James Comey

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Hakeem Jeffries Impeachment Manager, Vote to Impeach due to John McCain:

www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2020/02/03/hakeem-jeffries-do-it-for-mccain-do-it-for-ukraine/

RUSH: The House managers are in the process of closing arguments, two hours each side. The president’s lawyers get their two hours. The lunch break’s gonna be over in a couple, three minutes. Anyway, here’s Hakeem Jeffries from mere moments ago, closing arguments. It’s about 40 seconds. The best way to sum this up: “Do it for McCain! Do it for Ukraine!” Listen to this.



JEFFRIES: The late senator John McCain was an astounding man —

RUSH: Yeah?

JEFFRIES: — a man of great principle —

RUSH: Mmm-hmm.

JEFFRIES: — a great patriot —

RUSH: Dossier. Right.

JEFFRIES: — fought admirably in Vietnam and was imprisoned as a POW for over five years.

RUSH: Yeah?

JEFFRIES: As you all are aware, Senator McCain was a great supporter of Ukraine —

RUSH: So?

JEFFRIES: — a great supporter of Europe —

RUSH: So?

JEFFRIES: — a great supporter of our troops.

RUSH: Yeah, so?

JEFFRIES: Senator McCain understood the importance of this body.

RUSH: Yeah?

JEFFRIES: The Ukrainians and the Europeans and the Americans around the world and here at home are watching what we do.

RUSH: That’s it? You gotta convict Trump because of McCain and Ukraine? That’s the best they got? I thought they had a slam-dunk case. I thought they didn’t need witnesses because they proved their case over and over again. Now we gotta go back and remind these guys in the Senate that John McCain used to be there, and we gotta do what McCain would want? “Yes, that’s exactly right. McCain would want this.

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thehill.com/homenews/media/481004-cnns-toobin-on-how-history-will-remember-impeachment-trump-won

CNN's Toobin on how history will remember impeachment: 'Trump won'
BY JOE CONCHA - 02/01/20 07:26 AM EST

CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin concluded that "Trump won" after a motion to allow additional witnesses in the president's impeachment trial failed in the Senate by a 49-51 vote on Friday evening.

"Trump won," Toobin, a staunch critic of the president, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer when asked about the Senate vote on witnesses. "I mean, you know he's gonna win this trial. He won on the issue of witnesses."

"He's going to get acquitted, and that's how history will remember what went on here," Toobin continued.

The legal analyst noted that former national security adviser John Bolton has made claims in his forthcoming book related to the central issue in the impeachment proceedings but would not be called to testify after Republicans rejected calls for additional witnesses.

"I think history will also record that there are at last one and perhaps other pivotal pivotal witnesses who were available to the Senate to talk about the precise issue that is the subject of this impeachment trial, and the Senate decided not to hear from them," Toobin noted.

Senate Republicans passed a resolution late Friday clearing the way for Trump to be acquitted by the middle of next week. Under the deal, the Senate will reconvene Monday, with House managers and Trump's legal team delivering closing arguments. Senators will then vote on the articles of impeachment on Wednesday afternoon.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Friday said she would vote against a motion to consider subpoenas of new witnesses and documents, ensuring that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would have 51 votes to reject Democrats' demands for additional witnesses.

Two Republicans, Sens. Mitt Romney (Utah) and Susan Collins (Maine), voted to have additional witnesses for the trial.

President Trump called the process "the most unfair witch hunt" in the history of Congress while claiming that Democrats "had no case" in a tweet on Friday.

"The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats keep chanting 'fairness,' when they put on the most unfair Witch Hunt in the history of the U.S. Congress. They had 17 Witnesses, we were allowed ZERO, and no lawyers. They didn’t do their job, had no case. The Dems are scamming America!" he asserted.

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www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/us/politics/trump-impeachment-trial.html

While Stained in History, Trump Will Emerge From Trial Triumphant and Unshackled
His acquittal in the Senate assured, the emboldened president will take his victory and grievance to the campaign trail, no longer worried about congressional constraint.


President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, boarding Air Force One on Friday. Mr. Trump will be the first president in American history to face voters after an impeachment trial.
President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, boarding Air Force One on Friday. Mr. Trump will be the first president in American history to face voters after an impeachment trial.Credit...Calla Kessler/The New York Times
Peter Baker
By Peter Baker
Feb. 1, 2020

1843
WASHINGTON — Ralph Waldo Emerson seemed to foresee the lesson of the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. “When you strike at a king,” Emerson famously said, “you must kill him.”

Mr. Trump’s foes struck at him but did not take him down.

With the end of the impeachment trial now in sight and acquittal assured, a triumphant Mr. Trump emerges from the biggest test of his presidency emboldened, ready to claim exoneration and take his case of grievance, persecution and resentment to the campaign trail.

The president’s Democratic adversaries rolled out the biggest constitutional weapon they had and failed to defeat him, or even to force a full trial with witnesses testifying to the allegations against him. Now Mr. Trump, who has said that the Constitution “allows me to do whatever I want” and pushed so many boundaries that curtailed past presidents, has little reason to fear the legislative branch nor any inclination to reach out in conciliation.

“I don’t think in any way Trump is willing to move on,” said Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman who teaches at Princeton University. “I think he will just have been given a green light and he will claim not just acquittal but vindication and he can do those things and they can’t impeach him again. I think this is going to empower him to be much bolder. I would expect to see him even more let loose.”

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Impeachment will always be a stain on Mr. Trump’s historical record, a reality that has stung him in private, according to some close to him. But he will be the first president in American history to face voters after an impeachment trial and that will give him the chance to argue for the next nine months that his enemies have spent his entire presidency plotting against him to undo the 2016 election.

“This was clearly a political coup d’état carried out by a group of people who were amazingly, openly dishonest and I think it’s going to be repudiated,” said former Speaker Newt Gingrich, a strong ally of the president’s. “He’s been beaten up for three solid years and he’s still standing. That’s an amazing achievement if you think about it.”

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Even before a final vote on the impeachment charges on Wednesday, Mr. Trump has several high-profile opportunities in the next few days to begin framing the new post-trial environment to his advantage.

On Sunday, he will be interviewed by Sean Hannity of Fox News during the pregame of the Super Bowl, one of the most watched television events of the year. Then on Tuesday, he will deliver his State of the Union address from the dais in the House chamber where he was impeached in December.

A senior administration official briefing reporters on Friday said the president will use his State of the Union address to celebrate “the great American comeback” and present “a vision of relentless optimism” encouraging Congress to work with him. Mr. Trump plans to pursue an agenda of cutting taxes again, bringing down prescription drug prices, completing his trade negotiations with China and further restricting immigration.

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From there, Mr. Trump will head back to the campaign trail, starting with a rally in New Hampshire on Feb. 10, the night before the state’s first-in-the-nation primary race, an effort to upstage the Democrats as they try to pick a nominee to face him in the fall.

Democrats insist that Mr. Trump has been damaged by the evidence presented to the public that he sought to use the power of his office to illicitly benefit his own re-election chances. Even as they line up to acquit him, some Senate Republicans have acknowledged that the House managers prosecuting the case proved that Mr. Trump withheld $391 million in security aid to Ukraine as part of an effort to pressure it to announce political investigations into his domestic rivals.

But the public comes out of the impeachment trial pretty close to where it was when it started, divided starkly down the middle with somewhat more Americans against Mr. Trump than for him.

When the House impeached him in December, 47.4 percent supported the move and 46.5 percent opposed it, according to an analysis of multiple surveys by the polling analysis site FiveThirtyEight. Now as the trial wraps up, 49.5 percent favor impeachment versus 46.4 percent who do not.

Those numbers are strikingly close to the popular vote results from 2016, when Mr. Trump trailed Hillary Clinton 46 percent to 48 percent even as he prevailed in the Electoral College. That means that the public today is roughly where it was three years ago; few seem to have changed their minds. And the president has done nothing to expand his base and by traditional measures is a weak candidate for a second term, forcing him to try to pull the same Electoral College inside straight he did last time.

Mr. Trump is the only president in the history of Gallup polling who has never had the support of a majority of Americans for even a single day, a troubling indicator for re-election. Nine months is an eternity in American politics these days and, given his history, Mr. Trump could easily create another furor that will change the campaign dynamics, the economy could become an issue, and with all the accumulated allegations some analysts anticipate a certain scandal fatigue could weigh him down.

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But Mr. Trump is gambling that he can rally his most fervent supporters by making the case that he was the victim and not the villain of impeachment while keeping disenchanted supporters on board with steady economic growth, rising military spending and conservative judicial appointments. He has made clear he will paint former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as corrupt if he faces him in the fall and will assail other possible Democratic challengers as socialists.

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If Mr. Trump does win a second term, it would be the first time an impeached president had the opportunity to serve five years after his trial and Mr. Trump’s critics worry that he would feel unbound. He has already used his power in ways that presidents since Richard M. Nixon considered out of line, like firing an F.B.I. director who was investigating him and browbeating the Justice Department to investigate his political foes.

While in theory nothing in the Constitution would prevent the House from impeaching him again, as a political matter that seems implausible given that he has demonstrated his complete command over congressional Republicans led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, leaving the president less to fear from a Democratic House. Some House managers warned that acquittal would lower the bar for presidential misconduct, meaning that Mr. Trump would feel even freer to use his power for his own benefit because he got away with it.

“He is going to ratchet it up to another level now,” said Anthony Scaramucci, the onetime White House communications director who has broken with Mr. Trump. “He’s going to be Trump to the third power now. He’s not going to be exponential Trump because that’s not enough Trump. It’s going to be Trump to the third power.”

But in that, Mr. Scaramucci said, are the seeds of Mr. Trump’s own downfall because he could go so far that he finally alienates enough of the public to lose. “The one person who absolutely can beat Trump is Trump,” he said.

No other impeached president had the opportunity or challenge that Mr. Trump does. President Andrew Johnson, who was acquitted in 1868, was a man without a party, a Democrat who had joined the Republican Abraham Lincoln’s ticket, and was so disliked that both parties nominated other candidates shortly after his Senate trial, leaving him to finish his last 10 months in office a lame duck.

Indeed, while Johnson was not removed from office, impeachment reduced him to a shadow president, said Brenda Wineapple, author of “The Impeachers,” an account of his trial.

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“The Republicans still had a majority in Congress so they could reject some of his appointments, which they did, and override his vetoes of their legislation — and they could allow the states that conformed to the Reconstruction Acts to re-enter the Union,” she said. “So in that sense, Johnson was hamstrung, if not powerless.”


ImageOn the day of his acquittal in February 1999, President Bill Clinton appeared in the Rose Garden alone and expressed regret rather than vindication.
On the day of his acquittal in February 1999, President Bill Clinton appeared in the Rose Garden alone and expressed regret rather than vindication.Credit...Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
President Bill Clinton was in his second term when he was impeached and acquitted, never to be on a ballot again. With nearly two years left in office, he tried to move on from his impeachment, all but pretending it had not happened. On the day of his acquittal in 1999, he appeared in the Rose Garden alone and expressed regret rather than vindication.

“I want to say again to the American people how profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and on the American people,” Mr. Clinton said, calling for “a time of reconciliation and renewal.”

As he turned to leave, a reporter called after him. “In your heart, sir, can you forgive and forget?”

Mr. Clinton paused as if deciding whether to take the bait, then turned and answered, “I believe any person who asks for forgiveness has to be prepared to give it.”

Mr. Clinton, who unlike Mr. Trump admitted wrongdoing without agreeing that he committed felonies, never truly forgave his opponents, or reconciled with them, but for the most part he avoided expressing those feelings publicly.

“Clinton saw the acquittal as a humbling end to that chapter and I think Trump sees it as a way to start his re-elect,” said Jennifer Palmieri, who was a top aide to Mr. Clinton. “He just wanted to shut the door on that and move on and have a fresh start. And Trump sees it as a jump start — ‘this is what I’m going to run on.’”

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Mr. Clinton had some help in that Republicans themselves emerged from his trial feeling bruised by their failure to remove him and the clear public repudiation of the impeachment in polls and the midterm elections. Unlike Mr. Trump, whose approval ratings remain mired in the mid-40s, Mr. Clinton’s popularity reached its highest level during impeachment, with 73 percent of the public backing him just days after the House charged him with high crimes.

“I don’t think Clinton was emboldened. I think he was embarrassed about the mess he caused and he wanted to somehow move on and fix his own reputation,” said John Feehery, a Republican strategist who was a top adviser to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert at the time.

And so did the Republicans. “I think both the president and the speaker had a vested interest in moving past impeachment to getting things done,” he said. “We were very conscious about how polarizing impeachment was and we were dedicated to healing the country and repairing the G.O.P. brand.”

That does not seem like the likeliest path forward for Mr. Trump, more of a pugilist than a peacemaker. “He’s obviously legitimately pretty angry,” said Mr. Gingrich, who was forced out as speaker after Republicans lost the midterm elections during the drive to impeach Mr. Clinton. “Given that he’s a natural counterpuncher, he may decide to go after them.”

“That’s not his best strategy,” Mr. Gingrich said. “His best strategy is to assume that the Democrats are totally out of control, that they will not be able to keep from fighting. If he appears conciliatory, they’re going to very badly damage themselves with average voters who are going to say these guys are pathological.”

“He has that option,” he added. “I’m not saying he’s going to take it.”

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thehill.com/homenews/house/480978-democrats-gear-up-for-state-of-the-union-protests-as-impeachment-lingers

Democrats gear up for State of the Union protests as impeachment lingers
BY CRISTINA MARCOS - 02/02/20 07:05 PM EST

A number of House Democrats are gearing up to stage protests against President Trump's State of the Union address once again Tuesday, this time after voting to impeach him.

Female Democrats are reprising their coordinated white outfits to show solidarity with women, and, as in years past, at least a handful of lawmakers are considering or planning to boycott Trump’s speech in the House chamber entirely.

The final vote in the Senate trial to acquit Trump will likely come on Wednesday, the day after his speech, and the lawmakers absent for the address will include some of the earliest and most fervent supporters of impeachment.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who introduced articles of impeachment against Trump in 2017, skipped the last two State of the Union addresses. He told The Hill that he has no intention to "go in a very cold room and hear a bunch of puff and lies."

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who forced three House votes on impeachment and has boycotted all of Trump's addresses to Congress to date, said that he was undecided.

“The things that caused me to stay away have not changed,” Green acknowledged. But he said that he has been “encouraged” by a colleague to attend and is weighing his decision.

At least six House Democrats made a point of not attending last year’s State of the Union, while 14 boycotted the address in 2018.

The offices of other Democrats who boycotted Trump’s State of the Union in the last two years — including Reps. Earl Blumenauer (Ore.), John Lewis (Ga.), Hank Johnson (Ga.) and Maxine Waters (Calif.) — did not respond when asked if they would attend this time around.

But among those sure to be at the State of the Union, which will also take place a day after the Iowa presidential caucuses, will be the Democrats who oversaw the impeachment inquiry.

Trump will come face-to-face with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for the first time since she presided over the House votes to impeach him in December.

A Pelosi spokesman confirmed that the Speaker and the president have not spoken since a disastrous Oct. 16 White House meeting about Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria.

The two sides disagreed over whether Trump called Pelosi a “third-grade” or “third-rate” politician, but Democrats angered by the insult walked out of the meeting.

Pelosi told reporters assembled in the Capitol afterward that Trump had a “very serious meltdown” and that “we have to pray for his health.”

Relations between the two haven’t improved much since then.

Pelosi, who will be seated behind Trump during the address, is likely to be among the female lawmakers wearing white, like last year. A photo of Pelosi clapping with her arms outstretched in response to Trump calling for an end to "revenge politics" went viral last year, which was the first of his term with Democrats controlling the House.

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Democratic women — and some men — wore white, the color of suffragettes, at the 2019 State of the Union as well as Trump’s joint address shortly after his inauguration in 2017. They wore black in 2018 in solidarity with the “Me Too” movement rooting out sexual misconduct.

Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), a co-chairwoman of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, said she felt it was necessary to send a message from the room to women and her constituents instead of boycotting the address.

“I think it's important to be there. The country is watching,” Frankel said. “I want them to know that we are there and sending the message that we are fighting back and we're fighting for the people.”

Many of the vulnerable Democrats facing tough reelection races this year would rather spotlight campaign issues such as lowering the cost of prescription drugs at the State of the Union as they seek to move on from impeachment.

Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.) is bringing a 75-year-old constituent who faced high costs to treat a chronic ear infection, while Reps. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) and Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) have invited guests with diabetes to also draw attention to prescription drug costs.

Freshman Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), meanwhile, is trying to demonstrate bipartisanship amid the impeachment fever pitch.

Phillips has invited the Republican mayor of Brooklyn Park, a city in his district, to tout their work together on issues such as affordable housing and providing a pathway to citizenship for Liberians with deferred enforced departure status.

“With all the division in politics right now, I believe the cooperation in Brooklyn Park sends a powerful message on what we can do together to solve problems and restore the American people’s faith in our government,” Phillips said in a statement.

With Trump able to keep the microphone to himself for most of the evening, lawmakers have limited outlets to express themselves aside from applause, groans or blank stares in response to the president’s remarks.

But they hope to send messages through their guests, attire or absence altogether.

“Even though we're sitting down, we're not taking it sitting down,” Frankel said.

TAGS EARL BLUMENAUER MAXINE WATERS DEAN PHILLIPS

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President Trump’s deputy counsel Patrick Philbin on Monday delivered his closing arguments ahead of the final senate vote.

“This was a purely partisan impeachment from the start,” Philbin argued.

Philbin then cited Federalist No. 65 to bring his point home.

Mr. Philbin previously used passages from Federalist No. 65 in his arguments, but he took it to another level on Monday.

“[Hamilton] warns that an impeachment in the House could be the result of the persecution of an intemperate or designing majority in the House of Representatives — then he goes on…” Philbin said.

“Though this latter supposition may seem harsh, and might not be likely often to be verified, yet it ought not to be forgotten that the demon of faction will, at certain seasons, extend his sceptre over all numerous bodies of men,” he said.



“Now that’s very 18th century language. We don’t talk about demons extending their sceptre over men, but it’s prescient nonetheless. We might not be comfortable with the terms but it’s accurate for what can happen,” he added.

WATCH:

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thefederalist.com/2020/02/03/schiff-trump-will-sell-alaska-to-russia-if-we-dont-impeach-him/

Schiff: Trump Will Sell Alaska To Russia If We Don’t Impeach Him
FEBRUARY 3, 2020 By Tristan Justice
Lead House Impeachment Manager Congressman Adam Schiff of California claimed during closing arguments in the Senate impeachment trial Monday that President Donald Trump will sell a U.S. state to the Russian government if not removed from office.

If “abuse of power” was not impeachable, Schiff argued, “then a whole range of utterly unacceptable conduct in a president would now be beyond reach.”


“Trump could offer Alaska to the Russians in exchange for support in the next election, or decide to move to Mar-A-Lago permanently and leave Jared Kushner to run the country, delegating to him the decision whether they go to war.”

Schiff’s fearmongering of consequences conceived in pure fantasy come as the impeachment case against Trump officially collapsed on Friday after the Senate declined to hear new witnesses testify at the trial.

A vote on the president’s acquittal is now expected to come on Wednesday, exonerating the president of the three-and-a-half year impeachment effort launched by the Democrats even before Trump took office in 2017.

House Democrats launched an impeachment probe in September after an anonymous whistleblower complained that Trump was using the power of the Oval Office to extract concessions from foreign leaders, a common practice among American presidents.

The whistleblower complaint however, alleged Trump was conspiring with the Ukrainian president to interfere in the next election in exchange for nearly $400 million in military aid that was ultimately released to the Ukrainian government despite no investigations that Democrats have charged Trump with demanding.

Democrats however, rushed impeachment proceedings in the House to vote on two articles of impeachment the week of Christmas. By a partisan vote, the House voted to send two articles to the Senate accusing Trump of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress,” with two Democrats joining Republicans united in opposition and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard voting present.

Now as the Senate impeachment trial finally concludes without new witnesses as Democrats begged, Trump’s acquittal this week is almost certain.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/03/adam-schiff-closes-impeachment-trial-with-rant-against-trump-decency-matters/

Lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) closed his side’s argument for the removal of President Donald Trump with a rambling rhetorical assault on the president.

Unwittingly, perhaps, Schiff’s valediction recalled the Army-McCarthy hearings, when lawyer Joseph Welch finally put an end to the overly intrusive investigations of Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-WI) into alleged communist influence in the U.S. government. “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Welch said.


Schiff defended the investigative process in the House of Representatives, and declared: “America also believes there is a difference between right and wrong, and right matters here. But there is more. Truth matter. Right matters — but so does decency. Decency matters.”

In the course of his speech, which was difficult to follow at points, Schiff flung accusations at the president and his administration. He called the president “a man without character or ethical compass,” and accused Attorney General William Barr of covering up for him.

He warned that Trump would “continue trying to cheat in the election” if left in office. And he warned the Senate: What shall you say if Russia again interferes in our election and Donald Trump does nothing but celebrate the efforts?”

He also warned that “history will not be kind to Donald Trump,” and warned those who did not vote to remove him that “your name will be tied to his with a cord of steel and for all of history.”

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/03/democrat-cites-harry-potter-books-closing-impeachment-argument/

Democrat Rep. Jason Crow Cites Harry Potter Books in Closing Impeachment Argument

Democrat impeachment manager Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) cited the Harry Potter children’s book series to argue for impeaching President Donald Trump.

Crow urged the Senate to understand the impact of their decision about President Trump remaining in office. He explained that as a father, he tried to teach his children the importance of their actions.


“It’s in that spirit that hanging in my son’s room is a quote from Harry Potter,” he said. “The quote is from Professor Dumbledore, who said, ‘It is our choices that show who we truly are far more than our abilities.'”

Crow said every member of Congress will have to examine if they are fulfilling their oath to the Constitution with their vote in the trial.

“More than our words, our choices will show the world who we really are, what kind of leaders we will be, and what kind of nation we will be,” he said.

Crow showed the senators two small copies of his children’s Constitutions, reading aloud a note that he said he wrote to his children: “Our Founders recognized the failings of all people, so they designed a system to ensure that the ideas and principles contained in this document would always be greater than any one person. It’s the idea that no one is above the law. But our system only works if people stand up and fight for it. And fighting for something important always comes with a cost. Some day you may be called upon to defend the principles and ideas embodied in our Constitution. May the memory and spirit of those who sacrificed for them in the past guide you and give you strength as you fight for them in the future.”

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/03/democrats-recycled-talking-points-from-mueller-report-for-impeachment-trial/

Democrats have repeated phrases like “cover up” in describing the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. They have also repeatedly argued that Trump’s alleged “obstruction” of Congress is “worse than Nixon.”

These arguments are presented as if they spring from the facts of the impeachment case about Ukraine. In fact, Democrats have been using the same talking points for months — long before the Ukraine call.




In May, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claimed that Trump was carrying out a “cover up” because the administration would not release all of the details behind Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, including grand jury materials that the government was not allowed to provide without a court order.

“We do believe that it is important to follow the facts, we believe that no one is above the law, including the president of the United States, and we believe the president of the United States is engaged in a cover-up, in a cover-up,” Pelosi said, according to The Hill.

Likewise, in April, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told ABC News’ This Week that President Trump’s alleged “obstruction,” as described in the Mueller report — though the White House provided millions of pages of documents, made hundreds of witnesses available, and never exerted executive privilege — was worse than what President Richard M. Nixon did.

Schiff linked Trump to Russia — despite the fact that Mueller found there was “no collusion”:

The obstruction of justice in particular in this case is far worse than anything that Richard Nixon did. The break-in by the Russians of the Democratic institutions, a foreign adversary, far more significant than the plumbers breaking into the Democratic headquarters. So yes, I would say in every way this is more significant than Watergate.

Months later, Pelosi, Schiff, and the Democrats would again use “cover up” and “Nixon” — applying old talking points to new allegations.

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Rand Paul just dropped a MOAB on Schiff & company. He just asked the question that Chief Justice Roberts refused to ask last week. Kudos to Senator Paul:

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Senate acquitted President Trump of both Articles.

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www.speaker.gov/newsroom/2520-0

Today, the President and Senate Republicans have normalized lawlessness and rejected the system of checks and balances of our Constitution. Our Founders put safeguards in the Constitution to protect against a rogue president. They never imagined that they would at the same time have a rogue leader in the Senate who would cowardly abandon his duty to uphold the Constitution.

“President Trump was impeached with the support of a majority of the American people – a first in our nation’s history. And now he is the first President in history to face a bipartisan vote to convict him in the Senate. A full 75 percent of Americans and many members of the GOP Senate believe the President’s behavior is wrong. But the Senate chose instead to ignore the facts, the will of the American people and their duty to the Constitution.

“The President will boast that he has been acquitted. There can be no acquittal without a trial, and there is no trial without witnesses, documents and evidence. By suppressing the evidence and rejecting the most basic elements of a fair judicial process, the Republican Senate made themselves willing accomplices to the President’s cover-up.

“Even without additional witnesses and documents in the Senate trial, our House Managers laid out an overwhelming, compelling and incriminating case about President Trump’s scheme to corrupt the 2020 elections and proved his guilt. The President’s legal team could not and did not refute the facts of the case. Instead, they argued that the American people have no right to stop the President from using the power of his office to cheat in our elections. They argued that if the President thinks that his re-election is good for the country, he can use any means necessary to win, with no accountability or consequences.

“In December, the House defended democracy by passing two articles of impeachment to hold the President accountable for abusing his office for his own personal, political gain at the expense of our national security and the integrity of our elections. The President has been impeached forever.

“Sadly, because of the Republican Senate’s betrayal of the Constitution, the President remains an ongoing threat to American democracy, with his insistence that he is above the law and that he can corrupt the elections if he wants to. The House will continue to protect and defend the checks and balances in the Constitution that safeguard our Republic, both in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion. Democrats will continue to defend our democracy For The People.”

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www.dailywire.com/news/republicans-to-expunge-democrats-impeachment-of-trump-if-they-win-house-back-report-says

Republicans To EXPUNGE Democrats’ Impeachment Of Trump If They Win House Back, Report Says

Multiple top Republican lawmakers are reportedly considering expunging Democrats’ partisan articles of impeachment from President Donald Trump’s record if they take back the House in the upcoming elections in November.

The New York Post reported: “If McCarthy (R-Calif.) does indeed take the gavel from Pelosi (D-Calif.) in 2021, he will hold immense power to pass legislation — and a vote on expungement almost certainly would yield party-line support.”


“This is the fastest, weakest, most political impeachment in history,” McCarthy told The Post. “I don’t think it should stay on the books.”

“I think [if] we take the majority, some of the key priorities for us are infrastructure, lowering prescription drugs and others. But I think when you look at what the Democrats have done, I also think we have to get to the bottom of it,” McCarthy continued. “There’s still an 18th transcript that was never released about the inspector general. It’s interesting to know, in there there was 179 pages, did Adam Schiff know the whistleblower? Did he meet with the whistleblower? I think a lot of questions are raised about whether that individual, Adam Schiff, was a fact witness.”

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) tweeted over the weekend: “The House of Representatives should EXPUNGE this sham impeachment in January 2021! This was absolutely disgusting what Pelosi and Schiff just dragged our country through. The end is near not only for impeachment, but hopefully also for their abusive grip on their gavels.”

Numerous other top Republicans told The Post that they backed the move, including:

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX): “The president is there and I think ultimately with the things that are going to be coming out in the months ahead, it will be all the more appropriate. More and more people will see that. So then I think by next year it will be an appropriate thing to file and do.”
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA): “I think there would be a groundswell of support.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): “The president should have never been impeached in the first place [and expungement is] a good idea.”
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC): “Certainly having it removed would be appropriate. That said, I don’t know if there is a real vehicle constitutionally to get that done.”

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Brennan thought it was a smart idea to attack Rand Paul. That didn't turn out good for Brennan:

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thefederalist.com/2020/02/05/senate-majority-acquits-trump-on-all-impeachment-charges/

Senate Majority Acquits Trump On All Impeachment Charges
The partisan operation to oust Trump through impeachment for winning the 2016 presidential election finally came to an end on Wednesday.
Tristan Justice
By Tristan Justice
FEBRUARY 5, 2020
The partisan operation to oust Trump through impeachment for winning the 2016 presidential election finally came to an end Wednesday with Trump’s acquittal in the Senate.

The Senate voted to acquit Trump on the first article of impeachment, a charge for abuse of power, with a vote of 52-48, falling short of the 67 needed to remove the president from office. They voted to acquit on the second article of impeachment, a charge of obstruction of justice, with a vote of 53-47.


Sen. Mitt Romney announced just hours before he would break party lines and split his vote, voting Trump guilty on the abuse of power charge, but not guilty on the obstruction of justice charge.

After the final vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered remarks on the Senate floor, reminding senators of the importance of America’s institutions, and warning them of the political threats against such institutions including the Electoral College, the judiciary, and the Senate.

“We simply cannot let factional fever break our institutions. It must work the other way, as Madison and Hamilton intended. The institutions must break the fever, rather than the other way around,” he said. “The Framers built the Senate to keep temporary rage from doing permanent damage to our Republic.”

The official proceedings were kicked off last fall by an anonymous whistleblower complaint alleging Trump conspired with the Ukrainian president to interfere in the next U.S. presidential election this November.


The complaint, marked both “credible” and “urgent” by the intelligence community inspector general but not by the Department of National Intelligence sparked new life into the top item on the Democratic policy agenda: the impeachment of President Trump following the spectacular collapse of the grand Russian collusion conspiracy theory last spring.

The whistleblower’s complaint centered on a July 25th phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky where Trump allegedly pressured the Ukrainian president to launch politically motivated investigations into the Biden family in exchange for nearly $400 million in withheld military aid in an apparent quid pro quo.

Nevermind that the aid was released by the congressionally mandated deadline without the investigations that Democrats and a compliant media have charged Trump with demanding, an unredacted transcript of the call was declassified and released to the public in an unprecedented move to release the conversartion in plain sight revealing no such arrangement between the two world leaders.

The grand reveal from the transcript’s release? That Trump requested a foreign power with a reputation as one of the world’s most corrupt governments root out the corruption plaguing its country, a common practice among American presidents. The president also requested that the Ukrainian leader investigate the origins of Ukraine’s peddling of the Russia hoax in the United States which did irreparable harm to the country. That’s the “high crime and misdemeanor,” that Democrats pinned their impeachment.


Part of that corruption centered on former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, who served on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma raking in upwards of $50,000 a month despite no prior experience in the industry while his father dictated U.S. policy towards Ukraine.

A Federalist analysis of board member compensation at comparable companies revealed that Hunter Biden was being showered with excess compensation, where board members on companies exponentially larger than Burisma only earned little more than half of Hunter Biden’s pay.

After roughly a month and a half of a secret impeachment investigation run behind closed doors by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California, the House voted along party lines to formally open up an impeachment inquiry on Halloween, with two Democrats joining Republicans in opposition.

House Democrats then rushed the process to reach a full chamber vote on two articles of impeachment by Christmas. One article was passed for “abuse of power” and one for “obstruction of Congress,” neither of which were rooted in law following a few weeks of hearings featuring 17 Democrat-called witnesses whose testimony either exonerated the president or destroyed their own credibility.


Immediately after passage of the articles, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she would be withholding the articles from the Senate for a trial to begin until she extracted concessions from Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on how the trial would be conducted.

Pelosi, after her Democratic colleagues in the House failed to find incriminating evidence against the president sought to put pressure on Senate Republicans to commit to calling new witnesses to testify as public opinion went underwater on impeachment.

The House speaker however, had no leverage to work with and caved after four weeks of withholding thee articles and transmitted them to the upper chamber without a single concession from Republican senators.

Public support for removing the president meanwhile, continued to sink as Pelosi undercut the Democrats’ case that Trump was an urgent danger to the republic who must be removed from the Oval Office.

When the Senate trial got underway, most Americans refused to pay much attention, as the trial got worse ratings than television soap operas.

Similar to the way the Kavanaugh proceedings played out just less than a year and a half ago, 11th- hour revelations of wrongdoing against the president emerged precisely as the Senate prepared to vote on whether to call for new witnesses. The new evidence however, surfaced in unsubstantiated claims from Giuliani associate Lev Parnas who has been indicted for fraud and former National Security Advisor John Bolton who was fired from the White House last year.

In the midst of the Senate trial, manuscripts from Bolton’s unpublished book got leaked to the New York Times alleging that Trump tied the almost $400 million in aid to the investigations into the Biden family on the same day that Bolton’s book became available for pre-sale.

Regardless, the new unproven claims from Bolton convinced two Republican senators, Mitt Romney from Utah and Susan Collins of Maine to join Democrats in voting for new witnesses to come forward and extend the proceedings on Friday. The measure failed however, leading to the Trump’s acquittal on Wednesday.

Despite months of Democrats trying to bring down the president, Trump reached his highest approval rating on Tuesday hours before his third State of the Union address with 49 percent of Americans approving of the president’s job performance.

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Treasury Dept Hands Over Highly Sensitive Financial Records About Hunter Biden to Expanding GOP Senate Probe

news.yahoo.com/treasury-department-sent-information-on-hunter-biden-to-expanding-gop-senate-inquiry-161846826.html

The Treasury Department has complied with Republican senators’ requests for highly sensitive and closely held financial records about Hunter Biden and his associates and has turned over “‘evidence’ of questionable origin” to them, according to a leading Democrat on one of the committees conducting the investigation.

For months, while the impeachment controversy raged, powerful committee chairmen in the Republican-controlled Senate have been quietly but openly pursuing an inquiry into Hunter Biden’s business affairs and Ukrainian officials’ alleged interventions in the 2016 election, the same matters that President Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani unsuccessfully tried to coerce Ukraine’s government to investigate.

Grassley and Johnson have sought to obtain some of the most sensitive and closely held documents in all of federal law enforcement — highly confidential suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed by financial institutions with FinCEN, an agency of the Treasury that helps to police money laundering.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/06/sham-act-bradley-byrne-introduces-bill-to-audit-the-cost-of-democrats-partisan-impeachment/

SHAM Act’: Bradley Byrne Introduces Bill to Audit the Cost of Democrats’ Partisan Impeachment

Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL) on Thursday introduced the Statement of Harm to the American Majority (SHAM) Act, a bill that would seek to determine the amount of time, money, and loss of productivity “wasted” on the Democrats’ recently concluded impeachment effort.

Byrne’s office explained in a press release:

The SHAM Act, which enjoys the support of 26 co-sponsors, requires the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct an audit of the use of funds and loss of government productivity for both the Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch due to the impeachment inquiry and trial of President Trump. The audit must include costs, time spent, expenses, and estimations on [the] loss of productivity.
High-ranking members of the Democrat majority in the House carried out the impeachment probe, and the Senate conducted the trial.



The GAO is an independent, nonpartisan agency often referred to as the “congressional watchdog.”
Byrne declared in a statement:

Tragically, there was no bigger loser in the Democrats’ impeachment sham than the American people. The SHAM Act will determine the true costs of this taxpayer-funded political hit job that kept Congress from addressing real issues that actually matter to the American people. The American people deserve to see just how much time and money was wasted on this sham, so the Democrats can be held accountable for what they have done to our country.
The bill requires that the GAO issue a report of its findings 180 days after lawmakers approve the act.

Byrne introduced the proposal a day after the Republican-controlled Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump of the two articles of impeachment approved by the House — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) left the door open for another impeachment effort by the Democrats.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/06/trump-democrats-will-cook-up-more-investigations-despite-acquittal/

Donald Trump: Democrats Will ‘Cook Up’ More Investigations Despite Acquittal

President Donald Trump on Thursday predicted that congressional Democrats will “cook up” more investigations against him, despite his acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial.

The president made the remark during a celebratory White House press conference, where he once again denounced the origins of both the Russia and impeachment investigations and thanked allies for their support through the two ordeals.

We went through hell,” the president said. “I’m sure that Pelosi, Cryin’ Chuck… [will] try and cook up other things.”

They’ll go through the state of New York, they’ll go through other places,” the president added, referring to the ongoing fight to obtain his past tax fillings in his former home state. “They’ll do whatever they can, because instead of wanting to heal our country and fix our country, all they want to do — in my opinion — it’s almost like they want to destroy our country. We can’t let it happen.”

The President’s speech came one day after the Senate voted to acquit him on two articles of impeachment. Lawmakers voted 52-48 to acquit on the abuse of power charge and 53-47 on the obstruction of Congress charge.
In addition to President Trump, others have predicted that Democrats could continue investigating him, including House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA).
“The problem is, this isn’t going to end,” Nunes told Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight last month. “I just can’t imagine that Adam Schiff, after three-and-a-half years of this nonsense, and Jerry Nadler are not going to continue this, right?… We’re going to have the same exact thing that you’ve been seeing for the last three-and-a-half years. I just think you should prepare.”
Appearing Saturday on the Fox News Channel, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy explained that the House Democrats could even continue their impeachment probe.
“Even if we get out of the four corners of this Senate trial, that doesn’t mean that the House impeachment investigation is over. And to my mind, what this has always been about, since they never really had a realistic idea of removing the president, has been the politics of 2020,” said McCarthy. “As long as they think that they can bruise Trump up so that — their goal is to make him unelectable in the stretch run of the campaign — as long as that’s a possibility, sure there can be all kinds of stuff between now and then.”