October 26, 2019

Trump’s Impeachment Woes Grow In Latest Twitter Rant

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Somebody is thinking about impeachment this morning. 

President Donald Trump’s latest weekend tweetstorm took aim at Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), two of the top Democrats leading the chamber’s investigation into whether Trump’s request for Ukraine to investigate a political rival merits his removal from office.  

He described Pelosi’s congressional district in San Francisco as “very bad and dangerous” due to “these hazardous waste and homeless sites” and repeated the false claim that Schiff “got caught cheating when he made up” in a hearing what Trump told the Ukrainian president during their July conversation. (Schiff, during the hearing, said his abbreviated retelling of the call was meant to reflect “the essence of what the president communicates”—not an exact transcript.)

The tweets, which also included a ding at Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.)’s “badly failing” presidential campaign and a video highlighting his administration’s response to the opioid crisis, occurred during the weekend broadcast of Fox & Friends, Trump’s favorite morning news show. 

After the show finished airing, Trump turned to his other favorite subjects: the anonymous whistleblower, whose report incited the House’s investigation into Trump’s Ukraine call, and the “Fake Washington Post,” which published a story late Friday night detailing how Trump is “increasingly frustrated that his efforts to stop people from cooperating with the probe have so far collapsed under the weight of legally powerful congressional subpoenas.” 

Friday night brought more bad news for Trump by way of a federal judge’s ruling that the impeachment inquiry is legal. The 75-page ruling also said lawmakers would be able to view redacted materials from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling, which could add a different component to the House’s widening inquiry.

Trump has not tweeted about that ruling yet, but it’s Saturday and he has no public events scheduled, so expect a busy afternoon for his keyboard. 

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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.

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