| As Supreme Court weighs DACA, Trump pushes fiction about 'hardened criminals' Posted: 14 Nov 2019 02:55 PM PST  As the Supreme Court considers whether it is legal for the Trump administration to cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, the president and his allies have begun spinning a familiar — and false — narrative about the program's nearly 700,000 beneficiaries.
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| American Airlines flight attendants have literally begged not to work on the Boeing 737 Max when it returns, union boss says (BA) Posted: 15 Nov 2019 08:43 AM PST  Lori Bassani heads the union for 28,000 American Airlines flight attendants, and she warned of genuine fear among staff over returning to the 737 Max.
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| Chicago gang leader accused of trying to help Islamic State Posted: 15 Nov 2019 09:11 AM PST ![Chicago gang leader accused of trying to help Islamic State]( "Chicago gang leader accused of trying to help Islamic State") A purported street-gang leader from suburban Chicago who became radicalized in prison faces federal charges accusing him of seeking to provide money to Islamic State militants in Syria, according to a complaint unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Jason Brown, the 37-year-old leader of the AHK gang, could be heard on secret FBI recordings speaking admiringly about beheadings by the Islamic State group, the 27-page complaint says. AHK, which prosecutors say traffics drugs throughout the Chicago area, is comprised of former members of the Black P-Stone, Gangster Disciples and Four Corner Hustlers who converted to Islam, the court filings say.
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| DNC Announces 10 Candidates in Atlanta Democratic Debate Posted: 14 Nov 2019 08:43 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- The Democratic National Committee on Thursday announced the 10 candidates who will participate in the fifth Democratic primary debate in Atlanta on Wednesday.They are: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang.Julian Castro, who participated in previous debates, most recently in October at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, didn't make the cut. Another October participant, Beto O'Rourke, has dropped out of the race. Deval Patrick, a former governor of Massachusetts who announced his candidacy on Thursday, also won't be on the stage at the Tyler Perry Studios.The forum will be co-hosted by the Washington Post and MSNBC. Candidates will be questioned by four female moderators: Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell and Kristen Welker from the network, and Ashley Parker from the Post.The two-hour event had a higher bar to qualify than previous debates. Candidates must have contributions from 165,000 donors, up from 135,000.And the donors must be geographically dispersed, with a minimum of 600 per state in at least 20 states. In addition, participants must either show 3% support in four qualifying national or single-state polls, or have at least 5% support in two qualifying single-state polls released between Sept. 13 and Nov. 13 in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada.The sixth debate will take place next month in Los Angeles.To contact the reporter on this story: Max Berley in Washington at mberley@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, John HarneyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| 20 Great Gifts for Boys Who Love to Tinker Posted: 15 Nov 2019 01:13 PM PST |
| Tempers flare over rebuilding of Notre-Dame spire Posted: 14 Nov 2019 03:14 AM PST  The French army general charged with overseeing the rebuilding of Paris' fire-mangled Notre-Dame, has caused astonishment by publicly telling the cathedral's chief architect to "shut his mouth" in a sign of tension over the monument's future look. General Jean-Louis Georgelin and chief architect Philippe Villeneuve are at odds over whether to replace the cathedral's spire -- which was toppled in the April 15 blaze -- with an exact replica, or mix things up with a modern twist.
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| Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings Faces House Ethics Investigation of Relationship with Top Staffer Posted: 14 Nov 2019 03:29 PM PST  Representative Alcee Hastings (D., Fla.) is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over his relationship with a top staffer, according to a Thursday press release from the Committee."The Committee is aware of public allegations arising out of Representative Alcee Hastings' personal relationship with an individual employed in his congressional office," read the statement. "On May 14, 2019, the Committee . . . began an investigation regarding the allegations."While the announcement does not name the staffer, it is almost certainly Patricia Williams, Hastings's district-office director and long-time partner, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Williams is Hastings's highest-paid staffer and has worked in his office since 1993."As they continue to conduct their work, I stand ready to fully cooperate with their inquiry," Hastings said in a statement in response to the Committee's announcement.Hastings was indicted on bribery charges in 1981 stemming from actions he allegedly took while he served as a federal judge. During that case, he was represented by Williams. He was acquitted in court, but was impeached and convicted in Congress, marking the sixth time in history that the Senate authorized the removal of a federal judge.Williams has since been disbarred for numerous ethics violations.
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| Look Out, Israel: China May Have Stolen The Iron Dome Posted: 15 Nov 2019 01:00 AM PST  Chinese hackers, that is.
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| From 'Anonymous,' key excerpts from inside Trump White House on Putin, Hillary Posted: 15 Nov 2019 11:10 AM PST  Key excerpts from "A Warning," a book by an anonymous senior administration official about President Trump and his administration.
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| 'You embarrassed yourself': Kellyanne Conway blasts CNN's Wolf Blitzer for playing George Conway clip Posted: 14 Nov 2019 07:29 AM PST  On CNN Thursday, Kellyanne Conway, special counselor to President Trump, was asked to respond to the assessment given by her husband, George, that testimony in the first public impeachment hearings was damning for her boss.
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| Moving university to Vienna, Soros vows to defend academic freedom from Orban Posted: 15 Nov 2019 10:29 AM PST ![Moving university to Vienna, Soros vows to defend academic freedom from Orban]( "Moving university to Vienna, Soros vows to defend academic freedom from Orban") Billionaire George Soros opened the new main campus of his Central European University in Vienna on Friday, saying it would not halt its struggle to defend academic freedom from Viktor Orban, the right wing leader he says hounded it from Hungary. CEU's decision last year to move the bulk of its courses out of Hungary followed a long struggle between Hungarian-born Soros, who promotes liberal causes through his charities, and Orban's anti-immigrant government. Since it was founded by Soros in 1991, CEU has been a gateway to the West for thousands of students from eastern Europe, offering U.S.-accredited graduate degree programmes in an academic climate that celebrates free thought.
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| Ray Cromartie: Death row inmate executed without testing DNA evidence ‘that could have proved his innocence’ Posted: 14 Nov 2019 01:38 AM PST  A man has been executed in the US state of Georgia despite a request from his lawyers for DNA evidence which they claimed would clear him of murder.Ray Jefferson Cromartie was convicted of the April 1994 shooting of shop worker Richard Slysz twice in the head at the convenience store in the city of Thomasville.
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| Fuel rations, price hike hit Iranians amid plunging economy Posted: 15 Nov 2019 04:48 AM PST  Across the capital, Tehran, long lines of cars waited for hours at pumping stations following the changes in energy policy, which state media announced around midnight without any prior warning to the public. The U.S. withdrew from Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers last year, and re-imposed crippling trade sanctions that have sent the Iranian economy into free-fall. In several locations, Iranian police were seen deployed near gas stations.
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| American teacher's death in D.R. is being investigated Thursday as a murder Posted: 14 Nov 2019 06:30 AM PST  An American teacher's death in the Dominican Republic was being investigated Thursday as a murder. Police said they found Patricia Anton deceased in her apartment in Puerto Plata, on the country's northern coast, with her hands and feet bound.
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| Vietnam jails music teacher for 'undermining' state Posted: 15 Nov 2019 05:11 AM PST  Vietnam sentenced a music teacher to 11 years in prison on Friday for Facebook posts that allegedly undermined the one-party state, which has been accused of tightening the noose on online dissent. Communist Vietnam has long jailed its critics but has come under fire recently for targeting users on Facebook, a popular forum for activists in the country where all independent media is banned. Nguyen Nang Tinh is the latest activist jailed for his Facebook comments, including posts about police brutality, land rights, and a Taiwanese steel firm that dumped toxic sludge into the ocean, killing masses of fish off the coast of Vietnam.
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| One of Jamal Khashoggi’s close friends said Twitter is the 'only free platform' for many Saudis, but it also may have led to Khashoggi’s brutal murder Posted: 15 Nov 2019 02:12 AM PST  Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi activist and close friend of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, wrote in an op-ed that Twitter is "crucial" for Saudi freedom.
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| The Army Plans To Use These 6 Weapons In A War Against Russia Or China Posted: 15 Nov 2019 05:00 AM PST  The Army is transitioning away from fighting terrorism.
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| Trump Admin. Prepares Court Filings to Seize Private Land in Texas for Border Wall: Report Posted: 14 Nov 2019 02:28 PM PST  The Trump administration is preparing to submit court filings as early as next week as a necessary step toward seizing private land in Texas for its wall on the border with Mexico, NBC reported Thursday. Administration officials still haven't said how much the government will compensate affected landowners."I still think we're on track to get the land we need for 450 miles" of border wall, Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan told reporters on Thursday.The government may file to appropriate the land in federal court in Texas under the Declaration of Taking Act, which would expedite the appropriation process. The law, which is meant to be used in emergencies, allows the federal government to take over the land before beginning negotiations with its former owners over compensation.Department of Justice and Department of Defense attorneys have already prepared letters of rights of entry, which inform property owners of the government's impending use of their land. Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner is scheduled to meet with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers chief of engineers Todd Semonite, Assistant Defense Secretaries Kenneth Rapuano and Robert Salesses, and other officials Friday at the White House to discuss taking over lands on the southern border.The White House has previously faced legal challenges to its efforts to fund construction of the border wall. In December of 2018, Democrats refused to allocate funding for the wall in the 2019 budget, and the ensuing standoff with President Trump led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Trump eventually relented, deciding instead to declare a state of emergency in order to allocate funds from the Pentagon's budget, in a move a federal judge deemed "unlawful" last month.
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| China envoy threatens Sweden over award to detained writer Gui Minhai Posted: 15 Nov 2019 03:51 AM PST ![China envoy threatens Sweden over award to detained writer Gui Minhai]( "China envoy threatens Sweden over award to detained writer Gui Minhai") China threatened Sweden with unspecified "counter measures" if its culture minister attends a literary award ceremony on Friday for Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen who was abducted in Thailand in 2015 and is now in detention in China. The case of Chinese-born Gui Minhai, who studied in Sweden in the 1980s and was based in Hong Kong when he published books critical of China's leaders, has soured relations between Sweden and China.
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| N. Korea calls Biden a ‘rabid dog’ for insulting its dignity Posted: 14 Nov 2019 09:03 PM PST  North Korea called former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden a "rabid dog" that "must be beaten to death with a stick" in its latest swipe against foreign and political leaders it sees as hostile to the North's leadership. The North correctly spelled Biden's name in May when it labeled him a "fool of low IQ" after he called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a tyrant during a speech. North Korea often insults foreign leaders and politicians over what it sees as slanderous remarks toward its leadership or hostile policies against its government.
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| Jackie Speier erupts at reporter for The Hill Posted: 15 Nov 2019 01:07 PM PST  Angered by the testimony of ousted ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, California Rep. Jackie Speier upbraided a reporter for The Hill and ripped the outlet's publication of columns by John Solomon, the conservative journalist whose work is at the center of what Yovanovitch described as a "smear campaign" against her. "I just find it reprehensible that any newspaper would just be willing to put that kind of crap out that is not — has no veracity whatsoever, and not check to see if it had any veracity," said Speier, a Democrat serving in her seventh term in the House, according to audio of the exchange reviewed by POLITICO. Speier launched into her critique of The Hill after fielding a question from its senior staff writer Scott Wong about who her dream witness would be at the impeachment proceedings.
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| Scientists Are Fighting Over One of the Hottest Places on Earth Posted: 15 Nov 2019 08:30 AM PST  Some say life can exist there. Others say no way.
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| Dressed to Kill: Arming Ukraine Could Put It on a Path Towards War Posted: 14 Nov 2019 09:32 AM PST  Even after Russian military forces withdrawal, deep-seated resentments will linger in Donbas. The lethal aid policy's greatest flaw is that it completely fails to address these resentments, and in doing so, artificially simplifies the conflict to a proxy war with Russia.
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| Iran moves on ultra-cheap petrol, starts rationing Posted: 15 Nov 2019 06:09 AM PST  Iran imposed petrol rationing and raised pump prices by at least 50 percent Friday, saying the move aims to help the needy with cash handouts and is not due to a budget deficit. The Islamic republic provides some of the most heavily subsidised petrol in the world, with the pump price previously standing at just 10,000 rials (less than nine US cents) a litre. "Increasing petrol prices is to the people's benefit and also to help the society's strata under (economic) pressure," President Hassan Rouhani told a cabinet meeting, quoted by state news agency IRNA.
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| Authorities are searching for a woman after finding her husband's corpse in a bedroom freezer Posted: 14 Nov 2019 12:57 PM PST  Authorities are searching for a woman after finding her husband's corpse in a freezer in a bedroom inside her Missouri home, where it may have been stored for nearly a year. Barbara Watters of Joplin, Mo., was charged Wednesday with abandonment of a corpse, a felony that is punishable by up to four years in prison.
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| AP Explains: What’s wrong with hearsay evidence in Congress? Posted: 15 Nov 2019 07:47 AM PST  A leading Republican critique of the House impeachment inquiry is that Democrats are relying on "hearsay" evidence. Two key pieces of evidence have been particularly criticized as unreliable hearsay, or even double hearsay: the initial whistleblower report filed by a member of the intelligence community who was told about President Donald Trump's July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and diplomat William Taylor's testimony that a staff member overheard Trump speaking with European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland about "the investigations" — the day after Trump's phone call with Zelenskiy.
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| A British woman was sentenced to just a year in prison for performing an illegal butt injection that caused a 34-year-old American woman's death Posted: 15 Nov 2019 07:48 AM PST  Donna Francis fled to the UK a day after killing Kelly Mayhew in 2015. She was extradited back to the US in August to face trail. She pleaded guilty.
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| Black South Carolina Leaders Distance Themselves from Buttigieg Campaign’s ‘Douglass Plan’ Posted: 15 Nov 2019 06:58 AM PST  Several black leaders in South Carolina who were listed as supporters of the Buttigieg campaign's "Douglass Plan" distanced themselves from the proposal and the campaign when pressed for comment, saying that the campaign was "intentionally vague" in asking for their endorsements.According to a report from The Intercept, three South Carolina black leaders — Columbia City Councilwoman Tameika Devine, Rehoboth Baptist pastor and state Representative Ivory Thigpen, and Johnnie Cordero, chair of the state party's Black Caucus — all expressed misgivings over the way that the Buttigieg campaign featured their names prominently in an open letter published in the the HBCU Times touting the plan's details."We are over 400 South Carolinians, including business owners, pastors, community leaders, and students. Together, we endorse his Douglass Plan for Black America, the most comprehensive roadmap for tackling systemic racism offered by a 2020 presidential candidate," the letter reads.Buttigieg, who polled at zero percent among black voters in South Carolina earlier this year, recently called his plan "the most comprehensive vision put forward by a 2020 candidate on the question of how we're going to tackle systemic racism in this country."When reached for comment, Devine, Thigpen, and Cordero all denied that they intended their correspondence with the Buttigieg campaign over the plan to be read as an endorsement of the candidate."Clearly from the number of calls I received about my endorsement, I think the way they put it out there wasn't clear, that it was an endorsement of the plan, and that may have been intentionally vague. I'm political, I know how that works," Devine said. "I do think they probably put it out there thinking people wouldn't read the fine print or wouldn't look at the details or even contact the people and say, 'Hey, you're endorsing Mayor Pete?'""How it was rolled out was not an accurate representation of where I stand," Thigpen added. "I didn't know about its rolling out. Somebody brought it to my attention, and it was alarming to me, because even though I had had conversations with the campaign, it was clear to me, or at least I thought I made it clear to them, that I was a strong Bernie Sanders supporter — actually co-chair of the state, and I was not seeking to endorse their candidate or the plan."Cordero, who has since been removed as a public supporter, said he did not know "how my name got on there," and was simply emailed the plan by the campaign and asked for feedback."What I was talking back and forth with them about was, who drafted the plan? I know Pete didn't draft the plan. I'm sure he had his advisers do it. But I wanna know who was involved in this plan such that you can claim that you speak for black America," Cordero said. "The long and the short of it was they never sufficiently answered my questions, so I never actually endorsed the plan. They went ahead and used my name."In a statement to National Review, the Buttigieg campaign said that "we never gave the impression publicly that these people were endorsing Pete, only that they supported the plan.""After they indicated their support, we reached out to people multiple times giving them the opportunity to review the language of the op-ed and the option to opt-out. We did hear from people who weren't comfortable being listed and we removed them," the statement said.A source with knowledge of the situation said that the campaign reached out to Devine on Thursday night, who remained supportive of the plan. It is unclear whether the campaign also reached out to Thigpen.
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| The U.S. Marine Corps Is Making Big Changes (Thanks to Threats from Russia and China) Posted: 14 Nov 2019 09:00 PM PST  It's no secret that the U.S. Marine Corps is changing in order to better prepare for major warfare with China and Russia. Gen. David Berger, the Marine commandant, is overseeing several studies that could result in the Corps cutting some units and adding others and, in the process, radically changing how and why it functions.
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| Man caught at Houston airport with 35 pounds of liquid cocaine in shampoo bottles Posted: 15 Nov 2019 09:15 AM PST  The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol says an arriving passenger tried to smuggle 35 pounds worth of liquid cocaine in shampoo bottles into the country.
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| Khamenei says Iran wants removal of Israel state not people Posted: 14 Nov 2019 04:10 PM PST  Iran's supreme leader said Friday that calls for the abolition of Israel which have sparked outrage in the West target the "imposed state" not the Jewish people. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the future of the land should be decided by Palestinians of all faiths, Jewish as well as Christian and Muslim. "The 'abolition of the Israeli regime' ... does not mean the abolition of Jewish people; we have no problem with them," Khamenei told a meeting of Islamic countries in Tehran, according to his official website.
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| After 50 years, it's past time to bring human LGBTQ+ characters to America's Sesame Street Posted: 15 Nov 2019 05:45 AM PST  International versions of Sesame Street reflect local audiences. America is ready for gay characters but cancellation is a risk in some countries.
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| Yale student fights against his mom’s possible deportation Posted: 14 Nov 2019 03:45 PM PST  A Yale University graduate student is constantly watching his phone as he waits for news on his mother, who is detained and could be deported to Honduras, a country where he says she won't get the medical treatment she needs as a survivor of stage-four cancer. Cristian Padilla Romero, a 24-year-old doctoral student, created an online petition asking for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release his mother, and raised more than $39,000 through a crowdfunding campaign for her legal and medical needs. Padilla Romero, a Ph.D student in Latin American history, faces an uncertain future himself: He is part of a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which shields young immigrants from deportation.
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| Republican Elise Stefanik tangles with Schiff to defend Trump during hearings Posted: 15 Nov 2019 02:26 PM PST  Representative Elise Stefanik, once best known for becoming the youngest woman elected to Congress, stepped into center stage this week as a vocal defender of President Donald Trump during televised impeachment hearings. The three-term congresswoman was one of the sharpest questioners of the three diplomats who testified at public hearings on Wednesday and Friday, overshadowing some colleagues better known for their vociferous defense of the president. Stefanik, 35, has been rated as one of the most bipartisan members of the House, representing a district in northern New York that backed Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012 before going for Trump in 2016.
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| Gay employee says salary was halved to be even with 'females in the office' Posted: 15 Nov 2019 06:33 AM PST  Man claims in lawsuit against New York events company that employers sought to degrade him after they learned he was gayThe New York company stages promotional events for companies including Nike, Twitter and Amazon. Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty ImagesA gay man working at a New York events company has claimed in a discrimination lawsuit that his pay was halved so he would be on a par with "other females in the office".In the lawsuit against Eventique, a company that stages promotional events for companies including Nike, Twitter and Amazon, Wesley Wernecke claims his employers sought to alienate and degrade him after they learned he was gay, NBC news reported.Wernecke claims that a week after he was hired in June, co-workers began to make comments on his "girly" engagement ring. Asked if his wife wore a similar ring, Wernecke replied that his partner, Evan, did.It was then, he claims, that a tense office environment began to develop between him, co-workers and the company's chief executive, CEO Henry Liron David. He was then excluded from meetings and after-work drinks with "the fellas", passed over for assignments and subjected to discriminatory remarks.Wernecke was then called into David's office and told his salary was being cut by more than 50%, from $145,000 to $70,000."I couldn't sleep at night thinking that you were being paid so much more than the other females in the office," David is alleged to have told Wernecke. The CEO, the complaint alleges, "simply could not bear the thought that Eventique would continue to be represented by a gay man".Not long after, Wernecke found his salary had been cut more drastically to $58,000."David took pains to mark Wernecke as different from the other employees through these physical demonstrations," the complaint alleges. The pattern of discrimination taxed Wernecke's mental health and he began taking anti-anxiety medication to cope, he said. By October, he had been fired."Wesley was personally recruited by this employer to be a senior producer, and once [David] learned he was gay, the employer began shutting him out of the business," Wernecke's lawyer Anthony Consiglio told NBC News.A lawyer for David and Eventique described the allegations as "baseless".
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| See Photos of the 2020 Nissan Titan Posted: 15 Nov 2019 06:02 AM PST |
| Virginia police say wanted Marine deserter sought family Posted: 14 Nov 2019 03:29 PM PST  Police in Virginia say the Marine deserter wanted for questioning in a murder case was trying to reach out to a family member when he was spotted. Roanoke Police Chief Tim Jones told a news conference that it's believed Michael Alexander Brown was trying to contact his grandmother when a neighbor saw him early Thursday. The Roanoke Times reports the U.S. Marshals Service learned Sunday night that Brown might be driving a recreational vehicle near Clarendon County, South Carolina, about four hours southwest of Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina, where he had been stationed as a U.S. Marine until leaving his post last month.
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| Rather Than Retiring, The Storied B-52 Is Getting Upgraded. Here's Why Posted: 14 Nov 2019 06:30 PM PST  The Air Force isn't done with it yet.
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| An expert in fraternity hazing deaths says coddling parents are part of the problem Posted: 15 Nov 2019 11:32 AM PST  Hank Nuwer, a journalist who keeps a database on fraternity deaths, thinks parents aren't teaching their children "self-restraint."
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| Israel to probe 'unexpected' civilian casualties in Gaza strike Posted: 15 Nov 2019 11:20 AM PST  Israel's military pledged Friday to investigate unexpected civilian casualties in a strike targeting Islamic Jihad in Gaza, where a ceasefire agreement remained fragile after fighting left 34 Palestinians dead. Israel hit back with strikes early Friday against Islamic Jihad, the second most powerful Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip after Islamist movement Hamas which runs the enclave.
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| Ohio GOP lawmakers want to ban all abortions, charge doctors who perform them with murder Posted: 15 Nov 2019 08:38 AM PST  Republicans in the Ohio House of Representatives signed onto a bill that would ban all abortions in Ohio and charge doctors who perform them with murder.
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| The new seal for the Navy's next aircraft carrier contains a hint about big changes coming to naval aviation Posted: 15 Nov 2019 09:11 AM PST  The recently unveiled seal for the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy features its best-known aircraft, along with a future addition.
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| Federal judge rules U.S.-born 'ISIS bride' is not an American citizen Posted: 14 Nov 2019 02:44 PM PST  A federal judge ruled Thursday that 25-year-old Hoda Muthana, who lived in Alabama but left the U.S. in 2014 to join ISIS, is not an American citizen and therefore the country is not required to repatriate her.
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| Republicans Thought Yovanovitch Would Be a Pushover. She Beat Them Up Instead Posted: 15 Nov 2019 02:21 PM PST  Nicholas Kamm / AFP/ Getty ImagesBefore she even spoke on Friday, President Donald Trump's surrogates in Congress and conservative media expected Marie Yovanovitch to cry on command for the impeachment-hearing cameras. As she began testifying about the smear campaign that forced her from her ambassadorship in Ukraine, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tweeted that impeachment wasn't about her feelings. But for over five hours, the 33-year veteran diplomat left no doubt why she was there and what she endured, even as the president himself weighed in on Twitter seeming to intimidate her as she sat in front of the congressional panel. The president's attack wasn't the only attack she brushed aside. Yovanovitch methodically outplayed a series of Republican efforts to cast her firing as normal, the president's behavior as unremarkable, and the harm she suffered as negligible–rather than the prelude to a shadow diplomatic effort to coerce Ukraine into aiding Trump's reelection. Instead, she made it clear that she would have been an obstacle to the president's pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had she remained in Kyiv. At one point, she told Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) that she would have opposed the summer 2019 suspension of $400 million in U.S. military aid and would never have asked Zelensky to pursue the conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. Asked to affirm that Trump was legitimately concerned about Ukraine corruption, she shot back, "That's what he says."Not much of Friday's hearing, the second in the House impeachment inquiry, went the GOP's way. The exception was Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT), who, knowing that Yovanovitch was fired before the pressure campaign on Zelensky proceeded, got her to concede she had no knowledge of criminal wrongdoing by Trump.Most of their attempts to discredit or dismiss her either fell flat or ended in retreat. Rep. Brad Wenstrup, an Ohio Republican, asked Yovanovitch to affirm that presidents get to select their ambassadors. In perhaps the most powerful line of the hearing, Yovanovitch replied, "I obviously don't dispute the president has the right to withdraw an ambassador at any time for any reason, but what I do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation."Wenstrup quickly replied that wasn't his question, pressed the sound on his mic off and sat back in his chair. When the Republicans' counsel for impeachment, Steve Castor, put forward a series of public statements from 2016 from Ukrainians upset with candidate Trump, Yovanovitch frustrated a line of questioning meant to establish what Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the top Intelligence Committee Republican, called "Ukrainian election meddling.""Those elements you've recited don't seem to be a plan or plot of the Ukrainian government to work against President Trump. Those are isolated incidents," she said. "I've come to learn public life can be quite critical. I'd remind, again, that our own U.S. intelligence community has conclusively determined" that Russia, not Ukraine, interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.Castor also walked into a trap by asking if Trump might have been justified in feeling Ukraine was against him based on internet-borne comments. Yovanovitch, whom Trump had just disparaged in a tweet, icily replied, "Well, sometimes that happens on social media."Stewart, who called impeachment "nonsense," implied it was appropriate for Trump to seek a Ukrainian investigation of Burisma, the national-gas firm that put Joe Biden's son on its board. Yovanovitch responded that "we have a process for that" that Trump did not follow, one involving communication between the Justice Department and its Ukrainian counterpart under a mutual legal-assistance treaty. Stewart reiterated the question "regardless of the process," although corruption definitionally routes around official channels in pursuit of private agendas. Similarly, when John Ratcliffe (R-TX) asked if it was a potential "conflict of interest" for Joe Biden to seek the firing of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor in 2016–a central Republican defense of Trump–Yovanovitch rejected his premise. "I actually don't," she said. "I think the view was that Mr. [Viktor] Shokin was not a good prosecutor-general fighting corruption. I don't think it had to do with the Burisma case."Republicans attempted to approach Yovanovitch respectfully. They praised her service–even as they defended Trump for ending it prematurely–and gave prominence to Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) so as to avoid the optics of men attacking a woman. Yet they were at times dismissive of what Yovanovitch had described as a nightmare. Rep. Michael Conaway (R-TX), asked her basic questions about her post-ambassadorship gig at Georgetown University—how many classes does she teach? How many students does she have?—and the regard her diplomatic colleagues have for her, suggesting that she suffered no real harm after the president capped an assassination of her character by firing her.Later, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) had the room laughing when he spelled out the upshot of that inquiry. "It's like a Hallmark movie," he said from the dais. "You ended up at Georgetown. This is all OK!"The ultimate sabotage to the GOP's attempt to treat Yovanovitch as an impeachment sideshow was committed by Trump himself. With a series of tweets slamming Yovanovitch as she testified, the president did plenty of work to make her appearance even more relevant to the impeachment inquiry. The ambassador—and Democratic lawmakers—said Trump's broadside was intended to intimidate not only her but future impeachment witnesses. It fueled talk of a whole new article of impeachment.Few Republicans felt compelled to justify the president's tweets. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), a reliable ally of the president, said Trump is allowed to defend himself and that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Democratic floor general on impeachment, had cherry-picked tweets about the ambassador to read from the dais. As the hearing wrapped, Republicans maintained that Stewart's line of questioning was the punch that would linger from the hearing. "This witness can't shed any light on what Dems claim are their impeachable offenses, and can't advance their narrative," said a senior House GOP aide.But Democrats left with the impression they got even more than they'd wanted—that a witness initially pitched as someone who could flesh out the human impact of Trump's Ukraine designs served many more purposes."You know, it's funny," said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), "the more the day went on, I personally thought she became more and more enlightening for purposes of our inquiry." The ambassador's appearance met a rare ending for the staid hearing rooms of Capitol Hill. Schiff closed with a thundering statement, and before Yovanovitch could even rise from her chair, the crowd in the gallery erupted in a standing ovation.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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