Shutting Roger Stone Up With A Commutation Of His Sentence-- Few Republican Elected Officials Seem To Mind

"The most corrupt act in recent history," is what Trump detractors are calling the big Roger Stone commutation. Legal author and CNN contributor Jeffrey Toobin said, specifically, that it was "the most corrupt and cronyistic act in perhaps all of recent history." After all, just hours before Trump announced it, Stone had admitted to Howard Fineman that he has the goods on Trump. Will it matter? The mask-free young woman in this Facebook video is a very typical Trump fan-- something she proudly admits. [Basically she is ALL Trump supporters rolled up into one-- the absolute essence of populist Trumpism.] Watch it a couple of times. Do you think anything about this commutation will bother her or her boyfriend or any Trumpist?

South Carolina closet queen Lindsey Graham, whose career Trump could destroy with one tweet, pulled his head out of Trump's ass Friday long enough to tweet that that Trump's commutation of Roger Stone would be justified because "Mr. Stone is in his 70s and this was a non-violent, first-time offense," apparently a dry run for the Republican congressional party line on what was about to happen. But it seems to have bothered Utah Senator Mitt Romney, quite a bit... enough to have stuck his neck out to tweet this:

I read yesterday that Trump may bring Flynn out on the road to his COVID-KKK rallies. I hope he brings Roger too. I asked some of the candidates for Congress what the Republicans they're running against are saying about the Roger Stone commutation. Or if Trump has anything on them too? Like many candidates, Kara Eastman pointed to Donald J. Bacon’s "silence on this travesty as an amplification of his complicity. He’s a Donald Trump rubber stamp and Trump’s top enabler in Congress in his shambling journey towards autocracy."

Like Kara, this is Julie Oliver's second swing at a ghastly Trump-devoted incumbent. She told me last night that "Political corruption in Congress isn't new. We see it anywhere from corporate lobbyists writing gigantic tax cuts in the margins of a Republican tax bill that incentivized shipping jobs overseas, to the pharmaceutical industry charging $3,000 for a treatment that American taxpayers subsidized. But commuting the sentence of a political ally who was convicted of 7 felonies, conspired with foreign spies to disrupt a U.S. election and helped cover it up seals Donald Trump's reputation as the most corrupt president in history. And those who have enabled this corruption, like Roger Williams, can never live this down." Neither Williams nor Bacon has said a word about Trump's blatant corruption in regard to Roger Stone-- or anything else. Neither deserves to be reelected.

History professor and Riverside County progressive congressional candidate Liam O'Mara said "It's just business as usual to forgive corruption in your own camp, so it is honestly surprising that any Republicans have spoken out. (I almost hate that I need to give respect to Mitt Romney and former GOPer Justin Amash for standing on principle, given how terrible many of their ideas are for America, but I do respect it.) People in both parties reflexively defend their own-- this is why so many New Dems and Blue Dogs hate progressives so much. But we all know the corruption is far worse in the Republican party, and has been for decades (look at all the indictments in Reagan's administration). That Republicans never care is just par for the course. Most Republicans stuck with Nixon all the way to the resignation, remember. Calvert won't say a word about this, because as much shady crap as he's been in, he might need a get-out-of-jail-free card himself some day. Or at least, he should, if this country's politicians cared half as much about graft and corruption as they claim."

#NeverTrumper Bill Kristof wrote late Friday night that members of Congress shouldn't be mute about this outrage. "Democrats certainly will not be. But what of Republicans? Will they cower? Probably. Or will some-- a few, a happy few-- step forth now, in light of this extraordinarily corrupt exercise of presidential power, and say: No second term for this president. Will some elected Republicans make clear that Donald Trump’s America is not their America, not our America, nor the America of patriots, not the America of our future? A healthy Republican party would feature dozens of members of Congress stepping forward to say this... Republicans had their chance a few months ago to vote to impeach, and then convict, Donald Trump. With one (one!) honorable exception, they chose not to stand up for the rule of law. Now Trump has carried through on promises even Nixon never had the nerve or opportunity to carry out. Trump has gone further than Nixon ever did. Will no elected Republican now stand up and say to the president: You chose Stone; I choose Biden."

So is it a done deal? Have Trump and Stone gotten away with this (at least outside of the history books?) Well, where better to seek an answer than from Ben Wittes at Lawfare? He wrote that "the predictable nature of Trump’s action should not obscure its rank corruption. In fact, the predictability makes the commutation all the more corrupt, the capstone of an all-but-open attempt on the president’s part to obstruct justice in a self-protective fashion over a protracted period of time. That may sound like hyperbole, but it’s actually not. Trump publicly encouraged Stone not to cooperate with Robert Mueller’s investigation; he publicly dangled clemency as a reward for silence; and he has now delivered. The act is predictable precisely because the corrupt action is so naked. In a normal world, this pattern of conduct would constitute an almost prototypical impeachable offense. But this is not a normal world. Congress is unlikely to bestir itself to do anything about what Trump has done-- just as it has previously done nothing about the obstruction allegations detailed in the Mueller Report."

Now, with Trump’s commutation, Stone has received the precise reward Trump dangled at the time his possible testimony was at issue.

“Roger Stone is a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency,” the White House said Friday evening. In the White House’s telling, Stone was targeted by out-of-control Mueller prosecutors for mere “process” crimes when their “collusion delusion” fell apart. He was subject to needless humiliation in his arrest, and he did not get a fair trial. “[P]articularly in light of the egregious facts and circumstances surrounding his unfair prosecution, arrest, and trial, the President has determined to commute his sentence. Roger Stone has already suffered greatly. He was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case. Roger Stone is now a free man!”

Indeed he is. But the story may not be over.

“Time to put Roger Stone in the grand jury to find out what he knows about Trump but would not tell. Commutation can’t stop that,” tweeted Andrew Weissman, one of Mueller’s top prosecutors, following the president’s action.

That’s most unlikely while the Justice Department remains in the hands of Attorney General Bill Barr. But it’s far from unthinkable should Trump leave office in January. What’s more, the commutation means that the story Mueller tells about potential obstruction vis a vis Stone did not end with the activity described by the Mueller Report. It is a continuing pattern of conduct up until the present day. That potentially makes it easier for a future Justice Department to revive at least one of the obstruction questions that Barr squelched when he closed the cases Mueller intentionally did not resolve. In addition to all of the facts reported by Mueller, including facts that have been redacted until recently, Trump has now consummated the deal he dangled before Stone.

That’s something the Justice Department may want to examine anew-- someday.

Healthy For America vs Dangerous For America

"I Can't Breathe" by Nancy Ohanian

One of the themes here at DWT this cycle has been about the dangers of getting too chummy with conservative Republican #NeverTrumpers. They are, after all conservatives and oppose Trump because-- among other things-- he isn't. Many don't have to hold their noses to vote for Biden. He's just what they're looking for. In fact, from what I've seen, conservative #NeverTrump Republicans like Biden a lot more than progressives do. About 80% of progressives are going to hold their noses and vote for Biden, under no delusions about his utter unfitness for office, just thinking about the existential danger Trump is. The #NeverTrump's actually like the idea of a Biden presidency. Sure, they'd prefer someone like Paul Ryan, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, maybe even another overt racist likeTucker Carlson, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz-- one of their own-- but Biden's record of almost 5 decades is very comforting to them in the short run.

These people will help us take down Trump. The enemy of my enemy is my friend... to a certain extent. Thanks for helping get rid of the fascist. Then go back to your own party and reform it, but don't try to move the Democratic Party even further right than it has already drifted since Arkansas conservative Bill Clinton managed a hostile takeover in 1992.





In an OpEd for TruthOut this week, Beware of Anti-Trump Republicans Who Endorse Joe Biden, William Rivers Pitt agreed. He wrote that "A stampeding herd of 'anti-Trump' Republican organizations and PACs has flooded the zone with ads attacking Trump and endorsing Biden. If beating "Donald Trump in November is your main thing, this would appear to be only good news. I am forced to wonder, however, what the real intent is behind this sudden solidarity after three long years of near-silence from the deeply compromised 'Never Trump' crew."

"Trump," he continued, "is the best campaign spokesman Joe Biden could ever wish for, because Trump will not stop damaging himself, ever. He is incapable of staying out of the spotlight, has no interest in talking points or strategy, and almost never knows what he is talking about when he starts flapping his gums at the cameras. His ceaseless lies about everything from Russian bounties on U.S. troops to the uprising to the pandemic are a feature, not a bug. In the midst of this maelstrom, Biden pops up every so often like some grandfatherly Jack-in-the-box to remind people that, whatever else he may be, he is not that guy. He has out-raised Trump for the second month in a row, while Trump’s own campaign spends its money on ads intended only to assure the president that he’s a great guy and everything is fine."

All the momentum is on Biden’s side at present, and Trump is only going to help him as we lurch toward the reckoning in November. So forgive me for being leery of this abrupt tidal wave of Biden support from Republican-based organizations. It puts me in mind of the old joke about the French aristocrat who sees an angry mob run by and says, “I must find out where my people are going, so I may lead them.”

The newest entry into the Republican anti-Trump push is named 43 Alumni for Biden. It is a collection of hundreds of former campaign and administration members who worked for George W. Bush, the war criminal 43rd president. A list of members is not available so far as I can glean, but the group boasts a number of former Bush Cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking members whose names I’d love to know. Rumsfeld? Ashcroft? Rove? Cheney? Such is the possible character of Biden’s new allies.

“Whether you worked in the earliest days of the 43rd Administration or sprinted to the finish in January 2009, you know a thing or two about serving the grand ideals and exceptional people of our country,” reads the 43 Alumni for Biden endorsement. “Together we saw compassion in action, strength on display and the steady leadership of a true statesman who inspired us to meet some of America’s greatest challenges.”

I don’t have time to fully parse the freight of “Oy vey” in that paragraph; if you lived through the scabrous eight years of the Bush administration, you don’t need me to tell you how much unrefined bullshit is slathered on the words “compassion,” “steady leadership” and “true statesman.” Those hundreds of “43 Alumni” aided and abetted a murderous smash-and-grab robbery of an administration, and now they’re piling in behind Biden exactly when he does not need their help.

Another Republican group that has been throwing hot shade at Trump is The Lincoln Project. The ads produced by this organization have been singularly brutal and ruthlessly timely, and Trump the TV fanatic is well aware of them. Each time another Lincoln Project ad airs, Trump Twitter goes seismic. The Lincoln spots are masterpieces of inflicted political pain, and further proof that conservatives are better at making killer ads than the Democrats ever were or will be.

Many who oppose Trump have rejoiced at the way these ads have been flaying him, but it cannot be forgotten that this same gleefully lethal energy also went into creating and distributing the GOP’s racist Willie Horton ad attacking Michael Dukakis in 1988, and the wildly truthless swift-boat ads attacking John Kerry in 2004. With friends like these, etc.

...[T]hose working to get Trump gone must be deeply wary of this new “help.” These are the people whose policies and go-for-the-jugular campaign ethos made President Donald Trump possible, or even inevitable, in the first place. Here they are now, leaping on the Biden bandwagon in hopes we all forget the blood and tears soaking their hands.

Furthermore, if these right-wing organizations do manage to make a notable difference in the November outcome, they are going to think they are owed something for that assistance, and anything that pushes Biden even further to the right is a menace on its face for anyone seeking genuine progressive change.

Simply put: Never, ever forget who it is you’re dealing with here. These groups do not oppose Trump because of his policies. They oppose Trump because he is bad for the Republican brand, full stop. The enemy of your enemy in this case is not your friend, at all. It feels too much like the Scorpion and the Frog all over again, and folks by now should be heartily wary of getting stung.

Yesterday, super prominent #NeverTrumper Bill Kristol, writing at the NeverTrump Daily Journal Bulwark, tried to appeal to "those who have not been opponents of Donald Trump... those who, for whatever mixtures of reasons and motives, have until now reluctantly supported or tolerated him." He wants them to use July 4th and what it stands for to help them become "former Trump supporters." And he tells them even if they are too reflexively partisan to back Biden, they have an alternative, "His name is Mike Pence." Here's where these #NeverTrumpers show what they're made of and who they are. "[I]t is self-evident that it would be much better for the country if Donald Trump were out of office for the next six months, and if he had no chance to be president for the next four years. A President Pence for the next several months-- even with the possibility of a President Pence for the next four years-- would be a good outcome for all Americans." Yeah, so not our friends. Instead he has a game plan:

Serious and patriotic men and women who have been Trump supporters could go to Donald Trump privately and tell him that he’s done whatever good he can do. They could tell him that it’s time to resign and to turn over both the reins of government and the 2020 Republican nomination to his vice president.

If Donald Trump ignores them, serious and patriotic men and women who have been Trump supporters could urge delegates to the Republican convention to withhold their votes in this emergency from Donald Trump, and could provide legal and political help when the Trump campaign claims those delegates are bound.

If that doesn’t seem feasible, serious and patriotic men and women who have been Trump supporters could simply announce their support for Joe Biden now. If a sizable number of major figures did so, it would make Trump something like a lame duck and might force him from the race. Even if he refused to withdraw, it would weaken his hold on Republicans on the Hill and on his own administration, and make it harder for him to do substantial damage over the next several months. And since Trump could do substantial damage in using the executive power of the federal government to affect the November election, either beforehand (as in his attempt last year to use Ukraine to damage his opponent) or after (by calling results into question, creating chaos and a crisis of legitimacy, and the like), weakening Trump even if he stays in office would be no small thing.

So the best option would be a Trump who has resigned from office. Second best would be a Trump denied re-nomination. Third best would be a weakened and then defeated Trump.

Those who have previously been Trump supporters could help produce one of these outcomes. They should. For Donald Trump has surely proven himself, even to those who wished him well and hoped for the best, to be, to quote the Declaration, “unfit to be a ruler of a free people.”

There is no reason for patriotic Trump supporters to continue enabling him. There would be a portion of honor in helping us get beyond him.

I'll take a great big pass on that strategy. What would be healthy for the country is a massive November rejection of Trump, Trumpism, fascism, authoritarianism and the Republican Party. And that's what's coming, Bill Kristol and his friends on board or not. There's nothing that would make me cast a ballot for Biden-- nothing-- but there is one thing that I like about him: he promised (though I don't necessarily believe him) that he will not pardon Trump. Pence would, of course. What would be healthy for America-- more healthy than anything I can think of short of a Bernie presidency-- would be to see a Trump trial and to subsequently see Trump die in prison, the way Al Capone did.

Are You A Fake Democrat Who's Really A Republican At Heart? Bill Kristol Has Some Advise For You Today

Bernie! by Nancy Ohanian

Think of the most corrupting influences of-- and from within-- the Democratic Party. They've all started coming out of the closet as Biden endorsers. At first his endorsers were just the conservatives from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- villainous Blue Dogs and New Dems like Kurt Schrader (OR), Seth Moulton (MA), Elaine Luria (VA), Terri Sewell (AL), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Charlie Crist (FL), Tony Cárdenas (CA), Stephen Lynch (MA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), etc-- and devoted, notorious Wall Street puppets like Sean Patrick Maloney (NY), Tom Carper (DE), Colin Allred (TX), Gina Raimondo (RI), Chris Coons (DE), Alcee Hastings (FL), Erskine Bowles (NC)... But now the Democratic politicians most associated with sewer money are on board as well-- pure unadulterated garbage like Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL), Steve Israel (NY), Al Wynn (MD), Bob Brady (PA), Charlie Rangel (NY), Ed Rendell (PA), Ami Bera (CA), Penny Pritzker (IL), Andrew Cuomo (NY), Terry McAuliffe (VA), Max Baucus (MT), Tom Daschle (SD).

As if an endorsement from the likes of Debbie Wasserman Schultz weren't enough-- or shouldn't be enough-- to sink the recipient's campaign, now elite #NeverTrump Republicans are flooding onto Team Biden, like Virginia GOP ex-Senator John Warner and Illinois GOP ex-Rep Ray LaHood. Without getting into the MSNBC #NeverTrump brigade, let's jump right to arch neoconservative Bill Kristol, one of the fathers (like Biden) of the invasion of Iraq and one of the most vehement enemies of public healthcare in American politics. He must have been hard for him to not come out for Bloomberg... but he didn't. He endorsed Biden yesterday... not in Biden v Trump, but in Biden v Bernie... and by beginning his post about why with a quote from Ronald Reagan, who he and Biden would no doubt both agree was one of America's greatest presidents.

"You are a normal American," he began. "You don’t like demagogues of the right [as in Hitler or Señor Trumpanzee] or the left [as in FDR or Bernie]. You want competent, responsible governance somewhere in the vicinity of the broad center. You cherish American exceptionalism, and you know that means rejecting European-style demagoguery of the right and left that exploits people’s anxieties and seduces them with false promises. You dread a future featuring an authoritarian and illiberal party facing off against a socialist and illiberal party. And so you don’t want to face a choice-- you don’t want the country to face a choice-- between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in November."

A yes, the cri de coeur of the #NeverTrump Republicans-- and the Wall Street Democrats and the whole Republican wing of the Democratic Party: "you don’t want to face a choice between Trump and Bernie in November." How sick and demented is that? One is the paladin of the billionaire class and the other the champion of the American working class.

What are you to do? Well, if you’re a Democrat and live in one of the 14 states voting Tuesday, you can of course participate in your state’s Democratic primary contest. If you live in Alabama, Arkansas, Minnesota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, or Virginia, you might be surprised to learn the Democratic contest is an open primary, and you can participate no matter your party registration or non-party registration. In some of the other remaining states, you can vote if you’re unaffiliated. So an awful lot of you can vote Tuesday. But for whom?

The American process of presidential selection is complex. The Democratic nominating process is complex. Super Tuesday, with 14 very different states operating under somewhat different rules, is complex. A multi-candidate field with proportional representation, but not exactly proportional representation-- because there are thresholds at both the state and CD level-- makes everything more complex. And so a voter, trying to cast a meaningful vote that will further an outcome he prefers-- sane, moderate governance-- can feel perplexed.

But though the situation is complex, the answer actually is simple. Whatever the substantive case for either Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, and despite the flashes of electoral strength each has shown, neither is going to be the nominee. And despite what once seemed a possible, though unconventional, path to the nomination, it’s not going to be Mike Bloomberg either. So it’s Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden. Which means, if you’re inclined toward American constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and a free economic order-- as well as a liberal world order anchored by the United States-- it’s Joe Biden.

And if you’re not, then it’s Bernie Sanders.

To be sure, there could be cases where, if you live in a particular congressional district with a particular distribution of the vote, you might-- if you had perfect advance knowledge-- engage in complex calculations that might make you think a vote for one of the other candidates would have more effect. But your calculations are as likely to be wrong as right. It’s much safer to vote your actual preference between the two candidates who have a realistic shot at the nomination, and who represent wildly different paths for the future: Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.

And that’s a simple choice.

There you go... if you call yourself a Democrat for some reason but you're really a Republican down deep, this is the day to make your stand and vote for one of the most conservative (and incompetent) Democrats to run for president since the Civil War. Oh... and guarantee Trump will be reelected after an policy-free campaign based on who lies more, whose family is more repulsive and corrupt, who is likely to be more quickly incapacitated for senility... and nothing at all about the American people.

The #NeverTrumpers Now Prefer Pelosi Over Moscow Mitch

Moscow Mitch didn't become Moscow Mitch out of the blue, did he?

The Bulwark is the foremost #NeverTrump publication, an elite gaggle of Republicans, like William Kristol, Charlie Sykes, Mona Charen, Molly Jong-Fast, Tim Miller, Hannah Yoest, Richard Paterson and Jim Swift, who are nauseated by Trump and by Trumpism. Apparently they’re also #NeverMoscowMitch as well too now, a step in the right correct direction. Last week they defined him as a problem for the U.S., a problem for the Constitution and a problem for the Senate, who is “fundamentally distorting our constitutional norms and damaging the health of American politics.” They’re pouting because Señor Trumpanzee “has been impeached by the House of Representatives and one man stands in the way of a fair trial in the Senate: McConnell.” They seem to prefer Nancy Pelosi-- at least in this instance-- even though “she took too long to move to impeach a president who has been abusing his powers in multiple ways that extend well beyond the two passed articles.” Still, they commend her for “her commitment to the Constitution and her accomplishment in leading the House to well-crafted impeachment articles,” which they dub “remarkable and historic… In contrast, what has Senator McConnell done in response to the Speaker’s request and the proposal of Minority Leader Schumer that the Senate tailor the Trial Rules for Impeachment to this case in a way that permits the House managers to make their case and the president’s counsel to defend him? McConnell has shown contempt for the very notion of a fair trial. Indeed, he and Sen. Lindsay Graham have announced-- effectively pledged-- that they will not follow the new oath that they will be required to take once the chief justice is invited to preside.”

The Bulwark crew asserts McConnell (and Graham), the Senate’s top most prominent closet cases, by the way, "know what they are doing, are conscious that it is wrong, and are willfully pursuing this course anyway in order to support a president whose prospect for anti-constitutional behavior had worried both of them during the 2016 election season. These are why their comments on the upcoming Trial are among the most contemptible by any Senators in American political history."

[McConnell] has promised that there would not be a fair trial on the pattern of previous impeachment trials in the Senate, with rules negotiated by the two parties that allow for both sides to call witnesses and makes their cases.

He has laid down a diktat that the matter will be dispatched with as quickly as possible, without any witnesses or new documents.

He has repeatedly promised to violate the new oath he will take to do impartial justice-- as has his Judiciary Committee chair, Lindsay Graham.

He has publicly claimed that the case is worthless before allowing the case to be made.

He has disparaged the sole power of impeachment of the other house of the Congress.

He has insisted that his caucus stay in lock step with him as if impeachment were a matter of ordinary politics, rather than an upcoming trial where all of his colleagues are equal judges of the House articles.

In sum, McConnell’s actions to date prevent the Senate from organizing the trial-- whatever the ultimate verdict-- in a way consistent with the constitutional design and with a sense of fairness in the body politic.

…McConnell is abusing his own office in his attempt to dismiss a trial before it can be conducted fairly.

If a bipartisan group of public-spirited constitutionalists on both sides of the aisle come together, they can tell McConnell that he will only get 51 votes for amending the Rules of the Senate for Impeachment Trials if he works with them to fashion a fair process that allows for crucial documents to be compelled to be produced, and a reasonable number of witnesses to be called-- and for reasonable times and procedures be set.

Republicans should be willing to accept the witnesses the Democrats want called, and Democrats should be generous in permitting the president his number of witnesses. By generous, we mean that, contrary to Senator Schumer’s proposal, judgment on the relevance of the president’s witnesses should be made publicly at the trial, with the aid of the chief justice’s rulings, rather than ruled out now.

If the president wants to call Joe Biden, for example, so be it. Objections to particular questions to any of the witnesses, including perhaps the president himself, can be adjudicated at the trial by the chief justice and the senators, acting in their new role as fellow judges.

There is no good reason to fear a fair and complete Senate trial. The House managers will make their case, and whatever additional witnesses they can call in the Senate whose testimony was blocked in the House will be experienced public servants who will, we trust, testify truthfully and appropriately.

The president’s lawyers may be tempted to try to create what some of us would consider a circus, but the character of the president’s defense surely has to be up to him. In any case, the nation will survive a bit of a circus. And ultimately we need to turn to their common sense to judge the president and his defenders.

If conducted under rules acceptable to all Senators, as was the last Trial twenty years ago, at the end of the day, a verdict will be rendered that will vindicate the Constitution and convey to the nation a sense of a fair and orderly process. The only way to get to that outcome is if some Senate Republicans refuse to lower themselves to be the mere agents of an unprincipled and partisan leader and instead rise to the demands of principle and statesmanship.

Seems odd that there are no public polls available showing how Kentucky voters feel about Moscow Mitch’s role in this… drama. There was, though, a very provocative OpEd in McConnell’s hometown paper. “We Kentuckians know that our word is our bond,” wrote law professor Kent Greenfield last week. “Oaths are the most solemn of promises, and their breach results in serious reputational-- and sometimes legal-- consequences. President Donald Trump will soon be on trial in the Senate on grounds that he breached one oath. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is about to breach two.”

The Constitution does not set out the text of the trial oath, but the Senate rules do. Senators will "solemnly swear ... that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God."

The presidential oath and the senatorial oath to be taken before an impeachment trial are kin. The president must act faithfully and without corruption. In those (presumably) rare situations in which the president has failed to be faithful, the Senate is required to be faithful in its adjudication of the case against him.

But we have already seen indications that McConnell has no intention of doing impartial justice. He has said that he does not consider himself an “impartial juror.” He is coordinating strategy with the White House. He has already called the case against the president “thin” and “incoherent.”

Every senator has a constitutional obligation of impartiality. But McConnell’s role as Senate leader makes his obligation even more important and crucial to the constitutional framework. This is not a time for political cynicism or constitutional faithlessness. McConnell’s loyalty to Trump should not overwhelm his loyalty to the Constitution. If he fails in this, he is not only violating his Article I oath but his Article VI oath.

An important caveat about these elite Republicans: they feel entitled to tell Democrats who their nominee should be (Biden or Bloomberg) and not be (Bernie and Elizabeth). Let they go lay in the bed of shit they have created for themselves-- and the rest of us-- over the course of the past few decades.

Trump Knew Pelosi Would Let Him Get Away With His Criminal Behavior Regarding Ukraine

Which way to Kiev?

William Kristol had some advice for Congress yesterday. In his Bulwark column he offered a roadmap for what the House and Senate can do about the whistleblower report and the Ukraine. He began with a charming quote from Virgil's Aeneid that describes what Trump's time in the White House must feel like for #NeverTrump Republicans:

The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.

No collusion? How can anyone deny that Señor Trumpanzee "seems to have demanded that a foreign government provide information on a domestic political rival as a condition for foreign policy decisions by the United States."

The problem, of course is that though it's essential to "discover the whole truth of this possibly impeachable offense... the ball is in Congress’s court. A fast, focused, and thorough investigation of what happened needs to be Congress’s priority. And Hoyer and Pelosi are as big an impediment to that as McConnell is in the Senate. Nevertheless, Kristol lays out his dream scenario as though Pelosi (79) and Hoyer (80) have brains that are still functioning and that McConnell wasn't shat out of Satan's ass:

The House of Representatives should establish a small, competent, select committee to determine the truth of the Ukraine matter. This committee’s investigation should be separate from those rehashing the Mueller report or looking into other Trump administration controversies.

The select committee should investigate the Ukraine matter alone, with a view to discovering whether impeachable offense has been committed. (It would be fine if this were a joint select committee of the House and Senate, and that offer should be made to Mitch McConnell.)

The select committee should be given full powers of investigation and instructed to move with expedition. The House should make clear that failure by the administration to cooperate with this committee is itself a potentially impeachable offense.

This committee could hold hearings in private (on classified or sensitive matters) as well as in public. It will have to be ready to sweep broadly through the executive branch in search of information on the assumption of non-cooperation by the Trump White House.

It needs to have a short timetable to complete its work-- say, a month?-- and the administration needs to be expressly told that non-cooperation and obstruction may well be considered grounds for impeachment.

The committee should of course be bipartisan-- but if Republican leadership refuses to cooperate, it must go ahead in any case. Its members should be selected for merit and relevant expertise.

It’s up to the speaker and others to figure out how to make this work. What’s key is that the House separate this matter from others under discussion, because this matter has been the subject of no previous investigation and is of particular gravity, and move quickly.

Hoc opus, hic labor est. This is “the task and mighty labor” that now lies before the United States Congress.

After days of denial on Twitter, Trump finally admitted to reporters in Texas yesterday that he talked with the Ukrainian president about Biden. "The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place. It was largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son, creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine."





UPDATE: Impeachment Starts Tomorrow-- First Shot Fired

Pelosi called a closed caucus meeting at 4pm (ET), Tuesday. When that ends, she and her geriatric leadership team will come out and she will announce that nearly the whole caucus is united and that Congress will begin a formal impeachment inquiry. Tonight, 7 conservative freshmen-- Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA), Jason Crow (New Dem-CO), Chrissy Houlahan (New Dem-PA), Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA), Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ), Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI) and Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)-- released a faux heroic statement about how they're finally game re: impeachment. Several military freshmen are missing from the list: Andy Kim (D-NJ), Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY), who has already announced "fuck you all" and Jared Golden (D-ME).

Our lives have been defined by national service. We are not career politicians. We are veterans of the military and of the nation’s defense and intelligence agencies. Our service is rooted in the defense of our country on the front lines of national security.

We have devoted our lives to the service and security of our country, and throughout our careers, we have sworn oaths to defend the Constitution of the United States many times over. Now, we join as a unified group to uphold that oath as we enter uncharted waters and face unprecedented allegations against President Trump.

The president of the United States may have used his position to pressure a foreign country into investigating a political opponent, and he sought to use U.S. taxpayer dollars as leverage to do it. He allegedly sought to use the very security assistance dollars appropriated by Congress to create stability in the world, to help root out corruption and to protect our national security interests, for his own personal gain. These allegations are stunning, both in the national security threat they pose and the potential corruption they represent. We also know that on Sept. 9, the inspector general for the intelligence community notified Congress of a “credible” and “urgent” whistleblower complaint related to national security and potentially involving these allegations. Despite federal law requiring the disclosure of this complaint to Congress, the administration has blocked its release to Congress.

This flagrant disregard for the law cannot stand. To uphold and defend our Constitution, Congress must determine whether the president was indeed willing to use his power and withhold security assistance funds to persuade a foreign country to assist him in an upcoming election.

If these allegations are true, we believe these actions represent an impeachable offense. We do not arrive at this conclusion lightly, and we call on our colleagues in Congress to consider the use of all congressional authorities available to us, including the power of “inherent contempt” and impeachment hearings, to address these new allegations, find the truth and protect our national security.

As members of Congress, we have prioritized delivering for our constituents-- remaining steadfast in our focus on health care, infrastructure, economic policy and our communities’ priorities. Yet everything we do harks back to our oaths to defend the country. These new allegations are a threat to all we have sworn to protect. We must preserve the checks and balances envisioned by the Founders and restore the trust of the American people in our government. And that is what we intend to do.

Not everyone was all that heroic. The military heroes who refused to sign the letter-- the 3 at the bottom of the list-- all sit in districts Trump won and all three are considered vulnerable to a flip next year. Chrissy Houlahan stands out as someone who probably should have announced she backed impeachment last month.

Trump's 2016 vote / freshman's 2018 vote

• Gil Cisneros- 42.9% / 51.6%
• Jason Crow- 41.3% / 54.1%
• Chrissy Houlahan- 43.3% / 58.9%
• Elaine Luria- 48.8% / 51.1%
• Mike Sherrill- 48.8% / 56.8%
• Elissa Slotkin- 50.6% / 50.6%
• Abigail Spanberger- 50.5% / 50.4%


• Jared Golden- 51.4% / 45.6%
• Andy Kim- 51.4% / 50.0%
• Max Rose- 53.6% / 53.0%

A Primary Against Trump In 2020? I Have A Better Idea

Even some of the elite Republicans who actually liked Trump have started to rethink themselves... some, not lots. But Republican voters? Brain-dead or brainwashed or both. And they love him. So Bill Kristof is wasting his time and his donors' money to build an anti-Trump war-machine-- Defending Democracy Together-- to take him on in the 2020 primaries. Kristof says he's in discussions with 2 conservative senators, Ben Sasse (NE) and Jeff Flake (AZ) and with Ohio Governor John Kasich and if none of them bite he'll go to governors Charlie Baker (MA) or Larry Hogan (MD).

"We are thinking of and doing preliminary work to prepare for a primary run against Trump," Kristol said in an interview on Thursday. "People aren't going to say they will run against Trump unless they have the infrastructure but I've been trying to persuade people that it may not be that difficult."

If DDT is serious about ousting Trump, they should run someone in the general where they could possibly peel off some votes in enough states to throw the election to Bernie. Who would vote for Sasse, Flake or Kasich. Republicans who don't like Trump and a small number of bitter Hillary dead-enders who hate Bernie. The DDT candidate wouldn't win any states but could do Trump some harm around the edges in a few states if Trump continues getting worse as he's done since his first day in the White House.

Sasse, Flake and Kasich have shown interest, according to Kristol, but they've also echoed what they've said publicly which is that they are focused on serving their constituency and helping Republicans maintain their majorities in Congress throughout the congressional midterm elections.

Kristol is also readying a super PAC for 2020 GOP candidates which would allow his team to raise unlimited amounts of cash and push out campaign advertisements backing a particular nominee.

A spokesman for Sasse did not deny the two have spoken about a prospective 2020 run.

"I'm not going to comment on what other people decide to bring up in their personal conversations with the senator, but-- like we've said for a long time-- Ben doesn't pay any attention to the 2020 Washington rumor mill," James Wegman, a spokesman for Sasse, said.

...Kristol and his allies, including former New Hampshire GOP chairwoman Jennifer Horn, have been gauging voters on their receptiveness to a primary challenge against Trump.

"I think it's likely that Donald Trump will have a primary and that it is entirely his own doing," Horn said in an interview. "His behavior as president is damaging and demeaning to the presidency. I believe it has damaged our nation."

While their internal polls continue to reflect Trump's growing popularity within the Republican Party, there are many, particularly in New Hampshire, who say it's time for someone to step up to battle Trump. Kristol pointed to the latest public poll as an example of what they're seeing in the Granite State.

The poll by the New Hampshire Journal found that 4 in 10 Republicans surveyed believe a GOP challenger to Trump "would be a good thing," while 56 percent of overall respondents supported the idea. Trump lost the state by under a point to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.

New Hampshire. I remember that state in 2016. Hillary barely scraped by-- 348,521 (47.6%) to 345,789 (47.2%). But go back to the primaries. Bernie didn't just beat Hillary overwhelmingly 151,584 (60.4%) to 95,252 (38.0%). He also drew far more votes than Trump that day. Trump, though he won the primary, took just 100,406 votes-- 51,000 fewer than Bernie. Kasich (44,909 votes) was the only other Republican who did semi-decently in the state-- and Bernie alone beat Trump and Kasich combined. Just sayin'.

The Two Parties' Internal Civil Wars

Here at DWT, we spend a lot of time fretting about the future of a very divided Democratic Party, in which grassroots progressives are fighting to prevent the party from wandering off in the same old disastrous neoliberal direction its elites insist on in return for the financing they provide to bolster the careers of the elected officials who dominate the party's decision-making process. But not today. Today, we'll start by fretting about the future of the Republican Party instead, as it battles internally between the forces of conservatism and the forces of fascism that Bannon (and Trumpanzee) have let loose.

I cop, readily, to knowing more about the divisions that wrack the Democratic Party than those that plague the Republicans. So let's turn to someone who has a good understanding about the context of the Republican civil war and where it's leading, Weekly Standard editor-- and former Dan Quayle chief of staff-- Bill Kristol. "Many Trump critics," he wrote today, "relished a recent Quinnipiac poll showing that President Trump's job approval had fallen to a new low, at a net -23 percent (34 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove)." But he asserted that "the most notable finding in the poll... had to do with age. Donald Trump's job approval/disapproval was 40 percent, 54 percent among Americans 65 and over; it was an almost identical 39 percent, 55 percent among 50-64 year olds; it was slightly worse at 35 percent, 55 percent among those 35 to 49 years old; and among Americans 18 to 34, Donald Trump's job approval was 19 percent approve, 67 percent disapprove, an amazing -48 percent. That's the future of the GOP being flushed down the toilet, worries Kristol.

[O]ne would have to be blind not to see the political risk for Republicans and conservatives in these numbers. First impressions matter. Most people don't change their political views radically from the ones they first hold. For young Americans today, Donald Trump is the face of Republicanism and conservatism.

They don't like that face. And the danger, of course, is that they'll decide their judgment of Trump should carry over to the Republican party that nominated him and the conservative movement that mostly supports him. If he is indeed permitted to embody the party and the movement without challenge, the fortunes of both will be at the mercy of President Trump's own fortunes.

Perhaps the danger is exaggerated. One could argue, after all, that the worst-case scenario for Trump's first term is Nixon's second. Yet the Republican party and the conservative movement recovered quickly from that, didn't they?

Well, those of us who made the case for Nixon in the fall of 1972 on college campuses, who cast our first vote for him that November, who were tempted to rationalize his behavior for at least a while as Watergate unfolded, and who couldn't help but feel a pang of sorrow as he resigned amid victory whoops from his critics in 1974 remember those years all too well. They weren't the easiest of years to be on the right.

But we also remember that the new and exciting conservative columnists in the Washington Post and the New York Times, George Will (in his early 30s) and Bill Safire (in his early 40s), were tough on Nixon. We remember that one of the most prominent conservative Republican senators, James Buckley, who had won dramatically as a Conservative third-party candidate in New York in 1970, did not join other Republicans in rallying to Nixon's defense. We remember that Jim Buckley's younger brother Bill made sure National Review was no cheerleader for Nixon. We remember that John Ashbrook, an eloquent and principled congressman from Ohio, then 43, launched a quixotic primary challenge against Nixon in 1972 to ensure that voters understood Nixon didn't speak for conservatism. We remember Jack Kemp, a Republican congressman turning 40, who was shaping a new economic message for the party. We remember neoconservatives of all sorts who had very little history with Nixon or the GOP providing fresh thinking and new energy.

In sum, we remember that young Americans could look at the Republican party and the conservative movement and see fresh faces and other voices than those of Richard Nixon and his defenders.

One might add that dozens of those defenders in Congress were wiped out in the 1974 midterm elections. One could also note that the subsequent GOP comeback was made easier by the fact that Spiro Agnew had resigned, so that Nixon was succeeded by a vice president who had been in office for only a few months and who wasn't particularly identified with him. That incumbent was then challenged in the 1976 primary by a governor of California who had his own political identity distinct from Nixon's, and who won the Republican nomination in 1980. Thus the GOP and the conservative movement were quickly able to achieve real separation from Nixon.

Can they do the same from Donald Trump? It's urgent that Republicans and conservatives begin to try. The future of the Republican party and of conservatism depend on their standing for loyalties and principles more fundamental than the fortunes of Donald Trump.

Instead they have an outrageous political coward in Paul Ryan leading their party over the cliff. The sooner the better. But going back to the Democrats for a moment and the Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin Times piece linked at the very top, the fight on the left is between liberal activists dreaming of transforming the health care system, reinvigorating FDR's vision of a New Deal (and impeaching President Trump), while the establishment and their candidates are just looking for some good old fashioned personal career advancement. Burns and Martin are creatures of the establishment and aren't really able to understand what the woke Democratic base wants, so their reporting is flawed with years of wrong-headed assumptions straight from the strategy sessions of the conservative opportunists like Rahm Emanuel, Chuck Schumer and Debbie Wasserman Schultz who have largely wrecked the party's brand.

The growing tension between the party’s ascendant militant wing, and Democrats in conservative-leaning terrain, where the party must compete to win power in Congress, was on vivid, split-screen display over the weekend: in Chicago, where Senator Bernie Sanders led a revival-style meeting of his progressive devotees, and in Atlanta, where Democrats are spending colossal sums of money in hopes of seizing a traditionally Republican congressional district.

It may be essential for Democrats to reconcile the party’s two clashing impulses if they are to retake the House of Representatives in 2018. In a promising political environment, a drawn-out struggle over Democratic strategy and ideology could spill into primary elections and disrupt the party’s path to a majority.

On the one hand, progressives are more emboldened than they have been in decades, galvanized by Mr. Sanders’s unexpected successes in 2016 and empowered by the surge of grass-roots energy dedicated to confronting an unpopular president and pushing the party leftward.

Mr. Sanders rallied his youthful, often-raucous coalition Saturday night at a gathering dubbed the “People’s Summit,” where supporters hailed him in worshipful language. One Colorado couple hauled a small banner through the hangar-size McCormick Place, pleading with the still-independent Vermont senator to create a new “People’s Party.”

Mr. Sanders and many attendees enthused over the surprise showing of the British Labour Party, under the left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn, in last week’s election. Democrats can electrify voters, they warned, only by embracing the Sanders agenda of universal health care, free college tuition and full employment.

Speaking for just under an hour, Mr. Sanders, who was met with chants of “Bernie, Bernie” and pleas of “2020!,” crowed that while he may have lost the 2016 primary, “We have won the battle of ideas and we are continuing to win that battle.”

He assailed President Trump in blistering terms, but earned some of his loudest cheers for attacking the party whose nomination he sought last year. “The current model and the current strategy of the Democratic Party is an absolute failure,” Mr. Sanders said to booming applause, arguing that Democrats need “fundamental change.”

“The Democratic Party must finally understand which side it is on,” he said.

Yet the party’s elected leaders, and many of its candidates [though not the ones-- with the exception of Ossoff, a special, somewhat expedient exception himself-- you'll find by tapping on the Blue America thermometer on the right], are far more dispassionate, sharing a cold-eyed recognition of the need to scrounge for votes in forbidding precincts. They have taken as a model the Democratic campaign of 2006, when the party won control of Congress in part by competing for conservative corners of the country and recruiting challengers who broke with liberal orthodoxy.

Outside Atlanta on Friday, Jon Ossoff offered a decidedly un-Sanders-like vision of the future in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District, a conservative-leaning patchwork of office plazas and upscale malls, where voters attended his campaign events wearing golf shirts and designer eyewear.

In a special election that has become the most expensive House race in history, Mr. Ossoff, a 30-year-old former congressional aide, presented himself as essentially anti-ideological. Greeting suburban parents near a playground and giving a pep talk to volunteers, he stressed broadly popular policies like fighting air and water pollution and preserving insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.

Bucking the left, Mr. Ossoff said in an interview that he would not support raising income taxes, even for the wealthy, and opposed “any move” toward a single-payer health care system. Attacked by Republicans for his ties to national liberals, Mr. Ossoff said he had not yet given “an ounce of thought” to whether he would vote for Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, in a future ballot for speaker.

His own race, Mr. Ossoff told supporters, was about “sending a message to Washington.” But that message, he said, was about “decency and respect and unity, rather than division.”

“There’s a coalition of folks here in Georgia who want representation that’s focused on local economic development and on accountability,” Mr. Ossoff said in the interview, “and not on the partisan circus in Washington.”

The tension between Mr. Ossoff’s message and the appetites of the national Democratic base has not appeared to hinder his bid for Congress. He has raised more than $23 million, an astonishing sum, largely in small online donations from Democrats seeking to put a dent in the Republicans’ House majority. Several polls over the last week showed Mr. Ossoff leading his Republican opponent, Karen Handel, though both parties agree that the race remains a tossup.

Winning over Republican voters remains a critical task. Though he launched his campaign pledging to “make Trump furious,” Mr. Ossoff did not bring up the president in his campaign events, and he has called talk of impeachment premature.

Stephanie Runyan, a business consultant who is a precinct captain for Mr. Ossoff, said he had recognized the limits of a liberal message in the affluent Atlanta suburbs.

“A lot of us are not true-blue liberals,” said Ms. Runyan, 46, who is a Democrat.

It is unclear, however, whether Democratic activists across the country will tolerate an army of Ossoff-type candidates in 2018, when party leaders believe the path to capturing the House runs through purple-hued suburban districts that are somewhat less Republican than Georgia’s Sixth.

Friction has already flared between Democrats heavily invested in Mr. Ossoff’s race and activists closely aligned with Mr. Sanders. In April, Mr. Sanders declined to say if he considered Mr. Ossoff a progressive, causing an uproar that he calmed by urging Mr. Ossoff’s election.

Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator who is on the board of Mr. Sanders’s political organization, suggested in Chicago that Democrats risked slumbering through the revolution, suggesting an unofficial slogan for the party: “Hashtag, ‘Not Woke Yet.’”

“Unity for unity’s sake,” she warned, “is not going to happen.”

Party strategists say they have taken steps to build a relationship with Mr. Sanders and his organization, and a top Sanders lieutenant, Jeff Weaver, attended a recent briefing hosted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, along with representatives from Planned Parenthood, the liberal group Swing Left and Third Way, a centrist think tank, according to a person involved in planning the meeting. [Note that The Times should have explained: Swing Left appears to be a DCCC front group and Third Way is a very corrupted right-leaning establishment outfit.]

...[S]ome Democrats competing in difficult elections have taken up ideas once associated with the hard left. Doug Applegate, a retired Marine colonel who narrowly lost a race last year to Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, said he would endorse single-payer health care in a new bid for Mr. Issa’s affluent coastal district.

“Single payer has become a moral issue,” Mr. Applegate said, adding he would be delighted to campaign with Mr. Sanders.

Others are warier: Representative Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat and former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus [very much a sold-out Clinton person], said the party should give “some leeway” to candidates to match the politics of their districts. Mr. Cleaver said he recently ran into former Representative John Barrow of Georgia, one of the last moderate [a poor choice of words since Barrow was first and foremost right-wing enough to be a Republican], white Democrats elected from the South, and recalled telling him: “We’ll know that we’re on the winning track when you can get back to Congress.” [The worst possible thing that could happen to the Democratic Party brand would be to bring back heaps or raw stinking sewage like Barrow and Chris Carney.]

“We are going to lose every possible winnable seat, in a year where there are many winnable seats, if we come across as inflexible left-wingers,” Mr. Cleaver said. “I respect Bernie-- I just don’t think we can become the party of Bernie.”

Cleaver could easily have joined Jim Messina, very much his kind of values-free/vision-free Democrat, in advising Theresa May's catastrophic Conservative campaign. I'd say he has a lot more in common with Messina (and May) than with Bernie, who had some much-needed words for Democrats this weekend at the Peoples' Summit in Chicago: "The current model and the current strategy of the Democratic party is an absolute failure. The Democratic party needs fundamental change. What it needs is to open up its doors to working people, and young people, and older people who are prepared to fight for social and economic justice. The Democratic party must understand what side it is on. And that cannot be the side of Wall Street, or the fossil fuel industry, or the drug companies." I wonder what Bernie will think when he hears the party is about to sell some guy who won the lottery the party nomination in CA-39.