Trump Tweets Written Answers From Whistleblower “Not Acceptable”

November 4, 2019 12:32 pm EST Tiff Trump Tweets (Open Thread) 1
Trump Tweets Logo. Image by Lenny Ghoul.

It’s Monday.

Day 41 of the Impeachment inquiry is upon us. As is Day Light Savings time.

NBC News, CNN, and the Washington Post are all reporting that 4 witnesses scheduled to provide the three House Committees with testimony behind closed-doors regarding the Impeachment Inquiry will not appear at the direction of the President and Trump administration officials.

  • Robert Blair. Blair, who listened in during the call between President Trump and President Zelensky, is Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s Senior Adviser, as well as an Assistant to the President.
  • Associate Director for Natural resources at the Office of Management and Budget, Brain McCormack. McCormack, until recently according to the linked Washington Post article, was outgoing Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s Chief of Staff.

Also not testifying on Monday are two National Security lawyers. John Eisenberg and Michael Ellis.

Eisenberg as Politico reported was named by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman as the lawyer he registered his concerns with following the President’s July 25th call. Eisenberg is said to have conferred with Ellis about how to handle the call transcript.

At the time according to a person familiar with his testimony, Vindman did not consider the move of the record of the call to the “NSC’s top-secret codeword system—a server normally used to store highly classified material that only a small group of officials can access,” as a cover-up.

However, Vindman said he was “disturbed when, a few days later, Eisenberg instructed him not to tell anyone about the call—especially because it was Vindman’s job to coordinate the interagency process with regard to Ukraine policy.”

The Washington Post was the first to report Vindman’s testimony.

Blair’s attorney, Whit Ellerman told CNN on Saturday, that “Blair is caught between the assertions of legal duty by two coequal branches of government, a conflict which he cannot resolve.”

In Other News.

Tillman is live tweeting from inside the courtroom.

Tillman is also reporting.

*Authors note*
I have not had a chance this morning to read the 34 page order from the court. You can find it here.

So far on this busy Monday, the President has tweeted 12 times.

The Impeachment Inquiry/Whistleblower tweets.

The Transcript is not a transcript it is a memorandum of the call between the President and Ukrainian President Zelensky.

Memorandum warning.

“It is plainly and very well stated for all to see.”

Zelensky pg. 2.
Trump pg. 3.

It is plain to see, Zelensky says, I’m ready to buy more U.S. weapons for defense, President Trump says, “I would like you to do us a favor though…”

“Written answers not acceptable!”

The legal team representing the Whistleblower issued a news alert via Twitter on Sunday morning. According to attorney Mark Zaid, the Whistleblowers legal team offered the GOP the opportunity to ask written questions. The offer was made to both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, and both the Majority and the Minority parties.
The Whistleblower complaint can be found here.

As a reminder the President himself relayed on written testimony to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller noted in his report that the answers were mostly incomplete non-answers.

Again not a transcript, but here I would like to point out, that the phone call, is not the meat of the Impeachment Inquiry. This investigation has revealed thus far, a months long pressure campaign against Ukraine. This pressure from the U.S., that supports Ukraine’s desire to remain independent of Russia, a bipartisan goal of the U.S.. Was started during the Ukraine’s Presidential Election and it was started by President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, in the hopes to further his “clients,” 2020 chances for winning re-election.

The President is focused on the phone call as a distraction from all that we’ve learned so far, this was not and is not simply about a phone call.

*note the above is my opinion based on the public information we have already seen.*

Maybe President Trump should turn off cable news?

The Other Tweets.

Still not true.

The Washington Post reported that a October 16th Mason-Dixon poll of 625 likely voters showed Bevin and his Democrat opponent State’s Attorney Andy Beshear as tied with 46 percent each. Bevin is listed as one of the least popular Governors across the country.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY) told the post that if Bevin wins he has “Donald Trump and [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell to thank.” Comer, who has a poor relationship with Bevin added that if Bevin loses the race on Tuesday, “it has nothing to do with Trump. It’s just Bevin.”

The I don’t even know him tweets.

The tweets are in response to a Washington Post investigations article regarding lobbyist Michael Esposito.

Esposito according to the article, “has been wildly successful, turning a family business that once focused on municipal transportation issues into one of the fastest-growing lobbying firms in Washington.”

The article goes on to say that Esposito has collected $1.65 million from Chinese tech giant Huawei, “in a three-month period this year, according to lobbying records. In all, Esposito’s firm, Federal Advocates, pulled in five times as much money in 2018 as it did in the year before Trump took office, records show.”

The Post reviewed three contract bids, according to these reviewed proposals, Esposito explains that he’s worked with Eric Trump, the son of President Trump, and Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law. Esposito also notes close ties to the Republican National Committee.

Esposito has “an open line of communication to the President of the United States” and is in “regular” contact with the president, Federal Advocates wrote in three contract bids reviewed by The Washington Post. The same proposals say Esposito worked with the president’s son Eric Trump and son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner on real estate deals. And the firm’s website calls Esposito “an integral part of the senior-most leadership” of the Republican National Committee. 

The Washington Post.

Eric Trump told the Post, “I have no recollection of a Michael Esposito. Sounds like someone trying to trade off our name.” A Trump Administration Official told the Post, “Jared Kushner does not know who Michael Esposito is.” Recently the RNC sent Esposito a cease and desist letter.

The Return of “Covfefe” tweet.

According to Trump Twitter Archive the infamous “covfefe” tweet was sent on May 30th, 2017, and deleted. On May 31st, 2017, the President tweeted:

USA TODAY on May 31st, 2018 wished Covfefe a happy one-year anniversary.

USA TODAY. 5/31/18.

According to the USA TODAY article, the original tweet was sent out shortly after midnight, was up for hours before it was deleted.

At the time former Press Secretary Sean Spicer “insistence that covfefe made sense. He said people shouldn’t be concerned about the tweet and the fact that it was up for hours.”

I think the president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant.

Spicer via USA TODAY.

Merriam-Webster weighed in on the day of the original Covfefe…

Why you ask is Covfefe making a comeback?

This post will be updated within reason.

This is an Open Thread.

Note: I just received the word that two transcripts from the Impeachment Inquiry have been released. This is breaking news. Stay tuned.

Another Note: I’m not ignoring the Mueller Notes that were released this weekend, I just have not had a chance to read them completely.

About the opinions in this article…

Any opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this website or of the other authors/contributors who write for it.

About Tiff 2892 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.

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