Evening summary
- Secretary of state Mike Pompeo vowed to block testimony from witnesses that he claims are being rushed and bullied onto Capitol Hill.
- House democrats postponed the first of a series depositions related to the Ukraine affair. Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was to meet with the House Intelligence Committee tomorrow, will instead meet on October 11. But former envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, will attend his deposition on Thursday as scheduled.
- Democratic congressional chairmen warned against anyone trying to obstruct their impeachment inquiry by stopping witnesses from testifying.
- Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee raised a record $125m in the third quarter of this year. The reelection campaign has ramped up spending on attack ads deriding House democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
- Democratic candidates announced their third-quarter fundraising numbers as well. Bernie Sanders raised $25m, Pete Buttigieg raised $19 million, Kamala Harris raised $11.6 m and Corey Booker raised about $6m.
- Former congressman Chris Collins, pleaded guilty in an insider trading case that the republican representative from New York had previously dismissed as “fake news”
The state department’s inspector general has requested an urgent briefing related to documents on Ukraine with congressional staff members, according to multiple reports.
The inspector general’s unusual request followed secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s assertions that House democrats were trying to “bully” officials into testifying and that the democrats’ schedule for depositions related to the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry was “not feasible”.
Inspector general Steve Linick said he is holding a briefing because his office had obtained documents from the acting legal adviser in the state department, according to CNN. It’s unclear what exactly will be revealed at the closed meeting scheduled for tomorrow.
Representative Maxine Waters has tweeted that Donald Trump should be “imprisoned & placed in solitary confinement.”
Waters, a democrat from California who chairs the House financial services committee, wrote that “impeachment is not enough.”
I'm calling on the GOP to stop Trump's filthy talk of whistleblowers being spies & using mob language implying they should be killed. Impeachment is not good enough for Trump. He needs to be imprisoned & placed in solitary confinement. But for now, impeachment is the imperative.
— Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) October 1, 2019
Waters has often been an outspoken critic of Trump.
Judge temporarily blocks "heartbeat" abortion restrictions in Georgia
A federal judge has temporarily blocked one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.
A Georgia law banning abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected has been put on hold until a broader challenge to laws like it -- passed by Republican-led legislatures around the country this year -- is worked out.
A fetal heartbeat can usually be detected after about six weeks before many women are aware that they are pregnant. Georgia’s law would impose penalties including jail time for abortion providers and confer full legal rights on fetuses.
The law, which was due to take effect in January, would exempt cases that involve rape or incest if the woman files a police report and cases in which the mother’s life is endangered.
In August, a federal judge blocked a similar law in Missouri blocking abortions after eight weeks except in cases of a medical emergency. Other abortion restrictions in Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Ohio have either been blocked or are being challenged in court.
Planned Parenthood Southeast was one of several groups that challenged the law in Georgia.
“To the countless Georgians who spoke out against this ban and were ignored, we promised to keep fighting every step of the way and we have,” said Staci Fox, president of Planned Parenthood Southeast, in a statement.
NYT: Trump talked about fortifying the border wall with snakes or alligators
Based on interviews with more than a dozen anonymous sources within the administration reporters from the New York Times have illustrated Donald Trump’s “zeal to stop immigration” and fortify the US-Mexico border wall:
The Oval Office meeting this past March began, as so many had, with President Trump fuming about migrants. But this time he had a solution. As White House advisers listened astonished, he ordered them to shut down the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico — by noon the next day.
The advisers feared the president’s edict would trap American tourists in Mexico, strand children at schools on both sides of the border and create an economic meltdown in two countries. Yet they also knew how much the president’s zeal to stop immigration had sent him lurching for solutions, one more extreme than the next.
Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him
The report published in the Times is an excerpt from reporters Michael D. Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis’s upcoming book Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration.
Updated
Donald Trump’s reelection campaign sets presidental fundraising record
The Trump reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee raised $125 million in the third quarter of the year. Altogether, the campaign has raised more than $308 million in 2019 and has more than $156 million in the bank.
By contrast, Barack Obama and the DNC raised about $70 million in the third quarter of 2011.
Last week, after House democrats announced their impeachment inquiry, the president’s reelection campaign announced that it would dedicate millions to attack ads. The campaign spent $1.1 million within a week on just Facebook, according to ABC News. The messaging no Facebook echoed Trump, warning voters, “If Democrats outraise us, they will be able to dominate the airwaves with their crazy IMPEACHMENT WITCH HUNT.”
“We are investing millions on the airwaves and on the ground to hold House Democrats accountable, highlight their obstruction, and take back the House and reelect President Trump in 2020, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told the AP.
Harris fundraising figures are out
Democratic party 2020 candidate Kamala Harris announced her campaign raised $11.6 million during the third quarter of this year, from July through September.
The amount is in line with what Harris raised in the first two quarters of the year, showing that Harris may not be getting the traction she needs to beat out Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, who’ve been dominating the polls, Lauren Aratani writes.
Democratic candidates have been announcing their third quarter fundraising numbers throughout the day. Along with the polls, the numbers are an indicator of success for candidates in a crowded field that’s slowly shrinking.
Bernie Sanders leads the pack so far with $25m raised – his best quarter so far during this campaign. Pete Buttigieg raised $19 million, slightly down from last quarter but still wildly impressive for a mayor of a small-town. Biden and Warren are expected to out-raise Harris as well.
Harris beat out Corey Booker, whose campaign made a desperate push for $1.7 million in the last 10-days of the quarter. The push got the candidate more than $2 million in 10 days, totaling more than $6 million for the quarter.
Politico reported yesterday that Harris is shaking up her campaign staff team, promoting her Senate senior chief of staff and top advisor to leadership roles on her campaign team.
Aides say the campaign has lacked coordination, not holding staff meetings until September, for example.
Harris earlier this afternoon demanded that secretary of state Mike Pompeo must be called to testify about his role in the phone call between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and its aftermath.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo must come before Congress to testify. The American people deserve to know what he knew and when he knew it. https://t.co/x59sXMQxxi
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 1, 2019
Kurt Volker will be the first witness deposed in Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry
Even after secretary of state Mike Pompeo warned that his officials wouldn’t comply with House democrats deposition, they appear to be complying
The former special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, who stepped down last week will be appearing at his deposition on Thursday as planned, according to CNN.
Aides say Volker has confirmed he will appear this Thursday; Ambassador Masha Yovanovitch who was scheduled to be deposed will now appear Oct. 11. Volker will be the first witness to be deposed on Ukraine affair
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 1, 2019
On Friday, House democrats sent Pompeo a list of five officials in his department that they intend to depose in relation to the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry. But Pompeo said that requested dates for officials to voluntarily to appear on Capitol Hill for depositions were “not feasible.”
But it appears that Volker, at least, is sticking to the Democrats’ schedule.
Volker played a direct role in arranging meetings between Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to congressional committee chairmen leading the impeachment inquiry.
The Guardian has not independently verified CNN’s reporting.
Updated
Afternoon summary
There’s no sign that the drama in US politics today is going to slow down. I’m signing off from the east coast now and my colleague in California, Maanvi Singh, will take you through the next few hours.
Here are the main events so far today:
- College students in the latest opinion poll chose Elizabeth Warren to be their president, with Donald Trump coming second, then Bernie Sanders, then Joe Biden.
- Former congressman Chris Collins pleaded guilty in a court in New York to charges in an insider trading case he’d previously dismissed as “fake news”. His son is expected to follow suit tomorrow.
- Three top Democratic congressional chairmen have warned against anyone trying to impede witnesses testifying in Washington, lest it be taken as evidence of obstructing an impeachment inquiry.
- Secretary of state Mike Pompeo vowed to block testimony from witnesses that he claims are being rushed and bullied onto Capitol Hill.
Who’s the bully?
David Axelrod, former chief strategist to Barack Obama during his presidency, is miffed at Donald Trump’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo earlier today crying “bully” over congressional committee chairmen calling former and current state department officials to Capitol Hill.
The committees want the officials to testify as part of the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry now roaring forward in Washington.
Here’s his tweet:
Think about this: the @POTUS has proposed arresting @RepAdamSchiff for treason, has put a target on the whistleblower’s back—even hinted at execution!
— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) October 1, 2019
And @SecPompeo accuses CONGRESS of “bullying and intimidation?” https://t.co/TVaSoSXCva
College students love Warren - but also Trump
Look out Joe Biden. A new survey finds that Elizabeth Warren is the top 2020 choice among college students, according to a new College Reaction/Axios opinion poll.
But she’s not just first pick among Democrats racing for their party’s nomination next year, she’s first among candidates of both parties - ie she beat Donald Trump.
But the sitting president didn’t do too shabbily - he came second.
Warren topped the poll with 19.5% support, then came Trump with 17.4% support. Both had increased their share of student joy since the summer.
Third was Bernie Sanders with 15.5% and Joe Biden was fourth with 13.1%, both having lost some support among this sample population in recent weeks.
Fascinatingly, the poll was conducted September 23 and 24. The blurb doesn’t say until what time the students were questioned on the 24th because, of course, it was at 5PM in Washington, DC, that day that Nancy Pelosi formally launched the impeachment inquiry into Trump.
Expectation had been building all day that she would, but it’s impossible to know if that influenced the poll outcome at all. I guess we’ll see next time around.
Updated
‘Liddle Fuzzball’ is in the White House
A little furry friend has been keeping pool reporters company in the White House briefing room today, causing a mini fiasco in the normally subdued room, Lauren Aratani writes.
NBC reporter Peter Alexander first tweeted that a mouse “literally fell out of the ceiling in our White House booth and landed on my lap”. A reporter-led hunt for the mouse, which has been nicknamed “Liddle Fuzzball” – a play on “Liddle Adam Schitt”, Donald Trump’s nickname for House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff – ensued but has apparently been unsuccessful.
Mouse in the @NBCNews booth at @WhiteHouse today after falling from the ceiling and landing on @PeterAlexander pic.twitter.com/qN5Ww06QFp
— Jabin Botsford (@jabinbotsford) October 1, 2019
White House staff have reportedly been asking journalists to quickly close the doors behind them when exiting the briefing room for fear that the mouse will escape elsewhere in the West Wing.
Perhaps it’s unsurprising that the briefing room has succumb to rodents – it’s been over six months since someone stood at the lectern in the briefing room.
Stephanie Grisham, who took over Sarah Sanders’ post as Trump’s press secretary in July, has yet to hold a press conference. It’s become clear that Trump prefers “chopper talk” – talking to reports directly when out and about, and leaving the official remarks to the mice in the room.
Updated
Chris Collins pleads guilty in insider trading case
The now former Republican congressman Chris Collins pleaded guilty today in a court in Manhattan to charges stemming from an insider trading case.
The plea came a day after he resigned and set off a scramble to fill his seat in his Republican-leaning district, New York 27, in the western part of the state, bordering Lakes Ontario and Erie.
Collins had initially denied charges, the Associated Press writes, that he leaked confidential information about a pharmaceutical company. He was set to go to trial next year in federal court in Manhattan on conspiracy, securities fraud and other charges.
After his plea, Collins expressed regret and said he had failed his constituents.
With Collin’s departure, it will be up to Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo to set a special election to replace him. The governor said in radio interview earlier today that the timing remains uncertain for an election that’s expected to now draw even more candidates to an already crowded field.
“The question is, when can I do it?” Cuomo said. “But sooner rather than later is my inclination.”
The case against the 69-year-old Collins stemmed from his business dealings with Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., a biotechnology company headquartered in Sydney, Australia. He was the company’s largest shareholder and sat on its board.
According to the indictment, Collins was attending the Congressional Picnic at the White House in 2017 when he received an email from the company’s chief executive saying that a drug developed to treat multiple sclerosis had proven to be a clinical failure.
The next morning, according to the indictment, his son Cameron Collins began selling his shares, unloading enough over a two-day period to avoid $570,900 in losses before a public announcement of the drug trial results. After the announcement, the company’s stock price plunged 92%. Cameron Collins is expected to plead guilty tomorrow.
Chris Collins had spent months decrying “fake news” about reports of his crimes. The Buffalo News reports today on that and other colorful details of the pol’s downfall.
Hillary Clinton backs impeachment of Trump
Hillary Clinton has been basking in the glow of what appears to be her sweet karma. Clinton has been on the media circuit the last few days promoting a book she wrote with her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, and responding to questions about the impeachment inquiry with praise, Lauren Aratani writes.
“Is it time to, dare I say, lock him up, lock him up, lock him up?” Stephen Colbert asked Clinton on his show, the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, last night, mocking the chant that Trump created against Clinton during his 2016 campaign. The audience joined in on the chants as Clinton laughed at the reference.
Clinton said that she supports Nancy Pelosi’s decision to start an impeachment inquiry. The former secretary of state previously cautioned Democrats against pursuing impeachment. “It’s a serious undertaking. Do not pursue it for trivial political purposes. … Restrain yourself from grandstanding and holding news conferences and playing to your base,” she said in an interview in July.
On the Late Show, however, Clinton said that an impeachment inquiry is now “exactly what should be done”. The Ukraine scandal has had “such a huge impact because we’ve known for a long time that he was a corrupt businessman who cheated people,” Clinton told Colbert.
“To see him in the office of the president putting his personal and political interests ahead of the national security of our country just pierced through whatever confusion and denial people had.”
Clinton repeated her stance on ABC’s network show Good Morning America today saying that she does not have any concerns about the inquiry because the evidence concerning the Ukraine scandal is so “dramatic and irrefutable”.
Hillary Clinton tells @GMA she has no concerns Democrats may be overreaching in impeachment inquiry.
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 1, 2019
"The evidence concerning Ukraine is so dramatic, and irrefutable—because it came right out of the White House." https://t.co/M5slGg72vA pic.twitter.com/InZSajIjoD
Top Democratic committee chairmen respond to Pompeo
Influential congressmen Eliot Engel, Adam Schiff and Elijah Cummings, chairmen, respectively, of the House foreign affairs, intelligence and oversight committees, have warned secretary of state Mike Pompeo not to impede former and current officials from testifying in Washington.
JUST IN >> Engel/Schiff/Cummings respond to Pompeo:
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) October 1, 2019
“Any effort to intimidate witnesses or prevent them from talking with Congress—including State Department employees—is illegal and will constitute evidence of obstruction of the impeachment inquiry.” pic.twitter.com/zdFWfZzi5H
The guys in the spotlight
Photograph: REX/Shutterstock
Updated
You don’t say?
Giuliani has hired former Watergate prosecutor, Jon Sale as his attorney to deal with congress.
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) October 1, 2019
Reached by phone Tuesday, Sale told CNN, “what I’ve already learned is this is very complex,” Sale said when asked if Giuliani planned to comply.”
Amazing
And you thought Congress being in recess was going to lead to quieter days?
Here’s what’s already emerged today
- Opinion polls show public support for the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry is rising steadily (including among Republicans, though from a low base in that camp, obviously).
- The office of the US intelligence community watchdog, Michael Atkinson, put out a statement pointing out that the whistleblower at the heart of the matter that precipitated the official impeachment process announced last week had “direct knowledge” of the alleged misconduct by Donald Trump. That statement stands in pointed contrast to Trump’s attacks accusing the whistleblower of relying on “hearsay”.
- Secretary of state Mike Pompeo despatched a stern letter to the House foreign affairs committee Democratic chairman vowing to help current and former officials resist pressure (aka, per Pompeo, bullying) to testify to Congress about the Trump-Ukraine scandal.
- Cory Booker released encouraging fundraising info and his campaign declared the fight was still on, on the day some had expected he might have to quit the 2020 race for the Democratic nomination and the White House.
Cory Booker lives to fight on
Good news for New Jersey Senator and 2020 Democratic candidate Cory Booker: his campaign “eclipsed” an oddly specific goal of raising $1.7m before the end of the fundraising quarter that it said was necessary to keep the New Jersey senator in the 2020 Democratic presidential contest, my politics reporter colleague Lauren Gambino writes from Washington.
“It was not an end-of-quarter stunt,” campaign manager Addisu Demissie said on a celebratory campaign call with reporters. “It was our reality.”
The 10-day fundraising push raised more than $2m, which the campaign says is a strong sign voters want Booker in the race. Without the fundraising surge, Demissie said: “We would have had enough money to survive but not to grow.”
While the campaign is still counting checks and tallying totals, Demissie said it has raised more than $6m this quarter. That figure is far behind what his rivals Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg have reported for the three-month period. But for the Booker campaign, $6m was their best fundraising quarter yet.
Booker has struggled to break through in a contest that is increasingly dominated by three candidates: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Sanders. Yet his campaign argued that their fundraising success proved there was a hunger for another candidate to emerge and that the state of the race remains “wide open”.
They point to polling that says only a small percentage of voters are firmly committed to a candidate with five months left before voting for the Democratic party nomination begins in Iowa early next year.
Booker’s campaign is now in a position to hire 40 more staff at their Newark headquarters and around the country with enough resources to invest in expanding his email list and building an effort to ensure he is on the ballot in all 50 states.
They have set a new goal to raise $3m by the end of the month – but it is not “make-or-break”, they say. If the campaign falls short, the campaign believes Booker is in a position to stay the course.
Just this past weekend, things were looking a lot more bleak, my Guardian US colleague Martin Pengelly reported, with talk that Booker could have quit the race as early as today.
Pompeo says he won’t tolerate “tactics” of Dems in Congress seeking testimony from officials
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo continued his broadside against congressional committee chairman Eliot Engel, in his letter today.
Pompeo said that requested dates for officials voluntarily to appear on Capitol Hill for depositions related to the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry were “not feasible.”
“I am concerned with aspects of your request,” Pompeo wrote to Engel, the Democratic congressmen from New York and chairman of the House foreign affairs committee.
“I will not tolerate such tactics, and I will use all means at my disposal to prevent and expose any attempts to intimidate the dedicated professionals,”
Pompeo wrote, as reported by the AP.
The chairmen of three House committees, including Engel, made it clear last week that stonewalling their investigation would be considered obstruction of Congress in its investigation.
The panels are seeking documents from the state department and voluntary testimony several current and former officials, this week and next, and had issued a subpoena.
“Your failure or refusal to comply with the subpoena shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry,” wrote Engel and the other chairmen, Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee, and Elijah Cummings of the Oversight Committee.
The chairmen in their letter were seeking testimony from the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch, and former special envoy Kurt Volker, who stepped down last week.
Volker played a direct role in arranging meetings between Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the chairmen said, as part of what is seen as a backchannel in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
The Democrats also want to hear from T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, a counselor at the state department, who also listened in on the crucial Trump-Zelenskiy call, they said.
House Democrats launched the impeachment inquiry of Trump after a whistleblower’s disclosure of the president’s phone call with new Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which Trump sought help in investigating 2020 election Democratic rival Joe Biden and Biden’s son Hunter.
In halting any appearances by state department officials - and demanding that executive branch lawyers accompany them - Pompeo is underscoring the administration’s expansive view of the White House’s authority and setting the tone for conflicts to come.
It’s unclear whether Pompeo will comply with the committees’ request for documents by this Friday. He had declined to comply with their previous requests for information.
Pompeo, traveling in Italy to meet with the country’s president and prime minister, ignored shouted question about the impeachment inquiry from reporters earlier today in Rome.
All this bearing in mind that Pompeo reportedly listened in to the Trump-Zelenskiy phone call in July, that is at the heart of the whistleblower complaint that precipitated last week’s announcement by Nancy Pelosi of a congressional impeachment inquiry, but was evasive during subsequent media questions about the whistleblower complaint.
Mueller - out of the spotlight, if not the headlines
Talking of special counsel Robert Mueller - the man has returned to Big Law.
Mueller has rejoined the law firm where he worked before leading the Trump-Russia investigation, on which he toiled from spring 2017 until spring 2019.
The Washington law firm of WilmerHale announced today that Mueller would focus on crisis management and high-profile investigations, the Associated Press reports.
Two other members of the special counsel’s large legal team, Aaron Zebley and James Quarles, are also rejoining WilmerHale.
Mueller finished his investigation earlier this year into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to sway the 2016 presidential election.
As a handy reminder, the key takeaways were:
Mueller concluded there was no criminal conspiracy (although he found that the Trump election campaign was “receptive” to offers of assistance from the Russians).
And Mueller found at least 10 episodes in which Trump’s own actions may have amounted to obstruction of justice, detailing several instances in which the president’s demands to interfere with the investigation were blocked by his aides, memorably noting that “while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him”.
Mueller has acknowledged what he saw as DoJ protocol that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
He testified in July before two House committees. Hard on the heels of those events, which upped Trump’s inaccurate boasting that he had been exonerated by Mueller, Trump hopped on the phone with Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine and started pressuring him to investigate Joe Biden.
That led directly to the whistleblower complaint that almost immediately dunked the president into the boiling waters of an impeachment inquiry.
Updated
Whistleblower must be heard, protected - top Republican
The whistleblower who reported concerns over Donald Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy should be heard out and their identity protected,” Republican US Senator Chuck Grassley said in a statement on Tuesday.
“This person appears to have followed the whistleblower protection laws and ought to be heard out and protected,” Grassley said, as reported by the Reuters news agency.
“We should always work to respect whistleblowers’ requests for confidentiality. No one should be making judgments or pronouncements without hearing from the whistleblower first and carefully following up on the facts.”
In a normal world, this statement might be interpreted as simply one of common, bipartisan decency. But given the hysterical, intimidating abuse flung in the whistleblower’s direction by Donald Trump from his seat of high power in these hyper-partisan days, it is not insignificant.
Grassley, the gruff Iowa Republican is the powerful chairman of the Senate finance committee and president pro tempore of the Senate, making him third in the line of succession for the White House - should anything happen to the president that eliminates him from office - after vice president Mike Pence and speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
His 86th birthday present last month was hernia surgery.
And on Monday Senate homeland security committee chairman Ron Johnson and Grassley, as chair of the finance panel, asked US attorney general William Barr to investigate “any ties” between Ukraine and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, as Republican lawmakers and other instruments of the Trump administration frantically seek to counter the scandal of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign in its attempt to assist Trump, as found by special counsel Robert Mueller.
The letter said they have “concerns about foreign assistance in the 2016 election that have not been thoroughly addressed,” Politico reported.
Notwithstanding, Grassley thinks this whistleblower must be listened to.
Updated
Pompeo writes to top Democrat vowing to block testimony
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has written to the House foreign affairs committee chairman, New York Democrat Eliot Engel, vowing to prevent attempts to “intimidate, bully, and treat improperly” current and former members of the state department into testifying in relation to the impeachment inquiry
In the letter, Pompeo said he would work to expose what he called any attempts to intimidate employees, the Wall Street Journal reports.
This comes as the committee sets about asking Trump administration officials past and present to appear on Capitol Hill to explain and answer questions about their knowledge of the Trump-Ukraine scandal, which prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to announce just a week ago now (one day after Greta Thunberg gave a blistering address to the United Nations climate summit in New York - was that a lifetime ago?)
Pompeo said he is “concerned with aspects of the Committee’s request that can be understood only as an attempt to intimidate, bully, & treat improperly the distinguished professionals of the Department of State, including several career [foreign-service officers].”
Pompeo was in Rome as part of a visit to Italy and Greece.
Updated
Those still “feeling the Bern” open their wallets
Bernie Sanders has raised over $25m in the last three months, according to his campaign, my Washington colleague Lauren Gambino writes.
This is a massive haul for the senator and 2020 Democratic candidate for the White House.
It’s $7m more than he raised last quarter – and comes as his campaign contends with headlines such as Politico’s: Bernie Sanders is in trouble. Elizabeth Warren has overtaken Sanders in several polls as the top-polling alternative to Joe Biden.
But his fundraising numbers show what has always been the heart of his campaign: a fiercely loyal base of grassroots donors. Last week Sanders team announced that he had received contributions from more than 1 million people.
“Bernie is proud to be the only candidate running to defeat Donald Trump who is 100% funded by grassroots donations – both in the primary and in the general,” Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a statement this morning.
“Media elites and professional pundits have tried repeatedly to dismiss this campaign, and yet working-class Americans keep saying loudly and clearly that they want a political revolution.”
A point of pride for the Sanders’ campaign, “teacher” was the most common occupation of a contributor while the most common employer was Starbucks, Amazon and Walmart – a sign his message is resonating with workers. His campaign said the average donation was $18.07.
Pete Buttigieg, who is running a long-shot campaign to go from small-city Indiana mayor to president, raised $19.1m during the third quarter, according to his campaign.
This is slightly down from last quarter, when he raked in a stunning $24.8m, but the figures he released today show the mayor has the resources to stay in the contest for the foreseeable future.
Sanders and Buttigieg are among the only candidates to reveal their fundraising figures at this stage. More campaigns are likely to announce their figures, but the full picture won’t come into view until 15 October, the deadline by which candidates must submit their third-quarter fundraising totals.
Pompeo pushes back against Democrat pressure on officials to testify in Trump/Ukraine impeachment inquiry
Hot off the online press, folks (meaning more details to follow), is this flash report that secretary of state Mike Pompeo is resolved to help state department officials resist pressure to testify as part of the congressional impeachment inquiry:
“Pompeo vows to block efforts to ‘bully’ State Department officials to testify regarding Ukraine controversy,” blared the Wall Street Journal moments ago.
The outlet continues: “Pompeo comments come as House panels set to depose former and current State Department officials.”
Watch this space....
Updated
Intelligence community watchdog contradicts Trump assertions about whistleblower knowledge of “alleged conduct”
The office of the inspector general of the US intelligence community put out a statement last night, as we just flagged, in which he explained some further, key details about the characteristics of the whistleblower complaint he, Michael Atkinson, received on August 12.
The complaint was deemed by the inspector general to be credible and of urgent concern, detailing as it did a phone call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president in July in which the US president suggested Ukraine investigate his political rival, Joe Biden.
Trump has been trying to undercut the complainant - the whistleblower- by shouting loudly on Twitter about he or she relying on having received details about the phone call (which Trump repeatedly asserts, anyway, was a “perfect” call) second or third hand.
The new statement from Atkinson’s office reads: “The Complainant on the form he or she submitted on August 12, 2019 in fact checked two relevant boxes: The first box stated that, “I have personal and/or direct knowledge of events or records involved”; and the second box stated that, “Other employees have told me about events or records involved.”
As part of his determination that the urgent concern appeared credible, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community determined that the Complainant had official and authorized access to the information and sources referenced in the Complainant’s Letter and Classified Appendix, including direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct, and that the Complainant has subject matter expertise related to much of the material information provided in the Complainant’s Letter and Classified Appendix.
In short, the ICIG did not find that the Complainant could “provide nothing more than second-hand or unsubstantiated assertions,” which would have made it much harder, and significantly less likely, for the Inspector General to determine in a 14-calendar day review period that the complaint “appeared credible,” as required by statute.
You can read the full statement from the office of the inspector general here.
Updated
Whistleblower had "direct knowledge" of alleged conduct - IC IG
US intelligence community inspector general, Michael Atkinson, has released a statement pointing out that the whistleblower in the Trump/Ukraine scandal had “direct knowledge” of the alleged conduct that was the subject of the urgent complaint he or she filed in mid-August.
The complaint related to a phone call between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in July, in which the president appeared to pressure his counterpart to investigate Joe Biden, a leading Trump rival for the presidency in the 2020 election, and the business activities in Ukraine of the Democrat’s younger son, Hunter Biden.
Atkinson “determined that the Complainant had...direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct”, he said in a statement last night.
This contrasts with Trump’s repeated trashing of the anonymous whistleblower as a person whose complaint was based on second and third hand knowledge of the phone call.
Updated
Trump is tweeting
Here’s the president’s big picture message this morning.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2019
The problem with this map is that it shows voting support by geography, not population, so some of these areas had, like, one human voter and a bunch of bison.
Here’s more, very helpfully, on this from the Washington Post in 2018.
Other tweets from the President of the United States this morning continue down his line of argument that the Ukraine scandal and impeachment inquiry are a Democratic party and mainstream media “hoax”.
I refer you back to the whistleblower complaint in full and the full memo of the phone call Trump had with the Ukrainian president in July, which speak for themselves without any filtration/amplification on Capitol Hill or by the media.
Updated
Public support for impeachment rising - but still below 50%
The number of Americans who believe Donald Trump should be impeached rose by eight percentage points over the past week as more people learned about allegations that Trump pressured Ukraine to smear his top Democratic political rival Joe Biden, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The September 26-30 opinion poll found that 45% of adults believe Trump “should be impeached,” compared with 37% in a similar poll that ran last week, Reuters writes.
So impeachment is clearly not (yet?) supported by a majority of the public, but it is the predominant view, as 41% said that Trump should not be impeached and 15% said they “don’t know.”
The Reuters/Ipsos poll followed a swath of other results that showed similar trends.
Yesterday, one poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University over the weekend, found a 20-point swing in the last five days in support for Trump’s impeachment. Americans are now split 47-47 on the question of impeachment, the poll found, compared with 37% for impeachment and 57% opposition measured by the poll on 25 September.
Another poll, conducted by CNN/SSRS, also found that 47% of Americans support impeaching Trump, up 6 points from when the question was asked in May.
The odds of Trump’s impeachment hit a new high of 71% in online betting markets, meanwhile, my colleague Tom McCarthy wrote last night.
It’s hardly a surprise that there is a huge partisan element to public support or opposition. Reuters further reports from its latest poll that, among Democrats, 74% said Trump, a Republican president, should be impeached. That’s up 8 points over the past week, while only 13% of Republicans said they supported impeachment, but that had risen by three points. The level was unchanged among independents at 37%.
Full Reuters/Ipsos poll results: tmsnrt.rs/2n3AYWx
Glance-back: the American public has been increasingly focused on the question of impeachment following a whistleblower complaint about a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
These latest polls were taken before last night’s reports that drew secretary of state Mike Pompeo and attorney general Bill Barr further into the scandal.
Public support building over Trump impeachment
Good morning, US politics watchers: here we go with another day of tumult. What a week, and it’s only Tuesday. Here’s what’s coming up today:
- Public support for impeaching the president is gradually building, as senior figures in his administration get drawn into the Donald Trump-Ukraine scandal. There’s new polling data out – and Trump has some fresh pushback.
- Third quarter fundraising figures are expected for the 2020 Democratic candidates, as most, but not all, advance to the next debate, in Ohio mid-month. Who’s up, who’s down – and who might be out very soon?
- Republican congressman Chris Collins is expected to plead guilty in a New York court this morning to insider trader charges. He resigned yesterday, just another statistic in a GOP exodus from Capitol Hill.
There will be a lot more action. Stay tuned.
