It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. Except when it comes to the Trump administration, when it’s both. The whistleblower’s now-released complaint alleges that the president abused his power for personal political gain – and the White House worked to coverup that effort. From the NYT: 8 Takeaways From the Whistle-Blower Complaint. Trump’s constant scandals, big and small, have been like blocks pulled from a Jenga stack. As one after another was removed, the Trump tower of misdeeds weebled and wobbled, but it wouldn’t fall down. With the Ukraine call and the whistleblower report, the walls appear to be collapsing. Susan Glasser in the New Yorker: The Forty-eight Hours That Sealed Trump’s Impeachment. “The most interesting moments to be in Washington are when the conventional wisdom is shifting and not everyone knows it yet, or when an old certainty has been shredded and nothing has emerged to replace it. As of Monday morning, the political world was pretty sure that Donald Trump would not be impeached by the Democratic House of Representatives, and that he would enter the 2020 campaign and race to win reĆ«lection, before the economy betrayed him with a recession that forecasters increasingly see as inevitable. Instead, over a remarkable day and a half, a new reality emerged: Donald Trump appears to have got himself impeached.” (Kids, let this be a lesson to you. After seven decades of nonstop lies and bullying, you may make billions and be elected to the highest office in the land, but eventually it will catch up with you…)

+ NYT: Whistle-Blower Is a CIA Officer Who Was Detailed to the White House. You can read his full complaint here.

+ Acting DNI Chief Joseph Maguire told Congress that the “whistleblower did the right thing” and “followed the law every step of the way.”

+ Vanity Fair: As Giuliani’s quest for Biden dirt in Ukraine was failing, Trump grew frustrated and made the fateful call to Volodymyr Zelensky. (Rudy went from busting the mob to joining one…)

+ Some of the whistleblower’s information is secondhand, and Trump lashed out at whoever shared information. “I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistle-blower the information because that’s close to a spy. You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now.” (In fairness, we used to have presidents who put the country’s welfare ahead of their own.)

+ This story is coming at you fast. Here’s the latest from WaPo and CNN. (Prediction: Mexico is gonna pay for the impeachment…)