Ukraine saga continues

I don't know how many threads I'll have on this Ukraine saga. I feel vindicated for focusing on the prosecutors and ambassadors, but perhaps I deserve credit only for reading the transcript of the phone call and the whistleblower's letter.

The House Democrats started private, closed-door testimony from some of those involved or with knowledge of the situation. The Republicans have been yelling foul on whatever grounds they can think of. They claimed the testimony was wrong because there was no formal vote, so the Dems held a formal vote, which passed. The Republicans said the closed-door testimony was wrong, and even tried to stage a sit-in. Starting today, the Dems have are releasing transcripts of the testimony taken so far. It's fairly damning. Trump claims that the Dems are going to change the words, but he looks like a fool on that account.

So far, a fair number of people, mostly connected to the State Department, have talked about Giuliani running his own Ukraine policy that was focused on getting dirt on the Biden family. Some of the people testifying have been:

• William Taylor
• Lt. Col. Vindman (who contacted the NSC legal branch twice)
• Marie Yovanovitch (the targeted US ambassador)

This list will probably grown. I keep hearing that what Giuliani has done and what Trump has let him do are without precedent for modern times in the State Department. I certainly don't remember dealings like this, though there were occasionally rumors of secret underhanded dealings like Bush Sr. doing something-something. What we have here is much more than rumor. 

Republicans are fighting back with all they have. They continue to push the theory that the FBI, CIA, and other departments were/are full of corrupt Dem-sympathetic officials who have illegally targeted Trump. But that's the subject of my next post.

Vindman going to testify. Traitor or patriot?

Image: nationalreview.com

Update 11/5/19. The House released transcripts of two ambassadors (Volker and Sondland). Sondland had a mysterious change in his memory, and now says that he told the Ukrainians that they'd have to announce the investigations for aid to be freed. Sondland still provided a bit of a figleaf for Trump, saying it was his 'presumption' that the aid was tied because he heard it hadn't been released. Sondland confirmed that Giuliani was the key person on Ukraine, and Trump didn't want to deal with it, but directed the ambassadors to Giuliani.

Also this quote from a federal prosecutor:

Now they've got this whole other crazy defense about there's no corrupt intent, but these guys haven't done their legal researching and corrupt intent under the law means improper purpose. And when you're using the levers of government and monies appropriated by Congress to further your own re-election effort and use it to try and bribe and extort a foreign government, I mean, what more improper purpose can you get?  - 

Update 11/7/19. Two more articles about the released transcripts. Both give an inside view of what the testimony was like. Taylor--resolutely sticking to the facts, supported by his meticulous notes. Sondland--buffeted, not knowing what to say, having trouble remembering.

Update 11/16/19. A taut, thriller-like retelling of the whistleblower's actions and many others. John Bolton has the most memorable lines: calling Giuliani a human hand-grenade and instructing an aide to tell <someone> that he isn't part of the drug deal being cooked up. 

Ukraine: Ambassadors and prosecutors

Poor Ukraine. It's not good to be Russia's neighbor. They steal elections, get ousted, then steal large amounts of territory. And you're a football between Russian and the US.

But I'll be focusing on how the US has manipulated Ukraine. Starting in 2016, it seems like the Hillary campaign went to the EU/US aligned government (the successor to the ousted Russian-aligned government) and got information that was harmful to Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman for Trump. They also helped with the Mueller investigation.

That's two strikes, especially if you're as vindictive as Trump is. However, Ukraine has lots of backers in Congress, and some in executive branch, but it seems like Trump was not going to be at all sympathetic. Trump did have the problem of looking too pro-Russian, and he figured a way to counter that. He'd give weapons to Ukraine, which is something Obama was very cautious about due to the unintended consequences of wars spreading and weapons being used in unforeseen ways.

So Trump gave Ukraine weapons, and got himself some talking points. He also got some things he didn't talk about. Ukraine stopped working with the Mueller team, shutting down all cooperation. This was back in April 2018.

The Poroshenko government starts playing nice with the Trump administration. But there's trouble in Ukraine, where corruption is rampant and unpopular. Poroshenko is voted out in April 2019, and a new government by a comedian is in. The Trump administration doesn't know if the new government will play ball the way the Poroshenko government learned to do,

Leaning on the New Government

So money stops flowing from the US to Ukraine as Trump waits to see how cooperative the new government will be. One thing Trump has on his wishlist is dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Giuliani will be the go-between and enforcer, making sure the dirty deed is getting done.

With this background, it's not hard to understand the phone call. Zelensky, the new Ukrainian president, is kissing up as hard as he can, It starts with Zelensky saying how Trump's surprise electoral win inspired his own win, and a mention of draining the swamp. Major sucking sounds from Zelensky, but what choice was he have? Zelensky is very eager to conduct whatever investigation Trump asks for, and even asks for additional information from the US that won't be helpful. Is that a coded way to ask Trump what he wants them to say?

On the other hand, he makes no promises about who his new chief prosecutor would be, even after Trump says that the last one was very good and very fair. When you read below about the chief prosecutors, you have to wonder if anyone fits that description.

The Prosecutors

The two prosecutor to be aware of are Shokin and Lutsenko. Shokin was the corrupt prosecutor in 2016 whom Biden, the EU, and the IMF forced out. Supposedly he was investigating Hunter Biden at Burisma, a gas company, but most reports say that the investigation was not ongoing.

Lutsenko was a real piece of work. He was the chief prosecutor under Poroshenko, and he lost his job when Poroshenko lost reelection. (Hmmmm, lost reelection... that sounds good.) Lutsenko accused the US ambassador of giving him a list of people and companies who couldn't be investigated or charged. But it was all a lie. That gives a sense of the ethics of this guy. It seems possible to me that both Giuliani and Trump were pushing Zelensky to re-instate him. It's no wonder since he was probably playing ball with the Trump administration, taking their direction to stop cooperating with the Mueller investigation and who knows what else. He seems to have been a good toady (to Trump) who lost his job due to Ukrainian public dissatisfaction and 'voting the crooks out.'

The Ambassadors

The most important ambassador is Marie Yovanovitch. She is the one Trump mentioned disrespectfully. Lutsenko accused her of interfering and ordering him not to investigate people, and she was removed by Trump for not playing ball. She's a career diplomat, well versed in Slavic countries, and well respected by her colleagues according to reports. Perhaps she's too professional, especially when the prez wants his personal lawyer to tell a country that they should investigate his personal political rival. Basically, she was stabbed by Trump and his dog pack.

Other ambassadors. Volker    Volker resigned.
Sondland. More serious than Trump's usual backers.

What will the Ukrainian government do now that the pressure is no longer covert? It seems to me that the Ukrainians can make their own choices. They have enough supprt from Americans and in Congress that Trump can't put the screws on them again. Relations between the US and Ukraine will be closely scrutinized. Giuliani's travel will be closely scrutinized. Trump and Giuliani's plans - simply screwed. Such poetic justice in that.

Funny bits: President Zelensky has won a not-so-nice nickname in Ukraine: Monica Zelensky. Oooh, burn. But he's also helped shine a light on the cockroach named Trump.

Giuliani is spinning like mad. He's trying to indicate that he had State Department backing, but that doesn't help the State Department look good. It just shows how many people didn't feel they could push back from Trump's vendetta. However, Giuliani may have his own vendetta against Biden. For one thing, Biden landed a punch against Guiliani during Giuliani's campaign for president. 'Every sentence he says has a noun, a verb, and 9/11.' It was quite a takedown.

Recap: A who's who from CNN. A bunch of lies from an opinion writer at Fox, including the statement (as though it's fact) that Joe Biden received over $1 billion in bribes from China.

Five amigos

Image: dailymail.co.uk

Update 10/3/19. Texts among State Departnment personnel and others show that Ukraine was being squeezed, though they were careful not to put the most damning info into texts.

Update 10/23/19. Lots of state department folks are testifying in the House. The replacement for the ousted ambassador was particularly searing. Trump called the guy a 'never-Trumper' and doesn't want to hire anymore like him. Maybe he wants clear loyalty (echoes of what Comey reported). In another (unraveling) angle, Giuliani was working with some rather unsavory characters, and probably even more still to be uncovered and possibly indicted.

Update 10/24/19. More details. Trump wanted the Ukrainians to publicly announce investigations as a sign of their strong commitment. Plus this tidbit: two dozen House GOPers tried to storm a closed hearing, and complain about it being secret. But Trey Gowdy, a former House GOPer and future lawyer to Trump, is on video saying how open hearings are useless, while private hearings are effective.

Update 11/7/19. More about the feud between Giuliani and Biden. When it might have started--from a journalist who isn't exactly a friend of Giuliani. Giuliani insulting Biden in 2012. Biden's quips about Giuliani are lost, but there is a bit of context to help the imagination.

What the Dem/FBI/DOJ conspiracy looks like

Since I follow mostly MSM outlets about the election and Russian meddling, I didn't realize there was a full-blown alternative narrative. This alternative isn't as crazy as Pizzagate because it has a number of data points (facts) supporting it.

The big picture is that the FBI, DOJ, and other intelligence agencies were run at the highest levels by personnel who wanted Dems to win the 2016 election, and who acted in dishonest, biased, and corrupt ways to help with that goal. When the Dems lost, they acted to stymy the incoming president (Trump) with fake, trumped-up charges.

These charges, if accurate, are extremely serious. We definitely don't want our government agencies deciding who wins an election. That's for the voters to decide.

The theory is that top DOJ, FBI, CIA, etc. officials were biased and acted illegally. So who is being accused:

James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr (his wife), Brennan, Loretta Lynch, Hillary Clinton, Obama, and possibly Trump appointees Rob Rosenstein and Christopher Wray. Also involved were the personnel at FusionGPS, Glenn Simpson (the CEO, I think), and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer.

The theory goes that the high-level Dems got the FBI, CIA, etc. to send adjuncts to entrap people in the Trump campaign, make it look like there were ties between Russia and Trump campaign personnel, start a witch hunt, dirty Trump, and hobble him.

Supporting this view are these actual data points:

1. Strzok and Page's text messages (depending how much weight you give them)
2. The Clinton campaign paid for Steele's research, which produced the Steele dossier.
3. Steele was also hired for a couple months by the FBI to continue his research.
4. The Steele dossier was leaked by Steele in September 2016 in an attempt to discredit Trump.
5. The Clinton campaign and the FBI hid their connections to Steele.
6. The Steele dossier was used to justify a FISA warrant to track Carter Page, a former Trump advisor.
7. FusionGPS also worked with the Russian lawyer involved in the Trump Tower meeting.
8. After Comey was fired, a friend of his leaked documents alleging that Trump made improper demands on him, and these raised concerns and calls for a special counsel. 
9. Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel on his own authority since his boss, Jeff Sessions, had recused himself.
10. One of the intelligence agencies paid Stephan Halper to meet with Trump campaign advisors and try to covertly find out information from them.
11. Several of Mueller's investigation team had ties to the Clintons and/or made donations to Dems.

These are the known, undisputed data points. In the reckoning of some theorists, this points to a conspiracy in the intelligence community to hobble Trump by accusations, leaks, and investigations.

However, this theory ignores many other data points, like the DNC being hacked, purportedly by the Russians. Of course, maybe you can't trust the intelligence agencies to be truthful about who did the hack. But there certainly was a hack, and the stolen info was disseminated by Wikileaks. So the Russia investigation cannot be a total con jobs, since the hack was real.

Also real was the Trump Tower meeting, and the Trumps' attempts to hide this meeting and what the subject was. Many connections between the Trump campaign advisors and Russians are not disputed, like contacts with the Russian embassador. Mike Flynn lost his job for lying about his connections. Jeff Session suffered well-deserved embarrassment and was forced to recuse himself as Attorney General overseeing the Russian investigation because of his amnesia related to his contacts.

This article from The American Conservative explains the two highly disparate ways of interpreting these facts, calling them 'narrative A' and 'narrative B.' Narrative A is that the security services followed up properly on reasonable suspicions, and did their patriotic duty. Narrative B is covered here--that the intelligence services conspired to spy on the Trump campaign and disable Trump as president.

I'm definitely a believer of narrative A, but I can see how the narrative B support that narrative. However, I have these good reasons to doubt that narrative:

1. Page and Strzok were lovers sending casual, low-significance texts to each other. These were simple texts, not part of a conspiracy that has no other paper or electronic trail.
2. Steele got some things right in his dossier, such as Carter Page going to Russia and having meetings with high-level officials.
7. The Russian lawyer from the Trump Tower meeting was paying FusionGPS for work it did for her. She and/or her clients paid FusionGPS; they didn't pay her, so she wasn't an employee of theirs.
8. Comey's notes, far from being unusual, are very typical documents written about any non-trivial meetings.
9. There was a huge uproar after Trump fired Comey, and even many Republicans were calling for a special counsel appointment.
10. It is not unusual for a counter-intelligence investigation to use operatives like Halper in hopes of finding out significant helpful information.
11. Mueller chose for his team people whom he had worked with in the recent past, including in private investigations. He also chose high-ranking FBI officers. This is normal. 

This leaves some fairly major suspicions, like the Clinton campaign and the FBI both hiring Steele, and then hiding this information. Come on, people, you're not going to be able to keep a secret like this. You need to come clean, and do it early.

Nonetheless, I still believe the narrative that the intelligence services needed to check out the activity of the Russians and possible connections to Trump, and they did their duty.

 Image; tennesseestar.com

Extras. Some sources supporting the conspiracy narrative - Investor's business daily: Ohr connection, IBD: McCabe 25th amendment testimony, IBD: Investigation started before election, Gateway Pundit, major pusher of the theory. GQ calls it a theory out of thin air, but I've shown that there is substantial data to support it, though not enough for me to think it's the best interpretation of the data. Barr doesn't call it treason. GOPers and their mistakes/lies about the Steele dossier and FISA warrant.

Update 7/11/21. I missed this news item from a news-heavy period during the election campaign. The Trump-loyal head of intelligence declassified some notes and memos from John Brennan about the Russia scandal. The memos/notes are from July 2016, and the declassification was 10/6/2020. In July 2016, Brennan knew about the Steele dossier, shared info about it, and said it should be used for legal proceedings, including FISA warrants, only with prior approval. I'm not sure how prior approval could be enforced, so that's dubious. Some conservative are claiming this shows Brennan thought the Steele dossier was worthless, but that's a stretch. What did Brennan really think--lots of conflicting speculation out there. 

Benghazi redux, Part I

Just before vacation, I finally realized that there is something worth exploring in the Benghazi brouhaha. Now I'll start that exploration.

Facts

Salient Point A. I think we can all agree that the Benghazi consulate wasn't well enough protected. The deaths at the consulate clearly demonstrated that on Sept. 11, 2012, so I don't think there's any controversy over that opinions.

Salient Point B. I hope we can also agree that the Obama administration explanation for what happened at Benghazi changed between its first explanation and ones in the following weeks.

I can't really say that much about Point A. I don't know how we provide security in rougher parts of the world, or how we could or should do better.

Plausible Reasons

Point B, on the other hand, intrigues me. The Obama administration had to change what it was saying about the attacks. There could be many reasons for this. Here are a few obvious ones:

1. The attacks were so sudden and violent that communication was disrupted. The people in charge of talking about it lacked accurate information about what happened. They made mistakes that they then had to correct. (Notice how much benefit-of-the-doubt is given in this explanation.)
2. The administration felt that attack would reflect very badly on them so close to the election, so they tried unsuccessfully to offer an explanation that made them look less to blame.
3. The administration wanted to cover up the situation in Benghazi, but they were caught in their lies. After being caught, they've tried to minimize the cover-up and have deflected questions about the reasons for the attempted cover-up.

More Plausible, Less Plausible

Although Option 1 could be true or partially true, I'm not believing it at this point. It's true that the situation was volatile and communication wasn't normal. However, it seems strange that some in the administration (Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State and direct boss of the ambassador who was killed) didn't participate in delivering this mistaken message. It seems possible that she knew parts of this story weren't true, and she didn't want those lies on her resume. I'm choosing this as the likeliest explanation for why Clinton wasn't delivering the administration talking points, but that job fell to Susan Rice.

Option 2, that the administration concocted a story that made them look less bad is very likely. However, it ignores whether the people formulating the concoction knew what they were trying to hide. I think they did. It wasn't campaign operatives involved in sorting out the talking points, it was the State Department, the White House, and the CIA.

So I think Option 3 is closest to the truth. The WH, State Dept, and CIA wanted to cover something up, so they figured out a cover story, but that story failed within several days.

There are other aspects that support Option 3. The administration has muzzled the survivors almost completely. That takes a lot of power or persuasion, so it's probably not within the capabilities of campaign people. I have to wonder what the survivors could tell us, and why the administration is working so hard to stop them from talking. The muzzle on the survivors is Salient Point C. I don't know what it means, but it sure seems significant.

It will take me plenty more research and several more posts to unpack my thoughts about Benghazi. I'm going to have to read some of those official reports, and that's not going to be fun. Wish me luck...

Image: examiner.com

The significance of the Obama-era scandals

Republicans may be overjoyed--they have a triad of scandals to hold against the Obama administration. There's new information on Benghazi including the edit trail of the administration talking points and testimony of personnel who dissent with administration handling of the Benghazi attacks. The IRS targeted Tea Party groups for onerous oversight, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenaed and seized phone records of many journalists of the AP.

Benghazi

Benghazi is the oldest of the scandals, dating from September 2012. The death of four Americans at a satellite diplomatic facility in Libya hasn't been the story that the GOP had hoped for. It's difficult to turn a single incident like Benghazi into a wide-ranging indictment of the administration's capability of running competent foreign relations. The Obama administration has generally been competent, with fewer Americans soldiers dying, fewer wars started in various hot spots, and not considerably more nuclear tests by North Korea. It's hard to make the case that Obama is so incompetent that we need the more war-like Republicans in office. The narrative that some conservatives wanted to push, that Obama is a welcome mat for Islamist groups, was undercut by other groups in Libya attacking the group responsible for the attack. Also there's Obama's generally aggressive posture in Pakistan and Yemen that belie the GOP position.

So how bad is Benghazi? Hillary is looking less like the firm hand at the State Department handling a myriad of international situation without any of them spinning out of control. She ignored the warnings of dangerous conditions in Benghazi, and she has no good way to apologize for it. This is a black mark against her that she can't clean up. So far her efforts have been defensive and screechy--she may need to learn how to be humble and contrite. She has to hope that her strong points are enough to compensate. That said, she has a couple years to figure out how to explain and mitigate.

The damage to Obama is his lack of engagement. His underlings are mealy-mouthed, his own role in decision-making is muddy. He doesn't know how to end the drip, drip, drip of discrediting information and doubts about the handling of the situation. The CIA is trying to make sure State gets the blame for lack of preparation, but the responsibility for the non-timely military response to the emergency is still a liability that hasn't been fully explored. But this incident, as a small tragedy, isn't large enough to sink Obama's presidency.

IRS

The IRS scandal is also less than initial reporting would have it. The IRS probably wasn't directed by the White House, so this is more a rogue operation, rather like Fast + Furious. Also, I doubt that it will seem as egregious as trying to deny tax-exempt status to a church. These groups were political, and the three salient issues were:

• How much they would have to report, such as listing their donors.
• How much paperwork and red tape the IRS piled on them.
• Whether the IRS leaked confidential information to the press or other groups.

No political group, left, right or center, is going to arouse that much sympathy or indignation, so hearings will be either boring or falsely histrionic. That won't do much damage to Obama.

The Obama administration can and should be tough on the personnel responsible for the decisions to pursue these procedures. Perhaps this will mark a new higher standard for the IRS that future administrations will have to follow.

Subpoenas of Journalists' Records

Finally, there is the seizing of the telephone records from the AP. This concerns a leak about a foiled bombing. The leak included some surprisingly detailed information, such as the existence of a double agent who came from the UK and infiltrated a terrorist group in Yemen. If CIA methods for infiltrating this al Qaeda group were compromised, that is a serious leak that deserves scrutiny and perhaps prosecution.

On the other hand, Obama administration may just be trying to intimidate news organizations. Considering that the target was the evil mainstream media, the GOP are not going to be able to spin it as much as they would want to. (Let me crank up my crocodile tears over the missed opportunity.) Obama's handling of leaks and whistleblowers may be tougher than some previous administrations, but it hasn't been severe or common enough to worry the garden-variety, non-libertarian voter. There are good arguments on both sides, which makes it hard to paint Obama as the villain. So, no legs on this scandal either.

Thin Sauce

Sometime last year, perhaps when I was researching Fast + Furious, I realized that the Obama administration has been surprisingly clean, though certainly not squeaky clean. There were some known back door deals in ACA, and it would be hard to believe that there weren't any goodies in the stimulus bill. However, the worst malfeasance was ill-considered large loans to Solyndra and other pet causes. (Or maybe it was some of the big policies, like Obamacare, that don't lend themselves to sound-bit scandal hearings.)

That leaves the GOP-controlled House without enough to investigate, so they are inflating whatever they can find. But that isn't much. There isn't a revolving door between lobbying firms/oil companies and the White House staff. The administration either isn't throwing favors at its Wall Street friends, or the favors pale compared to other times.

The lean pickings, and the insistence of the out-party on investigating something brought us the endless delving into Fast + Furious last year, and will bring us endless Benghazi this year with some droning IRS hearings mixed in. Perhaps some Republicans will weary of the attempt to weave these tiny scraps into a funeral shroud for the Obama administration, and this will end, but I doubt it. The House will have to fill its time somehow, and they certainly won't be spending the time hammering out courageous compromises on pressing issues like entitlement reform or tax reform. No, we can expect some very dull partisan soap operas. Sigh.

The Short Version

Some lessons from these scandals:

• Bringing the in-party down a few notches doesn't translate into more support for the out-party. The Dems look slightly worse, but ...
• The GOP still look like a bunch of opportunistic scoundrels who are interested primarily in power rather than sound policy.

Image: democraticunderground.com