Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

The public release of transcripts of State department officials involved in the Trump/Giuliani Ukraine scandal shows came within one CNN interview of total success in destroying Joe Biden's campaign, as the whistleblower story breaking in September spooked CNN's Fareed Zakaria from giving Ukranian President Volodomyr Zelensky the interview necessary to announce the fabricated investigation into Burisma Holdings and Hunter Biden.

It was early September, and Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, faced an agonizing choice: whether to capitulate to President Trump’s demands to publicly announce investigations against his political enemies or to refuse, and lose desperately needed military aid.

Only Mr. Trump could unlock the aid, he had been told by two United States senators, and time was running out. If the money, nearly $400 million, were not unblocked by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, it could be lost in its entirety.

In a flurry of WhatsApp messages and meetings in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, over several days, senior aides debated the point. Avoiding partisan politics in the United States had always been the first rule of Ukrainian foreign policy, but the military aid was vital to the war against Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, a conflict that has cost 13,000 lives since it began in 2014.

By then, however, Mr. Zelensky’s staffers were already conceding to what seemed to be the inevitable, and making plans for a public announcement about the investigations. It was a fateful decision for a fledgling president elected on an anticorruption platform that included putting an end to politically motivated investigations.

Elements of this internal Ukrainian debate have appeared in the Ukrainian news media and seeped into congressional testimony in the United States, as part of an impeachment inquiry undertaken after accusations surfaced of Mr. Trump’s demands.

But interviews in Kiev with government officials, lawmakers and others close to the Zelensky government have revealed new details of how high-level Ukrainian officials ultimately decided to acquiesce to President Trump’s request — and, by a stroke of luck, never had to follow through.

It wasn't luck, it was the whistleblower's story blowing up.

Finally bending to the White House request, Mr. Zelensky’s staff planned for him to make an announcement in an interview on Sept. 13 with Fareed Zakaria, the host of a weekly news show on CNN.
Though plans were in motion to give the White House the public statement it had sought, events in Washington saved the Ukrainian government from any final decision and eliminated the need to make the statement.

Word of the freeze in military aid had leaked out, and Congress was in an uproar. Two days before the scheduled interview, the Trump administration released the assistance and Mr. Zelensky’s office quickly canceled the interview.
Since then, Trump administration officials including the White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, have tried to argue that the security assistance could not have been conditioned on the public statement, because the aid was released without it.

The NY Times first broke the story on August 21, but Adam Schiff's tangle with the Trump White House over the whistleblower complaint, specifically with Acting DNI Joseph Maguire,happened on September 13th.

The day before the interview.

And that was the difference.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

This should be the end of Donald Trump's regime, but of course America is Garbageville: Population Us so who cares, right?

A New York judge on Thursday ordered President Trump to pay $2 million in damages for misusing funds from a tax-exempt charity — taking the charity’s money to pay debts for his for-profit businesses, to boost his 2016 campaign and to buy himself art, according to court documents.

That order, from state judge Saliann Scarpulla, settled a lawsuit filed against Trump last year by the New York attorney general.


The lawsuit — based on information first uncovered by The Washington Post — alleged “persistently illegal conduct” at the Donald J. Trump Foundation, where Trump served as president for 32 years.

As part of the settlement, Trump also agreed to disburse the $1.8 million remaining in the foundation to a set of charities, and to shutter it for good. In a statement signed by Trump’s attorney, the president admitted to poor oversight of the charity and to seven specific instances where its money was misspent.

Again, that should be it.  His resignation from the Oval Office should be effective noon today. It should be a national moment of catharsis and epiphany.  We should be talking about a Pence administration and his involvement in Trump's wrongdoing.

But of course, we're not.

Because Donald Trump covers the world in impeachable offenses like the barn wall behind a horse's ass.

The president admitted, among other things, to improperly arranging for the charity to pay $10,000 for a 6-foot portrait of him. He also agreed to pay back $11,525 in foundation funds that he spent on sports memorabilia and champagne at a charity gala.

Trump also accepted restrictions on his involvement in other charitable organizations. His three eldest children, who were members of the foundation’s board, must undergo mandatory training on the duties of those who run charities.
Charities are barred from getting involved in political campaigns, but in weighing the Iowa fundraiser, Scarpulla gave Trump credit for making good on his pledge to give $2.8 million that his charity raised to veterans’ organizations.

Instead of fining him that amount, as the attorney general’s office wanted, the judge trimmed it to $2 million and rejected a demand for punitive damages and interest.

The Trump Foundation said it was pleased by those decisions, claiming that the judge “recognized that every penny ever raised by the Trump Foundation has gone to help those most in need.”

He lied of course, broke the law, and covered it up, and only the dogged reporting of Washington Post journalist David Farenthold has exposed this criminality.  Today we should be talking about how Farenthold took down the Trump regime.

If the Clinton Foundation had committed a fraction of these offenses and agreed to a settlement with New York state like this, Attorney General Bill Barr would be announcing a Justice Department federal investigation while Trump was screaming LOCK HER UP.

But of course, we're not.

StupidiNews!

• A magnitude 5.8 earthquake rocked northwestern Iran on Friday killing five and injuring more than 100 according to Iranian state TV.
• CIA Director Gina Haspel was in Saudi Arabia Thursday after the Justice Department indicted US Twitter users for espionage on behalf of the kingdom.
• A Hong Kong university student who was injured from a fall in last weekend's protests has died, setting the stage for fresh protests this weekend.
• French President Emanuel Macron is blaming Donald Trump's neglect of NATO allies for the organization's recent economic woes, saying Trump is causing the "brain death" of NATO.
• Members of a US white supremacist group that pulled its web presence two years ago have now been unmasked in a major data leak revealing identities and plans.

Last Call For Too Many Cooks

And former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg is making good on his threat to upend the Democratic 2020 primary by filing to enter the Alabama primary tomorrow.

Michael R. Bloomberg is actively preparing to enter the Democratic presidential primary and is expected to file paperwork this week designating himself as a candidate in at least one state with an early filing deadline, people briefed on Mr. Bloomberg’s plans said.

Mr. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and billionaire businessman, has been privately weighing a bid for the White House for weeks and has not yet made a final decision on whether to run, an adviser said. But in the first sign that he is seriously moving toward a campaign, Mr. Bloomberg has dispatched staffers to Alabama to gather signatures to qualify for the primary there. Though Alabama does not hold an early primary, it has a Friday deadline for candidates to formally enter the race.

Should Mr. Bloomberg proceed with a campaign, it could represent a seismic disruption in the Democratic race. With his immense personal wealth, centrist views and close ties to the political establishment, he would present a grave and instantaneous threat to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has been struggling to raise money and assemble a ideologically moderate coalition.

But Mr. Bloomberg could also reshape the race in other ways, intensifying the Democrats’ existing debates about economic inequality and corporate power, and offering fodder to the party’s rising populist wing, led by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who contend that the extremely rich already wield far too much influence in politics. Mr. Bloomberg has repeatedly expressed discomfort with certain policies favored by both Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders.

Howard Wolfson, a close adviser to Mr. Bloomberg, said on Thursday that the former mayor viewed President Trump as an “unprecedented threat to our nation,” and noted Mr. Bloomberg’s heavy spending in the 2018 midterm elections and this week’s off-year races in Virginia. Mr. Bloomberg, he said, has grown uneasy about the existing trajectory of the Democratic primary.

“We now need to finish the job and ensure that Trump is defeated — but Mike is increasingly concerned that the current field of candidates is not well positioned to do that,” Mr. Wolfson said. “If Mike runs he would offer a new choice to Democrats built on a unique record running America’s biggest city, building a business from scratch and taking on some of America’s toughest challenges as a high-impact philanthropist.”

Once again, Bloomberg has no shot whatsoever:

Mr. Bloomberg will have to move quickly if he is to compete in a serious way for the Democratic nomination. Beyond Alabama, several other states have filing deadlines in quick succession, including New Hampshire, with its crucial early primary. While he has maintained a cluster of high-powered advisers in New York, he would have to build a campaign from zero in the early primary and caucus states, and it may be difficult for him to qualify for the two remaining debates this year.

In a Democratic race, Mr. Bloomberg would face a battery of complicated questions about his political ideology and governing record. He has been a vigorous advocate for core liberal causes, like gun control and battling climate change. But as mayor Mr. Bloomberg also championed police searches that targeted black and Latino men; in an interview last fall, he defended his administration’s stop-and-frisk policing strategy and also expressed skepticism about the #MeToo movement.

He's just there to hurt Biden.

Should He Steyer Should He Go

Democratic presidential candidate and billionaire Tom Steyer is a disaster, and it turns out he should have been shown the door a long time ago.

A top aide to Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer in Iowa has privately offered campaign contributions to local politicians in exchange for endorsing his White House bid, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the conversations.

The overtures from Pat Murphy, a former state House speaker who is serving as a top adviser on Steyer’s Iowa campaign, aren’t illegal — though payments for endorsements would violate campaign finance laws if not disclosed. There’s no evidence that any Iowans accepted the offer or received contributions from Steyer’s campaign as compensation for their backing.
But the proposals could revive criticism that the billionaire Steyer is trying to buy his way into the White House. Several state lawmakers and political candidates said they were surprised Steyer’s campaign would think he could buy their support.

Tom Courtney, a former Democratic state senator from southeastern Iowa who’s running for reelection to his old seat, told The Associated Press the financial offer “left a bad taste in my mouth.”

Murphy didn’t respond to a request for comment. Alberto Lammers, Steyer’s campaign press secretary, said Murphy was not authorized to make the offers and that the campaign leadership outside of Iowa was unaware that he was doing so until the issue was raised by The Associated Press.

Courtney declined to name Murphy as the Steyer aide who made the offer, but several other local politicians said they received similar propositions, and all confirmed the proposal came from Murphy himself. Most requested anonymity to speak freely about the issue. Another, Iowa state Rep. Karin Derry, said Murphy didn’t explicitly offer a specific dollar amount, but made it clear Derry would receive financial support if she backed Steyer.

“It was presented more as, he has provided financial support to other downballot candidates who’ve endorsed him, and could do the same for you,” she said.

Courtney described a similar interaction with Steyer’s campaign.

“Tom, I know you’re running for Senate. I’m working for Tom Steyer,” Courtney recalled hearing from the aide. “Now you know how this works. ...He said, ‘you help them, and they’ll help you.’”

“I said, ‘it wouldn’t matter if you’re talking monetary, there’s no amount,’” Courtney continued. “I don’t do that kind of thing.”

No it's not illegal but Jesus, it's gross and immoral as hell.  But hey, you know what is illegal? Having your aides steal other candidate's mailing lists.

A Tom Steyer campaign staffer accused of stealing voter data from Kamala Harris' campaign has resigned. Steyer's campaign manager, Heather Hargreaves, released a statement explaining that last week, the South Carolina Democratic Party had turned off voter file access to his campaign briefly — and that when it was restored, Steyer staffer Dwane Sims, who had once worked for the state party, "had access to other presidential data."

"Within minutes of realizing this," Hargreaves said, "Sims called the South Carolina Democratic Party to alert them, and the access was turned off by the party authorities."

Steyer's national press secretary Alberto Lammers said that although the campaign wiped all voter data files from Sims' computer, Sims had already deleted the files in question.

Nonetheless, the Steyer campaign said that it put Sims on leave while it investigated. It "wiped Mr. Sims' computer to make sure the data was completely deleted and that there was no access to other campaign data."

The campaign did not overtly admit any wrongdoing, but it did state that "after that internal investigation, [Sims] resigned from the campaign."

The chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party said in a statement that the party "recently learned of a breach by an employee of the Steyer campaign, who obtained access to some of Senator Harris' volunteer data in South Carolina. This was a former SCDP employee, who was off-boarded at the end of September, and as we learned on Friday, maintained a separate user account, which is in clear violation of the VoteBuilder protocol."

"We take this matter very seriously, and that is why we immediately worked with the DNC to disable this employee's access to VoteBuilder," the statement continued. "All data downloaded by this individual was destroyed and was not provided to any third parties. It is critical that the Steyer campaign take immediate action regarding their employee. This user account did not have access to data from any other presidential campaign."

Hargreaves' statement includes an apology to the Harris campaign. "Tom Steyer and the Steyer campaign extend our deepest apology to Senator Kamala Harris and her campaign," Hargreaves wrote.

Oops we accidentally the voter data my bad.  Hitting the black woman's voter list in South Carolina is a nice touch, non?

C'mon Tom, should have stuck with funding state races with your money.  You could have made a difference.  Instead you wasted tens of millions on your ego and oh yeah, you're a cartoon villain and a fool.

Drop out already.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

The Washington Post is reporting that Donald Trump wanted Attorney General Bill Barr to put an end to impeachment proceedings by holding a press conference declaring him innocent of any legal wrongdoing, a step that not even Barr would apparently take.  Not yet, at least.

The request from Trump traveled from the president to other White House officials and eventually to the Justice Department. The president has mentioned Barr’s demurral to associates in recent weeks, saying he wished Barr would have held the news conference, Trump advisers say.

In recent weeks, the Justice Department has sought some distance from the White House, particularly on matters relating to the burgeoning controversy over Trump’s dealings on Ukraine and the impeachment inquiry they sparked.

People close to the administration say Barr and Trump remain on good terms. A senior administration official said Trump praised the attorney general publicly and privately Wednesday, and deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley said in a statement: “The President has nothing but respect for AG Barr and greatly appreciates the work he’s done on behalf of the country — and no amount of shady sources with clear intent to divide, smear, and slander will change that.”

But those close to the administration also concede that the department has made several recent maneuvers putting it at odds with the White House at a particularly precarious time for the president. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the politically fraught situation.

The request for the news conference came sometime around Sept. 25, when the administration released a rough transcript of the president’s July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The document showed that Trump urged Zelensky to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter — while dangling a possible White House visit for the foreign leader.

By then, a whistleblower complaint about the call had moved congressional Democrats to launch the impeachment inquiry, and the administration was on the defensive. As the rough transcript was released, a Justice Department spokeswoman said officials had evaluated it and the whistleblower complaint to see whether campaign finance laws had been broken, determined that none had been and decided “no further action was warranted.”

It was not immediately clear why Barr would not go beyond that statement with a televised assertion that the president broke no laws, nor was it clear how forcefully the president’s desire was communicated. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. A senior administration official said, “The DOJ did in fact release a statement about the call, and the claim that it resulted in tension because it wasn’t a news conference is completely false.”

From the moment the administration released the rough transcript, Barr made clear that whatever the president was up to, he was not a party to it. 

Though the rough transcript shows Trump offering Zelensky the services of his attorney general to aid investigations of Biden and his son, a Barr spokeswoman said that Barr and Trump had never discussed that.

“The President has not spoken with the Attorney General about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former vice president Biden or his son,” spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement released at the same time as the rough transcript. “The President has not asked the Attorney General to contact Ukraine — on this or any other matter. The Attorney General has not communicated with Ukraine — on this or any other subject.”

Now this could very well be kayfabe rope-a-dope, but it seems to me that Barr is really, really going out of his way to avoid this whole Ukraine thing, and let's remember Trump fired Jeff Sessions because he wouldn't get involved in the Mueller probe.  Barr could pull another stunt but he hasn't yet.

My assumption is that Barr feels he doesn't have to interfere and that Mitch McConnell will "take care" of things for Trump.  But it sure doesn't keep Trump from complaining about "his" Attorney General.

The real reason I think is that Barr is involved in this Ukraine business far more than anyone wants to admit, so if he keeps his mouth shut and lays low, he figures he'll be okay.

Of course, Trump and "keeping his mouth shut" rarely happens.

StupidiNews!

• A federal judge has blocked a Trump regime rule that would allow health care workers, including doctors, to opt out of medical procedures based on moral objection.
• North Korea is blasting planned US joint military drills with South Korea, Pyongyang called the move a "declaration for confrontation" that could jeopardize any diplomatic process.
• A federal judge suggested House Democrats and the Trump regime reach a compromise over Donald Trump's tax returns during oral arguments regarding the White House lawsuit blocking release.
• Former Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions is expected to enter the 2020 Alabama senate race for his old seat on Thursday, Democratic Sen. Doug Jones won the seat in a special election.
• A group of bipartisan senators want to extend US support for the International Space Station through 2030, the Trump regime wants to scale back operations and leave space to private companies.

Last Call For The Reach To Impeach, Con't

Public impeachment hearings against Donald Trump get underway in the House next week.

Impeachment proceedings against U.S. President Donald Trump for pressuring Ukraine to investigate a political rival will reach a critical stage next week when a Democratic-led congressional committee holds its first public hearings on the issue.

In a move that raises the stakes ahead of a presidential election year, Democrats said on Wednesday the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee would hold open hearings with three career U.S. diplomats who have expressed alarm about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

The public testimony will feature William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

They will testify on Nov. 13 and 15, said Adam Schiff, the committee’s Democratic chairman who wrote on Twitter that there was “More to come.” The diplomats and others have already testified to lawmakers from both parties behind closed doors.

Televised public hearings featuring U.S. officials testifying in Congress about alleged wrongdoing by Trump could crowd out other issues like the economy and immigration as voters turn their minds to the November 2020 election.

That might damage Trump, though some of his supporters say the impeachment drive could actually boost his re-election chances by showing him at loggerheads with Washington-based political foes.

Democrats had said they had enough material to move forward with public impeachment hearings, which would be a likely prelude to articles of impeachment - formal charges - against Trump being brought to a vote in the House.

“We are getting an increasing appreciation for just what took place during the course of the last year and the degree to which the president enlisted whole departments of government in the illicit aim of trying to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political opponent as well as further a conspiracy theory about the 2016 election that he believed would be beneficial to his re-election campaign,” Schiff told reporters.

Taylor and Kent will be a good watch, but the real main even should be Marie Yovanovich, the former Ambassador to Ukraine who was removed from her post for not going along with the Trump regime's plans to pressure the Ukrainian government into fabricating an investigation into Hunter Biden.

But that won't stop Republicans from starting their own attention-grabbing shows.

Senate Republicans are privately debating whether they should use an impeachment trial of President Trump to scrutinize former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter as some Trump allies push to call them as witnesses while others dismiss the suggestion as a risky political ploy.

The ongoing discussions are a revealing glimpse into the fault lines in the GOP ahead of a possible trial of Trump in the Senate, where there are varying appetites among Republicans for the type of political combat relished by the president and his most ardent defenders.

Among a group of Trump’s allies inside and outside Congress, there is intense and growing interest in countering the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry by delving into Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China. Because his father was vice president at the time, these allies think it could be a way to explain why Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25 phone call to “look into” the Bidens, who have denied any wrongdoing.

That effort gained steam on Capitol Hill last week at a private lunch where Republican Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and John Neely Kennedy (La.) raised the idea of summoning Hunter Biden, said two people familiar with the exchange who, like others in this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Paul took his private push public at a campaign rally with the president Monday night in Kentucky.

“I say this to my fellow colleagues in Congress, to every Republican in Washington: Step up and subpoena Hunter Biden and subpoena the whistleblower!” Paul told the crowd, also referring to the unnamed intelligence official who first raised alarms about the president’s Ukraine conduct.

Trump will demand that this be done.  Lindsey Graham will want to.  Mitch may stop them, I don't know, but these clowns will do anything to distract America.

The Battle For Bevinstan

Kentucky GOP Gov. Matt Bevin has not conceded after last night's loss, and not only is he planning a recount, the GOP-controlled state legislature is planning to steal the election outright from Andy Beshear.  Joe Sonka breaks it all down:

Bevin said he "wanted the process to be followed" under law before he made a concession, referring to unspecified "irregularities" that were "corroborated." 

The first step in that process under Kentucky law, when it comes to election results that are contested, should be as familiar to Bevin as anyone else in the state, as he won a razor-thin victory in the Republican gubernatorial primary of 2015 by margin of just 83 votes over now Rep. James Comer. 

The first step under Kentucky law is a recanvass of the vote, which is a review of the vote totals by each county clerk — counting absentee votes and checking printouts to make sure the numbers they transmitted to the State Board of Elections were correct. 

State law allows for a recanvassing if a county clerk or a county board of elections notices a discrepancy, or if a candidate makes a written request to the secretary of state. 

Comer requested a recanvass of the vote totals in that 2015 race, but the results were unchanged. He declined to request the next possible step in the process under Kentucky law — a formal recount that includes a physical examination of the ballots. 

There is no provision for an automatic recount under Kentucky law. A candidate must file a petition with the Franklin Circuit Court by the Tuesday following the election. 

If petitioned, the judge would take possession of the paper ballots and voting machines and conduct their own recount. After doing so, the judge would make the final decision on who won the race, but that would be subject to appeal to the Kentucky Court of Appeals or the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Joshua Douglas, a professor in the University of Kentucky Law School, told The Courier Journal that while Bevin would not be charged for the costs of a recanvass should he want one, he would have to pay for a recount. 

Most people would stop here and concede.  But Bevin won't, because Donald Trump will not let him do so.  Monday night, Trump put his neck on the line for Bevin, and Trump doesn't repay failure well.  Bevin's career is over unless he makes good on Trump's promise.  So here's where things get ugly.

The third step that a candidate could take is a formal election contest, which must also be filed by the Tuesday after the election. Under this contest, the candidate challenging the results must specify the grounds for the action, such as a violation of campaign finance rules or specific problems when it comes to how ballots were cast. 

Last but not least, there is Section 90 of the state constitution, which addresses a "contest of election for Governor or Lieutenant Governor." 

Section 90 states: "Contested elections for Governor and Lieutenant Governor shall be determined by both Houses of the General Assembly, according to such regulations as may be established by law."

You catch that?  Bevin is already complaining of "irregularities" in the vote that are "corroborated".  He's already on step one as of this afternoon.  He has a week for steps two and three in order to set up step four: election theft.

Sam Marcosson, a constitutional law professor at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, told The Courier Journal that this language of the state Constitution suggests there must be procedure established by law for a review of a contested election to take place by the House and Senate. 

“They can’t just make them up,” Marcosson said. 

Further, he said, such a review would be extremely risky for lawmakers to undertake without clear reasons for a contested election. 

“If the House and Senate were just to proceed on vague allegations without proof, that raises serious questions about disenfranchisement of the voters who voted for Attorney General Beshear,” Marcosson said. “It’s an extraordinary proposition to suggest that the General Assembly would take vague allegations of unspecified irregularities and call into question a gubernatorial election.” 

Douglas, noting that he had “no idea” what irregularities Bevin referred to in his speech to supporters Tuesday night, said in the case of a legislative election contest, Bevin would have to call a special session of the General Assembly. Douglas said his session would involve a committee of 11 members, eight from the House and three from the Senate, which “would hear evidence and make a final determination. And that determination would be final.” 

After that committee decision, no lawsuits could be filed over the decision, Douglas added.

Watch this very closely.  I promise you the GOP dirty tricks department is gaming this scenario out right now.

The Battle for Bevinstan is just beginning.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Realizing that basically all the house depositions taken after his are damning and that he was going to be left holding the bag, Trump regime EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland "revised" his sworn testimony on Monday to include that yes, Donald Trump shook down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for announcing a fabricated investigation into Joe Biden's son in exchange for military aid already promised.

Gordon Sondland, a key witness in the impeachment inquiry, revealed that he told a top Ukrainian official that hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid would “likely” be held up unless the country’s government announced investigations into President Donald Trump’s political rivals — a major reversal from his previous closed-door testimony. 

The acknowledgment of a quid pro quo is an explosive shift that threatens to upend claims by the president’s allies that military aid was not used as a bludgeon to advance his domestic political interests.

In his revised testimony, released Tuesday by House impeachment investigators, Sondland said that during a Sept. 1 meeting in Warsaw, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised his concerns directly to Vice President Mike Pence about the suspension of military aid.
Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, added that he later told Andriy Yermak, a top Ukrainian national security adviser, that the aid would be contingent on Trump’s desired investigations. 

“After that large meeting, I now recall speaking individually with Mr. Yermak, where I said that resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” Sondland wrote in his addendum, which was released on Tuesday alongside a nearly 400-page transcript of his testimony. 

Sondland revealed the exchange in supplemental testimony he submitted to House impeachment investigators on Monday, saying he had failed to recall the episode when he testified in person last month. Sondland, who had a direct line to Trump and was a major donor to his 2016 presidential campaign, had previously indicated he was not aware of any effort to connect military aid to Trump’s demand for politically motivated investigations. 

Sondland was eager to maintain that public posture, even with other U.S. officials working on Ukraine policy.

So not only has Sondland obliterated Trump's last line of defense been obliterated (he's been tweeting for two weeks now that Sondland said there was no quid pro quo) but Mike Pence has been directly implicated in this entire scam by Sondland as well.

And now that Sondland's full testimony is public, we see just how much trouble Rudy Giuliani is in, too.

The nearly 400-page transcript of Sondland’s Oct. 17 testimony underscores the power and influence Rudy Giuliani had over U.S. dealings with Ukraine. 

Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, was establishing contacts on the ground in Ukraine — including with the former top prosecutor whom U.S. officials believed was not credible — and conducting what several witnesses for the impeachment inquiry described as a shadow diplomatic effort that ran counter to U.S. goals and interests. 

Sondland, for his part, said in his opening statement to impeachment investigators that he was “disappointed” Trump had directed him to involve Giuliani, but said he reluctantly agreed because the former New York City mayor was “the key to changing the president’s mind on Ukraine.” 

In fact, according to the full transcript of Sondland’s testimony released Tuesday, the ambassador said he “assumed” that Giuliani’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden was illegal. 

At least one senior official told Giuliani that he believed the allegations against Biden and his son Hunter — which form the basis of Trump’s overtures to Kyiv — were false. According to the transcript of his Oct. 3 testimony, Volker dismissed the idea that Biden pushed for the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor in order to help his son.

“I said to Rudy in that breakfast the first time we sat down to talk that it is simply not credible to me that Joe Biden would be influenced in his duties as vice president by money or things for his son or anything like that,” Volker said. “I’ve known him a long time. He’s a person of integrity, and that’s not credible.”

So here we are.  I'm actually kind of glad Sondland was a weasel who Trump used as his shield, then smiled and ratted Trump out when given the chance, considering the half-dozen people who threw Sondland under the bus over the last two weeks.

Trump bullied President Zelensky to announce a fake investigation led by Rudy Giuliani to hurt Joe Biden's 2020 chances or he wouldn't get his military aid, and then Trump covered it up and lied about it.

Either that's an impeachable crime, or the Republic is done.

StupidiNews!

• Democrats have recaptured the Virginia state House and Senate, meaning the state could become the 37th state legislature to ratify the Equal Right Amendment to the US Constitution.
• The Trump Regime is officially beginning the pullout from the Paris Climate Change Agreement, becoming the only nation in the world to refuse to cooperate.
• Mitch McConnell is saying that he does not "expect" Donald Trump to be convicted by any possible Senate impeachment trial proceedings. 
• British intelligence says the UK may be vulnerable to Russian interference ahead of next month's scheduled general elections as PM Boris Johnson refuses to publish results of the report.
• Archeologists have used a drone to locate the thousand-year-old ruins of a Native American settlement on Raleigh Island off the coast of Florida.

Last Call For Meanwhile In Bevinstan...

Bevinstan may be no more.

After a hard-fought race marked by angry rhetoric about teachers and the intervention of national politics, Kentucky voters finally got the chance to make their decision at the ballot box.

In the end, Attorney General Andy Beshear was able to emerge victorious in a gubernatorial race being watched as much for what it says next year's national elections as it does about the direction of the commonwealth.

Both men were with supporters in Louisville on Tuesday night watching as the results came in.

The Democrats -- Beshear and his running mate, Jacqueline Coleman -- placed much of their focus on Kentucky's educators and their anger over moves by the Bevin administration to make changes to their pensions.

"I believe the more Kentuckians that come out, the better our chances are, because people are hungry for a governor that listens more than he talks and solves more problems than he creates," Beshear said earlier Tuesday.

Bevin, a Republican who has polled consistently as among the least popular governors in the nation, highlighted his anti-abortion rights agenda and close ties with President Donald Trump. He switched his lieutenant governor running mate this time out to Ralph Alvardo.

John Hicks and Ann Cormican ran a long-shot race on the Libertarian Party ticket.

On Tuesday after casting his ballot, Bevin said he was feeling good and confident.

“I thought we’d win by 6 to 10 [percentage points]. I still feel very confident in that," he said. "I’d like it to be more like 10 to 12. We’ll see.”
Trump and Vice President Mike Pence made high-profile visits in the final week before the election, including an election eve rally by Trump in downtown Lexington at Rupp Arena.

While Bevin basked in the attention and personal visits from Trump and Pence, Beshear worked to shore up votes and keep voters looking at local issues, including his support for expanded gambling in the state.

The story: turnout.  2015 saw about 970k voters.  Tonight, Kentucky had 1.425 million, a nearly 50% increase.  Beshear's final margin is less than 5,000 votes and Bevin didn't concede citing 'voting irregularities".  But Beshear declared victory tonight anyway.

In the other statewide races, the Democrats didn't do nearly as well.  Beshear will be the last bastion of blue in the Bluegrass for a while now.

But Bevin's still governor for a while, and he can still do some damage.  A recount is coming, maybe more than one.  I don't know.

It's not over yet.

The Drums Of War (On Drugs)

The brutal massacre of an American Mormon missionary family in Mexico by drug cartel soldiers has Donald Trump howling for military action.

At least 10 members of a prominent Mormon family – three mothers and their young children – were killed in a shooting attack relatives suspect might have been a case of mistaken identity by drug cartel gunmen. About a dozen family members remain missing.

The victims were U.S. citizens and members of La Mora, a decades-old settlement in Sonora state founded as part of an offshoot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's located about 70 miles south of Douglas, Arizona. 

The mothers were driving from Bavispe to a wedding in LaBaron, another Mormon community in the state of Chihuahua, when their three vehicles loaded with children were attacked by gunfire, causing one of the vehicles to explode in flames. 

Leah Staddon, a relative who grew up in the same Mormon community before moving to Arizona, said her nephew's wife and her four children died in the blaze.

She said her brother discovered the bullet-ridden vehicle still smoldering.
"It's devastating," Staddon said. "It's incomprehensible, the evil. I don’t understand how someone could do that."

The attack happened near Rancho La Mora on the border between Sonora and Chihuahua, the Mexican newspaper El Diario reported.

The vehicle exploded when bullets hit the gas tank, the newspaper said.

Trump hates Mexicans, who he thinks are all drug criminals and child-killers anyway, so actual Mexican criminals killing kids has sent him into paroxysms of rage on Twitter this morning.

President Trump said Tuesday the U.S. is ready to "wage war" on the drug cartels and "wipe them off the face of the earth" after at least 10 members of a prominent Mormon family were killed in an ambush attack near U.S.-Mexico border.

In a series of tweets, Trump said the U.S. was willing to aid Mexico in "cleaning out these monsters" and that "sometimes you need an army to defeat an army." 

"We merely await a call from your great new president!" he said.

Sending in thousands, maybe tens of thousands of US troops into Mexico to kill cartel soldiers would be quite the escalation of the War on Drugs, now in its sixth decade, and would certainly serve to get impeachment off the front page.  Trump is at best unstable but controllable by his inner circle, but this is a rage boner that may not be able to be contained right now.

We'll see if Republicans talk him down or enable him with legislation.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas is flipping on Trump and wants to cooperate with House Democrats, according to his lawyer.

Lev Parnas, an indicted Ukrainian-American businessman who has ties to President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is now prepared to comply with requests for records and testimony from congressional impeachment investigators, his lawyer told Reuters on Monday.

Parnas, who helped Giuliani look for dirt on Trump’s political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, is a key figure in the impeachment inquiry that is examining whether Trump abused his office for personal political gain.

His apparent decision to work with the congressional committees represents a change of heart. Parnas rebuffed a request from three House of Representatives committees last month to provide documents and testimony.

“We will honor and not avoid the committee’s requests to the extent they are legally proper, while scrupulously protecting Mr. Parnas’ privileges including that of the Fifth Amendment,” said the lawyer, Joseph Bondy, referring to his client’s constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination.

Giuliani did not immediately respond to requests for comment. On Capitol Hill, the House leadership and a spokesperson for the House Intelligence Committee declined comment.

His previous lawyer, John Dowd, wrote to the committees in early October complaining that their requests for documents were “overly broad and unduly burdensome.”

Parnas pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court last month to being part of a scheme that used a shell company to donate money to a pro-Trump election committee and illegally raise money for a former congressman as part of an effort to have the president remove the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

The indictment does not address the issues involved in the impeachment inquiry.

Parnas would be a crucial witness if he were to cooperate. He has said he played a key role in connecting Giuliani to Ukrainian officials during Giuliani’s investigation into Biden and his son Hunter.

It gets worse.  House Democrats have released the transcripts of the testimony of former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovich, and the full details of her testimony are outright shocking.

Yovanovitch said she first learned in late 2018 that Giuliani had been involved in Ukraine policy when Ukrainian officials alerted her to the former New York mayor’s communications with a former Ukrainian prosecutor general.

She described how Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, had urged her to use Twitter to express support for Trump in order to save her job. “He said, you know, you need to go big or go home. You need to, you know, tweet out there that you support the president,” she said.

Several witnesses have said Sondland, a major Trump donor, played a major role in Ukraine policy, despite the country not being part of the European Union. Sondland also testified in the House probe, and his transcript is expected on Tuesday.

Michael McKinley, a former top adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, told House investigators that he quit his post after the State Department opted not to defend Yovanovitch from criticism by Trump and his political allies.

She was made a target by Trump himself.

Yovanovitch testified on Oct. 11 that she felt threatened by Trump telling Zelenskiy on the call that she was going to “go through some things.”

“I didn’t know what it meant. I was very concerned,” she said. “I still am.”

She said she was astonished to be featured in a presidential phone call and that Trump would speak about her “or any ambassador in that way to a foreign counterpart.”

When she contacted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to get his support, Pompeo said he would take care of it by contacting FOX News host Sean Hannity.   And that actually worked for a while.

Because our country is corrupt as hell.

StupidiNews, Election Day Edition!

Time to vote for statewide elections here in Kentucky, as well as Louisiana and Mississippi, along with Virginia's state legislature and New Jersey's General Assembly.

Time to kick Matt Bevin to the curb, Kentucky.

Let's go.