Chronology of a Tragedy.

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By 20 April 2020, 773,000 people in the United States had tested positive for the coronavirus.  Of these, 247,543 were in New York, mostly in New York City and its suburbs.  New Jersey had 88,806 confirmed cases.  That works out to about 32 percent of the cases being located in New York City and its immediate area.  If you include New Jersey’s 88,000, then New York is the center of about 43 percent of the cases.[1]

How did New York City come to be the present American epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic?[2]

“From the earliest days of the crisis, state and city officials were also hampered by a chaotic and often dysfunctional federal response, including significant problems with the expansion of testing, which made it far harder to gauge the scope of the crisis.”  The same was true of every part of the country, so that doesn’t explain why New York got hit hardest by far.

“Epidemiologists have pointed to New York City’s [population] density and its role as an international hub of commerce and tourism to explain why the coronavirus has spread so rapidly.  And it seems highly unlikely that any response by the state or city could have fully stopped it.”  The same seem likely to be true of the national government.  The question is how much government action could have limited the damage.

Nevertheless, in the view of Dr. Thomas Frieden, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, closing the schools, stores, restaurants, and other public venues one to two weeks earlier could have reduced the death toll in New York by 50 to 80 percent.

 

January-February 2020: coronavirus “devastates” China and Europe.

 

21 January 2020: first confirmed case in the United States, in Seattle, Washington.

 

23 January 2020: Chinese government seals off Wuhan.

 

30 January 2020: WHO declares a global health emergency.

 

31 January 2020: US bars entry for any foreign national who had traveled to China in the previous 14 days.

 

It now appears that coronavirus was present in New York City before the first person tested positive for it.  Infectious disease specialists had known for weeks that the federal tests were defective and that infected people were almost certainly present and circulating.  One specialist in infectious diseases for a New York hospital group said later than it was apparent by late January 2020 that cases would soon appear in the United States.

 

2 February 2020: first coronavirus death outside China—in the Philippines.

 

5 February 2020: Japanese government quarantines a cruise ship which carried passengers infected during the trip.

 

7 February 2020: Infectious disease specialists and other doctors confer on federal criteria from the CDC for testing.  The guidelines were too strict and limiting on who could be tested.  According to one of those present, “It was at that moment that I think everybody in the room realized, we’re dead.”

 

Early February 2020: Dr. Oxiris Barbot, NYC Health Commissioner states that “this is not something you’re going to contract in the subway or the bus.”

 

14 February 2020: France announces first coronavirus death.

 

19 February 2020: first two cases in Iran announced.

 

23 February 2020: Italy sees surge in cases in Lombardy.

 

24 February 2020: passenger already infected by coronavirus arrives at JFK on a flight that originated in Iran.

 

24 February 2020: Trump administration asks Congress for $1.25 billion for coronavirus response.  US has 35 cases and no deaths.

 

28 February 2020: number of cases in Europe rises sharply.

 

Late February 2020: Mayor Bill de Blasio tells a news conference that “We can really keep this thing [coronavirus] contained.”

 

29 February 2020: first US death, in Seattle.

 

1 March 2020: the passenger from Iran tests positive for the coronavirus, making her the first identified case in New York City.

 

2 March 2020: Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio address a news conference.  Cuomo says “Everybody is doing exactly what we need to do.  We have been ahead of this from Day 1.”  Cuomo told the conference that “Out of an abundance of caution we will be contacting the people who were on the flight with her from Iran to New York.”  Then everyone would be traced and isolated.  According to the NYT, this didn’t happen because the CDC would not authorize an investigation.

 

3 March 2020: lawyer in New Rochelle tests positive.  He had not travelled to any affected country, so there was reason to suspect he had contracted the virus in New York.  City health investigators traced his travels and contact to Manhattan, but the state of New York put a “porous” containment line around New Rochelle.

 

3 March 2020: US government approves widespread testing.

 

5 March 2020: New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said that “You have to assume that it could be anywhere in the city.”  However, he also said that “We’ll tell you the second we think you should change your behavior.”

 

If Dr. Frieden is correct that the city should have shut down one to two weeks before it did, then that date would have been sometime between 8 and 15 March 2020.

 

About 7 March 2020: city hospitals start reporting a sharp increase in influenza-like cases and the NYPD reported increased numbers of officers calling in sick and of 911 calls for coughs and fevers.

 

Second week in March 2020: De Blasio wanted widespread testing, but the city’s Health Department urged a public information campaign to tell those with mild symptoms to self-isolate at home, rather than infect others at testing centers.  De Blasio blocked the public information campaign for about a week.

 

At some point not stated by the NYT, de Blasio did urge New Yorkers to practice social distancing and working from home where possible; and de Blasio and Cuomo had both ordered occupancy limits on bars and restaurants.  These limits were broadly ignored.

 

Moreover, de Blasio resisted closing the schools.  The schools provide nutritious meals and a safe space, and not in some touchy-liberal sort of way either, for their students.[3]

 

11 March 2020: US bars most travelers from Europe.

 

12 March 2020: San Francisco closed the schools when 18 cases had been confirmed; Ohio closes the schools when 5 cases had been confirmed.

 

12 March 2020: At a meeting chaired by de Blasio, City Health Commissioner Barbot told a meeting of business executives that 70 percent of the city’s population could become infected.  De Blasio “stared daggers at her.”

According to one person present at the meeting, de Blasio rejected closing restaurants.  “I’m really concerned about restaurants; I’m really concerned about jobs.”  It was a legitimate concern from one perspective.  According to one estimate, tourism accounts for 300,000 jobs in New York City.  This is twice as many as does the tech jobs and vastly more than the jobs linked to the financial services industry.[4]  Closing down restaurants, bars, tourist activities, hotels, and sporting events would hammer the incomes pf poor people much than the incomes of rich people.  He appears to have thought that New York City would never have to close.  In reality, it was a choice between closing the city earlier or later.  However, in the event, the virus spread rapidly.  The health burden has not been shared equally between different social groups.[5]

 

13 March 2020: Trump declares national emergency.

 

13 March 2020: Los Angeles closes its schools after 40 cases had been confirmed.  New York City had almost 160 confirmed cases.

 

15 March 2020: City health officials give de Blasio a grim warning about the number of infections and deaths if the schools—and most businesses—weren’t closed immediately.

 

15 March 2020: De Blasio closes the schools when 329 cases had been confirmed.

 

15 March 2020: CDC recommends no gatherings of more than 50 people.

 

17 March 2020: seven California counties around San Francisco issued stay at home orders.

 

17 March 2020: France orders national lock-down.

 

19 March 2020: California issues state-wide stay at home order with 675 confirmed cases.  New York then had 4,152 cases.

 

20 March 2020: New York State issues state-wide stay at home order, effective 22 March 2020.  On 20 March, the state had more than 7,000 confirmed cases.

 

Recently, the New York Times ran a piece considering the long-term consequences of the pandemic’s impact on New York.[6]  Much of the economic basis of the city may be hollowed out.  This is particularly true if a vaccine is not developed and mass-produced very soon.  Tourists may shrink from visiting a densely-crowded city.  Tourist amenities from theaters to museums to restaurants to public transportation systems may impose social-distancing regimes that capsize the business model of the industry.  Both the financial services and technology sectors may extend their work-from-home adaptations, while many workers may decide that the home from which they are working might as well be somewhere other than high-price New York.  Demand for office and residential space could fall, clobbering the construction industry.  The city’s budget would have to deal with a huge fall in revenue.  Services to the poor would fall.

Sometimes Tragedy is born of the collision of two Goods.

 

[1] “Tracking an Outbreak,” NYT, 21 April 2020, p. A4.

[2] J. David Goodman, “How Outbreak Kept New York A Step Behind,” NYT, 8 April 2020.

[3] See: Andrea Elliott, “Invisible Child.  Girl in the Shadows: Dasani’s Homeless Life,” NYT, 9 December 2013.  http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/index.html#/?chapt=1

[4] J. David Goodman, “It Could Be Years Before New York Regains Its Glory,” NYT, 21 April 2020.

[5] For one example, see: John Eligon et al, “Black Americans Bear The Brunt As Virus Spreads,” NYT, 8 April 2020.

[6] J. David Goodman, “It Could Be Years Before New York Regains Its Glory,” NYT, 21 April 2020.

Wondering.

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I myself don’t doubt the veracity of sworn law officers.  I do worry that engaged members of the Counter Culture may question that veracity.  So, it is important to provide answers to ill-spirited charges.

 

New York Times story on FISA applications.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/23/us/politics/fisa-surveillance-fbi.html

 

New York Times story on “sloppiness” in filling out FISA warrant requests.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/us/politics/fbi-fisa-wiretap-trump.html

 

So, either:

  1. FBI agents were over-worked and made errors.
  2. FBI agents habitually cut corners in pursuit of FISA warrants because they’re over-worked. So, rake though all the warrant applications in order to free the unjustly accused/convicted?   If the Department of Justice is short-handed, maybe they could draft in some people from the Innocence Project?

 

Then there’s this.

New York Times story on “testilying.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/nyregion/testilying-police-perjury-new-york.html

 

 

Next Question.

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A “ consensus among the “Crossfire Hurricane” agents and analysts … identified individuals associated with the Trump campaign who had recently traveled to Russia or had other alleged ties to Russia.” (IG Report, p. iv.)  These individuals were George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn.

 

“[I]mmediately after opening the investigation [31 July 2019], the Crossfire Hurricane team submitted name trace requests to other U.S. government agencies and a foreign intelligence agency, and conducted law enforcement database and open source searches, to identify individuals associated with the Trump campaign in a position to have received the alleged offer of assistance from Russia.”  (IG Report, p. iv.)

 

OK, sounds good.  We have learned that the CIA responded that Carter Page had been reporting to the CIA on his contacts with Soviet, sorry, Russian intelligence agents.  That’s not what the FBI told the FISA judge, but that’s what the CIA said.

 

What did CIA, the Department of State, and the foreign intelligence agency report about Paul Manafort?  Manafort had been a long-time assistant to thugs ruling Third World countries whom the United States wanted to flourish during the Cold War.  Did he also report on what he learned during this service?  What, if anything, did he report during his time assisting Yanukovych in Ukraine?

 

If the basic facts about Carter Page can be declassified, then why not those on Paul Manafort?

 

The Exhaustion of Liberalism?

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Barton Swaim[1] describes modern liberal democracy in North America and Western Europe:

“Liberal democracies value divided governmental institutions, a regulated market economy, a generous welfare state, personal autonomy and the expansion of political rights to formerly excluded classes.”[2]

Both “conservatives” and “liberals” share these beliefs.  Where they differ is that “liberals” have a deep faith in the ability of government to improve the human condition, while “conservatives” harbor profound doubts.

The “liberal” achievement in Twentieth Century America has been immense: the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906); the enfranchisement of women (1920); the Social Security Act (1935); the Civil Rights Act (1964); the Food Stamp Act (1964); the Voting rights Act (1965); and the amendment of the Social Security Act to create Medicare and Medicaid (1965).  Most of these laws passed during brief periods when a fundamentally conservative country favored dramatic change.

Swaim sees the historical record as demonstrating the exhaustion of liberalism, although not of liberal democracy.  Much of the liberal agenda has been fulfilled.  There aren’t any more dis-franchised people to enfranchise—except for criminals and non-citizens.  Liberals have turned from defending free speech to curtailing it through campus speech codes, demands that social media censor speech that they characterize as “false,” and demanding that the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision be over-turned.  Increasingly, they place their trust in un-elected experts and bureaucrats to know better than do elected officials.  President Obama extended government regulation of business through federal agency rule-writing because he couldn’t get it through Congress, and President Trump is rolling it back in the same way.

Furthermore, he says, liberals haven’t passed any transformative legislation since the mid-Sixties.  The popular support among voters just isn’t there.  Instead, Swaim argues, liberal reforms have advanced along two lines since the Sixties.  On the one hand, liberal legislative reforms have become increasingly small-scale: the Clean Air Act (1970); the Clean Water Act (1972); and the Affordable Care Act (“Obama Care,” 2010).  On the other hand, and far more importantly, the Supreme Court has approved policies that would not have passed Congress: abortion (1973) and marriage equality (2015).

To the extent that the Democrats have “big ideas,” he says, they are not traditionally “liberal” but “radical.”  The “Green New Deal,” “Medicare for All,” and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Plans-for-That all run well beyond conventional liberal policies.  Hence, the nomination of Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate for president in 2020 is the victory of the backward-looking “liberal” majority over the forward-looking “radical” minority.

Or perhaps not.

[1] South Carolinian (state flag has a half-moon on it that some people have interpreted as a closet endorsement of Islam); BA, University of South Carolina plus some study at the University of Edinburgh; speech-writer for the “intriguing” (HA!) governor, Mark Sanford; and now an opinion writer and book reviewer for the Wall Street Journal.

[2] Barton Swaim, “Joe Biden and the Slow Death of Liberalism,” WSJ, 11-12 April 2020.

Sturmvogel 2 9 March 2020.

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In 2004, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych lost his position as the result of street demonstrations known as the “Orange Revolution.”  Yanukovych wanted to get back in the saddle at some point, so he looked for help.  The oligarch Rinat Akhmetov suggested his friend Paul Manafort.[1]  From December 2004 to February 2010, Manafort reshaped Yanukovych’s image and that of his opponents.  In February 2010, Yanukovych regained the presidency.

In February 2014 Yanukovych lost the presidency to a new round of street demonstrations called “Euromaidan.”   The Russians soon expressed their dissatisfaction with the “Euromaidan” revolution by seizing Crimea and by fomenting pro-Russian uprisings in two eastern “oblasts.”  The Americans and Europeans responded by wall-papering Russian leaders with sanctions and by providing economic aid to Ukraine.  However, the Westerners recognized that Ukraine was a deeply corrupt country.[2]  They insisted upon the creation of a robust National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).

Ukraine hopped to it: the legislature passed basic legislation in October 2014, then launched a search for a bureau leader in January 2015; and President Petro Poroshenko signed decrees creating the new bureau in April 2015.  Funding for NABU is mandated under American and European Union aid programs and it has an evidence-sharing agreement with the Effa-Bee-Eye.  However, while NABU could investigate corruption cases, the actual prosecution of those cases fell to the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).  It looks like the idea was to build a fire wall between eager-beaver investigators and actual prosecutors, who could always find fault with the investigations in order to protect the corrupt.

In August 2016, NABU announced that it had discovered a previously secret document that recorded $12.7 million in payments from Yanukovych’s “Party of Regions” to Paul Manafort.[3]

In August 2016, Serhiy Leshchenko,[4] a Ukrainian investigative journalist who had won election to the parliament as a supporter of Petro Poroshenko, held a news conference.[5]  In it, he emphasized the importance of NABU’s so-called “black ledger,” which recorded $12.7 million in cash payments from Yanukovych to Manafort.  Leschenko called for Ukrainian and American authorities to investigate Manafort.  In support of his charges, Leschenko provided a sample of ledger items for six months of payments in 2012.

According to the Steele Dossier, on the day after the New York Times published its story on the “black ledger,” Yanukovych met with Russian President-for-Life Vladimir Putin.  Yanukovych admitted that he had authorized “substantial kickback payments to Manafort,” but “that there was no documentary trail left behind which could provide clear evidence of this.”

A week after the Times story landed on door-steps, Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign.

Two weeks after the press conference, Leshchenko told the Financial Times that “For me, it was important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he [Trump] is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world.”  The FT reported that Trump’s candidacy had alarmed Ukraine’s political leaders.  It led them to “do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election.”  The FT reported that Leshchenko claimed that most Ukrainian politicians “on Hillary Clinton’s side.”[6]

What to make of this information?

First, these allegations and reports have nothing to do with CrowdStrike or missing servers or any other fantasy developed by Rudy Giuliani or Donald Trump.  Nor does it bear on the activities of Hunter Biden, let alone any insinuated intervention by his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.  All those things are mixed together in one of the most squalid scandals of American political history.

Second, it seems perfectly reasonable to believe that in 2016 the prospect of a Trump presidency would scare the bejeezus out of Ukrainians.  President Obama had expressed his withering disapproval of Russian actions in Ukraine after the eviction of Viktor Yanukovych, but American aid came in the form of money, economic sanctions on Russia, and non-lethal military aid.  Trump had expressed sympathy for the return of Crimea to Russia and had hoped for improved relations between the US and Russia.  Ukraine’s leaders had every right to expect that their country—and all their chances for stealing stuff–would suffer under a Trump administration.

Third, it’s difficult to argue that individual politicians and government officials in Ukraine didn’t try to meddle in the 2016 presidential election when they insist that they did.  Obviously, those interventions didn’t work and the same people later mostly tried to deny what they did.[7]

Fourth, a lot of this stuff makes sense if we go with the original intelligence community assessment of the Russian meddling.  First, they said that the Russkies wanted to sow seeds of division in America so as to discredit democracy among its participants.  Later on, they amended this to say that the Russkies wanted Donald Trump elected president.

But what if the Russkies didn’t care who was elected?  What if they just wanted us to fight among ourselves?  As we have done.  (I no longer communicate with one of my oldest friends.)  “Twas a famous victory.”[8]

[1] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinat_Akhmetov#Connected_to_2016_Donald_Trump_United_States_Presidential_Campaign_and_the_Robert_Mueller_Special_Counsel_investigation

[2] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Ukraine  Probably helps if you have read Eric Ambler novels from the 1930s.

[3] Andrew E. Kramer, Mike McIntire, Barry Meier, “Secret Ledger in Ukraine Lists Cash for Donald Trump’s Campaign Chief,” New York Times, August 14, 2016.  https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/what-is-the-black-ledger.html  For NABU’s published statement, see: https://nabu.gov.ua/en/novyny/statement-regarding-pmanaforts-appearance-party-regions-black-ledger

[4] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serhiy_Leshchenko

[5] Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern, “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire,” Politico, 11 January 2017.  https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446

[6] See: Roman Olearchyk, “Ukraine’s leaders campaign against “pro-Putin’ Trump, Financial Times, 28 August 2016.  : https://www.ft.com/content/c98078d0-6ae7-11e6-a0b1-d87a9fea034f  On the FT, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Times

[7] Leschenko is an exception, but then he gets into brawls in airport lounges and on the floor of parliament.  Not a lot of back-down in that guy.

[8] Robert Southey, “The Battle of Blenheim,” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45178/the-battle-of-blenheim

Sturmvogel 1 22 February 2020.

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In late 2013, Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, was being advised by Paul Manafort.[1]  The country was headed toward a widely popular trade deal with the European Union (EU).  That deal, in turn, required Ukraine to make serious efforts against the public and private corruption that had characterized the country since it escaped from the Soviet Union.  Suddenly, Yanukovych announced that the deal with the EU had been abandoned in favor of an alternative deal with Russia.  Crowds, as they say, took to the streets with pitch-forks and fiery brands.  Yanukovych left in his socks.  Manafort lost his client and slunk off into far-from-poverty.  Then Ukraine lost the Crimea and a couple of eastern “oblasts” (administrative districts) to Russian intervention.

Post-Yanukovych Ukraine hoped for help from the West, although it still had the same problem with corruption that the previous agreement had sought to address.  The United States and other Western countries slammed economic sanctions on Russia.  They also agree to provide some “non-lethal” aid to Ukraine’s military.[2]

After the fall of Yanukovych, Alexandra Chalupa reportedly agreed to do some pro-bono work for a Ukrainian client.  In the course of this work and for reasons that have not been explained, she started researching Paul Manafort.  This included digging into the Ukrainian “oligarchs” who had sponsored Yanukovych.  Those oligarchs had been pro-Russian.

Donald Trump sounded very pro-Russian on the campaign trail.  So, in late 2015, when his campaign started to look like it might have legs, Chalupa reportedly doubled-down on investigating Trump’s alleged ties to Russia.

In January 2016, long before Manafort had any role in the Trump campaign, Chalupa told an unidentified  contact at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that, “I felt there was a Russia connection” to the Trump campaign.  “And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election.”  By early 2016, she was telling the pro-Democrat Ukrainian-Americans with whom she was in contact that Manafort was “Putin’s political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections.”

During a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy on an unrelated matter, Chalupa told Ukraine’s ambassador, Valeriy Chaly,[3] of her concerns.  The ambassador wasn’t much worried about any links between Manafort and Trump because he didn’t think Trump could win the nomination, let alone the election.[4]

Four days later, Trump hired Manafort as his campaign manager.  Alarms bells started ringing.  The next day, Chalupa made a presentation to the communications staff of the DNC[5] on Trump, Manafort, and possible links between Russia and the campaign.

A week later, Chalupa talked over the possibility of a congressional investigation into the allegations with a legislative assistant to Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio).  This talk produced no results.

Later, the DNC encouraged Chalupa to contact the embassy of Ukraine.  Her reported goal was an interview with Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko.  It was hoped that Poroshenko would talk about Manafort and his connection to Yanukovych.  She didn’t get the meeting, but embassy officials did provide her with information and further leads.[6]  Thereafter, “If I asked a question, they would provide guidance, or if there was someone I needed to follow up with.” [But] “There were no documents given, nothing like that.”  In addition, “Chalupa said the embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions.”

Accounts by Ukrainian diplomats in the embassy at that time differ from one another.  Either the embassy wasn’t doing anything to help the Democrats investigate Trump and Russia, or they were neck-deep in it.[7]  Andrii Telizhenko,[8] who worked as a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy, has claimed that he “recalled that Chalupa told him and [Deputy Chief of Mission Oksana] Shulyar[9] that, ‘If we can get enough information on Paul [Manafort] or Trump’s involvement with Russia, she can get a hearing in Congress by September [2016]’.”

“In March 2016, [according to an attorney for Perkins Coie] Fusion GPS approached Perkins Coie (a law firm representing both the Clinton campaign and the DNC).  Did Perkins Coie want Fusion GPS to continue the opposition research previously done for a Republican opponent of Donald Trump?  Fusion had, thanks to its earlier work for a contract with a “Never Trump” Republican, a bunch of leads.  These included, according to Jane Mayer, “Trump’s … tax and bankruptcy problems, potential ties to organized crime, and numerous legal entanglements. They also revealed that Trump had an unusually high number of connections to Russians with questionable backgrounds.”[10]  Initially, Fusion GPS focused on Trump’s “business and entertainment activities,” rather than the Russian aspect.[11]

In April 2016, Marc Elias of Perlins Coie agreed to the deal with Fusion GPS.

In late April 2016, Chalupa made a presentation to a group of visiting Ukrainian journalists at an event held at the Library of Congress.[12]  She had invited Michael Isikoff to attend and introduced him to some of the Ukrainians.  Isikoff already was working on Manafort and Ukraine.

In early May 2016, Chalupa e-mailed DNC communications director Luis Miranda about “a big Trump component you and [DNC research director] Lauren [Dillon][13] need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I’m working on you should be aware of.”  However, her e-mail account had been under sustained attack by a “state-sponsored entity,” so she wanted to present the information in person.

In June 2016, Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steel to investigate Trump’s Russia connections, rather than any of the other potential scandals investigated earlier by Fusion GPS.  .

 

Did Ukrainians alarmed by Donald Trump’s pro-Russian stance on issues feed Alexandra Chalupa information about Trump’s supposed contacts with the Russians?

Did Alexandra Chalupa repeatedly apprise the Democratic National Committee of what she had learned?

Did people at the DNC take these warnings seriously?

Did they hire Fusion GPS to investigate these specific ties, rather than the other ones raised by the earlier Fusion GPS research on behalf of a Republican “Never Trump” sponsor?

Did any of the information provided to Chalupa end up as leads for, or even in, the “Steele Dossier”?

[1] Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern, “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire,” Politico, 11 January 2017.  https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446  This article inspired push-back.  See: the article in the  conservative Washington Examiner for some mockery: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/politico-denies-politicos-reporting-on-ukraines-2016-pro-hillary-efforts   On Vogel, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_P._Vogel

[2] A useful starting point on these matters is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_the_Barack_Obama_administration#East_Europe

[3] See the—if you’re a follower of Monty Python–comical description in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriy_Chaly_(diplomat)

[4] Nor did I.

[5] On Luis Miranda, then communications director, see: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/dnc-names-luis-miranda-as-comms-director/432855/

[6] Hard to understand that unless the ambassador or the foreign minister or the president, Poroshenko, ordered it.

[7] If you spend much time reading about the contemporary Ukraine, you could get the idea that there are a lot of self-interested and devious people in public life.  Makes it difficult to sort out the exact facts.

[8] For a hostile view, see: https://www.thedailybeast.com/andrii-telizhenko-source-for-ukraine-collusion-allegations-met-rep-devin-nunes

[9] See: http://hcdc.clubs.harvard.edu/article.html?aid=1698

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier#Research_funded_by_Democrats_produces_dossier

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier#Research_funded_by_Democrats_produces_dossier

[12] On the “Open World Program,” see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_World_Program

[13] See: https://ballotpedia.org/Lauren_Dillon

American Public Opinion on the Impeachment 3 February 2020.

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A nation-wide poll taken between 26 and 29 January 2020, sought to establish attitudes toward President Trump during the impeachment hearings.[1]

First, what did a majority of Americans believe?

A large majority (c. 59 percent) of respondents believed that the Democrats in the House and the Senate were inspired to impeach Trump by political motivations.

A majority (53 percent) of respondents believed that President Trump obstructed Congress in his resistance to the House impeachment inquiry.

Over half (52 percent) of respondents believed that Trump had asked the President of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden in order to influence the November 2020 election.

Republicans overwhelmingly (91 percent) opposed Trump’s removal from office.

Democratic voters overwhelmingly (84 percent) support Trump’s removal from office.

Among Independents, 50 percent opposed removing Trump from office.

A plurality just short of a majority (49 percent) of respondents believed that Trump should not be removed from office by the Senate.

Did the partisanship ascribed to the House inquiry and by its managers in the Senate delegitimized the whole process in the eyes of many Americans?

Does President Trump’s resistance to the partisan House inquiry fall within the category of legitimate “punching back” in the eyes of many Americans?

Does President Trump’s suborning of an investigation into Joe Biden fall into the category of a scandal, but not a removable offense?  Or, in essence, does he get a pass on this one because of the sustained bad behavior of the Democrats in the three years since his election?

 

Second, what do minorities believe?

Almost half (46 percent) of respondents believed that Trump should be removed from office by the Senate.

Among Independents 45 percent supported removing Trump from office.

In spite of all the testimony produced by the House inquiry, 41 percent of respondents did not believe that Trump had asked the President of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden in order to influence the November 2020 election.

About a third (37 percent) of respondents believed that the Democrats were inspired by the defense of the Constitution.

A little more than a third (37 percent) of respondents did not believe that Trump obstructed Congress.

There is a big chunk of people—Democrats, Independents, and Republicans—who want Trump removed from office.  They don’t add up to a majority.

There are two separate one-thirds or more of the country who believe absurd things: that Democrats are defending the Constitution and that Trump didn’t invite an investigation.

 

[1] Aaron Zitner, “Americans’ Opinion of President Barely Budge After Impeachment,” WSJ, 3 February 2020; https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/nbc-wsj-poll-country-remains-divided-over-trump-s-impeachment-n1128326

Listening to the Impeachment Hearings.

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First, there is no doubt that President Trump extorted the President of Ukraine to announce an investigation of Joe Biden.  He did so, apparently, to besmirch a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Second, there is no doubt that the Republican majority in the Senate is going to acquit Trump of both counts.  There seems to be a shrinking likelihood that enough Republican “moderates” will join the Democrats to even call witnesses.

Third, the obstruction of Congress charge seems ridiculous because the Democrats on the Intelligence and Judiciary committees never made any serious appeal to the courts.   The Trump administration has been sued many times.  They have fought it out in the courts.  Whenever they have lost, they have complied.

Fourth, once Trump has been acquitted, do the Republicans have any plan to keep him from doing some other outrageous thing?  Throw Mike Pence overboard at the convention and impose some really serious person as Trump’s second vice president?  Grit their teeth until Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been replaced with a conservative.  Behind these actions would be the implicit threat that “Next time, you dumb son-of-a-bitch, we will impeach you.”

Fifth, Trump’s defense has argued that many, perhaps most, political acts combine a legitimate policy interest with a politician’s selfish or self-absorbed personal interest.  Hence, these decisions can not be described as “corrupt.”  Democrats have countered that, under the law, any “corrupt” purpose overwhelms any legitimate purpose.  It renders the whole action “corrupt.”  Well, the Democrats have been bug-eyed with fear and rage since November 2016.  They talked a lot about “collusion” (their term, not Trump’s before they started using it on talk shows).  They raised high expectations that the Mueller investigation would prove that Trump had committed crimes that merited impeachment.  They tried to make a case for obstruction of justice after the Mueller investigation “failed to establish” (i.e. couldn’t find any proof of) such “collusion.”  They wanted Trump removed for political reasons that would advantage the Democrats and disgrace the Republicans.  By their own standards, that would seem to meet the definition of “corruption.”

The Next President of the United States of America.

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“What’s troubling you is the nature of my game.”–The Rolling Stones, “Sympathy for the Devil.”

There is the coincidence of the Democratic primaries for the November 2020 presidential election and the current impeachment trial of Donald Trump.  This has created a great deal of uncertainty.

First, there seems to be a good chance that Donald Trump will be re-elected president if he is not removed from office and barred from all future elective office.  There is no guarantee, but if you look at the past election and the current polling data, trump seems to have a shot–at the least.

Second, if Trump is removed, then the Republicans will lose the White House.  Mike Pence is a joke as vice-president and could not mount a credible presidential campaign.  John McCain has died.  The future possible Republican presidential candidates–take Nikkie Haley as one example–are nowhere near ready to run and would not want to run just to get creamed.

Third, Donald Trump will not be removed from office.  It would take 67 votes in the Senate.  The Democrats have 47 votes at the moment.  They might have swung 4 votes on admitting witnesses and documents before Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler worked their oratorical magic during the hearings, but they were never going to swing 20 votes.

Fourth, the current Democrat presidential candidate mix “moderates” (Biden, Bloomberg) with some “radicals” (Warren, Sanders), and a bunch of munchkins.

Fifth, the Caucasian Caucuses in Iowa haven’t occurred yet.  It’s hard to tell who will win there.  It is even more difficult to tell who will win the actual primaries to follow.  Sure, it seems likely that Joe Biden will win the nomination, but “count no man happy until he is dead.”

Sixth, the uncertainty about which Democratic Party will actually show up in the presidential election colors my thinking about impeachment.

Seventh, in 2016 I held my nose and voted for Hillary Clinton in order to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.

Eighth, in 2020 I will not vote for Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders in order to keep Trump out of the White House.  Both, but especially Warren, are threats to my middle-class life and retirement savings.  A President Sanders might appoint Warren Secretary of the Treasury, so neither one is an acceptable presidential candidate.

Ninth, until I know that the Democratic presidential candidate will be someone reasonably sane and practical, then I’m in favor of keeping Trump available as an insurance policy.   The trial in the Senate is now, while the Democratic nomination is in the future.  So I support letting Trump go.  That doesn’t guarantee that I’ll vote for him next time.  That’s up to my Democratic friends.

The Russia Thing Again 18 January 2020.

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Cyber-attacks are now common.  As a result, governments have developed defensive capabilities.  Holland’s General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) is chiefly concerned with domestic political and security issues, but it does maintain a cyber-defense section.  In 2014, this section of AIVD found a way to tap the communications and activities of one group of hackers linked to Russian intelligence.  The group is nick-named “Cozy Bear.”[1]  The access allowed the Dutch a continuing view of “Cozy Bear” activities.

As a NATO member, AIVD would naturally share information with its allies, particularly the United States.  American partners would include the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  The cyber-attacks by “Cozy Bear” included ones against the State Department and the White House (begun in 2014), the Pentagon (2015), and the Democratic National Committee (2016).

At some point, AIVD provided the Americans with a document stolen from “Cozy Bear.”  The document analyzed a purported e-mail exchange between Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL and then the Chair of the Democratic National Committee)[2] and Leonard Benado, a vice president of the Open Society Institute.[3]  The document referred to the then-ongoing FBI investigation, begun in Summer 2015, into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during her time as Secretary of State.

In the message being analyzed by the Russians, Schultz told Benado that Attorney General Loretta Lynch would make sure that no criminal charges would be filed against Clinton in the server investigation.[4]

“Is it live or is it Memorex?”[5]  Is the Russian document real or is it disinformation?  The Dutch kept the interception operation going because it provided valuable continuing intelligence.  This supposed that the Russians would not become aware of the interception at some point.  If they did become aware, then they would have a choice between closing the security breach or using it as a conduit to funnel false information to Western intelligence.

Wasserman Schultz and Benado have denied ever having had the e-mail exchange.  Reportedly, American officials didn’t believe that Attorney General Lynch would interfere in the investigation.  However, in late June 2016, it was reported that Lynch had met privately with former President Bill Clinton at the Phoenix airport.

FBI Director James Comey reportedly believed that the Russians would release the “document”—whether real or false—if Lynch played any role in clearing Clinton.  So, in July 2016, he acted on his own initiative.

News of the document first became public in an April 2017 article in the New York Times.  A May 2017 article in the Washington Post elaborated on the story.  Now the Justice Department is probing the leaks to the Times and the Post.  Was the Dutch operation still producing intelligence at that time or had it been closed down?

[1] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_Bear  It has been active since about 2008.

[2] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Wasserman_Schultz

[3] See: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/who-we-are/staff/leonard-benardo

[4] Adam Goldman, “A Leak Inquiry May Put Focus Back on Comey,” NYT, 17 January 2020.

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhfugTnXJV4