Attention to the Unseen

Bloomberg reports: Alexander Vindman, who testified in Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry, was escorted out of the White House on Friday, two days after the president’s acquittal in his Senate trial. “Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth,” said his lawyer, David Pressman. “His honor, his commitment to right, frightened the powerful.” The ouster of Vindman, who worked on the National Security Council, came after the Senate acquitted Trump of two articles of impeachment in a near party-line vote….

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The Washington Post reports: In the year since the Trump administration declared what amounted to economic war against the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro — an oil embargo that cut it off from its biggest petroleum buyer, the United States — the move has yielded some clear losers, including U.S. investors now shut out of the market. It has also produced one clear winner: Vladimir Putin’s Russia. U.S. officials, oil industry insiders and analysts say secret deals between Moscow…

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Marie L. Yovanovitch writes: After nearly 34 years working for the State Department, I said goodbye to a career that I loved. It is a strange feeling to transition from decades of communicating in the careful words of a diplomat to a person free to speak exclusively for myself. What I’d like to share with you is an answer to a question so many have asked me: What do the events of the past year mean for our country’s future?…

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France 24: On Wednesday evening, at least seven protesters were shot dead in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, sparking fresh anti-government rallies across the country. Since the start of the protest movement in October, several hundred people, mostly demonstrators, have been killed in clashes, while tens of thousands more have been injured. Our reporters Cyril Payen and Amar Al Hameedawi travelled to the south of Iraq to get to the heart of the protests.  

Peter Beinart writes: The impeachment struggle is now over. Historians may one day vindicate Democrats for exposing Donald Trump’s abuse of power. But as of now, they have lost. Not only will Trump remain president, and not only does he appear stronger politically than before the impeachment battle began, but he has succeeded in doing precisely what he wanted in the first place: He tarred Joe Biden, who last year looked like Trump’s most formidable Democratic rival, with the kind…

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BuzzFeed reports: At the heart of the impeachment saga that ended on Wednesday in Donald Trump’s acquittal was $391 million in US military assistance for Ukraine that the president ordered be withheld. But that aid package, which was eventually released last September, wasn’t the only US arms transfer meant for the war-torn country that was held up. Several direct commercial sales of arms and ammunition to Ukraine faced significant delays at the same time — and they remain mysteriously frozen…

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Politico reports: Mitt Romney brought a stunning twist to the end of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial: A bipartisan vote to convict the president on charges of abuse of power. The Wednesday announcement by the Utah Republican made him the only member of the GOP to break with the president and his party on the crucial question of whether Trump deserved to be removed from office. The 2012 Republican nominee said he was left with no other options, regardless of…

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The Guardian reports: At least 200 Salvadoran migrants and asylum seekers have been killed, raped or tortured after being deported back to El Salvador by the United States government which is turning a blind eye to widely known dangers, a new investigation reveals. Human Rights Watch has documented 138 deported Salvadorans murdered by gang members, police, soldiers, death squads and ex-partners between 2013 and 2019. The majority were killed within two years of deportation by the same perpetrators they had…

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