James Comey

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/04/key-democrat-witness-noah-feldman-in-may-impeaching-trump-has-become-too-political-to-take-seriously/

Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman, one of the Democrats’ star witnesses called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, authored an op-ed in May lamenting the lack of seriousness surrounding efforts to impeach President Trump, and admitting that House Democrats “made it painfully clear that discussing impeachment is primarily or even exclusively a tool to weaken Trump’s chances in 2020.”

Feldman authored an op-ed featured in Bloomberg in May titled, “It’s Hard to Take Impeachment Seriously Now” and suggested that many of the ongoing discussions of impeaching Trump treat the action as a “trivialized gambit within the ordinary game of electoral politics.”

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-26/impeaching-trump-has-become-too-political-to-take-seriously

Impeachment was intended by the constitutional framers as a highly serious option reserved for only the most extraordinary, egregious violations of the rule of law,” he wrote.

“Today’s discussion treats impeachment as a trivialized gambit within the ordinary game of electoral politics. The undermining of the constitutional ideal is near-total,” he continued, calling it “almost laughable.”



Throughout the article, Feldman stresses the serious nature of impeachment – something, he alluded, has been absent from the ongoing discussions on impeaching Trump. While he acknowledged the “political” aspects of impeachment, he argued that the Founding Fathers deliberately made “successful impeachment and removal very difficult, precisely to discourage Congress from taking the whole process lightly.”

“They chose words with grand implications — ‘high crimes’ — to underscore that removing the president outside of elections must not be undertaken lightly,” he wrote, ultimately observing that the ongoing debate surrounding impeaching Trump “robbed impeachment of its original serious content and atmosphere.” He continued:

Yet somehow, all the talk in the last two and a half years has robbed impeachment of its original serious content and atmosphere. Maybe it’s just too many rapid-fire conversations on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, with their constant drumbeat of partisan prediction and preoccupation. We have talked about impeachment in the partisan context so much that we can no longer imagine it as something more than an electoral ploy.

He blamed both sides, specifically highlighting the Democrats’ calls to impeach Trump – calls which increased around the 2018 midterm election

Feldman said:

The blame for this development goes to both parties. Since the 2018 midterm election, House Democrats have made it painfully clear that discussing impeachment is primarily or even exclusively a tool to weaken Trump’s chances in 2020. You almost never hear a Democrat say, “We have a moral duty to impeach even if it will cost us the election in 2020.” Rather, the idea of impeachment and the idea of electoral advantage have become inextricably entwined. (Emphasis added)

His critique of Republicans did not pack as much of a punch. He argued that they, along with Trump, were likely goading Democrats into seriously pursuing impeachment, knowing it would benefit the president politically in the long run by energizing his base – a phenomenon that is beginning to come to fruition. According to Feldman:

On the Republican side, there has been much gleeful speculation that a Democratic effort to impeach Trump would bring out the Republican base in huge numbers. Trump himself is clearly toying with the possibility that this might be true — hence his recent efforts that seem to be daring the Democrats into action, or at least making them look like wimps if they don’t impeach him.

Notably, Feldman ended his piece by placing the bulk of the blame on Trump rather than Democrats, despite clearly laying out the case that it is Democrats – not Republicans – who are ultimately attempting to use impeachment to fulfill their political goals – i.e. to prevent Trump from serving a second term.

He wrote:

That leaves us with the preposterous notion that the president could or would somehow bring about his own impeachment to help him get re-elected. Gone is the traditional notion that impeachment itself would be a blot on Trump’s reputation. Not that Trump has ever cared much about reputation in the ordinary sense, but he very clearly wants to be remembered as a great president. In his mind, however, being impeached apparently wouldn’t stand in the way of his lionization as a leader.

Trump’s beliefs about politics and the Constitution are nothing if not a reflection of this instant in time. That he is treating impeachment as mere rhetoric shows that impeachment has lost its sting. That’s sad enough for now. It will be much, much sadder in the future, the next time we need impeachment to mean something.

Ironically, Feldman is one of many who, according to his own assessment, has not taken impeachment seriously. He co-authored a piece in September 2017 titled “The Case for Impeachment.”

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www.nationalreview.com/news/dem-counsel-suggests-three-possible-articles-of-impeachment/

Dem Counsel Suggests Three Possible Articles of Impeachment
By MAIREAD MCARDLE
December 4, 2019 2:17 PM

Noah Feldman, a professor of law at Harvard University Law School, testifies as the House Judiciary Committee holds their first hearing on the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., December 4, 2019. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
The House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic counsel outlined three possible articles of impeachment against President Trump during the committee’s first impeachment hearing on Wednesday, an early suggestion of what charges against President Trump the party may settle on when they make their case before the Senate.

The three constitutional lawyers Democrats brought before the committee agreed that Trump has committed the three impeachable offenses Democratic counsel Norman Eisen suggested, namely abuse of power and bribery, obstruction of Congress, and obstruction of justice.

Harvard Law School constitutional law scholar Noah Feldman argued that “putting yourself above the law as president” is an impeachable offense.

Feldman told lawmakers that Trump’s remark that Article 2 of the Constitution gives him the right “to do whatever I want as president” actually “struck a horror” in him.

Democrats did not ask the only Republican witness Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, whether he thinks Trump committed impeachable offenses.

Turley cautioned Democrats about the speed at which the impeachment inquiry is moving, saying neither the case for bribery nor the case for obstruction against the president is airtight.

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“The record does not establish obstruction in this case,” Turley said. “If you accept all of their presumptions, it would be obstruction. But impeachments have to be based on proof, not presumptions.”

He went on to reject the Democrats’ “boundless” definition of bribery, which he argued has been rejected by the Supreme Court.

“You can’t accuse a president of bribery and, then, when some of us note that the Supreme Court has rejected your type of boundless interpretation, say, ‘Well, it’s just impeachment; we really don’t have to prove the elements,’” Turley said. “This isn’t improvisational jazz. Close enough is not good enough. If you’re going to accuse a president of bribery, you need to make it stick, because you’re trying to remove a duly elected president of the United States.”

Democrats are also reportedly considering including additional obstruction of justice charges based on the Mueller report.

COMMENTS
“It is important to include the Mueller obstruction evidence to uphold the principles of separation of powers,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat and member of the House Oversight Committee.

The House Intelligence Committee heard from 17 witnesses during its impeachment hearings last month and released a summary report on Tuesday accusing Trump of abusing his power and undermining national security by coercing Ukraine to announce two politically motivated investigations, before obstructing Congress to cover-up his behavior.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/03/adam-schiffs-report-cites-no-bribery-or-high-crimes-only-tweets/

Adam Schiff’s Report Cites No ‘Bribery’ or ‘High Crimes’; Only Tweets

The House Intelligence Committee report released by chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Tuesday cites no constitutionally permissible grounds for impeachment against President Donald Trump — other than tweets.

Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution provides that impeachment shall be for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Notably, the Framers of the Constitution ruled out “maladministration” as a reason.




In Schiff’s 300-page report, Democrats failed to cite any specific grounds for impeaching the president.

Notably, though Schiff and others attempted to argue that the president had possibly committed “bribery” by allegedly asking the president of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden in exchange for U.S. aid, there is no discussion of bribery whatsoever in the report — other than references to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s claims that Biden might be guilty of bribery because his son was on the payroll of Ukrainian gas giant Burisma.

The only references to any “crimes” allegedly committed by the president is a discussion of “witness intimidation.”

Schiff and his Democrat majority attempt to argue that President Trump committed that crime by tweeting criticism of several witnesses against him, including calling them “Never Trumpers” and drawing attention to their testimony.

The report also cites Trump’s tweets criticizing former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch during her testimony, which clearly did not obstruct her testimony and which she would not have known about had Schiff not read them — partially — to her in the middle of the hearing. (Among Trump’s criticisms was that “the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him,” which Yovanovitch could not explain.)

Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.

— Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) November 15, 2019

The report also cites, as an example of witness intimidation, Trump re-tweeting a reference to testimony by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, confirmed that Ukraine offered him the post of defense minister on three occasions.

🚨#ICYMI: Lt. Col. Vindman was offered the position of Defense Minister for the Ukrainian Government THREE times! #ImpeachmentSHAM pic.twitter.com/8Gx3tzIHzQ

— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸 (@scavino45) November 19, 2019

The report also cites, in a general sense, the crimes of “obstructing Congress,” “concealing material facts,” and “retaliating against employees who provide information to Congress.” Democrats provide no real evidence to support the latter two charges. They merely claim that Trump threatened retaliation by tweeting a quote from Rush Limbaugh about “dismissing everybody involved from the Obama holdover days,” which Trump never did.

….and Taylor, dismissing everybody involved from the Obama holdover days trying to undermine Trump, getting rid of those people, dismissing them, this is what it looks like. It was never going to be claen, they were never going to sit by idly and just let Trump do this!” Rush L

— Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) November 16, 2019


As for “obstructing Congress,” Democrats did not wait for the courts to adjudicate balance-of-power disputes between the executive branch and the legislative branch over the requested information and witnesses: the rush to conclude the impeachment inquiry in a hurry, even without key witnesses, was their decision and theirs alone.

The Trump administration has also maintained that the House impeachment inquiry is not legitimate on procedural grounds. It began without any formal authorization; it was conducted largely in secret, by the Intelligence Committee and not the Judiciary Committee; and it departed from precedent by refusing to grant the president due process rights, such as representation by counsel in hearings. That is why the White House has not complied.



Moreover, as liberal law professor and former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein argued in 2017, “obstructing Congress” is not sufficient grounds for impeachment if the inquiry itself is not legitimate.

He wrote: “Presidents should cooperate with legitimate investigations, but it is not a high crime or misdemeanor to refuse to cooperate with a congressional investigation into an offense that is not independently impeachable. Congress cannot gin up an impeachable offense by investigating an offense that is not impeachable, and then encountering presidential resistance.” Democrats have offered no independently impeachable offense — at all.

Shifts report never explicitly accuses Trump of “abuse of power.” But even that is not impeachable — firstly because Republicans have argued that Trump was not seeking a political favor from Ukraine, but exercising a constitutional duty to fight corruption and election interference; and secondly because it is not an impeachable offense.

As Sunstein wrote: “Almost every American president has, on more than one occasion, passed the bounds of his power, in the sense that his administration has done something that it is not lawfully entitled to do.”

So instead of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” Democrats are trying to impeach the president on the basis of tweets he posted in his own defense against their own, arguably partisan, inquisition.

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www.dailywire.com/news/trump-critic-witness-tells-democrats-you-just-dont-have-the-evidence-to-impeach

Trump-Critic Impeachment Witness To Democrats: Sorry, You Just Don’t Have The Evidence To Impeach

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley has been “highly critical” of President Trump and has consistently voted for Democratic presidents, but he has a strong warning for the House Judiciary Committee on the first day of its impeachment hearings: While President Trump’s July 25 phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart was “anything but perfect,” the Democrats have simply failed to obtain the adequate evidence to make a case for such a serious action as removing the sitting president of the United States. To push this impeachment forward, Turley warns, is “dangerous.”


The four impeachment witnesses for the Judiciary Committee-led hearing Wednesday are all law professors, and three of them, selected by Democrats, are expected to heartily endorse the Democrats’ impeachment effort.




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Only the lone Republican-selected witness allowed by the Democrats to testify Wednesday, Turley — a self-described Trump critic and Democratic voter — will push back agains the Democrats’ impeachment campaign.

The impeachment “is not wrong because President Trump is right,” says Turley in his 53-page opening statement. While Trump’s famous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “anything but perfect,” Turley argues, and a case for impeachment “could be made,” “it cannot be made on this record,” as all of the evidence has been second-hand at best.


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After explaining that he’s been “highly critical of President Trump, his policies, and his rhetoric, in dozens of columns,” and voted against him in the 2016 election — and for both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama before that — Turley makes the case that what the Democrats are doing by pushing forward with the partisan impeachment of Trump is actually “dangerous”:

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.


Of course, Turley’s fellow expert witnesses called to testify by Democrats Wednesday disagree. In fact, University of North Carolina’s Michael Gerhardt believes that not only are Trump’s actions impeachable, they’re “worse than the misconduct of any prior president.”

“The president’s serious misconduct, including bribery, soliciting a personal favor from a foreign leader in exchange for his exercise of power, and obstructing justice and Congress are worse than the misconduct of any prior president,” the law professor asserts in his prepared remarks, as reported by Politico.

“If Congress fails to impeach here, then the impeachment process has lost all meaning,” Gerhardt declares.

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Dec 3, 2019 13:16:38 GMT -6 soonernvolved said:

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.”

Why is it always conservative host Rush Limbaugh but never left wing zealot Rachel Maddow?

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Speaker Pelosi: Sadly, but with confidence and humility with allegiance to our founders and with hearts full of love for America today I am asking our Chairman to proceed with articles of Impeachment.

The following Bible verse was written specifically for Nasty Pelosi: Isaiah 5:20 “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

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Even liberal media agrees with the voter:

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amp.dailycaller.com/2019/12/05/trump-pelosi-hate

President Donald Trump lobbed a rhetorical bomb at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday after the California Democrat told reporters that she prays for the president and doesn’t hate him.

Pelosi should worry about the homelessness plaguing her California district and signing legislation on trade, Trump said on Twitter. He also mocked Pelosi’s reaction after a reporter asked her on Thursday morning if she “hates” the president.

Nancy Pelosi just had a nervous fit. She hates that we will soon have 182 great new judges and sooo much more. Stock Market and employment records,” Trump told his followers. The dismissed the possibility that Pelosi prays for him.

He added: “She says she ‘prays for the President.’ I don’t believe her, not even close. Help the homeless in your district Nancy. [United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement]?”

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When confronted about the likelihood that he will be called in to testify for his son’s multi-million dollar pay-for-play schemes Joe Biden said he would not appear voluntarily.

Joe Biden: No, I’m not going to let them take their eye off the ball. The president is the one who has committed impeachable crimes. And I’m not going to let him divert from that. I’m not going to let anybody divert from that. And like I said plenty of times, I’ve released 20 years of tax returns. Let him release some of his.

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/05/impeachment-is-slowly-destroying-democrats-2020-political-hopes/

Impeachment Is Slowly Destroying Democrats’ 2020 Political Hopes
The Democratic effort to impeach Trump and overturn the 2016 election results is turning into a political debacle for the party heading into the 2020 elections.
Mollie Hemingway
By Mollie Hemingway
DECEMBER 5, 2019

Democratic efforts to impeach President Donald Trump were supposed to help them politically in 2020. In moments of unguarded honesty, a few Democrats admitted as much publicly, saying the quiet part loud and the loud part quiet.

It’s a great example of how this particular impeachment push keeps backfiring on Democrats. They claim, without evidence, that Trump was trying to get Ukraine to meddle in the 2020 election by asking for their cooperation in investigating Ukrainian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election. And they claim that this is such a dire threat that Trump must be removed from office and disqualified from running in 2020. Yet their own impeachment effort is about retaliation for 2016 and the hope that they can politically damage Trump heading into the 2020 election.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday that she would like articles of impeachment drafted, a foregone conclusion ever since Democrats won the House in 2018. Some members, such as Rep. Al Green pictured above had joined the media in calling for Trump’s impeachment since before he was even inaugurated. The precise reasons keep changing (earlier this year, nearly 100 Democrats voted to impeach Trump for the high crime of criticizing Democratic lawmakers Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez on Twitter), but the fervor to retaliate against Trump for beating Hillary Clinton 2016 remains unchanged.

The theory behind the 2020 impeachment push is that Trump will be so damaged by the relentless onslaught of negative discussion about him that it will make voters elect someone else. And who knows? That might happen.

In practice, however, this particular impeachment push is becoming something of a worst-case political scenario for Democrats.

It’s Not Popular And It’s Not Becoming More Popular

With much water carrying by the media, the current impeachment effort got as much help as imaginable when it was kicked off by Democrats in September. Several media outlets claimed a majority of Americans were completely on board with the plan to oust Trump and overturn the 2016 elections. With that generous media treatment of the topic, Pelosi was encouraged to get things going, even though she had previously cautioned against a purely partisan impeachment process. Not only have no Republicans fallen for the impeachment push, some Democrats joined Republicans in opposing it. Support for Pelosi’s investigation gambit was purely partisan, while its opposition was bipartisan.

After Rep. Adam Schiff’s hearings, which were widely if unenthusiastically watched, support for impeachment went down and opposition to impeachment went up. That was particularly true for the valued independent voters, the majority of whom oppose impeachment.

Democrats needed to start with a strong bipartisan push and then peel off Republican voters and members over the course of the inquiry, but that is not happening. And given the trajectory of polls over the last month, it’s only going to get worse for Democrats on that score, not better.

It’s Soul-Crushingly Boring
Critics of the Clinton impeachment used to claim he was being impeached for sexual indiscretion. The actual charges were for perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from his actions in response to a sexual harassment lawsuit he was fighting. But at least they were tangentially related to sex! This made his impeachment far more interesting than one in which Democrats seem to be flailing about in search of an actual crime.


There has been no big reveal other than Trump releasing his own transcripts that were supposedly so egregious. People could read them for themselves and either yawn or feign outrage or have some other reaction. But the hearings have been soul-crushingly boring. Bureaucrats and law professors gave overly long opening statements, after which point grandstanding members of Congress from each party either asked condescending questions about the Bad Orange Man or pointed out inadequacies in the testimony of the witnesses (the vast majority of whom didn’t actually witness anything). After weeks of media-fueled hype about how the walls were finally closing in on Trump, the hearings amounted to little more than whining from collection of disgruntled bureaucrats outraged that Trump refused to let them, rather than the nation’s elected leaders, direct American foreign policy.

It Couldn’t Be More Partisan
While a few Democrats joined with Republicans in opposing impeachment, support comes only from Democrats. Democratic leaders previously said that impeachments that weren’t bipartisan were illegitimate by definition.

But they don’t appear to be even trying to make this impeachment seem legitimate.

Pelosi had Schiff handle the heavy lifting of impeachment because she did not trust Rep. Jerry Nadler to do it, even though he chairs the committee that has proper jurisdiction. Nadler’s hearing yesterday gave an indication of why she worried about him playing too prominent a role. His witness list was a perfect example of how he bungles up processes. Of his three witnesses, one was an Elizabeth Warren donor who previously said she couldn’t stand to walk on the same sidewalk as the Trump hotel. Another witness previously said Democrats didn’t even need evidence of crimes committed by the president in order to impeach him. And their third and final witness previously helped run Dianne Feinstein’s anti-Brett Kavanaugh smear operation in 2018. This is not who you show to the world to demonstrate your independence and even-handedness.

Democrats Aren’t Fulfilling Their Election Promises

A previous Democratic impeachment effort against Trump was going more or less going according to plan until the news in March that Robert Mueller had found no evidence of any Americans treasonously colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton, much less anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign, much less Trump himself.

After years of a campaign by Democratic operatives in the government and media to push a conspiracy theory of treasonous collusion with Russia, it could not have ended more poorly. Robert Mueller, the absentee figurehead of the investigation into Russia collusion, had a Democratic team of attorneys who attempted to redeem the special counsel probe by putting together an elaborate claim that Trump had obstructed justice by denying his guilt of a crime the investigators themselves found no evidence was ever committed.

Impeaching for this “obstruction” theory after the failure of the Russia collusion hoax was always going to be difficult, but Robert Mueller caused grievous harm to the effort when he testified before Nadler’s committee in July and revealed that he had little knowledge of the investigation he was purported to be leading. Criticism of the probe had been disallowed by the media on the grounds that Mueller was beyond reproach, even if his team was politically radical. That protective barrier they put on the probe evaporated, and with it evaporated hopes of beginning obstruction-focused impeachment proceedings in July.

Nadler had previously revealed in November of 2018 that impeachment was a foregone conclusion but that the precise details were being worked out. The Democrats’ leaders assumed it would be related to Russia and the Mueller probe.

Between the Mueller impeachment push and the Ukraine impeachment push, though, Democrats have done absolutely nothing other than try to overturn the 2016 elections. Elections are less than a year away and this impeachment push is crowding out their ability to get the things done that they promised voters they would do if they were entrusted with the House of Representatives. All the promises to fix a health care system obliterated by Obamacare, pass sweeping gun control laws, and repeal Trump’s tax cuts were all thrown by the wayside so Democrats could focus on impeachment instead.

Pelosi had hoped to have an extremely quick impeachment that would slake the Democratic party’s anti-Trump bloodlust while still leaving time for legislative accomplishment and fulfillment of campaign promises. Instead, it’s dragging on and failing to catch fire, meaning that Pelosi’s committee chairmen are having to go back to the Russia well in search of impeachable material against Trump. It’s reminiscent of the gambler at the casino who responds to heavy losses by doubling down on his bets in the hope he can make back his money. It would be much wiser for him to cut his losses and leave the casino before making things worse, but for some reason he just can’t put down the dice. Democrats would be much better off in the long-run if they ended the charade now, perhaps opting for a quick censure over a full-blown impeachment vote, and moved on to passing bills they promised their voters they would pass.

Now Democrats might not be able to vote until after Christmas or potentially even next year, precisely the long and drawn out scenario they had hoped to avoid.

Trump is clearly vulnerable heading into 2020, and Democrats have a real shot of beating him, retaining control of the House, and perhaps even winning control of the Senate. Impeachment is making that task much harder by showing the American public that Democratic lawmakers’ primary concern isn’t creating jobs or raising wages or lowering health care costs for Americans, it’s sticking it to Trump, no matter the cost.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/05/report-rudy-giuliani-in-ukraine-to-interview-prosecutor-joe-biden-pushed-out/

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is also acting as President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, reportedly met and interviewed former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday.

Giuliani traveled to Ukraine to meet with Shokin and other former prosecutors, according to the New York Times. He was reportedly filming a documentary with the One America News Network (OANN), according to ABC News.

In May, the Times reported that Giuliani had been planning a trip to Ukraine “to push the incoming government in Kiev to press ahead with investigations that he hopes will benefit Mr. Trump.” He canceled his trip, however.

Giuliani’s interest in Ukraine stems from his effort to defend President Trump against claims of “Russia collusion,” which were ultimately debunked by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which was released in April. Some allegations of “Russia collusion” were reportedly fueled by Ukrainian sources working with Democrats, allegedly through a Democratic National Committee (DNC) contractor and former British spy Christopher Steele. Giuliani apparently hoped to use information gathered in Ukraine to defend Trump by explaining how the “Russia collusion” narrative began.

In addition, Giuliani became interested in the story of former Vice President Joe Biden’s intervention in Ukraine to ensure that Shokin was fired, during a time when Biden’s son, Hunter, was on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma. As Biden himself later recalled, the Vice President personally threatened Ukraine with the loss of $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees unless Shokin was fired in 2016.
As witnesses testified in the House Intelligence Committee last month, Shokin — widely seen as corrupt — was in charge of an inquiry into Burisma that was “dormant,” though never closed.
Some witnesses believed that Giuliani was urging the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens. That claim forms a core part of the allegations against Trump in the ongoing impeachment inquiry, in which the president is being accused of withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations into Biden, a potential 2020 opponent.

Giuliani is also accused of using information from another former prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, to “smear” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, whom the president recalled after a negative story ran in The Hill.
Moreover, two of Giuliani’s Ukrainian-American associates, whom he had allegedly been using to make contacts in the country, have been indicted on unrelated federal campaign finance charges. Media reports have speculated that Giuliani himself is under federal investigation.
Giuliani has said he will not be intimidated, and has proceeded with his Ukraine investigations, regardless. It remains to be seen what information he will find.

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saraacarter.com/leaked-email-threat-sent-to-gw-law-deans-calls-for-prof-turleys-removal/

An internal email obtained by this reporter is calling for GW Law Professor Jonathan Turley’s resignation following his testimony Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee as part of the ongoing impeachment probe into President Donald Trump. The email was sent to university deans, presidents, and a select few prominent student organizations.

The email speaks for itself calling Turley a ‘sad excuse of a man.’

The email opened, “I hope this message finds you all well, ladies and gentleman. Aside from Mr. Turley, of course.”

“I am writing you all after listening to Jonathan Turley’s disgraceful statement defending the corrupt and impeachable actions of President Trump at the House Judiciary impeachment hearing today. I know you all cringe inside knowing that you are affiliated in some way with Turley and have to work or study at the same institution in which he is employed,” the email read.

Turley was the Republican witness at Wednesday’s hearing. He made clear in his testimony, however, that he never was a Trump supporter.”By no means should he be considered a Republican. If anything, his legal and political philosophies entertain the more Liberal stance,” a former student of Turley’s told this reporter.

“He is defending the indefensible and I hope that all of the Deans at GWU Law and the students will recognize that he is not serving in the best interest of our country and is a detriment to the success of your school’s future reputation. His actions today were spineless and shameful. He is clearly a lackey for the Trump Administration,” the email says.

The email’s writer concludes, “I trust you will act appropriately and reprimand this sad excuse of a man.”



The email’s sender asked SaraACarter.com to refrain from publishing his last name, “Hoping not to receive any backlash on this personally or professionally,” said Michael (the author of the email).

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Audience member: What will the checks be on this president if he is reelected?

Pelosi: “Let’s not even contemplate that. Because tha-that-that really, the damage that this administration has done to America (mumbling) a country we can sustain.”

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Laura Ingraham on Thursday invited guest Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst, to discuss Adam Schiff’s surveillance of President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, Rep. Devin Nunes and reporter John Solomon’s phone calls.

On Tuesday Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff released his highly political impeachment report that omitted several key facts from the interviews and the case. The report bogus report also contained phone records from Rep. Devin Nunes, President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani and investigative reporter John Solomon.

On Thursday Laura Ingraham told her audience that the Deep State NSA willingly assisted Adam Schiff in his surveillance of a mainstream reporter and the President’s attorney. This raises all kinds of legal and ethical questions. This also proves once again that the US surveillance state has become an arm of the Democrat Party.

Laura Ingraham: Well my sources tonight told me that what Schiff did and his committee was he went to one of the cell phone companies, ATT, yes… They had some numbers. They didn’t know whose numbers they were. They asked them tell us what these numbers have been engaged in. What calls these numbers have been making and placing. They took that information. They went to the NSA. The NSA aka “Deep State” then gave them the information that it was Rudy and others… That is from extremely reliable sources.

Fred Fleitz then added that ATT willingly turned over the phone records to Democrat Adam Schiff, something that should not happen.

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amp.dailycaller.com/2019/12/05/democrats-impeachment-giuliani-phone

Doubts are emerging about House Democrats’ claim in an impeachment report released Tuesday regarding a series of phone calls Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani allegedly had with someone in the Office of Management and Budget, which oversaw a freeze on military aid to Ukraine.

The phone number Democrats attributed to OMB is likely not associated with the office, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Instead, the phone number in question, [phone], is a generic phone number that is also linked to the White House political affairs office, and the U.S. Trade Representative’s offices, according to TheWSJ, which obtained the phone number from sources familiar with the impeachment report. OMB officials have said that Giuliani’s call was not with any officials at the office.

The revelation deals a significant blow to one of the more eye-catching pieces of information in Democrats’ impeachment report.

“In the mid-afternoon, someone using a telephone number associated with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) called Mr. Giuliani, and the call lasted for nearly 13 minutes,” the report stated, referring to Giuliani phone records from Aug. 8.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/05/pelosi-jamming-through-impeachment-with-same-partisan-power-tactics-that-passed-obamacare-in-2010-then-lost-the-house/

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is using the same partisan power tactics to jam impeachment through the House of Representatives in 2019 that she used to pass Obamacare on a straight party line vote in March 2010.

“For the first time in U.S. history, a huge piece of legislation has passed with only one party’s votes,” Jamie Weinman wrote at Macleans on March 21, 2010.

www.macleans.ca/uncategorized/the-u-s-congress-is-now-a-parliament-get-used-to-it/

“All the big initiatives of Lyndon Johnson’s Presidency, like civil rights and Medicare, passed with votes from both parties. This bill, on the other hand, received not a single Republican vote in either house,” Weinman added:
But it’s clear that one party is the conservative party and the other is a liberal party, and they are expected to vote more or less on party lines. When a member seems like he or she is going to break with the party, he or she usually falls back into line if the leadership requires it, as Bart Stupak did and as moderate Republicans usually do. . .
One reason Nancy Pelosi has emerged as the star of the Democrats is that she understands this new dynamic. She is famously partisan and disdainful of deals with the opposing party, which means that she has the same attitude as her Republican opposite numbers, and is able to get things done in the new system. So after Scott Brown, some of the more “bipartisan” types wanted the Democrats to go for a scaled-down health care bill that might attract Republican support. . . . Pelosi said no: she would take nothing less than rounding up the votes for a comprehensive bill, and she convinced President Obama to do it her way.
Eight months after she achieved that controversial 2010 legislative victory, the Democrats lost their majority in the House by a wide margin, as Republicans picked up a net gain of 63 seats in the November 2010 mid-term elections.
An academic analysis found that at least 13 of those 63 Democrat losses were due to that single vote in favor of Obamacare, as Paul Bedard reported at U.S. News in 2011:

www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/04/12/healthcare-vote-doomed-13-democrats-in-2010-elections

In stunning proof that a single vote can doom a lawmaker’s career in Washington, a new review of the 2010 healthcare vote found that 13 Democrats lost their reelection last November because they backed President Obama’s health reform bill. What’s more, it put many other Democrats in jeopardy of losing their seats because it automatically cost them six to eight percentage points even before voting started.

“Democrats paid a substantial price for party unity in the 111th House of Representatives,” said Seth Masket, associate professor of political science at the University of Denver.

He and Steven Greene, of North Carolina State University, teamed to study the impact of the healthcare vote and other major initiatives, such as the TARP vote, on the election results. In a presentation to political scientists in Chicago this month, they found that healthcare was a real killer, but that some of the other key votes also cost Democrats support at the polls.

Nine years later, Pelosi has regained the Speakership, and her modus operandi has not changed. Now, she’s pushing a partisan impeachment effort through the House of Representatives, one that George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley said on Wednesday in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee “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.”

Democrats currently enjoy a 233 to 197 (with one independent and four vacancies) majority in the House, and rank and file Democrats are receiving a clear message from Pelosi: vote yes for impeachment, regardless of the lack of any evidence of an impeachable offense, or you will no longer receive financial support for your re-election or have any clout.


Meanwhile, popular support for impeachment and removal of the president from office, particularly in key battleground districts, is slightly below opposition to it.
The 31 House Democrats who won districts in 2018 that President Trump won in 2016 face a difficult political choice: vote yes to impeach the president and face the wrath of the voters in November, or vote no and face the wrath of Speaker Pelosi from the moment the vote is cast.

Only two Democrats in the House dared to vote against Pelosi’s resolution to initiate the impeachment inquiry back in October: Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) and Rep. Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ). Both represent districts President Trump won in 2016.

In politics, the saying goes, fear is almost always a more important motivator than principle.

As Speaker Pelosi continues her partisan and divisive march towards an impeachment vote by the full House, it is fear, not principle, that will drive the voting behavior of those 31 Democrats who represent districts President Trump won in 2016. Based on her 2010 Obamacare victory and subsequent loss of the Democrat majority in the House, Speaker Pelosi appears to be motivated by a desire to win the political battle of the moment and let the future sort itself out.

During the next several weeks, we will learn whether these 31 Democrats from key battleground districts around the country fear Speaker Pelosi or their constituents more.

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Judicial Watch announced today that U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg denied a Justice Department effort to block the release of any communications between former FBI General Counsel James Baker and Michael Sussmann, a Perkins Coie law partner and former DOJ attorney, who reportedly met with Baker to share information targeting Donald J. Trump during the presidential campaign. While at Perkins Coie, Sussmann represented the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the time Perkins Coie secretly paid for the development of the anti-Trump dossier the DOJ used to obtain FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. The court specifically rejected the FBI’s argument that it needed to protect the “privacy” of Hillary Clinton’s lawyer.

Judge Boasberg ruled: “ny risk of invasion [of privacy] evaporated once Baker publicly testified that he had received documents from Sussmann, as well as met with and spoken to him on multiple occasions in 2016.”

“The FBI is corruptly trying to keep secret documents to protect those behind the Russiagate smears of President Trump,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Two federal courts have now rejected the FBI’s desperate attempts to hide the details of its anti-Trump conspiracy with Hillary Clinton’s Fusion GPS-FBI spy operation. Why is Director Wray allowing the corrupt cover up the FBI’s Russiagate collusions with the Clinton gang?”

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/06/james-clyburn-floats-amendment-to-get-rid-of-impeachment-altogether-if-pelosi-fails/amp/

Appearing Friday on CNN’s New Day, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) called for the U.S. Constitution to be changed if Congress fails to impeach President Donald Trump.

A partial transcript is as follows:

JOHN BERMAN: You say that you are not whipping on the impeachment vote, you are not pushing your members on this. What do you mean, exactly, and why?

HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP JAMES CLYBURN: I mean simply that this is a vote of conscience. I do believe that when it comes to something as divisive as impeachment, we have to leave members up to their own consciences, their own constituents and what they think is in the best interest of their love for the country. I think it would be a bit unseemly for us to go out and whip up a vote on something like this. This is too serious, this is too much about preserving this great republic and I think we ought to leave it up to each member to decide how he or she would like to vote.

BERMAN: You’re not whipping, but I do imagine, to a certain extent, you are counting. I know of two Democratic members who are a “no” or are unlikely to vote yes on impeachment. How many Democrats do you expect to lose on the impeachment vote?

HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP CLYBURN: We do expect to lose some, and that’s why I said it’s a conscience vote and it’s with their constituents. We have a very diverse caucus. I share six counties with a Democrat in South Carolina. I share the part of those counties that is much different from the part that [Rep. Joe Cummingham (D-SC)] has, and we may be voting differently. I have no idea. He’s probably talking to his constituents. They know where they would like to see him stand on this question, and I suspect that’ll be the way he would vote. I’m not going to urge him the way I’m going to vote. I think I’ve heard enough, seen enough, and I believe that this president — if we cannot vote to impeach with what we had in testimonies last week and what we’ve seen in news reports this week — then we ought to just modify the constitution and get rid of impeachment algother.

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Didn't see the MSM report this:

Bill Barr on Friday indicted eight individuals for illegally funneling foreign money to Adam Schiff, Hillary Clinton and several Democratic senators.

newsthud.com/bill-barr-indicts-8-for-illegally-funneling-foreign-money-to-adam-schiff-and-multiple-dem-senators/

The list of the Dem organizations taking this illegal money is astounding – almost every Dem state organization and many super PAC’s including the big one Priorities USA.

All of the leading names in the Democratic party took in this money including Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu, Jon Tester, Cory Booker, Hillary Clinton, etc.

www.justice.gov/opa/pr/california-ceo-and-seven-others-charged-multi-million-dollar-conduit-campaign-contribution

Earlier today, an indictment was unsealed against the CEO of an online payment processing company, and seven others, charging them with conspiring to make and conceal conduit and excessive campaign contributions, and related offenses, during the U.S. presidential election in 2016 and thereafter.

Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Assistant Director in Charge Timothy R. Slater of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement.

A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia indicted Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, 48, of Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 7, 2019, along with George Nader, Roy Boulos, Rudy Dekermenjian, Mohammad “Moe” Diab, Rani El-Saadi, Stevan Hill and Thayne Whipple. The 53 count indictment charges Khawaja with two counts of conspiracy, three counts of making conduit contributions, three counts of causing excessive contributions, 13 counts of making false statements, 13 counts of causing false records to be filed, and one count of obstruction of a federal grand jury investigation. Nader is charged with conspiring with Khawaja to make conduit campaign contributions, and related offenses. Boulos, Dekermenjian, Diab, El-Saadi, Hill, and Whipple are charged with conspiring with Khawaja and each other to make conduit campaign contributions and conceal excessive contributions, and related offenses.

According to the indictment, from March 2016 through January 2017, Khawaja conspired with Nader to conceal the source of more than $3.5 million in campaign contributions, directed to political committees associated with a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 election. By design, these contributions appeared to be in the names of Khawaja, his wife, and his company. In reality, they allegedly were funded by Nader. Khawaja and Nader allegedly made these contributions in an effort to gain influence with high-level political figures, including the candidate. As Khawaja and Nader arranged these payments, Nader allegedly reported to an official from a foreign government about his efforts to gain influence.

The indictment also alleges that, from March 2016 through 2018, Khawaja conspired with Boulos, Dekermenjian, Diab, El-Saadi, Hill, and Whipple to conceal Khawaja’s excessive contributions, which totaled more than $1.8 million, to various political committees. Among other things, these contributions allegedly allowed Khawaja to host a private fundraiser for a presidential candidate in 2016 and a private fundraising dinner for an elected official in 2018.

The indictment further alleges that, from June 2019 through July 2019, Khawaja obstructed a grand jury investigation of this matter in the District of Columbia. Knowing that a witness had been called to testify before the grand jury, Khawaja allegedly provided that witness with false information about Nader and his connection to Khawaja’s company. Boulos, Diab, Hill, and Whipple also are charged with obstructing the grand jury’s investigation by lying to the FBI.

Currently, Nader is in federal custody on other charges.

You can see all of Ahmad Khawaja’s donations here.

www.opensecrets.org/search?order=desc&q=ahmad+khawaja&sort=A&type=donors&scrim=B

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Nadler let the cat out of the bag and admitted what we have known all along — the Dems do not have a candidate who can beat Trump in 2020 so their only hope is to remove him from office.

“We are also faced with a very direct threat that this president put himself repeatedly above the interest of the country and poses a threat to the integrity of the next election…he poses a threat to the integrity of the next election if he’s allowed to continue to do what he’s doing,” Nadler said.

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