Category Archives: Viva!

Zantac Pulled From Shelves by Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS Over Carcinogen Fears

Oops! The pharmacy chains are pulling the heartburn medication from shelves after the Food and Drug Administration warned that it had detected low levels of a cancer-causing chemical in samples of the drug.

Donald Trump has put whistleblower in danger, lawyers say

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Lawyers acting for the whistleblower at the centre of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s attempts to solicit foreign help for his re-election campaign have warned that their client’s personal safety is in danger, partly as a result of the president’s remarks.

Related: Rudy Giuliani: Biden aides say TV news must stop booking Trump lawyer

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The House must flex its constitutional muscles to get to Trump | Laurence H Tribe

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Only the procedures enshrined in the impeachment process have the power to cut through the president’s smokescreens

There is now powerful evidence that Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses by using his foreign policy and military powers to solicit (and all but coerce) Ukraine’s president to interfere with the 2020 presidential election. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, has confirmed that the House will move swiftly to investigate this threat to democracy, national security, and the separation of powers.

Related: Trump can do more damage than Nixon. His impeachment is imperative | Robert Reich

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Swedish navy returns to vast underground HQ amid Russia fears

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Cavernous docks can shelter warships, with miles of tunnels, offices, and a hospital

Sweden’s navy HQ is returning to a vast underground cold war fortress designed to withstand a nuclear attack, in what has been seen as a defensive move against a resurgent Russia.

After a 25-year absence, the navy will once again be commanded from beneath billions of tonnes of granite as the country strives to build up its defences in response to the perceived threat from Moscow.

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Groping claims against Boris Johnson shrugged off by allies

Ladies beware!

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Prime minister denies allegations that he squeezed the leg of Charlotte Edwardes

Boris Johnson’s senior ministers have attempted to minimise the allegations that he groped a journalist’s inner thigh at a dinner in 1999 as the party tried to get its conference back on to the subject of Brexit and domestic policy.

Nicky Morgan, the culture secretary and former minister for women, gave her wholehearted backing to the prime minister, saying: there is “no truth in these allegations”, while housing minister, Esther McVey, suggested journalists needed to go back and check it really happened.

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Boris Johnson plans customs sites for Irish border, reports claim

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RTE cites leaked proposals for clearance areas 5-10 miles from border and real-time tracking of goods

Boris Johnson’s secret plans to solve the Irish border Brexit challenge involve customs sites on both sides of the border and real-time tracking devices on lorries, it has been reported.

The ideas, which mark a departure from his promise not to put infrastructure on the border, are part of four unofficial papers submitted by the UK to Brussels by Johnson’s team.

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“Giuliani set to make paid appearance at Kremlin-backed conference that includes Putin” (Updated to include NRA bribing Trump content)

GRIFTERS, THE, Eddie Jones, John Cusack, 1990

No joke (as if). In the WAPO but can’t link on my phone.

. . . Link

You couldn’t pay me enough to be on that plane.

Some highlights:

“[Rudy is] set to appear as a paid speaker at a Kremlin-backed conference in Armenia on Tuesday — an event expected to include the participation of Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and other top Russian officials…. According to an agenda for the event posted online, Giuliani is set to participate in a panel led by Sergey Glazyev, a longtime Putin adviser who has been under U.S. sanctions since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine five years ago. Giuliani’s decision to take part in the conference astounded national security experts.

The former New York mayor confirmed he will be paid for his appearance but declined to say how much he would receive or which group or person will foot the bill….

Current and former White House aides said there is internal exasperation with Giuliani’s behavior and the fact that he does not clear his media appearances or paid speeches with the administration…”

. . . Well that didn’t go over too well with his boss I guess. Apparently Putin doesn’t want this kind of publicity:

GIULIANI texts me, “Not going,” when asked about the Washington Post report about his planned appearance at a reportedly Kremlin-linked event for a speech.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 27, 2019

My favorite part of this is how they had him on a panel that might as well have been entitled Paying Off a Political Asset With No Discernible Knowledge of the Putative Topic:

Earlier in the day, Giuliani is set to appear on a panel titled “Digital financial technologies — new opportunities for integrating payment systems of the Eurasian continent in transport logistics.”

. . . and in less time than it takes to find a lost shaker of salt, another massive grift is revealed:

President Trump met Friday with National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre to discuss how the gun rights organization could possibly provide financial assistance to help defend the president as he faces a scandal, The New York Times reported Friday, citing two people familiar with the situation. 

An administration official confirmed to The Hill that Trump and LaPierre met, but did not say what they discussed.

The Times reported that it was not clear who initiated the meeting, but that in it, LaPierre requested that the White House “stop the games” on gun control legislation.

Following mass shootings earlier this year, Trump has floated various possible gun legislation measures. According to the Times, LaPierre has attempted to sway Trump against background check measures the president said he could support. 

Just in from the WSJ (h/t UNE):

“National Rifle Association funds paid for lodging and travel of Russian nationals throughout 2015 and 2016, as part of a relationship that allowed foreign actors looking to influence the U.S. election, including now-convicted Maria Butina, to infiltrate the gun-rights group, a new report asserts.

The report, released Friday by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, also says NRA leaders traveled to Moscow in December 2015 partly on the NRA’s dime, even though some went there to pursue their own personal business opportunities. This raises questions, the report says, about whether they violated laws on how nonprofit funds can be used…

The Democrats’ report also documents a parallel effort by then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to build relationships with NRA officers. It says the NRA delegation in Moscow met with more senior officials than previously known, including multiple oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin, two sanctioned individuals, and a person Ms. Butina claimed was Mr. Putin’s campaign manager…

The Democrats’ report includes new details about the relationship between the NRA and the Russian nationals, pushing back on the gun group’s early assertions that it wasn’t working with them in an official way. The report documents formal communications with the Russian nationals and details how NRA funds ended up in a shell company set up by Ms. Butina to reimburse her for costs associated with the 2015 Moscow trip.”

And (h/t pigboy):

Russia on Friday urged the United States not to publish Donald Trump’s conversations with Vladimir Putin after a growing scandal led the White House to release a transcript from a call with Ukraine’s leader.

“As for transcripts of phone conversations, my mother when bringing me up said that reading other people’s letters is inappropriate,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters at the United Nations.

“It is indecent,” he said. “For two people elected by their nations to be at the helm, there are diplomatic manners that suppose a certain level of confidentiality.”

Lavrov, who met Friday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, criticized both US lawmakers and media for the release of the transcript.

“Being so vociferous in saying that if you don’t show a certain memo involving a partner, that you’re going to bring this administration to its knees, what kind of democracy is that? How can you work in such conditions?” he said.

Trump’s relationship with Putin has come under intense scrutiny.
The US leader has praised Putin and appeared to accept his denials of US intelligence’s finding that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to benefit Trump.

And (h/t Satanic Panic):

Kurt Volker, US special envoy to Ukraine, has resigned one day after the release of a whistleblower report alleging a coverup by the White House of a call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President, three sources familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN.

Volker was named in the report. The State Department has not returned messages seeking comment.


The State Press, the school paper of Arizona State University, first reported Volker’s resignation.

And the hits just keep on coming:

White House efforts to limit access to President Donald Trump’s conversations with foreign leaders extended to phone calls with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the matter.

Those calls — both with leaders who maintain controversial relationships with Trump — were among the presidential conversations that aides took remarkable steps to keep from becoming public.

In the case of Trump’s call with Prince Mohammed, officials who ordinarily would have been given access to a rough transcript of the conversation never saw one, according to one of the sources. Instead, a transcript was never circulated at all, which the source said was highly unusual, particularly after a high-profile conversation.

The call – which the person said contained no especially sensitive national security secrets — came as the White House was confronting the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which US intelligence assessments said came at the hand of the Saudi government.

With Putin, access to the transcript of at least one of Trump’s conversations was also tightly restricted, according to a former Trump administration official.

It’s not clear if aides took the additional step of placing the Saudi Arabia and Russia phone calls in the same highly secured electronic system that held a now-infamous phone call with Ukraine’s president and which helped spark a whistleblower complaint made public this week, though officials confirmed calls aside from the Ukraine conversation were placed there.

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Giuliani Cannot Rely on Attorney-Client Privilege to Avoid Congressional Testimony

Participating in a shakedown is a felony bub!

Rudy Giuliani introduces then-candidate Donald Trump at an Iowa campaign rally in September 2016. (Source: Flickr/John Pemble, CC BY-ND 2.0)

As the House of Representatives launches its impeachment inquiry with a focus on President Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine, the question has been raised whether the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, will testify before Congress.  According to CNN, Giuliani has said that he would need to consult with Trump before testifying before Congress because of the attorney-client privilege.  This reflects a fundamental misapprehension of how the attorney-client privilege might apply in these circumstances—and, indeed, whether it could provide a bulwark against compelled congressional testimony at all.

At the outset, it is unclear that much of the information of interest to Congress regarding Giuliani’s conduct would even potentially be subject to the attorney-client privilege. The privilege exists to protect the confidential communication between a client and an attorney made for the purpose of obtaining legal advice. It does not protect, for instance, communications your attorney may have had with, say, foreign government officials—or, for that matter, with U.S. government officials.

And, of course, the privilege wouldn’t reach communications where Giuliani was not acting in his capacity as a lawyer providing legal advice. Yet Giuliani himself just told The Atlantic regarding his work in Ukraine, “I’m not acting as a lawyer. I’m acting as someone who has devoted most of his life to straightening out government.” And the conduct at issue—pushing arguments about potential corruption to foreign officials—does not appear to involve providing confidential legal advice. It is not even clear that Giuliani’s conduct constitutes legal work performed in his capacity as Trump’s attorney, even if it were charitably viewed as something other than political campaign work. 

Nor does the course of dealing, so far as it is presently known, suggest that Trump was conveying confidences to Giuliani for the purpose of receiving legal advice from him, rather than directing him to undertake other (nonlegal) activities on the president’s behalf. Directives of this sort, of course, would not be privileged. Indeed, it is not clear what legal advice the president would have needed regarding corruption in Ukraine, at least prior to recent developments. So reasonable minds might question whether any of the communications between the president and Giuliani are protected by the privilege, much less information regarding Giuliani’s other conduct and interactions with third parties.

But even positing for the sake of argument that there may be some communications on the Ukraine issues that might potentially be subject to the privilege, those residual “privileged” communications would have little protection against compelled congressional testimony.

First, it is Congress’s long-standing position that the attorney-client privilege does not afford protection against compelled congressional testimony. Although Congress may consider claims of attorney-client privilege at its discretion, it does not recognize the common law privilege as a bar to compelled disclosure. Rather, it has consistently taken the position that it can insist that privileged communications be disclosed. Consistent with this position, a committee that calls Giuliani for testimony can simply direct him to answer if he were to attempt to assert attorney-client privilege, and can hold him in contempt if he does not comply.

Second, attorney-client privilege can be waived. Under the third-party waiver doctrine, disclosure of privileged communications to a third party typically effects a waiver of the privilege. And in order to prevent the use of the privilege as both a sword and a shield at the same time, the subject-matter waiver doctrine holds that any waiver of the attorney-client privilege generally extends to the entire subject matter to which the disclosed communication related, not just the specific communication disclosed. To the extent that the efforts with Ukraine at issue here appear to involve a large number of people, and in light of the fact that both the president and Giuliani have been publicly discussing those efforts, there may be good arguments that there has been a waiver as to some, if not all, of the communications.

Third, there is a crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege. Communications seeking advice related to the current or future commission of a crime, rather than the consequences of past actions, are not protected by the privilege. In light of the substantial questions that have been raised as to whether these events contain a violation of campaign finance law, or indeed another crime, it is possible that this too might preclude an assertion of the privilege.

If the attorney-client privilege is not available to Giuliani, what about executive privilege? The administration has recently claimed that executive privilege can shield the president’s communications even with some individuals outside the executive branch. But even setting aside questions about whether such an extension of the privilege is supportable, there is a separate reason it cannot be available here: Giuliani represents Trump in the president’s personal capacity, not his official capacity.

Executive privilege, of course, exists to protect the president’s ability to perform his constitutionally assigned—that is, official—functions. Indeed, two circuit courts considering similar privilege and waiver questions during the Whitewater investigations found the divergence of interests between personal capacity and official capacity representations to be significant. It is not clear how it would be possible here to reconcile Giuliani’s obligations as a lawyer for the president in his personal capacity, on the one hand, with the limitation of executive privilege to circumstances where it is necessary to protect the president’s ability to effectively perform his constitutional functions, on the other. As these two cases make clear, representing the president in his personal capacity involves a different set of interests and concerns than the official, governmental decision-making processes executive privilege is designed to protect.

Thus, to the extent Giuliani has been relying on privilege as a way to avoid testifying before Congress, he may need to think again.

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John E. Bies is Chief Counsel at American Oversight, a non-profit focused on government accountability. He served for eight years in the Obama administration at the Department of Justice, first as Counselor to Attorney General Eric Holder and then spending seven years as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel where he advised White House and executive branch officials on FOIA, Congressional oversight, executive privilege, ethics, separation of powers, and other constitutional, statutory, and administrative law issues. Prior to his service in the government, Bies handled complex civil litigation and investigation and enforcement matters as a partner at Covington & Burling LLP and clerked for Judge Sandra Lynch on the First Circuit. He received his law degree with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School.

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Sunday, September 29, 2019, 10:52 PM
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House Democrats Slap Mike Pompeo with Subpoenas: Failure to Comply ‘Shall Constitute Evidence of Obstruction’

What did Secretary of State Mike Pompeo know about Ukraine and when did he know it? Clearly, that’s what Democrats on three House committees want to know, given that they issued subpoenas for documents on Friday pursuant to their impeachment inquiry. That wasn’t all: They declared that a “failure or refusal to comply […]  shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry.”

House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) each signed the letter to Pompeo.

In it, they demanded documents by Oct. 4, and set depositions between Oct. 2 and Oct. 10.

“This subpoena is being issued by the Committee on Foreign Affairs after consultation with the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on Oversight and Reform,” they letter said. “The subpoenaed documents shall be part of the impeachment inquiry and shared among the Committees. Your failure or refusal to comply with the subpoena shall constitute evidence fo obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry.”

From there, the chairmen explained what they were investigating (i.e. what they needed the documents for).

“The Committees are investigating the extent to which President Trump jeopardized national security by pressing Ukraine to interfere with our 2020 election and by withholding security assistance provided by Congress to help Ukraine counter Russia aggression,” they said, adding that they already asked Pompeo to produce documents by Sept. 16 and did not receive them.

Nor did other State Department employees’ names — names that popped up in the whistleblower complaint — escape mention.

Counselor of the Department T. Ulrich Brechbuhl “listened in” on the July 25 phone call between Trump and and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, said the whistleblower; Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker “played a direct role in arranging meetings between Rudy Giuliani, and representatives of President Zelensky, ” said the chairmen.

Giuliani himself said that was the case on Twitter. Volker resigned on Friday.

Why does this text and date render the hearsay so-called whistleblower useless and not credible? If you get even one reason I might recommend you for Law School. Two and it’s LawReview. Answers later. Watch Laura at 10 pm. pic.twitter.com/fN1kOtclaM

— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) September 26, 2019

“Your continued refusal to provide the requested documents not only prevents our Committees from fully investigating these matters, but impairs Congress’ ability to fulfill its Constitutional responsibilities to protect our national security and the integrity of our democracy,” the letter said.

You can read the letter to Pompeo below.

This is a developing story.

Democrats Subpoena Mike Pompeo by Law&Crime on Scribd

[Image via BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/Getty Images]