BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI

& CROOKED MEDIA

Thursday, September 26, 2019

—Rudy Colludy

IF MEMORY SERVERS...

Remember how yesterday’s summary of the call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was worse than we all imagined? Well, the whistleblower complaint that details Trump’s corrupt shakedown of Ukraine has been declassified, and it’s even worse than that!

Here’s what it alleges:

• “[T]he President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election,” the whistleblower alleges. “This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President's main domestic political rivals. The President's personal lawyer, Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, is a central figure in this effort. Attorney General Barr appears to be involved as well.” Oh.

• The scheme to extort disinformation about Joe Biden from Ukraine began long before the fateful Trump-Zelensky phone call, and implicates many senior administration figures.

• White House lawyers ordered the call summary removed from the system on which these summaries are normally stored, and housed it on a classified system meant to house the country’s most sensitive national security secrets. “According to White House officials I spoke with,” the whistleblower notes, “this was ‘not the first time’ under this Administration that a Presidential transcript was placed into this codeword-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive—rather than national security sensitive—information.” Not. The. First. Time. 

• In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire disputed Trump’s efforts to tar the whistleblower as a partisan and a traitor.

How did Trump handle all that? By suggesting to a room full of diplomats that the whistleblower and his sources should be put to death. “I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy,” he said. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.” (Republicans could end this dangerous man’s presidency almost immediately; they still support him.)

Democrats now have a ton of leads to follow, and should follow them aggressively. They need to hear from Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Rudy Giuliani, and other people named or alluded to in the complaint. They need to figure out how many times the White House has tried to cover up Trump’s crimes by hiding evidence of them in classified systems, and who participated in those coverups. The inquiry shouldn’t be rushed or limited, and it shouldn’t be delayed by a two-week recess scheduled to begin tomorrow. There’s a lot of work left to do.

The Trump administration has accused California of “failing to meet its obligations” to protect the environment and has given the state’s government 30 days to demonstrate that it can handle federal water and air quality standards or else the Environmental Protection Agency will take over enforcement. Reminder: The administration continues to rollback endangered species protections, pollution regulation, and vehicle emissions limits, so this has absolutely nothing to do with giving a shit about the environment. It’s just the latest salvo in Trump’s ongoing effort to abuse the powers of the presidency to harass California to own the libs.

The last episode in this month's Crooked Minis series on conspiracies is here, chronicling QAnon and the dangers it poses to our democracy.

Listen →

Minutes after President Trump wished death upon the Ukraine scandal whistleblower, the New York Times all but outed him, supposedly to establish his credibility. The credibility and motives of the sources who outed him are apparently beyond question, though...

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has acknowledged that he bears responsibility for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist, by Saudi operatives last year, “because it happened under my watch.” The CIA and governments that aren’t headed by our corrupt president have concluded that MBS ordered the murder, so, yeah, he “bears responsibility” for the murder he ordered. 

Syrian government forces carried out a chlorine attack in May—its first confirmed violation of international prohibitions against the use of chemical weapons since 2018, according to new U.S. intelligence. In both 2017 and 2018, President Trump authorized U.S. strikes against Syria in response to a separate gas attack. 

Amid the ongoing United Auto Workers strike, General Motors reportedly offered to build a battery factory for electric cars near an Ohio factory it shuttered earlier this year. But the plant would only pay $17 an hour, as opposed to the $31 per hour many workers at the old factory earned, and would employ far fewer people than the 3,000 who once worked there. 

The number of countries that have been victims of political disinformation campaigns has more than doubled to 70 in the past two years. (If it wasn’t already apparent, we are on the list, folks.) Facebook remains the top social network for disinformation, and the company have yet to right its ship as we head into 2020. 

Trump’s pick to lead the Fish and Wildlife Service, Aurelia Skipwith, previously worked for groups opposed to protections for endangered species that it would be her job to enforce. She used to work for agrochemical giant Monsanto, which manufactures an herbicide that’s harmful to wildlife, and has ties to a group that has lobbied against Endangered Species Act regulations. Drain the (fish and wildlife out of the) swamp, ehhhhh???? From Favs: I just threw my laptop at the wall.

The Senate has confirmed Eugene Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to lead the Labor Department. He replaces Alexander Acosta, who resigned amid scrutiny of a plea deal he offered child-sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein several years ago. Labor unions and Democrats opposed his nomination because of his previous work representing businesses in high-profile labor disputes.

Jennifer Lopez and Shakira will perform at the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show. Whenever. Wherever. They’re meant to perform together. 

Nancy Pelosi reportedly left the first draft of her Tuesday speech announcing an official impeachment inquiry into President Trump on the plane she took from New York to Washington. From Brian: If the person who found it is reading, let’s talk price!

Income inequality in the U.S. has reached its highest level in over 50 years. Between 2017 and 2018, income inequality climbed sharply in several heartland states, though coastal states still lead the nation in overall inequality. 

The median household income nationwide rose by 0.8 percent (a much smaller increase than in previous years) to almost $62,000 last year, and gains were distributed unevenly. 

Those wealth tax plans and AOC’s anti-poverty package turn out to be pretty timely.

Overall support for impeaching Trump has risen to 55 percent, while 26 percent oppose it, according to a new poll conducted after news of President Trump’s quid-pro-quo call with the Ukrainian president broke, and Democrats unified behind an impeachment push. It stands to reason that as more revelations come to light, support for impeachment will increase further. 

And Democrats aren’t the only ones getting on board. The number of Republican voters who support impeachment has climbed, opposition among Republicans has fallen markedly, and Gov. Phil Scott (R-VT) became the first Republican governor to support an impeachment inquiry.

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