Let’s see what kind of lies and smears the Republicans can come up with today. And whether they take note of John Bolton’s book. The commentary from lawyers yesterday on my Twitter feed was that a good lawyer incorporates new material into their argument. Once again, I probably won’t be watching most of it.
Trump Crime Cartel
One corner of a very lumpy rug…
As the Ukraine scandal was blowing up a while back, Kay pointed out that given Trump’s well-documented greed and corruption, we can be certain he abused his power for personal gain in interactions with other countries besides Ukraine. She suggested the exposure of Trump’s malfeasance in Ukraine is lifting just “one corner of a very lumpy rug.”
The Times got its mitts on further excerpts of Bolton’s book, which lifts other corners and implicates AG William Barr:
WASHINGTON — John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, privately told Attorney General William P. Barr last year that he had concerns that President Trump was effectively granting personal favors to the autocratic leaders of Turkey and China, according to an unpublished manuscript by Mr. Bolton.
Mr. Barr responded by pointing to a pair of Justice Department investigations of companies in those countries and said he was worried that Mr. Trump had created the appearance that he had undue influence over what would typically be independent inquiries, according to the manuscript. Backing up his point, Mr. Barr mentioned conversations Mr. Trump had with the leaders, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Xi Jinping of China.
Mr. Bolton’s account underscores the fact that the unease about Mr. Trump’s seeming embrace of authoritarian leaders, long expressed by experts and his opponents, also existed among some of the senior cabinet officers entrusted by the president to carry out his foreign policy and national security agendas.
Barr’s spokeswoman denied the conversation ever happened and accused Bolton of projecting his own views onto Barr. Why did Bolton go to Barr in the first place? Was it not obvious to him Barr is up to his neck in Trump’s fuckery? Maybe it’s harder for wingnuts to accept that Barr is a corrupt Trump flunky with his own agenda because he’s been a DC fixture for so long?
You’d think the cautionary tale Bolton sees in the mirror while trimming his iconic mustache would be a clue, but oh well. Or maybe this is Bolton’s opening salvo in a bid to discredit Barr with fellow Republicans should the entire Trump scam collapse? If so, I wish him godspeed, the warmongering shit-stain.
Anyhoo, The Times article cites Bolton’s earlier allegation (in a private speech) that Trump’s eagerness to curry favor with Turkish President Erdoğan by torpedoing an investigation into a Turkish bank is related to Trump’s business interests in the region. (The investigation was restarted when the corrupt move to quash it attracted unwanted attention — shades of the aid release in Ukraine!)
Bolton also alleges that Trump gushes over China’s President Xi and relaxed sanctions on a Chinese telecom over Republican and national security agency objections because Trump required Xi’s assistance after painting himself into a corner with the trade war.
Outside Bolton’s claim that he raised concerns with Barr, this isn’t new information — the bank investigation and telecom sanctions removal always looked fishy as hell. And Trump’s gonna Trump, so I’m confident any investigation into Trump’s behavior in any interaction with a foreign or domestic entity, including a Girl Scout cookie sale, would reveal a cesspool of self-dealing and fraud.
But it’s good that the topics have been reintroduced in the middle of the impeachment trial, if only to remind the Republican senators currently engaged in a massive cover-up of just how lumpy the rug they’re standing on is — and how quickly it could be snatched out from under them.
The Complete Fuckery of the Impeachment Trial
I haven’t had much to say about the complete shitshow that is the Senate impeachment trial because I really have nothing to add and I am aware that my abject cynicism regarding what I consider the inevitable outcome of this farce is offputting to others, but the whole thing is just fucking ridiculous. The House Impeachment Managers presented a clear a case for the removal of Trump as was possible given the “rules” of the trial set by that fucking traitor Mitch McConnell, and everything else is a sad fucking joke on the rest of us, from the Senators being unable to stay in their god damned seats to the oh fuck it why bother, you’re watching the same god damned thing.
When I was a young man, growing up in a college town, I spent a great deal of time at the college radio station. I got my FCC license when I was 14 back when that was a thing, and I had my own shows with my own time slots but I also spent a great deal of time serving as the engineer for the Monday Night Oldies show and for the Ashborne Hour (which was actually three hours) on Tuesday nights playing classical music. This was back when everything wasn’t automated and you actually had turntables and otari reel-to-reels, and my purpose was to control the show while the two older gentleman who hosted the shows chose the music and did the talking.
The fellow who did the Monday Night Oldies show was a fellow named John Graham, and he was kind of a big deal in the Pittsburgh Music scene (I’m friends with his son and still am, and his wife just died two weeks ago), and he loved to take me to the old reunion tours of 50’s music stars. So I got to go to a lot of those old reunion tour shows you see being played at sad venues that usually accompany a complimentary dinner of swiss steak and lots of mashed potatoes. At any rate, I saw a lot of the old last hurrah tours of people like Jimmy Beaumont and the Skyliners, etc. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was precisely the kind of music that a 16 year old stoned deadhead would have as his first choice for entertainment, but, you know, it is experiences like that that made me who I am today.
Why am I telling you this? Because that is what the Trump defense reminds me of- the last hurrah tour of old white douchebags from the 80’s and 90’s gathered together for one last rendition of Blue Moon or Pennies from Heaven or Frankie Valli’s greatest hits (he is STILL alive, fwiw). You’ve got panty-sniffing serial leaker Ken Starr, who graduated from the Clinton trial to covering up sex crimes at Baylor, you’ve got serial predator and Martha’s Vineyard outcast Alan Dershowitz, perennial lunatic Jay Sekulow, and a cadre of other shitstains and ne’er do wells stinking up the joint and collectively making the American people dumber.
Imagine a murder trial where the prosecution is not allowed to introduce forensic evidence, talk to the witnesses, interview the police, examine the murder weapon or the autopsy report, followed by three days of the defense screaming “the prosecution provided no evidence.” Meanwhile the accused is sitting in his chair screaming that he is going to do the same thing to the prosecutor that he did to the victim and threatening the jury pool, and no one seems to notice or care. There’s the Trump impeachment in a nutshell.
The Bolton book apparently has some of the Senators slightly freaked out about just how fucking bad history is going to judge them, so now they are baking up some half-cooked idea that will get lots of media time but never come to fruition:
Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), an influential conservative in the Senate, has spoken with several colleagues in recent days about possibly summoning just two witnesses to President Trump’s impeachment trial, with one called by Republicans and one by Democrats, according to three Republican officials.
Toomey has confided to GOP senators that proposing a “one-for-one” deal with Senate Democrats may be necessary at some point, particularly with pressure mounting for witnesses to be called, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. He has argued that such an arrangement could force Democrats to accept a Republican witness against their wishes or else risk having Republicans move ahead to acquit Trump, the officials said.
Toomey has spoken about his idea with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and others, the officials added.
Why does there need to be a one for one? Are we this obeisant to the God of both sides that we need to “balance out” the witnesses? Why not just bring the witnesses who have something relevant to say, and if they don’t, well, don’t bring them. If that means the prosecution has 10, and the defense has only two, or vice versa, so be it.
But you know the answer, don’t you? BECAUSE HE’S FUCKING GUILTY, that’s why.
The Complete Fuckery of the Impeachment TrialPost + Comments (130)
Repub Stupidity Open Thread: Mike Pompeo, the Biter Bit
I think Mike should quit. Not because he hurt my liberal fee-fees or whatever, but because he very clearly does not like his job because his job is not what he wants it to be.
Mike wants to be a character in a Tom Clancy novel, not a bureaucrat or a diplomat.
— Starfish Who Gave Up And Started Duckposting (@IRHotTakes) January 25, 2020
Secretary Pompeo had a cunning plan, aimed at an audience of one: He would summon this little reporter girl, berate her on air, expose her as a whining liberal snowflake, and shore up his crumbling credentials with The Big Guy in the Oval Office!
Tragically, NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly refused to play her assigned role in Pompeo’s dumbshow. And not only did she pants him in the media, but the more he tries to insist that he was in no way pantsed, the more other media co-conspirators snark, Nice boxers, Secretary Pompous!
UPDATE: NYT obtained emails between @NPRKelly & press aide to @SecPompeo — Kelly said explicitly the day before the interview that she would ask about Iran & Ukraine. And: "I never agree to take anything off the table.” Pompeo’s attack on her was baseless. https://t.co/9nyH1FOzAl
— Edward Wong (@ewong) January 26, 2020
Multiple State Department officials reached out to me after this unprompted with their reactions to this. One senior US diplomat says: “This is just embarrassing” https://t.co/prMpeeIcHj
— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) January 25, 2020
Not that @NPRKelly needs a character reference, but this one is pretty strong. Too bad @SecPompeo will never see someone like this defend his character, but life is about choices. https://t.co/V1CQ9d6xoW
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 25, 2020
Yep. As @Kasparov63 warned a few years ago, the circle around an autocrat inevitably becomes increasingly nepotistic and incompetent as loyalty is the only requirement that matters. https://t.co/5uWECvZnDn
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) January 25, 2020
Repub Stupidity Open Thread: Mike Pompeo, the Biter BitPost + Comments (141)
Impeachment Trial – January 27, 2020
Jay Sekulow up. He seems to be the ringmaster for all the President’s lawyers. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this.
Previewing John Bolton’s Book
The New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt in particular, have gotten hold of a copy of John Bolton’s book. I am seeing reports on Twitter to expect a Washington Post story in which Bolton and his publisher deny making that book available. What. Ever.
As far as the overall story goes, there is nothing new. Trump was extorting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelinsky to manufacture dirt on Biden and perhaps other candidates. What is new is that he said exactly that to Bolton. And Mike Pompeo knew about the campaign to remove Marie Yovanovich, and so did Mick Mulvaney. I am not surprised about any of this.
Bolton has been holding all this back to make a buck on his book. Great patriot there.
The reaction on Twitter is that now the Senate will have to call witnesses, this changes everything, yatta yatta. Seems to me the story has been clear all along, and the Republicans have managed to stick together in crime. This is just words. There’s something much worse they’re hiding, and the longer they hide it, the more essential it is to continue. Not a single one has any sense of country.
Impeachment Trial Live – January 25, 2020 – Open Thread
After Adam Schiff’s magnificent summation last night, let’s see what the Republicans have to offer.
Impeachment Trial Live – January 25, 2020 – Open ThreadPost + Comments (52)