Impeachment Day 21: Desperate Times for Trump and His Fan Club
Things are not looking good for the White House and its allies. Near-universal condemnation of Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria, a growing list of witnesses willing to testify before Congress, and increasing public support for impeachment hearings are all having an impact.
Senator Lindsey Graham recovered from his momentary allegiance lapse over the Kurds, appearing on Fox News Sunday promising to expose the name of the whistleblower. Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney went to the same platform on Monday, claiming Democrats are to blame for Turkey’s invasion of Syria.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded to tough questions in Nashville by refusing to answer and accused WSMV reporter Nancy Amons of “working, at least in part, for the Democratic National Committee.” This bit of performance art has now become standard for Trumpistas looking to defend the indefensible.
At the University of Notre Dame’s law school Friday, Attorney General William Barr gave a speech blaming “secularists” and “so-called progressives” for wreaking havoc on American society.
His depiction of a war between the non-religious and people of faith shocked legal experts, who saw Barr’s posturing on the issue of religious freedom as an assault on the First Amendment’s protection against the government’s establishment of any religion.
Meanwhile, in between two days of executive golfing on his properties, Trump had a weekend long TwitterTantrum.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1183541434802196481?s=20
At the Value Voters Summit on Saturday, the President speculated about suing House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, admitting he’d probably lose but that the American people would understand. And, in a tribute to his ignorance about the Constitution (which says members of Congress can not be impeached), Trump called for them to be impeached, “because they’re lying and what they’re doing is a terrible thing for our country.”
The Big Announcement on Friday about a first step trade deal with China has turned out to be hollow, prompting speculation the move was a feint to pump up the stock market. Negotiators are saying they’ll need up to five weeks to work out an actual text for the agreement, which tells me this is mostly a pr move.
The line up of witnesses coming to the House of Representatives this week does not seem to bode well for the administration. Fiona Hill, a former White House adviser on Russia, is testifying today. There is an expectation she’ll say, in her view, Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, were operating a Ukraine policy outside of the National Security Council.
More trouble on the horizon via this tidbit, from the Atlantic:
...a small army of whistle-blowers from across the government has been working in secret with the House Oversight Committee to report alleged malfeasance inside the Trump administration. Lawmakers and aides are reluctant to discuss information they have gleaned from anonymous government tipsters in detail. But the list of whistle-blowers who either currently or previously worked in the Trump administration, or who worked closely with the administration, numbers in the “dozens,” according to a senior aide from the committee now led by Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland.
FYI--New York Magazine has done a public service by encapsulating all the damning info on the President’s conduct into seven easy-to-understand categories of potentially impeachable misconduct.
The last category is Fomenting Violence, for which the author cites 14 incidents:
One of the unspoken roles of the president is to serve as a symbolic head of state. Presidents have very wide latitude for their political rhetoric, but Trump has violated its bounds, exceeding in his viciousness the rhetoric of Andrew Johnson (who was impeached in part for the same offense)....
All of this leads me to a news bite I’ve deliberately buried down in this story.
A mocked-up video depicting Trump shooting and stabbing his political opponents, along with assorted media outlets in a church was shown at a meeting of the president’s supporters at one of his resorts in Miami, Florida. Speakers at the American Priority Festival and Conference included Donald Trump Jr and Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Via the Washington Post (emphasis mine):
The video, adapted from the scene of a church massacre in the 2014 film “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” appeared to be shared to YouTube in 2018 on a channel that posts similar pro-Trump content and has been linked to a meme-maker associated with a website called MemeWorld. The site’s creator, a user known by his Internet handle, Carpe Donktum, scored an Oval Office meeting in July with Trump, who reportedly welcomed him as a “genius.”
Alex Phillips, organizer of the American Priority Festival and Conference, told the Times the video was played at one point during the three-day event that began Thursday as part of a “meme exhibit.” The violent parody was included in a meme compilation that also featured Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign logo, according to the Times.
Organizers of the conference have said they were unaware the video would be shown. The White House press secretary condemned the video, saying the president--who could hardly have missed it as was reposted thousands of times on Twitter--hadn’t seen it.
https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1183747563880701953?s=20
Before you get too worked about this bit of Trumpian ‘art,’ remember three things:
The outrage is the point for them.
To exhaust.
To control.
Oh, and THIS:
https://twitter.com/ScottMStedman/status/1183576602946473984?s=20
Having said that, this president's greatest appeal is to those urgently in need of psychiatric intervention.
Via ABC News:
...a nationwide review conducted by ABC News has identified at least 36 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.
In nine cases, perpetrators hailed Trump in the midst or immediate aftermath of physically attacking innocent victims. In another 10 cases, perpetrators cheered or defended Trump while taunting or threatening others. And in another 10 cases, Trump and his rhetoric were cited in court to explain a defendant's violent or threatening behavior.
The perpetrators and suspects identified in the 36 cases are mostly white men -- as young as teenagers and as old as 75 -- while the victims largely represent an array of minority groups -- African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims and gay men.
Federal law enforcement authorities have privately told ABC News they worry that -- even with Trump's public denunciations of violence -- Trump's style could inspire violence-prone individuals to take action against minorities or others they perceive to be against the president's agenda.
One last thing. One thing I remember from the Watergate era are the numerous threads that tend to get lost by the wayside because they don’t include the president directly.
Part of the indictments filed against the Giuliani associates included a failed plot to monopolize the legal pot business in Nevada.
It would appear as though they had more luck in California.
Via the Sacramento Bee:
A Ukrainian-born man indicted in a campaign-finance scheme along with two associates of Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, is an officer in a Sacramento cannabis dispensary controlled by a local businessman with a considerable share of the city’s pot business, records show.
Andrey Kukushkin was among four men indicted last week in an intricate plan to funnel foreign campaign donations to U.S. politicians and enter the legal pot business in Nevada and other states. Two of the defendants, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, are associates of Giuliani and were reportedly helping him investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, one of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, and his son.
Now, that international scandal has unraveled a considerable subplot in Sacramento.
City and state records show Kukushkin’s partner in Sacramento is Garib Karapetyan, a permit holder for a total of eight dispensaries in the city. Karapetyan and his associates have become the de facto pot kings of Sacramento, controlling far more licenses than anyone else and papering the city with billboards and ads for their dispensaries.
UPDATE: Another dispatch from the Sacramento Bee:
The FBI has been investigating whether Sacramento-area marijuana businesses have made payoffs to public officials in the region in exchange for favorable treatment and license approvals, The Sacramento Bee has learned.
Three sources with direct knowledge of FBI questioning of area marijuana business figures say the investigation began in the past few months and predates the disclosure that one of Sacramento’s major marijuana dispensary owners had ties to a Ukrainian man indicted last week along with two associates of Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney.
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Lead image credit: Pixabay