Date: 2024-12-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00018319
US Politics 2020
The Las Vegas Debate
Daily Beast ... Bloomberg Spent Hundreds of Millions to Get His Ass Kicked ... THAT’S GOTTA HURT ... It became clear early on that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was not welcome on the debate stage or anywhere else in the Democratic primary by the 2020 field.
Peter Burgess
LAS VEGAS—In a city that runs on cash, Mike Bloomberg learned that all the money in the world couldn’t save him from an unrelenting pummeling from the 2020 field.
In the grand tradition of a Vegas fight night, Wednesday’s face-off at the Paris Hotel was the most contentious Democratic debate of the 2020 nomination cycle. The six candidates onstage drew sharp-edged contrasts on matters of both policy and personality, with a near-singular focus on newcomer Bloomberg—and with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has defined her candidacy around sticking it to the wealthy and well-connected typified by the New York billionaire, leading the charge.
“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against: a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians,” Warren said immediately out of the gate, in an exchange that set the tone for the following two hours. “No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump—I’m talking about Michael Bloomberg.”
“Look, I’ll support whoever the Democratic nominee is,” Warren added later.” But understand this: Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another.”
Even though the night started with a round of attacks focused squarely on Bloomberg’s record as mayor of New York, the chippiness quickly spilled over to former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who grouped Bloomberg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders together as each too polarizing to win a general election.
Buttigieg warned that Democrats could awake the day after Super Tuesday with Sanders and Bloomberg as the only candidates left standing, who are “the two most polarizing figures on this stage.”
“We shouldn’t have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party out,” Buttigieg said.
Bloomberg, the billionaire owner of the eponymous financial information and news conglomerate and former mayor-for-life of New York City, became the unofficial target of every other candidate onstage the moment that he qualified for the debate—his first since the Democratic National Committee changed eligibility rules to allow self-funded candidates to participate.
The decision outraged candidates across the ideological spectrum, with Warren, who has made disentangling the American political system from the wealthy and influential the bedrock of her candidacy, using Bloomberg’s entrance as an opportunity to jumpstart her struggling campaign.
Warren was largely an afterthought during the previous debate in New Hampshire and after finishing a distant fourth in the primary she appeared to have lost all momentum.
That changed Wednesday night, as she clashed with Bloomberg over his record with women and nondisclosure agreements, a topic squarely in her wheelhouse of transparency and gender issues.
Bloomberg seemed visibly uncomfortable with Warren’s continued pressing for more information on specific aspects of his treatment of women. At one juncture, she asked the billionaire Democrat how many women were subjected to nondisclosure agreements under his leadership.
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“This is not just a question of the mayor’s character,” Warren said. “This is also a question about electability. We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many nondisclosure agreements and the drip drip drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against. That’s not what we do as Democrats.”
(Asked after the debate if he felt that Bloomberg—who has a long history of allegedly making inappropriate and offensive comments about women—had adequately prepared for the assault, campaign adviser Howard Wolfson said that while “nobody is perfect,” the former mayor was proud of creating “an inclusive workplace that values everyone.”)
As Bloomberg took hit after hit over his professional conduct, mayoral record, and refusal to release women from nondisclosure agreements, Sanders—who emerged victorious in last week’s New Hampshire primary and appears poised to win Nevada’s upcoming caucuses—emerged from the debate practically unscathed.
“It was a bit of a battle royale,” Wolfson told reporters in the spin room after the debate, although he insisted that Bloomberg had drawn a “clear contrast” between himself and Sanders and added that the contest for the Democratic nomination was a race between the two.
“This is going to be a two-person race,” Wolfson said. “Bernie Sanders in first, Mike Bloomberg in second.”
Short of a tense exchange earlier in the evening with Buttigieg over the perceived extremism of some of his online supporters, the Vermont senator was almost never on the receiving end of the traditional frontrunner treatment.
Bloomberg’s entrance also spelled trouble for other moderate options on stage. A source close to former Vice President Joe Biden told The Daily Beast ahead of Wednesday night’s event that he was “going to be feistier” than in previous debates, with a particular focus on the former New York City mayor, a strategy that he—like nearly every other person onstage—had already previewed in the days leading up to Las Vegas.
But Biden failed to be a chief antagonist for Bloomberg as his campaign struggles to recover after a pair of humiliating lower-tier finishes in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary largely knocked the wind out of his poll numbers. Biden tried again Wednesday night to focus on the electability argument despite his lack of success in Iowa and New Hampshire, but his performance focused on telling the crowd he was electable rather than showing it.
While the New Hampshire debate may have vaulted Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar to a surprise third place finish in the state, Bloomberg’s debate stage entrance made Klobuchar’s preferred centrist lane more crowded than it had been in months.
The added competition from the former mayor relegated Klobuchar to emphasizing again her credentials as a proven lawmaker as she attacked Bloomberg for “hiding behind his TV ads.” She further had to play clean-up over an earlier failure to name the president of Mexico, giving Warren the chance to show support for Klobuchar in one of the debate’s kinder moments.
Tensions also continued to escalate between Buttigieg and Klobuchar; the Midwestern rivals have little time left to stand out before the crucial Super Tuesday contests.
Before he weathered many of the Democratic field’s constant attacks Wednesday night, Bloomberg tried to win over Democratic voters on one of the issues they care about most: Who can beat President Trump?
Nominating Sanders, Bloomberg said, means another four years of Trump.
“I’m a New Yorker,” Bloomberg said. “I know how to take on an arrogant con man like Donald Trump that comes from New York.”
In a moment that may foreshadow tensions yet to come, the candidates were asked toward the end whether the person with the most delegates should be the nominee even if they come into the convention short of a majority.
“No,” Biden said. “Let the process work its way out.”
And even after getting shredded by his 2020 rivals, Bloomberg couldn’t pass on making one last dig about his financial power in the presidential race where he has already spent hundreds of millions.
“You can join me at mikebloomberg.com too if you want,” the former mayor said shortly before the debate ended. “But I’m not asking for any money.”
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—With additional reporting by Hanna Trudo. Scott Bixby National Reporter @ScottBix Scott.Bixby@thedailybeast.com Hunter Woodall Politics Reporter @HunterMw Hunter.Woodall@thedailybeast.com Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here. READ THIS LIST Judge Rips Roger Stone, Gives Him 40 Months in Prison BETSY SWAN Follow Jane Fonda’s Hair Example. Go White, Not Gray. ALAINA DEMOPOULOS The Dems Are Missing the Ingredient That Will Defeat Trump MICHAEL TOMASKY White Guys Get Pardons, Black Folks Get a Super Bowl Ad KALI HOLLOWAY Racist German Shooter Exposes the Global Network of Hate JOSEPHINE HUETLIN AD CVS Health: Helping To Make Medicine More Affordable BY CVS HEALTH AD CVS Health: Helping To Make Medicine More Affordable BY CVS HEALTH Trump Ally Roger Stone Gets 40 Months for Lying, Witness-Tampering ‘TRUTH STILL MATTERS’ “He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson declared. Betsy Swan Political Reporter Updated Feb. 20, 2020 1:17PM ET / Published Feb. 20, 2020 12:33PM ET A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Roger Stone to 40 months in prison—saying his lies to Congress were a threat to “the very foundation of our democracy,” but still giving him less time than prosecutors had originally recommended. They had asked for a sentence of seven to nine years, which infuriated President Trump. The Department of Justice then stepped in and suggested a much lower sentence, but Judge Amy Berman Jackson said the self-professed dirty trickster still deserved “substantial” time. “The truth still exists. The truth still matters,” Jackson said in a speech before handing down the sentence. “Roger Stone’s insistence that it doesn’t—his belligerence, his pride in his own lies—are a threat to our most fundamental institutions, to the very foundation of our democracy.” Stone—who was convicted last November of seven charges, including lying to congressional investigators, witness tampering, and obstructing justice—won’t immediately go to prison. Jackson is weighing a motion from his lawyers for a retrial. Stone’s team have argued that anti-Trump social media posts from the jury forewoman meant his conviction was tainted by political bias. President Donald Trump has tweeted the same sentiment. Jackson said Thursday the prosecution was not a political hit job. “He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president,” she declared. “He was prosecuted for covering up for the president.” The judge also noted that Stone lied to Congress when he said he had no written communications with his WikiLeaks intermediary, Jerome Corsi. She said Stone should spend a substantial time behind bars because he lied about a matter of national and international importance. “This is not campaign hijinks,” Jackson said. “This is not Roger just being Roger.” Stone’s sentencing process became a political near-emergency for the Trump administration. Last week, the career prosecutors handling the case—including three alums of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe—recommended the judge give Stone a sentence of seven to nine years in prison. At about 2 a.m. the morning after the recommendation was filed, Trump tweeted out pointed criticism of the move. Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice! https://twitter.com/ChuckRossDC/status/1227016256227807232 … Chuck Ross ✔ @ChuckRossDC Prosecutors recommend up to NINE YEARS in prison for Roger Stone. They call foreign election interference a 'deadly adversary' even though Stone was never accused of working with Russians or WikiLeaks. https://dailycaller.com/2020/02/10/prosecutors-nine-years-prison-roger-stone/ … 97.5K 1:48 AM - Feb 11, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 52.6K people are talking about this The next morning, unnamed Justice Department officials signaled to reporters that headquarters would overrule the recommendation. And that afternoon, they filed a letter with the court overriding the prosecutors and calling for Stone to receive a much shorter prison sentence. As a result, all four prosecutors handling the Stone case withdrew from it. Attorney General Bill Barr has maintained that he made up his mind about the sentence before seeing the president’s tweet. But in an eye-popping interview with ABC News, he did say that Trump’s tweets about DOJ cases “make it impossible” for him to do his job. Jackson said Thursday that “the government’s initial memorandum was thorough, well-researched, and supported”—but that even without the “unprecedented actions” by the DOJ in the past week, she still would think seven to nine years is too long. RELATED IN POLITICS Roger Stone Allies See Trump’s Clemency Blitz as a Sign 'FILE PHOTO: Roger Stone, former campaign adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives for his criminal trial on charges of lying to Congress, obstructing justice and witness tampering at U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S., November 6, 2019. REUTERS/Tom Brenner/File Photo - RC2ZXE9CHSZM' Prosecutors Quit After DOJ Tries to Chop Stone’s Sentence Groveling Barr Just Pissed Away DOJ’s Greatest Power Earlier in the hearing, John Crabb, deputy chief of the Criminal Division of the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office, apologized for the confusion the government created in the sentencing process. “I fear that you know less about the case and saw less of the testimony and exhibits than just about everybody else in this courtroom, with possible exception of the defense attorney who just joined the team,” Jackson told him. Crabb replied that “this confusion was not caused by the original trial team.” “This prosecution was and this prosecution is righteous,” he said, adding that the original trial team had authorization from the U.S. Attorney’s office to file the memo they submitted. A key substantive issue in the dispute over Stone’s sentence was whether or not the judge should weigh messages between Stone and his ex-associate Randy Credico in determining whether to add several years to the baseline sentence. In one of the messages, Stone wrote to Credico: “I am so ready. Let’s get it on. Prepare to die.” In another, he wrote, “I’m going to take that dog away from you. Not a fucking thing you can do about it either, because you are a weak, broke, piece of shit.” In recommending the seven-to-nine-year sentence, the prosecutors called those comments “outright threats.” At the sentencing hearing, defense attorney Seth Ginsberg brushed off the messages, insisting, “Mr. Stone is known for using rough, provocative, hyperbolic language.” “Mr. Credico knew that. They have a long, 20-year relationship,” he added. “Mr. Credico understood it was just Stone being Stone. He’s all bark, no bite.” But Jackson repudiated Ginsberg’s assertion, saying the messages were “hardly” just banter, as the defense had claimed. “Mr. Credico, who had no wife or children, was extremely close to his dog of 12 years and Mr. Stone knew that well,” Jackson said. “This is intolerable to the administration of justice and the court should not sit idly by, shrug its shoulders, and say, ‘Oh, that’s just Roger being Roger,’ or it wouldn’t have grounds to act the next time someone tries it.” The Despicable History of Roger Stone FILE # NY NY 139-301 Michael Daly Credico wrote in a letter to the judge that he never believed Stone posed “a direct physical threat” to him or to his small fluffy dog, Bianca—and the DOJ cited the letter in its decision to override the prosecutors’ initial recommendation. But Jackson called the letter into question on Thursday, saying Credico “appeared on the stand to be a highly nervous individual, and it may well be even today that he just doesn’t want to be known as the reason behind a tough sentence.” Credico told The Daily Beast on Wednesday he was angry that Justice Department leadership used his letter to push for a shorter sentence. “These are the type of guys that any defense attorney would want as a prosecutor, because they did not cheat, they did not fudge, they just did their job and methodically went through with it,” he said of the original team. “So for Trump to give these guys a bum rap and then Barr gave them the bum’s rush—these guys are two fucking bums to do that, because you are besmirching and smearing four career civil servants.” Stone’s involvement in the Trump/Russia saga goes way back. Stone says Roy Cohn introduced him to Trump in 1979, as The Wall Street Journal has detailed. Stone’s lobbying firm later did work for the Trump organization, and the men attended each other’s weddings (in Stone’s case, he attended two of Trump’s, per WSJ). Stone also joined Trump’s then-longshot 2016 presidential bid right at its inception, but soon left the operation. Trump has said he fired Stone, while Stone says he quit. Regardless, Stone continued to be an enthusiastic Trump booster even after parting ways with the campaign, and campaign staffers viewed Stone as a backchannel to Wikileaks, according to testimony in his trial. “The campaign had no official access to WikiLeaks or to Julian Assange,” ex-White House advisor Steve Bannon testified. “But Roger would be considered if we needed an access point, because he had implied or told me he had a relationship with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.” And Rick Gates, who worked on Trump’s campaign with Bannon, testified that Trump himself discussed Wikileaks with Stone in the summer of 2016. ‘I’ll Piss on Your Grave’: Emails Reveal Roger Stone’s Rage PATHETIC LOSER Betsy Swan Stone claimed to congressional investigators that Credico was his back channel to Wikileaks. But Credico has denied filling any such role, and prosecutors said Stone lied to protect another potential go-between: conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi. According to an email, Stone asked Corsi to make contact with the hacker group. Corsi appeared to indicate in response to Stone that he had somehow succeeded. “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps,” he emailed Stone, predicting email releases in August and October 2016. “Impact planned to be very damaging.” The impact was damaging. Just hours after news broke of the Access Hollywood tape, Wikileaks started releasing emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. Those emails included a trove of details on Clinton World and pushed the campaign into a tailspin just weeks before the election. TOP ARTICLES 1/5 READ MORE Ozzy Osbourne: ‘I’m in Unbelievable Pain 24/7,’ but I’ll Be Back READ THIS LIST Follow Jane Fonda’s Hair Example. Go White, Not Gray. ALAINA DEMOPOULOS The Dems Are Missing the Ingredient That Will Defeat Trump MICHAEL TOMASKY White Guys Get Pardons, Black Folks Get a Super Bowl Ad KALI HOLLOWAY Racist German Shooter Exposes the Global Network of Hate JOSEPHINE HUETLIN Financially Plagued GOP Group Turns to Trump to Save It LACHLAN MARKAY AD CVS Health: Helping To Make Medicine More Affordable BY CVS HEALTH Trump Offered Assange Pardon if He Covered Up Russian Hack, WikiLeaks Founder’s Lawyer Claims QUID PRO QUO Lawyers acting for the WikiLeaks founder said Dana Rohrabacher, a former Republican congressman, had brought the message to London from Trump. Nico Hines London Editor Updated Feb. 19, 2020 5:58PM ET / Published Feb. 19, 2020 12:15PM ET LONDON—A lawyer for Julian Assange has claimed in court that President Donald Trump offered to pardon Assange if the WikiLeaks founder agreed to help cover up Russia’s involvement in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee. Assange’s lawyers said on Wednesday that former Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered Assange the deal in 2017, a year after emails that damaged Hillary Clinton in the presidential race had been published. WikiLeaks posted the stolen DNC emails after they were hacked by Russian operatives. The claim that Rohrabacher acted as an emissary for the White House came during a pre-extradition hearing in London. Assange has argued that he should not be extradited to the U.S. because the American case against him is politically motivated. He spent almost seven years hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in Central London claiming that he would be jailed in the U.S. if he wasn’t granted asylum. He was kicked out of the embassy last year. His lawyers told the court that Trump’s alleged offer to pardon Assange proved that this was no ordinary criminal investigation. Edward Fitzgerald, who was representing Assange in court, said he had evidence that a quid pro quo was put to Assange by Rohrabacher, who was known as Putin’s favorite congressman. GOP Lawmaker Got Direction From Moscow, Took It Back to D.C. ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ Nico Hines Fitzgerald said a statement produced by Assange’s personal lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, included a description of “Mr. Rohrabacher going to see Mr. Assange and saying, on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr Assange... said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC leaks.” Rohrabacher weighed in on Wednesday afternoon, insisting he never spoke to Trump about Assange prior to his personally-funded “fact finding mission” to London. He said he told Assange that he would “call on” Trump to pardon him if he was able to say who gave him the hacked emails. “I was not directed by Trump or anyone else connected with him to meet with Julian Assange,” he said in a statement. “At no time did I offer Julian Assange anything from the President because I had not spoken with the President about this issue at all.” Rohrabacher said he spoke briefly with then chief of staff John Kelly after the trip to let him know that Assange would provide information about the hacked DNC emails in exchange for a pardon. “No one followed up with me including Gen. Kelly and that was the last discussion I had on this subject with anyone representing Trump or in his Administration,” he said. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who is presiding over the pre-trial hearing in Westminster Magistrates’ Court, said the allegation would be admissible during Assange’s extradition hearing, which is due to begin next week. If Assange appears in court in the U.S., he will face 18 charges including conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, which could total a prison sentence of 175 years. RELATED IN POLITICS 'WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 29: Fox News host Tucker Carlson discusses 'Populism and the Right' during the National Review Institute's Ideas Summit at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel March 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. Carlson talked about a large variety of topics including dropping testosterone levels, increasing rates of suicide, unemployment, drug addiction and social hierarchy at the summit, which had the theme 'The Case for the American Experiment.' (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)' Trump Turns to Tucker Carlson to Decide Roger Stone’s Fate 'U.S. President Donald Trump gestures to reporters as he departs Washington for campaign travel to California from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, U.S., February 18, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque - RC273F9VXCU0' Trump Grants Clemency to More Crooks He Saw on Fox News How Trump Really Invited Russia’s Election Attack On Twitter, WikiLeaks’ verified account claimed there were more “bombshells” to come in the court hearing. WikiLeaks ✔ @wikileaks Chronology matters: The meeting and the offer were made ten months after Julian Assange had already independently stated Russia was not the source of the DNC publication. The witness statement is one of the many bombshells from the defence to comehttps://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/20/russia-hack-of-dnc-will-be-proved-to-be-untrue/ … Russia hack of DNC will be proved to be untrue California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher's recent three-hour meeting with WikiLeaks head Julian Assange as reported earlier this week by The Hill may prove interesting in light of the allegations of several f washingtontimes.com 5,970 3:01 PM - Feb 19, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 4,431 people are talking about this Two months after Rohrabacher’s trip to visit Assange, the Wall Street Journal reported that he was trying to arrange a deal for Trump to pardon Assange. The White House confirmed at the time that Rohrabacher had spoken to Kelly about the plan to free Assange, but it was not clear if Trump had personally spoken to Rohrabacher either before or after his mission to London. In 2018, Rohrabacher told The Intercept that he had been blocked from discussing the plan with the president because Kelly and other White House staffers were scared it would look like collusion. Rohrabacher, who lost his California re-election fight in 2018, has been accused of helping push Kremlin lines in the U.S. in the past. A few months before he went to London to meet Assange, his staff director was ousted after a report by The Daily Beast exposed close links between Russia and Rohrabacher. The congressman had worked with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met Trump’s campaign team at the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting, part of a lobbying operation designed to promote Kremlin aims in Washington. Colbert Rips Trump for Trusting Assange Over U.S. Intel SCARE QUOTES Matt Wilstein White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham on Wednesday denied that Trump played any role in the offer of a pardon. “The President barely knows Dana Rohrabacher other than he’s an ex-congressman,” she said in a statement. “He’s never spoken to him on this subject or almost any subject. It is a complete fabrication and a total lie. This is probably another never ending hoax and total lie from the DNC.” Nico Hines London Editor @nicohines nico.hines@thedailybeast.com Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here. TOP ARTICLES 1/5 READ MORE Ozzy Osbourne: ‘I’m in Unbelievable Pain 24/7,’ but I’ll Be Back READ THIS LIST Judge Rips Roger Stone, Gives Him 40 Months in Prison BETSY SWAN Follow Jane Fonda’s Hair Example. Go White, Not Gray. ALAINA DEMOPOULOS The Dems Are Missing the Ingredient That Will Defeat Trump MICHAEL TOMASKY White Guys Get Pardons, Black Folks Get a Super Bowl Ad KALI HOLLOWAY Racist German Shooter Exposes the Global Network of Hate JOSEPHINE HUETLIN