Tag: Impeachment

Onward To Impeachment

Surprise!  No need for a second day of the Judiciary hearings….Pelosi told the Dems to move on to impeachment….apparently she wants to get on with it before the Christmas break….my question is what is the rush?

The evidence is available……I post this knowing that many have already made up their minds and will not bother to check the evidence before they comment…..to include some senators…..be thankful that is NOT the way a jury acts in the public domain.

I. The President’s Misconduct: The President Conditioned a White House Meeting and Military Aid to Ukraine on a Public Announcement of Investigations Beneficial to his Reelection Campaign

The President’s Request for a Political Favor | The President Removed Anti-Corruption Champion Ambassador Yovanovitch | The President’s Hand-picked Agents Begin the Scheme | President Trump Froze Vital Military Assistance | The President Conditioned a White House Meeting on Investigations | The President’s Agents Pursued a “Drug Deal” | President Trump Pressed President Zelensky to Do a Political Favor | The President’s Representatives Ratcheted up Pressure on the Ukrainian President | Ukrainians Inquired about the President’s Hold on Security Assistance | The President’s Security Assistance Hold Became Public | The President’s Scheme Unraveled | The President’s Chief of Staff Confirmed Aid was Conditioned on Investigations

II. The President’s Obstruction of the House of Representatives’ Impeachment Inquiry: The President Obstructed the Impeachment Inquiry by Instructing Witnesses and Agencies to Ignore Subpoenas for Documents and Testimony

An Unprecedented Effort to Obstruct an Impeachment Inquiry | Constitutional Authority for Congressional Oversight and Impeachment | The President’s Categorical Refusal to Comply | The President’s Refusal to Produce Any and All Subpoenaed Documents | The President’s Refusal to Allow Top Aides to Testify | The President’s Unsuccessful Attempts to Block Other Key Witnesses | The President’s Intimidation of Witnesses

Speaker of the House Pelosi has made her thoughts known and the faithful will follow…..

The House is formally moving ahead with impeachment—and that timeline is just fine with President Trump. Nancy Pelosi on Thursday announced that the House will draft articles of impeachment against the president. “The facts are uncontested,” she said, per CBS News. “The president abused his power for his own personal political benefit at the expense of our national security by withholding military aid and [a] crucial Oval Office meeting in exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival.” In doing so, “the president leaves us no choice but to act.” And so “sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our founders, and a heart full of love for America, today I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment.”

The exact timeline remains unclear, though Politico expects a House vote before the end of the month. Pelosi’s comments come a day after the House Judiciary panel had its first impeachment hearing. Also on Wednesday, Pelosi met behind closed doors with the Democratic caucus and asked, “Are you ready?” reports the AP. Those in the room responded with what the AP characterizes as a “resounding yes.” A speedy vote is OK with Trump. On Thursday, he tweeted that if House Democrats “are going to impeach me, do it now, fast,” because he is confident he will be cleared in a Senate trial.

Now we wait for the articles of impeachment and the counts…..and we wait….which is good for it gives the slower thinkers time to write their stuff.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Judiciary Impeachment Hearing–Day One

I watch this stuff so my readers does not have to…..they will thank me in the long run.

The whole impeachment thing has gone from the Intel Committee to the Judiciary……the report released by the Intel to lead the way…..https://lobotero.com/2019/12/04/lets-go-to-the-house-impeachment-report/

A summary of the day’s theatrics….

  • The Constitution lays out somewhat vague standards for presidential impeachment. Look for much discussion about the passage at issue: “The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” How Nadler’s committee applies those words and ideas to the Intelligence Committee report will determine the fate of Trump’s presidency.
  • As for the sentiment going into the hearing, Kathryn Krawczyk puts it like so at the Week: “President Trump either did everything wrong or not much at all, depending on who you ask.” Four constitutional lawyers will testify today: for the Democrats, Noah Feldman of Harvard Law School, Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina School of Law, and Pamela Karlan of Stanford Law School; for the GOP, Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, reports Politico. You can read their opening statements here.
  • Gerhardt said Trump’s actions have been “worse than the misconduct of any prior president.” He also offered what the Washington Post calls one of the day’s most “memorable lines” thus far: “I just want to stress that if what we’re talking about is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable. This is precisely the misconduct that the framers created a Constitution including impeachment to protect against.” He also argued if Trump ends up getting a “pass,” future presidents will have a green light to imitate his actions.
  • The Hill reports Feldman referenced the afterlife: “Someday we will no longer be alive, and we will go wherever it is we go, the good place, or the other place, and we may meet there [James] Madison and [Alexander] Hamilton, and they will ask us, when the president of the United States acted to corrupt the structure of the Republic, what did you do? Our answer to that question must be that we followed the guidance of the framers, and it must be that if the evidence supports that conclusion that the House of Representatives move to impeach him.”
  • Turley hammered home what he sees as flawed timing in his opening statement. “This impeachment would stand out among modern impeachments as the shortest proceeding, with the thinnest evidentiary record, and the narrowest grounds ever used to impeach a president.” The Guardian reports he later said, “Fast is not good for impeachment. Fast and narrow impeachments have failed,” and later, “If you rush this impeachment, you’re going to leave half the country behind. This is not an impulse buy item.”
  • At CNN, Chris Cillizza called Turley a “very good witness for the GOP,” noting that his explanation at the beginning that he didn’t vote for Trump and didn’t agree with Trump’s view that his July 25 call with Ukraine’s president was “perfect” served to make “his insistence stronger that there wasn’t enough evidence yet to impeach Trump and that the whole process would be better if everyone slowed down, took a deep breath and thought of the ramifications of their actions.”
  • The Hill reports Karlan didn’t stick with her script. In her opening remarks she took GOP Rep. Doug Collins to task for suggesting that today’s witnesses wouldn’t have read the 300-page report or all of the witness transcripts. She addressed the committee’s top Republican by name, saying “Mr. Collins … I read transcripts of every one of the witnesses who appeared in the live hearing, because I would not speak about these things without reviewing the facts, so I’m insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor I don’t care about those facts.”
  • Karlan also mentioned the president’s 13-year-old son, Barron, after she was asked about the framers’ fears of a monarchy taking hold in the US. “Kings could do no wrong, because the king’s word was law,” she explained, but “contrary to what President Trump has said, Article II does not give him the power to do anything he wants. The Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility. So while the President can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron.” Melania Trump was not pleased: “A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics,” the first lady tweeted. “Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it.”
  • The AP reports Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have used their five-minute allotments to criticize the impeachment process and defend Trump, rather than ask questions of the law professors. Louie Gohmert of Texas complained the committee hasn’t had enough time to review the House Intelligence Committee’s report on impeachment; Ohio Rep. Steve Chabot called the impeachment process a partisan exercise and said impeachment pushed by Democrats is inevitable because they don’t like Trump.
  • As for Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, he used his time to criticize Karlan, who he noted has donated to Democrats in the past, CNN reports. He painted her as a liberal elite with a “contempt” of conservatives, and asked her about an appearance she made affiliated with a podcast called Versus Trump. During the event, he said, she had joked that conservatives spread out geographically “perhaps because they don’t even want to be around themselves.” Of her mention of Barron, he said, “when you try to make a little joke out of referencing Barron Trump, that does not lend credibility to your argument. It makes you look mean. It makes you look like you’re attacking someone’s family. The minor child of the president of the United States.” He did not give her time to respond.
  • GOP Rep. Tom McClintock followed that up by asking the four professors who they voted for in the 2016 presidential election. Karlan protested; ultimately none of the witnesses raised their hands when asked if they voted for Trump, but Feldman said, “Not raising our hands is not an indication of an answer, sir.”

That is day one…..I think it was a good idea for the law professors to talk since the whole process of impeachment has been so clouded with bullshit that it needed to be clarified for the Congresspeople….they have spent many months of obfuscation….the professors were a needed touch.

Now on to day two and the process continues……

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Let’s Go To The House Impeachment Report

The House Intel Committee has released their impeachment report…….

First to be fair the GOP has released their “Minority Report” ahead of the House Intel Committee report release….read it here….https://lobotero.com/2019/12/03/go-to-the-gop-transcript/

The House Intelligence Committee has released a 300-page report outlining evidence against President Trump.

There were several big thoughts in this report…..

  • “The impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, uncovered a monthslong effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.”
  • “[T]he President placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the US presidential election process, and endangered US national security.”
  • “To compel the Ukrainian President to do his political bidding, President Trump conditioned two official acts on the public announcement of the investigations: a coveted White House visit and critical US military assistance Ukraine needed to fight its Russian adversary.”
  • “President Trump engaged in an unprecedented campaign of obstruction of this impeachment inquiry.”
  • “The damage to our system of checks and balances, and to the balance of power within our three branches of government, will be long-lasting and potentially irrevocable if the president’s ability to stonewall Congress goes unchecked. Any future president will feel empowered to resist an investigation into their own wrongdoing, malfeasance, or corruption, and the result will be a nation at far greater risk of all three.”

But if your time is limited then maybe a summary would be easier for you to handle…..

 

I. The President’s Misconduct: The President Conditioned a White House Meeting and Military Aid to Ukraine on a Public Announcement of Investigations Beneficial to his Reelection Campaign

The President’s Request for a Political Favor | The President Removed Anti-Corruption Champion Ambassador Yovanovitch | The President’s Hand-picked Agents Begin the Scheme | President Trump Froze Vital Military Assistance | The President Conditioned a White House Meeting on Investigations | The President’s Agents Pursued a “Drug Deal” | President Trump Pressed President Zelensky to Do a Political Favor | The President’s Representatives Ratcheted up Pressure on the Ukrainian President | Ukrainians Inquired about the President’s Hold on Security Assistance | The President’s Security Assistance Hold Became Public | The President’s Scheme Unraveled | The President’s Chief of Staff Confirmed Aid was Conditioned on Investigations


II. The President’s Obstruction of the House of Representatives’ Impeachment Inquiry: The President Obstructed the Impeachment Inquiry by Instructing Witnesses and Agencies to Ignore Subpoenas for Documents and Testimony

An Unprecedented Effort to Obstruct an Impeachment Inquiry | Constitutional Authority for Congressional Oversight and Impeachment | The President’s Categorical Refusal to Comply | The President’s Refusal to Produce Any and All Subpoenaed Documents | The President’s Refusal to Allow Top Aides to Testify | The President’s Unsuccessful Attempts to Block Other Key Witnesses | The President’s Intimidation of Witnesses

I watch this stuff so that my regular readers do not have to….and I pass on what I find so they are well informed…..

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Go To The GOP Transcript

With all this impeachment stuff flying around these days I have tried to help my readers understand what is being said by the Congress and the witnesses.

I have posted the transcripts of the witnesses to the Intel Committee….. https://lobotero.com/2019/11/08/go-to-the-transcripts-4/

I try to be fair to the Repubs…..as much as I may not feel like it….it is important that we hear their side.

Now I would like to offer the so-called “Minority Report” (not to be confused with the Phillip K. Dick story) issued by the Repubs on that committee…..

A Republican report designed to counter Democrats’ impeachment case will argue that President Trump’s hesitation to meet with Ukraine’s president and provide military aid to the country was “entirely prudent.” The report, obtained by the AP, disputes that Trump was laying out a “quid pro quo” with Ukraine when he asked the country’s president to investigate Democrats. It says Trump holds a “deepseated, genuine, and reasonable skepticism” of Ukraine due to its history of corruption. The Republicans argue that Democrats are trying to impeach Trump because of his “outside the beltway” approach to diplomacy. The GOP report, which is 123 pages per CNN, is expected to be released Tuesday, the same day Democrats on the House intelligence committee will release their own report.

The House impeachment report will be unveiled Monday behind closed doors for key lawmakers as Democrats push ahead with the inquiry despite the White House’s declaration it will not participate in the first Judiciary Committee hearing. The Democratic majority on the House Intelligence Committee says the report, compiled after weeks of testimony, will speak for itself in laying out what Chairman Adam Schiff called the evidence of “wrongdoing and misconduct” by the president over his actions toward Ukraine. It was being made available for committee members to review ahead of a vote Tuesday to send it to the Judiciary Committee for Wednesday’s landmark hearing.

Below is the 123 page report issued by the GOP in advance to the start of the Judiciary Committee proceedings….

Click to access 2019-12-02-Report-of-Evidence-in-the-Democrats-Impeachment-Inquiry-in-the-House-of-Representatives.pdf

I will post on the report when it is released by the Dems on the Intel Committee as soon as it is released…..

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Congressional Impeachment Hearing–Day 5

The Dem debate is in the bag….now time to zero in on the testimony before the House hearings…..day 5 and witnesses will be….Fiona Hill and David Holmes……

The one thing we knew for certain was that the president to Tweet out an insult and cheer the thugs like Nunes and Jordan onward….but here is what happened yesterday…..

The impeachment hearings are back underway at Capitol Hill, and President Trump called Democrats participating in the proceeding “human scum.” In a morning tweet, Trump also wrote that “corrupt politician Adam Schiff’s lies are growing by the day,” and he urged Republicans to stay united in his defense. Soon, he added, the matter will be on “our turf,” referring to the Senate. Tuesday’s witnesses are Fiona Hill, a former White House adviser who worked at the National Security Council, and David Holmes, a staffer at the US embassy in Ukraine. Coverage:

  • Hill: In her opening statement, Hill criticized Republicans for pushing the “fictional narrative” that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election, reports Politico. “These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes,” she said, asking GOP members to “not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.” Trump, too, has said Ukraine meddled in the election to benefit Hillary Clinton, notes the Washington Post, but Hill says it is not true. “The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions,” Hill says. “It is beyond dispute.” Read her statement in full here.
  • Holmes: The embassy official in Kyiv said he was sure by the end of the August that Trump froze military aid to Ukraine to pressure the country to investigate Hunter Biden, reports the New York Times. “My clear impression was that the security assistance hold was likely intended by the president either as an expression of dissatisfaction with the Ukrainians who had not yet agreed to the Burisma/Biden investigation or as an effort to increase the pressure on them to do so.” He also told lawmakers he heard Trump and American diplomat Gordon Sondland talking about “the investigation” during a phone call, adding that he could hear Trump’s voice while sitting near Sondland in a restaurant. (Read about Sondland’s big-news testimony Wednesday.)
  • Overhead call: Holmes also told lawmakers he heard Trump ask American diplomat Gordon Sondland whether Ukraine was going to do “the investigation” during a phone call. Sondland made the call while he and Holmes were sitting together at a restaurant in Kyiv. Holmes recounts that overhead phone call in this video via NBC News. Trump’s voice was “quite loud” and “quite distinctive,” allowing him to identify the president. Holmes also demonstrated how Sondland moved the phone away from his ear. (Read about Sondland’s big-news testimony Wednesday.)
  • Trump skeptical: The president tweeted his doubts about Holmes’ ability to overhear that conversation. “I have been watching people making phone calls my entire life,” he wrote. “My hearing is, and has been, great. Never have I been watching a person making a call, which was not on speakerphone, and been able to hear or understand a conversation. I’ve even tried, but to no avail. Try it live!”
  • Slam on Giuliani: When someone once wondered aloud why Rudy Giuliani was such a public presence in regard to Ukraine, Holmes recalls Sondland saying, “Dammit Rudy. Every time Rudy gets involved he goes and f—s everything up,” per CNN.
  • Devin Nunes: The top Republican on the House panel conducting the hearing used his opening statement to celebrate the “merciful end” to the proceedings. “Whether the Democrats reap the political benefit they want from this impeachment remains to be seen,” said Nunes. “But the damage they have done to this country will be long-lasting.” Read his statement in full via US News & World Report.

I really do not see the need for further witnesses and testimony….the ones that have gone before have made the case for impeachment….and then Trump keeps helping the Committee make up their minds….for he cannot stop stomping on the toes of the attack dogs like Jimbo Baggins……who rambled on about everything but the subject of the hearing…..surely these people know how feckless, pathetic and disgusting they appear.

There will be more coming on this situation…..no doubt but for this week the deal is done.

The Independent Rep. Amash closes this post out……”Impeachment in the House is an indictment, said the Michigan congressman. “If this were an ordinary prosecution, there’s no grand jury in America that would not return an indictment on the facts and evidence presented in these hearings.”

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Congressional Impeachment Hearing–Day 4

I watch so you do not have to….your are welcome.

The impeachment saga continues……Day 4 and the EU ambassador, Sondland, the guy that has more versions to his tale than hairs on his butt….

Sondland’s testimony should be the topping on the impeachment pie……

  • Who is Sondland? NBC takes a look at Sondland’s background—and why he is so important to the impeachment inquiry. The businessman, who donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration before he was named ambassador to the EU, is one of the “three amigos” who dealt with Ukraine policy, and allegedly pressured officials to investigate the Bidens, after ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was ousted in May.
  • “Tough questions.” The AP predicts that Sondland will face tough questions from both parties about Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president, and about testimony from earlier witnesses. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified Tuesday that Sondland told Ukrainian officials in a July 10 meeting that they would need to “deliver” before President Volodymyr Zelensky could meet Trump. “Ambassador Sondland referred to investigations into the Bidens and Burisma in 2016,” Vindman testified.
  • “Omnipresent shadow.” Kyle Cheney at Politico calls Sondland an “omnipresent shadow” behind the witnesses who have testified so far. The testimony suggested “that Sondland can pull together all of the far-flung elements of Democrats’ impeachment investigation and provide clarity—or sink the probe into further confusion—with his testimony on Wednesday,” he writes.
  • A lot of explaining to do. Sondland will have to answer for inconsistencies that have emerged in his story, the New York Times notes. In closed-door testimony, he said he never thought military aid to Ukraine was linked to the investigations Trump was pushing for, but he later revised his testimony to say he told the Ukrainians that “resumption of the US aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks.”

US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland’s testimony as part of the House impeachment inquiry. President Trump had a different take: “It’s all over.” Politico reports that in comments to reporters, Trump had this to say of Sondland: “I have not spoken to him much. This is not a man I know well. He seems like a nice guy, though.” But as for Sondland’s recollection of a September phone call in which Trump explicitly said “I want no quid pro quo,” the president said this: “That means it’s all over. This is the final word from the president of the United States. I want nothing.” You can read Sondland’s opening remarks in full here. Highlights:

On quid pro quo: In what the Guardian describes as Sondland “pointing a finger directly at Trump,” he said this: “I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’ As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes. Mr. Giuliani conveyed to Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker, and others that President Trump wanted a public statement from President Zelensky committing to investigations of Burisma and the 2016 election. Mr. Giuliani expressed those requests directly to the Ukrainians. Mr. Giuliani also expressed those requests directly to us. We all understood that these prerequisites for the White House call and White House meeting reflected President Trump’s desires and requirements.”

  • On Giuliani: “Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker, and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States. We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani. Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the President’s orders.”
  • On the suspension of aid: “In July and August 2019, we learned that the White House had also suspended security aid to Ukraine. I was adamantly opposed to any suspension of aid, as the Ukrainians needed those funds to fight against Russian aggression. I tried diligently to ask why the aid was suspended, but I never received a clear answer. In the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, I later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from Ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 election and Burisma, as Mr. Giuliani had demanded.”
  • A “bombshell”: At the Atlantic, David A. Graham presents what he says were the two key sentences of Sondland’s opening statement: “Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.” Writes Graham, “Sondland’s testimony shows that far from freelancing a crazy scheme, he was working closely with the president and with top policymakers in the administration, keeping them apprised.”
  • A three-letter word: Daniel Goldman, the Democrats’ lawyer, asked Sondland if he remembering saying to President Trump that the Ukrainian president “loves your ass” during a July 26 call at a Kyiv restaurant, reports CNN. Sondland replied that it “sounds like something I would say. That’s how President Trump and I communicate. A lot of four-letter words. In this case, three letters,” he said to laughter.
  • A major blow? CNN writes there was one “major blow” for Democrats that came when Sondland repeatedly answered Goldman by saying Trump never directly verbally linked the aid with an announcement of investigations. But he did reference other top officials as being in the loop, among them Mike Pence, whom Sondland says he mentioned the apparent link to while in a meeting. Sondland said Pence “nodded like he heard what I said.”
  • Ken Starr weighs in: In speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, the head prosecutor in Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings said Sondland’s testimony “doesn’t look good for the president, substantively.” Starr continued, “It’s over … The articles of impeachment are being drawn up, if they haven’t already been drawn up. … This obviously has been one of those bombshell days,” said Starr, who added that Democrats will claim Trump “committed the crime of bribery.”

The GOP on the committee tried to turn it into a fiasco (as usual)….Jimbo Baggins and Willy the Weasel did what they always do….try to turn the hearing into a bigger circus….

All in all the day was in the win column for the Dems and impeachment…..

The Debate was yesterday as well…..summary to come….

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House Impeachment Hearing–Day #3

The Congressional Hearing resumed on the 3rd day of testimony by witnesses…..2 separate hearings so a full day of testimony…..

The hearings begin with the testimony of Lt. Col. Vindman……then on to Jennifer Williams……

  • Both Vindman, a Ukraine expert with the NSC, and Jennifer Williams, a Mike Pence aide, reiterated to lawmakers that they were troubled by Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s leader, reports the AP. Both listened in on the call directly, and they stated similar concerns during their closed-door depositions. Vindman called it “improper” and Williams “unusual.” Trump had previously criticized them both as “Never Trumpers” out to get him.
  • Trump on Vindman: “I don’t know Vindman at all,” said Trump. “I watched him for a little while this morning, and I think he—I’m going to let people make their own determination.” Trump took note of Vindman’s military attire. “I understand now he wears his uniform when he goes in,” Trump said. He also made a somewhat sarcastic reference to how Vindman corrected the GOP’s Devin Nunes for calling him “Mr. Vindman” instead of using his rank. “I understand someone had the misfortune of calling him mister,” said Trump.
  • Trump on others: “These are names, like (William) Taylor, like (George) Kent with the bowtie, the wonderful bowtie. Maybe I’ll get one for myself one day,” Trump said, per the Washington Post. “All these people are talking about they heard a conversation of a conversation of another conversation that was had by the president. What is going on is a disgrace.”
  • AM opening statements: Read the prepared remarks via CNN of the first two witnesses, Vindman, here, and Williams, here. The opening statement of Democrat Adam Schiff is here and that of his GOP counterpart, Nunes, is here.
  • Vindman: He spoke of his family’s roots in fleeing the Soviet Union decades ago. “Dad,” he said in his opening statement, “my sitting here today, in the US Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America.” In his native land, speaking up about his concerns with a president’s phone call might have gotten him killed, he said. “Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.”
  • Williams: “I found the July 25th phone call unusual, because in contrast to other presidential calls I had observed, it involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter,” she said, referring to Trump’s conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart.
  • Nunes: He repeated a common refrain from the GOP: Where’s the whistleblower who started all this? “Now that the whistleblower has successfully kick-started impeachment, he has disappeared from the story,” Nunes said. “As if the Democrats put [him] in their own witness protection program.”
  • Schiff: He denounced earlier attacks on witnesses from Trump and his supporters. “Ms. Williams, we all saw the president’s tweet about you on Sunday afternoon and the insults he hurled at Ambassador Yovanovitch last Friday,” he said. “You are here today, and the American people are grateful.” And to Vindman: “We have seen far more scurrilous attacks on your character, and watched as certain personalities on Fox have questioned your loyalty,” he said. “I note that you have shed blood for America, and we owe you an immense debt of gratitude.”
  • In the afternoon: Former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and former National Security Council aide Tim Morrison, who has told the panel that he didn’t hear anything illegal in the Trump phone call, testified. Read Volker’s opening statement here and Morrison’s here.
  • Volker: He said he should have realized Trump’s push for an investigation by Ukraine was connected to Joe Biden, who he said is an honorable man. If he had, Volker said, he’d have objected.
  • Morrison: Democrat Eric Swalwell pushed on why Morrison wouldn’t have thought Trump’s July 25 phone call wasn’t improper, per the Post. “It was not a policy objective that I was aware of,” Morrison answered. Swalwell told him he believes Morrison didn’t ask Ukraine to investigate the Bidens because he knew it was an unlawful order.

So far all the attacks on the witnesses by the GOP, Willy the Weasel and Jimbo Baggins, have fallen short and look impotent and pathetic and desperate….plus I found it disgusting that these GOPers tried to attack a veteran…..attacked by spineless toads that did not serve and want to criticize anyone who did….

This process is proving just how much the GOP loathes the military regardless of what their silly campaign ads say.

Wednesday is another day….and a full day it will be….more hearings and the Dem Debate from Atlanta.

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Go To The Transcript #7

The transcripts of the testimony of the witnesses that was given in the SCIF are being released slowly but slowly….that is because they must go through a vetting process….

Yesterday two more transcripts were released…..Timothy Morrison, a National Security Council staffer and Jennifer Williams who is an aid to VP Pence…..

For those that would like to read the words of these witnesses then I have posted links to their transcripts…..

First, Timothy Morrison……https://www.lawfareblog.com/transcript-tim-morrison-testimony

Next that of Jennifer Williams…….Read her testimony transcript here.

And in case that you are late to the transcript reading I will also pst links to all the released documents to date…..

Read Yovanovitch’s testimony in full here. (Initial news coverage of her testimony is here.)

Read McKinley’s testimony in full here.

Read Volker’s testimony here……https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6540429/CPRT-116-IG00-D007.pdf

… another transcript was released to the public…that of Ukraine expert…..Bill Taylor and it can be read here……https://www.scribd.com/document/433753426/William-Taylor-testimony

Second from Fiona Hill……https://www.scribd.com/document/434065486/Fiona-Hill-testimony

…another 3 transcripts were released….that of a Deputy Sec. of Defense, Laura Cooper……you may read the entire thing here…..https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/CPRT-116-IG00-D012.pdf

Christopher Anderson who was an assistant to the Ukraine Envoy….his testimony can be read here……https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/11/politics/read-testimony-christopher-anderson/index.html

Catherine Croft, a top State Department official….her’s can be read here…..https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/read-transcript-state-dept-official-catherine-croft-s-impeachment-testimony-n1080331

So far the transcripts have proven valuable documents for those that truly want to see this process play out legally and fair.

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The most recent release from yesterday…..State Department employee testimony can be read here…..https://www.scribd.com/document/433921637/George-Kent-testimony

…two transcripts released for public consumption……..first the transcript of the testimony from Col. Vindman…….https://www.scribd.com/document/434064258/Vindman-pdf

Sorry tom interrupt your weekend with this news….but I want to get them out there as soon as I can so my readers will be well informed…

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Impeachment Hearing–Day 2

I break with my tradition of posting very little news on the weekends but this is important enough for me to break with my routine…..

The House impeachment saga returns for a second day of witnesses…..as a service I will try and post my thoughts on these proceedings to help my readers become aware of the antics and evidence as it is made public…..

Today was the testimony of ex-ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch…….

We begin with the opening statements from the the ambassador and the two heads of the committee,,,,,

  • Opening statement: Read Yovanovitch’s in full via Axios here. “Our Ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray, and shady interests the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an American Ambassador who does not give them what they want,” she said. (Read a summary of her testimony from behind closed doors last month.)
  • Schiff: Read his opening statement here. He said Yovanovitch’s ouster as ambassador “was a stunning turn of events for this highly regarded career diplomat.” The ouster was purely political, he added. “Yovanovitch was serving our nation’s interest in fighting corruption in Ukraine, but she was considered an obstacle to the furtherance of the President’s personal and political agenda. For that she was smeared and cast aside.”
  • Devin Nunes: In his own opening statement, Schiff’s GOP counterpart slammed Democrats for acting like “some kind of strange cult” while seeking to “fulfill their Watergate fantasies,” per the Washington Post. Nunes also read an excerpt from Trump’s first phone call with Ukraine’s leader, in April, to make the case that Trump sought no favors. (The White House released a readout of that call on Friday.) “It’s unfortunate that today and for most of the next week we will continue engaging in the Democrats’ day-long TV spectacles instead of the problems we were all sent to Washington to address,” he said. His full opening statement is here.

Now the day’s doings…….

In his questioning of Marie Yovanovitch during Friday’s impeachment hearing, GOP Rep. Mike Conaway seemed to perplex the former ambassador with one of his queries. It happened after he referred to the testimony of diplomat George Kent earlier in the week:

  • Conaway: Kent “made some exemplary statements about you, really glowing,” said Conaway, per CNN. “All of us would like to be the recipient of something that worthy, and I believe you are as well. Any reason on Earth that you can think of that George Kent would be saying that because of some reason other than the fact he believes it in his heart of hearts?”
  • Yovanovitch: “Like, like what?”
  • Conaway: “Well, I mean like somebody paid him to do it?”
  • Yovanovitch: “No, absolutely not.”

Politico has video of the exchange and says Yovanovitch was “stunned” by it. Some other notable moments:

  • “Are you a never Trumper?” asked Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, per the Wall Street Journal. “No,” responded Yovanovitch, noting that she has served under four Republican presidents.
  • Another response from Yovanovitch, who was ousted from her post as ambassador to Ukraine: “What I’d like to say is, while I obviously don’t dispute that the President has the right to withdraw an ambassador at any time for any reason, but what I do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation also?”
  • GOP Rep. Jim Jordan mentioned criticism by Ukrainian officials in 2016 of then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016. “No one did anything,” Jordan told Yovanovitch, per the Washington Post. So “you see why maybe, maybe the president was a little concerned about what went on in Ukraine.” But the former ambassador responded: “I can’t speak for the president on this. … From my point of view, that doesn’t create a Ukrainian government strategy to interfere in our election. … It doesn’t necessarily constitute interference.”

Jimbo Baggins (Rep. Jim Jordan) and Willy the Weasel(Rep. Devin Nunes) accomplished the only thing they are capable of doing….attempt to disrupt and look like the spineless toads they truly are….their words were incoherent and rattled……these guys failed…… all they accomplished was to put their lip prints on Trump’s ass.

Day two of the hearings is in the bag…..Monday we begin again…..

Remember:  It Ain’t Over Until It’s Over!

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I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

House Impeachment Hearing–Day 1

As a service to my readers I will offer summary of the day’s proceedings dealing with the impeachment hearing in the House for Pres. Trump…..

The moment has arrived: The public phase of the House impeachment inquiry of President Trump began on Capitol Hill Wednesday. Democrat Adam Schiff declared at the start of the hearing that the “future of the presidency itself” is at stake, while Republican Devin Nunes called the hearings a “carefully orchestrated smear campaign.” The first two witnesses were William Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Some highlights:

  • Another phone call: In a new piece of information, Taylor testified that a member of his staff overheard Trump ask about the “the investigations” during a phone call with diplomat Gordon Sondland, reports the AP. The call took place one day after Trump’s call to the Ukraine president in July. (Sondland and the Taylor staffer were in a restaurant together when Trump called.) During the conversation, Sondland told Trump the Ukrainians were poised to move forward. After the call, the Taylor staffer asked Sondland what Trump thought about Ukraine. “Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which (Rudy) Giuliani was pressing for,” said Taylor, per Axios.
  • More on that: Politico sees the call as “an explosive new detail,” and the Washington Post agrees, saying it ties Trump “more directly to the effort to pressure Ukraine to probe his political opponents.” Plus, it undermines Trump’s previous assertion that he barely knows Sondland. A post at Red State, though, scoffs at the idea this is significant. “Under any other circumstances a staffer claiming to have heard what a remote participant on a telephone call said in a private phone call would be laughed at,” it reads. “This kind of nonsense would not be allowed before any committee that still had a sense of shame.”
  • Trump denial: During a press conference with Turkey’s president after their Oval Office meeting, Trump denied knowledge of the overheard call. “I know nothing about that,” he said, per the AP. “First time I’ve heard it.”
  • Star witness? Taylor disputed the idea put forth by GOP Rep. Jim Jordan that he was a “star witness” for Democrats, reports the Hill. “I don’t consider myself a star witness for anything,” he said. “I’m not here to take one side or the other.” When Taylor said his “clear understanding” was that Ukraine aid and investigations were linked, Jordan shot back, “Your clear understanding was obviously wrong, because it didn’t happen.”
  • GOP strategy: In questioning Taylor about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, GOP lead counsel Steve Castor said, “You certainly can appreciate that President Trump was very concerned that some elements of the Ukrainian establishment were not in favor of him, did not support him, and were out to get him.” Schiff warned Castor about commenting on “facts not in evidence,” but eventually allowed the question, reports the Washington Post. “So you certainly can appreciate President Trump’s concerns,” repeated Castor to Taylor, who responded, “I don’t know the exact nature of President Trump’s concerns.”

*******Let me help my readers out….the timeline for the aid thing….

THE TIMELINE July 18: Trump withholds military aid July 25: Trump demands Biden probe from Ukraine Sept 1: Sondland tells Ukraine aid contingent on probe Sept 9: Congress learns of whistleblower report exposing bribery scheme Sept 11: Military aid is magically released********

  • About Biden: When Kent was asked if there was any truth to the theory that Joe Biden pushed Ukraine to fire a prosecutor in order to protect his son, he answered, “None whatsoever,” per the Wall Street Journal. However, Kent confirmed that he reported his concerns about Hunter Biden serving on the board of a Ukraine gas company as a possible conflict of interest during the Obama-Biden administration.
  • More from Kent: He shot down the conspiracy theory, one pushed by the White House, that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 election. “I think it’s amply clear that Russian interference was at the heart of the interference.”
  • Opening statements: Kent’s opening statement is here, Taylor’s is here, Nunes’ is here, and Schiff’s is here.
  • A ‘sham’: Before the hearings began, Trump lashed out in a series of morning tweets. “Millions of Americans will see what a partisan sham this whole thing is,” Trump wrote, quoting Rush Limbaugh. Trump also called out “NEVER TRUMPERS!” For the record, both witnesses denied they were “never Trumpers” during testimony. Trump later retweeted a number of Republican tweets denouncing the inquiry, and retweeted a White House tweet declaring, “New hoax. Same swamp.”
  • “Shadow war”: The AP reports a “shadow disinformation war” was already underway before the hearing began, and rounds up the intense social media scrutiny of the proceedings.
  • Was the POTUS tuning in? Trump told reporters during his meeting with Erdogan that he wasn’t watching the proceedings, a statement he reiterated later during their press conference. “I hear it’s a joke. I haven’t watched for one minute because I’ve been with the president” of Turkey, he said. He added that he wants to know the identity of the whistleblower whose complaint launched the impeachment inquiry.
  • As for the whistleblower: Schiff had said earlier Wednesday the House Intelligence Committee would take up a motion to issue a congressional subpoena to compel the whistleblower to appear behind closed doors, but ultimately that motion was tabled after Taylor and Kent finished testifying. Their testimony lasted five hours.
  • What’s next: Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was ousted in May on Trump’s orders, will testify Friday. Next week will see eight more witnesses testifying.
  • Takeaways from Wednesday: The AP has a few here.

THe GOP on the committee did just as I said they would….tried to turn the hearing into a circus staffed with clowns…..Nunes did not disappoint…..Jordan did not disappoint……the GOP has nothing to counter the evidence other than wanting a whistleblower’s name….that tells me the evidence must be spot on if they cannot counter it.

The first day is in the can….now we have a whole day for the MSM to analyze and the pundits to earn their money…..hearing to return Friday.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”