The Presidential Events of 2019: A Conclusion

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.


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.


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.


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.



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!



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.


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.


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”.


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 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.


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.



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.


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.



The President accused the NYT of treason, making it the 24th target of that specific claim.

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.


Mick Mulvaney's said about the President's Russian contacts, "The issue here is not whether it's ethical".






Trump called the Duchess of Sussex, “nasty.
He said of a woman who accused him of rape, “She's not my type.”

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).


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.


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.


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.

Tax Returns


Turkey


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.




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.






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.


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

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 asa disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess … No human being would want to live there.




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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