For Inside members, if you weren’t able to join us for our Inside Members’ Briefing this afternoon you can watch the recording of the discussion here. Today was a Q&A Briefing with me and TPM Reporter Josh Kovensky. We discussed the latest on the Trump/Ukraine investigation and took members questions.
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Our design team this week put together a really fantastic interactive that tracks who has testified/turned over documents in the impeachment probe and who is refusing to cooperate.
With so many closed door depositions and witnesses’ cooperating status changing constantly, this chart makes it easy to understand just how far along the probe is on any given day. And we’re able to update it in real time, so it will be a great resource through the duration of the inquiry.
Check it out here.
Wow. We just recorded a special episode of the podcast with Errol Morris about his new Steve Bannon documentary. It was actually pretty contentious. But I think a pretty interesting listen. At one point I thought Morris was going to walk out of the interview. But we chatted afterwards and now we’re like best buds.
Hopefully for your listening pleasure by this evening.
I am going to work my way through the docs, which are pretty voluminous. But they show what we’ve been saying for months and really years. The Trump/Ukraine and Trump/Russia story are the same story. And the “the real collusion was Ukraine and the DNC” storyline goes back to Paul Manafort (and his Russian intelligence associates) who has continued to provide back channel and guidance from prison to Giuliani and Trump.
This may be a relatively minor point and it’s a bit in the weeds. But it’s important to note. On CNN a couple days ago I saw David Chalian say that polling numbers are getting more complicated for Democrats on impeachment because independents are moving from significant support to more like evenly divided. But that’s actually not quite true. What has happened is that the question pollsters are asking, and especially the ones they and the press are focusing on, are changing.
Just a reminder that today’s decision on presidential immunity involves an investigation into hush money payments from Trump to a porn star and to a Playboy model.
My personal posting may be a bit lighter today or delayed until later in the day, as it was yesterday, because I’m going through the impeachment inquiry transcripts methodically. Here’s Sondland’s and here’s Volker’s testimony.
It appears that Republican Matt Bevin has gone down to defeat in the Kentucky governor’s race. Democrat Andy Beshear will be the state’s next governor. Republicans are having a solid night overall in the state. So it’s worth considering what this result means and what it doesn’t. Matt Bevin is many ways a toxic figure, even in a deep red state. He dismantled a very popular and successful implementation of the ACA. This is mainly about Bevin’s unpopularity, which was well earned.
Why it’s important is this: Bevin went all in on impeachment to get himself over the finish line. He brought in Trump for a caustic, aggressive rally last night to finish the sale. But it didn’t work. That’s a big deal.
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