Background Briefing: January 15, 2020
Lev Parnas Hands Democrats Incriminating Evidence
We begin with the incriminating documents Giuliani’s sidekick Lev Parnas passed on to the House Intelligence Committee after being slighted by Donald Trump who disowned Lev and his partner Igor after they were arrested at Dulles airport with one-way tickets to Vienna following a breakfast with Giuliani at Trump’s Washington hotel. Not only are there exchanges between Parnas and the disgraced Ukrainian prosecutor Lutsenko who demands they fire Marie Yovanovitch the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine before he will hand over dirt on Burisma and the Bidens, there are ominous exchanges with a landscaper from Connecticut, Robert Hyde, who has donated $55,000 to Trump and Republicans while not paying child support. Hyde is running for a House seat in Connecticut but was recently placed on a psychological hold by police after he was arrested at the Trump National Doral Miami claiming hit men were after him and the Secret Service had hacked his computer. Joining us is Ambassador Steven Pifer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine who is a fellow at the Center for international Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and was special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council. We will discuss the chilling exchanges between Parnas and Hyde which indicate they had Ambassador Yovanovitch under surveillance and had people in Ukraine who were willing to help take care of her for money. With Secretary of State Pompeo silent in the face of this outrage, we will also touch on the news today that Putin is restructuring the Russian government so that he can continue to rule after his fourth term expires in 2024.
The Role of the Chief Justice in the Senate Trial
Then, with the articles of impeachment voted out today with the House Managers named and the trial in the U.S. Senate expected to begin next Tuesday, we speak with Jeremy Suri, the Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas where he is a professor of history and public affairs. He joins us to discuss the role of the Chief Justice as a possible tie-breaker and the absurdity of the Republican argument that the explosive new information from Parnas cannot be admitted in the upcoming Senate trial.
A Critique of Last Night’s Democratic Debate
Then finally we get a critique of last night’s Democratic presidential candidates’ debate from David Graham, a staff writer at The Atlantic where he has an article “Joe Biden, Incumbent”. We assess the performances of the six hopefuls with Biden not screwing up, Bernie and Elizabeth going at it over whether a woman could be elected president, Buttigieg holding his own while Klobuchar made some headway as Steyer appeared irrelevant. But as the field narrows, a lot of Democrats are quietly expressing concerns that none of the above will be able to inspire the massive turnout needed to defeat Trump.