impeachment, and more!

busy week in US politics. Looks like some cards are getting flipped over now.

• House Judiciary drafts Articles of Impeachment, committee to vote later this week, full House vote next week?
• FBI Inspector General Horowitz releases report. Repeated subversion of FISA rules by FBI. Makes a liar out of House Intel Cmte. Chairman Schiff (among others). Nothing-criminal-going-on-here conclusion. Horowitz recommends additional follow-up work to correct deficiencies in following rules. Republican defenders of Trump, Barr and Durham, suggest there is more dirt to come via counter-investigations.
• Giuliani goes to Ukraine and gets a nervous-looking Viktor Shokin on camera. Clips were briefly popping up from a right-wing news outlet, One America News, which I won’t link here. If authentic, this would be troubling for Biden. Shokin was Ukraine’s Prosecutor General (similar to an Attorney General in the US), and was forced out at Biden’s specific request, but “not because of Burisma”. In the clips, Shokin (via a translator) appears to state that he was in the process of investigating Burisma when Ukr. President Poroshenko asked him to resign, that this happened after Poroshenko spoke to Biden who expressed displeasure at the investigations and was witholding $1B of loan guarantees, that Poroshenko said Burisma is the main part of the reason he was asked to resign, and that Shokin thinks there is a telephone record between Poroshenko and Biden that is relevant.

I have a feeling this wasn’t supposed to happen, usually there is a backroom deal to settle these matters out of sight of the public. It may yet disappear, which would be a sign of a deal.

• Oh, and out of nowhere, the “New NAFTA” is suddenly ready, with House Speaker Pelosi ready to jump on it in an incongruous show of bipartisanship.
• Also, some report about Afghanistan, but I’m not sure who even considers that news at this point

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