BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI

& CROOKED MEDIA

Monday, September 30, 2019

—Mike “Father of Sarah” Huckabee

WALL-TO-WALL WALLS CLOSING IN

House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry has accelerated rapidly and generated a bunch of new, damaging leaks about President Trump’s abuses of power. He has handled these developments very poorly! Here’s what’s happened since Friday. 

What Democrats have done:

• Subpoenaed all of Rudy Giuliani’s documents pertaining to his and Trump’s efforts to force Ukraine to manufacture evidence that would help Trump win re-election in 2020.

• Secured cooperation from Kurt Volker, the State Department official who helped connect Giuliani with Ukrainian officials, and who abruptly resigned from the administration on Friday.

What we’ve learned: 

• In an Oval Office meeting the day after he fired FBI Director James Comey, Trump told two senior Russian officials that he had no problem with their government’s interference in the 2016 election. White House officials buried notes from the meeting and appear to have withheld this detail from Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

• Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was on the fateful phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesnky during which Trump asked Zelensky to damage Biden in exchange for U.S. military assistance.

• Trump pressured the prime minister of Australia to cooperate with Attorney General William Barr’s efforts to discredit the Russia investigation, then restricted access to the call summary. Barr has apparently been traveling around the world asking foreign intelligence services for information that might discredit the U.S. intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

How the public has responded:

• Support for the impeachment inquiry, for impeaching Trump, and for removing him from office have all shot up dramatically. Most of the shift is attributable to Democratic voters who changed their views on impeachment after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched the inquiry, but support among independents and Republicans has also grown. 

How Trump has responded:

• Threatened Civil War if he’s removed from office.

• Called on House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff, the face of the impeachment inquiry, to be arrested and investigated for treason—a crime punishable by death. 

• Demanded that the whistleblower who helped catalyze the impeachment inquiry be publicly identified and suggested the White House may be trying unlawfully to out him. 

Very legal and, also, very cool.

Bottom line: This impeachment inquiry is consuming the Trump presidency. It’s moving faster than his aides, allies, and subordinates can process it. Republicans have struggled (sometimes hilariously) to defend Trump, and we’re learning so much so quickly that Democrats won’t be able to limit their inquiry to the Ukraine scandal alone. We don’t know where this ends, but we do know that Trump is more unhinged and dangerous than ever, and Republicans in Congress are the only ones standing in the way of protecting the country from him.

The Trump campaign increased its spending on Facebook ads five-fold this week, which means that—amid the deluge of impeachment news—your Boomer parents have been spammed with posts that scream WITCH HUNT/ PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT/ Joe Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theories, etc etc etc. 

From Pod Save the People’s Sam Sinyangwe: “Bottom line if we can’t compete with this we will be outmaneuvered and outmatched in the impeachment fight and in the election. This level of spending means they are reaching, and directly feeding disinformation to, tens of millions of people EVERY DAY.” 

But there are people who are tracking and actively working to help Democrats make up ground. Acronym’s newsletter FWIW tracks how money is being spent in this digital warfare and what Democrats are doing to fight back. Keep up with their work here →

It’s International Podcast Day—a very real holiday that we definitely didn’t just make up to promote our newest show, America Dissected with Abdul El-Sayed. In it, Dr. El-Sayed goes beyond the headlines to explore what really matters in our health. Check out the first two episodes, live now.

Give it a listen →

Also, guess what? WE HIT OUR $1 MILLION GOAL FOR FAIR FIGHT 2020! Let’s keep it going and help Stacey Abrams’s group fully fund voter protection teams in every swing state. Protecting elections is the most important thing you can do to help Democrats win in 2020. What are you waiting for?! → 

Around the same time the White House learned that a whistleblower had complained about President Trump’s extortion of Ukraine, the State Department abruptly ramped up its investigation of officials who sent messages to Hillary Clinton’s private email address while she was Secretary of State. Up to 130 officials have been told that the emails they had sent years ago have been “retroactively classified” and are now security violations. As long as House Democrats have Secretary of State Mike Pompeo under subpoena, they might as well demand his communications about this sleazy move. 

Mitch McConnell has acknowledged that the Senate will have to put Trump on trial if the House votes to impeach him. Bookmark this.

Protesters and police clashed violently on the 17th consecutive weekend of protests in Hong Kong. Protestors tossed bricks, lit fires, and threw Molotov cocktails, while police shot tear gas and used a water cannon loaded with blue dye to make protestors easier to identify later. Beijing reportedly hoped to use the upcoming 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China to project strength and unity but clearly the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong did not get the memo. 

Joe Biden’s campaign wrote to news channel executives asking that they stop booking Rudy Giuliani, because he keeps telling a lot of lies about Biden and his family. True, but counterpoint: He is also the best thing to happen to cable news since the poop cruise.

Rep. Christopher Collins (R-NY) resigned from his House seat after he decided to plead guilty to charges of insider trading. That makes 19 House GOP incumbents who will not be seeking re-election in 2020. Cool.

Another woman has accused former Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) of groping her at an event in 2006 when she was a young Senate aide. She is the ninth woman to accuse Franken of inappropriate touching and harassment. Franken laid low for months following his resignation from the Senate, but now has a Sirius radio show.  

The 12-year-old black student at a Christian school in Virginia who accused three white boys of pinning her down and cutting off her dreadlocks has recanted her story. Yikes.

A storm has blanketed parts of California, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Washington with over three feet of snow, plus record low temperatures and high winds. Also, it’s still September. Looks like Greta had a point.

Fast fashion retailer Forever 21 declared bankruptcy and will close up to 178 stores in the U.S. and stop operating in 40 countries, so falling apart just a little faster than their clothes do.

Want to join a 2020 campaign? But not sure where to start? Arena Academy, a training program for current and aspiring progressive campaign staffers, is headed to Phoenix, AZ this December. They’ll help you level up your skills in one of seven tracks — like Digital Director or Communications Director — and take your first steps to join a campaign.

Scholarships are available. Apply by October 11 →

The murder trial of Amber Guyger, the Dallas, TX, cop who shot and killed Botham Jean inside of his apartment after mistaking it for her own last year, is now in the hands of the jury. Before closing arguments, the judge in the case ruled that jurors could consider the Castle Doctrine—a rule similar to ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws that permits the use of deadly force in the protection of a home or other property. Unclear if she meant that they should consider the doctrine on behalf of Botham Jean, whose home Amber Guyger entered before she killed him, but ok!

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has signed a bill allowing college athletes to earn money from endorsement deals in California into law. Student-athletes in the state can now be compensated fairly for the use of their names, images, and likenesses, over the fierce objections of the NCAA. The law prohibits the NCAA from excluding schools from competition if their athletes profit from these deals, but it does not allow schools to pay athletes directly.

Before signing the bill, Newsom reiterated his hope that this prompts “dozens of other states to introduce similar legislation, and it’s going to change college sports for the better by having the interests finally of the athletes on par with the interests of the institutions.”

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