letters to the White House and Pence here.
Both letters asked Mulvaney and Pence to submit documents relating to Trump's July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which the US president asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter for corruption.
The President’s latest ploy to fend off impeachment has real potential for blowing up in his face, according to Karen Tumulty at the Washington Post.
On Friday, the president demanded that the full House must vote before it proceeds on an impeachment inquiry, and said he would not comply with any congressional requests for documents or testimony until it does.
He should be careful what he asks for...
She points out that Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats have more than enough votes and little reason to fear doing so.
Consider, on the other hand, the spot in which this puts Republicans. As evidence of impropriety mounts each day, and public support for the inquiry grows, do they really want to cast a vote that says, “Nothing to see here"?
And once the resolution passes, what happens then? Trump’s bluff will have been called. To resist handing over necessary materials at that point only bolsters a case for obstruction of justice, which is an impeachable offense.
By forcing the House to play its hand, Trump may find out that he’s the one who is holding the losing cards.
Yes, Individual #1 and his accomplices have broken laws. Lots of them. But that’s not necessarily a basis for impeachment. He should be impeached for the broader high crimes of degrading our Democracy.
Read Lawyer/Author Teri Kanefield’s thread on Twitter starting below for the details. (You should read her blog on a regular basis.)
https://twitter.com/Teri_Kanefield/status/1180491234537656322?s=20
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Happy Saturday. Do you know where your President is?
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1180502929201078272?s=20
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