buzzfeed--2020-01-27--Watch Live: John Bolton Wrote In His Memoir That Trump Did The Very Thing He’s Been Impeached For. T

Watch Live: John Bolton Wrote In His Memoir That Trump Did The Very Thing He’s Been Impeached For. The Trial Resumes Today.

Bolton , who has worked for presidential administrations dating back to Ronald Reagan ’ s , is highly regarded in conservative policymaking circles .
Bolton ’ s recollections completely cut against Trump ’ s main defense : That withholding the aid had nothing to do with his desire for an investigation into the Biden family .
He ’ s also the first to say he heard that directly from Trump , undercutting a major defense argument .
The substance of that information , revealed Sunday in the New York Times , isn ’ t new — it ’ s one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impeach the president .
But the messenger is new , and significant .
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump ’ s former national security adviser reportedly wrote in an unpublished book manuscript that Trump withheld military aid from a key ally , Ukraine , until he got guarantees that the country would investigate his political rivals , the Biden family .
The Impeachment Today podcast gets you up to date with the day ’ s most important impeachment news .
Catch up on all the episodes , or subscribe on the iHeartRadio app , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you listen to your favorite shows .
Bolton ’ s revelation will reignite the argument over whether Senate Republicans will agree to call witnesses during the impeachment trial .
Bolton was offered the chance to testify to the House — he declined , despite Trump lying and saying the House didn ’ t ask him to appear — saying he would only testify if subpoenaed .
House Democrats did not ultimately subpoena him .
The question is if Bolton ’ s account is enough to move some Republican senators to vote in favor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservative figures are saying Bolton isn ’ t credible and withheld the revelation just to promote his upcoming book .
Republican senators discussed Bolton 's book in a lunch on Monday , including , `` what ’ s in the manuscript exactly , what ’ s the motivation for doing it , the timing of it , '' Sen. Mike Braun told reporters .
`` I think there was some snide remarks like ‘ it ’ s a $ 2-million book advance ’ and all that stuff.
” Braun added he thinks it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get a copy of the manuscript , but it remains unclear if Republicans will support calling Bolton himself to testify .
`` I think Leader McConnell had some good advice : take a deep breath , we ’ re going to get there anyway , and think about whether you need it , '' he said .
On Monday , a senior Democratic staffer on the impeachment trial dismissed speculation that Bolton had coordinated recently with Democrats on the release of the New York Times story .
“ We ’ ve had no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s lawyers , ” the staffer said .
Amid this , Trump ’ s lawyers are continuing to make their defense on Monday .
Trump was charged with the two articles of impeachment in the House for his decision to withhold vital military aid from the country while pressuring it to investigate his political rival , former vice president Joe Biden .
Trump ’ s legal team , led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and the president ’ s personal lawyer , Jay Sekulow , began their opening arguments Saturday , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the impeachment process and citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that Ukraine hacked the 2016 election ( as the intelligence community has concluded , it was Russia ) .
Monday is the second of three days the president ’ s team has to make their case .
In total , they ’ ll have 24 hours to argue before the Senate , but they ’ ve said repeatedly they don ’ t intend to use their full time to draw contrast with Democrats ( who argued for nearly 23 hours over three days ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s defense has so far argued that the president did not condition the military aid to Ukraine on his desire for the investigations into the Bidens , though multiple witnesses in the House investigation have said that link was clear .
Trump ’ s defense has also emphasized that the military aid to Ukraine was eventually released , in September , though that was after a whistleblower had filed a complaint about Trump ’ s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky where Trump directly asked for the investigations .
After the call , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the legality of continuing to withhold the aid .
Trump ’ s defense on Saturday focused heavily on an argument that House Democrats had withheld evidence from senators — though the House literally sent carts worth of testimony and other documents to the Senate when it wrapped up its own case .
Trump ’ s lawyers argued that Democrats ignored some testimony that was helpful to the president , while themselves ignoring testimony that was not helpful to Trump .
The president 's defense team opened Monday with a broad argument against the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of sources — Ken Starr , the former special counsel whose investigation led to the impeachment of former president Bill Clinton .
He argued that Trump should not be impeached because he was not accused of breaking a specific law .
But he also expanded far beyond the current circumstances to make a sweeping argument against impeaching presidents in general .
He warned that impeachment “ overturns a national election ” and causes a “ grave disruption of the government.
” It was an abrupt break from Starr ’ s previous role as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ powers .
He even cited the Clinton impeachment he once championed as a reason that Congress should avoid this course of action .
“ The very divisive Clinton impeachment demonstrates that , while highly relevant , the commission of a crime is by no means sufficient to warrant the removal of our duly elected president , ” said Starr .
Over the course of an hour , Starr highlighted how unusual impeachment has been — Trump ’ s trial is just the third impeachment trial in American history .
He implored the Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where Congress regularly wielded its impeachment powers .
“ I respectfully submit that the Senate should close this chapter , this idiosyncratic chapter , on this increasingly disruptive act , this era , this age of resort to the Constitution ’ s ultimate democratic weapon for the presidency , ” said Starr .
“ Let the people decide.
” The Biden family took center stage in the trial Monday afternoon as Trump ’ s legal team turned their focus to the presidential contender and his son , Hunter Biden .
“ We would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” said former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi , a member of Trump ’ s defense team — although Trump , his allies , and other Republicans have spent months talking about Hunter Biden .
But Bondi said they had no choice but to bring up the Bidens because House impeachment managers first broached the issue in their opening statements .
The White House team heavily implied Biden , when he was vice president , forced Ukraine to fire a prosecutor , Viktor Shokin , who was investigating a company tied to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ theory .
Trump 's defense quoted Shokin claiming that he was fired for investigating Burisma Holdings , a gas company that had Hunter Biden on its board — a theory Shokin only floated long after his removal .
Shokin was fired under pressure from Democrats and Republicans in the US and allies across the west and Biden bragged publicly about his role in Shokin 's ouster .
But Shokin was no longer investigating Burisma at the time and was widely seen by Western nations as a corrupt prosecutor who was blocking anti-corruption efforts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statement , saying that Trump 's team was relying on a `` conspiracy theory '' that has been `` conclusively refuted . ''
`` Joe Biden was instrumental to a bipartisan and international anti-corruption victory .
It 's no surprise that such a thing is anathema to President Trump , '' Biden 's rapid response director Andrew Bates wrote .
When Trump 's defense team finishes their case , as late as Tuesday evening , the Senate will then enter a 16-hour period in which senators can submit handwritten questions to both legal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take up an issue that has loomed large over the trial : whether they will call any witnesses to give testimony .
Democrats have pushed hard for witnesses , while the majority of Republicans have argued it is unnecessary .
Sens .
Susan Collins and Mitt Romney both voted against calling witnesses ( along with all Republicans ) earlier in the trial but have suggested that they are likely to vote in favor of witnesses later this week .
In addition to Bolton , Democrats have discussed calling acting White House chief of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was allegedly deeply involved in the scheme to withhold the Ukraine aid .
He acknowledged the link between those actions in a bizarre White House press conference in October , calling it “ absolutely appropriate , ” but later tried to walk back those comments .
`` We 've got both Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton publicly saying that the aid was conditioned upon the investigation , '' Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said Monday , adding he 's hopeful Republicans will support calling witnesses .
`` I pray that they will because if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this trial to a standard that 's lesser than a trial in the traffic division of the Richmond General District Court , '' Kaine said .
Other new evidence has emerged as the trial has gone on .
On Saturday , Lev Parnas — one of two indicted allies of Rudy Giuliani — released a tape , which was obtained by BuzzFeed News , of Trump explicitly telling him and others to “ get rid of ” the then-US ambassador to Ukraine , Marie Yovanovitch .
Giuliani and Parnas have said that Yovanovitch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s impeachment inquiry , was an obstacle to their campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and had campaigned to remove her .
Additionally , both Ukraine and the US are now investigating whether Yovanovitch was under surveillance by Giuliani associates at the time .
She was ultimately recalled from her post in Kyiv and told that the president had wanted her out .
This is a developing story .
Check back for updates and follow BuzzFeed News on Twitter.

Bolton’s revelation will reignite the argument over whether Senate Republicans will agree to call witnesses during the impeachment trial. Bolton was offered the chance to testify to the House — he declined, despite Trump lying and saying the House didn’t ask him to appear — saying he would only testify if subpoenaed. House Democrats did not ultimately subpoena him.
The question is if Bolton’s account is enough to move some Republican senators to vote in favor of calling witnesses. Already, far-right conservative figures are saying Bolton isn’t credible and withheld the revelation just to promote his upcoming book.
Republican senators discussed Bolton's book in a lunch on Monday, including, "what’s in the manuscript exactly, what’s the motivation for doing it, the timing of it," Sen. Mike Braun told reporters. "I think there was some snide remarks like ‘it’s a $2-million book advance’ and all that stuff.”
Braun added he thinks it is likely that senators will try to get a copy of the manuscript, but it remains unclear if Republicans will support calling Bolton himself to testify. "I think Leader McConnell had some good advice: take a deep breath, we’re going to get there anyway, and think about whether you need it," he said.
On Monday, a senior Democratic staffer on the impeachment trial dismissed speculation that Bolton had coordinated recently with Democrats on the release of the New York Times story.
“We’ve had no communication with Mr. Bolton or Mr. Bolton’s lawyers,” the staffer said.
Amid this, Trump’s lawyers are continuing to make their defense. They spoke for nearly 8 hours on Monday and will wrap up their case Tuesday.
Trump was charged with the two articles of impeachment in the House for his decision to withhold vital military aid from the country while pressuring it to investigate his political rival, former vice president Joe Biden.
Trump’s legal team, led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and the president’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, began their opening arguments Saturday, focusing their attacks on House Democrats and the impeachment process and citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that Ukraine hacked the 2016 election (as the intelligence community has concluded, it was Russia).
Monday was the second of three days the president’s team has to make their case. In total, they’ll have 24 hours to argue before the Senate, but they’ve said repeatedly they don’t intend to use their full time to draw contrast with Democrats (who argued for nearly 23 hours over three days) and appease tired senators.
Trump’s defense has so far argued that the president did not condition the military aid to Ukraine on his desire for the investigations into the Bidens, though multiple witnesses in the House investigation have said that link was clear.
Trump’s defense has also emphasized that the military aid to Ukraine was eventually released, in September, though that was after a whistleblower had filed a complaint about Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky where Trump directly asked for the investigations. After the call, some federal officials had raised questions about the legality of continuing to withhold the aid.
Trump’s defense on Saturday focused heavily on an argument that House Democrats had withheld evidence from senators — though the House literally sent carts worth of testimony and other documents to the Senate when it wrapped up its own case. Trump’s lawyers argued that Democrats ignored some testimony that was helpful to the president, while themselves ignoring testimony that was not helpful to Trump.
The president's defense team opened Monday with a broad argument against the legitimacy of impeachment from the most unlikely of sources — Ken Starr, the former special counsel whose investigation led to the impeachment of former president Bill Clinton.
“Like war, impeachment is hell,” Starr told the Senate.
He argued that Trump should not be impeached because he was not accused of breaking a specific law. But he also expanded far beyond the current circumstances to make a sweeping argument against impeaching presidents in general. He warned that impeachment “overturns a national election” and causes a “grave disruption of the government.”
It was an abrupt break from Starr’s previous role as a champion of Congress’s impeachment powers. He even cited the Clinton impeachment he once championed as a reason that Congress should avoid this course of action.
“The very divisive Clinton impeachment demonstrates that, while highly relevant, the commission of a crime is by no means sufficient to warrant the removal of our duly elected president,” said Starr.
Over the course of an hour, Starr highlighted how unusual impeachment has been — Trump’s trial is just the third impeachment trial in American history. He implored the Senate to end the era in American history where Congress regularly wielded its impeachment powers.
“I respectfully submit that the Senate should close this chapter, this idiosyncratic chapter, on this increasingly disruptive act, this era, this age of resort to the Constitution’s ultimate democratic weapon for the presidency,” said Starr. “Let the people decide.”
Later in the day Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war combat veteran, criticized Starr's statement. “[Ken Starr] compared his previous impeachment experience to being in war. I've been in war and sitting in a nice building, getting breaks for lunch and dinner is not like war," she said.
The Biden family took center stage in the afternoon portion of the trial Monday as Trump’s legal team turned their focus to the presidential contender and his son, Hunter Biden.
“We would prefer not to be talking about this,” said former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, a member of Trump’s defense team — although Trump, his allies, and other Republicans have spent months talking about Hunter Biden. But Bondi said they had no choice but to bring up the Bidens because House impeachment managers first broached the issue in their opening statements.
The White House team heavily implied Biden, when he was vice president, forced Ukraine to fire a prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating a company tied to the Biden family — a discredited conspiracy theory. Trump's defense quoted Shokin claiming that he was fired for investigating Burisma Holdings, a gas company that had Hunter Biden on its board — a theory Shokin only floated long after his removal.
Shokin was fired under pressure from Democrats and Republicans in the US and allies across the west and Biden bragged publicly about his role in Shokin's ouster. But Shokin was no longer investigating Burisma at the time and was widely seen by Western nations as a corrupt prosecutor who was blocking anti-corruption efforts.
Biden's campaign responded in a statement, saying that Trump's team was relying on a "conspiracy theory" that has been "conclusively refuted."
"Joe Biden was instrumental to a bipartisan and international anti-corruption victory. It's no surprise that such a thing is anathema to President Trump," Biden's rapid response director Andrew Bates wrote.
Constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz, another member of the White House's defense team, closed Monday's arguments with a lengthy legal argument, suggesting that the Founding Fathers did not intend for any president to be removed from office for abuse of power and that impeachment can only be used for violations of the criminal code. However, Clinton was charged with abuse of power among other articles and Dershowitz argued at the time that the president didn't need to commit a crime to be impeached.
Dershowitz went on to say Monday that even if Trump did withhold military aid from Ukraine in exchange for dirt on his political opponent, it wouldn't matter, and addressed Bolton's allegations directly.
"Nothing in the Bolton revelations even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense. That is clear from the history, that is clear from the language of the Constitution," he said. "You cannot turn conduct that is not impeachable into impeachable conduct simply by using words like ‘quid pro quo’ and ‘personal benefit.’ It is inconceivable that the framers would have intended so politically loaded and promiscuously deployed a term as ‘abuse of power’ to be weaponized as a tool of impeachment. It is precisely the kind of vague open-ended and subjective term that the framers feared and rejected.”
After the Senate wrapped up Monday night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a former law professor, told reporters that Dershowitz' arguments were "contrary to both law and fact."
"His characterization of the law simply is unsupported. He is a criminal law professor who stood in the well of the Senate and talked about how law never inquires into intent and that we should not be using the president's intent as part of understanding impeachment. Criminal law is all about intent. Mens rea is the heart of criminal law. That's the very basis of it. So it makes his whole presentation just nonsensical. I truly could not follow it."
When Trump's defense team finishes their case Tuesday, the Senate will then enter a 16-hour period in which senators can submit handwritten questions to both legal teams. After that, senators will take up an issue that has loomed large over the trial: whether they will call any witnesses to give testimony.
Democrats have pushed hard for witnesses, while the majority of Republicans have argued it is unnecessary. Sens. Susan Collins and Mitt Romney both voted against calling witnesses (along with all Republicans) earlier in the trial but have suggested that they are likely to vote in favor of witnesses later this week.
"I would like to hear from John Bolton," Romney told reporters Monday. "I've said that for some time, in part because of the fact that he's been one-on-one with the president, and has been pointed out so far by the House managers as well as the defense that there has not been evidence if a direct nature of what the president may have said, or what his motives were, or what he did."
In addition to Bolton, Democrats have discussed calling acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to testify. Mulvaney was allegedly deeply involved in the scheme to withhold the Ukraine aid. He acknowledged the link between those actions in a bizarre White House press conference in October, calling it “absolutely appropriate,” but later tried to walk back those comments.
"We've got both Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton publicly saying that the aid was conditioned upon the investigation," Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said Monday, adding he's hopeful Republicans will support calling witnesses.
"I pray that they will because if they don't, they will assign this trial to a standard that's lesser than a trial in the traffic division of the Richmond General District Court," Kaine said.
Senate Majority Whip John Thune, whose job it is to count Republican votes in the Senate, declined to say Monday if there were enough votes to support bringing witnesses into the trial. "I think there's been some fluidity in people who have entertained the possibility but also have a lot of questions about what that looks like," he said. "There are a lot of mitigating factors right now and obviously our folks are evaluating it and listening to all the arguments."
Other new evidence has emerged as the trial has gone on. On Saturday, Lev Parnas — one of two indicted allies of Rudy Giuliani — released a tape, which was obtained by BuzzFeed News, of Trump explicitly telling him and others to “get rid of” the then-US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Giuliani and Parnas have said that Yovanovitch, who testified in the House’s impeachment inquiry, was an obstacle to their campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and had campaigned to remove her. Additionally, both Ukraine and the US are now investigating whether Yovanovitch was under surveillance by Giuliani associates at the time. She was ultimately recalled from her post in Kyiv and told that the president had wanted her out.


buzzfeed--2020-01-27--AOC Is Campaigning For Bernie Sanders In Iowa And Voters Are Falling In Love

AMES , Iowa — With Sen. Bernie Sanders largely stuck in DC in the days leading up to the first contest of the 2020 election , Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is storming across Iowa for his campaign and making a big name for herself in the process .
On Saturday morning , the Sanders campaign ’ s field office in Cedar Rapids was filled with chants of “ AOC ” as Ocasio-Cortez walked to the front of the room .
Her reputation — driven by her Twitter presence , her role in the vanguard of a new generation of progressive Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her from the right — had somewhat preceded her .
“ I would have her be president .
She ’ s unabashed .
She ’ s not afraid of the political garbage that we have , ” said Joe Organist , 60 , at the stop in Cedar Falls .
“ If I were running for president , she ’ d be the only one I ’ d want speaking for me.
” He added that he ’ d come to the Sanders event partly because he knew Ocasio-Cortez would be there .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ events in Iowa on Saturday , however , this was their first time really getting to know her , and in some cases , the first time they ’ d even heard of her .
Close to two dozen voters who spoke to BuzzFeed News over the course of the four-stop day , including two with Sanders , said they were impressed with her — several adding that they would like to see her be part of a Sanders cabinet , and could see her running for president down the track .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not yet old enough to be president or vice president . )
“ I actually didn ’ t know anything about her .
My friend told me about this , ” said Dominique Eniola , 21 , a student at the University of Northern Iowa .
“ I have heard that a lot of politicians don ’ t like her because she ’ s a woman and because she ’ s very ‘ radical.
’ I think a lot of people throw around the word radical very interchangeably because they might not like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think it is very hard being a woman and not having people take you seriously.
” “ I didn ’ t even know who she was , to be honest , ” said Angela Hodge , 45 , at a town hall in Marshalltown .
“ I love her .
I love that she ’ s multicultural , being multicultural myself , I am Hispanic … I would like to see her in more politics because I think she really has a lot to say and it ’ s very meaningful .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that she made.
” Ocasio-Cortez made her second swing through Iowa this weekend — last time she was here , in November with Sanders , her focus was on a climate forum at Drake University .
In December , she spoke at a campaign stop in Las Vegas entirely in Spanish , in an event that saw young Latino Sanders supporters bring in their parents and grandparents to engage directly in their first language for the first time in the presidential campaign .
Ocasio-Cortez ’ s approach on the presidential campaign trail — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ City rally after endorsing Sanders in October — is a combination of sweeping progressive discourse tied in to very personal stories .
This weekend , she talked about the “ surreal ” experience of sleeping on an air mattress in her first days in Congress , and then walking to work on the Hill , where she says she was “ told that our lives are too politically inconvenient to fight for .
”

AMES, Iowa — With Sen. Bernie Sanders largely stuck in DC in the days leading up to the first contest of the 2020 election, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is storming across Iowa for his campaign and making a big name for herself in the process.
On Saturday morning, the Sanders campaign’s field office in Cedar Rapids was filled with chants of “AOC” as Ocasio-Cortez walked to the front of the room. Her reputation — driven by her Twitter presence, her role in the vanguard of a new generation of progressive Democrats, and by the prolific attacks on her from the right — had somewhat preceded her.
“I would have her be president. She’s unabashed. She’s not afraid of the political garbage that we have,” said Joe Organist, 60, at the stop in Cedar Falls. “If I were running for president, she’d be the only one I’d want speaking for me.”
He added that he’d come to the Sanders event partly because he knew Ocasio-Cortez would be there.
For other voters at the Sanders campaign events in Iowa on Saturday, however, this was their first time really getting to know her, and in some cases, the first time they’d even heard of her.
Close to two dozen voters who spoke to BuzzFeed News over the course of the four-stop day, including two with Sanders, said they were impressed with her — several adding that they would like to see her be part of a Sanders cabinet, and could see her running for president down the track. (Ocasio-Cortez, who is 30, is not yet old enough to be president or vice president.)
“I actually didn’t know anything about her. My friend told me about this,” said Dominique Eniola, 21, a student at the University of Northern Iowa. “I have heard that a lot of politicians don’t like her because she’s a woman and because she’s very ‘radical.’ I think a lot of people throw around the word radical very interchangeably because they might not like just one key thing about someone. I think it is very hard being a woman and not having people take you seriously.”
“I didn’t even know who she was, to be honest,” said Angela Hodge, 45, at a town hall in Marshalltown. “I love her. I love that she’s multicultural, being multicultural myself, I am Hispanic … I would like to see her in more politics because I think she really has a lot to say and it’s very meaningful. She has a lot of good points that she made.”
Ocasio-Cortez made her second swing through Iowa this weekend — last time she was here, in November with Sanders, her focus was on a climate forum at Drake University. In December, she spoke at a campaign stop in Las Vegas entirely in Spanish, in an event that saw young Latino Sanders supporters bring in their parents and grandparents to engage directly in their first language for the first time in the presidential campaign.
Ocasio-Cortez’s approach on the presidential campaign trail — dating back to her first New York City rally after endorsing Sanders in October — is a combination of sweeping progressive discourse tied in to very personal stories. This weekend, she talked about the “surreal” experience of sleeping on an air mattress in her first days in Congress, and then walking to work on the Hill, where she says she was “told that our lives are too politically inconvenient to fight for.”


buzzfeed--2020-01-27--Leftist Magazine Jewish Currents Is Expanding — And Hiring A Leading Writer On American Jewish Polit

Leftist Magazine Jewish Currents Is Expanding — And Hiring A Leading Writer On American Jewish Politics

Jewish Currents , a leftist magazine founded in 1946 and initially linked to the Communist Party USA , was relaunched two years ago ; its new editors sought to broaden the media horizon on Jewish topics and appeal to young , progressive American Jews who don ’ t identify with communal institutions ’ consensus on Israel .
Energized by the leftist resurgence in American politics since the 2016 election , Jewish Currents has carved out a progressive niche for itself in the Jewish media landscape .
It has published on a range of topics from Jewish identity in Uncut Gems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guide on how to carry out a medical abortion at home .
It made a splash with two high-profile commissions last year : one , a review by the feminist theorist Judith Butler of New York Times opinion columnist Bari Weiss ’ s book How to Fight Anti-Semitism , and two , an op-ed by Bernie Sanders about his views on anti-Semitism and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict .
Now , Jewish Currents is preparing to expand further — and hiring one of the leading commentators on American Jewish politics and Israel .
Peter Beinart @ @ @ @ @ @ @ book The Crisis of Zionism and a key voice on the left of the Zionist spectrum , is joining the magazine with a twice-monthly column , leaving his post as a columnist for the Forward .
Beinart will retain his other affiliations , with the Atlantic and the City University of New York .
That Beinart would move from the Forward , one of the central organs of American Jewish life which has been in publication since 1897 in Yiddish and in English , to a smaller journal that has an explicitly left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provided a home for anti-Zionist views considered taboo by more centrist organizations , suggests a power shift in the politics of American Jewish media .
Jewish Currents ’ publisher Jacob Plitman said in an interview that the publication is also expanding its roster of writers in addition to Beinart , bringing on as contributing or staff writers Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace ; Elisheva Goldberg , media director of the New Israel Fund and a former adviser to former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni ; Joshua Leifer , an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Chicago-based writer Mari Cohen .
Plitman said that the magazine , a nonprofit , had significantly increased its fundraising , enabling growth .
He declined to discuss specific fundraising figures , beyond saying that the organization had previously been operating with a less than $ 500,000 budget and now anticipated “ significant growth ” with new pledges .
“ Peter in many ways has set the benchmark for what it means to both hold the Jewish community accountable to progressive values and do it in a way that 's unflinchingly Jewish and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fears , with our history , with all the things that actually make us tick .
And that 's exactly what Jewish Currents is trying to do , ” Plitman said .
Plitman referenced Beinart ’ s influential 2010 essay “ The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment , ” which identified an increasing alienation among young American Jews from Zionism as a primary concern and disillusionment with Israel ’ s occupation of the West Bank .
The essay , Plitman said , reflected his experiences growing up in a conservative Jewish community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s I think a tremendous need for a kind of American progressive Jewish publication which really sees itself as trying to intervene in a whole series of debates , and confront what I see as the kind of moral corruption of the American Jewish establishment and its complicity in various ways with some of the things that Trump is doing and the direction that [ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ] Netanyahu is taking Israel , ” Beinart said .
“ It just seemed really fitting that I could try to be a part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that I had been yearning to see something like that built , ” Beinart said .
At 49 , Beinart represents a different generation than the Jewish Currents cohort and a different context for thinking about questions of Jewish identity and Israel .
He described how Jewish Currents had “ started to reverberate up to my kind of relatively fuddy-duddy , Gen X , Upper West Side life.
” The expansion of Jewish Currents comes as the more mainstream Jewish center-left as exemplified by Beinart finds itself increasingly alienated during the Trump presidency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has repeatedly presented himself as the best American president for Israel , told reporters that “ if you want to vote Democrat , you are being very disloyal to Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel.
” This week , Trump is welcoming Netanyahu and his political rival Benny Gantz to the White House , amid the administration ’ s push for a new Middle East peace plan that ’ s expected to be radically different from what liberals have advocated for .
“ I think that the institutional Jewish world , particularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far away from what kind of , the average kind of progressive millennial is experiencing or thinking about , ” said Arielle Angel , Jewish Currents ’ editor .
“ And so I think that we have given expression to something that just does n't exist anywhere else in this space.
” The Forward , from which the magazine has hired Beinart , has struggled in recent years , laying off a large portion of its staff , including its former editor-in-chief , and ending its print edition last year .
Last summer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ period , the outlet hired Jodi Rudoren , the former Jerusalem bureau chief of the New York Times , as its new editor-in-chief .
Some Jewish progressives have criticized the Forward for publishing right-wing voices like Zionist Organization of America leader Mort Klein , and Jewish Currents has published criticism of the paper .
`` We loved having Peter in our pages and we ’ re excited to see his next chapter , '' Rudoren said .
`` We ’ re excited to see Currents grow and that there ’ s more investment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ great run for Peter at The Forward and I hope he has equal success at his next place . ''
Both Angel and Plitman wished the Forward well .
“ The Forward is the sole daily Jewish newspaper that has the resources and capacity to do the kind of reporting we need done , ” Angel said , noting that what Jewish Currents does as a smaller intellectual journal that only publishes once a day isn ’ t comparable to what the Forward does as an outlet that also covers news .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really good one , ” Beinart said , adding that he hopes they “ thrive.
” This is the second move that Beinart has taken to advance his progressive agenda on Israel–Palestine in recent months ; he is also part of the progressive “ Hatikvah ” slate running for the World Zionist Congress , a historical legislative body dating from before the founding of the state of Israel open to all Jews worldwide to vote in with power over how certain funds are allocated inside Israel with regard to settlements and religious funds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spent on settlement projects in the West Bank .
Welcoming Beinart also shows that Currents is welcoming in a more center-left strain of Jewish intellectual writing and potential readership .
“ We do n't have a manifesto , ” Plitman said .
“ We ’ re the magazine of a community and a community that wants to speak for itself and also have some internal conversations that have n't always been given the air they need.
” Plitman mentioned Norman Podhoretz ’ s Commentary magazine , which published writers like James Baldwin and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ These are heavyweights , you know , and we 're trying to cultivate the heavyweights of today and tomorrow .
”

Jewish Currents, a leftist magazine founded in 1946 and initially linked to the Communist Party USA, was relaunched two years ago; its new editors sought to broaden the media horizon on Jewish topics and appeal to young, progressive American Jews who don’t identify with communal institutions’ consensus on Israel.
Energized by the leftist resurgence in American politics since the 2016 election, Jewish Currents has carved out a progressive niche for itself in the Jewish media landscape. It has published on a range of topics from Jewish identity in Uncut Gems to, controversially, a recent illustrated guide on how to carry out a medical abortion at home. It made a splash with two high-profile commissions last year: one, a review by the feminist theorist Judith Butler of New York Times opinion columnist Bari Weiss’s book How to Fight Anti-Semitism, and two, an op-ed by Bernie Sanders about his views on anti-Semitism and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Now, Jewish Currents is preparing to expand further — and hiring one of the leading commentators on American Jewish politics and Israel. Peter Beinart, the author of the much-discussed 2012 book The Crisis of Zionism and a key voice on the left of the Zionist spectrum, is joining the magazine with a twice-monthly column, leaving his post as a columnist for the Forward. Beinart will retain his other affiliations, with the Atlantic and the City University of New York.
That Beinart would move from the Forward, one of the central organs of American Jewish life which has been in publication since 1897 in Yiddish and in English, to a smaller journal that has an explicitly left point of view, and which has provided a home for anti-Zionist views considered taboo by more centrist organizations, suggests a power shift in the politics of American Jewish media.
Jewish Currents’ publisher Jacob Plitman said in an interview that the publication is also expanding its roster of writers in addition to Beinart, bringing on as contributing or staff writers Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace; Elisheva Goldberg, media director of the New Israel Fund and a former adviser to former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni; Joshua Leifer, an associate editor at socialist magazine Dissent; and Chicago-based writer Mari Cohen. Plitman said that the magazine, a nonprofit, had significantly increased its fundraising, enabling growth. He declined to discuss specific fundraising figures, beyond saying that the organization had previously been operating with a less than $500,000 budget and now anticipated “significant growth” with new pledges.
“Peter in many ways has set the benchmark for what it means to both hold the Jewish community accountable to progressive values and do it in a way that's unflinchingly Jewish and that's directly in contact with our fears, with our history, with all the things that actually make us tick. And that's exactly what Jewish Currents is trying to do,” Plitman said. Plitman referenced Beinart’s influential 2010 essay “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” which identified an increasing alienation among young American Jews from Zionism as a primary concern and disillusionment with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. The essay, Plitman said, reflected his experiences growing up in a conservative Jewish community in North Carolina.
“There’s I think a tremendous need for a kind of American progressive Jewish publication which really sees itself as trying to intervene in a whole series of debates, and confront what I see as the kind of moral corruption of the American Jewish establishment and its complicity in various ways with some of the things that Trump is doing and the direction that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is taking Israel,” Beinart said.
“It just seemed really fitting that I could try to be a part of [Jewish Currents], given that I had been yearning to see something like that built,” Beinart said.
At 49, Beinart represents a different generation than the Jewish Currents cohort and a different context for thinking about questions of Jewish identity and Israel. He described how Jewish Currents had “started to reverberate up to my kind of relatively fuddy-duddy, Gen X, Upper West Side life.”
The expansion of Jewish Currents comes as the more mainstream Jewish center-left as exemplified by Beinart finds itself increasingly alienated during the Trump presidency. Last year, Trump, who has repeatedly presented himself as the best American president for Israel, told reporters that “if you want to vote Democrat, you are being very disloyal to Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel.” This week, Trump is welcoming Netanyahu and his political rival Benny Gantz to the White House, amid the administration’s push for a new Middle East peace plan that’s expected to be radically different from what liberals have advocated for.
“I think that the institutional Jewish world, particularly for people our age, is so far away from what kind of, the average kind of progressive millennial is experiencing or thinking about,” said Arielle Angel, Jewish Currents’ editor. “And so I think that we have given expression to something that just doesn't exist anywhere else in this space.”
The Forward, from which the magazine has hired Beinart, has struggled in recent years, laying off a large portion of its staff, including its former editor-in-chief, and ending its print edition last year. Last summer, in a step out of that period, the outlet hired Jodi Rudoren, the former Jerusalem bureau chief of the New York Times, as its new editor-in-chief. Some Jewish progressives have criticized the Forward for publishing right-wing voices like Zionist Organization of America leader Mort Klein, and Jewish Currents has published criticism of the paper.
"We loved having Peter in our pages and we’re excited to see his next chapter," Rudoren said. "We’re excited to see Currents grow and that there’s more investment in Jewish journalism. It was a great run for Peter at The Forward and I hope he has equal success at his next place."
Both Angel and Plitman wished the Forward well. “The Forward is the sole daily Jewish newspaper that has the resources and capacity to do the kind of reporting we need done,” Angel said, noting that what Jewish Currents does as a smaller intellectual journal that only publishes once a day isn’t comparable to what the Forward does as an outlet that also covers news.
“My experience at the Forward was a really good one,” Beinart said, adding that he hopes they “thrive.”
This is the second move that Beinart has taken to advance his progressive agenda on Israel–Palestine in recent months; he is also part of the progressive “Hatikvah” slate running for the World Zionist Congress, a historical legislative body dating from before the founding of the state of Israel open to all Jews worldwide to vote in with power over how certain funds are allocated inside Israel with regard to settlements and religious funds. Beinart hopes to stop funds being spent on settlement projects in the West Bank.
Welcoming Beinart also shows that Currents is welcoming in a more center-left strain of Jewish intellectual writing and potential readership.
“We don't have a manifesto,” Plitman said. “We’re the magazine of a community and a community that wants to speak for itself and also have some internal conversations that haven't always been given the air they need.” Plitman mentioned Norman Podhoretz’s Commentary magazine, which published writers like James Baldwin and Hannah Arendt, as a template: “These are heavyweights, you know, and we're trying to cultivate the heavyweights of today and tomorrow.”


buzzfeed--2020-01-27--Democrats Said Trump’s Lawyers Just Made A Great Case — For Calling Witnesses And Documents

“ The thing that most irks me — I mean , really irks me — is that we ’ re having this conversation when there are literally people who could confirm directly — like [ Trump ’ s acting chief of staff ] Mick Mulvaney or [ former national security adviser John ] Bolton — they could confirm so much of this one way or the other , ” said Sen. Cory Booker .
They accused House impeachment managers of leaving out key information and presenting a skewed narrative .
Leaving the trial , several Democratic senators said the obvious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subpoena new witnesses and documents .
White House lawyers spent about two hours Saturday beginning their defense in Trump ’ s impeachment trial .
Their arguments included that no one has testified they heard Trump directly demand a political quid pro quo from Ukraine or say explicitly that foreign aid was held up to benefit himself .
The Impeachment Today podcast gets you up to date with the day ’ s most important impeachment news .
Catch up on all the episodes , or subscribe on the iHeartRadio app , Apple Podcasts , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your favorite shows .
White House lawyers have opposed issuing new subpoenas .
But Sen. Tim Kaine noted that one of their main objections to the impeachment process was that Trump ’ s lawyers were not allowed to cross-examine witnesses during their initial , closed-door depositions .
“ They ’ re going to stand there and tell us cross-examination is the greatest engine for discovery of truth , but , 'Oh , by the way , we don ’ t want you to cross-examine witnesses , ' ” said Kaine .
“ They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ documents and witnesses are absolutely necessary to resolve this.
” Sen. Richard Blumenthal , a lawyer , said trials have shown the best way to resolve factual disputes between two legal teams is to call in witnesses and lawyers .
While the removal of President Trump from office is overwhelmingly unlikely , Democrats have pushed Republicans to at least call for more evidence .
At the beginning of the trial , they put forward eight proposals to subpoena various witnesses or documents the administration has refused to turn over .
All were voted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another vote on subpoenas will take place next week .
But several Republicans said Saturday they are more convinced than ever that it is not necessary to issue new subpoenas .
Sen. Ron Johnson said he saw no need whatsoever to call witnesses .
“ The sooner that we can conclude this the better , ” he said .
“ But then we ’ ll continue .
The House will continue their oversight efforts ; the Senate will continue ours .
That ’ s the better venue for answering these questions , not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot of damage to our democracy.
” Even if the Senate votes to call witnesses , they would then be faced with the question of who specifically to call .
Some Republicans have insisted that if House Democrats are allowed to issue subpoenas , the White House defense team must be able to as well .
The names most frequently tossed around as possible White House subpoenas are presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter .
But Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is urging his colleagues to wrap up the trial quickly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ questions of congressional power and executive privilege .
“ I am more intent on ending this thing now with my vote , ” he said .
“ I really don ’ t want to turn the trial into a circus .
There ’ s a way to look at Hunter and Joe Biden outside impeachment .
”

White House lawyers have opposed issuing new subpoenas. But Sen. Tim Kaine noted that one of their main objections to the impeachment process was that Trump’s lawyers were not allowed to cross-examine witnesses during their initial, closed-door depositions.
“They’re going to stand there and tell us cross-examination is the greatest engine for discovery of truth, but, 'Oh, by the way, we don’t want you to cross-examine witnesses,'” said Kaine. “They made the case this morning for why documents and witnesses are absolutely necessary to resolve this.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a lawyer, said trials have shown the best way to resolve factual disputes between two legal teams is to call in witnesses and lawyers.
While the removal of President Trump from office is overwhelmingly unlikely, Democrats have pushed Republicans to at least call for more evidence. At the beginning of the trial, they put forward eight proposals to subpoena various witnesses or documents the administration has refused to turn over. All were voted down along party lines. However, another vote on subpoenas will take place next week.
But several Republicans said Saturday they are more convinced than ever that it is not necessary to issue new subpoenas. Sen. Ron Johnson said he saw no need whatsoever to call witnesses.
“The sooner that we can conclude this the better,” he said. “But then we’ll continue. The House will continue their oversight efforts; the Senate will continue ours. That’s the better venue for answering these questions, not a completely partisan impeachment trial that does a lot of damage to our democracy.”
Even if the Senate votes to call witnesses, they would then be faced with the question of who specifically to call. Some Republicans have insisted that if House Democrats are allowed to issue subpoenas, the White House defense team must be able to as well. The names most frequently tossed around as possible White House subpoenas are presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
But Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is urging his colleagues to wrap up the trial quickly rather than get wrapped up in thorny questions of congressional power and executive privilege.
“I am more intent on ending this thing now with my vote,” he said. “I really don’t want to turn the trial into a circus. There’s a way to look at Hunter and Joe Biden outside impeachment.”


buzzfeed--2020-01-27--Can The New Left Have Its Own Political Party?

The Working Families Party used idealistic goals and transactional tactics to play big in New York politics .
Now it ’ s missing out on the moment .
They moved the victory party for Tiffany Cabán to a big nightclub — La Boom — to accommodate the growing crowd on primary night last summer , and the place was packed for the queer , progressive thirtysomething public defender who suddenly had a real shot at being the Queens district attorney .
A lineup of local officials spoke onstage , then an organizer from the Democratic Socialists of America , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The organizer led the crowd in a booming chant of “ DSA , DSA.
” Finally , in the place of honor , introducing Cabán herself , was Bill Lipton , the lean , impatient state director of the Working Families Party , which had professionalized and managed the campaign , bringing it to the brink of victory .
He tried starting a chant too : “ I say ‘ Working , ’ you say ‘ Families.
’ Working ...
Families.
” It went a couple of rounds , and then the crowd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cabán declared victory on primary night , and then lost when absentee ballots were counted .
And WFP — a complicated , powerful force in New York for two decades — now also finds itself at what could be a moment of real triumph , or total irrelevance .
People outside the insular power politics of New York , Philadelphia , and Hartford may not have heard of WFP .
But the party has achieved a remarkable amount in America ’ s biggest city and a key state , where the tax-the-rich economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Through the long neoliberal winter of the 1990s and 2000s , WFP played a central role in a series of early progressive victories , bringing paid leave , a millionaire ’ s tax , softer drug laws , and a higher minimum wage to New York .
It was central to flipping the New York State Senate , bringing — among other things — an ambitious Green New Deal to the state .
Now , at what feels like a new national era of progressivism , the party faces deep questions about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by angry Democratic insiders and the new world of movement politics .
Among its vulnerabilities is that , as the biggest progressive party in New York , it failed to endorse Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she challenged a machine politician .
The party is scrambling to remake itself to the intersectional standards of contemporary progressive politics .
And it ’ s barely survived an assault by Gov .
Andrew Cuomo , the master of the state ’ s machine .
“ It ’ s both satisfying and ironic — at this moment of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are facing our own death , ” the party ’ s national chair and former longtime executive director , Dan Cantor , told me outside a grim hearing room in lower Manhattan while his project of 20 years hung in the hands of Cuomo ’ s allies on an obscure commission .
The body had been established to push through progressive campaign finance reforms — but planned , in passing , to put in place new rules making it harder for minor parties to operate .
Cantor , like many of the two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s 20 years whom I talked to for this story , was in a nostalgic mood .
“ We changed the weather and we got some shit done , ” he said .
Most states don ’ t have third parties that drive their politics .
New York is different .
Under an obscure bit of state law that permits “ fusion voting ” third parties have long been able to offer their endorsements to major-party candidates .
So the Liberal Party would back Democrats who aligned with what was initially a reformist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Conservative Party would coendorse anti-abortion Republicans , and so on .
Today , WFP is the most powerful of them , alternating between an ally to Democrats and a left-wing irritant that is occasionally strong enough to run its own candidates against Democratic moderates .
But those old insider maneuverings have become unfashionable in this moment of progressive movement politics .
And WFP ’ s response to the moment casts a light on the underreported history of the left in the US — one that points not to Bill Clinton or even Barack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Warren , and Bernie Sanders .
In that history , the pressing question is whether the new left can lock in its gains as policy — the way , say , Black Lives Matter helped produce substantive changes to the criminal justice system — or let them mostly slip away , as Occupy Wall Street seemed to .
WFP is the rare , robust leftist institution to survive the ’ 90s and aughts .
Its ascendancy has unlikely roots in a series of mostly doomed and quixotic projects of which the most ambitious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s precursor , the New Party .
In the early 1990s , the New Party attempted to provide a new home for the Democratic left — the labor movement , the civil rights movement , the Naderite consumer movement — who had been shoved to the side in Bill Clinton ’ s Democratic Party .
Now they were seeking , if not a true alternative , at least a counterweight to pull the party back their way : The party was the dream of a brilliant and cantankerous political scientist in Wisconsin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me over a morning cigarette in a recent Skype conversation , his idea was that if “ you want to fix the society , fix the democracy first.
” He had met Cantor , a `` wonderfully honest , decent , tortured , funny guy '' from Long Island in the anti-Reagan politics of the 1980s , through an obscure book project of the intellectual left — a tome on `` labor , the world economy , and Central America ” that Rogers had retained Cantor to write .
After Cantor left Jesse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the two got to work on a 24,674-word memo called “ Party Time.
” The memo made the case for a new political party organized around the “ empowerment of working people.
” Its backbone would of necessity be the strongest element of the Democratic coalition : organized labor .
Its base would be New York , thanks to fusion .
The party would position itself as “ progressive ” against both Democrats and liberals as follows : By `` progressive '' we also mean something other than `` liberal , '' though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Both liberals and progressives , for example , agree that affirmative government action ( e.g.
, regulation , redistribution , education ) is required to meet even minimal conditions of democracy .
Both ( sometimes joined by `` honest conservatives '' ) also favor `` good government '' and `` honest government . ''
They hold government to high standards of effective performance , and do n't like public fraud and lies .
Where progressives and liberals disagree is in their view of working people .
In a nutshell , liberals do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to govern their own affairs .
Progressives have much more confidence , and that confidence fuels their democratic conviction .
They believe in empowering working people , not just administering them in `` kinder , gentler '' ways .
They believe that a society that encourages and harnesses the capacities of all people , including those of ordinary means , will be both morally superior to and better functioning than one that does not .
This strengthens their commitment to democracy .
Cantor mailed hundreds of copies — a radical Unitarian Universalist church @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a Xerox machine — to everyone he could think of .
He sent “ Party Time ” to labor leaders , Democratic politicians , civil rights leaders , and the broad left coalition that had given Jesse Jackson far more juice than the Democratic Party ’ s establishment had suggested .
The idea was compelling , but the New Party quickly hit an obvious institutional barrier : pulling the Democratic Party to the left threatened Democrats .
Rogers and Cantor had hoped to launch the New Party into David Dinkins ’ historic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ itself an echo of the Jackson campaign .
But Dinkins ’ guru , the late Bill Lynch , killed the idea of him running on the New Party line as well as the Democratic Party ’ s — according to various recollections , either to avoid seeming too far left or out of fear of getting crosswise with the tight relationship between organized labor and the Democratic Party machine .
“ Labor is innately a very conservative set of institutions because they [ have ] real responsibility to their members , ” said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do n't ever want to overthrow the established powers that enable them to do that.
” So the New Party started small , allying itself with the well-organized , resolutely outsider community group ACORN in places like Chicago , New Orleans , and Little Rock and with unions in Wisconsin and other Midwestern states .
And then , as Rogers had always planned , the party sued , arguing that the Constitution requires states to allow fusion — that is , having two parties run the same candidate .
On April 28 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 6–3 that the state interest in “ reduc [ ing ] election- and campaign-related disorder ” allowed it to ban the practice .
It was a crushing defeat and effectively ended the party .
Rogers , still angry 20 years later , waved his cigarette and declined to discuss his profane opinions on the decision and the justices on the record .
As the New Party was collapsing , a handful of men had begun having breakfast at a diner on John Street in lower Manhattan .
The group members , which included @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , were the leaders of New York ’ s radical , old labor left , the dying strand of American politics that came out of Irish , Italian , Jewish immigrant struggles , including the leader of the bus drivers union , Larry Hanley , and the head of ACORN , Jon Kest .
They ’ d coalesced around Sal Albanese , a doomed nominee in the city ’ s 1997 mayoral race — the candidate of the left-wing white working class , who came in third in the Democratic primary to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leader .
His supporters concluded , recalled Bob Master , a longtime political leader with the Communications Workers of America , that Democrats were going to lose the 1998 governor ’ s race .
But there was a little technicality about the statewide contest that interested the group : Just 50,000 votes could provide a new party with a ballot line .
“ If we ’ re going to lose the election in 1998 , why don ’ t we try to take advantage of it and take the ballot line ?
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Albanese crew .
Meanwhile , Cantor and Lipton , who were both then trying to figure out what to do with the rubble of the New Party where they ’ d both worked , were thinking along the same lines , and the two groups began building WFP .
It was the height of Clinton ’ s Third Way governance and of Rudy Giuliani ’ s popularity in New York .
All they needed was a candidate .
In an early mark of the kind of compromise that both made and threatened the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city council leader , Peter Vallone — a hero to New York ’ s aging Greek community but an unlikely champion for the multiracial working people ’ s party of their dreams .
`` For the most part , Vallone 's politics represented the antithesis of what we hoped to build — and we took an enormous amount of shit from a lot of activists about that contradiction in ’ 98 , ” Master recalled .
“ But the tactic worked.
” They rallied the support of private-sector unions — CWA and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the reprisals of elected officials — and of progressive groups who had been boxed in by the pro-business consensus of Democrats like Clinton and moderate Republicans like then-governor George Pataki .
“ It did feel like we couldn ’ t win unless something fundamentally changed , ” recalled Karen Scharff , the executive director of Citizen Action , a key early element of WFP .
And then…things actually worked the way the memo from Rogers and Cantor predicted , though for a different party .
WFP raised money from labor unions that were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
WFP hired political operatives and got to work in the local races where the Democratic machine had rusted away .
The party was central to electing a new left-wing cadre to the city council in 2001 with candidates that included current mayor Bill de Blasio .
WFP elected its first candidate on its own line in 2003 — Letitia James , the current New York state attorney general .
And it moved the needle on policy , pushing minimum wage and “ living wage ” laws .
It did in 2004 what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years later : It unseated the Democratic district attorney in Albany in a display of muscle that promptly led to the repeal of the state ’ s punitive Rockefeller Drug Laws .
WFP also made enemies .
“ I have been turned off by how transactional they have been — not just in my case but in many other instances as well , ” one politician told reporter Ross Barkan for his excellent recent history of the party .
In 2009 , the party briefly achieved its real goal : a takeover of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ body long run by moderate Republicans , and pushed through $ 5 billion in new taxes on the rich .
WFP ran the table in New York City , where local legislators pushed through paid sick days over Michael Bloomberg ’ s opposition , and began the campaign against stop-and-frisk .
The pendulum swung back fast and hard after Barack Obama ’ s election .
Eliot Spitzer , the combative , progressive governor , lost his job in a prostitution scandal .
Republicans steamrolled his ineffectual replacement as governor , retook the Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and rolled back the left-wing turn .
The party ’ s style — idealistic policy and very practical politics — became the subject of a federal investigation .
It had been operating a kind of internal political consulting firm for candidates it favored ; prosecutors accused it of evading campaign finance limits by giving the candidates it supported deep discounts — effectively , a way of laundering labor union money into local campaigns .
The party avoided charges , but it was a near-death experience , since it paid its adversaries ’ legal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
To WFP leaders , the assault was also a sign that they had challenged the system and made powerful enemies .
To their critics in Democratic politics , it was something else : evidence that they were running their own cynical machine , doing more or less the same thing that Democrats had done forever while seizing the moral high ground .
“ The WFP has engaged in real power politics for a really long time , ” said Mike Boland , the party ’ s field director who left in disgust @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and then returned .
“ It ’ s this progressive powerhouse that ’ s supposed to do amazing progressive things — and because it embraces real power , we ’ ve had to do some things that make people question the organization.
” But the beginning of the party ’ s current moment — and ours — began Sept. 17 , 2011 , when a loose group of protesters settled in a grim little park in the shadows of Wall Street ’ s towers .
They had no real connections to the existing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that excluded making those connections .
The official rule was that any politician wishing to deal with protesters would have to appear on site and speak through the cumbersome “ human microphone , ” characterized by endless choruses of “ mic check.
” It was a powerful demonstration of organizational principle , and it puzzled and repelled many of Occupy ’ s allies .
Behind the scenes , WFP helped keep the square occupied .
The protesters happened to include one of the party ’ s rising stars , Nelini Stamp , then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could n't afford college and was helping her mother with health care , Stamp was working retail and raging against the system that had kicked her aside .
The Obama campaign , and then WFP ’ s successful minimum wage campaign , had awakened her to the power of politics .
She called in sick from her job running the party ’ s Westchester operation .
The party kept paying her , and she persuaded her Occupy brethren that she and two other WFP staffers weren ’ t there in an official capacity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the park did n't mean you could negotiate on behalf of the park , ” she recalled .
She emerged as a key force in the leaderless movement , organizing rallies and setting tactics in the park .
But when they needed political support , she ’ d called New York Communities for Change 's Kest , a key WFP figure , and Lipton , the state director .
“ I ’ d tell Bill or Jon what we needed , and they would call an elected [ official ] , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The party negotiated with Mike Bloomberg ’ s city hall , brought labor unions around to seeing the scruffy protesters as their allies , and at one point called elected officials to the park to stave off attempts to clear it out .
It was a little-known bit of practical politics in a movement now famous both for its symbolic success and organizational failures .
“ People really overlook the importance of the party in the movement , ” she said .
Occupy was , in retrospect , the birthplace of our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left , but the lack of a sustainable movement — or established interests that incorporated that energy and outlook — created a void that has now been filled by true outsiders like Bernie Sanders .
By 2018 , WFP and its labor union allies had long had a warm relationship with the boss of the Queens Democratic machine , a genial Irish American political operator named Joe Crowley .
Crowley had been a powerful , useful ally in Washington .
The party was at war with incumbents across the state , doing their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ socialist in Brooklyn , and focused on seizing control of the levers of power in Albany .
Nobody had much time for the young bartender running against Crowley .
“ Nobody knows who the fuck this person is , and we ’ re about to go against Andrew Cuomo , ” recalled a labor union official involved in the choice of Crowley over Ocasio-Cortez .
“ Anyway , how many enemies can you survive ?
” It was a signal mistake .
And it embodied the party ’ s two key weaknesses in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new kind of communications , and a deep distrust for that inside game .
One is WFP ’ s pragmatism , its willingness to dirty its hands with compromise and power politics — something that its leaders see as a key feature , not a bug .
But , secondly , the failure to endorse the breakout millennial political star also embodied the party ’ s long-standing blind spot .
From those early days in the diner on John Street and in Rogers ’ Madison office , the party was built by an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who have begun to fade into the background as the American left became intensely focused on questions of representation .
There had been black and Latino labor figures close to the party from the start , many hailing from the powerful SEIU local 1199 and ACORN .
The organization ’ s constituents and its intended beneficiaries were mostly black and Latino , and figures like Dinkins , Patrick Gaspard , and Harry Belafonte had been around at its birth .
But its founders and early leaders , like ACORN ’ s , were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always obvious on the inside .
When Bertha Lewis , a black woman who got her start as a housing organizer in the Bronx , had first walked into the party ’ s office in Brooklyn , she said , the collection of white people “ would burn your retinas out.
” Lewis , who would play a central role in the politics of the Bloomberg years before leading ACORN in its final days , always dreamed that WFP would ultimately follow what she saw as its central logic and become a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perhaps it will .
Cantor , who stepped down in 2018 , told me he hopes the party ’ s founders will be remembered as having “ had the skill to build something real , and the grace to hand it over to an of-color leader who has similar politics but a very different background , and will take the org [ anization ] places that the founders never could.
” When I ran into Maurice Mitchell on the floor of the ill-fated Cabán victory party , I didn ’ t realize that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A 40-year-old black guy from Long Island with a fedora and an easy smile , he ’ d be easy to mistake for , say , the frontman for an Afropunk band…which he also is .
But when the party went looking for a new generation of leaders after the 2018 midterms , Dan Cantor , Bill Lipton , and their allies realized they needed to transform themselves for the moment : to hand the reins to people who better represented the politics they were fighting for .
And , perhaps more important @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turn a party that had mostly been a political organization into something more like a movement .
Mitchell was the answer .
A product of a corner of multiracial working-class life in central Long Island , he grew up steeped in the radical traditions of Caribbean politics .
He was , for a time , the lead singer of a mostly white punk band , though the band ’ s composition has grown more diverse with time .
And he was a political activist since his school days , working in a series @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Island before a black man ’ s shooting in Ferguson , Missouri , triggered the Black Lives Matter movement .
Mitchell moved to Ferguson and lived in the attic of an older white anti–death penalty activist .
He wound up living there for five months and cofounding a collective called Blackbird , a communications and strategy arm of the movement .
He was , he thinks , the “ riskiest ” candidate to take over WFP , and he warned the men hiring him that he wasn ’ t joking about transformation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a small core of people ” to “ a multiracial movement that spans the country.
” The world has changed , but the goal isn ’ t that different from what Rogers and Cantor envisioned two decades earlier .
The objective , Mitchell said , is to “ build a multiracial left movement that would be a united front that would unite the black radicals and the white liberals against the forces of evil.
” Mitchell , who is now the national director of WFP ( it is , at this point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a dozen national and state committees ) , has been greeted with an enthusiasm blended with skepticism about whether WFP can transform itself from a local political operation into a national movement .
( One veteran called the very notion of turning WFP into a real party “ bullshit.
” ) He has already shown one key quality : the willingness to play power politics .
The party infuriated some of its members , and inspired others , by endorsing Elizabeth Warren in September 2019 and then refusing to release the details of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s the sort of move that makes the party a sought-after endorsement , and it looked for a time like a bold path to power in a Warren administration .
Less than a few months later , the risk of crossing Sanders and supporters who include , again , Ocasio-Cortez seems starker .
The party ’ s friends and enemies alike aren ’ t sure if it ’ ll be able to make the transition .
And this is part of the wide-open question of what comes out of this new era of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be strong new institutions , or revived old ones , with new progressive political bosses ?
Will the tide recede to leave figures like Cuomo , the New York governor who has done just enough to keep progressive voters on his side without ever letting the left wing of his party build lasting power ?
Now , Mitchell is trying to blend the movement strategies of the new world with the imperatives of practical politics , and even the cantankerous Rogers said he was impressed .
“ Maurice is much more a [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cantor is ] , but Maurice certainly knows that elections matter and takes very seriously the organization and organizing discipline needed to make a difference in them , and after , ” he said .
Mitchell ’ s view of his mission : “ I ’ m trying to corner the market on nondelusional third-party politics.
” ●

Most states don’t have third parties that drive their politics. New York is different. Under an obscure bit of state law that permits “fusion voting” third parties have long been able to offer their endorsements to major-party candidates. So the Liberal Party would back Democrats who aligned with what was initially a reformist, progressive, anti-communist strain, the Conservative Party would coendorse anti-abortion Republicans, and so on. Today, WFP is the most powerful of them, alternating between an ally to Democrats and a left-wing irritant that is occasionally strong enough to run its own candidates against Democratic moderates.
But those old insider maneuverings have become unfashionable in this moment of progressive movement politics. And WFP’s response to the moment casts a light on the underreported history of the left in the US — one that points not to Bill Clinton or even Barack Obama, but to AOC, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders. In that history, the pressing question is whether the new left can lock in its gains as policy — the way, say, Black Lives Matter helped produce substantive changes to the criminal justice system — or let them mostly slip away, as Occupy Wall Street seemed to.
WFP is the rare, robust leftist institution to survive the ’90s and aughts. Its ascendancy has unlikely roots in a series of mostly doomed and quixotic projects of which the most ambitious — and most doomed — was WFP’s precursor, the New Party.
In the early 1990s, the New Party attempted to provide a new home for the Democratic left — the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the Naderite consumer movement — who had been shoved to the side in Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party. Now they were seeking, if not a true alternative, at least a counterweight to pull the party back their way:
The party was the dream of a brilliant and cantankerous political scientist in Wisconsin named Joel Rogers. As he told me over a morning cigarette in a recent Skype conversation, his idea was that if “you want to fix the society, fix the democracy first.”
He had met Cantor, a "wonderfully honest, decent, tortured, funny guy" from Long Island in the anti-Reagan politics of the 1980s, through an obscure book project of the intellectual left — a tome on "labor, the world economy, and Central America” that Rogers had retained Cantor to write. After Cantor left Jesse Jackson’s campaign for president, the two got to work on a 24,674-word memo called “Party Time.”
The memo made the case for a new political party organized around the “empowerment of working people.” Its backbone would of necessity be the strongest element of the Democratic coalition: organized labor. Its base would be New York, thanks to fusion.
The party would position itself as “progressive” against both Democrats and liberals as follows:
By "progressive" we also mean something other than "liberal," though we recognize overlapping commitments and shared values. Both liberals and progressives, for example, agree that affirmative government action (e.g., regulation, redistribution, education) is required to meet even minimal conditions of democracy. Both (sometimes joined by "honest conservatives") also favor "good government" and "honest government." They hold government to high standards of effective performance, and don't like public fraud and lies. Where progressives and liberals disagree is in their view of working people. In a nutshell, liberals don't believe working people have much capacity to govern their own affairs.
Progressives have much more confidence, and that confidence fuels their democratic conviction. They believe in empowering working people, not just administering them in "kinder, gentler" ways. They believe that a society that encourages and harnesses the capacities of all people, including those of ordinary means, will be both morally superior to and better functioning than one that does not. This strengthens their commitment to democracy.
Cantor mailed hundreds of copies — a radical Unitarian Universalist church on Long Island, gave him access to a Xerox machine — to everyone he could think of. He sent “Party Time” to labor leaders, Democratic politicians, civil rights leaders, and the broad left coalition that had given Jesse Jackson far more juice than the Democratic Party’s establishment had suggested.
The idea was compelling, but the New Party quickly hit an obvious institutional barrier: pulling the Democratic Party to the left threatened Democrats. Rogers and Cantor had hoped to launch the New Party into David Dinkins’ historic run for mayor of New York, itself an echo of the Jackson campaign. But Dinkins’ guru, the late Bill Lynch, killed the idea of him running on the New Party line as well as the Democratic Party’s — according to various recollections, either to avoid seeming too far left or out of fear of getting crosswise with the tight relationship between organized labor and the Democratic Party machine.
“Labor is innately a very conservative set of institutions because they [have] real responsibility to their members,” said Rogers of that disappointment. “They don't ever want to overthrow the established powers that enable them to do that.”
So the New Party started small, allying itself with the well-organized, resolutely outsider community group ACORN in places like Chicago, New Orleans, and Little Rock and with unions in Wisconsin and other Midwestern states. And then, as Rogers had always planned, the party sued, arguing that the Constitution requires states to allow fusion — that is, having two parties run the same candidate. On April 28, 1997, the US Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that the state interest in “reduc[ing] election- and campaign-related disorder” allowed it to ban the practice. It was a crushing defeat and effectively ended the party. Rogers, still angry 20 years later, waved his cigarette and declined to discuss his profane opinions on the decision and the justices on the record.


buzzfeed--2020-01-27--Trump's Impeachment Lawyers Argued Democrats Ignored Evidence. Then They Went Ahead And Ignored Evid

Trump's Impeachment Lawyers Argued Democrats Ignored Evidence. Then They Went Ahead And Ignored Evidence.

After Democrats argued that the president is a “ danger to the country , ” Trump ’ s team now has 24 hours over three days to make his case .
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump ’ s defense team began presenting its case to the Senate on Saturday , offering a two-hour attack on Democrats and the impeachment process that ignored certain evidence and highlighted a debunked conspiracy theory .
Saturday was day five of the impeachment trial to determine whether to remove Trump from office .
The defense will resume Monday .
One of the team 's key @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crucial evidence during their nearly 24-hour presentation over three days .
About an hour into their own presentation , Trump 's defense did exactly that .
Mike Purpura , deputy White House counsel , accused Democrats of not showing impeachment testimony that Ukrainian officials were unaware of the freeze on security assistance at the time of the July 25 telephone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky .
He showed a montage of testimony from four US officials saying they only received calls from Ukrainians about the security assistance after a story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This lack of knowledge on the part of the Ukrainians at the time of the call , he argued , meant it would not have been possible for Trump to be extorting them to open an investigation into the Bidens in exchange for the aid .
“ There ca n't be a threat without the person knowing he 's being threatened , ” Purpura said .
“ There ca n't be a quid pro quo without the quo.
” But Purpura did not show testimony that indicated the Ukrainians were in fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the time of the call .
Defense Department official Laura Cooper testified in November that two unclassified emails sent from the State Department to the Pentagon just hours after the call focused `` on the issue of Ukraine 's knowledge of the hold or of Ukraine asking questions about the possible flow of assistance . ''
According to Cooper , one email said the Ukrainian Embassy and the House Foreign Affairs Committee were `` asking about security assistance . ''
The second email , according to Cooper , said that `` the Hill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Financing ] situation to an extent and so does the Ukrainian Embassy , '' referring to the aid money .
And a former Ukrainian foreign official , Olena Zerkal , has also said she read a cable from her country ’ s embassy in Washington in July about the security freeze .
“ We had this information , ” Zerkal told the New York Times .
“ It was definitely mentioned there were some issues.
” After the hearing , Sen. Chris Murphy , a Democrat , told CNN that Republicans `` continue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no pressure , and that 's just nonsense . ''
`` I have been working on US/Ukraine policy for the better part of the last decade .
I was hearing in the spring from my contacts who were visiting Ukraine that they were feeling pressure the minute that Rudy Giuliani showed up and started demanding investigations into the Bidens , '' he said .
`` Of course , it would stand to reason that the Ukrainians were feeling pressure when the president is telling them , 'The one thing I care about is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ' '' Jay Sekulow , Trump ’ s personal attorney , and Pat Cipollone , the White House counsel , are serving as the lead attorneys on the president 's defense team .
In an effort to depict Ukraine as a corrupt country that rightfully concerned Trump , Sekulow hinted at a debunked conspiracy theory that the country had interfered with the 2016 presidential election .
“ Let me be clear , the [ Democrat ] House managers over a two-hour period kept pushing this false dichotomy that it was either Russia or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he said .
But US intelligence officials have found no evidence to support the theory that Ukraine interfered with the US election — a conspiracy the Associated Press found was first floated online during the 2016 election , later amplified by Russian President Vladimir Putin , and then pushed by Trump himself .
In her November testimony , Fiona Hill , the former senior director for Europe and Russia on the National Security Council staff , warned lawmakers not to “ legitimize an alternative narrative … that Ukraine — not Russia — attacked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves , ” she said .
And last month , FBI Director Chris Wray said , `` We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election . ''
Trump ’ s defense also focused heavily on attacking the process of impeachment , echoing a common Republican talking point that Democrats — not Trump — are trying to steal an election by impeaching him .
“ They 're asking you to remove President Trump from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ occurring in approximately 9 months , ” Cipollone said .
“ They 're asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country on your own initiative take that decision away from the American people.
” White House lawyers attacked the House impeachment inquiry by saying it was made up of selective leaks and staged public hearings of hand-selected witnesses , and that the president ’ s legal team was shut out .
“ If you were really confident in your position on the facts why would you lock everybody out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ side ?
” said Cipollone .
White House lawyers were not allowed to participate in the first stage of the inquiry , when the House Intelligence Committee took closed-door depositions from witnesses .
But the White House was invited to take part in the public hearings in the Judiciary Committee .
The Trump administration refused to take part .
Trump ’ s team also went after Rep. Adam Schiff , the lead House impeachment manager , just as he predicted they would Friday night .
In one of its first arguments Saturday morning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Schiff paraphrasing Trump ’ s July 25 call with Zelensky during the House ’ s investigation , a clip that Republicans have harped on for months as evidence that Schiff is lying to get Trump out of office .
But even in the segment Trump ’ s lawyers played Saturday , Schiff says he is not directly quoting Trump : “ Shorn of its rambling character and in not so many words , this is the essence of what the president communicates , ” he said , going on to describe Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on my political opponent , understand ?
” “ That ’ s fake , ” Sekulow said after playing the clip , suggesting it was inappropriate .
“ We can shrug it off and say we were making light or a joke , but that was in a hearing in the United States House of Representatives discussing the removal of the president of the United States from office .
There are very few things if any that can be as grave and serious.
” Sekulow , Trump ’ s personal lawyer , told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focus in part on former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter , who served on the board of Burisma , a Ukrainian gas company .
He also name-checked a handful of conspiracy theories related not only to the Bidens , but to the FBI , the Democratic National Committee , and the creation of the Steele dossier — an unverified document prepared for Trump ’ s political opponents during the 2016 election , which BuzzFeed News first published after Trump and then-president Barack Obama had been briefed on its contents .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the impeachment trial — laid out their case to support two articles of impeachment earlier in the week : abuse of power and obstruction of Congress .
On Wednesday , Democrats laid out a timeline of Trump ’ s abuse of power when the president made the decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine in exchange for the government agreeing to investigate the Bidens .
On Thursday and Friday , Democrats focused on how the president ’ s actions violated the Constitution .
Following the defense 's two-hour presentation , senators were essentially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the president 's team and Democrats largely criticizing them .
`` I think it was pretty impressive that they took the record that was produced by Chairman Schiff and use that record to show that he was cherry-picking his presentation .
...
I think it 's a miscalculation to act like we wo n't hear the whole story later on , '' Sen. John Cornyn told reporters as senators left the Capitol .
Several Republicans hammered away at House Democrats for using nearly all of their 24 hours of argument to make their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ late into the evening .
`` You ask any senator , even the ones on the other side of the aisle , you did not need 23 hours to regurgitate , repeat , and remarket , '' Sen. Mike Braun told reporters .
Sen. Tim Kaine , a Democrat who served as Hillary Clinton 's vice presidential nominee in 2016 , said that Trump 's lawyers were merely trying to appease the president himself , noting their shots at Schiff , in particular .
“ I think that was to make the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some ways have an audience of one , ” he said .
`` They ’ re trying to make the president laugh , smile , or tweet . ''
Still , two Democrats were somewhat complimentary of the president 's team : Machin and Montana Sen. Jon Tester .
Manchin said he thinks Trump ’ s attorneys were “ succinct and spoke what they believe would be effective .
I think they did a good job.
” “ I think they made some good points , '' Tester said .
`` But we @ @ @ @ @ @

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s defense team began presenting its case to the Senate on Saturday, offering a two-hour attack on Democrats and the impeachment process that ignored certain evidence and highlighted a debunked conspiracy theory.
Saturday was day five of the impeachment trial to determine whether to remove Trump from office. The defense will resume Monday.
One of the team's key arguments was that Democrats did not present crucial evidence during their nearly 24-hour presentation over three days.
About an hour into their own presentation, Trump's defense did exactly that.
Mike Purpura, deputy White House counsel, accused Democrats of not showing impeachment testimony that Ukrainian officials were unaware of the freeze on security assistance at the time of the July 25 telephone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
He showed a montage of testimony from four US officials saying they only received calls from Ukrainians about the security assistance after a story was published in Politico on Aug. 28. This lack of knowledge on the part of the Ukrainians at the time of the call, he argued, meant it would not have been possible for Trump to be extorting them to open an investigation into the Bidens in exchange for the aid.
“There can't be a threat without the person knowing he's being threatened,” Purpura said. “There can't be a quid pro quo without the quo.”
But Purpura did not show testimony that indicated the Ukrainians were in fact aware of the security assistance freeze at the time of the call.
Defense Department official Laura Cooper testified in November that two unclassified emails sent from the State Department to the Pentagon just hours after the call focused "on the issue of Ukraine's knowledge of the hold or of Ukraine asking questions about the possible flow of assistance."
According to Cooper, one email said the Ukrainian Embassy and the House Foreign Affairs Committee were "asking about security assistance." The second email, according to Cooper, said that "the Hill knows about the FMF [Foreign Military Financing] situation to an extent and so does the Ukrainian Embassy," referring to the aid money.
And a former Ukrainian foreign official, Olena Zerkal, has also said she read a cable from her country’s embassy in Washington in July about the security freeze. “We had this information,” Zerkal told the New York Times. “It was definitely mentioned there were some issues.”
After the hearing, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, told CNN that Republicans "continue to make this claim that Ukraine felt no pressure, and that's just nonsense."
"I have been working on US/Ukraine policy for the better part of the last decade. I was hearing in the spring from my contacts who were visiting Ukraine that they were feeling pressure the minute that Rudy Giuliani showed up and started demanding investigations into the Bidens," he said. "Of course, it would stand to reason that the Ukrainians were feeling pressure when the president is telling them, 'The one thing I care about is doing investigations into my political opponents.'"


buzzfeed--2020-01-28--Elizabeth Warren Is Endorsing A Progressive Candidate In A Crowded New York House Primary

WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren will endorse Mondaire Jones in the heated Democratic primary for New York ’ s 17th Congressional district , her campaign told BuzzFeed News .
Jones is a candidate in New York ’ s June 23 Democratic primary to replace Rep. Nita Lowey .
He ’ s running on a progressive platform in an effort to become the first-ever openly gay black male member of Congress .
Jones is not accepting any corporate dollars , nor is he taking money from a super PAC .
“ Mondaire Jones knows that we ’ re in a fight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working families , '' Warren said .
`` With Mondaire in Congress , we ’ ll gain another chance to achieve the hard fought wins that bring us closer to big , structural change , and I ’ m glad to stand with him.
” Warren is wading into the primary at a tense time for her presidential campaign .
The Iowa caucus is less than a week away , and senators have been busy with the Senate ’ s impeachment trial of Donald Trump .
Warren is trying to stage a come-from-behind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polls in recent weeks .
Throughout her presidential campaign , Warren has made selective endorsements of progressives in congressional primaries .
Last fall , she endorsed against conservative Democratic incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar to back challenger Jessica Cisneros .
And she endorsed Sen. Ed Markey ’ s reelection in a tense primary fight against Rep. Joe Kennedy III.
, who had taken classes with Warren at Harvard Law School .
Jones , a 32-year-old attorney , had already announced his candidacy as a challenge to Rep. Nita Lowey , whose district encompasses an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including parts of Rockland and Westchester counties before she announced her retirement in October .

WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren will endorse Mondaire Jones in the heated Democratic primary for New York’s 17th Congressional district, her campaign told BuzzFeed News.
Jones is a candidate in New York’s June 23 Democratic primary to replace Rep. Nita Lowey. He’s running on a progressive platform in an effort to become the first-ever openly gay black member of Congress. Jones is not accepting any corporate dollars, nor is he taking money from a super PAC.
“Mondaire Jones knows that we’re in a fight to put power in the hands of working families," Warren said. "With Mondaire in Congress, we’ll gain another chance to achieve the hard-fought wins that bring us closer to big, structural change, and I’m glad to stand with him.”
Warren is wading into the primary at a tense time for her presidential campaign. The Iowa caucus is less than a week away, and senators have been busy with the Senate’s impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Warren is trying to stage a come-from-behind victory after slipping in national and state polls in recent weeks.
Throughout her presidential campaign, Warren has made selective endorsements of progressives in congressional primaries. Last fall, she endorsed against conservative Democratic incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar to back challenger Jessica Cisneros. And she endorsed Sen. Ed Markey’s reelection in a tense primary fight against Rep. Joe Kennedy III, who had taken classes with Warren at Harvard Law School.
Jones, a 32-year-old attorney, had already announced his candidacy to challenge Lowey, whose district encompasses an area directly north of New York City, including parts of Rockland and Westchester counties, before she announced her retirement in October.