Barr tightens grip on FBI, saying any 2020 candidate investigations must first get AG approval

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

There won't be any investigations of Donald Trump this campaign season. Attorney General William Barr sent a memo Wednesday to the FBI and U.S. attorneys across the nation instructing them to get his approval before opening any new inquiries during the 2020 election cycle, according to The New York Times.

Barr used the backdrop of 2016 and the inspector general's report criticizing some aspects of the FBI's investigation into Trump's campaign as justification for his new decree. The department, he wrote, had a responsibility to safeguard against "improper activity or influences" in the election. “In certain cases, the existence of a federal criminal or counterintelligence investigation, if it becomes known to the public, may have unintended effects on our elections,” Barr wrote.

In other words, Trump is still really pissy about the Russia probe—even though it was never public—and wants to ensure that none of the other corrupt activities he is surely engaged in will interfere in his election, not to mention get investigated at all.

Barr, a man who skewed the rollout of the Mueller report in Trump's favor and declined to investigate Trump Ukraine call for criminal violations, advised, "we also must be sensitive to safeguarding the department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality and nonpartisanship.” Whatever reputation the Justice Department had for delivering fairness is already long gone under Barr's leadership.

In the big picture, this is just one more move by Barr to consolidate power. During the Senate impeachment trial, Barr also installed a loyalist as the new U.S. attorney in D.C., the largest U.S. attorney’s office in the country that also happens to handle many of the most politically sensitive cases in Washington. In another recent development, the Justice Department, which had recently sought six months of jail time for former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, is now saying probation time would be acceptable. 

In ways both obvious and cunning, Barr continues to prove his commitment to doing Trump’s bidding, no matter the task. 

Impeachment may be over, but Pelosi clearly isn’t done shredding Trump

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi feels "liberated," as she put it at her Thursday press conference with reporters. "I feel very liberated," she said, repeating the sentiment twice. "I feel that I've extended every possible courtesy. I've shown every level of respect," she said of Trump. It sounded as if she might add "but now..." and then pivot to a glimpse of the new road ahead. She did not tip her hand. The path Pelosi is plotting is something that will unfold over time.

But for the moment, Pelosi ain't apologizing for nothing, despite taking some heat over performing a very public shredding of Donald Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday night. Asked if she had trampled on her consistent message of championing a certain dignity in our politics, Pelosi responded without missing a beat, "No, I did not. I tore up a manifesto of mistruths."

She reminded the press corps how hard it is to get them focused on reporting about the actual issues and policies House Democrats are working on, including an infrastructure bill and a bill they passed to lower drug prices (H.R. 3) that's currently dying a slow death on Mitch McConnell's desk. Meanwhile, Trump used his address as an opportunity to spew complete nonsense about Republicans supposedly protecting people's preexisting condition coverage when in fact they are working to dismantle it.

"He misrepresented all of that," she said. "It was very necessary to get the attention of the American people to say, this is not true and this is how it affects you," she said of her public display, adding, "And I don't need any lessons from anybody, especially the president of the United States, about dignity. Is it okay to start saying 'four more years' in the House of Representatives? It's just unheard of."

Pelosi later explained that her unexpected shredding was premeditated and had nothing to do with the fact that Trump hadn't shaken her hand at the beginning of the speech. "That meant nothing to me," she said. Instead, she had quickly scanned the speech and realized it was riddled with lies.

"When I saw the compilation of falsehoods," she explained, "I started to think there has to be something that clearly indicates to the American people that this is not the truth." In other words, far from a fit of pique, it was a little bit of theater by Pelosi, who was very much in control of the message she hoped to relay to the public. 

She also skewered the crux of Trump's speech, saying he hadn't told the nation anything about where he planned to lead the nation. "That was not a State of the Union, that was his 'state of his mind' address" she explained. "We want a state of the Union—where are we, where are we going, and the rest."

Pelosi emphatically declared that the nation must vote Trump out. "Next year we will have a new president of the United States. That is an absolute imperative for our country," she noted.

Taken together, Pelosi's remarks reveal how offended she was that Trump coopted The People's House to stage a campaign rally filled with lies, chants, and completely devoid of a vision for the country. "Do it in your own office," she quipped. "We don't come in your office and do congressional business."

Pelosi has always been a measured and calculated politician, but she appears to be entering a new gloves-off phase of her speakership. Her final words before leaving the podium were unequivocal: "He has shredded the truth in his speech. He's shredding the Constitution in his conduct. I shredded the state of his mind address."

Just guessing there’s more shredding to come from Pelosi. 

Romney made history. He also changed the news cycle and the anti-GOP ads to come in 2020

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Donald Trump woke up on Wednesday morning believing Senate Republicans would provide him a unanimous acquittal vote on impeachment. Weeks earlier, White House ally Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina had even promised the vote would be bipartisan, drawing some Democrats over to Trump's side.

But that wasn't to be. Instead, the White House—completely blindsided by Sen. Mitt Romney's declaration—abruptly blocked reporter access to Trump's meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó that the press corps had originally been invited to attend.

In an instant, Romney's vote to convict changed the entire trajectory of how the history books would be written, the headlines that would flow from acquittal in the days that followed, and the way ads would be written in the 2020 cycle as the general election heats up. Instead of impeachment being an entirely partisan affair—a Democrat-driven witch hunt, as Trump likes to call it—Romney affixed a permanent asterisk to Trump's acquittal, making him the only president in history to draw bipartisan support for his conviction. 

Just below the Washington Post's giant "Trump Acquitted" banner topping its site Wednesday night, Romney's vote of conviction attracted no less than four headlines that wouldn't have otherwise been there. One read, "No senator ever voted to remove a president of his party from office. Until Mitt Romney."

But Romney didn't just change the story and the way the story would be told, he also changed how that story would reverberate through the 2020 election cycle. Trump, who will target Romney incessantly between now and November, will deprive himself of the talking point that it was Democrats and Democrats alone who took issue with his so-called "perfect call" and voted to convict. In addition, Democrats' discipline as a caucus which included some brave votes from Sens. Doug Jones of Alabama and Joe Manchin of West Virginia robbed Trump of declaring his acquittal was a bipartisan consensus.

Romney's Senate floor speech also included some attack-ad friendly phrases like "appalling abuse of public trust" and "flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security, and our fundamental values." Those damning assessments will surely make their way into some ads aimed at unseating Romney's vulnerable GOP colleagues.

Romney may only be one person, but on Wednesday he provided an unexpected and much-needed crack of light in an otherwise very dark episode in the nation's history. Perhaps it was the beginning of a reckoning for the GOP.

Romney delivers scathing rebuke of Senate GOP’s fecklessness, calling Trump’s abuses ‘appalling’

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney pledged Wednesday to do what no other GOP senator would: take a vote of conscience to convict Donald Trump of impeachable offenses. Romney's vote seals Trump's fate in the annals of history as the only president to ever draw bipartisan support for removal of office.

But Romney’s declaration from the Senate floor was much more than just a recitation of what he planned to do, it was an unmistakable rebuke of all his Republican colleagues who had abandoned their responsibilities as public servants for the comforts of the GOP's herd mentality. "Were I to ignore the evidence what has been presented and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history's rebuke and the censure of my own conscience," Romney said from the Senate floor. Wow.

In explaining his vote, Romney filleted the arguments of Trump's defense team, namely that Trump couldn't be impeached without having committed a crime, that Biden's conduct warranted Trump's actions, and that the ultimate decision should be left up to the voters. In response, Romney said it "defies reason" to believe that a president can only be removed from office for criminal behavior. As for Joe and Hunter Biden, he concluded there was no evidence of criminal conduct on their part and therefore no justification whatsoever for Trump's call to investigate. "There's no question in my mind that were their names not Biden, the president would never have done what he did," Romney noted. Finally, he explained that the framers had charged the Senate with the power to remove a president precisely so the partisan sentiments of voters wouldn't dictate a president's fate. 

After ticking through a list of Trump's actions, Romney concluded, "The president is guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust. What he did was not perfect. No, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security, and our fundamental values."

Romney added that "corrupting an election" in order to stay in office was "perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one's oath of office that I can imagine."

In short, Romney held up a mirror for the Republican caucus so they could see what a trash heap it had become. In speaking his conscience, he also provided Senate Democrats with a wealth of material for defeating vulnerable Senate Republicans in the upcoming election. Prior to giving his remarks, Romney told the New York Times, “I think the case was made.” He isn't the first GOP senator to agree that Trump did what he’s accused of doing, he's just the first to actually uphold his oath of office. Kudos to him.

Wanna restore responsible leadership to the Senate? Give $2 right now to make that vision a reality in November.

Here’s some excerpts of Romney’s speech. 

ROMNEY: "Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented & disregard what I believe my oath & the constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history's rebuke & the censor of my own conscience." pic.twitter.com/psdRhPTbWr

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 5, 2020

Pelosi: ‘He shredded the truth, so I shredded his speech’

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Could this be a turning point of sorts? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi surprised many observers Tuesday night when she punctuated Donald Trump's lie-laden State of the Union address with an unceremonious rebuke.

“He shredded the truth, so I shredded his speech,” Pelosi said Wednesday morning, according to Politico, explaining why she tore up a copy of Trump's speech at the conclusion of the address. As Pelosi relayed to her caucus the motivation behind her uncharacteristic break with decorum, her remarks suggested that she might be opening a new, more pointed chapter in her post-impeachment relationship with Trump. She told her Democratic caucus members she felt "liberated" by tearing up Trump's words in front of a national audience.

"She said that he disgraced the House of Representatives by using it as a backdrop for a reality show," Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth told Politico.

Echoing Pelosi's sentiments, Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson called Trump's theatrics during the speech—such as awarding rancid radio host Rush Limbaugh with the medal of honor—a "disgraceful display." 

“He dishonored the State of the Union as an institutional practice,” Rep. Johnson said. “It was kind of outright pandering to his base."

Democratic members described Pelosi as frustrated by Trump's speech, which leaves one wondering if she might really take off the gloves in the months leading up to November. Pelosi is a loyal student of public opinion and polls suggest the public continues to be on the side of Democrats in so far as impeachment goes and their bid to get witnesses included in the Senate trial.

But after Republican senators seal Trump's acquittal later on Wednesday, Pelosi will still have cards to play, including subpoenaing former national security adviser John Bolton or even indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, who apparently has a trove of receipts.

Whatever Pelosi's mood, she clearly has options, likely including some the public isn't even aware of.

Sen. Manchin calls for censure of Trump. Bet you Senate Republicans are too weak to even do that

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia called for a censure vote of Donald Trump on Monday from the well of the Senate floor. It's nowhere near as good as removal from office, to be sure. And under any normal circumstances, it could be seen as a gift to Senate Republicans, giving those who are bear hugging Trump a chance to vote against it while offering GOP members who need to signal disapproval for electoral reasons a way to claim they held Trump accountable.

But guess what? This is going to squeeze all the GOP squishes who have spun their no-witness vote by saying what Trump did was inappropriate but not impeachable. Okay, then: Put your money where your mouth is.

Just off the top, that list of GOP senators includes Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Rob Portman of Ohio, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Marco Rubio of Florida, and perhaps others. 

Sen. Alexander, for instance, led the way in justifying his vote against hearing witness testimony in the Senate trial by admitting that Trump's actions were improper but asserting they didn't rise to the level of removing him from office. “I think he shouldn't have done it. I think it was wrong,” Alexander told Meet The Press Sunday. "I don't think it's the kind of inappropriate action that the framers would expect the Senate to substitute its judgment for the people in picking a president,” he added, saying voters should make the final determination this November.

Great! If it's wrong and Trump shouldn't have done it, let's make that crystal clear, amiright?

Manchin has already written the resolution, but he will need agreement from GOP Leader Mitch McConnell to put it to a vote. In theory, this should be a no-brainer for Senate Republicans. They would all get to vote their conscience without a total governmental disruption, and it could help insulate some vulnerable GOP senators that are up for reelection this fall. But in practice, this Republican Party is just too subservient to Trump. Trump insists his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a "perfect call" and he would blow a gasket if any Republican senators voted to censure him (immediate enemies list status!).

So go ahead and watch Republicans squirm out of this one. In all likelihood, McConnell will kill it as soon as possible, so no one in his caucus has to answer for it.

After betraying America, Senate Republicans beg Trump not to talk impeachment at State of the Union

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Here's what it looks like when you're complicit in the cover-up of a crime: Asked if she thought Donald Trump should talk about impeachment in his upcoming State of the Union address on Tuesday, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst offered curtly, "I don't."

Other Republican senators joined in Ernst's What are you, crazy? reaction, according to CNN’s Manu Raju. “If I was writing his speech I wouldn't include it," responded Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana also counseled against it: “Personally, I’d advise him not to.” Nothing screams guilty conscience like trying to hide your paw prints at the scene of the crime.

Wanna kick all these shameless Republicans to the curb? Give $2 right now to the Daily Kos effort to flip the Senate in November.

It's so telling that Senate Republicans are desperate for Trump to shut up about the impeachment that they have so eagerly helped him shut down. If they felt even remotely good about their actions, they'd be fine with him talking it up. Instead, Senate Republicans know that they have cheated America out of a fair trial and airing of the facts, and they'd rather Trump didn't remind the country of that.

What's hilarious is that Trump will almost surely defy their counsel. It's hard to imagine that the orange menace in the Oval Office will have the discipline to steer clear of the topic regardless of what's on the teleprompter. It will likely be one of the Senate GOP's first of many brushes with You reap what you sow. 

Sign the petition to Nancy Pelosi: Revoke Trump’s invitation to the State of the Union. The House must not be complicit in his corruption. 

Here’s the most infuriating Republican excuse for deep-sixing witnesses at the Senate trial

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Watching Republican senators take the unprecedented vote Friday to entirely exclude witness testimony from Donald Trump's impeachment trial was infuriating enough. But when Republicans made the rounds on Sunday morning to rationalize that vote, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee—who was key to sealing the sham trial—made clear that he was simply too much of a coward to be faced with more reality. 

"If you have eight witnesses who say someone left the scene of an accident, why do you need nine?" Alexander said on Meet The Press. "I mean, the question for me was: Do I need more evidence to conclude that the president did what he did? And I concluded no."

Wanna help restore the U.S. Senate to responsible leadership? Give $2 right now to kick Senate Republicans to the curb. 

Alexander was among the first GOP senators to openly concede that he agreed with Democrats' House managers—Trump clearly did ask Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in 2016, and he withheld aid from the country to pressure its officials into doing what he wanted. But Alexander had also decided to vote against hearing from more witnesses anyway. So what he's really saying is: He didn't need any more people to testify to the miscarriage of justice he was about to deliver to the American people. He didn't need another person to make it any more difficult for him to look in the mirror when he gets up in the morning. Sure, Trump did it. Sure, it's wrong. And deep down, he knows it's an egregious affront to our democracy. But why dwell on what a craven vote he was about to cast? Especially when the person holding up that mirror—John Bolton—was among the most-trusted and well-regarded national security experts in GOP circles.

It's also worth remembering that Bolton’s testimony almost surely would have brought even more of Trump's damning betrayal of the country to light, making the GOP’s eventual acquittal vote even worse for Republicans like Alexander. Bolton’s testimony also clearly would have implicated Trump’s chief defense counsel, Pat Cipollone, in the scheme, which is exactly why Republicans couldn’t risk hearing from Bolton no matter what the cost.

In short, sorry, America, Alexander was feeling a little squeamish and was just too much of a coward to hear any more of Trump's abuses. 

Alexander ultimately told NBC’s Chuck Todd that he was leaving Trump’s fate up to “the people” to decide. What a terribly dishonest justification for abdicating your duty as an elected official and letting Trump off the hook. The whole reason Trump was impeached is because he’s trying to disenfranchise “the people” and rig the election in his favor. In other words, Trump is a proven threat to the sanctity of the very vote to which Alexander is purportedly deferring. Good luck with that morning look in the mirror, senator. 

Senate Republicans were on trial. They chose to betray America

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

If watching Senate Republicans turn a blind eye to duty, truth, their oaths of office, public opinion, and the well-being of the republic left you with a pit in your stomach this week, then rest assured that you are not alone. But while most Daily Kos readers knew the fix was in before the Senate charade ever started, many Americans likely did not. In poll after poll after, voters told pollsters that they wanted and in some polls expected to hear from witnesses. For starters, it was common sense. Everyone knows that trials include witnesses, and historically every single impeachment trial until now has also included witness testimony. 

Making matters worse for Senate Republicans, Donald Trump's defenders in the House had whined relentlessly about "second-, third-, fourth-, and fifthhand" witnesses. They made firsthand witnesses indispensable and suggested America would never know the truth without them. Even Trump spent a good portion of the fall and winter clamoring for witnesses once the impeachment inquiry reached the Senate, where finally things would be fair.

And almost magically, the star witness appeared: former White House national security adviser John Bolton. He was a West Wing insider with direct access to Trump and a veteran of every Republican administration dating back to Ronald Reagan. He was a conservative stalwart and rock-ribbed defense hawk with sterling cred among GOP lawmakers. Even better, progressives typically despised him, making him among the most trustworthy of witnesses among Republicans. And lo and behold, unlike other Trump officials, he was willing to talk and even said so in a statement issued right as the Senate got back to work in the New Year. What luck!

Now just imagine America's surprise as the perfect firsthand witness went untapped for weeks on end. After months of Trump hyping all that witness testimony in the Senate, he suddenly went cold on the idea. When his attorneys began to argue their case, the nation was told that House managers had utterly failed to prove Trump's guilt on one hand but that further inquiry was verboten on the other. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even tried to kill the mere prospect of witness testimony before the trial ever started, but he was ultimately reduced to making handwritten adjustments in the margins of his resolution so that calling witnesses could be considered after both impeachment teams had made their case. Apparently, even some members of McConnell's caucus didn't see how they could sell that preemptive gag order back home. 

As the trial ground on, suspense built with headlines emerging about what Bolton had committed to paper in his forthcoming book. First, the public learned Trump had told Bolton directly he wanted to continue withholding aid to Ukraine until the country's top officials started investigations into Democrats and, more specifically, the Bidens. Next, Bolton's manuscript expressed his distress over Trump granting personal favors to autocratic leaders in his view. Finally, as the trial headed toward that crucial vote on witness testimony Friday, another morning jolt brought news that White House counsel Pat Cipollone—Trump's lead attorney at the trial—had witnessed Trump ordering Bolton to help with his pressure campaign by facilitating a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Rudy Giuliani. 

As if all that wasn't enough, news also broke Friday that Giuliani associate Lev Parnas was prepared to detail the entire conspiracy in testimony, front to back, with receipts. As former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance noted on MSNBC, "This is a prosecutor's dream, right? You've actually got Lev Parnas and John Bolton in a bidding war over who gets to be your star witness." Wow, how could Republicans possibly pass up the wealth of information beating down the doors to the Senate chamber? 

And yet, that's exactly what they voted to do late Friday. In the face of polls showing nearly three-quarters of the country agreed on the need for witnesses, Senate Republicans turned their backs on America. Sure, they're public servants who've been entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the Constitution. But when the time came to take a principled stand, they saluted to Individual 1, circled the wagons, and deep-sixed testimony for the remainder of the trial. All that's left of the Senate proceeding is a bunch of self-gratifying speechifying as Senate Republicans try to recast their cowardice in acceptable terms. 

The cover-up is complete. And it wasn't just helpful to Trump, it was an absolute necessity. If Bolton had testified, he would have implicated multiple Trump officials in Trump's scheme, including Cipollone, Trump's chief defense attorney. Just to be clear, most legal scholars were aghast that anyone from the White House counsel's office was defending Trump in the first place. It's a taxpayer-funded position charged with representing the Office of the President, not the president him/herself. But what we know now is that he wasn't just protecting Trump, he was protecting himself, serving himself—on the taxpayers' dime. Trump's Ukraine conspiracy was a global effort among his top advisers. Everyone knew, even the White House counsel (who, by the way, is supposedly leading an inquiry into who put the transcript of Trump's July 25th call with President Volodymyr Zelensky into the super secret server.)  Or as Gordon Sondland said repeatedly, "Everyone was in the loop." Yet, among Trump's looped-in top advisers, only one person is willing to talk.

As a matter of civic service, the nation could have benefited from hearing Bolton's truth during the Senate trial. Some Americans who had not followed the House hearing closely enough to see how corrosive Trump's actions were would have walked away better informed about the unimaginable danger he poses to the nation.

But politically speaking, this proceeding was never about putting Trump on trial—everyone who had been paying attention knew the outcome in advance, including Nancy Pelosi. It was about putting the GOP-led Senate on trial. That's why Pelosi held the articles of impeachment for nearly a month, so she could frame the proceeding as a referendum on Senate Republicans. And guess what? They failed spectacularly in a disgraceful show of craven hubris. They couldn't even fake impartiality long enough to allow for witnesses to be heard. In the end, they offered America no justice—no feeling of finality—just a hollow sense of being wronged with no recourse. 

But here's the silver lining: During a time when Washington commanded the attention of most Americans and when polling consistently showed that voters overwhelmingly craved resolution, Senate Republicans exposed themselves a nothing short of tools of Trump's regime. They no longer serve the people, they serve him and him only.

Pundits across spectrum smelled trouble for Senate Republicans. "I think (McConnell) underestimates the backlash to this vote," conservative radio host Charlie Sykes told MSNBC. "I think people are going to be a lot more angry about this vote on the witnesses than folks in Washington really understand. And it really does put the Senate in play."

Former GOP operative Nicolle Wallace called the vote “political suicide,” adding, “I hope they take it." They did.

So as we enter the start of the Democratic nomination contest in earnest on Monday, bundle up all that rage and take it to the polls. Let it drive your engagement and participation throughout the rest of the year until Election Day.

"Never stop being a prisoner of hope," Sen. Cory Booker told MSNBC this week at a dark moment, invoking the resolve shown throughout history after the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Birmingham Church bombing, and the showdown at Stonewall. "This election is about so much more now than a choice between a Democrat and Republican president."

Lev Parnas pours gasoline on McConnell’s fire, detailing gigantic conspiracy he could testify to

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Indicted Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas has already publicly documented how deeply enmeshed he was in Donald Trump's world and now, in a letter sent by his lawyer to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Friday, he is outlining exactly what he would testify to if given the opportunity. Spoiler alert: It would be absolutely disastrous for Trump.

If allowed to testify, the letter asserts that Parnas would detail Trump's entire Ukraine conspiracy front to back, with receipts, while implicating multiple high-level Trump officials in the process. "If Lev Parnas was called as a witness, he would provide testimony based upon personal knowledge, corroborated by physical evidence including text messages, phone records, documentary evidence, and travel records, which is directly relevant to the President's impeachment inquiry," writes Parnas attorney Joseph Bondy.

Bondy says Parnas will reveal the "genesis" of the relationship between Trump and Rudy Giuliani along with all the GOP operatives who assisted in the effort to remove Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and gather "dirt" on the Bidens. 

"Those holding various roles in the plot included GOP Super PAC America First, President Trump, Vice President Pence, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General Bill Barr, Senator Lindsey Graham, Congressman Devin Nunes, Nunes's Staffer Derek Harvey, Journalist John Solomon, Attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, Mr. Giuliani, and others," Bondy writes. Yowzer. That's quite a list. Sen. Graham, eh? That would sure explain a lot. 

Bondy promises that Parnas will illuminate the "thousands of micro-steps" he took to lay the groundwork for the plan, including multiple trips to Ukraine in order to meet with top Ukrainian officials and "directly convey the President's 'quid pro quo.'"

In short, Parnas is offering to give congressional investigators a treasure trove of information. Sure, Parnas comes to the table with a tarnished reputation. But he has the exact profile of a witness that prosecutors use to build criminal cases all the time. Even better, he appears to have documented nearly everything and has somehow managed to finally get control of all his materials and evidence. 

As former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance tweeted, "If his testimony is corroborated by John Bolton, something that his lawyer’s letter suggests but that we won’t know for certain unless they both testify, then Trump is in deep trouble, even if the Senate whitewashes this."