A “Cannabis Shop,” selling hemp products, in Krakow, Poland. | Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Two-thirds of Americans support marijuana legalization, according to two recent polls.
The overwhelming majority of Americans support marijuana legalization, according to two recent surveys from major polling organizations.
The newest poll, from the Pew Research Center, found that 67 percent of Americans now back marijuana legalization, up from 62 percent in 2018. Opposition to legalization also dropped to 32 percent, down from 34 percent last year.
Pew also asked respondents about what kind of legalization they back. About 59 percent said they want medical and recreational legalization, while 32 percent said they only want medical legalization. Only 8 percent said neither.
Pew found that even a majority — 55 percent — of Republicans support legalizing pot. About 78 percent of Democrats do as well.
At the same time, another recent poll by Gallup found 66 percent of Americans support marijuana legalization, the same as Gallup found last year. Gallup also found that a majority of both Republicans and Democrats support legalization.
Marijuana legalization has had some big victories in the past few years. The first two states — Colorado and Washington — legalized in 2012. In the seven years since, nine more states and Washington, DC, have legalized, with Illinois’ legislature most recently becoming the first legislature to legalize commercial sales of marijuana for recreational uses.
Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidates have increasingly thrown their support behind legalization. With the exception of Joe Biden, the higher-polling Democrats back it.
Supporters of legalization argue that it eliminates the harms of marijuana prohibition: the hundreds of thousands of arrests around the US, the racial disparities behind those arrests, and the billions of dollars that flow from the black market for illicit marijuana to drug cartels that then use the money for violent operations around the world. All of this, legalization advocates say, will outweigh any of the potential downsides — such as increased cannabis use — that might come with legalization.
Opponents, however, claim that legalization will enable a huge marijuana industry that will market the drug irresponsibly. They point to America’s experiences with the alcohol and tobacco industries in particular, which have built their financial empires in large part on some of the heaviest consumers of their products. This could result in more people using pot, even if it leads to negative health consequences.
Ezra Claytan Daniels is the creator of the award-winning immersive graphic novel app, Upgrade Soul, and co-creator of Fantagraphics Books’ BTTM FDRS with artist Ben Passmore.
While Airbnb has been slow to implement strong verification policies, some customers are getting scammed in a big way. | Photo Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
On this episode of Reset, hear how one woman found herself in the middle of it, and how to protect yourself.
While on vacation in September 2019, reporter Allie Conti accidentally uncovered an elaborate Airbnb con when she herself became the unwitting victim of the scam.
Conti and her friends paid Airbnb $1,200 to stay at an apartment in Chicago. But just as they were about to check in, the host called to say the place was flooded. He offered another property of his instead but that alternative turned out to be pretty dingy. Even worse, the host kicked out Conti and her friends after just two days — forcing them to find a hotel at the last minute.
The host never offered them a refund. But Airbnb ended up refunding her in full after her article was published.
When Conti researched her horrible host, she found that the same people responsible for scamming her also managed Airbnb listings in eight cities across the US.
“You book a place that looks pretty nice and pretty cheap and then about five minutes before check-in you get a call about an emergency. It’s flooded, the air conditioner’s broken, something insane is happening. You don’t want to stay here. But luckily, he’s there to save the day with a nicer, bigger place. You’re going to be disoriented in a new city and just decide to do the easiest thing, which is to trust this person that you don’t know. You get it there and it’s just disgusting. But you have to request a refund before check in. So it’s too late at that point to ask for a refund through their policies as written.”
Later in the episode, New York Times tech reporter Mike Isaac breaks down what about big tech companies makes them ripe for exploitation at the hands of crafty criminals. Isaac explains that Silicon Valley’s insistence on “scaling up” and having companies like Facebook, Uber, and even Airbnb grow very big, very fast leaves little room for them to focus on “doing the proper due diligence to make everyone safe and happy.”
“That’s just the nature of being a platform. You have to get big before you can police your content. And then it becomes impossible to properly police it once you get that big. So it’s kind of a Catch-22.”
If you’ve ever rented a place or Airbnb or plan to one day, listen to the entire discussion here. Below, we’ve also shared a lightly edited transcript of Isaac’s conversation with Duhaime-Ross.
The scam that Allie discovered is actually just one of the scandals Airbnb is dealing with right now. How could these issues have been prevented? And why weren’t they?
Mike Isaac, you just came out with a book about Uber, which is perfect because Uber, like Airbnb, is an app that connects customers to people who own a thing like a car or an apartment that they can share.
So, Mike, walk us through the last couple of weeks for Airbnb?
Mike Isaac
It’s just been a series of total press PR nightmares for Airbnb the past few weeks. They had this really awful tragedy happen in this community called Arenda in Northern California, where folks had rented out an Airbnb house to basically use it as a party house for Halloween.
Some really awful shootings happened and people got killed over what should have been like a fun night. Folks essentially said that Airbnb should be more responsible in policing that.
And then Allie Conti stumbled upon this crazy widespread scam where folks are essentially getting ripped off for renting Airbnbs and then getting duped last minute when they got to the place. It was a way of scamming people out of paying a lot more than they should for these properties.
So all of that kind of blowing up at one time for the company has not been great on showing how Airbnb handles these properties.
Arielle Duhaime-Ross
How has the company responded?
Mike Isaac
They’re doing these standard corporate things — “We’re looking into this. We’re taking this seriously. We guarantee we’re going to police our platform a lot better.” They said they’re going to start verifying each property and making sure what is advertised is the correct thing that you’re going to get. But I see it as kind of a little bit of lip service.
That’s kind of a head fake, honestly. Part of the whole philosophy of becoming a platform — and Airbnb is one of the largest platforms for home sharing and renting your place in the world — is expanding as fast as possible. That means just getting people to sign up and list their houses or apartments or whatever. By design, those verifications and checks in the process are not going to be built in from the beginning just because you have to have what’s called liquidity on the platform. You have to give people as much selection as possible.
The way that technologists view it is some subsection of our properties are always going to be false or at least not properly vetted. That’s the sort of percentage that our platform is willing to deal with in order to make this work in the long run.
So I would argue that it’s kind of built by design that way initially. And then later on, once you get to a big enough scale, then they could say, “Oh, we’re going to start doing the proper due diligence to make everyone safe and happy.”
Arielle Duhaime-Ross
These policies that would be designed to keep people safe, to make sure that there’s a very low percentage of scams on the platform, they cause friction. They stop people from signing up. They’re a barrier to entry. And companies like Airbnb don’t really like that.
Mike Isaac
Yeah. Hundred percent. All of these are very interchangeable. Airbnb might have said we could have had better vetting policies upfront, but that’s the same as Uber, which has gone through this process of background checks for drivers and making it harder for people to sign up for the platform if they didn’t have identity verification.
That all comes later once they get to the scale that they are on. Uber was just kind of taking as many bodies, whether as riders or drivers on the platform as possible, just as Airbnb was trying to do.
They’re like software corollaries to this, too. You can look at YouTube in its earliest days. All they wanted was just getting as much video content on the platform as possible to grow. And that included copyrighted material that was just ripped off or was free-booted material from other networks.
That’s just the nature of being a platform. You have to get big before you can police your content. And then I would also argue that at the same time, it kind of becomes impossible to properly police it once you get that big. So it’s kind of a Catch-22.
Arielle Duhaime-Ross
What is it about that culture that these companies respond only after something bad happens and a reporter writes about it? Is this a Silicon Valley thing?
Mike Isaac
This is why I take all of these “We’re very concerned” statements with a real grain of salt because everyone who’s building these platforms knows exactly what they’re doing. And sort of by design — this is how it was meant to scale.
It’s fair to argue that you don’t know exactly how the platforms are gonna be exploited because criminals or thieves are very creative. And we’re finding new ways that Facebook is being manipulated every day. It’s hard to really predict how your platform is going to be used.
That said, there’s an acceptable amount of risk built in to building any of these things in the first place. It’s really about getting to scale and doing that as quickly as possible for it before some other competitor beats you to it.
Arielle Duhaime-Ross
I feel like these companies want to get as big as possible and as quickly as possible. Why, though, is it so important for these companies to reach scale?
Mike Isaac
There is the advantage of what’s called “a network effect,” which means the bigger you get, the more your platform reinforces its own entrenched incumbency.
Arielle Duhaime-Ross
You’re the dominant force, basically.
Mike Isaac
Facebook greatly benefits from that. The more people that use it, the more people are going to continue using it over time. Part of that is maybe the nature of the business itself.
I can’t imagine most of the folks in Silicon Valley wanting to be fine with a small, modest, and sustainable business that isn’t growing by 100 or 200 percent every other quarter. It’s just about changing the world and world domination.
For the past 15 or 20 years, that was a lauded approach to how we look at CEOs. Now that sort of view is becoming questioned in tech, which is in for this reckoning right now.
Arielle Duhaime-Ross
It’s interesting because I think that for a lot of people listening to my question, they would just go, well, money, obviously. But clearly, it’s not just money, it’s more than that?
Mike Isaac
I’m hesitant to put all this stuff on money just because a lot of the guys — and again, it’s mostly guys that are running these companies — have money right there. They’re set for life. Zuckerberg isn’t doing it for the money. He has more money than you will ever be able to spend.
It’s about conquest. It’s about history. It’s about making one’s mark on the world. Or if you want to go, Steve Jobs, the dent in the universe thing.
Really, it’s about ego.
I’m hesitant to say these businesses only care about money because I think it’s not the thing that really drives them at the end of the day. It’s about maintaining power and and beating your competitors so that you don’t have to worry about being usurped or becoming irrelevant.
Arielle Duhaime-Ross
And in order to do that, you say I’m okay with 2 or 3 percent of listings being fraudulent and customers be damned. That’s just their problem.
Mike Isaac
There’s always going to be laws being broken or crimes being committed or some “acceptable” amount of problems. It always exists.
So it might be hard to hold the platforms to a 100 percent standard of keeping everything pristine. But they also know what they’re getting into when they’re building as quickly as possible without proper verification.
So you have to come in and say, look, you need to forget worrying about growth at all costs and start protecting people on your platform, especially when it’s having real world, potentially life-threatening consequences.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs George P. Kent (left) and top US diplomat in Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr. are sworn in to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on November 13, 2019. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
William Taylor? George Kent? Marie Yovanovitch? Here’s who they are.
Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, takes center stage in the impeachment inquiry’s second public hearing on Friday. It gives her the chance to add more information to the already damaging testimony provided Wednesday by William Taylor, the current US chargé d’affaires for Ukraine, and George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s European and Eurasian affairs bureau.
House Democrats have been looking into whether President Donald Trump purposefully withheld US military aid to Ukraine and a presidential meeting in order to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open investigations into Trump’s political rivals — namely, Joe Biden.
The cast of characters has grown immensely throughout their inquiry, and now includes three ambassadors, multiple White House, State Department, and Pentagon staffers, Cabinet members, Ukrainian officials — and even the US and Ukrainian presidents.
But wait, who are all these people? As Wednesday’s hearing showed, tons of names are bandied about as lawmakers try to learn the full story of Trump’s Ukraine policy —or try to protect him from being impeached.
So we’ve put together a list of the main players you need to know in this drama, including Yovanovitch and other US officials testifying in the coming days, as well as other figures who are likely to be mentioned or whose testimony has — or may still — shape the narrative around impeachment.
We didn’t include Trump because, you know, we figured you had that covered.
The witnesses testifying, or who testified, this week
Marie Yovanovitch
Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch was the US ambassador to Ukraine between August 2016 and May of this year. A widely respected career diplomat and the highest-ranked female ambassador at the State Department, Yovanovitch was the target of Giuliani-led attacks falsely accusing her of, among other things, working to thwart President Trump’s Ukraine policy and being close to the previous Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko. That smear campaign ultimately led to her unceremonious dismissal months before her time was up.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesFormer US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch arrives at the US Capitol on October 11, 2019.
As Vox’s Andrew Prokop explains, “Because Yovanovitch was ousted back in April, she can’t shed much light on the key allegations against Trump: that he pressured Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate Joe Biden and his son in exchange for a White House meeting and withheld US military aid. All that unfolded after she left Kyiv.”
But in her closed-door testimony, Prokop notes, “she did give her side of the story about how things ended up there — explaining how US foreign policy seemed to be hijacked by political plots. She explained that at one point she was advised that if she wanted to keep her job, she should tweet that she supports Trump.”
William Taylor
William “Bill” Taylor is the current US chargé d’affaires for Ukraine — basically the acting ambassador at the US embassy in Kyiv. He took over for Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in May after she was pushed out by top Trump officials who falsely believed she was disloyal to the president. Taylor also served as the US ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009.
In his closed-door deposition with congressional investigators last month, Taylor said his “clear understanding” of the White House’s position was that US military aid and other assistance wouldn’t go to Ukraine unless Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. In other words, he believed there was a clearly proposed quid pro quo.
Saul Loeb/ AFP via Getty ImagesUkrainian Ambassador William Taylor arrives to testify before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, on November 13, 2019.
Taylor’s concerns about the White House’s Ukraine policy first came to light in text messages between him and two US diplomats in which Taylor expressed his worry that pushing the Ukrainians to open such an investigation would inappropriately involve that country in domestic US politics. The envoy, who in his testimony was very open about wanting the US to strongly support Ukraine, said he was worried that the aid-for-investigations ploy would hurt American-Ukrainian relations.
He reiterated all those points during Wednesday’s opening. He also dropped a bombshell, adding that he’d learned new information last week from a staff member about a previously unknown phone call involving Trump.
Taylor did not name the staff member but described that person’s account of going to a restaurant with Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland on July 26. The staffer witnessed Sondland call Trump and heard Trump ask Sondland, over the phone, about “investigations.” Sondland said the Ukrainians were ready to move forward with them.
It was later revealed that the staffer’s name is David Holmes, and will take part in a closed-door deposition on Friday — the same day as Yovanovitch’s hearing. It’s also been reported that a second US embassy official overheard Sondland’s call with the president.
George Kent
George Kent is the current deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s European and Eurasian affairs bureau. In that senior role, he oversees the Trump administration’s policy toward Ukraine, as well as Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Based in Washington, his job is to communicate with the US embassies in those countries and ensure that the administration’s policies are being properly carried out.
Perhaps more importantly, though, Kent also served as the senior anti-corruption coordinator in the State Department’s European bureau from 2014-15 — which means he has particularly good insight into how the US government normally goes about addressing issues of corruption in countries like Ukraine.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty ImagesGeorge Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs arrives to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, on November 13, 2019.
(Remember: Trump and his allies have argued that his demands of the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden and his decision to withhold US military aid from the country stemmed from his concerns over corruption in the country and had nothing to do with his own personal political interests.)
During his closed-door deposition, Kent explained to investigators why the White House’s “corruption” defense is bogus. “Politically related prosecutions are not the way of promoting the rule of law. They undermine the rule of law,” he said. He also detailed Rudy Giuliani’s “campaign of lies” against US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, which ultimately resulted in her early recall from Kyiv.
Kent made these same points alongside William Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, during Wednesday’s first public impeachment hearing.
The rest of the impeachment cast of characters
US officials
John Bolton: Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, he reportedly said he was concerned by what he described as the “drug deal” the administration was “cooking up” toward Ukraine.
Yuri Oreshkin/TASS via Getty ImagesFormer National Security Adviser John Bolton attends a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on August 29, 2019.
However, it’s not clear how hard he tried to stop it. Bolton’s lawyers have said he is open to testifying publicly despite White House orders not to cooperate, but he is awaiting a court decision before agreeing to do so.
Laura Cooper: She’s the Defense Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia and thus the top Pentagon official working on Ukraine. In closed-door testimony last month, she told investigators that the White House had directed the freeze on aid to Ukraine and that Kyiv was concerned by the stalled support.
She will testify in an open hearing on Wednesday.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesLaura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, arrives at the Capitol as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry on October 30, 2019.
Catherine Croft: A State Department Ukraine expert who worked for former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker. She told Congressional investigators about calls she received pushing for Yovanovitch’s dismissal as ambassador.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesCatherine Croft, a specialist on Ukraine with the State Department, arrives for a closed-door deposition in the Capitol as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry on October 30, 2019.
John Eisenberg: The National Security Council’s top lawyer to whom multiple administration officials reported their concerns about the White House’s Ukraine policy. In their testimonies, staffers said he chose to put the transcript of the problematic July 25 Trump-Zelensky call into an ultra-secret server. He has also repeatedly concluded no one involved in the quid pro quo scheme violated the law, despite noting how unorthodox it all was.
Rudy Giuliani: The former mayor of New York City is a central figure in the impeachment scandal. In his capacity as President Trump’s personal lawyer, Giuliani spearheaded the campaign to convince the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into Joe Biden and his son. He was also instrumental in pushing the false allegations against Marie Yovanovitch that ultimately ended her stint as the US ambassador to Ukraine well before her assignment was up.
Alex Wong/Getty ImagesRudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and current lawyer for President Trump, speaks to members of the media in Washington, DC, on May 30, 2018.
David Hale: Hale is the State Department’s undersecretary of state for political affairs. He’s the highest-ranking career diplomat in the foreign service. Hale reportedly told the impeachment inquiry behind closed doors that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior officials didn’t want to protect ousted US ambassador to the Ukraine Yovanovitch because it could hurt the chances of military aid flowing to Ukraine.
He will testify in a public hearing on Wednesday.
Fiona Hill: From 2017 to July 2019,Hill was a senior director on the National Security Council responsible for coordinating US policy on Europe, including the European Union, NATO, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty ImagesFiona Hill, former deputy assistant to the president and senior director for Europe and Russia on the National Security Council staff, leaves after reviewing transcripts of her deposition with the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees at the US Capitol on November 4, 2019.
Hill resigned from her position in the White House by the time the July 25 Trump-Zelensky call occurred, but in her testimony she gave a firsthand account of a tense White House meeting that took place on July 10, in the days leading up to that phone call — a meeting that’s now key to the impeachment inquiry.
At that gathering, several senior US officials — including Hill, Bolton, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland — met with top aides to Ukrainian President Zelensky to discuss, among other things, a possible Trump-Zelensky meeting, which the Ukrainians had been pushing hard for but which Bolton and Hill were reluctant to agree to at that stage.
Hill sat in on that meeting, and she testified that during the sit-down, Sondland “blurted out” that there was already an agreement in place: Ukraine’s president would get a meeting with Trump if he agreed to launch certain “investigations in the energy sector” — which she said later became clear was code for Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden served as a board member.
Bolton, Hill said, reacted badly to Sondland’s announcement — abruptly ending the meeting and later telling her, in rather colorful terms, to report it to the NSC’s lawyer, John Eisenberg. “[Bolton] told me, and this is a direct quote,” Hill said, “‘You go and tell Eisenberg that I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and [acting White House Chief of Staff Mick] Mulvaney are cooking up on this.’”
She will testify in a public hearing on Thursday.
David Holmes: Holmes is a counselor for political affairs at the US embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. He overheard US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland’s call with Trump about “investigations.”
Charles Kupperman: Kupperman was Bolton’s No. 2 at the National Security Council. Kupperman was subpoenaed by House Democrats to testify, but he asked the courts to weigh in first as he had also received orders from the White House not to testify.
Kupperman, as deputy NSA, likely had an insider’s view on what was going on in the White House with respect to Ukraine. But House Democrats dropped the subpoena last week, making it unlikely Kupperman will testify anytime soon.
Tim Morrison: Morrison joined the National Security Council when Bolton arrived at the White House and was briefly the top Ukraine official on the National Security Council, having taken over for Fiona Hill in July 2019. In his October testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Morrison essentially confirmed the quid pro quo: that Trump wanted to withhold military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political opponents.
Morrison did tell the committee he didn’t think Trump did anything illegal on the July 25 call with Zelensky, but he also said that at the time he feared if the details of the call were made public it could be politically explosive and weaken bipartisan support for Ukraine. Morrison resigned from his post at the NSC in October right before his scheduled deposition.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty ImagesFormer National Security Council official Tim Morrison arrives for a deposition for the House impeachment inquiry at the US Capitol on October 31, 2019.
Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesMichael McKinley, former senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, walks away from a closed-door hearing at the US Capitol on October 16, 2019.
Rick Perry: The current secretary of the Department of Energy, Perry led the US delegation to Ukraine for Zelensky’s inauguration in May. Along with US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland and special Ukraine representative Kurt Volker, Perry was pretty bullish on Zelensky and urged Trump to work with him. His full role in the scandal isn’t clear — Perry hasn’t testified — but Trump has blamed Perry for getting him to set up the July 25 call with Zelensky.
Perry announced he would be resigning from his post as energy secretary in October but as of now he is still in the job.
Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesSecretary of Energy Rick Perry speaks to the media in the White House driveway on October 23, 2019.
Mike Pompeo: Pompeo is the secretary of state, though his role in l’affaire Ukraine is still a bit murky. Pompeo listened in on the July 25 call between Zelensky and Trump. Based on testimony so far, Pompeo allowed Giuliani’s shadow diplomacy with Ukraine to happen under his watch at State. Several former officials who’ve testified have also expressed their disappointment over Pompeo’s failure to publicly defend career diplomats like Yovanovitch, who became collateral in the Ukraine scheme.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesSecretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to journalists after a meeting with President Trump at the White House on October 18, 2018.
Phillip Reeker: The acting assistant secretary in charge of European and Eurasian affairs at the State Department, Reeker testified to House lawmakers that he tried to defend Ambassador Yovanovitch against attacks from Trump’s political allies, specifically Giuliani. Reeker said he wanted the State Department to issue a statement of support for Yovanovitch, which ultimately didn’t happen.
Gordon Sondland: Sondland is a wealthy real-estate developer who donated to Trump’s inauguration; his reward was the plum posting of US ambassador to the European Union. Sondland was deeply involved in the shadow campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rivals.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesUS Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland arrives at the US Capitol on October 17, 2019.
In a now infamous text exchange from September 2019, William Taylor, the top diplomat in Ukraine, texted Sondland to ask whether US military aid to Ukraine and a White House meeting between Trump and Zelensky were being conditioned on Ukraine launching investigations into Trump’s political rivals. Sondland cryptically replied, “Call me.”
About a week later, Taylor again texted Sondland, writing, “As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” Sondland responded by denying that this was the case — and urging Taylor not to text about the matter anymore.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman: Vindman is an Army officer who currently serves as the director for European affairs on the National Security Council, working first under Fiona Hill and then under Tim Morrison as their point person on defense-related issues involving Russia and Ukraine.
Vindman listened in to the July 25 call and offered damning testimony to House lawmakers last month in which he described the president making a clear quid pro quo “demand” of Zelensky: a White House meeting in return for investigations into the Bidens.
Vindman also testified that the White House’s readout of that call, which Trump has repeatedly characterized as “perfect,” omits some words and phrases that were said during call. Vindman said he tried to correct it but those changes were never made.
He will testify in an open hearing on Tuesday.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesLt. Col. Alexander Vindman, director of European affairs at the National Security Council, arrives at the Capitol for his deposition as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry on October 29, 2019.
Kurt Volker: Volker was the US special representative to Ukraine negotiations, tasked with working with America’s European allies as well as the Russians to negotiate an end to the Russian war in Ukraine.
A career foreign service officer, Volker took on the Ukraine job on a part-time, voluntary basis but eventually got caught up in the White House’s shadow foreign policy toward Ukraine spearheaded by Giuliani. Volker stepped down in September amid the brewing impeachment scandal.
Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesFormer US Special Representative to Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker departs the US Capitol on October 3, 2019.
The first witness to testify in the closed-door impeachment inquiry, Volker told House lawmakers in October that he’d tried to advance US interests while simultaneously working to dilute some of Giuliani’s influence. Yet text messages show that Volker was a willing participant — along with Sondland, Perry, and Giuliani — in the not-so-official efforts to pressure Ukraine to pursue investigations.
Lawmakers presumably asked Williams what, if anything, Pence might have known about Trump’s policy toward Ukraine. According to the whistleblower complaint, Trump insisted Pence cancel his plans to attend Zelensky’s inauguration in May. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry went instead.
She will testify in an open hearing on Tuesday.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty ImagesJennifer Williams, an aide to US Vice President Mike Pence, arrives for a deposition as part of the House Impeachment inquiries on Capitol Hill on November 7, 2019.
Ukrainian officials
Oleksandr Danylyuk: Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s former national security adviser — so essentially John Bolton’s counterpart in Ukraine through September. He took part in the July 10 White House meeting in which US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland said investigations into the Bidens were important to President Trump.
Just 10 days later, Danylyuk relayed his concerns about Ukraine being used as a pawn in Trump’s reelection campaign to US Chargé d’Affaires for Ukraine Bill Taylor and US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker.
Per Taylor, Danylyuk remained in close contact with US officials. In early September, Danylyuk mentioned to National Security Council director for European affairs Tim Morrison that he was concerned about dwindling US support for Ukraine.
This spring, Lutsenko (who was still the prosecutor general at the time) gave interviews to the publication The Hill in which he announced he was opening investigations into Ukraine’s meddling into the 2016 elections (this is a debunked conspiracy theory that alleges Ukraine worked with Democrats to frame Russia for election interference) and into Burisma, the company tied to Hunter Biden.
Danil Shamkin/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesUkrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko sits before speaking in the Ukrainian parliament (Rada) in Kyiv, Ukraine, on December 5, 2017.
Lutsenko has sinceretractedmany of his allegations and said there’s no reason to investigate the Bidens.
Igor Fruman: a Ukrainian associate of Rudy Giuliani. Fruman was arrested, along with Lev Parnas, in October on charges related to campaign finance violations tied to illegal donations to US political campaigns, including a pro-Trump super PAC.Parnas and Fruman also allegedly lobbied to get Yovanovitch removed from her post in Ukraine.
Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesIgor Fruman arrives at federal court for an arraignment hearing on October 23, 2019, in New York City.
Lev Parnas: another Ukrainian associate of Giuliani’s. Parnas was arrested, along with Igor Fruman, in October on charges related to a campaign finance violations over illegal donations to US political campaigns, including a pro-Trump super PAC. Parnas and Fruman also reportedly began working with Giuliani in his campaign to get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and to get Yovanovitch removed from her post.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty ImagesLev Parnas leaves after his arraignment in the Southern District of New York court on October 23, 2019.
Parnas is now saying through a lawyer that in May he traveled to Ukraine to tell the new administration that Vice President Mike Pence wouldn’t attend Zelensky’s inauguration unless the prosecutor investigated the Bidens. He said he did so at Giuliani’s instruction — something Giuliani has denied. There’s some doubt about how legitimate this story actually is as Fruman has also denied it.
Petro Poroshenko: the Ukrainian president who was ousted in 2019 after the election of Zelensky. The New York Times reported that, as Poroshenko faced grim reelection prospects, he became more receptive to pursuing the investigations that the Trump administration wanted: one into Burisma and the other into aspects of Ukraine’s role in the 2016 elections.
Xander Heinl/Photothek via Getty ImagesUkrainian President Petro Poroshenko talks to German Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 31, 2018.
Viktor Shokin: Ukraine’s former top prosecutor who was fired in March 2016. Trump’s allies have falsely claimed that Vice President Joe Biden tried to get Shokin fired because he was investigating the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma where Biden’s son Hunter served on the board. There’s a video of Biden discussing his efforts to push Shokin out, which Trump claims is proof of a conspiracy.
Sergii Kharchenko/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty ImagesUkrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin holds his first press conference for media on February 16, 2015, in Ukraine.
But Trump is wrong. When in power, Shokin was seen as an obstacle to cracking down on corruption in Ukraine, and the investigation into Burisma had actually languished during Shokin’s tenure. What’s more, Biden’s push to get Shokin fired wasn’t Biden’s idea — it was Obama administration policy that originated at the State Department. Other Western governments and international organizations also embraced the view that Shokin had impeded efforts to crack down on graft in Ukraine and should be fired.
Volodymyr Zelensky: Zelensky was overwhelmingly elected president of Ukraine in April 2019. A former comedian, Zelensky had no political experience, though he literally played a president on TV. The newcomer rode a populist, anti-corruption message into office and in July won a majority in Ukraine’s parliament, known as the Rada, clearing the way for his agenda.
STR/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesUkrainian President VolodymyrZelensky attends a session of Ukrainian parliament (Rada) in Kiev, Ukraine, on August 29, 2019.
That parliamentary victory preceded the now-infamous July 25 phone call with Trump where the president asked Zelensky to “do us a favor though” and investigate the Bidens. Zelensky, an untested president dealing with a war with Russia in eastern Ukraine, needed US military assistance.
The central question of the impeachment investigation now is whether Trump, knowing this, withheld security aid to force Zelensky to pursue investigations into his political rivals.
Zelensky, for his part, has made it clear that he wants to stay out of the US political drama. Meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations in September, he said that Ukraine did not want to interfere in the US elections. “I think good phone call,” Zelensky told reporters of the July 25 conversation. “It was normal. We spoke about many things, and I — so I think and you read it that nobody pushed me.”
At least five people were injured, according to local officials.
At least five people were injured during a shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, on Thursday, local officials confirmed.
The suspect remains at large. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva described him as an Asian, male student in dark clothing.
This story is still developing. Here’s what we know, and don’t, so far.
What we know
Just before 8 am local time, the Santa Clarita Valley sheriff’s office tweeted that deputies were responding to reports of shots fired at Saugus High School in the city of Santa Clarita, about 30 miles north of Los Angeles.
At least five people were injured, according to the sheriff’s office. The victims are students, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex told NBC Los Angeles.
Police believe there was only one shooter, the sheriff’s office tweeted. He is believed to be an Asian, male student in dark clothing, Villanueva said.
The suspect was last seen leaving the school, according to NBC Los Angeles. Police are currently searching for him.
Nearby schools, including all schools in the William S. Hart school district, were locked down in response.
Prior to Thursday, there were 84 shootings on school grounds in 2019, according to Everytown, a gun control advocacy group.
But that hasn’t stopped prominent individuals, up to and including Donald Trump, from joining in the speculation. The day of Epstein’s death, President Trump retweeted a conservative personality who captioned a video in which he pontificates at length about his theories with “we know who did this” and the hashtags #ClintonBodyCount and #ClintonCrime family. Trump was clearer than Gosar in suggesting who he thought had Epstein killed: Bill and/or Hillary Clinton.
To understand what’s going on here, you don’t just need to know about Epstein’s former friendship with Clinton (or with Trump). You just need to understand the role that allegations of murder by the Clintons have played in right-wing fever swamps since the 1990s, beginning with the suicide of Vince Foster and continuing through to the completely random 2016 murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.
What is the “Clinton Body Count”?
According to a history and debunking first published by Snopes in 1998, the body count meme originated in 1993 with Indianapolis lawyer and militia movement activist Linda Thompson, who compiled a list of 34 people connected to the Clintons who had died and titled it, “The Clinton Body Count: Coincidence or the Kiss of Death?” William Dannemeyer, a notoriously homophobic former Congress member from Orange County, California, picked up the list, trimmed it to 24, and sent it congressional leadership in 1994 as he ran for the US Senate.
Thompson provided — by her own admission — “no direct evidence” that the Clintons were responsible for any of the deaths, and Snopes provides a comprehensive account of all of them, most of which were easily explained heart attacks, plane crashes, or suicides.
The most notable name on the list is Vince Foster, the deputy White House counsel who died by suicide on July 20, 1993. Foster was a colleague of Hillary Clinton’s at the Rose Law firm in Little Rock, Arkansas, and came to Washington, DC, as part of the crew of Arkansas loyalists who joined the Clinton administration. In the job, Foster helped conduct vetting of administration officials and said he felt like he had failed the president when Clinton’s first two picks for attorney general were forced to withdraw because of revelations that they had hired undocumented immigrants.
Foster also became wrapped up in a scandal surrounding the firing of staff in the White House travel office and in legal disputes about access to records about Hillary Clinton’s health care task force, earning him a bevy of harsh Wall Street Journal editorials.
Overwhelmed by these circumstances, and clearly struggling from depression, Foster fatally shot himself. But almost immediately, conservatives jumped on the idea that Foster was murdered. Those fanning the flames included the Journal editorial board, National Review’s Richard Brookhiser, and then-Rep. Dan Burton, who tried to do some amateur ballistics research on the case by shooting a large fruit in his backyard. Reports differ as to whether Burton shot a watermelon, a pumpkin, or a cantaloupe.
The death of Seth Rich in 2016 was the next major event fueling Clinton Body Count conspiracies. Rich was a 27-year-old Democratic National Committee staffer who was shot in what police believed to be an attempted robbery in DC. But almost as soon as he died, Clinton haters seized on his death and tried to argue that Hillary and/or Bill was responsible. After these rumors began, Julian Assange of Wikileaks gave the conspiracy theorists a motive by hinting that Rich, not Russian hackers, provided WikiLeaks with the DNC’s emails. WikiLeaks then offered a $20,000 reward for information about Rich’s death. The implication was that Rich’s killing was punishment for leaking damaging internal emails.
But for Clinton Body Count conspiracy theorists, the incoherence of the theory in the Rich case was never an impediment. The Rich theory soon became part of the broader QAnon conspiracy theory, which is too byzantine to explain in detail here but which my colleague Jane Coaston summarizes as arguing that “special counsel Robert Mueller and President Donald Trump are working together to expose thousands of cannibalistic pedophiles hidden in plain sight (including Hillary Clinton and actor Tom Hanks).” Obviously, the victims of Clinton’s cannibalistic pedophilia would be additions to the body count.
How this fits in with Epstein
The Foster, Rich, and QAnon allegations are clearly absurd. And, we should be very clear, there is no firm evidence at this juncture to suggest that Epstein was murdered, let alone murdered by people with ties to the Clinton.
According to the Daily Beast’s Emily Shugerman, Epstein visited the White House for a donor event during Bill Clinton’s presidency and met with a White House aide several times there. Shugerman also unearthed a 1995 letter from businesswoman Lynn Forester in which she said she enjoyed briefly meeting Clinton at a recent event and used her “fifteen seconds of access to discuss Jeffrey Epstein and currency stabilization.”
Soon after Bill Clinton concluded his presidency in 2001, the ties deepened. Clinton entered a new stage of his career, in which he’d travel the world, launch philanthropic initiatives, hang out with rich people and celebrities, and make money.
“What attracted Clinton to Epstein was quite simple: He had a plane,” Landon Thomas Jr. wrote in that 2002 New York magazine profile. Clinton’s aide Doug Band made the introduction, and that September, Epstein and Clinton were off on a tour of five African countries, alongside actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker. Per Clinton’s team, the trip was about “democratization, empowering the poor, citizen service, and combating HIV/AIDS.” (It was that trip that first elevated Epstein to some media notoriety, as journalists began to dig into Clinton’s new friend.)
That wasn’t the only trip. According to Clinton spokesperson Angel Ureña, in a statement last week, there was one more to Africa, one to Europe, and one to Asia — but, he says, Clinton and Epstein haven’t spoken in “well over a decade.”
Virginia Giuffre has said in an affidavit that Clinton was also present on Little St. James Island, Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands. But so far, there has been no corroboration for this claim, and Ureña says Clinton has never been there.
What makes the conspiracy theories so frustrating, in part, is that they’re premised on real elements: credible accusations of sexual misconduct against Bill Clinton, Clinton’s real ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and Epstein’s own well-documented sex crimes. It doesn’t take incredibly inventive conspiracy theorizing to move from that to allegations that Clinton was part of Epstein’s sex abuse and from there to wild accusations that Clinton had Epstein killed.
But we should be very clear that as of this writing, there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest someone ordered Epstein’s death, and certainly no evidence whatsoever that Bill Clinton was that person.
Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative for Iran, testifies during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 16, 2019, in Washington, DC. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
The State Department’s inspector general recommends disciplinary action against Brian Hook.
One of President Donald Trump’s highest-ranking foreign policy officials at the State Department forced out a career staffer over her ties to the Obama administration and outside pressure by conservative media outlets who questioned her loyalty.
That’s one of the main findings from a newly released State Department Inspector General report on a months-long investigation into Brian Hook, the Trump administration’s special representative for Iran, and other State Department officials over alleged politically motivated firings and staffing decisions.
The report says Hook and his team removed Iran expert Sahar Nowrouzzadeh — referred to in the report only as “Employee One” — from a senior policy-planning role on the Iran portfolio in 2017 not because of the quality of her work but rather because of perceptions that she hated Trump, had a preference for Democrats, and was loyal to Iran, not the US.
The Inspector General also looked into four other State employees for their alleged bias in personnel handling. However, the report “found no evidence that inappropriate factors played a role in relevant decisions” involving two of the cases, and not enough information to make an informed decision one way or the other on the other two cases.
But the case involving Hook’s actions toward Nowrouzzadeh is by far the most consequential of the bunch, as Hook is the senior official in charge of leading Trump’s maximum-pressure campaign against Iran and is close to top White House officials, including Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner.
The IG report lays out in stark detail how the White House’s paranoia about a “deep state” conspiracy of career government officials secretly working to thwart the president’s agenda — fueled by right-wing media outlets — has impacted the lives of dedicated public servants. As Politico notes, “civil service and foreign service employees” are “supposed to be protected by law from political retaliation.”
The report recommends that Hook and other political appointees receive training on “prohibited personnel practices and related Department policies,” but it leaves the determination of whether Hook should receive any additional disciplinary action up to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Pompeo has said, according to the report, that he will “consider” whether to discipline Hook. But experts say the secretary — who is very close to Hook — is unlikely to do anything.
After the report’s release, Nowrouzzadeh tweeted out a statement: “It is my hope that the Inspector General’s findings pertaining to my case help prompt action that will guard against any further such misconduct by members of this or any future administration.”
Conservative media’s longstanding crusade against Nowrouzzadeh finds its way into the State Department
In early 2017, Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, a longtime civil service employee, was in the middle of a year-long assignment to the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, the agency’s influential internal think tank responsible for crafting “independent policy analysis and advice for the Secretary of State.”
Nowrouzzadeh was given the Iran and Gulf Arab country portfolios. It was an assignment she was well qualified for, having worked for over a decade on Iran issues in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. During the Obama years, she served on the National Security Council and helped craft the Iran nuclear deal.
Born in Connecticut to parents who emigrated from Iran in the late 1970s, Nowrouzzadeh had been a target of right-wing media ire since her Obama days because of her work on the Iran deal and her brief stint working as an intern for the National Iranian American Council as a college undergraduate. NIAC is a US lobbying group that advocates on behalf of Iranian American interests, but its critics have long accused it of working on behalf of the Iranian government.
Soon after Nowrouzzadeh was brought into the Trump administration by Rex Tillerson in early 2017, the attacks against her started up again in the conservative press. Articles in Breitbart and elsewhere claimed she had cried after Trump won the election, and an article in the Conservative Review in March 2017 accused her of having “burrowed into the government under President Trump.”
That Conservative Review article found its way to the State Department thanks in part to former House speaker and current Trump booster Newt Gingrich, who sent it to multiple officials including then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s chief of staff.
Hook, who was then the director of the Policy Planning Staff (where Nowrouzzadeh worked), also received the article and sent it on to his deputy, Ed Lacey.
When Hook asked Lacey about Nowrouzzadeh during that time, Lacey said that many people working in the policy planning staff were Obama holdovers. “Their picks, without exception, were Obama/Clinton loyalists not at all supportive of President Trump’s foreign policy agenda,” Lacey emailed, adding that “all of these detailees have tried to stay on” in the team. “This is helpful. Let’s discuss on Monday,” Hook replied.
According to the report, Nowrouzzadeh was distressed by the article and reached out to Hook directly in an email asking for his help in countering the smear campaign and insisting that the Conservative Review article was full of “misinformation.”
Several officials I spoke to say they saw Nowrouzzadeh go into Hook’s office personally on March 20, 2017, in an effort to seek his help — which tracks with the report’s findings. Some told me they saw Nowrouzzadeh immediately after that meeting in her office and noticed she had been crying.
Then in April, Lacey wrote an email to Hook in which he said a colleague “asked me to initiate the process of wrapping up [Employee One’s] detail…Unless I hear otherwise from you, I will do so today.” Mr. Hook simply responded, “Yes I agree,” and Lacey then let Nowrouzzadeh go.
According to several people familiar with the situation and the report, Lacey told Nowrouzzadeh she was being removed from her role on the Policy Planning Staff because someone else was coming in to handle Iranian affairs. However, that new person — who didn’t know Hook personally — didn’t arrive until September, indicating that a normal staffing change wasn’t the real reason for her reassignment. Hook, I was told, never said a word to Nowrouzzadeh after her dismissal.
Hook’s defenders have long said he did everything by the book and that he had the absolute right to form the team he wanted. Nowrouzzadeh, as a holdover from the Obama administration, just didn’t gel with Hook, they say.
Based on the IG report, it looks like Hook’s critics had the story right.
What the IG report says
There are a lot of tidbits in the seven-page section of the report on Nowrouzzadeh’s case, but there are four pointsworth noting.
First, the report says that a staffer named Julia Haller once brought up Nowrouzzadeh’s national origin during a meeting out of concern it could cause a conflict of interest since she worked on Iran. Haller worried that Nowrouzzadeh’s loyalty to the US was questionable, but also that she was a closet Democrats aiming to thwart the Republican agenda. Again, Nowrouzzadeh was born in the US and has served in both Republican and Democratic administrations since 2005.
Second, as already reported by Politico, Haller also sent an email in which she claimed Nowrouzzadeh cried when Trump won and was born in Iran. Hook saw that email and replied to it stating it contained “helpful info.” In the same email, Hook said he would reach out to people who tracked the Iran deal for information on her. It’s worth highlighting, though, that some staffers found Haller’s theories to be “nutty.” Still, Hook found them “helpful.”
Third, Hook said he replaced Nowrouzzadeh because she wasn’t a “go-getter” and had the right to create his own team. But the report states that Hook didn’t know or meet the person who would become the new Iran staffer until April — after Nowrouzzadeh had been reassigned — and that the staffer wasn’t hired until September.
The IG also describes a dramatic scene of the two meeting, which is worth reading in full:
In late March, Employee One [Nowrouzzadeh] met with Mr. Hook and explained to him that she had received threats when her name had previously appeared in the media and she was concerned that similar threats could re-occur. According to Employee One, Mr. Hook said “virtually nothing” in response to these concerns. Mr. Hook told OIG that he recalled telling her that the article was “fairly standard” and to be expected for individuals working on high-profile policies. Mr. Hook told OIG that he told her that he had experienced a similar situation and advised that it was best to ignore the article.
Fourth, as mentioned above, there was clearly a coordinated outside pressure campaign to remove staffers perceived to be disloyal. Nowrouzzadeh bore the brunt of many of those attacks and clearly fell victim to them.
There’s more, but you get the idea: Hook reassigned Nowrouzzadeh not because her work was inadequate or because she worked against Trump, but rather over false fears of her political leanings and loyalty to Iran.
According to the report, “Mr. Hook’s own statements to OIG appear to be a post-hoc justification for terminating the detail early.” However, it does state “OIG acknowledges that it did not identify emails or other documents in which Mr. Hook suggested that he was personally motivated to end the detail because of Employee One’s perceived political opinions, perceived place of birth, or similar issues.” Instead, he let the culture that led to Nowrouzzadeh’s ouster fester.
Most government employees would surely be fired for such a move, but Hook’s close ties to Trump’s inner circle and Pompeo, his boss, makes that highly unlikely. Which means Hook, the person the State Department Inspector General said led a biased personnel process, is likely to continue working on Iran for the foreseeable future.
Democratic candidates gather for a debate in Houston. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Making the stage was a whole lot tougher.
The fifth Democratic presidential debate is set to take place on November 20 in Atlanta, and will be hosted by MSNBC and The Washington Post. It could feature the smallest slate of candidates yet, and will be a crucial opportunity for top-tier contenders to further establish themselves as the early primaries approach.
In total, 10 candidates have qualified, compared to the 12 who took part in October’s debate. Given the smaller field, it’ll likely be an opportunity for frontrunners Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders to more explicitly confront one another, while medium-tier candidates seek a breakout moment.
As of this week, the candidates who have qualified for the November debate have done so by hitting two requirements:
1) They’ve secured at least 165,000 individual donors, including 600 individual donors from 20 states.
2) They’ve reached 3 percent in the polls in four Democratic National Committee (DNC) approved surveys, or 5 percent in two DNC approved polls from the four earliest primary and caucus states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.
The candidates who met the polling and donor thresholds are:
Candidates had until midnight on November 13 to make the cutoff on both fronts, though the stricter prerequisites were intended to cull the field. (For the fourth debate in October, for example, candidates were required to hit just 130,000 donors and 2 percent in four DNC approved polls.)
A number of candidates, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Gov. Jay Inslee, have already dropped out after failing to make the stage in prior debates. If Rep. Tim Ryan and Beto O’Rourke’s departures were any indication, the new debate requirements likely prompted even more to do so.
The state of the race, briefly explained
The margin between Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren got tighter: According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Joe Biden is in first place, and Elizabeth Warren has been close behind. (Warren briefly edged ahead with a slight lead, though Biden has since reclaimed it.) The polling spread as of mid-November shows Biden at 26 percent, Warren at 21 percent, and Sanders at 18 percent.
Pressure is growing on lower-polling candidates to drop out: Although a number of candidates have already dropped out, including former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the pressure is on for other 2020 candidates who are still in the race to consider calling it quits. As the DNC polling qualifications grow harder to meet, it will be tougher for many of the lower-tier candidates to participate in the televised debates, which are key for getting the platform they need to increase name recognition and expand their base of support.
The increasingly narrow debate requirements are seen as a factor that have pressed a slew of 2020 candidates to shutter their campaigns, while prompting criticism from candidates like Bullock and Gabbard who’ve failed to qualify for prior debates. The DNC has dismissed this pushback, arguing its use of polls and donor numbers means voters get to select who they want to continuing hearing from at the debates.
“As we get toward November, December, obviously we will continue to raise the bar of participation, because that’s what we’ve always done,” DNC Chair Tom Perez previously said in an interview with ABC’s This Week.
The primaries are rapidly approaching but it’s still early: With the Iowa caucus roughly four months away, the 2020 Democratic field has now begun to winnow … to nearly 20 candidates, that is.
Voters are likely paying closer attention to the November and December debates given the fast-approaching primaries, which kick off in February. According to an October poll from Rasmussen Reports, 19 percent of Democratic voters say they’ve changed the candidate they support since the debates began and 28 percent are still undecided.
Although there’s still quite a bit of time before voters officially head to the polls, support behind the top candidates is beginning to solidify, and middle-tier candidates like Harris, Buttigieg, and Booker are facing a tighter window to shore up their backing. For candidates who don’t make the stage at all, including Castro, the debates could also seriously limit the exposure they need to advance.
This is not to say that candidates who fail to make the November stage are sure to drop out. Candidates like Messam and Sestak have not made any of the debates so far, and have chosen to continue their campaigns. However, entering the Iowa caucus without the momentum and name recognition debate appearances bring makes winning that contest a difficult proposition at best.
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He’s already missed the deadline to be on the ballot in some states.
Last week Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she would name former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a former businessman and civil rights attorney, to her cabinet. Instead, he announced he actually wants to be president.
Patrick told senior Democrats Wednesday night that he will be throwing his hat into the race and has plans to add his name to the ballot in New Hampshire later today — making him a last minute addition to the already stacked Democratic presidential primary.
His announcement video, released Thursday morning, highlights his upbringing on the South Side of Chicago, where his grandmother told him they were “not poor, just broke,” and bemoans that the American Dream is increasingly inaccessible.
“I admire and respect the candidates in the Democratic field,” he says in the video. But this election, he says, is about “the character of the country” — not just about defeating President Trump on Election Day, but about what happens next.
While making an appearance on CBS News to talk about his newly minted campaign, Patrick did not endorse “Medicare-for-all,” but said he supported a public option. He also talked about the viability of pushing for a simpler tax structure while calling out the other Democratic candidates for their infighting and divisive “my way or the highway” approach.
The deadline to be on the ballot in New Hampshire is Friday. Patrick has already missed the cutoff to make it on the ballot in Arkansas and Alabama. This is a historically late entrance into the presidential race and will put Patrick, an already little-known name in national politics, at a major disadvantage.
His bid for the Democratic nomination for president comes with no fundraised capital, minimal structure to the campaign itself, and none of the polling numbers needed to qualify for DNC-sponsored, televised debates.
There is a historic precedent for a late entrant in the primaries going on to become the nominee — Bill Clinton declared his candidacy for president in October 1991. But that was nearly 30 years ago, and Clinton still declared a month earlier than Patrick.
William Taylor and George Kent will testify at the first public hearing in Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
Update: The first impeachment hearing has concluded. The next hearing will be on Friday, November 15, and feature testimony from former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
After that, there will be hearings on Tuesday, November 19. The morning will feature Jennifer Williams (a State Department official advising the vice president’s office) and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (a National Security Council staffer). The afternoon will feature Kurt Volker (the former US special representative to Ukraine) and Tim Morrison (a National Security Council staffer).
On Wednesday, November 20, US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland will testify in the morning. Defense Department official Laura Cooper and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale will testify in the afternoon.
Then, on Thursday, November 21, former National Security Council staffer Fiona Hill is scheduled to testify.
Original post: The first public hearings in the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry will kick off at 10 am ET Wednesday,when Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee call their first two witnesses: William Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, a State Department official. You can watch them testify on CSPAN or other major networks, as well as streaming live on Vox’s Facebook.
Led by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the hearings are intended to publicly spotlight evidence and testimony Democrats believe is quite damning for President Donald Trump — evidence that Trump tried to urge or coerce the government of Ukraine into investigating Trump’s rivals for political reasons.
Both witnesses, Taylor and Kent, extensively testified behind closed doors to the committee last month and are now expected to reiterate their accounts for the American public.
Taylor had a front-row seat for events at the heart of the scandal as he was working with State Department officials who were trying to get Ukraine to commit to the investigations Trump wanted. And Taylor criticized the effort in real time. “As I said on the phone,” Taylor wrote in a text to a colleague, “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
Kent was based in Washington but he was aware of some of the current scandal’s episodes while they were unfolding. More broadly, he has deep experience in Ukraine and has strong views about what’s happening here: namely, he believes that corrupt oligarchs and former Ukrainian officials won Rudy Giuliani’s ear.
As the first public testimony in a presidential impeachment inquiry, Wednesday’s hearing will naturally be historic. However, few are expecting dramatic new revelations, since these witnesses have testified behind closed doors already. The hope, for Democrats, is to throw more of a public spotlight on what Taylor and Kent are saying — and, in contrast, Republicans are hoping to discredit them.
The scandal: Trump and Ukrainian investigations
To recap: Democrats launched their impeachment inquiry in September after a scandal broke about President Trump pressuring the government of Ukraine to investigate the family of his potential 2020 rival Joe Biden.
Initially, concerns were raised inside the administration by an anonymous whistleblower, who filed a complaint in August — a complaint the administration initially tried to withhold from Congress. “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election,” the whistleblower wrote.
The story first told by the whistleblower and then corroborated and expanded on by other witnesses, documents, and reporters since then, goes as follows:
Shortly after Ukraine elected a new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in April 2019, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani began urging Zelensky’s team to launch certain investigations Trump wanted.
Specifically, Trump’s team demanded investigations into Burisma (a Ukrainian gas company that Joe Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board of) and into purported Ukrainian interference with the 2016 US election.
When Trump talked to Zelensky on the phone on July 25, he brought up both investigations specifically and urged Zelensky to talk to Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr about them.
The Ukrainians were seeking a White House meeting between Trump and Zelensky. Trump officials told them that they wouldn’t get it unless they committed to those investigations: a quid pro quo.
Trump also blocked nearly $400 million in military assistance Congress had approved for Ukraine’s government. One official, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, admits telling the Ukrainians that they wouldn’t get the aid unless they placated Trump by launching the investigations.
Democrats’ argument is simple: This was an attempt by Trump to solicit foreign help interfering with the 2020 election, it’s a corrupt abuse of power, and they are now seriously considering impeaching Trump for it.
Trump and his defenders, meanwhile, have offered a shifting series of arguments — either that the facts on certain matters, such as the withholding of military aid, aren’t clear, or simply asserting that even if Trump did do all this, he shouldn’t be removed from office for it.
The hearings: How they’ll work
After announcing their impeachment inquiry in late September, Democrats conducted the first stage of it behind closed doors — asking various current and former administration officials to come in and give sworn depositions about what happened between Trump and Ukraine.
The effort proved fruitful — surprisingly so. Some key officials obeyed a White House instruction to refuse to testify but others, mostly from the State Department or the National Security Council staff, showed up anyway and answered questions. One, Kurt Volker, even turned over a set of text messages that have become key to the investigation.
Democrats used this phase of the inquiry to gather facts about what happened, away from the cameras — as well as to figure out which witnesses would be most forthcoming and knowledgeable. Meanwhile, Republicans complained about these closed-door hearings — but those Republicans who were on the relevant congressional committees were permitted to attend and participate in the questioning.
So now, Democrats are moving to the next phase: the public hearings. And they intend to run things as follows.
The first round of questioning will be 45 minutes each for Schiff and Devin Nunes, the committee’s top Republican. However, both Schiff and Nunes are likely to delegate significant amounts of questioning time to staff attorneys — specifically, Daniel Goldman for the Democrats and Steve Castor for the Republicans.
This will be a change of pace for congressional hearings. They’ll start off with a lengthy block of time for a professional questioner with ample time for follow-ups, rather than the traditional five-minute segments trading off between Congress members of each party. (Democrats believe this approach, which they experimented with at the end of a hearing in September, will be better suited for telling a coherent story.)
After that first 90 minutes is up, the hearing will revert back to that traditional format of five minutes per member of Congress for questioning. Democrats expect things to wrap up sometime between 2:30 pm and 4:30 pm.
The witnesses: William Taylor and George Kent
Democrats have decided to begin their hearings with two witnesses who they have good reason to believe will be helpful to their narrative. Both are State Department officials with long careers and deep experience in Ukraine in particular, and both are rather appalled by what Trump did with Ukraine.
William Taylor’s official title is chargé d’affaires of the US embassy in Kyiv, making him currently the top US diplomat there. His background includes stints in the US Army and in various diplomatic posts (including serving as Ambassador to Ukraine under George W. Bush).
Taylor was asked to reenter the government this year to replace former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch (though he does not have the ambassador title). He testified that he had some trepidation about accepting the job — due to a “web of political machinations, both in Kyiv and in Washington.” And indeed, soon after he took up the post in June, he realized that there was a separate, “highly irregular” channel of US policymaking, one that included Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, as well as US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.
Taylor testified that Sondland told him early on — all the way back in late June — that the Ukrainians had to commit to certain “investigations” if Zelensky wanted a White House meeting with Trump. Referring to detailed contemporaneous notes he took, Taylor chronicled how his concern over this increased as the summer went on.
By early September, Taylor said, he grew even more concerned because a colleague told him that Sondland was now linking hundreds of millions of dollars in withheld military aid for Ukraine to the investigations. “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” he asked Sondland in a text. Taylor says Sondland soon spoke to him on the phone and confirmed that he was doing just that — at Trump’s behest. He said something similar in another call on September 8, Taylor testified:
Ambassador Sondland tried to explain to me that President Trump is a businessman. When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.
Finally, on September 9, Taylor put his concerns in writing again: “As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” he texted Sondland. The ambassador then called Trump himself to discuss how to respond.
George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, will be testifying alongside Taylor. Kent is a career foreign service officer who has served two stints in Ukraine over the years and took up his current Washington-based post in the summer of 2018. Ukraine is currently one of six countries in his portfolio.
Compared to Taylor, Kent wasn’t as personally involved in the events that transpired in Ukraine this summer. What he will bring to the hearing, though, is deep knowledge of the country, combined with strong opinions on the machinations that have been taking place. Kent made clear in his closed-door testimony that he believes Giuliani has been working with several corrupt current or former officials in Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office to push allegations that have no merit.
Kent will also be able to speak authoritatively about the Bidens’ role in Ukraine. He testified that, in early 2015, he did tell a member of Vice President Biden’s staff that Hunter Biden’s board seat on the gas company Burisma could be seen as a conflict of interest. However, Kent said, he was told that because Biden’s other son Beau was dying of cancer, there was no “further bandwidth to deal with family-related issues at that time.”
Kent will also debunk the claim from Trump allies that Vice President Biden pressured the Ukrainians to fire a prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, to help Burisma and his son. He testified that the idea to push Shokin’s ouster came from the US Ambassador to Ukraine at the time, not Biden. He also testified that Shokin was extremely corrupt — when an anti-corruption unit in Ukraine went after his former driver (and seized a cache of diamonds from him), Shokin “went to war” to try to retaliate against anyone involved in the investigation, Kent said. That is why the US determined he had to go.
After Wednesday’s hearing wraps up, the next planned hearing is on Friday, when former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch is slated to testify. She was ousted from her post back in April so she wasn’t around for many of the key events of this scandal. But her fate is a sort of prologue to the story since she is viewed as the victim of a smear campaign from Giuliani and his Ukrainian allies.
The Intelligence Committee is expected to call more witnesses for further hearings next week but this phase of the inquiry will likely conclude before Thanksgiving. After that, the House Intelligence Committee will write a report summarizing their findings.
Once Congress returns in December, the action will shift to Rep. Jerry Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee, which will review that report and likely draft articles of impeachment against Trump.
Any articles of impeachment approved by the committee will then be sent on to the full House to be voted on. Democrats hope to hold those votes before Christmas. If a majority of the House votes to approve any article of impeachment, then Trump is impeached and the process moves forward to the Senate, which will hold a trial determining whether he should be removed from office.
As for what will happen, the current state of play is that Trump is quite likely to be impeached in the Democrat-controlled House as even most moderate Democrats profess to be disturbed by the Ukraine scandal.
But it’s tremendously difficult to actually remove a president from office. It takes a two-thirds vote in the Senate (a threshold that has never been reached), and that chamber is Republican-controlled anyway. And so far, nearly every Republican senator — Mitt Romney being the lone exception — remains supportive of President Trump. Democrats hope their hearings will create a public uproar that will reshape that political situation, but that will be a tall order.
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Tim Alexander Dollery 