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A NOTE FROM FRED
A majority of House Members are now on record in favor of an impeachment inquiry for President Trump.
Three main developments broke the dam this week on impeachment.
First, it became known that a whistleblower had filed a complaint with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community alleging that President Trump attempted to involve a foreign country in the 2020 presidential election to help his reelection.
Second, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided that Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Trump presidential opponent for 2020, was a “betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”
Trump’s effort, furthermore, occurred at the same time he was arbitrarily withholding military assistance essential to Ukraine for their defense against Russian incursions.
Third, seven freshman Democrats with military, defense and intelligence backgrounds who had not previously supported an impeachment inquiry published an op-ed stating that if the facts of the Ukraine case are correct then this would be an impeachable offense.
The facts of the matter to date also have implicated Attorney General William Barr, who serves as the President’s political operative – some would say his consigliere – and Rudy Giuliani, who has acted as the President’s personal attorney in his dealings with Ukraine.
The House Intelligence Committee is holding hearings and the information developed will go to the House Judiciary Committee, which has the jurisdiction to develop Articles of Impeachment.
Speaker Pelosi reportedly wants the impeachment process to go forward first and separately on the Ukraine affair and have the other issues involving various Trump abuses continue to be developed by the appropriate House committees.
Democracy 21 strongly agrees with this approach.
It is the gross abuse of office by Trump and the threat to our national security in the Ukraine affair that moved support for impeachment proceedings to a House majority and that should be addressed first, separately and promptly.
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SUMMARY OF THE WEEK
“Let’s say this as simply and clearly as possible. Trump was using the inducement of U.S. taxpayer dollars to get a foreign power to intervene in our politics on his behalf.”
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MUST READS
THE INVESTIGATIONS
“Do Us A Favor”: The 48 Hours That Sealed Trump’s Impeachment, via The New Yorker.
A Timeline Of The Trump-Ukraine Scandal, via Lawfare.
Whistleblower Claimed Trump Abused His Office And That White House Officials Tried To Cover It Up, via The Washington Post.
Pelosi Wants Narrow Inquiry As Caucus Debates Scope Of Impeachment Resolution, via CNN.
Trump Called Pelosi To Ask If They Could “Work Something Out” Before Impeachment Launched, via The Independent.
Self-Impeaching: On The Trump-Zelensky Conversation, via Lawfare.
Phone Call Showed Only A Slice Of Trump’s Obsession With Ukraine, via The New York Times.
Justice Dept. Rejected Investigation Of Trump Phone Call Just Weeks After It Began Examining The Matter, via The Washington Post.
Trump Pressed Ukraine’s President To Work With AG Barr For Dirt On Biden, via Politico
Giuliani Pursued Shadow Ukraine Agenda As Key Foreign Policy Officials Were Sidelined
“[T]he person who appears to have been more directly involved at nearly every stage of the entanglement with Ukraine is Giuliani,” via The Washington Post.
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BY THE WAY
“THE ADVISERS … The Democratic leadership and committee staff are relying on significant outside counsel as they try to keep the impeachment and oversight process on the tracks.
PHIL SCHILIRO, who ran leg. affairs for President Barack Obama and was a top Oversight staffer for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), is informally advising the Democratic leadership and key committees about the oversight process. […] Also advising the Democrats: FRED WERTHEIMER and LAURENCE TRIBE.”
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TRUMP & FRIENDS
Donald Trump vs. The United States Of America
“Just the facts, in 40 sentences,” opinion via The New York Times.
Trump Is Discovering New Powers
“As he becomes progressively steeped in the presidency’s immense powers, Trump seems to be in the midst of a kind of awakening: discovering new ways that he can use the machinery of government to advance a partisan, personal agenda uncoupled from the larger public interest,” via The Atlantic.
Trump’s Ukraine Call Reveals A President Convinced Of His Own Invincibility, via The Washington Post.
The House Doesn’t Need An Impeachment Inquiry To Confirm Trump’s Wrongdoing. Just Look At His Hotel, via The Washington Post.
“Not Only 100 Percent, But Actually 1,000 Percent”: Trump-Zelensky Call Shows Lengths To Which Foreign Leaders Go To Flatter Trump
“Zelensky mentioned that he stayed at one of Trump’s properties,” via The Washington Post.
Egypt Wanted To Arrest A New York Times Reporter, And The Trump Administration Was Reportedly Going To Let It Happen, via BuzzFeed News.
RNC Paid Over $160,000 To Law Firm Defending Corey Lewandowski A Month Before His House Testimony, via CNBC.
24 Hours In The Rudy Zone, via The Week.
Trump Acts Like He’s Above The Law Because Mitch McConnell Lets Him, via Vox.
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A BRIEF SCOTUS INTERLUDE
How John Roberts Killed The Census Citizenship Question
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404 DAYS …
The FEC Is Paralyzed. It Couldn’t Come At A Worse Time, via Talking Points Memo.
Trump, 2020 Democrats Use Impeachment To Drum Up Fundraising Support, via ABC News.
Trump’s Takeover Of GOP Forces Many House Republicans To Head For The Exits, via The Washington Post.
Debate Rules Upend The Way Democrats Run For Office
David Nagel, Iowa Dem Chair: “It’s a national primary based on the worst foundation: Name identification and money,” via Politico.
Tech Takes Over Political Fundraising, via Axios.
Want to Donate to a Presidential Candidate? Just Ask Alexa, via Bloomberg.
Mitch McConnell Wants To Send A Message That He Actually Does Support Election Security
Election security experts “warned that a couple hundred million is not enough to protect Americans’ voting systems from a threat that Trump’s own head of the FBI warns is coming in 2020,” via The Washington Post.
Russian Secret Weapon Against U.S. 2020 Election Revealed In New Cyberwarfare Report
“Russia’s secret weapon is an organisational structure which has taken years to build and makes detection and interception as difficult as possible,” via Forbes.
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