Saturday, January 25, 2020

Andy Borowitz | Trump Defense Team Scrambling to Find Example of Law Trump Did Not Break








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Andy Borowitz | Trump Defense Team Scrambling to Find Example of Law Trump Did Not Break
Trump attorney Jay Sekulow. (photo: Getty)
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "Desperately trying to change the narrative after a week of damaging presentations, Donald J. Trump's defense team is scrambling to find an example of one law that Trump did not break, sources confirmed on Friday."
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Republican senators Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. John Barrasso, Sen. Bill Cassidy, Sen. John Thune, and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell. (photo: Alex Wong/Getty)
Republican senators Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. John Barrasso, Sen. Bill Cassidy, Sen. John Thune, and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell. (photo: Alex Wong/Getty)

Report: Republican Senators Told Their Heads 'Will Be on a Pike' If They Vote Against Trump
Nicole Lyn Pesce, MarketWatch
Pesce writes: "The Trump administration is getting medieval in the impeachment trial, according to a CBS News report."


“Vote against the President and your head will be on a pike.”
As House Democrats continued to present their opening arguments in the impeachment trial accusing President Trump of abusing his power on Thursday, a Trump confidant told CBS News that Republican senators were warned about voting against the commander-in-chief. 
The White House did not immediately respond to a MarketWatch request for comment. 
That warning went viral, with #HeadOnAPike trending on Twitter TWTR, -2.63%  on Friday morning. Some critics argued that this amounts to witness tampering, or compared them to “mob tactics” or something that “Game of Throne’s” fictional King Joffrey would say.
Others expressed dismay at the country’s devolving political discourse
But Trump supporters questioned the credibility of an unnamed source. “An anonymous CBS reporter, is allegedly reporting that a ‘POTUS confidant’ has anonymously warned GOP Senators who have not been named or confirmed, that an alleged warning has been received from an anonymous source,” mused one under the Twitter handle UTChargerTom.
The president is widely expected to be acquitted in the Senate trial, as Republicans hold 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats. Read MarketWatch’s impeachment coverage here. 
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Trump apparently heard discussing firing Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. (photo: Saul Loeb/Getty)
Trump apparently heard discussing firing Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. (photo: Saul Loeb/Getty)


'Take Her Out': Recording Appears to Capture Trump at Private Dinner Saying He Wants Ukraine Ambassador Fired
Katherine Faulders, John Santucci, Allison Pecorin and Olivia Rubin, ABC News
Excerpt: "A recording appears to capture President Donald Trump telling associates he wanted the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired while speaking at a small gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman - two former business associates of Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York." 
The recording appears to contradict statements by President Trump and support the narrative that has been offered by Parnas during broadcast interviews in recent days. Sources familiar with the recording said the recording was made during an intimate April 30, 2018, dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. 
Trump has said repeatedly he does not know Parnas, a Soviet-born American who has emerged as a wild card in Trump’s impeachment trial, especially in the days since Trump was impeached. 
"Get rid of her!" is what the voice that appears to be President Trump’s is heard saying. "Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it."
On the recording, it appears the two Giuliani associates are telling President Trump that the U.S. ambassador has been bad-mouthing him, which leads directly to the apparent remarks by the President. The recording was made by Fruman, according to sources familiar with the tape. 
“Every President in our history has had the right to place people who support his agenda and his policies within his Administration,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said. 
During the conversation, several of the participants can be heard laughing with the president. At another point, the recording appears to capture Trump praising his new choice of secretary of state, saying emphatically: “[Mike] Pompeo is the best.” But the most striking moment comes when Parnas and the president discuss the dismissal of his ambassador to Ukraine. 
Parnas appears to say: "The biggest problem there, I think where we need to start is we gotta get rid of the ambassador. She's still left over from the Clinton administration," Parnas can be heard telling Trump. "She's basically walking around telling everybody 'Wait, he's gonna get impeached, just wait." (Yovanovitch actually had served in the State Department since the Reagan administration.) 
It was not until a year later that Yovanovitch was recalled from her position -- in April 2019. She said the decision was based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives” that she was disloyal to Trump.
House investigators have been attempting to document – in part with text messages supplied by Parnas -- an almost year-long effort on the part of Parnas and Giuliani to get Yovanovitch removed from her post. At times, the messages made public by the House Intelligence Committee show Giuliani referencing his repeated efforts to have Yovanovitch recalled from Kyiv, a push that was initially unsuccessful. 
"Boy I'm so powerful I can intimidate the entire Ukrainian government,” Giuliani messaged Parnas in May 2019. “Please don't tell anyone I can't get the crooked Ambassador fired or I did three times and she's still there.” 
The identities of others participating in the recorded conversation are unclear. During an early portion of the recording where video can be seen, Donald Trump Jr. appears on the recording posing for pictures with others. Sources say they were attending a larger event happening at the hotel that night for a super PAC that supports the president. 
Another clip seen on the recording, according to the sources, is of individuals entering what appears to be a suite at the Trump Hotel for the intimate dinner. The phone that was recording the Trump conversation appears to be placed down on a table with the audio still recording the conversation between the commander-in-chief and other guests, according to the sources. The image of the president does not appear on the video reviewed by ABC News. 
In a recent interview with MSNBC, Parnas publicly recounted his memories of the scene at the dinner and said that Trump turned to John [DeStefano], who was his deputy chief of staff at the time, and said "Fire her," he claimed. 
“We all, there was a silence in the room. He responded to him, said Mr. President, we can't do that right now because [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo hasn't been confirmed yet, that Pompeo is not confirmed yet and we don't have -- this is when [former Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson was gone, but Pompeo was confirmed, so they go, wait until -- so several conversations he mentioned it again.“ 
However, Pompeo had been confirmed and privately sworn in days earlier. 
A copy of the recording is now in the custody of federal prosecutors in New York's Southern District, who declined to comment to ABC News.
Trump’s supporters have maintained that no evidence has been put forward directly linking Trump to any of the alleged impeachable actions. And Trump has maintained that removing Yovanovitch was within his right. 
Trump has distanced himself from Parnas, who is under federal indictment in New York in a campaign finance case, and the president’s supporters have questioned his credibility and motives.
"I don't know him," the president said just last week when asked about Parnas. "I don't know Parnas other than I guess I had pictures taken, which I do with thousands of people, including people today that I didn't meet. But I just met him. I don't know him at all. Don't know what he's about, don't know where he comes from, know nothing about him. I can only tell you this thing is a big hoax." 
As ABC News previously reported, Parnas, who cooperated with the House impeachment probe of Trump, began providing materials that were in his custody to congressional investigators late last year. 
Just last week, Parnas' attorney transferred more materials after a series of rulings from the judge in his criminal case, granting him permission to share records obtained by the government with House impeachment investigators to comply with a subpoena, including documents seized from Parnas’ home and the complete extraction of Parnas’ iPhone 11 and Samsung phone, seized from him upon his arrest in October 2019. 
Joseph A. Bondy, Parnas' attorney, tweeted at the time that the materials were brought to House investigators "despite every stumbling block placed in our path" since his client's arrest. 
The records, which were mostly WhatsApp messages, also included 59 pages of emails and handwritten letters that appear to describe Giuliani's attempts to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and an effort to remove Yovanovitch from her post. 
One email exchange appears to suggest Parnas and his associates had Yovanovitch “under physical surveillance in Kyiv,” according to the committee’s cover letter. 
During her congressional testimony, Yovanovitch said she received a call from the State Department that “there were concerns about my security.” 
Giuliani is a subject of the probe being led by the New York prosecutors, sources said. Parnas' cohort, Fruman was also arrested at the same time and faces similar charges though he is not cooperating with the congressional investigations. 
Parnas and Fruman were indicted by the Southern District of New York on charges including conspiracy to commit campaign finance fraud, false statements to the Federal Election Commission and falsification of records as part of an alleged scheme to circumvent federal campaign finance laws against straw donations and foreign contributions. Both have pleaded not guilty.

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Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. (photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. (photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)
Bernie's Labor Support Snowballs
Holly Otterbein, POLITICO
Otterbein writes: "Most national unions haven't picked a favorite yet in the Democratic presidential primary. It's been a boon for Bernie Sanders."

While many national unions have stayed neutral, more progressive-minded local unions and labor groups are coming out in force for the Vermont senator.

ost national unions haven’t picked a favorite yet in the Democratic presidential primary. 
It’s been a boon for Bernie Sanders.
Rather than harming Sanders, a longtime labor ally who has promised to work to double union membership as president, the reluctance to offer endorsements at the national level has enabled more progressive-minded local unions and labor groups to come out in force for the Vermont senator. 
Sanders has already racked up 11 labor endorsements, more than any of his Democratic rivals, most of which are from local, regional and statewide unions. And some are among the most powerful labor organizations in early-voting and Super Tuesday states.
“He’s picking up more labor endorsements because the national unions, almost without exception, have not made endorsements, which implicitly or explicitly sets the local and regional unions free,” said David Kusnet, a former speechwriter for Bill Clinton who co-authored a book with an ex-AFL-CIO president. “He has a lot of friends and fans and supporters in the union movement, and some of them are succeeding in pushing their local labor unions to endorse him.”
The local endorsements are filling the political void left by national unions, still gun-shy after the acrimonious 2016 primary election left many rank-and-file members furious that their leaders supported Hillary Clinton over Sanders. Most are staying neutral for now, including some that have longstanding relationships with Joe Biden.
Five unions have come out for Biden, including three international or national unions, and three have gone for Warren, one of which is a national group that also co-endorsed Sanders. None has endorsed Pete Buttigieg. 
The support of labor unions such as New Hampshire’s SEIU Local 1984, which represents more than 10,000 members, gives Sanders a boost of momentum and ground troops in critical early-voting states. Sanders has also won the backing of large teachers local unions in California, which votes on Super Tuesday, and in Nevada.
“We will have boots on the ground, canvass for him, get out the vote,” said Rich Gulla, president of SEIU Local 1984. “He's talking good-paying jobs, he’s talking health care. I think he’s resonating with labor and, quite frankly, with a lot of working people in this country that are finding it more difficult to make ends meet, and I think that’s why he’s getting the endorsements that he’s getting.”
Though Biden has fewer unions backing him, he won the support of two international unions that together represent nearly 400,000 U.S. members: the International Association of Fire Fighters and the Iron Workers. Sanders has three national unions behind him.
Given teachers' and nurses’ close relationships with members in their communities, Sanders’ team is hopeful that their canvassing will be especially effective.
It’s unclear which candidates other labor groups will endorse as the primary unfolds. More building trades are expected to side with Biden at some point, and there is a possibility that some pro-Sanders local unions will put pressure on their national unions to put their weight behind him.
Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary under the Clinton administration, suggested that Sanders’ success stems from his work courting unions and their members, including by proposing to offer them advantages if Medicare for All passed. Under his plan, businesses whose workers have union-negotiated health care coverage would have to renegotiate their contracts if single-payer became the law of the land — and direct any windfall to the employees.
“Sanders has been particularly diligent in appealing to unions and workers. He's proposed expanding union power and doubling union membership during his first four years in office. He's demonstrated solidarity with striking workers,” Reich said. “Many unions are still weighing other candidates, especially Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden, but Bernie seems to be in the lead right now.”
Sanders might also be benefiting from the effort he’s made to professionalize his 2020 campaign, including his political operation. In 2016, he had no political director. Analilia Mejia, who previously worked for SEIU and UNITE HERE, is now his national political director.
“I come out of the labor movement. My deputy comes out of the labor movement. A bunch of the staff comes out of the labor movement,” she said. “I was talking to one labor leader and they were like, ‘It’s nice to talk to a campaign that understands the difference between a lockout and a strike.’"
Sanders’ campaign has also texted and emailed its supporters to encourage them to stand on picket lines and raise money for labor groups.
“When I was political director [for unions], the thing I most wanted was a big turnout at my actions. And we were like, ‘Hey, wait — we have a list of people who care about Bernie. Let’s tell them they should come out in solidarity,’” Mejia said.
While Sanders’ supporters in labor unions are campaigning for him in early states, the pro-Biden Fire Fighters are blanketing the same areas. In Iowa, international leaders are meeting with locals and educating them about the caucus process, including how to persuade people during the second alignment.
“That is when you can use the influence, the voice, your reputation with your neighbors to say, ‘Come stand with us. Stand with your firefighters and stand with Joe Biden,’” said Harold Schaitberger, president of the IAFF. “They trust you, they admire you, they hold you in high regard.”
ICE Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. (photo: Ted S. Warren/AP)
ICE Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. (photo: Ted S. Warren/AP)
The Racist ICE Detention Center Captain Was Just Fired. We Found 132 More Posts by Him on a Neo-Nazi Site.
Tess Owen, VICE
Owen writes: "Private prison company CoreCivic, which runs the Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, said Friday that Travis Frey, 31, is no longer employed by them."
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Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, waving national flags, take to the streets in central Baghdad, January 24, 2020. (photo: Ahmad al-Rubaye/Getty)
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, waving national flags, take to the streets in central Baghdad, January 24, 2020. (photo: Ahmad al-Rubaye/Getty)
Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis Attend March Calling for US Troops to Leave Immediately
Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN
Tawfeeq writes: "Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through Baghdad on Friday calling for US troops to leave Iraq, heeding the call of powerful Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr who called for a 'Million Man March.'"

EXCERPT:
The Green Zone has been the site of multiple rocket attacks that have increased in frequency since a US attack in Baghdad killed Iran's most powerful military general, Qasem Soleimani, and the Iran-backed Iraqi commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. 
The targeted killing on January 3 sparked growing calls for US troops to leave the country, as many Iraqis criticized what they see as a breach of its sovereignty. There are roughly 5,000 US troops in Iraq.
Iraq's parliament voted to expel the US military from the country following the attack, but the Trump administration has said it does not intend to pull troops out. 
The Trump administration on Thursday ended federal protection for many of the nation's millions of miles of streams, arroyos and wetlands. (photo: Getty)
The Trump administration on Thursday ended federal protection for many of the nation's millions of miles of streams, arroyos and wetlands. (photo: Getty)
Trump Finalizes Plan to Poison 60% of Nation's Waterways
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
Levin writes: "While fossil fuel groups unsurprisingly cheered the change, government scientists - even ones appointed by Trump - were less enthused."

Golf developers, among others, had been pushing for the move.
onald Trump has been pretty busy the last few months arguing that there’s nothing wrong with trying to extort another country for personal gain, threatening to commit war crimes, and making the case that bribery should be legal. But like a busy father who always makes time to read his children a story before bed, he’s not forgotten other causes near and dear to his heart, namely, destroying the planet and prioritizing corporate profits over human health. Earlier this month he announced a plan to gut the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to assess the impact of major projects on the environment, and on Thursday, he trained his fire on those pesky laws designed to keep the nation’s water clean, which have been really cramping his golfing buddies’ style.
Per the New York Times:
The Trump administration on Thursday finalized a rule to strip away environmental protections for streams, wetlands, and groundwater, handing a victory to farmers, fossil fuel producers, and real estate developers who said Obama-era rules had shackled them with onerous and unnecessary burdens.

From day one of his administration, President Trump vowed to repeal President Barack Obama’s “Waters of the United States” regulation, which had frustrated rural landowners. His new rule, which will be implemented in about 60 days, is the latest step in the Trump administration’s push to repeal or weaken nearly 100 environmental rules and laws, loosening or eliminating rules on climate change, clean air, chemical pollution, coal mining, oil drilling, and endangered species protections.

Although Mr. Trump frequently speaks of his desire for the United States to have “crystal-clean water,” he has called his predecessor’s signature clean-water regulation “horrible,” “destructive,” and “one of the worst examples of federal” overreach.… “That was a rule that basically took your property away from you,” [said] Mr. Trump, whose real estate holdings include more than a dozen golf courses. (Golf course developers were among the key opponents of the Obama rule and key backers of the new one.)
How does the new rule stack up to the old one? Well, the Obama rule protected roughly 60% of the country’s waterways, including large bodies of water like the Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound, and Mississippi River, as well as smaller wetlands, headwaters, and streams. It limited the discharge of things like pesticides, fertilizers, industrial chemicals, and other stuff you’d probably not want to drink into those waters. Whereas Trump’s rule:
...removes protections for many other waters, including wetlands that are not adjacent to large bodies of water, some seasonal streams that flow for only a portion of the year, “ephemeral” streams that only flow after rainstorms, and groundwater. Legal experts say that Mr. Trump’s replacement rule would go further than simply repealing and replacing the 2015 Obama rule—it would also eliminate protections to smaller headwaters that have been implemented for decades under the 1972 Clean Water Act.

That could open millions of acres of pristine wetlands to pollution or destruction, and allow chemicals and other pollutants to be discharged into smaller headland waters that eventually drain into larger water bodies, experts in water management said. Wetlands play key roles in filtering surface water and protecting against floods, while also providing wildlife habitat.
“This is rolling back federal jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act further than it’s ever been before,” Patrick Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School, told the Times. “Waters that have been protected for almost 50 years will no longer be protected under the Clean Water Act.”
While fossil fuel groups unsurprisingly cheered the change, government scientists—even ones appointed by Trump— were less enthused. The EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board said that the new rule flagrantly ignores science by “failing to acknowledge watershed systems,” adding that it found “no scientific justification” for excluding certain bodies of water from protection, and that pollutants dumped in smaller and seasonal bodies of water can still have a massive, devastating impact on the health of larger water systems. Anyway, happy golfing!
Giuliani threatens to...keep doing exactly what he’s been doing for a year now
The former mayor and presidential coconspirator has threatened to go public with everything he knows re: Joe Biden and Ukraine, which so far has involved nothing bearing any resemblance to reality:
Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney for President Trump, threatened Thursday to go public with information that would expose corruption by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. “Everything I tried to tell the press last March is now coming out, and more. I will now start to reveal the evidence directly to you, the People,” the former New York mayor tweeted. “The Biden Family Enterprise made millions by selling public office. Then when Joe was Obama’s Point Man, they ALL made millions.”

Giuliani’s claim that he could reveal evidence detrimental to the former vice president follows his offer to testify in Trump’s impeachment trial taking place in the Senate. “I would love to see a trial. I’d love to be a witness—because I’m a potential witness in the trial—and explain to everyone the corruption that I found in Ukraine, that far out-surpasses any that I’ve ever seen before, involving Joe Biden and a lot of other Democrats,” he said Sunday morning on The Cats Roundtable with radio host John Catsimatidis on AM 970.
Unfortunately for Rudy, thus far his prayers have not been answered. While the president’s impeachment team has seen nothing wrong with hiring Clinton hysteric Kenneth Starr and Jeffrey Epstein pal Alan Dershowitz to represent the president, thus far it’s been reticent to allow Giuliani to get anywhere near the Senate proceedings, which might have to do with the fact that he’s a key player in the scheme for which Trump is on trial
Poll: One in three Republicans think Trump is probably a criminal
...whom most would be devastated to see leave office, according to a recent poll, the title of which should probably be, “What the Hell?”
...the crosstabs of the Pew poll help illustrate the complexities of Republican attitudes toward the president’s conduct that are relevant to consider as House impeachment managers continue to lay out their case this afternoon. The survey shows that 47% of Republicans say Trump has definitely or probably done things that are unethical since launching his 2016 campaign. Another 34% say Trump has “probably not” behaved unethically, and just 18% say he’s “definitely” not.

On a separate question in the survey, 32% of Republicans say they think Trump has definitely or probably done things that broke the law. Among self-described moderate and liberal Republicans, 48% say Trump has probably or definitely done illegal things since launching his campaign. Only one in five conservative Republicans say this. But, but, but: Among the one in three Republicans who think Trump has likely done illegal things, 59% say he should remain in office. Another 38% say he should be removed.










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