William Barr is dropping his heavy hand on the shoulder of various foreign countries, seeking their assistance on finding something to make Trumpkraine go away.

Attorney General William Barr has been tugging on the sleeve of various foreign intelligence officials. He has asked authorities in at least three countries — Australia, Italy and the United Kington — for help.

He reportedly wants their assistance in reviewing how the CIA and the FBI went about investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

Barr’s apparent role in all of this is alarming to some former law enforcement officials.

No kidding. He’s acting like Trump’s personal fixer, not the Attorney General of the [whole, entire] United States. He’s also apparently … Read the rest

Trump’s rage-tweets about Mitt Romney may be intended as an Awful Warning for any other Republicans thinking of failing to back Trump no matter what he does or says.

The acrimonious exchange is the latest turn in the up-and-down relationship between the two men, who share a party but are miles apart on questions of style, propriety, and adherence to institutional norms.

The vehemence of Trump’s tweets also served as a signal to other GOP lawmakers that Trump is willing to direct his ire at them if they step out of line and offer a hint of support to Democrats’ impeachment efforts against him.

It’s not as if they don’t already know that though. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that … Read the rest

Trump has been raging at Mitt Romney most of the day, with some raging at Adam Schiff by way of refreshment.

Ten hours ago:

Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked!

Mitt Romney never knew how to win. He is a pompous “ass” who has been fighting me from the beginning, except when he begged me for my endorsement for his Senate run (I gave it to him), and when he begged me to be Secretary of State (I

Breaking news: it wasn’t Trump’s idea at all, it was Rick Perry’s!

President Trump told House Republicans that he made his now infamous phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the urging of Energy Secretary Rick Perry — a call Trump claimed he didn’t even want to make.

Behind the scenes: Trump made these comments during a conference call with House members on Friday, according to 3 sources on the call.

• Per the sources, Trump rattled off the same things he has been saying publicly — that his call with Zelensky was “perfect”and he did nothing wrong.
• But he then threw Perry into the mix and said something to the effect of: “Not a lot of people know this

There could be a second whistleblower.

A second intelligence official is reportedly considering filing a whistleblower complaint about Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine as the Democrats’ impeachment investigation into the president and his administration continues to escalate.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, also failed to meet a subpoena deadline to turn over documents related to the investigation, as House Democrats broadened their subpoena request to the White House, demanding documents after the executive branch ignored requests to provide them voluntarily.

Pompeo had a math test and a history paper due this week.

The second official considering filing a whistleblower complaint about the president’s dealings with Ukraine has more direct information about the events in question than the

Lawyers agree: this is not your average criminal conspiracy.

Neal Katyal:

You can litigate for literally decades (as I have) and never see something in writing as damning as this and the other texts released last night. Unbelievable.

George Conway:

Same. And in my 31 years of practice, I’ve been involved in litigations in which, In the aggregate, tens of millions of documents were produced.

Elizabeth McLaughlin:

I said the same thing last night. Even the most blatant antitrust and securities fraud cases i litigated for 15 years never had evidence like this.

I have to wonder exactly how vindicated Andrew McCabe is feeling right now.

I also wonder if Barr’s Xmas party at Trump’s hotel is … Read the rest

I sent Trump a little note an hour or so ago, in the form of a reply to one of his tweets, objecting to his habit of screaming that he has an absolute right to do this or that.

As the President of the United States, I have an absolute right, perhaps even a duty, to investigate, or have investigated, CORRUPTION, and that would include asking, or suggesting, other Countries to help us out!

I really hate that habit of his, so I’m cheered to see this from Benjamin Wittes:

@Susan_Hennessey and I, for our book, began a collection of statements in which Trump uses the phrase “I have an absolute right.” Now we send each other these

The Guardian has a helpfully concise summary of the texts issue.

Just before midnight Thursday, three House committees involved in the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump released a letter advising colleagues of discoveries they had made over the course of nine hours of testimony that day by Kurt Volker, the former US special envoy to Ukraine.

Attached to the letter were six pages of transcripts of text messages among Volker; acting US ambassador to the Ukraine Bill Taylor; US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland; and an aide to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelinskiy.

I was misled by the matching “ambassador” titles earlier this morning until I read further. Bill Taylor is a career diplomat, a civil servant; Gordan … Read the rest

Common Dreams explains about the texts:

House Democrats Thursday night released a trove of explosive text exchanges between top U.S. diplomats that provides a closer look into U.S. President Donald Trump’s months-long effort to pressure Ukraine’s leader to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.

The text messages, provided to House committees by then special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, show that the Trump administration attempted to use a possible meeting between the U.S. president and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to pressure Kyiv to launch an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter.

You want Javelin missiles? Give us dirt on Biden. You want a meeting? Give us dirt on Biden.

The messages also showed Bill Taylor, the top American

I’m scrolling through CNN’s live updates on the Trump outrages, remembering to breathe every couple of minutes or so.

Headline from an hour and 20 minutes ago:

Trump told China’s president the US would stay silent on Hong Kong protests during trade talks

Breathing halted again.

Text under headline:

During a private phone call in June, President Trump promised Chinese President Xi Jinping that the US would remain quiet on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong while trade talks continued, two sources familiar with knowledge of the call tell CNN.

Why this matters: The remarkable pledge to the Chinese leader is a dramatic departure from decades of US support for human rights in China and shows just how eager Trump