1. Russia. Trump solicited criminal campaign help from Russia and defended collaboration with the Kremlin to win the 2016 election. These aren’t unproven allegations. They’re recorded on video. At a press conference in July 2016, Trump urged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. When a reporter asked Trump whether he had “any pause about asking a foreign government—Russia, China, anybody—to interfere, to hack … anybody in this country,” Trump replied, “No, it gives me no pause.” In 2017, when he was asked about the Trump Tower meeting at which his top campaign officials sought political help from Russian emissaries, Trump said there was no difference between getting help from Russians and getting it from Americans.

...

2. North Korea. Last year, Trump formed a public-relations alliance with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, based on the mutually advantageous fiction that North Korea was dismantling or halting its nuclear missile program. Since then, Trump has followed Kim’s lead, ridiculing American officials and politicians Kim doesn’t like. In May, Trump repeatedly applauded North Korea for calling Biden a “fool of low IQ.” In June, Trump portrayed the United States as North Korea’s lowly suitor, boasting—falsely—that Obama had “called Kim Jong-un on numerous occasions to meet” and that despite “begging for meetings constantly,” Obama had been turned down. Trump has also endorsed Kim’s attacks on Trump’s own advisers. Two weeks ago, after North Korea denounced U.S. national security adviser John Bolton as a “human defect” and said Bolton should vanish, Trump fired Bolton and defended North Korea’s invective against him.

...

3. Saudi Arabia. Trump is shielding the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, from American intelligence that shows MBS directed the murder of a U.S. resident, journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Last fall, a CIA assessment concluded that MBS ordered the assassination. Trump lied about the assessment, claiming that the CIA “didn’t make a determination.” Congress then instructed Trump to issue a legally mandated report on Khashoggi’s death, but Trump refused. Three months ago, when Trump was asked whether the FBI should look into the case, he said it had been sufficiently investigated, and he claimed that “nobody so far has pointed directly a finger” at MBS. When a reporter pointed out that the CIA had in fact implicated MBS, Trump replied, “I just don’t want to talk about intelligence.”

...

6. Turkey. Trump has consistently excused Turkish aggression against the United States. In 2017, he defended his former national security adviser Michael Flynn after Flynn was exposed as a Turkish foreign agent who had spiked a U.S. plan to arm America’s Kurdish allies. Then Trump refused to criticize Turkey’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan—and even expressed sympathy to Erdogan in a phone call—after Erdogan’s thugs assaulted protesters in Washington. Last year, the White House pressed the Justice Department to look for ways to expel Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish dissident, despite having been told there were no legal grounds to do so. And in a dispute over whether to betray the Kurds in Syria, Trump sided with Erdogan against U.S. officials. Trump capped his treachery by firing Defense Secretary James Mattis, who had protested his abandonment of the Kurds.

...

Trump has lost Sean Hannity, as the Fox News host and #1 Trump defender has told friends privately that the Ukraine whistleblower allegations are “really bad.”

Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair reported, “Meanwhile, Trump’s biggest booster seems to be having doubts of his own. This morning, Sean Hannity told friends the whistle-blower’s allegations are “really bad,” a person briefed on Hannity’s conversations told me. (Hannity did not respond to a request for comment). And according to four sources, Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch is already thinking about how to position the network for a post-Trump future. A person close to Lachlan told me that Fox News has been the highest rated cable network for seventeen years, and “the success has never depended on any one administration.” (A Fox Corp spokesperson declined to comment.)”

For one thing, Ukrainian prosecutors and anti-corruption advocates who were pushing for an investigation into the dealings of Burisma and its owner, Mykola Zlochevskiy, said the probe had been dormant long before Biden leveled his demand.
Why Was Ukraine's Top Prosecutor Fired? The Issue At The Heart Of The Dispute Gripping Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump asserts that Joe Biden pushed for the ouster of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor to quash a probe into a Burisma, a gas company with Biden's son on its board. Officials and ...

Why Was Ukraine's Top Prosecutor Fired? The Issue At The Heart Of The Dispute Gripping Washington
https://www.rferl.org/a/why-was-ukraine-top-prosecutor-fired-viktor-shokin/30181445.html

“There was no pressure from anyone from the United States" to close the case against Zlochevskiy, Vitaliy Kasko, who was a deputy prosecutor-general under Shokin...told Bloomberg News in May. "It was shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Solomon_(political_commentator)
Paul McCleary, Columbia Journalism Review:Solomon had earned a reputation for hyping stories w/o solid foundation.Mariah Blake, Columbia Journalism Review: "has a history of bending the truth to his storyline," and he "was notorious for massaging facts to conjure phantom scandals

Erik Wemple of The Washington Post said that newsroom staffers at The Hill had complained about Solomon's reporting for the publication. The staffers reportedly criticized Solomon's reporting as having a conservative bias and missing important context, ...

and that this undermined The Hill's reputation. They also expressed concerns over Solomon's close relationship with Sean Hannity, whose TV show he appeared on more than a dozen times over a span of three months.

The facts behind Trump’s bogus accusations about Biden and Ukraine
Trump claims Biden threatened Ukraine to aid his son’s business interests. The facts suggest otherwise.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/23/20879611/joe-biden-hunter-biden-ukraine-corruption-prosecutor-burisma-donald-trump-whistleblower-complaint

Everyone in the Western community wanted Shokin sacked,” Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told the Wall Street Journal. “The whole G-7, the IMF, the EBRD, everybody was united that Shokin must go, the spokesman for this was Joe Biden

And this doozy of a thread

https://twitter.com/kelly2277/status/1175417749037883393

Btw, Dmitry Firtash (the person mentioned in the affidavit of Shokin) has been defended by @realDonaldTrump lawyers

For White House, Ukraine revelations rooted in Chicago bribery case
https://abc7chicago.com/politics/for-white-house-ukraine-revelations-rooted-in-chicago-bribe-case/5569044/

(Adding this text I didn’t have in my tweets...easier here)

Wednesday, September 25, 2019 9:33PM
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Ukraine isn't just the venue of a U.S. presidential battle royal.

One of the Eastern European nation's wealthiest power brokers has been at the center of a blockbuster legal case in Chicago. Now, in what may be considered peculiar timing, one of President Donald Trump's most trusted attorney-advisers has joined the legal defense team of Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash.

Joseph diGenova will join former Chicago U.S. Attorney Dan Webb on the Firtash defense team. DiGenova is a former federal prosecutor in Washington, a cable TV legal commentator and has been a part-time legal adviser to Trump.

He was an outspoken critic of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. DiGenova's wife and law firm partner Victoria Toensing has also signed onto the case.

The Hoarse Whisperer
@HoarseWisperer
· Sep 25, 2019
Memo to House Dems:

The way to topple a narcissist’s syndicate isn’t to go after the narcissist or try to turn the capos against the boss.

The way to tear apart their protection is to break their enablers’ hypnotic focus on their leader and make them worry about their peers.
1/

The Hoarse Whisperer
@HoarseWisperer
Tactically:

Subpoena a flurry of low- and mid-level staffers across an array of departments.

Narcissists’ enablers worship the boss and believe the boss’ love protects them.

They don’t love or trust their peers. After all, they’re rivals for the boss’ love.

Make the flying monkeys worry about each other and the whole glass house falls to the ground.

Subpoena subordinate staffers in the White House, State Department, DOJ. Subpoena aides to Mulvaney, Pence and Barr.

Serve them all at once.

Create the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

3/

The Hoarse Whisperer
@HoarseWisperer
Then start taking calls from their attorneys...

The key to defeating a narcissist is to step between the narcissist and their cult; break the hypnotic stare; and turn the cult’s attention away from the boss to themselves and others.

Brian Klaas
✔
@brianklaas
Wow. New YouGov poll on impeachment over Ukraine scandal shows support from 76% of Democrats and 51% of independents...but the number that should scare the hell out of Trump & the GOP is that it's also supported by 32% of Republicans. https://today.yougov.com/opi/surveys/results#/survey/72f3bf66-dee3-11e9-b4a9-9f0e9e31e4a3/question/9b91b2b7-dee3-11e9-ba0e-c7fcd6994022/politics

Seth Abramson
✔
@SethAbramson
Eric Swalwell just made an amazing point: if the credible, urgent allegation by the whistleblower was that the White House was *systematically*, *secretly*, and *improperly* moving documents to a classified archive, that *absolutely* triggers the mandatory language in the statute