WTF Community

The Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump

General Discussion
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#1356
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#1357

I officially love Rep. Welch pushing back against Gym Jordan’s attack on the whistleblower: “I’d love to have the person who started it all come and testify, Trump can take a seat right there.”


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#1358
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#1359

Two GOP Reps have tried to slip some sort of papers or info into the hearing and gotten shut down. What’s going on with them?

Edit: A third GOP Rep tries to slip in an unrelated article after Val Demings knocks it out of the park noting how the GOP and WH are obstructing with withholding subpoenaed materials and accounts.

Seems like the GOP is trying to just slip in random articles about Obama and Clinton with no relation to the situation.

Here we go. They’re bringing up the fact that the whistleblower report came out before the release.

:man_facepalming: And now the GOP are being idiots and trying to claim Mulvaney said there was no quid pro quo, ignoring that he also said THERE WAS QUID PRO QUO on live TV. And are again pushing the conspiracy theories that Trump is being impeached for.

And Schiff gets the last word: the aid was released within 48 hours of the WH learning that Congress would definitely become aware of the situation through the whistleblower and he does NOT know who the whistleblower is.

Now THIS is a perfect conversation.

EDIT: Last bit – The GOP just tried to force a vote to subpoena the whistleblower; it got tabled, 13-9, because, again, it’s illegal and an attempt to harass the whistleblower.







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#1360

Cross-posting :pray:

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#1361

Summary of Impeachment Inquiry into Trump 2019

What’s new this week? All of this… :scream:

November 5th -13th News:

Documents:

Just in case you want to print them all out and roll around in them, like Demi Moore from that one movie.

Closed Door Hearings:

  • 10/04/19 Appeared - Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General of the intelligence community

Closed Door Depositions:

Updated with more even testimonies than before!

Note: All depositions for Oct. 24 and 25 had been postponed due to services for the late former House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.)

Public Impeachment Hearings:

Wow, so much to watch! :popcorn:

Thanks for skimming, ok, now i need a nap :woman_technologist:t2:

:newspaper: Timeline has been updated. Breaking news starts below. :point_down:

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Day 1028
#1362

OMG this group brings more news than a fish monger! :raised_hands::raised_hands::raised_hands::raised_hands:

Dumb joke but I see a couple of user created well-cited timelines of different calls and events, I have bookmarked those and that’ll be the next thing I try and figure out how to format and integrate into our massive Trump impeachment wiki. Thanks for posting those, they will not be forgotten. :clap::clap::clap:

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#1363

Appeals court hands Trump another loss, saying Congress can seek his tax returns

An appeals court has denied for the second time President Donald Trump’s attempt to stop an accounting firm from turning over his financial documents to the House, making it the second tax case Trump’s lawyers say they are taking to the Supreme Court.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals said on Wednesday that a panel of eight judges out of 11 voted against allowing Trump to continue his appeal.

The decision is another loss stacked against Trump, after federal judges have repeatedly rebuked him and greenlighted the House’s effort as it also pursues his impeachment. The case, if Trump loses again with the Supreme Court, could deliver his tax returns or closely related financial documents into the hands of House Democrats.

The opinion reiterates the strong signal the court sent last month, when it upheld a lower court ruling that Trump’s longtime accounting firm Mazars USA must comply with a House subpoena of his tax documents and turn over eight years of accounting records.

Trump’s attorney Jay Sekulow said Wednesday that they will appeal the decision to Supreme Court, noting “well reasoned dissent” from three judges to Wednesday’s opinion.

Three out of eleven judges. :peanuts:

More,

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#1364

Each new revelation is welcome in the face of the obstruction coming from T 'n co…

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#1365

Reposting because this page is handy.

Washington Post’s Impeachment Calendar

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#1366

Front page of NYT…11.14.19

Setting the tone…

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#1367

Hilarious take.




https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1194736333828153344
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1194737366394474496

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Dept. of I Really Don't Care, Do U? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
#1368


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#1369



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#1370

Ambassador’s cellphone call to Trump from Kyiv restaurant was a stunning breach of security, former officials say

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/ambassadors-cellphone-call-to-trump-from-kyiv-restaurant-was-a-stunning-breach-of-security-former-officials-say/2019/11/13/37d75752-0641-11ea-b17d-8b867891d39d_story.html#click=https://t.co/vyjrdvAuOL

Calling a president from a cellphone violates protocols set up to protect senior administration officials’ communications. “It’s indicative of a lack of concern for operational security,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid being accused of making statements motivated by political bias. Senior officials, he said, “are routinely briefed on the threats to their communications. You could assume that talking on an unencrypted line from a foreign country would be on that list.”

It is also dangerous for a president to take an off-the-books call like that, Pfeiffer said. That is why call logs are kept, he said. Without them, someone could assert that the president said something on a call, and a log “protects the president’s ability to deny something happened,” he said. “Good bureaucratic record-keeping is a protection for someone in the position of the president.”

This is not the first time questions have arisen over Trump’s un­or­tho­dox phone use. He has been known to give his personal cellphone number to other world leaders, despite aides’ warnings that his cellphone calls are not secure. Russia and China in particular have targeted his personal cellphone calls, the New York Times reported.

President Trump breaking national security protocol to bribe Ukraine for his personal interest but don’t worry guys, it’s not as outlandish as it could be. :smirk:

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#1371

This overheard conversation with Ambassador Sondland and T was a big revelation tying T ever closer to being the source of the Impeachment scandal - T, who only wanted to kick up some dirt on Biden. That personal motive on T’s part in order to win the 2020 is not in the national interest, and therefore an impeachable offense. End of story.

Whether the new ‘witness,’ David Holmes, an aide to Taylor will be able to testify remains to be seen, the constant of this impeachment process is the R’s throwing up roadblocks to getting any first-hand testimony.

And the other constant for the R’s is deny, refute and offer the ‘so what’ strategy…saying it really was nothing is what they will die by. Each new witness, particularly Amb Sondland has to weigh what his liability is in telling the truth whether it be jail time, or serious damage to their future careers.

The R’s keep a tight lock on their ‘loyalty’ chain…and let’s hope some might be willing to break with this mob technique. How low will they go…so far, it’s pretty darn low.

…

“The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone, asking
Ambassador Sondland about ‘the investigations,’ ” Taylor told lawmakers, adding that he understood that they were following up on the matter a day after Trump spoke with Ukraine’s new leader, Volodymyr Zelensky. “Ambassador Sondland told President Trump that the Ukrainians were ready to move forward.” Taylor said that at the conclusion of the call, his aide asked Sondland what Trump thought of Ukraine and Sondland responded that “President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden.”

…

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham echoed the GOP attempt to play down the diplomats’ testimony as mere hearsay.

“The latest ‘evidence’ is an anonymous staffer who told someone he overheard someone else talking to POTUS on the phone,” she said in a statement Wednesday. “All the ‘evidence’ in this case is 2nd and 3rd hand hearsay.”

Democrats pushed back against that argument, pointing out that the White House has blocked testimony from key witnesses with firsthand information, including Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton.

…

Whatever the GOP counsel is doing, it’s not working. I don’t under[s]tand where he’s going,” wrote Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush.

At one point, Castor sought to play down conversations with Ukraine that took place outside the normal State Department channels of communication, saying that they could have been even more abnormal.

…

Democrats have scheduled testimony from several additional witnesses, many of whom have already testified privately that they were bewildered and concerned by Trump’s decision to withhold the aid over the summer. Marie Yovanovitch, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who Kent said was targeted by a ­Giuliani-led “smear campaign,” is scheduled to testify Friday.

Sondland, who is slated to testify on Wednesday, has previously amended his closed-door testimony to confirm that he told Ukrainian officials that military aid and an Oval Office meeting were conditioned on a public announcement of corruption investigations.

Taylor’s testimony raises the stakes for Sondland, who will certainly be asked about the July 26 phone call in which Trump allegedly inquired about “investigations.”

And a whole lot of “nothing to see here.” from R’s

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/14/fact-checking-opening-day-trump-impeachment-hearings/

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#1372

Nevermind that Russia has those cell phone networks compromised, DINERS could have overheard that!

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#1373

Ex-Simpsons writer accuses Republicans of ‘Sideshow Bob defense’ in WaPo op-ed


In a 1994 episode of “The Simpsons,” a character complains that Sideshow Bob shouldn’t be in prison for attempted murder, rhetorically asking, “Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?”

A former writer of the show said Republicans use the same defense for Trump when they argue that even if he did seek a quid pro quo with Ukraine, there was no wrongdoing because it was unsuccessful.

https://twitter.com/windthin/status/1195066764780064769

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#1374

:boom:

A second U.S. Embassy staffer in Kyiv overheard a cellphone call between President Donald Trump and his ambassador to the European Union discussing a need for Ukrainian officials to pursue “investigations,” The Associated Press has learned.

The July 26 call between Trump and Gordon Sondland was first described during testimony Wednesday by William B. Taylor Jr., the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Taylor said one of his staffers overhead the call while Sondland was in a Kyiv restaurant the day after Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that triggered the House impeachment inquiry.

The second diplomatic staffer also at the table was Suriya Jayanti, a foreign service officer based in Kyiv. A person briefed on what Jayanti overheard spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter currently under investigation.

Trump on Wednesday said he did not recall the July 26 call.

“No, not at all, not even a little bit,” Trump said.

The White House did not respond to questions Thursday about the second witness to the call with Sondland.

The staffer Taylor testified about is David Holmes, the political counselor at the embassy in Kyiv, according to an official familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Holmes is scheduled to testify Friday before House investigators in a closed session.

Taylor was one of the first witnesses called Wednesday during the impeachment inquiry’s initial open hearing. He testified that his staffer could hear Trump on the phone asking Sondland about “the investigations.”

The accounts of Holmes and Jayanti could tie Trump closer to alleged efforts to hold up military aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations into political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings. …

Link courtesy currentstatus.io.

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#1375

Yes! Pelosi is shifting the terminology from “quid pro quo” to “bribery.” I’ll bet she had this planned all along – just waiting until the public hearings. :wink:

Now the media will surely follow suit. :newspaper: :muscle:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi sharpened the focus of Democrats’ impeachment case against President Trump on Thursday, accusing the president of committing bribery when he withheld vital military assistance from Ukraine at the same time he was seeking its commitment to publicly investigate his political rivals.

The speaker’s explicit allegation of bribery, a misdeed identified in the Constitution as an impeachable offense, was significant. Even as Ms. Pelosi said that no final decision had been made on whether to impeach Mr. Trump, it suggested that Democrats are increasingly working to put a name to the president’s alleged wrongdoing, and moving toward a more specific set of charges that could be codified in articles of impeachment in the coming weeks.

“The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry, and that the president abused his power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival — a clear attempt by the president to give himself an advantage in the 2020 election,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference in the Capitol.

Democrats have begun using the term “bribery” more freely in recent days to describe what a string of diplomats and career Trump administration officials have said was a highly unusual and inappropriate effort by Mr. Trump and a small group around him to extract a public promise from Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and a discredited theory about Democrats conspiring with Ukraine to interfere in the 2016 election.

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