What Had Happened Was... (Sept. 16th-22nd, 2019)
A lightning fast weekly recap so you don't feel like an idiot on Monday
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Here’s a catch-up of the major events of the week of September 16, 2019. You can check in with a minimal time commitment, read about the big stuff and stay in the know before we’re on to the next. This week we saw Corey Lewandowski do his thing, a whistleblower complaint that could do some real damage, Trump attempting to wave off any inquiries into Ukraine with military action and the kids going to work to solve the climate change crisis. There’s a lot to unpack, so let’s dig in.
Lewandowski and His Lies
Corey Lewandowski appeared publicly on Tuesday to testify before Congress about potential obstruction of justice and other misdeeds by the president. On Monday, the White House blocked Staff Secretary Rob Porter and former Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn from testifying in the inquiry, while allowing Lewandoski to move forward with limited questioning. As the morning progressed the reasoning for this became much clearer — the likelihood of all three men implicating themselves and Trump increased exponentially with joint testimony. Additionally, Corey Lewandoski was obviously there to take advantage of the media opportunity to capitalize on political fundraising.
Much of the process was a waste of time, with Democrats being railroaded by Lewandowski in every attempt to delay time or not answer a question directly. When questioned by a Republican, however, Lewandowski had no problem answering questions and was playful and jovial. When Democrats asked him anything, he suddenly lost the ability to read or understand English. Toward the end of the day, House Democrats were able to bring in assistant attorney Berry Berke, whose stellar questioning led to the most important revelations of the day: Lewandowski essentially admitted to lying in interviews for television and drew a distinction with the importance of telling the truth while under oath.
The day left many wondering why Congress was not holding Lewandowski in contempt for his flagrant disrespect (I answer that question here) and it became clear that Berke should have been at bat much sooner in the day. Ultimately, it was not the successful day Democrats had hoped for and the need to switch up the process in terms of effective questioning is very apparent. I have included the entire four hours of testimony in a video below if you need to catch up or want to scroll through it, which you should if you didn’t catch actual coverage. Just a warning: it will be infuriating.
Whistleblower Complaint
On Wednesday, The Wall Street journal was first to report that a whistleblower complaint had been filed against Trump alleging that he had made certain “promises” to a foreign nation in exchange for some kind of favor. As the day went on, new details emerged that revealed there was actually much more to the complaint and subsequent investigation.
The inspector general for American spy agencies, Michael Atkinson, deemed the threat contained within the initial allegations to be “credible and urgent” enough to begin an investigation. Under the law, once a whistleblower complaint is labeled with this status of “urgent concern,” a legal standard is triggered that typically requires that congressional oversight committees be notified within 10 days. This was not done.
Instead, Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire apparently went to the Department of Justice about the complaint, even though the statute does not allow for this, to possibly consult with Attorney General William Barr about what to do next. Considering Maguire has continued to stonewall House Democrats over providing details about the whistleblower complaint, this looks like an attempt by officials to cover up more impropriety by the president.
On Thursday morning, the inspector general of intelligence committees, Michael Atkinson testified in closed session, telling congress that he believed the complaint rose to the level of “urgent concern.” Despite this information, D.N.I. Maguire still refused to disclose the full contents of the whistleblower complaint to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) by Thursday afternoon, despite a subpoena from Schiff to do so. Someone was leaking to the press however, because details about what Trump had done continued to emerge in major news outlets throughout the week. Exasperated by Maguire’s unwillingness to comply and his refusal to consider that the complaint even rose to the legal standard of “urgent concern,” Schiff left the inquiry and went straight to the press to announce he was considering legal action.
Another Congressional Hearing is scheduled with D.N.I. Maguire this coming Thursday and that inquiry will be public. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) sent a formal letter to William Barr on Friday demanding the details of the complaint as well as formalizing the allegations that Maguire went to the D.O.J. for counsel on the matter. It’s likely that if Maguire continues to deny Congress access to the full whistleblower complaint, Democrats will fight this in the courts. For more on all of these events click here.
Trump Deflects With Saudi Arabia
On Friday reports started to surface that the whistleblower complaint actually involved Trump pressuring newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue an investigation into Joe Biden’s son during a phone call on July 26th, to get dirt on Joe Biden. Then The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump urged President Zelensky “about eight times” to work with his then personal attorney Rudy Giuliani “on a probe.” The only thing left for Trump to do to distract from his phone call to Ukraine was to initiate military action.
Trump directed Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., to inform the press that the U.S. would be deploying troops to Saudi Arabia for the purposes of defending oil fields. Trump announced new sanctions against Iran earlier in the day, and the administration claimed to be considering a range of other actions, including cyberattacks, but this all shifted once news of the call to Ukraine broke.
Although the Trump Administration claims it has proof that Iran was responsible for the recent drone strikes on Saudi Arabian oil supplies, the Houthis in Yemen have repeatedly taken credit for the attack. The U.S. released satellite images of the area in question shortly after the attack, showing 17 points of impact on the Saudi facilities. The Trump Administration argues the data proves that most of the missiles came from Iran but the images are not completely dispositive and it’s possible the missiles came from another direction entirely. One thing is clear — backing Saudi Arabia at this moment and deploying troops to defend their oil fields continues to protect his interest in using the region for his personal and political purposes. (Read more about it here.)
Then there’s Rudy Giuliani. On Friday night as the news of his possible involvement with pressuring Ukraine to get opposition on Biden, Giuliani decided it would be a good idea to go on CNN and do an interview with Chris Cuomo. In attempting to dispel the details surrounding his involvement with Ukraine on behalf of Trump, Giuliani reversed his position entirely and admitted to Cuomo that he was in fact working on getting Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden. It all would have been completely entertaining if the stakes weren’t so high.
Global Climate Strike
On Friday, millions of people in more than 150 countries, walked out of their schools and workplaces to demand action on climate change and participate in the global climate strikes, scheduled ahead of the opening of the United Nations General Assembly and the Climate Action Summit tomorrow.
The protests were organized by young people around the world who are part of the "Fridays for Future" campaign. The marches kicked off on Friday in the Pacific island nations (think Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu) with citizens chanting: "We are not sinking, we are fighting." It built up steam in Australia, where it is estimated that more that 350,000 people took part in marching and some local authorities even encouraged children and workers to leave school and work to take part.
The march continued in cities all over Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas as a tide of protestors washed over the globe. People in Thailand and India staged "die-ins", falling to the ground and feigning death to demand greater government action.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swede, who sailed across the Atlantic on an emissions-free yacht for this UN summit, participated in the protests in New York City, where 1.1 million students were given permission to skip school to join in. Thunberg, who first started skipping school to protest against inaction on climate change in 2018, spoke to millions on Friday about the urgent need for action and the crowd was estimated to be 250,000 (see below.) Thunberg also went to Washington, D.C., earlier in the week to testify before Congress on the Climate Change epidemic and told lawmakers on Capitol Hill to “wake up.”
You can watch the video above to grasp what the New York City march looked like from an areal view and you can click here for more images of protest signs, which were nothing short of amazing.
For more detail on the events of the week, see the following articles listed below:
Why Congressional Dems Won't Hold Lewandowski in Contempt
Trump Gets Caught, Sends Troops to Saudi Arabia to Deflect
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Amee Vanderpool writes the “Shero” Newsletter and is an attorney, contributor to Playboy Magazine, analyst for BBC radio and Director of The Inanna Project. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
I believe it was the IG not Maguire that was interviewed this week by Schiff & Maguire will testify this following week.