James.galbraith

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. | Amir Levy/Getty Images

This is a huge, huge deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been indicted on charges relating to corruption and bribery on Thursday, according to multiple reports in the Israeli and international press.

The official announcement will come from Avichai Mandelblit, Israel’s attorney general, on Thursday afternoon. The charges are serious, relating to three cases of financial and political misconduct, and carry the possibility of jail time. This is not an idle threat: Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert got caught in a bribery scandal during his time in office in the late 2000s and eventually served over a year in prison.

This indictment had been expected since nearly the beginning of the year. But now that it’s finally happening, the implications are massive. Netanyahu has been in office since 2009, taking over shortly after Olmert resigned in disgrace, and has become an increasingly authoritarian figure over time.

Two of the cases against him involve attempts to corruptly court the media, using policy favors to get more favorable coverage. The formal indictments represent the Israeli legal system striking back against his anti-democratic tendencies.

The announcement also came at a crucial time in Israeli politics: the aftermath of an inconclusive election. Neither Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party nor its chief rival, the centrist Blue and White party, have been able to form a governing coalition. The parties had been in talks to ally with each other and form a national unity coalition, but one of the key sticking points has been Netanyahu himself. He wants to keep the top job in some capacity, while Blue and White leaders have adamantly refused to allow him to do so while an indictment is still on the table.

Now, with the indictment formally filed, it will be easier for Netanyahu’s rivals within the Likud to dump him and then join in coalition with Blue and White. So this announcement could very well spell double doom for Netanyahu: first losing his job, then losing his freedom.

Why the formal indictment is such a big deal

The indictment against Netanyahu covers three different cases.

The first, called Case 1000, involves Netanyahu and his wife Sara receiving inappropriately valuable personal gifts from Israeli American billionaire Arnon Milchan and Australian businessman James Packer. It’s pretty garden-variety political corruption and bribery.

The second and third, Cases 2000 and 4000, involve some more insidious stuff: the abuse of the powers of office for political gain. In this respect, they’re similar to the Ukraine scandal in the US — except the quid pro quo is with domestic media rather than a foreign power.

In Case 2000, Netanyahu allegedly attempted to strike a deal with the owner of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest newspaper: He would pass a law limiting circulation of one of its rivals, the already pro-Netanyahu Israel Hayom, in exchange for more favorable coverage in the Netanyahu-skeptical Yedioth. This scheme apparently never entered force.

In Case 4000, Netanyahu allegedly manipulated regulatory powers in order to benefit Bezeq, a major Israeli company. In exchange, the Bezeq-owned news organization Walla gave the prime minister more favorable coverage. Unlike Case 2000, this allegedly went beyond the conspiracy stage, with Netanyahu trading regulations for good press over a five-year period.

The technical charges are bribery, fraud, and breach of public trust — the former the most serious under Israeli law, and the most damaging to Netanyahu.

In full context, these allegations are even more troubling than they may appear. Under Netanyahu’s leadership, Israel passed a law declaring that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people” — a vision of national identity that excludes Arabs and other non-Jewish minorities. It passed a law aimed at silencing NGOs that monitored the Israeli military’s human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, and attacked the independence of the judiciary.

So the media manipulation isn’t an isolated offense. It’s part of a broader pattern of authoritarian drift that has made Israeli observers quite concerned about the health of their country’s political system.

“What many of the allegations against Netanyahu point to is a systematic attempt to skew media coverage of the prime minister in his favor. And this is no piffling matter,” writes eminent Israeli journalist David Horovitz. “If a leader can line up most or even many of the ostensibly competing media organizations that cover national events reliably on his side, he can subvert their role as independent watchdog, misdirect the reading and watching public, and advance a long way toward cementing his position as prime minister — his non-term-limited position as prime minister in Israel.”

This indictment, then, represents the guardrails of Israeli democracy working as they’re supposed to: stepping in at a key time to protect the system from venal leadership.

And indeed, the timing really is vital. On Wednesday, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz announced that he had been unable to form a coalition in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, during the time allotted to his party alone (Netanyahu’s repeated racist attacks against the leading Arab political faction, which could have joined with Gantz, did not help matters). It seems like Israel is close to having yet another election, the third in less than a year.

Amir Levy/Getty Images

Yet there’s still a three week period in which any faction, not only Gantz’s, can attempt to form a coalition. And now the indictment might well put enough pressure on an anti-Netanyahu faction within Likud to finally dump the long-serving prime minister. It’s kind of a natural coalition: Blue and White is more of a center-right than purely centrist party, with the biggest dividing line between it and Likud centering on Netanyahu personally and his attacks on the democratic system. Some analysts believe that the indictment might just remove the key sticking point to this solution.

“It could shuffle the cards by giving Likud cover to break with Bibi [Netanyahu],” writes Natan Sachs, the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, adding that there’s “already a public challenge to Netanyahu in his party” from Likud MK Gideon Saar.

This is not to say Israeli democracy is out of the woods. The reason for democratic backsliding in the country are, at root, linked to its occupation of Palestinian land. Israel administers a military dictatorship in the West Bank that imposes its whim on Palestinians with little accountability, a kind of unlawfulness that corrupted democratic institutions inside legally recognized Israel territory. If it annexes part of the West Bank, as Netanyahu promised to do, then this occupation would likely become permanent — and turn into formal apartheid.

Blue and White doesn’t have a plan to end the occupation, and it seems unlikely that it even wants to put one together. It has even signaled willingness to conduct a partial annexation, revealing just how seriously we need to take the threat facing both Palestinians and Israeli liberalism. But if Netanyahu is forced out, it’s at least a rare victory for democracy.

Microsoft seems to be testing a new feature that lets users add Google services to their Outlook accounts. From a report: If available on your account, you should see a pop-up that says, "Add your Google Mail and Calendar to Outlook and easily manage everything in one place." Doing so allows you to switch between your Outlook and Gmail inboxes (though this causes the entire browser tab to refresh) and browse your Drive files. It's not clear how Google Calendar is integrated into Outlook. At the moment, you can only select a single Gmail account to sync with Outlook, which could be frustrating since so many people use multiple Gmail addresses.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A leaked strategy document prepared for conservative Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski and newly obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times advised the congressman to employ a two-faced strategy to win over different groups of voters, most notably by touting his vote against the Affordable Care Act when messaging Republicans while simultaneously extolling his votes to oppose repealing Obamacare when talking to independents.

The memo also said Lipinski should emphasize his opposition to abortion rights to Republicans and Catholics while of course mentioning nothing of the sort to everyone else. Similarly, it advised that he highlight his “pro border patrol” views to conservatives while playing up his “pro-Dreamer” votes to Latinos.

Most significantly, the strategy guide urged that Lipinski's campaign encourage Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary in March by "reaching out to GOP officeholders" and "getting letters from 'GOP surrogates.'" This is very much possible under Illinois' system of "open" primaries, where voters do not register by party. Instead, they declare their affiliation at their polling place and receive whichever party's ballot they prefer.

In last year's primary for the Chicago-area 3rd District, when Lipinski narrowly edged progressive challenger Marie Newman by a 51-49 margin, he very likely survived thanks to Republican voters crossing over to support him. That left Newman's backers gnashing their teeth, and now they have much firmer evidence that Lipinski will pursue precisely this strategy in his rematch against Newman in 2020.

We don't need to tolerate this nonsense! Send $3 to Marie Newman ASAP!

Lipinski, naturally, has sought to downplay the memo: He claimed he hadn't seen the document until he spoke with the Sun-Times, saying that "this is not anything that I have approved" and adding that the proposals "are not necessarily my thoughts." But some, apparently, are: Speaking of "talking points" that described him with phrases like "vote conscience" and "doesn't check the wind," Lipinski said, "I think it's a good summary, probably, of how I see myself ..."

Yet Lipinski did not disavow the document, and there's reason to think his outreach to Republicans could be even more successful this time. That's because last year, the GOP waged a hard-fought battle in the race for governor at the top of the ticket. Next year, though, Republicans won't have much on their side of the ledger, since Donald Trump will easily be renominated. GOP voters will therefore have even more incentive to ask for Democratic ballots.

There's a countervailing force at work here, though, because the Democrats' presidential primary will also take place the same day and will likely still be in full swing by mid-March. If that contest draws out large numbers of more liberal voters eager to cast ballots for candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders—both of whom have endorsed Newman—Lipinski could find himself washed out to sea no matter how much GOP support he can finagle.

More and better Democrats, please! Can you donate $3 to Marie Newman?

Ambassador Gordon Sondland lied, Vice President Mike Pence's office said in a statement released after Wednesday morning's impeachment hearing. Sondland testified that he had discussed the delay in aid to Ukraine with Pence, "that I had concerns that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations. I recall mentioning that before the Zelensky meeting," in Warsaw on September 1.

Pence's chief of staff was unequivocal. "The Vice President never had a conversation with Gordon Sondland about investigating the Bidens, Burisma, or the conditional release of financial aid to Ukraine based upon potential investigations." And the statement went on at length to say that "Sondland was never alone with Vice President Pence on the September trip. […] The alleged discussion recalled by Ambassador Sondland never happened."

That might have been just a tad bit overstated, now that Pence himself has made time to weigh in. Now it's "I don’t recall any discussions with Ambassador Sondland before my meeting with President Zelensky that had to do with investigations."

"I don't recall" is a pretty far cry from "never happened."

In her opening statement deputy assistant defense secretary Laura Cooper announced that, following her earlier testimony, her staff had located two emails indicating that not just officials in the United States, but officials at the Ukrainian Embassy, expressed concern about the military assistance hold on July 25. That’s the same day that Donald Trump placed his call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Meaning that Zelensky could very well have been fully aware that Trump had placed a hold on that assistance at the time of the call. 

Though testimony in much of the inquiry, including in the hearing with Gordon Sondland on Wednesday morning, there was a pretense that Ukrainians were unaware of the hold on assistance until it became public knowledge at the end of August. Previous witnesses had indicated that the Ukrainians were actually aware of the hold weeks earlier, but were reluctant to raise the issue in diplomatic channels because Ukraine did not want to reveal anything of its intelligence sources in the United States. 

But Cooper is the first to indicate that the Ukrainians were already aware of the hold at the time Trump talked with Zelensky. That means that when Trump was asking for investigations into Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, he was not only doing so while withholding defense funding from Ukraine, they knew it.

Cooper’s testimony, and that of other witnesses, completely takes the “Ukraine didn’t even know” claim off the table.

Wednesday, Nov 20, 2019 · 11:24:41 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

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Just as Laura Cooper testified that on July 25, the Ukrainian embassy was asking "what's going on" with the security assistance, the White House sent talking points saying "Bottom Line: Ukraine Didn’t Know About the Aid Being Withheld Until Well After the July Call."

— Tamara Keith (@tamarakeithNPR) November 20, 2019

Video and transcript below the fold.

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But before answering your questions, there is one other matter I would like to address. i testified in a deposition before this committee and other committees on October 23, 2019. At that time, I was asked questions about what I knew about when the Ukrainian government may have learned about any hold on security assistance funds. I answered those questions based on my knowledge at that time. Since my deposition, I have again reviewed my calendar and the only meeting where I recall a Ukrainian official raising the issue with me is on September 5, at the Ukrainian Independence Day celebration. I have, however, since learned some additional information on this subject from my staff. Prior to my deposition testimony, I avoided discussing my testimony with members of my staff or anyone other than my attorney, to insure my deposition testimony was based only on my personal knowledge. My deposition testimony was publicly released November 11, 2019. Members of my staff read the testimony and have come to me since then and provided additional information. Specifically, on the issue of Ukraine's knowledge of the hold or Ukraine asking questions about possible issues with the flow of assistance, my staff showed me two unclassified emails that they received from the State Department. One was received on July 25, at 2:31PM. That e-mail said that the Ukrainian embassy and House Foreign Affairs committee are asking about security assistance. The second email was received July 25, at 4:25 PM. That email said the Hill knows about the FMF situation to an extent, and so does the Ukrainian embassy. I did not receive either of these emails, my staff does not recall informing me about them, and I do not recall being made aware of their content at the time. I do not have any additional information about precisely what the Ukrainians may have said, what may have been their source of information about a hold, or possible issues with a flow of assistance, or what the State Department officials may have told them. My staff also advised me in the last few days of the following additional fact that may be relevant to this inquiry. Again, my staff does not recall informing me about them, and i do not recall being made aware of this. July 3, 4:23 PM, they received an email from the State Department saying the CM is currently being blocked by OMB, currently referring to the state investigation the state would send for MFF. On November 25, a member of my staff got a question about what was going on with Ukraine security assistance. At that time, we did not know what the guidance was on USAI. The apportionment arrived that day, but this staff member did not find out about it until later. I was informed the staff member told the Ukrainian official we were moving forward on USAI, but recommended that the Ukraine embassy check in with State regarding the FMS.

Sometime during the week actuate 6-10, a Ukraine officer told a member of my staff a Ukrainian official might raise concerns about security assistance in an upcoming meeting. My understanding was that the issue was in fact not raised. Again, i have no further information about what concerns about the security assistance Ukraine may have had at that time. My staff also recalls thinking Ukrainians were aware of the hold on security assistance during August but they cannot pinpoint any specific conversations where it came up. My staff told me they're aware of additional meetings where they saw officials from the Ukrainian embassy in August, and they believe the question of the hold came up at some point but they told me they did not find any correspondence or record of those meetings, consequently neither they nor I know precisely when what additional discussion mays have occurred with Ukrainians in the month of August. if I had more details on these matters, I would offer them to the committee. This is the extent of additional information I have received since my deposition. Mr. Chairman, I welcome your questions, I will answer them to the best of my ability. Thank you.

Wednesday brought us Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s testimony in front of the House Intelligence Committee as part of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. And Sondland did not disappoint, deciding to go ahead and NOT commit perjury or take the Fifth and remain silent. It’s been an interesting day, as conservatives try to throw every person beside Trump under the bus, while also saying nothing worth throwing people under the bus for happened. But why don’t we go around the internets and find out how people reacted?

Here’s a basic overview of today:

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tl;dr #ImpeachmentHearing pic.twitter.com/lM4FSCD4Ps

— Brine That Turkey (@carolrhartsell) November 20, 2019

Here’s a take for the kids. The man on the right is popular rapper 6ix9ine, who cooperated with federal agents investigating criminal charges in return for a reduced sentence earlier this year.

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Hey so who wore it best? pic.twitter.com/KyC58fzM0b

— Jeffrey Wright (@jfreewright) November 20, 2019

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Did Nunes not get an advance copy of Sondland's opening? or is he just hoping that no republicans will see any of this but Sean Hannity's supercut?

— Sam Seder (@SamSeder) November 20, 2019

Here’s the general feeling.

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Impeach everybody. Everybody.Everybody.

— Hunter (@HunterDK) November 20, 2019

And let us all remember, these are the “best people.”

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On Oct. 8, @realDonaldTrump called Sondland a "really good man and a great American." pic.twitter.com/rgOH3OheTp

— Jennifer Hayden (@Scout_Finch) November 20, 2019

A good reaction GIF or video is all about timing.

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Ambassador Sondland, could you please be specific about who - pic.twitter.com/Yv8I3ARR52

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 20, 2019

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Threading the needle pic.twitter.com/xjoX28nVn4

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 20, 2019

A quick reminder: Devin Nunes’ soul was handed over to the devil for a few committee seats a long time ago.

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Nunes needin that break real quick. https://t.co/Ct02d2c80q

— Jeffrey Wright (@jfreewright) November 20, 2019

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Nunes had a bad day pic.twitter.com/PRfzzDlJ6y

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) November 20, 2019

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Schiff is clearly trolling Nunes with the 2+2. Nunes has already sued a cow, so now he's wondering if he can sue math.#ImpeachmentHearing

— Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) November 20, 2019

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Nunes: maybe it was Hunter Biden who ordered the space aliens to kill Seth Rich and start the 'Russia hoax'? 🙄

— Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) November 20, 2019

And while this isn’t from today, it applies to every day of testimony.

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.@DevinNunes is doing great job establishing that none of the witnesses in front of him can in no way corroborate any of Nunes's crazy conspiracy theories.

— Omri Marian (@Omri_Marian) November 19, 2019

Trump has one angle left to him still.

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BREAKING: the President just unveiled the bus he plans to throw Rudy Giuliani under. pic.twitter.com/lmx7b7Y7TW

— Dana Gould (@danagould) November 20, 2019

How desperate is the GOP?

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Nunes says he's going to use his allotted time to talk about how Ukraine "supported Hillary Clinton's candidacy." Hillary. Clinton.

— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) November 20, 2019

That’s right. According to the GOP, Clinton is still running the country from inside of a pizzeria.

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I can’t believe Nunes was elected by actual people.

— Zach Braff (@zachbraff) November 20, 2019

I have this thought every. Single. Day. Here’s a bit of bad news for the president.

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Ken Starr on Fox News: "It doesn't look good for the president, substantively." pic.twitter.com/kDBdx0DapS

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 20, 2019

But there’s an answer for that.

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Yes! It’s called resignation. https://t.co/5OGMDUA2aJ

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 20, 2019

Does Ambassador Sondland understand what he’s testifying about?

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Reminder: Gordon Sondland gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration & was rewarded with a high-profile ambassadorship.Sondland knows a quid pro quo when he sees one. #ImpeachmentHearings

— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) November 20, 2019

Right, of course he does. Is there a new Trump defense on the horizon?

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My prediction is Trump will say he’s never meet Giuliani, Pompeo, Sondland, Pence, Bolton, and himself. #ImpeachmentHearings

— Northridge Indivisible (@TRNorthridge) November 20, 2019

And we can’t leave without seeing how Gym Jordan is faring.

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Jim Jordan speaks exactly like an abuser. It’s truly shocking. Sondland is on the wrong end of this for maybe first time ever, and feels it.

— Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR) (@HC_Richardson) November 20, 2019

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Jim Jordan looks like the personification of nose-burning b.o.

— Andy Richter (@AndyRichter) November 20, 2019

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Each day, @Jim_Jordan speaks louder & faster. But it’s always the same lame message: there’s no crime because Trump got caught & stopped extorting #Ukraine.

— Barbara Boxer (@BarbaraBoxer) November 20, 2019

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The real impeachment is in the Jim Jordans we made along the way.

— Max Burns (@themaxburns) November 20, 2019

Let’s leave this special moment right here.

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Girl bye, I don’t do fake...😂😭Congressman Krishnamoorthi is all of us! pic.twitter.com/tyofl5gOsn

— FierceWarriorNStilettos (@InactionNever) November 20, 2019

And never forget.

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A reminder: None of these hearings would have happened if organizers, volunteers, and voters hadn't worked together to win back the House majority for Democrats last year. Let's keep working together in 2020 to hold power to account.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 20, 2019

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is once again expressing alarm at the U.S. policy targeting vulnerable people and families, saying it has “serious concerns” with a new Trump administration rule that will deport asylum-seekers to Guatemala with no concern about their well-being after they land.

The plan “is an approach at variance with international law that could result in the transfer of highly vulnerable individuals to countries where they may face life-threatening dangers,” the agency said, noting it “is not party” to any new agreements between the U.S. and Guatemala. “We are in dialogue with all of the governments concerned to enumerate our concerns as we also seek to learn more about their plans for implementation.”

But BuzzFeed has reported Homeland Security officials has been themselves “scrambling to figure out critical details, including how those seeking protection would obtain shelter, food, and access to orientation services” once in Guatemala. Much like the inhumane and illegal Remain in Mexico policy, the administration is disposing of vulnerable people in dangerous conditions where their very lives could be at risk. 

“Once again,” said Douglas Rivlin of immigrant rights advocacy group America’s Voice, “Trump is executing a poorly thought out plan to enact Stephen Miller's agenda of keeping asylum-seekers out regardless of whether their asylum claims are valid and lawful. Rather than protecting asylum-seekers, as our law requires, Trump, Miller and the Republicans simply want to end asylum.”

Not the first time the U.N. has condemned recent U.S. immigration policy. Earlier this year, Michelle Bachelet, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said she was “appalled by the conditions in which migrants and refugees—children and adults—are being held in detention in the United States of America after crossing the southern border.” The year before, she called the “zero tolerance” policy resulting in the kidnapping of thousands of kids from their families, “unconscionable.”

Discrepancies between the sales tax practices of companies like DoorDash, as well as its competitors like Uber Eats, Postmates, and Grubhub are raising questions | Getty

It could be the latest business practice in the gig economy to raise regulatory questions.

The food delivery company Grubhub said it has collected hundreds of millions in taxes for delivery and service fees in dozens of states since at least 2011. But Recode has found that in some of those same states, Grubhub’s top rivals in the delivery space, including DoorDash, Postmates, and Uber Eats, don’t appear to be collecting a cent. This discrepancy puts those rivals in a precarious position if regulators take notice and object.

Several tax experts Recode interviewed said food delivery app companies’ tax practices could raise legal concerns. The sales taxes in question are on fees that can amount to as much as a third of the total price of food orders — or at least $120 million per year of taxable dollars on the sales of major food delivery companies in California and New York alone, based on Recode’s calculations on an estimated market size from research firm Forrester. If you account for all of the US, that could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

The experts told Recode these tax practices could be a liability not just for the food delivery apps but also for the restaurants whose food they deliver. Both the apps and the restaurants could later be on the hook for paying taxes that apps aren’t currently collecting. It’s another example of how existing laws haven’t yet adapted to the gig economy — and in the meantime, these tech companies are taking advantage of the loopholes.

“I would feel very uncomfortable if I were tax counsel for one of those companies if those taxes weren’t being collected,” said Hayes Holderness, assistant professor at the University of Richmond School of Law and a state tax policy expert. Holderness called it an “aggressive” and “risky” decision for companies not to charge sales taxes on delivery — but a “not necessarily unreasonable” stance, and one that could be debated in court. For companies in the competitive food delivery market, the immediate business benefit of keeping sales taxes lower could also outweigh the legal risks, he said.

Gig economy companies have historically loosely interpreted the law — or in some cases skirted it entirely — to benefit their business models, and regulators are increasingly examining their behavior.

The Washington, DC, attorney general announced earlier this week he’s suing DoorDash, arguing that the company misled customers and pocketed workers’ tips. Earlier this year, politicians raised concerns about wage theft when Instacart, DoorDash, and several other companies were found to be using workers’ tips to subsidize their own costs (the companies all eventually revised their policies — with DoorDash being the slowest to do so — and many workers continue to report low pay). In September, Uber made a baffling argument that its drivers aren’t core to its business as part of its rationale for why a new labor law targeted at gig economy apps didn’t actually apply to the company. And ride-hail companies have similarly been accused of not doing enough to prevent and investigate sexual assaults that occur during rides.

In every case, gig economy companies have argued that they are digital marketplaces matching sellers and buyers and are therefore not financially or legally responsible for things that happen on their platforms.

When it comes to sales tax, companies have an obvious business incentive to avoid charging it: keep prices low, keep customers happy, and keep sales up. And in the food delivery space, which is an increasingly competitive industry with tight margins, that’s an acute pressure.

“Right now there’s an arms race for customer acquisition,” said Sucharita Kodali, a principal analyst at Forrester who specializes in e-commerce. “As venture capital startups, the more growth they can exhibit, that’s still the signal of success, and any lever they can use to help showcase those metrics helps.”

In the past year, DoorDash has emerged as the unexpected market leader and fastest-growing food delivery app in the US, according to research firm Edison Trends, unseating market incumbent Grubhub. The company has aggressively expanded its business, putting pressure on an already crowded market.

If tax laws were more clear, food delivery companies would probably just absorb the cost of charging sales taxes on delivery fees and “move on,” Kodali told Recode. But, Kodali said, in “an age of ambiguity, if it helps them to showcase a better result then why not?”

But it also poses a risk. If states or cities find companies liable for taxes later, they could sue for years of back taxes, several tax experts told Recode. That’s what happened to travel website Expedia, which several cities accused of avoiding as much as $847 million in taxes on room fees. The company has long been embroiled in legal battles over these cases. More recently, the state of New Jersey recently sued Uber for over $650 million in unemployment and disability insurance taxes for allegedly misclassifying its workforce as independent contractors instead of employees.

Laws haven’t caught up with the gig economy

The tax codes governing food delivery apps like Grubhub, DoorDash, and Postmates vary significantly state by state, and they are changing as local governments grapple with how to adapt old laws to the new gig economy.

Generally, some laws in states like California and New York have provisions that could call for sales taxes on delivery and service fees to be collected, according to Scott Groberski, a managing director in state and local tax groups at accounting and tax firm Grant Thornton. Still, it’s very much a gray area and would vary based on the specifics of the contracts between restaurants and food delivery providers.

“With new technology, it’s extremely complicated determining what’s taxable and what’s not — I think this is something that continues to evolve even as we speak,” Groberski told Recode.

In California, for example, it depends if the company contracts with restaurants to “provide a delivery service only” or if it acts as a “retailer” of the food, according to Casey Wells at the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.

Whether or not a food delivery app company is a retailer depends on the contracts it has with restaurants, Wells said, as well as if the app is marking up the price the restaurant normally charges for the food.

Wells declined to comment on whether or not the law would classify specific companies like DoorDash or Grubhub as retailers or not.

Some tax experts said it comes down to whether these companies are charging the restaurants they work with or only charging consumers. Grubhub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Postmates all regularly partner with restaurants and charge them commission fees.

“I have a real doubt that Grubhub is overtaxing — the default rule should be that it’s taxable, that is the safer position,” said Holderness.

“In some cases, it may not be a question of tax avoidance or uncertainty so much as legitimate uncertainty about what the rules are,” said Steve Rosenthal, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Policies vary state to state, and the rules around taxing delivery fees are myriad and often outdated.

When asked about concerns tax experts raised about Uber’s sales and delivery tax policies, a spokesperson for Uber responded with the following statement:

“We collect sales tax on delivery fees where required, with particular attention to recently enacted marketplace facilitator laws. Although California has enacted similar legislation, there is an exception for delivery network companies. Accordingly, we do not believe it is appropriate for Uber Eats to collect sales tax on delivery fees from our users in California at this time. We are deeply committed to compliance, which includes ongoing assessment of developments in local legislation and state-issued guidance.”

DoorDash (which also owns Caviar) declined to comment.

In a statement to Recode, Postmates said it is in compliance with all regulations and tax laws in jurisdictions where it operates, and that it is “[w]orking with lawmakers across markets, both to ensure our operations remain consistent with evolving state-by-state guidance on the tax code, and to balance the unique nature of on-demand products with the goal of ensuring taxable revenues are always collected by the state.”

Grubhub, meanwhile, maintains that it’s in the right for collecting these sales taxes and denied that the food delivery app business models exempt companies from these collections.

“We have been audited by multiple states, multiple times, and in every case we were required to collect and remit sales tax on delivery fees,” said Grubhub’s CEO Matt Maloney.

The threat of regulation

In recent years, local lawmakers have increasingly scrutinized the tech industry. For example, more states are now charging sales tax on products that are purchased online. That’s because of a June 2018 Supreme Court Ruling, South Dakota v. Wayfair, which gave states the rights to demand more tax revenue from online companies that sell goods in their state, even if those companies don’t have a physical location in the area.

California politicians told Recode that they’re also thinking about how the gig economy collects taxes.

“I’m concerned about what appears to be a pattern of activity of these gig companies to not even find out what they should be doing by law,” said California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who authored the landmark labor legislation AB 5 that legally pressures companies like Uber and Lyft to reclassify contractors as employees. “It’s unfair competition. If you have a Dominos, for example, that is abiding by the rules, they’re taking the appropriate sales tax out, they’re not going to be able to compete with an app that’s doing all those things.” Dominos is one of the only major pizza chains that does its own delivery, independent of food delivery apps.

If there’s a lesson to be learned by food delivery startups from tech successes of the past, it’s that creatively interpreting outdated regulations can help them get ahead. Amazon largely skipped out on collecting sales tax for third-party seller products until a few years ago when it was facing state regulations to do so — but by then it was already the top online retailer. Uber ignored licensing rules in many states but became the leading ride-hail company in the meantime. And Airbnb delayed its obligation to collect taxes and enforce zoning rules by suing several cities where it operated.

In all those fights, regulators were slow to keep up with tech companies, which took advantage of that to quickly become market leaders, meaning they could afford costly legal battles. But in an era when tech is facing a reckoning with the public and increased political scrutiny, that might change, and regulators may start applying stricter rules to companies like DoorDash and Postmates.

President Trump talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, on July 16, 2019. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified that “everybody was in the loop.”

“Everyone was in the loop,” US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said to the House Intelligence Committee more than once on Wednesday in damning impeachment testimony.

Sondland, in so few words, implicated those at the highest level of the Trump administration — including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the president himself — in pressuring Ukraine to announce investigations into the 2016 elections and energy company Burisma, which former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, served on the board of.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Precisely because we did not think that we were engaging in improper behavior, we made every effort to ensure that the relevant decision-makers at the National Security Council and State Department knew the important details of our efforts,” Sondland testified on Wednesday.

He added: “The suggestion that we were engaged in some irregular or rogue diplomacy is absolutely false.”

Even though Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was also involved with Ukrainian policy, Sondland testified that far from pursuing a rogue operation, Sondland and others understood that if they “refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose a very important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine.”

“So we followed the president’s orders,” Sondland said.

The extent to which Sondland’s testimony tied Trump himself to the scheme varied depending on which of the two quid pro quos was under discussion. But the bottom line was clear: US officials marshaled the power of the United States government to pursue the political whims of President Donald Trump.

Sondland says he knew what Trump wanted — and worked to make it happen

A key question in House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is whether Trump’s desire to have a public announcement of investigations (not necessarily actual investigations) — an announcement that would benefit him politically — effectively also became official United States policy.

And listening to Sondland’s testimony, it was. He said that he knew a White House meeting for the new Ukrainian president was conditioned on an announcement of those investigations, and he “later came to believe” that military aid was contingent on those announcements, too. In other words, he knew of a quid pro quo for a White House meeting, and he eventually understood that one existed for Ukrainian support, too.

Sondland knows the investigations mattered to the president because he spoke with him directly, including a call on July 26 that another State Department official overhead, in which Trump allegedly asked Sondland about whether Zelensky would pursue the investigations he wanted. (Sondland, for his part, didn’t deny the call took place but said Wednesday that he didn’t recall mentioning the Bidens and that he and Trump mostly talked about A$AP Rocky.)

Sondland did testify Wednesday that the president never told him directly that aid to Ukraine was being denied until Zelensky committed to the investigations. Instead, he said it’s something that he inferred over time — not least because he understood that Giuliani spoke for the president.

In an exchange with Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman, Sondland lays this out pretty explicitly:

Goldman: And you said President Trump had directed you to talk, you and the others to talk to Rudy Giuliani at the Oval Office on May 23, is that right?

Sondland: If we wanted to get anything done with Ukraine, it was apparent to us we needed to talk to Rudy.

Goldman: Right, you understood Mr. Giuliani spoke for the president, correct?

Sondland: That’s correct.

Sondland suggests that he and others acted on this understanding. Whatever their personal objections to this arrangement, officials like Sondland or former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker (who testified Tuesday that he tried to “thread the needle” on Ukraine), didn’t stop pushing get Ukraine to commit to those investigations. Sondland has said he told the Ukrainians directly that he believed aid and the meeting were preconditioned on Ukraine following through on those inquiries.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

“I was acting in good faith,” Sondland said Wednesday. “As a presidential appointee, I followed the directions of the president. We worked with Mr. Giuliani because the president directed us to do so. We had no desire to set any conditions. We had no desire to set any conditions on the Ukrainians. Indeed, my own personal view, which I shared repeatedly with others, was that the White House [meeting] and security assistance should have proceeded without preconditions of any kind.”

“We were working to overcome the problems, given the facts as they existed,” Sondland said.

The facts, as they existed, were that Trump wanted those public inquiries. Sondland’s testimony indicates that the line between Trump’s interests and US interests in Ukraine became blurred, and then accepted. It wasn’t a secret. Everyone, as Sondland repeated, was in the loop.

Sondland name drops, big time

“The leadership at the State Department, the National Security Council, and the White House were all informed about the Ukraine efforts from May 23, 2019, until the security aid was released on September 11, 2019,” Sondland said in his opening testimony.

These dates are important. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was inaugurated on May 20, and Sondland attended, along with Volker and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. On May 23, that delegation returned to brief Trump about their meeting with the new president. Trump instructed those present to “talk to Rudy” instead.

September 11 is the date US military aid to Ukraine was finally released, just two days after Congress was informed about a whistleblower complaint.

A lot happened in this time period: multiple meetings with Ukrainian officials where the need for investigations were discussed, Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky. But Sondland is saying, throughout it all, the top officials in the US government knew what was going on, and that has to include efforts to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into Burisma (which meant the Bidens, as Sondland said he learned later) and the 2016 election.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

And he brought receipts: Sondland on Wednesday presented one email, sent on July 19, to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and other top officials in the Trump administration that basically informs them all that he’s encouraging Zelensky to pursue those investigations that Trump wants:

I Talked to Zelensky just now… He is prepared to receive POTUS’ call. Will assure him that he intends to run a fully transparent investigation and will ‘turn over every stone’. He would greatly appreciate a call prior to Sunday so that he can put out some media about a ‘friendly and productive call’ (no details) prior to Ukraine election on Sunday.

Mulvaney responded that he “asked the NSC to set it up for tomorrow,” according to Sondland’s testimony.

“Everyone was in the loop,” Sondland said. “It was no secret. Everyone was informed via email on July 19, days before the presidential call.”

Much has been made throughout this impeachment investigation into how officials interacted with Ukraine. There were the official, formal diplomatic channels and then what looked like an “irregular” channel, led by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Those two channels overlapped, which became clear in text messages Volker provided to the House Intelligence Committee that showed top US diplomats interacting with Giuliani. And Trump, on his July 25 call with Zelensky, told the Ukrainian president: “Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great.”

But Sondland’s testimony indicated that this wasn’t just overlap; the irregular channel subsumed the official one.

“I don’t know how someone could characterize something as an irregular channel when you’re talking to the president of the United States, the secretary of state, the national security adviser, the chief of staff of the White House, the secretary of energy,” Sondland testified Wednesday.

“I don’t know how that’s irregular,” he continued. “If a bunch of folks that are not in that channel are aggrieved for some reason for not being included, I don’t know how they can consider us to be the irregular channel and they to be the regular channel, when it’s the leadership that makes the decisions.”

Sondland said everyone was in the loop, and it shows exactly why House Democrats want to hear from these top-level officials (and why they might consider it obstruction if the officials do not give testimony.) But beyond this Ukraine scheme, the seeming involvement of so many top levels officials raises troubling questions about how — and for whom — US policy is being conducted.

The Energy Department disputed testimony on Wednesday from top Europe envoy Gordon Sondland that Secretary Rick Perry was intimately familiar with White House efforts to push Ukraine officials to announce an investigation into President Donald Trump’s political rivals.

Testimony from Sondland, the ambassador to the EU, raised questions about whether Perry lied by denying that he had no knowledge that U.S. military aid or a White House meeting between Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky were linked to Zelensky announcing that Ukraine would conduct investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, or the energy company Burisma.

“Ambassador Sondland’s testimony today misrepresented both Secretary Perry’s interaction with Rudy Giuliani and direction the Secretary received from President Trump,” a DOE spokesperson said in a statement. “As previously stated, Secretary Perry spoke to Rudy Giuliani only once at the President’s request. No one else was on that call. At no point before, during or after that phone call did the words ‘Biden’ or ‘Burisma’ ever come up in the presence of Secretary Perry.”

Perry has said he was only aware of an effort to push Ukraine to conduct general investigations into corruption. But Sondland testified that Perry was looped into the Trump administration’s efforts to seek the specific investigations.

According to Sondland’s testimony, Perry was included on — and replied to — a July 19 email in which Sondland said Zelensky would tell Trump he “intends to run a fully transparent investigation and will ‘turn over every stone’” in a public announcement of investigations into the 2016 elections and Burisma, on whose board Hunter Biden served.

In his opening statement, Sondland testified that Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, "conveyed to Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker, and others that President Trump wanted a public statement from President Zelensky committing to investigations of Burisma and the 2016 election.”

“Everyone was in the loop,” Sondland later testified. “It was no secret. Everyone was informed via email on July 19, days before the presidential call.”

According to Sondland’s testimony, Perry was included on — and replied to — that July 19 email in which Sondland said Zelensky would tell Trump he “intends to run a fully transparent investigation and will ‘turn over every stone’” in a public announcement.

Under questioning from Democratic Counsel Daniel Goldman, Sondland said that it was understood among the recipients of the email that “investigation” referred to the allegations related to Burisma and the 2016 elections.

Sondland added that he thought both Perry and McCormack, among others, would be “key witnesses” for the ongoing inquiry.

When asked whether Perry would change course and agree to offer testimony, DOE spokesperson Shaylyn Hynes replied,”The committee has refused to allow him that opportunity in an open and transparent setting with executive branch counsel present.”

Trump and Guiliani have raised complaints related to Hunter Biden’s time as a board member of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, as well as unsubstantiated allegations that the Ukraine government had interfered in the U.S. 2016 presidential election.

Perry has repeatedly denied any knowledge of requests for specific investigations, and he told The Associated Press in late October he never heard the words Burisma mentioned over the course of his work in Ukraine.

Perry also told The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 16 that Giuliani explained that Trump did not trust Ukraine because of a belief that it played a role against him in the 2016 election. But Perry told the paper that Giuliani did not on that call give specific directions to him.

“Rudy didn’t say they gotta do X, Y and Z,” Perry told the WSJ. “He just said, ‘You want to know why he ain’t comfortable about letting this guy come in? Here’s the reason.’”

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said the emails released with Sondland's deposition show “knowledge of this scheme was far and wide” throughout the administration.

Sondland underscored that he, Volker and Perry did not want to consult with Giuliani and did so only at the “express direction” of Trump.

“We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani,” he testified. “Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the President’s orders.”

Sondland stated, as he did during his deposition, that Perry made the first outreach to Giuliani “given his prior relationship.” Perry had endorsed Giuliani’s 2008 presidential bid.

Sondland also reiterated his view that a July 10 White House meeting was cordial and did not include any "yelling and screaming" as others have said. Sondland, like Perry, suggested that a photo at the White House with senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials proves that the meeting ended without acrimony.

In addition, Sondland testified that Perry was the person who suggested a smaller group of U.S. and Ukrainian officials from that meeting hold an impromptu second gathering after then-National Security Advisor John Bolton adjourned the original July 10 session. Several other witnesses testified Perry left almost immediately and stuck to his “usual talking points” about fighting corruption that day.

Sondland also says the record of subsequent texts and emails show that he, Perry and Volker kept National Security Council officials informed of their actions.

"We kept the NSC apprised of our efforts, including, specifically, our efforts to secure a public statement from the Ukrainians that would satisfy President Trump’s concerns," he says in his opening statement.

Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine

Clutching handwritten notes scrawled with a Sharpie, President Donald Trump on Wednesday fought back against bombshell impeachment testimony from Gordon Sondland that tied the president even closer to a quid pro quo involving Ukraine and investigations into Trump's political rivals.

"I don’t know him very well. I have not spoken to him much," Trump said on the South Lawn of the White House, as he sought to downplay his relationship with Sondland, despite effusively praising him in the past. "This is not a man I know well. He seems like a nice guy, though."

Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union and a Trump megadonor, told the House Intelligence Committee earlier in the day that he and other senior aides to the president made it clear to Ukraine officials that they needed to deliver politically motivated investigations Trump sought.

“Was there a ‘quid pro quo?” Sondland said. “The answer is yes.”

Sondland also tied the mission directly to Trump, saying he and other senior officials pressured Ukraine on the investigations “because the president directed us to do so.”

But the envoy also told lawmakers that in his conversations with the president — including a September phone call — Trump never explicitly conditioned a White House meeting with Ukraine's president or security assistance to the Eastern European nation on the probes.

Trump seized upon that particular bit of testimony Wednesday.

"I just noticed one thing, and I would say, that means it's all over," he told reporters, proceeding to read off his pages of notes summarizing Sondland's remarks.

"So here's my answer: 'I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing," Trump said, re-enacting his conversation with Sondland.

The president again parroted the call's dialogue in a series of tweets Wednesday afternoon, declaring online that the "Impeachment Witch Hunt is now OVER!"

Throughout the House impeachment inquiry, the president has sought to denigrate or at least distance himself from key witnesses in the Democrat-led investigation, including his own administration officials.

Trump early last month hailed Sondland, who contributed $1 million to the president's inaugural committee, as "a really good man and great American." Two weeks ago, however, Trump claimed to "hardly know the gentleman."

Asked during his testimony about the president's disparate statements regarding their relationship, Sondland quipped: "Easy come, easy go."

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham on Wednesday echoed her boss's messaging, also referencing the September call between Trump and Sondland.

"Ambassador Sondland’s testimony made clear that in one of the few brief phone calls he had with President Trump, the President clearly stated that he ‘wanted nothing’ from Ukraine and repeated ‘no quid pro quo over and over again,'" Grisham said in a statement. "In fact, no quid pro quo ever occurred. The U.S. aid to Ukraine flowed, no investigation was launched, and President Trump has met and spoken with President Zelensky. Democrats keep chasing ghosts.”

Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, also weighed in on Sondland's testimony after the ambassador told lawmakers that Trump ordered him to coordinate with the former New York mayor on Ukraine matters.

Sondland said that he, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Kurt Volker, a former U.S. envoy for Ukraine negotiations, "did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani" and simply "played the hand we were dealt."

But Giuliani wrote on Twitter that he "came into this at Volker’s request," and accused Sondland of "speculating based on VERY little contact. I never met him and had very few calls with him, mostly with Volker."

In that same tweet, which Giuliani quickly deleted, he added that "Volker testified I answered their questions and described them as my opinions, NOT demands. I.E., no quid pro quo!"

Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine

A group of senators are demanding acting Department of Homeland Security Sec. Chad Wolf publicly release an internal report finding that U.S. border officials demanded asylum officers block entry to vulnerable families as part of the inhumane and illegal Remain in Mexico policy.

BuzzFeed News last week revealed some contents of the report—created by Homeland Security officials under the watch of former acting Sec. Kevin McAleenan—but it has otherwise not been made public, nor does it appear that improvements recommended in it been made. In their letter to Wolf, Senators Kamala Harris, Jeff Merkley, Chuck Schumer, and Elizabeth Warren demanded he publicly reveal “the flaws and dangerous consequences of the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP), also known as the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program.”

“MPP has transformed the asylum process at our southern border since it was implemented just 11 months ago,” they write in the letter to Wolf. “Releasing this report will help Congress and the American public better understand how this relatively new program has changed procedures and logistics for asylum seekers attempting to navigate the immigration court system.” 

Transforming the asylum process is right, but it’s been transformation for the worse. Over 50,000 people have now been kicked out of the U.S. to wait out their court dates in Mexico, with no guarantee they’ll be able to come back to the U.S. for their hearing because they’ve been stranded, have gotten sick, or have been kidnapped. McAleenan himself had falsely claimed Remain in Mexico has “successfully provided protections” to families, but that would now be debunked by his own report.

The information that BuzzFeed has could presumably be turned over to the group of senators, but the administration also shouldn’t be able to sit on a taxpayer-funded investigation that has apparently found serious flaws in a program it calls successful but in reality has stomped on our asylum system and left thousands of people vulnerable. And though the report does apparently contain recommendations from Homeland Security officials on how to improve the program, there’s truly only one recommendation to make when it comes to Remain in Mexico: it must end.

According to Gordon Sondland in his impeachment inquiry testimony Wednesday afternoon, he only had one formal meeting with acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, “and it had nothing to do with Ukraine.” Rather, “most of our communication were the stream of emails which others were on generally, and I may have seen him at the White House casually and said hello and kept in touch.”

Former National Security Council official Fiona Hill’s closed-door deposition also suggests that those casual contacts might have amounted to more than Sondland implied. According to Hill, Sondland “was certainly meeting with Mulvaney on a regular basis.” In fact, according to Hill, “I could be wrong, but there were often times when he said he’d been in to see the president when other staff indicated to me that they did not believe that he had”—instead, those were times he had been seeing Mulvaney.

In other words, the “formal” in “formal meeting” is doing a lot of work when it comes to how much Sondland was talking to the guy who did a press briefing in which he asserted that of course Trump had withheld aid from Ukraine to get the investigations he wanted, and, “Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.”

Numerous members of Trump's Cabinet are now implicated.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

President Trump, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, announced on October 23, 2019, that the US will lift sanctions on Turkey. | Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Sondland’s bombshell testimony demands answers from top officials.

Rep. Devin Nunes is actually right about something: The key witnesses in the Trump impeachment hearings so far haven’t said that Donald Trump directly told them to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. But while Nunes keeps ranting and raving about his desire to hear directly from the no-longer-relevant whistleblower, the real issue is that we need to hear from people in Trump’s inner circle: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Vice President Mike Pence, and of course Rudy Giuliani.

Wednesday morning’s testimony from Ambassador Gordon Sondland was full of bombshells, including sworn testimony that he had a conversation with Vice President Mike Pence in Poland about the linkage between the suspension of aid and Trump’s desire for investigations into the former vice president. “Everyone was in the loop,” according to Sondland — a point he insisted on at several points during his opening statement, asserting that all the top officials in the Trump administration understood what was happening.

Pence, via a spokesman, says this isn’t true. He says that Sondland “was never alone with the Vice President” during the trip in question and the “alleged discussion recalled by Ambassador Sondland never happened.”

Someone is mistaken — or lying — here. And given that scrupulous honesty is not exactly a hallmark of the Trump administration, it’s certainly possible that it could be either of them. The difference is that Sondland has testified, in person, before Congress, while Pence is putting out a statement through a spokesperson.

Sondland’s testimony also directly attributes key statements, actions, and knowledge of a quid pro quo between Ukraine and the Trump White House to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry (whose spokesperson also put out a statement contradicting Sondland), and former National Security Adviser John Bolton. But none of those men has testified before Congress. Neither has Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney nor Rudy Giuliani — the man who did most of the actual legwork on the caper that Congress is investigating. Some of these men are defying subpoenas, others haven’t even been called.

The sheer volume of leaks coming out of the Trump White House has consistently created the sense that we have a lot of knowledge of what’s happening on the inside. But in a practical sense, this has been one of the least transparent administrations of all time. Testimony from these players could greatly increase our understanding of relevant events.

The multiple bombshells dropped by Sondland in his testimony are a reminder of the critical value of hearing from political appointees with access to the president, not just career civil servants. But Sondland himself is far from the top of the chain of command. America needs to hear from more people.

Most of the star witnesses don’t know Trump

One valid point congressional Republicans repeatedly raised during earlier days of the hearings is that many of the Democrats’ star witnesses — including George Kent, Bill Taylor, and Marie Yovanovitch — don’t know Trump personally, didn’t work directly with Trump, and to an extent are relying on second-hand information for their understanding of what’s happening.

Trump, similarly, took a time out from a cabinet meeting to observe “I don’t know [Lietenant Colonel Alexander] Vindman at all,” and, “I never heard of him,” while a variety of House Republicans, when not actively smearing Vindman, argued that he was less important in the policy process than he made himself out to be.

None of this changes the fact that their detailed knowledge of Ukraine and US policy toward Ukraine makes them valuable witnesses. But it’s true that to get a full picture of what’s going on, you’d want to hear from more people who had direct access to the principals. It actually makes quite a bit of difference what other people in the presidential line of succession said and did around all of this.

Democrats haven’t forgotten to ask the higher-ups. The White House has asked everyone to refuse to comply with subpoenas, leaving Democrats to rely on testimony from those willing to defy Trump and come forward. That group contains some key witnesses, most critically Sondland himself, but nowhere close to everyone you might want to hear from. That leaves Sondland’s sworn testimony dueling with Pence’s spokesman-written statement, and leaves the American people at least partially in the dark about what was happening.

Democrats have tools to turn up the pressure

The best way to resolve this situation would be for the officials in question to do the right thing and agree to testify. Following that, in an ideal world congressional Republicans would stand up for the institutional prerogatives of Congress and the interests of the American people and vocally call for them to testify.

In the real world, neither of those things is going to happen.

Unfortunately, that leaves the ball in Democrats’ court, but they’re not entirely without tools here. They could, for starters, attempt to use their powers of inherent contempt to raise pressure on non-cooperating officials.

Doug Mills-Pool/AFP/Getty Images

They could also engage in some political combat. Congress is working on government funding bills that give Democrats some leverage over the White House. There are also ongoing negotiations about ratification of the president’s signature USMCA trade deal.

And there’s also simply a question of public messaging. Democrats, as of now, haven’t made a big deal in public about the failure of key officials to testify. That’s in keeping with what seems to be prevailing sentiment that the impeachment inquiry should be fast and narrow rather than broad and quick.

A speedy approach makes sense if Senate Republicans are open-minded about this situation. The facts revealed so far are extremely damning, so it could make sense to just move forward quickly rather than get bogged down in political and legal warfare about additional testimony. But of course that isn’t the situation.

Republicans aren’t going to agree to remove Trump. Everything that’s happening here is political display for the benefit of the voters. And to that end it would be extremely edifying to have extended public discussion of why the White House is stonewalling and why we can’t find out more about exactly who did what when.

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The twist is that the robots are supplying the dog videos.

Today's News:

Chris Gibbs, an Ohio farmer and former Trump voter who left the Republican party, is exploring a congressional bid to challenge Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH).

The Toledo Blade reports: “Chris Gibbs, a 61-year-old grain and cattle farmer in Shelby County, is launching an exploratory committee to weigh a campaign to unseat Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Urbana), his campaign plans to announce Wednesday. … Since voting for Mr. Trump in 2016, Mr. Gibbs has stepped down as chairman of the local GOP and says he isn’t sure if he sees himself now in either party.”

RELATED: Referee Says Then-OSU Wrestling Coach Jim Jordan Shrugged When Told Team Doctor Was Masturbating in the Shower: ‘Yeah, Yeah, We Know’

In other Jim Jordan news, Andrew Bakaj, the attorney for the Ukraine whistleblower, blasted Jordan on Twitter yesterday, accusing him of lying.

Tweeted Bakaj: “”Congressman @Jim_Jordan – I AM TIRED OF YOU LYING IN A HOUSE COMMITTEE ROOM IN FRONT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. My client hired ME – no one else in leading up to filing the disclosure with the ICIG. I have made that clear TIME AND TIME AGAIN – and you ignore the FACTS!” Another attorney for the whistleblower backed him up.

Congressman @Jim_Jordan – I AM TIRED OF YOU LYING IN A HOUSE COMMITTEE ROOM IN FRONT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. My client hired ME – no one else in leading up to filing the disclosure with the ICIG. I have made that clear TIME AND TIME AGAIN – and you ignore the FACTS!

— Andrew P. Bakaj (@AndrewBakaj) November 19, 2019

Certain Members of Congress continue to lie abt my role in this case & deliberately distort facts to deflect from addressing #WBer complaint.

They didn't treat me this way when I worked w/them re #Benghazi #WBers. #Shameful#FactsMatter https://t.co/vMP4NpiKXH

— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) November 19, 2019

The post Loathsome Rep. Jim Jordan is Being Challenged for His Seat in Congress by an ex-GOP Farmer appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

On Wednesday, Gordon Sondland, the current U.S. ambassador to the EU, provided an absolutely bombshell opening statement in his testimony to the House impeachment panel. Among the explosive new information he provided was a statement that he’d spoken directly to Vice President Mike Pence about Donald Trump’s marching orders in Ukraine. From Sondland’s opening statement:

There was a September 1 meeting with President Zelensky in Warsaw. Unfortunately, President Trump’s attendance at the Warsaw meeting was cancelled due to Hurricane Dorian. Vice President Pence attended instead. I mentioned to Vice President Pence before the meetings with the Ukrainians that I had concerns that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations. I recall mentioning that before the Zelensky meeting.

During the actual meeting, President Zelensky raised the issue of security assistance directly with Vice President Pence. The Vice President said he would speak to President Trump about it. 

In fact, when questioned by House counsel Daniel Goldman, Ambassador Sondland went further, making it clear that Pence knew exactly what the investigation was about, even if the Bidens weren’t specifically mentioned. 

Goldman: “He didn’t say, Gordon, what are you talking about?"

Sondland: “He did not."

Goldman: “He didn’t say, What investigations?"

Sondland: “He did not."

According to Sondland, Pence was fully briefed on it all. For its part, the vice president’s office wasted little time issuing a statement calling Gordon Sondland a liar,

x

Pence COS: “The Vice President never had a conversation with Gordon Sondland about investigating the Bidens, Burisma, or the conditional release of financial aid to Ukraine based upon potential investigations.” pic.twitter.com/FXRJapkYOk

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 20, 2019

If it is true that they were never alone, perhaps it is time to get the other people in the room under oath as well. And it is one thing for the Mike Pence’s office to release this statement, having the benefit of not being under oath itself. It’s another to make this kind of statement under oath, with the weight of the full consequences on the vice president’s staff. 

At the end of the day, all these people deserve each other and what’s coming to them. As we hear that Mike Pompeo is looking for an exit so he can run back to Kansas for a U.S. Senate run, the rats are now fleeing at an unprecedented rate. And make no mistake about it, Donald Trump will burn every single one of them to preserve himself. 

Wednesday, Nov 20, 2019 · 5:33:17 PM +00:00 · Jen Hayden

Rudy Giuliani now also calling Gordon Sondland a liar.

x

I came into this at Volker’s request. Sondland is speculating based on VERY little contact. I never met him and had very few calls with him, mostly with Volker.Volker testified I answered their questions and described them as my opinions, NOT demands. I.E., no quid pro quo!

— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) November 20, 2019

Rudy has since deleted the tweet, so here is a screenshot. 

FOX News commentator Kenneth Starr suggested that “in light of what we’ve heard today” from Ambassador Gordon Sondland if senators are going to pressure Donald Trump to resign.

Said Starr: “The real issue is, the senators are watching. Are senators going to now say in light of what we hear today, it’s going to be a long day even with the ambassador alone, in light of what we have heard, ‘We need to make a trip down to the White House?’ That historic example set during the Nixon presidency. From what I’ve been able to glean I don’t think that’s going to happen. But obviously what happens today could—has the potential to be a game-changer.”

"Are senators going to now say, in light of what we hear today….we need to make a trip down to the White House—that historic example set during the Nixon presidency."

Ken Starr on the implications of Sondland's damning testimony: pic.twitter.com/iXGaNWybjL

— CAP Action (@CAPAction) November 20, 2019

Starr added: “There will be articles of impeachment, I think we’ve known that … It’s over … This is his position, we now know that the president, in fact, committed the crime of bribery … Articles of impeachment are being drawn up if they haven’t already been drawn up.”

Ken Starr: "There will be articles of impeachment, I think we've known that … It's over … This is his position, we now know that the president, in fact, committed the crime of bribery … Articles of impeachment are being drawn up if they haven't already been drawn up." pic.twitter.com/82NOwczpej

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 20, 2019

The post Kenneth Starr Wonders on FOX News if Senators Will ‘Make Trip to White House’ and Call on Trump to Resign ‘in Light of What We’ve Heard Today’ — WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland arrives to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, on Nov. 20, 2019. | Andrew Harnik/AP

Sondland’s testimony was devastating for the secretary of state.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was more centrally involved in the Ukraine scheme than previously appeared to be the case — the plan to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and Democrats made its way to the very top of the Trump administration’s foreign policy team.

That stunning revelation came during Wednesday’s impeachment hearing in the opening testimony of Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union. It was known that Pompeo was aware of the plan — for example, he was on the July 25 call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — but the extent of his knowledge of the quid pro quo is new and damning.

Sondland outlined three specific instances in which Pompeo was made aware of the Ukraine scheme, and one where he directed US diplomats to engage with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. In other words, Pompeo wasn’t just an innocent bystander, blissfully unaware of what was going on — he was actively involved.

All this time there has been talk of two policies toward Ukraine: a traditional one led by US officials and an “irregular” one led by Giuliani. But after Sondland’s testimony, it’s pretty clear Pompeo played a role in both.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Pompeo was aware of the Ukraine quid pro quo

“Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’” Sondland rhetorically asked the House Intelligence Committee. “The answer is yes,” adding later, “Everyone was in the loop.”

Pompeo is clearly included in “everyone” based on the four specific instances the ambassador detailed in his opening testimony.

The first example is a July 19 email received by the secretary of state and other top officials, including acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.

“I Talked to Zelensky just now … He is prepared to receive Potus’ call. Will assure him that he intends to run a fully transparent investigation and will ‘turn over every stone,’” Sondland wrote. “He would greatly appreciate a call prior to Sunday so that he can put out some media about a ‘friendly and productive call’ (no details) prior to Ukraine election on Sunday.”

In other words, Sondland informed Ukraine’s president that he needed to commit to investigate the Bidens and Democrats during a future call with Trump. If Zelensky had complied, the quid pro quo plan would’ve nearly been complete — and Pompeo was aware.

Second, Sondland also revealed an email sent on August 11 to Ulrich Brechbuhl, a top adviser to Pompeo, and Lisa Kenna, the top diplomat’s executive secretary.

With the subject line “Ukraine,” Sondland wrote: “Mike – [former special Ukraine envoy] Kurt [Volker] and I negotiated a statement from Ze[lensky] to be delivered for our review in a day or two. The contents will hopefully make the boss happy enough to authorize an invitation. Ze plans to have a big presser on the openness subject (including specifics) next week.”

“Gordon, I’ll pass to S,” Kenna replied, using the State Department’s abbreviation for the secretary of state. “Thank you.”

That’s big. As secretary of state, Pompeo surely knew how important it was for Zelensky to have a meeting with Trump to show America has Ukraine’s back as it fights off Russia’s invasion. Yet Sondland’s email made it clear that such a meeting was conditioned on Kyiv agreeing to open investigations into the Bidens and Democrats. It’s unclear, though, how Pompeo responded.

Third, Sondland detailed an August 22 email that he sent directly to Pompeo and copied Kenna about planning for a Trump-Zelensky meeting in Warsaw.

“Should we block time in Warsaw for a short pull-aside for Potus to meet Zelensky? I would ask Zelensky to look him in the eye and tell him that once Ukraine’s new justice folks are in place ([in] mid-Sept[ember), that Ze[lensky] should be able to move forward publicly and with confidence on those issues of importance to Potus and to the US,” Sondland wrote. “Hopefully, that will break the logjam.”

Per Sondland, Pompeo simply replied, “Yes.”

Sondland was worried that nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine was purposefully held up, but he didn’t know why. His hope was that a brief Trump-Zelensky chat might lead the president to release the funds, and it seemed that Pompeo agreed. Trump, however, didn’t go to Warsaw and sent Vice President Mike Pence in his stead.

Finally, Sondland noted that “[e]ven as late as September 24, Secretary Pompeo was directing Kurt Volker to speak with Rudy Giuliani. In a WhatsApp message, Kurt Volker told me in part: ‘Spoke w Rudy per guidance from S.’” Remember that “S” is the State Department’s single-letter abbreviation for the secretary of state.

This means that Pompeo knew how central Giuliani was to the scheme, and encouraged Sondland — and perhaps others — to coordinate with the president’s personal lawyer on Ukraine policy.

Put together, there’s just no way Pompeo can feign ignorance when it comes to the administration’s true intention toward Ukraine. He was not only made aware if it, but in at least one instance, directed a specific action — outreach to Giuliani.

This is all potentially damaging for his future political aspirations and it may further embroil Pompeo in a crisis he’s tried hard to avoid. At this point it wouldn’t be surprising — or unwarranted — for House Democrats to ask Pompeo to testify based on Sondland’s testimony.

Jimmy Kimmel’s woman on the street interviewed hardcore Trump supporters and proved that they’ll support him no matter what.

“So to prove it, we went out on the street, found people who are fans of Donald Trump, and we asked them how they felt about a bunch of stuff Trump has done. Except none of it was stuff Trump has done, all of the events we described were about Watergate and Richard Nixon.”

The post Jimmy Kimmel Proves That Trump Voters Will Support Him No Matter What by Trolling Them with Nixon Scenarios: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Pick up the new comics anthology I’m putting out, Be Gay, Do Comics: Queer History, Memoir, and Satire from The Nib. 250 pages of comics available through Kickstarter.

If it sounds too good to be true, it often is.

Earlier this week, Christian-owned Chick-fil-A promised to stop giving to anti-LGBTQ charities, a vow it has made at least once before, and broken.

Bisnow reported: “The new initiative will no longer include donating to organizations like the Salvation Army, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Paul Anderson Youth Home, Chick-fil-A says, all of which sparked criticism in the past from the LGBT community due to the organizations’ stances on homosexuality.”

Said Chick-fil-A President and Chief Operating Officer Tim Tassopoulos to Bisnow: “There’s no question we know that, as we go into new markets, we need to be clear about who we are. There are lots of articles and newscasts about Chick-fil-A, and we thought we needed to be clear about our message.”

But the company experienced a backlash from its base: Evangelical Christians and religious conservatives.

Now, it appears to be backtracking on its new stance.

Vice reports: “Chick-fil-A says it will now focus its charitable efforts in three areas: education, homelessness, and hunger. But when asked more specifically, it did not go so far as to say that it will no longer donate to organizations that oppose LGBTQ rights. ‘No organization will be excluded from future consideration–faith-based or non-faith-based,’ Chick-fil-A President and COO Tim Tassopoulos said in a statement to VICE.”

The Salvation Army spoke out this week after Chick-fil-A listed it among anti-LGBTQ charities to which it will no longer direct donations.

Said the Salvation Army in a statement: “We’re saddened to learn that a corporate partner has felt it necessary to divert funding to other hunger, education and homelessness organizations — areas in which The Salvation Army, as the largest social services provider in the world, is already fully committed. We serve more than 23 million individuals a year, including those in the LGBTQ+ community. In fact, we believe we are the largest provider of poverty relief to the LGBTQ+ population. When misinformation is perpetuated without fact, our ability to serve those in need, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, religion or any other factor, is at risk. We urge the public to seek the truth before rushing to ill-informed judgment and greatly appreciate those partners and donors who ensure that anyone who needs our help feels safe and comfortable to come through our doors.”

The post Chick-fil-A is Already Hedging on the Report it Will Stop Donating to Anti-LGBTQ Charities: ‘No Organization Will Be Excluded’ appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

I mean, they’re not even blast doors.

The post Rolling In His Air Grave appeared first on Ctrl+Alt+Del Comic.

this had to involve Emily, at some point

Baseless accusations are the name of the game when it comes to the Trump administration and today, apparently, is no different. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham jumped into the mix this morning with an accusation that is pretty difficult, if not outright impossible, to ever verify. 

“We came into the White House, I’ll tell you something,” Grisham reportedly said during a radio interview, as first tweeted by Abby Phillip of CNN. “Every office was filled with Obama books and we had notes left behind that said, ‘You will fail,’ ‘You aren’t going to make it.’”

There’s a lot to poke holes in here, which is probably why she’s already begun backtracking (more on that below). But first, let’s go over the obvious issues here. Every office? How many notes? Whose handwriting, or were they typed and printed? Were the “Obama books” those written by former President Barack Obama, or merely ones he owned? Was this ever investigated? Not that we know of. Which brings up an important question: Why is this just coming up now, three years later?

Here’s that original tweet, and a few very important responses to it that quickly dismantle the accusation’s foundation.

x

WH Press Sec Stephanie Grisham claims Obama aides left 'you will fail" notes in offices for Trump aides: “We came into the WH, I’ll tell you something. Every office was filled with Obama books and we had notes left behind that said ‘you will fail,’ ‘you aren’t going to make it,’”

— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) November 19, 2019

And Grisham, as mentioned above, has already started walking it back. Why? Oh, probably the tweets from former Obama staffers and aides calling her out that are quickly going viral

Here she is, walking back her story. The note on not knowing why everyone is “so sensitive” is a very Trumpian approach to pretending not to know why people hold you accountable for baseless claims, conceivably meant to stir the pot and distract the general public.

x

Grisham response to former Obama staffers pushing back on her comments that nasty notes were left behind during the transition: “I was talking specifically (and honestly) about our experience in the lower press office – nowhere else.” pic.twitter.com/gyq8TygTmR

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 19, 2019

And her being called out:

x

I was there. This is a complete and utter lie. Quite the opposite -- we left them briefing books to try to help with the transition as much as possible. https://t.co/WxMNIiwBuV

— Daniel Jacobson (@Dan_F_Jacobson) November 19, 2019

And again:

x

This is absolutely not true.Obama repeatedly and publicly praised Bush cooperation during 2009 transition, and pledged we would provide same cooperation to whoever followed us. And that’s what we did.If Grisham is correct, why has it taken 3 years to come out? https://t.co/QpN4JAGxhq

— Chris Lu (@ChrisLu44) November 19, 2019

And again:

x

100% false. I left a note wishing them good luck serving the American people and offering to be a resource. https://t.co/JMjk0HoExa

— Liz Allen (@LizMarieAllen) November 19, 2019

Ha!

x

It's appalling that she thinks our notes would have been that lame. https://t.co/EZWFZYBgDA

— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) November 19, 2019

And again:

x

I mean, if they read the “how to do your job” memos and briefing books we actually left, they’d at least know how to write a coherent speech, vet their appointees, and maybe fewer of them would be indicted or heading to jail

— Cody Keenan (@codykeenan) November 19, 2019

And this time from a reporter with photos:

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I was in the West Wing on the evening of January 20, 2017, talking to several incoming Trump officials as they moved into their offices. I saw no offices "filled with Obama books" and nobody mentioned "you will fail" notes. Here are photos I took at the WH that night pic.twitter.com/TUZhbO6QbN

— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) November 19, 2019

Hyperbole on Grisham’s part? Sure, though when you’re the literal White House press secretary, one would think you’d choose your words carefully—and that they’d be remotely accurate. Is it an outright baseless claim meant to distract from today’s impeachment hearings? Seems possible. After all, given that Trump has made thousands (which is being generous) of false or misleading claims since he’s taken office, it’s no surprise that his administration follows suit.

Speaking of today’s hearings, be sure to check out Daily Kos coverage, including our live blogs and standout moments. 

The private testimony of a U.S. embassy official who overheard a cell phone conversation directly implicating Donald Trump in the Ukraine scandal has reportedly 'shaken' some GOP lawmakers, according to CNN.

David Holmes, set to testify publicly Thursday morning, is the U.S. diplomat revealed to have witnessed a loud conversation on July 26 between Trump and Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland, who is due to testify Wednesday afternoon. Holmes testified privately last week that Sondland placed a cell phone call to Trump while dining with several embassy staffers in which Trump could be heard asking Sondland explicitly about "investigations" into his political rivals.

"So, he's gonna do the investigation?" Trump asked Sondland of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Holmes testified. "He's gonna do it," Sondland replied, telling Trump that Zelensky would do "anything you ask him to." When Holmes later asked Sondland what Trump thought of Ukraine, Sondland reportedly said that Trump didn't "give a shit about Ukraine" and that Trump was only interested in "big stuff" like "this Biden investigation that Giuliani is pushing."

The testimony blows several GOP talking points out of the water, including the notion that Trump was somehow interested in corruption more broadly and not simply the Biden probe. 

But Republicans were reportedly particularly flummoxed by the fact that the call, witnessed by multiple people, directly tied Trump to efforts to pressure Ukraine into launching the investigations Trump sought. Naturally, Republicans aimed their ire at Sondland for making such a public phone call. But in the end, it was no accident that Sondland got patched through directly to Trump—Trump was clearly interested in hearing from Sondland. 

But Holmes was in agreement with Republicans about the extraordinary nature of the call.

"I've never seen anything like this, someone calling the president from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful language. There's just so much about the call that was so remarkable that I remember it vividly," Holmes testified. Indeed.

Ranking member Representative Devin Nunes of Califorina (left), listens as Ambassador Kurt Volker, former special envoy to Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, a former official at the National Security Council, testify before the House Intelligence Committee on November 19, 2019. | Jacquelyn Martin-Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Even their own witnesses said damaging stuff.

In theory, the makeup of Tuesday’s House Intelligence impeachment hearings could have led to a balanced day, with some good news for Democrats and some for Republicans.

The first part of the hearing featured testimony from two witnesses called by the Democrats: Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official who listened in on President Trump’s call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Jennifer Williams, a foreign policy adviser to Vice President Mike Pence. The second part was devoted to two witnesses called by the Republicans: former US ambassador to Ukraine Kurt Volker and former Trump foreign policy adviser Tim Morrison.

But Tuesday’s testimony was, from practically top to bottom, a disaster for the president and his Republican allies.

Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images

All four of the witnesses confirmed key parts of the overall case against the president — that he twisted US foreign policy into a tool of his reelection campaign by using military aid in an effort force Ukraine into opening an investigation into the Biden family. In one particularly striking example, Volker — one of the GOP witnesses — amended his earlier closed-door deposition to clarify that the administration’s behavior was shadier than he had previously thought.

Meanwhile, the Republicans on the intelligence committee, from ranking member Devin Nunes on down, did not present a consistent and compelling counternarrative. They did little to contest the facts, preferring instead to attack the media, the whistleblower whose complaint kicked off this saga, or the witnesses themselves.

The day underscored the fundamental fact of the situation: Trump did what Democrats are accusing him of doing. The only issue is whether congressional Republicans are willing to punish him for it.

Tuesday’s testimony made Trump look awful

Vindman and Williams were both important witnesses because they listened in on Trump’s now-infamous July 25 call with Zelensky, and both found it concerning. That’s the one where Trump pivots from a discussion of US military aid to Ukraine to asking Zelensky to “do me a favor though:” investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian company that had Hunter Biden on the board, and a conspiracy theory about Ukraine’s role in the 2016 election.

Vindman testified that he raised concerns about the call inside the US government, saying that he interpreted it as an “improper ... demand” that “a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and political opponent.” Williams said it was “unusual,” unlike any other similar call she had been on because it “involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter.”

Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images

They were two people who heard what Trump said in real time testifying, under oath, that they thought there was something off about it. One is a decorated career military officer, the other a National Security Council staffer who worked for Vice President Mike Pence. It’s exceptionally implausible that Williams and Vindman are out to get Trump, and much easier to believe that they’re government employees who were genuinely worried about the president’s behavior.

Vindman underscored this point in his opening testimony, which included a moving reflection on his immigrant background. He moved here from the Soviet Union at four years old, described himself as committed to serving the country that saved his family from totalitarianism, and at one point directly reassured his father, who brought him to the US, that challenging the country’s leadership was safe.

“Dad, I’m sitting here today in the US Capitol. Talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family,” Vindman said. “Do not worry. I will be fine for telling the truth.”

Vindman — also an Iraq War veteran with a Purple Heart — is very hard to dismiss as a left-wing Democratic plant.

Morrison and Volker, the witnesses who were supposed to be good for Republicans, also ended up confirming key parts of the case against Trump.

Daniel Goldman, the Democratic counsel who handled much of the questioning, asked Morrison about a conversation he had with Trump’s ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland. Morrison testified that Sondland described another conversation, with Ukrainian official Andriy Yermak, in which he made it very clear that there was a quid pro quo on the table.

“[Sondland told Yermak] that the Ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general make a statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having the aid lifted,” he said.

Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images

Volker recalled another moment involving Sondland — a July 10 meeting between US and Ukrainian officials. Previously, Volker had said the meeting was uneventful. But on Tuesday, he amended his testimony to say that Sondland had inappropriately raised the question of “investigations” during the conversation.

“Ambassador Sondland made a generic comment about investigations,” Volker said. “I think all of us thought it was inappropriate.”

This is consistent with testimony from Vindman, who had been at the same meeting and recalled the same sequence of events (he also said then-National Security Adviser John Bolton shut down the meeting to cut off Sondland’s inappropriate comments). There were a lot of similarly consistent accounts across the entire day of testimony — and, on the whole, they make the president look really bad.

What’s the Republican defense?

It’s hard to know what, exactly, the overall Republican defense against these allegations was supposed to be.

There were a few effective moments — Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), for example, got the witnesses to say that the Ukrainians did not seem aware at first that aid was being withheld, suggesting this means there could not have been a quid pro quo exchange between aid and investigations:

This line of question is deeply misleading: Once the Ukrainians were made aware of the aid being withheld, it quickly became clear to them that it was being blocked as part of a quid pro quo for a Biden investigation. What’s more, aid wasn’t the only thing: There was also a clear offer of a White House visit, which Zelensky very much wanted, in exchange for investigations.

As a matter of political theater, Stefanik got Republicans some useful soundbites. But that’s pretty much the best of what you could say for the GOP’s efforts. On the whole, it was a pretty bad day for Trump’s allies, who were fighting an uphill battle against the facts as laid out by the witnesses, including witnesses they called themselves.

In some cases, the GOP witnesses directly undercut Trump, as my colleague Andrew Prokop explains:

Volker said that “the accusation that Vice President [Joe] Biden acted inappropriately” with regard to Ukraine “did not seem at all credible to me” — contradicting Trump’s unsupported insistence that Biden acted corruptly in helping push out Viktor Shokin, a Ukrainian prosecutor whom the administration and American allies considered corrupt.

Volker also said that, previously, he drew a distinction between investigating Burisma (the Ukrainian gas company Hunter Biden sat on the board of) and the Bidens. He understood Trump officials were pushing for investigations into Burisma, which he considered appropriate. But “in retrospect, I should have seen that connection differently” — admitting it was inappropriate and “unacceptable,” and targeted at the Bidens.

And Volker said that former Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuri Lutsenko, who has made allegations about the Bidens’ corruption that Rudy Giuliani promoted, isn’t credible. Indeed, Volker even said that he told Giuliani this in private — and that Giuliani agreed. All this debunks a counter-narrative pushed by Trump’s allies, in which the President was legitimately concerned about corruption in Ukraine.

As the day went on, despite a lot of heated rhetoric from Republican members of the committee, especially from Nunes, there were few coherent substantive challenges to what the witnesses were saying.

Instead, the GOP tried to go after the witnesses themselves — including a notably ugly example when Steve Castor, the Republican attorney in charge of questioning, scrutinized Vindman’s patriotism.

He specifically focused on a job offer Vindman received from Oleksandr Danylyuk, the former head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. Apparently, Danylyuk offered Vindman an opportunity to become Ukraine’s defense minister three times during the trip — and, each time, Vindman declined.

“Upon returning, I notified chain of command and the appropriate counterintelligence folks about this, the offer,” Vindman said.

But Castor wasn’t satisfied. He continued to press Vindman on whether he ever considered the offer, resulting in an exchange in which he appeared to call Vindman’s patriotism into question:

CASTOR: Ukraine’s a country that’s experienced a war with Russia. Certainly their minister of defense is a pretty key position for the Ukrainians. President Zelensky, Mr. Danylyuk, to bestow that honor — at least asking you — that was a big honor, correct?

VINDMAN: I think it would be a great honor, and frankly I’m aware of service members that have left service to help nurture developing democracies in that part of the world. It was an Air Force officer that became minister of defense, but I’m an American. I came here when I was a toddler. And I immediately dismissed these offers. Did not entertain them.

CASTOR: When he made this offer to you initially, did you leave the door open? Was there a reason he had to come back and ask a second or third time?

VINDMAN: Counselor, you know what, the whole notion is rather comical that I was being asked to consider whether I’d want to be the minister of defense. I did not leave the door open at all.

CASTOR: Okay.

VINDMAN: But it is pretty funny for a lieutenant colonel of the United States Army, which really isn’t that senior, to be offered that illustrious a position.

CASTOR: When he made this offer to you, was he speaking in English or Ukrainian?

VINDMAN: He is an absolutely flawless English speaker.

Castor is arguing that Vindman’s loyalties were strained by repeated job offers from the Ukrainians, highlighting Vindman’s Ukrainian language skills, reminding everyone that he’s foreign-born. The insinuation, that Vindman’s background makes him an unreliable witness to Trump’s malfeasance, is reasonably clear.

Castor never outright brought up Vindman’s Ukrainian origin (or his Jewish background), but he didn’t really need to. The line of questioning served only to suggest that a Ukrainian-born immigrant cannot be trusted to be loyal to the United States even if he was wounded fighting for his country.

The ugly xenophobia of this exchange makes it especially notable. But the thin reasoning behind it — Vindman got a job offer from the Ukrainians that he turned down, so maybe we can’t believe his testimony? — was pretty par for the course.

If these are the best defenses Trump’s allies can muster, then they really won’t have much cover against charges of naked partisanship in a vote against impeachment.

At the start of the second session of today’s doubleheader impeachment hearings, Chairman Adam Schiff noted an important distinction about the two witnesses appearing before the House Intelligence Committee: Both Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine, and Timothy Morrison, a senior director on the National Security Council, were “requested by the minority.”

In other words, the Republicans on the committee wanted them there. And, presumably, they wanted Volker and Morrison because they thought their testimony would help President Donald Trump and hurt the case for his impeachment.

That’s not exactly what happened.

In his opening statement, Volker made a point of defending the potential political opponent Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate, former Vice President Joe Biden, calling him “an honorable man” whom he holds in “the highest regard.” Volker referred to allegations about Biden’s involvement with Ukraine during the waning months of the Obama administration as “conspiracy theories” and said the suggestion that Biden had acted corruptly was “not credible.” Volker insisted that he did not make a connection at the time between Biden and Trump’s desire for Ukraine to investigate both possible interference in the 2016 election and the energy company Burisma, on whose board Biden’s son once sat. But Volker testified that he now understood that the president’s demands of Ukraine went beyond a generalized crackdown on corruption—that he wanted a probe of the Bidens, something Volker said this afternoon was “unacceptable.”

“In retrospect, I should have seen that connection differently, and had I done so, I would have raised my own objections,” Volker said.

As for Morrison, Republicans had interpreted his private deposition to lawmakers on October 31 as favorable. In this morning’s hearing, GOP lawmakers used Morrison’s words to try to undermine Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman’s credibility, pointing out that Morrison had raised concerns about his judgment. Morrison stood by that critique in the afternoon, but he would not elaborate, and his portrait of his NSC colleague fell far short of the “deep state,” anti-Trump partisan the president’s loyalists had painted.

[Read: Trump's committee to protect the president]

Moreover, on the questions central to impeachment, Morrison did little to help the president’s case. He acknowledged that both he and Vindman were disappointed with the message that Trump delivered to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in their July 25 call—the one in which Trump asked Zelensky for the “favor” of an investigation into Biden. Both men, Morrison said, had hoped Trump would deliver a stronger message of support for Ukraine. And when asked by Democrats whether it was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign government to investigate a domestic political opponent, Morrison replied: “It’s not what we recommended the president discuss.”

In the first two hours of testimony, the best Republicans could get from Volker and Morrison was a firm “no” when they were asked whether anyone at the White House had ever asked them to extort or bribe anyone. Indeed, the clearest defense of Trump’s actions today did not come from testimony on Capitol Hill at all, but from an unsolicited statement issued by Vice President Mike Pence’s national-security adviser, Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg. He is the direct supervisor of Jennifer Williams, a Pence adviser who testified alongside Vindman in the morning. Kellogg said he was also on the July 25 call, but unlike Williams, he did not find anything amiss. “I heard nothing wrong or improper on the call. I had and have no concerns,” Kellogg said in his statement.

Perhaps that’s what Republicans were hoping to hear from Volker and Morrison, their chosen witnesses. What the two witnesses presented to lawmakers, however, was consistent with the testimony that’s been delivered in the House for the past week—that Trump’s demand for an investigation of Biden was at best unusual and inappropriate, and perhaps much worse. In fairness to GOP lawmakers, the witnesses they most want to haul before the House, Biden’s son Hunter and the original whistle-blower, have been rejected out of hand by Democrats. So they had to settle for Volker, Morrison, and David Hale, an undersecretary of state who will testify tomorrow.

When it was his turn to question Volker and Morrison, Republican Representative Devin Nunes of California began with a wry lament. “I have some bad news for you,” he said. “The TV ratings are way down.” It was another way of saying the day’s testimony was a dud, but it was really an admission cloaked as a joke—and the joke was on Republicans: If Volker and Morrison had actually helped the president’s case, Nunes and his colleagues would have wanted millions more people to have heard what they had to say.