Donald Trump is under renewed pressure as his impeachment reaches the Senate today after Lev Parnas, the business associate of his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, gave an explosive interview to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night over the Ukraine scandal, dragging Mr Trump, vice president Mike Pence, attorney general William Barr and top Republican Devin Nunes further into the mud.
In worse news for the embattled Mr Trump, the US Government Accountability Office ruled on Thursday that the administration’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine was illegal, adding further weight to Democratic calls for new witnesses to be summoned to the Senate, not least officials from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The president is also facing fresh humiliation as a new book, A Very Stable Genius, accuses him of being “dangerously uninformed”, detailing his struggle to read the US Constitution and failure to understand such fundamental points of history as the significance of Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbour during the Second World War.
During an appearance after signing a school prayer order, Mr Trump claimed that he did not know Mr Parnas, but acknowledged that he had taken a picture with the man previously.
He also said that the phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was "perfect", and that he did nothing wrong.
The Senate is expected to fully begin its impeachment trial next week, and officially swore in Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to oversee those proceedings.
The Senate has also taken an oath to become jurors in that trial.
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Trump 'dangerously uninformed', 'a complete amateur' and didn't understand Pearl Harbour, warns new book
Donald Trump is facing fresh humiliation as a new book, A Very Stable Genius by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol D Leonnig, accuses him of being “dangerously uninformed” and “a complete amateur”, not understanding such fundamental points of history as the significance of Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbour during the Second World War.
“Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Trump reportedly asked his then-chief of staff John Kelly, as the men prepared to take a private tour of the USS Arizona Memorial, which commemorates the notorious attack of December 1941.
“Trump had heard the phrase ‘Pearl Harbor’ and appeared to understand that he was visiting the scene of a historic battle, but he did not seem to know much else,” say Rucker and Leonnig, quoting an ex-White House adviser who concludes: “He was at times dangerously uninformed.”
The 417-page follows the president's chaotic reign from his inauguration through to the publication of the Mueller Report last summer, charting the process of White House decision making governed by "one man’s self-centered and unthinking logic".
Rucker and Leonnig record Trump's worrying hubris in overruling his former secretary of state Rex Tillerson's corporate expertise on Vladimir Putin immediately after meeting the Russian leader for the first time at a G20 summit in Germany: “‘I have had a two-hour meeting with Putin,’ Trump told Tillerson. ‘That’s all I need to know... I’ve sized it all up. I’ve got it.’”
The Post today carries a first look piece on the book from Ashley Parker, of which the following extract - in which Trump bemoans bribery being disapproved of as a routine business practice - is one of the most alarming:
Trump's answer in this exchange with ex-press secretary Anthony Scaramucci in which the Mooch asks him "Are you an act?" is also very telling: “I’m a total act and I don’t understand why people don’t get it.”
The authors also notably recount Trump's bullying of former Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: “He made fun of her stature and believed that at about five feet four inches she was not physically intimidating. ‘She’s so short,’ Trump would tell others about Nielsen. She and Kelly would try to make light of it. Kelly would rib her and say, ‘But you’ve got those little fists of fury!’”
Here's Tom Embury-Dennis with more.
Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas gives damning interview on Ukraine scandal
In worse news for the embattled president, Lev Parnas, the business associate of his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, gave an explosive interview to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night over the Ukraine scandal in which he said Trump “was aware of all my movements” on his behalf in Kiev and dragged vice president Mike Pence, attorney general William Barr and top Republican Devin Nunes into the mud.
"President Trump knew exactly what was going on," Parnas told Maddow. "I wouldn't do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president. I have no intent, I have no reason to speak to any of these officials.
"I mean, they have no reason to speak to me. Why would President [Volodymyr] Zelensky's inner circle or Minister [Arsen] Avakov or all these people or President [Petro] Poroshenko meet with me? Who am I? They were told to meet with me. And that's the secret that they're trying to keep. I was on the ground doing their work."
Parnas said Trump was specifically aware that Giuliani's efforts in Ukraine were focused on discrediting Democrats: "Yeah, it was all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and also Rudy had a personal thing with the [Paul] Manafort stuff. The black ledger. And that was another thing that they were looking into, but it was never about corruption. It was never - it was strictly about Burisma, which included Hunter Biden and Joe Biden."
Perhaps most shockingly, Parnas claimed the president was prepared to go much further than withholding merely the $391m (£302m) in congressionally-approved military aid from Ukraine in order to get what he wanted:
His other allegations included a claim that he had delivered an ultimatum to Kiev in May that no senior US officials would attend Zelensky's inauguration if they did not announce their faux investigation into Biden. A day later, the US State Department duly announced that Vice President Pence would no longer be attending the ceremony, with Parnas saying Trump had ordered his deputy to stay away at the behest of Giuliani in order to send a clear message to the incoming administration that they needed to take his demands seriously.
Parnas claimed that every communication he had with Zelensky's team was at the direction of Giuliani, whom he regularly overheard briefing Trump about their progress by phone. He further declared that he also heard Giuliani and another Trump-aligned defence lawyer, Victoria Toensing, briefing AG Barr by phone about their efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to announce the investigation into Biden and his son's business dealings. "Barr was basically on the team," Parnas affirmed.
As for Nunes, who sat as the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee batting conspiracy theories around and fought to discredit witnesses throughout the public phase of the impeachment hearings and has denied knowing Parnas...
Here's Phil Thomas on the latest twist in the Ukraine scandal.
Parnas claims Marie Yovanovitch spy Rob Hyde 'drunk all the time' as Trump inner circle falsely deny knowing him
The Parnas interview followed his lawyer, Joseph Bondy, turning over a trove of incriminating text messages and other communications to House Democrats on Tuesday, one of the most troubling revelations among which was the suggestion that the former US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was being spied on by one Robert F Hyde, a previously obscure Trump operative and donor, prior to her removal from office last May off the back of a Giuliani-led smear campaign against her
Yovanovitch has already called for an investigation but Parnas dismissed the significance of this in conversation with Maddow last night, saying Hyde was "drunk all the the time" and not to be taken seriously.
The likes of Eric Trump and Kellyanne Conway were quick to distance themselves from Hyde yesterday but the man's Instagram account, loaded with selfies taken with his arm around members of the Trump inner circle, tells a very different story.
Giuliani likewise attempted to distance himself from this fine mess last night, branding Lev Parnas's statements "sad".
"I feel sorry for him," he said. "I thought he was an honourable man. I was wrong."
Here's more on Hyde - a deluded MAGA mega fan who got in way over his head - from Conrad Duncan.
California congressman to Devin Nunes: 'Your pants are on fire'
Outspoken Democrat Ted Lieu was among the millions glued to MSNBC last night and afterwards took to Twitter to reveal - in light of Parnas's claims about Devin Nunes's role in all of this - that the latter had threatened to sue him for slander after he had previously suggested Nunes had been in league with Parnas in the conspiracy.
"Your pants are on fire," he added, addressing Nunes directly with obvious glee.
Nunes meanwhile hastily rushed to get his face on Fox last night to walk back his denial of ever having heard of Parnas, claiming (very unconvincingly indeed) that he had misheard the name when he was first asked.
After deriding that sorry performance, Lieu also made a point of giving credit to House speaker Nancy Pelosi for delaying the transmission of the articles of impeachment to the Senate following the 18 December vote, without which this explosive new evidence on the scandal might not have had the chance to come to light.
House sends articles of impeachment to Senate ahead of trial
The House of Representatives meanwhile voted yesterday to send the articles of impeachment against through to the Senate, where they are due to be read aloud from the floor this morning as the upper chamber prepares to conduct a trial weighing the president’s guilt.
Speaker Pelosi signed the articles at a ceremony in DC on Wednesday, in which she named the team of seven impeachment managers who would argue the case in the Senate in coming weeks. Those managers, whose identities were previously kept secret, will be led by Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff and Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler.
“Today we will make history,” Pelosi said. “When they bring this over, it will set in motion a process on the Senate side... They will take a special oath of office and do impartial justice according to the constitution and the laws. Let’s hope that they uphold that oath that they take tomorrow.”
Those managers then walked the articles across the Capitol Rotunda in a formal procession to the Senate, where majority leader Mitch McConnell received the documents.
Here's Clark Mindock's report.
Fox host 'loses mind' over Pelosi's souvenir impeachment pens
Earlier this week, Trump retweeted a stange compliment from Fox host Greg Gutfield, who called him a "monstrous, domineering behemoth".
That same man was on air in the wake of yesterday's impeachment signing and was absolutely incandescent about the media interest in the pens Pelosi used to sign off on the articles against Trump, putting her name to a document the likes of which has only ever been seen twice before in American history.
Gutfield wasn't the only one to be annoyed by Pelosi handing out souvenir pens to her impeachment managers after the signing and joking: "I'll take one for myself."
Not since Royston Vasey's psychotic restart officer Pauline has there been such an obsession with pens.
Here's Greg Evans for Indy100.
What happens next in the Trump impeachment saga?
Confused by all this pomp and ceremony? Andrew Feinberg is here to explain what happens next.
'It's like a foreign language': Trump struggled to read US Constitution for HBO documentary, new book says
Here's more from Tom Embury-Dennis with news of another telling incident recounted in A Very Stable Genius.
Trump signs first phase of 'landmark' new China trade deal
The president yesterday put pen to paper himself on the first phase of a new trade deal with China in the presence of the country's vice premier Liu He.
"The agreement we signed today includes groundbreaking provisions of profound importance to the United States: protecting intellectual property," the president blustered at an event scheduled just before the impeachment signing, a vain attempt to overshadow the history unfolding in the House.
“True to form, Trump is getting precious little in return for the significant pain and uncertainty he has imposed on our economy, farmers, and workers”, 2020 hopeful Joe Biden countered in a statement to Bloomberg News.
Here's Chris Riotta's report.
'You called me a liar on national TV'
The spat between Democratic 2020 rivals Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders refuses to go away and the leaked audio of their on-stage confrontation after Tuesday night's debate in Des Moines, Iowa, reveals the rival progressives still at odds over the disputed claim Warren was told by Bernie he didn't believe a woman could beat Trump in the polls.
“I think you just called me a liar on national TV,” Warren is heard telling Sanders.
As for Tom Steyer, the rose between two thorns....
Here's more from Zoe Tidman.
'End this crap as quickly as possible'
How are Republicans taking all of this? Not well, you will not be surprised to hear.
Lindsey Graham appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox show last night and commented: "The best thing for the American people is to end this crap as quickly as possible, to have a trial in the Senate, bipartisan acquittal of the president. And on 4 February, when the president comes into the House chamber to deliver the State of the Union, he will have been acquitted by the Senate."
That deadline is thought to be unrealistic though as the first phase of the trial alone - beginning today with the swearing-in of US chief justice John Roberts - is expected to consist of roughly two weeks of opening arguments and questions from senators.
The question of whether to call witnesses remains still unresolved, with the likes of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and Graham reluctant to entertain new developments but senate Democrats led by Chuck Schumer determined to hear from the likes of John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, Robert Blair and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey.
Kentucky Republican senator Rand Paul has meawhile threatened GOP colleagues Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney and Lamar Alexander that he will force a vote on summoning Hunter Biden (a more polarising option) if they join the Democratic cause by insisting on hearing from Bolton et al, according to Politico.
This week's bombshells from Parnas threaten to change everything, however.
As ex-secretary of labour Robert Reich observes, that Maddow interview "makes Watergate look like child's play".
Ukraine launches investigation into 'spying' on former ambassador by US president's associates
Ukraine has opened a criminal case into the possible illegal surveillance of former US ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, according to an interior ministry official.
Yovanovitch, who testified before the impeachment inquiry back in Novemnber, has called for an investigation into whether she was spied on before she was ousted by the president, as indicated by the texts and communications handed over to the House by ex-Rudy Giuliani accomplice Lev Parnas.
The Strange Case of Mr Hyde
Chris Riotta has this profile of Rob Hyde, the landscape gardening impresario turned Trump donor who appears to have spent last spring spying on Yovanovitch in Kiev at the behest of Giuliani.
Lev Parnas says he is "drunk all the time" but not a threat while the big wigs of Trump World deny knowing him, despite every single one of them showing up on his Instagram.
Revenge of the nerds: 'Shifty Schiff' set to prove himself Trump's most dangerous foe
The president has spent months ridiculing House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff - even selling T-shirts mocking his "pencil neck" - but the California Democrat has proven himself a dauntless opponent, leading the impeachment investigation from the House to the Senate.
Andrew Feinberg profiles him below.
President hails China trade deal and attacks Democrat duplicity
Trump is up and bigging up his China trade deal.
He claims Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer loves it behind the scene while attacking it in public.
This was Schumer's response.
Trump ignores environmental concerns over Independence Day fireworks display at Mount Rushmore
During his China trade deal signing yesterday, Trump took questions and pledged to make the Fourth of July great again by reinstating fireworks at Mount Rushmore after they were cancelled last year over forest fire concerns.
"What can burn? It's stone," he said.
Alex Woodward has this on what threatens to be some famous last words from the president, who remains apparently completely unmoved by the very real threat of wildfires, even after the devastation we've just seen in Australia since the turn of the year.
Giuliani associate insists Trump 'lying' and says he would be willing to testify at Senate impeachment trial
Lev Parnas has also been speaking to Anderson Cooper on CNN, further outlining his role in the Ukraine scandal and repeated his contention that Trump is "lying" when he says the two did not know each other - and threatened to release a new picture of them together every time the president repeats the falsehood.
He also admits, sadly, that he once "idolised" Trump: "When the FBI came to my house to raid, my wife felt embarrassed because they said I had a shrine to him. I had pictures all over... I thought he was the saviour."
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham has meanwhile sought to downplay the significance of his bail, accusing him of seeking to save his own skin and saying he is "desperate to reduce his exposure to prison".
Mike Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, has also responded to the allegations made by Parnas, telling CNN: "Democrat witnesses have testified under oath in direct contradiction to Lev Parnas statements last night. This is very simple: Lev Parnas is under a multi-count indictment and will say anything to anybody who will listen in hopes of staying out of prison."
Government Accountability Office concludes Trump decision to withhold Ukraine aid illegal
Independent congressional watchdog the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has ruled that the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB)'s move to withhold $391m (£302m) in military aid from Ukraine was, in fact, very much illegal, as the evidence continues to mount that the president himself was behind the conspiracy Giuliani, Parnas, Hyde and others were embroiled in.
"Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law," the GAO wrote in its eight-page report on the matter.
The development places important (and extremely timely) weight behind the argument that the Senate impeachment trial must hear from new witnesses - not least OMB official Michael Duffey.
Trump 'threatened UK with auto tariffs unless it agreed to accuse Iran of breaking nuclear deal'
Yikes. The president reportedly threatened the UK with a 25 per cent tariff on its cars unless the British government officially accused Iran of breaking the 2015 nuclear deal.
The secret threat was made last week, according to The Washington Post, which cited unnamed European officials, and would have seen the tariff imposed on all European automobile imports to the US unless Britain, France and Germany agreed to the ultimatum.
It came days before the three EU powers on Tuesday triggered a dispute mechanism under the agreement, which amounts to a formal accusation against Tehran of violating its terms. It could lead to the reinstatement of UN sanctions, but is being framed by the Europeans as the last chance to save the nuclear deal.
Iran has responded to the story by accusing Europe of giving in to a "high school bully".
Tom Embury-Dennis has the full story.
