January 27, 2020

Mulvaney issues a statement

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Mulvaney's lawyer has issued a statement on Bolton's book. h/t <a href="https://twitter.com/meridithmcgraw?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@meridithmcgraw</a> <a href="https://t.co/bTWlNHb8gX">pic.twitter.com/bTWlNHb8gX</a></p>— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) <a href="https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1221854303993913355?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

January 21, 2020

Washington Post: The U.S. is pushing Latin American allies to send their Cuban doctors packing

It's all about winning Florida in November

From the earliest days of the revolution, Cuba has been sending doctors to treat the poor people of the developing world — a key source of income and influence for the communist island long isolated by a U.S. embargo.

Now the Trump administration is targeting the government’s signature medical brigades, urging U.S. allies to cancel their health cooperation agreements and send their Cuban doctors packing.

At least four Latin American countries have done so — another blow to the island as it struggles under tightening U.S. sanctions.

“The U.S. government’s crusade against Cuba’s international medical cooperation is an insult,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez tweeted in December. Officials said the program had provided hundreds of thousands of surgeries and training sessions to the countries that canceled, and called the U.S. effort “a disgraceful and criminal act against peoples in need of medical assistance.”

January 2, 2020

Grassley responds and I respond back

I wrote Grassley's office a month ago asking him to stand for the rule of law when the president's impeachment trial begins. Here is his (staff's) response (below that is mine):

Dear Mr. XXXX:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me. As your senator, it is important for me to hear from you.

I appreciate hearing your support for the impeachment of President Trump. The question of whether or not to impeach a duly elected public official, in this case the President of the United States, is an extremely serious one that was contemplated by the Framers and addressed in the Constitution. Accordingly, I am taking my constitutional role as a senator and juror seriously.

Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution provides that "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Those are the sole bases for impeachment.

On December 18, 2019, the House of Representatives voted to adopt two articles of impeachment against President Trump. The first article provides that President Trump should be impeached for abuse of power, and the second article provides that he should be impeached for obstruction of Congress. This marks perhaps the most partisan impeachment in the history of the United States of America. In fact, the only bipartisanship the American people witnessed during the vote stood opposed to impeachment. The Framers of the Constitution warned against using impeachment as a partisan weapon. They were rightly concerned that impeachment would be determined by the strength of political parties instead of by real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. But that’s one reason why the Framers didn’t leave impeachment solely in the hands of the House of Representatives.

As an “impeached” government official, President Trump is now subject to a trial in the United States Senate. At the conclusion of the trial, the Senate—with each member taking on the role of a juror—will vote on whether to convict on one or both articles. Conviction, and thus the removal of an impeached official, requires “the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.” Until the House fully prosecutes its case before the Senate, and the President’s team presents its defense, I will withhold final judgment.

As you may know, however, I have many concerns with the way the House Majority conducted its impeachment proceedings. Following a whistleblower report regarding a phone call between President Trump and the Ukrainian president, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi immediately launched an impeachment inquiry. Instead of waiting to first learn the facts by reviewing the call transcript or hearing from the whistleblower, the Majority moved straight to their expedited inquiry—and an opaque one at that. The Majority’s inquiry ignored the procedural rights that were given to the investigating Committee’s minority in previous impeachments, such as equal subpoena power to both the chair and ranking member of the Committee. This is why I joined over 45 of my Senate colleagues in introducing a Senate resolution that called on the House of Representatives to provide members of the Minority with the ability to participate fully in all proceedings and have equal authority to issue subpoenas.

Whether the House successfully pleads its case before the Senate remains to be seen. The Majority’s desire to overturn the 2016 election by impeaching President Trump has been abundantly clear since before he took the oath of office. They’ve seemingly struggled, however, to arrive at a charge that can stand up to scrutiny. First it was collusion with Russia, but the special counsel spent two years and $35 million investigating, only to debunk the theory. The Majority then focused their efforts on an alleged “quid pro quo,” but that didn’t poll well with voters. So, they changed their allegation to bribery, but the facts and history didn’t seem to support that claim either. The articles ultimately passed by the House reflect that, once again, they had to water down their charge.

Unfortunately, the House Majority’s strung-out preoccupation with impeachment has come at a cost. For example, USMCA languished in the House for more than a year, only to finally and conveniently move just minutes after Speaker Pelosi announced articles of impeachment. Meanwhile, the Senate has remained focused on issues that matter most to the American people, like strengthening the economy, promoting job and wage growth and preventing a government shutdown.

To be clear: the Senate, through this impeachment trial, will carry out its constitutional duty with fairness and clear eyes, as opposed to blind partisanship. In the meantime, rest assured that I’ll continue my work on the issues that affect the everyday lives of Iowans.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me.

Sincerely,

Chuck Grassley
United States Senate

Dear Sen. Grassley:

Thank you for the thoughtful response, though it strains credulity that you would not believe the sworn testimony of dedicated and patriotic career civil servants, intelligence officers and military officials, and instead would choose to believe known serial conmen, liars and fabulists such as the president, former New York Mayor Giuliani, Rep. Nunes and others in your party who have made this a “partisan process.” If it weren’t for their slavishness to party over country, this wouldn’t be a partisan process. The president abused his powers to try to get a foreign ally to invent an investigation into a political opponent. Your only problem with the investigation should be that it didn’t start sooner, when Robert Mueller’s report identified 10 clear cases of obstruction of justice by this president.

Be very clear — Michael Cohen sits in jail today because he committed a crime ON BEHALF OF and AT THE DIRECTION OF the president. Do not turn a blind eye to this president’s criminality, or it will be a stain on your otherwise strong reputation as a public servant who usually stands for the rule of law.

Do not go down in history as the enabler of a criminal president.

Sincerely,

XXXX