James Comey

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dailycaller.com/2019/11/14/reagan-attorney-general-ed-meese-impeachment-whistleblower/



Former Attorney General Ed Meese, who served under President Ronald Reagan, called into question the legitimacy of the whistleblower at the center of the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller.

Meese, who now serves as the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at The Heritage Foundation, told the Caller he has seen no evidence that warrants impeachment of the president, and criticized the largely closed-door process being conducted by House Democrats.


“If this were really a fact-finding exercise to determine if the president did something wrong it would be handled according to entirely different rules and with an entirely different focus and direction of the proceedings,” Meese said.

He also referred to the so-called whistleblower as a “phony,” noting that the individual had no firsthand knowledge of Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine wherein he allegedly exerted a pressure campaign against a foreign government to investigate his political opponent.

“This individual is not a whistleblower,” Meese told the Daily Caller. “A whistleblower is someone who has personal knowledge of wrongdoing. At the most what we have in this case is a person who has taken information on a second and thirdhand basis from other people, and instead of revealing some dark secret, has given his opinion of what the significance of that information is.” (RELATED: Whistleblower Had No ‘Direct Knowledge’ Of Trump Telephone Call)

“What they did was more like a lawyer’s brief disagreeing with what the president allegedly did than real information that normally you would associate with a whistleblower who is complying with that statute,” he concluded.

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dailycaller.com/2019/11/14/whoopi-blasts-republicans-impeachment-hearings/



Whoopi Goldberg took issue with the Republicans who were present in Wednesday’s first public impeachment hearing, calling them out Thursday on “The View.”

Goldberg responded to several clips from Wednesday’s hearing by suggesting that anyone waiting for evidence that President Donald Trump had done something wrong should have seen it. “All I can recall the Republicans saying is, ‘We want to hear it. We want to see it.’ Okay. So now you’re hearing it, you’re seeing it,” she said. (RELATED: ‘We Never Went To Sleep!’ Whoopi Goldberg Launches Tirade Against ‘Ok Boomer’ Trend)


“You try to bully folks and try to take them down a little bit but you can’t do that to people who actually know how to do the job,” Goldberg continued. “I’m shocked that so many of the folks that are pushing back on this like you said, are not saying, ‘You know what? This was really reprehensible what he did. It was reprehensible. I agree with him on a lot of stuff, but you can’t do this.'”

Goldberg then appeared to be addressing the House Republicans directly as she added, “You’re not doing that. My question is, who are y’all representing? You’re not representing Republicans because real Republicans say, ‘Hey. That is not okay. Quid pro quo does not work for us constitutionally. It doesn’t work for us visually. It’s wrong.’ Real Republicans are saying that. These newfangled people who maybe ate some Republicans and took their faces or something … Because I don’t know what those folks are. I’ve never seen anything like this where I have begun to wonder about who they represent and what they’re doing.”

“They’re representing Trump. That’s who they’re representing, only him,” Joy Behar added. “They were talking to Trump. Jordan was talking to Trump. Nunes is talking to Trump, and that’s — for some reason, they’re part of his cult, I really don’t get it.”

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www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-impeachment-blueprint-overthrow-government-within

The House began public hearings this week, furthering the partisan move by the Democrats to impeach President Trump in a blatant abuse of constitutional authority. Representative Adam Schiff said in a press conference, “These open hearings will be an opportunity for the American people to evaluate the witnesses for themselves and also to learn firsthand about the facts of the president’s misconduct.”



There are several problems with this statement.


First, Schiff is already characterizing the outcome of the investigation. As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he serves as a key arbiter of the inquiry under the resolution. As such, he is in a position that demands an unbiased irreproachable ethic in evaluating requests for subpoenas and testimony. Any judge in a similar position would be required to recuse himself with even a hint of the pure bias Schiff has displayed, including coordination with the Ukraine whistleblower and other actions.

The Democrats do not even pretend that their impeachment game is fair or actually about fact finding. This is simply about using a grant of power in the Constitution arbitrarily and politically, outside the bounds of due process and the purpose of that authority. Although the House does have the “sole power” of impeachment, that is a grant of jurisdiction, not a license to proceed on purely partisan motivation. Article One must work coordinately and not inconsistently with Article Two, which provides the legal basis upon which a sitting president may be impeached.

Second, Schiff demonstrates this is all about media play in the court of public opinion. Voters have no power or responsibility in an impeachment proceeding. The drafters of the Constitution intended the impeachment and removal process to be exercised only when there was sufficient evidence that the subject of the impeachment had committed a legally qualifying offense. This is not about whether impeachment is popular in the polls or whether a majority of Americans prefer it. Transparency in the context of this quasi judicial process is to provide fundamental fairness and due process for the president. Why are the Democrats so hellbent on blatantly refusing to allow Republican subpoenas and witnesses?

It is because it is a sham. Yet the Democrats are openly admitting that their goal is to try this in the media and attempt to dishonestly convince us that somehow we too should hate Donald Trump. They are hoping to convince us not to vote for him. That is not a legitimate or constitutional purpose of an impeachment. It is rather ironic that they claim his “crime” is an alleged quid pro quo to gain political advantage, while they are manipulating the power of impeachment for their political advantage. It is Schiff and other Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who should be impeached. There is an actual constitutional basis for that.

Third, Schiff is proving beyond doubt that this entire impeachment is merely a coordinated partisan attack against President Trump and, even more importantly, against the government of the United States. There was a bipartisan effort was against impeachment, with two Democrats and all Republicans in the House voting against the inquiry. The Democrats are abusing the power of impeachment and, if they are allowed to move forward, they are not only setting a terrible precedent that impeachment can be wielded as a political weapon that it was never intended to be, but also attacking the Constitution and undermining the rule of law.

In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton explained the problem of political motivation with the power of impeachment. He wrote,

“A well constituted court for the trial of impeachments, is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties, more or less friendly or inimical, to the accused.”



[i]He was right. Schiff and Pelosi are not interested in real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. Their only interest is staging a political coup against their adversaries.[/i] But this is even bigger than the president. This is an attempt to overthrow the federal government from the inside.

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dailycaller.com/2019/11/14/trump-jr-birthday-message-whoopi-goldberg/

Donald Trump Jr. sent a birthday message Thursday evening to “The View” host Whoopi Goldberg.

The president’s son, who made an appearance on her ABC midday talk show a week earlier, referenced a confrontation between the two of them during the broadcast as well as his book, which debuted at number one on the New York Times best sellers list Wednesday. (RELATED: ‘This Isn’t A MAGA Rally!’: Joy Behar Scolds Audience For Cheering Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle)


“Happy Birthday Whoopi! Give my best to your fugitive friend Roman! And thanks for hating on me and KG so much, it got me to #1 NYT best seller. You’re welcome for the highest ratings in months, perhaps have someone on the show who doesn’t hate America? #TRIGGERED #1,” Trump Jr. tweeted.

Roman, of course, was a reference to exiled Hollywood director Roman Polanski — whose name came up when Goldberg and her cohosts raised questions about President Donald Trump’s character.

Trump Jr. turned on Goldberg, reminding her of her apparent defense of Polanski. “It wasn’t rape, rape. I don’t believe it was rape,” he quoted her as saying.

Trump Jr’s appearance on “The View,” alongside girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, gave the show a ratings boost as well, which he also mentioned. (RELATED: 3 Times ‘The View’ Hosts Blatantly Lied On TV In Less Than An Hour)

Goldberg celebrated her birthday on Thursday’s show with a visit from some of the talented cast of Broadway’s “Ain’t Too Proud.”

The @ainttooproud guys brought EVERYTHING to @theview this morning and finished it off with a birthday wish for @whoopigoldberg! pic.twitter.com/hUkwGHSBFV

— Ain’t Too Proud (@ainttooproud) November 14, 2019

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Utah Republican Congressman Chris Stewart slammed Democrats during their impeachment inquiry this week, specifically calling them out for a lack of reasons to impeach.

www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2019/11/13/utah-rep-chris-stewart/

Utah Rep. Chris Stewart says ‘the coup has started’ during opening day of public impeachment hearings

Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, used his few minutes in the spotlight of the first public impeachment hearing of President Donald Trump to boil the whole issue down to a single phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s leader.

“There is one sentence, one phone call,” Stewart said. “That is what this entire impeachment proceeding is, basically. And I got to tell you, if your impeachment case is so weak that you have to lie and exaggerate about it to convince the American people that they need to remove this president, then you’ve got a problem.”

Stewart, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, asked only a few questions of the witnesses during his time in the hearing, opting instead to vent about the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry that he characterized as a “coup” against the president (citing a years-old tweet by an attorney now representing a whistleblower who first raised questions about Trump’s call with Zelenskiy).

“We first heard a lot about quid pro quo and then many people realized that was meaningless,” Stewart said. “So they said, ‘Let’s go for the fences and let’s talk about extortion. Let’s talk about bribery. Let’s talk about cover-up and obstruction’ — for which there is zero evidence of any of that.”

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WOW! Pompous Blowhard and Fired Ambassador Yovanovitch Compares Herself to US Hostages in Tehran and The Benghazi Four!

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Inspector General Horowitz told the DOJ and FBI operatives singled out in his upcoming report that he will not allow written rebuttals to the findings in his report. The Deep State PR teams have already complained to the Washington Post:

www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-dept-watchdog-wont-let-witnesses-give-written-feedback-on-report-about-fbis-russia-probe-sparking-fears-of-inaccuracy/2019/11/14/1236d0aa-070d-11ea-b17d-8b867891d39d_story.html

The Justice Department Inspector General’s office has told witnesses who are set to review draft sections of its long-awaited report on the FBI investigation of President Trump’s 2016 campaign that they will not be allowed to submit written feedback — one in a series of unusual restrictions that some fear could make the final document less accurate, people familiar with the matter said.

As is the case in most inspector general probes, witnesses are being invited to review draft sections of the report and offer comments and corrections, the people said. But — unlike most cases — they are being told those comments must be conveyed only verbally, the people said.

Even though Attorney General William P. Barr and other officials have been working in recent weeks to determine what should be redacted from the report as classified or private information, people familiar with the process said that the entire draft document is marked “Top Secret,” so anyone who discusses its contents outside a secure government room could be committing a crime.

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So, it’s another nothing burger:

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Devin Nunes: And just when you thought the spectacle couldn’t get more bizarre, committee Republicans received a memo from the Democrats threatening ethics referrals if we out the whistleblower. As Democrats are well aware no Republicans here know the whistleblower’s identity because the whistleblower only met with Democrats, not with Republicans. Chairman Schiff claimed not to know who it is. That he also promised to block us from asking questions that could reveal his or her identity. Republicans on this committee are left wondering how’s it’s even possible for the chairman to block questions on a person whose identity he claims not to know?

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Democrats are reading President Trump's live tweets about this hearing during the sham hearing and threatening to use them as evidence lol.

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dailycaller.com/2019/11/15/it-is-our-time-adam-schiff-republicans-stefanik/

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff once again clashed with Republicans on the committee Friday after he refused to let Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik question former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.

“The gentlewoman will suspend,” Schiff said after Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes tried to yield time to Stefanik. (RELATED: ‘Holy Cow’: Adam Schiff Spars With Jim Jordan, Elise Stefanik At Second Impeachment Hearing)

“What is the interruption for this time? It is our time,” Stefanik responded.

Schiff claimed that House rules only allowed for Nunes or Counsel Steve Castor to ask questions. Nunes objected, saying that since time for questions was allotted for Republicans, any committee member should be able to ask questions. (RELATED: House Democrats Vote To Open Impeachment Inquiry)

“We control the time, its been customary of this committee that whoever controls the time can yield to whoever they wish. If we have members of Congress that have a few questions, it seems appropriate that we be able to let Ms. Stefanik ask her question,” Nunes said.

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Reactions:

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amp.dailycaller.com/2019/11/15/flashback-obama-fires-bush-ambassadors

The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified Friday about President Donald Trump firing her amid an alleged “smear campaign,” but firing ambassadors appointed by former presidents is commonplace.

Former President Barack Obama fired all ambassadors appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2008, The Washington Post previously reported. Yovanovitch testified Friday that the Trump administration, including the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, “kneecapped” her. She said State Department leaders did not support her after being recalled in May.

Political ambassadors sometimes are permitted to stay on briefly during a new administration, but the sweeping nature of the directive suggests that Obama has little interest in retaining any of Bush’s ambassadorial appointees,” WaPo’s 2008 article about Obama’s decision to fire all political ambassadors reads.

Yovanovitch was appointed by Obama in 2016, and newly elected presidents typically re-vamp the positions with their own choices once taking office. Yovanovitch was allowed to stay on for three years after Trump took office, but has testified that senior officials “declined to acknowledge” the “smear campaign” against her leading up to her firing, Politico reported.

“Often the posts involving the most important bilateral relations (such as with Great Britain, Japan and India) or desirable locales (such as the Bahamas) are given to close friends and well-heeled contributors of the president,” the WaPo article added.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/15/sparks-fly-as-jim-jordan-busts-adam-schiff-for-hiding-four-transcripts-holy-cow/

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) called out House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) lack of transparency as the chairman essentially dismissed President Trump releasing the transcript of his first phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump released the transcript of his first phone call with Zelensky moments before Friday’s second public impeachment hearing featuring former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

Nunes read the transcript aloud – a transcript that showed a relatively brief phone call that featured an exchange of pleasantries.

Schiff repeatedly refused to recognize Jordan, who pointed out Schiff has yet to authorize the release of four transcripts from his secret depositions.

“There are four transcripts that have not been released,” Jordan began.

“The gentleman is not recognized,” Schiff said, prompting a “holy cow” from Jordan.

Schiff said he was “happy” to allow Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) to exceed his opening statement to read the transcript Trump released Friday, but signaled that it was not good enough:

First of all, I’m grateful the president has released the call record. I would now ask the president to release the thousands of other records that he has instructed the State Department not to release, including Ambassador Taylor’s notes, including Ambassador Taylor’s cable, including George Kent’s memo, including documents from the Office of Management and Budget about why the military aid was withheld.

“Mr. Chairman, I want you to release the four transcripts from the depositions,” Jordan began, prompting Schiff to say, “the gentleman will suspend,” wielding the gavel.

“That’s my point of order, “Jordan added.

Schiff dismissed Jordan and continued, accusing the president of “obstructing the impeachment inquiry.”

“We would ask the president to stop obstructing the impeachment inquiry, and while we are grateful he has released a single document, he has nonetheless obstructed witnesses and their testimony and the production of thousands of thousands of other records,” he claimed.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/15/elise-stefanik-batters-schiff-his-own-words-whistleblower/

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) brought House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) past remarks on the so-called “whistleblower” to the forefront during Friday’s public impeachment hearing, reading excerpts of reports of his previous comments aloud in order to demonstrate the “duplicity and just the abuse of power of that we are continuing to see.”

Stefanik used part of her time to list off the remarks Schiff made regarding the “whistleblower” in September – remarks that she and her GOP colleagues have gotten their hands slapped for.

Since the Chairman has gaveled out all of my colleagues with their unanimous consent, I am going to read for the record many of the chairman’s comments in September of the importance of hearing from the whistleblower,” she began.

Again Ambassador, thank you for your patience, thank you for your service. But since we haven’t been able to conduct ourselves in normal procedures, I’m just going to use the five minutes for this,” she continued.

September 29 in the Wall Street Journal: ‘The whistleblower at the center of the impeachment investigation of President Trump will testify in the House very soon.’ This is a quote by the chairman,” Stefanik noted.

“USA Today September 29: ‘Talking with ABC News This Week, Schiff, the Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the whistleblower would testify very soon and the only thing standing in the way was getting security clearances for the attorney representing the whistleblower so they could attend the testimony,” she continued.

“From Vox September 29: ‘Rep. Adam Schiff said Sunday the whistleblower at the center of a growing scandal surrounding President Donald Trump will testify before the House Intelligence Committee very soon,'” she added, continuing to read reports from outlets like CNN, the Washington Post, Huff Post, New York Post, and Washington Times.

“These are all quotes from chairman Adam Schiff,” Stefanik reminded the room.

“I can keep going, but again. The chairman refused to allow us to put these into the record with unanimous consent, so I read those out,” she said, noting the importance of protecting whistleblowers from retaliation and firing.

“We want to make sure whistleblowers are able to come forward, but in this case, the fact that we are getting criticized by Chairman Adam Schiff for statements that he himself had made early on in this process shows the duplicity and just the abuse of power of that we are continuing to see,” she concluded.

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Nov 15, 2019 14:04:16 GMT -6 soonernvolved said:

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Please welcome Alanis Morissette to the stage... 

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Since she lied under oath, then she needs to face the same penalties as General Flynn and Roger Stone:

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/15/marie-yovanovitch-not-interested-in-hunter-biden-corruption-or-ukrainian-election-meddling/

3:27
Former United States ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s testimony on Friday revealed why she likely lost the confidence of President Donald Trump as the ambassador to Ukraine.
Yovanovitch demonstrated she was indifferent or even averse to any corruption concerns surrounding Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden and even denied that Ukrainians were meddling in the 2016 election.

Yovanovitch dodged direct questions about whether she thought former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden serving on the board of the corrupt Ukrainian gas company Burisma was wrong.


“It was not the focus of what I was doing in that six month period,” she said when asked by Republican counsel Steve Castor about her understanding of Hunter Biden’s role.

She even denied that the issue was ever raised while she was the ambassador, pointing to Hunter Biden’s decision to resign from the board after his father decided to run for president.

While previous diplomatic officials testifying on Tuesday admitted that Hunter Biden’s role on the Burisma board was problematic, Yovanovitch only admitted that it may have created the “appearance” of a conflict of interest.

Twice, Yovanovitch stated that she did not believe that former Vice President Joe Biden’s demand that Ukraine fire a prosecutor investigating Burisma had anything to do with his son’s role on the board.

“I actually don’t,” she replied, adding, “I don’t think that had anything to do with the Burisma case.”

Under additional questioning, she admitted that Hunter Biden’s role on the board “could raise the appearance of a conflict of interest” but that she did not agree that Biden’s threat to force the prosecutor investigating Burisma was problematic.

She also said that she did not ever speak about Hunter Biden’s role with Burisma with the State Department, even after official George Kent raised concerns with the vice president’s office.

Rep. Elise Stefanik reminded Yovanovitch that she was even prepared by the Obama State Department on how to answer questions to Congress about Hunter Biden for her Senate confirmation hearing.

Under questioning from Rep. John Ratcliffe, Yovanovitch admitted that she was in fact coached by Obama State Department officials to respond to questions about Hunter Biden by referring members of Congress to Vice President Joe Biden’s office.

Yovanovitch presented herself as a tough advocate against corruption in the opening of her testimony, even claiming that she was fired by Trump because of her efforts to clean up Ukrainian corruption and the “smear campaign” that followed, launched by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani

But when she was asked about whether it was proper for the president to investigate corruption in Ukraine, she suggested that it was not.

“I think it’s appropriate as long as it’s part of our national strategy,” she said, adding that the “proper channel” for such investigations was through the Justice Department.

Yovanovitch also appeared uninterested and even denied reports of Ukrainian officials participating in meddling in the 2016 presidential election, by cooperating with Democrat operative Alexandra Chalupa.

She was unable to conclusively say whether or not she had ever met with Chalupa.

“I don’t think so,” she replied to Castor. “She works with the Ukraine embassy, it’s possible that I met her in a large group.”

Largely ignoring questions about Ukrainian meddling, Yovanovitch repeatedly reverted attention to the intelligence committee assessment of Russia’s attempt to meddle in the Ukrainian election

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/15/former-u-s-ambassador-to-ukraine-marie-yovanovitch-admits-having-no-knowledge-of-trump-criminal-activity/

Former United States Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch admitted on Friday that she has no knowledge of President Donald Trump accepting bribes nor of the president being involved in any criminal activity.
“Do you have any information regarding the President of the United States accepting any bribes?” asked Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) of former Ambassador Yovanovitch.

“No,” replied Yovanovitch.


“Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the President of the United States has been involved with at all?” asked Rep. Stewart.

“No,” answered Yovanovitch.

The former ambassador to Ukraine admitted this on Friday during the second day of the public impeachment hearings.

“Thank you for answering that directly,” said Stewart. “The American people know this is nonsense. The American people know this is unfair. And I have a prediction regarding this.” He went on:

I think that public support for impeachment is actually going to be less when these hearings are over than it is when hearings began, because finally, the American people are going to be able to see the evidence, and they’re going to be able to make their own determination regarding that.

“Now, I want to ask you one thing,” continued Stewart. “You’ve been asked if the president — any president — has the ability to ask his ambassadors to serve at will. I’m curious, do you think that’s the right policy?

“Yeah, I probably think it is,” responded Yovanovitch.



“I do as well,” said Stewart. “It may be imperfect, there may be times when it’s not used perfectly, but I agree with you, it is the right policy. I don’t think that we should change that.”

“Now, I would like to read from some previous statements, including one of your own — as well as others — regarding the appropriateness of investigating corruption in the U.K.,” he added.

From Ms. Fiona Hill, “So again, the fact that their investigations in the corruptions in the energy sector in Ukraine, as well as in Russia and in many other countries, is not a surprise.” From yourself, your previous testimony, question, was it that the general understanding that Burisma was a company that suffered from allegations of corruption? Your answer was, “Yes.” From Ambassador Sondland, “I just am generally aware of that Burisma is considered a potentially corrupt company.”

“Would you agree, then, that it’s appropriate to investigate corruption?” asked Rep. Stewart. Yovanovitch replied:

I think it’s appropriate if it’s part of our national strategy. What I would say is that we have a process for doing that. It’s called the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. We have one with Ukraine, and generally it goes from our Department of Justice to the Ministry of Justice of the country of interest.

Stewart responded:

I appreciate that. Regardless of the process, it’s appropriate for us to investigate potential corruption. And especially, look, we’re about to give some of these countries hundreds of millions of dollars.

We mentioned earlier that the vice president, when he went to the Ukraine and called for the specific firing of a specific prosecutor, that he was completing official U.S. Policy.

But the interesting thing is this. The vice president had exactly two countries that were his responsibility at that time, China and the Ukraine. And he has bragged and been very proud about his influence in the previous administration. He says, again and again, that the Obama Administration listened to him, so it doesn’t surprise me that they would be fulfilling a policy that this vice president certainly helped to formulate.
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Translation: In a nut-shell, she had NO knowledge of wrong doing....why is she a witness?

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/15/rep-turner-gets-yovanovitch-to-admit-giuliani-meeting-with-u-s-ukrainian-officials-isnt-unusual/

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch on Friday admitted that private U.S. citizens meeting with U.S. and Ukrainian officials — even if they are working on presidential campaigns and lobbying for certain causes — is not an unusual thing.

The acknowledgment came under questioning from Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), member of the House Intelligence Committee conducting the impeachment inquiry.

Yovanovitch, who was the ambassador in Ukraine until her removal in May, testified Friday that there was an informal channel on U.S.-Ukraine foreign policy that involved U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Turner asked Yovanovitch if she would agree that Richard Holbrooke, who died in 2010, was a “man of great reputation.”

“Yes,” Yovanovitch agreed.

Turner then asked her if it would surprise her if a member of the John Kerry 2004 presidential campaign traveled to Ukraine in July 2004 to meet with Ukrainian officials and the U.S. ambassador there at the time. “Does that surprise you?”

Yovanovitch, puzzled, responded, “Not necessarily. What was the context?”

Turner asked her, “Would you have taken that meeting, if a member of John Kerry’s team traveled to Ukraine, would you have taken that meeting?”

She responded, “I guess it would depend on what the purpose of the meeting was.”

Turner told Yovanovitch:

Well that meeting actually occurred, and it was with [Richard] Holbrooke — Richard Holbrooke was a private citizen, traveled to Ukraine, met with the U.S. ambassadors, met with Ukrainian officials, he was also there on about HIV/AIDS, which was in addition something the Clinton Foundation was working on. So we have an official of the Kerry campaign in 2004 as a private citizen meeting with the ambassador in Ukraine. Is that unusual?

Yovanovitch responded, “We meet with private individuals all the time.”

Turner concluded, “It probably wasn’t unusual for Giuliani either.”

Holbrooke at the time of his visit to Ukraine with U.S. and Ukrainian officials was a private citizen, a member of Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004, CEO of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, and working for the Clinton Foundation.

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The Democrats are doing a fine job of destroying their impeachment narratives:

thefederalist.com/2019/11/15/marie-yovanovitch-admits-there-was-no-crime-no-bribery-from-trump-on-ukraine/

Marie Yovanovitch Admits There Was No Crime, No Bribery From Trump On Ukraine
NOVEMBER 15, 2019 By Tristan Justice
Another one of the House Democrats’ star witnesses testified before the House Intelligence Committee Friday in day two of the public portion of the partisan impeachment proceedings.

Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, admitted to lawmakers that President Donald Trump did not engage in any kind of criminal activity related to Ukraine.


“Do you have any information regarding the President of the United States accepting any bribes?” Republican Congressman Chris Stewart of Utah asked point blank.

“No,” Yovanovitch said.

“Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the President of the United States has been involved with at all?”

“No.”



Yovanovitch’s testimony comes amid Democrats’ latest attempt to undo the 2016 presidential election after the collapse of the Russian collusion hoax earlier this year.

Democrats launched official impeachment proceedings centered on the details of a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky where Democrats allege Trump pressured the Ukrainian government to investigate the former Vice President Joe Biden by withholding military aid.

The unredacted transcript of the call has since been declassified and released to the public in plain sight, revealing instead that Trump requested the Ukraine government root out corruption in its own country and investigate the origins of the nation’s involvement in peddling the Russian conspiracy theory that did irreparable harm to the United States.

Still, Democrats have aggressively pushed forward in their efforts to oust President Trump opening up impeachment proceedings that limit the rights of the minority party.

The impeachment process kicked off by Democrats have been wrought with bias from the start, first beginning with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff holding secret hearings in the basement of the Capitol. After more than a month of Democrats pre-interviewing witnesses and barring Republicans from asking questions Schiff did not want answered, the start of an official impeachment inquiry was put the House floor for a full chamber vote where not one Republican supported the measure.

The rules for impeachment themselves prohibit Republican lawmakers from subpoenaing witnesses or evidence without Democratic approval. The minority party was granted these rights in both the Nixon and Clinton proceedings. And as was showcased in Friday’s hearings, Schiff has continued to suppress GOP voices on the committee.

Earlier this week, another one of the Democrats’ star witnesses made the case for investigating the Biden family’s involvement in Ukraine.

“My concern was that there was the possibility of a perception of a conflict of interest,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent Wednesday, who also raised the red flag to the Obama administration in 2015 that Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company while the Vice President dictated U.S. policy towards Ukraine.

Hunter Biden served on the board for $50,000 a month without any prior experience in the industry.

On Friday, Yovanovitch corroborated Kent’s testimony when asked by Republican John Ratcliffe of Texas whether she agreed with Kent’s earlier statements given to the committee.

“Yeah… I think that it could raise the appearance of a conflict of interest,” Yovanovitch said.

[soonernvolved]

thefederalist.com/2019/11/15/democrats-concede-their-impeachment-argument-is-failing/

Democrats Concede Their Impeachment Argument Is Failing
NOVEMBER 15, 2019 By David Marcus

CNN reports that in a private meeting this week, top Democrats conceded that the polls on impeachment were unlikely to shift, and that their basic message is failing to break through for huge swaths of Americans. This is very close to admitting that their ultimate goal, of removing president Trump from office will not be achieved.

The reason this would mean game over for the removal effort is that only a significant uptick for impeachment in polling, especially among Republicans who have been rock solid in support of Trump, could lead to GOP votes to convict in the senate. This may sound cynical, but why should Republican senators defy the wishes of the vast majority of their voters based on the Democrats’ vague and shifting arguments?


Even more telling than the concession that polls won’t be moving is the admission their messaging is failing. This can only really mean one of two things. Either Adam Schiff and his inquiry have failed to prove Trump engaged in impeachable and removal offenses or the 44 percent of Americans who oppose impeachment are too stupid, or brainwashed to accept the case for impeaching Trump.

It’s pretty clear which of these two things Democrats think is going on. Rep. Steny Hoyer had this to say, “And sadly, apparently, Trump was perhaps right when he said of his own supporters that he could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and they would not require any accountability.”

Rep. Jim Himes added, “Abuse of power is not necessarily a concept that most Americans run around thinking about…The point is we are all working to try to make a fairly unusual concept to most Americans — abuse of power — understandable.”

The Democrats think that they have the goods on Trump, but that millions of voters are too thick-headed to understand what “abuse of power,” the latest strand of spaghetti to be thrown against the wall after “quid pro quo,” “extortion,” and “bribery,” means. But impeachment charges are kind of like jokes, the more you have to explain them, the less effective they are.

To make matter worse for Democrats, not only are they failing to move the needle among Americans, they are struggling to make them care at all. TV ratings for the impeachment hearings on Wednesday were sharply down from those during the James Comey, and Christine Blasey Ford testimonies. Axios has a good breakdown on the myriad reasons this might be the case, but clearly last week’s argument from Democrats that the power of television would be a game changer is falling flat on its face.

When we read the history of the Nixon impeachment, or for the older among us, remember it, it seems like a television spectacle second only to the moon landing. A tuned in America hung on every word. It’s important though, to remember in 1974 impeachment hadn’t happened in a century, and more importantly, half the only dozen or so channels people had were showing the hearings.

As a side note, it may be that we can now set the dates of television’s dominance of political messaging from 1960, and the Kennedy, Nixon debate, to 2016 and the election of Trump. Now the Internet, of which television is just a part of, has taken over that dominant role.

The upshot is that Democrats know this isn’t going well, or at least as well as they had hoped. And yet, they appear to feel that if they have gone this far they have to see it through. They will have a day or two to celebrate with the base the symbolic victory of impeaching Trump, the top policy position of the party for three years now. Then they can pivot to calling every GOP senator who doesn’t vote to convict, a corrupt hack.

Meanwhile the show goes on, at least for a little while longer. And while it might not be must watch TV, the result of this effort will help to define the 2020 race for president. Right now, the White House has every reason to be just fine with that

[soonernvolved]

www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/enduring-russian-conspiracy-theory-mueller-report-accomplished-nothing/

The Russian Conspiracy That Won’t Die
By RICH LOWRY
November 15, 2019 6:30 AM

For many on the left, it’s as if the Mueller probe never happened.
The Mueller report accomplished nothing.

Whether you thought that the two-year, $32 million investigation was warranted or not, the report promised to establish a factual record that both sides could accept, especially on the explosive charge that Donald Trump had conspired with the Russians to win the American presidency.

It did indeed establish such a record, at great length, after a formidable team of investigators and prosecutors searched high and low for evidence and got extensive cooperation from the White House (but only answers to written questions from President Trump).


The report explained at the outset that the investigation examined whether contacts between Russians and the Trump team “involved or resulted in coordination or a conspiracy with the Trump Campaign and Russia, including with respect to Russia providing assistance to the Campaign in exchange for any sort of favorable treatment in the future. Based on the available information, the investigation did not establish such coordination.”

Case closed? No.

NOW WATCH: 'DOJ Releases 500 Pages Of Mueller Probe Interviews, Emails'


WATCH: 0:41
DOJ Releases 500 Pages Of Mueller Probe Interviews, Emails
Nancy Pelosi still likes to say, “All roads lead to Putin.” The allegation that Trump might be a Russian agent is still heard on cable TV. Hillary Clinton still thinks the Russians have compromising information on Trump. The notorious MSNBC analyst Malcolm Nance is still at it, claiming that the Russians have been surveilling Trump since his marriage to Ivana, a Czech, in 1977, and “they now own him.”

The Mueller report is considered wanting because its findings were “based on the available information.” What about all the unavailable information? The notion that there is some cache of incriminating evidence that Mueller and his team missed is hard to credit. This line of reasoning makes the charge that Trump is an agent of Russia essentially unfalsifiable, a classic characteristic of a conspiracy theory.

The fallback evidence for the Russia obsessives is that Trump is acting like a Russian agent. There’s no doubt that Trump believes, absent political flak in this country, that he and Vladimir Putin could cut some unspecified wondrous deal. But he’s thought, at times, that he could cut a deal with Kim Jong-un and the Taliban, too.

If Trump has disparaged NATO, he also tends to look askance at all international organizations as a rip-off. He’s minimized or denied Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but almost certainly because he considers the focus on Russia a way to undermine the legitimacy of his victory (which, in part, it clearly is).


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Seeing the Ukraine mess through the lens of Trump’s alleged loyalty to Moscow also doesn’t make sense. Trump has a dim view of Ukraine, although largely because he believes Ukrainians worked against him in 2016.

The bottom line is that Trump’s Ukraine policy is more hawkish than President Barack Obama’s. Trump’s predecessor steadfastly refused to give lethal aid to Ukraine to defend itself from a Russian invasion. Trump has provided such aid. His underlying offense is delaying, for a matter of months, that aid before coughing it up. Why would Putin consider this approach preferable to Obama’s, which denied Ukraine this help, not provisionally, not temporarily, but firmly as a matter of principle?

Another count against Trump is that his pullback from northeastern Syria boosts Russian influence in the country, although the Russians arrived in Syria in force during Obama’s “red line” fiasco. If Trump is acting like a Russian agent, so did Obama, beginning with his then–secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, offering her Russian counterpart a misbegotten “reset” button.

It’s not as though Trump’s critics don’t have plenty of unassailably factual material to work with. This doesn’t offer, though, the same intrigue and emotional satisfaction of believing he’s in a treacherous conspiracy with a foreign power. If only we had a federal investigation with lots of time and money to get to the bottom of it. . . .

[soonernvolved]

So, she told at least two lies today:

Marie Yovanovitch: As for events during my tenure in the Ukraine, I want to reiterate first the allegation that I disseminated a ‘do not prosecute’ list was a fabrication. Mr. Lutshenko, the former Ukrainian prosecutor general who made that allegation has acknowledged that that list never existed.

Lou Dobbs: Oooh, not quite! Not quite! As investigative journalist John Solomon and The New York Times have both reported Lutsenko denies that he never retracted that allegation.