A ‘Danger to Liberty’: Adam Schiff Invokes Alexander Hamilton as Democrats Take the Impeachment Stage

Rep. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.) kicked off Democratic opening arguments in President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday with a quote from Alexander Hamilton, as the House Intelligence Committee chairman made the case for removing the president from office.

“When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents,” Schiff recited, “having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanor—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government and bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'”

Hamilton’s words were written in a letter to then-President George Washington as he voiced widespread concerns that the head of the U.S. might descend into “that of a monarchy.”

In that vein, Schiff, who is one of the impeachment managers tasked with prosecuting Trump during his Senate trial, noted that the Founding Fathers were wary of presidents potentially using the power of their office to advance their personal interests. Trump, he said, crossed that threshold when he sought to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy into announcing investigations of Trump’s political rivals, particularly as it pertains to his alleged withholding of $391 million in congressionally authorized military aid to the country. The House in December charged him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and the Government Accountability Office deemed that aid blockage illegal in January.

Trump’s representation, led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone, counter that the articles of impeachment do not contain actual criminal allegations—the law referenced in the GAO’s decision is not mentioned in the articles—which means they are thus unimpeachable. Many legal experts have pushed back on that, though, including Jonathan Turley, the Republicans’ witness at the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearing on December 4th.

The expression “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors reflects an obvious intent to convey that the impeachable acts other than bribery and treason were meant to reach a similar level of gravity and seriousness (even if they are not technically criminal acts),” wrote Turley.

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Is Huawei Behind The Massive Semiconductor Bubble… And Why It’s About To Burst

Is Huawei Behind The Massive Semiconductor Bubble… And Why It’s About To Burst

For those still looking for signs that there central banks have created an epic asset bubble of unprecedented proportions, and who refuse to acknowledge that the S&P is now trading at higher multiples than the first tech bubble…

… we have just the chart for you: the SOX Philadelphia Semiconductor series.

Having successfully blown past the dot com highs, the SOX index has nearly doubled over the the past year, yet what is bizarre is that this move certainly was not on the back of earnings, which are now lower than where they were when the index was over 40% lower!

This unprecedented – and growing – stock price bubble has not escaped the attention of the “smart money” either. Indeed, as Bloomberg writes today, even as hedge funds’ exposure to tech shares remains at the highest level in at least a decade, they haven’t added to holdings in software and service providers. Instead, hedge funds are betting big on the chipmakers and hardware firms, according to prime brokerage data compiled by Morgan Stanley. Bloomberg continues:

While hedge funds don’t always get things right – their newly found affection with semiconductor makers came after a distaste that caused them pains in early 2019 – the willingness to seek out under-owned stocks is a sign they may be leery about crowding into names that were popular last year. That can be good news to a market where the risk of a rapid unwind is evident to anyone who watched crowded stocks bear the brunt of selling last September.

Unfortunately, we have a feeling that these same hedge funds will be wrong once again, and not just because the SOX index now appears to be pricing in the strongest economic recovery since the financial crisis as shown in the chart below:

In retrospect, it appears that the key reason behind the tremendous surge in the SOX has nothing to do with hedge fund buying, and little to do with the Fed, and everything to do with China’s blacklisted telecom giant that Washington views as a global security threat: Huawei.

According to the Nikkei, Huawei is scrambling to stockpile up to a year’s worth of foreign supplies for its core telecoms equipment business ahead of a widely-expected toughening of U.S. technology sanctions that may come as soon as next month.

The new U.S. measures, which Huawei and its suppliers fear could amount to a U.S. technology quarantine of the world’s largest telecoms equipment maker, are hardly surprising in light of the escalating tech war between the US and China – which is not to be confused with the far more theatrical trade war which is there mostly for public consumption and political benefit – and underlines how the two countries’ battle for global technological and military supremacy continues unabated even as Washington and Beijing sign a token “phase one” trade deal last week, which neither side will adhere to.

With a purchasing “quarantine” imminent, one whose purpose would be to cripple Huawei’s challenge to US tech dominance, what does the Chinese telecom giant do? Well, obviously, it unleashes a furious buying spree to restock on every possible piece of equipment it could need for the foreseeable future. Indeed, as Nikkei highlights, in a sign of how seriously Huawei is taking the risk of an outright U.S. ban, the company which has a roughly $70 billion global procurement budget, was prioritizing inventory for its more strategic 4G and 5G routers, switches and base stations businesses over its smartphones operation.

“It is [also] easier for Huawei to stockpile components for its telecoms equipment business as that does not require as many [imported] components as its smartphones,” one source familiar with Huawei’s thinking said. In 2019, Huawei shipped 240 million smartphones compared to millions of base station units.

Until now, Asian suppliers to Huawei such as Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker and also Apple’s largest chip supplier, have been exempt from sale restrictions to Huawei as the components they sell have less than 25% American content. Now, however, sources told Nikkei “they fear that the mooted new rules could lower the content threshold to 10% or even 0% — as tough a level of sanctions as that faced by Iran.”

Furthermore, industry sources, Asian government officials and lawyers believe the ban could be extended to include U.S.-made equipment from companies such as Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA Group that is used to manufacture chips.

Could Huawei – which the Nikkei notes had also stockpiled foreign supplies ahead of that move – possibly be the catalyst behind the tremendous chip rally over the past year? Think of this way: a company will pay virtually anything (especially since the money comes from Beijing) and on a very truncated timeline, which means vendors can demand any price and Huawei will have no choice but to pay it. The result: an exponential surge in the SOX index (as shown in the chart above).

That said, this frenetic purchasing spree has a deadline, and if the Nikkei is correct, it could come as soon as next month: “Although there are no details about the scope or timing of the widely rumored tightening of sanctions, two sources close to Huawei said the company anticipates it could happen next month.”

Others agree. Harry Clark, a Washington-based lawyer and chair of Orrick international trade and compliance group, told Nikkei he was aware that “the U.S. government may soon adjust these rules to expand the scope of items that are subject to Export Administration Regulation, at least with respect to transfers to export-sanctioned Huawei entities.”

Clark added that: “We understand that the U.S. government is [also] considering expanding the types of microelectronics hardware, including production equipment … to be covered by EAR controls.”

If and when an expanded ban hits Huawei, watch out below, as the it would impact a far wider array of U.S. companies such as Corning, which supplies glass to Huawei for its smartphones, as well as Asian suppliers such as Sony, liquid crystal display maker Japan Display, South Korea’s LG Display and Samsung, as well as Taiwanese contract chip makers TSMC and United Microelectronics Corp.

One can argue that just as fast as the SOX went up, it may now tumble as Huawei restrictions are extended. In fact, it could be even faster. Some U.S. hawks are reportedly seeking an outright quarantine on all sales to Huawei. They may even be seeking to ban all U.S. technology sales to China, though no consensus exists on the issue in the White House, the Wall Street Journal recently reported.

And here is the punchline from the Nikkei why Huawei singlehandedly may have led to the SOX bubble:

Even if sanctions are not tightened, the possibility that they might be has already had widespread effects. For one, Asian suppliers say the recent spike of Huawei orders has warped their production schedules out of shape.

“Huawei’s team are quite credible and mostly keep its promises. … That’s why we have helped them expand,” said one tech industry executive. “But we are also concerned that it might suddenly scale back its orders at some point.”

Another executive at a Huawei supplier added: “We have been a bit conservative in customizing production for Huawei too much in case the company adjusts it orders and later we need to find other clients.”

What happens to prices when companies scramble to find other clients? Well, let’s just say it’s not conducive to the continuation of the exponential increase in the SOX index.

There is another reason why Huawei’s involvement pushed the SOX sharply higher: the prospect of tighter sanctions has increased the urgency with which Huawei has pushed suppliers, and their supply chains, to increase production in China,  just as Washington is doing much the same.

Finally, what happens of and when the US does rolls out the expanded Huawei sanctions? For the answer look no further than the Baltic Dry index which soared higher in 2019 as purchases orders were pulled forward and global commerce exploded to frontrun China’s tariffs, only to plunge now that the tentative stalemate between the US and China is in place.

And as the Baltic Dry craters to four year lows as trade, paradoxically, grinds to a halt with so much having been pulled forward from the future, is the green line above about to become the red line, and is the massive chip bubble finally pops and follows in its footsteps?


Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/22/2020 – 17:05

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The Trump Administration Wants To Deport an Iraqi Refugee for Being an Islamic State Terrorist. The Only Problem? He’s Not.

When Omar Ameen was arrested in Sacramento, California, in August 2018, federal authorities claimed to have apprehended a dangerous and wanted terrorist who had managed to infiltrate the United States by posing as a refugee from Iraq.

Ameen, the Justice Department said in a statement announcing his arrest, had been a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq and later an operative for the Islamic State. As part of those terrorist organizations, Ameen had “participated in various activities in support of those terrorist organizations, including helping to plant improvised explosive devices, and committing the murder” of a police officer in his hometown of Rawah, near the Syrian border, during the Islamic State’s 2014 takeover of the region. Ameen had escaped justice in Iraq, then “concealed his membership in those terrorist groups when he applied for refugee status, and later when he applied for a green card in the United States,” the Justice Department said.

It was exactly the type of story that confirmed many anti-immigrant, anti-refugee biases. Local and national news outlets ran with the story of the Islamic State militant arrested on American soil. Here was proof that Islamic State members and other terrorists could infiltrate America by posing as refugees—just as President Donald Trump had warned during a presidential debate in October 2016, when he said accepting more refugees from Syria and Iraq would be “the great Trojan horse of all time.”

Except, as an infuriating and deeply reported piece by Ben Taub at The New Yorker argues persuasively, almost none of the basic facts reported by the Justice Department in those original statements seem to stand up to scrutiny. Despite that, Ameen has been locked up in a maximum-security federal prison for more than two years, and the Trump administration is still working to extradite him to Iraq—where Ameen would likely be executed for a crime he did not commit.

The biggest problem with the Iraqi and American governments’ case against Ameen? He wasn’t even in Iraq when he supposedly committed the murder at the center of his arrest and extradition request.

Ameen and his family fled Iraq in 2012—two years before he supposedly committed that murder—and were living in Turkey after applying for refugee status through a United Nations resettlement program. In order to believe that Ameen is guilty of that crime, you’d have to believe that he returned to Iraq—traveling 600 miles from Istanbul, passing through the chaos of the ongoing Syrian Civil War, and jeopardizing his own life and his family’s refugee status—just to kill a single police officer in his former home town before returning to Turkey. That’s quite a stretch.

But Ameen has more than just a good alibi. Perhaps the most infuriating part of Taub’s article is a detail that federal prosecutors refused to allow to be disclosed in court documents—citing a risk to “national security” if it was disclosed.

That detail? As Taub reports:

[Assistant U.S. Attorney Audrey] Hemesath’s secret filing reveals that, “subsequent to the arrest of Ameen, the United States came into possession of potentially exculpatory alibi information.” The evidence, which appears to have been collected as part of a surveillance operation on an unwitting target, reveals that “an individual believed to have been co-located with Ameen in Turkey during the pertinent timeframe claims that Ameen never left Turkey.”

In other words, the U.S. government has proof that Ameen’s alibi is accurate—but it has refused to allow that document to be part of the official record of Ameen’s extradition case.

“There’s nothing about that sentence that jeopardizes national security,” Ben Galloway, Ameen’s attorney, tells The New Yorker. “It jeopardizes their case.”

To believe that Ameen is an Islamic State fighter who brilliantly conned the United States into granting him refugee status requires an even bigger leap of faith. The U.N. program where Ameen, his wife, and their three children sought refuge resettles people in dozens of countries around the world, and the refugees themselves have no say in where they end up. If the U.N. decided to send Ameen and his family to the United States as part of a conspiracy to infiltrate America with terrorists, then how many other officials must have been part of the scheme?

It would also require you to believe that American immigration officials somehow missed all of this when vetting Ameen’s family for refugee status. And you’d have to come up with an adequate answer to the question of why Ameen would go through that years-long process to gain entry to the U.S.—without knowing that he would be sent to the U.S.—when he could have simply bought a plane ticket and come into the country on temporary, tourist visas (like the 9/11 hijackers did).

Between landing in the U.S. in 2014 and being arrested in 2018, Taub reports, Ameen had worked as an Uber driver and a mechanic. He’s volunteered at a Mormon charity and learned English. He and his wife had another child—an American citizen—and have applied for green cards.

This is, to put it mildly, not exactly the profile of a hardened terrorist determined to do harm to America.

But he’s hardly alone. The whole notion of refugees as “Trojan horse” terrorists-in-waiting is bunk.

In a 2016 study of domestic terror attacks conducted by foreign-born individuals, Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst for the Cato Institute, a free market think tank based in Washington, D.C., looked at the period from 1975 through 2015. He found that 154 foreign-born terrorists carried out attacks on U.S. soil that killed 3,024 people. More than 98 percent of those deaths occurred on September 11, 2001.

In a follow-up study published in October by the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Nowrasteh and three of his colleagues found “no relationship between immigration and terrorism, whether measured by the number of attacks or victims, in destination countries,” even when immigration comes from Muslim majority countries and countries involved in ongoing armed conflicts, like Iraq.

But that hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from stoking fears of terrorism as justification for cutting how many refugees America will accept. The U.S. will accept just18,000 refugees this year, down from a cap of 30,000 in 2019. That’s the lowest total in any single year since 1980, when the current refugee resettlement law was passed by Congress, according to the Pew Research Center.

Now, the Trump administration seems determined to make an example out of Ameen.

“The project of government relies on nonpolitical career officials following orders, and executing them well,” writes Taub. The FBI, Department of Homeland Security, State Department, and Justice Department, he writes, “have been co-opted into a campaign to extradite an innocent man to almost certain death, in order to make a racist talking point appear to be slightly less of a fiction.”

The judge in Ameen’s case has given the defense until January 29th to make their final arguments. Under the laws governing U.S. extradition cases, the government only has to show that there is “probable cause” Ameen committed the 2014 murder, not prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

There is no probable cause. And sending Ameen back to Iraq would be tantamount to giving him a death sentence—seriously, read all the way to the end of Taub’s piece, because the kicker is a real doozy.

For now, Ameen remains in a max security prison cell. He’s an innocent man who fled a disaster caused by misguided American foreign policy, only to wind up a victim of misguided American immigration policy.

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“Now We See The Violence Inherent In The System”

“Now We See The Violence Inherent In The System”

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Apparently Bill Gates has sat on his ass and contributed nothing to Microsoft’s success over the past 44 years… at least, according to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

At an event commemorating Martin Luther King on Monday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told the audience that wealthy people “sat on a couch” while “undocumented workers” earning “slave wages” created all the wealth and value.

“No one ever makes a billion dollars,” she said. “You take a billion dollars.” And the crowd went wild.

She went on, chuckling that “there is a case” that “billionaires are inherently, morally corrupt,” and that “if Jeff Bezos wants to be a good person he’d turn Amazon into a worker cooperative. . .”

And this is the solution that AOC is posing; she wants to completely upend the system and turn the country into a Marxist collective.

It’s worth noting that AOC is not stupid. Conservative media likes to beat up on her and make her out to be an idiot. She’s not.

AOC is clearly an intelligent person, and some of what she says is true. One of her central themes, in fact, is that a lot of people are getting screwed by the system. And it’s hard to argue with that.

The primary danger, as is the case with most politicians, is that AOC doesn’t seem to have a grasp of the problem.

Why are people getting screwed by the system? Why is healthcare so expensive? Why is education so expensive? Why haven’t many workers’ wages kept up with inflation?

She makes no attempt to understand the root cause of these issues, and that’s extremely counterproductive. No one can solve a problem which they haven’t properly defined.

Instead, AOC simply blames wealthy people for all the ills of the world – the wealth gap, environmental issues, social injustice, etc.

And her solution for everything is to confiscate their property.

Not to be outdone, two separate sets of video recordings have recently been leaked by Project Veritas in which Bernie Sanders campaign staffers call for violent revolution and for wealthy people to be incarcerated in forced labor camps.

One of them even said, “Guillotine the rich!”

And all of this, of course, has taken place in a time when gangs of violent thugs (who call themselves ‘Antifa’) have started roaming the streets of major cities and physically assaulting their perceived political opponents.

It almost makes me breathe a sigh of relief: it’s finally out there in the open. These Bolsheviks are finally saying what’s really on their minds– they’re not bothering to hide their true thoughts anymore.

They want to punish and kill rich people. They want violence. They want to steal private property and redistribute it to workers.

It almost seems like a weird twist on that hilarious scene in Monty Python where the peasant from the “anarcho-syndicalist commune” gets into an altercation with King Arthur and shouts, “Now we see the violence inherent in the system!”

Except it’s not a comedy. This is real life. And all of it would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

Do you have a Plan B? If not now, when?

And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.


Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/22/2020 – 16:45

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WTI Extends Losses To 7-Week Lows After Large Crude, Product Builds

WTI Extends Losses To 7-Week Lows After Large Crude, Product Builds

Oil traded down notably today, plumbing 7-week lows on concerns that the deadly coronavirus that’s spreading from China will crimp energy demand in a market already awash with supplies.

The oil-price decline “is a manifestation of worries about global oil demand,” said Stewart Glickman, an analyst at CFRA Research.

And tonight’s inventory data could well exacerbate that concern.

API

  • Crude +1.57mm (-1.0mm exp)

  • Cushing -429k

  • Gasoline +4.5mm (+3.3mm exp)

  • Distillates +3.5mm (+1.6mm exp)

Despite last week’s huge product builds, analysts continue to expect more increases in inventories and they did. Crude stocks rose 1.57mm barrels against the 1mm draw expected…

Source: Bloomberg

The 3% drop today is somewhat ironic since it perfectly matches Goldman’s estimate overnight at the impact the virus would have on price…

Goldman estimate that global oil demand may slip by 260,000 barrels a day this year as a result of the respiratory virus. If the 2003 SARS epidemic is any guide, this new outbreak could shave almost $3 from the price of a barrel of crude, the bank said.

“We could see weaker Chinese oil demand over the next several weeks or even longer,” said Leo Mariani, energy analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.

“Going into the Chinese New Year, we tend to see outside travel throughout China and there’s big concerns about a demand shock.”

WTI hovered around $56.60 (lows of the day) ahead of the API data and extended losses as the print hit…

 


Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/22/2020 – 16:38

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via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3azL59q Tyler Durden

Hubris Defined

Hubris Defined

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

One day this bull market will end and the age of the central banking enabled debt bubble will be exposed for the hubris that it is and all the sins of “potential side effects” that central bankers warn about but never do anything about will come back to haunt all of us.

It’ll be the age of the great unwind. Nobody will tell us in the moment when it peaks and I suspect it will not start with a bang, rather a whimper, but only end with a bang.

And this great unwind will not last a month or a year, but many years as all the excesses will have to work themselves through the system and all the systematic buy programs will turn into systematic sell programs that will be just as relentless on the way down as they were on the way up.

The very notion of the permanent can kicking we are witnessing now will reveal itself to have been a fantasy. People forget that 2019 and into 2020 came about because of systemic failure of epic proportions. The single one time central bankers tried to tighten blew up in their faces. And the Fed’s forced re-expansion of their balance sheet has now bestowed this blow-off top that has pushed asset prices the farthest distance above the underlying size of the economy that we’ve ever seen. A perversion of the financial system that has created wealth for the few not seen since the 1920s.

I can’t know when this process begins. Nobody can. For all I know it begins today. Or it could be months from now. The price action will tell us. Economically, technically, structurally it’s all set up for it.

Global growth keeps structurally weakening. Plain obvious fact. Demographics are changing and have been changing and continue to change and they are not conducive to new organic growth. Technology remains deflationary. Debt burdens keep exploding and ALL of it is held up by central bankers, none of it would be sustainable at this point without all these interventions that we keep seeing. It’s a crisis. Full stop. If you have to intervene you are fighting a crisis. And they are intervening as much as they did in the depths of the financial crisis.

The Fed’s now been exposed by all the major banks to be the driver of this rally. Even last week when I was personally being arrogantly dismissed as a “swashbuckling pirate QE conspiracist” by a US Fed president on twitter (sometimes all one can do is laugh) major banks have all come out and have called the Fed’s action QE and directly responsible for goosing asset prices.

Even today the CEO of Morgan Stanley called it QE:

People have resigned themselves to believing that central banks will forever prevent downturns and busts. No literally.

Here’s Bridgewater’s Prince declaring the boom-bust cycle to be over while in the same breath admitting that central bank tightening is a virtual impossibility as it causes market pain:

Why is that? Because central banks are trapped, the entire world is trapped.

This part of the cycle is the most dangerous. Why? Because it has now produced the most dangerous investor behavior. Chasing vertical charts irrespective or price or valuations, $TSLA being an example of many.

While many investors and participants may not have been around during the bubble in 2000, they may well end up re-learning its lessons that hard way.

This is not a rally born from strength and growth. It is born out of desperation, fear and failure. Failure to normalize balance sheets and interest rates. Fear of a larger market downturn. Desperation to keep a liquidity starved overnight market under control.

In process multiples have massively expanded over the past year:

While profit margins have continued to decline:

None of these concerns will matter until complacency gets punished for in the end math matters, valuations matter and technicals matter. And then the age of hubris will come undone.

*  *  *

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Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/22/2020 – 16:25

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The Senate Can (but Probably Won’t) Fill the Gaps in the Case for a Ukraine Quid Pro Quo

Donald Trump’s lawyers argue that the Senate should insist on proof beyond a reasonable doubt in deciding whether to convict him of the charges described in the articles of impeachment. If so, his acquittal is not only inevitable for strictly political reasons but justified by an honest assessment of the existing evidence. It is not at all clear, however, that the standard of proof used in a criminal trial is appropriate in this context.

The Senate is not deciding whether Trump has violated a criminal statute, and the consequences of convicting him do not include a loss of liberty. In the extremely unlikely event that 67 senators vote to convict the president, he will not go to prison. He will simply lose his job and will not be allowed to reapply for it (or any other federal “office of honor, trust or profit”). Furthermore, that job will be taken over by his hand-picked successor, Vice President Mike Pence.

The appropriate standard of proof also depends on the consequences of allowing a president who is guilty of impeachable offenses to remain in office. While a murderer who is acquitted might kill again (although probably not, judging from recidivism rates), a president as corrupt as the House managers portray Trump to be is in a position to do a lot more damage. Weighing the risk to the nation against the risk to Trump suggests that something short of proof beyond a reasonable doubt—clear and convincing evidence, perhaps—should suffice to convict him.

The strongest argument for acquitting Trump is not the dubious claim that “high crimes and misdemeanors” are limited to indictable offenses. Nor is it that Trump “did nothing wrong,” because his behavior vis-à-vis Ukraine was “perfectly appropriate,” as his lawyers maintain. The strongest argument is that the most serious charge against Trump—that he pressured the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation of a political rival by delaying congressionally approved military aid—has not been adequately proven.

The case for that quid pro quo relies mostly on circumstantial evidence and inferences. To my mind, the circumstantial evidence is strong, and the inferences are reasonable. But as the record stands, a senator who takes his constitutional responsibilities seriously could reasonably decide that it falls short of clear and convincing evidence (assuming that is the appropriate standard). At the same time, such a senator certainly should be interested in hearing witnesses and seeing documents that might clarify Trump’s motives in ordering a freeze on the military assistance—witnesses and documents that the president so far has managed to keep under wraps.

Trump’s lawyers say he delayed the aid because he wanted to make sure that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy was serious about fighting corruption and because he thought other Western countries were not doing enough to help Ukraine. But these seem like post-hoc rationalizations for a decision that puzzled and alarmed administration officials, several of whom testified that they never heard an official explanation for it, let alone one that was both credible and legitimate.

The lack of an alternative explanation led officials such as Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, to conclude that Trump held up the aid as part of his effort to instigate Ukrainian investigations that would benefit him politically. Sondland testified that he told a senior Ukrainian official the aid was contingent on the investigations. Trump lifted the aid block, which the Government Accountability Office recently deemed a violation of the Impoundment Control Act, only after his July 25 telephone conversation with Zelenskiy, during which he asked the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, prompted a whistleblower complaint and a congressional inquiry.

Trump’s lawyers say that phone call, which is perhaps the most incriminating piece of evidence against him, actually vindicates him by showing that he was sincerely concerned about official corruption in Ukraine. But Trump never explicitly broached that subject during the call (or during his first telephone conversation with Zelenskiy on April 21), and his lawyers’ interpretation hinges on reading his interest in an investigation of Biden as an indication of a general concern about corruption. Similarly, they present his very specific interest in a bizarre conspiracy theory that blames Ukraine for stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2016 and framing Russia for that crime as evidence of his high-minded motives.

Trump asked Zelenskiy to look into those matters immediately after Zelenskiy expressed his gratitude for U.S. military support. “I would like you to do us a favor, though,” Trump said before describing the investigations he wanted. Trump’s lawyers think the president’s critics are reading too much into that suspicious juxtaposition. “The President was clearly transitioning to a new subject,” they say.

Trump’s trial memorandum also suggests that his private denials of a quid pro quo prove there was none. Yet both of the conversations highlighted by Trump’s lawyers came after the whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump was encouraging the Ukrainian government to meddle in domestic U.S. politics.

During an August 31 phone call, Sen. Ron Johnson (R–Wis.) says, he directly asked Trump if the release of the military aid was conditioned on the “favor” he wanted from Zelenskiy: probes of alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election and Biden’s alleged attempt to stop an investigation of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that employed his son as a board member. According to Johnson, Trump replied, “No way. I would never do that. Who told you that?” Johnson told Trump he had heard of the arrangement from Sondland, who was intimately involved, along with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, in efforts to secure a public announcement of those investigations from Zelenskiy.

The second denial of a quid pro quo happened during a September 7 conversation between Sondland and Trump. When Sondland asked Trump what he wanted from Zelenskiy, Sondland later testified, Trump said something to this effect: “I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelenskiy to do the right thing.” The “right thing,” according to Trump himself, was “a major investigation into the Bidens.”

By the time he denied a quid pro quo to Johnson and Sondland, Trump apparently was already aware of the whistleblower’s allegations. Last November The New York Times reported, based on the accounts of “two people familiar with the matter,” that “lawyers from the White House counsel’s office told Mr. Trump in late August about the complaint.” Given the timing, the denials cited by Trump’s lawyers seem more like rehearsals for his public defense than candid accounts of his motives.

Trump’s lawyers also emphasize that Zelenskiy has repeatedly denied a quid pro quo, saying he did not feel pressured to undertake the investigations sought by Trump (although he did object to the aid freeze itself). Given Ukraine’s dependence on U.S. assistance and Trump’s goodwill, those denials are both understandable and highly implausible.

In any case, Trump’s lawyers say, Zelenskiy was not aware of the aid freeze until it was reported in Politico on August 28. If Zelenskiy did not know that Trump was withholding this desperately desired assistance, they say, the “pause” could not have figured into his willingness to do as Trump asked. Yet administration officials testified that Ukrainian diplomats were already inquiring about the aid on the day of the July 25 call. Olena Zerkal, a former Ukrainian deputy foreign minister, has said she was aware of the freeze by July 30, thanks to a cable sent by Ukrainian officials in Washington, D.C., the previous week. That cable, she said, was “simultaneously” sent to Zelenskiy’s office.

Be that as it may, Trump’s lawyers say, the president lifted the freeze without obtaining the commitment he sought. But Trump made that decision amid congressional pressure and an already public controversy over the propriety of his interactions with the Ukrainian government. Furthermore, the House managers note, Zelenskiy had actually agreed to announce the investigations Trump wanted and planned to do so during a CNN interview that he canceled after Trump lifted the freeze on September 11.

Giuliani, who presented himself to the Ukrainian government as Trump’s “personal counsel” acting with the president’s “knowledge and consent,” has said the investigations of Biden and supposed Ukrainian meddling in the presidential election promised to uncover “information [that] will be very, very helpful to my client.” Last May he told The New York Times there was “nothing illegal” about his lobbying, since “this isn’t foreign policy,” although “somebody could say it’s improper.” Giuliani, who was avowedly seeking information that would be personally helpful to Trump, was at the center of the administration’s efforts to obtain the “favor” that the president wanted. Trump asked Zelenskiy to confer with Giuliani about the investigations.

At an October 17 press briefing, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Trump wanted “a statement by the Ukraine about how they were going to deal with corruption” before releasing the aid. He said “the money held up had absolutely nothing to do with Biden,” but “the corruption related to the DNC server”—i.e., the fantastical notion that the server from which the DNC’s emails had been stolen was stashed away somewhere in Ukraine—”absolutely” did figure into the aid delay. “No question about that,” Mulvaney said. “But that’s it. And that’s why we held up the money.”

While these facts are pretty damning, open-minded senators (assuming any exist) would be interested in further exploring Trump’s motives by examining relevant documents and hearing from officials (such as Mulvaney and former National Security Adviser John Bolton) who directly interacted with the president before, during, and after the aid freeze. Maybe the inferences that Sondland and other underlings drew about Trump’s reason for blocking the money were mistaken. Maybe Trump’s after-the-fact explanations, however implausible they might seem, are true. But unless several Republican senators side with Democrats in seeking additional evidence, those crucial questions will remain unanswered during Trump’s trial.

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Stocks Give Up Early Gains As “Contained” Coronavirus Death-Count Doubles Overnight

Stocks Give Up Early Gains As “Contained” Coronavirus Death-Count Doubles Overnight

“It’s contained” was apparently the narrative-du-jour…

…never mind the actual facts on the ground as cases soar, deaths spike, and China declares martial law in all but name…Stocks were steady so all is well…

Chinese stocks rose because “contained”…

Source: Bloomberg

European markets opened higher because “contained” but faded as the day wore on…

Source: Bloomberg

US markets were buoyant on hopes of “contained” but as reality hit during the day, and the WHO press conference, stocks faded…

 

Futures show the price action a little clearer – from the moment it was announced that the virus had reached US…

Bloomberg reports that demand for U.S. technology stocks has become so relentless that it’s time for “pulling in the horns,” according to Tony Dwyer, Canaccord Genuity LLC’s chief market strategist. “A temporary correction” is to be expected, Dwyer wrote.

Source: Bloomberg

Tesla soared to a new record high – topping $100bn market cap and VW for the first time as the world’s largest carmaker…

Source: Bloomberg

Beyond Meat puked…

Source: Bloomberg

Boeing was all over the place despite CEO confidence…

Source: Bloomberg

The flu-shot makers tumbled back to earth today because “contained”…

Source: Bloomberg

Second day in a row, defensive stocks dominated cyclicals…

Source: Bloomberg

HY credit protection is notably decoupling from equity protection costs…

Source: Bloomberg

And HYG (US HY Bond ETF) is flashing a warning message)…

Source: Bloomberg

The decoupling between bonds and stocks has become ridonculous…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields tumbled further today

Source: Bloomberg

30Y Yield closed at its lowest since Dec 3rd…

Source: Bloomberg

2Y Yields closed at 3mo lows…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar trod water once again, ending very modestly lower…

Source: Bloomberg

Despite stocks arguing that the virus is “contained”, Yuan tumbled…

Source: Bloomberg

Cable rallied on the Brexit vote today…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin remained ‘steady’ around $8600-8700…

Source: Bloomberg

Copper and Crude sank notably today (not “contained”) with PMs flat to slightly higher…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI traded down to a $56 handle ahead of tonight’s API inventory data…

Platinum and Paladium bounced back today from their significant drops yesterday…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, we note that ‘hard’ data is not buying what ‘soft’ survey data is selling…hope remains!

Source: Bloomberg

Specs are record levered long…

What could go wrong?


Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/22/2020 – 16:01

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Technology Internet
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Biden Bites Head Off CBS Journo Who Asked About Bernie Feud

Biden Bites Head Off CBS Journo Who Asked About Bernie Feud

Joe Biden just went full Corn Pop on a CBS reporter on Tuesday after being asked about his decision to attack Bernie Sanders, despite clearing the air over a dispute on Social Security the day before.

Biden was leaving a campaign event in Mason City, Iowa on Wednesday, ignoring several questions by CBS‘s Ed O’Keefe about the incident – before spinning around and approaching a stunned O’Keefe while jabbering “Why, why, why, why, why, why, why! You’re getting nervous, man. Calm down! It’s OK!” as he poked the reporter in the chest.


Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/22/2020 – 15:57

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EV Blog Admits: Tesla’s “Autopilot Will Probably Not Stop For Service Vehicles Parked In Lanes Of Traffic”

EV Blog Admits: Tesla’s “Autopilot Will Probably Not Stop For Service Vehicles Parked In Lanes Of Traffic”

It look as though the EV community is finally starting to wake up to a fact that’s been obvious to the rest of us for quite a while now: Tesla vehicles on Autopilot don’t seem to recognize service vehicles parked in lanes of traffic.

Now we’re not automated driving engineers here at Zero Hedge, but we did see enough instances over the last couple of years (like this and this) of Teslas crashing into inanimate service vehicles on the road that we knew there was an issue.

Meanwhile, the tree-huggers over at blogs like Inside EVs were a little slower on the uptake. But that’s OK, because it looks as though they are finally starting to acknowledge the issue. 

They were prompted to make the admission after a 10 minute a video was published explaining why Tesla’s Autopilot crashed into stopped police cars on the highway.

The first minute of the video is nothing but police dashcam footage showing Teslas plowing into police cars on the side of the road and is disturbing to watch. 

Then, the maker of the video goes on to offer his take on what the problem is. 

“I have a lot of experience using Autopilot,” the author of the video says. “So, why did this accident happen?” he continues.

After first placing a majority of the blame on the drivers (a classic Tesla move), saying they “abuse autopilot”, he then still goes on to ask why Autopilot didn’t see the parked vehicles.

In answering his own question, he pulls out the Model 3 handbook and notes this part, that says that Autopilot “cannot detect all objects” and “especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph”.

Even more specifically, it says that “Control cannot detect objects that are only partially in the driving lane…”

That’s comforting to know. 

“There is no such thing as a fully autonomous car yet,” he concludes. “At the end of the day we are still driving these cars.”

He also places some of the blame on the technology that Tesla uses, radar. “Radar has to ignore non-moving objects,” he says. 

The remaining videos over at Dirty Tesla on YouTube also highlight Tesla’s Autopilot at work, in various situations, to try and lay out clearly what the company should have already done already: explained clearly when Autopilot will work and when it won’t work.

Who knows – perhaps a couple of lives would have been saved at this point if they had done so? 


Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/22/2020 – 15:52

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Technology Internet

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2sN2JVW Tyler Durden