16

What is today-January 28, 2019? And I’m still writing this book! I started back on December 15, 2017. I had 400 pages in February, 2017…

I know I should just have a moratorium-no more new chapters! But stuff keeps happening, for me, I guess it’s like popcorn, I always want just one more piece!

As my recent chapters show, I’m out on the ledge. I have tremendous highs and lows about where we are going next. I worry I’ve been a little too tough on the Congressional Dems. But not really-better safe than sorry. It’s true enough that if this is what the Dem leadership is thinking then they may well be on very solid ground. 

“Here I will also note that certain politicians may well believe that the best way to politically set things up for a potential impeachment is to convince people that, at this point, they’re still keeping an open mind and waiting for more evidence.”

True if they really are considering impeachment but want to set themselves up as openminded that’s a good strategy. But then you have Greg Sargent’s aside that he thinks that even if Trump is found guilty the leadership won’t want to impeach him then because of some mysterious political calculus that the country will never forgive them for impeaching ‘President Trump.’ In truth roughly half is already there-while the GOP impeached Bill despite 81% supporting him in the Gallup poll the week they tried to convict him in the Senate.

Then there were Barney Frank’s comments about ‘wait for the next election’ which hit me like a ton of bricks. They never seem to ask themselves if maybe failing to impeach him if there’s a strong case for it could hurt them politically. If they really are openminded to either possibility then that’s as it should be. But while I love Sargent his one stray comment has gotten me panicked and I’m still not sure what the truth is-is the Dem leadership openminded-or have they already decided they will not impeach Trump no matter what, even if he: shoots someone on 5th Avenue?

If so that would mean that Republican Presidents can’t be impeached for any reason as the GOP is willing to impeach a Democrat on a party line vote while the Democrats are only willing to do it on a bipartisan basis.

As noted in (Chapter A) Michael Isikoff made a strong case the Democrats need to stop deferring to Mueller points out that’s not what the Watergate Democrats did with Leon Jaworski. The Watergate 2.0 Democrats often seem to think Mueller somehow takes precedence.

Ok I’ve never disagreed with how great Mueller is-though I still wonder why his office took pains to quash the Buzfeed story because it led to impeachment talk. Then the story just kept getting worse and worse as it turned out someone from Rod Rosenstein asked him to push back against it and Rudy Giuliani in his usual trainwreck of Sunday interviews intimated that he himself had called Mueller demanding a push back.

I was very happy to see Jerrold Nadler quickly demand answers to the question of Matthew Whittaker spoke the SCO about the Buzzfeed story asking for a knock down of the story. 

But other than that one yet unexplained lapse, he’s done a phenomenal job-if he rather than Comey had done the Emailgate investigation-presuming he found probable cause for it at all-there would have been neither the presser, the letter, nor the many leaks. But this is an issue the American people have a profound interest in-we need to know what happened as well, not just Mueller.

I have faith in Mueller too but the Congress has its own oversight role-the Watergate 1.0 Congress understood this even if time will tell if Watergate 2.0 gets that as well. I do like that Adam Schiff has raised the possibility that they could find things Mueller hasn’t-don’t presume Mueller knows everything-though he knows a lot. The House Democrats should be Mueller’s partners in this not his subordinates.

UPDATE: While I’m still not sure the Dems get they’re coequal to Mueller-and in some ways take precedence as impeachment is their decision not Mueller’s-I was ecstatic to see Schiff demand that the Mueller report-of course we’re presuming there will be one-be made public yesterday.

It’s very hard not to be frustrated at this point. The first public hearing was supposed to be Elijah Cummings interviewing Michael Cohen-it was even more exciting with the news that Alexandria Occasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib are going to be on the Oversight Committee.

Then Cohen, apparently spooked by Trump and Rudy’s  threats against his father in law-and perhaps some Trump Deplorables making physical threats-did an aboutface and said he wasn’t coming.

Cummings had a very strong verbal response:

He assured us that as sure as night follows day and day follows night they’ll get Cohen’s testimony. 

Note that only Breitbart even made a big point to cover these remarks-the MSM wasn’t particularly interested-that’s a dynamic you often see.

Strong comments by Cummings but then in the immediate aftermath Congressman Stephen Lynch seemed to suggest it could be behind closed doors to protect Cohen. If so then Trump wins-the reason they took such pains to intimidate Cohen is the public aspect. If it’s not public at this stage of the game it’s of limited value-and, no, transcripts-at some point way in the future isn’t sufficient either.

Then we got the news that Cohen would be subpoenaed and would be testifying on February 11. At first I was ecstatic-wrongly inferring that Cummings’ Oversight Committee did the subpoena. Alas, while this was a logical inference it was wrong:

It’s totally legitimate to ask if the GOP controlled Senate IC is using this as a tactic-after all, this will likely not be a public hearing and then they will argue Cohen already testified and so there’s no need for him to testify in front of Cummings and Rashida Tlaib.

The Dem leadership has until now unnecessary  tied its own hands declaring they have to win over more GOP voters before impeachment-ignoring that the impeachment process is a process-it’s actually an inquiry where public support can be built. But if you aren’t even going to do public hearings then indeed you can just-as Cummings puts it-close up shop. 

If you refuse to do an impeachment inquiry without moving public opinion further in your direction as roughly 50% already want him impeached today-about 3 times more than ever wanted Bill Clinton impeached-and then you don’t have public hearings, what’s going on?

UPDATE: Sean Maloney-who’s on Schiff’s Intel Committee again keeps you guessing:

Bipartisanship? With Devin Nunes and friends who’s only interest is obstructing this investigation-Nunes was on Fox declaring that they had ‘cleared Roger Stone of collusion.’

You really want that view point to get equal time? And where did the bipartisanship go? The GOP destroyed it. Now you want to just forgive and forget? So we can have bipartisanship when the Dems are in control and partisanship when the GOP does? Sort of like how the Dems since Clinton agreed to balance the budget when they’re in power while the GOP runs up huge deficits when they’re in control.

UPDATE: Just as I feared the Dems caved and are allowing Cohen to testify behind closed doors. 

Michael Quigley tried to reassure Ari Melber that in the future there will be public hearings for Cohen but was pretty vague as to when. Melber rightly pointed out to him that for two years the Democrats-rightly-criticized Nunes and friends for keeping the hearings behind closed doors, yet now they’re doing the same. Yes, I get that concern for Cohen’s safety is legitimate but simply telling him he doesn’t have to testify publicly is not the answer-it’s a win for Trump who now can threaten every witness and never have to suffer any public hearings. Quigley seemed to think a public hearing is a nice thing but it’s more than that-there’s public right not privilege to know. With the Dems refusing to hold impeachment hearings until more than the 50% who currently support it now come along how do they propose to do this if they never have a public hearing?

Quigley then went on to claim there are all these things they need to ask him that regard classified information. Sorry that’ answer doesn’t work either-they knew about this when they were criticizing Nunes and Nunes was saying it was classified information. It’s usual in these sorts of hearings to have both a public and private version of testimony-what’s been missing for 2 years-now 2 years and a month-is the public component. I hope the Democrats understand this.

UPDATE: I LOVE the Freshman Democrats:

How about a Rashida Tlaib-Joseph Nieguse ticket?!

In fairness, there are a few veterans from the Dem Old Guard who get it:

UPDATE: FINALLY

UPDATE: It was an excellent hearing I thought. Whittaker came in there clearly with the intent of doing nothing but stonewall. His level of arrogance was stunning.

He had the nerve to tell Chairman Nadler his time was up. Prior to that he’d demanded to know the basis of his question-does he not get that he’s a witness and he answers questions he doesn’t ask them? And this was the first question of the day and he was already hemming and hawing. 

Then we had the ranking GOPer on the Committee, Doug Collins come on and make it clear that the GOP game would not be oversight and discovery but insisting this was nothing but a dog and pony show-while doing everything in their power to make it that.

After claiming that the hearing was nothing but theatrics he finished his questions by very theatrically calling for the suspension of the hearing. After a voice vote clearly showed it lacked support he demanded an official roll call.

Collins then asked Whittaker if he thought there was something ‘fishy’ that CNN knew about Roger Stone’s arrest and Whittaker didn’t go through his spiel he’d used with the Democrats-I can’t comment on an open investigation-but rather said yes. Proving he is capable of a concise one word yes or no when it suits him.

Later Republicans came on and discussed everything under the sun from the war on drugs, baseball stats-even gun control! Gun control?

Sheila Jackson Lee got it-she insisted Whittaker answer questions with ‘yes or no’-this was one thing that stood out: Whittaker insisted on a lot of words rather than ‘yes or no’ on most questions. After an early recess perhaps he was warned by his own staff not to be so blatantly condescending and so after that he found a new way to patronize-and take time off the clock: ‘I appreciate that question and know it’s important to you.’ Jackson was able to get him off that by demanding yes or no.

I heard a lot of talk from the MSM talking heads that nothing was learned-‘it was all heat and no light’ but this is false:

That Congresswoman Escobar got Whittaker he was ‘aware’ of documents pardoning individuals is itself a bombshell. He puts himself in the passive-her question was did he ever create such documents but she got him to admit awareness-and he doesn’t deny it was he himself who created it.

Agreed:

I also enjoyed the fiery approach of Hakeem Jeffries and Steven Cohen.

One criticism, however, was the Democrats didn’t ask him about wether he spoke to SCO about the Buzzfeed story.

FN: at least so far as I’m aware and while I wasn’t able to watch every minute of the hearing there was no reporting that they had asked it.

This surprised me as Nadler had previously said they would ask him about it. It’s not a small question-when you get to the issue of wether or not Whittaker has interfered in the Mueller probe-if not then why did Trump appoint him?-the most egregious example could be the Buzzfeed story-if he did speak to the SCO; it’s clear that there was pushback from TrumpWorld. Someone from Rod Rosenstein called the SCO and asked if they were going to pushback and Giuliani eluded to the idea that maybe he did as well. So did Whittaker himself? The Dems didn’t ask.

However, Ted Liue did ask about the SDNY.

Some MSM pundits opined that the Democrats didn’t get much from Whittaker who just denied that he spoke to Trump or interfered with the investigation. Geez-they call themselves reporters? Or I guess the MSM philosophy is when Trump or a GOP co-conspirator say something is to just take them at their word and move on. There is plenty for the Dems to build on and as for the denials some of them denied the media’s own reporting. He also admitted to knowing about ‘the existences of documents pardoning individuals.’ It’s pretty basic to an investigation that when denials are made you don’t just say ‘Ok he didn’t interfere and he didn’t talk to Trump or anyone else about his views on the Mueller probe’ but rather seek to corroborate-or refute-the denials.

Nadler wants him to come in again-as Whittaker came in playing this game of the Trump Russia House co-conspirators where he said he won’t answer questions based on the idea ‘President Trump’ might want to declare executive privilege.

It was just the first of what will be many public hearings-educating the public is a big part of the function of such hearings. But I did notice that not many cable news shows-not even Rachel-really focused that much on the Whittaker hearings in the evening. I thought if anyone would it might be Ari Melber-as legal analysis is his wheelhouse but he, Rachel, and most on MSNBC focused on the admittedly crucial and important story of the attempt by AMI and David Pecker to blackmail and intimidate Jeff Bezos.

It’s certainly a fair question whether Trump was involved with it.

If so this is: yet another article of impeachment, particularly when you remember Bezos owns the Washington Post so this could certainly be read as an attempt to punish a critical news organization.

But regarding the question of wether the Whittaker hearing was worth it-this alone makes it worth it.

Right the GOP would never do this. Whitewater, Benghazi, Vince Foster, they once held 140 hours of hearings on the Clintons’ Christmas list. If Clinton were President-as she should be, it was stolen from her, PACE Jesse Jackson she wasn’t upset she was setup-the GOP would already have impeached her-they had the House the first two years what would have prevented it?

UPDATE: Just like if nothing else this makes it worth making Trump’s tax returns public.

Pelosi stated publicly recently that the American people want to see them-100% right, but I was glad to see she’s aware of it because one bad scenario I heard was where the Dems acquire his taxes then don’t make them public. Uh-the top reason to get them is every President going back to Nixon has shown them the public has a right to see them.

UPDATE: This is the most reassuring thing I’ve heard from the Democrats yet suggesting they get it-that they are Mueller’s partners not his underlings.

Nor is this just any Democrat but the top Democrat on the Intel Committee.

“If we had waited to do any of our investigative work for the Mueller investigation, we would have been waiting a year and a half,” Schiff said. “And we have a separate and independent and important responsibility, and that is to tell the country what happened.”

Chairman Schiff hits all the right notes-that they have their own oversight role and that they can’t simply wait for Mueller-for starters we don’t know when Mueller will be finished. He also recognizes that no matter how intensive and rigorous Mueller’s investigation you can’t presume he covered everything-the Watergate Dems didn’t defer to Leon Jaworski.

Indeed the Dems aren’t just Mueller’s equals in some way their role is even more central as Congress and not Mueller will ultimately decide what needs to be done about ‘President Trump and it’s very reassuring to see Schiff appreciates this as well. Perhaps most important of all-regardless of what happens regarding Trump is Schiff recognizes America needs to know what happened and it’s Congress’ role to tell them. A secret investigation like Mueller’s as important and intensive as it is-is still secret and we can’t resolve our Constitutional crisis until we have an exhaustive accounting of what happened.

So I know I’ve been on the ledge since the Dems historic win-worrying they just might punt again, Schiff’s comments are very reassuring as it certainly sounds like he gets it-and he’s the top investigative Dem in Congress.

Schiff defended the Intelligence Committee’s probe of Trump’s finances. “In terms of the president’s business, we are not interested in our committee in whether he’s a tax cheat or not worth what he says he is,” Schiff said. “What we are interested in is, does the president have business dealings with Russia such that it compromises the United States?”

He also said the committee had no choice but to conduct another investigation parallel to Mueller’s rather than waiting for the special counsel’s office to finish its work.

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