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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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As I tried to watch Trump's defense team, all I could think of was the pain the nation suffered under Dershowitz in his defense of OJ Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein and Ken Starr's runaway investigation of Bill Clinton. As Benjamin Wittes said "Does Ken Starr know who Ken Starr is?" The lack of self awareness is jaw dropping. #TrumpImpeachmentTrial

LEAKED BOLTON BOOK THREATENS TO UPEND SENATE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL

By Erica Werner, Paul Kane and Seung Min Kim | Published January 27 at 9:09 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 28, 2020 |

Sensational revelations from President Trump’s former national security adviser threatened to upend the Senate impeachment trial Monday, increasing the chances that senators would vote to allow witnesses in a perilous development for the White House.

Inside the Senate chamber as the trial entered its second week, Trump’s lawyers pushed forward with their defense of the president, largely ignoring the uproar caused by leaked details from a book by former national security adviser John Bolton. As part of their defense, they pivoted into a sharp line of attack on former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter over their involvement in Ukraine.

But outside the chamber, GOP senators caught unaware by the Bolton news grappled with divisions in their ranks and fresh calls from a small group of moderates who want to hear from Bolton before the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history comes to a close.

Details that became public Sunday from Bolton’s unpublished book manuscript suggest that he could provide direct evidence that Trump sought to deny security assistance to Ukraine until Kyiv announced investigations into political opponents, including the Bidens. That linkage is at the heart of House Democrats’ case that Trump abused his power in holding up the Ukraine aid for his personal political benefit and then obstructed Congress’s subsequent investigation.

“I think it’s increasingly likely that other Republicans will join those of us who think we should hear from John Bolton,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said Monday, repeatedly calling Bolton’s testimony “relevant.” “It’s important to be able to hear from John Bolton, for us to be able to make an impartial judgment.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), another key moderate, said the reports about Bolton’s unpublished manuscript “strengthen the case for witnesses and have prompted a number of conversations among my colleagues.” At least four Republicans would have to join with all Democrats for a vote to call witnesses to succeed, an outcome Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has sought to avoid because of the potential for the trial to devolve into a drawn-out mess.

Trump himself has vehemently denied any political motivation in stalling the Ukraine aid. He has insisted he never told Bolton that he was holding up the nearly $400 million in aid to force Kyiv to announce political investigations, suggesting that if Bolton said otherwise, it was only to sell books.

Trump’s attorneys devoted some of their floor time Monday to arguing that Trump acted appropriately in delaying the security aid, and that he did so because of his concerns about corruption in Ukraine and whether other nations were doing their fair share in providing security support for Ukraine.

The president’s defense team referenced the Bolton news obliquely shortly after the impeachment trial opened at 1 p.m., with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. presiding and the sergeant-at-arms intoning his customary order for senators to stay silent “on pain of imprisonment.”

“We deal with transcript evidence, we deal with publicly available information,” said Trump attorney Jay Sekulow. “We do not deal with speculation, allegations that are not based on evidentiary standards at all.” A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy, confirmed that Sekulow’s comments were a reference to the Bolton news.

Hours later, as constitutional-law professor Alan Dershowitz delivered the final arguments of the day, he briefly referenced the Bolton news as he argued that the charges against Trump do not constitute impeachable offenses. “Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense,” he said.

The signs of confusion among Senate Republicans over the Bolton revelations emerged early Monday at a news conference that was originally billed to have several Republicans but that dwindled to just Sens. Mike Braun (Ind.) and John Barrasso (Wyo.). Both senators said Trump remained on track to be acquitted, but while Barrasso dismissed the Bolton news as a “so-called blockbuster report” that contained “selective leaks,” Braun acknowledged its potency.

“I think what it does is, it’s taken an already hot topic and added some fuel to the fire,” Braun said.

Later, in a further sign of disunity, the newest Republican senator, Kelly Loeffler (Ga.), who was appointed last month, attacked Romney on Twitter. Loeffler, who has been a major donor and supporter for Romney in the past, contended Monday that he wanted to “appease the left by calling witnesses who will slander the @realDonaldTrump during their 15 minutes of fame.”

Much of the Republican lunch that preceded Monday’s trial proceedings centered on the question of witnesses, according to senators and other officials directly familiar with the meeting. The outcome of the witness vote in coming days could determine whether the trial is over by week’s end or extends into an uncertain future.

Romney spoke about the need to call additional witnesses, and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) also raised concerns. Cassidy noted that the White House has argued that there were no direct witnesses to any allegation of a quid pro quo, but that now a potential direct witness in the form of Bolton has emerged, according to an official with direct knowledge of the lunch who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussion. Cassidy declined to comment about his remarks.

Democrats say calling witnesses is necessary for a complete trial, especially since Republicans have accused Democrats of relying on hearsay. In addition to Bolton, Democrats would like to hear from acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and several other officials.

“We want Bolton. We want Mulvaney. They heard from the president,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

One conservative senator, Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), has spoken with Romney and other colleagues in recent days about possibly summoning two witnesses to the trial, one called by Republicans and one by Democrats, according to three Republican officials who spoke about the private discussions on the condition of anonymity. Toomey has argued that a “one for one” arrangement could force Democrats to accept a Republican witness against their wishes or else risk having Republicans move ahead to acquit Trump, the officials said.

However the question of witnesses is resolved, there remains little doubt that Trump will be acquitted in the end. Although it would take only a simple majority vote to call witnesses, a two-thirds vote is required for conviction.

As the debate over Bolton’s testimony and the potential need to call witnesses raged outside the Senate on Monday, Trump’s legal team inside the chamber delivered on its promise to turn its attention to Hunter Biden, and whether his role on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma gave the president good reason to ask his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate. Trump made that request in a July 25 phone call.

Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general who is a member of Trump’s defense team, laid out a detailed chronology of Hunter Biden’s five years on the board and how they dovetailed with the official actions of his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, in Ukraine, as well as the campaign to oust former prosecutor general Viktor Shokin over corruption allegations.

Bondi relied heavily on illustrating the concurrent timeline of events, noting how many days transpired between Shokin’s ouster and the elder Biden’s announcements that the United States would provide security assistance to Ukraine.

She used several clips from mainstream newspapers and television networks about Hunter Biden’s Burisma connections to reinforce the idea that there was legitimate reason to scrutinize his hefty monthly paycheck, and played video clips from witnesses in the impeachment inquiry who testified that they found Hunter Biden’s role on the Burisma board troubling.

Joe Biden’s actions with regard to Shokin were in line with official U.S. and European policy objectives. And though Bondi provided no proof that Joe Biden’s actions vis-a-vis Ukraine were influenced by trying to advantage his son, that did not seem to be the ultimate goal of raising questions about the motivations behind the Bidens’ activities.

“All we are saying is that there was a basis to talk about this, to raise this issue,” Bondi said at the close of her presentation.

As Joe Biden’s name was invoked on the Senate floor, he was campaigning in Iowa, where Democratic voters will caucus in just a week’s time. Biden is a front-runner in the Democratic primary field, which Democrats say explains Trump’s desire for Ukraine to announce investigations targeting him and his family. A Biden campaign spokesman released a statement deriding Bondi’s remarks as a discredited “conspiracy theory.”

For members of the president’s legal team, it was the second day of their defense, after they began Saturday with an abbreviated two-hour summary. Each side is allowed 24 hours to present its case, and the House Democratic impeachment managers took nearly all their allotted time last week, repeatedly pushing the trial late into the night, to the irritation of some GOP senators. Trump’s team has promised to be more brief, although its presentation was continuing into the evening hours Monday and was expected to resume Tuesday.

Last week, Trump’s attorneys had to sit quietly and watch while the House Democratic managers delivered their arguments, but Monday the roles were reversed and the seven House managers sat quietly looking on as one member of Trump’s defense team after another rose to address different aspects of the proceedings.

The first Trump lawyer to speak at length was Kenneth Starr, the former independent counsel whose expansive investigation of Bill Clinton led to Clinton’s impeachment by the House in 1998 and subsequent acquittal by the Senate. Starr talked about the constitutional basis for the impeachment process, contending that it is at risk of being abused unless today’s Senate acts to stop it. Many Democrats viewed the presentation as the height of hypocrisy.

“We are living in what I think can aptly be described as the age of impeachment,” Starr said. “. . . Impeachment has now been normalized.”

______

Karoun Demirjian, Robert Costa, Rachael Bade, John Wagner, Elise Viebeck and Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.

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"That's rich... Pam Bondi defending trump's quid pro quo. If you recall in 2013, she was the Florida's AG who received a $25,000 check from trump for her reelection campaign, then announced that her office would not be acting on the Trump University complaints filed by multiple states. Talk about a quid pro quo. Ms. Bondi needs to take a good long look in the mirror."

NWHEELS, SF, CA

BOLTON REVELATIONS ANGER REPUBLICANS, FUELING PUSH FOR IMPEACHMENT WITNESSES

The former national security adviser’s account threatened to derail Republican hopes of bringing President Trump’s impeachment trial to a quick close with his acquittal.

By Michael D. Shear and Nicholas Fandos | Published Jan. 27, 2020 Updated Jan. 28, 2020, 7:00 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted Jan 28, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — The White House and Senate Republican leaders struggled on Monday to salvage their plans for a quick acquittal of President Trump after a new account by his former national security adviser John R. Bolton corroborated a central piece of the impeachment case against him.

The newly disclosed revelations by Mr. Bolton, whose forthcoming book details how Mr. Trump conditioned military aid for Ukraine on the country’s willingness to furnish information on his political rivals, angered key Republicans and reinvigorated a bid to call witnesses. Such a move would prolong the trial and pose new dangers for the president.

A handful of Republicans appeared to be moving closer to joining Democrats in a vote to subpoena Mr. Bolton, even as their leaders insisted that doing so would only delay his inevitable acquittal.

“I think it’s increasingly likely that other Republicans will join those of us who think we should hear from John Bolton,” Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, told reporters. He later told Republican colleagues at a closed-door lunch that calling witnesses would be a wise choice politically and substantively, according to people familiar with the discussions.

As they opened the second day of their defense, Mr. Trump’s lawyers largely ignored the revelations from Mr. Bolton, reported on Sunday by The New York Times, that bolstered the abuse of power case made by the House Democratic prosecutors.

Instead, the White House team is doubling down on a defense that is directly contradicted by the account in Mr. Bolton’s book, due out in March. Mr. Trump’s lawyers told senators that no evidence existed tying the president’s decision to withhold security aid from Ukraine to his insistence on the investigations. They say the investigations were requested out of a concern for corruption in Ukraine.

“Anyone who spoke with the president said that the president made clear that there was no linkage between security assistance and investigations,” said Michael Purpura, the deputy White House counsel.

Mr. Trump’s legal team also sought to turn the Democrats’ accusations on their head.

They defended and played down the role of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer who was at the center of Mr. Trump’s Ukraine pressure campaign, calling him a “shiny object” Democrats were brandishing to distract from a weak case. They sought to raise doubts about former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, suggesting they were corrupt.

And they continued to argue that Mr. Trump’s actions were far from impeachable.

Alan M. Dershowitz, a celebrity Harvard law professor, argued that the Constitution holds that impeachment is for “criminal-like behavior,” telling senators that the country’s founders “would have explicitly rejected such vague terms as ‘abuse of power’ and ‘obstruction of Congress’ as among the enumerated and defined criteria for impeaching the president.”

The theory has been rejected by most constitutional scholars.

As evening set in, Mr. Dershowitz made the legal team’s only reference to Mr. Bolton, telling senators that the description of Mr. Trump’s actions in his manuscript “would not constitute an impeachable offense.”

He added, “Let me repeat: Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power, or an impeachable offense.”

Behind closed doors, Republicans were singularly focused on the former national security adviser’s account, which stoked turmoil in their ranks and opened cracks in their near monolithic support for the White House strategy of denying witnesses and rushing toward a final verdict, almost certain to be an acquittal.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, sought to calm his colleagues at the private lunch, telling them to “take a deep breath” and not to leap to conclusions about how to proceed.

But according to people familiar with Mr. McConnell’s thinking, he was angry at having been blindsided by the White House about Mr. Bolton’s manuscript, which aides there have had since late December. The leader put out a statement saying that he “did not have any advance notice” of Mr. Bolton’s account.

Just before the trial got underway on Monday, Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, told colleagues that he might be willing to support calling witnesses as long as the roster would include someone friendlier to Mr. Trump’s case, like Hunter Biden, according to people familiar with the gathering who were not authorized to discuss it. The idea appeared to be gaining broader currency among Republicans.

“My expectation is that were there to be testimony from Mr. Bolton, there would be testimony for someone on the defense side as well,” Mr. Romney said.

So far, only Mr. Romney had publicly committed to voting in favor of new witnesses.

But even Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and usually a reliable Trump ally, said that Mr. Bolton “may be a relevant witness” and that he would like to see a copy of Mr. Bolton’s manuscript.

At the White House, Mr. Trump raged throughout the morning at Mr. Bolton, accusing him of lying. Hosting Israeli leaders, the president told reporters that he had not seen the manuscript of the former adviser’s book but disputed its claims as “false.”

In a series of early-morning tweets hours before the trial resumed, the president accused Mr. Bolton of telling stories “only to sell a book” and defended his actions toward Ukraine as perfectly appropriate.

“I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens,” President Trump wrote just after midnight.

But Mr. Trump later complained to associates that the presentations from his defense team were boring.

As the session progressed, Mr. Trump’s lawyers began their promised assault on Mr. Biden and his son, asserting that Mr. Trump demanded investigations of them because there was significant evidence that they were corrupt.

They methodically sought to undermine the case that House managers delivered over more than 22 hours of arguments last week. They argued that Mr. Trump said nothing wrong on a July 25 call with the president of Ukraine, never sought to leverage an Oval Office meeting, and did more to support Ukraine against Russian aggression than previous presidents.

“The managers have not met their burden, and these articles of impeachment must be rejected,” Eric Herschmann, one of the president’s lawyers, told senators.

In a somewhat improbable echo of the last presidential impeachment trial, Ken Starr, who relentlessly pursued President Bill Clinton for lying about an extramarital affair with a young aide, appeared before the Senate to defend Mr. Trump. He argued that the president committed no impeachable offense and urged senators to “restore our constitutional and historical traditions,” in which impeachment was rare.

“Like war, impeachment is hell,” Mr. Starr told senators, casting himself as a skeptic of the constitutional remedy that he enthusiastically pursued 21 years ago. “Or at least, presidential impeachment is hell.”

While it is not clear that Republicans will vote to call additional witnesses when they vote on the issue this week, the revelations from Mr. Bolton appeared to shift the dynamic that had taken hold at the end of last week’s arguments, when it appeared unlikely that Democrats would win the support of the four Republicans they need to force the issue.

On Monday, Democrats said they were newly optimistic that the momentum of the trial was pushing toward a vote for witnesses and documents, and they worked to increase the pressure on hesitant Republicans to embrace the moves.

“It boils down to one thing: we have a witness with firsthand evidence of the president’s actions for which he is on trial,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. “He is ready and willing to testify. How can Senate Republicans not vote to call that witness and request his documents?”

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who had previously indicated she would most likely support additional witnesses, said the details in Mr. Bolton’s book “strengthen the case for witnesses and have prompted a number of conversations among my colleagues.” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said she was “curious” about what Mr. Bolton would say, but gave no hint of how she would vote on the matter.

But Republican leaders played down the significance of Mr. Bolton’s account.

“The best I can tell from what’s reported in The New York Times, it is nothing different from what we have already heard,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said on Fox News.

Mr. Herschmann and Pam Bondi, another of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, delved deeply into Hunter Biden’s work on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, at the time his father was vice president, suggesting it was improper for him to hold the post while his father served. Ms. Bondi also noted that the elder Mr. Biden had called for the removal of prosecutor who had looked into Burisma.

“What we are saying is that there was a basis to talk about this, to raise this issue,” Ms. Bondi said.

But it was United States policy at the time that the prosecutor, who was widely regarded as corrupt, should be removed, and there was no evidence at the time of his firing that the prosecutor was actively pursuing an investigation.

In a statement on Monday, Andrew Bates, the Biden campaign’s rapid-response director, said: “Here on Planet Earth, the conspiracy theory that Bondi repeated has been conclusively refuted.”

Later, Jane Raskin, one of the president’s lawyers, called Mr. Giuliani a “colorful distraction” in the case, arguing that the House impeachment investigators did not subpoena him to testify because they did not think he would back up their claims that he was executing a shadow foreign policy.

“In this trial, in this moment, Mr. Giuliani is just a minor player — that shiny object designed to distract you,” Ms. Raskin said.

Mr. Giuliani defied a House subpoena for documents. Legal experts suggest he would have refused to disclose any of his conversations with Mr. Trump on the basis of attorney-client privilege even if called to testify. And he would surely have been a difficult witness, given his often erratic performance in televised interviews.

______

Reporting was contributed by Catie Edmondson, Maggie Haberman, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Patricia Mazzei.

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There are a lot of comments from around the world. Whether they are American diplomat or American citizens living abroad, I am reminded that the world is watching this kangaroo #TrumpImpeachmentTrial

"I continue to be deeply troubled by the dis-information that is floating around about Ukraine. The US and the EU wanted Ukraine to be approved to join NATO. Ukraine wouldn't be approved until they rooted out the pro-Putin corrupt governmental officials that were holdovers from the Yanukovych administration (Yanukovych was the Putin buddy who was deposed and fled to Russia in 2014). Victor Shokin, Yanukovych's equally corrupt prosecutor general, managed to hold onto his office after Yanukovych fled. Biden was sent on a mission specifically to get Yanukovych fired. The Ukraine Rada (Parliament) did just that. Biden was not alone in pressuring Ukraine. IMF minister Christine LeGard had already conditioned a $40 billion loan package on getting Shokin fired. Equating what Trump was doing with Zelensky with what Obama and the EU were doing with Shokin is simply preying on the fact that most Americans don't follow the news closely enough to have an informed opinion. The Trump legal team is lying in plain sight and most of the Senate is too ignorant to even realize that. Perhaps Bolton can set them straight. Sigh." SCOTT, ST. PETERSBURG FL

"I listened yesterday to the Republican defense, a defense that basically consisted of arguments of the type "is what he did bad enough for us to remove him?". What they should consider is "If he good enough to keep?" If extorting Zelensky was the only "crime" that Trump has done, I guess I could agree in some of the Republican arguments, but when put in a bigger context it should be very hard to defend a man like Donald Trump and even harder to defend him as the President of the USA." TRUTH SEEKER, PLANET EARTH

"It’s hard to know what to say isn’t it? Clearly Trump did this thing, clearly he has used the power of his office for an attempt at personal political gain and he has very clearly been obstructing justice. There is no clear defence of his position being presented by his lawyers, they don’t deny it, it will all boil down to the argument that it’s not an impeachable offence. This will set precedents for future leaders of the world to do whatever they want to do with no consequence. The rest of the world is watching this with interest, the dark players of the world watch like vultures waiting for the animal to die, the lighter players watch in horror waiting for the biggest free country to turn into an autocracy. America is setting an example in politics right now, if the right thing is not done, then democracy and freedom across the world will pay the price. Are the American people ready for the levels of mistrust, isolation and simple disappointment that will be levelled at them if Trump is aquitted?" RUSS,

UK🇬🇧

" "A handful of Republicans appeared to be moving closer to joining Democrats in a vote to subpoena Mr. Bolton, even as their leaders insisted that doing so would only delay his inevitable acquittal." In other words, even if Bolton were to testify that Trump handed the Nuclear Codes to a Russian spy, the GOP would STILL vote to acquit. So much for "Defending The Nation"!!!"

DSMESS, CALL THE BLUFF

"Ted Cruz: "the legal issue before this Senate is whether a President has the authority to investigate corruption". Maybe Mr. Cruz should read the articles of impeachment? How low can the GOP possibly go?" UB, SINGAPORE 🇸🇬

"I am embarrassed that adults are so fearful of witnesses and a legal process having its way. That is what our free society is supposed to be about, is it not? If the man is found not guilty, well, then it cannot have hurt to have heard witnesses, can it? An if he is found guilty, well, then it is surely good to have acted more in line with the famous Constitution with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and that he pays the price." STEN MOELLER, NORWAY 🇳🇴

" I don't believe, in the long run, Bolton's revelations will move the GOP needle one bit. These Senators know, far better than most us, what sort of man Trump his; they're familiar with his astounding vulgarities, his ignorance, his complete lack of morals. But it doesn't matter to them, because he has captured the base of the party, and to cross him is to ruin both your Congressional career and your value as a lobbyist after. Perhaps that's what's so infuriating about all of this. It's pure, venal self-interest that will determine the outcome." STEVEN, GEORGIA

"As a person with life-long liberal tendencies I have long been in disagreement with the political ideas of Mitt Romney and John Bolton but I salute them for putting their country before their party. If more Republicans choose to follow their lead there may be yet some hope for the Republican Party to survive. I value the two-party system wherein each party is a check on the extremities of the other. The slavish pseudo-adoration of Trump displayed by so many Republican congressmen today is destroying whatever value the Republican Party may have had in America's two-party system. Without integrity there is no respect and I find precious little integrity among Republican party members today."

CHRISTINO, WEST PALM BEACH FL

"One thing bothering me in The Times' reporting of the impeachment trial is that it's never pointed out that if trump really believed that corruption by Biden and his son ought to be investigated there are proper and effective ways to investigate - and none of these involves any announcement of investigations. Real investigations are never announced in advance because it would warn the suspects. It's clear that trump wanted a repeat of Comey's presser announcing the finding of new Clinton emails because it's likely that trump "won" the election mostly because of that one event." MARILYNN, FRANCE 🇫🇷

" Bolton should testify. Mulvaney should testify. Pompeo should testify. Guilani should testify. Frankly, I don’t care if the Bidens testify because I don’t think they have anything to offer about Trumps actions. But, whatever you think, anything that brings us closer to the truth is good. The way the Senate has chosen to proceed is a joke. I think the House made their case with or without Bolton. Although they limited the Impeachment to Ukraine, there is three years of examples of Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress with respect to Trump’s actions on a variety of matters. It’s pretty clear he has obstructed Justice as it pertains to The Mueller investigation as well. The GOP would be wise to convict and remove Trump. It may save their Party and the country. America is watching and the world is watching. To not turn over a few more stones in search of truth would be wrong and politically damaging." TOM BACKUS, MICHIGAN

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Bolton Was Concerned That Trump Did Favors for Autocratic Leaders, Book Says

The former national security adviser shared his unease with the attorney general, who cited his own worries about the president’s conversations with the leaders of Turkey and China.

By Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman | Published Jan. 27, 2020 Updated Jan. 28, 2020, 7:00 a.m. ET | New York Times | Published January 28, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, privately told Attorney General William P. Barr last year that he had concerns that President Trump was effectively granting personal favors to the autocratic leaders of Turkey and China, according to an unpublished manuscript by Mr. Bolton.

Mr. Barr responded by pointing to a pair of Justice Department investigations of companies in those countries and said he was worried that Mr. Trump had created the appearance that he had undue influence over what would typically be independent inquiries, according to the manuscript. Backing up his point, Mr. Barr mentioned conversations Mr. Trump had with the leaders, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Xi Jinping of China.

Mr. Bolton’s account underscores the fact that the unease about Mr. Trump’s seeming embrace of authoritarian leaders, long expressed by experts and his opponents, also existed among some of the senior cabinet officers entrusted by the president to carry out his foreign policy and national security agendas.

Mr. Bolton recounted his discussion with Mr. Barr in a draft of an unpublished book manuscript that he submitted nearly a month ago to the White House for review. People familiar with the manuscript described its contents on the condition of anonymity.

The book also contains an account of Mr. Trump telling Mr. Bolton in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations of political rivals, The New York Times reported on Sunday. The matter is at the heart of the articles of impeachment against the president.

Early Tuesday, the Justice Department’s spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, posted a statement on Twitter disputing aspects of Mr. Bolton’s account.

“There was no discussion of ‘personal favors’ or ‘undue influence’ on investigations, nor did Attorney General Barr state that the President’s conversations with foreign leaders was improper,” the statement said. “If this is truly what Mr. Bolton has written, then it seems he is attributing to Attorney General Barr his own current views — views with which Attorney General Barr does not agree.”

A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to comment on Mr. Barr’s conversations with Mr. Bolton. In a statement on Monday, Mr. Bolton, his publisher and his literary agency said they had not shared the manuscript with The Times.

“There was absolutely no coordination with The New York Times or anyone else regarding the appearance of information about his book, ‘The Room Where It Happened,’ at online booksellers,” Mr. Bolton, Simon & Schuster and Javelin said in a joint statement. “Any assertion to the contrary is unfounded speculation.”

Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, responded that “The Times does not discuss its sources, but I should point out that no one has questioned the accuracy of our report.”

Mr. Bolton wrote in the manuscript that Mr. Barr singled out Mr. Trump’s conversations with Mr. Xi about the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE, which agreed in 2017 to plead guilty and pay heavy fines for violating American sanctions on doing business with North Korea, Iran and other countries. A year later, Mr. Trump lifted the sanctions over objections from his own advisers and Republican lawmakers.

Mr. Barr also cited remarks Mr. Trump made to Mr. Erdogan in 2018 about the investigation of Halkbank, Turkey’s second-largest state-owned bank. The Justice Department was scrutinizing Halkbank on fraud and money-laundering charges for helping Iran evade sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department.

Mr. Erdogan had been making personal appeals to Mr. Trump to use his authority to halt any additional enforcement against the bank. In 2018, Mr. Erdogan told reporters in Turkey that Mr. Trump had promised to instruct cabinet members to follow through on the matter. The bank had hired a top Republican fund-raiser to lobby the administration on the issue.

For months, it looked as though the unusual lobbying effort might succeed; but in October, the Justice Department indicted the bank for aiding Iran. The charges were seen in part as an attempt by the administration to show that it was taking a tough line on Turkey amid an outcry over Mr. Trump’s endorsement of its incursions in Syria.

Mr. Bolton’s statements in the book align with other comments he has made since leaving the White House in September. In November, he said in a private speech that none of Mr. Trump’s advisers shared the president’s views on Turkey and that he believed Mr. Trump adopted a more permissive approach to the country because of his financial ties there, NBC News reported. Mr. Trump’s company has a property in Turkey.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly praised dictators throughout his presidency. Last year, he said, “Where’s my favorite dictator?” as he waited to meet with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Mr. Trump’s soft spot for authoritarians dates at least to his presidential campaign, when he praised Saddam Hussein for being “good” at killing terrorists and suggested that the world would be better off were Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the deposed Libyan dictator who was killed in a violent uprising in 2011, “in charge right now.” Mr. Trump then suggested the ouster of both men was ultimately worse for the Middle East because the Islamic State had filled the void.

Mr. Trump declared himself “a big fan” of Mr. Erdogan as they sat side by side in the Oval Office last fall after Mr. Trump cleared the way for Turkish forces to invade Syria, though he warned Mr. Erdogan behind the scenes against the offensive.

Of Mr. Xi, Mr. Trump has been similarly effusive. When the Chinese Communist Party eliminated term limits, allowing Mr. Xi to keep his tenure open-ended, Mr. Trump extolled the outcome.

Mr. Xi had personally asked Mr. Trump to intervene to save ZTE, which was on the brink of collapse because of tough American penalties for sanctions violations.

Lifting the sanctions on ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications giant that also serves as a geopolitical pawn for its government, most likely helped Mr. Trump negotiate with Mr. Xi in the trade war between the two countries. But Republican lawmakers and others objected to helping a Chinese company that broke the law and has been accused of posing a national security threat.

Mr. Bolton’s reputation for muscular foreign policy was always an odd fit with Mr. Trump, who often threatens excessive force but rarely reacts with it. Mr. Bolton was pleased when Mr. Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, including the United States, that the Obama administration had entered into. Other Trump advisers had urged him against it.

But Mr. Trump’s lack of action after Iranian aggression against the United States rankled Mr. Bolton.

Mr. Bolton’s book has already netted significant sales. Shortly after the disclosure of its contents on Sunday night, Amazon listed the book for purchase. By Monday evening, it was No. 17 on Amazon’s best-seller list.

______

Eric Lipton contributed reporting.

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Trump Tied Ukraine Aid to Inquiries He Sought, Bolton Book Says

Drafts of the book outline the potential testimony of the former national security adviser if he were called as a witness in the president’s impeachment trial.

By Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt | Published Jan. 26, 2020 Updated Jan. 27, 2020 | New York Times | Posted January 28, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.

The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense: that the holdup in aid was separate from Mr. Trump’s requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his perceived enemies, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, who had worked for a Ukrainian energy firm while his father was in office.

Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.

Multiple people described Mr. Bolton’s account of the Ukraine affair.

The book presents an outline of what Mr. Bolton might testify to if he is called as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial, the people said. The White House could use the pre-publication review process, which has no set time frame, to delay or even kill the book’s publication or omit key passages.

Just after midnight on Monday, Mr. Trump denied telling Mr. Bolton that the aid was tied to investigations. “If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book,” he wrote on Twitter, reprising his argument that the Ukrainians themselves felt “no pressure” and falsely asserting that the aid was released ahead of schedule.

Over dozens of pages, Mr. Bolton described how the Ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the White House in September. He described not only the president’s private disparagement of Ukraine but also new details about senior cabinet officials who have publicly tried to sidestep involvement.

For example, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani that the ambassador to Ukraine was corrupt and believed Mr. Giuliani may have been acting on behalf of other clients, Mr. Bolton wrote.

Mr. Bolton also said that after the president’s July phone call with the president of Ukraine, he raised with Attorney General William P. Barr his concerns about Mr. Giuliani, who was pursuing a shadow Ukraine policy encouraged by the president, and told Mr. Barr that the president had mentioned him on the call. A spokeswoman for Mr. Barr denied that he learned of the call from Mr. Bolton; the Justice Department has said he learned about it only in mid-August.

And the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was present for at least one phone call where the president and Mr. Giuliani discussed the ambassador, Mr. Bolton wrote. Mr. Mulvaney has told associates he would always step away when the president spoke with his lawyer to protect their attorney-client privilege.

During a previously reported May 23 meeting where top advisers and Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, briefed him about their trip to Kyiv for the inauguration of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr. Trump railed about Ukraine trying to damage him and mentioned a conspiracy theory about a hacked Democratic server, according to Mr. Bolton.

The White House did not provide responses to questions about Mr. Bolton’s assertions, and representatives for Mr. Johnson, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Mulvaney did not respond to emails and calls seeking comment on Sunday afternoon.

Mr. Bolton’s lawyer blamed the White House for the disclosure of the book’s contents. “It is clear, regrettably, from the New York Times article published today that the pre-publication review process has been corrupted and that information has been disclosed by persons other than those properly involved in reviewing the manuscript,” the lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, said Sunday night.

He said he provided a copy of the book to the White House on Dec. 30 — 12 days after Mr. Trump was impeached — to be reviewed for classified information, though, he said, Mr. Bolton believed it contained none.

The submission to the White House may have given Mr. Trump’s aides and lawyers direct insight into what Mr. Bolton would say if he were called to testify at Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial. It also intensified concerns among some of his advisers that they needed to block Mr. Bolton from testifying, according to two people familiar with their concerns.

The White House has ordered Mr. Bolton and other key officials with firsthand knowledge of Mr. Trump’s dealings not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. Mr. Bolton said in a statement this month that he would testify if subpoenaed.

[ EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE: Can Trump muzzle John Bolton?]

In recent days, some White House officials have described Mr. Bolton as a disgruntled former employee, and have said he took notes that he should have left behind when he departed the administration.

Mr. Trump told reporters last week that he did not want Mr. Bolton to testify and said that even if he simply spoke out publicly, he could damage national security.

“The problem with John is it’s a national security problem,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference in Davos, Switzerland. “He knows some of my thoughts. He knows what I think about leaders. What happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader and it’s not very positive?”

“It’s going to make the job very hard,” he added.

The Senate impeachment trial could end as early as Friday without witness testimony. Democrats in both the House and Senate have pressed for weeks to include any new witnesses and documents that did not surface during the House impeachment hearings to be fair, focusing on persuading the handful of Republican senators they would need to join them to succeed.

But a week into the trial, most lawmakers say the chances of 51 senators agreeing to call witnesses are dwindling, not growing.

Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, said the Bolton manuscript underscored the need for him to testify, and the House impeachment managers demanded after this article was published that the Senate vote to call him. “There can be no doubt now that Mr. Bolton directly contradicts the heart of the president’s defense,” they said in a statement.

Republicans, though, were mostly silent; a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, declined to comment.

Mr. Bolton would like to testify for several reasons, according to associates. He believes he has relevant information, and he has also expressed concern that if his account of the Ukraine affair emerges only after the trial, he will be accused of holding back to increase his book sales.

Mr. Bolton, 71, a fixture in conservative national security circles since his days in the Reagan administration, joined the White House in 2018 after several people recommended him to the president, including the Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson.

But Mr. Bolton and Mr. Trump soured on each other over several global crises, including Iranian aggression, Mr. Trump’s posture toward Russia and, ultimately, the Ukraine matter. Mr. Bolton was also often at odds with Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Mulvaney throughout his time in the administration.

Key to Mr. Bolton’s account about Ukraine is an exchange during a meeting in August with the president after Mr. Trump returned from vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. Mr. Bolton raised the $391 million in congressionally appropriated assistance to Ukraine for its war in the country’s east against Russian-backed separatists. Officials had frozen the aid, and a deadline was looming to begin sending it to Kyiv, Mr. Bolton noted.

He, Mr. Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper had collectively pressed the president about releasing the aid nearly a dozen times in the preceding weeks after lower-level officials who worked on Ukraine issues began complaining about the holdup, Mr. Bolton wrote. Mr. Trump had effectively rebuffed them, airing his longstanding grievances about Ukraine, which mixed legitimate efforts by some Ukrainians to back his Democratic 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, with unsupported accusations and outright conspiracy theories about the country, a key American ally.

Mr. Giuliani had also spent months stoking the president’s paranoia about the American ambassador to Ukraine at the time, Marie L. Yovanovitch, claiming that she was openly anti-Trump and needed to be dismissed. Mr. Trump had ordered her removed as early as April 2018 during a private dinner with two Giuliani associates and others, a recording of the conversation made public on Saturday showed.

In his August 2019 discussion with Mr. Bolton, the president appeared focused on the theories Mr. Giuliani had shared with him, replying to Mr. Bolton’s question that he preferred sending no assistance to Ukraine until officials had turned over all materials they had about the Russia investigation that related to Mr. Biden and supporters of Mrs. Clinton in Ukraine.

The president often hits at multiple opponents in his harangues, and he frequently lumps together the law enforcement officials who conducted the Russia inquiry with Democrats and other perceived enemies, as he appeared to do in speaking to Mr. Bolton.

Mr. Bolton also described other key moments in the pressure campaign, including Mr. Pompeo’s private acknowledgment to him last spring that Mr. Giuliani’s claims about Ms. Yovanovitch had no basis and that Mr. Giuliani may have wanted her removed because she might have been targeting his clients who had dealings in Ukraine as she sought to fight corruption.

Ms. Yovanovitch, a Canadian immigrant whose parents fled the Soviet Union and Nazis, was a well-regarded career diplomat who was known as a vigorous fighter against corruption in Ukraine. She was abruptly removed last year and told the president had lost trust in her, even though a boss assured her she had “done nothing wrong.”

Mr. Bolton also said he warned White House lawyers that Mr. Giuliani might have been leveraging his work with the president to help his private clients.

At the impeachment trial, Mr. Trump himself had hoped to have his defense call a range of people to testify who had nothing to do with his efforts related to Ukraine, including Hunter Biden, to frame the case around Democrats. But Mr. McConnell repeatedly told the president that witnesses could backfire, and the White House has followed his lead.

Mr. McConnell and other Republicans in the Senate, working in tandem with Mr. Trump’s lawyers, have spent weeks waging their own rhetorical battle to keep their colleagues within the party tent on the question of witnesses, with apparent success. Two of the four Republican senators publicly open to witness votes have sounded notes of skepticism in recent days about the wisdom of having the Senate compel testimony that the House did not get.

Since Mr. Bolton’s statement, White House advisers have floated the possibility that they could go to court to try to obtain a restraining order to stop him from speaking. Such an order would be unprecedented, but any attempt to secure it could succeed in tying up his testimony in legal limbo and scaring off Republican moderates wary of letting the trial drag on when its outcome appears clear.

_______

Katie Benner, Nicholas Fandos and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.

*********

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classicfilmfreak · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on http://www.classicfilmfreak.com/2017/10/05/the-devil-and-miss-jones-1941/

The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) starring Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn

A neglected little masterpiece full of charm and good humor.

You would be in good company with many of the characters in this little comedy, The Devil and Miss Jones. The head of the shoe division in Neeley’s department store, named, simply enough, Mary Jones (Jean Arthur), is a tower of strength, offering advice and encouragement to all. Her boyfriend, Joe O’Brien (Robert Cummings), recently fired from the store, is a labor union organizer often in need of reassurance. A darlingly sweet clerk, Elizabeth (Spring Byington, in a soft, unfussy role this time, for a change) is at the forefront in converting one of the villains in our little story.

The first of these, whom you might not at first like, is J. P. Merrick (Charles Coburn), supposedly the richest man in the world. Among his holdings is Neeley’s department store, where he poses as just another clerk to expose agitators and fire incompetents, or those who simply offend him. For those due a comeuppance, he records their names in his little “doomsday” pocket notepad.

The second villain, unredeemable as it will prove and who is Merrick’s first notepad entry to be fired, is the nasty shoe department section manager, known frostily only as “Mr. Hooper” (Edmund Gwenn, cast against his usual type of affability and benevolence).

Although The Devil and Miss Jones is an RKO film, the main title opens like a Universal movie, with Coburn, a scowl on his face and surrounded by flames, obviously the “devil” of the title, with appropriate demonic music by Roy Webb. The camera pans right, to Arthur, her halo and innocent smile accompanied by contrasting angelic music. She looks to her right, spies Coburn and blows heartily, putting out his flames and deepening his scowl.

Producer Frank Ross and screenwriter Norman Krasna (nominated for an Oscar) borrowed $600,000 from the bank to make the The Devil and Miss Jones, the first of two starring Arthur. The second and last film in the short-lived production company was A Lady Takes a Chance (1943), opposite John Wayne.

The Devil and Miss Jones opens as three limousines, viewed from a low camera beneath towering New York skyscrapers, arrive at a stately mansion. A solemn-faced businessman emerges from each of the first two cars and two from the third: Edwin Maxwell (the opera board chairman in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, 1936), Montagu Love (Henry VIII in The Prince and the Pauper, 1937); Richard Carle (Gaston in Ninotchka, 1939) and Charles Waldron (General Sternwood in The Big Sleep, 1946).

With portentous music, the large glass doors of the mansion are opened by the butler, George (S. Z. Sakall, Carl in Casablanca, 1942). He leads the quartet of gentlemen into a great hall where they sit nervously and wait . . . and wait.

Presently, J. P. Merrick enters and the four men, clearly yes-men of the first order, mull over a front-page newspaper showing an effigy of their boss during a recent union demonstration.

“I pay you a great deal,” an angry Merrick tells them, “to take care of my interests and my privacy. I want my privacy. I haven’t had my photograph in a newspaper in twenty years.”

After Merrick has abruptly dismissed the men, a detective they have hired, Thomas Higgins (Robert Emmett Keane, Burton in Boys Town, 1938), enters with a scheme to expose the department store culprits—in “two or three weeks,” after his wife has had a baby, of course. Merrick discharges him. He thinks he can assume Higgins’ name and do a better job himself, undercover, in two or three days.

Merrick arrives at work as Thomas Higgins and reports to Hooper, who immediately irritates him. Afterward, Higgins will write in his notepad, “Fire Station Manager.”

Higgins is assigned to slippers, and is quickly encouraged by Mary, head of the shoe department: “Don’t forget people can always do without slippers. They have to be convinced.”

He at first refuses to take his lunch hour, because at home he pampers a weak stomach with milk and Graham crackers and carries pepsin-flavored chewing gum in his coat pocket. But upon Mary’s insistence, he takes the hour off, asking to just sit withElizabeth, that he isn’t hungry.

After much persuasion, he reluctantly takes the tuna fish popover she offers him, her own “invention,” she says. After a bite or two, she asks him how he likes it. “I don’t know yet,” he replies. When he finishes the popover, he admits, “Tastes good.”

During the day, an irate young man, Joe O’Brien, handcuffs himself to a heating pipe, protesting the firing of him and other employees who tried to organize and announcing a union meeting that evening. He is hauled away by two store detectives.

Before all the employees, tears in her eyes, Mary gives an emotional testimonial, asking Higgins to stand as an example of how Neeley’s will discard him for a younger man. Higgins looks about, perplexed, irritated and disbelieving. Afterward, Elizabeth purrs, “You were wonderful.” He replies, “I didn’t do anything.”

When he returns home after work, he tells George no more Graham crackers: he wants a lunch of tuna fish popovers to take to work next day in a shoe box. When George protests that the chef has never made popovers, Merrick barks, “Then get one who does. If certain people can make them on a little gas strove, then that idiot downstairs ought to be able to make them.”

Next day, Elizabeth asks Mary to ask Higgins to go with her to Coney Island with Mary and Joe. He agrees when he discovers that Hooper has been taking her out. Higgins brings from his cellar a bottle of his finest wine, label removed, to impress his new-found friends, but they find it awful, preferring the “wine” made by the grandfather of Joe’s iceman, who stomps on the grapes in the bathtub with his feet. “Why didn’t he take his socks off?” Higgins surmises.

In a long sketch, Higgins wanders away from the group in search of the bathhouse where he had exchanged his street clothes for swimming attire. In trying to sell his expensive watch to make a phone call to his chauffeur, he is deemed suspicious by a policeman (Regis Toomey, Sanders in His Girl Friday, 1940) and brought before a police station sergeant (Edward McNamara, another police sergeant in Arsenic and Old Lace, 1944). Joe and Mary arrive shortly. Joe uses his legal knowledge to intimidate the policemen into releasing Higgins.

At the end of the Coney Island visit, Joe gives up on crusading for the employees and discards his list of four hundred names, those who support unionizing. Higgins hands it to Mary, who suggests he keep it.

On the return from Coney Island, Mary finds the real Higgins’ business card which the masquerading Higgins accidentally drops, identifying him as a spy for the department store. She tells a stunned Joe, who suggests she “get him” in the store the next day—and retrieve the list of names.

In a comic sequence, Mary finds the heaviest possible shoe in the stock room to use to knock out Higgins, hesitating more than once until she is saved the trouble when a heavy riding boot falls from the top shelf and renders him unconscious.

Higgins is revived and hauled to the store manager, Mr. Allison (Walter Kingsford, Dr. Walter Carew in the Dr. Kildare series, 1937-1947). Higgins speaks up for the employees, which changes Mary’s mind about him. When Allison agrees to concessions if they can prove there are four hundred employees who support unionizing, Higgins produces the list from his coat pocket. Allison reneges and insults Higgins. In a scene worthy of the Marx Brothers, Mary takes a flying leap across Allison’s desk, retrieves the list and she and Higgins run about the office, each eating half the shared list. Joe struggles with Hooper. Mary later commandeers the store intercom and calls for all employees to leave their work and unite in a protest.

From his mansion, Higgins slips unnoticed among the protesters and says he has arranged a meeting between Merrick’s board of governors and representatives of the employees. Still unaware of Higgins’ true identity, Mary, Joe and Elizabeth file into the boardroom with Higgins. The yes-men out-yes themselves in agreeing with Merrick when he supports points made by the workers.

Elizabeth is brought to tears by an insult and leans against Higgins. The board members rush to his aid. “Are you all right, Mr. Merrick?” “Are you hurt, Mr. Merrick?” Stunned by the much-delayed revelation, Elizabeth pulls away, Mary slides down the wall in a scream and Joe faints.

But all is resolved. Next scene, in an ocean liner ballroom, employees and executives dance together, Merrick and Joe with their new brides. And to a chorus of “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” sung for Merrick, everyone is off to Honolulu.

The obvious star of The Devil and Miss Jones is Charles Coburn, alternating brilliantly between the wicked Merrick—lovable, somehow, even then—and the strong but affable Higgins. He earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, although he is more than “supporting.” He would win a much-deserved Oscar two years later for The More the Merrier, also with Arthur.

Although Coburn steals the limelight in The Devil and Miss Jones, the others handle their parts well. Jean Arthur is her usual dependable self—did she ever give a weak performance? Robert Cummings’ dramatic limitations as an actor aren’t, by the nature of the comedy, here exposed, and his strongest suit as a light comedian is boyishly displayed. Spring Byington is, as said earlier, “soft” and “sweet.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnw87j_ow78

#Charles Coburn #Jean Arthur #Robert Cummings

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