Day 986 – Oh Really?

Day 986 – Oh Really?

Wednesday September 17, 2019

413 Days until the 2020 election and 495 days until the Inauguration

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting around wondering what to do next. I turned on the TV to discover that the hearing with Corey Lewandowski was about to start. I watched the first two hour of it. If you remember the old Miller Lite commercials where one group yells “Tastes Great!” and the other responds with “Less Filling!” that’s pretty much what went on. Every once in a while there would be a break and a question would be asked of Corey to which he’d reply that the White House told him not to answer. Republicans said it was all a sham, that the Dems weren’t following procedure, they had a point of order, a point of Parliamentary procedure, call for a vote, call for a roll call. They said there was no collusion with the Russians, no obstruction of justice by the president or others, and that this was a sham. (I guess that’s why they tried so hard to obstruct the meeting.) 

I have to hand it to Jerry Nadler for keeping his cool. The lead guy for the Republicans by the name of Collins it said under his name that he had been a chaplain in the Air Force. If so it’s no wonder that Christianity is in trouble. There was nothing civil or Christian about his behavior. He tried to pick ditsy little fights (“This isn’t an impeachment inquiry. It’s a House procedure.”, “You can’t let hired contractors speak, only staff.” Forgetting that the House Republicans had done the same sort of hearings, using the same sort of contractors when they were in charge.) I’m not that familiar with these kind of proceedings but Lawrence O’Donnell is because he worked on the staff on Capitol Hill and he said he’d never seen anything like it. The flagrant disregard for the norms, rules, and procedures was startling to him. He didn’t have words to describe or suggestions how to move forward. 

So, in summary, the Republicans in the opening hours managed to demonstrate how to obstruct justice. The very thing that was being investigated. They were quite successful. Corey Lewandowski’s opening statement was enough for the president to give a positive tweet about. 

Corey’s performance, and I have to call it that, was pretty much, in hindsight, what should have been anticipated. Yet, the Democratic members on the committee didn’t seem ready for it. First, he asked Chairman Nadler for the exact reference within the Mueller Report so he could look it up (and I guess “refresh his memory”) then he said he didn’t have a copy of the report and one had to be provided him, Then he took his sweet time looking it up. Then he said he wasn’t going to answer due to the White House claim of Constitutional Immunity  ( a new and novel privilege asserted by the White House). In the middle of all this Rep Collins said Nadler’s time had expired so we had to have a vote then a roll call vote on procedure. 

At some point Corey told the committee that he hadn’t read the Mueller Report. 

The core question the Democratic members were trying to get at was a note, dictated by Trump, that Lewandowska wrote down. He then had it typed up and was supposed to deliver it to Jeff Sessions the Attorney General. The note directed Sessions to un-recuse himself from the Russian investigation and to direct the Special Counsel to limit his investigation to election tampering in future elections only, and that if Sessions was unwilling to do that he was fired.

Think about this, if you haven’t already. Here a private citizen, Corey Lewandowska, was directed by the president to fire the Attorney General. I would imagine old Chaplin Collins would be jumping up and down yelling procedural impropriety if it had been Obama or Hillary doing a stunt like that. 

What did Corey do? He went on vacation. He put the letter in his safe. Later he gave the letter to someone else and told them essentially, “You do it.”

(Reminds me of the Life Cereal Ad, “I’m not going to eat it. You eat it.” “I’m not going to eat it. Let’s give it to Mikey.” Except, in this case our proverbial Mikey wouldn’t touch it either.)

In short, the letter never got delivered to Sessions.

Now this is interesting because Lewandowski was known to be Trump’s right hand man, willing to do anything for the boss. Somehow he wasn’t willing to do that. (Cue the Meatloaf music, “I’d do anything, but I won’t do that!”) 

Why was that the committee members asked?

The excuses were interesting:

“I went on vacation.”

“It wasn’t a priority for me.”

“I didn’t want to go to the Department of Justice.”

“I wanted to have a meeting with Jeff in a more relaxed atmosphere.”

“I wanted to have a meal with Jeff.”

The last three reasons were challenged as to his motive. Many asked if in fact he didn’t go to the Department of Justice because he didn’t want a log of his visit. He was asked if he didn’t want a log of his visit because what he was doing was illegal. He said he hadn’t gone to Harvard Law School so he didn’t know, but he said he never did anything illegal. When asked anything about conversations or events in the White House he claimed he couldn’t talk about them because of the White House memo.

I turned it off. A few hours later I turned it back on, just as the Republicans were arguing that the consultant that the Dems had for their thirty minutes of questioning shouldn’t be allowed to do so because he was a consultant and not a member of staff. After Jerry sat through that charade, the guy got to ask Corey questions for thirty minutes. Boy, oh boy, I see why they didn’t want him to ask Corey questions.

While the Congressional Dems seemed unorganized and not prepared this guy was. He played TV clips from Fox News, MSNBC and maybe others that showed that Lewandowski had many recollections about what went on in the White House. The questioner asked Lewandowski if he was lying to the American people on a particular segment of MSNBC or was what he said to Robert Mueller the truth. The two were mutually exclusive. Corey said he was under no obligation to tell the truth to the media (as they were liars or some such thing.) 

As far as conversations in the White House which he was not allowed, he said, to comment on, the questioner pulled up quotes from one of Corey’s books where he had a very good recollection of those meetings. 

When all was done, it was clear that Lewandowski had lied and was willing to do the president’s bidding up to, but maybe just short of committing an obvious crime. It was interesting to hear prosecutors talk about Lewandowski’s behavior. They said that the way he acted was the way a guilty person acts, not an innocent one.

Because of the way Lewandoski acted Eric Swallwell asked that Lewandowski be held in contempt of Congress. The two that didn’t show up will also be held in contempt. The problem here is that the person who has to bring charges is the Attorney General. 

In another fascinating piece of distraction, one of the Congressmen remarked that the committee was wasting its time on this sham investigation when they had so many other things to do like looking into illegal immigration and those people smuggling guns and drugs into our country (who were of course illegal immigrants.)

In other news, Elizabeth Warren held a massive rally at Washington Square in NYC. Twenty thousand is the number now being assigned to the size of the crowd. Obama had a rally there too, back when he was running for president. I’m not sure what the size of his crowd was but Warren’s was equal to or larger than Obama’s, I think.

There was also polling about how she is doing. Her numbers keep going up. She seems to be the only one whose numbers are steadily. slowly increasing. Her numbers are challenging Biden’s and if Bernie or some of the others were to drop out I think she would surpass Biden easily. Her comment “I’ve got a plan for that!” seems to be really resonating with folks. She also is talking about the future, not the past. Folks seem to like that as well.

Most Democratic voters haven’t made up their minds so there is time for someone else to climb in the polls, but for whatever reason that isn’t happening. 

As I look over the field of Democratic candidates I see a terrific cabinet.

Compare it to the candidates Trump beat to win the election. There’s really no comparison.

There was also a series of speeches on the Senate floor about gun legislation. Not surprisingly, nothing has happened. I think many people are realizing the only way to make change on things people care about is to vote the dead weight out. 

I’m hoping to see the biggest electoral victory in years. I’m hoping the Dems take the Senate and we can finally get something done for the people.

413 Days until the 2020 election and 495 days until the Inauguration

PS “I’ve seen the world from both sides now…”