House Dems introduce articles of impeachment against Trump
November 16, 2017 by admin
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Six House Democrats on Wednesday launched the latest official effort to oust President Trump, introducing five new articles of impeachment revolving around the central theme that the president is a danger to the country.
“Given the magnitude of the constitutional crisis, there’s no reason for delay,” said Rep. Steve CohenStephen (Steve) Ira CohenImpeachment calls grow louder Dems to file new impeachment articles against Trump Democrats up calls for Congress to protect Mueller MORE (D-Tenn.), the sponsor of the resolution.
Joining Cohen in endorsing the articles are Democratic Reps. Luis Gutiérrez (Ill.), Al GreenAlexander (Al) N. GreenImpeachment calls grow louder Pelosi called Dem mega-donor’s ‘Impeach Trump’ campaign a ‘distraction’: report Dems to file new impeachment articles against Trump MORE (Texas), Marcia FudgeMarcia Louise FudgeLawmakers push regulators on how Amazon’s Whole Foods deal could affect ‘food deserts’ Dems announce ‘unity commission’ members If Democrats want to take back the White House start now MORE (Ohio), John YarmuthJohn YarmuthTax reform sprint leaves little time for funding fight Democrats split over priorities for end-of-year battle House adopts Senate budget, takes step toward tax reform MORE (Ky.) and Adriano EspaillatAdriano de Jesus Espaillat CabralWe will fight for our DREAMers Influential Latino Dems clash in NY district Rangel challenger concedes MORE (N.Y.).
The lawmakers pointed to numerous actions by Trump they say make him unfit to be president, but they singled out five actions they say rise to a level meriting impeachment.
Among those, the lawmakers say Trump obstructed justice when he fired former FBI Director James Comey, who was leading the federal investigation into Moscow’s 2016 election meddling — a probe that has included questions of potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign team.
They’re also accusing Trump of violating the foreign emoluments clause, which bars public officials from receiving gifts from foreign governments without Congress’s consent, and the domestic emoluments clause, which bars the president from profiting from his office.
Finally, the Democrats say the president has undermined two of the country’s central institutions — the courts and the press — in ways that threaten the health of the nation’s democracy.
The impeachment clause, Green said, “was drafted for a time such as this and a president such as this.”
Green had introduced impeachment articles of his own last month, largely focused on accusations that Trump has sown racial and ethnic divisions throughout the country.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) has also launched an impeachment effort based on the Comey firing. He did not join Cohen’s effort Wednesday, though Cohen said there are others who will sign on “immediately or soon thereafter.” He did not name those lawmakers.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) called the Democrats’ move Wednesday a “baseless radical effort” and vowed that it won’t distract from the president’s agenda.
“House Democrats lack a positive message and are completely unwilling to work across the aisle, so instead they’ve decided to support a baseless radical effort that the vast majority of Americans disagree with,” said RNC spokesman Michael Ahrens.
“Republicans are focused on issues the middle class actually cares about, like cutting taxes and growing the economy,” he added.
Championed by a small number of vocal and liberal Democrats, the impeachment push has caused a good deal of discord within the Democratic Caucus.
House Minority Leader Nancy PelosiNancy Patricia D’Alesandro PelosiPelosi rails against ‘scam’ GOP tax-reform plans Playing politics with America’s money is a dangerous game Pelosi: This is the week Trump ‘went rogue’ MORE (D-Calif.) and Rep. Steny HoyerSteny Hamilton HoyerLawmakers question military’s lapse after Texas shooting Texas shooting brings familiar response on Capitol Hill Impeachment calls grow louder MORE (D-Md.), the minority whip, have both been public voices opposing impeachment, framing the effort as premature amid the ongoing investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russia’s election interference.
“Do we disagree with the policies? We do. But disagreeing with the policies is not enough to overturn an election, a free and fair election,” Hoyer told reporters in the Capitol shortly after Cohen’s news conference.
“There are a large number of Democrats that believe this president ought to be impeached, we have just a made a judgment that the facts aren’t there to pursue that,” he said.
There are also political reasons for the leadership’s efforts to mute the impeachment drum. The Democrats had centered their 2016 campaign largely around attacks on Trump — a strategy that backfired — and the party brass doesn’t want to repeat the same mistake heading into the 2018 midterm elections.
Cohen acknowledged that a number of Democrats simply “want Trump to hang himself, and think that we don’t need to help him.”
“But I think there are a great number of Democrats who think there have been impeachable offenses,” he said. “I think the majority of Democrats think that.”
Cohen said he called Pelosi immediately after Trump’s response to the white supremacist marches in Charlottesville, Va., in August to relay his intention to push for impeachment. He acknowledged that party leaders weren’t thrilled with the idea.
“It would be a stretch to say they were on board,” Cohen said.
Still, Cohen, who is Jewish, said the attacks on black people and Jews in Charlottesville were, for him, a bridge too far.
“I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ And [Pelosi] understands that,” he said.
The impeachment proponents have been encouraged by liberal activists urging Capitol Hill Democrats to get more aggressive in their efforts to topple Trump.
Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmentalist, is spending millions of dollars on national TV ads pressing Democratic leaders to get on board. The Democrats introducing the new impeachment articles on Wednesday seem to have taken notice.
“This is not a call in a vacuum,” said Espaillat. “There is a real sentiment in the nation for this to begin.”
Cohen said he’s not seeking a vote on his resolution, but only urging hearings from the Judiciary Committee.
With Republicans controlling the chamber, those entreaties will surely go ignored, but Cohen said that won’t stop the Democrats from staging expert-based forums on the issue — with or without the Republicans.
“It’s important that we not let the failure of the Republicans stop us from doing what is right,” Cohen said.
Jonathan Easley contributed to this report, which was updated at 12:12 p.m.
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Leonardo da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3 Million, Shattering Auction Highs
November 16, 2017 by admin
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“This was a thumping epic triumph of branding and desire over connoisseurship and reality,” said Todd Levin, a New York art adviser.
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Christie’s marketing campaign was perhaps unprecedented in the art world; it was the first time the auction house went so far as to enlist an outside agency to advertise the work. Christie’s also released a video that included top executives pitching the painting to Hong Kong clients as “the holy grail of our business” and likening it to “the discovery of a new planet.” Christie’s called the work “the Last da Vinci,” the only known painting by the Renaissance master still in a private collection (some 15 others are in museums).
“It’s been a brilliant marketing campaign,” said Alan Hobart, director of the Pyms Gallery in London, who has acquired museum-quality artworks across a range of historical periods for the British businessman and collector Graham Kirkham. “This is going to be the future.”
There was a palpable air of anticipation at Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters as the art market’s major players filed into the sales room. The capacity crowd included top dealers like Larry Gagosian, David Zwirner and Marc Payot of Hauser Wirth. Major collectors had traveled here for the sale, among them Eli Broad and Michael Ovitz from Los Angeles; Martin Margulies from Miami; and Stefan Edlis from Chicago. Christie’s had produced special red paddles for those bidding on the Leonardo, and many of its specialists taking bids on the phone wore elegant black.
Earlier, 27,000 people had lined up at pre-auction viewings in Hong Kong, London, San Francisco and New York to glimpse the painting of Christ as “Savior of the World.” Members of the public — indeed, even many cognoscenti — cared little if at all whether the painting might have been executed in part by studio assistants; whether Leonardo had actually made the work himself; or how much of the canvas had been repainted and restored. They just wanted to see a masterwork that dates from about 1500 and was rediscovered in 2005.
“There is extraordinary consensus it is by Leonardo,” said Nicholas Hall, the former co-chairman of old master paintings at Christie’s, who now runs his own Manhattan gallery. “This is the most important old master painting to have been sold at auction in my lifetime.”
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That is the kind of name-brand appeal that Christie’s was presumably banking on by placing the painting in its high-profile contemporary art sale, rather than in its less sexy annual old master auction, where it technically belongs. To some extent, the auction house succeeded with the painting even before the sale, having secured a guaranteed $100 million bid from an unidentified third party. It is the 12th artwork to break the $100 million mark at auction, and a new high for any old master at auction, surpassing Rubens’s “Massacre of the Innocents,” which sold for $76.7 million in 2002 (or more than $105 million, adjusted for inflation).
But many art experts argue that Christie’s used marketing window dressing to mask the baggage that comes with the Leonardo, from its compromised condition to its complicated buying history and said that the auction house put the artwork in a contemporary sale to circumvent the scrutiny of old masters experts, many of whom have questioned the painting’s authenticity and condition.
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“The composition doesn’t come from Leonardo,” said Jacques Franck, a Paris-based art historian and Leonardo specialist. “He preferred twisted movement. It’s a good studio work with a little Leonardo at best, and it’s very damaged.”
“It’s been called ‘the male Mona Lisa,’” he said, “but it doesn’t look like it at all.” Mr. Franck said he has examined the Mona Lisa out of its frame five times.
Luke Syson, curator of the 2011 National Gallery exhibition in London that featured the painting, said in his catalog essay that “the picture has suffered.” While both hands are well preserved, he said, the painting was “aggressively over cleaned,” resulting in abrasion of the whole surface, “especially in the face and hair of Christ.”
Christie’s maintains that it was upfront about the much-restored, damaged condition of the oil-on-panel, which shows Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left holding a crystal orb.
But Christie’s was also slow to release an official condition report and its authenticity warranty on the Leonardo runs out in five years, as it does on all lots bought at its auctions, according to the small print in the back of its sale catalog.
The auction house has also played down the painting’s volatile sales history.
The artwork has been the subject of legal disputes and amassed a price history that ranges from less than $10,000 in 2005, when it was spotted at an estate auction, to $200 million when it was first offered for sale by a consortium of three dealers in 2012. But no institution besides the Dallas Museum of Art, which in 2012 made an undisclosed offer on the painting, showed public interest in buying it. Finally, in 2013, Sotheby’s sold it privately for $80 million to Yves Bouvier, a Swiss art dealer and businessman. Soon afterward, he sold it for $127.5 million, to the family trust of the Russian billionaire collector Dmitry E. Rybolovlev. Mr. Rybolovlev’s family trust was the seller on Wednesday night.
There was speculation that Liu Yiqian, a Chinese billionaire and co-founder with his wife of the Long Museum in Shanghai, may have been among the bidders. In recent years, the former taxi-driver-turned-power collector has become known for his splashy, record-breaking art purchases, including an Amedeo Modigliani nude painting for $170.4 million at a Christie’s auction in 2015. But in a message sent to a reporter via WeChat, a Chinese messaging app, Mr. Liu said he was not among the bidders for the Leonardo.
On Thursday morning, soon after the final sale was announced, Mr. Liu posted a message on his WeChat social media feed. “Da Vinci’s Savior sold for 400 million USD, congratulations to the buyer,” he wrote. “Feeling kind of defeated right now.”
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