Over the last 24 hours, in emails and tweets, I’ve heard people say some version of ‘Hey, it’s a twofer. Maybe this new scandal will take out Trump and Joe Biden!’
Let me say that there are lots of reasons for Democrats not to support Joe Biden – ideology, mass incarceration, age, it not being his time, politics, just qualities as a campaigner. But even though these comments are semi-flippant this is a temptation Democrats should resist. This really is no different from claims that Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster or Barack Obama was born in Kenya, though obviously there’s a racist component to the latter canard. In terms of being in touch with reality or not, it’s no different. Democrats are prone to being manipulated in this way. They really need to resist the urge, just as Clinton’s opponents should have resisted rightwing and Russian efforts to sow divisions among them in 2016.
President Trump has just gotten his first crack at responding to last night’s news. Asked whether he discussed Joe Biden in his conversation with the President of Ukraine, he replies: “It doesn’t matter what I discussed” and says “someone out to look into Joe Biden.”
Josh Kovensky predicted this afternoon how this story in fact unfolded this evening. Given the gravity of the news, I’ve taken Josh’s piece out from behind the Prime paywall. You can read it below or at this link.
Okay, it comes into focus. Josh Kovensky was prescient. This whistleblower thing is about Ukraine.
9:53 PM: I’m working my way through the video of Rudy Giuliani tonight on CNN. It’s a wild interview. He sounds like someone in deep panic. He is all but admitting that President Trump blackmailed the President of Ukraine, threatening to withhold military aid unless Ukraine went after Joe Biden.
Here are some representative video excerpts from the interview …
Even with new details on the whistleblower complaint that the DNI is withholding from Congress — namely, that it concerns “multiple acts” involving President Trump and a supposed commitment he made to a foreign leader — there is so much we don’t know.
But, a close look at the timeline of events narrows down the possibilities.
With 98% of the vote counted, Benny Gantz and Blue and White have slightly expanded their lead over Likud. The count is now B&W 33, Likud 31, Joint List 13. More telling is a move that really seems to be Netanyahu giving up the game. I’ll note that people I follow who are closer and better informed about Israeli politics don’t seem to see it that way. But I’ll share my take nonetheless.
Netanyahu today has been saying he wants to form a broad national unity government and he’s invited Gantz to come talk about it with him. Gantz has replied, rather obviously, that he thinks that’s a great idea. But he’d be Prime Minister, not Netanyahu.
I mentioned in the note below that a number of big things happened around the time this complaint was filed. We don’t know they’re connected. But as we’re piecing this together I wanted to line these events up in chronological order for future reference. I stress again: We don’t know they’re connected.
Josh Kovensky has a good run-down of the issues raised by the whistleblower story, including a discussion with the guy who used to run the intelligence community whistleblower program.
We now have the President’s first response to last night Post revelation.
At the risk of stating the obvious, this is perhaps more revealing than the President intended. The President has repeatedly sought to communicate with foreign leaders out of earshot of other US officials. In certain cases he’s removed them from private meetings where he is speaking with a foreign leader. He confiscated the notes of a translator who translated during one of his meetings with Vladimir Putin.
The new details about the secret Intelligence Community whistleblower makes it the big story today and perhaps for many days going forward. I shared my initial thoughts last night. The gist as reported last night in the Post is that the complain is about the President himself, turns on a “promise” he made to an unnamed foreign leader sometime in late July or early August. Critically, the IC Inspector General judged it serious and of urgent concern. Again, more details in my summary. We’ll have more on this over the course of the day.