James Comey

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dailycaller.com/2019/12/09/doj-watchdog-debunk-dossier/

The Justice Department watchdog’s report debunked one of the Steele dossier’s most specific allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, and severely undermined others.
The report also faulted the FBI for failing to thoroughly investigate the dossier and failing to tell a federal court about problems with Steele’s information.
One of Steele’s primary sources provided the FBI with information that contradicted parts of the dossier.
The report also said that FBI investigators found that Michael Cohen didn’t go to Prague.
A Justice Department watchdog’s report released Monday definitively debunked one of the Steele dossier’s most pervasive allegations of collusion, while severely undermining other hair-raising claims about Donald Trump and former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The report is unsparing of both Christopher Steele, the dossier author, and the FBI’s handling of the salacious document.


It paints a picture of Steele, a former British spy, as an eager gun-for-hire encumbered with a poor sense of judgment. The FBI, while absolved of a top-down, politically-motivated conspiracy to take down Trump, failed to verify any of Steele’s allegations, and also omitted key pieces of information that contradicted the dossier. (RELATED: Steele Dossier Played A ‘Central And Essential’ Role In FISA Applications)

“Our review revealed instances in which factual assertions relied upon in the first [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] application targeting Carter Page were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application was filed,” reads the report.

The report details how Steele collected information in the dossier, as well as the limited steps that the FBI took to verify the document.

The dossier’s most specific allegation of Trump-Russia collusion — that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen visited Prague in August 2016 to pay off Russian hackers — was “not true,” FBI officials determined, according to the IG report.

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When FBI investigators did obtain valuable insight into Steele’s work, the bureau largely failed to include it in applications to continue surveillance against Carter Page.

According to the IG report, Steele’s dossier played a “central and essential” decision in the FBI’s decision to apply for FISA warrants against Page. FBI investigators considered seeking a FISA warrant against the Trump adviser in August 2016, but were rejected by bureau lawyers who did not believe there was enough probable cause to establish that Page was a Russian agent.


Carter Page, former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, speaks to the media after testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on November 2, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

That changed on Sept. 19, 2016, when six of Steele’s dossier memos arrived in the inboxes of the FBI’s core Trump-Russia investigative team. The IG report says that the FBI immediately sought to obtain FISAs. They were approved on Oct. 21, 2016.

The IG report quotes Steele’s primary source for the dossier, who told the FBI in a series of interviews in 2017 that Steele misreported several of the most troubling allegations of potential Trump blackmail and Trump campaign collusion.


The source told the FBI in interviews in early 2017 that the dossier’s steamiest allegation — that the Kremlin had blackmail video of Trump in a Moscow hotel room with prostitutes — was based on “rumor and speculation.”

Steele said in the dossier that his source had confirmed the incident, which allegedly occurred in 2013 at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow. But according to the IG report, Steele’s source told the FBI that they had been unable to confirm that the incident occurred.

The FBI relied heavily on Steele’s information to assert to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that Page was acting as an agent of Russia. The dossier alleged that Page was part of the Trump campaign’s “well-developed conspiracy of coordination” with the Kremlin and that he had worked under the direction of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Steele also alleged that it was Page’s idea to release hacked DNC emails through WikiLeaks.

Steele also cited sources who claimed that Page met in July 2016 with Kremlin insiders Igor Sechin and Igor Diveykin. Page allegedly spoke to Sechin about relaxing U.S. sanctions against Russia in exchange for a stake in the upcoming sale of oil giant Rosneft, which Sechin controlled. According to Steele, Page allegedly spoke with Diveykin about compromising materials on both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Page has vehemently denied meeting Sechin or Diveykin. The IG report said that investigators were unable to determine whether Page met either Russian.

According to the IG report, investigators reviewed text messages from Steele’s source regarding the alleged Page-Sechin meeting, which showed that there was no mention of a bribe.

The FBI also withheld information that was favorable to Page, but derogatory for Steele, according to the IG.

The report cites one example of the FBI failing to tell the FISC that Page was also an “operational contact” for five years for the CIA. A CIA employee had informed FBI agents in August 2016 that Page was given a “positive assessment” after providing information about a Russian intelligence operative with whom he had interacted.

The FBI also failed to include Page’s statement to a confidential FBI source named Stefan Halper in August 2016 that he had never met Manafort. That statement was significant because Steele asserted in the dossier that Page was working under Manafort’s direction to conspire with the Kremlin.

Investigators also withheld information provided by people who knew Steele that would have raised questions about the quality of his work. Steele associates who spoke to the FBI described the London-based spook as “smart” and a “person of integrity.” But others said that he demonstrated a “lack of self-awareness” and “poor judgment.” Another person said that Steele’s work was “underpinned by poor judgment.”

The FBI also failed to disclose Steele’s statements to the bureau’s investigative team that an individual who unwittingly provided information to Steele’s primary source for the dossier was a “boaster” and “embellisher.”

The IG report also quotes FBI agents who met with Steele before the 2016 election who believed that he misled the bureau about his contacts with the media.

“[C]learly he wasn’t truthful with us,” an FBI special agent who met with Steele in Rome on Oct. 3, 2016 told the IG.

Weeks before that meeting, Steele and his colleague at Fusion GPS briefed a handful of reporters in Washington, D.C. about the dossier. One of those reporters, Michael Isikoff, published a story on Sept. 23, 2016 that detailed Steele’s allegations about Carter Page. According to the IG, FBI agents who worked on the Trump-Russia investigation did not initially believe that Steele was a source for Isikoff.

According to the IG, Steele did not acknowledge meeting with reporters, and expressed frustration that news reports at the time threatened to expose his sources.

Steele’s main FBI handler told the FBI that the former spy’s contacts with the press “blew his mind.”

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www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-democrats-announce-impeachment-articles-trump-responds-dems-refuse-to-acknowledge-key-fact

BREAKING: Democrats Announce Impeachment Articles; Trump Responds: Dems Refuse To Acknowledge Key Fact

After weeks of hearings and amid troubling polling trends in battleground states, the House Democrats officially announced on Tuesday that they are bringing two articles of impeachment against President Trump. The president responded online by pointing to a key fact he says Democrats continue to ignore.

In a press conference Tuesday, Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) announced that the Democrats are bringing two articles of impeachment against Trump: “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress.”

Trump’s alleged abuse of power, Nadler and the Democrats contend, relates to his attempt to “pressure” Ukraine into investigating his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, which Nadler described in the press conference as having “compromised our national security and threatened the integrity of our elections.”


The Democrats also maintain that the president’s unwillingness to cooperate with their inquiry is grounds for impeachment.

“Throughout this inquiry, he has attempted to conceal the evidence from Congress and from the American people,” said Nadler, in comments reported by CNBC. “Our president holds the ultimate public trust. When he betrays that trust and puts himself before country, he endangers the Constitution, he endangers our democracy and he endangers our national security.”

Neither charge is specified in the Constitution’s impeachment clause, which reads: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Nadler suggested in his statement, however, that the charges outlined in the Democrats’ two impeachment articles constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors.”


House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) also had a chance to make a statement Tuesday, declaring that the inquiry he led provided “overwhelming and uncontested” evidence of Trump’s alleged “misconduct.”

While the Democrats expressed great confidence in their “overwhelming” case against Trump, they notably took no questions from the press following their announcement of the two articles of impeachment.

Trump responded to the Democrats much-anticipated announcement by slamming the 2020 “interference” allegation as “ridiculous” and pointing to the repeated assertions by Ukrainian officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, that Trump did not “pressure” them to conduct investigations in order to receive U.S. military aid, as the Democrats allege.

“Nadler just said that I ‘pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 Election,'” Trump tweeted. “Ridiculous, and he knows that is not true. Both the President & Foreign Minister of Ukraine said, many times, that there ‘WAS NO PRESSURE.’ Nadler and the Dems know this, but refuse to acknowledge!”

Trump followed up that tweet with his most frequently posted two-word phrase: “WITCH HUNT!”

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Thanks Pelosi, Nadler & Schiff:

www.dailywire.com/news/thanks-to-impeachment-trump-now-beating-all-democrats-in-three-key-battleground-states

New polling shows a very troubling development for those desperate to see Donald Trump go down in 2020. After struggling in three key battleground states against Democratic presidential frontrunners, Trump has seen a surge in support since Democrats formally moved forward with impeachment. The Republican president now leads every potential Democratic opponent in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, three of the Rust Belt states that helped deliver Trump’s electoral victory in 2016.

In a report published Sunday, Firehouse Strategies presented their new quarterly battleground polling results, and they were quite grim for Democrats. In a survey of 1,759 likely 2020 general election voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania conducted last week (12/3 through 12/5), the Firehouse/Optimus pollsters found that Trump was “surging” as an apparent result of the Democrats’ impeachment effort — while Democratic frontrunner former Vice President Joe Biden is suffering a “sharp decline in support.”

“As the impeachment process heats up in Washington, Donald Trump is seeing a boost in support in crucial swing states,” Firehouse Strategies reports. “Across the board, President Trump is polling well against the Democratic field in each of these battleground states. Notably, Vice President Biden has seen a sharp decline in support in our surveys as he currently runs behind President Trump in each of the three states.”


And it’s not just Biden who is suffering, it’s all the Democratic candidates. Trump now leads each of them, and often by significant margins.

“As the race currently stands, President Trump is in the lead in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in hypothetical match-ups against former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg,” Firehouse explains. “Across the three states, Trump’s closest contest is against Joe Biden, although the president leads by an average of 6 percentage points against each Democrat.”

In Michigan, Trump leads Biden by 5 points (46-41), Warren by 9 points (47-38), Sanders by 6 points (48-42), Buttigieg by 11 points (48-37), and Bloomberg by 11 points (48-37).

The numbers are similar in Pennsylvania, where Trump leads Biden by 5 points (46-41), Warren by 7 points (47-40), Sanders by 10 points (48-38), Buttigieg by 6 points (46-40), and Bloomberg by 4 points (45-41). The 4-point gap with Bloomberg is the closest any of the Democrats get to Trump in the three key states.


The results are even worse for Democrats in Wisconsin, where Trump now enjoys a greater than 8-point advantage over all of the Democratic contenders. Trump beats Biden by 9 points (48-39), Warren by 13 points (50-37), Sanders by 13 points (51-38), Buttigieg by 11 points (49-38), and Bloomberg by 14 points (49-37).

So is the Democrats’ impeachment campaign to blame for Trump’s surge and the Democrats’ — particularly Bidens’ — “sharp decline”? The Firehouse/Optimus survey asked the likely 2020 voters in the three battleground states what they thought about impeachment and got some pretty clear results:

In each of these battleground states, we find that a majority of likely 2020 voters do not support the impeachment and removal of President Trump from office. Impeachment and removal is opposed by 50.8% of voters in Michigan, 52.2% of voters in Pennsylvania, and 57.9% of voters in Wisconsin. Non-partisan voters in Michigan (70%) and Wisconsin (61%) oppose impeachment and removal while non-partisan voters in Pennsylvania slightly support it (46.4% to 40.9%). When asked about whether congressional Democrats should be spending their time impeaching Trump or focusing on policy issues, a majority of these battleground state voters choose “focus on policy issues” (MI: 59.4%; PA: 63%; WI: 67.2%).

Firehouse provides the following “key point” in summary of its findings: “Overall, we find President Trump performing well in these crucial 2020 states. While these numbers will fluctuate as the presidential election continues, Trump is well situated to win back these contests.” (Read the full report here.)

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/10/steele-own-primary-sub-source-cast-doubt-on-steeles-collusion-claims/

Steele’s Own ‘Primary Sub-Source’ Cast Doubt On Steele’s Collusion Claims
DECEMBER 10, 2019 By Chrissy Clark
With the release of Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s FISA report, it is clear that Christopher Steele, the man who kickstarted the Mueller investigation with his infamous “dossier,” exaggerated hearsay claims and reported them as fact. Here to corroborate this was Steele’s very own “Primary Sub-source.”

The identity of Steele’s primary sub-source has not been disclosed to the public. Steele never even disclosed the identity of his primary sub-source to the FBI. The FBI identified him or her by January 2017, however, and arranged a meeting.


In the meeting, the primary sub-source told the FBI “that he/she had not seen Steele’s reports until they became public that month, and that he/she made statements indicating that Steele misstated or exaggerated the Primary Sub-source’s statements in multiple sections of the reporting,” the report reads.

In March 2017, the primary sub-source was questioned again by a Washington Field Office agent and repeated the same conclusion: that Steele was exaggerating hearsay as conclusive.

“The Primary Sub-source was questioned again by the FBI beginning in March 2017 about election reporting and his/her communications with Steele. The Washington Field Office Agent who conducted that interview and others after it told the OIG that the primary sub-source felt that the tenor of Steele’s report was far more ‘conclusive’ than was justified,” the report reads.

In that same interview, the primary sub-source admitted that his or her sub-sub sources were not privy to the information they were spilling. Their allegations were based on “multiple levels of hearsay.”

He or she also said they were unable to corroborate any of the hearsay. The primary sub-source reported this to the counterintelligence team, known as the “Crossfire Hurricane team,” as well. Yet the counterintelligence team still proceeded with the Mueller investigation and filed multiple FISA applications to spy on former Trump aide Carter Page despite knowing their information was uncorroborated hearsay.

The primary sub-source also indicated the allegations against Page, such as Page allegedly accepting bribes from Russian energy conglomerate President Igor Sechin, were falsified. A sub-sub source handed over text messages to the FBI showing Steele’s allegations against Page were false.

“We reviewed the texts and did not find any discussion of a bribe, whether as an interest in [the energy conglomerate] itself or a ‘brokerage.’”

These revelations reveal two things. First, Steele is a liar and the Mueller investigation was started under false pretenses. Second, the counterintelligence team knew their sources’ information was uncorroborated, yet pursued investigations and wiretaps anyway. The IG report speaks for itself regarding the FBI’s motivations since 2016.

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/10/schiff-only-impeachment-will-ensure-a-free-and-fair-election/

Schiff: Only Impeachment Will Ensure A Free And Fair Election
DECEMBER 10, 2019 By Tristan Justice
Democratic Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff of California argued Tuesday that only the extraordinary measure of impeachment would ensure a free and fair election next year.

Announcing formal articles of impeachment alongside Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Schiff also repeated the debunked claim that Trump cheated in the first election, despite a two-year special counsel investigation with unlimited resources finding otherwise.


“The argument ‘why don’t you just wait?’ amounts to this. Why don’t you just let him cheat in one more election? Why not let him cheat just one more time? Why not let him have foreign help just one more time?” Schiff questioned. “The president’s misconduct goes to the heart of whether we can conduct a free and fair election in 2020.”

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In other words, the only election Democrats will accept the results of is an election without Donald Trump. Impeachment and conviction not only removes the president from office, but it disqualifies the removed individual from even seeking that office again. Democrats are therefore trying to ban Trump from ever holding power in the White House again.

While Democrats often questioned whether Trump would respect the results of the election throughout 2016, Democrats have yet to accept the election results themselves three years later and have been attempting to impeach Trump since day one of the Trump presidency. The Washington Post even ran a headline just minutes after Trump took the presidential oath reading, “The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.”

The partisan impeachment efforts have been the Democrats’ latest, and closest attempt to undo the results of the 2016 election after several other attempts have already failed, including the collapse of the grand Russian collusion conspiracy, which, as evidenced by Schiff’s press conference, many Democrats still believe.

This week’s articles of impeachment introduced by Democrats follow several weeks of hearings focusing on the question of whether this time, Trump conspired with a foreign leader to interfere in the next U.S. presidential election. The allegations center on a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky where Trump allegedly demanded his Ukraine counterpart to launch an investigation into the Biden family in exchange for approximately $400 million in military aid.

An unredacted transcript of the July phone call was declassified and released to the public prior to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s opening of a House investigation revealing no such quid pro quo. Instead, the transcript illustrates an American president condemning corruption in Ukraine, urging the Ukrainian president to combat the problem and investigate the origins of the European nation’s involvement in peddling the Russian hoax. Pelosi however, plunged the Democrats into impeachment proceedings where Schiff held secret hearings in the basement of the capitol for more than a month pre-interviewing witnesses before a public impeachment investigation was voted on by the full House chamber in a partisan vote on Halloween.

Throughout the public process, Democrats failed to bring to light any hard incriminating evidence against the president, and in fact, Democrats’ own star witnesses offered testimony vindicating the president.

Multiple witnesses called by Democrats said they saw the president engage in no such crime or quid pro quo involving the Ukrainian president.

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www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-does-this-impeachment-not-feel-like-a-defeat-for-trump/

Why Does This Impeachment Not Feel Like a Defeat for Trump?
By JIM GERAGHTY
December 10, 2019 10:56 AM

On paper, the speaker of the House and chairmen of the relevant committees announcing they will impeach the president should feel like a historic moment and a rarely equaled disgrace for the presidency. This day should feel momentous, grim, and solemn. In this presidency, it feels like “Tuesday.”

On paper, the impeachment hearings did everything House Democrats wanted them to do. While some of the key testimony was second-hand, the witnesses painted an ugly picture of the administration and president, focused on farfetched tales of a lost server and obsessed with the Bidens and not seeming to give a fig about what the military aid meant to Ukraine. The major television networks covered the hearings live. The objections of House Republicans were largely ridiculed by the media. The GOP was unable to introduce witnesses to interrupt the Democrats’ narrative or divert attention to the Bidens or other topics.


And yet the polling is about where it was at the start of October. As of this writing, in the FiveThirtyEight aggregation, 47.1 percent support removing the president, and 44 percent don’t support removal. That’s not good for the White House, but that’s nowhere near where Democrats wanted it to be. There’s nothing resembling the bipartisan consensus that Democrats had previously called a prerequisite for moving forward with the removal of a president. In fact, impeachment could well be hurting Democrats’ chances in key swing states. A recent survey found removal is opposed by 50.8 percent of voters in Michigan, 52.2 percent of voters in Pennsylvania, and 57.9 percent of voters in Wisconsin. Whether or not you think the hearings were persuasive, the evidence suggests they didn’t persuade many people who didn’t already support impeachment.

The hearings didn’t seem to change minds in the House of Representatives, either. So far there is no indication that any House Republican is considering voting to impeach. There are murmurs of frustration and discontent among moderate House Democrats. Most House Democrats will fall in line, probably. But at the end of October, 232 House Democrats voted to start the inquiry. The articles are unlikely to get that many votes, in part because of the death of Elijah Cummings and the resignation of Katie Hill. The House currently has only 233 Democrats. The only drama in the upcoming House vote will be if any Democrats join the two who voted against starting the inquiry — Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey — or if either man changes his mind.

Also, what happened to all of those charges against Trump? For the past few weeks, we’ve heard many Democrats insist that Trump’s actions constituted bribery, extortion, violation of campaign finance laws, and witness intimidation. All of that got dropped, and the articles of impeachment cover the umbrella term “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress.”

After all of this, there’s nothing referring to Trump’s actions in the Mueller report. Apparently the evidence of obstruction of justice laid out by the special counsel just didn’t warrant impeachment.

Finally, apparently President Trump is such an anti-Constitutional menace that the freedom and fairness of future elections cannot be guaranteed unless he is removed . . . and he is also the kind of man that House Democrats can reach a deal with on trade deals and family leave. Both of those agreements are much bigger surprises than the decision on the impeachment articles.

Impeachment is turning into a historic blip.

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www.dailywire.com/news/legal-eagle-jonathan-turley-brilliantly-breaks-down-the-articles-of-impeachment

Legal Eagle Jonathan Turley Brilliantly Breaks Down The Articles Of Impeachment

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley has a knack for breaking down complex matters into clear and understandable verbiage.

The professor did so in his testimony last week before a House committee conducting an impeachment hearing into President Trump. And he did so again in an op-ed piece on Monday, just a day before House leaders announced two articles of impeachment against Trump.

The first article claims Trump abused his power by urging Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to conduct a investigation into a company connected to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. The second article alleges the president obstructed Congress by refusing to comply with subpoenas for documents and testimony issued by House Democrats.


Using a trending news story as a jumping off point — the banana duct-taped to a wall that sold for $120,000 in a Miami art show — Turley broke it all down.

“Frankly, when I look at the House efforts to impeach President Trump, I see a banana taped to a wall. As others coo over the power and evidence of the report, I continue to look around scratching my head, wondering why others don’t see the obvious gaps and conflicts. Yes, we’ve heard disturbing accounts, but they are surrounded by contested facts,” Turley wrote in the Los Angeles Times.

Extending the metaphor, Turley said, “the Democratic case is an exercise in pointillism,” in which the case against Trump forms a picture only when “viewed from a distance.” But he concluded that the three other instances of impeachment were pure realism.

“Past presidential impeachments were far more Rockwellian — literal, richly detailed, non-abstract. In all three previous cases — those of Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon — criminal acts had been clearly established and the facts surrounding them were widely accepted,” he wrote.


This would not matter if the non-criminal acts were clear and uncontested. They are not. The most serious impeachable act raised by the Democrats is abuse of power, a legitimate basis for impeachment as I stated in both the Clinton and Trump impeachment hearings. But in inexplicably rushing to an impeachment vote, the House is foregoing the subpoenaing of key witnesses who could shed light on potential abuse of power, including former national security advisor John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Instead, the Democrats insisted we should go forward on “inferences” or interpretations rather than delay further. Yet I have looked at that banana taped to the wall from all angles, and I just don’t see how it clearly establishes a quid pro quo.

In his testimony last week, Turley said Democrats rushing headlong into impeachment were bypassing the third branch of government.

“I can’t emphasize this enough, and I’ll say it just one more time. If you impeach a president, if you make a ‘high crime and misdemeanor’ out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. It’s your abuse of power. You’re doing precisely what you’re criticizing the president for doing. We have a third branch that deals with conflicts of the other two branches. And what comes out of there and what you do with it is the very definition of legitimacy,” he told lawmakers.

Afterward, Turley and his wife got death threats — and so did his dog.


“I get it. You are mad. The president is mad. My Republican friends are mad. My Democratic friends are mad. My wife is mad. My kids are mad. Even my dog seems mad, and Luna is a Goldendoodle and they don’t get mad,” Turley told lawmakers.

In an interview on CBS on Monday, host Norah O’Donnell said that Turley “did talk about them in your testimony, to be fair, though.”

“Yeah, but who would shoot a Goldendoodle?” Turley said. “Maybe a Shih Tzu, but not a Goldendoodle.”

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/10/democrats-refuse-to-take-questions-after-announcing-articles-of-impeachment/

Democrats Refuse to Take Questions After Announcing Articles of Impeachment

House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Trump but refused to take questions after the announcement, calling into question the level of confidence they have in their collective decision.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stepped aside on Tuesday to allow House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) to present the details of the two articles of impeachment, which are abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — neither of which allege a high crime or misdemeanor. Notably, there was no mention of bribery, extortion, or treason either.

The speaker was also flanked by committee chairs Eliot Engel (D-NY), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and Richard Neal (D-MA).
However, the Democrats refused to take a single question following their announcement and did not indicate when the text would be released despite their purported devotion to transparency and “solemn” duty to hold political leaders accountable:

Today, in the service to our duty to the Constitution and to our country, the House Judiciary Committee is introducing two articles of impeachment, charging the president of the United States of committing high crimes and misdemeanors,” Nadler stated during the brief press conference.

It is an impeachable offense for a president to use the powers of his office to seek a personal benefit,” he added.


Schiff, during his announcement, said Democrats cannot wait for the next election cycle to play out because it would essentially allow Trump to “cheat” in one more election — a subtle reference to the debunked Russia collusion narrative.
“The evidence of the president’s misconduct is overwhelming and uncontested,” Schiff said.
“The argument, ‘Why don’t you just wait?’ comes down to this: Why don’t you just let him cheat in just one more election?” he added:

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/10/adam-schiff-congress-must-impeach-trump-to-stop-him-in-2020/

Adam Schiff: Congress Must Impeach Trump to Stop Him in 2020

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Tuesday indicated that Democrats must impeach President Trump quickly in order to stop him from prevailing in the 2020 presidential election.

Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against the president: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Notably, neither allege a high crime or misdemeanor. Noticeably absent was the Democrats’ longheld appeal to bribery, extortion, or treason.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), flanked by chairs Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and Richard Neal (D-MA), stepped aside as both Nadler and Schiff briefly offered minimal details on their decision. Democrats did not indicate when the text would be released and refused to take questions following the momentous announcement.

Schiff briefly addressed critics who say that Democrats should simply wait for the American people to judge the president in the 2020 election.

Democrats, Schiff suggested, cannot allow that, because it would essentially allow Trump to “cheat” in one more election. His remarks echo the Democrats’ longheld belief that the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russia in 2016, despite the fact that the Mueller report debunked the narrative, finding no evidence of collusion or conspiracy between the two.

The argument, ‘why don’t you just wait?’ comes down to this: Why don’t you just let him cheat in just one more election?” Schiff stated. “Why not let him have foreign help one more time?”:

However, none of the witnesses featured in the public impeachment hearings were able to demonstrate that the president was asking Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election. As Republicans have repeatedly pointed out – in regards to the now-infamous July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky – no evidence of “quid pro quo” exists, and there is no indication of bribery or extortion.
Republican counsel Stephen Castor pointed out in the case against impeachment, “Questions about former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter — who was a well-paid board member of the corrupt Ukrainian gas company, Burisma — were legitimate and shared by anti-corruption activists in Ukraine itself,” as Breitbart News reported.


That aside, Ukraine received a phone call, meeting, and aid – three factors that largely reduce the Democrats’ impeachment argument to ashes, as numerous Republican lawmakers have pointed out.
This is far from the first time a high-profile Democrat has indicated that impeachment is necessary in order to stop Trump in 2020. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) laid it out during an appearance on CNN’s The Situation Room in November.
“We also need to move quite quickly because we’re talking about the potential compromise of the 2020 elections,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“And so this is not just about something that has occurred; this is about preventing a potentially disastrous outcome from occurring next year,” she added:

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A group of rogue, vulnerable Democrats are spooked and floating censuring President Trump instead of impeaching him, Politico reported on Monday.

www.politico.com/news/2019/12/10/democrats-censure-impeachment-080311

A small group of vulnerable House Democrats is floating the longshot idea of censuring President Donald Trump instead of impeaching him, according to multiple lawmakers familiar with the conversations.

The group of about 10 members included Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.), and Ben McAdams (D-Utah.).

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Last week deadbeat dad Hunter Biden blew off a court hearing in Arkansas over his child support payments to his baby mama Lunden Roberts, and his lawyer abruptly quit.

Now Hunter is refusing to pay Lunden Roberts’ $11,000 legal bill so she is turning the screws on Biden and demanding to know how much Burisma Holdings paid him.


Hunter had a child with 28-year-old Lunden Roberts after meeting her at a DC strip joint where she worked as a stripper and she is not being compliant — she is demanding a hefty child support payment!

Last Monday Judge Don McSpadden demanded threes years of Hunter’s tax returns in order for him to reach a decision on child support payments.

Hunter Biden claimed in a sworn statement that he is currently in debt, unemployed with no monthly income.

Lunden Roberts is not letting Hunter get away with his lies and she made her move this week in a new filing with 47 requests!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7773953/Hunter-Biden-objects-paying-baby-mama-Lunden-Roberts-11k-legal-bill.html

Lunden Roberts, the mother of Hunter Biden’s baby, has demanded that he admit he was employed as a board member for Burisma in the Ukraine and that he was compensated on a monthly basis in new court documents obtained exclusively by Dailymail.com.

The amount of money that Roberts asks Biden confirm is redacted in the seven-page document filed today, but it has been widely reported that the vice president’s son was earning $83,000 a month for his role at the Ukrainian energy company.

Roberts has also asked that Biden admit that he ‘or an entity owned, controlled or under your direction or supervision’ received money from a Chinese person or entity for foreign and domestic investment purposes.

The document contains 47 requests for admission by Biden, most of which are redacted in some way, including six related to his income taxes for the years from 2013 to 2018.

In other documents,obtained by DailyMail.com, Biden has objected to paying for his baby mama’s legal bill.

The 49-year-old filed papers on Monday in Independence County, Arkansas, seeking for a judge to deny Lunden Roberts’ request to have her $11,000 attorney bill footed by Biden.

.......

Hunter Biden, the gift that keeps on giving.

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On Tuesday afternoon Democrat strategist Brad Gerstman joined Neil Cavuto and Jenna Ellis to discuss Pelosi’s impeachment push.

Gerstman called this a “total disaster” for Democrats!

Brad Gerstman: Well, everything right now is playing against the Democrats whether it is the jobs, the economy, this new deal (USMCA), eventually I think China is going to get resolved and I’m sure the president will do his very best to make this his biggest win ever. He’s the best at doing that. So I expect his PR machine, meaning him and Twitter, to just go wild. And then this impeachment thing, I’m one of those people just mentioned, that the impeachment is a bad thing politically for the Democrats. I’ve spoken with a lot of people, a lot of people in those purple states, a lot of people who know people in those purple states, and a lot of people who are undecided, unaffiliated, and they don’t know what the heck the impeachment is about or why it’s going on. And when they turn on one of the TV Channels they’re disgusted with what they’re seeing. And these are the people that are in the middle. These are people that decide who is going to win and lose elections. I said from day one that this is bad for Democrats. And most of my Democratic friends believe the same thing. Politically this is a total disaster for the Democrats.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/10/joe-biden-pledges-to-not-comply-with-senate-subpoena-in-impeachment-trial/amp/

Joe Biden is promising to not comply if subpoenaed by lawmakers to testify at the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump in the United States Senate.

The former vice president, who had already ruled out voluntarily testifying at the impeachment proceedings, told NPR in an interview published on Monday he would not cooperate with a subpoena.

“No, I’m not going to let you take the eye off the ball here. Everybody knows what this is about,” Biden said. “This is a Trump gambit he plays. Whenever he’s in trouble he tries to find someone else to divert attention to.”

When pressed, Biden stood resolute, claiming there was not “one scintilla of evidence” he did anything wrong.

No, I will not yield to what everybody is looking for here,” the former vice president said. “And that is to take the eye off the ball.”

The refusal comes as Senate Republicans have signaled it would be inappropriate for the impeachment proceedings, let alone a trial, to progress without the former vice president or his youngest son, Hunter, providing testimony. At the forefront of this push have been Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Ron Johnson (R-WI), who have opened investigations into Hunter Biden’s work overseas and if he benefited from connections to the Obama-era White House.

Graham and others are looking, in particular, into the younger Biden’s ties to Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

“I believe that Hunter Biden’s association on [Burisma’s] board doesn’t pass the smell test,” Graham said last month when arguing the Bidens should testify. “If a Republican was in the same boat they would be eaten alive by the media.”

Joe Biden’s outright refusal to testify foreshadows a future standoff between the former vice president and his one-time Senate colleagues, like Graham, is on the horizon, especially as House Democrats move closer to impeachment. The potential drama underscores just how central Joe and Hunter Biden are to the Democrats’ case for removing Trump from office.

The controversy started when Trump suggested over the summer that the Ukrainian government investigate Hunter Biden’s ties to Burisma. The younger Biden secured an appointment to the natural gas company’s board in May 2014 despite no background in the energy industry or Ukraine.

More troubling was the fact that Hunter Biden’s appointment, which paid at time as much as $83,000 per month, seemed to coincide with his father being tapped to lead the Obama administration’s policy in Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea.

As Peter Schweizer detailed in Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends, Hunter Biden’s background in banking, lobbying, and hedge fund management paled in comparison to that of current and past members of Burisma’s board.

Adding to concerns was that Hunter Biden joined the company at a time when it was actively courting western leaders to prevent scrutiny of its practices. The same month as the appointment, Mykola Zlochevsky, Burisma’s founder, had his assets frozen in the United Kingdom on suspicion of money laundering. A Ukrainian official with ties to Zlochevsky admitted in October the only reason Hunter Biden secured his position with Burisma was to “protect” the company from foreign scrutiny.

It is in the context of Burisma and Zlochevsky’s legal troubles that Joe Biden’s political influence has raised the most red flags. The former vice president has particularly drawn questions over his conduct in demanding the Ukrainian government fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in 2016.

Joe Biden, who has publicly bragged about the firing, reportedly threatened to withhold more than $1 billion in U.S. aid if the Ukrainian government did not remove Shokin. He has claimed the demand came from then-President Barack Obama, who had allegedly lost faith in the prosecutor’s ability to tackle corruption.

Unofficially, though, it was known that Shokin was investigating both Burisma and Zlochevsky for public corruption. It is uncertain if the probe extended to Hunter Biden, although Shokin has recently admitted that prior to his ouster, he was warned to back off the matter.

Regardless of what occurred, Shokin’s successor, who is now himself being investigated for public corruption, dropped the investigation into Burisma.

Since the start of the impeachment inquiry, all of those potential conflicts of interest have spilled out into the open. Many, like Graham, contend that even if Joe Biden and his son did nothing wrong, they should still testify given how muddled the situation has become. Joe Biden, for his part, disagrees.

“Everybody knows the issue here is not what I did, because no one has a proved one scintilla of evidence that I did anything other than do my job for America as well as anybody could have done it,” the former vice president told NPR over the weekend.

“I did my job incredibly well,” he added.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/10/report-hunter-biden-baby-mother-demands-income-data-from-burisma-chinese-entity/

Lunden Roberts, the apparent mother of Hunter Biden’s love child, is reportedly seeking financial information regarding his time as a board member of Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy giant at the center of corruption allegations against him and his father, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Roberts, identified as a 28-year-old former stripper, has asked Hunter to confirm his past employment at Burisma and how much he was compensated per month, according to recently-filed court documents obtained by the Daily Mail. Disparate reports indicate Hunter was paid anywhere from $50,000 to $83,000 a month by the firm, despite having no expertise in the gas and energy field.

Roberts also requested that the younger Biden confirm whether he or an “entity owned, controlled or under your direction or supervision” received money from a Chinese national or entity for investment activities, the documents reportedly say. The Daily Mail also says Roberts made a total of 47 requests from Hunter, many of which were redacted.

The development comes after the former vice president’s son asked a judge in Independence County, Arkansas, to deny Roberts’ demand that he pay $11,000 of her legal fees. In May, Roberts filed a paternity lawsuit against Hunter in May, alleging he is the father of their 16-month-old baby. She alleges the pair first met at a Washington, D.C. gentleman’s club that she previously worked at.

Last week, a judge criticized both Biden and Roberts for failing to provide transparency regarding their finances and requested an affidavit of financial means covering five years from both parties.

I do not want this drug out nor do I want to have to drag out the monies these individuals may have received in any form or fashion,” Judge Don McSpadden wrote in a letter.
“It concerns me that the only information supplied to the court so far concerning employment of either party has been unemployment or under employment,” he added.
The development comes as Biden’s dealings with Burisma have attracted increased scrutiny on Capitol Hill. In late November, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) launched an investigation into his activities in Ukraine.


Graham sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seeking documents in an effort to determine whether the former vice president was involved for the firing of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in a bid to squash a probe into Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas firm where the younger was a board member.
Graham has also requested all documents and communications related to Biden’s phone calls with Poroshenko on February 11, 18 and 19, and March 22, 2016, citing media reports that they discussed previous demands to dismiss Shokin for alleged corruption before he was removed from office on March 29, 2016.
The senator is further seeking all documents and communications related to a meeting between Devon Archer, a business partner of Hunter Biden, and then-Secretary of State John Kerry on March 2, 2016.

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www.foxnews.com/media/former-doj-official-ian-prior-durham-ig-report

Former Justice Department official Ian Prior said on Tuesday that U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation would potentially unveil evidence of surveillance abuse against President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign team.

“I think you’re going to see some indictments," Prior said on “Fox & Friends,” referring to Durham as “non-partisan" and a “serious prosecutor."


US ATTORNEY DURHAM OBJECTS TO IG FINDINGS ON RUSSIA PROBE ORIGINS IN STUNNING STATEMENT

In the hours after Durham announced he did not "agree" with key findings by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, speculation swirled over what he has uncovered in his own ongoing review into potential surveillance abuses against President Trump's team.

Trump touts importance of Durham Russia investigationVideo
Durham's inquiry has had a broader scope than Horowitz's, including a focus on foreign actors as well as the CIA, while Horowitz's concentrated on the Department of Justice and FBI.

Prior said that, unlike Horowitz, Durham is not limited in scope to the existing DOJ or FBI officials. He said the striking statement by Durham Monday means "he's got the goods on somebody."

“Durham can subpoena former employees, former DOJ members; Durham can go and look at what the CIA was doing, what the [National Security Council] was doing, what foreign countries were doing. Durham's scope is so much bigger,” Prior said.

In his report released Monday, Horowitz said his investigators found no intentional misconduct or political bias surrounding efforts to launch the 2016 probe and to seek a highly controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in the early months of the investigation. Still, it found that there were "significant concerns with how certain aspects of the investigation were conducted and supervised."

FISA REPORT: DOJ WATCHDOG RELEASES FINDINGS ON RUSSIA PROBE SURVEILLANCE

As Horowitz conducted his review of DOJ actions during the Russia probe, Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, conducted a wider inquiry into alleged misconduct and improper government surveillance on the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.

Trump criticizes FBI Director Wray's denial that agency is part of deep stateVideo
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Fox News reported in October that Durham's ongoing probe has transitioned into a full-fledged criminal investigation.

Monday’s FISA report had long been expected. Horowitz in September submitted a draft to Attorney General William Barr and the FBI so they could identify any classified information. But it had not been publicly released until now.

Prior called the FBI's overall handling of the Trump-Russia probe a "big problem for America."

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dailycaller.com/2019/12/10/incredible-bull-abigail-spanberger-impeachment/

Democratic Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger was lambasted by constituents this week over her support for the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Spanberger has not yet announced how she will vote on the two articles of impeachment introduced Tuesday in the House of Representatives, but called the allegations against the president “incredibly serious.” Spanberger did vote in support of the inquiry in October. (RELATED: These Trump District Democrats Could Decide The Fate Of Impeachment)

“The allegations against the president are incredibly, incredibly serious,” Spanberger told the crowd.

“Incredible bull****!” one man exclaimed. “It’s crap!”

“It’s a lie, it’s all a lie,” the man continued.

Primis Player Placeholder


Spanberger continued to defend her position, saying that Trump has not provided any information that exonerates him. (RELATED: The Tide Is Turning Against Democrats On Impeachment)

“No one has dispelled or attempted to dispell or provided evidence that would exonerate the president,” Spanberger said.

But, Spanberger’s constituents were not buying the explanation.

“He hasn’t done anything wrong!” a man said.


“Did you really say that?” another asked.

The freshman Democrat represents Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, which Trump won by 6% in 2016. Recent polling has indicated that swing state and Independent voters have tired of impeachment, with the vast majority saying they are not as interested as those in the media and political class.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/10/nancy-pelosi-contradicts-schiff-impeachment-isnt-about-elections/

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) contradicted remarks from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) from their early Tuesday announcement of impeachment articles against President Donald Trump, saying the attempt to remove Trump from office “isn’t about elections.”

“It’s a sad day actually, a solemn day,” Pelosi said at the “Women Rule Summit” hosted by Politico in Washington, DC. “It’s something that no one comes to Congress to do, to impeach a president.”




When questioned about why the Mueller report findings were not included in the articles of impeachment, Pelosi gave a seemingly agitated response.

“I wish everyone just focused on what we are bringing forward because this is very serious violations of our constitution, undermining the national security of the United States, jeopardizing the integrity of our elections,” she said. “Instead of talking about what isn’t, this is what is, and that’s how we’re moving forward.”

Pelosi also said she is “not worried,” adding that the impeachment process against President Trump is about “patriotism” rather than “elections,” as Schiff had claimed on Tuesday.

“We take an oath to protect and defend. If we did not do that, we would be again delinquent in our duties. So this isn’t about elections, it’s about the Constitution,” Pelosi said.

“This isn’t about politics,” she added. “This is not about Democrats or Republicans. … This is about patriotism.”

In contrast, Schiff’s remarks Tuesday morning suggested that Democrats must impeach President Trump in order to stop him from winning the presidency again in 2020.



“The argument, ‘why don’t you just wait?’ comes down to this: Why don’t you just let him cheat in just one more election?” Schiff said. “Why not let him have foreign help one more time?”

Democratic leaders unveiled two articles of impeachment against the president: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Pelosi quickly shooed her colleagues away from the press conference, avoiding any questions from journalists.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/10/pollak-line-by-line-debunking-democrats-articles-of-impeachment-against-trump/

Democrats released their two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Tuesday, and they are a complete joke.

Not only did the Democrats back away from charging Trump with bribery, obstruction of justice in the Mueller investigation, campaign finance violations, treason, or any of the other wild claims they floated, but the two articles themselves are fraudulent, based on blatantly false claims of law and fact.


Line by line, here they are:

ARTICLE I: ABUSE OF POWER

The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives shall have the sole Power of Impeachment and that the President “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” In his conduct of the office of President of the United States — and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed — Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency, in that:

Using the powers of his high office, President Trump Solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election.

This is false. Trump never discussed the 2020 election with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, nor did he ask them to interfere in our politics. That is simply Democrats’ spin, based on the complaint of the so-called “whistleblower,” which was disproved by the release of the actual transcript of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky. Trump asked Ukraine to look into its widely-reported interference in the 2016 election, and to look into the circumstances in which then-Vice President Joe Biden demanded, on pain of losing $1 billion in loan guarantees, that Ukraine fire a prosecutor who had jurisdiction over a dormant investigation of a corrupt Ukrainian company, Burisma, on which Biden’s son, Hunter, served as a well-compensated board member. Democrats demanded Ukraine cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s supposed “collusion” with Russia in 2018. By their own new definition, that would qualify as pressuring Ukraine to interfere in U.S. politics.

He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 United States Presidential election to his advantage.

Trump asked Zelensky to work with the U.S. Attorney General, which suggests he actually wanted real investigations. Democrats claim Trump only wanted an “announcement” of investigations. Their only evidence is the testimony of Gordon Sondland, who testified that Trump told him that he wanted “nothing” from Ukraine, and who admitted that most of what he believed about “investigations” was the result of his own personal presumptions.

President Trump also sought to pressure the Government of Ukraine to take these steps

This is false. President Zelensky has said numerous times that he felt no “pressure” from Trump, and that there was no “quid pro quo.” Numerous witnesses testified that Ukraine did not even know any aid was on hold until Politico reported it in late August, more than a month after the call. While some witnesses said that some Ukrainian officials at the embassy in Washington may have been aware of a holdup with the aid, none of them could say exactly when.

by conditioning official United States Government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations.

This, again, is false. Numerous witnesses testified that aid was never conditioned on investigations. The Ukrainian government itself has repeated — even today — that it never believed U.S. assistance depended on announcing, or conducting, investigations. The claim was just a presumption by Sondland, who also testified that Trump told him there was “no quid pro quo,” and admitted he had no direct knowledge of any link between aid and investigations.

President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit.

The president specifically asked Zelensky to “do us a favor,” referring to the “country.” (Democrat legal “expert” Pamela Karlan tried, absurdly, to argue that Trump meant the “royal ‘We’.”) Investigating both foreign election interference and corruption involving American officials is a matter of public interest. Numerous witnesses agreed that the Bidens had a conflict of interest with Burisma — at the very least — and that it was worthy of investigation. Moreover, Democrats spent years arguing that the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s alleged “collusion” with Russia was justified because the country had to know if a possible future president was compromised — either by foreign misdeeds or by compromising information in hands of a foreign power. The same applies to Biden.

In so doing, President Trump used the powers of the Presidency in a manner that compromised the national security of the United States

The argument that Trump “compromised” national security rests on the idea that Ukraine is essential to American national security interests. That may or may not be true, but if so, then President Barack Obama should have been impeached for appeasing Russia and allowing it to invade Ukraine. In truth, questions of national security and foreign policy are largely within the president’s own constitutional purview; his decisions are not impeachable. Regardless, there was never any interruption in U.S. aid to Ukraine, and the key military aid — the Javelin anti-tank missiles that Trump provided, but Obama had not — was never affected, as numerous witnesses testified. If anything undermined U.S. national security, it was the Democrats’ decision to pursue impeachment in a way that exposed the secretive details of internal decision-making and foreign policy to anyone, friend or foe, who wanted to know.

and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process.

The only violation of the democratic process is Democrats’ attempt to overturn the 2016 election. As Democrats argued vehemently during the Clinton impeachment in 1998-9, such an effort should not be undertaken lightly. And as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) argued — before her impeachment effort failed to earn Republican support — impeachment should only be done with bipartisan support lest it be seen as a purely political endeavor.

He thus ignored and injured the interests of the Nation.

On the contrary: protecting our elections, investigating corruption, and preventing foreign aid from being misused by corrupt governments are all the duties of the President of the United States, in furtherance of his Oath of Office.


President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct through the following means:

1) President Trump — acting both directly and through his agents Within and Outside the United States Government

Trump did not have “agents.” He had Senate-confirmed diplomats, as well as informal diplomatic channels. As numerous witnesses testified, there is nothing inherently wrong or unusual in a president using informal diplomacy.

— corruptly solicited

See above.

the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations

See above.

into —

(A) a political opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden,

It is still unclear that Biden will be Trump’s 2020 opponent. Regardless, Biden is more than a political opponent. He was the former vice president, who was in charge of Ukraine policy for the Obama administration in that capacity. As Trump himself learned, potential presidential candidates enjoy no privilege protecting them from investigation.

and

(B) a discredited theory promoted by Russia alleging that Ukraine — rather than Russia — interfered in the 2016 United States Presidential election.

The theory is not “discredited,” but supported by a variety of mainstream media sources, such as an investigative piece in Politico in January 2017 titled: “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire.” Democrats pretend that only Russia or Ukraine could have interfered in our election. The two are not mutually exclusive. Russia seems to have interfered more — though the results of that interference were negligible — but Ukrainian officials did, too.

(2) With the same corrupt motives,

The use of the term “motives” is crucial. In the House Judiciary Committee’s report on the legal and constitutional foundation for impeachment — written entirely by Democratic staff and ignoring all of the experts who testified — cited the discredited impeachment of President Andrew Johnson to argue that a president can be impeached for “illegitimate motives” even if he has otherwise acted lawfully. This is, in fact, an illegitimate basis for impeachment.

President Trump — acting both directly and through his agents Within and outside the United States Government —

See above.

conditioned two official acts on the public announcements

Wrong; see above.

that he had requested —

(A) the release of $391 million of United States taxpayer funds

The figure of $391 million appears to include two separate programs: $250 million administered by the Department of Defense, and $141 administered by the State Department. Much of the testimony revolved around the latter. The president was allowed to hold these funds, temporarily, and such holds, while unusual, were not unprecedented. In fact, State Department official David Hale testified that aid to Lebanon was also withheld at the same time; and State Department official Catherine Croft testified that aid to Ukraine had been suspended once before in late 2017.

that Congress had appropriated on a bipartisan basis for the purpose of providing vital military and security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression and which President Trump had ordered suspended;

Again, the Javelin anti-tank missiles were not affected — and it was Trump, not Congress, that made the policy decision to arm Ukraine with lethal weapons, in contrast to President Obama, who denied Ukraine that assistance.

and (B) a head of state meeting at the White House, which the President of Ukraine sought to demonstrate continued United States support for the Government of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.

Trump had already invited Zelensky to the White House with no preconditions. And Ambassador Kurt Volker, the Special Representative for Ukraine, a highly-regarded career diplomat, testified that there was no linkage between a White House meeting and investigations. Sondland said otherwise, but admitted he had no direct knowledge.

(3) Faced with the public revelation of his actions, President Trump ultimately released the military and security assistance to the Government of Ukraine,

This is pure speculation, contradicted by other evidence. No one testified that Trump released the aid because he was afraid of “public revelation of his actions.” In fact, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) wrote to the House Intelligence Committee to describe a conversation with the president in which he said the matter was still under review in late August and early September. That was after the Politico article emerged, but it does not follow that the president was trying to minimize culpability. As Byron York of the Washington Examiner noted, there is an even more banal explanation: Congress was going to appropriate the funds on its own anyway, and so Trump relented by Sep. 11.

but has persisted in openly and corruptly urging and soliciting Ukraine to undertake investigations

This suggests Trump did not have “corrupt motives”; he still believes the investigations to be in the public interest.

for his personal political benefit.

False. See above.

These actions were consistent with President Trump’s previous invitations of foreign interference in United States elections.

This is an allusion to false claims of Russia collusion — and, specifically, the joke Trump told in July 2016 in which he said that if the Russians had Hillary Clinton’s missing 30,000 emails, they should release them. It was never a serious effort to invite Russia to interfere in the elections, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no collusion.

In all of this, President Trump abused the powers of the Presidency by ignoring and injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit.

False. See above.

He has also betrayed the Nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections.

This is more than a false statement of fact. It is an attempt to insinuate that the president committed treason, without actually charging a separate article of treason. It is a sign that Democrats know how weak this first article really is.

Wherefore President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office,

This is an argument for removing Trump not because of what he has done, but because of what he might do. It is an argument for pre-emptive impeachment, an idea grossly at odds with the Impeachment Clause and basic justice.

and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law.

Arguably, it is the Democrats’ fraudulent impeachment that is incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law — especially when undertaken in apparent defense of Joe Biden, whose conflicts of interest remain unexamined.

President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

False. He will be acquitted, and never should have been charged.

ARTICLE II: OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS

The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives “shall have the sole Power of Impeachment” and that the President “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, orother high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. In his conduct of the office of President of the United States — and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed —

Donald J. Trump has directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued bythe House of Representatives pursuant to its “sole Power of Impeachment”.

This is flagrantly false. Every president has pushed back against congressional efforts to obtain documents and summon witnesses — and not just presidents like Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, under investigation for truly impeachable conduct. President Obama himself resisted congressional subpoenas over Operation Fast and Furious. What is unprecedented — except, perhaps, for the Johnson impeachment — is the partisan nature of the inquiry, and the Democrats’ attempt to deny Trump fairness or due process. The House has violated its own precedents in the way it has conducted the investigation, and the White House has resisted cooperation with the House on that basis.

President Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency in a manner offensive to, and subversive of, the Constitution,

On the contrary: President Trump had no choice under the Constitution but to protect the powers and rights of the executive branch from what he, and others, believed in good faith was an overreach by the legislative branch. Moreover, he appealed to the judiciary to resolve his disputes with the House. The House decided that it did not want to wait for the courts to weigh in. Hence the rush to impeachment — but that is not the president’s fault.

in that:

The House of Representatives has engaged in an impeachment inquiry focused on President Trump’s corruptsolicitation of the Government of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 United States Presidential election.

A false premise; see Article I, above.

As part of this impeachment inquiry, the Committees undertaking the investigation served subpoenas seeking documents and testimony deemed vital to the inquiry from various Executive Branch agencies and offices, and current and former officials.

It also declined to issue subpoenas to key witnesses, including former National Security Advisor John Bolton, because Democrats did not want to wait for a court battle. They say they needed to rush to prevent Trump from damaging the 2020 election; more likely, they saw the poll numbers heading south and faced angry presidential candidates from the Senate who would have been forced to skip early primary states to sit through a Senate trial.

In response, without lawful cause or excuse,

Of course the president had “lawful cause or excuse,” which is why he went to court. Democrats may not agree that his “lawful cause or excuse” for resisting subpoenas was valid, but the fact is that he argued a case in the courts.

President Trump directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas.

Two facts are noteworthy. First, there were several executive branch employees, including White House employees, who testified anyway. Second, the Democrats prevented the witnesses from appearing alongside counsel for the various agencies for which they worked — an unprecedented abuse of power by the legislature against the executive.

President Trump thus interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives,

It is not clear that all of the subpoenas were lawful. One concerned the phone records of House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA), journalist John Solomon, presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and others. It is not clear what authority committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) had to issue those subpoenas, to match phone records with specific names, and to publish those names in his committee’s report along with speculation that they had been involved in a conspiracy to further the president’s allegedly impeachable conduct.

and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the “sole Power of Impeachment” vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives.

The Constitution says “sole”; it does not say “absolute.” The president was not assuming the House’s powers; he was following well-established precedent in asserting the powers of the executive, a co-equal branch of government.

President Trump abused the powers

Interestingly, the phrase “abuse of power” recurs here — echoing the charges of Article I. That is because it is not clear that obstruction of Congress is actually an impeachable offense under the Constitution, even though it formed one of the articles of impeachment against Nixon. (George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley testified that the third Nixon article was mistaken and should not be cited as precedent, because “obstruction of Congress” precludes the president from raising legitimate defenses of the executive branch through the courts.

of his high office through the following means:

(1) Directing the White House to defy a lawful subpoena

“Lawful” is a matter for the courts. See above.

by withholding the production of documents sought therein by the Committees.

Astonishingly, the president produced the most relevant document, and the only real direct evidence: the transcript of his phone call with Zelensky. Democrats were stunned; they had expected the whistleblower complaint to be a road map to other evidence that support their story. Trump called their bluff; what more did they need to see?

(2) Directing other Executive Branch agencies and offices to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of documents and records from the Committees — in response to which the Department of State, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense refused to produce a single document or record.

It is worth noting that witnesses nonetheless testified from the Department of State, the Office of Management of Budget, and the Department of Defense. Their testimony did not point to any documents being particularly relevant.

(3) Directing current and former Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with the Committees, in response to which nine Administration officials defied subpoenas for testimony, namely John Michael “Mick” Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.

As noted above, the president had the right to resist the House, which chose not to wait for the courts to decide.

These actions were consistent with President Trump’s previous efforts to undermine United States Goverrnment investigations into foreign interference in United States elections.

This line is important, because it represents Democrats’ attempt to allege obstruction of justice against Mueller — a charge they did not have the courage to make in an independent article of impeachment. In his report, Mueller declined to recommend prosecution for obstruction of justice, and both Attorney General William Barr and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Trump.

Through these actions, President Trump sought to arrogate to himself the right to determine the propriety,scope, and nature of an impeachment inquiry into his own conduct,

Actually, there are amply judicial and historical precedents in which both the courts and the executive have pronounced their opinions as to whether an impeachment process has been properly authorized and conducted.

as well as the unilateral prerogative to deny any and all information to the House of Representatives in theexercise of its “sole Power of Impeachment.”

False. See above.

In the history of the Republic, no President has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry or sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively the ability of the House of Representatives to investigate ?high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

False. See above.

This abuse of office served to cover up the President’s own repeated misconduct

False. There was no misconduct. See above.

and to seize and control the power of impeachmentand thus to nullify a vital constitutional safeguard vested solely in the House of Representatives.

If anyone is attempting to “seize” power, it is the House of Representatives itself, which seeks to usurp both the executive branch and the courts in arrogating to itself the absolute power to limit presidential privileges.

In all of this, President Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

False. The president has upheld his Oath of Office, against intense political and media pressure to do otherwise. It is Congress, and specifically the leaders of the House, who are violating their oaths with this spurious impeachment.

Wherefore, President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office,

More pre-emptive impeachment. See Article I.

and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

Quite the contrary. On this record, President Trump warrants immediate acquittal — and, arguably, re-election.

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/10/31-trump-district-democrats-will-decide-impeachments-fate-in-house/

Two of them already voted against the partisan impeachment push by their own party’s leadership and are expected to again, but the fate of articles of impeachment rests in the hands of the 31 Democrats who represent districts won by President Donald Trump in 2016.

The two Democrats who voted no on the partisan impeachment inquiry authorization vote—Reps. Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ) and Collin Peterson (D-MN)—are expected to again join all Republicans in the House in opposing the partisan articles of impeachment vote when it does come to the floor.




The looming question, however, is whether they will be joined by other Trump district Democrats, and if so, how many will join them. No other so-called moderate Democrats have publicly announced their intentions to oppose the articles of impeachment vote on the floor of the House, but Politico reported on Tuesday that a group of ten to 12 of them are circulating a plan to censure Trump instead of impeaching him—an alternative option they hope will make them look more reasonable than the highly partisan forces driving their party towards a highly partisan impeachment vote.

“A small group of vulnerable House Democrats is floating the longshot idea of censuring President Donald Trump instead of impeaching him, according to multiple lawmakers familiar with the conversations,” Politico’s Sarah Ferris and Melanie Zanona reported on Tuesday. “Those Democrats, all representing districts that Trump won in 2016, huddled on Monday afternoon in an 11th-hour bid to weigh additional — though unlikely — options to punish the president for his role in the Ukraine scandal as the House speeds toward an impeachment vote next week. The group of about 10 members included Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.), and Ben McAdams (D-Utah.).”



The list of 31 Democrats who represent districts Trump won in 2016 is as follows:

ARIZONA:

Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-AZ) — Arizona’s 1st Congressional District

GEORGIA:

Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) — Georgia’s 6th Congressional District

ILLINOIS:

Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-IL) — Illinois’ 14th Congressional District

Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL) — Illinois’ 17th Congressional District

IOWA:

Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-IA) — Iowa’s 1st Congressional District

Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA) — Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District

Rep. Cindy Axne (D-IA) — Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District

MAINE:

Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) — Maine’s 2nd Congressional District

MICHIGAN:

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) — Michigan’s 8th Congressional District

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) — Michigan’s 11th Congressional District

MINNESOTA:

Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) — Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District

Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) — Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District

NEVADA:

Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) — Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District

NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) — New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District

NEW JERSEY:

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ) — New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District

Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) — New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) — New Jersey’s 5th Congressional District

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) — New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District

NEW MEXICO:

Rep. Xochitl Torres Small (D-NM) — New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District

NEW YORK:

Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) — New York’s 11th Congressional District

Rep. Sean Maloney (D-NY) — New York’s 18th Congressional District

Rep. Antonio Delgado (D-NY) — New York’s 19th Congressional District

Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-NY) — New York’s 22nd Congressional District

OKLAHOMA:

Rep. Kendra Horn (D-OK) — Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District

PENNSYLVANIA:

Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) — Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District

Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA) — Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District

SOUTH CAROLINA:

Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC) — South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District

UTAH:

Rep. Ben McAdams (D-UT) — Utah’s 4th Congressional District

VIRGINIA:

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) — Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) — Virginia’s 7th Congressional District

WISCONSIN:

Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) — Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District

Given the fact that zero Republicans are expected to vote for articles of impeachment against Trump in the House of Representatives, and no Republicans are expected to vote for conviction in a Senate trial that House passage of impeachment would force, the move by House Democrat leaders remains hopelessly partisan and destined to fail. In the U.S. Senate, Democrats would need to flip at least 20 Republican senators—they currently have zero and there is no indication any Republicans would join them—assuming they hold all 47 Democrats in the Senate conference together, which is not a foregone conclusion by any stretch as Breitbart News has reported that several Senate Democrats are not yet on board with voting to convict Trump.

That’s why the possibility of a censure vote instead of articles of impeachment is particularly appealing to many of these vulnerable Democrats. What’s even more interesting about that possibility that Politico reported is that while most of the names of members they put forward as involved in seeking the alternative to impeachment—Gottheimer, Brindisi, and McAdams—are from districts that Trump won, Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR) represents a district that failed 2016 Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton won in 2016. Rated even by the Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index, Schrader’s 5th Congressional District in Oregon is one of many battleground House seats currently represented by Democrats outside of that core 31 districts that Trump won in 2016. That second rung of approximately 20 or so more Democrat seats also appears uneasy with moving forward on articles of impeachment, which could complicate things even more for Democrat leaders as they rush to try to impeach Trump before Christmas.



Schrader publicly spoke out in favor of the alternative to impeachment using censure instead, too, telling Politico he thinks it might actually be bipartisan.

“I think it’s certainly appropriate and might be a little more bipartisan, who knows,” Schrader said of a censure resolution instead of impeachment. “Time’s slipping by.”

Since Van Drew and Peterson are likely to still oppose impeachment when the final vote comes to the floor, and former Republican Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI)–who left the GOP to become an independent over impeachment–is likely to vote for impeachment, Democrats only afford to lose 17 more Democrats and still be able to pass the articles of impeachment. With four vacancies, legislation can pass the House–with all members present and voting–with 216 votes. That means if 17 of the remaining 29 Trump district Democrats join Van Drew and Peterson–or other vulnerable Democrats from Clinton-won districts like Schrader join enough of the Trump-won district Democrats to total 17 more defections–then Democrats could fail on impeachment on the floor of the House.

[soonernvolved]

www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/michael-horowitz-found-intense-bias-against-trump-in-the-fbi-he-just-refused-to-call-it-that

Michael Horowitz found intense bias against Trump in the FBI. He just refused to call it that
by Eddie Scarry
| December 10, 2019 02:30 PM

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It’s laughable for Inspector General Michael Horowitz to assert in his report that he found no political bias in the FBI’s spying of President Trump’s 2016 campaign. Of course he did. He simply refused to call it by its name.

Most of the national media are framing the report released this week as a disappointment for Trump because he and his supporters had expected it to blow the lid off pervasive misconduct and animus in the FBI toward the president. But the thing is, it more or less does that, even if it doesn’t offer the colorful language journalists need in order to see it for themselves.

Horowitz inexplicably stated early in his report that his office “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI’s decision” to begin surveilling Trump campaign associate Carter Page back in 2016.

Yet, just three pages later, the report says that Horowitz’s investigation found seven times where FBI agents relied on “inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported” information in order to continually seek reauthorization for the surveillance of Page and others in the campaign.

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News coverage has framed this as a matter of paperwork errors or laziness that plagued an otherwise normal and above-board process. But that’s not the case. The report makes very clear that agents who were working on this investigation were overlooking inconvenient details and even withholding important information from the FISA court, which authorizes the spying, in order to continue justifying the project.

In one instance, Horowitz notes that the FBI’s original theory (since debunked) that Carter Page was a Russian agent was complicated by his denials to intelligence sources of having met with a pair of Russian oligarchs, whom the FBI believed had in fact been in touch with Page. When the FBI wanted re-authorization to continue spying on Page, it concealed Page’s denials from the court.

When relying on information provided by Christopher Steele, the former British spy and author of the Steele dossier, to seek surveillance reauthorization, the FBI told the FISA court that Steele’s reporting was “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings.” As Horowitz writes, this characterization was misleading. The FBI “overstated the significance of Steele’s past reporting” and that the intelligence provided by Steele had not even been approved for use in the re-authorization application by the agent who supervised him.

Does any of this sound like a textbook investigation that may have only suffered a few clerical errors? No, it sounds a lot like a sham operation conducted by agents who deliberately cooked the books in order to continue an unwarranted probe of a major, if unlikely, presidential candidate.

Horowitz’s ridiculous declaration that there was no “political bias or improper motivation” in the FBI’s spying on the Trump campaign is simply not true, and anyone who actually reads his report knows it.

[soonernvolved]

amgreatness.com/2019/12/08/the-legacy-of-low-bar-impeachment/

The Legacy of Low-Bar Impeachment
From now on, impeachment can be used against any first-term president with a record of success. It will be used solely as a political strategy by the opposition party that controls the House to weaken a president’s reelection chances. That’s the Democratic Party’s legacy and Democrats will live to rue it.



Victor Davis Hanson - December 8th, 2019
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Since the embarrassing impeachment and failed conviction of President Andrew Johnson in 1868, Americans more or less had avoided that ultimate constitutional method of removing a chief executive from power. The Johnson impeachment had been so steeped in personal hatred, political rivalry, and post-war agendas that the failure by one vote in the Senate to remove the impeached Johnson more or less discredited the process for a century.

The 1974 Watergate impeachment inquiry saga was framed in opposition to the way Johnson had been impeached, inasmuch as anyone still remembered the particulars of that long-ago fiasco. That is, a special prosecutor, first Archibald Cox and then Leon Jaworski, was appointed to investigate the break-in and the so-called Watergate cover-up.


Democratic moderates like Representative Peter Rodino (D-N.J.) and Senator Sam Ervin (D-N.C.) gave the impeachment inquiries a patina of bipartisanship, both giving time for the targeted president’s defenders to produce witnesses and conduct cross-examinations. Neither released the phone records of their political counterparts on their respective committees. By the time a now-unpopular Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974 to avoid impeachment by an impending overwhelming vote, he had lost public support and gained bipartisan congressional opposition.

Bill Clinton, unlike Nixon, but like Johnson, was both impeached and acquitted in the Senate. Like Nixon, he had easily won a prior reelection (1996). But, unlike Nixon, Clinton was still reigning over a booming economy and enjoyed relatively high popularity—at least on poll questions other than character and morality. Independent counsel Ken Starr, like Leon Jaworski, found Clinton likely to have committed felonious acts. Indeed, he was impeached on grounds of obstructing justice and perjury by the full House on a mostly partisan vote, which nonetheless saw a handful of both Democrats and Republicans respectively cross party lines.

Prior to the December 1998 impeachment, the Republicans had lost congressional seats the month before in the November election—seen at the time as an ominous warning from the country not to impeach Clinton for lying (largely about adultery) at a time of economic vibrancy. The Republican-controlled Senate did not even get 51 votes on either count of perjury or obstruction, given that sizable numbers of Republicans (respectively five and then 10) voted for acquittal on the two counts.


but today I'm gonna do
one minute of burpees.
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After these two modern impeachment efforts, certain impeachment lessons have emerged, given that still no president in the history of the United States has ever been impeached, convicted and removed from office.

Criminalization of Policy. The alleged crimes to launch impeachment must not be criminalization of normal presidential behavior. To impeach Trump for quid pro quo “bribery” and obstruction of justice, Trump must have done something far more egregious than what other presidents have done.

If Trump thought about permanently holding lethal aid to Ukraine in exchange for the Ukrainians pressuring their prosecutors to look into the 2016 election and Biden corruption, there must be some standard that such thoughts of leveraging aid for political gain are singularly impeachable.


That would mean, for example, Barack Obama did not alter U.S. foreign policy to America’s detriment by canceling plans of missile defenses with the Eastern Europeans, in exchange for Vladimir Putin not to flex his muscles during the Obama reelection campaign and thereby discredit Obama’s reset policy with Russia—all to his personal gain in the 2012 election. But that is exactly what happened: Putin put off invading former Russian states until after Obama was reelected, and Obama canceled missile defense.

Likewise, Vice President Joe Biden, acting as the president’s personal emissary for Ukraine, bragged on tape that he had threatened to cut off even non-lethal aid unless the Ukrainians fired prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who later testified in a court affidavit that he was at the time looking into wrongdoing by Bursima and Hunter Biden’s role while on its board. Shokin in Biden’s own words was fired, and only then was aid restored.

Rule I. Impeachment is not credible when it involves criminalizing a president for thinking about doing what other presidents have routinely done. A president should be specifically impeached on the basis of evidence that shows he committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” or “treason” or “bribery.”

Bipartisanship. Nixon was finally facing certain bipartisan impeachment because by summer 1974 Republicans were worried about the upcoming fall midterm elections, the tanking economy, and Nixon’s toxic tailcoats, and thus began to abandon him. In contrast, Clinton was impeached largely on a partisan vote, although five House Democrats joined Republicans.

Yet in both impeachment inquiries, there was no rush, no denial of equal access to cross-examinations and witnesses. The result being that the process was deliberate, slow, and broadly considered fair.

Rule II. Impeachment and conviction, to be credible, require bipartisanship and careful step-by-step deliberation. In 1998-1999, the Republicans found some bipartisan help in the House but hemorrhaged more Republican votes in the Senate while failing to pick up a single Democratic Senate vote. It is likely that not one Republican House member will vote for impeachment and not a single Republican senator for conviction, but at the same time likely that a handful of Democratic representatives will join Republicans in the House.


The Economy Matters. For all the talk of high crimes and misdemeanors, determining what those are is largely a political matter.

Clinton clearly both lied under oath, obstructed justice, and suborned perjury, but he did so at a time of his perceived good leadership on the economy and in a tawdry matter of adultery with a subordinate. Had the economy gone into recession in 1998, as it did in 1973, or were Americans lined up for scarce gas, the vote might have been far closer to convict.

Alternatively, the crashing economy and oil crisis helped to seal Nixon’s fate, along with the hard evidence of the White House tapes, which in addition to evidence that he seemed to know of the cover-up of the petty burglary, caught Nixon using vulgar and uncouth expletives.

Rule III. It is hard to remove a president even for perjury and obstruction of justice during boom times. The public believes it is counterproductive to try. The current Democrats, nonetheless, since acquiring control of the House, are oblivious to the growing economy and feel as the Republicans did in 1998, that the mere idea of impeaching a president will over time change the polls. It did not then and will not this time around. They will likely pay the same price of hemorrhaging seats as the Republicans did in both the congressional elections of 1998 and 2000.

Special counsels. Leon Jaworski and Ken Starr respectively wrote lengthy detailed (though much different) special prosecutor reports that demonstrated likely felonious activity on the part of Nixon and Clinton. Although criticized, their findings nonetheless mitigated the charges of partisanship of the impeachment efforts and help explain why the Democrats in 1973 and the Republicans in 1998-1999 felt they had evidentiary support for pressing ahead for a House vote.

Without the Starr report, Clinton might not have been impeached; Nixon might have survived had not Jaworski and his team compiled such a damning “Road Map” presentation before a grand jury.


Rule IV. Some sort of special prosecutor’s report is needed for impeachment. The Democrats do not have one. And worse, they have already sought to use special counsel Robert Mueller as a pathway to impeachment. Yet the charge of “collusion” was found to be nonexistent and the second writ of “obstruction” was found not actionable in the Mueller report. The only thing worse than not having a special counsel brief is having a prior exonerating special counsel’s brief.

Public Support for Impeachment? We forget the reason Nixon successfully fought impeachment throughout 1973 was that he still maintained public support. When he was sworn in January 1973, amid early reports and rumors of the Watergate break-in, Nixon’s positives were an astounding 67 percent. Even six months later under a constant negative media blitz, he maintained 45 percent approval.

What brought Nixon down into the low 30s and 20s, and thus made him impeachable, was a series of stock dips, the oil crisis, rising inflation, and slowing GDP—along with media bombshells about Watergate leaks. In contrast, Clintons’ dips were temporary, and each time a new “bombshell” went off, the public looked at strong growth, a solid stock market, and low employment and shrugged it off. Clinton gradually restored, and then gained, popularity.

Rule V. Majority public support is needed for impeachment. The Democrats currently lack it. And they are likely not to obtain it if the economy holds and they can find no sensational new witnesses or evidence.

Second-term presidents. Nixon and Clinton had just won landslide victories in the electoral college. Both were midway through their second terms when the scandals became daily media fare.

While there were all sorts of political considerations at stake in the upcoming midterm and general elections of 1974, 1976 and 1998, and again in 2000, these elections did not involve the targets of impeachment, given neither Nixon or Clinton could run again.

Rule VI. Impeachment should not become a substitute for a looming election. The opponents of Nixon and Clinton had two powerful arguments for impeachment. First, there was no other chance of removal, given neither president was up for reelection. And, second, none of the elected officials of the House or Senate, who would be shortly voting on the presidents’ fate, would themselves be running against the president in the next election. In Trump’s case, he will be facing the voters in less than a year who can make up their own minds. More importantly, a number of Democratic senators are running for president and thus will be voting whether to convict the likely Republican incumbent nominee for president—to their obvious self-interest.

Criminal First, Crimes Later? At first, Nixon haters in Congress tried to bring all sorts of charges of misconduct to the impeachment inquiries, from going after Nixon’s tax returns, his impoundment of federal funds, and supposed bias in antitrust suits. All failed to gain enough votes to be included in the general writs. In Clinton’s case, the events surrounding Monica Lewinsky were pruned from earlier charges of scandals involving Whitewater, Travelgate, etc.

Rule VII. Impeachment should focus on one area of alleged criminality. In the Democrats’ case, Ukraine is merely one element of a three-year effort to get Trump, dating back to his election. That some Democrats are now seeking to resurrect the Mueller report to find additional ammunition is a commentary of the serial poverty of their entire impeachment effort.

Nemesis on the Horizon
The result of this low-bar impeachment?

From now on, impeachment can be used against any first-term president with a record of success. It will be used solely as a political strategy by the opposition party that controls the House to weaken a president’s reelection chances—possibly in the interest of some of the very House, or Senate, members who as presidential candidates will sit in judgment of the accused president.

There need be no special prosecutor’s report of wrongdoing, no hard evidence, no first-hand witnesses of illegality. The entire rushed process will take days, not months in order to stain the president with being impeached. The impeaching party need not worry about the absence either of public or bipartisan congressional support. The impeaching party, as Hamilton feared, will always be in the majority in the House and can rig quick hearings to preclude reciprocal rights of calling witnesses and cross-examination.

That’s the Democratic legacy and Democrats will live to rue it.

A final note: According to the above new standards, Barack Obama easily could have been impeached any time after Republican control of the House in January 2011, both in his first and second terms—for obstructing the “Fast and Furious” investigation; for endangering the security of the United States by canceling vital missile defense in Eastern Europe in quid pro quo fashion for a commitment from Putin to keep calm during Obama’s own reelection bid; for sending Joe Biden to Ukraine to threaten to cancel non-military aid to Ukraine if it did not fire a prosecutor who was getting too close to Hunter Biden’s nefarious activities.

Congress could have impeached Obama for hiding the exact terms of the Iran Deal (which he refused to submit to the Senate for treaty ratification), specifically a quid pro quo, nocturnal cash ransom for hostages; for unconstitutionally suspending immigration law and giving amnesties by fiat without congressional approval to millions of illegal aliens; for weaponizing the IRS to use its powers during the 2011-2012 election cycle to deny viability to conservative nonprofit political organizations and to aid Obama’s own reelection effort; for surveilling Associated Press reporters on rumors they were recipients of leaked materials; for his administration’s unmasking of names of surveilled Americans that were then leaked to the press; and for allowing the top officials of the CIA, FBI, and the Justice Department to surveil an opposition party’s presidential candidate’s campaign, based on the unverified and purchased opposition research of his own party’s nominee.

None of these Obama scandals warranted impeachment by the old standards. All of them certainly could have under the new ones.


Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is an American military historian, columnist, former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He was a professor of classics at California...

[soonernvolved]

House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) announced on Tuesday evening that his committee will begin markup of articles of impeachment against President Trump on Wednesday evening at 7 PM ET and will conclude on Thursday evening.

[soonernvolved]

dailycaller.com/2019/12/10/lisa-page-suing-doj-fbi-text-messages/

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page is suing the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI for releasing text messages between herself and former deputy assistant director Peter Strzok, with whom she was having an affair.

Both Page and Strzok exhibited anti-Trump bias in the released text messages. President Donald Trump argued that the agents’ biases played a role in the bureau investigating members of his presidential campaign.


“I sued the Department of Justice and FBI today. I take little joy in having done so,” Page tweeted Tuesday. “But what they did in leaking my messages to the press was not only wrong, it was illegal.” (RELATED: Lisa Page Bemoans Trump’s Attacks In Interview That Never Mentions Texts With Strzok)

I sued the Department of Justice and FBI today.

I take little joy in having done so. But what they did in leaking my messages to the press was not only wrong, it was illegal.https://t.co/ecR58rmxlB

— Lisa Page (@natseclisa) December 10, 2019

The thousands of text messages released by the DOJ were sent on agency-issued phones. They were released as part of a 90-page document.

Page’s lawsuit accuses the DOJ bringing “reporters to the Department to review the messages at night, prohibiting the reporters from copying or removing the set of messages from the building, and instructing them not to reveal DOJ as the source.”

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“This clandestine approach is inconsistent with the disclosure of agency records for transparency purposes or to advance the public interest,” according to the lawsuit.

Since the text messages were released, Trump has criticized Page over the text messages. The texts between Strzok and Page included talk of the president. In one, Page asked for reassurance from Strzok that Trump is “not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”

Strzok replied saying that Trump would not be president, and that they would “stop it.”

[soonernvolved]

www.dailywire.com/news/barr-no-collusion-investigation-completely-baseless-obama-talked-to-the-bad-guys-about-election-interference

Attorney General William Barr hammered the Obama administration and the FBI on Tuesday in an interview with NBC News about Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI’s misconduct in surveilling the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

During the interview with NBC News’ Pete Williams, Barr specifically called out Obama administration officials, including Obama, for the way that they approached Russian meddling in the 2016 election and noted that the basis for the FBI opening the investigation into the Trump campaign was “completely baseless.”

Williams asked Barr why he said that the FBI opened the investigation of the Trump campaign on the thinnest of suspicions.


“Well, I’m glad to get into the issue of predication, but let me just start out by saying that I think you have to put this in context. I think the heart of the IG’s report really focused on how the investigation was conducted once it got going,” Barr responded. “And that is especially the very serious abuses of FISA that occurred, much of which has been in my view not accurately reported by the press over the last day. But in one area I do disagree with the IG and that was whether there was sufficient predication to open a full-blown counterintelligence investigation, specifically, using the techniques that they did to collect intelligence about the Trump campaign.”

Continuing to speak on why the government should not open an investigation on a “thin pretext,” Barr noted that “from a civil liberties standpoint, the greatest danger to our free system is that the incumbent government use the apparatus of the state, principally, the law enforcement agencies and the intelligence agencies, both to spy on political opponents, but also to use them in a way that could affect the outcome of the election.”

“As far as I’m aware, this is the first time in history that this has been done to a presidential campaign, the use of these counterintelligence techniques against a presidential campaign,” Barr continued. “And we have to remember, in today’s world, presidential campaigns are frequently in contact with foreign persons and indeed, in most campaigns, there are signs of illegal foreign money coming in and we don’t automatically assume that the campaigns are nefarious and traitors and acting with foreign powers. There has to be some basis before we use these very potent powers in our core First Amendment activity.”

Barr noted that the entire basis for the investigation into the Trump campaign was insufficient and baseless and that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.


“And here, I felt this was very flimsy. Basically, I think the department has a rule of reason which is at the end of the day, is what you’re relying on sufficiently powerful to justify the techniques you’re using? And the question there is, how strong is the evidence? How sensitive is the activity you’re looking at? And what are the alternatives?” Barr said. “And I think when you step back here and say, ‘what was this all based on?’ It’s not sufficient. Remember, there was and never has been any evidence of collusion and yet this campaign and the president’s administration has been dominated by this investigation into what turns out to be completely baseless.”

Barr then addressed the way that the investigation was opened, which happened when an Australian Diplomat with ties to the Clintons told U.S. officials about a conversation that he had with Trump campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos at a bar.

“This is George Papadopoulos, and this was described by the foreign officials who heard him as — who couldn’t remember exactly what was said — but it was characterized as a suggestion of a suggestion,” Barr said. “He suggested that there has been a suggestion from the Russians that they had some adverse information to Hillary, which they might dump in the campaign.”

“But what was going on in May? You may recall that we were in the thick of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s secret server and the media was full of stories and the blogosphere was full of stories and political circles in Washington were full of stories and speculation that the Russians had, in 2014, two years before, hacked into her secret server and were, therefore, in a position to drop this stuff during the election,” Barr continued. “In fact, the day before this comment was made, in a bar, Fox News was reporting that their sources told them there was a debate going on in the Russian government as to whether or not to drop this Hillary Clinton emails between the intelligence agency and the foreign ministry, but that related to Hillary’s server.”

Barr then noted that the Obama administration, including Obama himself, did not approach the situation correctly because they did not inform the Trump campaign what was going on and instead went and spoke directly to the Russians, who Barr said were clearly the bad guys in the whole ordeal.

“So the FBI, what the FBI did is, later, after the DNC hack and the dumping through Wikileaks in July, they get information that this somewhat vague statement was made in a bar. And they jumped right into a full-scale investigation before they even went and talked to the foreign officials about exactly what was said,” Barr said. “They opened an investigation of the campaign and they used very intrusive techniques. They didn’t do what normally would be done under those circumstances, which is to go to the campaign, and certainly, there were people in the campaign that could be trusted including a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Governor of New Jersey, and a former U.S. Attorney.”

“There were people to talk to. And what I find particularly inexplicable is that they talked to the Russians, but not to the presidential campaign. On August 4th, Brennan braced the head of Russian intelligence — he calls the head of Russian intelligence and says we know what you’re up to, you better stop it. He did it again later in August,” Barr continued. “And then President Obama talked to president Putin in September and said, ‘we know what you’re up to, you better cut it out.’ So, they go and confront the Russians, who clearly are the bad guys, and they won’t go and talk to the campaign and say ‘what is this about?’”

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/10/pelosi-rushing-impeachment-vote-to-keep-wavering-democrats-in-line-before-christmas-recess/

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is rushing the impeachment vote to the floor of the House before the Christmas recess to keep wavering Democrats in key battleground districts away from their constituents, the majority of whom are potentially uncomfortable with impeaching the president.

“House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump over his contacts with Ukraine: Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress,” Breitbart News Network reported.




The House Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on these articles this week, setting up an up or down floor vote on both articles of impeachment in the full House before next Friday, December 20, the Washington Examiner reported

The Democrats will need to secure 216 “yes votes” to reach the majority they need to impeach the president and send the matter to the Senate for a trial, since there are currently 431 members of the House of Representatives, with four vacancies that will not be filled for several months.

The current party breakdown is 233 Democrats, 197 Republicans and one Independent. Thirty-one Democrats represent districts that Donald Trump won in 2016. They are all considered politically vulnerable in 2020 if they vote “yes” on the articles of impeachment.

All 197 Republicans are expected to vote “no” if, as is expected, the full House votes on the question of impeachment before the Christmas recess.



At present, only two Democrats have expressed that they are leaning against a vote to impeach the president: Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) and Rep. Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ). Both are among the 31 Democrats who represent districts President Trump won in 2016.

On Monday, Peterson told CNN’s Manu Raju, “I’m certainly leaning that way….I just think it will be too divisive for the country – it doesn’t accomplish anything.”

Rep. Collin Peterson, who was one of two Ds to vote against formalizing the impeachment procedures, told me this when asked if he’d vote against all articles: “I’m certainly leaning that way….I just think it will be too divisive for the country – it doesn’t accomplish anything”

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 10, 2019

On Tuesday, Politico reported:

A small group of vulnerable House Democrats is floating the longshot idea of censuring President Donald Trump instead of impeaching him, according to multiple lawmakers familiar with the conversations.

Those Democrats, all representing districts that Trump won in 2016, huddled on Monday afternoon in an 11th-hour bid to weigh additional — though unlikely — options to punish the president for his role in the Ukraine scandal as the House speeds toward an impeachment vote next week.

The group of about 10 Trump-district lawmakers included Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.), and Ben McAdams (D-Utah.).

“I think it’s certainly appropriate and might be a little more bipartisan, who knows,” Schrader said Tuesday when asked about the possibility of a censure resolution. But he acknowledged: “Time’s slipping by.”

Rep. Schrader is not one of the 31 Democrats who represent districts won by President Trump in 2016, but Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory in his district was very narrow.

Speaker Pelosi has tight control of how every Democrat votes on all important legislation, and she is particularly focused on securing the votes needed to reach the magic number of 216 for a majority.



At present, based on public statements, she can count on 231 Democrats and one Independent, Amash, which would give her 232 votes, 16 more than the 216 needed for a majority.

Even if the ten “censure floating” House Democrats voted against both articles of impeachment, she would still be at 222 votes, which is six more than the 216 she needs.

That thin margin of victory, however, depends on the Democrats towing the party line, something that will be increasingly difficult as time goes on, given the weak and unsupported charges in the articles and the well documented public opposition to impeachment in key battleground states, as several recent polls noted.

All of this suggests that Speaker Pelosi is rushing to hold the impeachment vote on the floor of the House before Congress leaves for its Christmas recess, because there is no guarantee that she would be able to secure the majority 216 votes she needs after her Democratic members return in January.

[soonernvolved]

Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder sent a chilling message in a very public way to U.S. Attorney John Durham–the man investigating abuses by the FBI and Justice Department against President Trump and members of his administration and campaign in the Russia-election investigation–warning Durham he is risking his reputation. Holder wrote an op-ed published Wednesday night by the Washington Post calling current Attorney General William Barr “unfit” to serve as attorney general. The threat to Durham iss buried in the op-ed, but jumps out like a dagger thrust from the dark.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eric-holder-william-barr-is-unfit-to-be-attorney-general/2019/12/11/99882092-1c55-11ea-87f7-f2e91143c60d_story.html

…As a former line prosecutor, U.S. attorney and judge, I found it alarming to hear Barr comment on an ongoing investigation, led by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, into the origins of the Russia probe. And as someone who spent six years in the office Barr now occupies, it was infuriating to watch him publicly undermine an independent inspector general report — based on an exhaustive review of the FBI’s conduct — using partisan talking points bearing no resemblance to the facts his own department has uncovered.

When appropriate and justified, it is the attorney general’s duty to support Justice Department components, ensure their integrity and insulate them from political pressures. His or her ultimate loyalty is not to the president personally, nor even to the executive branch, but to the people — and the Constitution — of the United States.

Career public servants at every level of the Justice Department understand this — as do leaders such as FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Their fidelity to the law and their conduct under pressure are a credit to them and the institutions they serve.

Others, like Durham, are being tested by this moment. I’ve been proud to know John for at least a decade, but I was troubled by his unusual statement disputing the inspector general’s findings. Good reputations are hard-won in the legal profession, but they are fragile; anyone in Durham’s shoes would do well to remember that, in dealing with this administration, many reputations have been irrevocably lost.

This is certainly true of Barr, who was until recently a widely respected lawyer. I and many other Justice veterans were hopeful that he would serve as a responsible steward of the department and a protector of the rule of law.

Holder closes with his statement that Barr is ‘unfit’. His case is totally based on policy differences and his claimed understanding of the nature of the job, which is odd considering Holder once called himself Obama’s “wingman” when he served as his attorney general and called Obama “my boy”: “I’m still the President’s wing-man, so I’m there with my boy.”

Virtually since the moment he took office, though, Barr’s words and actions have been fundamentally inconsistent with his duty to the Constitution. Which is why I now fear that his conduct — running political interference for an increasingly lawless president — will wreak lasting damage.

The American people deserve an attorney general who serves their interests, leads the Justice Department with integrity and can be entrusted to pursue the facts and the law, even — and especially — when they are politically inconvenient and inconsistent with the personal interests of the president who appointed him. William Barr has proved he is incapable of serving as such an attorney general. He is unfit to lead the Justice Department.

[soonernvolved]

From the same Congressman who said Guam would tip over: