Circling the Wagons

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

 “We’re not meddling in an election; we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do.” - Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to the NY Times, May 9, 2019

On July 25th 2019, a failed and terrible comedian called a somewhat more successful comedian on the phone. Hilarity did not ensue. Hysterics did.

     That call was between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian and political neophyte. The exact nature and specifics of that call have been kept hush-hush but they were alarming enough for an unnamed whistleblower to report them on August 12th to the Acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire. Those concerns were, in turn, turned over to the Inspector General of Intelligence, Michael Atkinson. Everyone, including Congress, is being stonewalled.

     The initial complaint from the whistleblower occurred two and a half weeks after Trump had spoken with Zelensky. 16 days after the whistleblower's complaint, Trump suspended aid to Ukraine that was allocated by Congress that was earmarked to defend itself against pro-Russian separatist forces. Eight days ago, Trump reinstated that Congressionally-allocated quarter billion dollars of military aid to Ukraine with no explanation given.

     Those are the facts as we know them. Here's why this confluence of events is so important- There are allegations that Donald Trump called Ukraine's President Zelensky to warn him he was withholding that aid until Ukraine helped him get reelected. That would mean that not only would Donald Trump illegally demand aid from a foreign government in the interests of getting reelected, he was willing to go as far as to threaten extortion. In other words, Trump is so astoundingly corrupt, he was willing to break a law in order to break a law.

     This morning, Aaron Blake of the Washington Post reported that this veiled revelation about Trump and Ukraine is ominous for this already flaming dumpster fire of an administration because we have a timeline involving none other than Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani, it was reported last spring, was planning on flying to Ukraine to essentially meddle in our 2020 election to solicit the new Ukrainian government's help in investigating Joe Biden's son Hunter's involvement in a Ukrainian gas company.

     Last May, the trip was abruptly canceled and Giuliani blamed the Democrats for blowing it up and, ironically, the Ukrainian's government's corruption (Zelensky was surrounded by anti-Trump meanies). 

     This is just one of the allegations circling around that directly involves Trump. There are several more involving others within the administration. This is proof positive that, if these allegations are proven, not only is the Oval Office rotten to the core and viciously trying to break the law forbidding foreign assistance in a US election, much of the White House itself is in on it.

Is There an Impeachment in the House?

The entire government that's run by right wing psychopaths who are just as viciously defending their mob boss is already circling the wagons, especially after IG Atkinson's testimony before the House Intelligence Committee yesterday. If one outside that latter-day Republican Party harbors any pretensions to humanity, then one must feel at least a pang of sympathy for Mr. Atkinson.

     As he sat at that table in the hearing room yesterday morning, the Intelligence Inspector General must have felt on the back of his neck the collective breath of AG Bill Barr, Acting DNI Joseph Maguire and Donald Trump. Because this is what Atkinson was caught between- The rock of Chairman Adam Schiff's powerful Intelligence Committee and the hard places of the Department of Justice, the Directorate of National Intelligence and the White House. 

     Those last three entities essentially ordered Atkinson not to reveal, even behind closed doors, the contents of the whistleblower's complaints. About the closest that Atkinson came to showing any cooperation was when he'd admitted the White House's position that "details in the whistleblower complaint should be withheld from Congress" were without merit.

     Last week on September 9th, it was announced on the House's Foreign Affairs website that no less than three House national security committees were going to investigate Giuliani's aborted trip to Ukraine to determine if he was attempting to solicit their help in Trump's reelection campaign. While Trump may sneer like a seven year-old schoolyard bully about "Sleepy Joe", Trump is privately very concerned about the Vice President's presidential campaign and it's plainly no coincidence that Rudy was planning to go to Ukraine to sniff out some dirt on Biden's son Hunter.

     In Trump's diseased mind, it would have been a win-win situation- If he could count on Ukraine's help in hobbling Biden's campaign by doing opposition research on him, he stands a better chance of winning election next November. If Zelensky didn't play ball, Putin's stooges in Ukraine wouldn't have to worry about fighting against a quarter billion dollars in American aid.

     In politics, sometimes that blow that fells the corrupt come from the least likely sources. For 22 months, we thought the Mueller Report was going to bring down Trump. It resulted in a raft of nasty tweets from Trump's bedrooms in the West Wing and his golf clubs. But this series of quasi-revelations now stands as the likeliest method by which Trump may at last be toppled and even before the 2020 election.