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The House Intelligence Committees impeachment inquiry report demonstrates in exhaustive detail that President Trump and numerous aides pressured Ukraine to open investigations for Trumps political benefit. The report describes this as a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.

But the effort almost certainly took place over years, not months. Indeed it grew directly out of the ties developed between Trumps campaign and Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign.

The Ukraine scandal burst into the view of Congress and the public this summer when the House Intelligence Committee obtained a whistle-blowers report. The report focused on a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and Trumps plot to withhold military aid as leverage. But the fact that this sequence of events was exposed does not mean it is the entirety of the plot. The sequence of events instead suggests that Trump has been extorting Ukraine for his own political gain not only in 2017, but during the previous two years as well.

Begin with Trumps notion that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked Democratic emails. This is the idea he raises in his call with Zelensky, asking his befuddled Ukrainian counterpart to locate a server that, according to this bizarre conspiracy theory, was handed by Democrats over to Ukrainians and that would prove Russia had been framed. American intelligence officials have described the theory as a Russian-backed disinformation campaign.

Where did Trump get this idea from? He seems to have first heard it in the summer of 2016, from Paul Manafort, his campaign manager. Manaforts deputy, Rick Gates, told Robert Mueller that Manafort had been spouting the theory that Ukrainians framed Russia since the summer of 2016, and that the theory seemed to come from Manaforts partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, who American officials believed was a Russian intelligence operative.

By April 2017, Trump was repeating this theory in public, falsely telling an Associated Press reporter that a Ukrainian-based company had taken the Democratic server with the stolen emails. A few months after that, Rudy Giuliani began meeting with Ukrainian officials. Giuliani recently explained that he pursued the theory that Ukraine, not Russia, had hacked Democratic emails because it would exonerate Trump. Obviously, Trump could not have colluded with Russia to exploit stolen emails if Russia hadnt stolen the emails in the first place. I knew they were hot and heavy on this Russian collusion thing, even though I knew 100 percent that it was false, he told Glenn Beck. I said to myself, Hallelujah. Ive got what a defense lawyer always wants: I can go prove someone else committed this crime.

Giuliani undertook what appear to be two previous episodes of trading diplomatic favors to Ukrainians in return for steps to protect Trump from the Mueller investigation. The first apparent trade involved a meeting between Trump and Ukraines then-president Petro Poroshenko in return for a Ukrainian investigation that would exonerate Manafort, then a prime target of Muellers.

Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake summarizes the timeline:

June 8, 2017: Trump ally Rudolph W. Giuliani meets with Poroshenko and then-Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko.June 9, 2017: Lutsenkos office joins an existing investigation into the black ledger, which implicated former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The investigation had previously been handled only by Ukraines independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), and critics alleged the new move was meant to bury the scandal.June 14, 2017: Reports in Europe indicate Poroshenko will meet with Trump.June 19, 2017: Spicer says Poroshenko will meet with Vice President Pence, but doesnt confirm a meeting with Trump.June 20, 2017: Poroshenko gets a brief drop-in visit with Trump.This is either a direct trade, or an exchange of mutually-beneficial actions that coincidentally occurred in very rapid succession.

The next apparent quid pro quo took place the next year. The U.S. sold desperately needed Javelin missiles to Ukraine that year, and the New York Times reported at the time that Ukraine suspended cooperation with the Mueller investigation. (This is another one of those Trump-era episodes where a credible report of shocking misconduct immediately sinks without a trace into the vast ooze of other Trumpian outrages.) In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials, one Ukrainian lawmaker and close ally of President Poroshenko explained to the Times.

The benefit of this move to Trump was immense. Manafort and Kilimnik were key figures in the Mueller probe. Mueller found that Manafort had slipped Kilimnik 75 pages of polling data during a meeting in the summer of 2016. Here you have proof that Trumps campaign manager gave valuable, detailed information to a known Russian spy, at a time when the Russians were running a pro-Trump media operation. But Mueller never determined what the polling was for. And Kilimnik was able to leave Ukraine and escape to Russia, where Mueller could not interview him. A State Department document concluded that Lutsenko, who had met with Giuliani, allowed Kilimnik to leave the country.

Neither of these episodes has been investigated in anything like the depth of the 2019 episodes. But both bear all the same superficial hallmarks to what occurred this year. In both instances, Giuliani had contacts with Ukrainian officials, and traded the same things (a presidential meeting and military aid). Also in both cases, Ukraine put its famously corrupt judicial system at the disposal of Trumps domestic interests.

In 2017 and 2018, Trump was consumed by the Mueller investigation, and seems to have pushed Ukraine to take steps to stymie it. By 2019, Giuliani had taken an interest in claims of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and added demands for a Biden probe to his push for investigations that would exonerate Russias (and therefore Trumps) behavior in 2016.

By 2019, Trump and Giuliani were barely hiding their actions. Giuliani was boasting about his activities to every reporter who would listen. And Trump was directing a growing array of officials to follow Giulianis lead, despite the obvious impropriety of placing American foreign policy in the hands of his private attorney who was openly working on his political behalf.

Why did they flaunt their scheme so widely and carelessly? Most likely because they had already been doing the same thing for two years.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

Original post:
Trump Extorted Ukraine in 2017 and 2018 Before Getting Caught This Year - New York Magazine

The Democrats believe that the 2020 election is too important to be left to the voters. Its obvious that President Trump withheld defense aid to Ukraine to pressure its president to commit to the investigations that he wanted, an improper use of his power that should rightly be the focus of congressional investigation and hearings.

Where the Democrats have gotten tangled up is trying to find a justification that supports the enormous weight of impeaching and removing a president for the first time in our history.

Theyve cycled through different arguments. First, Trumps offense was said to be a quid pro quo a phrase cast aside for supposedly being too Latin for the public to understand. Then it was bribery, which has lost ground lately, presumably because of the inherent implausibility of the charge.

Now, the emphasis is on Trumps invitation to the Ukrainians to meddle and interfere in our elections.

This is posited to be an ongoing threat. Nancy Pelosi said in her statement calling on the House to draft articles of impeachment: Our democracy is what is at stake. The president leaves us no choice but to act, because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit. The president has engaged in abuse of power undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said on Meet the Press last weekend that Trump has to be impeached for posing the considerable risk that he poses to the next election. Asked if he thinks the 2020 election will be on the up-and-up, he said, I dont know. The president, based on his past performance, will do everything he can to make it not a fair election.

The gravamen of this case is that the election is too crucial to allow the incumbent president of the United States, who is leading in key battleground states and has some significant chance of winning, to run. In fact, the integrity of the election is so at risk that the US Senate should keep the public from rendering a judgment on Trumps first term or deciding between him and, say, his nemesis Joe Biden.

Of course, its possible to imagine a circumstance where a president would indeed present such a grave risk to our elections that hed have to be removed. This is a reason that we have the impeachment process in the first place.

But whats the real harm that Trumps foolhardy Ukraine adventure presented?

Lets say that Ukraine had, in response to Trump pressure, actually announced an investigation into Burisma, a shady company that had in the past been under investigation. What would have happened? Would Joe Biden have been forced from the race? Would his numbers have collapsed in Nevada and South Carolina, his best early states? Would his numbers have changed anywhere?

No, its not even clear there would have been any additional domestic political scrutiny of Hunter Bidens lucrative arrangement with Burisma, an issue that is dogging the former vice president on the campaign trail anyway because his sons payday was so clearly inappropriate.

The bottom line is that after tsk-tsking Trump for refusing to say in advance that hed accept the outcome of the 2016 election, Democrats have steadfastly refused to truly accept the 2016 result, allegedly the work of the Russians, and now are signaling they wont accept next years election, either, should they lose again.

Given their druthers, Trump wouldnt be an option for the voters. They are rushing their impeachment, in part, because they know that as November 2020 approaches, it becomes steadily less tenable to portray the man who wants to run in an election as the threat to democracy and the people who want to stop him as its champions.

With every day that passes, the Democrats risk a growing perception that they themselves are a threat to the 2020 election.

Twitter: @RichLowry

The rest is here:
Dems' impeachment absurdities are making them look like the threat to democracy - New York Post

Former U.K. Finance Minister Philip Hammond seen in July, 2019.

WIktor Szymanowicz | NurPhoto | Getty Images

The U.K.'s reputation as a pillar of political stability has certainly been tarnished by the Brexit crisis, according to the country's former finance minister, but a "sensible" departure from the European Union might eventually be seen as "democracy in action."

Speaking to CNBC's Dan Murphy at the SALT Conference in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, Philip Hammond said there can be "no doubt" that the U.K.'s reputation as a haven of stability had been "dented" by Brexit, "but there is all to play for."

His comments come just two days before voters in the U.K. head to the ballot box. The vote is likely to decide whether the world's fifth-largest economy leaves the bloc next month or moves toward another EU referendum.

"If we now demonstrate that we can deliver a sensible Brexit that satisfies the millions of people who voted to leave the European Union, that does it in a way that protects the U.K. economy, then actually, when a few years have elapsed and people look back, maybe they will see this as an example of democracy in action rather than a system in meltdown," Hammond said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has sought to frame the upcoming ballot as the "Brexit election," promising to deliver his so-called "oven-ready" divorce deal and take the country out of the EU by Jan. 31.

In contrast, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn has said that, if elected, his left-leaning Labour party would hold another EU referendum within six months. This vote would offer Britain the choice between a "credible" renegotiated leave deal including a customs union and close single market relationship with the EU or the option to remain.

Johnson's center-right Conservative government holds a commanding lead in the latest opinion polls and Hammond expects the former London mayor to secure a working parliamentary majority later this week.

"The question for me is what Boris Johnson will do with the undoubted authority that he will gain from being the first Conservative prime minister for 25 years to obtain a decent working majority in parliament."

The Houses of Parliament on October 23, 2019 in London, England.

Peter Summers | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The last Conservative Party leader to form a single-party government with a parliamentary majority was David Cameron in 2015, when the former prime minister unexpectedly secured a slender 11-seat majority in 2015. Hammond appeared to be referring to John Major's parliamentary majority of 21 seats in the 1992 general election.

"He can use that to deliver a Brexit which protects the British economy, allows him to deliver on many of his ambitions for public services, for reduced taxation. Or, he can use it to deliver a hard Brexit which means that we will struggle to deliver on those promises because the economy will be in a much worse position," Hammond said.

"So, it is going to be all up to him to decide how to interpret Brexit once we have left the European Union," he added.

Hammond, who lost the Conservative Party whip in October after opposing to leave the EU without a deal, has repeatedly clashed with Johnson over Brexit.

Last month, the former finance minister said in a letter to his constituents in Runnymede and Weybridge that it was with "great sadness" he would step down as a Member of Parliament (MP) at the upcoming election.

In an apparent swipe at more hard-line Conservative lawmakers, Hammond said he would continue to promote a "broad-based, forward-looking, pro-business and pro-markets center-right party."

Read more:
Brexit might one day be seen as 'democracy in action,' former UK finance minister says - CNBC

After the Bolivian military forced out Evo Morales as president last month, following a wave of demonstrations protesting fraud in his fourth presidential election, the right-wing Catholic politician Jeanine Aez Chavez, second vice president of the Bolivian Senate, was deemed next in the line of succession and sworn in as his replacement.

Ms. Aez pledged to bring back democracy and tranquillity, but she instead embarked on a blatantly revanchist, ruthless path, stacking her cabinet with religious conservatives bitterly opposed to Mr. Moraless Movement for Socialism, breaking ties with the left-wing governments of Cuba and Venezuela and dispatching an ambassador to a gleeful Trump administration, the first in Washington in 11 years.

She issued a decree exempting security forces from criminal prosecution when maintaining public order; the following day, eight protesters were killed in a lethal crackdown, and more have been killed since.

At the same time, Mr. Moraless legions of Indigenous followers sealed off access to their region, where he comes from, with scores of barricades and vowed to give the government no peace until he returns.

Mr. Morales became Bolivias first Indigenous leader when he was elected 14 years ago, breaking the monopoly on power of a small elite of European descent. He sharply reduced the poverty rate, expanded the economy and helped introduce a new, more equitable constitution.

Then he overreached, calling a referendum in 2016 to lift constitutional term limits he himself had supported and, when the vote went against him, getting a Constitutional Court filled with his followers to rule that term limits violated his human rights.

The flawed election on Oct. 20 followed. Early suspicions of fraud by the Organization of American States helped fuel the protests and provided cover for the military to suggest that Mr. Morales leave office.

Last week the O.A.S. issued an audit, to which Mr. Morales had agreed, substantiating those suspicions and finding a series of malicious operations aimed at altering the will expressed at the polls on Oct. 20.

The Bolivian legislature has passed a law, with support from Mr. Moraless party and signed by Ms. Aez, paving the way toward new elections within a few months, with Mr. Morales barred from running.

Mr. Morales, who is now in Cuba, has agreed to renounce his candidacy, though he continues to claim, as he told The Guardian newspaper, I have every right to it.

Renouncing any candidacy is the right way for him to help restore peace and democracy in a country for which he has done so much. There is no clear successor on the left, so Mr. Morales should focus on finding a worthy successor in his party who could hold off an inevitable challenge from the far right.

Ms. Aez, for her part, can make clear that her dubious leap from obscurity was not the coup that her opponents claim it was by abandoning her vindictive policies and fulfilling her promise to arrange a free and fair election. Anything less would mark a sad relapse to the era of serial coups and counter-coups that ravaged Bolivia, often with the clandestine participation of the C.I.A.

A continued standoff would only exacerbate the countrys deep ethnic and ideological polarization. Mr. Moraless fall thrust Bolivia into the center of a left-right struggle convulsing much of the Americas. Seeing that resolved through the democratic process, rather than outside meddling, should be the goal of the United States and Bolivias Latin American neighbors.

See the original post:
Restore Bolivian Democracy and Break Its History of Coups - The New York Times

But, while impeachment is kind of a break glass in case of emergency procedure, there's still several elements of the democratic process within it, Hermes said. It is necessary, he added, to have some means of removing a federal official before the end of their term. Hermes offers a solution to the argument that impeachment is undemocratic by pointing out the possibility of removing or changing the impeachment clause through the amendment process if people are unhappy with it.

Congress views have little to do with impeachment, Timothy Johnson, a political science and law professor, said. Members of Congress are vessels through which the Constitution acts to hold officials accountable. Its their duty, he said, to investigate if officials display signs of abuse of power. To the question of whether impeachment is democratic or undemocratic, Johnson answered, Its neither. Its actually just part of the Constitution.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, supports the impeachment inquiry. We have a constitutional duty to follow the facts, she said, and I cannot think of anything more important right now that we have to do. She calls attention to James Madisons words from the Constitutional Convention. Madison was fearful that the president might one day betray our country to a foreign power for their own gain.

This takes us back to when the Constitution was created and how it was intended to be applied. Democracy means rule by the people, according to political science professor Lisa Hilbink, whose research and teaching focus on democratization and judicial role in democracy. Hilbink pointed out its important to know who the people are and how they rule before we can define what makes a democracy.

Myers said that people often interpret democracy as whatever the majority of people voted for, and added that it is a very simplistic understanding of what it means to be a constitutional democracy.

Our democracy, Hilbink explained, was designed with the recognition that what the people of one state want may differ from what the people of another state want, and that any majority constituted at the national level should not be allowed to trample on or eliminate the rights of the minority.

This provokes the questionIs the duty of a representative to go up there and literally represent what their constituents would do, Myers said, or is the duty of the representative to exercise independent judgement and do what they think is best, or in this case what they think best fulfills the constitutional duty theyre supposed to carry out?

As has become very clear over the past several years, what keeps our democracy running smoothly are not detailed rules, Hilbink said, but rather, informal normsof honesty, respect for political rivals and opponents, and forbearance.

While the impeachment process has not changed, the society during which we apply it has. The political climate has become more polarized in recent years. Myers and Johnson both believe we cant separate political environment from impeachment attempts, which are sometimes linked to policy disagreement. During Clintons impeachment inquiry, there were 31 Democrats who voted in favor. During Trumps impeachment inquiry, one Republican spoke in favor. Today the line between Democrats and Republicans is more palpable than ever. Its rare for a politician to stray from their party, regardless of the issue. In some situations, the divide can go as far as people choosing party loyalty over listening to the facts.

Political scientists have a term that can describe the current political climate: regime cleavage. It is a divide in the population caused by disagreement over the governing systemthe constitutional democracy. What used to be arguments over partisan issues has morphed into the question of democracy itself.

Read more:
There's No I in Democracy - The Wake