This is
Awkward Mixture's first complete year review of the Presidential
Events. What follows is 6,000 words reviewing the President's deeds
in 2019. They are organized in categories by alphabetical order. If
the whole thing seems like too much to read, I have a TLDR at the
bottom, outlining the Top 25 events of 2019 in a single sentence.
Here's to 2020.
Atrocities
and War Crimes
The
President may not have engaged in a war crime in 2019, but he
repeatedly expressed enthusiasm for them, whether it was about
torturing enemy soldiers, killing the families of terrorists, or
taking the natural resources of foreign countries.
In
2019, the United
States threatened to prosecute the International Criminal Court if it
investigated American atrocities in Afghanistan.
The US forced the UN to
rewrite a resolution condemning rape as a weapon of war,
because it included language about sexual health.
The
President regularly talks about unleashing violence on foreign
countries. He thinks it makes him look tough, but when he revels in
the bloodshed it makes it look cruel and callous. His statement,
contemplating
the obliteration of ten million people was the worst example of the
year.
In
a 1984 parody the
President
nominated a supporter of torture to lead U.S. Human rights policy.
Torture is a Human Right! And he pardoned
multiple army and navy officers convicted of war crimes.
When his
Navy
Secretary protested, the President fired him.
China Trade
War
The
trade war with China continued. When talks
stalled,
Trump increased tariffs from 10%
to 25% on $200 billion of Chinese goods.
A further spat led to a
ten percent tariff added to three hundred billion dollars
worth
of imports from China. China retaliated by adding
tariffs to seventy-five billion dollars
of
imports from the United States. The President
responded by increasing tariffs by five percent on five hundred and
fifty billion dollars
of
Chinese imports.
Near
the end of 2019 the
President announced the
preliminary outline of a phase one trade deal with China,
but when the details were revealed, China
backed off of Trump's demands.
As part of the negotiation, US
officials were banned from speaking in support of the protests in
Hong Kong.
Meanwhile,
Americans are paying for Trump's cold war. The White House subsidized
farmers with $15 per acre,
and a total of
40%
of farm income will come from the federal government.
Corruption
and Nepotism
The public
questioned whether the President's unqualified children working at
the White House would be a conflict of interest. 2019 illustrated
that the answer was yes. Experts insisted it would lead to
corruption. They were both correct.
An
adjudications manager in the personnel security office, who had
worked for the White House for nearly twenty years,
blew the whistle on the White
House's unprecedented decision to overrule 25 denials
for security clearances and award them anyways. These
included Jared Kushner's
which was awarded by the
President
who ignored all advice to reject Jared Kushner's application for a
security clearance.
A
company
partly owned by Kushner received $90m from unknown offshore investors
since 2017.
Trump
overburdened his son-in-law with outlandish duties for a political
neophyte,
then
he asked his daughter,
Ivanka, if she wanted to run the World Bank.
Ivanka used her position to enrich herself, receiving
five trademarks in China
while her dad worked on a trade deal, and earned
$4
million in a deal
which
had approval from the White House. Ivanka
also
violated the Hatch
Act.
A federal watchdog said Kelleyanne
Conway should be fired
for a similar infraction, but
the President
declined.
The
President also enriched himself with multiple methods. He
sold $35 million in real estate, 70% of which were made with Limited
Liability Companys (LLCs),
which allowed the purchasers to keep their identities secret. He
awarded
the 2020 G7 summit to his Florida resort,
but backed
down days later after a bipartisan outcry.
Corporations
and governing officials saw a benefit to staying at Trump's hotels.
T-mobile, seeking the government's approval for a merger
booked
52 nights at Trump's hotels,
for at
least $195,000.
Attorney
General William Barr reserved space for a holiday
party at his boss's Trump International Hotel for thirty thousand
dollars.
Vice
President Mike Pence, stayed at a Trump Hotel in Ireland, one hundred
and eighty miles from his meetings.
Citizens
have also seen their taxes fund the President's properties. The
military spent eleven million on fuel alone at an airport near the
Trump's Turnberry resort since 2017.
The Air Force admitted
it had lodged crews at Turnberry 40 times since 2015,
but refused to say how many had occurred since Trump became
President. Some stays were
for multiple nights, and crewmen played golf on the extravagant
resort
at
taxpayer expense. At least
two-hundred thousand dollars were spent at Turnberry by the Air
Force, for more than 650 rooms since August 2017 alone.
The Secret
Service also spent $250,000 staying at Trump properties across just
six months in 2017.
Finally,
the President was compelled
to
pay two million dollars after a judge determined he used his charity
foundation to benefit himself personally.
The Economy
In
2019 the President's proposed budgets included, significant
cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
This
despite, his declaration he would never slash these programs.
At the same time, the President demanded the largest Department of
War budget in the history of the United States.
The
Republican Tax Cuts and
increased
military spending
caused the deficit to grow by 77%
between October 1st
and
February 1st
with February earning the dubious accolade of the largest
monthly deficit in the history of the United States.
The
deficit swelled to $691
billion,
up
40% (!) from
just last year, with the White
House projecting a 1 trillion dollar deficit for 2019.
That is the first 1 trillion dollar deficit since 2012, as the Great
Recession ended. Though companies are making tons of money the
the
Republican Tax Cut
means
they pay significantly less in taxes.
The
Environment
Under
President Trump the EPA and other agencies engaged in the largest
roll back of environmental protections, when the world needs them
more than ever.
On
global warming the administration at least recognized it was
happening when Pompeo said “reductions
in sea ice are opening new passage ways and new opportunities for
trade."
They think it is beneficial!
So
they are trying to encourage it. The
President revoked California's waiver to set vehicle emission
standards,
while
threatening
to
cut
federal aid to California over an increase in wildfires.
They buried
over one-thousand climate studies,
and
opened
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
At the end of 2019 the White
House filed the paperwork to
withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement
The
EPA
also repealed regulations to protect the nation's water and public
health,
pesticides,
and toxins
while
encouraging oil
drilling
and
logging
on
pristine land. The White House picked
an anti-animal protection advocate to lead the US Fish and Wildlife
Service
and weakened
the Endangered Species Act.
Immigration
The
government shutdown which began under complete Republican control in
December of 2018, ended when
the
President signed a short term spending bill.
He also
declared
a National Emergency
simultaneously to acquire the five billion Congress had refused
to appropriate for his border wall. The House and the
Senate voted to cancel the National Emergency,
but the President issued his first
veto.
The
President drew funding from everywhere. The
Supreme Court said the President could shift $2.5 billion in unspent
military funds to build the border wall.
The Pentagon
halted 127 projects to fund the 3.6 billion request
for
the wall. Four
hundred million of that was directed to aid Puerto Rico's recovery.
In
August the President allegedly told
aides he would pardon them if they broke laws
to
speed up construction. The Department
of the Interior transferred 560 acres of public land to the U.S. Army
to build 70 miles of wall.
Trump wanted a wall
with spikes on top, and a moat with alligators in it.
Or soldiers on top to shoot
migrants in the legs to slow them down.
At
least
seven migrants died
crossing
the border
or
in US
custody.
Before the December 2018 death, no child had died in the Customs and
Border Protection custody in over a decade. The acting head of US
Immigration and Citizenship Services, Ken Cuccinelli, blamed
their deaths on not following the proper asylum procedures.
His cruel indignity is deceptive. The Trump Administration has
done everything in its power
to
slash
asylum and refugee admissions to zero.
Trump
threatened Guatemala into signing an agreement making it a safe third
country,
and then pressured
El
Salvador,
Honduras,
and Mexico
to
sign similar deals, effectively
dismantling the asylum system.
The Supreme
Court disagreed with lower courts, and reinstated the asylum ban.
Experts
estimate this policy could bar 375,000 immigrants yearly, a cut of
65% annually.
The
President also lowered the
number
of legal refugees to the United States to 18,000 in 2019/2020.
John
Oliver on Last
Week Tonight,
reviewed the Administration's policies. Seeking
asylum at the border became much more difficult
and
the administration plans to deny
green cards to legal immigrants who use Medicaid, food stamps, or
other public assistance.
When questioned whether this policy conflicted with the famous Emma
Lazarus Poem (The New Colossus), Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of
Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the poem referred
to “people coming from Europe,”
and
then savagely amended its famous line to read, “Give me your tired
and you poor who
can stand on their own two feet”.
Those
who do arrive suffer
inhumane conditions.
Migrants
aren't able to eat, shower, or brush their teeth, and are packed
together, sleeping on concrete floors
The border
patrol has been holding hundreds of migrant children beyond the legal
72 hours.
A
plan by Housing and Urban Development wants to worsen
the condition of at least 55 thousand children
by
canceling financial assistance for any family which contains even a
single non-citizen.
And
despite court orders to reunite children, thousands
still face indefinite custody,
while the Trump administration
continued to separate families, though
the Department of Homeland Security later admitted it
lacked the technology to reunite them.
The Trump administration
detained
migrant families indefinitely,
conducted
DNA testing,
and sought to end
birthright citizenship.
The
White House also wanted to include a question about
citizenship on the census.
The
Supreme Court ruled that the Administration was deceptive in their
public reasoning for including the citizenship question, and
therefore it could not be included. The President
admitted defeat,
but tried to
collect
citizenship data for redistricting after losing its case.
The
House investigated and both AG
Barr and Commerce Sec Ross were convicted of criminal contempt
for
refusing to comply with a request for information regarding the
citizenship question.
Iran
The
United States reintroduced sanctions on Iranian oil and President
Hassan Rouhani announced his partial
withdrawal from the deal.
The
United States sent warships
and
additional
troops
to
the Middle East in response.
After
two oil tankers were attacked,
Secretary
of State Pompeo accused Iran.
The
Pentagon deployed an
additional 1,000 soldiers
to
the Middle East. Iran
shot down a US military drone,
in its air space. The President
initiated a strike against Iran, but he aborted it 10 minutes
before
execution. The President issued threats, of ’obliteration
like you’ve never seen before’.
Later
the United
States shot down an Iranian drone.
Iran responded by seizing a U.K. tanker in the gulf, and announced it
arrested
17 people for spying for the CIA,
a claim the Administration denied.
Israel
Trump
regularly sided with Israel over Democrats or Jewish Americans.
After
repeated endorsements from President Trump, Netanyahu suggested he
might annex parts of the West Bank.
Trump
officially
recognized the Syrian Golan Heights, as
a part of Israel, and overturned forty years of American foreign
policy by declaring that
Jewish Settlements in occupied Palestine were legal.
When
Democrats protested, the President claimed "The
Democrats hate Jewish people".
When two Democratic Representatives planned to travel to Israel and
Palestine, the President publicly
and privately pressured Prime Minister Netanyahu to rescind the
approval.
Labor Laws
and College Assistance
One of the
biggest lies of the 2016 Trump campaign was that he would help the
common people, those left behind by the economy. His administration's
regulations related to work and assistance have been anything but
helpful.
The
White
House altered the rules for food
stamps, cutting 3.1 million people off.
They asked the US
Appeals Court to strike down the ACA, canceling health insurance for
20 million.
Further restrictions on food
stamps will cause six hundred thousand Americans to lose access.
The
administration argued that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act did
not protect LGBTQ workers from discrimination,
and by allowed states to require
drug
testing for workers to collect unemployment.
Meanwhile
Education
Secretary Betsy DeVos made it more difficult for students to cancel
debt incurred by fraudulent colleges,
and was
held
in contempt when
she
continued to require payments for student loans for a defunct,
for-profit college.
The Middle
East
The
President often claims to not want war. I think this is true. But he
also wants to brutally hurt those he perceives as enemies of his. He
wants to bully weaker nations, as long as they don't resist.
The
House and Senate voted
to end United States support for Saudi Arabia's barbaric war in
Yemen,
but the
President vetoed it.
The
White House deployed
an additional 1,800 troops to Saudi Arabia,
and ordered
increased engagement of forces in Afghanistan.
Trump
approved a deal to send nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia even after
the Khashoggi murder,
and he praised
the the culprit.
The
public
learned
that
secret talks between the Taliban and the United States had produced a
provisional accord, when a Taliban bomb killed an American soldier.
The President, who had invited Taliban leaders to Camp David to
finalize the deal, backed
out, canceled the meeting, and declared talks dead.
North Korea
Numerous
reports indicated that North Korea was expanding its arsenal.
They restored a
missile site
and threatened
to end talks.
But while some in the administration were openly taking a
hard line,
the President tweeted out his intent to scrap "additional
large scale Sanctions"
on the Hermit Kingdom.
North
Korea
continued
to test rockets again,
and again,
and again,
and again
and the President downplayed them all. Then he stepped
into North Korea.
But
Kim
Jong-un declared there would be no
further talks until the United States cancels its joint exercises
with South Korea.
Then Kim removed
nuclear disarmament from the table,
and conducted
tests at a previously dismantled site.
Other
There are
some stories which don't fit into any other category. Generally its
because they are too absurd to believe, and yet they are true. Ah,
the time we live in.
One
individual released the President's
internal schedule for the months of November, December, and January.
It indicated that the President usually didn't have an official event
until after 11am, and stopped work by 3pm. According to the files,
which the White House did not dispute, he spent approximately 50 to
60 percent of his daily time between 8am and 5pm in unplanned
Executive Time.
The
President wrote on the note,“Send
to the David S at the V.A.”
and initialed it! In another situation, the prior owner of the
Florida massage parlors at which Robert Kraft was found (and has been
indicted for prostitution) sold
access to the President to Chinese Executives.
Because
the
cruelty is the point,
the President's Department of Justice, under William Barr, restarted
federal executions, which were put on hold in 2003.
After
Trump
claimed that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama,
the
Birmingham National Weather Service corrected him.
Three
days later, in a public meeting, the President displayed an official
NOAA document showing the path of the hurricane, with an appendaged
black circle drawn next to the official white path.
Altering a NOAA document to give false information to the public is a
crime.
Quotes and
Insults
I could
sprinkle these throughout, but they have more of a shocking value
here, as you remember it is the President of the United States
who insulted an American Duchess, a sixteen-year-old girl, and a
female author. His allies made absurdly stupid statements relating to
Russia and Ukraine, regarding the President's guilt.
“Local
people know who they are, when they go for groceries and everything
else. And
I think what Wilbur was probably trying to say is that they will work
along.”
Giuliani
went on TV and said, “I
never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or between
people in the campaign [with Russia]”.
Mick
Mulvaney's said about the President's Russian contacts, "The
issue here is not whether it's ethical".
The
President retweeted
a portion of Thunberg's emotional speech
with the statement,
“She
seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and
wonderful future.”
When
she won Time's person of the year, he harassed her saying,
“Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good
old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”
Rallies
The
President held a number of rallies, and the results were the same as
the previous ones, and yet for those who haven't accepted them as
normal, they were unnerving.
He
held unhinged
rally (FBI are scum),
after unhinged
rally
(shooting
immigrants as a joke),
after unhinged
rally
(send
her back chants),
after unhinged
rally
(American deaths in Baltimore), after unhinged rally (smears
immigrants as rapists),
after unhinged
rally
(FBI are scum, again), after unhinged
rally
(demonized Somali immigrants), after unhinged
rally
(implied the husband of a political opponent was in hell).
The
President regularly refuses
to pay the local costs associated with his rallies.
Russia
The Russia
Investigation officially ended in 2019, but its effects will
reverberate into 2020 and beyond.
The
Russia Investigation found seven
guilty Republicans,
including the President's Campaign Chairman, Personal Lawyer,
National Security Adviser, and charged 13 Russian Nationals, along
with 12 Russian Military personnel. Manafort
was sentenced to seven years for his crimes.
He
shared
polling data with a Russian agent,
and lied repeatedly about his connections. Stone
was found guilty on all seven counts,
and awaits sentencing. The investigation
and
the Republican
controlled Senate Intelligence Committee agreed
that Russia, "sought
to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election by harming
Hillary Clinton's chances of success and supporting Donald Trump
at
the direction of the Kremlin.”
Before
the release of the complete Mueller report, William Barr previewed a
four
page summary.
Then he held a press conference, in which spun the results to defend
the President. His deception became
clear once the redacted report was released.
Mueller
wrote a letter to Barr after the 4 page summary was released, saying
it “did
not fully capture my report.”
The
full
report is available,
or if you don't want to read the full four hundred page compendium,
I
created a fifteen page summary.
The
Report seemed unlikely to offer complete vindication but somewhere
between mostly
vindicated,
to grossly
unethical and questionable entanglements, but nothing technically
illegal.
The
final
result seems closer to the latter.
Mueller found no direct line connecting Russia and Trump, though it
was clear that Russia interfered to aid Trump, and the Trump campaign
knew this, encouraged it, and did nothing to halt it. Mueller located
10
instances of possible obstruction of justice,
but refused to rule on them, leaving them for Congress. Mueller
served as a witness at a House Committee hearing, with
nine
key moments,
and the
President
liyng before, during, and after.
Barr
tried to distract from the report, by claiming “spying
did occur”
on
the Trump campaign by the Obama FBI. The fight shifted to Barr vs
House
Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler.
Barr refused
to release an unredacted report to Congress,
and refused
to attend a hearing with the Judiciary committee. House
Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler began a back an forth with Barr,
threatening to hold him in contempt for 1) Refusing
to testify at the HJC,
and 2) Withholding
the underlying access compiled in special counsel Mueller's report.
1,000
former DOJ prosecutors signed
a letter saying Mueller had enough evidence to charge the President
with obstruction of justice.
The President
asserted executive privileged over the entire reserved material for
the Mueller Report.
When Congress subpoenaed key
witness,
like former White House counsel, Don McGahn, they defied
the subpoena.
The
President's
lawyer asked Flynn for advance notice regarding Flynn's cooperation
with the Special Counsel.
Republicans
criticized
the President's instance he did not need to report foreign
interference to the FBI,
then promptly blocked
a vote on a bill which would have increased reporting requirements.
Republicans,
led by Mitch McConnell, blocked a number of bills intended to secure
the upcoming election.
Two
bombshell reports revealed further worrying Russia related issues.
Though the public already knew that Trump
told Russian Ambassador and others that firing FBI director Comey
relieved great pressure,
they learned that President
also told Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Kislyak that he was unconcerned
about election interference in 2016.
And, fearing Trump would compromise its agents, as
he has done with the Russian
ambassador in that same 2017 meeting in the Oval Office,
the
CIA removed a spy from Russia.
Without
any evidence, William
Barr launched a counter-investigation
of the origins of the Russia probe. He later admitted that he
found no wrongdoing by the CIA.
But even before the official release of the origins of the Russia
investigation by the Inspector
General, Attorney
General William Barr began attacking its conclusions.
The
Department of Justice IG, Michael Horowitz, debunked
the conspiracy that the FBI's investigation into the President was
motivated by political animus,
though he did say
the
FBI
made procedural mistakes throughout the investigation.
The
President lied about the report's conclusion,
saying that the IG proved the Russia Investigation “... was an
attempted overthrow...”
Sexual
Assault
The
President has already been accused of sexual assault or harassment by
roughly twenty-five women. In 2019 two new
sexual
assault claims were made against the President by advice columnist
E.Jean
Carroll,
and
Karen
Johnson.
Prior accuser Summer
Zervos, presented evidence in court to support her claim.
And
Supreme
Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was again accused of sexual
misbehavior, and lying about it.
Staff
The
Trump administration saw the most inept collection of officials in an
administration, with many acting as enemies of their agencies
agendas. In April, there were an unprecedented
15 acting leadership positions,
including the Secretary of Defense, FEMA, ICE, UN ambassador, and
Custom and Border Protection
The
President hired a new head of the EPA
(Andrew Wheeler – coal lobbyist), the Department
of the Interior
(David Bernhardt – oil lobbyist), and of the Department
of Justice, William Barr.
Homeland
Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen,
was pushed out, along with the Secret
Service director.
Press Secretary
Sarah
Sanders resigned
and was replaced with
Stephanie
Grisham.
Mark
Esper (Raytheon lobbyist) became Secretary of Defense,
and General Mark
Milley was confirmed as the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Labor
Secretary Alex Acosta was forced to resign when the public
learned he had secured a soft deal for child molester Jeffery
Epstein.
National
Security Advisor John Bolton,
was fired or quit.
The
Department of Homeland Security, saw its fifth (acting) secretary,
Chad Wolf, sworn in.
Anti-labor
Eugene Scalia, son of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia,
was confirmed by the Senate as Labor Secretary.
Republican mega-donor,
Kelly Craft became the US ambassador to the UN,
and
Robert
C. O’Brien was promoted to replace Bolton as Trump's fourth
National Security Adviser.
Tax Returns
Democrats
subpoenaed
Deutsche Bank for Trump's financial records,
and asked the Treasury for
his tax returns.
The Trump Organization resisted
both
requests.
In
spite of an internal IRS
memo
the Treasury rejected the request. Trump
sued to block Democrats from accessing his New York tax returns.
Appeals courts ruled against Trump, saying
he had to turn over his tax returns
and
his
banks had to comply with congressional subpoenas.
He appealed to the Supreme Court, and they
bundled the cases together to review in 2020.
Also,
an
IRS
whistleblower said Treasury officials might have interfered with an
audit of Trump's tax returns.
An investigation is ongoing.
Turkey
Trump,
after a phone
call with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan,
announced
an immediate withdrawal from northern Syria
which
allowed a Turkish invasion to exterminate the Kurds. Turkey would
claim Trump
knew the extent of their plans all along.
Trump
defended Erdogan's action.
The Turkish/Kurdish fight allowed allowed
950 ISIS supporters to escape.
The
Defense Secretary, under the order of the President, redeployed US
troops to protect Syrian oilfields.
A
Turkish
bank tied to the President's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was
indicted in a multi-billion dollar attempt to avoid U.S. sanctions
on
Iran. And the
President
directed Republicans to block a resolution from the Senate condemning
the Turkish genocide of Armenians.
Ukraine
The
President sought the aid of Russia in the 2016 election. For 2020 he
tried to replicate the project with the assistance of Ukraine. This
time he got his hands dirty.
The
first hint of the President's inventions was in May, when the
President
asked William
Barr to investigate Joe Biden for actions undertaken in Ukraine.
In late August Politico reported he was
withholding
aid the Ukrainian military needed to defend against Russian
aggression.
In
mid-September the public learned that the
President asked the President of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden's
son,
and the White House released a “transcript”
of the phone call. The President insisted it was a perfect call, but
refused
to say what he wanted President Zelensky to do about Biden,
encouraged
Ukraine and China to interfere in the 2020 election on live TV,
and raised
Biden with Chairman Xi in a June call about trade, These
calls were so
innocent they were hidden on a top-secret server.
President
Trump ordered
a political appointee put the hold on the $400 million in assistance
to Ukraine, days
before the phone call with Zelensky.
Emails
from the Office of Management and Budget revealed that
the
department demanded the Pentagon keep military aid to Ukraine frozen,
90 minutes after the infamous phone call between Trump and Zelensky.
OMB
officials
and
State
Department lawyers worried that the President's plan was illegal,
and the Pentagon
expressed concern because the aid was essential to the national
security
of
the United States.
A
secret back-channel of official
staff worked with the President's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani to
compel the Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden.
They drafted
a statement committing Ukraine to publicly announce a probe into Joe
Biden.
The
House Intelligence committee began an investigation, and subpoenaed
witnesses. Ambassador Gordon
Sondland,
Republican Senator
Ron Johnson,
Ambassador Bill
Talyor,
Lt Col. Alexander
Vindman,
White House Aid Tim
Morrison,
testified that the President ordered
them to seek a quid
pro
quo with Ukraine, exchanging military aid for an investigation into
Joe Biden.
In
public hearings Bill Taylor, George
Kent,
Vindman,
Tim
Morrison,
and Gordon
Sondland
testified that Trump was only interested in a quid pro quo
investigation into Joe Biden, not corruption. They revealed
that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, VP Mike Pence, and NSA John
Bolton knew of the scheme.
For example, Trump ordered
Pence not to attend the May inauguration of Zelensky to pressure him.
With
the evidence
from the Intelligence Committee,
the Judiciary Committee held a hearing. They
invited the White House to participate in a hearing, but the
Administration refused to participate.
The
Judiciary Committee crafted two
articles of Impeachment: one for an abuse of power, and other for
obstructing a legitimate investigation by Congress.
The
Committee approved them 23 to 17,
and sent them to the House. The
full House voted 230 to 197 to impeach the President,
Trump
defended himself in the Ukraine investigation by claiming he wasn't
pressuring Ukraine, because they didn't know the aid was being
withheld.
But reports say that Zelensky
knew as early as May,
and the State
Department
and Pentagon
knew that Ukraine knew about the hold at least by the day of the
phone call
between Trump and Zelensky.
Giuliani
came under investigation for financial
dealings with Lev
Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were arrested for campaign fiance crimes
as they tried to flee the United States.
Giuliani
received $500,000 from a company founded by Lev Parnas,
and asked to be paid hundreds
of thousands of dollars by Ukraine's then prosecutor general
Lutsenko.
Parnas
coordinated with Republican Representative Devin Nunez, the
ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee . Trump denied
knowing Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, but they attended
Trump's invite-only 2016 election night party.
And Trump was in these photos
(2018) and this photo
(2014).
The President also
denied knowing Gordon
Sondland,
among
others.
Giuliani
crusaded against
the
United States' former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, and
said she was an obstacle to his attempt to investigate the Bidens.
Yovanovitch
testified that she was smeared by Giuliani and his allies, and
removed by Trump.
During
her
testimony, Trump smeared her
on
Twitter. Giuliani confessed to the New
Yorker that, “... I needed Yovanovitch out of the way,”
and
admitted on Fox
News that he “forced her out,”
At
points the President and Giuliani appeared frantic and demented. They
both promoted wild conspiracies on OAN
and Fox
News.
Trump called for the called
for the arrest of Representative Adam Schiff.
He repeatedly attacked the whistleblower, tried
to find out who it was, threatened the whistleblower with execution,
and retweeted
an article that revealed their name.
They fought over who was responsible, with Giuliani saying that the
president was “very supportive” of his work in Ukraine,
and that Trump
asked him to brief the Justice Department and Republican Senators.
The President implausibly denied
any knowledge of the Giuliani's investigaiton. Feeling the
pressure Chief of State, Mick
Mulvaney even admitted that the White House withheld aid to Ukraine
to pressure them into investigating a disbunked conspiracy theory.
During
the month of December over
seven hundred historians, including the Pulitzer prize winning
authors Ron Chernow and David Blight, wrote in support of impeaching
the President.
A
timeline of the aid. President
Zelensky planned to announce an investigation into the Bidens on
September 13th.
The
announcement was canceled because the whistleblower made his
complaint on August 12th,
the
White House learned of the complaint on August 26th,
the Senate learned aid was held up on August 29th,
the inspector general informed the House Intelligence Committee of
the whistleblower on September 9th,
and the White House released the aid on September 11th.
In
conclusion:
First,
that President Trump directed a scheme to pressure Ukraine into
opening two investigations that would benefit his 2020 reelection
campaign, and not US national interests.
Second,
President Trump used his official office and the official tools of US
foreign policy, the withholding of an Oval Office meeting, and $391
million in security assistance, to pressure Ukraine into meeting his
demands.
Third,
everyone was in the loop. His chief of staff, the secretary of state,
and vice president.
And fourth,
despite the public discovery of this scheme which prompted the
president to release the aid, he has not given up. He and his agents
continue to solicit Ukrainian interference in our election, causing
an imminent threat to our elections and our national security.
Venezuela
The
White
House recognized Venezuela's opposition as the self-proclaimed
President.
In April, he
launched a military uprising with the tacit support of the United
States.
The same day, Bolton declared “All
options are on the table.”
Pompeo
opened May by saying, “Military
action is possible.”
But
a few days latter, the putsch had failed.
White
Supremacy and Racism
The
President regularly engaged in racist behavior which emboldened white
supremacists worldwide.
He
attacked non-white, female Representatives in Congress. He claimed
Representative Ilhan Omar partied on the anniversary of 9/11, a lie.
He tweeted
an altered video where she appeared to sympathize with the 9/11
terrorists.
She received death threats, but he refused to apologize. He
launched nativist attacks on four Democratic Representatives, saying
they should, “go
back and help fix the totally broken and crime invested places from
which they came.”
Republican
Representatives refused to acknowledge the tweets.
He attacked African American Representative Elijah Cummings'
Baltimore district as
“a
disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess … No human being would
want to live there.”
Though
the President retweets
prominent xenophobes
and
praised
a New Hampshire Republican who had called for Hillary Clinton to be
shot
by
firing squad,
he
couldn't be bothered to personally condemn a violent video
shown
at his resort to a conference of his supporters.
Though
proving his word's inspired others to engage in violence is
impossible, there was a frightening pattern of symbiosis between
Trump and white supremacists. Current
and former Border Patrol agents created a secret Facebook group where
they joked about the death of migrants, violence against Hispanic
Representatives, and vile sexual acts against people of color
including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
They
threatened violence against immigrants, and used alt-right memes to
display their own callousness
The
shooter of a New Zealand mosque called immigrants invaders, and hours
later the President agreed with the sentiment.
On Facebook, over
2,000 ads by the President warned of an immigrant invasion,
language identical
to the shooter in El Paso who targeted Hispanics.
And when the President lamented that troops
couldn't get tough with migrants at the border, vigilantes
followed the President's implication, and formed a right-wing militia
to complete the task.
A Top
Twenty-Five:
The
President nominated a supporter of torture to head the US Policy on
Human Rights.
40% of
farming income in the United States was paid by the Federal
Government because of Trump's China Trade War.
Trump gave
his son-in-law a top security clearance in defiance of official
recommendations.
The public
paid hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to house military
personnel and the Secret Service at Trump properties.
The deficit
increased 40% over one year due to the Republican Tax Cut and a
bloated military budget, reaching 1 trillion for the first time since
2012.
The White
House withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord.
After
caving on the Government Shutdown the President reopened the
government but declared a national emergency to fund his boondoggle
of a border wall.
Seven
migrants died at the border, the first time any died in a decade.
The White
House admitted only 18,000 refugees.
The White
House still hasn't unified the families it separated at the border.
The United
States recognized the right of Israeli settlers to steal land from
Palestinians in the West Bank.
The
President cut over three million people from food stamps.
The White
House will no longer report all assassinations by drone strikes.
Trump
stepped into North Korea, and they declared disarmament off the
table.
The
President works about four hours a day on official business.
The DOJ
restarted federal executions.
The
President insulted a sixteen-year-old girl on Twitter.
Mueller
released his report on the Russia investigation and included ten
possible cases of obstruction of justice by the President.
The
President's Campaign Chairman, Chairman's assistant, personal lawyer,
National Security Adviser, and personal friend were convicted for
campaign fraud relating to the Russia investigation, along with 13
Russian Nationals, and 12 Russian Military personnel.
The
President hired at least three lobbyists for Cabinet level positions.
Trump
abandoned the Kurds to a Turkish invasion.
Trump
blackmailed President Zelensky of Ukraine, withholding $400 million
in military aid, in exchange for a public investigation of Joe Biden,
his political opponent.
Trump used
similar language to White Supremacists, who gunned down Hispanic
Immigrants, Jewish citizens, and Muslim worshipers.
The White
House attempted to overthrow the Venezuelan government.
The
President smeared minority representatives in Congress as
un-American.
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