Live political reporting continues on Friday’s blog:
Evening summary
- Donald Trump wanted the Ukrainian president to utter those three magic words: “investigations”, “Biden” and “Clinton” according to testimony from George Kent, the State Department official responsible for Ukraine affairs.
- An aide to Mike Pence testified in the impeachment inquiry. Jennifer Williams, who attended a closed-door deposition as planned, was among the officials listening to the July 25 call between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky.
- Former New York governor and billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg is reportedly preparing to join the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. Progressive frontrunners Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders responded to the news with some light trolling.
- Former attorney general Jeff Sessions has entered the US senate race, vying to retake his former seat as Alabama senator.
- Trump was fined $2m for misusing charity funds to boost his presidential campaign.
'Anonymous' writes a scathing critique of the Trump administration
The Washington Post has obtained an advance copy of the book by an anonymous writer who describes themselves as a senior official in the Trump administration.
Here are some key excerpts:
“It’s like showing up at the nursing home at daybreak to find your elderly uncle running pantsless across the courtyard and cursing loudly about the cafeteria food, as worried attendants tried to catch him” the author wrote.
Trump allegedly attempted a Hispanic accent to mock migrants attempting to cross the US-Mexico border:
“We get these women coming in with like seven children,” Trump said, according to Anonymous. “They are saying, ‘Oh, please help! My husband left me!’ They are useless. They don’t do anything for our country. At least if they came in with a husband we could put him in the fields to pick corn or something.”
Trump apparently wanted to get reduce the number of federal judges:
“Can we just get rid of the judges? Let’s get rid of the [expletive] judges,” he reportedly said.
Jeff Sessions announces Senate bid
As anticipated, the former attorney general has announced that he’s running to retake his former role as a senator from Alabama.
Sessions, who earned Donald Trump’s ire for recusing himself from Russia probe, remains a frequent punching bag for the president.
In a statement posted on his campaign website, Sessions appears to anticipate blowback from the president with fawning praise for Potus.
“Have I said a cross word about President Trump? No.” Sessions said.
“And I’ll tell you why: first, that would be dishonorable. I was there to serve his agenda, not mine. Second, the President is doing a great job for America and Alabama, and he has my strong support,” he wrote.
“As everyone knows, President Trump and I have had our ups and downs. But here’s the important part: the President is doing great work for America.”
Trump has said that naming Sessions as the attorney general was the “biggest mistake” of his presidency.
Updated
John Kasich said he won’t challenge Trump in the 2020 presidential race
In a series of tweets, John Kasich said won’t running for president. The Republican former governor of Ohio said, “At this point, I continue to believe that, for me, there’s no clear path to prevail that I can see.”
I've had a number of supporters, special people here in the Granite State, who have been asking what I’m going to do this presidential election cycle. Here’s what I told them: At this point I continue to believe that, for me, there’s no clear path to prevail that I can see.
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) November 7, 2019
“I’m not going to push my supporters, my friends, my family to do something that I don’t think will result in success at this point,” he said.
Kasich ran against Trump in 2016. When he dropped out of the race then, he refused to endorse Trump and declined to attend the Republican National Convention that year. Some moderate Republicans had wondered whether he’d pursue a rematch.
Updated
Donald Trump responds to $2m fine: ‘No wonder why we are all leaving!’
The president, and now ex-New Yorker was ordered by a judge to pay $2m in damages for illegally diverting funds from his charity to his 2016 presidential election campaign.
Still, per his statement, Trump will be complying. In a statement, he said he’s “happy to donate $2 million” to “worthy charities”.
This is exactly what Justice Saliann Scarpulla ordered the Trump family to do as part of a settlement with the New York state attorney general’s office after “persistent” violations” of law and “repeated and willful self-dealing”.
STATEMENT FROM PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP pic.twitter.com/EktztHfLk6
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 8, 2019
Bernie on Bloomberg: ‘The billionaire class is scared’
Like fellow progressive 2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders has responded to news the Michael Bloomberg may be entering the 2020 race with a bring-it-on attitude.
The billionaire class is scared and they should be scared.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 7, 2019
Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir also said, in a statement: “More billionaires seeking more political power surely isn’t the change America needs.”
It’s still unclear whether the former New York mayor and billionaire businessman will enter the 2020 primaries. He’s expected to file paperwork this week to enter the primary in Alabama, which has an early deadline.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren has upped her trolling. Her tax calculator for billionaires now features quick links for Bloomberg as well as Bill Gates and Leon Cooperman.
This calculator works for ALL billionaires. https://t.co/SNsKd5W7Pu pic.twitter.com/HfwX1XrJOl
— Ben O'Keefe (@benjaminokeefe) November 7, 2019
Updated
Trump wanted to hear three magic words: “investigations”, “Biden” and “Clinton”.
The Guardian’s Tom McCarthy (my live-blogging buddy today) has some more in-depth analysis from the testimony of State Department official George Kent. Kent, who was responsible for Ukraine policy, provides new details on the reactions inside the State Department to Rudy Giuliani’s meddling:
Trump told Zelenskiy on the phone in late July that he wanted him to pursue investigations of his political rival Joe Biden and a 2016 election conspiracy theory, according to a call summary released by the White House.
But by early September, after a creep down what another witness has described as a “continuum” of “insidiousness”, the demand had grown more specific.
Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, told fellow diplomats at the time that “he, Gordon, had talked to the President – POTUS in sort of shorthand – and POTUS wanted nothing less than President Zelenskiy to go to a microphone and say ‘investigations’, ‘Biden’, and ‘Clinton’,” Kent testified, according to the new transcripts.
Updated
Elizabeth Warren welcomes Michael Bloomberg to the 2020 race, with the utmost sincerity:
Welcome to the race, @MikeBloomberg! If you're looking for policy plans that will make a huge difference for working people and which are very popular, start here: https://t.co/6UMSAf90NT
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) November 7, 2019
More from the Kent testimony: Rudy Giuliani 'had been carrying on a campaign for several months full of lies and incorrect information'
George Kent, the senior State Department official responsible for Ukraine policy testified that Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani “had been carrying on a campaign for several months full of lies and incorrect information,” and his “assertions and allegations against former” Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch “were without basis, untrue, period”.
According to the testimony released today, Kent unsuccessfully pressed the State Department to issue a “clear statement of support for Ambassador Yovanovitch” after a series of “falsehoods” and “tweets by members of the Presidential family.”
Yovanovitch, who was herself deposed in the House democrats impeachment inquiry, said she ambassador Yovanovitch says she was told to tweet praise of the president to save her job.
New York's former billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg may enter the 2020 Democratic presidential race
Bloomberg is preparing to enter the Democratic presidential primary, the New York Times reports. He’s expected to file paperwork designating himself as a candidate in Alabama this week.
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.
The billionaire businessman with centrist politics has — like some other billionaire businessmen — expressed skepticism at the policies of progressive front-runners Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a summary of where things stand:
- A judge in New York orders Donald Trump to pay $2 million for misusing his charitable foundation.
- In testimony newly released Thursday, longtime foreign service officer George Kent said Trump wanted the Ukrainian president to say three words – “investigation”, “Biden” and “Clinton” – to hold up Ukraine’s end of a bargain whose terms were unclear to Kent.
- A senior aide on the campaign of billionaire Tom Steyer in Iowa has been offering money for endorsements, the AP reported.
- Intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff told Republicans they have until Saturday to suggest impeachment witnesses.
- Schiff laid out “inquiry parameters” that read to some like draft articles of impeachment.
- No 1: “Did the President request that a foreign leader and government initiate investigations to benefit the President’s personal political interests in the United States, including an investigation related to the President’s political rival and potential opponent in the 2020 U.S. presidential election?”
- Former national security adviser John Bolton did not show up for a scheduled deposition before the committees.
- Trump repeatedly attacked reports that attorney general William Barr refused his request to go on television and say there was nothing illegal about a July call between Trump and Ukraine.
- Donald Trump has been talking with his TV producer pals about life after the presidency and there might be an Apprentice: White House.
Updated
Pence aide Jennifer Williams, who testified earlier today, told impeachment investigators that she found a 25 July call between Trump and the Ukrainian president to be “unusual because it was political in nature,” according to a CNN report citing two sources familiar with the testimony.
But Williams did not shed light on what Pence might have known about the Ukraine plot, CNN reports:
She was asked by lawmakers in her closed-door deposition what Pence knows and she testified that she never heard him mention anything about investigations of the 2016 election, Burisma -- the Ukrainian natural gas company on whose board Joe Biden’s son Hunter say -- or the Bidens.
Yes, that gentleman who accompanied Pence aide Jennifer Williams to her deposition earlier was in fact exceptionally tall, the internet reveals:
YES!!!!! This is the Tall Guy Zapruder film I've been waiting for. Shows the sheer shocking tallness by objective comparison to other walkers... pic.twitter.com/X2gWF8Gmtc
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 7, 2019
Kent: 'that’s wrong, and we shouldn’t be doing that'
Kent’s testimony nails down the broad planks of Trump’s plot in Ukraine familiar from previous testimony: Giuliani and diplomats, especially Sondland and Volker, were chasing Ukraine to announce investigations into Biden, the discovery of which shocked career diplomats as much as did the announcement that “the acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, at the direction of the President had put a hold on all security assistance to the Ukraine.”
Notably, Kent turned on his boss, secretary of state Mike Pompeo, after Pompeo sent what Kent thought was an inaccurate letter accusing Congress of attempting to bully, intimidate, and threaten career foreign service officers.
“And I was one of two career foreign service officers which had received letters from the committees, and I had not felt bullied, threatened, and intimidated,” Kent said. He notified top state department lawyers and the director of the foreign service that what Pompeo said was wrong.
Finally, Kent documented the Trump plot unfolding in Ukraine at the time, with a 16 August memo. “I wrote a note to the file saying that I had concerns that there was an effort to initiate politically motivated prosecutions that were injurious to the rule of law, both Ukraine and the U.S,” Kent said.
Here are top lines from the Kent testimony, as selected by the committees:
- Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was recalled because Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, and others “started reaching out actively to undermine Ambassador Yovanovitch.”
- Yuriy Lutsenko made a private trip to New York to meet with Rudy Giuliani in order to “throw mud” at State Department officials, including Mr. Kent and Ambassador Yovanovitch.
- Mr. Giuliani was “almost unmissable” as the “campaign of slander” against Ambassador Yovanovitch and others unfolded in Ukraine and the United States.
- The State Department reached “the breaking point of our disillusionment with Yuriy Lutsenko,” the Ukrainian prosecutor general, when they discovered he was “essentially colluding with a corrupt official” to undermine a legitimate investigation into fake passports.
- Mr. Kent unsuccessfully pressed the State Department to issue a “clear statement of support for Ambassador Yovanovitch” after a series of “falsehoods” and “Tweets by members of the Presidential family.”
- Ambassador Gordon Sondland suggested that Ambassador Yovanovitch “do a video or tweet declaring full support for the foreign policy of President Trump.”
- The United States “had our Ambassador just removed through actions by corrupt Ukrainians in Ukraine as well as private American citizens back here.”
- Rudy Giuliani “had been carrying on a campaign for several months full of lies and incorrect information,” and his “assertions and allegations against former Ambassador Yovanovitch were without basis, untrue, period.”
- After Rudy Giuliani attacked Ambassador Taylor, Under Secretary of State David Hale warned him to “keep my head down and lower my profile in Ukraine.”
- Ambassador Kurt Volker, Ambassador Sondland, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry asserted that they “had the mandate to take the lead on coordinating efforts to engage the new Ukrainian leadership.”
- Ambassador Volker had a private discussion with President Zelensky “to underscore the importance of the messaging that Zelensky needed to provide to President Trump about his willingness to be cooperative.”
- Ambassador Volker said “he planned to start reaching out to” Rudy Giuliani because “it was clear that the former mayor had influence on the President in terms of the way the President thought of Ukraine.”
- Ambassador Volker was “thinking tactically” about interacting with Rudy Giuliani, but Mr. Kent was “concerned strategically.”
- There was “great confusion” during a call on July 18, 2019, when an OMB official announced that “the acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, at the direction of the President had put a hold on all security assistance to the Ukraine.”
- After the call between Presidents Trump and Zelensky on July 25, 2019, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was “uncomfortable” and said “he could not share the majority of what was discussed because of the very sensitive nature of what was discussed.”
- In August 2019, Mr. Kent had “growing concerns that individuals were pushing communications with Ukrainians that had not been discussed and endorsed in the formal policy process.”
- With respect to President Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Biden, Mr. Kent stated: “I do not believe the U.S. should ask other countries to engage in politically associated investigations and prosecutions.”
- Asking Ukraine to investigate someone for political reasons “goes against everything that we are trying to promote in post-Soviet states for the last 28 years, which is the promotion of the rule of law.”
- After Ambassador Volker raised with a senior aide to President Zelensky that President Trump and Rudy Giuliani were interested in initiating investigations, Mr. Kent said, “that’s wrong, and we shouldn’t be doing that as a matter of U.S. policy.”
- In August 16, 2019, Mr. Kent memorialized these conversations in a memorandum, in which he expressed “concerns that there was an effort to initiate politically motivated prosecutions that were injurious to the rule of law, both Ukraine and U.S.”
- In September 2019, according to Ambassador Sondland, “POTUS wanted nothing less than President Zelensky to go to microphone and say investigations, Biden, and Clinton.”
- Ambassador Sondland was “pushing” for President Zelensky to “send a public signal of announcing a willingness to pursue investigations” in order to “clear the way for both the White House visit as well as the resumption or the clearing of the administrative hold on security assistance,” despite claims by Mr. Morrison and Mr. Sondland that they did not believe the issues were “linked”.
- The State Department delayed in issuing internal instructions to collect documents in response to the Committees’ September 9 or September 23 letters, or the September 27 subpoena.
- On October 1, 2019, Mr. Kent alerted the Director General of the Foreign Service and the Acting Legal Adviser of the State Department that Secretary Pompeo’s letter to the Committees, sent earlier that day, was inaccurate.
- On October 3, 2019, Mr. Kent raised concerns with State Department officials about their delay in responding to the Committees’ subpoena and inaccuracies in Secretary Pompeo’s October 1, 2019, letter to the Committees.
- Mr. Kent produced all relevant documents in his possession to the State Department.
Schiff says Kent corroborates “numerous” other accounts... and he documented it.
Here’s why George Kent matters:
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 7, 2019
He and his colleagues recognized the impropriety of Trump’s Ukraine pressure campaign to undertake politically-motivated investigations.
He corroborates testimony from numerous other officials, and he documented it.
Read: https://t.co/KcE7JEuBdm
Impeachment committees release Kent testimony
The impeachment committees have released a transcript of the deposition of George P Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state who was nominally in charge of Ukraine policy under Trump, but who soon found himself sidelined.
Kent is said to have objected strongly to the attack on ambassador Yovanovitch and to the use of an irregular policy channel led by Rudy Giuliani to lead US policy in the region.
The transcript is here. We’re reading it now.
CNN is reporting on an impeachment timeline that’s shaping up in the House.
Looks about right to us:
So @mkraju reporting a possible timeline for impeachment inquiry
— Ben Riley-Smith (@benrileysmith) November 7, 2019
- Public hearings next week+week after
- Thanksgiving week off as report written
- Articles drawn up / debated first 2 weeks of Dec
- Full House vote last week before Xmas
In other words, a Christmas impeachment.
NB: Bill Clinton was impeached on 19 December 1998.
Donald Trump might have failed to drag Matt Bevin over the line in Kentucky.
But he darn well helped Sean Spicer get into the quarterfinals of this season’s Dancing With the Stars.
Spicer, a bald liar who used to be the press secretary, has just sent out an email announcing the big news. As Spicer competed – can we use that word? – on Monday night, Trump tweeted to ask people to vote for him.
It worked, apparently. Or maybe it was the dancing.
Williams, the Pence aide, is done testifying, The Hill reports:
Jennifer Williams, a VP Pence aide , has left/concluded her closed door deposition that started roughly at 9am
— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) November 7, 2019
Judge orders Trump to pay $2m for misusing charity foundation
A judge in New York orders President Donald Trump to pay $2 million for misusing his charitable foundation, the AP reports.
In December 2018, a second New York judge signed off on a deal to shut down Trump’s personal charity after a lawsuit exposed a “shocking pattern of illegality”.
Trump had used the charity to pay off legal settlements within his business and even to buy a painting of himself to hang in one of his golf clubs.
BREAKING: We’ve secured a court order forcing President Trump to pay $2M in damages after admitting to illegally using the Trump Foundation to help him intervene in the 2016 presidential election and further his own political interests.
— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) November 7, 2019
No one is above the law.
UPDATE:
From a press release from the New York attorney general:
The award is part of Attorney General James’ lawsuit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation and its directors — Mr. Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump...
Chiefly, Mr. Trump admits to personally misusing funds at the Trump Foundation, and agrees to restrictions on future charitable service and ongoing reporting to the Office of the Attorney General in the event he creates a new charity. The settlements also include mandatory training requirements for Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump. Finally, the settlements name the charities that will receive the remaining assets of the Trump Foundation as part of its dissolution.
“The Trump Foundation has shut down, funds that were illegally misused are being restored, the president will be subject to ongoing supervision by my office, and the Trump children had to undergo compulsory training to ensure this type of illegal activity never takes place again,” said Attorney General James.
“The court’s decision, together with the settlements we negotiated, are a major victory in our efforts to protect charitable assets and hold accountable those who would abuse charities for personal gain. My office will continue to fight for accountability because no one is above the law — not a businessman, not a candidate for office, and not even the President of the United States.”
Read further:
Updated
Election Day 2019 is over, but Michelle Obama is still trying to get out the vote, reports the Associated Press:
The former first lady announced that Selena Gomez, Liza Koshy, Shonda Rhimes, Megan Rapinoe, Tracee Ellis Ross and Kerry Washington have signed on as co-chairs of the national organization When We All Vote .
Obama is already a co-chair, along with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Faith Hill, Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson, and basketball star Chris Paul.
When We Vote bills itself as a nonpartisan group dedicated to increasing voter participation. The announcement Thursday marks a year until the date of the 2020 elections, which includes the presidential race.
The organization was founded in 2018.
Hanks said “registering new voters is an act of hope and taking part in the American idea.” He added that voting guarantees the blessings of “liberty for the grandkids.”
Andrew Yang: parent, patriot, not a politician. The longshot Democratic presidential candidate has a TV ad out.
Come for the helicopter shots of the Golden Gate bridge, stay for the villain cameo by Mark Zuckerberg;
Here's the first @AndrewYang TV ad; it was put together by firm Devine Mulvey Longabaugh (Bernie alum).
— Eugene Daniels (@EugeneDaniels2) November 7, 2019
The campaign says it's spending more than $1 MILLION in Iowa with this one. #YangGang pic.twitter.com/7OKJVQMsCw
The impeachment witnesses continue to review their depositions. There are enough memories jogging in DC this week to start a track club.
SCIF comings and goings: Christopher Anderson, a former Volker aide, is back to review his transcript pic.twitter.com/hq7BWRB4Og
— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) November 7, 2019
Updated
Zelenskiy had decided to make statement on CNN – report
Desperate to ensure the flow of military aid from the United States, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy had decided to go on CNN and announce the investigations Donald Trump wanted, but at the last minute the plan was cancelled with the exposure in the United States of the Trump plot, the New York Times reports, drawing on Ukrainian sources:
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.
The report adds:
In Kiev, there is still a debate about whether Mr. Zelensky caved or held out. “The Zelensky team was ready to make this quid quo pro,” said Mr. Burkovskiy, the analyst. “They were ready to do this.”
But Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine’s foreign minister until a change of government on Aug. 29, said there was no telling what Mr. Zelensky would have ended up saying in the interview, as there were so many versions of a statement under negotiation.
A coda to this NYT piece on Pres. Zelensky planning to give the CNN interview until luck spared him...
— Andrew Prokop (@awprokop) November 7, 2019
Taylor testified that he was worried around 9/13 that Z would still go through with it. Encouraged him not to, but "body language" suggested he mighthttps://t.co/7eiLx05NbR pic.twitter.com/YqcxIfQNMe
An entertaining outtake from last night’s Trump rally in Louisiana:
The kid doing “the worm” behind @Acosta is the best thing I’ve seen today pic.twitter.com/SAIcupml1e
— Richard Madan (@RichardMadan) November 6, 2019
Law prof and impeachment expert Ross Garber points out that Schiff’s statement of the parameters of the inquiry, mentioned earlier, read a lot like draft articles of impeachment:
Notice the motive identified in the first two: advancing “personal political interests.” That’s where the debate will ultimately focus. Trump and defenders will say his motive was the national interest (and that potential personal political benefit would be collateral). https://t.co/7hDo18U9qP
— Ross Garber (@rossgarber) November 7, 2019
Post editor replies to Trump attack: ‘The Post fully stands behind its story and its reporters'
Washington Post editor Marty Baron has replied to an attack by Trump on reporters who wrote a story about the attorney general refusing a Trump request to go before cameras and say Trump’s Zelenskiy phone call was totally copacetic, law-wise:
Re: today's tweets from @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/ndHxZoorzk
— Kristine Coratti Kelly (@kriscoratti) November 7, 2019
Did you catch Donald Trump Jr shilling for his new book this morning on The View?
"You and your family have hurt a lot of people..." @MeghanMcCain says. "Does all of this make you feel good?"
— The View (@TheView) November 7, 2019
Trump Jr.: "I don't think any of that makes me feel good, but I do think that we got into this because we wanted to do what's right for America." https://t.co/9coDczjMxa pic.twitter.com/hbbHQv24jV
Billionaire candidate's campaign tried to buy endorsements – report
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 Associated Press reports:
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.”
Lammers, Steyer’s campaign press secretary, said the candidate hasn’t made any individual contributions to local officials in Iowa and won’t be making any this year. In an email, Lammers said Steyer’s endorsements “are earned because of Tom’s campaign message,” and distanced the candidate from Murphy.
“Our campaign policy is clear that we will not engage in this kind of activity, and anyone who does is not speaking for the campaign or does not know our policy,” Lammers said.
The overtures do not appear to have made much of a difference for Steyer. Aside from Murphy’s support, Steyer has received the endorsement of just one Iowan since entering the race in July — former state Rep. Roger Thomas.
Schiff lays out criteria for witnesses Republicans might request
In compliance with rules passed last week by the House, Intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff has notified Republicans of a Saturday deadline – 11:20am Saturday, to be exact – to suggest witnesses to participate in public impeachment hearings starting next week.
There is plenty of reason to expect that Republicans will seek to call witnesses designed not to illuminate the inquiry but to create a public circus. Trump champion Jim Jordan, who does not sit on the relevant committee (yet), told reporters he wanted to hear from the whistleblower, who was not a direct witness to the alleged misconduct, but who is the target of an attempt by Trump to cast the inquiry as partisan.
But in compliance with the rules, Schiff has now informed Republicans that each witness request “must be accompanied by a detailed written justification of the relevance to the inquiry of the testimony of each requested witness.”
Here are the inquiry’s parameters as laid out by Schiff:
- Did the President request that a foreign leader and government initiate investigations to benefit the President’s personal political interests in the United States, including an investigation related to the President’s political rival and potential opponent in the 2020 U.S. presidential election?
- Did the President – directly or through agents – seek to use the power of the Office of the President and other instruments of the federal government in other ways to apply pressure on the head of state and government of Ukraine to advance the President’s personal political interests, including by leveraging an Oval Office meeting desired by the President of Ukraine or by withholding U.S. military assistance to Ukraine?
- Did the President and his Administration seek to obstruct, suppress or cover up information to conceal from the Congress and the American people evidence about the President’s actions and conduct?
Smart. I desperately hope this will severely limit the number of times I have to listen to @DevinNunes say the words “Steele dossier.” https://t.co/13ITMpyPnY
— Jennifer Rodgers (@JenGRodgers) November 7, 2019
Schiff is smart to keep their narrative simple and focused. The simple story is always more effective than the complicated story.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) November 7, 2019
This list will also give them a neutral reason to deny Republican attempts to call witnesses who are meant to be a distraction. https://t.co/KfhiWCwkt5
Updated
No-show Bolton 'willing' to testify if courts clear the way – report
The House intelligence committee has released a statement saying that former national security adviser John Bolton, a no-show for testimony today, informed the committee that he “would take us to court if we subpoenaed him.”
“The White House instruction that [Bolton] not appear will add to the evidence of the President’s obstruction of Congress”, the intelligence committee said in a statement obtained by BuzzFeed.
But the overarching question of whether the impeachment inquiry will feature a Bolton cameo does not appear to be resolved yet. Bolton informed the committee he would be willing to testify if a court clears the way, the Washington Post reports, citing “people familiar with his views”:
It remains unclear how quickly that could happen — and whether it would be in time for Bolton to be called as a witness in the public House impeachment hearings, which are scheduled to begin next week.
Previous witnesses have testified that Bolton strongly objected to the mixing of US national security objectives in Ukraine with Donald Trump’s domestic political objectives in 2020.
Here is a juicy line from the Post report: if he testified, Bolton “is expected to confirm their statements and describe his conversations with Trump.”
This public airing of his willingness-in-principle to confirm the most damning testimony against Trump, juxtaposed with his not actually appearing before congress today, scans like a not-so-subtle demonstration by Bolton to Trump of the power Bolton holds here. But what does Bolton want...
Pompeo denies aide's sworn testimony in impeachment inquiry: 'he didn't say anything to me'
Facing a crisis of faith in his leadership in the state department after his perceived failure to protect career diplomats from attacks by the president, Rudy Giuliani and others, secretary of state Mike Pompeo has denied a claim by his former aide that he ignored a request for a statement of support for ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
Former Pompeo adviser Michael McKinley testified on 16 October that he had approached Pompeo three times about a statement of support for Yovanovitch, who was the target of a smear campaign in Ukraine led by Giuliani, and who was also singled out by Trump in his 25 July phone call with the Ukrainian president.
Here’s a snippet of McKinley’s testimony including a brief Q&A:
In presenting my resignation, I made clear that I was looking to leave the Department, I wasn’t looking to create any news story out of it, but that he should be aware that, of course, part of the reason, people were very aware that I was concerned about what I saw as the lack of public support for Department employees. ...
Q: And what was the Secretary’s response when you said that?
A: On that subject, he did not respond at all, again.
Pompeo, who is in Germany, has just flatly denied McKinley’s sworn testimony, the Washington Post reports:
Pompeo just totally denied the sworn testimony of his former adviser, who said he raised the Yovanovitch issue with him multiple times. "He didn't say anything to me," Pompeo said. "It shouldn’t surprise anyone that in May when that took place, he didn’t say anything to me."
— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) November 7, 2019
Pompeo has a history of misleading statements in the impeachment inquiry so far. When first asked about the Trump-Zelenskiy call, which he had listened to, Pompeo feigned ignorance.
Side by side: Pompeo today vs 10 days ago on the Trump-Zelenskiy call pic.twitter.com/vVjrmosbWj
— Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) October 2, 2019
Trump is still rage-tweeting about the Washington Post scoop that attorney general William Barr refused a Trump request to go on TV and say a call between Trump and the Ukrainian president definitely, positively did not rise to the level of criminal conduct.
“We both deny this story, which they knew before they wrote it,” Trump tweeted.
Barr appears not to have denied the story, except in the dreamscape of Trump’s Twitter, where anything truly is possible.
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Here’s more than six minutes of footage of vice president Mike Pence officially throwing Donald Trump’s name in the hat for reelection in New Hampshire.
“Four more years,” chant the crowd:
HAPPENING NOW: Vice Pres. Mike Pence files paperwork putting Trump-Pence ticket on 2020 ballot in New Hampshire. https://t.co/42W9HXV8ql
— ABC News (@ABC) November 7, 2019
Bolton fails to appear for scheduled impeachment testimony
A no-show on Capitol Hill this morning: John Bolton, the former national security adviser. Bolton’s testimony was requested though not subpoenaed by congressional committees leading the impeachment inquiry.
Other witnesses have told the impeachment committees that Bolton vocally objected to the mixing of US national security priorities in Ukraine with Donald Trump’s political priorities in 2020.
Bolton ended one meeting with Ukrainians and ambassador Gordon Sondland abruptly, saying “We don’t do politics here,” according to testimony. He has been quoted as calling Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s emissary, a “hand grenade”, and the plot Giuliani advanced a “drug deal.”
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Clinton dodges question about whether she'll run for president
In which Hillary Clinton twice in a row does not say she’s not running for president (and then tweets the footage):
You heard it here first:
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 7, 2019
Not taking up professional running anytime soon.pic.twitter.com/dH2I4ZvMcZ
She does not even say the line about “we’ve got a really deep and talented field”.
Brown: Ohio is in play for Democrats
Senator Sherrod Brown, seemingly one of the few Democrats who chose not to run for US president, insists he has no regrets but offers a pointed critique of the candidates.
Brown told the Guardian on Wednesday: “I think every one of the Democrats running falls short in talking about the dignity of work and honouring and respecting work and looking at the campaign through the eyes of workers and planning to govern through the eyes of workers, and contrasting that with a president who betrays workers every single day, fighting the minimum wage, fighting the overtime rule, appointing judges putting their thumbs on the scale in support of corporations over workers, and that the White House looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives.”
Brown was speaking at a Capitol Hill screening of American Factory, the first Obama production to premiere on Netflix, which is set in Ohio, a state that has voted for the eventual presidential winner in every election since 1944 except one (1960). Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton there by eight percentage points but Brown, who represents Ohio, argues that it remains within Democrats’ reach.
“I think Ohio is absolutely in play, in part because the president’s made all kinds of commitments to Ohio and he’s betrayed workers day after day after day,” he said. “Trump voters see that, young voters that may not have voted or are just becoming 18 see that in increasing numbers. So it’s a real race in Ohio.”
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It’s here! It’s here!
Macron warns of Nato 'brain death' as US turns its back on allies
Emmanuel Macron has said Nato is in the throes of “brain death” and European countries can no longer rely on the US to defend its allies.
“What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of Nato,” the French president told the Economist in an interview. “You have no coordination whatsoever of strategic decision-making between the United States and its Nato allies. None. You have an uncoordinated aggressive action by another Nato ally, Turkey, in an area where our interests are at stake.”
Asked whether he still believed in the “collective defence” stipulations of article five of Nato’s founding treaty, under which an attack against one member is considered an attack against all members, Macron answered: “I don’t know.”
Nato “only works if the guarantor of last resort functions as such. I’d argue that we should reassess the reality of what Nato is in the light of the commitment of the United States,” he said.
Macron’s questioning of Nato’s effectiveness and suggestion European countries in the 29-member alliance should reassess their situation comes ahead of a key summit with leaders including Donald Trump in the UK early next month.
Read the full piece here:
Trump defenders pin the tail on Gordon Sondland
Will Gordon Sondland – the former hotelier who donated $1m to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, and subsequently was made ambassador to the European Union – fit under a bus?
Defenders of Trump have been testing for the better part of a week now whether they can make Sondland the fall guy in the impeachment probe. A National Security Council official, Tim Morrison, proposed in testimony last week that Sondland’s efforts to extort Ukraine for bad news about Joe Biden were all Sondland’s idea.
“I hoped that Ambassador Sondland’s strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by leaders in the administration and Congress, who understood the strategic importance of Ukraine to our national security,” Morrison said.
But can Sondland be successfully painted as the nefarious mastermind who was behind the “irregular channel” guiding US policy in Ukraine? The notion has been credulously reported in the media. And Senator Lindsey Graham gave it a crack on TV last night:
“Speculating” is generous. He’s just making stuff up. “Was there a connection between Sondland and the Democratic staffers on the committee?” Maybe Sondland helped Kubrick film the Moon landing too. https://t.co/QvSmMwtlXo
— Matt Ford (@fordm) November 7, 2019
It was a very long plan. First, you give a MILLION dollars to a guy you don't like. Then, you wait... https://t.co/YSZI3QVFGD
— Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) November 7, 2019
Political strategist Liz Mair notes that Graham is running for reelection in 2020 in a staunchly pro-Trump state.
This is actually nuts. How bad are Lindsey’s internals??? Cc @mattklewis https://t.co/BGqRLo0Prs
— Liz Mair (@LizMair) November 7, 2019
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Pence aide arrives for impeachment testimony
Pence aide Jennifer Williams arrived on schedule this morning for her deposition before the impeachment committees.
What did Pence know and when did he know it? He attended a 1 September meeting in Warsaw with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in which Zelenskiy immediately brought up suspended military aid, according to testimony, and after which EU ambassador Gordon Sondland, by his own description, pounced on a Zelenskiy aide to say the military aid was not likely to come without an announcement by Zelenskiy of investigations into Biden.
Pence, who of course would prefer not to be linked to what John Bolton called a “drug deal,” has dodged questions about the quid pro quo. What will Williams, a career foreign service officer who also listened to the 25 July phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy, have to say?
The day after Sondland’s pull-aside with Ukraine, PENCE wouldn’t answer this: 🤔
— Eric Columbus (@EricColumbus) November 5, 2019
“Can you assure Ukraine that the hold-up of that money has absolutely nothing to do with efforts, including by Rudy Giuliani, to try to dig up dirt on the Biden family?” https://t.co/EsygQiAuo8 pic.twitter.com/bDR8yC0Ies
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Trump warned Sessions he was entering a world of pain – report
Before Jeff Sessions jumped into the Alabama senate race this week, Trump sent word to him “through allies that he would publicly attack him if he ran,” the New York Times reports.
Trump blames Sessions, his first attorney general, for the two-year Russia investigation concluding with the Mueller report, from which Sessions recused himself, properly most analysts believe since Sessions was a top adviser on Trump’s presidential campaign which was under investigation.
But Sessions has jumped into the senate race anyway. He happily held an Alabama senate seat for 20 years before his ill-fated turn in the Trump administration. And the race to unseat incumbent Democratic senator Doug Jones in 2020 is wide open on the Republican side.
Will Trump make good on his threat to attack Sessions? What will Mitch McConnell advise? Republicans would very much like to regain the Alabama senate seat, which could end Democratic dreams of retaking the senate next year.
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Trump mulling post-presidency 'Apprentice' reality show – report
Donald Trump has been talking with his TV producer pals about life after the presidency and what it could hold, the Daily Beast reports.
With Trump’s regular attacks on free and fair elections, the rule of law, executive branch norms, the separation of powers and the free press, not to mention his megalomania, it can seem at times as if he has no intention of ever leaving office – or at least not on account of paltry details such as an election loss or term limits.
But the Beast cites “three people with knowledge of the situation and another source close to Trump” to report:
One of the ideas kicked around by Burnett and the president was shooting a new version of the Trump-branded Apprentice, tentatively titled The Apprentice: White House, and to produce it shortly after the president leaves office. This time, however, the TV program would be explicitly politics-themed and take full advantage of Trump’s status as a former president of the United States and a newfound Republican kingmaker.
Read further:
EXCLUSIVE — Trump and Mark Burnett have been talking about post-WH shows. Among the ideas… “The Apprentice: White House”https://t.co/OXmql6cYGS
— Sam Stein (@samstein) November 7, 2019
Via @swin24 and @LachCartwright
‘YOU’RE FIRED, JOHN BOLTON, BUH-BYE…’ https://t.co/Ik7zqdQyx7
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) November 7, 2019
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Sanders immigration plan would reverse Trump, break up ICE
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders unveiled a plan to create “a welcoming and safe America for all” on Thursday morning, promising that on his first day as president he would “overturn all of President Trump’s actions to demonize and harm immigrants on the first day of his presidency.”
The plan calls for the breaking up of customs and border protection (CBP) and customs enforcement (ICE). Sanders is the first 2020 candidate to take that stand as part of his official campaign platform.
The Sanders plan also calls for a moratorium on deportations, stopping “all construction of the racist and ineffective wall on the U.S.-Mexico Border,” overturning “President Trump’s racist and disgusting Muslim ban,” and ensuring “all children who were separated from their families by the United States government are reunited swiftly.”
Sanders would also focus on improving labor conditions in agriculture, food service and other industries that depend on an immigrant workforce. Read all about it.
A public defender in the Bronx gives it two thumbs up:
aight bernies immigration platform is best and yes I always have critiques (🤪) but it’s the best one.
— 🦋🦋🦋 (@s_phia_) November 7, 2019
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The president is laying down fire on Twitter in response to reports that he wanted attorney general William Barr to hold a news conference to say Trump’s 25 July call with the Ukrainian president was not criminal by any stretch.
Trump has sent out a pair of tweets claiming that “the degenerate Washington Post MADE UP the story.” He does not mention the Times’ corroborating report.
Now Trump is going on about the whistleblower whose complaint the White House fought for six weeks to prevent Congress from obtaining – because Trump had done nothing wrong?
“Read the transcript,” Trump concludes, referring to a partial transcript of his call with Zelenskiy in which Trump said “the United States has been very very good to Ukraine” then asked for the “favor” of investigations into Joe Biden and 2016 election tampering.
Evidence that Trump used the power of his office to solicit Ukraine’s interference in the 2020 election goes well beyond the record of the call. That evidence includes the testimony of more than a dozen witnesses before Congress and public statements by Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney. But also: Read the transcript!
Hello and welcome to our politics live blog coverage.
Attorney general William Barr has done a lot for Donald Trump. He pre-baked the Mueller report. He is hard at work on a report that is expected to attack the work of US intelligence agencies on which that report was built. He did not recuse himself from a justice department review of a phone call Trump had with the Ukrainian president, despite being mentioned himself on the call. The review, perhaps not surprisingly, found that the call was, legally speaking, peachy.
But there are lines, apparently, that even Barr will not cross. The attorney general refused a request by Trump to hold a news conference and declare that no laws were broken in the call, the Washington Post reported late Wednesday in an account backed up by the New York Times. (Correction: we originally had those news organizations reversed; it was a Post scoop.)
Trump is a big believer in the power of press conferences. In 2017 he pressured then FBI director James Comey to go on TV and declare he was not a target in the nascent investigation of Russia and the Trump campaign. Comey likewise refused. At the heart of the impeachment inquiry is a demand by Trump that the Ukrainian president “go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of [Joe] Biden and 2016 election interference.”
Trump tried to get one government to have a press conference saying he committed no crime for trying to get a different government to have a press release saying that his political opponent did commit a crime. https://t.co/lCFDw26yp9
— Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) November 7, 2019
Elsewhere, it looks like the congressional committees pursuing an impeachment inquiry against Trump will wangle their second witness of the week today – out of about a dozen subpoenas and requests on the week.
Scheduled to testify is Jennifer Williams, a national security aid to vice president Mike Pence who listened to the 25 July call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Also invited to testify today, but apparently not planning to appear, is John Bolton, the former national security adviser.
Thanks for joining us!
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