The Daily 202: Maine moderate makes both sides angry by trying to ‘split the baby’ on impeachment vote

Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) speaks at a ceremony this spring in Bath, Maine. (David Sharp/AP)

With Mariana Alfaro

THE BIG IDEA: Jared Golden is trying to be a little bit pregnant.

The freshman congressman from Maine is one of 31 Democrats who represent districts carried by President Trump in 2016. But he’s the only member of Congress who has said he will split his vote on impeachment.

Golden announced on Tuesday night that he will vote for Article I, which accuses Trump of abusing his power, but he will oppose Article II, which says that Trump obstructed Congress by not complying with subpoenas and blocking key witnesses from testifying. In legislative parlance, this is what’s called “splitting the baby.”

Standing in the middle of the road is dangerous, Margaret Thatcher once explained, because you can get hit by cars going both directions. That’s what Golden is experiencing today.

Liberals are angry. “If my congressman, Jared Golden, votes for only one article of impeachment, I will work with all my might to see him defeated next year,” tweeted Stephen King, the best-selling mystery novelist.

And Republicans, who are expected to vote as a unified bloc today, certainly aren’t placated. “Golden’s vote to impeach President Trump proves he’d rather stand with the socialist Democrats than Maine voters,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Michael McAdams.

Golden’s vote will not impact the outcome. For only the third time in U.S. history, the House of Representatives is poised to impeach a president this evening. Enough Democrats have publicly declared that they will vote for both articles that there’s no suspense about what will happen at the end of a long day of debate and procedural squabbles on the floor. 

But the fact that Golden stands alone says a great deal about not just impeachment but the political era we find ourselves in. Intensifying polarization and tribalism are forcing members to pick a side – and fully own their decision one way or another – in ways that used to be much easier to avoid.

When the House voted 21 years ago tomorrow to impeach Bill Clinton, two of the four draft articles of impeachment failed because so many members split their votes. Eighty-one Republicans opposed one of the articles, and 28 opposed the other, handily sinking both. Meanwhile, five Democrats voted in favor of three of the articles but not the fourth. Five Republicans voted against the perjury charge that passed. Eight more Republicans opposed the obstruction charge.

In 1974, seven Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee voted to advance an article of impeachment against Richard Nixon for abusing his power and six supported an article related to obstruction of justice but only two Republicans voted to charge Nixon with contempt of Congress.

William Cohen, as a young GOP congressman from Maine who sat on the Judiciary Committee, voted for Nixon’s impeachment that summer. The president would resign before the full House could vote on the three articles that were adopted by the committee. Cohen, who would later serve in the Senate and as secretary of defense, has described Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine as impeachable.

For his part, Trump has accelerated a once-in-a-generation realignment between the two parties. Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey plans to quit the Democratic Party this week in the face of blowback from the left because of his opposition to impeachment. He was one of only two Democrats to vote against formally opening the impeachment inquiry in October. The other, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, has said he’s likely to vote against both articles of impeachment but hasn’t officially declared his position.

The pressure on Golden to vote against impeachment has been intense. American Action Network, an outside group backed by House GOP leadership, has spent $325,000 on anti-impeachment attack ads against Golden. On Saturday, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted his office phone number and Twitter handle, along with the contact information for other Democrats in swing districts. “Now its time to hear from OUR MOVEMENT,” the president’s son tweeted. “Call non-stop, tweet at them, tell them this will NOT STAND & you’ll remember in Nov!”

Golden said last night that the decision “has not been easy for me.” He told local reporters on a conference call that he didn’t decide until the final 24 hours. “This weekend, I was still really weighing this,” he said, according to the Lewiston Sun Journal.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi gives marching orders to her committee chairs in her office at the Capitol on Tuesday. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

— Golden laid out his reasoning for voting yes and no in a 2,546-word Facebook post last night. Trump won his rural district by 10 points in 2016, even as he lost statewide by three points. The 37-year-old Marine Corps veteran narrowly defeated a GOP incumbent last November in the first federal race ever decided by ranked-choice voting.

He opens his post by noting that he promised to work with Trump “whenever possible” and stand up to him “whenever necessary.” The statement includes hedges like “on the one hand” and “on the other hand.” He notes that he opposed calls for impeachment after reading former special counsel Bob Mueller’s report. He says he agrees with his constituents who have told him the country’s direction should be decided at the ballot box. Golden adds that he pored over a late law professor’s “handbook” on impeachment. Naturally, he also quotes Alexander Hamilton.

“The House investigation clearly unearthed a pattern of evidence that demonstrates the corrupt intent on the part of the president, his personal lawyer, and members of his administration to leverage the powers of the presidency to damage a political opponent and strengthen the president’s reelection prospects,” Golden writes. “This action crossed a clear red line, and in my view, there is no doubt that this is an impeachable act.”

Golden goes on to explain why he cannot vote for the obstruction charge. “While I do not dispute that the White House has been provocative in its defiance and sweeping in its claims of executive privilege, I also believe there are legitimate and unresolved constitutional questions about the limits of executive privilege, and that before pursuing impeachment for this charge, the House has an obligation to exhaust all other available options,” he writes. “I believe that the House must exercise as much restraint as possible in order to avoid setting a dangerous precedent for the future.”

— Partisans brush aside such nuance. A former state senator who is vying for the Republican nomination to face Golden next year accused him of “trying to have his cake and eat it too.”

And there were lots of responses like this from progressive activists in the state:

— Trump boosters nationally have begun singling out Golden for a special kind of ridicule. “This would be like ordering a lobster dinner, eating all of it, and then telling the server that you didn’t like the way he placed the plate on the table, so you won’t be paying for it,” wrote Washington Examiner columnist Eddie Scarry.

— Ironically, Golden’s first job in politics was as a staffer for Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). During next month’s trial in the Senate, she will face similar cross-currents and pressures but from the other side. Golden deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq as a Marine Corps infantryman between 2002 to 2006. Then he studied history at Bates College and came to Washington to work as a staffer for Collins on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He moved home and got elected to the state House in 2014 as a Democrat, where he ascended into party leadership.

Collins officially announced this morning that she will seek a fifth term next November. Of the 33 members of Congress from New England, Collins is the only Republican in either chamber.

Notably, Collins was one of only four Senate Republicans who voted to acquit Clinton in 1999, reasoning back then that his misconduct didn’t rise to the threshold the founders intended for removing a president from office. But she also insisted as a juror during the Clinton trial that the Senate hear from a bevy of witnesses, something that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – who also called for witnesses 21 years ago – does not want to do this time around.

She was easily reelected in 2002. 

Collins has also voted for every Supreme Court nominee from presidents of both parties during her tenure in the Senate. But her support for Brett Kavanaugh last year in the face of Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegations, which he denied, has made her race competitive and drawn a massive influx of money from the left and the right. It’s another reflection of how the political climate has changed.

Public and private polling showed that Collins’s support took a big hit after her Kavanaugh vote, largely driven by center-left independents, especially women, who voted for Collins in the past but found her support for Kavanaugh inexcusable. It matters little to them that Collins also cast a decisive vote to save the Affordable Care Act in 2017.

Similarly, Golden voted against a Democratic bill earlier this year to strengthen background checks for gun purchases to show his independence to the many firearms enthusiasts in his district. But he can almost certainly still count on the opposition of groups like the National Rifle Association. In the past, Mainers have rewarded mavericks who showed independent streaks. In 2020, both Collins and Golden will test whether that’s still the case.

THE PRESIDENT’S RESPONSE:

— Trump himself worked for more than a week on the six-page letter he sent yesterday to Speaker Nancy Pelosi that attacked the impeachment process, personally revising drafts with policy adviser Stephen Miller and legislative affairs director Eric Ueland. “The president did not want White House lawyers to review it until the final stages, [a senior administration official said], and some of them warned against including certain passages,” Phil Rucker, Elise Viebeck and John Wagner report. “Trump’s legal team is working to line up three or so lawyers to defend the president in the upcoming trial and has contacted Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz as one possibility. The talks are in a tentative stage. … [McConnell] and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) engaged in a standoff as the Senate prepared to recess for the holidays, arguing through public statements and media interviews rather than meeting face to face. … ‘I’m not an impartial juror,’ McConnell told reporters. ‘This is a political process.’”

— “Trump remains remarkably resilient, wounded but not fatally so as he turns toward his 2020 reelection campaign,” writes Ashley Parker. “Aides and confidants said they expect the president’s Wednesday night political rally in Battle Creek, Mich., to offer Trump a much-needed release valve.”

— A new Gallup poll shows 46 percent of Americans support impeaching and removing Trump from office, down six points since Pelosi announced the inquiry.

— “When the dust clears, the result is most likely to look more like a draw than a victory, say political strategists from both sides,” Michael Scherer reports:

“I am confident that not a single Democrat anywhere in the country next year will lose their seat because they voted for impeachment,” said Geoff Garin, a top Democratic pollster who has been fielding surveys in recent weeks on the issue.

“I am not convinced that anybody is in significant danger but the small number that represent the other team’s area, and there are a lot fewer than there used to be,” said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster, who has done work for the American Action Network, a group that has spent about $8.5 million on impeachment ads attacking Democrats.

— Demonstrators in big cities and small towns from coast to coast rallied last night for Trump’s impeachment. Griff Witte, Annie Gowen, Scott Wilson and Lori Rozsa report: “Protesters in the dark of a snowy New England evening chanted ‘Dump Trump,’ while those marching in the warmth of southern Florida brandished signs reading ‘Impeach Putin’s Puppet.’ In Republican-dominated Kansas, they repeated a mantra: ‘Country over party.’ In Texas, they fretted that despite the House’s vote, Trump will get away with it all. …

“Organizers said that there were more than 600 protests nationwide … In New York’s Times Square, a crowd estimated in the thousands demonstrated, marching through the streets bearing a giant banner emblazoned with a clause from the Constitution that deals with impeachment. But most rallies drew dozens or, at most, hundreds. Their relatively modest scale reflected the difficulty Trump’s opponents face in mobilizing voters to eject the president when the chances of doing that before the 2020 election appear vanishingly small. … The protests were … coordinated by MoveOn.org, a group that got its start 21 years ago urging Republicans to end their pursuit of [Clinton’s] impeachment.”

Acting ambassador to Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr. takes an oath to tell the truth during his Nov. 13 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

THE LATEST ON L’AFFAIRE UKRAINE:

— The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee accused Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday of “unceremoniously recalling” the acting ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, a key witness in the House impeachment inquiry who criticized the White House’s decision to withhold aid to the country. “I am extremely concerned that this suspect decision furthers the president’s inappropriate and unacceptable linking of U.S. policy to Ukraine to his personal and political benefit, and potentially your own,” Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.) wrote in a letter to Pompeo. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, per John Hudson. NBC News reports that Taylor is expected to hand over his job to his deputy on Jan. 1.

— What did the vice president know and when did he know it? Mike Pence refuses to declassify testimony that is “directly relevant” to the impeachment debate, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote Tuesday in a letter that raises further questions about what the V.P. said in a September phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and whether he’s been truthful about it with the American people. “In a letter to Pence, Schiff wrote that classified witness testimony gathered during the impeachment inquiry ‘raises profound questions about your knowledge of the President’s scheme to solicit Ukraine’s interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election,’” Elise Viebeck reports. “Pence spokeswoman Katie Waldman declined to comment. The testimony from Jennifer Williams, Pence’s Russia adviser, was provided as a supplemental written submission to the Intelligence Committee through her lawyer Nov. 26. Ten days later, Schiff asked Pence to declassify it. But what she said about Pence’s Sept. 18 call with Zelensky has remained out of public view.”

— A federal judge is allowing Rudy Giuliani’s associate Lev Parnas to stay in house arrest despite the undisclosed seven-figure money transfer from Russia and Justice Department’s warnings that he could flee. Shayna Jacobs and Rosalind S. Helderman report: “Prosecutors cited [Parnas’s] foreign ties, including to a Ukrainian oligarch who is fighting extradition to the United States, where he is charged in a bribery case, in their failed bid to have Parnas returned to jail pending trial. … Authorities have highlighted a ‘suspicious’ $1 million transfer made in September from a Russian bank account — funds, prosecutors alleged, that Parnas hid from them as he gave conflicting accounts about his personal assets. It was disclosed in court Tuesday that the funds were transferred by a lawyer for Dmytro Firtash, the Ukrainian oligarch, as a loan to Parnas’s wife. … Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebekah Donaleski told the judge, J. Paul Oetken, that the $1 million transfer was clearly intended for Parnas, not his spouse. … But the judge said Parnas’s differing accounts of his own assets came with logical explanations. The statements to authorities ‘might have violated the spirit of what was requested,’ Oetken said, but he did not think it amounted to ‘intentional misstatements warranting the revocation of bail.’”

ALL ROADS LEAD BACK TO RUSSIA:

— The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordered the government to explain what the FBI will do to ensure the bureau does not mislead judges again when applying for surveillance orders like those used in the 2016 investigation of the Trump campaign. Devlin Barrett reports: “The four-page order from Judge Rosemary M. Collyer, the presiding judge of the secretive court, publicly rebuked the FBI for 17 omissions and errors contained in applications to monitor the electronic communications of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser. … Director Christopher A. Wray already has ordered more than 40 changes to address issues raised in the inspector general’s report. … Collyer is the same judge who signed the first surveillance application for Page sought by the FBI in October 2016.” From the judge’s highly unusual statement: “When FBI personnel misled DOJ in the ways described above, they equally misled [us]. The FBI’s handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the IG report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor” expected in FISA filings.

— Rick Gates, Trump’s deputy campaign chairman in 2016, was sentenced to 45 days in jail for conspiracy and lying to the FBI during special counsel Bob Mueller’s probe. His crimes could have landed him in prison for six years, but he was given leniency for providing key evidence after he got caught. Spencer S. Hsu, Ann E. Marimow and Rachel Weiner report: “The former globe-trotting lobbyist and right-hand man to Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort can serve his sentence on weekends. Gates also must spend three years on probation, pay a $20,000 fine and perform 300 hours of community service. … Gates, 47, asked for no jail time, and prosecutors did not oppose that request, given the scope of his testimony against Manafort, campaign associate Roger Stone and Democratic power lawyer Gregory B. Craig. Manafort and Stone were both convicted at trial, while Craig was acquitted.”

Why the judge went so easy on him: “He’s had to testify, be identified as a known cooperator in the glare of public attention at a time of deep political division in our society, when people are demonized for being on the other side, and he was seen as turning on his own side,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson explained in Washington federal court. “Gates’s information alone warranted, even demanded further investigation from the standpoint of national security, the integrity of our elections and enforcing criminal laws.” But she emphasized that it’s also “hard to overstate the amount of lies” and money involved in Gates’s fraud, which included helping Manafort launder $18 million made in Ukraine while pocketing $3 million himself.

— A state court judge in Manhattan dismissed Manafort’s residential mortgage fraud case this morning, deciding the local charges amounted to a double-jeopardy violation. (Shayna Jacobs)

— Manafort has been hospitalized, but his attorney says he’s in stable condition. Weiner and Tom Hamburger report: “Attorney Todd Blanche said he and his client’s family first learned about Manafort’s medical condition from a reporter at ABC News and have been unable to get information from the Bureau of Prisons. …The longtime lobbyist is serving a 7 ½-year sentence in a Pennsylvania penitentiary after being convicted as part of [Mueller’s] investigation into interference in the 2016 election.”

— A federal judge ruled that the U.S. government is entitled to any money former National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden – who is escaping justice by hiding out in Russia, where he’s being sheltered by Vladimir Putin’s regime – makes from his memoir and paid speeches. “Snowden has been charged with espionage since 2013, when he exposed top-secret surveillance documents in what may have been the biggest security breach in U.S. history,” Weiner reports. “The former contractor sees himself as a whistleblower … But through two administrations, the government has viewed him as a traitor who escaped justice by fleeing to Russia. Unable to put him on trial, the Justice Department this year moved to cut off his profits from the book he published … In a brief opinion in federal court in Alexandria, Judge Liam O’Grady ruled in the government’s favor. … O’Grady canceled a hearing that had been set for last week in the case, saying he did not need oral arguments to make his decision.”

— Maria Butina, recently released from a U.S. prison, will become the host of an online video program for Russia’s state-owned propaganda network RT. CNN reports: “Butina, who was convicted of conspiring to act as an agent for a foreign state in the United States, was deported to Russia in October after serving more than 15 months behind bars in Florida. … Butina was convicted of crimes related to the 2016 US presidential election, pleading guilty to using her contacts in Republican political circles, in the gun-rights lobby and at the National Prayer Breakfast to influence US relations with Russia. The declassified version of a highly classified US intelligence community report released in early 2017 called RT part of Russia’s ‘state-run propaganda machine’ [and] … ‘a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.’”

— Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to still use an obsolete Windows XP operating system on his computer, despite hacking risks. From the Guardian: “Microsoft stopped releasing regular security updates for Windows XP and Office 2003 in April 2014. However, it appears that Russian government regulations have prevented Putin from updating to the more recent Microsoft 10. The US tech firm warns on its website that computers running Windows XP are ‘vulnerable to security risks and viruses.’ Windows XP, released in 2001, was the last Microsoft operating system given the green light for use on official Russian government computers, the Open Media website reported, citing defence ministry documents. The more recent Windows 10 is only approved for devices that do not contain state secrets … The ex-KGB officer is said to be an irregular user of the internet, which he has previously called a ‘CIA project.’”

African Americans had to wait in extra long lines to be able to vote in Atlanta in last year’s midterm election because the Republican secretary of state, who was running for governor, did not distribute available voting machines to polling places in communities of color. It might have made the difference in a close election, which he narrowly won. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS THAT SHOULDN’T BE OVERLOOKED BECAUSE OF IMPEACHMENT:

— Overnight, the number of registered voters in Georgia shrank by more than 300,000 in a contested but court-sanctioned action that could redefine the 2020 election. Reis Thebault and Hannah Knowles report: “State officials have downplayed the mass cancellation, arguing it is routine ‘list maintenance.’ Others say the practice amounts to a large-scale and undemocratic voter purge, which comes just over three months before Georgia’s presidential primaries. This week, a federal judge allowed the secretary of state’s office to remove about 4 percent of registered voters from the rolls, a move officials said was aimed at those who have recently died or left Georgia. But there were also more than 120,000 people included in that cull simply because they hadn’t voted since 2012 or responded to mailings from the state …

“In Wisconsin on Friday, a judge ordered the state to remove up to 234,000 people from its registered voter list after a conservative group filed a lawsuit arguing that anyone who didn’t respond to an election commission letter seeking address confirmation was subject to purging. Wisconsin’s attorney general is appealing the decision and the state’s League of Women Voters has filed a federal lawsuit to stop it from taking effect. … 

“In an attempted purge earlier this year, Ohio’s secretary of state identified 235,000 names and addresses to be removed, saying the people flagged were dead, living elsewhere or duplicates. But the state, which won a 2018 Supreme Court decision finding its use-it-or-lose-it law constitutional, was wrong. Nearly 1 in 5 names on the list — roughly 40,000 people — should not have been on it … Among them: Jen Miller, the director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, an activist who spends her days registering people to vote.”

— An Associated Press investigation published earlier this week shows that thousands of Ohio voters were held up or stymied in their efforts to get absentee ballots for last year’s general election because of missing or mismatched signatures on their ballot applications: “The signature requirement on such applications is a largely overlooked and spottily tracked step in Ohio’s voting process, which has shifted increasingly to mail-in ballots since early, no-fault absentee voting was instituted in 2005. To supporters, the requirement is a useful form of protection against voter fraud and provides an extra layer of security necessary for absentee balloting. To detractors, it’s a recipe for disenfranchisement — a cumbersome addition to an already stringent voter identification system.

“Susan Barnard, of Dayton in Montgomery County, said her 78-year-old husband, Leslie, who has cancer, missed a chance to vote last year because of a delay related to the signature requirement. … Figures provided to the AP through public information requests to Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections show 21 counties rejected more than 6,500 absentee ballot applications because a signature was either missing or didn’t match what was on file. That requirement is not for the ballot itself, which faces a different battery of requirements, but merely for an application requesting one.”

— The Trump administration laid out a plan today to fulfill Trump’s long-standing vow to lower prescription drug prices by allowing states, drug wholesalers and pharmacies to import some cheaper drugs from Canada. “But officials could not say when the plan might go into effect, and many questions about its possible scope remain unanswered,” Yasmeen Abutaleb and Laurie McGinley report.

— The Department of Homeland Security was finally getting serious about cybersecurity. Then came Trump. From Daily 202 alumna Breanne Deppisch in Politico Magazine: “For the past 2½ years, while Trump’s immigration jihad at DHS has attracted all the headlines and the department has struggled with leadership vacancies (its fifth leader settled into the secretary’s suite last month), the component of DHS that’s actually working—that’s actually surpassed the expectations of critics and outside observers—is the one policy area Trump has most resisted: bolstering the nation’s cybersecurity defenses. It’s ironic, then, that the election of Trump … has inadvertently made clear the necessity for a stronger DHS role in cyberspace, paving the way for one of the federal government’s most outgunned departments to finally find a coherent mission. … During the period that DHS fumbled to define its role, the cyber threat—which hadn’t been on anybody’s radar during the department’s creation—would come to threaten the country’s very democracy itself. … As 2020 approaches amid reports of renewed Russian efforts to influence the election, those challenges have left industry and government officials wondering: Is DHS’ newfound seriousness over cybersecurity too little, too late?”

— Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has pulled the levers of power in ways that are helpful to her husband Mitch McConnell’s reelection campaign, with her aides delivering discretionary grant money to politically important places in Kentucky. A new GAO report lays out a swampy double standard at the department. From Politico: “Kentucky’s largest transportation grant application under the Trump administration benefited from a process that the government’s top watchdog said lacked ‘the assurance of fairness,’ raising questions about whether the Department of Transportation is making decisions based on project merits or political considerations. The $67.4 million grant application for Boone County — a rapidly growing suburban district of political importance to [McConnell] — was initially flagged by professional staff as incomplete. But after giving the state and local officials behind the application an extra opportunity to submit missing information, Chao chose it as one of 26 grant winners out of an initial pool of 258 applicants. …

“The Government Accountability Office faulted the department for failing to document why the Boone County project and 41 other applicants received this extra chance to fill in holes in their submissions while 55 other incomplete applications fell out of the running. Moreover, emails … show that Boone County officials were in contact with Chao’s aide Todd Inman, a former McConnell campaign staffer known to offer extra guidance to Kentuckians with business before the secretary. Chao’s alleged favoritism toward Kentucky has become a focus of scrutiny following revelations that she had designated Inman as a special point-of-contact for Kentucky officials … No other state enjoyed such access to the office of the secretary, which directly handled more than $3 billion of discretionary grants in fiscal 2019. House Democrats asked DOT’s inspector general to investigate the matter, and the office of the inspector general has confirmed … that it has opened a review. … The lack of clear standards for the grant applications led leaders in some states to complain…”

— The death toll from the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history continues to rise: A woman who was paralyzed during the 2017 Las Vegas massacre has passed away as a consequence of her injuries. From USA Today: “Kimberly Gervais, 57, was shot and suffered a spinal injury in the October 1, 2017, shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas during which 58 other people were killed and hundreds were wounded in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The San Bernardino County coroner in California said the Mira Loma woman had been recovering at a nursing facility in Redlands. On Friday, she was brought to a local hospital and pronounced dead, the coroner said.

“Her sister, Dena Sarvela, said the stress from Gervais’ injuries became too much for her body to handle. ‘She hurt. Even though she was paralyzed from the neck up, she could feel all the pain,’ Sarvela told KPTV in Vancouver, Washington, where she lives. … Sarvela said her sister went to the Las Vegas music festival with two friends. One survived while the other she saw die … Gervais wasn’t able to return to California for almost a year. ‘She lost her zest for life because of it, because of the shooting, because of her injuries that she sustained. It was hard to be that same person, that we all know and love,’ Sarvela told the TV station. Gervais was a mother of two who raised her daughters after her husband died in 2000 … She said her sister was ready to retire soon, too.” 

— The rise in anti-Semitic incidents goes beyond recent violent attacks. From the WSJ: “In 2017, anti-Semitic incidents—including harassment, vandalism and assault, as reported to the league by victims, law enforcement and the media—jumped 57%, the largest single-year increase since the group began tracking such data in the 1970s. While 2018 was slightly better, it still had the third-highest total of anti-Semitic incidents the group has ever recorded, with anti-Semitic assaults more than doubling from 2017. The FBI, which compiles hate-crime data based on reports from local law-enforcement agencies, found the number of such incidents rose 29% in 2018 from 2015. As of September, anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York City—home to the U.S.’s largest Jewish population—were up 51% this year from the same period last year, according to New York Police Department data. That included a string of assaults against Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, as well as a sharp rise in anti-Semitic subway graffiti. … For some Jews, the abrupt rise has been jarring—something they never thought they would have to deal with in the modern U.S.” 

— The House passed the $1.4 trillion spending deal, sending it to the Senate ahead of the shutdown deadline. Erica Werner and Mike DeBonis report: “The package passed in two pieces, one focused on GOP national security priorities including the Pentagon, the other on domestic agencies dear to Democrats such as the Department of Health and Human Services. The vote on the national security package was 280 to 138. The vote on the domestic agencies was 297 to 120. The year-end legislative frenzy … showed how far both parties have moved since last year … This time, both parties reverted to a hallowed congressional tradition of embracing an enormous year-end spending bill. Each side made concessions to secure long-sought funding. The legislation would add almost $50 billion in new spending, even though the White House and Republicans called for major budget reductions earlier in the year. … All told, the legislation could add more than $500 billion to deficits over the next decade. The deficit … is expected to eclipse $1 trillion this year and grow in subsequent years unless changes are made.”

— The budget deal slashes Puerto Rico’s Medicaid money. From Politico: “The budget deal unveiled by lawmakers this week allocates up to $5.7 billion in Medicaid funds for the island over two years — instead of $12 billion over four years that Republican and Democratic leaders on two key congressional committees had endorsed after months of negotiating a long-term financial path for Puerto Rico. … Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program has been relying on a series of short-term funding extensions since the fall, after confronting a fiscal cliff on Sept. 30 when a temporary boost in money — one of several that Congress has enacted in recent years — was set to expire. Its latest pool of funding expires Friday.”

— New military documents about the U.S.-Mexico border are now being classified to prevent leaks and limit embarrassing media coverage. From Newsweek: “The policy shift to classify border documents came from Lieutenant General Laura J. Richardson of the U.S. Army in response to negative news coverage and leaks of border documents under U.S. Army North’s previous commander, Lieutenant General Jeffrey S. Buchanan, who retired back in July, according to three Pentagon sources with direct knowledge of the matter. The sources said that verbal commands—versus orders with a paper trail—are more commonplace under Richardson than under Buchanan’s tenure.”

— Prominent “Never Trump” Republicans launched a new super PAC in an effort to oust the president in 2020. David Nakamura and Michelle Yee Hee Lee report: “In a New York Times op-ed, the group — which includes lawyer George T. Conway and former GOP strategist Steve Schmidt — announced the formation of the Lincoln Project, a super PAC aimed at persuading enough disaffected conservatives and independents in swing states to tip the vote against Trump and defeat pro-Trump congressional candidates, even at risk of losing Republican control of the Senate. Organizers said they plan to begin purchasing television and digital ads in January. ‘Our efforts will be dedicated to defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line,’ Conway and Schmidt wrote in the editorial, also signed by Republican operatives John Weaver and Rick Wilson. ‘Our many policy differences with national Democrats remain, but our shared fidelity to the Constitution dictates a common effort.’”

— Joe Biden is a “healthy, vigorous” 77-year-old, his doctor declared. Matt Viser and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. report: “The summary indicated that Biden was being treated for several conditions, including an irregular heartbeat, gastroesophageal reflux and seasonal allergies. It was written by Kevin C. O’Connor, who is director of executive medicine at the GW Medical Faculty Associates and was Biden’s physician when he was vice president. The records are the most complete glimpse into Biden’s health since the Obama-Biden campaign released 49 pages of records in 2008. Those documents showed that Biden, then 65, had suffered no permanent damage from the near-fatal brain aneurysms that he suffered 20 years earlier. His most recent records say that a 2014 CT angiogram showed no recurrence of disease. … Biden does not use any tobacco products, does not drink any alcohol, and works out at least five days per week, according to the summary. The new records show that Biden has a history of atrial fibrillation, which was discovered during a routine check before he had his gallbladder removed in 2003. Biden has never required any medication or electrical treatments, but he does take a blood thinner. He also uses over-the-counter esomeprazole for gastroesophageal reflux and uses Allegra and Dymista to treat his sinus symptoms.”

— Pete Buttigieg omitted more than 20 high-level fundraisers from a list of top bundlers he disclosed last week. From Politico: “The public list of bundlers, featuring more than 100 people who have raised at least $25,000 for Buttigieg, was meant to bring a close to more than a week of feuding between Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren over campaign transparency. But the list left off a number of people the Buttigieg campaign had previously touted as top donors in an internal campaign fundraising report … They include uberwealthy supporters such as Boston power broker Jack Connors Jr. — who declared he was ‘all in for Pete Buttigieg’ in a June fundraiser invite — and Hollywood producer Jordan Horowitz, whose films include “La La Land.” Buttigieg also omitted hedge fund investor John Petry; William Rahm, senior managing director at the private equity firm Centerbridge Partners; Nicole Avant, the former U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas; and former U.S. Ambassador to Italy John Phillips.”

— There’s a lot going on, so we don’t blame you if you didn’t know that there’s a Democratic debate tomorrow night. The debate — which will feature only seven candidates — will take place as scheduled after food workers at Loyola Marymount University announced a tentative contract agreement, per David Weigel. The labor dispute had threatened to upend the debate, as all the qualifying candidates vowed not to cross a picket line.

THE NEW WORLD ORDER

— Nearly a year ago, Juan Guaidó promised to save Venezuela. But now, the flame he lit is petering out, and his U.S. backers are weighing their options. Anthony Faiola reports: “On an electric afternoon in January, Guaidó lit a flame of hope. Standing before the masses on a broad avenue in eastern Caracas, the head of Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly declared President Nicolás Maduro a ‘usurper’ and invoked articles of the constitution that he said made him the nation’s rightful leader. He vowed to free the people from police state repression and reverse a disastrous economic collapse — and quickly won recognition from the United States and dozens of other countries. Yet nearly a year later, Maduro — far wilier and more resilient than his opponents calculated — is still comfortably ensconced in the presidential palace. And the Venezuelans Guaidó once inspired are losing faith — in the opposition he leads, in its backers in the Trump administration and, for some, in Guaidó himself. Their crisis of conviction comes at the most dangerous moment of Guaidó’s nearly miraculous political arc.”

— Colombia will exhume the graves of civilians allegedly killed by soldiers who claimed the victims were guerrillas. Rachelle Krygier reports: “Authorities say soldiers killed thousands of civilians between 1998 and 2014 under pressure from their commanders and then claimed the victims were members of the FARC guerrilla group. They planted weapons on their victims and dressed them in fighters’ uniforms in a scandal Colombians have dubbed Falsos Positivos, or ‘False Positives.’ The pace of killing increased from 2005 to 2009 under President Álvaro Uribe, who led an offensive against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The country’s Special Peace Tribunal, created under the 2016 peace accords that ended Colombia’s 50-year conflict, announced Saturday it had begun the exhumation of more than 50 bodies, the largest such operation to date. The work began last week at the Catholic Cemetery of Las Mercedes in Dabeiba, a town in the northwestern department of Antioquia, the tribunal said in a statement. It came after the panel heard ‘a series of voluntary testimonies,’ including one from a former soldier who said he knew of false positives in the town.”

— The Trump administration maintained its claim that the Armenia massacres were not genocide, contradicting a unanimous vote by the Senate. From the BBC: “Turkey’s foreign ministry on Friday summoned the US ambassador to express its anger over the vote, accusing the US of ‘politicising history.’ Armenia says 1.5 million were killed in an effort to wipe out the ethnic group. The killings took place in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, the forerunner of modern-day Turkey. ‘The position of the administration has not changed,’ said State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus in a statement on Tuesday. ‘Our views are reflected in the president’s definitive statement on this issue from last April,’ she said. In a statement last April on the anniversary of the killings, Mr Trump said the US paid tribute to the victims of ‘one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century’, but he did not use the word genocide. Instead he encouraged Armenians and Turks to ‘acknowledge and reckon with their painful history.’”

— Pope Francis lifted the Roman Catholic Church’s highest form of confidentiality in sexual abuse cases. Chico Harlan reports: “The abolition of the ‘pontifical secrecy’ rule does not mean that the documents and testimony from the church’s abuse trials will become public. Instead, the Vatican said in making the decree public Tuesday, the information can be handed over to ‘lawful authorities’ who make the request. The Vatican had long said the rule was necessary to safeguard its in-house legal process and the privacy of survivors. But the practice has drawn criticism from many advocates and some figures inside the church, who say pontifical secrecy keeps hidden the crimes of abusers and the full scale of the crisis. … The Vatican touted the change Tuesday as ‘epochal’ and said it continues Francis’s ‘path of transparency.’ Abolishing pontifical secrecy was a common demand made by abuse survivors as well as several prelates at a summit on tackling the abuse crisis that the pope convened in February.”

— The wife of Zimbabwe’s vice president was charged with money laundering, marriage fraud and attempting to kill her husband. Kim Bellware reports: “When Zimbabwe’s vice president, Constantino Chiwenga, went to South Africa to treat an undisclosed illness in June, his wife first tried to dissuade him from going to a hospital; second lady Marry Mubaiwa allegedly suggested he stay in a hotel instead. Then at the hospital, Mubaiwa waited for her husband’s security officers to leave the room before allegedly unhooking his intravenous lines. She then forced him out of bed and tried to lead him out of the hospital before security officials stopped her, a new criminal complaint alleged, according to the Associated Press. And that was before the marriage fraud and money-laundering allegations. Mubaiwa, 38, appeared in court Monday in the capital of Harare following her weekend arrest by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission on charges that she tried to kill her husband, commit marriage fraud and launder nearly $1 million to pay for luxury cars, property and other personal expenses, according to the criminal complaint.”

— Supporters of two Shiite groups in Beirut clashed with security forces, opening a new chapter in Lebanon’s ongoing crisis. Sarah Dadouch reports: “But instead of the anti-corruption activists who have taken to the streets in the last two months in nationwide demonstrations, the protesters this time were supporters of two Shiite groups that have participated in efforts to quell the unrest stemming from the country’s dysfunction. Motivated by a video of a man cursing Shiites, the protesters yelled ‘Shia! Shia! Shia!’ late Monday at riot police as glowing tear gas canisters hit the bridge they were standing on. Instead of being dispersed by the walls of stinging smoke, the men picked up the canisters and threw them at the advancing column of riot police below the bridge. The protesters were supporters of the Amal Movement, a Shiite political party in Lebanon, and its ally Hezbollah, a militant organization designated as a terrorist group by the United States but whose members hold political office in Lebanon.”

— Japanese journalist Shiori Ito was awarded damages in a landmark rape case that highlighted Japan’s outdated rape laws and the obstacles women face in alleging sexual misconduct. Simon Denyer and Akiko Kashiwagi report: “Although the compensation was about one-third of what Shiori Ito had sought, the verdict Wednesday marked a victory for women’s rights in Japan and for the country’s nascent #MeToo movement. Outside the court, Ito thanked her many supporters as she pursued the case in the face of a significant backlash, and said she hoped the ruling would help other cases see the light of day. … Ito said she felt dizzy and lost consciousness during an evening in 2015 spent drinking and eating with a well-known male journalist, Noriyuki Yamaguchi, after he offered to help her find a job. She said she awoke hours later to find him raping her and believes he drugged her. … In 2017, Ito broke with convention by going public with her claims at a news conference, but Japan’s male-dominated and pro-establishment media was reluctant to champion her cause, citing the lack of a criminal indictment. Instead, she faced threats and insults over social media, by email and telephone, and articles attacking her in a conservative magazine.”

SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ:

The mayor of Salem, Mass., Kim Driscoll, had to explain how the Salem witch trials are different from Trump’s impeachment: 

The Post’s Fact Checker went through Trump’s letter to Pelosi:

These are just a few of the worlds you can find in Trump’s letter:

Many were not only appalled by the president’s letter but also by his grammar:

Here’s a bit of insight into the president’s writing process:

The president seems to have seen different reviews:

The hashtag #ImpeachmentEve was trending on Twitter last night, and it featured many images from anti-Trump protests from around the country:

A Democratic senator from Hawaii argued on Twitter with a Republican senator from Texas about the GOP’s push to not call any impeachment witnesses:

A poll commissioned by Trump’s campaign chairman Brad Parscale shows the Democrats holding onto the House in 2020: 

And the Macker is always closing, even when talking to an NBC reporter:

VIDEOS OF THE DAY:

House candidate Wendy Davis, previously the Democratic nominee for Texas governor in 2014, released a parody of the widely unpopular Peloton commercial:

Stephen Colbert took a look at the letter Trump sent to Pelosi:

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The President sent a six page letter to the Speaker of the House on Tuesday, slamming her for actions he perceives as partisan and illegal.

Jimmy Fallon imagined what Trump might want Santa to get him this holiday season: