House Democrats have a chance to position themselves at the center of a political movement that drives societal change for years to come. Or they could miss seizing the moment entirely.

The House Democratic Caucus — the most diverse group of lawmakers ever assembled in Congress — is in the midst of a complex and emotional debate over how to confront decades of systemic racism that led to police killings like the death of George Floyd last week.

Bringing any reforms to the floor will require careful maneuvering by Speaker Nancy Pelosi — with both generational and ideological conflicts in play — to unite 233 Democrats behind a package of contentious structural changes to law enforcement. There’s also ongoing outreach to some Republicans, a move that could bolster the chances for bipartisan legislation, but also complicate agreement on how far the House can go.

And if they don’t act quickly, Democrats could lose out on a historic opportunity that many lawmakers feel is theirs for the taking. Failure to move boldly could also turn off critical constituencies of young people and African Americans — in November and beyond.

“It would be irresponsible for us to wait. We need to vote on these bills as soon as they are ready,” said Congressional Black Caucus Chair Karen Bass (D-Calif.), who has been leading the effort at Pelosi’s request.

“We need to show people — especially the young people — the rainbow is out there, so many people are out, of every race, every ethnicity,” Bass added. “We need to show them that we are going to act.”

Congressional Democrats say they are unequivocally committed to reforming the system that led to Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, and the deaths of countless other African Americans, with top lawmakers moving swiftly to unearth long-stalled legislation cracking down on police brutality, as well as crafting new bills. Democratic leaders are pushing to bring a package of policing reforms to the floor by the end of June.

Still, Pelosi and her leadership team face a fraught task.

Pelosi frequently dubs her caucus’ diversity as its biggest strength. The caucus boasts more women and people of color than ever before; membership ranges from liberal firebrands like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to moderates like Rep. Kendra Horn (D-Okla.), whose district President Donald Trump won by double digits; and it includes lawmakers who were born decades apart, from 1936 to 1989.

On the issue of policing and racial healing, Democrats will be forced to confront their internal divisions at a time when major cities are consumed by civil demonstrations and occasionally violent unrest. Trump has only further inflamed tensions with his threats to deploy the military and “dominate” the streets.

“We can't just have these bills there. If we say we really care and it’s a priority, then we need to make sure we get these bills passed,” Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) said in an interview Wednesday, adding that it will require courage across the caucus and the Congress to muscle through the reforms.

“I acknowledge that it will be a challenge, but that doesn’t mean we're not gonna fight for it,” added Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), who joined protests in her home state over the last week.

It couldn’t be more important to get it right, Democratic lawmakers and aides say, as they warn against half-measures or more broken promises to black Americans.

Senior Democrats who have long fought for the reforms cautioned that lawmakers can’t let themselves get caught up in politics at a time when millions of outraged people have already lost patience.

“I want you to think about what would happen in this country if we get into a partisan battle over changes that I think the overwhelming majority of people in this country would embrace,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), a black leader who has spent decades in politics and took part in peaceful protests in his hometown of Kansas City.

“What do you think will happen if we put a bill together, and it passed the House on almost a party-line vote, and then the Senate majority leader says, 'It’s dead on arrival,'” Cleaver, a minister who often prays at Democratic caucus meetings, said in an interview.

But Senate Republicans are already taking a go-slow approach. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday said only that there “may” be a role for Congress — and other senior GOP senators are expressing skepticism of new legislation.

Still, many Democrats believe they have a real chance to unite the country behind broadly popular legislation like banning police chokeholds. They may even be able to secure some bipartisan support.

Rep. Will Hurd of Texas — the House GOP’s lone black lawmaker — said he’s been having discussions with members of the CBC and the Problem Solvers Caucus about finding a bipartisan solution to address police brutality.

Hurd, who is retiring, outlined three areas where he thinks Congress should act: allocating federal dollars only to police departments that follow best policing practices, ensuring that police chiefs have the ability to fire bad police officers, and giving individuals the ability to sue police officers if their rights are violated.

“The proof is going to ultimately be in the pudding,” Hurd said. “Is it gonna be hard? Sure, but I feel like the focus and the attention and the outrage of what happened to George Floyd is pretty high, and I think elected officials see that.”

But Democrats are also trying to move fast — hoping to capitalize on the momentum and political pressure as protesters continue to take to the streets across the country demanding change. Leaders of the CBC were expected to present Pelosi with a legislative framework as soon as Wednesday, according to multiple sources.

Bass said the package is expected to focus on three overarching areas: police accountability, a national database to track complaints against law enforcement and better training for officers.

“We do see a comprehensive bill and the bill will cover several things — most important is holding police accountable,” Bass said Wednesday. “Because right now it is difficult to sue, you can very rarely fire and you can almost never prosecute.”

Pelosi and top Democrats have charged members of the CBC and the House Judiciary Committee with crafting a set of reforms that can pass the House as early as this month.

And many of those senior Democrats say they are aware of the potential headwinds, not just from within the caucus but from influential outside forces. Speaking on a call with House Democrats on Monday, Bass implored her colleagues to focus on what she called a “moral issue,” rather than the pushback they may hear from powerful groups back home, including police unions.

Ending the “qualified immunity doctrine” that protects police officers from lawsuits is a particularly contentious proposal that could be included in Democrats’ package, though some Republicans, like Hurd, have said they would support reforming that legal doctrine.

Other bills have existed for years to require police to be trained on de-escalation, promote the use of body cameras and prohibit militarized gear from being transferred to local law enforcement. But all have languished in Congress, encountering resistance from groups ranging from the National Association of Police Organizations to the American Civil Liberties Union, or simply failing to attract attention at all.

Some moderates are reluctant to even vote on a resolution from liberal Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota to condemn police brutality, saying they’d rather focus on other reforms, even as it has received the backing of dozens of Democrats.

Centrist Democrats — many of whom helped deliver Democrats the majority in 2018 — have flexed their muscle in political battles from immigration to impeachment since arriving in Washington, and they often get their way. But they may be overpowered here, with few Democrats, particularly senior black members, willing to let a cautious stance win out.

“Everybody’s talking to the black caucus, but white people need to have the same disappointment. They should have the same passion that this is unacceptable in America,” Lawrence said. “We can’t do this just as black people. … This is the time.”

Battered by crisis after crisis, U.S. President Donald Trump appears to be in political peril as never before. Since taking office in 2017, Trump has weathered storm after storm, always emerging with a fighting chance at re-election. After he survived an impeachment trial that saw him acquitted by the Republican-led Senate on Feb. 5, things looked up.

Critics of Mayor Bill de Blasio are circulating an old, fanciful petition calling for his impeachment amid outrage over riots and lootings in the city during protests over the death of Minnesota resident George Floyd at the hands of the police. The online Change.org petition – “Impeach de Blasio” – garnered more than 60,000 signatures...

The House Judiciary Committee has lined up whistleblowers to testify about alleged political interference inside the Justice Department, committee aides told POLITICO on Tuesday, as Attorney General William Barr continues to rebuff efforts by the panel to reschedule testimony he committed to in March.

The whistleblower hearing, which has yet to be formally scheduled, is part of a series of steps the panel intends to take in the coming weeks to push back against Barr, who they say has rejected renewed efforts to testify before the Democrat-led panel. The panel is also proposing to slash Barr's personal budget by $50 million, a response to the mounting frustration with the attorney general's resistance to scheduling his first appearance before the panel that oversees his Justice Department.

In addition, the committee will imminently file a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals opposing the call by the Justice Department to force the dismissal of the charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had previously pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI but had recently sought to withdraw that plea.

A Justice Department spokesperson said officials informed the Judiciary Committee late Monday that Barr could not testify because of White House orders prohibiting cabinet officials from testifying to Congress without approval from White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. It's unclear if Barr sought Meadows' approval for a waiver from the prohibition on testimony.

This guidance has been in place since March, and Democrats have decried it as overly restrictive and selectively applied.

DOJ also indicated that it would wait to make Barr available until the "return of regular order to the House of Representatives," a jab at the House's decision to conduct most of its business remotely in recent weeks. DOJ also indicated it was willing to make Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen available, but committee Democrats are insistent on hearing from Barr.

"I am not going to spend months litigating a subpoena with an Attorney General who has already spent years resisting the courts and legitimate congressional oversight—but neither will we stand by and allow Mr. Barr to continue to corrupt the Department," Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. "We do not take these actions lightly or with any sense of joy. We have both a duty and a moral obligation to protect the rule of law in our country, and we intend to do just that.”

Nadler also hit back at Barr for claiming to be too tied up because of the coronavirus epidemic yet appearing with Trump Monday for his photo-op amid widespread protests in Washington D.C.

"He told the Committee that he could not find the time to testify because of that epidemic—but took the time to tour the peaceful protests at Lafayette Park just minutes before riot police fired tear gas into the crowd," Nadler said. "Mr. Barr has thoroughly corrupted the integrity of the criminal justice system, he has shown contempt for Congress, and the Committee has an obligation to hold him to account.

Democrats have been eager for more than a year to grill Barr about a growing list of topics — from Barr's handling of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to abrupt reversals in the prosecution and sentencing of allies of President Donald Trump, including Flynn and the president’s longtime confidant Roger Stone. The panel held Barr in contempt for refusing to appear last spring, shortly after he issued the Mueller report, and has called for him to come before the committee to testify on a slew of other controversies since. The House also held Barr in contempt for refusing to cooperate with inquiries related to the 2020 Census.

But lawmakers are likely to be eager to question Barr about his involvement in Trump's designation of antifa — a label for an amorphous collection left-wing activists — as a domestic terror group, and his deployment of DOJ riot teams to help quell protests in Washington, D.C., that have erupted since the killing of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police.

The White House has blocked most senior officials from testifying before Congress since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, citing the crisis as a more urgent day-to-day priority. But as Congress has slowly returned to action, Cabinet officials and other senior aides have begun trickling in to Capitol Hill. Barr was slated to testify before the Judiciary on March 31, his first scheduled appearance before the committee since he was sworn in a year earlier. But the hearing was postponed as the coronavirus raged, sending lawmakers back to their districts.

Nadler, at the time, said DOJ had committed to "rescheduling the hearing for when the crisis abates and the Committee is able to reconvene." Since then, White House officials have repeatedly renewed the restriction on congressional testimony, which is meant to apply to officials involved in the coronavirus response. Barr was seen Monday walking near the White House grounds and observing the law enforcement response when police fired nonlethal weapons and gas at protesters, clearing a space for Trump to stage a photo-op at nearby St. John's Episcopal Church, which was damaged during protests over the weekend.

It's unclear whom the Judiciary Committee has lined up for its pending "whistleblower" hearing, but Barr's involvement in the prosecutions of Flynn and Stone have sparked outrage among some veterans of the Justice Department. One line prosecutor in the Stone case, Jonathan Kravis, resigned and recently wrote an op-ed decrying political interference within DOJ after Justice Department leadership backed away from its initial sentencing recommendation for Stone.

Nadler had also previously asked Barr to make a long list of senior DOJ officials available for interviews, including Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is reviewing the origin of the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign's contacts with Russians in 2016, and former D.C. U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu.

Threats to defund Barr's office may be idle, since the Republican-controlled Senate is certain to object. But it's the first appropriations-related threat to the Justice Department rooted in Barr's reluctance to testify.

An amicus brief by the committee in the Flynn case is likely to act as a counterweight to GOP lawmakers, who filed their own briefs supporting the Justice Department and Flynn’s effort to drop the case against him.

President Donald Trump spent Monday further fanning the flames of confrontation between protesters and police. And some Republicans are urging the president to extinguish them.

Against a backdrop of police officers with riot gear ringing the Capitol as well as protesters chanting “I can’t breathe” and “hands up don’t shoot,” Senate Republicans called for a far gentler touch than the president has displayed so far.

Some said they’d like to hear him make a national address, a move Trump had avoided for days despite deepening nationwide angst. Others implored him to empathize with those outraged over the deaths of George Floyd and other black Americans at the hands of police, even as he acted to curb riots and looting in big cities.

“We are obviously in a divisive situation right now that’s escalating, and I think he needs to make more unifying comments,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).

“The country is looking for healing and calm. And I think the president needs to project that in his tone. He masters that sometimes,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “That’s the tone he needs to strike right now.”

Their pleadings followed a day’s worth of presidential grievances and inflammatory rhetoric that caused many in his party to fret once against about Trump’s divisive form of politics. But there was also an acknowledgment by some Republicans that conciliation is just not in Trump’s repertoire, and many have grown tired of trying to get Trump to calibrate his inflammatory rhetoric.

“I don’t think there’s a speech the president can give at this stage that’s going to calm things down,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the only GOP senator to support Trump’s removal during his impeachment trial. “The call today with the governors, as it was reported, doesn’t calm things down.”

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina also personally spoke to Trump over the weekend and suggested he have conversations with black leaders and law enforcement officials away from the cameras.

With more than a dozen major cities embroiled in deadly clashes between police and protesters as well as riots and looting, Trump spent Monday dressing down governors as weak and ordering them to “dominate” demonstrators.

On Twitter, Trump bragged about his poll numbers and attacked former Vice President Joe Biden as “sleepy” and his staff as “radical” for donating money to help bail out protesters. He also endorsed Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) idea to bring in the military to help quell protests.

There are only the faintest signs that the GOP's impatience with his combative approach are sinking in. On short notice, Trump made remarks at the White House on Monday evening and said Americans were "rightly sickened" by Floyd's death and assured that he would not "die in vain."

Casting himself as the "law and order" president, Trump said he would use the federal government to fight back against what he deemed "domestic terrorism.” Police forces dispersed a crowd of peaceful protesters outside the White House with tear gas minutes before D.C.'s curfew began. Trump said he would dispatch thousands of “heavily-armed” soldiers to enforce the curfew.

The United States now faces rising unemployment, ever-increasing coronavirus deaths and now protests in most major cities over harsh police treatment of African Americans across the United States, and some GOP senators are eager for Trump to step up.

“The president should help to heal the racial divisions in this country. It is at times like this that a president needs to speak to the nation, to pledge to right wrongs, and to calm inflamed passions,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who urged Trump to address the nation and tell Americans to peacefully work to combat “racial injustice.”

Trump demands loyalty from Republicans and has dressed down those who have criticized his tone too sharply. So many are sticking with him or staying away from the topic altogether.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) agreed it would be a good idea for Trump to give a national address. But he declined to wade into whether the president was striking the right tone: “I’m not going to comment about the tone of his tweets.”

“Some people love the president, some people don't. And I don't think we're ever going to resolve that,” Cornyn said. “It would be good for him to address the nation.”

“I’m not going to speak for the president, but I just think this is a time we should just show a lot of compassion,” offered Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa).

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a close Trump ally, took to the Senate floor on Monday afternoon and sympathized with peaceful protesters while urging an end to the violence and reading into the Senate record details of Floyd’s death. He said it would be good for the country to hear from Trump but stopped short of urging Trump to deliver an address harmonizing with his own message.

“I can only speak for myself. What I think needs to be said is the violence, and the unrest, that does great disservice to [Floyd’s] memory and his cause,” Hawley said. “I defer to [Trump] on what he’s got to do. Every person has to speak for himself or herself.”

Hawley was one of several Republicans to come to the floor on Monday and express his revulsion at police killings of black people. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that the country “cannot deafen itself to the anger, pain, or frustration of black Americans,” and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that “George Floyd deserved better, all black American do.”

But some in the party doubted whether Trump’s bully pulpit could help the nation heal anyway.

“Unifying would be a good thing. But … we never really seem to be able to unify around these incidents that have gone on for a long time,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). “Going back to what happened in Ferguson in 2014, there’s a pattern that we can’t seem to figure out how to break away from.”

Quint Forgey contributed to this report.

Ukraine’s recently appointed prosecutor general, 41-year-old Iryna Venediktova, is a woman to watch. The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, expects her to investigate and prosecute his predecessor. She seems more than enthusiastic about that, and it’s a process that's been set up from the start to (once again) try to smear Donald Trump’s leading challenger for the presidency of the United States, Joe Biden.On the night of May 19, Venediktova personally approved the beginning of criminal proceedings against former President Petro Poroshenko for high treason and abuse of office. The move was triggered by leaked recordings of confidential conversations that allegedly took place in 2015-2016 between Poroshenko and then Vice President Biden, as well as John Kerry, who was the U.S. secretary of state at the time.Before her appointment as prosecutor general in March, Venediktova—a graduate of Ukraine's police academy who holds the rank of captain—had served Zelensky as acting chief of the State Bureau of Investigations (DBR). She reportedly launched investigations into Poroshenko while in that position, and is said to have clashed with the well-respected prosecutor general at the time, Ruslan Ryaboshapka, because of the way she conducted them. Ryaboshapka was dismissed in March, clearing the way for her to take his position.The nature of the private Biden-Poroshenko recordings and the way they were leaked is reminiscent of the way the Soviet KGB exploited wiretaps and disinformation, but that has not prevented Zelensky and Venediktova from sensationalizing what’s now been put on the record.Who Leaked Biden’s Calls to Ukraine?It was first presented at a press conference given on May 19 by Andriy Derkach, a member of Ukraine’s parliament who has a very pro-Moscow past. Derkach, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, is a graduate of the former Soviet Union’s Higher School of KGB, the foreign intelligence training facility now known as the FSB Academy. In recent years Derkach has worked closely with Trump’s personal attorney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, to promote accusations that Biden as vice president strong-armed the Ukrainian government to try to protect the interests of his son, Hunter Biden, who was serving in a lucrative position on the board of a Ukrainian gas company called Burisma. Anyone familiar with the history of Ukrainian corruption knows that Biden’s pressure on the government in 2015 and 2016 was part of a major campaign by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, as well as the Obama administration, to get Poroshenko to clean up his act. Hanging in the balance were $40 billion in IMF loan guarantees, with a $1 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. opening the way.At the time, one key symbol of reform was the replacement of Poroshenko’s long-time crony, Chief Prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was notorious for not convicting any major oligarchs or public officials known for corruption—even those from the infamous regime ousted by the Maidan Revolution in 2014. Starting in the mid-1990s, general prosecutors in Ukraine acquired reputations for exploiting corruption rather than fighting it. Often, prosecutions in Ukraine have been launched to shake down the targets rather than put them in prison.According to an extensive report in the British newspaper The Independent based on multiple interviews with lower level prosecutors, an investigation of the owner of Burisma, the company with Hunter Biden on the board, fit that shakedown scenario precisely. “Neither Shokin nor Poroshenko wanted to investigate [Burisma owner Mykola​] Zlochevsky,” former deputy prosecutor David Sakvarelidze told The Independent. “They simply began a criminal case, arrested a few assets, and began negotiating with the corruptioneer for a bribe.”So, there are no real revelations in the Biden-Poroshenko conversations. What’s revealing is the use that Venediktova, Derkach, and Zelensky are making of them.“The leaked recordings are a nothingburger,” says Poroshenko’s defense lawyer, Ilya Novikov, borrowing a term from Biden’s spokesman. “But Venediktova rushed to open the case late in the evening after Derkach had published the leaks,” Novikov told The Daily Beast. “That to us indicates that President Zelensky personally expected his prosecutor to begin the process before his own press conference [the next day].” In fact, there is no mention of Burisma on the Derkach recordings. But the tough talk does force Ukrainian listeners to realize once again, as they did when they read the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky phone call last year, just how dependent on Washington Kyiv has become.Poroshenko clearly was reluctant to dismiss Shokin, who had been “his” prosecutor on and off for a dozen years, well before Poroshenko (an oligarch who made his fortune selling chocolate candy) moved up the political ladder to the presidency. Poroshenko can be heard on the recording telling Biden he’s willing to ditch Shokin even though, according to Poroshenko, Shokin had done nothing wrong. In a subsequent call, Biden congratulates Poroshenko on appointing a new general prosecutor.“I know there’s a lot more of that that has to be done,” says Biden. “But I really, I really think that’s good, and I understand you’re working with the Rada [Ukraine’s parliament] in the coming days on a number of additional laws to secure the IMF [loan guarantees], but congratulations on installing the new prosecutor general. It’s going to be critical for him to work quickly to repair the damage Shokin did, and I’m a man of my word, and now that the new prosecutor general is in place we’re ready to move forward in signing that new $1 billion loan guarantee.”When Derkach presented these recordings to the press in May, he publicly accused Biden of offering Poroshenko $1 billion of U.S. taxpayers’ money “in exchange for maintaining Burisma schemes and international corruption.” As Derkach described his version of the events,  "Biden leaves for Kyiv to put pressure on Petro Oleksiyovych [Poroshenko] regarding Shokin. There's a powerful argument… in Biden's pocket... a $1 billion loan guarantee... such was a price to save [Hunter] Biden from prison." Then Derkach took the recordings to Venediktova. If charged, Poroshenko could face up to 15 years in prison.When President Zelensky marked the end of his first year in power the day after Venediktova drew up the treason charges against Poroshenko, he left no room to doubt he supported them and found the recordings incriminating.  “I think it’s not the last sign that Ukrainians will see. The prosecutors, law enforcement bodies should react,” said Zelensky. “The prosecutor general of Ukraine registered criminal proceedings at the request of deputy [Andriy] Derkach yesterday. They will investigate.”During the impeachment proceedings that grew out of the U.S. President Trump’s notorious July 25, 2019, phone call pressuring Zelensky for dirt on Biden, Zelensky did his best to avoid taking sides. That will be harder to do if Venediktova continues to pursue the treason case based on Biden conversations. The Ukrainian president still enjoys rare popularity with an approval rating of more than 60 percent, but that is a steep decline from nearly 80 percent last year and Zelensky is the target of increased criticism. Marking the first anniversary of his presidency by threatening his predecessor with accusations of high treason does not look good. “I do not believe Zelensky,” Kristina Berdyskykh, a leading Ukrainian political journalist, said on Ukraina 24 television. “All young and progressive members have left Zelensky’s team.”As these controversies develop, Zelensky’s prosecutor will be at the center of them. Less than two years ago, Iryna Venediktova was teaching law at a university in the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. “She specialized in theory of civil and corporate law at a not very significant faculty, not on criminal justice,” a civil society activist in Kharkiv, Volodymir Rysenko, told The Daily Beast. But in a matter of months, Venediktova’s career jumped from a university teacher to a seat at the Rada. She is a member of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, and she was made number 3 on its electoral list last year, virtually guaranteeing she would get a seat. Then she was given another head spinning job when Zelensky appointed her to be the acting director of the State Bureau of Investigation.Finally, in March, Venediktova was appointed to be Ukraine’s prosecutor general, the first woman to hold that position.“When we look at Venediktova from Kharkiv, we see nothing to be proud of,” says Rysenko. “We hear Venediktova accusing people in her interviews without any understanding of what presumption of innocence really means.” “She has little experience for such a huge job and was appointed on the basis of being a political buddy of Mr. Zelensky,” says global affairs analyst Michael Bociurkiw. “She’s reversing the reforms of her predecessor which were lauded by civil society, diplomats and the international community. She has already made several controversial appointments, reinstated incompetent or politically tainted prosecutors rightfully sacked by her predecessor, and blocked civil society and foreign partners from vetting some appointments.” The executive director of the non-governmental Anticorruption Action Center, Daria Kaleniuk, does not see any legitimate grounds for triggering a criminal case of high treason based on the recordings. “In my opinion Derkach deserves to be investigated for treason for his long-term work with people like Giuliani, for spreading disinformation and conspiracies, which undermine U.S.-Ukraine strategic relationships," Kaleniuk told The Daily Beast. "I think Zelensky still clearly indicates that he doesn’t want to interfere in the American elections and to support any side there; but I am concerned he has appointed Venediktova, who among other strange things—like blocking prosecution reform—makes this nonsense case based on Derkach audio. It shows the lack of professionalism of both the prosecutor general and the president.”For progressives in Ukraine, a huge question looming over the treason case is how the Biden-Poroshenko recordings were obtained in the first place, and who passed them on to Derkach. He claims he got them from some “investigative journalists,” but nobody knows the journalists’ names.Kyiv-based experts following the Bidens, Burisma and Trump ordeal in detail want prosecutor Venediktova to pay serious attention to the source of the leaked recordings."I personally know Derkach,” says Yevgeny Kiselev of the TV show Real Politics. “He sounds like he is the bridge between the Ukrainian and Russian special services. In our conversations he bragged about his meetings and connections in Moscow; his father, former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, was involved in publishing compromising recordings to discredit President [Leonid] Kuchma and now Derkach junior is leaking very dubious recordings." "The former foreign minister, Pavel Kilimkin, told me that Poroshenko, Biden and Kerry had lots and lots of conversations about financial aid and about the Congress approving money,” Kiselev told The Daily Beast. “He also said that Poroshenko used to invite all sorts of people to those virtual conversations, mostly to show how important he was; one of them must have recorded the conversations—that is a matter for an investigation.”The Daily Beast asked Prosecutor General Venediktova if her office has also been investigating the source of the recordings but did not receive any answer.—Christopher Dickey also contributed to this article.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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As cities reel under protest and violence, Black Lives Matter leaders say the president has failed his country * George Floyd protests: live coverage * Robert Reich: the Trump presidency is over“Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims. I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon – and I mean very soon – come to an end.”These were the words of Donald Trump, not in May 2020 but July 2016, as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the national convention in Cleveland. For many observers, there was a distinct echo of Richard Nixon’s 1968 acceptance speech – “We see cities enveloped in smoke and flame” – and a foreboding that history could take a newly dark and dangerous turn.For three years, the first president elected without political or military experience rode his luck and skirted past disaster. In the fourth year, the fates demanded payback.Not even Trump’s harshest critics can blame him for a virus believed to have come from a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, nor for an attendant economic collapse, nor for four centuries of slavery, segregation, police brutality and racial injustice.But they can, and do, point to how he made a bad situation so much worse. The story of Trump’s presidency was arguably always leading to this moment, with its toxic mix of weak moral leadership, racial divisiveness, crass and vulgar rhetoric and an erosion of norms, institutions and trust in traditional information sources. Taken together, these ingredients created a tinderbox poised to explode when crises came.Trump, they say, was uniquely ill-qualified for this moment. He tried to wish away the threat of the coronavirus and failed to prepare, then paid no heed to how communities of colour bore the brunt of its health and economic consequences. As unrest now grips dozens of cities, he speaks an authoritarian language of “thugs”, “vicious dogs” and “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”.The nation waits in vain for a speech that might heal wounds, find a common sense of purpose and acknowledge the generational trauma of African Americans. That would require deep reading, cultural sensitivity and human empathy – none of which are known to be among personal attributes of Trump, who defines himself in opposition to Barack Obama.“He is obviously in way over his head,” said LaTosha Brown, a civil rights activist and co-founder of Black Voters Matter.“He doesn’t have a clue. He’s a TV personality. He has a cult following that’s centred around this white power broker persona rooted in white supremacy and racism. Wherever he goes, he carries that role and that kind of persona, but ultimately right now with what we’re looking for in this country is real leadership. He is incapable of providing that because that’s not who he is.”Brown added: “He’s a personality. He’s used to these dog whistles and, instead of trying to uproot division and seeing that the citizens are actually in pain and hurting, he doesn’t have the capacity to address that. He actually adds fuel to the flames and shows how fundamentally intellectually disconnected he is from what is happening and also how ill-prepared he is as a leader to respond to that.”Trump is not much a child playing with matches as an arsonist hellbent on burning it all down, Brown warned.“If it would take the destruction of the country for him to protect his position, he is willing to do that. He has shown that he is willing to kill every single thing in this country, including its people, if it protects him.> He’s willing to kill democracy. He is willing to kill any sense of real respect or trust in his government> > LaTosha Brown“He’s willing to kill democracy. He is willing to kill any sense of real respect or trust in his government. He is willing to kill America’s international and global relationships. He is a destroyer.”Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, a civil rights advocacy group, said of the current moment: “This is the type of controversy that Trump feels most at home in.“He didn’t create hostility and division, but he incites it. He creates incentives for it to thrive. He has elevated and put people around him that do that as well.”The president’s suggestion of moral equivalence between white nationalists and anti-fascist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 failed to loosen his grip on the Republican party. Perhaps it tightened. At the start of this re-election year, feeling emboldened by his acquittal in a Senate impeachment trial and a robust economy, Trump was confident of his re-election chances.Now, with health, economic and social crises feeding off each other, polls show him trailing rival Joe Biden. But the situation remains volatile and unpredictable. The president has sought to scapegoat anti-fascist protesters, and there would be little surprise if he returned to Nixonian law-and-order rhetoric to rally Republicans and lay a trap for Democrats, portraying them as “soft on crime”.“Get tough Democrat Mayors and Governors,” Trump tweeted on Sunday, even as protesters gathered outside the White House for the third straight day. “These people are ANARCHISTS. Call in our National Guard NOW. The World is watching and laughing at you and Sleepy Joe. Is this what America wants? NO!!!”Biden has billed the election as a battle for the soul of the nation – the potential to lurch deeper into disarray with a second Trump term, or to reset, rebuild and plot a new direction. The stakes keep getting higher by the day.Robinson said: “Presidential leadership, when it comes in the form of real action, is incredibly important.“When a leader can hear the demand and the concerns and work to solve the problem, that’s the power of democracy. President Trump is not interested in either. He’s not interested in leading or solving problems. Like a lot of things he does, he’s treating this as a game.“The problem here is that we can focus this simply on Trump or we can also focus on all of those folks that have enabled Trump: the Republican leadership, the corporation that may make statements in support of this work but, on the other hand, do all sorts of things to prop up, support, donate to Donald Trump. You don’t get Trump and Trumpism without a whole host of institutions and individuals that support and enable him.”DeRay Mckesson, a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement, said: “Nobody’s a magician, so I don’t expect Biden to change everything on day one, but the demands should be for him to change as much of this by the end as humanly possible.“If Trump has reminded us of anything, it’s that the government can move as fast as it wants to and nobody, no person of colour, no poor person is going to win if Trump is the president again. So I’m not interested in Trump. I am interested in a plan from Biden’s team around ending police violence. I think that needs to come now. I think it is, frankly, late, and I’m hoping to see it soon.”Trump’s unconventional inaugural address in January 2017 is best remembered for a single phrase: “American carnage”. His entire presidency may be remembered for it too.