James Comey

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President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani put the DC swamp on notice on Saturday.

Giuliani reminded the DC swamp that he previously cleaned up mafia in New York and asked them, “Do you honestly think I’m intimidated?" He also said he’s going to bring out a massive pay-to-play scheme under the Obama Administration that will “devastate the Democrat Party” — a scheme that Giuliani said the Washington press covered up for years!

Giuliani presented a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham with evidence of a Democrat criminal conspiracy with Ukrainians to prevent Donald Trump from being President.

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Voters in another swing state:

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www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/11/23/brooks-impeachment-case-is-legally-stronger-not-politically-stronger/

Brooks: Impeachment Case ‘Is Legally Stronger,’ ‘Not Politically Stronger’



On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that the case for impeaching President Trump has strengthened legally, but not politically.

Brooks said, “Well, the case is legally stronger, but it’s not politically stronger.”

After citing polling among independents and voters in Wisconsin on impeachment, Brooks added, “I think everybody knows he’s guilty. They just don’t think this is the issue that affects my life. And why are they talking about all this stuff?”

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Lawrence O'Donnel had some former deep state clown on who just wrote a book called Deep State. Little did we know that the investigation into Trump did not begin with the dossier or even earlier. It began when Trump illegally fired Comey. His entire time on air was one lie after the other.

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nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/zelensky-criticizes-withholding-aid-claims-no-quid-pro-quo.html?utm_campaign=di&utm_source=tw&utm_medium=s1

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has denied an explicit quid pro quo attaching investigations into President Trump’s political rivals to the release of U.S. military aid. But, in a new interview with Time and several European publications, Zelensky did say that delaying nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine was an unfair thing for a “strategic partner” to do.

“Look, I never talked to the President from the position of a quid pro quo,” Zelensky said. “But you have to understand. We’re at war. If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us. I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo. It just goes without saying.”

The denial of a quid pro quo echoes similar statements Zelensky has made on the subject. During a joint press conference with Trump in New York last September, Zelensky was asked if he “felt any pressure from President Trump to investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden?”

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www.dailywire.com/news/see-it-whistleblower-failed-to-disclose-contact-with-schiffs-office-in-initial-complaint-cbs-reporter-highlights

In the initial disclosure form submitted to the intelligence community inspector general, the whistleblower behind the complaint that sparked the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry failed to include key information about his/her contact with the office of Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff (CA), who is heading up the inquiry.


While CBS News first reported on the missing information on the disclosure form on November 22, CBS Senior Investigative Correspondent Catherine Herridge’s tweet Monday highlighting blank sections in the form requiring “a detailed accounting of who is aware of the complaint” has drawn renewed attention to the issue in conservative circles online.

“As impeachment enters new phase, [whistleblower] did not initially disclose contact w/Schiff staff citing ‘guidance on a procedural question,’ ‘no substance of the actual disclosure was discussed,’ and ‘way the form question was worded,'” tweeted Herridge, noting that she highlighted the key sections that should have included detailed disclosures.

In its initial report on the whistleblower’s incomplete disclosure form, CBS News reported that the whistleblower — whose name is still being withheld by officials — “reached out to the intelligence community watchdog on October 8 to clarify the nature of his or her contact with Democratic majority staff of the House Intelligence Committee before the complaint was filed.”


The whistleblower claimed that he/she left a section requiring a detailed accounting of any contact with “Congress or congressional committee(s)” blank because he/she felt that since “no substance of the actual disclosure was discussed,” it was not “necessary.”

“The whistleblower acknowledged reaching out to the committee, but claimed that nothing substantial was discussed and that the staff member directed them to go through official channels, according to the ‘Memorandum of Investigative Activity,’ provided to House and Senate Intelligence Committee leadership by intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) Michael Atkinson,” CBS reported:

According to the document, the whistleblower reported to the ICIG investigator that the committee staffer advised: “‘Do it right, hire a lawyer, and contact the ICIG.’ So that is what the COMPLAINANT did. At the time, COMPLAINANT did not even know what the ICIG was.”

The whistleblower felt that “ased on getting guidance on a procedural question, and that no substance of the actual disclosure was discussed, COMPLAINANT did not feel, based on the way the form question was worded, that it was necessary to check that box.”

“That box” refers to the whistleblower disclosure form, which requires a detailed accounting of who is aware of the complaint. The box for “Congress or congressional committee(s)” was left blank by the whistleblower.

The contact between Schiff’s office and the whistleblower prior to the filing of the complaint that sparked the Schiff-led impeachment inquiry was first revealed by The New York Times six days before the whistleblower reached out to the inspector general to “clarify” about his/her contact with Schiff’s office. In the October 2 report, the Times made clear that the general nature of the complaint was conveyed to Schiff’s office and that Schiff was personally informed about the complaint by one of his aides:

The Democratic head of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, learned about the outlines of a C.I.A. officer’s concerns that President Trump had abused his power days before the officer filed a whistle-blower complaint, according to a spokesman and current and former American officials.

The early account by the future whistle-blower shows how determined he was to make known his allegations that Mr. Trump asked Ukraine’s government to interfere on his behalf in the 2020 election. It also explains how Mr. Schiff knew to press for the complaint when the Trump administration initially blocked lawmakers from seeing it.

The C.I.A. officer approached a House Intelligence Committee aide with his concerns about Mr. Trump only after he had had a colleague first convey them to the C.I.A.’s top lawyer. Concerned about how that initial avenue for airing his allegations through the C.I.A. was unfolding, the officer then approached the House aide. In both cases, the original accusation was vague.

The House staff member, following the committee’s procedures, suggested the officer find a lawyer to advise him and meet with an inspector general, with whom he could file a whistle-blower complaint. The aide shared some of what the officer conveyed to Mr. Schiff. The aide did not share the whistle-blower’s identity with Mr. Schiff, an official said.

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www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-quietly-debate-expanding-impeachment-articles-beyond-ukraine/2019/12/02/da84e00a-1537-11ea-bf81-ebe89f477d1e_story.html

Members of the House Judiciary Committee and other more liberal-minded lawmakers and congressional aides have been privately discussing the possibility of drafting articles that include obstruction of justice or other “high crimes” they believe are clearly outlined in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report — or allegations that Trump has used his office to benefit his bottom line.

The idea, however, is running into resistance from some moderate Democrats wary of impeachment blowback in their GOP-leaning districts, as well as Democratic leaders who sought to keep impeachment narrowly focused on allegations that Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely.

The debate is expected to play out in leadership and caucus meetings this week, as the House Intelligence Committee prepares to hand the impeachment inquiry to the House Judiciary Committee. The Intelligence Committee is scheduled to vote Tuesday night on its final report on Ukraine, allowing Judiciary to then work on writing articles of impeachment based on that document.

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Adam Schiff: We’re continuing to issue new subpoenas, we’re continuing to learn new information. That work goes on. But we also feel a sense of urgency. This is a president who has sought foreign intervention in US elections twice now.

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www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1232

Dear Inspector General Atkinson,

Your disappointing testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on September 26 was evasive to the point of being insolent and obstructive. Despite repeated questions, you refused to explain what you meant in your written report by “indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate.” This information is, of course, unclassified and we were meeting in a closed setting. Yet you moralized about how you were duty bound not to share even a hint of this political bias with us.

But now I see media reports that you revealed to the House Intelligence Committee not only that the complainant is a registered Democrat, but also that he has a professional relationship with a Democratic presidential campaign. I’m dissatisfied, to put it mildly, with your refusal to answer my questions, while more fully briefing the three-ring circus that the House Intelligence Committee has become.

So, I will ask again and give you one more chance to answer: what are these “indicia of arguable political bias”? More specifically:

Does the complainant have (or did he once have) a professional relationship with a Democratic presidential candidate or campaign?
If so, which candidate or campaign and what is the nature of that relationship?
What other “indicia of arguable political bias” of the complainant did you find?
Did you or anyone subject to your control or influence share with CNN that the “arguable political bias” was merely that the complainant is a registered Democrat?
Why did you refuse to answer my questions at the September 26 hearing?
This information is urgently relevant for the American people and their elected representatives to evaluate the complainant’s credibility and to determine whether the House’s so-called impeachment inquiry has been, in reality, a well-coordinated partisan attack from the beginning.

This information is also simple, unclassified, and personally known to you. Therefore, please reply in writing no later than 5:00 p.m. on Friday, October 11. I look forward to your answers, even two weeks late.

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The House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday released the much anticipated “Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report.”

intelligence.house.gov/report/

“The impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.,” the report opens.

“As described in this executive summary and the report that follows, President Trump’s scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign. The President demanded that the newly-elected Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly announce investigations into a political rival that he apparently feared the most, former Vice President Joe Biden, and into a discredited theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election. To compel the Ukrainian President to do his political bidding, President Trump conditioned two official acts on the public announcement of the investigations: a coveted White House visit and critical U.S. military assistance Ukraine needed to fight its Russian adversary.”


“In response, President Trump engaged in an unprecedented campaign of obstruction of this impeachment inquiry. Nevertheless, due in large measure to patriotic and courageous public servants who provided the Committees with direct evidence of the President’s actions, the Committees uncovered significant misconduct on the part of the President of the United States. As required under House Resolution 660, the Intelligence Committee, in consultation with the Committees on Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs, has prepared this report to detail the evidence uncovered to date, which will now be transmitted to the Judiciary Committee for its consideration.”

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CONCLUSION: The evidence does NOT prove the Democrats’ allegations that President Trump abused his authority to pressure Ukraine to investigate his potential political rival, Vice President Joe Biden, for President Trump’s benefit in the 2020 presidential election.

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www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/barr-doesnt-accept-key-inspector-general-finding-about-fbis-russia-investigation/2019/12/02/4464f018-154d-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html

Attorney General William Barr has told associates he disagrees with the Justice Department’s inspector general on one of the key findings in an upcoming report – that the FBI had enough information in July 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is due to release his long-awaited findings in a week, but behind the scenes at the Justice Department, disagreement has surfaced about one of Horowitz’s central conclusions on the origins of the Russia investigation. The discord could be the prelude to a major fissure within federal law enforcement on the controversial question of investigating a presidential campaign.

Barr has not been swayed by Horowitz’s rationale for concluding that the FBI had sufficient basis to open an investigation on July 31, 2016, these people said.

Barr’s public defenses of President Donald Trump, including his assertion that intelligence agents spied on the Trump campaign, have led Democrats to accuse him of acting like the president’s personal attorney and eroding the independence of the Justice Department. But Trump and his Republican Barr’s public defenses of President Donald Trump, including his assertion that intelligence agents spied on the Trump campaign, have led Democrats to accuse him of acting like the president’s personal attorney and eroding the independence of the Justice Department. But Trump and his Republican allies have cheered Barr’s skepticism of the Russia investigation.

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www.dailywire.com/news/limbaugh-more-evidence-media-has-failed-miserably-to-sell-impeachment-to-the-american-public

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh returned to the airwaves Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday to highlight evidence that the left-leaning media has “failed miserably” to win the American public’s support for the impeachment of Donald Trump.


“[O]ver the weekend, you know what I didn’t hear?” Limbaugh said at the start of his three-hour radio program Monday. “I didn’t hear anybody talk about impeachment. They are talking about the New England Patriots maybe floundering, people talking about Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals bragging about how much money they saved. Nobody’s talking about impeachment.”




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And it’s not just that no one seems to really care to talk about the Democrats’ big impeachment push, poll after poll has shown either no movement at all in public opinion, or, more often than not, a declining support in impeachment after the Democrats’ conducted their anti-climactic public impeachment hearings.

Polling also shows support for Trump is up among minorities, Rush noted, while his base continues to back him more strongly than ever. As The Daily Wire reported Monday, multiple polls have now shown Trump enjoying strong approval among minorities for a Republican:


After two recent polls revealed the strong support President Trump has among black voters, with the Rasmussen poll showing 34% percent and an Emerson University poll showing 34.5% support from black voters, another poll has been released showing the strong support for Trump among non-white voters. An NPR/PBS and Marist poll conducted November 11-15 found 33% of non-white voters approve of President Trump’s performance at his job.

Meanwhile, Trump’s base appears to have only further solidified behind him in response to the impeachment inquiry. “One of the greatest failures of the media and the left is their inability to drive a wedge between Trump voters and Trump,” said Limbaugh. “Trump’s popularity among Republicans now remains at over 90%. This is almost unprecedented.”


The response from the “Drive-Bys”? Declare Republican voters who support Trump to be a “racial and religious cult,” as MNSBC’s Joy Reid did Saturday.

“A lot of ways, if you look at the Public Religion Research Institute numbers, you know it isn’t just a pejorative to say it’s a cult,” said Reid, as noted by Rush. “There’s a lot of evidence that it is a racial and religious cult of personality in which his base is solidly among the white evangelicals of almost worshiping and say that he’s the chosen one of God.”

“They’re at their wits’ end,” Limbaugh exclaimed. “I can’t emphasize enough the degree to which they know they have failed. And this is relatively new territory for them even though it’s been three years.”

“Their sole objective from the get-go has been to take Donald Trump out, to reverse the election results of 2016 however, whichever way they can,” said the talk radio host. “One of the ways they have tried to do it is to separate Trump voters from Trump. They have failed miserably.”

“Look how long it took ’em to get George Bush’s numbers down into the thirties, took ’em almost six years to do that,” he added. “Now, we’re into four years, and they haven’t budged Trump and even during this so-called presentation of all of this horrible news, Trump supposedly cheated, worked with the Russians, withheld money from Ukraine, whatever it is, whatever lies that they have perpetrated, not a single one of them has worked. They have not made a dent in either Trump’s overall approval number or support for Trump among his own base voters. And now they are at their wits’ end.”

In response, said Limbaugh, the Democrat-sympathizing media has resorted, like Reid, to “insulting” half the country. Inevitably, the insults “backfire” on them, yet they still “haven’t come to grips yet with the idea that they simply cannot shape public opinion and events with the ease they used to be able to do so.”

During the program Monday, Limbaugh also cheered Trump’s decision to turn down the invitation from Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, to participate in the hearings. “You gotta love it, ladies and gentlemen,” said Rush. “The president of the United States has just told Jerry Nadler to go pound whatever it is he eats. He’s not showing up. These clowns schedule a so-called impeachment hearing. There aren’t gonna be any hearings.”

“They’ve got nothing, folks,” he stressed. “It’s totally bombed… They’ve fired everything they’ve got and it’s a big, fat zero. People are not even talking about it. They haven’t figured it out yet. I mean, they’re gonna still try to go through the motions. They’re gonna try to make it look like this is a deadly serious thing and that they’re gonna follow through on it, but it’s not gonna end up at all the way they have dreamed about it.”

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www.zerohedge.com/political/house-intel-panel-releases-trump-impeachment-report

After months of public and private testimony, the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has released their impeachment report accusing President Trump of misconduct by withholding military aid to Ukraine unless various demands were met.



Trump is also accused of obstructing the impeachment inquiry by instructing witnesses and agencies to ignore subpoenas for documents and testimony, as well as intimidating and tampering with witnesses.

"The decision to move forward with an impeachment inquiry is not one we took lightly. Under the best of circumstances, impeachment is a wrenching process for the nation. I resisted calls to undertake an impeachment investigation for many months on that basis, notwithstanding the existence of presidential misconduct that I believed to be deeply unethical and damaging to our democracy. The alarming events and actions detailed in this report, however, left us with no choice but to proceed."


On Tuesday night, the committee will meet in a closed-door session to formally adopt the report.

The report comes one day after Republicans on the House Intel committee released their own "prebuttal" claiming Trump committed "no quid pro quo, bribery, extortion, or abuse of power. The Democrats' report will be combined with the 'prebuttal' and sent to the House Judiciary Committee, which will draft articles of impeachment following their own inquiry.

Prebuttal bullet points (Via Axios):

They claim there is “nothing inherently wrong” with the Trump administration’s actions toward Ukraine and justify each of them in detail, including Rudy Giuliani’s direct involvement in U.S. diplomacy.
They say any references to a quid pro quo are conjecture and hearsay — including EU Ambassador and Trump donor Gordon Sondland's testimony.
They question the origins of the impeachment inquiry and Democrats' motives, and they allege that Democrats have wanted to undo the 2016 election since Trump won.
They mock Democrats for calling the impeachment inquiry a serious process, and they characterize the speedy nature of the inquiry as proof that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is motivated by politics rather than substance.
They use Trump's well-known skepticism about U.S. spending on foreign aid as justification for his hesitation to give money to Ukraine.
They say there was "nothing wrong" with asking questions about Hunter Biden’s role on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian company, or renewing unfounded allegations about who interfered in the 2016 elections.
Developing...

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www.dailywire.com/news/washington-post-trump-effort-to-pressure-ukraine-was-really-about-undermining-mueller-not-biden

In a lengthy report published Tuesday that peels back the curtain on the Trump administration’s “Ukraine pressure campaign,” The Washington Post ends up undermining the Democrats’ attempts to focus public attention on President Trump’s request for Ukraine to “look into” his political opponent, rather than his attempt to prompt an investigation into alleged Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election. What actually fueled the pressure campaign, which was headed up by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the Post details, was a desire to prove that special counsel Robert Mueller’s “Russian collusion” investigation was based on false premises.


“As 2018 came to a close, the special counsel investigation was bearing down on President Trump,” the Post’s latest Ukraine-themed report begins. “Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III had secured the cooperation of Trump’s onetime fixer, Michael Cohen, and appeared to be preparing to indict a longtime adviser, Roger Stone. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was in jail after pleading guilty to multiple felonies, and Mueller’s prosecutors were pressing him to explain why he had given 2016 polling data to an associate with alleged ties to Russian intelligence.”




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“It was in this uncertain moment that Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani said he had the idea to focus on Ukraine,” the Post continues. “That November, he received a tip from a former colleague that it was the Ukrainians who had conspired to help Democrats in 2016, Giuliani said in recent interviews.”

As the Post highlights, Giuliani has openly explained this rationale, including in a recent interview with Glenn Beck. “I knew they were hot and heavy on this Russian collusion thing, even though I knew 100 percent that it was false,” said Giuliani. “I said to myself, ‘Hallelujah.’ I’ve got what a defense lawyer always wants: I can go prove someone else committed this crime.”

Giuliani made a similar statement in a tweet last month. “The investigation I conducted concerning 2016 Ukrainian collusion and corruption, was done solely as a defense attorney to defend my client against false charges, that kept changing as one after another were disproved,” he wrote.

“Giuliani’s efforts to undermine the special counsel probe eventually snowballed into the current impeachment crisis gripping the capital — highlighting how the pressure Trump and his allies put on Ukraine originated as an effort to sow doubts about the Russia investigation,” the Post explains.

While the Post does its best to make Trump’s attempts to “sow doubts” about the Russian investigation sound insidious, as Mueller himself was forced to admit in the final report, the Democrat-pushed narrative that Trump’s campaign somehow “colluded” with the Russians turned out to be baseless. After a two-year investigation costing over $30 million, the special counsel revealed in its final report that “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

The Post’s report on team Trump’s belief that Ukraine was really the culprit in 2016 election meddling aligns with other evidence, including Mueller investigation documents released in early November focusing on the special counsel’s interview in May 2018 with former Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates. Trump advisers, said Gates, believed the hacking of the Democratic emails ultimately published by WikiLeaks was “likely carried about by the Ukrainians, not the Russians,” and that “the Democrats were pushing the Russia narrative” presumably for political purposes.

Trump has reiterated both publicly and privately his belief that corruption has plagued Ukraine. In a recent tweet, Trump explained his rationale for delaying U.S. security aid. “I held back the money from Ukraine because it is considered a corrupt country, [and] I wanted to know why nearby European countries weren’t putting up money also,” Trump tweeted last week.

Fueled by this belief that Ukraine was corrupt and by his desire to undermine the premises of the Mueller investigation, Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25 — “the very day after Mueller testified before Congress,” as the Post notes — to investigate alleged Ukrainian meddling.

“I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it,” Trump told Zelensky, as revealed in the transcript of the famous July 25 call. “I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.”

As almost an afterthought, Trump also asked Zelensky to “look into” allegations of corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden regarding Ukrainian-based energy company Burisma Holdings.

“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 said. “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.”

While the Post makes sure to highlight criticism about the Crowdstrike “conspiracy theory” that partly motivated Trump’s camp, the evidence is clear that the desire to undercut the Mueller “Russia collusion” investigation was what was truly fueling the Giuliani-led effort to “pressure” Ukraine, not Trump’s desire to take out his potential 2020 political rival.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/03/adam-schiff-releases-democrats-intelligence-committee-impeachment-report/

House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) released the Democrats’ report Tuesday on the impeachment inquiry, concluding that President Donald Trump “solicit[ed] foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.”

The report presents itself as the core fact-finding effort, though that function has traditionally been handled by the House Judiciary Committee, which will begin its own hearings on Wednesday.




The full report was initially unavailable on the House Intelligence Committee website, which was overloaded. However, the executive summary laid out the broad outlines of the Democrats’ case.

One part focuses on the substance of the allegations against the president; the other claims that he obstructed the committee’s investigation.

There is no mention of “bribery,” nor any crime except witness intimidation (see below). The report never spells out any precise grounds for impeachment, though it appears to argue that Trump abused his power. (As former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein wrote in 2017, “abuse of power” is an insufficient basis for impeachment, because it would apply to every president, all of whom arguably overstepped the bounds of their authority.)

In the first part of the report, Schiff and his committee use the term “political favor” to desribe President Trump’s request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he investigate possible interference in the 2016 election, as well as possible corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who was appointed to the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian company suspected of corrupt practices. The report appears to ignore the fact that Democrats’ own witnesses acknowledged that Ukraine “bet on the wrong horse” in 2016, and that the Obama administration itself had been concerned about Joe Biden’s self-evident conflict of interest.

The report claims that the first step in the president’s “scheme” involved removing U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, whom it describes as an “anti-corruption champion.” The report does not acknowledge that she had already lost the confidence of President Zelensky, or that she testified that she had done nothing to investigate Burisma’s alleged corruption, even though it was the only private company she had been briefed about in advance of her confirmation hearings.



The report goes on to describe the president’s “hand-picked agents” in sinister terms, even though most of these — particularly Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Special Representative Kurt Volker — were described in positive terms by the witnesses. The report implies that there was something wrong with the president conducting foreign policy through an “irregular channel,” though there is nothing in the Constitution preventing him from doing so, and some witnesses said it was not unusual or objectionable.

The Democrats’ report states, falsely, that President Trump halted “vital military assistance” to Ukraine. As several witnesses testified, the aid that was held did not include Javelin anti-tank missiles, which Ukraine considered most vital to its defense. And as nearly every witness also testified, President Trump provided lethal military aid — unlike President Barack Obama, who denied it.

The report claims that the president made a White House meeting conditional on the investigations he requested, even though several witnesses claimed otherwise, and the only witness to claim that “quid pro quo,” Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland, admitted that he never heard the president make that condition, and merely presumed it.

In one section, the report declares ominously, “The President’s Agents Pursued a ‘Drug Deal’.” That term was used by former National Security Adviser John Bolton — though as key Democrat witness Dr. Fiona Hill testified, Bolton had been using the term as “an ironic and sarcastic statement,” not a serious description of an actual negotiation.

The report goes on to declare that Trump “pressed” Zelensky to “do a political favor,” though Zelensky has repeatedly said that there was no pressure and no “quid pro quo” in his dealings with the Trump administration.




The Democrats also place great evidentiary weight on vague testimony that the Ukrainian embassy in Washington was aware of the hold on the aid, ignoring clear testimony from a variety of witnesses that the Ukrainians were not aware of the hold on U.S. aid until Politico reported it on August 28. And even then, according to several witnesses and the Ukrainian government, there was never any link between the hold on the aid and the investigations.

The report goes on to quote White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney — who did not testify — as having said in October that aid was conditioned on investigations. In fact, Mulvaney later clarified: “Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election.”

In the second part of the report, Democrats accuse Trump of obstructing the impeachment inquiry, without noting that it began without congressional authorization, was largely handled in closed-door sessions, and departed from well-established precedent by denying the White House legal representation.

Schiff’s report claims that the White House tried to stop witnesses from testifying, though there were several members of the administration who did so, and who testified that no one had told them not to. The report also accuses Trump of witness intimidation through public criticism of several witnesses, as well as tweets criticizing some of those who testified against him, including claims that they were “Never Trumpers.”

Republicans released their own dissenting report Monday. They were allowed to see the committee majority’s report on Monday evening — with a Democrat “minder,” behind closed door, in the Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF) in the basement of the U.S. capitol.

Following a vote in the committee, which will be along party lines, the Democrats will present their report to the House Judiciary Committee, which is to consider articles of impeachment against the president.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/03/shock-adam-schiff-investigated-devin-nunes-phone-records/

House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) investigated Ranking Member Devin Nunes (D-CA) as part of his impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, the committee report revealed on Tuesday.

The revelation that Schiff had obtained telephone records related to Nunes was the only new revelation in the report, which otherwise re-hashed Democrats’ arguments in favor of impeaching Trump for allegedly asking Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election.




In a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Schiff declined to say when the committee had obtained the records, but given the Democrats’ repeated questions during the inquiry about administration officials who had worked with Nunes, such as former Intelligence Committee staffer (now National Security Council official) Kash Patel, it is likely the Democrats sought those records before or during the hearings.

The report cites media reports that Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani who has ben indicted on campaign finance charges, claimed that Nunes tried to meet with Ukrainians to “dig up dirt” on former Vice President Joe Biden. (Nunes had threatened to sue those media outlets, and did so on Tuesday, suing CNN for defamation; he does not appear to have been given an opportunity to answer the allegations in the report.)

Shifts report also cites “phone records” showing apparent conversations between Giuliani and Nunes, as well as Parnas and Nunes, in April 2019, around the time that then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was criticized in the media. The report also cites records of phone calls between Giuliani and Nunes staffer Derek Harvey, as well as between Giuliani and Patel. The phone records were apparently obtained from AT&T, according to a footnote in the report.



Nunes phone records (House Intelligence Committee)

While Schiff probed Nunes’s phone calls, he and his party have resisted calls for the so-called “whistleblower” to testify, including about his contacts with Schiff and his staff. Schiff claimed that the whistleblower had no contact with the committee, until a New York Times report revealed that the whistleblower had, in fact, been in touch with Democrat committee staff.

Schiff has also rejected Republican calls to have him testify as a fact witness about his contacts with the whistleblower.

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www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/impeachment-power-can-be-abused/

Impeachment Power Can Be Abused, Too
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
December 3, 2019 6:30 AM

Democrats say Trump exploited his constitutional power for political purposes, but how is that different from what they are doing now?


It is not a good look for Democrats, in purporting to respond to the president’s abuse of his constitutional power over foreign relations, to abuse the House’s power over impeachment. That, however, is exactly what they are doing in their unseemly zeal to impeach President Trump on a blatantly political deadline.


In a December 1 letter, White House counsel Pat Cipollone notified House Judiciary chairman Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) that the president will not participate in the committee’s first open hearing on Wednesday, December 4. Ordinarily — not that there’s anything “ordinary” about the potential impeachment of an American president — I’d be inclined to assess this as poor judgment.

After all, the lack of due process has been one of the president’s major complaints since late October, when the House belatedly voted to endorse the impeachment inquiry that Democrats have been conducting for months. Among the fundamental elements of due process is the opportunity to be heard. Having denied this opportunity to the president in Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff’s faux grand-jury phase of the proceedings, Democrats are now inviting the president to participate in the Judiciary Committee phase, where articles of impeachment are soon to be drafted and voted on. The president’s complaints are apt to ring hollow if he carps about the witnesses from the Twitter sidelines while forfeiting the right to question them at the formal hearings.

Abstaining now could also be problematic down the road. Eventually, there will be a Senate impeachment trial. Because the House is now giving the president an opportunity to examine witnesses, Senate Democrats will have a good argument that transcripts from Nadler’s hearings should be admitted as trial evidence — i.e., the president should not be heard to complain since he will have passed up his chance to confront his accusers.

All that said, though, the White House’s position makes sense, at least for the moment.

To begin with, Cipollone is not saying that the president refuses to participate in all future House impeachment proceedings. The letter is limited to the hearing on Wednesday, December 4. To be sure, the commencement of formal hearings in the committee responsible for drafting impeachment articles is momentous — proceedings having reached such an advanced state only three times in American history (in connection with Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton). The substance of Wednesday’s hearing, however, will be not be make-or-break.

The committee is calling legal experts — not fact witnesses. They will be addressing the Constitution’s standard and process for impeachment rather than the president’s alleged misconduct. I do not mean to suggest that this is insignificant. Indeed, the last time there was a comparable proceeding in the House — in June 2016, when some Republicans were pushing for the impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen for obstructing Congress’s inquiry into the Obama administration’s targeting of conservative groups — I was privileged to appear on such a panel. (My submitted testimony is here.) Obviously, it is vital to flesh out the pertinent constitutional principles, irrespective of the conduct that’s at issue. These principles are well known, though. The White House loses nothing by trusting that committee Republicans will see to their proper explication.

The White House’s abstention from Wednesday’s proceedings does not mean the president’s defense team will sit out subsequent hearings, when more consequential witnesses may testify and when the president may be given a chance to present his own case.


Meantime, the Trump team is mounting an effective attack on the lack of due process in the House proceedings, particularly compared with past impeachments. Most of this has to do with the Democrats’ haste, which could not be more transparently political.

The problem Democrats have had from the first is the lack of an obvious impeachable offense. To be clear, I do not fault Democrats, and would not criticize any lawmakers, for using Congress’s oversight authority to expose executive misconduct. Impeachment is a political process. I argued in Faithless Execution that it cannot be invoked effectively (i.e., with a realistic chance of removal) in the absence of strong public support. That has to be built by educating the public on what has happened and why it matters.

But there comes a point in this process when you either have it or you don’t — “it” being proof of misconduct so egregious that a public consensus in favor of removal could be reached, such that two-thirds of the Senate might convict. The Democrats don’t have it.

This should have been patent from the start. In the initial public hearing in September, Schiff had to resort to reciting a parody version of the notorious Trump-Zelensky conversation because the real one was not sufficiently sinister. The parody had a fatal flaw: Schiff falsely portrayed Trump as having told Zelensky that he wanted Ukraine to “make up dirt” about his political opponent, Joe Biden.


In reality, Trump was not asking Zelensky to fabricate Biden corruption. He was asking the Ukrainians to look into a situation that undeniably oozes self-dealing: Biden’s son cashing in on his political influence; Biden’s threatening to have $1 billion in promised aid withheld from Ukraine if it did not immediately fire a prosecutor who says he was trying to investigate the corrupt company that was lavishly paying Biden’s son.

It should go without saying that a president should not exploit his control over U.S. foreign relations (and influence over the congressional aid that goes with it) in order to squeeze another country into advancing his domestic political fortunes. President Trump should know that better than anyone else: He has spent three years complaining (justifiably, in my view) that the Obama administration leveraged its control over foreign relations (as well as law-enforcement and intelligence operations) to benefit the Democrats’ 2016 campaign and to hamstring Trump’s administration.

So I am not contending that what the president did was right, much less “perfect.” Nor am I, for present purposes, looking to argue over whether Trump had legitimate motives (such as anti-corruption) that excuse or mitigate any pressure the Ukrainians may have felt — though it is worth noting that Zelensky denies having felt pressured.

My narrow point is that Trump’s offense vis-à-vis Ukraine had to be exaggerated out of all proportion because Schiff, as an experienced politician and former prosecutor, fully understood that the offense, to the extent there was one, simply is not serious enough to impeach over.

First, there is a big difference between seeking an investigation of something that cries out to be investigated and asking that damning evidence be made up out of whole cloth. Second, Trump dropped his request before anything materially damaging happened — the Ukrainians got their defense aid without having to announce or conduct any Biden investigation. In fact, Democrats do not want to dwell on the transfer of the defense aid, just as they don’t want to get into the details of Biden’s conflicts of interest; when it comes to combatting Russian aggression, Trump’s provision of materiel to Ukraine has been markedly superior to Obama’s.

All presidents abuse their powers to some degree at some point. To be impeachable, an abuse has to be grave. Were there such an outrageous abuse of power, the House would never have to worry about the calendar. If executive misconduct were sufficiently serious to impeach, the country would be convinced that the president’s continued wielding of power was grossly inappropriate, if not dangerous. The House would not take an extended Thanksgiving holiday in the middle of impeachment hearings; but neither would it fret about the possibility that impeachment proceedings might spill into an election year.

If a president were to do something that really warranted removal, then the imminence of an election would not be a persuasive reason for Congress to stay its hand. If Trump had actually asked Ukraine to dream up a Biden corruption case, or — even worse — if he had actually conspired with the Kremlin to hack DNC email accounts, no one would care that we are going to the polls in eleven months. There would be a bipartisan outcry that the country could not abide such a rogue for one day more than what was necessary for Congress to conduct exemplary but swift impeachment proceedings.

Here, by contrast, Democrats have had trouble even explaining what the impeachable conduct is, floating “campaign finance,” “extortion,” and “quid pro quo” as possible labels before finally (it appears) settling on “bribery” — a word that tested well in “impeachment focus groups” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee conducted in House battleground districts.

Moreover, in other important investigations (such as the one conducted by the 9/11 Commission), Democrats have told us that every rock must be turned over and every witness with any relevant information must be interviewed. Here, however, they lurch pell-mell toward articles of impeachment without litigating the privilege claims of essential witnesses (Giuliani, Mulvaney, Bolton, et al.). Again, if there were an offense in the impeachment ballpark, that would not happen. The House would press the courts for expedited review because a national emergency demanded that these witnesses’ confidentiality claims be resolved. And if the alleged abuse of power were truly grave, it would take no effort to persuade the courts of the need for speed.

That is not the case here because what’s at stake is not the well-being of the country. Rather, it is the anxiety level of Democrats. They are pushing for Donald Trump’s impeachment because their political base demands it, not because the American people broadly perceive the need for it. Democrats know the president won’t be removed, but they hope that affixing a scarlet-letter “I” on his chest will make him easier to defeat in 2020. Yet they are not confident that this is so, which is why they want to wrap up the House proceedings — the only ones they can control — as quickly as possible.

Democrats are well aware that without a real impeachable offense, they are not attracting Republican votes. The proceedings are starting to look just as politicized as they have always been. They are precisely the abuse of the impeachment power that the Framers feared. If matters fester too long, Democrats holding seats in pro-Trump districts may pay the price on Election Day. The race for the Democratic presidential nomination could be overwhelmed by an impeachment trial. Instead of paying attention to the candidates, the public will be hearing the president’s defense team make its case for why Biden — still the Democrats’ 2020 front-runner — merited an investigation. Instead of the Democrats’ political case against the president’s reelection, the public will be hearing the president’s team argue that Democrats collaborated with the so-called whistleblower to trump up impeachment, the political equivalent of a capital crime.

The Democrats could have made hay: exposing the president’s attempt to exploit foreign-relations power for political advantage, making it a 2020 election issue, and perhaps even offering a congressional censure resolution that would have put the president’s supporters on the defensive. Instead, House Democrats are abusing their impeachment power for political advantage. It is a miscalculation: They will never remove the president, but they might well help him win four more years in power.

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www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/the-bad-faith-impeachment

The bad-faith impeachment
by Byron York
| December 01, 2019 09:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Democrats are trying to remove President Trump from office "prayerfully," "sadly," and "with a heavy heart." In fact, as anyone who has been watching knows, many Democrats have been itching to impeach Trump since the day he took office.

The fact that they have long wanted to impeach the president suggests those Democrats view the Trump-Ukraine matter as just the latest, and perhaps the best, chance to get the president. And that calls into question their good faith in claiming that, despite deep reluctance, they must impeach now — right this minute — because it is their solemn constitutional duty.

From its earliest days, the Democratic quest to remove Trump has resembled the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Democrats in hot pursuit of the elusive Trump proposed to remove him for virtually any sin that came to mind, only to see their efforts foiled.

One early Democratic article of impeachment would have removed the president for "sowing discord among the people of the United States" with controversial comments on Charlottesville, transgender troops, and Muslim immigration. Another Democratic attempt suggested removing Trump for attacking NFL players who did not stand for the national anthem. Then there was a proposal to remove him for tweeting about federal judges.

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Others sought to impeach Trump for allegedly violating the Constitution's Emoluments Clause. Finally, of course, many Democrats hoped to remove the president over the Trump-Russia affair.

Anticipation built for years, reaching a peak several months ago, just before the release of the Mueller report. And then, disappointment.


The core of the Democratic case against Trump was the allegation that Russia and the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated to fix the 2016 election. Many Democrats believed deeply that Trump was guilty, and sometimes fevered speculation filled countless hours on cable TV. But Robert Mueller could not even establish that conspiracy or coordination even happened, much less that Trump was guilty.

Some Democrats still hoped to impeach Trump for allegedly obstructing justice. Mueller's report strongly suggested that Trump had committed obstruction, yet — in a move that angered Democrats — declined to reach a conclusion on the charge. Then, in July, Mueller made an underwhelming appearance on Capitol Hill. The air quickly seeped out of the impeachment balloon.

Then — voila! — up popped the Ukraine affair. Democrats saw a final opportunity to impeach Trump. They immediately began cutting corners to make it happen as quickly as possible.

First, Pelosi and her chosen impeachment czar, Rep. Adam Schiff, chose to skip the investigative stage that preceded earlier impeachments. The cases of both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton involved extensive inquiries by special prosecutors who served as fact-finders. The same was true of the Mueller investigation.

But Mueller did not give Democrats what they wanted. Plus, he took two years to do it. Instead of calling for a special counsel investigation, Pelosi and Schiff decided to handle the investigating themselves, greatly increasing the chances they would reach the result they wanted.

Pelosi and Schiff also decided not to pursue the testimony of some key witnesses. They did not even subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton, perhaps the most important witness of all. Had the House issued a subpoena, Bolton would have a solid case that his conversations with the president were privileged. The issue would have been settled by a court.

Pelosi and Schiff passed. Either they were afraid they would lose in court or that if they won, Bolton would not give them the testimony they wanted, or they were in too much of a hurry to let a court case proceed. In any event, there was no push for Bolton's testimony.

Instead, Pelosi and Schiff rushed ahead. Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee took just days to produce a report based on their brief investigation and then gave members 24 hours to read and assess it. Then it was on to the Judiciary Committee, the normal place to begin an impeachment investigation, for the drafting of quickie articles of impeachment.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Voting in the Democratic presidential nomination race begins with the Iowa caucuses Feb. 3. The New Hampshire primary will be eight days later.

If Pelosi and Schiff can pass impeachment articles by Christmas, they can send the matter to the Senate for trial in January. Even on that accelerated schedule, the trial will probably overlap, at least a little, with voting. But if the House can't get impeachment done by the holidays, the matter will certainly drag on through the primaries. So the race is on.

To summarize: Many Democrats wanted to impeach Trump from the get-go. Frustrated at their inability to get it done, they jumped on their last, best hope, taking shortcuts to ensure their preferred result and racing to beat the political deadline imposed by their party's presidential contest. Through it all, they have insisted they are acting only with great reluctance and sorrow.


The question now is whether the public will believe it.

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Flashback:



www.politico.com/story/2016/10/obama-trump-election-rigged-229933

President Barack Obama has a blunt message for Donald Trump: “Stop whining.”

Speaking alongside Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in the Rose Garden, Obama dismissed Trump's incessant talk of a rigged election as a whimper coming out of a campaign that treats this election like a joke.


“There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America’s elections, in part because they’re so decentralized and the numbers of votes involved,” Obama said.

“There’s no evidence that that has happened in the past or that there are instances in which that will happen this time,” he continued. “And so, I ‘d advise Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.”

Trump as recently as Tuesday morning maintained that the election is rigged, even attacking Republicans during an interview with conservative radio host Mike Gallagher for breaking with him on his baseless claims.

“One of the great things about America’s democracy,” Obama said, is that the U.S. holds “a vigorous, sometimes bitter, political contest” in which the loser congratulates the winner.

“That’s how democracy survives. Because we recognize that there’s something more important than any individual campaign, and that is making sure that the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself because democracy, by definition, works by consent, not by force,” he said. “I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place.”

Obama called such a move an “unprecedented” claim that “happens to be based on no facts.” He noted that election experts of all stripes have said “that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found.”

The president pointed to Florida, where Republican Rick Scott, a Trump supporter, is governor. “The notion that somehow if Mr. Trump loses Florida it’s because of ‘those people that you have to watch out for,’ that is both irresponsible and, by the way, doesn’t really show the kind of leadership and toughness that you’d want out of a president.”

“If you start whining before the game’s even over, if whenever things are going badly for you and you lose, you start blaming somebody else, then you don’t have what it takes to be in this job,” Obama said. “Because there are a lot of times when things don’t go our way — or my way. That’s OK. You fight through it. You work through it. You try to accomplish your goals.”

Obama said he believes if Hillary Clinton were to lose in November, he’d expect his former secretary of state to concede and vow to work with President Trump to ensure Americans benefit from an effective government.

“If he got the most votes then it would be my expectation of Hillary Clinton to offer a gracious concession speech and pledge to work with him in order to make sure that the American people benefit from an effective government,” he said. “And it would be my job to welcome Mr. Trump, regardless of what he’s said about me or my differences with him on my opinions, and escort him over to the Capitol, in which there would be a peaceful transfer of power. That’s what Americans do. That’s why America’s already great.”

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Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) called in four constitutional lawyers to testify before Congress today and put Americans to sleep.

Professor Jonathan Turley, a Democrat, was the Republican witness to the Nadler impeachment panel on Wednesday.

Turley absolutely destroyed the Democrats’ latest attempt to remove President Trump from office.

jonathanturley.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Turley.Testimony.Impeachment.Final_.pdf

Jonathan Turley: I would like to start, perhaps incongruously, with a statement of three irrelevant facts. First, I am not a supporter of President Trump. I voted against him in 2016 and I have previously voted for Presidents Clinton and Obama. Second, I have been highly critical of President Trump, his policies, and his rhetoric, in dozens of columns. Third, I have repeatedly criticized his raising of the investigation of the Hunter Biden matter with the Ukrainian president. These points are not meant to curry favor or approval. Rather they are meant to drive home a simple point: one can oppose President Trump’s policies or actions but still conclude that the current legal case for impeachment is not just woefully inadequate, but in some respects, dangerous, as the basis for the impeachment of an American president. To put it simply, I hold no brief for President Trump. My personal and political views of President Trump, however, are irrelevant to my impeachment testimony, as they should be to your impeachment vote. Today, my only concern is the integrity and coherence of the constitutional standard and process of impeachment. President Trump will not be our last president and what we leave in the wake of this scandal will shape our democracy for generations to come. I am concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and an abundance of anger. If the House proceeds solely on the Ukrainian allegations, this impeachment would stand out among modern impeachments as the shortest proceeding, with the thinnest evidentiary record, and the narrowest grounds ever used to impeach a president.7 That does not bode well for future presidents who are working in a country often sharply and, at times, bitterly divided.

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Norm Eisen, the Democrats’ counsel who is blasting Trump and questioning witnesses in Wednesday’s show trial, tweeted about impeaching Trump before Donald Trump was even sworn into office!

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