Muslims Have a Terrorism Problem and So Do Republicans

 

My local newspaper recently ran an outraged cartoon on what the FBI sees as the biggest terrorism threat.  Twenty years ago, they show a jihadi, complete with turban and scimitar, shouting "Death to America!"  Today they show a harmless, rather elderly Trump voter.

Suppose I were to reply to this cartoon that the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, and that it is unfair to stigmatize an entire religion for its violent fringe.  Presumable the authors of the cartoon would say that they weren't referring to all Muslims, just the terrorist minority.

The rejoinder is so obvious it scarcely needs saying.

Two things can both be true (1) the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, and (2) Islam nonetheless had (and perhaps still has) a terrorism problem.

How so?  Well, let's take a point of comparison.  Islam is not the only religion that has a few terrorist fringes. The difference is in separating the fringes from the mainstream.  

For instance, in 1995 a bizarre Buddhist doomsday cult in Japan named Aum Shrinrikyo (Supreme Truth) launched a Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subways.  Naturally this led to a general crackdown on the group, and the ringleaders were sentenced to death. But no one saw this as an attack on mainstream Buddhism.  In 1984 Bhagwan Shree Rahneesh, leader of a Hindu cult that were unwelcome visitors in Antelope Oregon, conspired with his followers to cause a deliberate food poisoning outbreak.  The plan was to incapacitate voters in Antelope so his followers could sweep the elections.  This led to the deportation of Rasjneesh and the arrest and prosecution of many of his followers.  But no one saw it as an attack on mainstream Hinduism. In 1993 the Branch Davidians, a splinter group from the Seventh Day Adventists, were stockpiling a large arsenal to fight the battle of Armegeddon against the federal government.  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) moved in to seize their weapons, leading to a shootout and (ultimately) the whole compound went up in flames, killing 76 people, including 25 children.  This conflagration played a major role in launching the militia movement of the 1990's.  But ("Is your church ATF approved" bumper stickers notwithstanding) no one saw it as an attack on mainstream Christianity.

By contrast, in 2001, fanatical Muslim hijackers crashed two planes into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon.  This was the culmination of many terrorist attacks.  Calls immediately went out for revenge.  And these were widely seen as at least potentially an attack on mainstream Islam, from both within and outside Islam.

Why the difference, since all these were the work of fringe groups?  Well, for one thing, it probably means the violent fringes of Islam were a lot larger than the violent fringes of Christianity, Buddhism, or Hinduism.  For another, the fringes were harder the separate from the mainstream. It has not always been easy to draw a clear line between mainstream Islam and Wahabi, or between general Wahabism and its terrorist fringes.

As for the Republican Party in general and Trump supporters in particular, this has been around for a while.  In 2012, under the Obama Administration, the FBI issued a report warning of the dangers of right-wing terrorism. Republicans reacted with outrage, treating the report as an attack on them personally, and denying that right wing terrorism existed at all.  

To which I reply, of course right wing terrorism exists.  Haven't you ever heard of the Ku Klux Klan? And if Republicans dismiss that as ancient history and all Democrats anyhow, all right then, what about Timothy McVeigh?  Or Shawna Forde and her cohorts?  Or Anders Breivik? Or Dylan Roof?  Or Brenton Harrison Tarrant?

To which Republicans would presumably say, what does that have to do with us?  And I would answer, I never said it had anything to do with you.  I said these were rightwing terrorist and should offer ample proof that rightwing terrorism exists, or that it can be deadly.  If you choose to see that as an attack on mainstream conservatism, well, that's on you.

As for Trump supporters, the Capitol Hill insurrection should make amply clear that a fringe of Trump supporters have a potential for violence.  So should Kyle Ritterhouse, not to mention his mainstream (or semi-mainstream) defenders.  Or the Trump train that surrounded and menaced the Biden bus, and their numerous mainstream supporters.

Trump supporters have a terrorism problem similar to the one in Islam. The vast majority are peaceful and only a fringe minority are violent.. But Trumpism has rather large fringes.  Moreover, the line between mainstream Trump supporters and Proud Boys/III Percent/Oath Keeper militia types is not as clear as one might wish.  And the line between militia groups and outright terrorists is even less clear.

Give Rich Lowry a Prize for Chutzpah

 

Maybe I should start giving out prizes for chutzpah, because Rich Lowry's column certainly deserves one. Granted, it is routine practice on the right to be outraged by Democrats' voting rights law, to declare state control over voting law the foundation of freedom, to denounce any federal role in voting law as tyranny, and to dismiss massive Republican changes in election as minor and quite defensible.  It isn't too far out of line to denounce Biden's support for federal voting rights law as "demagogic."  And it is positively boilerplate to be outraged by Democrat Stacey Abrams' ten day delay in conceding defeat in the election for Georgia governor in 2018.*

But the mind boggles when Lowry says, "If Democrats lose in 2022 or 2024, his [Biden's] speech will provide warrant for Democrats to embrace a corrosive excuse -- GOP foul play."

I suppose maybe we should consider it a victory that Lowry acknowledges that it is "corrosive" for partisans to blame defeat on foul play, and that Presidents should not make speeches encouraging such beliefs.  

Certainly he is right that such beliefs, especially when encouraged by presidents, are extremely dangerous to democracy.  Who knows where such beliefs could lead?  Why, they could lead to 60 or more lawsuits to overturn an election, none with any merit.  Or to members of Congress and state Attorney Generals bringing suit to overturn the results in the Supreme Court.  Or to politicians illegally pressuring secretaries of state to overturn results they don't like.  Or to pressure on election boards not to certify if their party loses.  Or to state legislatures overturning popular results.  Or to cyber ninjas scrutinizing ballots for bamboo fibers and threatening to knock on voters' doors to confirm their votes.  Or to pressure on Congress not to certify the results of the Electoral College.  Or even to violent insurrections.

Needless to say, none of this comes up in Lowry's column.

Presumably, like most Republicans, he would dismiss all that as ancient history.  What relevance could events that took place over six months ago possibly have to voting laws today?  Why won't Democrats forget the whole thing and just move on?

Well, for starters, the Republicans currently in the process of rewriting voting laws are the same ones who did or supported all those months-old attempts to overturn the last election.**  This makes it really hard for Democrats to accept that their actions are taken in good faith.  

Furthermore, there is ample evidence that Republican are not dismissing the past as irrelevant and moving on.  The Michigan Republican who voted to certify a Biden victory has been removed from the board.  Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is facing a primary challenge for certifying Biden as winner.  So is Georgia Governor Brian Kemp for signing off on Raffensperger's certification, even though by law he had no choice.  Cyber ninjas are looking for some reason, however implausible, to cast doubt on the Arizona vote, and other swing states won by Biden are following suit.  Arizona has also taken the responsibility for defending elections in court from the Democratic Secretary of State to the Republican Attorney General -- to last only for the duration of their terms in office.  Georgia election law gives the (Republican) state legislature power to choose the chair of the election board.  The Texas legislature proposed to make it easier for lawsuits to overturn elections. And so forth.

So maybe we should ask Rich Lowry point blank whether it is "corrosive" for any party to blame defeat on foul play and whether it is "demagogic" for any President to encourage such beliefs?  Or do these rules only apply to Democrats?

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*By way of background, Abrams' opponent, Brian Kemp was secretary of state, which put him in charge of counting the votes.  Kemp removed some 700,000 voters from the voting rolls without notice, some 300,000 of whom still lived where they were registered.  He also delayed some 53,000 voter applications, 75% of them minorities, and falsely accused the Democrats of attempting to hack the elections board when the alleged "hack" was actually a security test that his staff has signed off on months earlier.  Abrams considered suing to challenge the results, but decided against it.  Ten days after the election, she conceded Kemp's de facto victory, but not its legitimacy.

**Minus the insurrection, of course.  But the current Republican line is to dismiss the January 6 insurrection as a mere protest, or even a tourist visit.

More Thoughts on a Loyal Opposition

Why do I continue to consider the meaning of loyal opposition? Even the narrowest possible meaning of disloyalty -- illegality or violence -- has now been breached.  But I still think it is worth considering, even if it seems most implausible right now.  After all, if we don't know what a loyal opposition looks like, how will be know what is or is not disloyalty?

And I will now add to what I have said before, that for democracy to be functional, each side has to show some respect for the architecture created by its predecessors.  What do I mean by that?  Well, to take an extreme hypothetical, if one party wants to nationalize industry and the other does not, it would be disastrous for to nationalize and denationalize industry every time power changed hands.  Or if one side wants to keep Social Security in its present from and one wants to turn it into a 401-k, switching between one and the other with every change of party would be worse than either alternative.

Many people, myself among them, think our system is failing in large part because it has so many veto points ad to lead to complete paralysis.  But some veto points are needed, and some difficulty in making major policy changes, in order to avoid ruinous swings in policy with every election.  Norman Ornstein has suggested the following options to a loyal opposition faced with legislation it dislikes:

When a law is enacted, representatives who opposed it have some choices (which are not mutually exclusive). They can try to repeal it, which is perfectly acceptable -- unless it becomes an effort at grandstanding so overdone that it detracts from other basic responsibilities of governing. They can try to amend it to make it work better -- not just perfectly acceptable but desirable, if the goal is to improve a cumbersome law to work better for the betterment of the society and its people. They can strive to make sure that the law does the most for Americans it is intended to serve, including their own constituents, while doing the least damage to the society and the economy. Or they can step aside and leave the burden of implementation to those who supported the law and got it enacted in the first place.

His comment referred to Obamacare, and his point was that actively sabotaging a law and trying to keep people from benefitting from it was not reasonable or acceptable.  But I am prepared to go a step further and say that once a law becomes embedded to a degree and shapes people's behaviors and expectations, outright repeal becomes an extreme step that should be undertaken only in the most extreme circumstances.  On the whole, modifying is the better course.

Let us take some concrete examples.  When Ronald Reagan became president, the top marginal tax rate was 70%.  His great, dramatic tax cuts lowered that rate -- to 50%.  The tax reform in his second term greatly simplified that tax code, removed many deductions, and lowered the top marginal rate to 28%.  Since then, many complications and deductions have found their way back in and, perhaps not coincidentally, the top marginal rate has crept back up.  But it has never reach 50% again, let alone 70%.

This is an example of a policy change that hat been tweaked, modified, and perhaps even undermined, but not repealed.*  Other policy architecture deserves similar respect.  Obamacare is an obvious example.  Certainly, there is plenty of room to criticize Obamacare, and doubtless there are changes that Republicans could make to make it more to their liking.  But by the time Republicans were in an actual position to repeal, 10 million people were getting health insurance through the Medicaid expansion and another 10 million were buying insurance on the exchanges.  Simply to have repealed the whole system would have meant stripping 20 million people of their health insurance.  Republicans learned the hard way that doing so is a surefire electoral loser. 

Republicans did generally respect the architecture of Obama's financial regulations. Now housing prices are once again soaring to insane levels, and whether that produces a new financial crisis will depend on how good the financial regulations are.

The other main piece of architecture that Obama left was the Iranian nuclear deal -- the JCPOA.  Republicans denounced the agreement as a disaster, but recall that it:

• Reduced Iran's level of enrichment from 20% to 3.67% fissile material
• Reduced Iran's number of centrifuges for enriching uranium from over 19,000 to 6,104
• Reduced advanced centrifuges from over 1,000 to none
• Closed the enrichment facility most likely to be used to make nuclear weapons
• Reduced Iran's stockpile of low enriched uranium from over 10,000 kg to 300 kg
• Eliminated Iran's stockpile of medium enriched uranium altogether
• Gave access to nuclear inspectors to ensure that these terms were kept

These were significant concessions.  Donald Trump's response was to make a concerted effort to destroy the whole agreement.  Now Iran is producing 60% fissile uranium.  

Conservative had two main criticisms (1) the terms were in effect for only ten years, and (2) other issues, such as Iran's support for armed proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah were not addressed.  A more sensible approach would have been to seek to modify, rather than destroy the framework.  If conservatives' main objection was to the limited duration of the agreement, they could seek to extend it.  If their main objection was Iran's continued support for proxies, they could have been more confrontational.  Of course, there would be tradeoffs.  If one's goal is to extend the nuclear restraints beyond ten years, it might call for a conciliatory approach that might condone Iran's support for armed proxies so long as they did not become too aggressive.  Alternately a more confrontational approach over armed proxies might undermine and weaken the proxies and give hope for their eventual destruction, but it might make Iran less interested in renewing the nuclear agreement.  But life is full of tradeoffs and you don't always get what you want.

And to be clear, this rule should apply to our side as well.  The Trump Administration has achievements and made changes to the international architecture that the Biden Administration should respect.  To some degree it has.  The Trump Administration brokered recognition of Israel by several Arab countries; the Biden Administration has respected these agreements and sought to expand on them.

By contrast, the Biden Administration made a serious misstep when it sought to end the Trump Administrations remain in Mexico approach to asylum seekers.  It has since attempted to backtrack by using the COVID emergency as an excuse to keep asylum seekers in Mexico, except for minors.  None of this makes much sense.  It is driven by domestic politics -- the Democratic base outraged by remain in Mexico and wants it to end, but letting in an unrestrained flood of asylum seekers would be electoral suicide.  A better approach would have been to make the remain in Mexico policy more humane -- speed up the asylum process and give assistance to people waiting.  I plan to discuss this more in a future post.

But in nearly all cases, modifying, rather than reversing, one's predecessor's architecture is the better approach.  I plan to discuss this, and the real but manageable policy differences it can leave in place, in future posts on what a sensible center right -- and a sensible center left -- would look like.

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*And even if the top marginal rate does make it all the way back to 70%, it will certainly be a gradual process with room for opposition all along the way.

What are the Republicans Doing?

Some people have expressed puzzlement at Republican attempts to make voting harder, especially for minorities.  After all, Republicans actually did quite well in the 2020 election, except at the presidential level.  The election proved that high turnout does not necessarily favor Democrats, the Republicans can compete just fine in a high turnout election.  Furthermore, Republicans clearly improved their performance among minorities, so why try to disenfranchise their own voters.

My only half-sarcastic suggestion is as follows.  Republicans, after decades of despairing over how to win the minority vote, have finally found the secret. To win the minority vote, you have to act really, really racist.  At least, it seems to have worked for Trump.  Calling immigrants drug dealers, rapists and animals and urging brutality against them turns out to be a good way to win the Hispanic/Latino vote.  Disastrous response to a hurricane in Puerto Rico turns out to be a good way to win the Puerto Rican vote.  Warning that if Democrats win Cory Booker will send low income urban dwellers to destroy the suburbs has made headway with black voters.  Talk about the "China virus" and the "kung flu" has been successful with Asian voters.

So maybe Republicans are confident that a strong effort to disenfranchise minority voters with inspire them to turn out -- for Republicans.

Can We Go There Now?

 At what point can we go there?

Republican opinion makers, whether at CPAC or on Fox, are not just denouncing COVID mitigation measures and vaccine mandates as tyranny, they are actively discouraging people from getting vaccines, even as the COVID count grows.  Ron DeSantis has actually forbidden cruise ships from requiring passengers to be vaccinated, even though there have been past instances of contagious disease outbreaks on cruise ships.

At what point do we say that they are deliberately trying to keep the pandemic going in order to make Biden and Democrats look bad and improve their chances for the next election?

Kurt Volker Lied to Congress: His Aide's Testimony is Damning

 

The whole question of military aid was central to the Ukraine scandal.  After all, a president has absolute discretion on who to invite to the White House.  Making investigation of political rivals a condition of a White House visit may be scandalous, but it is not in any way illegal. By contrast, withholding military aid duly appropriated by Congress is a violation of the Impoundment Control Act (though not a crime).

One of the main defenses offered by Republicans was that President Trump could not possibly have used military aid to pressure the Ukrainians on the phone call because he never so much as mentioned the subject, and because Ukrainians did not even know of the subject.  This runs into the rather obvious flaw that Trump does appear to have directed Sondland to use military aid as a form of pressure in September.  If withholding military aid in order to pressure a vulnerable country into investigating a political rival is an impeachable offense, it does not stop being impeachable simply because it took place some other time than during one disputed phone call.*

Catherine Croft

But in fact, there was evidence early on that the Ukrainians knew of the hold before it became public knowledge.  And the primary source of information, surprisingly, is Volker's some-time aide Catherine Croft. Croft is a State Department employee who was working in Washington before her assignment with Volker.  While she was in Washington, Croft had two separate conversations with people at the Ukrainian embassy asking about the hold on military aid. She told them she was confident that it would be resolved. (pp. 86-88).  The Ukrainians did not want the matter to become public for fear of its effect on morale at home (pp. 97-99).  

Croft's testimony was confirmed by Laura Cooper, a Pentagon employee, at the impeachment hearings. Cooper said that members of her staff received two e-mails on July 25, 2019 (the date of the Trump-Zelensky phone call) asking about security assistance. It is not clear whether this information filtered up to the upper echelons of government in Ukraine.  Certainly none of the diplomats in Ukraine heard any Ukrainians mention aid being withheld until the hold was publicly disclosed by Politico.  

The phone call transcript is also quite interesting.  It is immediately after Zelensky expresses in interest in buying Javelin missiles that Trump says, "I would like you to do us a favor though."**  Certainly in the light of hindsight this could be taken to tie the purchase of Javelins to the "favor," but it is not clear from the conversation whether that was intended.

Also significant in Croft's testimony, and damaging to Volker, are her notes from July 26, 2019.  Zelensky had told Taylor and Volker that the call went well.  The American diplomats then went to tour the front and also saw the official readout, which did not mention the scandalous elements of the call.  Croft was sitting in a car on  between Taylor and Volker on the way to the airport, taking notes, and got carsick. Her notes said there were "three questions" and "no mention of B."  She believed that the "three questions" meant that Trump raised the question of investigations three times, and that "no mention of B" could mean either Burisma, Biden, or Barr.  Attorney General Barr was going to visit Ukraine.  (pp. 118-120).  Croft was well aware that Burisma and the Bidens referred to the same thing.  She also mentioned that she specifically asked Volker to keep her out of any conversations with Giuliani, which she clearly regarded as a dirty business.

Once again, it is clear that if Volker was unaware that Giuliani was up to no good, and that "Burisma" stood for the Bidens, he was alone in his ignorance.  Even his aide knew what was going on, and what to expect would be coming down in the Trump/Zelensky phone call.

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*A major part of the Republicans' defense strategy was to narrowly focus on the phone call as if the scandal were limited to one call, rather than a general course of conduct over several months.

**The "favor" was about the 2016 election.  All talk about Biden came later.

Kurt Volker and the Dangers of Talking to Rudy

 I am prepared to give Volker credit for sincerity in at least one thing -- and oddly enough, to give Giuliani a warped sort of credit as well.

Volker testified that when he met with Donald Trump on May 23, 2019 in an attempt to convince him that Zelensky was "the real deal," Trump dismissed Zelensky as no different than his predecessors and surrounded by "terrible people" and said, "Talk to Rudy."  Hoping that Giuliani held some sway with Trump, Volker talked to Rudy.  They met in person on July 19, 2019 and Volker tried to convince Giuliani that Zelensky was "the real deal" and that Yuri Lutsenko, the holdover Prosecutor General from the previous administration, was corrupt and not to be trusted.  Rather to Volker's surprise, Giuliani agreed.

And in all probability, Giuliani genuinely agreed that Lutsenko was corrupt and not to be trusted, and that Zelensky might be "the real deal."  Giuliani wrote a fawning letter (p. 28) to Zelensky that I dismissed as empty flattery may very well have been sincere.  But Giuliani's concept of "corrupt" and "the real deal" were not the same as the concepts of a professional diplomat like Volker.  Volker may not have understood that.  On the other hand, presumably he got a hint on the July 22 phone call when Giuliani started blaming everything on Soros. That is a clear detour into paranoia land, but Giuliani appears to believe it.

Giuliani's former associate, Lev Parnas, explained:

Soros became Enemy Number One, and it was understood that Soros infiltrated the U.S. government and State Department over a certain period of time . . . . He employed different prosecutors in different states, different congressmen, and the biggest thing was they thought Victoria Nuland was his person in the State Department and then let him control Eastern Europe by naming ambassadors and stuff, and then opened up this anti-corruption-type of system to cover up, actually, his corruption. That’s what we were running with. . . . . The consensus was that the reason Trump had the Russiagate and everything that was happening was because Soros and the Democrats controlled certain U.S. embassies in Eastern Europe, particularly the Ukrainian one, and were able to help with the Manafort stuff and all other kinds of stuff that basically caused problems in the Trump World.

The article goes on to explain that the push to move Zelensky away from Soros and the push for favors to Trump were indistinguishable.

In other words, to Giuliani, corrupt meant not doing Trump's bidding because one was a member of a huge Soros scheme.  The "real deal" meant willing to fight the Soros conspiracy and give Trump what he wanted. Giuliani recognized that Lutsenko was corrupt because he was resisting giving Giuliani what he wanted and demanding inappropriate favors in exchange.  Giuliani correctly recognized this as corrupt but did not recognize that was because his own demands were improper.  When Giuliani expressed hope that Zelensky was the "real deal," he was expressing hope that Zelensky would finally drain the evil Soros swamp and give Trump what he wanted.

Volker's mistake was not running like hell when he first started Giuliani ranting about Soros.

Volker Lied to Congress: How Many Euphemisms are There for "Lie"?

 

Mother Jones was the first publication to point out the obvious significance of the recording of Kurt Volker's conversation with Giuliani. -- that Volker lied to Congress.  

I must say, though, the article shows an extraordinary reluctance to come right out and us the "L" word.  The number of euphemisms for "lie" in the article is something remarkable.

The euphemisms begin with the headline, "A New Giuliani Tape Shows a Key Witness Didn’t Testify Accurately in the First Trump Impeachment."  Translation -- he lied.  The first paragraph states that the tape, "undercuts the veracity of his claim."  Translation -- he lied.  House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff calls Volker's testimony “a disingenuous revision of history.”  Translation -- he lied.  CNN's report "shows that Volker’s account was not true."  Translation -- he lied.  The article also calls Volker's testimony "misleading" and refers to "information he failed to disclose."  There is only one solitary use of the "L" word in the entire article -- a quote from Just Security right before Volker's public testimony stating that “it appears that Mr. Volker lied to Congress in violation of federal criminal law” during his private depostion.

The authors of the article are a veritable thesaurus.  Why the reluctance to come right out and accuse Volker of lying?  I don't know for sure, but my guess would be that, since Volker was under oath, any open accusation of lying would be an accusation of the crime of perjury and might open Mother Jones to a libel suit.  This article (citing the Mother Jones article) points out all the hyper-technical constructions Volker  might use to defeat a perjury charge.

Volker Lied to Congress: What We Can Prove

 

So, to give a very brief summary of Volker's testimony to Congress, he expressed the view that Trump and Giuliani were motivated by a good-faith desire to fight corruption in Ukraine, that he talked Giuliani out of investigating the Bidens, that Burisma and the 2016 election were appropriate topics of investigation, that he had no idea that investigating Burisma was code for investigating Biden, that the Ukrainians decided against making any sort of announcement because they were convinced of US support, and that any delays in military aid were simply bureaucratic snags and in no way significant.

All of which makes one want to ask him other questions.  Does he believe in the tooth fairy or the Easter Bunny?  Has he .ever seen a jackalope?  Can I interest him in some ocean front property in Arizona?  I have compared former Ambassador Marie Yovanavitch to a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union caught in a gangland war between rival bootleggers, lecturing them about the evils of the Demon Rum and trying to figure out which of them are the good guys.  Volker, by contrast, comes across as Polyanna or Forrest Gump.  Or even Chauncy Gardner.  In short, either a seasoned diplomat is extraordinarily naive, or he was lying.  Others at the time questioned his testimony, one even presenting a detailed chart comparing Volker's testimony to other witnesses.  My own take during the impeachment was that while I had no doubt Volker was telling the truth when he said he did not know what took place in the Trump/Zelensky call until it was released and might be telling the truth that he did not know military aid was linked to investigations, it surpassed belief that he did not link Burisma to Biden.  

So what do we know now?

Well the released tape clearly proves that Volker was lying about the telephone conference he arranged between Giuliani and Andrei Yermak.  He said during congressional testimony that the meeting was brief and consisted mostly of introductions.  In fact, it was about 40 minutes long.  It begins solely between Volker and Yermak with fairly conventional congratulations on his win.  Volker then brings on Giuliani, who begins with fairly conventional congratulations and expressions of concern about corruption.  And then it segues off into some very strange territory.  Giuliani asks about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election -- not, in fairness to Giuliani, anything so insane as asking if Ukraine had the server.  He claimed that the US embassy was asking for "dirt" on Trump and his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and that dirt was produced, mostly in the form of the "black ledger" of payoffs to Manafort, that was submitted to the FBI and the press.  He also briefly mentions Alexandra Chalupa.  

None of this is completely insane.  The Ukrainians did publish a "black ledger" of payoffs by the pro-Russian party to a wide variety of individuals, including Manafort.  They provided evidence of payoffs to Manafort to the FBI and the New York Times.  It seems most likely that their motive was to get Manafort fired, which he was.  But none of this is illegal or even improper. It would be illegal if this was done at the behest of the US embassy to sway the election, but there is no evidence of that.  Alexandra Chalupa has been accused (by Politico, a reputable publication) of coordinating campaign activities between the DNC and the Ukrainian embassy, but there is not enough evidence to prove or disprove the accusation. 

Giuliani then says that during these investigations he also learned about Biden getting Shokin fired. This was of interest to him, but secondary.  His primary interest was the 2016 election.  But he makes clear that both the election and Biden are to be investigated.  There is also a single stray mention of Burisma (p. 3 out of 7 in the Buzzfeed transcript), and an investigation that was started and discontinued about three times, but this was clearly not a priority.  He also makes some comments about Soros being behind all of this that is clearly nuts.  Yermak gives assurances that there will be "investigations" not defined beyond that. The call concludes with Volker informing Giuliani of the upcoming phone call with Trump and recommending the Ukrainians give assurances of their investigation.  The phone call took place three days later.

Clearly, then, Volker was well aware of Trump's interesting in investigating Biden as well as the election. He knew that his July 19 conversation with Giuliani did not convince Giuliani to drop the subject of the Biden investigation. Though it is doubtless true that Volker did not see the call readout until it became public knowledge, he had a good idea what to expect on the call -- and what to expected included at least a coded promise to investigate Biden.  He probably did not anticipate that Trump would do anything so insane as to suggest that the Ukrainians were hiding the "server," ie, the DNC server that was hacked.  But then again, Trump did not engage in any of the insane rants about Soros that Giuliani did.  Possibly when Zelensky said that the conversation had gone well, Volker may have taken that to mean the topic of Biden had unexpectedly not come up.  

On the other hand, and by his admission, Volker spent much of August working with Yermak to prepare the announcement of "investigations."  The planned announcement was apparently limited to the election and Burisma and did not directly name the Biden. We now know for certain that Volker was lying when he said he thought Giuliani had dropped the subject of Biden.  Could he have been telling the truth when he said he did not know that Burisma was code for Biden?  Giuliani's mention of Burisma in the recording is too garbled to make much sense.  On the other hand, the basic account of what Giuliani wanted had appeared in the New York Times in early May, 2019.  Might Volker have been unaware of the articles?  Well, his deposition testimony (p. 237) revealed a text from William Taylor, apparently to Volker, dated May 26, 2019 in which he expressed reluctance to serve as acting ambassador to Ukraine because of the reports in the New York Times, which clearly linked Burisma to the Bidens.  So Volker knew as early as May that Giuliani was actively trying to link the Bidens to Burisma, and he knew that on July 22, three days after his push-back and three days before the conversation with Trump that Giuliani had not let go of the subject.

We also know that other people managed to make the connection. For instance, when Tim Morrison, the parties' contact with the National Security Counsel, first heard of Burisma, he did not know what it was so he ran a Google search. He learned of Burisma's tie to Hunter Biden and understood very well.  Then there is the matter of the July 10 meeting at the National Security Counsel.  Volker's initial testimony was that the meeting was disappointing because it went into too much minor detail, but that nothing inappropriate happened. At the public hearing he said that Sondland made some inappropriate but generic requests for investigations.  This is contradicted by the testimony of one witness present who said that Sondland raised the subject of the Bidens and another who said he only discussed Burisma, but that it was obvious that Burisma was code for the Bidens.

In short, for Volker not to link Burisma to the Bidens requires an almost superhuman degree of naivity that one does not expect to see in a seasoned diplomat.

The point-by-point chart comparing Volker's testimony to the others raises another interesting question (pp. 26-31) not specifically disproven by the tape -- when did the attempt to pressure the Ukrainians for a statement end?  Volker says (pp. 259-260) that by mid-August he and the Ukrainians agrees that they should not announce investigations and dropped the subject.  He gave as the reason for dropping the investigation that the Ukrainian were becoming increasingly confident of US support, such as John Bolton's August 27, 2019 visit to Ukraine.  Other witnesses did not agree.  Ambassador Taylor in particular disagreed.  He testified that on September 8, 2019, Ambassador Sondland reported that Trump was adamant on the need for a public announcement of investigations.  Even after the hold on military aid was lifted on September 11, 2019, Volker remained concerned that the Ukrainians might make the announcement and continued to urge them not to, lest they jeopardize bipartisan support for Ukraine. Only with the release of the transcript of the conversation between Zelensky and Trump did he become confident no announcement would take place.  Taylor's aide, James Holmes, generally confirms this account.  Sondland mentions continued calls for the announcement by Trump.

Finally, there is the matter of military aid to Ukraine.  It is undisputed that Taylor informed Volker and Sondland of the hold in military aid on July 18, 2019.  Taylor learned of the hold from Tim Morrison, the National Security Council official who he reported to, and specifically learned that the hold was at the direction of the Office of Budget Management (OMB) on orders from the President.  In other words, Taylor and Morrison knew at once that this was not a routine bureaucratic hold, but came from the highest possible authority.  Taylor did not know the reason for the hold, nor did he link it to the demand for "investigations."  He informed both Volker and Sondland of the hold.  It is not clear from the testimony whether he told them that the hold came from the highest levels. Giuliani did not mention military aid in the July 19, 2019 telephone call. As a private citizen, it seems most likely he did not know of the hold.

The first person to expressly link military aid to "investigations" was Gordon Sondland in a Warsaw meeting on September 1, 2019.  President Trump was originally scheduled to attend the meeting, but cancelled due to Hurricane Dorian.  At the meeting, Sondland took Zelensky aside and told him that military aid as well as a White House meeting depended on announcing "investigations."  Tim Morrison was present for this conversation and reported it to Taylor.  We have e-mails and reports of conversations between Taylor and Sondland about the link between military aid and "investigations."  There is no direct evidence that Volker was involved in these conversations.  We also have Sondland's own testimony that he was not acting on specific orders when he told the Ukrainians that military aid was tied to investigations, but giving the conclusion that he had reached on his own.  This might have cast Sondland as the villain of the story, except that he then talked to Trump and was told that Trump wanted "nothing, no quid pro quo" or "I am asking nothing, I am offering nothing," but still wanted the announcement.  By this time, the scandal had gone public, so this sounds very much like a confirmation that seeks to maintain plausible deniability.

However, there is nothing in the new testimony that can prove Volker knew anything about military aid being tied to any sort of investigation.  There is undeniable proof that he knew Giuliani continued to seek an investigation of Biden after Volker pushed back on the subject, and that Volker lied in his testimony to Congress.  And there is every reason to infer from the phone call that Giuliani had passed on his interest in the Bidens to Trump, and that Trump was seeking investigation of the Bidens as well as Burisma.