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WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday night, becoming only the third American chief executive to be formally charged under the Constitutions ultimate remedy for high crimes and misdemeanors.

The historic vote split along party lines, much the way it has divided the nation, over a charge that the 45th president abused the power of his office by enlisting a foreign government to investigate a political rival ahead of the 2020 election. The House then approved a second charge, that he obstructed Congress in its investigation.

The articles of impeachment, the political equivalent of an indictment, now go to the Senate for trial. If Trump is acquitted by the Republican-led chamber, as expected, he still would have to run for reelection carrying the enduring stain of impeachment on his purposely disruptive presidency.

The president is impeached, Pelosi declared after the vote. She called it great day for the Constitution of the United States, a sad one for America that the presidents reckless activities necessitated us having to introduce articles of impeachment.

Trump, who began Wednesday tweeting his anger at the proceedings, pumped his fist before an evening campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, boasting of tremendous support in the Republican Party.

By the way, he told the crowd, it doesnt feel like Im being impeached.

The mood in the House chamber shifted throughout the day as the lawmakers pushed toward the vote. Democrats spun lofty speeches, framing impeachment as what many said was their duty to protect the Constitution and uphold the nations system of checks and balances. Republicans mocked and jeered the proceedings, as t hey stood by their partys leader, who has frequently tested the bounds of civic norms.

The start of Trumps Michigan rally was delayed as the voting was underway in Washington but once he took the stage he boasted of accomplishments and complained bitterly about his foes for two hours, defiant rather than contrite. He called Pelosi names and warned the impeachment would be politically disastrous for Democrats. He has called the whole affair a witch hunt, a hoax and a sham, and sometimes all three.

Pelosi, once reluctant to lead Democrats into a partisan impeachment, gaveled both votes closed, seeing the effort to its House conclusion, even at risk to her majority and her speakership.

No Republicans voted for impeachment, and Democrats had only slight defections on their side. The votes for impeachment were 230-197-1 on the first charge, 229-198-1 on the second. To mark the moment, voting was conducted manually with ballots.

While Democrats had the majority in the House to impeach Trump, a vote of two-thirds is necessary for conviction in the Republican-controlled Senate. The trial is expected to begin in January, but Pelosi was noncommittal about sending the House articles over, leaving the start date uncertain. Senate leaders are expecting to negotiate details of the trial, but Democrats are criticizing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for saying he wont be an impartial juror and already knows the outcome.

What Pelosi called a sad and solemn moment for the country, coming in the first year after Democrats swept control of the House, unfolded in a caustic daylong session that showcased the nations divisions.

The House impeachment resolution laid out in stark terms the articles of impeachment against Trump stemming from his July phone call when he asked the Ukrainian president for a favor to announce he was investigating Democrats including potential 2020 rival Joe Biden.

At the time, Zelenskiy, new to politics and government, was seeking a coveted White House visit to show backing from the U.S. as he confronted a hostile Russia at his border. He was also counting on $391 million in military aid already approved by Congress. The White House delayed the funds, but Trump eventually released the money once Congress intervened.

Narrow in scope but broad in its charges, the impeachment resolution said the president betrayed the nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections, and then obstructing Congress oversight like no president in U.S. history.

President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, it said.

Republicans argued that Democrats were impeaching Trump because they cant beat him in 2020.

Said Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah: They want to take away my vote and throw it in the trash.

But Democrats warned the country cannot wait for the next election to decide whether Trump should remain in office because he has shown a pattern of behavior, particularly toward Russia, and will try to corrupt U.S. elections again.

The president and his men plot on, said Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., of the Intelligence Committee that led the inquiry. The danger persists. The risk is real.

The outcome brings the Trump presidency to a milestone moment that has been building almost from the time the New York businessman-turned-reality-TV host unexpectedly won the White House in 2016 amid questions about Russian interference in the U.S. election.

Democrats drew from history, the founders and their own experiences, including as minorities, women and some immigrants to the U.S., who spoke of seeking to honor their oath of office to uphold the Constitution. Rep. Lou Correa of California delivered his comments in English and Spanish asking God to unite the nation. In America, said Hakeem Jeffries of New York, no one is above the law.

Republicans aired Trump-style grievances about what Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko called a rigged process.

We face this horror because of this map, said Rep. Clay Higgins of Alabama before a poster of red and blue states. They call this Republican map flyover country, they call us deplorables, they fear our faith, they fear our strength, they fear our unity, they fear our vote, and they fear our president.

The political fallout from the vote will reverberate across an already polarized country with divergent views of Trumps July phone call when he asked Zelenskiy to investigate Democrats in the 2016 election, Biden and Bidens son Hunter, who worked on the board of a gas company in Ukraine while his father was the vice president.

Trump has repeatedly implored Americans to read the transcript of the call he said was perfect. But the facts it revealed, and those in an anonymous whistleblowers complaint that sparked the probe, are largely undisputed.

More than a dozen current and former White House officials and diplomats testified for hours in impeachment hearings. The open and closed sessions under oath revealed what one called the irregular channel of foreign policy run by Trumps personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, which focused on investigating the Bidens and alternative theories of 2016 election interference.

The question for lawmakers was whether the revelations amounted to impeachable offenses.

Few lawmakers crossed party lines.

On the first article, abuse of power, two Democrats, Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, who is considering switching parties to become a Republican, and Collin Peterson of Minnesota voted against impeaching Trump. On the second article, obstruction, those two and freshman Rep. Jared Golden of Maine voted against. Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is running for president, voted present on both.

Van Drew sat with Republicans. And Rep. Justin Amash, the Michigan conservative who left the Republican party and became an independent over impeachment, voted with Democrats. I come to this floor, not as a Republican, not as a Democrat, but as an American, he said.

Beyond the impeachments of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, this first impeachment of the 21st century is as much about what the president might do in the future as what he did in the past. The investigation of Richard Nixon ended when he resigned rather than face the House vote over Watergate.

Rank and file Democrats said they were willing to lose their jobs to protect the democracy from Trump. Some newly elected freshmen remained in the chamber for hours during the debate.

Top Republicans, including Rep. Devin Nunes on the Intelligence Committee, called the Ukraine probe little more than a poor sequel to special counsel Robert Muellers investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Mueller spent two years investigating the potential links between Moscow and the Trump campaign but testified in July that his team could not establish that Trump conspired or coordinated with Russia to throw the election. Mueller did say he could not exonerate Trump of trying to obstruct the investigation, but he left that for Congress to decide.

The next day, Trump called Ukraine. Not quite four months later, a week before Christmas, Trump was impeached.

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Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman, Matthew Daly, Alan Fram and Andrew Taylor in Washington and Darlene Superville in Battle Creek, Michigan, contributed to this report.

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President Donald Trump impeached by US House, 3rd in history - The Associated Press

This is a breezy overview of the greatest hits and multiple failures of Donald Trumps foreign policy. Its full of gossip, much of it old, like Rex Tillerson calling the president a fucking moron, and some of it new, like Trumps sudden command to evacuate all American civilians from Seoul after noticing how close the South Korean capital was to the border with North Korea.

As with many of the presidents more outrageous requests, his aides simply ignored that one until he forgot all about it.

Author Peter Bergen is a former CNN producer Osama Bin Laden was his big get now a vice-president at a Washington thinktank, a sometime professor and a full-time Washington operator.

He has a nice origin story for one of the crucial relationships underpinning the presidents Middle East policy: the tender bromance between presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman, better known as MBS, who are famous for messaging each other on WhatsApp. Kushner, Bergen writes, confided to an administration colleague that the young prince rushed me in ways that no woman ever had.

Not even the CIAs verdict that MBS probably ordered the assassination of a US-resident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, has diminished the warmth between the Kushner-Trumps and the Saudi royals. Bergen reports that Trump interrogated both the Saudi king and his heir about the murder of the Washington Post columnist but there was really only one detail that gave the president any pause: the sound of the saw used to cut up the victims body, picked up by a Turkish recording device.

If there was a bone saw, that changes everything. I mean Ive never had to take a bone saw with me

Was there a bone saw? the president asked MBS. Because if there was a bone saw, that changes everything. I mean, Ive been in some pretty tough negotiations, Ive never had to take a bone saw with me.

The princes only response: he didnt know whether a saw had been used, because the victims body was given to a Syrian.

Just a random Syrian walking around in Turkey? Trump asked.

Trump spurned an offer from his CIA director to listen to the audio, because its a suffering tape. Eventually the White House let MBS off the hook, blaming his Rasputin advisor, Saud al-Qajhtani, instead.

There are plenty of details here to reinforce an impression of terrifying incompetence throughout the administration. During Michael Flynns extremely brief tenure as national security adviser, a staffer asked: What does an America First foreign policy look like?

Flynn had no idea, so he asked his deputy, KT McFarland, to answer.

Wow! Look at all these people, McFarland replied. I didnt know there were so many people on the NSC staff

A former Fox talking head, McFarland explained what she really needed: I am a TV person. Give me the script and tell me what to say.

Could the blowhard billionaire from Queens also enjoy a reputational shift?

Confidence in the National Security Council isnt enhanced by Bergens quotes from a memo by Rich Higgins, an early director of strategic planning. It explained that deep state Marxists were embedded in the American government, allied to Islamists in a conspiracy including the European Union and the United Nations.

This is a form of population control, the memo said, by certain business cartels in league with cultural Marxists/corporatists/Islamists who will leverage Islamic terrorism threats to justify the creation of a police state.

That was too much even for the America Firsters. Higgins lasted less than a year.

Trumps one real foreign policy success in his first two years in office was the freeing of 20 hostages held around the world. But there were many, many more failures, from his fruitless efforts to convince North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to give up his nukes (even after Trump confessed he had fallen in love with him) , to his disastrous decision to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, destroying the last, faint hopes of peace with the Palestinians.

Reliable judgement is the most important thing a nonfiction author can offer, and there isnt always a lot of that here. Former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is described as a heavy hitter, rather than one of Americas most notorious union busters, while the neocon Elliott Abrams, an unsuccessful candidate to be deputy secretary of state, is a sharp observer of the Middle East instead of an actual American war criminal, as Eric Alterman has described him more convincingly in the Nation.

Then theres the famous mercenary Eric Prince, whose detailed plan to privatize the war in Afghanistan Bergen says seemed just a little self-serving, since Prince was one of the largest players in the war contracting industry.

Despite the ample evidence of catastrophe, Bergen is shy about making any final judgements. After all, Harry Truman was initially derided as a onetime haberdasher and Reagan was similarly dinged as a former actor before both of their reputations, especially Trumans, soared when they left the White House.

Could the blowhard billionaire from Queens also enjoy a similar reputational shift? Bergen asks.

With Trump becoming the third American president to be impeached, because of one of his most outrageous foreign adventures, the answer is surely a resounding: No!

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Trump and his Generals review: a White House of foreign policy horrors - The Guardian

WASHINGTON"My simple test for all of us: What if President Barack Obama had engaged in precisely the same behavior?" former Republican Senator Jeff Flakeasked hisSenate GOP colleaguesin a passionate Washington Post op-ed Friday, regarding President Donald Trump's upcoming Senate impeachment trial.

"I know the answer to that question with certainty, and so do you," he continued."You would have understood with striking clarity the threat it posed, and you would have known exactly what to do."

Flake wrote to his former Senate colleagues that not only is Trump on trial, but "so are you. And so is the political party to which we belong."

Trump was impeached Wednesday on two articles abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Some time at the beginning of the new year, the articles are likely to reach the Senate to begin deliberationon whether to removethe president from office.

More: As Donald Trump's impeachment process moves to the Senate, here's how it will all work

Trump is accused of putting pressure on Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to open investigations into 2020 front-runner and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who had ties to a Ukrainian energy company.

Flake said Republicans could either "reasonably conclude" whetherTrump's "actions warrant his removal" or they do "not rise to the constitutional standard required for removal."

However, he wrote, "There is no small amount of moral hazard with each option, but both positions can be defended."

"But what is indefensible is echoing House Republicans who say that the president has not done anything wrong. He has," Flake continued.

"Personally, I have never met anyone whose behavior can be described as perfect, but so often has the president repeated this obvious untruth that it has become a form of dogma in our party," Flake penned."And sure enough, as dogma demands, there are members of our party denying objective reality by repeating the line that 'the president did nothing wrong.'"

"My colleagues, the danger of an untruthful president is compounded when the coequal branch follows that president off the cliff, into the abyss of unreality and untruth," the former Arizona senator continued.

More: Amid impeachment fight, Trump and Pelosi agree on Feb. 4 for State of the Union address

Flake was one of thePresidents most visible GOP criticsin the Senate andannounced he wouldnt be seeking re-electionin 2017, citing the nastiness of Trump-era politics.

The former senator previouslysaid that he thoughtat least 35 Republican senators would vote for Trump to be removed from office if they could vote in private.

His latest op-ed comes as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., continues to look at sending the articles of impeachment from the House to the Senate, while Senate leadership debates how the trial should proceed. And partisanship appears to be running deep.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. R-Ky., stated recently that he believes there is "zero chance" the GOP-led Senate will remove Trump from office, and that he was in "total coordination with the White House counsel."He desires a quick trial and has already voiced opposition to including new witnesses.

Rudy Giuliani: Democrats 'want to execute me'

Following a meeting on Thursday with Minority Leader ChuckSchumer, D-N.Y., McConnell reiterated his desire for a quick trial and voiced his opposition to including new witnesses. Schumer instead wants to hear from additional witnesses who did not testify before either of the previous House committees investigating the charges. The leaders have yet to be able to come to an agreement.

Flake wrote that he doesn't "envy" his old colleagues, "Youre on a big stage now. Please dont accept an alternate reality that would have us believe in things that obviously are not true, in the service of executive behavior that we never would have encouraged and a theory of executive power that we have always found abhorrent."

McConnell: 'As of today, we remain at an impasse' - latest updates

"If there ever was a time to put country over party, it is now. And by putting country over party, you might just save the Grand Old Party before its too late," Flake concluded.

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/20/jeff-flake-gop-senate-colleagues-trump-is-trial-but-so-you/2715996001/

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Flake to GOP: What would you do if it were Barack Obama, not Donald Trump? - USA TODAY

HOUSTON An audible groan erupted in the lounge area of Houstons Gulf Coast Distillers in late October when high-profile Trump campaign operative Mica Mosbacher invoked the idea of a Democratic presidency.

Mosbacher encouraged the audience of roughly 50 GOP women a group that included a millionaire Texas congressional candidate, the owner of a gun store and a Gov. Greg Abbott political appointee to turn their grumbling into action.

Its not the boys club anymore, she said.

Texas Republicans need women on their side if theyre going to keep the state red in 2020, but recent polls suggest President Donald Trumps support among women is plummeting. A secret recording of outgoing House Speaker Dennis Bonnen laid bare the GOPs anxieties about the president: Hes killing us in urban-suburban districts, Bonnen told a Republican activist in late June.

Trumps campaign seems to take the risk seriously. At the October Women for Trump panel discussion, a group of female surrogates mostly white, some living in D.C. parachuted into a historically black neighborhood in the heart of Texas biggest city to sip drinks and implore Republican women: We need your help.

Mosbacher, whose resume includes stints working for GOP fixtures like U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and the late John McCain, turned to one of the women next to her to bring the point home.

What would you tell people who are on the fence about President Trump? Mosbacher, a member of the Trump 2020 Advisory Board, asked Women for Trump member Karen Henry.

It would be hard for me to be nice to em, Henry, a mother of four and Houston-area business owner, quipped. But if you want somebody whos going to stand up to the media, who does what he says hes going to do hes the only person you can vote for.

Onstage next to Henry was fellow member Melanie Luttrell. Dont you want your kids to grow up in the America you grew up in? she asked the crowd. Many women nodded their heads solemnly in agreement.

The visit to Houston was one of many that Trump campaign surrogates have made in recent months as part of a broader national outreach to suburban women, a voting bloc that will be essential to Trumps reelection campaign. But a majority of Texas women said in October they would definitely vote for someone besides Trump in the 2020 presidential election, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. And 46% of people living in the suburbs said the same thing, according to the poll, compared to 41% who said they would definitely vote for him.

First: Panelists address attendees during a Trump Victory Leadership Initiative Training hosted by Women for Trump at Gulf Coast Distillers in Houston on Oct. 29, 2019. Last: Women for Trump Advisory Board Member Mica Mosbacher asks a question to panelists during a Trump Victory Leadership Initiative Training hosted by Women for Trump at Gulf Coast Distillers.Annie Mulligan for The Texas Tribune

The goal of the Houston gathering was two-fold: energize existing supporters and encourage them to spread the gospel of Trump campaigns promises lower taxes, free-market health care, less government regulation, telling off the fake news media, and cleaning up the swamp that is Washington D.C. bureaucracy to their friends and neighbors.

We need every one of you to replicate yourselves, said Penny Nance, the CEO and president of Concerned Women for America, who also said she is an evangelical Christian.

Texas has the largest group of new voters, she continued. So guess what? We need to get them signed up.

But beyond the four walls of the Houston distillery, that might be easier said than done. Even Texas historically conservative suburbs now appear competitive: A Houston-area congressional seat flipped to Democrats in 2018, and both Harris and Fort Bend Counties are overwhelmingly blue. In the Dallas region, Republicans lost a second congressional seat last year, along with a slate of state House seats and a state Senate one.

For 2020, Democrats are targeting six congressional seats and have their sights set on nearly two dozen seats they hope to flip in the Texas House most of which are in the suburbs. If the minority party can win nine state House seats next year, theyll gain control of a chamber in the Texas Legislature for the first time in nearly two decades.

If Trump is going to help win back the seats Texas Republicans lost last year, the effort may hinge on suburban women, their neighbors and friends. But its in those suburban enclaves where some experts believe the gender gap is the widest.

The numbers are pretty clear that the level of support among suburban women for the Republicans and for President Trump has dropped, said Texas GOP consultant Brendan Steinhauser.

Theres the gender gap and were aware of it and we all see it, he said, noting a summer NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that found a huge drop in support for Trump among women. Its based on the personality and the behavior of the most prominent figure in the Republican Party.

At the Women for Trump event, the presidents surrogates nonetheless shrugged off the notion that their candidate is lacking for support in the suburbs. When Mosbacher asked how women have succeeded under Trumps economy, Henry told a story about her Salvadoran housekeeper. The woman, who has a green card, Henry said, had complained during the Obama presidency that Henry was not paying as much.

Henrys answer: Blame the Democrat and his raising the taxes.

But Trumps 2018 tax breaks gave Henry noticeably more disposable income and as a result, her housekeeper saw a little raise in her paycheck, Henry said. (Research shows the tax cuts have primarily benefited the wealthy.)

First: Women for Tump members cheer from their seats during the organization's holiday celebration featuring a keynote speech from President Donald Trump's 2020 Senior Campaign Adviser Katrina Pierson at the Holiday Inn Tyler Conference Center in Tyler. Last: President Donald Trump's 2020 Senior Campaign Adviser Katrina Pierson greets the crowd during a Women for Trump Holiday Celebration at the Holiday Inn Tyler Conference Center in Tyler.Cara Campbell/The Texas Tribune

Other panelists said Trumps appointment of judges who oppose abortion rights to the Supreme Court was enough to sway their friends and acquaintances. They also touted his focus on fighting sex trafficking and a proposed $1 billion one-time investment to increase the supply of child care in underserved populations all things Mosbacher said appealed to women.

Im a policy wonk, and I really, truly believe his policies are working, said Jacquie Baly, an Abbott appointee to his University Research Initiative advisory board.

Baly, Nance and Mosbacher are just some of the many high-profile Republicans the Trump campaign has deployed to Texas ahead of next years election cycle. For a Women for Trump Holiday Celebration in Tyler this month, Trumps senior campaign adviser Katrina Pierson, who hails from the Dallas suburbs, was the special guest. And when Trumps eldest son Donald Trump Jr. headlined a San Antonio rally earlier this year, his girlfriend and former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle was at his side.

Its a strategic change from Trumps 2016 election, which relied primarily on Facebook and a select number of high-profile male campaign surrogates. Since then, the White House has increased the number of women in public-facing roles, and has relied upon a litany of GOP women onto his campaign to speak on his behalf, including Guilfoyle, Lara Trump, social media stars Diamond and Silk and Kellyanne Conway.

Texas Democrats say its evidence of Republican fears about the state turning blue. Democrats hope to weaponize Trumps record particularly the fallout from his administrations policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border against him.

Kellyanne Conway coined the phrase, alternative facts and I think that the president and his team basically relies on alternative facts, said Mustafa Tameez, a Houston-based Democratic strategist. While hes vulnerable and has lost support among women, his supporters will disregard any evidence proving that.

But the Trump campaign hopes to galvanize a different profile of a suburban woman, one who might have gone unnoticed by pundits and strategists: the silent voter who will turn out for the president in 2020.

Democratic and Republican strategists painted a profile of such a voter: She is a fan of Trumps brash personality and likes that he behaves more like a businessman than a politician. She probably comes from a higher-income household and is college educated. She also might have a family and has seen her or her husbands business thrive economically over the last few years.

This woman might not show up to events like the one organized in Houston, and she might live in an area where the presidents message is a tougher sell. But if the campaign can make sure she votes on Nov. 3, 2020, the hope is, they can help prove pollsters wrong.

Theres a silent majority of people who dont speak what they really believe and theyll go to the polls and theyll vote for Trump because of who hes running against, Henry said in an interview.

Democrats concede that its this brand of silent supporter that helped springboard Trump to the White House in 2016, something theyre trying to account for ahead of next year.

But what remains to be seen for GOP strategists is whether they can court new voters, a demographic coveted by both parties. Republicans are already trying to correct for this. Earlier this year, a super PAC named Engage Texas launched to register hundreds of thousands of new Texas voters here and convince them to help them keep the state red.

At the Houston event, after Mosbacher concluded the panel discussion and some of the room had emptied, Kayla Hensley, the regional director for the Republican Party of Texas, kicked off a PowerPoint presentation about how women could get out the vote.

Hensleys message spoke directly to women like Rhonda Velders, who has lived in Nassau Bay for the last 30 years. Velders is the type of woman the campaign is hoping will thrill to its message: Shes a lifelong Republican, a mental health therapist who said shes seen economic success under Trumps presidency.

Velders was shaken when she saw her hometown vote blue in 2018 but believes things will turn around next year. As women, were going to rise up, and be able to say, I dont have to be ashamed of being a woman. And frankly, I dont have to be ashamed that Im white because I feel like sometimes youre shamed for being white.

Trump loyalists hope the results of the 2018 midterms, in which Cruz eked out a win over Democrat Beto ORourke, were an anomaly and enough to motivate conservative women to turn out for the GOP next year.

Its not rocket science, Velders said. But if were not careful, were going to lose everything we know.

Pollsters say theres no magic number for how many women like Velders Republicans need to pursue in order to maintain their stronghold over the state. At the very least, they say, Trump needs to perform with women as well as he did in 2016.

The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, Nance, the CEO and president of Concerned Women for America, said. Its now or never, ladies.

Disclosure: The University of Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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In Texas, Republican women are on the front lines for Donald Trump - The Texas Tribune

WASHINGTON It would have been a swell party. There was an oyster tower made from solid ice and charcuterie tables piled high in every room. The Charles Orban Champagne was flowing. And the site of this annual soiree, hosted by the French ambassador at the official residence, is one pretty pile of bricks.

What there wasnt: anyone recognizable from the White House. Not even Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, who used to attend.

Who cares? The packs of journalists and foreign service officials who prowled the rooms of an imperial manse in search of someone who mattered, thats who. As any of them will tell you, this holiday season, spotting someone by the punch bowl with the ability to whisper into the presidents ear has been harder than ever.

Going out in Washington is work. Parties are places for D.C. officials and members of the press corps to meet, mix and move the pieces on the chess board. (Booze helps.) Money or beauty is irrelevant. Power, and the proximity to it, is the only metric. It has always been so.

President Trump has, as promised and to his supporters glee, disrupted Washingtons way of life. And sure, as during Watergate, the news business is booming and random bureaucrats have been thrust onto the national stage. But its been hell on the social life.

Two nights after the French ambassadors holiday party, which was held Dec. 10, the situation wasnt quite as dire at the British embassy. Mick Mulvaney, perhaps celebrating the one-year anniversary of being named Mr. Trumps acting chief of staff, dropped in for a moment while partygoers watched the votes pile up for Boris Johnson, Mr. Trumps blond buddy across the pond.

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the National Republican Committee, also attended. Still, this shindig wasnt what it once was.

Big-name White House officials used to come out en masse. When the last British ambassador described the Trump White House in cables to 10 Downing Street as a uniquely dysfunctional environment, his unvarnished assessments came from two years of cultivating and kibitzing with many of those aides who are now too skittish to attend.

The ambassador was run out of town after his cables leaked in July; Britain has yet to send a replacement.

There were only ever a handful of cabinet secretaries and Trump aides who would brave the night life of a city that reviles, and is reviled by, President Trump. (You know its bad when Wilbur Ross, the 82-year-old secretary of commerce who both falls asleep and wears $600 velvet slippers in public, is considered the social butterfly of this administration.) And the slow march to impeachment has made aides even less willing to mingle.

In the beginning, though, people such as Ms. Conway, Steven Mnuchin and Ivanka Trump could be counted on to show up at parties and interpret the latest presidential paroxysm in an effort to soothe the freaked-out establishment. Three years in, relations have soured.

Its like a siege mentality, said Kevin Chaffee, a senior editor at Washington Life, a society magazine that is read by President Trump. They dont want to go out and court confrontation. Trump has cast a pall.

Part of that pall may also come from the hyperpolarization that has gripped D.C., along with much of the nation. People with warring political affiliations may simply be less interested in socializing together, at least at semipublic events.

People dont even realize what it was like when President Reagan was here, Mr. Chaffee said. Every night he went out to peoples homes, the embassies, there were dinners. Even under Bush 1, the whole cabinet went out.

Sally Quinn, the Georgetown hostess, said: This has been a long time coming, in the sense that things started to slow down a while ago. But when Trump got in, there was immediate division starting from Day 1, when Sean Spicer got up and said it was the biggest crowd, period.

Division indeed. When Ms. Quinn gave a party earlier in December for the CBS anchor Norah ODonnell by most counts, one of the better parties of the season Ms. Quinn spared but one invitation for the Conway household.

It did not go to Kellyanne, but to her husband, George, a man whose popularity with the media is predicated on the last tweet he has hurled at his wife or her boss.

Still, he made something of a sorry plaything. His arm was in a wrap, and it was hard not to wince as he endured the same joke about his injured limb and bruised marriage from several different people, which went something like: Did Kellyanne do this to you because you wouldnt put the phone down? (At least Bob Woodward was interested enough in this spectacle to scribble down Mr. Conways email address.)

The turnover in this White House is so high that the diplomatic corps cant even figure out who to suck up to. After November 2016 all the ambassadors were desperately scrambling, trying to find the Trump people, and the worst part was that after three or four months, they were changing overnight, said Grard Araud, the previous French ambassador.

The ones who have found themselves suddenly in the sun, thanks in part to Mr. Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are the emissaries of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But an autocratic embassy does not a swinging party make.

I can count on one hand the embassies that are really that active, Mr. Chaffee said. It used to be more like two and a half hands.

Then there are the other bashes. At the festivities around this years Kennedy Center Honors, held the first weekend in December, the secretary of state got dressed down by Linda Ronstadt while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got a standing ovation you can see why the president skipped.

This White House has enriched the press, but it also stopped throwing a Christmastime party for reporters. The White House correspondents dinner, which reporters from The New York Times do not attend, once boasted truly glamorous after-parties. Those have dried up in the Trump era.

Its not as if President Trump is completely lacking in Christmas spirit, though. He gave most federal workers an extra day off this year, and circulated holiday cards around the Senate, delivered alongside copies of his six-page letter to Ms. Pelosi about this impeachment charade.

Anyone who has been to a family Thanksgiving knows that impeachment doesnt make for fun party talk. Jonathan Turley, the legal expert called by the Republicans to appear this month before the House Judiciary Committee, summed up the mood in Washington: The president is mad. My Democratic friends are mad. My Republican friends are mad. My wife is mad. My kids are mad. Even my dog seems mad. And Luna is a goldendoodle and they dont get mad.

Mr. Chaffee said: Im old enough to have been around during the last impeachment, and it was just the same as it is now meanspirited and evil, on both sides. But President Clinton never 86-ed the White House Christmas party during his impeachment.

Many presidents have understood the power of a good party, especially during a tense political time. When Franklin Delano Roosevelts critics accused him of ruling like a dictator during the Depression, he threw a toga party at the White House and dressed as Caesar.

Andrew Jacksons inaugural party in 1829 open to anyone reportedly got so rowdy that he had to flee it. (He had been elected in a ruthless campaign year and, as the populist candidate, had good reason to want to spite Washingtons elite with some rabble-rousing.)

And though President Barack Obama was thought of as more aloof than his predecessors, he drew many a Hollywood star to the Potomac. Now celebrities make headlines not for partying at the White House, but for protesting it.

When Michelle Obama was first lady, one evening at a restaurant along 14th street could ensure that it would become date-night destination dining. In contrast, Melania Trump is such a Sphinx-like creature that, for a while, many wondered if she even lived in the White House.

Though it wouldnt play into his drain the swamp narrative, Mr. Trump could have been the party animal of Pennsylvania Avenue had he wanted. Sure, hes a teetotaler, but so was Jay Gatsby. And its not like Mr. Trump goes to bed at 9, as George W. Bush did, or unwinds by reading briefing papers and eating almonds, as Mr. Obama did.

In fact, this president is a night owl who spent much of his adult life partying his way on to Page Six, surrounded by movie stars, pornographic actresses and models. He knows that social capital can be wielded as a source of soft power.

David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Mr. Obama, wrote in his memoir that during his time at the White House, Mr. Trump once called him with a proposal to build a ballroom.

Mr. Trump had taken note of what he called these state dinners on the lawn there in little tents that were not up to Mr. Trumps standards. Let me build you a ballroom you can assemble and take apart, he said to Mr. Axelrod. Trust me. Itll look great.

In 2016, Mr. Trumps tabloid chronicler in chief, Cindy Adams, wrote in her column: Watch for a quickly built Trump White House ballroom.

Quickly turned out to be a hasty estimation. But, then, infrastructure has been delayed all over.

Originally posted here:
Donald Trump Has Drained the Swamp (of Good Christmas Parties) - The New York Times