In this week's incremental installment of the Trump-Russia-Ukraine Timeline we have the announcement that Connecticut Prosecutor John Durham has now opened a criminal investigation in the start of the Russia investigation.
“Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter,” reported the Times. “The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to impanel a grand jury and to file criminal charges.”
There is no indication yet of what Durham, a longtime career prosecutor, is actually investigating as a possible crime.
Exactly what he is investigating remains largely a mystery, but as AG Bill Barr's handpicked prosecutor Barr's previous statements that he "thinks there was some spying" could be key. CIA staffers had been growing alarmed and have begun to lawyer up as Durham had already begun seeking an interview with John Brennen.
Durham had previously been used by President Obama and Eric Holder to investigate the CIA in connection to the death of a detainee at Abu Ghraib due to torture. Known as "the Iceman" because his body was shown in the Abu Ghraib abuse photos on Ice, the investigation ultimately produced no indictment after over two years of investigation.
It has been nearly a decade since Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi prisoner known as "the Iceman" — for the bungled attempt to cool his body and make him look less dead — perished in CIA custody at Abu Ghraib. But now there are rumbles in Washington that the notorious case, as well as other alleged CIA abuses, could be returning to haunt the agency. TIME has learned that a prosecutor tasked with probing the CIA — John Durham, a respected, Republican-appointed U.S. Attorney from Connecticut — has begun calling witnesses before a secret federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., looking into, among other things, the lurid Nov. 4, 2003, homicide, which was documented by TIME in 2005.
Durham appears to be a career prosecutor without a partisan bent, but then the fact that he failed to find grounds for an indictment in this case which took place during the Bush Administration when there was literally no other cause of death besides the mistreatment that al-Jamadi received at the hands of the CIA might be an indicator of his priorities. We'll see.
At the same time the State Dept has officially stated, finally, that there was no "deliberate mishandling" of classified materials by the staff of Former Secretary of State HIllary Clinton.
After reviewing 33,000 emails sent to or from Clinton, investigators found that the former secretary of state’s practice of using a private email server for official work presented a security risk, but said there was no “systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information” by Clinton or her associates, according to a State Department report presented to Congress this week.
All of the emails in question were sent and received during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department, and became an issue during the 2016 presidential campaign. During that time, the FBI conducted an investigation into Clinton’s use of the server and ultimately found the then candidate had not put classified information in enough jeopardy for her to be prosecuted.
So that was a long time coming, and finally exonerates Clinton and her staff of any criminal wrongdoing.
Also this week Diplomat Bill Taylor testified in a deposition before the House Impeachment Inquiry and essentially confirmed the "Quid Pro Quo" shadow effort with Ukraine where the $391 Million in Military aid, a private meeting with Trump and also trade status were all withheld until Zelensky promised to announce that he was opening an investigation into Hunter Biden, Crowdstrike and the "DNC Server" which is supposedly located somewhere in Ukraine, although they have nothing to do with Ukraine. Also in addition to Taylor's statements reports have surfaced that a Pentagon Official also told Ukraine that the aid was being "Held" and said they should discuss it with Mick Mulvaney.
There has been the claim that Trump focus wasn't just on Biden but was on "corruption" in general by the Ukraine, however reports are that Trump has been cutting funds for Ukraine that were specifically designated for anti-corruption.
According to the Post, the Trump administration “has sought repeatedly to cut foreign aid programs tasked with combating corruption in Ukraine and elsewhere overseas” even though the White House has insisted that it is laser-focused on promoting good governance in the country.
Among other things, the White House tried to cut a program called International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement that sent $30 million to Ukraine that helped fund the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
Another key program aimed at fighting corruption, the Economic Support and Development Fund, allocated $250 million to Ukraine in 2018 — but the White House requested that funding be cut to just $145 million in 2020.
“The cuts to anti-corruption aid stand in contrast to recent claims from administration officials and the president himself about being focused on corruption in Ukraine, raising the question of why the White House has not sought a larger budgetary commitment to addressing the issue,” the Post reports. “Democrats have largely dismissed the White House’s insistence that Trump was focused on corruption, but White House officials continue to say it was a primary reason the military aid was held up.”
Because of course when Trump claims he wasn't trying to help his election in 2020 and really only cared about "corruption in Ukraine", he was lying. He clearly doesn't give a crap about Ukrainian corruption.
Republicans have responded by claiming Taylor's statements are "hearsay" and second-hand, and that he's a "Radical Unelected Bureaucrat" — although we're likely to hear from other members of the administration and also John Bolton who said that "Giuliani is like a hand-grenade that's going to blow us all up" soon — and then by storming into the SCIF to disrupt the deposition of Pentagon Official Laura Cooper, which largely made them look ridiculous.
Pretty much as ridiculous as this exchange between CNN's Poppy Harlow and Rep. Lance Gooden.
“There is zero evidence at this point that Joe Biden did anything wrong,” Harlow pointed out. “As you know, he was among so many leaders in the West calling for Shokin to be pushed out as prosecutor.”
“How do you know this?” Gooden angrily demanded.
“Because I read it,” Harlow shot back while holding up several papers. “Because I have it here. Because we fact check.”
“Did you read it in a leaked report?” he shouted back. “A leaked report that you haven’t seen? is it from the New York Times?”
“It’s not,” Harlow replied.
She then quoted from a former Bush administration official who backed up her assertion that multiple governments and institutions were putting pressure on Ukraine to fire Shokin — not just Joe Biden.
Harlow then turned back to Gooden and asked what evidence he had that Biden had committed a crime — and he proceeded to fume about unspecified “corruption.”
All of this is just plain bonkers. It's just nuts. Trump is going down, he's going to be Impeached — the only questions is whether he'll survive removal in the Senate. Generally speaking the assumption is that he won't be removed, but other than Lindsay Graham lots of the Senators are staying "mum" on the Impeachment issue and aren't saying much of anything.
If the Trump defense team is going to be the caliber of the Flash Mob who showed up in the SCIF this week, or of Rep. Gooden, Trump is in deep deep trouble.
And I don't think a pack of bogus charges cooked up by John Durham and Bill Barr, while SDNY are already closing in on their cohorts Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman, Firtash and others, are going to save him.
Here are the daily details:
October 19th —
October 20h —
October 21st —
October 22nd —
October 23rd —
- WH uses calls with House Freedom Caucus members to coordinate their impeachment strategy.
- Former AG Matt Whitaker claims "Abuse of Power" is not a crime. [It doesn't have to be to be unconstitutional, but extortion, bribery and soliciting foreign aid on an election while violating the Logan Act are all crimes.]
- Senate Dems submit a FOIA to the DOJ for information on Ukraine and the effort to probe Biden.
- Trump spews platitude about the Syria withdrawal as the cease fire is made "permanent" as long as the Kurds evacuate to 18 miles from the Turkish border.
- Firtash's lawyers diGenova and Toensing score a face-to-face meeting with Bill Barr.
- Arguments are made to the appeals court on the Trump State financial documents case, which are nearly laughed out of court as Trump attorney's argue "nothing could be done"if Trump actually did shoot someone on 5th Ave. “Local authorities couldn’t investigate, they couldn’t do anything about it?” he asked. “No,” replied a visibly annoyed Consovoy amid stifled chortles.
“Nothing could be done? That’s your position?” Chin repeated. “That is correct, that is correct,” Consovoy responded. [That's just plain crazy.]
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Kushner's apartment management firm is sued for hundred of of thousands of safety and health violations. [Slumlord Billionaire.]
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Foxites try to explain away Bill Taylor's testimony claiming he had "no first hand knowledge" that aid had been held for the announcement of investigations. [True, he heard that from Sondland.] They claim that he's a "global elitist" who doesn't like Trump and the impeachment inquiry is the "revenge of the globalists."
- Pence says Taylor's testimony shows that Trump still needs to "drain the swamp."
- Sen. Thune calls the result of Taylor's testimony "not good."
- Parnas and Fruman plead "Not Guilty"and claim that their case may involve executive privilege concerns.
- Rep. Mo Brooks yells at CNN's Manu Raju when he asks him about Taylor's testimony claiming that it "doesn't make any difference… because of the sham process that is being used."
- NYTimes reports that the Ukranian government was made aware that the aid funds were being held by a Pentagon official who discussed the issue with the Ukranians mere days after the Zelensky call saying it wasn't a "bureaucratic glitch" and that they should discuss it with Mick Mulvaney.
- Rick Perry claims that Trump is absolved because "he never mentioned Biden to me." [No, but he mentioned it to Mick Mulvaney.] Then he says the House Impeachment Inquiry is Illegal and is immediately stump to explain how.
- Republicans storm the secure Impeachment Inquiry meeting room in a stunt to complain about the "process" where they then hangout and order pizza which apparently was staged by the WH. [They order Washington's best pizza for themselves, the media gets Dominos.] Still, Republican are growing uneasy that they can't defend Trump from Impeachment. Then they try to backtrack since their stunt in the SCIF broke security protocols because they brought their cellphones with them. Also it was Trump's idea.
- Trump says the "Never Trumpers" are Human Scum.
- Reporter indicates that according to someone "close to McConnell" the odds of Trump being potentially removed are going up.
- WaPo uncovers budget docs that show that Trump administration “has sought repeatedly to cut foreign aid programs tasked with combating corruption in Ukraine and elsewhere overseas” including a program called International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement that sent $30 million to Ukraine that helped fund the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. [Whoopsie!']
- Michael Cohen may have some pertinent information on Lev Parnas.
- Trump administration admits that it held back $Billions in recovery money for Puerto Rico last summer due to a delay in publishing HUD requirements.
- House Homeland Security chairman urges Sargent at Arms to take action against the SCIF protestors.
- Kevin McCarthy accidentally confesses to Trump quid pro quo. “Quid pro quo meaning that somebody exchanged something for something else to happen,” he said. “Name me one thing that Ukraine did to release the money. Nothing.” [Uh, no.] McCarthy also claims there was no "quid pro quo" because Ukraine didnt't bend to Trump's demands [Except that Zelensky did agree to implementing the investigations during the calls and the Prosecutor has started looking into Hunter Biden.]
- A former Nunes staffer Kayshap Patel has been feeding Ukraine documents to Trump for montths.
- Cornyn shrugs off Taylor's testimony "I don't know Bill Taylor from Adam."
- Trump says he built the border wall in… Colorado.
- Pentagon Official Laura Cooper ultimately testified for 3 hours after the SCIF stunt finally ended.
- Elijah Cummings lays in state at the Capitol.
- John Durham opens a criminal investigation into Russiagate.
- MSNBC Analyst Peter Alexander argues that Giuliani could be charged with contempt of congress, campaign finance violations and conspiracy to commit bribery.
- Documents from the Trump Org appear to corroborate Summer Zervos sexual assault claims against him, including emails from Rhona Graff and calendar entries that place Trump at the Beverly Hills hotel when the assault happened.
- Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro claims the public "doesn't have a right to know" if Trump is pressuring China to investigate Biden.
October 24th —
October 25th —
October 26th —