James Comey

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/13/first-hour-fail-democrats-blockbuster-opening-hour-fizzles/

Democrats opened public impeachment hearings on Wednesday promising to dramatically detail the case for the president’s impeachment, but there was little excitement in the first 93 minutes.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff began the proceedings with a solemn statement recounting the events that sparked the impeachment inquiry.

Ambassador Bill Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent, the two bureaucrats selected by Schiff to kick off the public impeachment hearings also failed to deliver much drama.


Taylor and Kent began their statements recounting the history of diplomacy in the United States as well as the history of Ukraine and their lengthy careers of public service.

Both bureaucrats expressed their concerns about the president’s actions in Ukraine but proved that they were frequently alarmed and concerned but mostly did not have knowledge of the president’s motives.

Taylor read his 20-page opening statement, even admitting that although it was lengthy, he hoped Americans would recognize the importance of Ukraine in future diplomatic efforts.

Taylor said one of his staff claimed to overhear European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland discussing “the investigations” in a phone call with the president.

No members of Congress were allowed to interrupt the opening of the hearing with questions as the two diplomats droned on recounting their previously released public testimonies about the case.

Through a parliamentary inquiry, House Republicans successfully tripped up Rep. Adam Schiff to claim that he did not know the identity of the so-called “whistleblower,” despite reports that his committee had met with him prior to his claim.

President Trump shared a White House video on Twitter labeling the entire process as a “swamp” derived hoax.

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thefederalist.com/2019/10/04/adam-schiff-tapped-former-msnbc-contributor-to-question-key-ukraine-envoy/

Adam Schiff Tapped Former MSNBC Contributor To Question Key Ukraine Envoy
Adam Schiff tapped a former MSNBC contributor to question Kurt Volker, the U.S. envoy to Ukraine, during a closed-door hearing on Thursday.
OCTOBER 4, 2019 By Sean Davis
A former MSNBC contributor was tapped by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to question Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker during a congressional hearing on Thursday, officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings told The Federalist. Daniel Goldman, a former legal analyst for MSNBC, posed multiple questions to Volker during Thursday’s closed-door interview of Volker.

Payroll records from the U.S. House of Representatives show that Schiff hired Goldman in January of 2019. News reports from last March indicate that Schiff named Goldman as the director of investigations for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). Schiff has used his perch as chairman of that committee to investigate and spread debunked conspiracy theories, such as Russian collusion, about President Donald Trump. Former special counsel Robert Mueller confirmed earlier this year that his investigation found zero evidence of treasonous collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign to steal the 2016 election from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.


“How can the American people trust that this impeachment process is fair if MSNBC and Adam Schiff are running the show behind the scenes?” a congressional official with direct knowledge of Thursday’s hearing told The Federalist. “This partisan mockery cannot be ignored. Schiff should be ashamed.”

At one point Goldman became so flustered during his questioning of Volker that Schiff unexpectedly shut Goldman down and began questioning Volker himself, one official said.

Following a New York Times report that the anti-Trump complainant and his team previewed their allegations with Schiff’s committee before filing the complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG), Schiff was blasted for blatantly lying about his committee’s secret coordination with the anti-Trump complainant. Schiff’s most egregious lies about his staff’s illicit interactions with the anti-Trump complainant were made on MSNBC, the left-wing cable news network where Goldman previously worked as a legal analyst.




Last December, Goldman endorsed discredited conspiracy theories from Christopher Steele, a former British spy who was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to work with foreign governments to spread dirt about Trump in order to influence voters in the 2016 presidential elections. In December, Goldman claimed that a debunked allegation that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen had traveled to Prague in August of 2016 to secretly plot with Kremlin officials had been corroborated. He also claimed, long after the Steele dossier had been debunked, that “nothing had been undermined” in the dossier.

In his 448-page report detailing the findings of his sprawling, multi-year investigation of Russian collusion allegations, Mueller explicitly debunked the notion that Cohen traveled to Prague.

“Cohen had never traveled to Prague,” the report declared.

In July of 2018, Goldman claimed the FBI would have been “derelict” if it failed to cite false claims from the Steele dossier in multiple Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, warrants in 2016 and 2017. Goldman’s article, entitled “FBI Would’ve Been Derelict Not to Use Steele Dossier for the Carter Page FISA Warrant,” argued that the FBI was obligated to use the debunked claims from a Clinton- and DNC-funded foreign operative to justify spying on Trump campaign affiliates.

As an MSNBC contributor, Goldman also falsely claimed during the nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that Christine Blasey Ford’s rape accusations against Kavanaugh had been corroborated.

“ome corroboration already does exist,” Goldman wrote in October of 2018. Goldman also claimed that notes from one of Ford’s 2013 therapy sessions, which did not even mention Kavanaugh’s name, nonetheless corroborated her allegations that Kavanaugh tried to rape her at an unspecified place on an unspecified date at some point in the 1980s.

In fact, none of the individuals Ford named as having been present when the alleged altercation occurred corroborated her account. Leland Keyser, Ford’s best friend at the time who Ford claimed was at the house party where Kavanaugh allegedly tried to rape Ford, said she did not believe Ford’s story.

“I don’t have any confidence in [her] story,” Keyser said. Keyser also told the FBI during a follow-up investigation of the allegations that she had no recollection of the events Ford alleged, didn’t know Brett Kavanaugh, and that Ford’s friends pressured her to change her story after she said she could not corroborate Ford’s account of what happened.

Prior to joining MSNBC, Goldman worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in New York under federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, an anti-Trump partisan and former Democratic Senate staffer who Trump fired in March of 2017.

A spokesman for Schiff did not respond to questions asking if other former cable news commentators also asked questions of Volker during Thursday’s interview, or if Goldman leaked allegations from the anti-Trump complainant before the ICIG informed HPSCI of the complaint on Sept. 9.

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www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-not-so-persuasive-sales-pitch-for-impeachment/

The Not-So-Persuasive Sales Pitch for Impeachment
By JIM GERAGHTY
November 13, 2019 12:01 PM

The committee room where the first public hearings in the impeachment inquiry against U.S. President Donald Trump are scheduled to take place in Washington, U.S. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
There’s a certain “heads I win, tails you lose” mentality to the way Democrats are attempting to sell impeachment to Trump-weary Republicans.

Democrat: President Trump tried to withhold congressionally approved military aid in order to strong-arm the Ukrainian government into investigating the Bidens!

Trump-skeptical conservative: Yeah, that’s pretty bad. The president just can’t secretly refuse to send out funding that Congress authorized and appropriated, and he can’t use foreign aid as leverage to push a foreign government to investigate a potential rival. But let’s not act like Burisma Holdings appointing Hunter Biden to the board wasn’t an attempt to ensure they had a powerful friend in Washington.


Democrat: That doesn’t really matter right now. The only moral course of action is for twenty Republican senators to join 47 Democratic senators to achieve the required 67 votes to remove Trump from office!

Trump-skeptical conservative: Yeah, but if that happens, most of those twenty will be ending their Senate careers. They’ll get beaten in their next primary, or they’ll lose their next general election as their home state Trump fans stay home to punish them for their impeachment vote.

Democrat: Well, you’ll just have to accept a Democratic Senate majority, maybe a sizable one, as the consequence of doing the right thing. Either way, Pence would become president, so this can’t really be called a coup.

Trump-skeptical conservative: That’s true enough as far as it goes, but we all know that President Pence would have a really rough road ahead after a successful impeachment — he would probably get a bunch of last-minute primary challengers, the GOP would be furiously divided, and a lot of MAGA Trump fans would probably stay home or go third party in 2020.

Democrat: Well, you’ll just have to accept a deeply divided party and higher odds of a Democratic victory in 2020 as the consequence of doing the right thing. Either way, if impeachment falls short, you’ll have to vote against Trump, it’s just the right thing to do.

Trump-skeptical conservative: Well, he’s given me a lot of reasons to not vote for him — abandoning the Kurds, tariffs and trade wars everywhere, the Twitter rants and the incendiary rhetoric, doesn’t give a hoot about the deficit and national debt. He constantly overpromises and under-delivers on stuff like securing the border. But he’s also passed tax cuts, ended the Obamacare mandate, and appointed judges I like. If I’m willing to vote for the Democrats, what kind of policy concessions are they willing to make?


Democrat: Oh, absolutely none.

Trump-skeptical conservative: Really? If you guys get control of the House, Senate, and presidency, what do you want to do?

Democrat: Repeal the Trump tax cuts, end private insurance and make everyone get their health care through the government in Medicare for All, provide taxpayer-funded health care for illegal immigrants, decriminalize crossing the border, abolish ICE, guarantee taxpayer funding of abortions, at least begin the discussion on reparations for slavery, ban “assault weapons’ and maybe institute a nationwide mandatory buyback for AR-15. Oh yeah, and maybe add more Supreme Court justices to the nine we already heave.

Trump-skeptical conservative: So in your view, “doing the right thing” just happens to end up with your side getting everything you want, and I get nothing I want.

Democrat: Why yes, but that’s just coincidental. Hey, where are you going?

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Schiff making up the rules/changing the rules as he goes:

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While Democrats are wasting time and money pursuing the impeachment of President Trump, he’s busy working.


“I’m too buy to watch it,” Trump told reporters Wednesday at the White House. “It’s a witch hunt, it’s a hoax, I’m too busy to watch it. So, I’m sure I’ll get a report.”

“There’s nothing — I have not been briefed. There’s nothing there,” Trump said.


Democrats in the House Intelligence Committee, lead by Rep. Adam Schiff, opened the first day of the impeachment inquiry into Trump on Wednesday. Democrats deployed a paid lawyer to question the first two witnesses, William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent.

“I see they’re using lawyers that are television lawyers, they took some guys off television. You know. I’m not surprised to see it, because Schiff can’t do his own questions,” Trump said.

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“I’ve seen church prayer chains that are easier to understand than this!”
— Rep. Jim Jordan.


BOOM! Jim Jordan just destroyed Schiff’s star witness Ambassador Taylor.

Jim Jordan got Ambassador Taylor to admit that everything he has said in his testimony is based on second-hand, third-hand and fourth-hand information!

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Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) tore into Adam Schiff’s top witnesses today.


Rep. Ratcliffe, a former US Attorney from Texas, destroyed the Democrats’ star witnesses.

At one point Ratcliffe asked Ambassador and George Kent to name the crime that President Trump committed on his call with President Zelensky?

Rep Ratcliffe: So in this impeachment hearing today where we impeach presidents for treason or bribery or other high crimes, where is the impeachable offense in that call? Are either of you here today to assert there was an impeachable offense in that call?

**Silence**

They sat in silence. They could not answer.

This was DEVASTATING!

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www.cnn.com/opinions/live-news/impeachment-hearing-commentary-11-13-19/h_e096a6b9ebbadb2ec16f51d74b2a8d6d

In 2012, President Obama told Russia then-President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more “flexibility” in dealing with contentious issues like missile defense after the election. In 2014, the Russians invaded the Crimean peninsula. And then, for two years, the Obama administration refused to provide lethal aid to Ukraine–instead of just military and other aid– despite that country’s former president, our ally, pleading for American help. As was the case in other venues, Russia ran wild in a way that was diametrically opposed to American interests and the Obama administration dithered.

Today, Democrats want to toss out an American president for a brief delay in military aid to Ukraine under Trump, who is actually providing the Ukrainians with lethal aid — including sniper rifles, rocket launchers and Javelin anti-tank missiles — to combat the Russians. I wonder why Democrats never bothered to question Obama’s motivations for failing to meaningfully respond to the Russians in Ukraine for two years (and as Russia was simultaneously meddling in our democracy).

No matter what is said in these hearings today, remember: just like in the Russia election probe, we are largely here today because of a failure to act decisively and confront Russia by former President Barack Obama and his number two, Joe Biden.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/13/nunes-stumps-taylor-infamous-obama-hot-mic-moment-inflammatory-ukrainians-also/

House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) used his opening line of questioning to demonstrate the instances of Ukrainian meddling in the presidential election against President Trump and reminded the witnesses – and Democrats on the committee – of former President Obama’s infamous “hot mic” moment with the former Russian president in 2012.
Nunes used his opening line of questioning to demonstrate Ukrainian election interference, validating Trump’s initial concerns in regard to Ukraine.

“Alexandra Chalupa, a former staffer for the Democratic National Committee, admitted to Politico that she worked with officials at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, DC, to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign, which she passed on the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign,” Nunes stated.


“Chalupa revealed that Ukrainian Embassy officials themselves are also working directly with reporters to trade information and leads about the Trump campaign,” he continued.

“Ambassador Taylor. You testified to this committee that you only recently became aware of reports of this cooperation between Ukrainian Embassy officials and Chalupa to undermine the Trump campaign from your last deposition. Is that correct?” he asked.

“It is correct that I had not known about this before,” acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor said, as Nunes continued to set the table, demonstrating the Ukrainian effort to undermine Trump’s campaign.

Taylor told Nunes that he looked into the circumstances for “several” of the points Nunes highlighted, and suggested that Ukrainians were bothered by Trump’s remarks on Crimea.

“In 2016 candidate Trump had made a statement saying that it was possible that he would allow Crimea to go back to Russia. He expressed the sentiment, or the opinion that it’s possible that Crimea wanted to go back to Russia,” Taylor said.

“What I can tell you, Mr. Nunes, is that those, that sentiment is amazingly inflammatory to all Ukrainians,” he added.

“Are you aware, during the 2012 election when, at the time, President Obama leaned over on a hot mic to the then-Russian president and said that he’d have to wait until after the election? Was that inflammatory to all Ukrainians also?” Nunes asked.

“I don’t know sir,” Taylor said.

At the time, during a meeting in Seoul in 2012, Obama leaned over to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and famously asked for more time “particularly with missile defense,” and told him that he would have more “flexibility” after the election.

“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space,” Obama said.

“This is my last election,” he added. “After my election I have more flexibility.”

“I will transmit this information to Vladimir,” Medvedev replied.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/13/taylor-zelensky-told-me-call-was-fine-i-was-happy-with-the-call-the-day-after/

Ambassador Bill Taylor testified Wednesday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told him July 26 that his July 25 call with President Donald Trump had been “fine” and that he was “happy” with it.
Taylor, appearing alongside the State Department’s George Kent, was answering questions from Republican counsel Steve Castor in the House Intelligence Committee on the first day of public hearings in the “impeachment inquiry.”

Q: You were with President Zelensky the very next day?

Taylor: We were. We had a meeting with him the very next day.

Q: And did President Zelensky raise any concerns about his views of the call?

Taylor: He said — so, right, so — so I, Ambassador [Kurt] Volker, Ambassador [Gordon] Sondland, were in his office, and we asked him, I think, how the call [went]. He said, “The call was fine. I was happy with the call.”

Taylor’s admission came as Democrats strove to paint the call as an effort by President Trump to pressure Ukraine to conduct investigations in exchange for U.S. aid.

Taylor was not personally on the call, and testified in his deposition that he did not think there was any connection between the investigations and the aid — even after he saw an August 28, 2019 Politico article that indicated the aid had been stalled.

Taylor said that he was opposed to linking aid to the investigations, but also that he had been told by Sondland that the president told him there was no “quid pro quo.”

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1:38 P.M. — Nunes yields his questioning time to Jordan.

1:42 P.M. — Jordan grills Taylor: “You’re their star witness? … I’ve seen church prayer gains that are easier to understand than this.”

“I’m not here to take one side or the other or to advocate any particular outcomes. Let me restate that second thing is that my understanding is only coming from people that I talk to,” Taylor replies.

1:50 P.M. — Exchange between Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) and Kent:

2:01 P.M. — Kent says he did not find Giuliani’s “particular engagement normal.”

2:10 P.M. — Jordan to Taylor: “What you heard did not happen. It didn’t happen.”

2:12 P.M. — KENT: “You can’t promote anticorruption action without pissing off corrupt people.”

2:13 P.M. — KENT: “Rudy Giuliani’s smear campaign [against former Ambassador Yovanovitch] was prevalent in the spring of 2019.”

2:16 P.M. —

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH): Did the Obama administration provide lethal weapons to Ukraine?

Taylor: No.

Wenstrup: You said you’re “happy” with President Trump’s assistance, a “substantial improvement.”

Taylor: correct.

2:23 P.M. — Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) says in his opening remarks: “Welcome to year four of the impeachment of President Trump.”

2:24 P.M. — Stewart to House Democrats: “If your impeachment is so weak that you have to lie to the American people about it, you have a problem.”

2:37 P.M. — Stefanik asks Kent about past testimony about his previous concerns about the appearance of a conflict of interest with Hunter Biden serving on the board of Burisma, noting it has a “poor reputation.”Kent once again confirms he raised concerns about the Ukraine firm.

2:40 P.M. — SWALWELL: “You described in your text message exchanges that engaging in a scheme like this is, quote, ‘crazy.’ Can we also agree that it’s just wrong?”

TAYLOR: “Yes.”

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thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/470217-are-democrats-building-a-collapsible-impeachment

Are Democrats building a collapsible impeachment?

As impeachment hearings begin, some have raised dubious objections to the process from a constitutional basis. Former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker suggested there can be no impeachment since “abuse of power” is not a crime, while University of Chicago Law Professor Steven Calabresi argued that President Trump was denied the Sixth Amendment right to counsel in the closed hearings held by House Democrats.

Neither argument is compelling. The fact is that, if proven, a quid pro quo to force the investigation of a political rival in exchange for military aid can be impeachable, if proven. Yet the more immediate problem for House Democrats may not be constitutional but architectural in nature. If they want to move forward primarily or exclusively with the Ukraine controversy, it would be the narrowest impeachment in history. Such a slender foundation is a red flag for architects who operate on the accepted 1:10 ratio between the width and height of a structure.

The physics is simple. The higher the building, the wider the foundation. There is no higher constitutional structure than the impeachment of a sitting president and, for that reason, an impeachment must have a wide foundation in order to be successful. The Ukraine controversy is not such a foundation, and Democrats are building a structurally unsound case that will be lucky to make it to the Senate before collapsing.


For three years, Democrats in Congress have insisted that a variety of criminal and impeachable acts were established as part of the Russia investigation. Even today, critics of Trump insist that, at a minimum, special counsel Robert Mueller found as many as ten acts of criminal obstruction of justice. That is not true as he investigated those acts of obstruction but found evidence of noncriminal motivations that would have made any criminal case highly unlikely to succeed. For that reason, Attorney General William Barr and then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein agreed there was no case for criminal obstruction.

Putting aside that legal judgment, the glaring absence of any articles of impeachment related to Russia would raise a rather obvious problem. If these criminal or impeachable acts are so clear, why would Democrats not include them in the actual impeachment? There are only two possible reasons why these “clearly established” crimes would not be included. Either they are not established, as some of us have argued, or Democratic leaders do not actually want to remove Trump from office.

For three years, some of us have warned that Democratic leaders clearly were running out the clock on impeachment and doing little in terms of building a case against Trump. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been openly hostile to impeachment. Now, after moving at a glacial pace, Democratic leaders are insisting on an impeachment vote on the basis of a presidential phone call made this summer. They are in such a hurry that they have said they will not even seek to compel the testimony of key witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton.

Ironically, the strongest impeachment was the one that never happened with President Nixon. It was so strong that he resigned shortly before a vote. The contrast with the Nixon impeachment is so concerning in the current context. In the Nixon impeachment, public opinion shifted after months of public hearings and testimony. The evidentiary record showed that Nixon knew of criminal acts and sought to conceal them.

The result was a deeply developed evidentiary record. A presidential impeachment requires this period of maturation of allegations to swing public opinion. In contrast, after years of discussing Russia allegations, Democrats want to move forward on a barely developed evidentiary record and cursory public hearings on this single Ukraine allegation. Democrats also are moving forward on a strictly partisan vote.


That brings us back to architecture. Bad buildings often are built in slapdash fashion. The infamous Fidenae Stadium in Rome was built in a rush to restart the gladiator games, an atmosphere not unlike the current bread and circus frenzy in Washington. It eventually collapsed, killing or injuring 20,000 spectators. The two prior impeachments show the perils of building slender and tall. Take, for instance, the foundation of the Clinton impeachment. I testified during those hearings, as one of the constitutional experts, that President Clinton could be impeached for lying under oath, regardless of the subject matter. Democratic witnesses and members insisted that such perjury is not an impeachable offense when it concerned an affair with a White House intern.

The Clinton impeachment was broader than the one being discussed against Trump but it still was quite narrow. It did involve an alleged knowingly criminal act committed by Clinton. A federal judge later found that Clinton committed perjury, a crime for which he was never charged, despite thousands of Americans who have faced such charges and jail. Yet Clinton was impeached on lying to the grand jury and obstruction of the Monica Lewinsky investigation. Notably, he was not indicted on other allegations, like abuse of power in giving pardons to his own brother or Democratic donor Marc Rich. The result was an acquittal in the Senate by a largely partisan vote. The articles discussed against Trump would be even narrower and rest primarily on an abuse of power theory.

Then there is the impeachment of President Johnson, which also failed in the Senate. While encompassing nearly a dozen articles, it was narrowly grounded in an alleged violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Johnson removed War Secretary Edwin Stanton in defiance of Congress and that law. The impeachment was indeed weak and narrow, and it failed, with the help of senators from the opposing party who would not stand for such a flawed removal, even of Johnson, who was widely despised.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a reminder of those who strive for great heights without worrying about their foundations. If Democrats seek to remove a sitting president, they are laying a foundation that would barely support a bungalow, let alone a constitutional tower. Such a slender impeachment would collapse in a two mile headwind in the Senate. This certainly may not be designed to last. Much like the Burning Man structure raised each year in the Nevada desert, this impeachment may be intended to last only as long as it takes to burn it to the ground.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He served as the last lead counsel in a Senate impeachment trial and testified as a constitutional expert in the Clinton impeachment hearings. You can follow him on Twitter @jonathanturley.

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Rep. Mark Meadows called out CBS News reporter Nancy Cordes for lying during a recess in the impeachment inquiry hearing on Wednesday.
Cordes was claiming that she had read all of the transcripts from the hearing depositions, except not all of them have even been released.

“For the case you are making to be true, every single witness who has testified, more than a dozen of them, would have to be either lying or mistaken,” Cordes asserted.

Meadows fired back that she was “not correct.”


Read more
“Your characterization is so inherently wrong and biased. Let me ask you this, for the American people, how many hours have you been sitting in these depositions? How many hours?” Meadows asked.

“I have read all the depositions,” Cordes said.

“You have not read all the transcripts,” Meadows asserted.

The reporter kept the charade going, claiming “yes, I have.”

“I beg to differ because they haven’t all been released so there’s no way you read them all. But I can tell you, your premise is not right,” Meadows stated.

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www.dailywire.com/news/impeachment-witness-my-aide-overheard-trump-asking-about-investigations-when-he-was-on-phone-call

The nation’s eyes were on Washington, D.C. on Wednesday as the public impeachment inquiry, spearheaded by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, officially began. In a new wrinkle added to his previous testimony, William Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine — who has been referenced as one of the Democrats’ “star” witnesses — said he was recently told by one of his aides that President Trump inquired about “the investigations” during a phone call with Ambassador Gordon Sondland. The aide knows this because he/she was meeting with Sondland and “could hear President Trump on the phone.”


“Last Friday, a member of my staff told me of events that occurred on July 26,” Taylor told congressional committee members at the hearing Wednesday. “While Ambassador [Kurt] Volker and I visited the front, this member of my staff accompanied Ambassador Sondland. Ambassador Sondland met with Mr. [Andrey] Yermak,” a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.




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“Following that meeting, in the presence of my staff at a restaurant, Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kyiv,” said Taylor. “The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone, asking Ambassador Sondland about ‘the investigations.’ Ambassador Sondland told President Trump that the Ukrainians were ready to move forward.”

“Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine,” Taylor continued. “Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for.”

ADVERTISEMENTSCROLL TO CONTINUE READING
Taylor then explained that he was presenting this new information now “for completeness” because he did not know it at the time he gave his deposition on October 22.

WATCH: Amb. Taylor reveals new details of a call between Amb. Sondland and President Trump.https://t.co/uESXYQxKt9 pic.twitter.com/GYYgE1SGvr

— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@nbcnightlynews) November 13, 2019


That Trump was interested in Ukraine investigating alleged Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election as well as corruption allegations involving the Bidens is no secret. Along with releasing the whistleblower complaint that laid out the accusations that Trump tried to “pressure” Ukraine into “digging up dirt,” as Democrats’ put it, on his political opponent by withholding military aid, the Trump administration also released the transcript of the July 25 call referenced in the complaint.

In the transcript, Trump indeed asks Zelensky to “look into” the alleged corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, but offers no “quid pro quo,” as initially alleged. “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that,” Trump told Zelensky. “So whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”

A key figure in the Democrat-led inquiry has been Sondland, who is generally viewed as a “pro-Trump” figure. In a text exchange that was leaked early on in the Ukraine story, Sondland stressed to Taylor that there was “no quid pro quo” for Trump’s requested investigations:

[9/9/19, 12:47:11 AM] Bill Taylor: As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.

[9/9/19, 5:19:35 AM] Gordon Sondland: Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during his campaign I suggest we stop the back and forth by text If you still have concerns I recommend you give Lisa Kenna or S a call to discuss them directly. Thanks.

In other exchanges with his fellow diplomats, the idea that the investigations were a top priority is clear. In his early testimony before congressional investigators, Sondland said that he at one point came to “presume” that the aid and the investigations were connected.

Sondland told committee members last week in additional testimony that he thought withholding aid from Ukraine was “ill-advised,” but was unsure “when, why or by whom the aid was suspended.” By early September, he said, he began to “presume” the aid was linked to the anti-corruption investigation statement the White House wanted Zelensky to issue.

“I presumed that the aid suspension had become linked to the proposed anticorruption statement,” said Sondland.

Sondland explained that in his discussion with Zelensky’s advisor Yermak on September 1, which took place while Vice President Mike Pence was meeting with Zelensky, he told Yermak that the U.S. military aid “would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks.”

“I said that resumption of the U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” he said, according to the additional testimony.

Republicans have pointed to the fact that Ukraine did end up receiving the aid, without having begun an investigation, as evidence that there was no quid pro quo, as Trump has maintained.

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Wow is all one can say with what this Democrat says:

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2:53 P.M. — Bizarre exchange between Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and Taylor:

3:05 P.M. — Jordan notes Trump administration’s holdup in military aid as a prudent: “Our president said time out. Time out. Let’s take a look at this new guy Zelensky to see if he’s the real deal.”

3:09 P.M. — Jordan demands that the so-called “whistleblower” testify, says he is”the guy who started it all,” adding that there are “435 members of Congress and only one gets to know who that person is.. only Chairman Schiff knows who the whistleblower is.”

3:23 P.M. — Kent and Taylor testify they believe Giuliani sought dirt on a political opponent of President Trump and did not have U.S. national security interests at heart in his dealings with Ukraine.

DEMINGS: “Was Mr. Giuliani promoting U.S. national interests or policy in Ukraine, Ambassador?”

TAYLOR: “I don’t think so, ma’am.”

DEMINGS: “Mr. Kent?”

KENT: “No, he was not.”

3:36 P.M. — Schiff once again claims he does not know who the so-called “whistleblower” is.

3:37 P.M. — Kent and Taylor’s testimonies have concluded and are excused from the hearing room. The panel will resume after a recess to take up a motion by Conaway to subpoena the so-called “whistleblower.”

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/13/devin-nunes-democrats-redacted-name-of-dnc-operative-alexandra-chalupa-in-impeachment-transcripts/

Rep. Devin Nunes (D-CA) said Democrats inexplicably redacted the name of former Democratic National Committee (DNC) contractor Alexandra Chalupa in the transcripts of their private impeachment hearings during his opening statement in the House Intelligence Committee’s first public impeachment hearing Wednesday.

“Violating their own guidelines, the Democrats repeatedly redacted from the transcripts the name of Alexandra Chalupa, a contractor for the Democratic National Committee who worked with Ukrainian officials to collect dirt on the Trump campaign, which she provided to the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign,” Nunes said.


Watch: Nunes Entire Opening Statement:

Chalupa is an activist and political operative, not a national security figure, based on any publicly known information. Her involvement in Trump opposition research overseas has made her a public figure since long before the impeachment inquiry. Democrats have not addressed the claim of redacting her name, nor have they explained why they would.

In a Politico article published on Wednesday, Chalupa said she is eager to testify before the committee:

A longtime Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist says she’s itching to testify in the House’s public impeachment hearings to beat back Republican assertions that Ukrainian officials used her as a conduit for information in 2016 to damage Donald Trump.

“I’m on a mission to testify,” Alexandra Chalupa said.

Andrii Telizhenko, a 29-year-old former political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy who says he was tasked with helping Chalupa dig up dirt on Manafort in 2016, has gone further, claiming there was direct coordination between the DNC and the Ukrainian government.

Over the weekend, Nunes requested Chalupa to testify during the impeachment inquiry, but Intel Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) rejected the list of witnesses from the GOP, which also included Hunter Biden and the intelligence officer “whistleblower” who incited the impeachment inquiry. Chalupa reportedly worked with CIA officer Eric Ciaramella — who RealClearInvestigations has named as the likely identity of the impeachment “whistleblower” — and visited the Obama White House 27 times, according to official visitor logs.

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thefederalist.com/2019/11/13/adam-schiffs-star-witness-just-admitted-burisma-should-be-investigated-for-corruption/

Adam Schiff’s Star Witness Just Admitted Burisma Should Be Investigated For Corruption
NOVEMBER 13, 2019 By Tristan Justice
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent made the case for launching an investigation into the Bidens and their involvement in Ukraine related to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

Kent, the State Department’s top official on Ukraine, said during testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in the Democrats’ partisan impeachment proceedings Wednesday he was concerned about a, “perception of a conflict of interest,” related to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, serving on the board of the energy company while his father oversaw the Obama administration’s policy towards Ukraine.

Hunter Biden served on the board of the company for $50,000 a month despite having no prior experience in the energy industry while his father served as vice president deeply involved U.S.-Ukrainian policy.

Kent also testified in a private deposition that he voiced his discomfort over the situation to the White House in 2015 where administration officials brushed off Kent’s concerns.

“I raised my concerns that I had heard that Hunter Biden was on the board of a company owned by somebody that the U.S. Government had spent money trying to get tens of millions of dollars back and that could create the perception of a conflict of interest,” Kent told lawmakers behind closed doors in October. “The message that I recall hearing back was that the vice president’s son Beau was dying of cancer and that there was no further bandwidth the deal with family related issues at that time… That was the end of that conversation.”

During his testimony before the House on Wednesday, Kent reiterated his conviction that officials in Ukraine ought to be investigated to root out corruption related to Burisma.

“To summarize, we thought the [CEO of Burisma] had stolen money. We thought a prosecutor had take an bribe to shut the case,” Kent said.

“Are you in favor of that matter being fully investigated and prosecuted?” asked Minority House Intelligence Committee Counsel Steve Castor.

“I think, since U.S. taxpayer dollars were wasted, I would love to see the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office find who the corrupt prosecutor was that took the bribe, and how much of it was paid,” Kent said.

In an interview with ABC News last month, Hunter admitted to practicing “poor judgement,” by serving on the board as his father’s presidential campaign has struggled amid new details of the scandal coming to light from Trump’s impeachment proceedings.

House Democrats opened formal partisan impeachment proceedings against the president following reports of a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Media outlets reported details of the call, alleging Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate the Bidens in exchange for military aid.

An unredacted transcript of the phone call has since been declassified, revealing no such quid pro quo as Democrats had charged and continue to claim. Despite the release of the transcript, Democrats have aggressively pushed forward with impeachment as their best hopes to undo the 2016 election after the Russian collusion hoax failed to incriminate the president earlier this year.

Since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened the anti-Trump investigation in September, the proceedings were held in secret where House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California ran partisan proceedings prohibiting Republican members from asking questions Schiff did not want witnesses to answer, pre-interviewing witnesses in preparation for public testimony.

Even after Pelosi put a formal impeachment inquiry to a vote a month and a half after proceedings had already begun, Schiff continued to run hearings behind closed doors for two weeks before holding the first public hearing Wednesday.

As the hearings get underway, the rules passed entirely by Democrats without one Republican vote bar the minority party from subpoenaing any witnesses or evidence without Democratic approval.

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thefederalist.com/2019/11/13/schiff-lies-yet-again-claims-to-not-know-who-the-whistleblower-is/

Schiff Lies Yet Again, Claims To Not Know Who The Whistleblower Is
NOVEMBER 13, 2019 By Erielle Davidson
Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff’s credibility continues to tailspin in an unseemly fashion. Schiff testified in a public congressional hearing on Wednesday, stating that he did not know the identity of the whistleblower when questioned by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Oh.

Here is the text of the relevant terse exchange:

Jordan: Do you anticipate when we might vote on the ability to have the whistleblower in front of us. Something you, of the 435 members of Congress, you are the only member who knows who that individual is. And your staff is the only staff of any member of Congress who has had the chance to talk with that individual. We would like that opportunity. When might that happen in this proceeding today?

Schiff: First, as the gentleman knows, that’s a false statement: I do not know the identity of the whistleblower, and I’m determined to make sure that identity is protected. But as I said to Mr. Conaway, you’ll have an opportunity after the witness has testified to make a motion to subpoena any witness and compel a vote.


Given the information that has come to light in the past several weeks, it is quite likely that Schiff is lying. Indeed, based on reporting from the New York Times in early October, the whistleblower is known to have approached Schiff’s office with his concerns regarding the July 25th phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before filing his official complaint with the Office of the Inspector General.

Furthermore, this past Monday, Schiff indicated in a procedural memo that any lawmaker who identifies the Ukraine whistleblower in public hearings could potentially be subjected to a House ethics probe. As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff emphasized federal laws that shield intelligence community whistleblowers from “reprisal or the threat of reprisal.”

He then supplemented that declaration with an acknowledgement of the mission of the Committee on Ethics, stating, “The Committee has a long, proud, and bipartisan history of protecting whistleblowers—including from efforts to threaten, intimidate, retaliate against, or undermine the confidentiality of whistleblowers.”

Schiff’s subtle threat is peculiar coming from an individual who allegedly does not know who the whistleblower is. It would seem some within the committee would need to know the whistleblower’s identity in order to determine whether the identity has, in fact, been revealed. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which an ethics investigation could move forward without being able to concretely identify the nature of the violation.

Schiff’s latest dishonesty in the public hearings comes on the heels of a series of maneuvers on the part of House Democrats to poison the legitimacy of this impeachment process, largely at their own peril.

It was Democrats who declared to the American public the importance of an impeachment garnering bipartisan support. However, House Democrats have nonetheless stormed forward with the impeachment inquiry without gaining the vote of one single House Republican. The only bipartisan vote in the House, albeit slight, was a vote against the impeachment inquiry resolution.

Furthermore, the Democrats have done little to indicate they care too deeply about a transparent impeachment inquiry. Indeed, as Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Cal., Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, pointed out in his opening statement for the Kent and Taylor hearing on Wednesday, “The witnesses deemed suitable for television by the Democrats were put through a closed-door audition process in a cult-like atmosphere in the basement of the Capitol, where the Democrats conducted secret depositions, released a flood of misleading and one-sided leaks, and later selectively released transcripts in a highly staged manner.”

Similarly, as Nunes notes, on multiple occasions Democrats redacted from the transcripts the name “Alexandra Chalupa,” the contractor who had been hired out by the Democratic National Committee to work with Ukrainian officials to locate “dirt” on Trump, which she then furnished for use by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. But remember, foreign election interference is bad, right?

The Democrats have also given up on upholding any pretense that this process is a fair one. They have denied most of the GOP’s witness requests, given that they only want witnesses who are willing to play a sizable role in what Nunes calls a “low-rent Ukrainian sequel” to the “Russia hoax.” In a not so subtle twist, Democrats also have revealed themselves to be unopposed to patently lying, refusing to censure Schiff after he publicly read a bombastically fabricated version of the Trump-Zelensky phone call that simply was not true.

As Nunes darkly noted in his opening statement, the Ukraine investigation seems yet another failed hysterical attempt to oust President Trump following a years-long investigation that revealed no evidence of collusion with Russia on the part of the Trump campaign. Given the latest machinations on the part of House Democrats to destroy the little shred of legitimacy the process could possibly have possessed, Nunes may very well be correct.

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www.zerohedge.com/political/real-ukraine-controversy-john-solomon-exposes-how-rogue-us-embassy-conducted-foreign

'The Real Ukraine Controversy': John Solomon Exposes How Rogue US Embassy Conducted Foreign Policy

The first time I ever heard the name of U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was in early March of this year. It did not come from a Ukrainian or an ally of President Trump. It came from a career diplomat I was interviewing on background on a different story.


The diplomat, as I recall, suggested that Yovanovitch had just caused a commotion in Ukraine a few weeks before that country’s presidential election by calling for the firing of one of the prosecutors aligned with the incumbent president.

The diplomat related that a more senior State official, David Hale, was about to travel to Ukraine and was prepping to be confronted about Yovanovitch’s comments. I remember the diplomat joking something to the effect of, “we always say that the Geneva Convention is optional for our Kiev staff.”

The Geneva Convention is the UN-backed pact enacted during the Cold War that governs the conduct of foreign diplomats in host countries and protects them against retribution. But it strictly mandates that foreign diplomats “have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State” that hosts them. You can read the convention’s rules here.

I dutifully checked out my source’s story. And sure as day, Yovanovitch did give a speech on March 5, 2019 calling for Ukraine’s special anticorruption prosecutor to be removed. You can read that here.

And the Ukraine media was abuzz that she had done so. And yes, Under Secretary of State Hale, got peppered with questions upon arriving in Kiev, specifically about whether Yovanovitch’s comments violated the international rule that foreign diplomats avoid becoming involved in the internal affairs and elections of their host country.

Hale dutifully defended Yovanovitch with these careful words. “Well, Ambassador Yovanovitch represents the President of the United States here in Ukraine, and America stands behind her statements. And I don’t see any value in my own elaboration on what they may or may not have meant. They meant what she said.” You can read his comments here.

Up to that point, I had focused months of reporting on Ukraine on the U.S. government’s relationship with a Ukraine nonprofit called the AntiCorruption Action Centre, which was jointly funded by liberal megadonor George Soros’ charity and the State Department. I even sent a list of questions to that nonprofit all the way back in October 2018. It never answered.

Given that Soros spent millions trying to elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump in 2016, I thought it was a legitimate public policy question to ask whether a State Department that is supposed to be politically neutral should be in joint business with a partisan figure’s nonprofit entity.

State officials confirmed that Soros’ foundation and the U.S. embassy jointly funded the AntiCorruption Action Centre, and that Soros’ vocal role in Ukraine as an anticorruption voice afforded him unique access to the State Department, including in 2016 to the top official on Ukraine policy, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. (That access was confirmed in documents later released under FOIA to Citizens United.)

Soros’ representatives separately confirmed to me that the Anti-Corruption Action Centre was the leading tip of the spear for a strategy Team Soros devised in 2014 to fight corruption in Ukraine and that might open the door for his possible business investment of $1 billion. You can read the Ukraine strategy document here and Soros’ plan to invest $1 billion in Ukraine here.

After being tipped to the current Yovanovitch furor in Ukraine, I was alerted to an earlier controversy involving the same U.S. ambassador. It turns out a senior member of Congress had in spring 2018 wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleging the ambassador had made anti-Trump comments and suggesting she be recalled. I confirmed the incident with House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions and got a copy of his letter, which you can read here. Yovanovitch denies any such disloyalty to Trump.

Nonetheless, I had a career diplomat and a Republican lawmaker raising similar concerns. So I turned back to the sources I had developed starting in 2018 on Ukraine and began to dig further.

I learned that Ukrainian officials, particularly the country’s prosecutors, viewed Yovanovitch as the embodiment of an activist U.S. embassy in Kiev that ruffled feathers by meddling in internal law enforcement cases inside the country.

My sources told me specifically that the U.S. embassy had pressured the Ukraine prosecutors in 2016 to drop or avoid pursuing several cases, including one involving the Soros-backed AntiCorruption Action Centre and two cases involving Ukraine officials who criticized Donald Trump and his campaign manager Paul Manafort.

To back up their story, my sources provided me a letter then-embassy official George Kent wrote proving it happened. State officials authenticated the letter. And Kent recently acknowledged in this testimony he signed that letter. You can read the letter here.

With the help of a Ukrainian American intermediary and the Ukraine general prosecutor’s press office, I then secured an interview in mid-March 2016 with Ukraine’s then top prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko. In the interview that was videotaped and released for the whole world to see, Lutsenko alleged that in his first meeting in 2016 with Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador conveyed the names of several Ukrainians she did not want to see investigated and prosecuted. He called it, colloquially, a “do not prosecute list.”

The State Department denied such as list, calling it a fantasy, and I quoted that fair comment in my original stories. But before I published, I held the Lutsenko interview for a few days to do more reporting. State arranged for me to talk to a senior official about the Lutsenko-embassy relationship.

I provided the names that Lutsenko claimed had been cited by the embassy. That senior official said he couldn’t speak to what transpired in the specific meeting between Yovanovitch and Lutsenko. But that official then provided me this surprising confirmation: “I can confirm to you that at least some of those names are names that U.S. embassy Kiev raised with the General Prosecutor because we were concerned about retribution and unfair treatment of Ukrainians viewed as favorable to the United States.”

In other words, State was confirming its own embassy had engaged in pressure on Ukrainian prosecutors to drop certain law enforcement cases, just as Lutsenko and other Ukrainian officials had alleged.

When I asked that State official whether this was kosher with the Geneva Convention’s prohibition on internal interference, he answered: “Kiev in recent years has been a bit more activist and autonomous than other embassies.”

More recently, George Kent, the embassy’s charge d’affaires in 2016 and now a deputy assistant secretary of state, confirmed in impeachment testimony that he personally signed the April 2016 letter demanding Ukraine drop the case against the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.

He also testified he was aware of pressure the U.S. embassy also applied on Ukraine prosecutors to drop investigations against a journalist named Vitali Shabunin, a parliamentary member named Sergey Leschenko and a senior law enforcement official named Artem Sytnyk.

Shabunin helped for the AntiCorruption Action Centre that Soros funded, and Leschenko and Sytnyk were criticized by a Ukrainian court for interfering in the 2016 US election by improperly releasing or publicizing secret evidence in an ongoing case against Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

It’s worth letting Kent’s testimony speak for itself. “As a matter of conversation that U.S officials had with Ukrainian officials in sharing our concern about the direction of governance and the approach, harassment of civil society activists, including Mr. Shabunin, was one of the issues we raised,” Kent testified.

As for Sytnyk, the head of the NABU anticorruption police, Kent addded: “We warned both Lutsenko and others that efforts to destroy NABU as an organization, including opening up investigations of Sytnyk, threatened to unravel a key component of our anti-corruption cooperation.”

As the story of the U.S. embassy’s pressure spread, a new controversy erupted. A Ukrainian news outlet claimed Lutsenko recanted his claim about the “do-not-prosecute” list. I called Lutsenko and he denied recanting or even changing his story. He gave me this very detailed response standing by his statements.

But American officials and news media eager to discredit my reporting piled on, many quoting the Ukrainian outlet without ever contacting Lutsenko to see if it was true. One of the American outlets that did contact Lutsenko, the New York Times, belatedly disclosed today that Lutsenko told it, like he told me, that he stood by his allegation that the ambassador had provided him names of people and groups she did not want to be targeted by prosecutors. You can read that here.

It is neither a conspiracy theory nor a debunked or retracted story. U.S. embassy officials DID apply pressure to try to stop Ukrainian prosecutors from pursuing certain cases.

The U.S. diplomats saw no problem in their actions, believing that it served the American interest in combating Ukrainian corruption. The Ukrainians viewed it far differently as an improper intervention in the internal affairs of their country that was forbidden by the Geneva Convention.

That controversy is neither contrived, nor trivial, and it predated any reporting that I conducted. And it remains an issue that will need to be resolved if the Ukraine and U.S. are to have a more fruitful alliance moving forward.

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3:52 P.M. — Law professor Jonathan Turley issues a warning about the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry:

3:53 P.M. — House intelligence panel votes 13-9 to table to a motion to subpoena the so-called “whistleblower” for a closed-door deposition.

3:56 P.M. — Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) tweets after Day 1 of the public impeachment hearings: “The Democrats impeachment inquiry may be one of the greatest political stunts in history.”

4:06 P.M. — CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin concedes it’s a “problem” that both Kent and Taylor had no “direct contact with the president.”

4:08 P.M. — The Dow Jones hit a record-high after today’s impeachment inquiry, signaling Wall Street is unconcerned with Pelosi and Schiff’s inquiry.

4:15 P.M. — ABC News figures Jon Karl and Matthew Dowd concede President Trump’s support among GOP lawmakers remains strong after the first day of public impeachment hearings.

“There is no sign of any erosion among Republican support for the fundamental question over whether or not Pres. Trump should be impeached for this,” says Karl.

Dowd states: “What’s different from Donald Trump and Richard Nixon is Republicans started to deteriorate on Richard Nixon. That has not happened for Donald Trump. Until that happens, the fundamental nature of public opinion won’t change.”

4:22 P.M. — ABC News analyst Matthew Dowd is getting dunked on for his bad take on Stefanik’s impeachment hearing performance.

4:24 P.M. — Starr reacts to today’s hearings, says there’s “no hope for impeachment” as “no crime was proven today”

4:25 P.M. — Dualing press conferences from Jordan and Schiff have begun.

4:26 P.M. — Schiff won’t say if he supports impeachment after today’s hearing.

4:28 P.M. — Jordan slams today’s hearing, calls it “a sad episode for the country.”

4:29 P.M. — Schiff runs to CNN to tell the network about his new theory before Sondland even testifies.

4:32 P.M. — President Trump calls today’s hearings a “sham” that “shouldn’t be allowed,” adding that he hadn’t watch it because of meetings his with Turkish President Recep Erdogan

4:36 P.M. — Swalwell, appearing on MSNBC, responds to question about why House Democrats won’t compel Bolton to testify: “We’re not going to chase them into court.”

4:36 P.M. — Stefanik blast’s today events:

4:48 P.M. — Dowd deleted his tweet about Stefanik:

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thehill.com/homenews/senate/470313-mcconnell-discounts-quick-dismissal-of-trump-impeachment-articles-well-have

McConnell discounts quick dismissal of Trump impeachment articles: 'We'll have to have a trial'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) brushed aside a question on Wednesday about trying to quickly dismiss the articles of impeachment against President Trump, noting the chamber would have to have a trial.

"I don't think there's any question that we have to take up the matter. The rules of impeachment are very clear, we'll have to have a trial. My own view is that we should give people the opportunity to put the case on," McConnell told reporters.


He added about the potential time frame for an impeachment trial, "on the issue of how long it goes on, it's really kind of up to the Senate. People will have to conclude are they learning something new? At some point we'll get to an end."

McConnell's comments come as there's been chatter among some Senate Republicans that they should quickly try to dismiss any articles of impeachment that are sent over from the House.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a close ally of Trump's, also told reporters recently that he wanted to be able to quickly to dismiss any articles of impeachment.

But members of leadership, as well as rank-and-file senators, have said they expect to go through a trial.

Democrats tried, but failed, to dismiss the articles of impeachment against then-President Clinton.

A motion to dismiss would need a simple majority of 51 votes.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters on Wednesday that he did not expect there would be enough support to quickly dismiss any articles of impeachment and avoid a trial.

“There’s some people talking about trying to stop the bill, dismiss charges basically as soon as they get over here. I think that’s not going to happen. That would require 51 votes,” he said.

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So, he is using fifth or sixth hand information? That's a new one:

Rep. Jim Jordan: “‘Ambassador Taylor recalls that Mr. Morrison told Ambassador Taylor that I told Mr. Morrison that I convey this message to Mr. Yarmack on September 1, 2019 in connection with Vice President Pence’s meeting to Warsaw and a meeting with President Zelensky.’



Summed up perfectly:

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www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-during-impeachment-hearing-hearsay-can-be-much-better-evidence-than-direct

Democrat Rep. Mike Quigley (IL) faced intense backlash on Wednesday afternoon after claiming during Democrats’ impeachment inquiry hearing that “hearsay” can be “much better evidence than direct” evidence.


In a rambling statement, Quigley said, “And, if gets to closed primer on hearsay, I think the American public needs to be reminded that countless people have been convicted on hearsay because the courts have routinely allowed and created, needed exceptions to hearsay.”

Quigley continued, “Hearsay can be much better evidence than direct … and it’s certainly valid in this instance.”

WATCH:

Donald Trump Jr. immediately turned his sights on Quigley, hammering the congressman in a series of tweeted.

“Can you believe this insanity? ‘Heresay can be much better evidence than DIRECT EVIDENCE’ according to Democrat Mike Quigley,” Trump tweeted. “Are you fricken kidding me? 3rd and 4th party info better than hearing it yourself?”

Trump added, “From a reliable 4th party source according to other Democrats like #FullOfSchiff the best evidence is (is) shit you just make up for political gain as that appears to be what they have been doing all along.”

Trump concluded, “Sounds exactly like what someone would say when they’re desperate and have no actual evidence…”

Quigley was widely mocked online over his comments, including from Australian political commentator Rita Panahi, who wrote on Twitter, “I heard that Mike Quigley tortures puppies & then covers himself in goat poop & dances naked in the moonlight.”

Dana Loesch also weighed in, writing: “Just want to add that these lawmakers who say “hearsay can be much better evidence than direct” are the same ones who want to subject you to a due process-less red flag system. I’m sure that will just stop with guns, right? You still cool with that?”

One of the chief complaints from Republicans on House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry was the fact that the CIA whistleblower did not have any first-hand knowledge of the alleged incident and instead got all of his information from second and third-hand sources.

The Federalist reported in September that there significant changes made to the official whistleblower complaint form that allowed for hearsay to be used as evidence to submit the form. Federalist co-founder Sean Davis wrote:

thefederalist.com/2019/09/27/intel-community-secretly-gutted-requirement-of-first-hand-whistleblower-knowledge/

Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. This raises questions about the intelligence community’s behavior regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.

The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about [wrongdoing] from others.”

[kcrufnek]

There was some serious bitch slapping going on.

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One America’s Jack Posobiec sat down with a former CIA officer Brad Johnson the president of IntelReform.org.

Johnson offered a compelling argument on how Eric Ciaramella was handpicked by former CIA Director John Brennan for his job spying on the Trump Administration in the White House.