James Comey

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/01/23/schumer-odds-are-against-having-witnesses-in-impeachment-trial/

During an interview with MSNBC during their Senate impeachment trial coverage on Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stated that the Senate not getting witnesses during its impeachment trial is more likely than them getting witnesses.

Schumer stated, “[H]ow it will have to happen is not one person doing it, but a couple of them, when they talk privately say, maybe we should do it and get a group together of five or six or seven, and they do it together. Is that certain to happen? Not at all. Is it more [likely] than not? I’d have to say no. It is not more [likely] than not. But do we have a chance, and if we keep fighting as hard as we’ve been fighting, might those chances improve? Yes.”

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/24/pollak-senate-has-already-heard-3-days-of-witnesses-and-documents-in-impeachment-trial/

Democrats continue to argue that the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump requires further witnesses and documents. What kind of trial does not include witnesses and documents? they ask.

But the Senate has just heard witnesses and seen documents for nearly 30 hours over three days — including during a marathon opening session that was supposed to debate procedural motions, not to explore the substance of the charges against the president.



House impeachment managers have used clips from witness testimony in the public hearings that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) conducted in the House Intelligence Committee. Senators have been forced to sit silently as Schiff and his team have played endless video “evidence” — some of it deceptively edited to distort the witnesses’ testimony.

Breitbart TV



Play Video
CLICK TO PLAY

Brown: Senate Impeachment Will Be a 'Sham Trial' Without Witnesses

Most of the testimony would be excluded from an ordinary trial as hearsay evidence. But Senators have seen and heard it.

Not one of the witnesses was cross-examined in the House by the president’s lawyers, because Democrats broke with precedent and did not allow White House counsel to participate in the fact-finding phase of the investigation.

Nor did Schiff or House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) let Republicans call any new witnesses.

Now they want the Senate to allow them to do what Democrats refused to allow Republicans to do in the House.

Moreover, for all the talk of bringing in new witnesses like acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Senators have already heard from Mulvaney, because House impeachment managers have played video from the press conference in which he discussed Ukraine.

And as for documents, Democrats have repeatedly shown or described documents to the Senate that were never discussed or debated during the House Intelligence Committee inquiry.

The most striking of these documents are the phone records that Schiff obtained on Ranking Member Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), journalist John Solomon, presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and former Giuliani associate Lev Parnas. Schiff only revealed these phone records in the House Intelligence Committee impeachment report.

House impeachment managers have made all kinds of accusations based on these records, though their accuracy is in doubt.

Worse, the records were likely obtained unlawfully, and arguably violate the president’s constitutional rights. No ordinary criminal court would ever admit them as evidence. Yet Senators have heard about them for three days.

So for all the talk of “witnesses” and “documents,” Democrats have already had plenty. Republicans and the White House have had none.



The defense does not need to call witnesses — not when prosecutors fail to prove their case.

But if Democrats get their wish — and they might — to call new witnesses, such as former National Security Advisor John Bolton, then the White House will call witnesses of its own.

It is not clear what value Bolton would provide to a case that House Democrats already say is “overwhelming.”

And after an inevitable court battle over executive privilege, one that would drag the trial out for weeks, Bolton might not be able to say much to the Senate anyway.

But the Senate would be able to compel the testimony of former vice president Joe Biden about what he has already admitted “looked bad” — namely, that the son earned a mint from Burisma while the father ran U.S. Ukraine policy.

And the White House would invoke the president’s Sixth Amendment right to cross-examine his accuser — the elusive “whistleblower,” whom Democrats hid.

Arguably, the public has a right to know who started this, and why.

[soonernvolved]

Nadler needs a history lesson, unless he is willfully lying, (again) :

www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/23/fact-check-jerry-nadler-forgets-george-mason-proposal-was-defeated/

CLAIM: The Framers of the Constitution, including George Mason, intended impeachment to be used for “all manner of great and dangerous offenses.”

VERDICT: FALSE. The Framers rejected Mason’s proposal.
George Mason was one of the great Founders. He opposed slavery, and argued that the power the Constitution gave to the federal government would be too great. It is largely to him that we owe the creation of the Bill of Rights.

Breitbart TV



Play Video
CLICK TO PLAY

White House Counsel Nukes Jerry Nadler: ‘This Is the United States Senate. You’re Not in Charge Here.’


But Mason’s proposal to include a broad impeachment power in the Constitution was rejected. Mason argued that a president ought to be impeached for “maladministration.” James Madison disagreed, declaring: “So vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate.” Ultimately, “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” was adopted.



In day two of opening arguments in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on Thursday, Nadler did not quote that crucial part of the Framers’ debate — even though he did later quote a debate between Mason and Madison over the pardon power. Instead, he quoted Mason selectively, and without addressing the “maladministration” issue.

More broadly, Nadler — who argued against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998, especially one on a narrow partisan basis, because it would overturn the people’s vote — told the Senate that the Framers designed the impeachment power because they were afraid of creating a president who would behave like a king.

The Framers were also afraid — perhaps more afraid — of creating a legislature that abused its power, as Parliament had done in applying “taxation without representation” to the Colonies.

As Breitbart News noted last year, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Madison in 1789: “The executive, in our government is not the sole, it is scarcely the principal, object of my jealousy. The tyranny of the legislature is the most formidable dread and will be for many years.”

[soonernvolved]

dailycaller.com/2020/01/24/jerry-nadler-fentanyl-impeachment-trial/

Republican Oregon Rep. Greg Walden believes House Democrats’ “obsession” with impeaching President Donald Trump is distracting them from passing a temporary ban on fentanyl substances.

Democratic New York Rep. Jerry Nadler is holding up legislation preventing the distribution of a substance health officials say is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, Walden said in a statement Friday to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Oregon Republican said time is of the essence on this matter.


“Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee’s partisan obsession with impeachment is preventing us from taking common-sense action to extend a critical tool for law enforcement to combat the trafficking of fentanyl-related substances,” Walden said.

He added: “The Senate has passed an extension, but the House has yet to act. The House leadership needs to put the Senate bill on the floor next week so this critical authority does not lapse.”

Nadler spokesman Daniel Schwarz told the DCNF that Nadler is aware of the legislation.

Fentanyl. Shutterstock
Fentanyl. Shutterstock

The Drug Enforcement Administration invoked a ban on all fentanyl analogues in February 2018, but the ban expires Feb. 6. The Justice Department is pressuring Congress to enact a law allowing the DEA to ban the substances indefinitely, the Washington Post noted in a Jan. 5 editorial.


Primis Player Placeholder


A bipartisan group of senators passed the “Temporary Reauthorization and Study of the Emergency Scheduling of Fentanyl Analogues Act” on Jan. 16. The House of Representatives, meanwhile, voted on Jan. 15 to send the articles of impeachment against Trump to the Senate. Nadler was selected as one of the House’s impeachment managers.

“I believe we are having a hearing on it early next week (Tuesday morning), which is needed before we can vote on anything,” Schwarz said, adding, “Not sure what the complaint is.”

Walden is not the only Republican who is criticizing the New York Democrat.

“While Chairman Nadler wastes taxpayer time on a partisan impeachment sham, he is failing to do his actual job on the Judiciary Committee,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wrote in a Jan. 22 tweet. “The Senate has unanimously (!) passed a ban on fentanyl. The same legislation languishes on Nadler’s desk.”


While Chairman Nadler wastes taxpayer time on a partisan impeachment sham, he is failing to do his actual job on the Judiciary Committee.

The Senate has unanimously (!) passed a ban on fentanyl. The same legislation languishes on Nadler’s desk.https://t.co/J40et86pRT

— Kevin McCarthy (@gopleader) January 22, 2020

Walden is the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which handles opioids. (RELATED: DOE’s Los Alamos Facility Lost Track Of Enough Fentanyl To Kill More Than 1,750 People, Report Shows)

Fentanyl was found in more than 50% of 5,000 opioid overdose deaths in 10 states in 2016. A dose of 2 milligrams of fentanyl can kill a previously unexposed adult, meaning the loss or misuse of 3.5 grams of the substance due to an inventory error can potentially cause 1,750 deaths, federal research shows.

U.S. officials say the bulk of the drug is pouring into the country through China and parts of South America. Media reports show Trump is considering an executive order to halt shipments of fentanyl, a move designed to apply pressure to China as the U.S. continues fighting the opioid crisis. Meanwhile, the problem continues apace.

[soonernvolved]

www.dailywire.com/news/impeachment-swing-vote-murkowski-deals-blow-to-democrats-witness-demands

Impeachment ‘Swing Vote’ Murkowski Deals Blow To Democrats’ Witness Demands

The demands of the Democratic impeachment managers appear to be falling flat with some key potential “swing votes” on the other side of the aisle.


One of the Republican moderates Democrats are hoping will be among the four Republican defectors they need to force the subpoenaing of additional witnesses is Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. But the senator’s comments after three days of the trial suggest she is not going to cave to Democrats’ attempts to force former national security adviser John Bolton and others to testify.

After House Democrats decided not to issue subpoenas to Bolton and other Trump administration officials protected from testifying by executive privilege, citing the supposed “urgency” of the situation, Democratic impeachment managers are now demanding the Republican-majority Senate do so. The move could end up drawing out the impeachment for weeks, or even months, as Republicans are warning.

In comments reported by The Hill Friday, and highlighted by Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey, Murkowski pushed back on Democrats’ demand that Bolton testify, arguing, in effect, that the Democrats have the process backwards.

“It’s kind of like the House made a decision that they didn’t want to slow things down by having to go through the courts,” said the senator. “And yet now they’re basically saying you guys need to go through the courts. We didn’t but we need you to. That’s kind of where we are.”


The Hill quotes a few other Republicans who likewise scoffed at the Democrats’ demands, including Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R), who told the outlet, “Do we want to elongate this thing even further? I don’t believe we should.”

As Morrissey noted, Murkowski is one of several Senate Republicans who has expressed anger over the antics of the Democratic impeachment managers, particularly House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who has accused them of a “cover up.”


In a podcast Wednesday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz made a similar argument to Murkowski about the Democrats suddenly reversing on the subpoenaing witnesses they now say are crucial in making the case. The reversal, said Cruz on “Verdict with Ted Crush,” is evidence that the Democrats are just “playing games.”

“House Democrats said, ‘We want John Bolton to testify,'” Cruz explained to co-host Michael Knowles, host of The Daily Wire’s “The Michael Knowles Show” (video below). “And John Bolton did something very interesting and, I think, very clever. John Bolton’s lawyer went to a federal court in D.C. and filed a pleading that said, ‘Judge, my client has two conflicting obligations: House Democrats have asked him to testify, but the White House has exerted executive privilege that said he can’t testify.’ And his lawyer said, ‘My client doesn’t know what to do. So, Your Honor, he’ll do whatever you tell him to do. We put ourselves at the mercy of the court. You, judge, tell John Bolton what he should do.’”


“The next step is remarkable,” Cruz continued. “You know what the House Democrats did? They said never mind. … And then they get to the Senate and the first thing they want to do is subpoena John Bolton. They literally passed on it in the House.”

[soonernvolved]

www.dailywire.com/news/watch-jim-jordan-eviscerates-adam-schiffs-credibility-in-under-a-minute

It’s taken months for Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to try to convince the American people that President Donald Trump is a threat to the nation and should be removed from office. It took Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) less than a minute to utterly destroy Schiff’s own credibility on anything anti-Trump.


Jordan spoke to reporters on Wednesday during a break in the senate impeachment trial against Trump, listing a number of things Schiff has declared with certainty that turned out to be false:

We’re supposed to believe Adam Schiff today and everything he’s saying? This is the guy who said, ‘We have more than circumstantial evidence that there was coordination between Trump and Russia, and Russia influenced the election.’ That turned out to be false. Adam Schiff said that the Nunes was false. Michael Horowitz told us no it wasn’t; it was exactly right. Adam Schiff said you can trust the FISA court. Michael Horowitz told us last month that no, you can’t; they lied to the FISA court 17 times. Adam Schiff told us we look forward to hearing from the whistleblower. Adam Schiff said we’ve had no contact with the whistleblower.

Then just yesterday, the story where he misrepresents to all of you to Chairman [Jerry] Nadler and most importantly to the White House counsel that Mr. Z is Mr. Zelensky, when in fact it was Mr. Zlochevsky. But today we’re supposed to believe him? He just talked for two hours and 15 minutes, and we’re supposed to believe everything he said today, in spite of that history, where seven important things he had exactly wrong? … That’s the kind of game that they’re playing here, and, again, I think that the American people see through it all.

Fox News reporter Gregg Jarrett’s personal website noted that “when actual evidence of wrongdoing is present, it does not take three days of continually repeating the same statements that you have been saying for the last three months.”

Further, the website reminded readers that Schiff once wanted to be a screenwriter, suggesting it seems like he “is viewing himself as Mel Gibson’s Braveheart character,” however, “he actually is Bill Murray’s character in Caddyshack.”


As The Daily Wire’s Josh Hammer recently reported: “The first couple of days [of the impeachment trial] featured mostly procedural dueling as to the governing rules for the impeachment trial. All in all, it has been a fairly somnolent affair. What’s more, there is virtually no chance that the two sides’ partisan arguments could plausibly win over all that many in the way of middle-of-the-road swing voters. Not to be too cynical, but it’s very difficult to see how this whole affair doesn’t amount to a huge waste of time.”

Showcasing how much of a political stunt this whole impeachment gamble is, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts publicly scolded the two sides because their rhetoric.


“It is appropriate at this point for me to admonish both the House managers and the president’s counsel in equal terms to remember that they are addressing the world’s greatest deliberative body. One reason it has earned that title is because its members avoid speaking in a manner, and using language, that is not conducive to civil discourse,” Roberts said.

[soonernvolved]

kstp.com/news/take-her-out-recording-appears-to-capture-president-donald-trump-private-dinner-firing-ukraine-ambassador-/5622085/

A recording reviewed by ABC News appears to capture President Donald Trump telling associates he wanted the then U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired – and speaking at a small gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — two former business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York.

The recording appears to contradict statements by President Trump and support the narrative that has been offered by Parnas during broadcast interviews in recent days. Sources familiar with the recording said the recording was made during an intimate April 30, 2018 dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Trump has said repeatedly he does not know Parnas, a Soviet-born American who has emerged as a wild card in Trump’s impeachment trial, especially in the days since Trump was impeached.

“Get rid of her!” is what the voice that appears to be President Trump’s is heard saying. “Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it.”

On the recording, it appears the two Giuliani associates are telling President Trump that the U.S. ambassador has been bad-mouthing him, which leads directly to the apparent remarks by the President. The recording was made by Fruman according to sources familiar with the tape. The White House did not respond to an ABC News request for comment.


WH responds:

As proof of this, I offer this little flashback to the Obama Administration:

www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/15/flashback-president-barack-obama-fired-all-george-w-bush-appointed-ambassadors-in-2008/

FLASHBACK: President Barack Obama Fired All George W. Bush-Appointed Ambassadors in 2008

Former United States ambassador Marie Yovanovitch testified Friday about her dismay upon being fired by President Donald Trump, but it’s actually quite common for presidents to do so after taking office.

The State Department issued a December 2008 notice to Bush-appointed ambassadors to submit their resignations, effective when President Barack Obama took office in 2009, according to the Washington Post.

voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/12/obama-gives-political-ambassad.html

A State Department official told Agence France Presse at the time that demanding all previously appointed ambassadors resign was routine.

www.newsmax.com/US/ambassador-resignations/2008/12/05/id/326954/

“It’s a normal procedure for ambassadors, career and non-career, to submit their resignations. And what happens is that all of them do,” the official said at the time.

Typically, some career ambassadors are later allowed to stay in place on a case by case basis until they are replaced.

Trump also issued a notice asking all Obama-appointed ambassadors to submit their resignations when he prepared to take office, which created controversy at the time, as it appeared that he would not allow extensions.

Yovanovitch was first appointed by Obama in 2016 and confirmed by the Senate. She was asked by the Trump-run State Department to stay on as an ambassador to Ukraine through 2020, but she was fired in May 2019.\....................................................................................

Translation:

[soonernvolved]

And now, this:

thehill.com/homenews/senate/479779-lindsey-graham-will-oppose-subpoena-of-hunter-biden

According to a report from The Hill, Graham said that if his Republican colleagues introduce a motion to subpoena Joe Biden’s son, he said “I vote against it.”

The Hill report adds, “Graham’s opposition essentially kills the threat that Republicans have wielded in recent weeks that if Democrats win a motion to hear from additional witnesses such as former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, they will retaliate by subpoenaing the Bidens.”

Graham claims that the impeachment trial, which centers around a call about the Bidens, is not the appropriate venue to look into their corruption.

“I don’t want to call Hunter Biden. I don’t want to call Joe Biden. I want someone to look at this when this is done,” he said Friday. “To my Republican friends, you may be upset about what happened in the Ukraine with the Bidens but this is not the venue to litigate that.”

[soonernvolved]

www.foxnews.com/politics/carter-page-fisa-warrant-lacked-probable-cause-declassified-doj-order-finds

Carter Page FISA warrant lacked probable cause, DOJ admits in declassified assessment

At least two of the FBI’s surveillance applications to secretly monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page lacked probable cause, according to a newly declassified summary of a Justice Department assessment released Thursday by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

The DOJ's admission essentially means that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant authorizations to surveil Page, when stripped of the FBI's misinformation, did not meet the necessary legal threshold and should never have been issued. Democrats, including California Rep. Adam Schiff, had previously insisted the Page FISA warrants met "rigorous" standards for probable cause, and mocked Republicans for suggesting otherwise.

The June 2017 Page FISA warrant renewal, which was among the two deemed invalid by the DOJ, was approved by then-Acting FBI Director (and now CNN contributor) Andrew McCabe, as well as former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The April 2017 warrant renewal was approved by then-FBI Director James Comey.

“Today’s unprecedented court filing represents another step on the road to recovery for America’s deeply damaged judicial system," Page said in a statement to Fox News. "I hope that this latest admission of guilt for these civil rights abuses by the Justice Department marks continued progress towards restoring justice and remedying these reputationally ruinous injuries.”

Added Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, who previously chaired the Judiciary Committee: “It’s about time. It’s about time federal authorities entrusted with our most powerful and intrusive surveillance tools begin to own up to their failures and abuses, and take steps to restore public confidence. ... Time will tell if the department will continue working to fix its errors and restore trust that it won’t disregard Americans’ civil liberties. Its admission and cooperation with the FISC is a step in the right direction."

FISC Presiding Judge James Boasberg, in the Jan. 7 order that was published for the first time Thursday, further required the government to explain in a written statement by Jan. 28 the "FBI's handling of information" obtained through the Page warrants and subsequent renewals.

READ THE DECLASSIFIED ORDER

Boasberg specifically noted the DOJ found "there was insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe that Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power" because of the "material misstatements and omissions" in the warrant applications.

Then-FBI acting director Andrew McCabe, now a CNN contributor, approved one of the now-discredited FISA applications. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Then-FBI acting director Andrew McCabe, now a CNN contributor, approved one of the now-discredited FISA applications. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Although the DOJ assessment technically only covered two of the applications to renew the Page FISA warrant, the DOJ "apparently does not take a position on the validity" on the first two Page FISA applications, Boasberg said, seemingly indicating that the DOJ seemingly did not want to defend their legality either.

The government "intends to sequester information acquired pursuant to those" FISA applications "in the same manner as information acquired pursuant to the subsequent dockets," the judge said, possibly indicating that those applications are still under review.

Boasberg noted that it is illegal for the government to intentionally disclose or use "information obtained under color of law by electronic surveillance, knowing or having any reason to know that the information was obtained through electronic surveillance not authorized." A lawful FISA warrant, when approved by the FISC, allows the FBI to surveil not only the target of the warrant, but also individuals who communicate with the target and the target's associates.

It was not clear what information, if any, the FBI gleaned from the Page FISA and then used in subsequent court arguments; any such evidence would likely be ruled inadmissible, given the DOJ's admission that the underlying warrants were invalid.

The revelations Thursday were yet another embarrassment for the FBI, which DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has found made repeated errors and misrepresentations -- and, in one case, deliberately falsified evidence -- before the FISC as the bureau sought to surveil Page in 2016 and 2017.

The FBI's FISA applications to monitor Page heavily relied, Horowitz confirmed, on a now-discredited dossier funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee (DNC), as well as on news reports that secretly relied on the dossier's author.

Much of the Steele dossier has been proved unsubstantiated, including the dossier's claims that the Trump campaign was paying hackers in the United States out of a non-existent Russian consulate in Miami, or that ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen traveled to Prague to conspire with Russians. Special Counsel Robert Mueller also was unable to substantiate the dossier's claims that Page had received a large payment relating to the sale of a share of Rosneft, a Russian oil giant, or that a lurid blackmail tape involving the president existed.

FBI Director Wray breaks with Attorney General Barr over whether the government 'spied' on Trump campaignVideo
Pursuant to Boasberg's order, the government must also sequester relevant information and provide further "explanations" concerning the damning findings of bureau misconduct contained in Horowitz's recent report, as well as "related investigations and any litigation."

FISC ORDERS FBI REVIEW OF PROCEDURES ... BUT LEAVES OUT SPECIAL AGENT PIENTKA, A LITTLE-KNOWN KEY PLAYER IN THE FISA SCANDAL

That could be a reference to a variety of outstanding matters concerning the FBI's apparent mischaracterization of evidence before the FISC.

For example, the FISC has already ordered the bureau to look at all previous FISA applications involving ex-FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, whom Horowitz found to have doctored an email from the CIA. The FBI had reached out to the CIA and other intelligence agencies for information on Page; the CIA responded in an email by telling the FBI that Page had contacts with Russians from 2008 to 2013, but that Page had reported them to the CIA and was serving as a CIA operational contact and informant on Russian business and intelligence interests.

Clinesmith then allegedly doctored the CIA's email about Page to make it seem as though the agency had said only that Page was not an active source. The FBI also included Page's contacts with Russians in the warrant application as evidence he was a foreign "agent," without disclosing to the secret surveillance court that Page was voluntarily working with the CIA concerning those foreign contacts.

"Today’s unprecedented court filing represents another step on the road to recovery for America’s deeply damaged judicial system."

— Former Trump aide Carter Page
Further, Horowitz found specific evidence of oversights and errors by several top FBI employees as they sought to obtain a warrant to surveil Page. In particular, an unidentified FBI supervisory special agent (SSA) mentioned in the IG report was responsible for ensuring that the bureau's "Woods Procedures" were followed in the Page warrant application, but apparently didn't do so.

According to the procedures, factual assertions need to be independently verified, and information contradicting those assertions must be presented to the court. Horowitz found several instances in which the procedures were not followed. Horowitz's report leaves little doubt that the unnamed SSA is Joe Pientka -- a current bureau employee.

Pientka briefly appeared on the FBI's website as an "Assistant Special Agent in Charge" of the San Francisco field office late last year, according to the Internet archive Wayback Machine -- although Pientka no longer appears on any FBI website. Pientka was removed shortly after Fox News identified him as the unnamed SSA in the IG report. Twitter user Techno Fog first flagged the Wayback Machine's archive of the page.

The FBI has repeatedly refused to respond to Fox News' request for clarification on Pientka's status, even as Republicans in Congress have sought to question him.

While the FBI has promised corrective action, it apparently has not gone far enough. Earlier this month, David Kris, who has been appointed by the FISC to oversee the FBI's proposed surveillance reforms, alerted the court that the bureau's proposals are "insufficient" and must be dramatically "expanded" -- even declaring that FBI Director Christopher Wray needs to discuss the importance of accuracy and transparency before the FISC every time he "visits a field office in 2020."

In December 2017, then-FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe testified that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought” from the FISA court “without the Steele dossier information," according to a House GOP memo's findings. McCabe is now a CNN contributor.
In December 2017, then-FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe testified that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought” from the FISA court “without the Steele dossier information," according to a House GOP memo's findings. McCabe is now a CNN contributor.
The unclassified findings were a stark rebuke to Wray, who had filed assurances to the FISC that the agency was implementing new procedures and training programs to assure that the FBI presents accurate and thorough information when it seeks secret warrants from FISC judges. At the same time, Wray acknowledged the FBI's "unacceptable" failures as it pursued FISA warrants to monitor Page.

Kris is a former Obama administration attorney who has previously defended the FISA process on "The Rachel Maddow Show" and in other left-wing venues, making his rebuke of Wray something of an unexpected redemptive moment for Republicans who have long called for more accountability in how the bureau obtains surveillance warrants. ("You can’t make this up!" President Trump tweeted on Sunday. "David Kris, a highly controversial former DOJ official, was just appointed by the FISA Court to oversee reforms to the FBI’s surveillance procedures. Zero credibility. THE SWAMP!”)

WHAT EXACTLY DID KRIS TAKE ISSUE WITH IN THE FBI'S PROPOSED REFORMS?

Wray had specifically promised to change relevant forms to "emphasize the need to err on the side of disclosure" to the FISC, to create a new "checklist" to be completed "during the drafting process" for surveillance warrants that reminds agents to include "relevant information" about the bias of sources used, and to "formalize" the role of FBI lawyers in the legal review process of surveillance warrants.

Additionally, Wray said the FBI would now require "agents and supervisors" to confirm with the DOJ Office of Intelligence that the DOJ has been advised of relevant information. Wray further indicated that the FBI would formalize requirements to "reverify facts presented in prior FISA applications and make any necessary corrections," as well as to make unspecified "technological improvements."

But in a 15-page letter to Judge Boasberg, obtained by Fox News, Kris declared that the proposed corrective actions "do not go far enough to provide the Court with the necessary assurance of accuracy, and therefore must be expanded and improved" -- and he took aim at Wray himself.

"The focus on specific forms, checklists and technology, while appropriate, should not be allowed to eclipse the more basic need to improve cooperation between the FBI and DOJ attorneys," Kris said, noting that the FBI and DOJ have historically not always worked well together.

"A key method of improving organizational culture is through improved tone at the top, particularly in a hierarchical organization such as the FBI," Kris said, noting that Wray's public statements on the matter, while positive, have not gone far enough. "Director Wray and other FBI leaders, as well as relevant leaders at the Department of Justice, should include discussions of compliance not only in one or two messages, but in virtually every significant communication with the workforce for the foreseeable future."

Republican calls for more accountability may not go unanswered for long. Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham announced last year that he did not "agree" with the IG's assessment that the FBI's probes were properly predicated, highlighting Durham's broader criminal mandate and scope of review.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Durham is focusing on foreign actors, as well as the CIA, while Horowitz concentrated his attention on the Justice Department and FBI.

"Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened," Durham said in his statement, adding that his "investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department" and "has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S."

[soonernvolved]

www.politico.com/news/2020/01/23/susan-collins-impeachment-note-john-roberts-102826

Sen. Susan Collins was “stunned” by Rep. Jerry Nadler’s late-night diatribe this week against what he deemed a “cover-up” by Senate Republicans for President Donald Trump — so much so that she wrote a note to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. But the Maine Republican said it will not affect her votes during the Senate’s impeachment trial.

In an interview on Thursday, Collins confirmed that she had jotted down a note that eventually made its way to Roberts via Secretary for the Majority Laura Dove. Collins said she believed the back and forth between House Judiciary Chairman Nadler (D-N.Y.) and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone violated Senate rules and felt compelled to point that out, even though senators are required to stay at their desks and not speak during the trial.

“It reminded me that if we were in a normal debate in the Senate, that the rule would be invoked to strike the words of the senator for impugning another senator. So I did write a note raising the issue of whether there’d been a violation of the rules,” Collins said. “I gave that note to Laura Dove and shortly thereafter the chief justice did admonish both sides. And I was glad that he did.”

[soonernvolved]

Tom Fitton said it best:

[soonernvolved]

President Trump’s approval rating climbed three points this week since Democrats began bloviating on Wednesday in their sham impeachment trial.


On Wednesday President Trump’s approval rating was at 46%. That was the day Democrats started their opening arguments against President Trump.
On Friday President Trump’s approval rating was at 49%.

Since Democrats started talking and lying opening to the American public President Trump’s approval numbers climbed three points.

Trump’s approval rating is higher than Barack Obama’s rating at the same time in his presidency.

And this is despite the continual media attacks against President Trump.

Democrats also lost 20% of their audience in the first 24 hours this week.

www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/trump_approval_index_history
www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/obama_approval_index_history
www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/americans-tune-out-schiff-sham-impeachment-ratings-plunge-by-20-after-first-day/

[soonernvolved]

www.zerohedge.com/political/big-senate-sleep-please-god-hurl-lightning-bolt-podium

The Big (Senate) Sleep: "Please God, Hurl A Lightning Bolt At The Podium..."

You have to wonder how many Democratic senators spend the long hours of impeachment fantasizing how to end the misery of listening to Rep. Adam Schiff deliver the party’s funeral oration. Please God, hurl a lightning bolt at the podium… bring down a chunk of the fine old coffered ceiling where he stands and prates about a Russian invasion of Malibu… send a coral snake up the leg of his trousers…!



It was so bad that his California counterpart, Senator Diane Feinstein, just up-and-split late Wednesday. Elizabeth Warren has been seen furiously doodling maps of all the primary precincts she is failing to visit in her confinement. Bernie Sanders imagines himself wielding thirty inches of re-bar upside Mr. Schiff’s skull, while Amy Klobuchar pops her third Xanax of the evening. You have no idea what mental tribulation the House impeachment manager supreme is visiting on his colleagues.


The impeachment case against Mr. Trump might mercifully spell the end of the Master Narrative the Democrats have been confabulating since 2016: that Donald Trump invited the wicked Vlad Putin to checkmate Hillary Clinton and thereby crushed the hopes and dreams of those wishing to make Ukraine the 51st state… or something like that. Because according to Mr. Schiff, there is no nation on this planet as dear to the interests of America than darling Ukraine, with its radioactive forests, decrepitating Soviet infrastructure, and dedication to liberty.



Those who were only puzzling over Nancy Pelosi’s motives in bringing this case, and assigning it to the two sketchiest characters in her charge, Schiff & Nadler, must finally be convinced that she is no longer sound of mind. What was she thinking? Did she really want to set up the voters to lose faith in the basic electoral process by preemptively delegitimizing the 2020 election? (“Trump can only win if he cheats!”) Is she that desperate to flip the Senate to prevent anymore judicial appointments? Could be. Or is the impeachment spectacle a different kind of set-up: to make the forthcoming raft of indictments against RussiaGate coupsters look like a mere act of revenge rather than long-delayed justice for a three-year campaign of perfidious sedition by some of the highest officials in the land?

Anyway, after another day of this boresome torment, the Senate will get to hear Mr. Trump’s defense in a full-throated way — really for the first time since the whole nasty business began, and in a conspicuous venue where it can’t be ignored anymore. If nothing else, it will probably be more interesting and certainly more dignified than the idiotic vaudeville put on by Schiff & Nadler. Even if the President’s managers move to dismiss the case out-of-hand for its utter lack of merit and the legal errors in its construction by two House committees, I doubt they will miss the opportunity to use the time allotted to lay out the story of what actually happened the past three years — a crime spree of government against itself.



The temptation to call witnesses must be anguishing, though, from a legal standpoint the Houses’s case deserves to be thrown out summarily just to reestablish the principle that impeachment is not a frivolity. But the nation would miss the chance for Mr. Schiff to have to explain exactly what happened around the “whistleblower” episode and, of course, there would be no more possible excuses for producing the “whistleblower” him-or-herself in the witness dock. I think we would discover what an absolutely shady operation that was.

In the meantime, an interesting development flew in under the radar as the impeachment spectacle hogged the news: The Department of Justice yesterday declared two of four FISA warrants against Carter Page invalid. The warrants were signed by James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Rod Rosenstein. The move has deep repercussions in everything connected to the RussiaGate investigation, including especially the prosecutions mounted by Robert Mueller’s lawyers. It implies what has already been demonstrated by other evidence: That the FBI and the DOJ knew by January of 2017 at the latest that all the information they used to start the case against the President was garbage, and yet they continued it anyway — including the appointment of Mr. Mueller and his commission. The DOJ’s statement about the two FISA warrants doesn’t negate the possibility that the other two will also be declared invalid. It’s time for the figures involved in all this to become very afraid.

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/01/24/adam-schiff-april-2019-obama-had-a-duty-to-investigate-candidate-trump/

Lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) argued less than a year ago in the Washington Post that a president had a duty to investigate a candidate from the rival party if he was suspected of foreign corruption.

Schiff, reacting to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on “Russia collusion,” justified the Barack Obama administration’s counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign, and said Mueller should have included it.




Schiff wrote that investigating a potential president — even from the opposition — was an urgent matter of national security if there were reason to believe that candidate were working for, or beholden to, a foreign country.

He wrote (emphasis added):

Counterintelligence investigations differ from criminal investigations in their means, scope and ultimate disposition. Their goal is not successful prosecutions, but to identify and mitigate threats to national security. If a foreign power possessed compromising information on a U.S. government official in a position of influence, that is a counterintelligence risk. If a foreign power possessed leverage, or the perception of it, over the president, that is a counterintelligence nightmare.

Schiff added that the public deserved to see the material that the FBI found on the Trump campaign. (We know today that the FBI lied to the FISA court to obtain surveillance warrants on a Trump aide.)

Today, Schiff and the Democrats are arguing that it is an impeachable offense for a president to investigate foreign corruption by a potential president from the opposition — even when, as in the Bidens’ case, former Vice President Joe Biden had a clear conflict of interest while his son, Hunter, was on the board of Ukrainian company Burisma.

According to Schiff just last April, it is not an impeachable offense, but an urgent matter of national security for a president to investigate his potential successor.

It is the president’s duty. That is, unless the president is Donald J. Trump.

[soonernvolved]

Democrats will finish their opening arguments on Friday in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate.

House Impeachment Managers are expected to focus on “obstruction of Congress.”

3:55 PM: Trump’s team will present from 10 AM to 1 PM ET on Saturday.

3:31 PM: Schiff concludes his presentation on “abuse of power,” and the Senate takes a 15-minute recess. Democrats have about five more hours to go.

3:25 PM: Schiff asks the Senators to imagine if Trump had one of them investigated instead of Biden. He asks them if Trump wouldn’t have any of them investigated if it suited his interests. Schiff says if, deep down, the Senators believe Trump would have them investigated, then they cannot leave a man like that in office. Schiff says Trump will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office. He says “there can be little doubt” that Trump will invite foreign interference in the country’s election, which will pose a threat to the country’s democracy. Schiff says the Founders understood that someone like Trump, who is faithful to himself and willing to sacrifice the country’s democracy and national security for his self interest, could one day get in power.

2:53 PM: Schiff thinks we need a “revolution of dignity” or a “revolution of civility” at home after speaking about how the Trump administration could learn a thing or two from Ukraine. He is repeatedly trying to establish that Trump subverted U.S. anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine because he was scared of Biden.

2:20 PM: Schiff concluding the “abuse of power” argument by saying Trump betrayed the country’s trust to a foreign power and undermined the country’s free and fair elections. He says Trump, “even today,” threatens the foundations of the nation’s democracy. Schiff going on and on about how Trump has “harmed” the country with his “scheme.”

Rep. Adam Schiff: "If a president can be so easily manipulated to disbelieve his own intelligence agencies, to accept the propaganda of the Kremlin, that is a threat to our national security—and this is just what has happened here." t.co/2wyMuOAnOg pic.twitter.com/1B0UUwbvrr

— ABC News (@abc) January 24, 2020



2:00 PM: Crow back up telling Senators that Bolton repeatedly instructed officials to report to lawyers about the so-called “drug deal.”

1:46 PM: Jeffries says Trump and his team tried to prevent Congress from learning about Trump’s wrongdoings.

1:28 PM: Jeffries now up detailing all of the ways Trump and his team tried to “cover up” and “conceal” Trump’s scheme from the American people after Trump got caught red-handed trying to “cheat.”

1:11 PM: Crow talking about the events surrounding the release of the aid to Ukraine. He says the aid got released only after Trump’s “scheme went public” and public scrutiny of the scheme increased “exponentially.” He says there is no other explanation than Trump released the aid only because “he got caught.” He now repeats the testimony from various officials given to the House.

1:09 PM: Schiff again leads off and says Jason Crow will continue his “abuse of power” presentation before the House Managers go to “obstruction of Congress.”

1:07 PM: Senate convenes, and, after the pledge of allegiance, McConnell says Saturday’s session will start at 10 AM ET and run for several hours.

12:50 PM: The final day of oral arguments for the House Managers is about to get started at the top of the hour. Trump already concerned that nobody will watch the White House’s arguments on Saturday. Schiff indicates that Democrats will try to get Chief Justice Roberts to make a ruling on the executive privilege arguments.

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/01/24/jim-jordan-senate-impeachment-trial-to-end-soon-american-people-dont-seem-to-be-tuning-in/

During a Friday interview with Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sounded off on the Senate impeachment trial.

Jordan predicted the impeachment trial, which he noted nobody is tuning into, will end in the next week so Congress can get back to working for the American people.


“[T]hese facts are so strong for the president, I feel real confident that hopefully next week we’ll get this decision and get this thing over with — and get on to the business of the American people,” outlined Jordan.

Co-host Ed Henry asked, “So you think, bottom line, that this trial could be over with this time next week?”



“I do, I do,” Jordan replied. “Again, when you have them talking for this long and not seeming to move anyone — the American people don’t seem to be tuning into this as much as we might have anticipated. I think, again, it looks good for the president because these core arguments are all strong for him.”

He continued, “Those facts — the idea that we have the transcript, that President Zelensky and President Trump have repeatedly said there was no pressure, no pushage, no linkage of an investigation to the release of the dollars. The Ukrainians didn’t know aid was even held at the time of the call. And most importantly, they took no action to get the aid released.”

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/24/fact-check-trump-raised-concerns-about-corruption-in-ukraine-long-ago/

CLAIM: President Donald Trump never cared about corruption in Ukraine.

VERDICT: FALSE. Democrats’ own investigation showed that he did — long before Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Burisma were an issue.


Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) opened the fourth day of the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump by mocking the idea that Trump cared about corruption in Ukraine. “It’s difficult to even say that with a straight face,” he said.



Crow, who has also been blaming President Trump — falsely — for Ukrainian deaths, repeated the false claim made by lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiff (D-CA) earlier this week that Trump only cared about corruption in Ukraine once it involved former Vice President Joe Biden, his potential rival in the 2020 presidential election.

Actually, even if it were true that Trump only cared about allegations of corruption against Biden involving a foreign country because he was a political rival, that would have been a legitimate reason — according to Schiff himself.

Last April, Schiff wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post: “If a foreign power possessed compromising information on a U.S. government official in a position of influence, that is a counterintelligence risk. If a foreign power possessed leverage, or the perception of it, over the president, that is a counterintelligence nightmare.”

Schiff was defending the Obama administration’s decision to launch an investigation into Trump, who was then the Republican nominee for president. But the same logic would apply to Biden: it is in the national interest to know.

Regardless, we know from Schiff’s own impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives that Trump had previously expressed strong concerns about corruption in Ukraine.

As Breitbart News has noted several times, State Department official Catherine Croft testified in her closed-door deposition in Schiff’s “basement bunker” at the House Intelligence Committee that Trump was particularly concerned about corruption in Ukraine, even to the point of lecturing then-President Poroshenko — in front of his whole delegation — about it:



Catherine Croft excerpt (House Intelligence Committee)
Catherine Croft excerpt (House Intelligence Committee)

Croft: The President was skeptical of providing weapons to Ukraine.

Q: Why?

A: When this was discussed, including in front of the Ukrainian delegation, in fnont of President Poroshenko, he described his concerns being that Ukraine was corrupt, that it was capable of being a very rich country, and that the United States shouldn’t pay for it, but instead, we should be providing aid through loans.

The whole conceit of Democrats’ argument is that merely mentioning Burisma — widely considered corrupt — and Joe Biden and Hunter Biden — whom President Trump believed to have behaved corruptly — does not count as discussing “corruption” because Trump used specific examples rather than the general term.



It is a distinction that makes no logical sense — and actually emphasizes the case for the Bidens should testify, if witnesses are called.

[soonernvolved]

4:05 PM: Demings starts off the “obstruction of Congress” presentation. She accuses Trump of directing the entire Executive Branch to withhold all relevant documents and not participate in the House’s impeachment inquiry. She says it was a “wholesale rejection of Congress’s ability to hold the president accountable.”

3:55 PM: Trump’s team will present from 10 AM to 1 PM ET on Saturday.

[soonernvolved]

pjmedia.com/trending/the-top-six-lies-adam-schiff-has-told-to-boost-impeachment/

The Top Seven Lies Adam Schiff Has Told to Boost Impeachment

Adam Schiff is a liar.

Like most Democrats, he cares more about ousting Trump than the facts—so much, in fact, he’s repeatedly turned a blind eye to the facts to smear Trump in the hopes of swaying public opinion against the man who dared to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

It’s already been proven that Democrats have plotted the impeachment of Donald Trump since he first took office. For over three years they threw anything they could at him, and Schiff was doing his part to advance the narrative that Trump should be impeached by pushing bogus information and outright lying to the public. Below are seven examples of Schiff’s lies designed to boost the impeachment of President Trump.

7. Promoting the bogus Steele dossier he knew was not credible
Any idiot could have read the Clinton-funded Steele dossier and known it wasn’t credible. Schiff also had to know the information in it was uncorroborated and full of inaccuracies, embellishments, and lies. Nevertheless, he promoted the dossier as a legitimate piece of anti-Trump intelligence.


Except it never was. According to Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on FISA abuse, the FBI had “corroborated limited information in Steele’s election reporting” and that the CIA “viewed it as ‘internet rumor.’” Rolling Stone even noted that the report “is especially hostile to Schiff’s claim that the FBI ‘provided additional information obtained through multiple independent sources that corroborated Steele’s reporting.’”

Back then Democrats were hoping for collusion to be true so they could justify impeachment. Anything, even blatant lies, was on the table to make impeachment happen.

6. His repeated claims of having “ample evidence” of collusion
On several occasions, Adam Schiff declared there was “ample evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and that he had seen it. "There is already, in my view, ample evidence in the public domain on the issue of collusion if you're willing to see it," Schiff said back in February 2018. "If you want to blind yourself, then you can look the other way.”


Of course, we all know that the Mueller report found no evidence of collusion, so Schiff was lying every time he claimed to have seen evidence of collusion. Schiff's goal of impeaching Trump would have to wait for another lie.

5. Denying FISA abuse even though he knew it happened
Back in 2017, then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) revealed that evidence of FISA "abuse" had been uncovered by investigators. "We have had an ongoing investigation into DOJ [Department of Justice] and FBI since mid-summer for both FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] abuse and other matters that we can't get into too much. But it is very concerning," he said.

A couple of months later, the House Intelligence Committee released a memo on surveillance abuses by the Obama administration. For Schiff, any abuse of the FISA court system might undermine any impeachment narrative that might present itself with regard to the 2016 election and Russian collusion. So, Schiff had to mock the Nunes memo relentlessly to keep the message on track. Schiff denied that any abuses had occurred in his own memo released shortly thereafter. As the ranking Democrat on the committee at the time, Schiff had access to the same information as Nunes, so he knew the Nunes memo was accurate.


When the Horowitz report ultimately proved Nunes was right and that Schiff lied, Schiff conceded there were abuses but claimed not to have seen evidence of this before, even though he had. He just lied about it. “Anyone who would still defend the FISA warrants of Carter Page after the Horowitz report is deceiving themselves or you. There’s no defending it. Nunes was right about that. Schiff was wrong,” said Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake.

Dem Senator Says It’s a ‘Conspiracy Theory’ to Say Dems Were Out to Get Trump From Beginning

4. Lying about having contact with the whistleblower
PolitiFact isn’t exactly known for being fair to Republicans, but when Adam Schiff claimed, "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower," during an interview on MSNBC in September 2019, they couldn’t exactly cover for him when it was revealed by the New York Times that Schiff’s staff had been colluding with the whistleblower and was aware of the whistleblower’s concerns in advance of them going public. “While it was not publicly known that Schiff’s committee had communicated with the whistleblower ahead of the complaint’s filing, Schiff knew the truth,” explained Politifact. “When given the chance to say that the whistleblower had reached out to a committee aide, he did not.”

3. Misrepresenting a key text message
According to a report from Politico, Schiff "mischaracterized" impeachment evidence that was used during the House Democrats’ impeachment investigation. In a letter sent to House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, Schiff claimed that Giuliani associate Lev Parnas "continued to try to arrange a meeting with President Zelensky," which was based on a text message from Parnas to Giuliani that read "trying to get us mr Z." The rest of the exchange was redacted, but Schiff clearly knew that the redacted portion made it clear that “mr Z” actually referred to Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma.

2. Claiming Ambassador Sondland’s testimony proved there was a quid pro quo
On Tuesday, Schiff once again told a whopper by misrepresenting Ambassador Sondland’s testimony. “Ambassador Sondland also said...that—we’re often asked ‘was there a quid pro quo?’ the answer is ‘yes there was a quid pro quo,’ there was an absolute quid pro quo,” Schiff said.

Here’s the problem: by Sondland’s own testimony, he didn’t know definitively that there was a quid pro, he was presuming there was.

"Is that your testimony today, Ambassador Sondland, that you have evidence that Donald Trump tied the investigations to the aid? Because I don't think you're saying that." Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) asked him.

"I said repeatedly [...] I was presuming," Sondland noted.

After questions, Turner asked more pointedly, "So, you really have no testimony today that ties President Trump to a scheme to withhold aid from Ukraine in exchange for these investigations?"

"Other than my own presumption," Sondland said.

1. His fictional version of the Trump-Zelenksy phone call
Remember when the transcript of the phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky was released and Democrats were falling over each other claiming the transcript was even more "damning" than they imagined? Well, it wasn’t damning enough to Adam Schiff, who, when claiming to read the transcript on the House floor, fabricated the entire transcript into something far more sinister than it actually was.

Criticism over the deception caused him to backpedal and claim that his reading of the transcript was meant as a parody.

“If the conversation were as damning as Schiff et al would like, he would have simply read directly from it, instead of making up dialogue,” Fox News’s Brit Hume wisely observed it a tweet. “Probably not surprising in light of the extravagant collusion claims he made for 2 years.”

[soonernvolved]

www.mrctv.org/blog/about-schiff-and-nadler-misuse-hamilton-quote-which-was-really-abouttaxes

About That: Schiff and Nadler Misuse Hamilton Quote Which Was Really About...Taxes

Misdirection — “the action or process of directing someone to the wrong place or in the wrong direction.”

That’s a pretty simply definition to understand, right? Maybe that’s why it’s so easy for House impeachment managers, like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), to twist the words of others to serve their mission of removing a sitting president from office.

You might’ve noticed that both Schiff and Nadler used a quote by Alexander Hamilton from a 1792 note — not 1972 as their slide so inaccurately displayed — to our nation’s first president, George Washington.

Here’s the quote (the part in bold was left out by both Schiff and Nadler):

When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits — despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day — It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.

Schiff and Nadler used the quote above in order to prove their impeachment case by implying that the Founders warned about men like President Donald Trump.


Report this ad

Surprisingly, two left-leaning outlets both noted how the quote wasn’t originally in reference to impeachment, but a response to Wasghinton from Hamilton concerning taxes.

“…almost everyone who cited the Founding Father [Hamilton] got the context of what he said completely wrong,” wrote Paul Blumenthal of the Huffington Post (HuffPost).

Blumenthal continued later in the article:

The quote comes from a 10,000-plus word note Hamilton, then the secretary of the treasury, wrote in reply to a letter from President George Washington in 1792. Washington’s letter listed a series of “objections” he had heard from political friends and foes to Hamilton’s proposed plan to raise taxes on producers in order to finance bondholder debts held by wealthy financial investors. This was the nation’s earliest plan to redistribute wealth upwards and concentrate power among the rich.

Aaron Blake of The Washington Post (WaPo) noted a similar train of thought concerning the actual context of the Hamilton quote.

“He’s wrong that Hamilton offered it in the context of impeachment; it was from a note the then-treasury secretary wrote in response to Washington about tax policy, and the letter doesn’t even mention impeachment,” Blake wrote in response to a tweet by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) claiming that Hamilton was “arguing for including impeachment in the Constitution.” It was also from 1792, five years after the Constitution was drafted.”

They wouldn’t be the left if they weren’t proficient in revisionist history.

[soonernvolved]

nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/impeachment-ratings-show-americans-arent-tuning-in-on-tv.html

Ratings Show Americans Don’t Care About the Impeachment Trial Enough to Watch It

Within the Senate chamber, lawmakers were doing their best to endure the long hours of the Trump impeachment trial’s first two days, bringing crossword puzzles, falling asleep, and flaunting the no-electronics rule by communicating on smartwatches. At home, Americans haven’t sought these distractions, because the public is just not tuning in.

According to TV ratings for the first two days of the trial, the six news networks covering Trump’s impeachment averaged a little over 11 million viewers combined, with Fox News leading the pack with some 2,654,000 on their channel from 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Viewership dropped by about 20 percent on Wednesday, with a total of 8,858,000 million watching; MSNBC led day two with 1,793,000 tuning in.

Compared to other televised political moments of historical importance, it’s a fairly weak showing. In 2018, the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh drew an audience of 20.4 million on the six broadcast networks. In 2018, the midterms also pulled in a substantial 36.1 million, a greater audience than the four previous midterms. And though it may not be totally fair to compare the impeachment trial to the last presidential election, the 2016 motherlode event drew an audience of 71 million.

Perhaps a more telling comparison can be found on the news networks’ coverage on the same days as the trial. According to Nielsen data, Sean Hannity drew 4,246,000 million viewers — double the network’s daytime impeachment audience — leading an impressive Wednesday on Fox News, with Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson bringing in 3.93 million and 3.73 million respectively. At MSNBC, Rachel Maddow also delivered with 2.99 million viewers — over 1 million more than the daytime showing for the impeachment trial.

There are reasons for the underwhelming performance thus far: Day one was a 13-hour event, full of slow procedures that set the terms for the remainder of the trial. The Nielsen data also doesn’t account for online streaming: Impeachment viewers may be more likely to check in periodically on a C-SPAN stream throughout the day, rather than November audiences glued to a night of gripping election coverage on TV. As for Maddow and Hannity’s strong numbers, the hosts almost certainly benefitted from viewers looking for their politically preferred recap. And unlike recent election specials, the ultimate result of the impeachment show is already decided, barring the total dissolution of Mitch McConnell’s political will.

But the 20 percent dip in daytime viewership may be the best indicator that Trump’s impeachment won’t be must-see TV in its remaining week or so. (That CNN’s daytime and primetime Tuesday audiences were almost identical to those of the Clinton impeachment’s first day isn’t promising either.) If witnesses are called, however, there could be a late-trial boost, courtesy of former national security adviser John Bolton.

[soonernvolved]

www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/trump-impeachment-trial-adam-schiff-opened-door-on-biden-witness-testimony/

On the Bidens, Schiff Opened the Door
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
January 22, 2020 9:08 PM

f they have to testify, they have the Democrats’ chief impeachment manager to thank.
You opened the door.

Trial lawyers live in fear of that phrase.

When a trial starts, both sides know what the allegations are. Both have had enough discovery to know what the adversary will try to prove. Just as significantly, both know what their own vulnerabilities are. A litigator spends his pretrial time not just laying the groundwork for getting his own evidence admitted by the court; each side works just as hard on motions to exclude embarrassing or incriminating testimony — evidence that would be damaging to that side’s position but that a court may be persuaded to exclude because it is not clearly relevant.



For an advocate, it is a coup when the judge rules that harmful testimony is excluded. But such rulings always come with a warning label: Don’t open the door. That is, don’t do anything that makes the otherwise irrelevant evidence relevant.

President Trump’s impeachment trial has a Biden door. Adam Schiff has thrown it wide open.

NOW WATCH: 'Biden Rules Out Testifying in Impeachment Trial'

The first full day of President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial was consumed by legal arguments over whether witnesses who did not testify in the House impeachment inquiry should now be subpoenaed. One proposal has surface appeal because it is reciprocal: The House managers get to call John Bolton (the president’s former national-security adviser), but then the president’s lawyers get to call former vice president Joe Biden or his son, Hunter.

Schiff has pooh-poohed this suggestion. His basic objection is sound: The admissibility of a witness’s testimony is a matter of relevance, not horse-trading. If witnesses have testimony of strong value as evidence, they should be subpoenaed, even if it means that one side gets a dozen witnesses and the other side gets none.

Yet, though he now tells anyone who’ll listen that the Bidens have nothing to do with his case against President Trump, it is Schiff who has made them highly relevant.

The House Democrats tell you that their case is straightforward: The president exploited his foreign-affairs power by pressuring Ukraine to conduct an investigation for no reason other than that it would harm a political rival and thus help Trump’s reelection. On this account, it makes no difference whether there was a legitimate basis for such an investigation. Schiff’s point is that any presidential collusion with a foreign power that could influence the outcome of an American election is an abuse of power, period.


But Schiff is smart enough to know that all abuses of power are not created equal. Common sense says it matters whether there was a legitimate reason for the investigation the president was seeking.

It is fair enough to tut-tut that a president should not conflate foreign policy and domestic politics (something all of them do to some degree). And it would certainly be prudent (even if not constitutionally required) for presidents to leave questions about who should be investigated to the Justice Department, especially when a president’s political fortunes may be implicated. All that said, though, it makes a difference whether this president is asking the foreign power to manufacture a case against a political opponent, or whether the president is instead asking for an investigation into something that truly appears suspicious.

Schiff has ignored that salient distinction from the start. And by ignoring the difference, he has — however heedlessly — painted a bull’s-eye on the Bidens. The father and son were front and center within the first ten minutes of Schiff’s opening statement at the impeachment trial Wednesday afternoon. But that was old news. Schiff kicked the door open at the start of the very first House hearing. Not content to quote from President Trump’s actual call with President Zelensky of Ukraine, Schiff insisted on presenting a “parody” that, he maintained, conveyed the unspoken essence of Trump’s message: “I want you make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? Lots of it.”

In sum, the House’s chief prosecutor represented to the American people that President Trump had asked his Ukrainian counterpart to fabricate a false case against Biden. In any court in America, that would open the door to the Trump defense team to show that this was not the president’s intention at all; he was simply asking Zelensky to look into a situation that cried out for an inquiry.

In light of Schiff’s explicit allegation, the president is entitled to an opportunity to show that there was reason for him to believe that a notoriously corrupt Ukrainian energy company had retained Hunter Biden and paid him a fortune despite his lack of qualifications; and that later, despite the blatant conflict of interest, then–vice president Biden extorted Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, threatening to withhold $1 billion in desperately needed funds.

153
Schiff insists that Trump’s claims in this regard are false. But his mere say-so does not prove falsity, no more than his mere say-so proves that Trump wanted Ukraine to “make up dirt” on Biden. Figuring out who has the better of a factual dispute is what a trial is about. If a litigant does not want to create a dispute, it’s up to the litigant to steer clear of the issue.

Adam Schiff steered his case straight into the Bidens. The Trump team may have their political reasons for highlighting Biden’s involvement. But it was Schiff’s strategy that made the Bidens relevant. If one or both of them ends up in the witness box, they have Schiff to thank.

[soonernvolved]

House impeachment manager Adam Schiff has run out of things to say on day three of the shampeachment hearing so he resorted to arguing that Trump’s 2018 Helsinki summit was a “propaganda coup.”


Schiff is so pathetic that he is talking about Trump’s 2018 Helsinki summit with Putin.



“The President of the United States standing next to the president of Russia, our adversary saying he doesn’t believe his own intelligence agency,” Schiff said asserting that Trump’s ‘server theory’ was cooked up by the Kremlin.

Schiff is certifiably insane.

“It’s a breathtaking success of Russian intelligence. I don’t know if there’s been a greater success of Russian intelligence.”

“Whatever profile Russia did of our president, boy did they have him spot on,” he added.

WATCH:

[soonernvolved]

As Law professor Jonathan Turley explained, Democrats “lost” this case today with arguments based more on “passion than persuasion.”

Jonathan Turley: It might have been a touch too much. It may have been more passion than persuasion because they went so far that they virtually accused the president of being a Russian asset and just short of having a KGB email address. It was very stinging language. But in some ways you have to know your jury. If that’s what you’re trying to get them to embrace, if that’s what you’re trying to get them to vote on in their verdict, then you just lost your case. Because there’s no way those Republican senators are going to buy that narrative.

[soonernvolved]

Republican Senator Ted Cruz slammed the Democrats for their argument that President Trump committed an impeachable offense when he briefly withheld military aid from Ukraine.

Cruz argued that the Democrats should have impeached President Obama when he was in office since he withheld way more military aid from Ukraine while he was in office than President Trump did.

WATCH:

[soonernvolved]

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-defense-team-to-target-bidens-in-counterpunch-to-impeachment-charges/2020/01/24/cf80406a-3ec6-11ea-8872-5df698785a4e_story.html

Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, and Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal attorney, plan to use their time in the trial to target the former vice president and his son, Hunter, according to multiple GOP officials familiar with the strategy. Trump’s allies believe that if they can argue that the president had a plausible reason for requesting the Biden investigation in Ukraine, they can both defend him against the impeachment charges and gain the added bonus of undercutting a political adversary.

The emerging strategy comes as the White House has heard conflicting advice from Republicans eager to share their opinion on the best rebuttal. In recent weeks, there has been a quiet, behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign by both GOP senators and Trump’s House allies on his defense team, creating confusion among Republicans about which strategy the White House will adopt.

The deliberations occasionally have been marked by intense discussions, including debates about whether to push a process-focused case against Democrats or to take on each of their points and accusations individually, according to senators and congressional aides familiar with the talks. Over the past 24 hours, the debate has focused more on how much time should be dedicated to going after the Bidens.

[soonernvolved]

[soonernvolved]

[soonernvolved]

amp.dailycaller.com/2020/01/24/david-axelrod-democrat-focus-group-impeachment-disinterested

Ready To Move On’: David Axelrod Says Focus Group Of Democrats Didn’t Care About Impeachment

CNN analyst David Axelrod lamented Friday that voters don’t seem to care about the Trump impeachment trial, citing a tepid response he received on the topic in a focus group with Democrats.

“I was in a focus group this morning for the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago with Chicago Democratic voters and it was chilling to hear them talk about this because impeachment didn’t even come up,” Axelrod, the chief strategist for former President Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, told CNN’s Erin Burnett.


“No one volunteered it for 80 minutes into the focus group. And you know, we’re right in the middle of the trial,” he said, adding:

“When it came up, they said, ‘You know, it’s terrible what he did. The case has been proven. But we know how it’s going to turn out so, we’re not really that interested. We’re ready to move on.'” (RELATED: Jerry Nadler Accuses Trump Of Being A ‘Dictator’)



Friday marked the third day of opening arguments at the impeachment trial. House Democrats led by California Rep. Adam Schiff have laid out the case for removing President Donald Trump from office on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice over his actions toward Ukraine.

Ratings for the trial have fallen short of what news networks and Democrats likely hoped. Viewership reportedly fell about 20% between the first and second day of the trial.

[soonernvolved]

Lindsey Graham channeling his late buddy here: