Trump IMPLODES: Trump just poured rocket fuel on the impeachment fire
By JAKE SHERMAN and ANNA PALMER
09/23/2019 05:49 AM EDT
politico.com
DRIVING THE DAYIMPEACHMENT IS BECOMING more and more likely. Some will tell you it’s approaching a certainty. Think of it this way: President DONALD TRUMP has just admitted that he -- the president of the United States -- discussed getting dirt on JOE BIDEN, a domestic political adversary, with a foreign leader. And now the president is withholding the whistleblower complaint from Congress.
HERE IS WHAT TO WATCH FOR this week: Will more and more fence-sitting Democrats explicitly call for an impeachment inquiry? House Intelligence Chairman ADAM SCHIFF (D-Calif.), a top ally of House leadership, laid down an important marker Sunday: The courts are too slow and cumbersome for Democrats, and they need another remedy, and that remedy might be impeachment.
UNLIKE THE BYZANTINE RUSSIAGATE ALLEGATIONS, the latest charge -- that the president repeatedly tried to get a foreign leader seeking military aid to investigate a political opponent -- is not hard to understand. It’s about the actions of Trump himself, not his aides or former campaign nobodies. At this point, the facts are pretty much in the open and agreed to: The president has practically admitted he discussed Biden with Ukraine’s president, and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani has been open about pressing the Ukrainians to investigate Biden’s son Hunter. Now it’s up to Congress to figure out how to proceed.
SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI understands the caucus’ moods better than anyone, and her letter Sunday -- which said the president needs to hand over the whistleblower report now, or else -- was a rifle shot that should not be underestimated.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE for the Trump White House. If they don’t produce the whistleblower report within days -- maybe a week -- Democrats are going to be under extreme pressure to move toward impeachment. Thursday will be an important day to watch: That’s when Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, is testifying in an open hearing.
THE PRESIDENT SAID HE’S CONSIDERING releasing a transcript of the phone call in question. From what we heard in the last few days, that’s not going to be enough for Democrats. They want the whistleblower report, and if they don’t get it, that’s going to be problematic.
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THE DETAILS …
-- PELOSI’S WARNING … “Pelosi warns White House over whistleblower complaint,” by Sarah Ferris and Eleanor Mueller: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday delivered a blunt warning to the Trump administration over its refusal so far to share details of an explosive whistleblower complaint, amid intensifying pressure from the vocal pro-impeachment wing of the Democratic Caucus.
“Pelosi wrote in a rare weekend letter to lawmakers that President Donald Trump would enter ‘a grave new chapter of lawlessness’ if he succeeded in blocking Congress from learning about his reported conversations pressing Ukranian officials to investigate the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2020 presidential contest.
“That kind of stonewalling, she said, would lead Democrats ‘into a whole new stage of investigation’ — marking her most forceful response yet to reports that Trump sought help from a foreign government to find dirt on a political rival. Still, Pelosi did not address the single biggest question on the mind of her caucus: impeachment.” POLITICO
-- NYT: “As Trump Confirms He Discussed Biden With Ukraine, Pressure to Impeach Builds,” by Nick Fandos, Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman: “President Trump acknowledged on Sunday that he raised corruption accusations against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during a phone call with Ukraine’s leader, a stunning admission as pressure mounted on Democrats to impeach Mr. Trump over allegations he leaned on a foreign government to help damage a political rival.
“In public and in private, many Democrats said the evidence that has emerged in recent days indicating that Mr. Trump pushed the Ukrainian government to investigate Mr. Biden, and his administration’s stonewalling of attempts by Congress to learn more, were changing their calculations about whether to charge him with articles of impeachment.” NYT
-- DARREN SAMUELSOHN: “Inside the Trump legal team trying to stop impeachment before it starts”
Good Monday morning. THE WASHINGTON NATIONALS lost Sunday to the cellar-dwelling Miami Marlins. They landed at Dulles on Sunday night at 8:40 p.m., and play the Philadelphia Phillies tonight. They have five games against the Phillies this week -- a doubleheader Tuesday night -- and then three against the Cleveland Indians. The Nats are tied with the Milwaukee Brewers for a wild-card berth. |
