NEWS WRAP

The Buttigieg bump

• South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg holds a clear lead among Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa, the state that will hold the first nominating contest in February, a new Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom opinion poll showed on Saturday. Buttigieg now enjoys the support of 25 per cent of likely Iowa caucusgoers, ahead of Elizabeth Warren (16 per cent), Joe Biden (15 per cent) and Bernie Sanders (15 per cent) by more than the poll’s margin of error. READ MORE HERE. 
   

• The next Democratic debate on Wednesday (US time) will see ten of the top primary candidates for the Democratic nomination for president take the stage in Atlanta. The debate is co-hosted by MSNBC and The Washington Post. There will be two fewer candidates on stage than in October after former Housing Secretary Julián Castro failed to qualify and former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke ended his bid for the White House. WATCH HERE.
   
• With California polls strongly suggesting she might not win, place — or even show — in her home state, some Democrats are now privately expressing the view that Kamala Harris should begin seriously considering leaving the presidential race to avoid total embarrassment in the state’s early March primary, Politico reports. READ MORE HERE.
   
• The United States does not consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank a violation of international law, the Trump administration announced this week, reversing four decades of American policy and removing what has been an important barrier to annexation of Palestinian territory. READ MORE HERE.
   
• A bill that passed the Ohio House of Representatives last week would force public schools to accept scientifically incorrect answers if those answers align with the student’s religion. Senior Lecturer in American Politics David Smith spoke to SBS's The Feed about the bill and the politics behind it. READ MORE HERE.

ANALYSIS

Malfeasance: A third article of impeachment?

Bruce Wolpe
Non-Resident Senior Fellow

It has been clear for some time that the House Intelligence Committee will recommend at least two articles of impeachment against President Trump: 

1. For bribery and abuse of power, in terms of Trump’s withholding military assistance to Ukraine in order to advance his personal political interests. The aid had been appropriated by Congress and enacted into law, but was used to pressure Ukraine into initiating investigations into Trump’s principal political rival for 2020, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden, as well as into potential Ukrainian collusion with the Democrats in the 2016 presidential campaign. A Trump meeting was also allegedly withheld from the president of Ukraine.
    
2. For obstruction of Congress and its oversight responsibilities under Article I of the Constitution, in terms of blocking the testimony of witnesses and the provision of documents relating to congressional investigations of President Trump and his administration. This included orders to senior officials, such as the acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and the former national security advisor John Bolton, not to testify before relevant House of Representatives committees.

The record the Intelligence Committee is building is formidable and establishes that the president attempted to condition US-Ukraine relations on Ukraine’s direct involvement in activities designed to benefit Trump’s re-election by targeting his chief political opponent.

While these two articles of impeachment would capture a substantial part of the activities of President Trump that are subject to examination under the impeachment inquiry resolution adopted by the House in October, they do not reach to one further critical area of activity by the president in violation of his oath of office: 

The corruption of proper government processes by the establishment of a parallel, shadow foreign policy structure through Rudy Giuliani – a private citizen and personal attorney to Trump – that by-passed and overrode the execution of formal US foreign policy with respect to Ukraine. This is repeatedly documented in the depositions and testimony of Ukraine Acting Ambassador William Taylor, EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, former ambassador Kurt Volker, national security staff Lt. Col. Arthur Vindman, State Department officer David Holmes (“Our diplomatic policy… became overshadowed by a political agenda being promoted by Rudy Giuliani”)  and others.

The displacement of the State Department officials and diplomats by the president's personal attorney, and his associates, constitutes malfeasance in office. An article of impeachment on malfeasance would address the corruption of the US government’s official foreign policy processes with respect to Ukraine – all the things Trump, Mulvaney, Secretary of State Pompeo and Secretary of Energy Perry did that were irregular in the conduct of foreign policy towards Ukraine – and capture the activities of Rudy Giuliani, which were expressly encouraged by President Trump (“I will have Mr Giuliani give you a call,” Trump said to Zelensky).

A hallmark of aggressive oversight by Congress is to uncover malfeasance by public officials holding high office. From the deliberations of the Founders, “high crimes and misdemeanors” – part of the basis in the Constitution for impeachment – certainly included maladministration of office.

While further testimony before the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees will amplify this issue, assessment of an article of impeachment on President Trump’s malfeasance in the conduct of the foreign policy of the United States merits consideration by the Intelligence Committee.

DIARY

The week ahead

• Wednesday, 20 November: EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland will testify in the House Intelligence Committee's public impeachment hearing.
   

• Wednesday, 20 November: The US House of Representatives will vote on a short-term spending bill to fund the government through to December 20.
   

• Thursday, 21 November: President Trump will present national medals of arts and humanities.
   

• Friday, 22 November: Twitter's global ban on all political advertising goes into effect.
   

• Monday, 25 November: Both houses of Australian Parliament resume in Canberra

VIDEO

Key moments from former American ambassador to Ukraine Marie L. Yovanovitch in impeachment hearing

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

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