October 18, 2019

John Kasich Calls for Impeachment

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Yesterday, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted on national TV that Donald Trump had attempted to use vital military aide to extort Ukraine into investigating Democrats. Mulvaney made a valiant attempt to un-admit that in a statement issued hours later, but the damage was already done.

For some Republicans on Capitol Hill, Mulvaney’s offense wasn’t the fact of the quid pro quo; it was that he was honest enough, albeit briefly, to acknowledge it. Here are a couple of GOP aides bravely using anonymity to tell Politico that Mulvaney should “stop talking”:

Republicans lawmakers felt exasperated by the White House’s lack of discipline and coordination. “Mulvaney needs to learn when to stop talking,” a leadership aide told POLITICO. Democrats latched onto Mulvaney’s statements as further evidence of what they consider White House wrongdoing out in the open.

“He was deeply, deeply unhelpful,” said another House GOP aide.

But other Republicans did acknowledge the damning nature of what Mulvaney had revealed, as Politico noted:

“It’s not an etch a sketch,” Republican Rep. Francis Rooney of Florida said about Mulvaney’s comments. “It is kind of hard to argue that he didn’t say it, right? if I understood it correctly, he basically cleared up what was a matter of some vagueness that he basically said it was a quid pro quo.”

“You don’t hold up foreign aid that we had previously appropriated for a political initiative. Period,” added Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

Today, John Kasich, the former Republican governor of Ohio, took the criticism of Trump a step further. Kasich, who ran against Trump in the 2016 primary and has been an outspoken critic of the president, announced that because of the Mulvaney revelations, he now supports impeaching Trump. “It’s totally inappropriate,” Kasich said. “It’s an abuse of power.”

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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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