Stevenson’s army, September 21

Some things are clear and indisputable:

– President Trump spoke by phone with incoming Ukrainian President Zelensky on July 25.

– His private lawyer Rudy Giuliani has long been pressing Ukrainian officials to investigate activities of Joe Biden and his son Hunter in 2016.

– Someone submitted a whistleblower complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General on August12.

– US aid to Ukraine was not released until Sept 12, despite bipartisan pressure from Congress.

– Despite legal requirements for complaints to be shared with the intelligence committees, the administration has so far declined to do so.- It’s also worth noting that, despite Justice dept guidelines forbidding charging a sitting president with a crime, the Constitution lists “Bribery” as one of the justifications for impeachment.

What is unclear includes:

– What was said in the presidential phone conversation. Two unnamed sources are cited by the key media. WSJ, which says that Trump in that phone call said eight times that Zelensky should work with Giuliani on investigating Biden,also says Mr. Trump in the call didn’t mention a provision of U.S. aid to Ukraine, said this person, who didn’t believe Mr. Trump offered the Ukrainian president any quid pro quo for his cooperation on any investigation.

– How Congress can obtain the whistleblower complaint. Not all lawyers agree with Chairman Schiff.

While I deplore the administration’s stonewalling of this and many other requests for information, and I’m disgusted at the effort to use presidential national security authority for personal political gain, I doubt that the evidence of actual bribery will be clear and compelling, either on legal or political grounds.

In other news, the administration announced plans to send a fairly small contingent of military personnel to Saudi Arabia and UAE in response to the bombing of oil facilities. Trump called China “a threat to the world,” but labeled his trade war “a little spat” as he suggested no big deal would be made before the 2020 elections. Chinese officials also canceled their planned meetings with US farmers.
– CRS has an updated version of its report on Congress and Yemen.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).