Trump Invents New Reason for Stonewalling Congress: They Aren’t Fair

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

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You may recall that Gordon Sondland is a key figure in the Ukrainegate scandal. Sondland is our ambassador to the EU, but he’s not a career diplomat. He was rewarded with the job because he’s a big Trump donor and loyalist.

There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s traditional for high-profile US ambassadors to be political donors. And in this case it’s good for Trump: Sondland is surely likely to put a favorable spin on things when he testifies about Ukraine in front of three House committee. In fact, his lawyer said he was eager to testify voluntarily, and he had flown back from Brussels to appear this morning.

But at the last minute his appearance was squashed by the State Department. Why? Executive privilege? Lack of time to properly prepare? Concern over the possible release of classified material? Nope:

That’s right: Trump has ordered Sondland not to appear before the House because he thinks the House investigation is totally unfair. That’s a new one! And one of Trump’s most loyal spear carriers in the House completely agrees:

“The way [Schiff] treated Volker last week, that treatment is the reason why the State Department and the White House said we’re not going to subject Ambassador Sondland to the same treatment,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, told reporters.

“Ambassador Volker was not giving them the answers that they were leading Ambassador Volker to conclude,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), another of the president’s allies on Capitol Hill. “This president did not hold aid to try to influence a foreign country to do anything.”

Actually, Volker gave them a whole lot of the answers they were looking for. Details here. Nonetheless, Sen. Lindsey Graham was also on the president’s side:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), one of the president’s closest allies, said on Twitter it was “time for the Senate to inquire about corruption and other improprieties involving Ukraine.” He said that he would offer Mr. Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, “the opportunity to come before the Senate Judiciary Committee to inform the committee of his concerns.”

Translation: Forget about Trump’s actual corruption, we should be more concerned with hearing about made-up conspiracy theories regarding Ukraine and Democrats. And who better to provide that kind of thing than Rudy Giuliani?

For the record, our ambassador to Ukraine thought it was clear that we were holding up military aid to Ukraine until they agreed to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden. This was also the understanding of Sen. Ron Johnson after he talked to Sondland. And it was certainly mighty suspicious that Trump held up the Ukraine aid and then instructed his aides to lie to Congress about why he was doing it. Still, Trump has totally denied that he did anything wrong, so that should be that. Right? Why bother investigating any further, especially in front of a committee run by Democrats who are clearly total hacks and completely unfair?

It’s too bad Democrats were unaware of this defense back in the day. It sure would have cut short a lot of unpleasantness. The next stop, I suppose, is a subpoena, which the White House will ignore and which Democrats will take to court. That should burn off several months of time and prevent any impeachment vote this year. Or so they hope.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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