I haven’t yet seen any mention of this: White House Withholding 105 Million in Security Aid for Lebanon (Reuters)
I wonder what the quid pro quo was for this move.
Not quite a quote from the Mueller Report but it won’t let me copy and paste, so from the below article:
http://m.startribune.com/the-mueller-report-s-account-of-michael-flynn-s-lies/509214352/
You believe him?
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”I want DVDs of some Lebanese. Some of that girl-on-girl action to get my motor runnng.”
To me, it looks like they can then say “See, we withhold aid all the time, not just for Ukraine.”
<sigh…> I don’t know. But Moscow Mitch chooses his words and actions very carefully. I loathe him, but I recognize his cunning. He hasn’t survived for 6 terms by not knowing exactly how far he can go – and how far he can’t.
I’ve watched him throughout this mess. He’s warned Trump in subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways a number of times that it was possible for him (Trump) to go too far, and that removal is not out of the question. McConnell has deviated from defending Trump on several occasions lately. He has put some noticeable distance between them, even at times when I would have expected him to simply stay quiet – which is his usual tactic when he doesn’t want to signal a course.
For him to take the step of making a very public statement about the length of the Senate trial and name the days of the week it will be in session could accomplish several things for him:
First, he really hates the Moscow Mitch moniker. He wants to nip that in the bud by appearing to be less Trump-aligned (too late on this one, I think).
Second, he’s not a Trump fan. He’s a Moscow Mitch fan. I don’t think he’d be sorry to see the back of Trump, so if Dems are successful in swaying public opinion sufficiently to merit a removal vote, I think he’ll take advantage of it.
Third, he’s signaling to his members that it might be ok to consider removal if the evidence merits it and public opinion goes in that direction. Notice how they’ve all started mumbling to the press about how they will soon be “jurors” in the removal trial and can therefore offer no comments on Trump’s alleged high crimes and misdemeanors. None of them are saying what he did is ok, like some Republican House members are.
Fourth, I don’t think he wants to support an uncontrollable Trump for 4 more years. As much as Trump has hurt the country, he has hurt the Republican brand more and will continue to do so. There’s really only one way to fix that, and that’s to jettison Trump. I think the reason McConnell leaned back and welcomed Russian interference in 2016 was because he believed he could control Trump while he, McConnell, realized his lifelong dream of stacking the courts. Now he knows he can’t.
Fifth, even McConnell recognizes that if Trump contests the 2020 election as most are certain he will, it will rend this country apart. Trump can’t argue with a 20-member removal vote by the Senate the way he can call the 2020 election results into question.
That doesn’t mean I take Moscow Mitch at his word. But in a several ways, he seems to have charted a course – and I don’t think it necessarily bodes well for Trump.
If I’m right, I don’t expect McConnell to advertise his intent much. In fact, I’d expect him to misdirect Trump as much as possible into believing the Senate has his back – right up to the point where they take the removal vote. I mean, would you give Trump any advance warning?
Or it’s absolutely possible this is merely wishful thinking on my part and we’re going to get reamed again. We’ll know soon.
I would agree with you wholeheartedly except for two things.
One, Moscow Mitch made a point of publicly commenting that he had several times inquired about the Ukraine aid and why it had not been released as Congress had authorized. He said he never received a satisfactory answer. It’s one of the times when McConnell signaled his displeasure with what Trump did. The Syria thing really pissed him off.
Two, if Congressional Republicans endorse the notion that the Executive Branch can withhold or repurpose funds at will, then they will have ceded one of the main reasons for their existence: Their ability to control taxpayer money and where it is spent. The White House is trying to advance this narrative, but not Congress. I don’t think I’ve even heard a whackadoodle House Republican say it.
Why have a Congress at all if the Executive Branch can simply pick and choose how all our money is allocated?
I think that’s right.
It’s also possible, though, that some kind of arm-twisting intended to help Donald J. Trump is part of the picture. Something along the lines of ‘you have an important trade relationship with Egypt. Joe Biden was in Egypt in June 2010. We need you to pressure Egypt to announce publicly that their law-enforcement services are launching an investigation into Biden’s alleged involvement with a child-sex ring during his visit.’
Just as with the ‘pressure Ukraine to say they’re investigating Biden,’ it matters not at all that there’s nothing to the story, because all the major media will run headlines and top-of-the-hour stories for days about the Official Investigation into Alleged Biden Wrongdoing.
In re a topic from a while back that got dropped in the rush of news:
I think the discussion there concerned the copy the Ukrainian President would presumably have made of the conversation with Trump.
I do wonder, though, about the post-1973 policy (apparently) of not recording a US President’s calls. Did every single President since then–Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama–take a look at the issue and say ‘hmm, let’s not record in case I say something that could later be used against me’…???
I mean, I could see some of them viewing it that way–but all of them?
I think this is the biggest one. Four more years of trying to manage the Toddler in Chief? Wiping his… er…*nose *and changing his diapers?? Mitch doesn’t want that any more than the rest of us. If he can just get one more Republican on the Supreme Court in the next few months…
If Mitch could figure out how to do this, he’d jump at the chance.
You’re thinking epistemically and rationally; the Republicans are thinking strictly in terms of power. From their vantage point, they don’t need consistency; they need power. They are a minority with majority power. Their objective is to corrupt the mechanisms of democratic influence to the point where doubts are cast on the degree to which we live in a democratic state.
Why have a Congress at all? Why have a judiciary? To rubber stamp the legitimacy of the Executive Branch.
No, McConnell has the chance to completely remake the judiciary in his image; he won’t stop there - not a chance. He has the chance to add another conservative to the Supreme Court. He also has the chance to put more conservative ideologues on the appellate courts, and who knows, in another 4 years, the majority of the entire federal judiciary will have a certain…19th Century look and feel to it.
Why would Cocaine Mitch take chances knowing that Millennials might vote for a more progressive president who wants all sorts of economic reforms to protect the middle class? He wants to use the courts to declare anything that progressives come up with as unconstitutional.
This is what most people, including those reading here, don’t seem to understand. As I’ve said before, authoritarianism and oligarchy are much, much further down the football field than we realize. Right now, it’s the legitimacy of the courts that is giving us some degree of fading hopes that we can rein the Executive in. The courts have been checking Trump, putting some limits on his executive orders, and where appropriate, compelling oversight - or ruling to that effect. But the country cannot withstand another 4 years of Trump/McConnell judicial picks, particularly given the fact that an increasing number have very little actual background in law and are not even regarded as qualified in the eyes of the ABA. Another 4 years from now, Trump’s judiciary could resemble that of some authoritarian countries.
So, I convinced a Trumpster that he needs impeachment (for now, who knows if it’ll last), so I got that going for me.
How?
His question: “What do you think of all this impeachment shit?”, so obviously not a supporter.
My response was:
"The United States is a sovereign nation. All sovereign nations… Democratic, Socialist, Communist, Theocratic… regardless of government, need to retain control of the internal processes which select the people who are to maintain and lead that nation’s policy making apparatus.
"Any leader, on any level, inviting foreign interference in this decision making process is automatically unfit to govern. Period. And if we think that the United States is a sovereign nation worth maintaining, then a President, of any party, which violates that sovereignty demands impeachment from all Americans.
“In addition, the Constitution, under Article 2, Section 4, lays out Bribery as a named crime for impeachment. By withholding taxpayer monies to do the above, Trump committed bribery with our money so he can violate our sovereignty, which, as a citizen, adds insult to injury. In short…”, (I concluded), “there is no way this man can escape impeachment and have the United States remain a viable entity.”
He said “I never thought about that, but you’re absolutely right. Wow. Yeah…”
Anyway, thought I would share.
Well done, you. 
Warms my heart to hear of it! I like how you distilled it down to the fundamentals. Should I get the chance, I’ll use your approach.
I voted today. Felt good.
I will vote again.
Vote early and often.
- Al Capone
Thanks! It’s effectively the same argument I’ve used in this thread.
New line for my conclusion: “Donald Trump used our tax dollars to bribe the Ukranians to help steal our vote.” Gonna work that one in, next time.
First release of documents from the Mueller investigation, btw:
I skipped down a ways and began reading, so I’m sure that there’s more of interest before this but this seems like criminal witness tampering on the part of Jared Kushner on page 73:
Emphasis added.
In general, though, they seem to have redacted everything that wasn’t in the Mueller Report itself. One suspects that there will be further legal wrangling on this.
Or more direct relevance to the impeachment issue, there is some discussion between Bannon and Prince about an “Oleg, national security advisor to the Ukraine” that Trump should meet, and whom the FBI seem to be interested in.
This guy, maybe?
Nope, it’s this Oleg: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/q-a-will-scandal-sink-poroshenko-s-second-term-chances/
Might be more powerful if you changed “our” to “YOUR”.