The Senate, yesterday, voted down both articles of impeachment against President Trump, as pretty much everyone predicted from the start. Trump stands Impeached but not Removed and seems ready to stand for re-election in November.
The process is now completely over and I'm still in the same place I was at the beginning: what was the point of this? What were the House Democrats trying to achieve? I don't get it and I never got it. Two takeaways: the House lost track of the crime committed and Trump's refusal to participate has given future presidents a brand new game plan.
The crime Trump stood accused of was holding up aid to Ukraine as allotted by the Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. The whole business about an investigation of Hunter Biden was the motive for the crime, not the crime itself. The crime was never properly laid out because since the White House chose not to defend itself, the House Dems never bothered to actually follow through on the crime. They brought a steady diet of ambassadors that had their thoughts on what was going on and why, but none of them concretely showed that the aid was ever actually held up. They were able to talk about Rudy Giuliani-led shenanigans into the Ukrainian political scene but none had any worthwhile knowledge about the aid itself.
As for the aid, it went out by the deadline without any strings attached and the President of Ukraine has said numerous times that he never felt pressured or extorted. Now the crime may well have been committed but the House never really got around to making that case. A few reasons the House didn't go down this road: 1) the White House never showed up and forced them to lay out the case; 2) the aid was in fact delivered without penalty, so was there actually a crime?; and 3) pointing out the White House isn't actually able to hold up aid begs a further question: if the POTUS isn't allowed to do this, then why was the POTUS allowed to do this?
The circumstantial evidence did not look good for Trump; it certainly looks as if Trump held up aid in hopes of getting the president of Ukraine to announce an investigation into the workings of Hunter Biden, which presumably would help Trump's re-election efforts. But because the House never went beyond the circumstantial evidence, they left enough room for the White House to maintain a shadow of a doubt: there's enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that Trump's queries all related to the 2016 election, which is the POTUS's job to potentially investigate. And that withholding aid is actually standard procedure, as shown by VP Joe Biden holding up aid in the same place in the same manner in the previous administration. Did Trump look guilty? Yeah, but not guilty enough to my eye to make it a slam dunk. If this was a real trial in a real court, there's plenty there for Trump's lawyers to work with.
And even if he was guilty...guilty of what? Of doing the same thing the previous administration had done? That makes Trump look no more guilty than Obama, and is that really where the House was intending to go with this? And, again: guilty of what? If a crime had clearly been committed, why was the 1st article of impeachment for the abstract accusation of 'Abuse of Power' and not an actual crime? (*)
It sounds weird to say that Trump didn't participate, doesn't it? Trump was still there every single day in one form or another. But he wasn't ever in the Congress. He wasn't ever in these hearings or in this process. Such is the layout of modern media: the President gets to talk all god damn day long without really ever having to do anything. So when I say Trump ignored the proceedings, I mean he ignored them in the Houses where they took place, he stepped outside of the actual processes and went straight to the American people. Not every president is willing to just be impeached by a grumpy House but Trump will wear this as a badge of pride. And he knew full well that he had the support he needed in the Senate (with or without Mitt Romney, who groveled pretty hard to be Trump's Secretary of State, you may recall).
But more than any of this: impeachment is strictly a political act, not a proper trial, and the votes for removing Trump from office were never there. So why on earth did the House move forward with this action at this time? The House assumed that just flinging around the potential of Trump's electoral paranoia would lead to more revelations and bombshells (not really, mostly just more of what we already knew) and ideally galvanize public opinion against him and/or the Republicans up for reelection in 2020. But the case was flimsy and Trump's masterstroke of ignoring the whole thing worked perfectly. It made the House Dems look like, well a bunch of fantasy-driven masturbators with no real sense of what the truth is or how to get to it.
If the point of this was to remove Trump from office, well that never had much of a shot of succeeding.
If the point of this was to simply convince everyone that Trump is sleazy and self-aggrandizing, well....who didn't already know that?
If the point was to show that House Democrats are fighting for America while everyone else is not, well the shoddy case didn't win me over and the cynicism necessary to do all of this is anathema to any of that high minded feeling.
If the point was to derail Trump's chances of getting reelected, well I don't think this did the job--though it may well have knee-capped Joe Biden for the final time!
If the point was to galvanize Democrats heading into an election year, well the disaster of this year's Iowa Caucus pretty well shot that in the foot.
I just don't see it, I never did see it, I still don't see it.
If the House never bothered to prove the crime, then why on earth were they trying to get to trial? The Senate did the right thing in keeping this to a minimum and getting it over with. We now know that impeachment is just a political tool like any other, hardly the fail-safe device the Founders imagined--and the House has foolishly laid out a blueprint for future presidents to avoid their comeuppance.
I just don't see how any of this was good for America, for Americans, or for the federal gov't. I don't even see how it benefited the Democratic Party, which looks worse in every way today than it did six months ago. (**)
(*) As for the 2nd article, well that was just bullshit from the git-go: the House was eager to remind us over and over again that the Constitution leaves all impeachment power to the House, but I don't see anything in the Constitution that says the Executive has to participate, so citing him for not participating is just manufactured nonsense. Indeed the Founders are the same guys who invented the 5th Amendment, its not hard to imagine that they would've seen Impeachment as something that happens in absentia or with a hostile Executive, so why would the President be expected to participate? And how do you cite him for not doing something he's not required to do?
(**) So do Mitt Romney and Joe Biden get together to form a new party? Can they suck George Soros and the Koch Brothers in? Or how about Michael Bloomberg and Steve Forbes? Can Rand Paul and Amy Klobachar co-exist in the middle? Do Susan Collins and Tulsi Gabbard join the new team? Yeah...none of that sounds right, does it?
Showing posts with label impeachment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label impeachment. Show all posts
Thursday, February 6, 2020
Sunday, December 15, 2019
Impeachment (Phase Two)
On Friday (the 13th), the House Judiciary Committee passed a resolution to move forward on two counts of impeachment against President Trump. Now the full House will have a vote, probably some time next week. I think we can assume that the vote will go along party lines, meaning Trump will be impeached in the House and then it will move to the Senate, which I think we can also assume will move along party lines and Trump will not be removed.
The Committee held a number of public hearings leading up to this resolution, mostly with various Ambassadors, in proceedings that I thought were quite sober and tasteful, but didn't illuminate much beyond the original July phone transcription that was released in September. There was the one guy that thinks he may have overheard something in someone else's phone call and another lady that indignantly raged against conspiracy theories and the two guys that had conflicting memories of their various conversations. But none of that told us anything new about the nature of any arrangement between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky (*).
The revelation of a working team centered around Rudy Giuliani (and likely included Sec State Pompeo and VP Pence) wasn't new, although the depth of their participation was eye-opening. That said, it is not uncommon for presidents to have their own Special Envoys or even teams that work directly from the White House on specific topics or actions with other nations. Was Giuliani doing anything criminal? I haven't seen any evidence of that (yet). And while it was clear this ruffled the feathers of the Ambassadors, I don't know that there was anything truly out of the ordinary going on (perhaps there was, perhaps not, no one has bothered to make the case either way). Indeed, the fact that these ambassadors had little to offer shows the very nature of Ambassadorships: they're not particularly involved with foreign policy formation, so why would they know anything?
The most celebrated testimony came from Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland. As PBS Newhour reported on November 20: "“I know that members of this Committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a “quid pro quo?” As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes,” Sondland said." The committee wanted to hear the phrase 'quid pro quo' and they got it but this is not in relation to the military aid but to a White House meeting. But in the course of the case being built this is a bait-and-switch. A White House meeting is always a quid pro quo--indeed, the whole point of a meeting with POTUS is so that he can thank the person for doing what POTUS wanted done! There has never been a White House meeting in all of American history that took place merely because the POTUS had time to kill. Meetings with the POTUS are highly scripted affairs where everyone involved knows precisely what is expected of them, they are planned with full knowledge ahead of time that everyone has/will play their part. And these meetings are often purely political with little benefit to the American people or nation as a whole. To wit: where does it say in the Constitution that the POTUS shall invite the winner of the Super Bowl for a photo-op? What is the 'benefit' to the Republic of such a meeting? It happens every year for purely anodyne reasons and no one complains. And is pardoning a turkey at Thanksgiving every year done for the benefit of the Republic or is it just a bland opportunity for the sitting POTUS to enhance his own public relations? And, good God, what is politicized in Washington more than the State of the Union Address (**), where the POTUS gets to pat himself on the back and call attention to his political allies strategically placed throughout the chamber?
If American support of Ukraine is so important, wouldn't Congress want the POTUS to meet with President Zelensky in a very public fashion that acknowledges we stand with Ukraine against Russia? Why would Congress be punishing the President for a meeting when (a) it's the President's right to meet with whomever he chooses for whatever reason and (b) Congress presumably wants this meeting to take place? So while Sondland's quote won the daily soundbite war, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. As for holding up aid, the various ambassadors had their various opinions on aid to Ukraine but none exhibited any particular knowledge of what was at work or why. Again: why would they know anything?
And as for the aid itself being 'held up' check out this CNN story from November 26 (https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/26/politics/ukraine-aid-trump-call-omb/index.html). The first paragraph says: "The White House budget office's first official action to withhold $250 million in Pentagon aid to Ukraine came on the evening of July 25, the same day President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on the phone, according to a House Budget Committee summary of the office's documents." Then the third paragraph says: "A hold was placed on the Ukraine aid at the beginning of July, and the agencies were notified at a July 18 meeting that it had been frozen at the direction of the President, a week before the Trump-Zelensky call." Wait...what?
So was it held up on July 25? Or July 18? Or the 'beginning of July'? Was it before the phone call or after? Why is this so hard to figure out? And why hasn't this timeline been explicitly laid out if the aid being held up is so central to this proceeding?
And what of Zelensky himself? Did he feel pressure to actually do any of the things Trump wanted from him? On September 25 Time Magazine (***) published (https://time.com/5686305/zelensky-ukraine-denies-trump-pressure/) that Zelensky "Denied Trump Pressured Him to Investigate Biden's Son" based on a joint press conference Zelensky and Trump held that day where Zelensky said: "Nobody pushed me." But on November 18 Time published (https://time.com/5731647/ukraine-trump-biden-investigation-anxiety/) that "US Officials Knew Ukraine Felt 'Pressure' from Trump Administration to Investigate Biden" based on a May 7 closed-door meeting that included then-current US Ambassador to Ukraine Yovanovich. But even the weird CNN article above doesn't suggest that the Ukraine aid was held up in May, so...how does this time line work? And if the 'pressured' person says he wasn't pressured, then...how does...any of this...wait, what?
Was the aid actually held up? We've long since accepted that this as a basic fact but the 'prosecution' (re: the House Judiciary Committee) has not explicitly put the details forward and the defense (re: POTUS) has yet to participate in the proceedings, so are we sure this even happened? And if the person who has been pressured has said publicly he was not pressured, then has anything actually happened? How is it possible for a President to hold up aid? And what particular mechanisms did Trump employ and what was his stated rationale at the time and to whom? This should be quite easy to figure out, I don't understand why we don't know this yet.
What it looks like to me is that Trump tried to extort a gratuity for himself based on an already approved deal. The bi-partisan support for Ukraine suggests that this particular aid package was ironclad and Trump saw an opportunity for himself to get a little something extra out of Zelensky. Has the case been proved? The circumstantial evidence doesn't look good but I'd say there's enough legal room to reach an acquittal, which all serves to remind us that this is not a courtroom trial but a purely procedural vote that is more often than not just a party line expression. At the end of the day, Trump did not get the investigation he sought and Ukraine got the aid they were earmarked, so did anything actually happen? Is the attempt to possibly commit a crime really worth this much time and energy?
Assuming Trump is guilty of this attempted extortion, is this worthy of an impeachment in the House? Again, it doesn't matter whether it is 'worthy', all that matters is the vote itself. Thus, impeachment is, or can be, a relatively meaningless piece of agitprop. Is this worthy of removal of the POTUS? No. Now if the House showed that Trump had done this before or that this kind of grease was a pattern of behavior, then you'd have something. If Trump was systematically abusing power with, say, Lebanon, Taiwan, Poland, etc., then that would be worthy of shipping him out. But I don't see that case being made.
Indeed, the most galling thing about this procedure is the suggestion that this is the worst thing Trump has done in office. Seriously? Trump has completely warped USA's trade relations, most specifically with China, based on some minuscule, vague wording about national defense and the House thinks needling the President of Ukraine for something that means very little to Ukraine (or I would suggest to the American electorate) is worthy of impeachment? This is an abrogation of responsibility dressed up as an attempt do the right thing. *smh*
Trump's approval ratings are a stunning anomaly: no amount of Trump success makes them go up and no amount of Trump failures make them go down. Truly amazing and probably indicative of what future Presidents must have. Has the impeachment damaged Trump? I'd say not at all. People who don't like Trump are eager to rush for any excuse to get him out of office but this impeachment proceeding only makes him stronger, I think.
So here's the new conspiracy theory: the House likes Trump's bizarre trading rationale vis-a-vis China and they know no one else is dumb enough to maintain such a potentially suicidal policy. President Hillary would've talked tough but wouldn't really have done much (especially since she, too, was backing away from TPP during the 2016 campaign), likewise with President Warren, President Biden would soft pedal China, President Bernie absolutely wouldn't treat China this way. Congress likes Trump's belligerent, haphazard treatment of China and they want him to keep doing it--they likely even see it as the most important thing on our current agenda. So they're rousting up Trump's base heading into the 2020 election. Honestly, I can't see any other rationale. Pelosi gets to say, 'Trump was evil and we tried to get him out'? Uhh, not really, as this does very little to make that happen. Or does this presage another impeachment in the future? Is a POTUS that has been impeached but not removed multiple times look like a big win for the Democrats? It doesn't to me but I'm not a Democrat.
I just don't get this. The case is not a slam dunk, the victim has claimed no victimhood, the Republic is not advanced by this impeachment any more than it was advanced by an investigation into Hunter Biden, the House has spent all of its political capital on a whimper rather than actually ginning up some interesting or useful legislation and the Democrats are really just beating the same dead horse they were going to be beating even this impeachment never happened. I think the whole point of this was to create enough ongoing controversy around Trump that Republicans in the House and the Senate up for reelection would have to deal with in a thorny uncomfortable way, potentially influencing those elections or at least interrupting the ability for the Republicans in general to raise funds. But I don't see that taking place. The only silver lining for Democrats: with Trump in office, donations to Dems are probably gonna be way up. What else gets achieved here? I...don't...see anything.
If this is the worst thing Trump has done in the last three years then he is officially the cleanest POTUS we've ever had. All this sturm und drang to convince us that Trump is a self-aggrandizing sleazy guy...dude, I already knew that. This has done nothing at all for anyone except Trump's chances for re-election. (****)
(*) Honestly the part I find most vexing is that Trump didn't seem to care about an investigation, he merely wanted an announcement of an investigation. I don't really know what to make of that. If the investigation will yield damning evidence about Hunter Biden, don't the American people to deserve to know? Likewise, if an investigation completely exonerates Hunter Biden, don't the American people deserve to know that? Seems like an investigation of Hunter Biden would only be damaging to the candidacy of Joe Biden if--and only if--it reveals disturbing revelations about Hunter Biden (and even then: do people really give a shit about what Hunter Biden does in Ukraine?). It seems to me there really can't be any effect on the 2020 USA election until AFTER the investigation is completed and revealed. And even then, it would only potentially effect how people vote, which is not an effect on the election itself. So what good/bad/otherwise is accrued from an announcement of an investigation if no subsequent investigation is performed? WTF, dude? I don't understand how any of this effects anything in any way and the fact that Trump only wanted the appearance of an investigation makes even less sense.
(**) The Constitution says an annual State of the Union shall be given to the Congress by the President. But it doesn't say it has to be televised in prime time for the sake of the POTUS tooting his own horn or making a display of his political cronies. This is an annual disgrace the Republic would be better off getting rid of.
(***) I've generally been trying to link to Left-wing media sites but, honestly I had no idea Time Magazine still existed, so not sure whether they'd be right or left at this point. When I was kid Time and Newsweek were the only political magazines around, they always seemed rather bland in that softly Left way that for-real 'journalism' used to pride itself on. Now I dunno what Time is like or who reads it. Although, if the November 18 article went back to a May 7 meeting, why didn't Time know about that on September 25?
(****) As a voting American I assure you I couldn't care less what Hunter Biden was doing in Ukraine. If the Ukrainians were so offended by his conduct that they had to indict him or deport him or whatever, that is entirely their business. But even then, Hunter Biden's activities would have no effect whatsoever on my vote. Also, for what it's worth, now seems like the most perfectly awkward moment to admit that Joe Biden is one of the very very very few politicians of my life time that I actually like. And watching Democrats shy away from not merely their best candidate in general but the only one that I think can actually beat Trump...and, well, the Pelosi-wants-Trump-to-win conspiracy theory begins to look plainly obvious.
The Committee held a number of public hearings leading up to this resolution, mostly with various Ambassadors, in proceedings that I thought were quite sober and tasteful, but didn't illuminate much beyond the original July phone transcription that was released in September. There was the one guy that thinks he may have overheard something in someone else's phone call and another lady that indignantly raged against conspiracy theories and the two guys that had conflicting memories of their various conversations. But none of that told us anything new about the nature of any arrangement between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky (*).
The revelation of a working team centered around Rudy Giuliani (and likely included Sec State Pompeo and VP Pence) wasn't new, although the depth of their participation was eye-opening. That said, it is not uncommon for presidents to have their own Special Envoys or even teams that work directly from the White House on specific topics or actions with other nations. Was Giuliani doing anything criminal? I haven't seen any evidence of that (yet). And while it was clear this ruffled the feathers of the Ambassadors, I don't know that there was anything truly out of the ordinary going on (perhaps there was, perhaps not, no one has bothered to make the case either way). Indeed, the fact that these ambassadors had little to offer shows the very nature of Ambassadorships: they're not particularly involved with foreign policy formation, so why would they know anything?
The most celebrated testimony came from Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland. As PBS Newhour reported on November 20: "“I know that members of this Committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a “quid pro quo?” As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes,” Sondland said." The committee wanted to hear the phrase 'quid pro quo' and they got it but this is not in relation to the military aid but to a White House meeting. But in the course of the case being built this is a bait-and-switch. A White House meeting is always a quid pro quo--indeed, the whole point of a meeting with POTUS is so that he can thank the person for doing what POTUS wanted done! There has never been a White House meeting in all of American history that took place merely because the POTUS had time to kill. Meetings with the POTUS are highly scripted affairs where everyone involved knows precisely what is expected of them, they are planned with full knowledge ahead of time that everyone has/will play their part. And these meetings are often purely political with little benefit to the American people or nation as a whole. To wit: where does it say in the Constitution that the POTUS shall invite the winner of the Super Bowl for a photo-op? What is the 'benefit' to the Republic of such a meeting? It happens every year for purely anodyne reasons and no one complains. And is pardoning a turkey at Thanksgiving every year done for the benefit of the Republic or is it just a bland opportunity for the sitting POTUS to enhance his own public relations? And, good God, what is politicized in Washington more than the State of the Union Address (**), where the POTUS gets to pat himself on the back and call attention to his political allies strategically placed throughout the chamber?
If American support of Ukraine is so important, wouldn't Congress want the POTUS to meet with President Zelensky in a very public fashion that acknowledges we stand with Ukraine against Russia? Why would Congress be punishing the President for a meeting when (a) it's the President's right to meet with whomever he chooses for whatever reason and (b) Congress presumably wants this meeting to take place? So while Sondland's quote won the daily soundbite war, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. As for holding up aid, the various ambassadors had their various opinions on aid to Ukraine but none exhibited any particular knowledge of what was at work or why. Again: why would they know anything?
And as for the aid itself being 'held up' check out this CNN story from November 26 (https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/26/politics/ukraine-aid-trump-call-omb/index.html). The first paragraph says: "The White House budget office's first official action to withhold $250 million in Pentagon aid to Ukraine came on the evening of July 25, the same day President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on the phone, according to a House Budget Committee summary of the office's documents." Then the third paragraph says: "A hold was placed on the Ukraine aid at the beginning of July, and the agencies were notified at a July 18 meeting that it had been frozen at the direction of the President, a week before the Trump-Zelensky call." Wait...what?
So was it held up on July 25? Or July 18? Or the 'beginning of July'? Was it before the phone call or after? Why is this so hard to figure out? And why hasn't this timeline been explicitly laid out if the aid being held up is so central to this proceeding?
And what of Zelensky himself? Did he feel pressure to actually do any of the things Trump wanted from him? On September 25 Time Magazine (***) published (https://time.com/5686305/zelensky-ukraine-denies-trump-pressure/) that Zelensky "Denied Trump Pressured Him to Investigate Biden's Son" based on a joint press conference Zelensky and Trump held that day where Zelensky said: "Nobody pushed me." But on November 18 Time published (https://time.com/5731647/ukraine-trump-biden-investigation-anxiety/) that "US Officials Knew Ukraine Felt 'Pressure' from Trump Administration to Investigate Biden" based on a May 7 closed-door meeting that included then-current US Ambassador to Ukraine Yovanovich. But even the weird CNN article above doesn't suggest that the Ukraine aid was held up in May, so...how does this time line work? And if the 'pressured' person says he wasn't pressured, then...how does...any of this...wait, what?
Was the aid actually held up? We've long since accepted that this as a basic fact but the 'prosecution' (re: the House Judiciary Committee) has not explicitly put the details forward and the defense (re: POTUS) has yet to participate in the proceedings, so are we sure this even happened? And if the person who has been pressured has said publicly he was not pressured, then has anything actually happened? How is it possible for a President to hold up aid? And what particular mechanisms did Trump employ and what was his stated rationale at the time and to whom? This should be quite easy to figure out, I don't understand why we don't know this yet.
What it looks like to me is that Trump tried to extort a gratuity for himself based on an already approved deal. The bi-partisan support for Ukraine suggests that this particular aid package was ironclad and Trump saw an opportunity for himself to get a little something extra out of Zelensky. Has the case been proved? The circumstantial evidence doesn't look good but I'd say there's enough legal room to reach an acquittal, which all serves to remind us that this is not a courtroom trial but a purely procedural vote that is more often than not just a party line expression. At the end of the day, Trump did not get the investigation he sought and Ukraine got the aid they were earmarked, so did anything actually happen? Is the attempt to possibly commit a crime really worth this much time and energy?
Assuming Trump is guilty of this attempted extortion, is this worthy of an impeachment in the House? Again, it doesn't matter whether it is 'worthy', all that matters is the vote itself. Thus, impeachment is, or can be, a relatively meaningless piece of agitprop. Is this worthy of removal of the POTUS? No. Now if the House showed that Trump had done this before or that this kind of grease was a pattern of behavior, then you'd have something. If Trump was systematically abusing power with, say, Lebanon, Taiwan, Poland, etc., then that would be worthy of shipping him out. But I don't see that case being made.
Indeed, the most galling thing about this procedure is the suggestion that this is the worst thing Trump has done in office. Seriously? Trump has completely warped USA's trade relations, most specifically with China, based on some minuscule, vague wording about national defense and the House thinks needling the President of Ukraine for something that means very little to Ukraine (or I would suggest to the American electorate) is worthy of impeachment? This is an abrogation of responsibility dressed up as an attempt do the right thing. *smh*
Trump's approval ratings are a stunning anomaly: no amount of Trump success makes them go up and no amount of Trump failures make them go down. Truly amazing and probably indicative of what future Presidents must have. Has the impeachment damaged Trump? I'd say not at all. People who don't like Trump are eager to rush for any excuse to get him out of office but this impeachment proceeding only makes him stronger, I think.
So here's the new conspiracy theory: the House likes Trump's bizarre trading rationale vis-a-vis China and they know no one else is dumb enough to maintain such a potentially suicidal policy. President Hillary would've talked tough but wouldn't really have done much (especially since she, too, was backing away from TPP during the 2016 campaign), likewise with President Warren, President Biden would soft pedal China, President Bernie absolutely wouldn't treat China this way. Congress likes Trump's belligerent, haphazard treatment of China and they want him to keep doing it--they likely even see it as the most important thing on our current agenda. So they're rousting up Trump's base heading into the 2020 election. Honestly, I can't see any other rationale. Pelosi gets to say, 'Trump was evil and we tried to get him out'? Uhh, not really, as this does very little to make that happen. Or does this presage another impeachment in the future? Is a POTUS that has been impeached but not removed multiple times look like a big win for the Democrats? It doesn't to me but I'm not a Democrat.
I just don't get this. The case is not a slam dunk, the victim has claimed no victimhood, the Republic is not advanced by this impeachment any more than it was advanced by an investigation into Hunter Biden, the House has spent all of its political capital on a whimper rather than actually ginning up some interesting or useful legislation and the Democrats are really just beating the same dead horse they were going to be beating even this impeachment never happened. I think the whole point of this was to create enough ongoing controversy around Trump that Republicans in the House and the Senate up for reelection would have to deal with in a thorny uncomfortable way, potentially influencing those elections or at least interrupting the ability for the Republicans in general to raise funds. But I don't see that taking place. The only silver lining for Democrats: with Trump in office, donations to Dems are probably gonna be way up. What else gets achieved here? I...don't...see anything.
If this is the worst thing Trump has done in the last three years then he is officially the cleanest POTUS we've ever had. All this sturm und drang to convince us that Trump is a self-aggrandizing sleazy guy...dude, I already knew that. This has done nothing at all for anyone except Trump's chances for re-election. (****)
(*) Honestly the part I find most vexing is that Trump didn't seem to care about an investigation, he merely wanted an announcement of an investigation. I don't really know what to make of that. If the investigation will yield damning evidence about Hunter Biden, don't the American people to deserve to know? Likewise, if an investigation completely exonerates Hunter Biden, don't the American people deserve to know that? Seems like an investigation of Hunter Biden would only be damaging to the candidacy of Joe Biden if--and only if--it reveals disturbing revelations about Hunter Biden (and even then: do people really give a shit about what Hunter Biden does in Ukraine?). It seems to me there really can't be any effect on the 2020 USA election until AFTER the investigation is completed and revealed. And even then, it would only potentially effect how people vote, which is not an effect on the election itself. So what good/bad/otherwise is accrued from an announcement of an investigation if no subsequent investigation is performed? WTF, dude? I don't understand how any of this effects anything in any way and the fact that Trump only wanted the appearance of an investigation makes even less sense.
(**) The Constitution says an annual State of the Union shall be given to the Congress by the President. But it doesn't say it has to be televised in prime time for the sake of the POTUS tooting his own horn or making a display of his political cronies. This is an annual disgrace the Republic would be better off getting rid of.
(***) I've generally been trying to link to Left-wing media sites but, honestly I had no idea Time Magazine still existed, so not sure whether they'd be right or left at this point. When I was kid Time and Newsweek were the only political magazines around, they always seemed rather bland in that softly Left way that for-real 'journalism' used to pride itself on. Now I dunno what Time is like or who reads it. Although, if the November 18 article went back to a May 7 meeting, why didn't Time know about that on September 25?
(****) As a voting American I assure you I couldn't care less what Hunter Biden was doing in Ukraine. If the Ukrainians were so offended by his conduct that they had to indict him or deport him or whatever, that is entirely their business. But even then, Hunter Biden's activities would have no effect whatsoever on my vote. Also, for what it's worth, now seems like the most perfectly awkward moment to admit that Joe Biden is one of the very very very few politicians of my life time that I actually like. And watching Democrats shy away from not merely their best candidate in general but the only one that I think can actually beat Trump...and, well, the Pelosi-wants-Trump-to-win conspiracy theory begins to look plainly obvious.
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Impeachment (Phase One)
...And it begins. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced last week the intention to form an inquiry into the impeachment of President Trump. This is just a trial balloon but a notable one because, to mix a metaphor, the balloon is out of the barn and now it will become the bedrock of general conversation for the next 12 months or so, taking us right up to the edge of the next presidential election. Funny: this is supposed to be a reaction to entities trying to influence the next election but I can't think of a bigger influence on the next election than this inquiry.
This all kicked off when a whistleblower (anonymous) report suggested that in July Trump had had a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the transcript of which had been put into a secret file rather than the regular public file, which in and of itself may be indicative of some criminality in the conversation itself.
I assume there will be a lot more coming over the next 12 months or so and bombshells and Trump gaffes are certainly possible. But upon first look: this doesn't look like much to me and I feel like going for impeachment is a bit of an overreach.
Under pressure, the White House released the "transcript" (*) of a July phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Trump opponents suggest that Trump's request for an investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of the presumptive (for now) Democratic nominee for the 2020 election, represents pressuring a foreign leader into interfering with a presidential election. To me the language looks pretty colloquial: Trump doesn't say he will hold up the approved aid to Ukraine, he simply moves the conversation to another topic. I would suggest that mentioning two different things in the same conversation does not equal a quid pro quo. Furthermore, the investigation of Biden was already under way, so where is the pressure? And if the Ukrainian investigation yields unpleasant info about Biden or his son, then why is that a bad thing? Is the implication that because Joe Biden is running for president that he is above investigation and that his family can no longer be suspected of a crime? And how would a foreign investigation be unconstitutional or a violation of Biden's rights as an American citizen? As for the aid itself, it was approved in June and delivered in September, which in federal gov't terms is not long at all, so what was the threat?
To me the awkward part of the conversation for Trump is he seems to be equating his personal lawyer (Giuliani) with the attorney general of the United States (Bill Barr) and that's weird to say the least and indicates that this is purely a private matter and not a criminal investigation. And I'm eager to hear the details of the holdup on Ukrainian aid: when did Trump stop the aid? What was his reasoning and language for doing so? How does a president stop aid that has been pledged by Congress, the State Department and the Pentagon? And when/how was the block on aid lifted?
According to the whistleblower memo, Trump's conversation with Zelensky was at first treated like all such conversations: it was transcribed by listeners and then passed on to certain other agencies (I know the memo mentions the State Department, I'm pretty sure it mentions or at least suggests others as well) and then logged as normal in a public file. It was after this period of normality that certain White House figures decided to re-route the transcript from the normal file to the special secret file. But, according to the memo, the original transcript was sent out to other agencies before it got re-classified. I presume this is the reason for the subpoena to SecState Pompeo, who theoretically should have the pre-classified transcript (and is otherwise just a big ol' target for Trump-haters in the House). I presume we'll see a few more of those subpoenas because there should be other pre-classified transcripts floating around out there. Is this out of the ordinary? (I have no idea) Are there other such re-routed transcriptions? (I dunno, will we even find out?) Will this yield impeachment-worthy stuff? (Ehh, I kinda doubt it but that's no reason not to look)
The key (at first) will be the records that the White House keeps secret (or secret-ish) and what oversight Congress actually has over those records. Can Congress demand the logs or even the contents of these files? I dunno, but I'm guessing an exhaustive history of every time Congress has asked for stuff and the White House's response will be forthcoming, whether in defense or prosecution. So will this lead to a deeper look into the secret file? Maybe, I wouldn't say 'definitely', because determining what is actually in that file is entirely up to the White House and what they choose is (I would suggest) an in-born parameter of Executive Privilege: the Prez doesn't really have the ability to share everything and, while some purely political nonsense will be shielded in this manner, it simply is not possible for Congress to receive all that it wants. And how could anyone actually verify that anything released from those files was complete or thorough? (Trick question: no one can)
It is worth noting that this is not a criminal trial, this is not a matter for the courts. This is a Congressional action that requires only a (party line) vote and needn't concern itself with evidence or witnesses (the whistleblower acknowledges that "he" was not a witness to any of his various accusations) and doesn't really do any of that beyond a shadow of doubt stuff that an ordinary citizen would receive. Hey, man, that's just how this works and the POTUS is not an ordinary citizen.
Pelosi was reticent to go forward with the impeachment and I'd say it's because she's in a World Cup conundrum: when a coach does poorly in a World Cup, he gets fired; when he does well in a World Cup, he goes off to a better job. Either way, he's not coaching the team in the next Cup. Likewise, with Pelosi: if this effort fails, she will be cannibalized by the Dems and drummed out of office; if she's successful, she'll be a folk hero, an important talking head for life and a worthy party fundraiser, but being Speaker will probably become more trouble than it's worth. So no matter what ends up happening with Trump, I think this is Pelosi's swan song. Her mission is to take one for the team with the hope of driving public opinion away from Trump heading into the 2020 election.
So where does this all go? Well, I'd say getting Trump out of office is not likely. Perhaps several months of constant Congressional attack will push the Senate Republicans to topple, but I doubt it. It's not impossible: Trump has no shortage of powerful enemies that would love to put the shiv in him, so if his support in the Senate begins to wobble, it could go downhill very quickly. If the public opinion becomes too much to bear, then the Senate will have to follow suit and run him out. (Trump has already begun throwing shade at Vice President Pence just in case Pence develops support as a potential white knight; also, don't be surprised if the ghost of John Bolton ends up taking a lot of blame) Trump's greatest liability is himself: he clearly has no grasp of how Washington works, he keeps trying to run the White House like he ran his company but the two entities are not the same. I think House Dems are employing a 'give-him-enough-rope' strategy and Trump is the kind of idiot braggart that could well hang himself. We'll see if death by tweet is listed on his death certificate.
Trump's crime here is being a neophyte politician--which is precisely what won him the election to begin with. But what was attractive to voters is deadly to the actual candidate who doesn't know what he's doing. Trump was under investigation prior to being inaugurated and he fought it with stonewalling, prevarication and outright lies, all of which work just fine in open court, but not so well when dealing with federal prosecutors. Trump has played lawyers against each other numerous times in his life but the White House is not a courtroom and in the court of public opinion double jeopardy just keeps going and going. Trump tried to connive personal support out of James Comey and it backfired badly; the way you cajole loyalty from a junior VP doesn't work as well on the head of the FBI. Trump thought firing Gen. Flynn would end the investigation; it did not. He thought Mueller's inability to hang anything notable on him (or Russia, for that matter) would be the end of it; it was not. In the game of politics the players are active 24 hours a day whether they've won or lost, simply surviving is nice but not enough. And remember: the House Democrats don't need 'evidence', they just need to call a vote.
Trump's supporters love his ability to enter the realm of the liberal media and stick fingers in the eyes of the culture warriors. But I'm not at all convinced they love anything else about him. Trump thinks they love him but if his ability to credibly inflict pain on the social media elite dissipates, then Trump's support will be gone in a flash. And once he's out of office, the politics won't stop, he's a lifelong prisoner to it now. (Ever heard of Wang Mang? Or Oliver_Cromwell? Study up on them, because I suspect Trump's future looks a lot like what happened to them)
Trump's detractors already hate everything about the man and won't need anything more than what they've seen to vote him out. But do we want an American power structure where a sitting president can be removed for any conversation that looks goofy on paper? If this was the impetus to ridding ourselves of all corruption once and for all, that'd be great! If we just needed a sacrificial lamb to slaughter to redeem all our sins and finally become the nation we were supposed to be, then I'd be all for letting Donald J. Trump be that lamb and let him carry the sins of America to his grave. But I don't think it works that way. Indeed, I think an impeachment here would be giving in to the inchoate mob that only wants to hang their unceasing frustration on someone else. If we give them Trump, they'll want more--and the next time it'll be the other side feeling like they've earned some bloodletting, too. Do you really think President Warren walks comfortably into the post-impeachment White House? Do you really think President Pence will be the savior we need to restore order?
Doomsayers love to compare contemporary USA to the Roman Empire. Rome fell and one day so will we (I'm not actually convinced that's true, the world is an entirely different place today, but it seems reasonable to most, I guess). They point to the imbalances in the economy, the militarism, the dishonorable treatment of foreigners. I've been reading lately on Rome and I don't think any of those comparisons last beyond the average mediocre cable news 'debate'. I think the real downfall of Rome was the perversion of their political processes, the way senators began tabling measures rather than voting on them, skewing the system rather than making their cases and playing it out, and the endless and fruitless argument over the concept of citizenship. The doomsayers haven't reached for this conclusion--which is precisely why I'm starting to fear they may be right! They don't see themselves as the bringers of the doom but they could be.
To me the danger of Trump isn't Trump himself but what comes after. I'm convinced the Republican Party is completely broken now and the Democratic Party is wobbling further out of control. And the message of Trump is non-politicians cannot be allowed to survive or can only survive by further perverting the system. What comes next is going to be worse and impeachment could be the worse. Flinging out a duly elected president because you didn't bother to win the election is not a good way to go (that's how California got Governor Schwarzenegger, you may recall).
So who benefits from this? Well, the bizarre possible answer is Trump. If he survives, he'll be stronger than ever, virtually impervious to attack of any kind--indeed, I'd say he needs this, he needs to overcome impeachment to really cement his standing as one of the great partisan hacks of all time because if he doesn't...bad things, man. But until we know the outcome I'd say the winner is Elizabeth Warren, who gets to distance herself from Trump and Biden simultaneously now. Or perhaps the collective prosecutorial spirit will revive the chances of Kamala Harris. And certainly a new bright shining star could emerge from the Democrats in the House or the Republicans in the Senate. And, of course, Mike Pence could go from nobody to Prez before all this is done. But I don't think this raises the hopes of the pseudo-challengers on the Republican side, nor does much for the other Democratic candidates (Buttigieg, Beto, Klobuchar get pushed even further from recognition, although this could give Cory Booker a chance to re-boot, to bring a new perspective on the whole situation). Sure Bernie gets to be even more Bernie, he gets to be louder and Bernier, but I think his time as a serious candidate has passed and I don't see this as an opportunity for him to win back lost voters.
Okay, you ready for the conspiracy theory? This isn't about getting rid of Trump (of which I'd say there's roughly a 1-in-5 chance), I think it's about getting rid of Joe Biden. If we're gonna spend the next several months digging into Trump's dealings in Ukraine we're going find out a lot about Biden's dealings in Ukraine, which won't seem any better and will only get him married with Trump in public opinion, which does not bode well for him. For the Warren wing of the Democratic Party this is two birds with one stone. Seems weird but I think Biden may take the brunt of this.
Still a long way to go, new files and transcripts to dig into, more accusations and shouting to come. Politically speaking this will suck the oxygen out of every room for the next 10-12 months, this will be everyone's main talking point, not much else will seem important (no matter how hard Iran tries). And when it is all said and done, we may have a new president, a new secretary of state, a new speaker of the House, and possibly even brand new Republican and Democrat nominees for the 2020 election. Vladimir Putin has never effected an election the way Nancy Pelosi is about to.
(*) Transcript-ish. Thorough but no reason to think this is complete. Was the call recorded? The White House tends to tape everything but taping a phone call with another foreign leader is pretty hacky, so even odds if there is audio of this conversation.
This all kicked off when a whistleblower (anonymous) report suggested that in July Trump had had a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the transcript of which had been put into a secret file rather than the regular public file, which in and of itself may be indicative of some criminality in the conversation itself.
I assume there will be a lot more coming over the next 12 months or so and bombshells and Trump gaffes are certainly possible. But upon first look: this doesn't look like much to me and I feel like going for impeachment is a bit of an overreach.
Under pressure, the White House released the "transcript" (*) of a July phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Trump opponents suggest that Trump's request for an investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of the presumptive (for now) Democratic nominee for the 2020 election, represents pressuring a foreign leader into interfering with a presidential election. To me the language looks pretty colloquial: Trump doesn't say he will hold up the approved aid to Ukraine, he simply moves the conversation to another topic. I would suggest that mentioning two different things in the same conversation does not equal a quid pro quo. Furthermore, the investigation of Biden was already under way, so where is the pressure? And if the Ukrainian investigation yields unpleasant info about Biden or his son, then why is that a bad thing? Is the implication that because Joe Biden is running for president that he is above investigation and that his family can no longer be suspected of a crime? And how would a foreign investigation be unconstitutional or a violation of Biden's rights as an American citizen? As for the aid itself, it was approved in June and delivered in September, which in federal gov't terms is not long at all, so what was the threat?
To me the awkward part of the conversation for Trump is he seems to be equating his personal lawyer (Giuliani) with the attorney general of the United States (Bill Barr) and that's weird to say the least and indicates that this is purely a private matter and not a criminal investigation. And I'm eager to hear the details of the holdup on Ukrainian aid: when did Trump stop the aid? What was his reasoning and language for doing so? How does a president stop aid that has been pledged by Congress, the State Department and the Pentagon? And when/how was the block on aid lifted?
According to the whistleblower memo, Trump's conversation with Zelensky was at first treated like all such conversations: it was transcribed by listeners and then passed on to certain other agencies (I know the memo mentions the State Department, I'm pretty sure it mentions or at least suggests others as well) and then logged as normal in a public file. It was after this period of normality that certain White House figures decided to re-route the transcript from the normal file to the special secret file. But, according to the memo, the original transcript was sent out to other agencies before it got re-classified. I presume this is the reason for the subpoena to SecState Pompeo, who theoretically should have the pre-classified transcript (and is otherwise just a big ol' target for Trump-haters in the House). I presume we'll see a few more of those subpoenas because there should be other pre-classified transcripts floating around out there. Is this out of the ordinary? (I have no idea) Are there other such re-routed transcriptions? (I dunno, will we even find out?) Will this yield impeachment-worthy stuff? (Ehh, I kinda doubt it but that's no reason not to look)
The key (at first) will be the records that the White House keeps secret (or secret-ish) and what oversight Congress actually has over those records. Can Congress demand the logs or even the contents of these files? I dunno, but I'm guessing an exhaustive history of every time Congress has asked for stuff and the White House's response will be forthcoming, whether in defense or prosecution. So will this lead to a deeper look into the secret file? Maybe, I wouldn't say 'definitely', because determining what is actually in that file is entirely up to the White House and what they choose is (I would suggest) an in-born parameter of Executive Privilege: the Prez doesn't really have the ability to share everything and, while some purely political nonsense will be shielded in this manner, it simply is not possible for Congress to receive all that it wants. And how could anyone actually verify that anything released from those files was complete or thorough? (Trick question: no one can)
It is worth noting that this is not a criminal trial, this is not a matter for the courts. This is a Congressional action that requires only a (party line) vote and needn't concern itself with evidence or witnesses (the whistleblower acknowledges that "he" was not a witness to any of his various accusations) and doesn't really do any of that beyond a shadow of doubt stuff that an ordinary citizen would receive. Hey, man, that's just how this works and the POTUS is not an ordinary citizen.
Pelosi was reticent to go forward with the impeachment and I'd say it's because she's in a World Cup conundrum: when a coach does poorly in a World Cup, he gets fired; when he does well in a World Cup, he goes off to a better job. Either way, he's not coaching the team in the next Cup. Likewise, with Pelosi: if this effort fails, she will be cannibalized by the Dems and drummed out of office; if she's successful, she'll be a folk hero, an important talking head for life and a worthy party fundraiser, but being Speaker will probably become more trouble than it's worth. So no matter what ends up happening with Trump, I think this is Pelosi's swan song. Her mission is to take one for the team with the hope of driving public opinion away from Trump heading into the 2020 election.
So where does this all go? Well, I'd say getting Trump out of office is not likely. Perhaps several months of constant Congressional attack will push the Senate Republicans to topple, but I doubt it. It's not impossible: Trump has no shortage of powerful enemies that would love to put the shiv in him, so if his support in the Senate begins to wobble, it could go downhill very quickly. If the public opinion becomes too much to bear, then the Senate will have to follow suit and run him out. (Trump has already begun throwing shade at Vice President Pence just in case Pence develops support as a potential white knight; also, don't be surprised if the ghost of John Bolton ends up taking a lot of blame) Trump's greatest liability is himself: he clearly has no grasp of how Washington works, he keeps trying to run the White House like he ran his company but the two entities are not the same. I think House Dems are employing a 'give-him-enough-rope' strategy and Trump is the kind of idiot braggart that could well hang himself. We'll see if death by tweet is listed on his death certificate.
Trump's crime here is being a neophyte politician--which is precisely what won him the election to begin with. But what was attractive to voters is deadly to the actual candidate who doesn't know what he's doing. Trump was under investigation prior to being inaugurated and he fought it with stonewalling, prevarication and outright lies, all of which work just fine in open court, but not so well when dealing with federal prosecutors. Trump has played lawyers against each other numerous times in his life but the White House is not a courtroom and in the court of public opinion double jeopardy just keeps going and going. Trump tried to connive personal support out of James Comey and it backfired badly; the way you cajole loyalty from a junior VP doesn't work as well on the head of the FBI. Trump thought firing Gen. Flynn would end the investigation; it did not. He thought Mueller's inability to hang anything notable on him (or Russia, for that matter) would be the end of it; it was not. In the game of politics the players are active 24 hours a day whether they've won or lost, simply surviving is nice but not enough. And remember: the House Democrats don't need 'evidence', they just need to call a vote.
Trump's supporters love his ability to enter the realm of the liberal media and stick fingers in the eyes of the culture warriors. But I'm not at all convinced they love anything else about him. Trump thinks they love him but if his ability to credibly inflict pain on the social media elite dissipates, then Trump's support will be gone in a flash. And once he's out of office, the politics won't stop, he's a lifelong prisoner to it now. (Ever heard of Wang Mang? Or Oliver_Cromwell? Study up on them, because I suspect Trump's future looks a lot like what happened to them)
Trump's detractors already hate everything about the man and won't need anything more than what they've seen to vote him out. But do we want an American power structure where a sitting president can be removed for any conversation that looks goofy on paper? If this was the impetus to ridding ourselves of all corruption once and for all, that'd be great! If we just needed a sacrificial lamb to slaughter to redeem all our sins and finally become the nation we were supposed to be, then I'd be all for letting Donald J. Trump be that lamb and let him carry the sins of America to his grave. But I don't think it works that way. Indeed, I think an impeachment here would be giving in to the inchoate mob that only wants to hang their unceasing frustration on someone else. If we give them Trump, they'll want more--and the next time it'll be the other side feeling like they've earned some bloodletting, too. Do you really think President Warren walks comfortably into the post-impeachment White House? Do you really think President Pence will be the savior we need to restore order?
Doomsayers love to compare contemporary USA to the Roman Empire. Rome fell and one day so will we (I'm not actually convinced that's true, the world is an entirely different place today, but it seems reasonable to most, I guess). They point to the imbalances in the economy, the militarism, the dishonorable treatment of foreigners. I've been reading lately on Rome and I don't think any of those comparisons last beyond the average mediocre cable news 'debate'. I think the real downfall of Rome was the perversion of their political processes, the way senators began tabling measures rather than voting on them, skewing the system rather than making their cases and playing it out, and the endless and fruitless argument over the concept of citizenship. The doomsayers haven't reached for this conclusion--which is precisely why I'm starting to fear they may be right! They don't see themselves as the bringers of the doom but they could be.
To me the danger of Trump isn't Trump himself but what comes after. I'm convinced the Republican Party is completely broken now and the Democratic Party is wobbling further out of control. And the message of Trump is non-politicians cannot be allowed to survive or can only survive by further perverting the system. What comes next is going to be worse and impeachment could be the worse. Flinging out a duly elected president because you didn't bother to win the election is not a good way to go (that's how California got Governor Schwarzenegger, you may recall).
So who benefits from this? Well, the bizarre possible answer is Trump. If he survives, he'll be stronger than ever, virtually impervious to attack of any kind--indeed, I'd say he needs this, he needs to overcome impeachment to really cement his standing as one of the great partisan hacks of all time because if he doesn't...bad things, man. But until we know the outcome I'd say the winner is Elizabeth Warren, who gets to distance herself from Trump and Biden simultaneously now. Or perhaps the collective prosecutorial spirit will revive the chances of Kamala Harris. And certainly a new bright shining star could emerge from the Democrats in the House or the Republicans in the Senate. And, of course, Mike Pence could go from nobody to Prez before all this is done. But I don't think this raises the hopes of the pseudo-challengers on the Republican side, nor does much for the other Democratic candidates (Buttigieg, Beto, Klobuchar get pushed even further from recognition, although this could give Cory Booker a chance to re-boot, to bring a new perspective on the whole situation). Sure Bernie gets to be even more Bernie, he gets to be louder and Bernier, but I think his time as a serious candidate has passed and I don't see this as an opportunity for him to win back lost voters.
Okay, you ready for the conspiracy theory? This isn't about getting rid of Trump (of which I'd say there's roughly a 1-in-5 chance), I think it's about getting rid of Joe Biden. If we're gonna spend the next several months digging into Trump's dealings in Ukraine we're going find out a lot about Biden's dealings in Ukraine, which won't seem any better and will only get him married with Trump in public opinion, which does not bode well for him. For the Warren wing of the Democratic Party this is two birds with one stone. Seems weird but I think Biden may take the brunt of this.
Still a long way to go, new files and transcripts to dig into, more accusations and shouting to come. Politically speaking this will suck the oxygen out of every room for the next 10-12 months, this will be everyone's main talking point, not much else will seem important (no matter how hard Iran tries). And when it is all said and done, we may have a new president, a new secretary of state, a new speaker of the House, and possibly even brand new Republican and Democrat nominees for the 2020 election. Vladimir Putin has never effected an election the way Nancy Pelosi is about to.
(*) Transcript-ish. Thorough but no reason to think this is complete. Was the call recorded? The White House tends to tape everything but taping a phone call with another foreign leader is pretty hacky, so even odds if there is audio of this conversation.
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