These are the Republicans who are against Trump and for impeachment
Analysis by Harry Enten
President Donald Trump is staring down possible impeachment. Fortunately for him, his base of very conservative Republicans in the Senate likely would save him from being removed from office.
But CNN/SSRS polling in September suggests that Trump should be more worried about a part of the Republican Party that gets less notoriety: the more moderate part. This part of the party won't play a large role in impeachment proceedings, but their feelings toward impeachment and Trump in general could hurt his re-election bid.
The yearning for impeachment and removing Trump from office has risen significantly among moderate and liberal potential Republicans (i.e. Republicans and Republican leaning independents). Nearly a third of moderate/liberal potential Republicans in our latest CNN poll said they wanted Trump impeached and removed last week, while about two-thirds didn't want that. Back in late May, the split was 16% for impeachment and removal and 81% against it. This is statistically significant movement.
The seeming shift of this moderate/liberal potential Republican bloc shouldn't be too surprising, given what a different CNN poll found in early September. In that poll, 25% of moderate/liberal potential Republicans disapproved of the job Trump was doing as president. Only 69% approved. Trump's job approval ratings with this moderate/liberal Republican bloc looks like the percentage who want him impeached and removed from office.
Now compare what's going on with the very conservative part of the Republican Party. Among those who are very conservative and can be classified as potential Republicans, Trump remains a very popular president. His approval rating in CNN's early September poll among very conservative potential Republicans was 94%, about 25 points higher than his rating with the moderate to liberal wing of the party.
Obviously, you shouldn't expect moderate and liberal Republicans to be as behind the President as very conservative Republicans. Those toward the center of the ideological spectrum are more likely to go against their party.
Still, this is an underperformance for Trump.
For perspective, 85% of moderate/conservative potential Democrats and 98% of very liberal potential Democrats disapproved of the job Trump was doing in our early September CNN poll. This is a 13-point gap going from left to right within the party. On the Republican side, the gap is about double that from left to right within the party.
Not surprisingly, very conservative potential Republicans have been far less likely to back impeachment than moderate/liberal potential Republicans. The trendline on impeachment is much different among very conservative potential Republicans and moderate/liberal potential Republicans as well. Back in May, 2% of them wanted Trump impeached and removed from office. Today, it's 1% of this bloc who want Trump impeached and removed from office.
In other words, Trump's base is intact and isn't really moving. The loudest part of his party is going to have his back -- and it's a group that now makes up a lot more of congressional Republicans than it used to. This is why the chance of Trump getting removed from office is minimal, and it may make Trump believe he can count on more Republicans in his re-election bid than he actually can.
The problem for the President is that in the actual electorate, moderate and liberal potential Republicans make up about the same 25%-30% of potential Republicans as very conservatives do. (The other about 40% of the party is made up of somewhat conservative voters.)
When you dig deeper into the crosstabs, you see moderate and liberal Republicans may even have more power than the national polls indicate. In a combined sample of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin Republicans in the 2018 midterm exit polls, about 40% call themselves either moderate or liberal. These, of course, were the big states that flipped the electoral college in 2016.
Now, I don't want to overplay the role of a group of voters who make up, at most, a third of the Republican Party. But when you look at the math, something's going to have to give for Trump: Either he's going to need to win a significantly larger chunk of moderate/liberal Republicans than these numbers suggest he's capable of winning, or the Democratic candidate will have to underperform among Democrats.
Because unless something happens, it's difficult to imagine Trump winning when only a little more than two-thirds of moderate/liberal potential Republicans approve of the job he's doing in office and nearly a third want him impeached and removed from office.
October 01, 2019
Personally asked foreign officials....
Barr personally asked foreign officials to aid inquiry into CIA, FBI activities in 2016
Devlin Barrett, Shane Harris and Matt Zapotosky
Attorney General William Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials seeking their help in a Justice Department inquiry that President Donald Trump hopes will discredit U.S. intelligence agencies' examination of possible connections between Russia and members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter.
Barr's personal involvement is likely to stoke further criticism from Democrats pursuing impeachment that he is helping the Trump administration use executive branch powers to augment investigations aimed primarily at the president's adversaries.
But the high-level Justice Department focus on intelligence operatives' conduct will likely cheer Trump and other conservatives for whom "investigate the investigators" has become a rallying cry. Barr has voiced his own concerns, telling lawmakers in April that he believed "spying did occur" when it came to the U.S. investigation of the Trump campaign.
The direct involvement of the nation's top law enforcement official shows the priority Barr places on the investigation being conducted by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, who has been assigned the sensitive task of reviewing U.S. intelligence work surrounding the 2016 election and its aftermath.
The attorney general's active role also underscores the degree to which a nearly three-year-old election still consumes significant resources and attention inside the federal government. Current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials expressed frustration and alarm Monday that the head of the Justice Department was taking such a direct role in re-examining what they view as conspiracy theories and baseless allegations of misconduct.
Barr has already made overtures to British intelligence officials, and last week the attorney general traveled to Italy, where he and Durham met senior Italian government officials and Barr asked the Italians to assist Durham, according to one person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. It was not Barr's first trip to Italy to meet intelligence officials, the person said. The Trump administration has made similar requests of Australia, said people who discussed the interactions on the condition of anonymity because they involve an ongoing investigation and sensitive talks between governments.
In a recent phone call, Trump urged Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to provide assistance to the ongoing Justice Department inquiry, the people said. Trump made the request at Barr's urging, they said. The Trump phone call was first reported by The New York Times.
Trump administration officials defended the moves as above board.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said: "I'm old enough to remember when Democrats actually wanted to find out what happened in the 2016 election. The Democrats clearly don't want the truth to come out anymore as it might hurt them politically, but this call relates to a DOJ inquiry publicly announced months ago to uncover exactly what happened. The DOJ simply requested the President provide introductions to facilitate that ongoing inquiry, and he did so, that's all."
Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said, "Mr. Durham is gathering information from numerous sources, including a number of foreign countries. At Attorney General Barr's request, the President has contacted other countries to ask them to introduce the Attorney General and Mr. Durham to appropriate officials."
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Australian government said it has "always been ready to assist and cooperate with efforts that help shed further light on the matters under investigation. The [prime minister] confirmed this readiness once again in a conversation with the President."
Trump still complains frequently that those involved in the investigation of his campaign should be charged with crimes, asserting the FBI search for possible election season collusion between Russia and Trump campaign officials was a witch hunt spurred by agents and bureaucrats opposed to Trump becoming president. That investigation ended earlier this year when special counsel Robert Mueller determined there was insufficient evidence to charge any Americans with conspiring with Russia, and declined to reach a decision about whether the president had sought to obstruct justice.
David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who was involved in the early stages of the Russia probe, said it was "fairly unorthodox for the attorney general personally to be flying around the world as a point person to further evidence-gathering for a specific Justice Department investigation," and especially so in Barr's case.
"Even if one questions, as a threshold matter, the propriety of conducting a re-investigation of the Justice Department's own prior investigation of Russia's interference, the appointment of John Durham - a seasoned, nonpartisan prosecutor - provided some reason to believe that it would be handled in a professional, nonpartisan manner," Laufman said. "But if the attorney general is essentially running this investigation, that entire premise is out the window."
Barr's direct involvement in the effort also helps explain part of the controversial July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A rough transcript of that call shows Trump said he wanted Ukrainian assistance to help find out "what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine," and possible involvement with the Democratic National Committee computer system that U.S. agencies have determined was hacked by Russian intelligence ahead of the 2016 election.
Some of the president's supporters have suggested Ukraine had a more direct role in the 2016 investigation than currently known, an assertion denied by current and former officials who were involved in the original probe.
A person familiar with Barr's interactions with foreign officials described them as being official introductions to Durham. The attorney general "is telling people he wants to make sure that the rules governing U.S. agencies have been followed," this person said.
A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment, citing the ongoing review.
A former senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation denied that the CIA was involved in monitoring any members of the Trump campaign. Any such operations were conducted by the FBI and were lawful, the former official said, emphasizing that the CIA focused on Russia's interference in the election, and the role that Russian officials and intelligence agencies played.
Democrats are likely to bristle at the notion of the attorney general devoting personal time and energy to traveling overseas asking foreign countries to assist in an investigation of U.S. agencies and personnel, particularly since Democrats have accused Barr in the past of acting in Trump's interests at the expense of the Justice Department's independence.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., accused the attorney general of "going rogue" after the Justice Department determined the substance of an explosive whistleblower's complaint - alleging that Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, over Hunter Biden's past position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company - did not merit a criminal investigation.
House Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry to further probe the interactions of Trump and his lawyer with the Ukrainians.
During the call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Trump suggested that Barr and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, could help Zelensky's government investigate the matter. A spokeswoman for Barr has said the attorney general was unaware of any such effort, and had not spoken to the president about the issue, nor to Ukrainian authorities.
Giuliani has met with Ukrainian officials and urged them to investigate the Bidens, but insists there is nothing improper about that. Giuliani has declined to discuss Durham's investigation.
Barr's conversations with foreign counterparts have raised concerns among some intelligence officials that he may be seeking to substantiate conspiracy theories raised by some on the political right to defend Trump.
One area that has been of sustained interest to Barr and Durham, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, is a murky figure named Joseph Mifsud.
Mifsud, a European academic, was publicly linked to Russian interference efforts in late 2017, when Mueller revealed a guilty plea by former Trump campaign staffer George Papadopoulos, who admitted he had lied to the FBI about the details of his interactions with Mifsud.
Those conversations included an April 2016 meeting in which Mifsud allegedly alerted Papadopoulos that the Russians had "dirt" on Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the form of thousands of emails.
A version of that conversation was relayed to U.S. authorities later that summer by an Australian diplomat who had talked to Papadopoulos over drinks in London.
Shortly after his name surfaced publicly, Mifsud told Italian media he did not work for Russia. "I never got any money from the Russians: my conscience is clear," Mifsud told La Repubblica. "I am not a secret agent."
Since then, the professor has disappeared from public life, leading to a host of theories about him and his whereabouts. While court papers filed in Mueller's investigation suggested Mifsud operated in Russia's interests, conservatives and conspiracy theorists have suggested he was instead aligned with Western intelligence agencies.
In an interview on Fox News in April, Giuliani called Mifsud "a counterintelligence operative, either Maltese or Italian," who took part in what sounded to him like a "counterintelligence trap" against Papadopoulos.
It's unclear what Durham or Barr have come to suspect about Mifsud.
Barr met with British officials in London over the summer to discuss the Durham probe, said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation. In those conversations, according to this official, Barr expressed a belief that the U.S. investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election stemmed from some corrupt origin, the official said.
It was not clear what Barr thought was amiss, but he expressed a suspicion that information had been improperly gathered overseas about people connected with the Trump campaign, and that the British may have unwittingly assisted those efforts, the official said.
Another person familiar with Barr's efforts denied that characterization, saying he has been seeking cooperation for Durham's work, and not trying to promote a particular theory or accusation against U.S. agents and officers.
"It's well known within the intelligence community that you cannot ask another government to do something that you're prohibited from doing. That it is standard operating procedure," said a former national security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
An executive order governing U.S. intelligence activities states that no intelligence agency "shall participate in or request any person to undertake activities forbidden" by the order, which was issued in 1981.
As a young man, Barr worked as a lawyer at the CIA and has an ongoing interest in intelligence matters, according to those who know him well. In his public comments about the Russia interference investigation, he has suggested there were failures among former FBI leaders, and that intelligence agency rules about spying on Americans should be scrupulously followed regardless of party affiliation.
There are two primary efforts underway to scrutinize the 2016 investigation and its aftermath. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to issue in the coming weeks a lengthy report analyzing work done by the FBI and Justice Department to pursue alleged Russian election interference, and the applications for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order that approved electronic surveillance of the communications of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
Separately, Durham is taking a broader look at the actions of intelligence agencies overseas and domestically. Durham has a long track record of being tasked with difficult investigations that involve the CIA or other intelligence agencies. His past investigations have often lasted years, so it's unclear when Durham's review might wrap up, but it is unlikely to be soon, according to people familiar with the matter who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
Before Durham's appointment, another U.S. attorney was tasked with reviewing the Clinton email investigation, but the results of that work are still unknown. The multiple investigations show just how much the political conflict of 2016 continues to be an obsession within the government.
Last week, The Washington Post reported that State Department security officials were reexamining aspects of the Clinton email investigation, in which State Department business was conducted on Clinton's private server when she was secretary of state.
Devlin Barrett, Shane Harris and Matt Zapotosky
Attorney General William Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials seeking their help in a Justice Department inquiry that President Donald Trump hopes will discredit U.S. intelligence agencies' examination of possible connections between Russia and members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter.
Barr's personal involvement is likely to stoke further criticism from Democrats pursuing impeachment that he is helping the Trump administration use executive branch powers to augment investigations aimed primarily at the president's adversaries.
But the high-level Justice Department focus on intelligence operatives' conduct will likely cheer Trump and other conservatives for whom "investigate the investigators" has become a rallying cry. Barr has voiced his own concerns, telling lawmakers in April that he believed "spying did occur" when it came to the U.S. investigation of the Trump campaign.
The direct involvement of the nation's top law enforcement official shows the priority Barr places on the investigation being conducted by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, who has been assigned the sensitive task of reviewing U.S. intelligence work surrounding the 2016 election and its aftermath.
The attorney general's active role also underscores the degree to which a nearly three-year-old election still consumes significant resources and attention inside the federal government. Current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials expressed frustration and alarm Monday that the head of the Justice Department was taking such a direct role in re-examining what they view as conspiracy theories and baseless allegations of misconduct.
Barr has already made overtures to British intelligence officials, and last week the attorney general traveled to Italy, where he and Durham met senior Italian government officials and Barr asked the Italians to assist Durham, according to one person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. It was not Barr's first trip to Italy to meet intelligence officials, the person said. The Trump administration has made similar requests of Australia, said people who discussed the interactions on the condition of anonymity because they involve an ongoing investigation and sensitive talks between governments.
In a recent phone call, Trump urged Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to provide assistance to the ongoing Justice Department inquiry, the people said. Trump made the request at Barr's urging, they said. The Trump phone call was first reported by The New York Times.
Trump administration officials defended the moves as above board.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said: "I'm old enough to remember when Democrats actually wanted to find out what happened in the 2016 election. The Democrats clearly don't want the truth to come out anymore as it might hurt them politically, but this call relates to a DOJ inquiry publicly announced months ago to uncover exactly what happened. The DOJ simply requested the President provide introductions to facilitate that ongoing inquiry, and he did so, that's all."
Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said, "Mr. Durham is gathering information from numerous sources, including a number of foreign countries. At Attorney General Barr's request, the President has contacted other countries to ask them to introduce the Attorney General and Mr. Durham to appropriate officials."
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Australian government said it has "always been ready to assist and cooperate with efforts that help shed further light on the matters under investigation. The [prime minister] confirmed this readiness once again in a conversation with the President."
Trump still complains frequently that those involved in the investigation of his campaign should be charged with crimes, asserting the FBI search for possible election season collusion between Russia and Trump campaign officials was a witch hunt spurred by agents and bureaucrats opposed to Trump becoming president. That investigation ended earlier this year when special counsel Robert Mueller determined there was insufficient evidence to charge any Americans with conspiring with Russia, and declined to reach a decision about whether the president had sought to obstruct justice.
David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who was involved in the early stages of the Russia probe, said it was "fairly unorthodox for the attorney general personally to be flying around the world as a point person to further evidence-gathering for a specific Justice Department investigation," and especially so in Barr's case.
"Even if one questions, as a threshold matter, the propriety of conducting a re-investigation of the Justice Department's own prior investigation of Russia's interference, the appointment of John Durham - a seasoned, nonpartisan prosecutor - provided some reason to believe that it would be handled in a professional, nonpartisan manner," Laufman said. "But if the attorney general is essentially running this investigation, that entire premise is out the window."
Barr's direct involvement in the effort also helps explain part of the controversial July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A rough transcript of that call shows Trump said he wanted Ukrainian assistance to help find out "what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine," and possible involvement with the Democratic National Committee computer system that U.S. agencies have determined was hacked by Russian intelligence ahead of the 2016 election.
Some of the president's supporters have suggested Ukraine had a more direct role in the 2016 investigation than currently known, an assertion denied by current and former officials who were involved in the original probe.
A person familiar with Barr's interactions with foreign officials described them as being official introductions to Durham. The attorney general "is telling people he wants to make sure that the rules governing U.S. agencies have been followed," this person said.
A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment, citing the ongoing review.
A former senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation denied that the CIA was involved in monitoring any members of the Trump campaign. Any such operations were conducted by the FBI and were lawful, the former official said, emphasizing that the CIA focused on Russia's interference in the election, and the role that Russian officials and intelligence agencies played.
Democrats are likely to bristle at the notion of the attorney general devoting personal time and energy to traveling overseas asking foreign countries to assist in an investigation of U.S. agencies and personnel, particularly since Democrats have accused Barr in the past of acting in Trump's interests at the expense of the Justice Department's independence.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., accused the attorney general of "going rogue" after the Justice Department determined the substance of an explosive whistleblower's complaint - alleging that Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, over Hunter Biden's past position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company - did not merit a criminal investigation.
House Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry to further probe the interactions of Trump and his lawyer with the Ukrainians.
During the call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Trump suggested that Barr and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, could help Zelensky's government investigate the matter. A spokeswoman for Barr has said the attorney general was unaware of any such effort, and had not spoken to the president about the issue, nor to Ukrainian authorities.
Giuliani has met with Ukrainian officials and urged them to investigate the Bidens, but insists there is nothing improper about that. Giuliani has declined to discuss Durham's investigation.
Barr's conversations with foreign counterparts have raised concerns among some intelligence officials that he may be seeking to substantiate conspiracy theories raised by some on the political right to defend Trump.
One area that has been of sustained interest to Barr and Durham, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, is a murky figure named Joseph Mifsud.
Mifsud, a European academic, was publicly linked to Russian interference efforts in late 2017, when Mueller revealed a guilty plea by former Trump campaign staffer George Papadopoulos, who admitted he had lied to the FBI about the details of his interactions with Mifsud.
Those conversations included an April 2016 meeting in which Mifsud allegedly alerted Papadopoulos that the Russians had "dirt" on Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the form of thousands of emails.
A version of that conversation was relayed to U.S. authorities later that summer by an Australian diplomat who had talked to Papadopoulos over drinks in London.
Shortly after his name surfaced publicly, Mifsud told Italian media he did not work for Russia. "I never got any money from the Russians: my conscience is clear," Mifsud told La Repubblica. "I am not a secret agent."
Since then, the professor has disappeared from public life, leading to a host of theories about him and his whereabouts. While court papers filed in Mueller's investigation suggested Mifsud operated in Russia's interests, conservatives and conspiracy theorists have suggested he was instead aligned with Western intelligence agencies.
In an interview on Fox News in April, Giuliani called Mifsud "a counterintelligence operative, either Maltese or Italian," who took part in what sounded to him like a "counterintelligence trap" against Papadopoulos.
It's unclear what Durham or Barr have come to suspect about Mifsud.
Barr met with British officials in London over the summer to discuss the Durham probe, said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation. In those conversations, according to this official, Barr expressed a belief that the U.S. investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election stemmed from some corrupt origin, the official said.
It was not clear what Barr thought was amiss, but he expressed a suspicion that information had been improperly gathered overseas about people connected with the Trump campaign, and that the British may have unwittingly assisted those efforts, the official said.
Another person familiar with Barr's efforts denied that characterization, saying he has been seeking cooperation for Durham's work, and not trying to promote a particular theory or accusation against U.S. agents and officers.
"It's well known within the intelligence community that you cannot ask another government to do something that you're prohibited from doing. That it is standard operating procedure," said a former national security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
An executive order governing U.S. intelligence activities states that no intelligence agency "shall participate in or request any person to undertake activities forbidden" by the order, which was issued in 1981.
As a young man, Barr worked as a lawyer at the CIA and has an ongoing interest in intelligence matters, according to those who know him well. In his public comments about the Russia interference investigation, he has suggested there were failures among former FBI leaders, and that intelligence agency rules about spying on Americans should be scrupulously followed regardless of party affiliation.
There are two primary efforts underway to scrutinize the 2016 investigation and its aftermath. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to issue in the coming weeks a lengthy report analyzing work done by the FBI and Justice Department to pursue alleged Russian election interference, and the applications for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order that approved electronic surveillance of the communications of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
Separately, Durham is taking a broader look at the actions of intelligence agencies overseas and domestically. Durham has a long track record of being tasked with difficult investigations that involve the CIA or other intelligence agencies. His past investigations have often lasted years, so it's unclear when Durham's review might wrap up, but it is unlikely to be soon, according to people familiar with the matter who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
Before Durham's appointment, another U.S. attorney was tasked with reviewing the Clinton email investigation, but the results of that work are still unknown. The multiple investigations show just how much the political conflict of 2016 continues to be an obsession within the government.
Last week, The Washington Post reported that State Department security officials were reexamining aspects of the Clinton email investigation, in which State Department business was conducted on Clinton's private server when she was secretary of state.
Shot innocent black man....
'Castle doctrine' may protect white officer who shot innocent black man in his own home, a judge rules
Katie Shepherd
A Texas jury began deliberations Monday to decide whether a white police officer who shot and killed an innocent black man in his own home is guilty of murder. Thanks to a last-minute decision from the judge, they'll be able to take into account a controversial law that might clear her of wrongdoing.
Dallas County District Court Judge Tammy Kemp ruled Monday that the jury can consider the state's "castle doctrine" in the trial of Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who said she mistakenly walked into the apartment of Botham Jean, a 26-year-old accountant who lived one floor above her, and then shot him dead in September 2018, thinking he was a burglar.
The judge's decision to allow the defense to use the law, which says your home is your castle and you have a right to defend it, has raised the bar for prosecutors and sparked outrage and disbelief from critics who questioned how the law could protect Guyger when she shot Jean in his own apartment.
"Why should you be allowed to break into someone's home, shoot them and then be let off the hook by the castle doctrine?" Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, who is running for reelection in Texas, tweeted on Monday.
The case has split public opinion. Civil rights activists view Jean's death as another example of police brutality against innocent black people. But local law enforcement see the charges, which came amid a recent flurry of indictments of Dallas officers, as an indication that the former District Attorney Faith Johnson was acquiescing to a "narrative that cops are bad," a police union president told the Dallas Morning News.
Guyger, 31, was allegedly distracted with explicit text messages from her partner on the force on Sept. 6, 2018, and tired after a nearly 14-hour shift when she parked in the garage on her building's fourth floor, instead of the third where she lived, and walked to the unit immediately above her own. The door was unlocked. Jean sat in the living room eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Guyger, still in her police uniform, drew her gun and fired twice, killing him.
A week after the shooting, police searched the victim's apartment for marijuana - a tactic activists denounced as a character "smear," the Morning News reported. Allegations of special treatment surfaced early in the trial last month, after testimony revealed responding officers left Guyger alone at the crime scene and allowed a police union president to turn off a camera and talk to her in a squad car shortly after the shooting.
Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney representing Jean's family, told the Associated Press the jury will decide "the value of a black life."
The district attorney already faced challenges because of the strange facts of the murder. Guyger claimed she genuinely believed she was entering her own apartment, invoking a rarely used defense called "mistake of fact." Essentially, legal analyst Pete Schulte told The Washington Post, the prosecution has to prove that Guyger could not have reasonably made the mistake of going to the wrong floor and opening her neighbor's door. Instead, the district attorney will need to convince a jury that Guyger intended to kill Jean.
"It's very, very difficult for any prosecution," said Schulte, a Dallas-based a criminal defense lawyer and former Dallas County prosecutor and police officer, who is not connected to the trial.
Guyger admitted on the stand that she shot to kill the young man because she thought he was burglarizing her apartment. Because of that mistake, her defense is built on a self-defense claim and now, after Kemp's 11th-hour ruling during a conference with attorneys on Monday, the Texas "castle doctrine."
Passed in 2007 during a wave of "stand your ground" laws across the U.S., Texas' so-called "castle doctrine" says that if four legal criteria are met, the law presumes that the use of deadly force is reasonable, Schulte said. For the statute to apply, the shooter must believe someone is trespassing illegally on their property, cannot provoke the victim and cannot be committing a crime when they pull the trigger. Finally, they must reasonably believe deadly force is necessary the moment they shoot.
The Dallas trial may be the first time the castle doctrine has been applied to a murder that happened inside the victim's home. The judge decided that the defense could argue Guyger believed she was in her own apartment when she shot Jean, and could also claim that the law should apply as if she were acting in her own home. Before beginning deliberations, the jury received an instruction explaining both "mistake of fact" and the castle doctrine.
One of the prosecutors on the case, Assistant District Attorney Jason Fine, called Guyger's testimony "garbage" in closing arguments, crumpling a piece of paper in his hands and tossing it in the trash can. He also objected to the idea that the castle doctrine could protect Guyger.
"It protects homeowners against intruders and now all of a sudden, the intruder is trying to use it against the homeowner," Fine told the jury, CNN reported. "This law is not in place for her, it's in place for Bo."
Toby Shook, Guyger's defense attorney, told jurors the slaying was not murder, but the result of "a series of horrible mistakes," the Associated Press reported. He emphasized Guyger's long shift and how other residents in the building reported accidentally going to the wrong unit because of the confusing parking garage. He characterized the shooting as a "split-second decision."
The decision to allow Guyger's defense team to invoke the castle doctrine in its defense surprised many in the courtroom, Schulte said.
"I think it shocked a lot of people, including me," Schulte said. "This case is so rare. You couldn't even make this up for a law school exam."
CNN legal analyst Paul Callan disagreed with Kemp's ruling, saying it "might give the jury an excuse to acquit officer Guyger even though she was not in her own home when she shot and killed Botham Jean."
The jury deliberated until 5 p.m. on Monday and will continue Tuesday morning. The four-year veteran officer could face five years to life in prison if she's convicted of murder. If jurors decide to convict her on manslaughter instead, her sentence could be two to 20 years in prison or probation.
"When you look at everything, she either committed murder or she committed murder with a defense," Schulte said. "She's not innocent, she's just not guilty of murder under these facts."
Katie Shepherd
A Texas jury began deliberations Monday to decide whether a white police officer who shot and killed an innocent black man in his own home is guilty of murder. Thanks to a last-minute decision from the judge, they'll be able to take into account a controversial law that might clear her of wrongdoing.
Dallas County District Court Judge Tammy Kemp ruled Monday that the jury can consider the state's "castle doctrine" in the trial of Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who said she mistakenly walked into the apartment of Botham Jean, a 26-year-old accountant who lived one floor above her, and then shot him dead in September 2018, thinking he was a burglar.
The judge's decision to allow the defense to use the law, which says your home is your castle and you have a right to defend it, has raised the bar for prosecutors and sparked outrage and disbelief from critics who questioned how the law could protect Guyger when she shot Jean in his own apartment.
"Why should you be allowed to break into someone's home, shoot them and then be let off the hook by the castle doctrine?" Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, who is running for reelection in Texas, tweeted on Monday.
The case has split public opinion. Civil rights activists view Jean's death as another example of police brutality against innocent black people. But local law enforcement see the charges, which came amid a recent flurry of indictments of Dallas officers, as an indication that the former District Attorney Faith Johnson was acquiescing to a "narrative that cops are bad," a police union president told the Dallas Morning News.
Guyger, 31, was allegedly distracted with explicit text messages from her partner on the force on Sept. 6, 2018, and tired after a nearly 14-hour shift when she parked in the garage on her building's fourth floor, instead of the third where she lived, and walked to the unit immediately above her own. The door was unlocked. Jean sat in the living room eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Guyger, still in her police uniform, drew her gun and fired twice, killing him.
A week after the shooting, police searched the victim's apartment for marijuana - a tactic activists denounced as a character "smear," the Morning News reported. Allegations of special treatment surfaced early in the trial last month, after testimony revealed responding officers left Guyger alone at the crime scene and allowed a police union president to turn off a camera and talk to her in a squad car shortly after the shooting.
Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney representing Jean's family, told the Associated Press the jury will decide "the value of a black life."
The district attorney already faced challenges because of the strange facts of the murder. Guyger claimed she genuinely believed she was entering her own apartment, invoking a rarely used defense called "mistake of fact." Essentially, legal analyst Pete Schulte told The Washington Post, the prosecution has to prove that Guyger could not have reasonably made the mistake of going to the wrong floor and opening her neighbor's door. Instead, the district attorney will need to convince a jury that Guyger intended to kill Jean.
"It's very, very difficult for any prosecution," said Schulte, a Dallas-based a criminal defense lawyer and former Dallas County prosecutor and police officer, who is not connected to the trial.
Guyger admitted on the stand that she shot to kill the young man because she thought he was burglarizing her apartment. Because of that mistake, her defense is built on a self-defense claim and now, after Kemp's 11th-hour ruling during a conference with attorneys on Monday, the Texas "castle doctrine."
Passed in 2007 during a wave of "stand your ground" laws across the U.S., Texas' so-called "castle doctrine" says that if four legal criteria are met, the law presumes that the use of deadly force is reasonable, Schulte said. For the statute to apply, the shooter must believe someone is trespassing illegally on their property, cannot provoke the victim and cannot be committing a crime when they pull the trigger. Finally, they must reasonably believe deadly force is necessary the moment they shoot.
The Dallas trial may be the first time the castle doctrine has been applied to a murder that happened inside the victim's home. The judge decided that the defense could argue Guyger believed she was in her own apartment when she shot Jean, and could also claim that the law should apply as if she were acting in her own home. Before beginning deliberations, the jury received an instruction explaining both "mistake of fact" and the castle doctrine.
One of the prosecutors on the case, Assistant District Attorney Jason Fine, called Guyger's testimony "garbage" in closing arguments, crumpling a piece of paper in his hands and tossing it in the trash can. He also objected to the idea that the castle doctrine could protect Guyger.
"It protects homeowners against intruders and now all of a sudden, the intruder is trying to use it against the homeowner," Fine told the jury, CNN reported. "This law is not in place for her, it's in place for Bo."
Toby Shook, Guyger's defense attorney, told jurors the slaying was not murder, but the result of "a series of horrible mistakes," the Associated Press reported. He emphasized Guyger's long shift and how other residents in the building reported accidentally going to the wrong unit because of the confusing parking garage. He characterized the shooting as a "split-second decision."
The decision to allow Guyger's defense team to invoke the castle doctrine in its defense surprised many in the courtroom, Schulte said.
"I think it shocked a lot of people, including me," Schulte said. "This case is so rare. You couldn't even make this up for a law school exam."
CNN legal analyst Paul Callan disagreed with Kemp's ruling, saying it "might give the jury an excuse to acquit officer Guyger even though she was not in her own home when she shot and killed Botham Jean."
The jury deliberated until 5 p.m. on Monday and will continue Tuesday morning. The four-year veteran officer could face five years to life in prison if she's convicted of murder. If jurors decide to convict her on manslaughter instead, her sentence could be two to 20 years in prison or probation.
"When you look at everything, she either committed murder or she committed murder with a defense," Schulte said. "She's not innocent, she's just not guilty of murder under these facts."
Worst fears
The worst fears about William Barr are proving correct
Aaron Blake
When William Barr was being confirmed as attorney general, some Democrats took solace in the idea that he was at least a mainstream Republican and not necessarily a Trump loyalist. In doing so, they overlooked past commentary that suggested he favored conspiracy theories involving the Clintons and the Russia investigation.
When Barr appointed U.S. attorney John Durham to look into President Donald Trump's allegations about the origins of that Russia probe, those same Democrats took solace in the fact that Durham had a reputation as a respected, nonpartisan straight shooter. In doing so, they set aside Barr's comments about the FBI having "spied" on Trump, along with Durham's past skepticism of the FBI's methods.
It's getting difficult for them to find solace in much of anything involving Barr.
The Washington Post's Devlin Barrett, Shane Harris and Matt Zapotosky reported Monday that Barr has been traveling overseas to seek help from top allies for Durham's probe, including Great Britain and multiple trips to Italy. The Trump administration has also made requests of Australia, whose officials played a key role in alerting U.S. officials to Russian interference. Signs indicate that the Aussies have proven a receptive audience.
The new disclosures recall last week's news that Trump pressured Ukraine's president to launch two investigations that carried potential political benefits for him - including one involving the Russia probe's origins - yet they are somewhat different. It's one thing to lean on a country to launch their own probes; it's not quite the same thing to seek their cooperation on an American investigation.
But the news appears to fill out the picture of an attorney general who was suspicious of the Russia probe's origins from long before he took his office, has honed his talking points about it in a very Trump direction, and now appears to be spending significant time pressing top allies to give the administration what it wants.
Just because he's asking for it, of course, doesn't mean they'll give him damning evidence to support his and Trump's suspicions. It's entirely possible this will be handled aboveboard, with Durham asserting himself as the staid and reasonable prosecutor he is reputed to be.
But Barr's involvement portends all kind of uncertainty and lends itself to suspicion. The mere fact that he's apparently taking such an interest in this - to the extent that he's made repeated overseas trips - suggests this is a topic of significant concern for him. It perhaps indicates that it's not something he's pursuing just to edify Trump and check a box for the president who appointed him.
Of course, that shouldn't really be a surprise given Barr has been barking up this tree since 2017. Long before many Republicans were questioning the origins of the Russia investigation, Barr told the New York Times that there was more reason to investigate "various 'national security' activities carried out during the election" than there was to investigate potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. (He said the same of the Clinton Foundation and a debunked conspiracy theory involving the Clintons and Uranium One.)
Barr told The Post around the same time, "I don't think all this stuff about throwing [Clinton] in jail or jumping to the conclusion that she should be prosecuted is appropriate." Then he added, "But I do think that there are things that should be investigated that haven't been investigated."
He now appears to be facilitating one of those investigations - hard. The risk of such high-profile involvement from Barr is that top allies see him as applying pressure on behalf of Trump to get the answers Trump wants, rather than simply making sure they cooperate with the things Durham asks them to do. Barr is clearly not erring on the side of looking as if he has completely outsourced this whole thing to Durham and is a passive player.
Trump has frequently thrown his weight around on the world stage in the name of allies doing his bidding - most recently, we've found out, in the case of Ukraine - and it's very difficult to separate this from that. The danger is that these counties who rely upon their alliance with the United States get the same message the whistle-blower alleged Trump has sent to Ukraine: that they better "play ball," or else.
None of it is a signal of attorney general just checking a box and/or straining to avoid proving his detractors correct; it's a signal of an attorney general who has taken the kind of keen interest in this subject that his public comments should have made plainly obvious.
Aaron Blake
When William Barr was being confirmed as attorney general, some Democrats took solace in the idea that he was at least a mainstream Republican and not necessarily a Trump loyalist. In doing so, they overlooked past commentary that suggested he favored conspiracy theories involving the Clintons and the Russia investigation.
When Barr appointed U.S. attorney John Durham to look into President Donald Trump's allegations about the origins of that Russia probe, those same Democrats took solace in the fact that Durham had a reputation as a respected, nonpartisan straight shooter. In doing so, they set aside Barr's comments about the FBI having "spied" on Trump, along with Durham's past skepticism of the FBI's methods.
It's getting difficult for them to find solace in much of anything involving Barr.
The Washington Post's Devlin Barrett, Shane Harris and Matt Zapotosky reported Monday that Barr has been traveling overseas to seek help from top allies for Durham's probe, including Great Britain and multiple trips to Italy. The Trump administration has also made requests of Australia, whose officials played a key role in alerting U.S. officials to Russian interference. Signs indicate that the Aussies have proven a receptive audience.
The new disclosures recall last week's news that Trump pressured Ukraine's president to launch two investigations that carried potential political benefits for him - including one involving the Russia probe's origins - yet they are somewhat different. It's one thing to lean on a country to launch their own probes; it's not quite the same thing to seek their cooperation on an American investigation.
But the news appears to fill out the picture of an attorney general who was suspicious of the Russia probe's origins from long before he took his office, has honed his talking points about it in a very Trump direction, and now appears to be spending significant time pressing top allies to give the administration what it wants.
Just because he's asking for it, of course, doesn't mean they'll give him damning evidence to support his and Trump's suspicions. It's entirely possible this will be handled aboveboard, with Durham asserting himself as the staid and reasonable prosecutor he is reputed to be.
But Barr's involvement portends all kind of uncertainty and lends itself to suspicion. The mere fact that he's apparently taking such an interest in this - to the extent that he's made repeated overseas trips - suggests this is a topic of significant concern for him. It perhaps indicates that it's not something he's pursuing just to edify Trump and check a box for the president who appointed him.
Of course, that shouldn't really be a surprise given Barr has been barking up this tree since 2017. Long before many Republicans were questioning the origins of the Russia investigation, Barr told the New York Times that there was more reason to investigate "various 'national security' activities carried out during the election" than there was to investigate potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. (He said the same of the Clinton Foundation and a debunked conspiracy theory involving the Clintons and Uranium One.)
Barr told The Post around the same time, "I don't think all this stuff about throwing [Clinton] in jail or jumping to the conclusion that she should be prosecuted is appropriate." Then he added, "But I do think that there are things that should be investigated that haven't been investigated."
He now appears to be facilitating one of those investigations - hard. The risk of such high-profile involvement from Barr is that top allies see him as applying pressure on behalf of Trump to get the answers Trump wants, rather than simply making sure they cooperate with the things Durham asks them to do. Barr is clearly not erring on the side of looking as if he has completely outsourced this whole thing to Durham and is a passive player.
Trump has frequently thrown his weight around on the world stage in the name of allies doing his bidding - most recently, we've found out, in the case of Ukraine - and it's very difficult to separate this from that. The danger is that these counties who rely upon their alliance with the United States get the same message the whistle-blower alleged Trump has sent to Ukraine: that they better "play ball," or else.
None of it is a signal of attorney general just checking a box and/or straining to avoid proving his detractors correct; it's a signal of an attorney general who has taken the kind of keen interest in this subject that his public comments should have made plainly obvious.
Mini Transat
Around the world.. Or across the Atlantic.
From Sailing Anarchy
It’s incredible how far the sport of sailing has come in the last few decades. Just think about it. Right now 89 sailors await a weather window in France before setting off to race single-handed across the Atlantic in some pretty futuristic 21-foot boats. The Mini Transat is an incredible event with a class that has grown from strength to strength and is not only on the cutting edge of design and technology, but has also been a place where some of the best offshore sailors in the world cut their teeth.
Meanwhile to the south the 11 boats in the Clipper Around the World Race are emerging from the doldrums on the second leg of their circumnavigation. This is the twelfth running of this event which is being competed in identical 70-foot yachts. Around 700 crew will take part, both male and female, with the youngest at 18 and the oldest at 76. For those sailors who want to go the whole way around the world they will have to fork over around $55,000. Not chump change but also not a fortune for an adventure of a lifetime.
In Newport, Rhode Island the US contenders for the America’s Cup are out boat testing their a brand new 75-foot flying monohull. American Magic/Defiant has shown the world what the future of sailing may look like with the boat being out of the water for an entire race.
Same thing is happening down under in New Zealand where the defenders of the America’s Cup are also putting their new AC 75 through its paces. Sure we know that the America’s Cup has always led the field in new ideas and technology but these boats are something else and it’s going to get even more interesting when other teams launch their yachts.
Last week SailGP wrapped up their global tour in France with a nail biter final race for the winners purse of a million dollars going to Australia. The series started in Sydney and went on to San Francisco, New York, Cowes on the Isle of Wight, and finally Marseille. The catamarans were consistently sailing at speeds in excess of 50 knots with closing speeds getting close to 100 miles an hour. Such close racing on tight inshore courses. Just amazing and the second series will start next February back in Sydney,
Perhaps the biggest event of this year will be the Transat Jacques Vabre, a double-handed race from Le Havre, France to Salvador in Brazil which starts on October 27. There are 67 teams taking part with no fewer than eight brand new absolute cutting edge foiling IMOCA 60’s participating. This is the 14th running of Transat Jacques Vabre which regularly attracts the best offshore sailors in the world. There are three classes; the IMOCA 60, Class 40’s and a 50-foot multihull class.
The race will attract over a million spectators to Le Havre during the two weeks leading up to the start and will bring a huge economic boom to that region of France which otherwise would be tourist free as the long winter approaches.
Let’s not forget that at least two Ultime multihulls are preparing to go after some pretty difficult sailing records. Spindrift Racing are on stand-by waiting for a weather window to try and break the Jules Verne record, the fully-crewed, non-stop circumnavigation record. The time to beat is 40 days 23 hours 30 minutes and 30 seconds and was set by Francis Joyon on his Ultime trimaran IDEC.
Meanwhile not far away Thomas Coville is getting ready to go after the single-handed, non-stop circumnavigation record now held by fellow French sailor Francoise Gabart. Incredibly Gabart’s record time of 42 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes and 35 seconds is only two days short of the fully-crewed record time. How much faster can these boats go and how much more intensely can they be sailed? I guess we will find out.
These are just a few things going on in sailing these days. This past summer in the Norther hemisphere hundreds of regattas took place and the same is about to happen as the Southern Hemisphere come out of its winter slump.
There are new around-the-world races being planned, two for Class 40’s and our old friend Don McIntyre is organizing the second running of the Golden Globe race as well as the Ocean Globe Race which is a copy of the first Whitbread Round the World race that took place in 1973. McIntyre reports huge interest in both races from all around the world. Sailing is really flourishing and I, for one, am very happy to be a part of it.
From Sailing Anarchy
It’s incredible how far the sport of sailing has come in the last few decades. Just think about it. Right now 89 sailors await a weather window in France before setting off to race single-handed across the Atlantic in some pretty futuristic 21-foot boats. The Mini Transat is an incredible event with a class that has grown from strength to strength and is not only on the cutting edge of design and technology, but has also been a place where some of the best offshore sailors in the world cut their teeth.
Meanwhile to the south the 11 boats in the Clipper Around the World Race are emerging from the doldrums on the second leg of their circumnavigation. This is the twelfth running of this event which is being competed in identical 70-foot yachts. Around 700 crew will take part, both male and female, with the youngest at 18 and the oldest at 76. For those sailors who want to go the whole way around the world they will have to fork over around $55,000. Not chump change but also not a fortune for an adventure of a lifetime.
In Newport, Rhode Island the US contenders for the America’s Cup are out boat testing their a brand new 75-foot flying monohull. American Magic/Defiant has shown the world what the future of sailing may look like with the boat being out of the water for an entire race.
Same thing is happening down under in New Zealand where the defenders of the America’s Cup are also putting their new AC 75 through its paces. Sure we know that the America’s Cup has always led the field in new ideas and technology but these boats are something else and it’s going to get even more interesting when other teams launch their yachts.
Last week SailGP wrapped up their global tour in France with a nail biter final race for the winners purse of a million dollars going to Australia. The series started in Sydney and went on to San Francisco, New York, Cowes on the Isle of Wight, and finally Marseille. The catamarans were consistently sailing at speeds in excess of 50 knots with closing speeds getting close to 100 miles an hour. Such close racing on tight inshore courses. Just amazing and the second series will start next February back in Sydney,
Perhaps the biggest event of this year will be the Transat Jacques Vabre, a double-handed race from Le Havre, France to Salvador in Brazil which starts on October 27. There are 67 teams taking part with no fewer than eight brand new absolute cutting edge foiling IMOCA 60’s participating. This is the 14th running of Transat Jacques Vabre which regularly attracts the best offshore sailors in the world. There are three classes; the IMOCA 60, Class 40’s and a 50-foot multihull class.
The race will attract over a million spectators to Le Havre during the two weeks leading up to the start and will bring a huge economic boom to that region of France which otherwise would be tourist free as the long winter approaches.
Let’s not forget that at least two Ultime multihulls are preparing to go after some pretty difficult sailing records. Spindrift Racing are on stand-by waiting for a weather window to try and break the Jules Verne record, the fully-crewed, non-stop circumnavigation record. The time to beat is 40 days 23 hours 30 minutes and 30 seconds and was set by Francis Joyon on his Ultime trimaran IDEC.
Meanwhile not far away Thomas Coville is getting ready to go after the single-handed, non-stop circumnavigation record now held by fellow French sailor Francoise Gabart. Incredibly Gabart’s record time of 42 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes and 35 seconds is only two days short of the fully-crewed record time. How much faster can these boats go and how much more intensely can they be sailed? I guess we will find out.
These are just a few things going on in sailing these days. This past summer in the Norther hemisphere hundreds of regattas took place and the same is about to happen as the Southern Hemisphere come out of its winter slump.
There are new around-the-world races being planned, two for Class 40’s and our old friend Don McIntyre is organizing the second running of the Golden Globe race as well as the Ocean Globe Race which is a copy of the first Whitbread Round the World race that took place in 1973. McIntyre reports huge interest in both races from all around the world. Sailing is really flourishing and I, for one, am very happy to be a part of it.
Suggests arresting.....
Trump suggests arresting Adam Schiff for 'treason'
The president and his allies are cranking up their attacks on the House Intelligence chairman.
By QUINT FORGEY
President Donald Trump and his allies on Monday ratcheted up their campaign against Rep. Adam Schiff as the White House’s Ukraine scandal entered its second week — with Trump again suggesting the House Intelligence chairman committed treason.
Locked in a defensive crouch and staring down an impeachment inquiry, Trump continued to batter the California Democrat for allegedly mischaracterizing his July phone call with newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call. Arrest for Treason?”
During Trump’s conversation with Zelensky, the president urged his foreign counterpart to work with Attorney General William Barr to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
After Schiff offered a knowingly exaggerated version of the call’s transcript before a meeting of his committee last Thursday, conservative commentators and Republican lawmakers were quick to castigate the congressman on social media and cable news.
The president was unwilling to drop the issue Monday afternoon, complaining about Schiff's remarks to reporters in the Oval Office following a swearing-in ceremony for his new Labor secretary, Eugene Scalia.
“Adam Schiff — representative, congressman — made up what I said. He actually took words and made it up,” Trump said, as Scalia’s family looked on. “The reason is, when he saw my call to the president of Ukraine, it was so good that he couldn't quote from it. Because there was nothing done wrong. It was perfect.”
Trump previously demanded Sunday that Schiff be “questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason,” and claimed that his “lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber.”
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, kept up that line of attack Monday, charging that Schiff “didn't embellish” but instead “lied about” the memo the White House released last week summarizing the Zelensky call.
“He stood in front of the American people with millions of people listening and he lied,” Giuliani told the Fox Business Network. “He put on a stupid phony show, just like he lied when he said he had direct evidence of Russian collusion.”
Eric Trump, the president’s son, also assailed Schiff on Monday, telling the hosts of “Fox & Friends” that the congressman “is exactly why we need term limits in this country” and adding: “He’s a total disgrace.”
In addition to his post newly targeting Schiff, Trump sought Monday to cast doubt on the accuracy of a whistleblower complaint that detailed his call with Zelensky and alleged efforts by White House officials to “lock down” records of the conversation.
“The Fake Whistleblower complaint is not holding up. It is mostly about the call to the Ukrainian President which, in the name of transparency, I immediately released to Congress & the public,” Trump tweeted. “The Whistleblower knew almost nothing, its 2ND HAND description of the call is a fraud!”
The president later Monday appeared to reference a report by the conservative publication The Federalist — promoted repeatedly in that morning’s broadcast of “Fox & Friends” — which stated that the U.S. intelligence community between May 2018 and August 2019 had eliminated the first-hand knowledge requirement from its whistleblower complaint form.
“WHO CHANGED THE LONG STANDING WHISTLEBLOWER RULES JUST BEFORE SUBMITTAL OF THE FAKE WHISTLEBLOWER REPORT? DRAIN THE SWAMP!” Trump tweeted, writing in another message one minute later: “#FakeWhistleblower.”
An anonymous American intelligence officer filed the complaint in early August, and Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community’s inspector general, deemed its allegations credible and “urgent.”
The whistleblower acknowledged in the complaint that he or she “was not a direct witness to most of the events described,” but wrote that the complaint’s allegations were informed by the accounts of “more than half a dozen U.S. officials” provided over the prior four months.
The complaint’s description of the call between Trump and Zelensky is largely similar to the readout the White House produced last Wednesday. Joseph Maguire, the acting Director of National Intelligence, testified before Schiff’s Intelligence committee last Thursday that “the whistleblower's complaint is in alignment with what was released yesterday by the president.”
Trump lashed out Sunday at the whistleblower, asserting that “I deserve to meet my accuser,” as well as “the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect” to the unknown intelligence official.
“Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!” he tweeted.
The president and his allies are cranking up their attacks on the House Intelligence chairman.
By QUINT FORGEY
President Donald Trump and his allies on Monday ratcheted up their campaign against Rep. Adam Schiff as the White House’s Ukraine scandal entered its second week — with Trump again suggesting the House Intelligence chairman committed treason.
Locked in a defensive crouch and staring down an impeachment inquiry, Trump continued to batter the California Democrat for allegedly mischaracterizing his July phone call with newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call. Arrest for Treason?”
During Trump’s conversation with Zelensky, the president urged his foreign counterpart to work with Attorney General William Barr to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
After Schiff offered a knowingly exaggerated version of the call’s transcript before a meeting of his committee last Thursday, conservative commentators and Republican lawmakers were quick to castigate the congressman on social media and cable news.
The president was unwilling to drop the issue Monday afternoon, complaining about Schiff's remarks to reporters in the Oval Office following a swearing-in ceremony for his new Labor secretary, Eugene Scalia.
“Adam Schiff — representative, congressman — made up what I said. He actually took words and made it up,” Trump said, as Scalia’s family looked on. “The reason is, when he saw my call to the president of Ukraine, it was so good that he couldn't quote from it. Because there was nothing done wrong. It was perfect.”
Trump previously demanded Sunday that Schiff be “questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason,” and claimed that his “lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber.”
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, kept up that line of attack Monday, charging that Schiff “didn't embellish” but instead “lied about” the memo the White House released last week summarizing the Zelensky call.
“He stood in front of the American people with millions of people listening and he lied,” Giuliani told the Fox Business Network. “He put on a stupid phony show, just like he lied when he said he had direct evidence of Russian collusion.”
Eric Trump, the president’s son, also assailed Schiff on Monday, telling the hosts of “Fox & Friends” that the congressman “is exactly why we need term limits in this country” and adding: “He’s a total disgrace.”
In addition to his post newly targeting Schiff, Trump sought Monday to cast doubt on the accuracy of a whistleblower complaint that detailed his call with Zelensky and alleged efforts by White House officials to “lock down” records of the conversation.
“The Fake Whistleblower complaint is not holding up. It is mostly about the call to the Ukrainian President which, in the name of transparency, I immediately released to Congress & the public,” Trump tweeted. “The Whistleblower knew almost nothing, its 2ND HAND description of the call is a fraud!”
The president later Monday appeared to reference a report by the conservative publication The Federalist — promoted repeatedly in that morning’s broadcast of “Fox & Friends” — which stated that the U.S. intelligence community between May 2018 and August 2019 had eliminated the first-hand knowledge requirement from its whistleblower complaint form.
“WHO CHANGED THE LONG STANDING WHISTLEBLOWER RULES JUST BEFORE SUBMITTAL OF THE FAKE WHISTLEBLOWER REPORT? DRAIN THE SWAMP!” Trump tweeted, writing in another message one minute later: “#FakeWhistleblower.”
An anonymous American intelligence officer filed the complaint in early August, and Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community’s inspector general, deemed its allegations credible and “urgent.”
The whistleblower acknowledged in the complaint that he or she “was not a direct witness to most of the events described,” but wrote that the complaint’s allegations were informed by the accounts of “more than half a dozen U.S. officials” provided over the prior four months.
The complaint’s description of the call between Trump and Zelensky is largely similar to the readout the White House produced last Wednesday. Joseph Maguire, the acting Director of National Intelligence, testified before Schiff’s Intelligence committee last Thursday that “the whistleblower's complaint is in alignment with what was released yesterday by the president.”
Trump lashed out Sunday at the whistleblower, asserting that “I deserve to meet my accuser,” as well as “the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect” to the unknown intelligence official.
“Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!” he tweeted.
Maps out impeachment defense.....
GOP maps out impeachment defense amid messaging stumbles
By MELANIE ZANONA
House Republicans are scrambling to hash out a unified strategy to defend President Donald Trump as the GOP struggles to respond to the rapidly-moving impeachment probe.
With Democrats aggressively pushing ahead with their impeachment inquiry, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) convened a conference call on Monday afternoon where he urged members of his leadership team and GOP committee leaders to get on the same messaging page, according to multiple lawmakers and aides.
McCarthy implored his troops to stay focused on communicating that there is nothing that rises to the level of impeachment in the president’s July phone call with Ukraine, when Trump urged the Ukrainian president to investigate the Biden family.
“There was an attempt to get everyone on a unified message,” said one Republican lawmaker who was on the call.
The House GOP is Trump’s first line of defense against impeachment, and the president has been in close contact with his top allies on Capitol Hill since Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially launched an impeachment inquiry last Tuesday.
But the party has more broadly faced some messaging stumbles over the last week, fueling anxiety among Republicans that they don’t have a clear vision to guard against impeachment.
Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada kicked up a firestorm last Friday when he appeared to become the first Republican to back an impeachment probe. Amodei later clarified that he doesn’t support impeachment and was merely voicing support for the oversight process, but the messy episode sparked concern in the GOP conference that members weren’t being given adequate guidance on how to deal with the rapidly unfolding impeachment probe, according to one member who brought those concerns to leadership.
While no one brought up Amodei during Monday’s call, members raised other messaging challenges, according to the members and aides on the call.
“We need to help members with how to deal with this, because it’s not going to get any easier,” the Republican lawmaker said.
And during a high-profile interview with CBS’s “60 minutes,” McCarthy — a top Trump ally — initially struggled to answer a question about what the president’s defense will be on impeachment, causing some grumbling among Republican lawmakers and aides. McCarthy did, however, drive home the point that there was no evidence of wrongdoing in the call.
“Television appearances are not McCarthy’s strong suit,” said one rank-and-file GOP lawmaker, who was granted anonymity to speak more freely.
Immediately after a rough transcript of the call was released, the GOP seized on the fact that there was no explicit mention of the foreign aid to Ukraine that was being held up at the time.
But the messaging missteps aren’t limited to Capitol Hill. The White House, which hasn’t set up an impeachment war room, accidentally sent a list of talking points to Democratic offices on Capitol Hill last week.
And Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has given a string of combative and bizarre TV interviews, which some Republicans say are actually hurting Trump — and Democrats even cited some of those TV appearances in their subpoena for Ukraine documents.
Part of the challenge for Republicans is that Democrats are moving forward quickly with their impeachment probe, even working over the two-week recess. And new damning details about Trump’s communications with foreign leaders kept popping up over the weekend, forcing Republicans to play whack-a-mole and complicating their messaging strategy just ahead of the Sunday news shows where a number of GOP lawmakers and White House officials struggled to defend the president.
Some Republicans, however, say they need to be equipped with more than just talking points. They want GOP leaders to tap a group of members from the relevant investigative committees to lead Trump’s defense strategy on Capitol Hill.
“Talking points never work. A strategy with real substance and real facts is always better,” the rank-and-file Republican said.
By MELANIE ZANONA
House Republicans are scrambling to hash out a unified strategy to defend President Donald Trump as the GOP struggles to respond to the rapidly-moving impeachment probe.
With Democrats aggressively pushing ahead with their impeachment inquiry, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) convened a conference call on Monday afternoon where he urged members of his leadership team and GOP committee leaders to get on the same messaging page, according to multiple lawmakers and aides.
McCarthy implored his troops to stay focused on communicating that there is nothing that rises to the level of impeachment in the president’s July phone call with Ukraine, when Trump urged the Ukrainian president to investigate the Biden family.
“There was an attempt to get everyone on a unified message,” said one Republican lawmaker who was on the call.
The House GOP is Trump’s first line of defense against impeachment, and the president has been in close contact with his top allies on Capitol Hill since Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially launched an impeachment inquiry last Tuesday.
But the party has more broadly faced some messaging stumbles over the last week, fueling anxiety among Republicans that they don’t have a clear vision to guard against impeachment.
Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada kicked up a firestorm last Friday when he appeared to become the first Republican to back an impeachment probe. Amodei later clarified that he doesn’t support impeachment and was merely voicing support for the oversight process, but the messy episode sparked concern in the GOP conference that members weren’t being given adequate guidance on how to deal with the rapidly unfolding impeachment probe, according to one member who brought those concerns to leadership.
While no one brought up Amodei during Monday’s call, members raised other messaging challenges, according to the members and aides on the call.
“We need to help members with how to deal with this, because it’s not going to get any easier,” the Republican lawmaker said.
And during a high-profile interview with CBS’s “60 minutes,” McCarthy — a top Trump ally — initially struggled to answer a question about what the president’s defense will be on impeachment, causing some grumbling among Republican lawmakers and aides. McCarthy did, however, drive home the point that there was no evidence of wrongdoing in the call.
“Television appearances are not McCarthy’s strong suit,” said one rank-and-file GOP lawmaker, who was granted anonymity to speak more freely.
Immediately after a rough transcript of the call was released, the GOP seized on the fact that there was no explicit mention of the foreign aid to Ukraine that was being held up at the time.
But the messaging missteps aren’t limited to Capitol Hill. The White House, which hasn’t set up an impeachment war room, accidentally sent a list of talking points to Democratic offices on Capitol Hill last week.
And Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has given a string of combative and bizarre TV interviews, which some Republicans say are actually hurting Trump — and Democrats even cited some of those TV appearances in their subpoena for Ukraine documents.
Part of the challenge for Republicans is that Democrats are moving forward quickly with their impeachment probe, even working over the two-week recess. And new damning details about Trump’s communications with foreign leaders kept popping up over the weekend, forcing Republicans to play whack-a-mole and complicating their messaging strategy just ahead of the Sunday news shows where a number of GOP lawmakers and White House officials struggled to defend the president.
Some Republicans, however, say they need to be equipped with more than just talking points. They want GOP leaders to tap a group of members from the relevant investigative committees to lead Trump’s defense strategy on Capitol Hill.
“Talking points never work. A strategy with real substance and real facts is always better,” the rank-and-file Republican said.
Grievance machine
Trump cranks up grievance machine
Trump’s campaign has turned impeachment into an organizing tool for supporters primed to back a president they see as under siege.
By ALEX ISENSTADT
Donald Trump’s campaign aides expected months ago that Democrats would try to impeach the president — and he needed a way to exploit it.
So this summer, Trump 2020 officials spliced news clips of Democrats discussing impeachment into a 90-second video montage, punctuated by the president imploring supporters to help him “stop this nonsense.” Aides quietly filed the spot away until last week, when it was released as part of an online counteroffensive to the impeachment push that brought in 50,000-plus new donors and raked in $8.5 million in two days — the campaign’s biggest digital haul since its June launch.
The push demonstrates how Trump, in less than three years in office, has perfected a grievance machine that converts deep-seated outrage on the right into fundraising dollars and new support. As Trump confronts the gravest threat to his presidency yet, his campaign is stoking — and monetizing — the anger of a Republican base that has long seen the president as under siege.
With damaging revelations about the president’s dealings with Ukraine emerging on a near-daily basis and polls showing increasing support for impeachment, the president is facing serious political peril. But even Democrats acknowledge concern that Trump’s unique ability to rally his supporters and marshal resources could have a profound impact on the 2020 election.
Tara McGowan, a Democratic digital strategist who worked for a pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC in 2016, said that Trump’s “ability to very quickly define any event or issue on his terms and energize his base” through online advertising “provides him with a huge competitive advantage over Democrats.”
“This approach enables Trump to set the narrative on his terms and paint himself as the iconoclast that is always under attack from the ‘fake news media’ and Democratic ‘witch hunt,’ and it clearly works as they continue to perpetuate it every chance they get,” McGowan added.
The Trump team has orchestrated a massive digital campaign aimed at pushing his supporters’ emotional buttons by conveying a singular message: The president is under assault.
The campaign spent $1 million on Facebook ads in the span of 72 hours last week, asking for supporters to donate and become leaders “in defending the president against these baseless and disgusting attacks.” Trump 2020 also sent out 65 million emails and 12 million text messages asking small-dollar donors to help combat “hateful and baseless attacks.”
The approach has been heavily shaped by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. With 24-hour cable news stations airing near-constant coverage of impeachment, Parscale has privately compared the campaign to a marketing machine that is setting its own narrative.
Trump has spent years priming his supporters to see him as under attack, and aides say their fundraising is typically at its highest when he’s perceived as in danger. The campaign, for example, raised $1 million in the 24 hours following the release of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
But the threat of impeachment, Trump allies say, has turbocharged giving.
“When you’re under attack, your supporters are more engaged and that’s the general position [of the campaign’s messaging] — that ‘We’re under siege,’ and ‘We need your help,' and ‘This is ridiculous,’ and ‘Let’s fight back,’” said Gerrit Lansing, who serves as president of WinRed, the online donation processor used by the Trump campaign. “And that’s a powerful message.”
With the White House choosing to forgo an impeachment-focused war room, much of the messaging is being outsourced to the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee. The two organizations, working closely with one another, have sent out dozens of statements, tweets, and video clips designed to cast the president as the prey of a Democratic Party out to destroy him. On Monday, the RNC unveiled a rapid response program focused on impeachment.
Trump’s political machine has enabled him to capitalize financially on impeachment in a way he struggled to when confronting past political crises. Veterans of Trump’s disorganized 2016 campaign, for example, said the firestorm caused by the release of the lewd “Access Hollywood” video did not prompt anything near the protective response from supporters that the impeachment push has generated.
For the Trump campaign, perhaps the biggest prize of its recent efforts is the 50,000 new donors. Trump aides will be able to ask them for cash repeatedly in the months to come. And now that the party has their contact information and other personal data, turning those voters out next year will be far easier.
“These are the same types of people who will vote with their wallets,” said Zac Moffatt, the digital director on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “They’re on the team. They’re unlikely [to be] coming off that now.”
Parscale has briefed the president on the impeachment-focused fundraising effort and has told him that the amount he’s receiving in donations is one of the clearest indicators of how the impeachment battle is playing out.
Flush with cash, the campaign has chosen to plow $8 million into a nationally aired televison ad tying former Vice President Joe Biden to Ukraine and accusing Democrats of plotting to “steal” the 2020 election. Trump, who has signaled to White House aides that he’s eager to go after Biden, personally signed off on the purchase after son-in-law Jared Kushner broached the idea, according to an administration official.
The RNC has separately begun its own TV ads going after House Democrats from districts Trump won in 2016 who’ve given their support to the impeachment inquiry.
Democrats have generally been more reluctant to fundraise off impeachment, though several Democratic candidates have sent out appeals tied to the investigation. Spokespersons for the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said they’d taken steps to raise money from their supporters but declined to provide specifics on how much they’d taken in.
Some Democrats express discomfort about the prospect of financially capitalizing off what they describe as a serious process.
“Democrats just aren't as motivated and excited by the specter of removing the president as they are by soundly defeating him next year. And there's a conscious effort to avoid overly politicizing a legal process,” said Daniel Scarvalone, a veteran Democratic digital strategist. “I wouldn't be shocked if Democrats continued to tiptoe around the issue, because there just isn't as much upside for it as there is for Republicans.”
But while Trump reaps the rewards of playing to his base, some senior Republicans caution that he’ll eventually need to woo swing voters to be successful in 2020.
Republican strategist Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection, said Trump’s fundraising numbers were indicative of a tribal moment in politics “where if the president is attacked, his supporters will react by becoming even more revved up and come to his defense in whatever way they can.”
But Rove added that the Democratic and Republican bases were fully engaged and that both parties would need to compete for a relatively small group of swing voters who were likely to decide the outcome of the election.
“I think it is a huge mistake for people to say, ‘Oh, well we can win this by simply focusing on the base alone,’” said Rove. “I can’t think of a successful presidential re-elect that was focused on the base and the base only.”
Trump’s campaign has turned impeachment into an organizing tool for supporters primed to back a president they see as under siege.
By ALEX ISENSTADT
Donald Trump’s campaign aides expected months ago that Democrats would try to impeach the president — and he needed a way to exploit it.
So this summer, Trump 2020 officials spliced news clips of Democrats discussing impeachment into a 90-second video montage, punctuated by the president imploring supporters to help him “stop this nonsense.” Aides quietly filed the spot away until last week, when it was released as part of an online counteroffensive to the impeachment push that brought in 50,000-plus new donors and raked in $8.5 million in two days — the campaign’s biggest digital haul since its June launch.
The push demonstrates how Trump, in less than three years in office, has perfected a grievance machine that converts deep-seated outrage on the right into fundraising dollars and new support. As Trump confronts the gravest threat to his presidency yet, his campaign is stoking — and monetizing — the anger of a Republican base that has long seen the president as under siege.
With damaging revelations about the president’s dealings with Ukraine emerging on a near-daily basis and polls showing increasing support for impeachment, the president is facing serious political peril. But even Democrats acknowledge concern that Trump’s unique ability to rally his supporters and marshal resources could have a profound impact on the 2020 election.
Tara McGowan, a Democratic digital strategist who worked for a pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC in 2016, said that Trump’s “ability to very quickly define any event or issue on his terms and energize his base” through online advertising “provides him with a huge competitive advantage over Democrats.”
“This approach enables Trump to set the narrative on his terms and paint himself as the iconoclast that is always under attack from the ‘fake news media’ and Democratic ‘witch hunt,’ and it clearly works as they continue to perpetuate it every chance they get,” McGowan added.
The Trump team has orchestrated a massive digital campaign aimed at pushing his supporters’ emotional buttons by conveying a singular message: The president is under assault.
The campaign spent $1 million on Facebook ads in the span of 72 hours last week, asking for supporters to donate and become leaders “in defending the president against these baseless and disgusting attacks.” Trump 2020 also sent out 65 million emails and 12 million text messages asking small-dollar donors to help combat “hateful and baseless attacks.”
The approach has been heavily shaped by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. With 24-hour cable news stations airing near-constant coverage of impeachment, Parscale has privately compared the campaign to a marketing machine that is setting its own narrative.
Trump has spent years priming his supporters to see him as under attack, and aides say their fundraising is typically at its highest when he’s perceived as in danger. The campaign, for example, raised $1 million in the 24 hours following the release of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
But the threat of impeachment, Trump allies say, has turbocharged giving.
“When you’re under attack, your supporters are more engaged and that’s the general position [of the campaign’s messaging] — that ‘We’re under siege,’ and ‘We need your help,' and ‘This is ridiculous,’ and ‘Let’s fight back,’” said Gerrit Lansing, who serves as president of WinRed, the online donation processor used by the Trump campaign. “And that’s a powerful message.”
With the White House choosing to forgo an impeachment-focused war room, much of the messaging is being outsourced to the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee. The two organizations, working closely with one another, have sent out dozens of statements, tweets, and video clips designed to cast the president as the prey of a Democratic Party out to destroy him. On Monday, the RNC unveiled a rapid response program focused on impeachment.
Trump’s political machine has enabled him to capitalize financially on impeachment in a way he struggled to when confronting past political crises. Veterans of Trump’s disorganized 2016 campaign, for example, said the firestorm caused by the release of the lewd “Access Hollywood” video did not prompt anything near the protective response from supporters that the impeachment push has generated.
For the Trump campaign, perhaps the biggest prize of its recent efforts is the 50,000 new donors. Trump aides will be able to ask them for cash repeatedly in the months to come. And now that the party has their contact information and other personal data, turning those voters out next year will be far easier.
“These are the same types of people who will vote with their wallets,” said Zac Moffatt, the digital director on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “They’re on the team. They’re unlikely [to be] coming off that now.”
Parscale has briefed the president on the impeachment-focused fundraising effort and has told him that the amount he’s receiving in donations is one of the clearest indicators of how the impeachment battle is playing out.
Flush with cash, the campaign has chosen to plow $8 million into a nationally aired televison ad tying former Vice President Joe Biden to Ukraine and accusing Democrats of plotting to “steal” the 2020 election. Trump, who has signaled to White House aides that he’s eager to go after Biden, personally signed off on the purchase after son-in-law Jared Kushner broached the idea, according to an administration official.
The RNC has separately begun its own TV ads going after House Democrats from districts Trump won in 2016 who’ve given their support to the impeachment inquiry.
Democrats have generally been more reluctant to fundraise off impeachment, though several Democratic candidates have sent out appeals tied to the investigation. Spokespersons for the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said they’d taken steps to raise money from their supporters but declined to provide specifics on how much they’d taken in.
Some Democrats express discomfort about the prospect of financially capitalizing off what they describe as a serious process.
“Democrats just aren't as motivated and excited by the specter of removing the president as they are by soundly defeating him next year. And there's a conscious effort to avoid overly politicizing a legal process,” said Daniel Scarvalone, a veteran Democratic digital strategist. “I wouldn't be shocked if Democrats continued to tiptoe around the issue, because there just isn't as much upside for it as there is for Republicans.”
But while Trump reaps the rewards of playing to his base, some senior Republicans caution that he’ll eventually need to woo swing voters to be successful in 2020.
Republican strategist Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection, said Trump’s fundraising numbers were indicative of a tribal moment in politics “where if the president is attacked, his supporters will react by becoming even more revved up and come to his defense in whatever way they can.”
But Rove added that the Democratic and Republican bases were fully engaged and that both parties would need to compete for a relatively small group of swing voters who were likely to decide the outcome of the election.
“I think it is a huge mistake for people to say, ‘Oh, well we can win this by simply focusing on the base alone,’” said Rove. “I can’t think of a successful presidential re-elect that was focused on the base and the base only.”
Vampire subpoena
Democrats subpoena Giuliani as Trump lashes out
By ANDREW DESIDERIO
The House Intelligence Committee on Monday issued a subpoena to Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, as part of House Democrats’ rapidly intensifying impeachment inquiry.
The subpoena, issued in consultation with the House Foreign Affairs and Oversight panels, seeks documents related to Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a 2020 Democratic presidential contender. The committees demanded details about Giuliani’s interactions with Trump administration officials stemming from his influence campaign in the Eastern European nation and his alleged role as an intermediary between the American and Ukrainian governments.
“Our inquiry includes an investigation of credible allegations that you acted as an agent of the president in a scheme to advance his personal political interests by abusing the power of the Office of the President,” Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff wrote to Giuliani. Monday’s letter was co-signed by Reps. Eliot Engel and Elijah Cummings, who chair the Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees, respectively.
The committees are investigating whether Trump compromised U.S. national security when he asked Zelensky for a “favor,” as described in a White House readout of a July 25 phone call between the two presidents, involving an investigation of Biden. Top Democrats have said Trump violated his oath of office and abused his power to extort a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 presidential election on his behalf, and the allegations recently convinced Speaker Nancy Pelosi to formalize an impeachment inquiry.
Schiff, Engel and Cummings cited Giuliani’s recent acknowledgment that he asked the Ukrainian government to probe Biden and his son Hunter, demanding that Giuliani produce “text messages, phone records, and other communications” that could reveal the involvement of senior Trump administration officials.
The three committees and their chairmen have been thrust to the forefront of the House’s investigation into a whistleblower complaint centering on Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. The issue has united the House Democratic Caucus in outrage, prompting nearly every Democrat to support the resulting impeachment inquiry.
The complaint, which was initially withheld from Congress at the Justice Department’s behest, alleges that White House officials sought to “lock down” information relating to Trump’s phone calls with foreign leaders on a highly classified server. It also states that officials were “deeply disturbed” about Trump’s conduct, which they believed could constitute evidence that he abused his power and his office.
The intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, deemed the complaint “urgent” and “credible.” Atkinson will brief members of the Intelligence Committee behind closed doors on Friday.
Lawmakers are also examining Trump’s decision to freeze critical military aid to Ukraine around the same time as his phone call with Zelensky. Last week, the chairs of the House Budget and Appropriations committees demanded information from the White House as it seeks to establish a timeline for “when, why, and how the president and [the Office of Management and Budget] withheld this funding.”
Giuliani’s refusal to comply with the subpoena would “constitute evidence of obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry and may be used as an adverse inference against you and the president,” the three committee chairmen wrote in a letter to the former New York City mayor.
House Democrats have narrowed the focus of their impeachment inquiry to the Ukraine scandal and the White House’s longstanding resistance to congressional investigations.
The three committees are demanding that Giuliani turn over the information by Oct. 15. The panels also scheduled depositions with three of Giuliani’s business associates: Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman and Semyon “Sam” Kislin.
Giuliani, who has appeared on national television in recent days to defend himself and Trump, has represented the president throughout former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and its aftermath.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the subpoena to Giuliani.
The committees have been looking into the Ukraine allegations since June, but their probe has intensified after Giuliani suggested that he was in contact with senior Trump administration officials about an effort to probe Biden’s role in the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor widely viewed as corrupt.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who came under fire from Giuliani and later returned to Washington, will sit for a deposition before the committees on Wednesday. Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations, is scheduled to be deposed on Thursday. Volker, who resigned last week, is said to have facilitated some of Giuliani’s interactions with Ukrainian officials.
The Foreign Affairs Committee subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week for documents related to Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky and other records related to Giuliani’s involvement. Those records are due by Friday.
In a statement to POLITICO, Giuliani said: “I have received a Committee subpoena from three Committees of the House. It raises substantial constitutional and legal issues as well as attorney-client and other privileges. These and other issues must all be considered before a proper decision can be made.”
Trump has maintained that he did nothing wrong in his interactions with Zelensky. He and his allies have gone after Schiff in recent days as the longtime Trump antagonist takes on a prominent role in the House’s impeachment inquiry.
On Monday, Trump said Schiff should be arrested for treason.
“Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people,” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to Schiff’s exaggerated paraphrase of the president’s phone call with Zelensky.
Trump told reporters later Monday that “we’re trying to find out” the identity of the whistleblower, even though he or she is entitled to anonymity under federal law. That suggestion has opened Trump up to allegations of witness intimidation.
Senate Democrats on Monday called on Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to hold hearings with Attorney General William Barr and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, among others, to more fully investigate the whistleblower complaint.
By ANDREW DESIDERIO
The House Intelligence Committee on Monday issued a subpoena to Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, as part of House Democrats’ rapidly intensifying impeachment inquiry.
The subpoena, issued in consultation with the House Foreign Affairs and Oversight panels, seeks documents related to Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a 2020 Democratic presidential contender. The committees demanded details about Giuliani’s interactions with Trump administration officials stemming from his influence campaign in the Eastern European nation and his alleged role as an intermediary between the American and Ukrainian governments.
“Our inquiry includes an investigation of credible allegations that you acted as an agent of the president in a scheme to advance his personal political interests by abusing the power of the Office of the President,” Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff wrote to Giuliani. Monday’s letter was co-signed by Reps. Eliot Engel and Elijah Cummings, who chair the Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees, respectively.
The committees are investigating whether Trump compromised U.S. national security when he asked Zelensky for a “favor,” as described in a White House readout of a July 25 phone call between the two presidents, involving an investigation of Biden. Top Democrats have said Trump violated his oath of office and abused his power to extort a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 presidential election on his behalf, and the allegations recently convinced Speaker Nancy Pelosi to formalize an impeachment inquiry.
Schiff, Engel and Cummings cited Giuliani’s recent acknowledgment that he asked the Ukrainian government to probe Biden and his son Hunter, demanding that Giuliani produce “text messages, phone records, and other communications” that could reveal the involvement of senior Trump administration officials.
The three committees and their chairmen have been thrust to the forefront of the House’s investigation into a whistleblower complaint centering on Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. The issue has united the House Democratic Caucus in outrage, prompting nearly every Democrat to support the resulting impeachment inquiry.
The complaint, which was initially withheld from Congress at the Justice Department’s behest, alleges that White House officials sought to “lock down” information relating to Trump’s phone calls with foreign leaders on a highly classified server. It also states that officials were “deeply disturbed” about Trump’s conduct, which they believed could constitute evidence that he abused his power and his office.
The intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, deemed the complaint “urgent” and “credible.” Atkinson will brief members of the Intelligence Committee behind closed doors on Friday.
Lawmakers are also examining Trump’s decision to freeze critical military aid to Ukraine around the same time as his phone call with Zelensky. Last week, the chairs of the House Budget and Appropriations committees demanded information from the White House as it seeks to establish a timeline for “when, why, and how the president and [the Office of Management and Budget] withheld this funding.”
Giuliani’s refusal to comply with the subpoena would “constitute evidence of obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry and may be used as an adverse inference against you and the president,” the three committee chairmen wrote in a letter to the former New York City mayor.
House Democrats have narrowed the focus of their impeachment inquiry to the Ukraine scandal and the White House’s longstanding resistance to congressional investigations.
The three committees are demanding that Giuliani turn over the information by Oct. 15. The panels also scheduled depositions with three of Giuliani’s business associates: Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman and Semyon “Sam” Kislin.
Giuliani, who has appeared on national television in recent days to defend himself and Trump, has represented the president throughout former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and its aftermath.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the subpoena to Giuliani.
The committees have been looking into the Ukraine allegations since June, but their probe has intensified after Giuliani suggested that he was in contact with senior Trump administration officials about an effort to probe Biden’s role in the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor widely viewed as corrupt.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who came under fire from Giuliani and later returned to Washington, will sit for a deposition before the committees on Wednesday. Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations, is scheduled to be deposed on Thursday. Volker, who resigned last week, is said to have facilitated some of Giuliani’s interactions with Ukrainian officials.
The Foreign Affairs Committee subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week for documents related to Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky and other records related to Giuliani’s involvement. Those records are due by Friday.
In a statement to POLITICO, Giuliani said: “I have received a Committee subpoena from three Committees of the House. It raises substantial constitutional and legal issues as well as attorney-client and other privileges. These and other issues must all be considered before a proper decision can be made.”
Trump has maintained that he did nothing wrong in his interactions with Zelensky. He and his allies have gone after Schiff in recent days as the longtime Trump antagonist takes on a prominent role in the House’s impeachment inquiry.
On Monday, Trump said Schiff should be arrested for treason.
“Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people,” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to Schiff’s exaggerated paraphrase of the president’s phone call with Zelensky.
Trump told reporters later Monday that “we’re trying to find out” the identity of the whistleblower, even though he or she is entitled to anonymity under federal law. That suggestion has opened Trump up to allegations of witness intimidation.
Senate Democrats on Monday called on Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to hold hearings with Attorney General William Barr and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, among others, to more fully investigate the whistleblower complaint.
Comes out of shell to snap at fingers....
McConnell warns countries that interfere in 2020 election will 'have a serious problem'
By QUINT FORGEY
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday warned against foreign interference in U.S. elections, threatening that nations seeking to meddle in the 2020 races will “have a serious problem” on their hands.
“Look, 2018 was a big success story,” the Kentucky Republican told CNBC, praising the Trump administration’s efforts to safeguard last year’s midterm elections.
“I’m convinced we're ready for 2020,” he continued. “Any foreign country that messes with us is going to have a serious problem in return.”
Critics have branded the Senate leader as “Moscow Mitch” in recent months for his refusal to to bring election security legislation to the floor. But facing sustained political pressure, McConnell two weeks ago threw his support behind a measure to appropriate an additional $250 million toward assisting states with improving their voting systems and countering foreign interference.
McConnell’s remarks Monday come as President Donald Trump enters the second week of a political crisis triggered by his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
During that conversation, Trump urged Zelensky to work with Attorney General William Barr to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Biden is one of the leading candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, making him one of Trump's primary political rivals.
The call is the main focus of an impeachment inquiry announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but McConnell told POLITICO in a statement last Wednesday that congressional Democrats had “overplayed their hand.” He did not, however, defend the president’s behavior.
By QUINT FORGEY
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday warned against foreign interference in U.S. elections, threatening that nations seeking to meddle in the 2020 races will “have a serious problem” on their hands.“Look, 2018 was a big success story,” the Kentucky Republican told CNBC, praising the Trump administration’s efforts to safeguard last year’s midterm elections.
“I’m convinced we're ready for 2020,” he continued. “Any foreign country that messes with us is going to have a serious problem in return.”
Critics have branded the Senate leader as “Moscow Mitch” in recent months for his refusal to to bring election security legislation to the floor. But facing sustained political pressure, McConnell two weeks ago threw his support behind a measure to appropriate an additional $250 million toward assisting states with improving their voting systems and countering foreign interference.
McConnell’s remarks Monday come as President Donald Trump enters the second week of a political crisis triggered by his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
During that conversation, Trump urged Zelensky to work with Attorney General William Barr to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Biden is one of the leading candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, making him one of Trump's primary political rivals.
The call is the main focus of an impeachment inquiry announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but McConnell told POLITICO in a statement last Wednesday that congressional Democrats had “overplayed their hand.” He did not, however, defend the president’s behavior.
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