He made the Zelenskyy call literally the day after Mueller's testimony.

I mean, that more supports my claim that he was fully liberated to do whatever the fuck id-driven idea occurred to him this entire time. But this latest mess does seem existentially rankling, and now "impeachment" really is no longer a drawn out process to threaten with.

Impeach him again.

2: No, it supports OP last. Trump was scared shitless of Mueller, that's why he was so obstructive. The day the investigation was announced Trump was ranting in his office saying "I'm fucked."

now "impeachment" really is no longer a drawn out process to threaten with.

I dunno.

Hot take: a second impeachment would definitely be a good idea, especially after Trump wins re-election, but even before.

There were two arguments for impeachment, given its inevitable failure, first time round: 1) he had committed crimes and therefore it was the right thing to do; 2) the process would act as a distraction for Trump.

Both those arguments still hold, and the (to me) unexpected defection of Mitt Romney produces a third argument, which is "it might work". After the shit he went through for voting to convict, Romney is not going to vote to acquit next time around. So now it's not 47-53, it's 48-52. And more Republicans might just join him. All it takes is a few more to do things like bring witnesses and generally run the trial in a more hostile way next time.

And even though it needs a two-thirds majority to convict, a 51-49 vote to convict is really not going to look good for Trump.

2nd 5. It's not as if high crimes are in short supply.

I'm pretty sure the New York Times headline on the Stone/Vindman stuff was something like, "This is fine."

I mean, yeah, there's a bit of hand-wringing about how Trump is "pushing the limits," but implicit in that description is a promise from the Times that it will never find that Trump has exceeded the limits.

5,6: I think the other benefit of impeachment is that it gives the media something to talk about in relation to Trump's crimes. It offers a counter-narrative the the media feel they can't supply themselves in their news columns.

This is cheerful in only the very grimmest of senses, but the four resignations over the Stone sentencing suggests that DOJ is still largely made up of people who want to do their jobs apolitically, rather than Trump apparatchiks. There may be a healthy core of the organization to rebuild from next year.

Basically it goes: Trump does a crime, Trump gets investigated, investigation reports, Trump suffers no consequences, Trump feels invulnerable, Trump does another crime, Trump gets investigated, investigation reports, Trump suffers no consequences, Trump feels invulnerable, Trump does another crime, Trump gets investigated, investigation reports, Trump suffers no consequences, Trump feels invulnerable, and so on.

Sorry to rain on the parade of the one person trying to be cheerful, but the only thing we know about that core is that it's shrunk by 4.

Related: The Senate Democrats just called asking for more money.

After the shit he went through for voting to convict, Romney is not going to vote to acquit next time around.

This is not a foregone conclusion to me.

I can't imagine the House getting it together for a second impeachment during an election year. They're all running -- some have primaries, I suppose -- and they have babies to kiss, corn dogs to eat, money to raise. Another failed impeachment may not be the best pitch among 'swing' voters in contested races.

11: AIUI 4 withdrew from the case, only 1 resigned from the DoJ.

Unfortunately, none of the Article II fanboys are capable is understanding what 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed' actually means. Hey, know what the Constitution says the President can do in "extraordinary" situations? Undeclared war? Nuke Russia? Round of people of a particular ethnicity? Nope, he has the awesome and unlimited power to convene Congress.

But only if he's a Republican.

So far a disconcertingly large percentage of Americans are either in favor or blissfully unaware of the ongoing atrocity in the white house. We're about to find out if there's any limit to that at all. I think the answer is "nope".

15: Jesse Liu (former DC US Attorney) Has now resigned from DOJ it appears.

She was subject to a really nasty two-step. Nominated for a Treasury position (and not a great one) she was going to stay through transition but Barr asked her to leave on February 1st. Then:
On the day Liu left, the Justice Department submitted a softer sentencing recommendation for Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. The new filing said prosecutors believed probation would be an appropriate sentence for Flynn. They had previously asked that he spend up to six months behind bars.
Followed by the Roger Stone follies this week; after which her nomination to Treasury was withdrawn. Reports are that Trump realized (probably was told) that she would be testifying in a few days for her confirmation process so he pulled it. Not sure that was all planned in advance (but I'm thinking Barr had it in mind).

Barr really is an astonishingly corrupt person. At same time he has been lambasting soft sentencing and bail reform by reformist DAs.

One thing I didn't really get was that there was no forewarning on the Ukraine stuff and it seems kinda obscure to me. I hate to echo a Trump henchman but, who cares about Ukraine? So I was surprised that it was the pitch we swung for. And, really, it worked as well as it could have. Contained, understandable, righteous, good media coverage. But to me, why that topic when there is tax evasion, self-dealing, paying bribes to prostitutes? Why did they do a boring one when there are sordid titillating or financial ones out there?

Anyway, because the Ukraine deal exploded on the scene with no foreshadowing, there could well be another. But my unsolicited advice is that they run one of the sexy impeachments this time (either sex or money) and see if they can't get a different audience for Impeachment: Season 2.

7: I'm pretty sure the New York Times headline on the Stone/Vindman stuff was something like, "This is fine."

Trump's War Against 'the Deep State' Enters a New Stage
The suggestion that Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman should now face punishment by the Pentagon was one sign of how determined the president is to even the scales after his impeachment.

Yes. problematic in several ways, especially the sub. "Even the scales" for fuck's sake. And written by Peter Bake their seeming go to guy for normalization and obfuscation of the bigger picture. (And most notoriously the author of the "cloud lifted*" piece based only on Barr's lying precis of the Mueller report.

*I know reporters don't choose headlines but fuck that shit...the public does not know or care. And that headline I believe (maybe the story) ridiculously ascribed things to the report rather than liar Barr.

The amount of rope a vindictive corrupt white guy from the DC establishment like Barr is given versus say Loretta Lynch is breathtaking.

How is it three years into this presidency and still no one has managed to get his fucking tax returns?

New York is begging the House to take them. WHY AREN'T THEY?!?!?!?

I would love to see Liu (or even Mueller for God's sake) come out with a "the pigfuckers fucked big time; don't let it happen to you" piece. No that it would probably have a big impact and it would be very insidery baseball but holy shit. But I do thin they would have more impact than more sanctimonious bullcrap from the biggest bull goose sanctimonium of them all Comey (and see my 21.last and recall his white boy contempt and suspicion of Loretta Lynch which in part led to his fuckwittery in 2016.)

It does raise the question of how to use new "never trumpers" or other problematic folks (like Bloomberg) who attack Trump.

Honestly, I think the first impeachment was necessary to do and comprehensible to most. I also think that for many low-information voters, the details of white collar crime do not register as serious.

Climate change, fixing a system that causes widespread medical bankruptcy and $6k insulin, these are visible priorities that make sense for democrats. Nailing DJT for cheating to clandestinely pardon a crony whose crime was lying and peddling information is not a winning headline. I think that's unfortunate because this (for my friends, the best; for my enemies, the law!) is the next step to real despotic rule. But I recognize that my opinion on this is a weird outlier in the US.

I saw some analysis that said that in authoritarian minds, the natural order of things is that the Big Daddy gets what he wants, and all the stories about paying off prostitutes and cheating on taxes fall naturally into that order. So they aren't interesting to authoritarians (because they are Dog Bites Man). I suppose that could be true and that would contradict my 24. But still, why aren't they having a sex and money Impeachment? People watch sex and money things.

Also, I worry that if Judge Jackson (is that her name?) sentenced Roger Stone, then he could be pardoned by Trump. Can she drag it out until after January? Or is there no process constraint on when Trump can pardon him?

26: Ford pardoned Nixon before Nixon was even indicted. Also, Trump pardoned Arpaio after he was convicted, but before sentencing. So no, no process constraint on when the pardon can occur.

The point is to make it clear that Trump had to pardon him, not that Stone was not convicted if a serious crime. At least, I declare that's the point because it isn't getting better than that.

I am, of course, in favor of multiple impeachments. I wonder if, like, frequent censure resolutions might be a useful addition to more quickly respond to new abuses and make life more difficult for the brow furrowers.

If Biden gets the nomination the Ukraine impeachment will have had the added benefit of at least neutralizing that part of Trump's reelection strategy, giving the media a better frame.

> If Biden gets the nomination

How likely is that really, now?

Not very!

There were two primaries in NH, and turnout for the republican one was really high-- about 180% of turnout for Clinton in 96. Running an anti-trump isn't going to be enough for Dems.

33 seems true. Running a by-the-book DNC moderate doesn't seem like a winning strategy though. Whomever it is is going to have to draw some lines and defend them.

There were two primaries in NH, and turnout for the republican one was really high-- about 180% of turnout for Clinton in 96. Running an anti-trump isn't going to be enough for Dems.

Looks to me like less than 170% (Trump 2020 129,696; Clinton 1996 76,967), but isn't that a weird comparison to make? The general population of NH has grown by 17% in those 24 years, just for a start.

35. It is odd, it's the figure in the newspaper article that came up when I looked quickly for historical records. I guess my main point is that turnout carries more than one message (Bernie wins primaries by bringing out new voters, also DJT is still popular with his people).

Bringing out new voters is his stated strategy, but in NH he won like 1/2 his 2016 vote total there. Of course those situations are not necessarily comparable either, but I still feel he hasn't yet really proved that value proposition of his. His voters are certainly a lot younger.

He seems like a nice guy. Are young people enthralled with him because they don't see enough Jewish senior citizens in real life? In places like Iowa and New Hampshire.

I suspect young people like him at least as much for what he isn't, as what he is.

Did Clinton even have a primary challenger in 96? I think it just says that Trumpers froth harder than mid-90s centrists.

that was me.

Does Lyndon LaRouche not count anymore?

Your bubbliness was unmistakable.

43 to 42.

I know I'm not bubbly. No need to rub it in.

The NY "Stop suing me and we'll give back your Global Entry" just seems brazen in going after the broader public rather than individual opponents. Wouldn't be surprised if everyone who gave more than $X to a Democrat this cycle suddenly finds themselves audited. X=$1000? $2000?

Lets hope it's not a lower limit if you also didn't bother to pay quarterly estimates.

37. Whilst canvassing a few people have told me they aren't paying attention to the primary as their only concern is voting for the D to replace Trump in the general. There may be some swapping out of those people, normally more engaged voters, for people that are newly politically engaged by Sanders in the current primaries. That could make his turnout seem unimproved from 2016 but Sanders (or whoever) gets a boost in the general as those voters get to exercise their No More Trump vote in addition to newly activated voters.

Wait, turnout in the Republican NH primary was less than half the turnout in the Democratic NH primary and this is the basis for some kind of pro-Trump narrative? Am I misunderstanding?

Sanders has been winning, so far, but not in the dominant way that he'll need to be to overcome the doubts about his general election prospects. It's early, and maybe his Super Tuesday showing will blow away his 2016 Super Tuesday showing, in a way that his showings in Iowa and NH have not. He's had four years to work out how to do this.

I'm not really worried about Bernie's general election prospects, at least in comparison to the other Democrats. He consistently polls the best of any of them against Trump.

That he polls better than relative unknowns doesn't tell us anything about how he'll do once the onslaught from Trump begins in earnest.

He'll do as fine as any of them would.

And Joe Biden isn't exactly an unknown.

I hope these aren't famous last words here but I'm not at all concerned with Trump's onslaught against Sanders.

Which isn't to say I expect Sanders to have an easy time of it.

53 Right -- his problem isn't name recognition, it's something that can't (imo) be fixed.

52 We'll never know. We'll only see how the actual nominee does.

Way back at 20, Megan asked "who cares about Ukraine?"

I have two tracks of answers to that. The first, I will sub out to Timothy Snyder (author of Bloodlands, On Tyranny, and The Road to Unfreedom) from a twitter thread that begins here:

1/10. Ukraine matters today as it has mattered for a century: as a signal of coming political trends. A century ago, it was the center of the wars after the First World War that ended in the creation of the Soviet Union. ...

4/10. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed because Ukrainians (in every part of the country by majority) voted for independence. If Ukraine is independent, Russia has a chance not to be an empire.

5/10. Ukraine is a democracy. If it can remain so, Russians might believe that Russia, too, could be a democracy. A democratic Ukraine opens futures for Russia that Mr. Putin fears.

6/10. In the twenty-first century, Ukraine is at the center of two major challenges of contemporary politics: oligarchy and digitalization. These are the underlying issues in the trial of Mr. Trump, an aspiring oligarch who benefits from internet campaigns. ...

+++

Second, even after three years of Trump "Make up dirt about my political opponent if you want the money you need to fight Russian aggression" was so sudden and so blatant that letting it slide was not an option.

People still tap dance around how certainly Trump is a Russian asset. It's bewildering to think that our elected sovereign is in the pocket of a foreign adversary, but here we are. Watering down help to Ukraine was the only part of the Republican platform that the Trump people cared about in 2016, as was reported at the time. I know from personal experience how thoroughly Russian services will work to get their hooks into someone who might be useful down the line. There is zero chance that Trump isn't compromised. Ze. Ro.

I know from personal experience how thoroughly Russian services will work to get their hooks into someone who might be useful down the line.

Can you share any of that personal experience?

Can you share any of that personal experience?

Sure, because it's old and low-level, which is precisely the point.

So my better half used to be the Russia/post-Soviet policy person at a think tank attached to the University of Munich. There's a Russian consulate in Munich. She would get pretty regular invitations to go to lunch or have coffee with the Third Attache or whatever from the Russian consulate. She would either turn them down directly, or make clear that it would not be a one-on-one lunch, at which point the attache somehow had other plans for that day. She also got requests for pre-advance drafts of papers, or any notes that she might care to share from internal discussions at the think tank on projects related to Russia and the post-Soviet space more generally. This was a regular feature over about 10 years with the research institute.

There's another more worrying story from later. After our time in Munich, my better half led a German foundation in the South Caucasus. We arrived two weeks before the Russian-Georgian war, not that we expected war at the time. (There are probably comments on Unfogged from our brief flight to Armenia, and from my time in the Caucasus more generally.) Anyway, one of the ways that people amuse themselves in small capitals is to play spot-the-spook. As the German embassy was rather small, she figured out before too terribly long who the lead German spook in Tbilisi was.

After the job in Tbilisi ended, she went to be country director in Moscow for a famous British NGO, which turned out to be a terrible experience, and if you have the opportunity to work for their international you shouldn't is my advice. Structurally, this was the time of Putin's return to the presidency after the Medvedev interregnum, they were passing the first "foreign agents" laws about NGO activity, and squeezing civil society in general. (For reference, not long after we left, USAID was given two weeks' notice to wrap up 20 years of cooperation and get out of the contry.) So the mission that she had come to Russia to achieve was impossible. Plus some things in the office where she worked were just extremely weird. So we saw where things were headed and left for Berlin after six months in the Russian capital.

Here's where the stories intersect: a few months after we were back in Germany, my better half bumps into the German spook from Tbilisi somewhere in Berlin. This person does not seem surprised to see her and says, "Well, as prominent as you were in Tbilisi during the war, I am surprised you lasted as long in Moscow as you did."

So yes, their security services systematically reach out to people who could be useful to them at some point. They establish small exchanges of information, and work to escalate from there. If there are personal foibles to exploit, they work to do that. They also remember and hold grudges. The services are not omnipotent, they're not omnicompetent, they have that ramshackle ruthlessness that seems to characterize a lot of Russia, but the idea that someone with Trump's known personality and known business activities in Russia has not been compromised is foolish.

Not that I know any more than anyone else what to do about that.

(Presidentialized to avoid any sort of automatic content scraping, since I'm usually here with my real name.)

Should one of the administrators presidentialize 56?

59: Nah. If an actual human is reading Unfogged for the intelligence services, we've all got a lot more to worry about.

We have attracted at least two infowar services! Probably very junior though.

61: When was that? I must have been actually working, or something.

PRC, repeatedly; someone BJP adjacent in the most recent India thread.

I'm pretty sure that wasn't BJP.

56: I am totally willing to believe that Ukraine is objectively important and that you are right throughout. I don't think it is much in the minds of Americans, though.

63: Hunh. If they show up again, I guess I will have someone to ask if there are troops on the new aircraft carriers, does that make them People's Liberation Army Navy Air Force Marines?

Above my paygrade.

upthread: Podcast on Russian assassinations.

68: Yeah, I'm glad we're not at that level of attention.

I'm a little surprised there hasn't been a known attempt against Saakashvili.

56. What is the rest of the theory here? Trump is compromised by Russia and the CIA and FBI can't tell? Won't say?

Have said it to no impact. The Republican Senate is blocking any response.

70, 71: Yes, basically.

I mean, what do you do? The head of state and government is pwned, but to what operational extent is hard to know. His party, as shown by the Senate trial, does not care.

If you continue uncompromised previous policy (I'm particularly thinking in regard to Russia and Ukraine), you're undermining the institutions and the rule of law; if you enact his preferences, then you are possibly/probably doing a foreign power's bidding.

The precedent is not great.

69: Some of those cases are surprisingly petty. Like, a retired Ukrainian army technician who did some work in Georgia ten years earlier.

Interesting that at least in one poll, Bernie wins all of the one-on-one matchups among Democrats.

It would be easy to over-read this kind of polling -- it's only one poll; it's still early in the process and people aren't focused; Bernie has been a public figure for awhile now but has never been subject to serious attacks. Still, it's a pretty good-looking poll for him, and offers a noteworthy rebuttal to the concept that everybody who doesn't vote for Bernie is voting against him.

Also that Warren is the best bet to beat him but the "anyone but Bernie" forces are supporting those doing the worst against him.