Guiliani Agonistes

 

In my business, sometimes you come across English sentences that are such astonishing uses of the language that you grab your Commonplace Book, and you copy it down where it will always be. A sentence that surprised and satisfied your curiosity. A construction of balance and beauty.

I read a long piece in the New York Times by Matt Flegenheimer and Maggie Haberman about Rudolph Guiliani's drinking problem and why it's become an issue in whether Donald Trump has an excuse for his actions on January 6th. This sentence froze me: 

Yet to almost anyone in proximity, friends say, Mr. Giuliani’s drinking has been the pulsing drumbeat punctuating his descent — not the cause of his reputational collapse but the ubiquitous evidence, well before Election Day in 2020, that something was not right with the former president’s most incautious lieutenant.

I was online. If it had been in a book in my lap, I would have grabbed a pencil to mark it. The very architecture of logical thought -- and a sweep of history -- achieved via the versatility of the English language. (That trailing whipsaw of a dependent clause!)

I don't know who of the Times team, Flegenheimer or Haberman, wrote that particular sentence, but because his name comes first, I think it might be Matt Flegenheimer's work. Outstanding, whoever.

The Body Count -- Jon A. Sale

A Reoccuring Feature on Who's Jumping Off Luxury Liner Trump

Two weeks ago Rudy Guiliani hired high-powered attorney Jon Sale to head up his legal team. Sale insisted at the time that his new client "100 percent did not do anything illegal.” That odd locution was reported by law.com. Yesterday, Rudy Guiliani announced that he intended to defy all subpoenas -- "I ain't saying nuttin to nobody!" Jon Sale announced later on that same day that, by the way, he is no longer a part of Guiliani's legal team.

Did a few percentage points come off that claim of 100 percent innocence?

Sale himself came up with an implausible excuse, as relayed by BuzzFeed reporter Zoe Tillman: "He said he was brought on by Giuliani for the sole task of responding to Dems' subpoena, and that task is done so the representation is over. This was the plan from the start, he said. He doesn't know if Giuliani has other counsel."

Uh-huh.

High-priced white-collar-crime specialist is hired for just two weeks to respond "No!" for Guiliani to the impeachment inquiry?  I don't buy it.

Who is Jon A. Sale
He's a leading criminal defense attorney, specializing in white collar crime. He's "of counsel" at the large Nelson Mullins firm in Miami. He is touted on the Nelson Mullins website: 

"He is experienced in representing corporations and individuals in grand jury investigations and diverse and complex criminal litigation, including large scale document reviews and productions. He also is experienced in representing defendants at sentencing hearings. He has represented clients in almost every substantive area of concentration, including health care fraud, securities fraud, financial institution fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations, money laundering, criminal anti-trust violations, tax fraud, mortgage fraud, and various fraudulent investment schemes."

He seems made in heaven for the Rudy Guiliani we've all come to know.

Sale is more widely recognized for his past well known role as an assistant special Watergate prosecutor under special prosecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski, so you might say he has experience with White House appendages that defy subpoenas.

One of the Good Guys -- Marie Yovanovitch

Photo Mikhail Palinchak--AP

A career State Department diplomat with 30+ years of experience under six different presidents. She was ambassador to Ukraine whose term was supposed to end this past August, but she was asked in May by Trump's State Department to extend her ambassadorship through August of 2020. That request was suddenly reversed less than two months later in July when Trump recalled her and exiled her to a desk in the Department of State.

Why?

Trump was about to call new Ukrainian President Zelensky about a little "favor" he wanted, and Yovanovitch might get in the way.

She had become inconvenient to the scheme that Trump and Guiliani had hatched to make dirt in Ukraine. Her personal honesty and integrity apparently did not mesh well with the business and political ambitions of not only Trump and Guiliani but of other guys like these two below, Parnas and Fruman, two Guiliani henchmen whose previous prospecting in Ukraine did not meet with Yovanovitch's approbation. (Why Parnas and Fruman had it in for her is outlined here. It was all about gas.)

“Although I understand that I served at the pleasure of the president, I was nevertheless incredulous that the U.S. government chose to remove an ambassador based, as best as I can tell, on unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives,” she wrote in a statement she prepared for the impeachment joint committees.

She chose to testify despite Mike Pompeo's directive, at the direction of the president, that no State Department officials should cooperate with the impeachment inquiry because the Congressional Democrats wisely subpoenaed her early yesterday morning. Yovanovitch's welfare had already been implicitly threatened by Trump himself in his famous phone call with Zelensky: “She’s going to go through some things.” How chilling is that? Yet Yovanovitch is a model for bravery at a time when hundreds of otherwise powerful men have become cowards.

Gordon Sondland -- A Key Player in the Attempted Extortion of Ukraine.

The nine-hour deposition given by former special envoy Kurt Volker yesterday, combined with the trove of text messages Volker turned over to the three House committees heading up the impeachment inquiry, throw harsh light on a particular Trump henchman.

Gordon Sondland of Portland, Oregon, Trump's ambassador to the European Union, bought his ambassadorship by contributing $1 million to Trump's inauguration. Sondland is a wealthy hotel owner (primarily expensive establishments on the West Coast) and -- commendably -- a successful promoter of TV and film production in Oregon -- with no discernible expertise on Ukraine or its neighbors, yet he was in the thick of manipulating the new president Zelensky to do as Trump wanted. Trump's phone call with Zelensky on July 25 was actually far from the first time Zelensky had heard "Do us a favor."

(FWIW Wikipedia includes this interesting nugget: "Sondland initially supported Donald Trump, but cancelled a fundraiser and repudiated Trump for his attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan," in April 2017. Apparently, Sondland got over it, and Trump obviously forgave him. Trump nominated Sondland to his ambassadorship in March 2018.)

Sondland Named in Whistleblower Report

The whistleblower report mentions Sondland by name and claims he met twice with Ukrainian officials along with Kurt Volker, the State Department’s special envoy to the Ukraine, to help them “understand and respond to the differing messages they were receiving from official U.S. channels on the one hand and from Mr. Giuliani on the other.” The report also mentioned Volker and Sondland advised Ukrainian officials “how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelenskyy.” (Jeff Manning, The Oregonian)

Kurt Volker, yes, as special ambassador to Ukraine, but Rudy Giuliani? Private citizen Giuliani? Who was also Donald Trump's personal lawyer? He was leaning on Zelensky's government hard, and Volker (however reluctantly) was trying to help talk Zelensky into doing what Giuliani demanded. Why was Sondland involved? He's Ambassador to the European Union ... and Ukraine is not a member of the EU. What else could Sondland be doing in this other than giving State Department cover for Giuliani the Muscle Man to get the goods?

Giuliani and Sondland didn't just want a Ukrainian investigation into the Bidens; they were also pushing an investigation into "a completely unfounded attempt" to link Ukraine to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee network in 2016. Sondland was insisting that Trump would only be happy (happy enough to invite Zelensky to the White House and release the frozen military aid) when Zelensky publicly announced he was launching a probe that would presumably bury Joe Biden. Volker even drafted possible language for that announcement and shared it with Sondland.

Zelensky Appears To Cave to Trump

Sondland referred to the Zelensky capitulation -- a public announcement of investigations launched -- in almost comic gangster style: “I think potus really wants the deliverable.” For those of you who don't know, that's POTUS with the MOSTEST, who always wants more and more. Does that look like quid pro quo DNA to you?

Kurt Volker leaving closed-door hearing yesterday,
after turning over text messages between himself
Gordon Sondland, and Bill Taylor.
Photo Jose Luis Magana/AP

A little over a month ago -- my! how a month evaporates -- by August 9, following the July 25th Trump-Zelensky smoking gun phone call and assiduous field work by Giuliani, Sondland, and Volker, Ukraine seems to have agreed to Trump's conditions, but Zelensky balked about issuing a public statement first, before the White House had set a date to invite Zelensky to Washington, because (obviously!) the Ukrainians didn't trust Trump (those wickedly worldly Europeans!).

Zelensky aide Andriy Yermak delivered the balking message on August 10 to Sondland and Volker: “Once we have a date [for visit to White House] [Zelensky] will call for a press briefing, announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for the reboot of US-UKRAINE relationship, including among other things Burisma [the company Hunter Biden worked for] and election meddling in investigations” [the Trump myth that really it was Ukraine that meddled in our election in 2016, not Russia].

That Zelensky announcement never happened, incidentally, nor did the invitation to the White House ever land in Zelensky's mailbox. Somewhere, somehow, everything went ker-blooey.

Sondland Wakes Up To His Criminal Exposure

It was career diplomat Bill Taylor, technically the interim chargé d'affaires in Ukraine which currently makes him the top U.S. diplomat there until Trump nominates someone to take the place of the recalled Marie Yovanovitch -- it was stand-up guy Bill Taylor who made Sondland gulp twice about what they were involved in -- the extortion of a sovereign nation for the benefit of Trump. Sondland's effort to cover his ass is fairly pathetic.

September 1: Bill Taylor, Ambassador to Ukraine: "Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?" Translation: Are we seriously talking quid pro quo?

Sondland replied: "Call me."

September 9: After that call, Taylor: "As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign."

Sondland, in one of the great moments in post-Nixon get-this-on-the-record as a non-denial denial: "Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo's of any kind." Sondland continued, "I suggest we stop the back and forth by text."

Oh yes, Trump had been crystal clear, but it wasn't the way Sondland now claimed. And indeed, Sondland's fear that all this shit would inevitably come into public view has indeed come into public view.

The Body Count -- Kurt Volker

A Reoccurring Feature on Who's Jumping Off Luxury Liner Trump

Kurt D. Volker, Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, abruptly resigned late yesterday.

He was mentioned in the whistleblower's filing as one of a couple of State Department officers who were trying to “contain the damage” by advising Ukrainians how to navigate Trump/Giuliani’s pressure to find dirt on the Biden family.

NYTimes describes him as "a widely respected former ambassador to NATO." He was working only parttime as an unpaid special envoy to Ukraine. Yesterday, he reportedly "concluded that it was impossible to be effective in his assignment given the developments of recent days."

Mr. Volker facilitated an entree for Mr. Giuliani with the newly elected government in Ukraine, acting not at the instruction of Mr. Trump or Mr. Pompeo, but at the request of the Ukrainians, who were worried because Mr. Giuliani was seeking information about Mr. Biden and other Democrats and had denounced top Ukrainian officials as “enemies of the president.”

Because Volker reached out to him on behalf of the Ukrainians, Guiliani has used that as the justification for claiming he was always "working for the State Department" when he was skulking around Ukraine.

“Kurt was one of the good ones who went in to the administration to stave off disaster,” said Thomas Wright, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “They all have to speak out now about everything they know and let the chips fall where they may.”

It's always "the good ones" who die first. I've seen that movie before.

16 Ways of Looking at a Mugwump

Mugwump, noun: 1. a Republican who refused to support the party nominee, James G. Blaine, in the presidential campaign of 1884. 2. a person who is unable to make up his or her mind on an issue, especially in politics; a person who is neutral on a controversial issue.
 

Kushner

1. Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, has conducted a "purge" of certain members of Trump's transition team, starting with Gov. Chris Christie who was fired as head of the transition last Friday. Former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan and Matthew Freedman, a lobbyist who consults with corporations and foreign governments, were also fired. Both had ties to Christie.

2. The President-elect sent a tweet very late last night insisting that everything was going smoothly. “Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions. I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!”

3. Rebekah Mercer, a major donor to Trump’s presidential campaign and member of his executive transition team, told Republican operatives that she was having difficulty finding people interested in rank-and-file administration posts.

4. Trump took his first conversations with foreign leaders without reviewing official State Department briefing materials, and he broke from diplomatic practice by delaying conversations with close U.S. allies. Trump’s first call was with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, followed by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu. British Prime Minister Theresa May didn’t get through to Trump until almost a day later.

5. As of yesterday, officials at both the Pentagon and State Department said they have heard nothing from Trump’s transition team.

Bannon

6. Trump’s newly-named chief strategist, Steve Bannon, helped turn Breitbart News into a platform for the white nationalist alt-right. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a possible choice for attorney general, was once turned down for a federal judgeship after several U.S. attorneys testified that he made racist comments in court. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani’s extensive business ties to Qatar and Venezuela complicate reports that he could be chosen as secretary of state.

7. Eliot A. Cohen, a former State Department official who had criticized Trump during the campaign but said after his election that he would keep an open mind about advising him, said yesterday on Twitter that he had changed his opinion. After speaking to the transition team, he wrote, "stay away!” adding, “They’re angry, arrogant, screaming ‘you LOST!’ Will be ugly.”

8. Donald Trump and some of his family went to dinner last night at the super-expensive 21 Club in Manhattan (where you can get a ribeye for $68) and said to the well-heeled diners, "We'll get your taxes down -- don't worry about it."

9. Vice President-elect Mike Pence -- who now heads the transition after the firing of Christie -- did his own purge, reportedly dismissing the several registered lobbyists who had moved in, leaving the transition "short-staffed" but closer to Trump’s campaign promise to “drain the swamp.”

Mnuchin

10. Former Goldman Sachs partner and Trump loyalist Steven Mnuchin is the frontrunner for treasury secretary. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions is now favored to serve as attorney general. Seen arriving at Trump Tower yesterday was one-time campaign rival Ted Cruz. Joining the national security transition team is Frank Gaffney Jr. -- labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes,” and who last year defended Trump’s proposed Muslim ban as “common sense.”

11. Rudy Giuliani let his freak flag fly and admitted in public that he's pretty sure he'll be picked as Secretary of State. John Bolton’s name also surfaced for that job. Republican Sen. Rand Paul immediately objected, calling Bolton “unfit” for the job. “You want to have a diplomat in charge of diplomacy. You don’t want a bomb thrower,” Paul told CNN. Then Paul lumped the former mayor of New York City in with Bolton: “I think Giuliani and Bolton are very similar. Bolton just has a more extensive cheerleading background with regard to war in the Middle East.”

12. Republicans will have a one-seat majority in the Senate, meaning any defection -- by a senator like Rand Paul -- could pose a serious roadblock to confirming Trump’s top Cabinet picks. 

13. One source with knowledge of the Trump transition described it as a "knife fight."

14. A particular challenge for the Trump transition is lack of clarity about the division of power among Reince Priebus, named Chief of Staff of the Trump White House; Steve Bannon, the Harvard-educated white supremacist and campaign Svengali; and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has Trump's ear like no one else. Another source tied to the transition described the resulting confusion as "buffoonery."

Flynn

15. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has emerged as a leading candidate for national security adviser. Flynn was a vocal and sometimes inflamatory advocate for Trump during the campaign. At the Republican National Convention he delivered a fiery speech attacking Clinton (as being in the enemy camp, along with Barack Hussein Obama) and waving the bloody flag of "American exceptionalism." He echoed Trump's rhetoric of crushing terrorism, cozying up to Russia, and dissing NATO.

16. Trump on the campaign trail promised repeatedly not to change Medicare. Now his official website says: “modernize Medicare, so that it will be ready for the challenges with the coming retirement of the Baby Boom generation – and beyond.” "Modernize"? House Speaker Paul Ryan has a different term: "Medicare is going to have price controls.”

A nation and its Constitution are one. A nation and its Constitution and Donald Trump are one. (Apologies, Wallace Stevens!)