BY SARAH LAZARUS

& CROOKED MEDIA

Friday, October 11, 2019

—The Prince estate

BREAKING

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan abruptly resigned Friday night after only six months on the job. We don’t know why he did this just yet, but if your mind just called up “rats fleeing a sinking ship” you’re not wrong, except insofar as comparing this admnistration to a ship is an insult to seagoing vessels of all sizes.

YOU WANNA WATCH YOVANOVITCH

We would say the impeachment dam broke today, but the dam is pretty much unrecognizable at this point (sorry to this dam). Seven (!) new developments in just the past 24 hours have President Trump up to his knees in impeachment floodwater:

• Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch delivered damning testimony to House investigators in defiance of White House and State Department efforts to silence her. Yovanovitch testified she was recalled from her post abruptly, based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.” She further warned that political influences are undermining the national interest. 
  
  
• The U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland will honor his subpoena and testify on Thursday, also in spite of the State Department’s instructions not to appear. Our compliments to his lawyers.
   
• Fiona Hill, Trump’s former top Russia adviser, will also testify next week. She reportedly plans to tell Congress that Sondland and Rudy Giuliani ran shadow diplomacy to pursue their shady dealings on Trump’s behalf in Ukraine. We plan to thoroughly enjoy it.
  
  
• Trump lost his appeal to quash a House subpoena for his tax and financial information. The appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that Trump’s accounting firm must turn over eight years of records. Trump has a week to decide whether he will appeal again, and thus give more judges an opportunity to announce that his legal arguments suck.
  
  
• Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) said he supports the impeachment inquiry, joining Republican Govs. Phil Scott (R-VT) and Charlie Baker (R-MA). 
  
  
• Trump bagman Rudy Giuliani is a subject of the ongoing criminal investigation that resulted in the arrest of two of his associates Wednesday. Also, one of those associates paid Giuliani through a business called “Fraud Guarantee.” Sometimes, there are no jokes to be made: there is only joy, and a radiant feeling of oneness with the universe.
  
  
• More potential whistleblowers have approached Congress since the House launched its impeachment inquiry. 

Witnesses are talking, Republicans are breaking from the pack, and the courts agree that Trump’s efforts to obstruct justice are truly lame. Have a beautiful weekend.

Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration both botched the certification process of the 737 Max flight control system that contributed to two crashes earlier this year. A multiagency task force found that Boeing failed to adequately explain the new automated system to regulators, and the FAA insufficiently analyzed the information it did receive. The report found overall fault with the current process for certifying a new plane, saying that it “lacks an adequate assessment of how proposed design changes integrate with existing systems.” We are not plane engineers but that seems like an important process to figure the fuck out!

You may have seen the hot 2020 gossip item that Elizabeth Warren has been in frequent contact with former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum over the last several months. Is Gillum a potential V.P. pick? We really couldn’t tell you.

What we can say for sure is that Andrew Gillum joins host Ana Marie Cox on today’s episode of With Friends Like These, and it’s a perfect opportunity to learn more about him! Listen here →

Nine Democratic candidates participated in CNN’s LGBTQ town hall last night—the first event of its kind hosted by a major cable news network. Some key moments include: an out-of-touch remark from Joe Biden about “bathhouses,” a terrible pronoun joke from CNN anchor Chris Cuomo for which he later apologized, and a joke from Elizabeth Warren for which she deserves a Netflix special.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper urged his Turkish counterpart to halt his country’s offensive in Syria. Confirming fears that the invasion would make it impossible for Kurdish forces to continue guarding detained ISIS militants, five prisoners have already escaped amid Turkish shelling nearby. Turkish shelling also hit near U.S. forces, under unclear circumstances. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has deployed roughly 1,500 extra troops to Saudi Arabia, because President Trump is deeply, sincerely committed to bringing our troops home. 

Trump attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Somali refugees as a group during his campaign rally in Minneapolis, MN, Thursday night. He also called the press “crooked son of a guns” [sic] and imitated Peter Strzok having an orgasm. It’s gonna be a fun election year, folks.

Michael McKinley, a senior advisor to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has resigned. McKinley is a State Department veteran, who reportedly grew dissatisfied with Pompeo’s lack of public support for diplomats caught up in the Ukraine scandal. McKinley’s resignation suggests Pompeo has lost control of the State Department, which is more bad news for the White House, and we are not sad about it. 

At least one person has died as a result of the Saddleridge wildfire in the San Fernando Valley. Over 100,000 people face mandatory evacuation orders, and officials expect the fire will take days to contain. 

News anchor Shepard Smith has abruptly left Fox News. Smith had a nasty habit of actually fact-checking his network, which made him one of Trump's most frequent rage-targets. An anonymous Fox News staffer told the Daily Beast: “There’s no room for news here anymore.” This staffer lost us at "anymore."

The CDC has issued new guidelines for doctors treating vaping-related illness, because there were no guidelines before, because there was no “vaping-related illness” until now.  Twenty-six people have died since the outbreak began. 

The dates and locations of the 2020 presidential debates have been announced. Weird to know a year in advance which days your stomach will hurt, but there you go.

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens has backed out of a public debate with the professor who jokingly called him a bedbug. That is, it looks like he’s backed out—experts say you can’t really be sure he’s gone until three weeks have passed. 

Because this item from yesterday wasn’t shady enough as it was: When Trump asked his then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to obstruct justice on behalf of one of Rudy Giuliani’s clients, he did so under pressure from Turkish President Recep Erdogan. Trump asked Tillerson to stop the prosecution of Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian gold trader who violated U.S. sanctions against Iran, by making  a diplomatic “deal” with Turkey. Tillerson was so disturbed by the illegal request that he complained to Trump’s then-Chief of Staff John Kelly. Erdogan had been trying to get Zarrab off the hook since the Obama administration, but got nowhere until Trump became president, which has us asking for the umpteenth time this week: Why does Trump so willingly take orders from the president of Turkey?

A federal district court has ruled that President Trump broke the law by declaring a national emergency so he could raid Defense Department funds to build his border wall. El Paso County and Border Network for Human Rights sued the government, arguing that Trump had no legal authority to issue the declaration as a means of accessing funds for the wall that Congress had not authorized. The complaint also argued that Trump’s declaration didn’t meet the official definition of “emergency,” and that his repeated claim that barriers caused crime to fall in El Paso, TX, is  bullshit. Judge David Briones agreed, and seems prepared to block the use of those emergency funds.

ALSO, a different federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule, which would have gone into effect on October 15. The rule would make it harder for immigrants to get green cards if they seem as though they might need public assistance. We told you it was a good day.

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