Item One: You’ve probably heard that State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, who was fired Friday night, was terminated at the request of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It was also widely reported that Linick was looking into allegations that Pompeo is using State Department staff to run personal errands — walk his dog, pick up his dry cleaning, that sort of thing.
But it gets worse. Greg Sargent:
House Democrats have discovered that the fired IG had mostly completed an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s widely criticized decision to skirt Congress with an emergency declaration to approve billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia last year, aides on the Foreign Affairs Committee tell me.
“I have learned that there may be another reason for Mr. Linick’s firing,” Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement sent to me. “His office was investigating — at my request — Trump’s phony declaration of an emergency so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia.”
Committee Democrats have also learned that the State Department was recently briefed on the IG’s conclusions in that investigation, aides say. They do not know what role this investigation — and its conclusions — played in Linick’s removal, if any.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused to sit for an interview with the State Department inspector general’s office as part of its probe into the administration’s move to bypass Congress and expedite last year’s $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia by declaring an emergency, a congressional aide told CNN Monday. …
…Last May, the Trump administration declared an emergency to bypass Congress and expedite billions of dollars in arms sales to various countries — including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — citing the need to deter what it called “the malign influence” of Iran throughout the Middle East.
“These sales will support our allies, enhance Middle East stability, and help these nations to deter and defend themselves from the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Pompeo said in a statement at the time, which put the value of the sales at $8.1 billion.
But the move drew bipartisan condemnation, with lawmakers decrying the precedent it sets, questioning the administration’s claims of an emergency and raising the issue of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
While the White House has offered no public details about what may have been behind the firing, Pompeo told the Washington Post that Linick wasn’t helping make the State Department “better.”
“I went to the president and made clear to him that Inspector General Linick wasn’t performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to,” Pompeo said in the interview.
I have no doubt Linick wasn’t performing as Pompeo wanted him to. I’m sure Trump agreed. And it stinks out loud. See also Jennifer Rubin, Mike Pompeo’s scandals big and small erode his dwindling credibility.
Item Two: Republicans are organizing their voter suppression efforts. Michael Wines, The New York Times:
Six months before a presidential election in which turnout could matter more than persuasion, the Republican Party, the Trump campaign and conservative activists are mounting an aggressive national effort to shape who gets to vote in November — and whose ballots are counted.
Its premise is that a Republican victory in November is imperiled by widespread voter fraud, a baseless charge embraced by President Trump but repeatedly debunked by research. Democrats and voting rights advocates say the driving factor is politics, not fraud — especially since Mr. Trump’s narrow win in 2016 underscored the potentially crucial value of depressing turnout by Democrats, particularly minorities.
The Republican program, which has gained steam in recent weeks, envisions recruiting up to 50,000 volunteers in 15 key states to monitor polling places and challenge ballots and voters deemed suspicious. That is part of a $20 million plan that also allots millions to challenge lawsuits by Democrats and voting-rights advocates seeking to loosen state restrictions on balloting. The party and its allies also intend to use advertising, the internet and Mr. Trump’s command of the airwaves to cast Democrats as agents of election theft.
You should read the whole article, and also read Charles Pierce’s commentary on the article.
Item Three: This one might not scare you, but it’s worth a WTF? Remember the half trillion Treasury slush fund the “administration” planned to hand out with minimal oversight? The Washington Post reports that most of that fund, created in March, is still sitting around at the Treasury Department, unused.
A $500 billion Treasury Department fund created by the Cares Act in March to help stabilize the economy has lent barely any money, according to an initial report issued by a Congressional Oversight Commission created by the law….
… The report describes the lending facilities the Treasury Department has created to operate through the Federal Reserve, and says that only one of them has received funding. It is called the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility and is supposed to purchase corporate debt. It has received $37.5 billion.
The $500 billion Treasury fund also set aside $46 billion to make loans and loan guarantees to the airline industry. None of that money has been disbursed.
The Treasury has announced more programs in the works to disburse more of the money, including a Main Street Lending Program that is supposed to help small and medium-size businesses. But Treasury is still piddling around trying to decide what the qualifications and parameters for the program will be. Meanwhile, small and medium-size businesses are failing by the minute. No rush or anything, guys.
The Congressional Oversight Commission that wrote the report still doesn’t have a chair, btw.
A slush fund, ripe for funding a fence, perhaps…
The thing that frightens me, more than all of the others combined, is that when Rump loses, his mindless minions might take to the streets with weapons in an attempt to overturn the vote. At that point, it will be the military which will decide which way things go, and that is NEVER a good position to be in.
I'm not sure anyone is authorized to use national troops to quell insurrection – National Guard can be brought out by the governors. Agree it's never good. A lot of police have SWAT departments with heavy gear. Cops aren't shy about using force against 'bad guys' – it's often been racially tainted (to put it politely.) The question is how cops and National Guard are going to perceive the Tea Party. A lot depends on where the insurrectionists pick their fights – if they decide to block access to hospitals and attack unarmed hospital people, they're toast. The cops and National Guard have the gear and the training to crush the morons.
National Guard can be used for some law enforcement functions in an emergency. Also, when the Guard is under the command of a state governor, the Possee Comitatus Act does not apply. https://www.domesticpreparedness.com/resilience/military-use-for-continued-law-enforcement-during-the-pandemic/
There is a pill for every ill, and Trump has decided hydroxychloroquine will defend him against his plague. I am trying not to root for the side effects, but I don't know how long I can sustain the effort. Makes you wonder what his buddy Rush shares with him on the golf course. Rush of course took so many Oxycodone he went deaf an had to get a cochlear implant.
Pompeo is a real piece of work, an international wreaking ball. I can only guess what he is up to, but I am sure it is not working for this country. I think his mission statement must include founding a league of idiot nations. So far he is off to a good start. It will feature an insecurity council. I guess you have to be a rouge nation to be a member. With the path we are on the United States should be more than eligible for a seat.
Sell those arms to Saudi Arabia. God knows our economy is in a rut now. If those IG's get in the way just fire them. Remember, Trump the anointed one has perfect judgement. He has a pill for that too.
The WHO has declared Trump as an international health hazard. What took them so long.? I guess you go into a pandemic with the organization you have. Let's hope they have a great enforcement arm. With his death count, Trump has a good start on chalking up more dead people than Pol Pot. Someone has to get a leash on him. Perhaps that lackey that walks Pompeo's dog might be up to the task.
I'm thinking Trump/Pompeo planted the story that Popmpeo was being investigated for having staff walk his dog. *yawn* The actual dirty laundry is Trump taking orders from SA to sell arms to slaughter kids in Yemen.
Nobody is saying if the IG guy will testify if he's called. (Trump will prohibit but can he make it stick.) Can the testimony be in open session or is it too highly classified (for legit reasons) to be televised.
Trump is sitting on that pile of money for bribes. He's waiting until someone Trump needs, really NEEDS the money.
IMO Trump is not really taking the hydroxychloroquine. He is just trying to put out there that it is safe. He is such a liar and besides he is superman and does not need all those precautions like social distancing and wearing a mask and taking a drug that is not approved by the FDA for the virus. If you haven't gotten the message by now, just realize that he is SPECIAL. I wonder what his past lives look like but that is a bit scary to think about. My closest guess would be King Henry VIII.
I don't think he's taking the hydroxychloroquine either. I suspect he has to create a market or sustain the viability as a prophylaxis for the 30 million pills that the government has stock piled before it was thoroughly debunked as a cure/preventative for covid-19. Knowing Trump you can rest assured that somebody is making money on pushing the hydroxychloroquine scam, and that Trump, in some obscure way is getting a piece of that action.
It's in the nature of the beast. The same can be said of the Saudi arms deal. Again, you can rest assured there will be a clandestine broker's fee that is going to ultimately end up in Trump's coffers or in his credit column.
Trump is a corrupt bag of shit, and to expect anything different to emerge from the nature of an undisputed liar and cheater is folly.
What's left of the $500 Billion is being left there for tRUMP, by tRUMP, so that at the end of his 1st or 2nd term (or 3rd or 4th), he can reward himself with, "A Job Done Better Than Any Other President of a Country in the History of the Universe BONUS!!!!!"
He'd better check with Vlad, his handler, about the amount, because that might be more than the bonus Putin rewarded himself for that exact same thing in Russia.
If tRUMP top's Vlad's take, he may end-up an irradiated corpse, which, for safety reasons, will have to be buried at sea, or shot into space!
You don't double-cross Vlad!
Better not double cross Vlad Putin or he may act like Vlad the Impaler.