Trump ordered the hold on aid to Ukraine less than two hours after the fateful July 25th call with Zelensky.  The email was revealed over the weekend, part of a Freedom of Information Act  lawsuit judgement issued late last week.  The lawsuit had been filed by the Center for Public Integrity.

The email came from OMB official Michael Duffy and was to the DoD, ordering the halt on the funds.  Chuck Schumer has Duffy on the the witness list that the WH and Mitch McConnell is blocking.  Shumer’s list is short but telling.  He wants to hear from Duffy, Mick Mulvaney, John Bolton, and Mulvaney aide Robert Blair.

Witnesses for innocent people are always allowed to testify.  These aren’t.  Draw your own conclusions.

File under What a Coingkidink, Trump’s State Department has been notifying former Clinton aids that emails sent to Hillary years ago have be RETROACTIVELY CLASSIFIED and that the investigation into her private email server has been reopened.  Of course, this new very serious “investigation” has nothing to do with Trump’s woes, I’m sure.  Not passing the straight faced test, a senior State Department official said, “This has nothing to do with who is in the White House.  This is about the time it took to go through millions of emails, which is about 3½ years.” Uh-huh. Right.

This feels like yet another abuse of power by Trump’s goon squad, whipped back up to give him more manure to throw against the wall on Fox Noise.