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The Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump

General Discussion
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#1522

Adam Schiff’s closing statement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4ssrr2OsQ0

Schiff says Trump’s actions go ‘beyond anything Nixon did’

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4832768/adam-schiff-closing-statement&start=24887

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#1523

In other news, the woke-unwoke Glenn Beck is re-embracing his inner anti-Semite:

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https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1197661259505774592

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#1524

:boom:

Parnas witnessed Giuliani pressure Ukrainians to investige Bidens

When Rudy Giuliani met with a senior Ukrainian official in Madrid earlier this year and urged him to investigate the Bidens, Lev Parnas was at the table, according to Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian official.

Parnas’ presence at the meeting, which has not been previously reported, indicates that he may have significant visibility into Giuliani’s efforts to pressure Kyiv to investigate a company linked to one of President Donald Trump’s political rivals. That pressure campaign is a central focus of congressional Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. Parnas was charged with campaign finance violations last month.

“Giuliani introduced him as his associate/colleague, and probably said his name, but I didn’t remember it, and remembered again when I saw Lev Parnas’ face on TV and thought that this face looks familiar,” Yermak said in a statement provided to The Daily Beast. “But we didn’t have a conversation, I spoke only to Giuliani.”

Joseph Bondy, Parnas’ New York-based criminal defense attorney, confirmed that his client attended the meeting.

“Mr. Parnas travelled to Madrid to meet Rudolph Giuliani, where he attended Rudolph’s meeting with Zelensky aide Andriy Yermak, and witnessed Rudolph pressuring Yermak on behalf of President Trump to compel Zelensky to announce that his administration was launching a corruption investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden and alleged Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election,” he said in a statement.

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#1525

Both the House Committees and NY DA Cy Vance are putting more pressure on Supreme Court not to put a ‘hold’ on releasing T’s tax records. As far as I know, the SC says it just puts a stay on any actions regarding this appeal and request. But both the House and NY DA Vance argue these financial statements can be released and are merited by law dependant on a subpoena from Congress.

The push continues against a stalling WH.

There is no need for this court to make definitive pronouncements on the scope of Congress’s power in a case in which its ruling will be so limited in application and consequence," the House said.

The House lawyers urged the court to lift the stay and let the subpoena take effect. But if the court is considering taking up the president’s appeal, they urged the justices to impose an unusually fast timetable, with all legal briefs to be due by Dec. 11. If that happened, the hold on the subpoena would remain in place until the court decided whether to hear and decide the case.

The court could also simply decline to take up the president’s appeal, allowing the House to enforce its subpoena.

The case is one of several legal challenges to Trump’s efforts to keep his financial records hidden.

The case is one of several legal challenges to Trump’s efforts to keep his financial records hidden.

In a separate filing on Thursday, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance also urged the Supreme Court not to take up an appeal from Trump’s legal team over access to his financial records.

Vance had obtained a grand jury subpoena for nearly a decade’s worth of Trump’s tax returns and other financial documents stemming from an investigation of hush money payments made to two women who claimed to have affairs with Mr. Trump, allegations that he has consistently denied.

But Vance said Thursday in his court filings that the issue is much narrower and urged the justices to reject the appeal and leave the lower court rulings intact because the grand jury isn’t seeking anything official at all from the president himself, only personal financial records from his accountants.

The case presents only a narrow question of whether a state can issue a subpoena to a third party – the accountants – when the only records sought have no relation to official actions taken by the president while in office.

"There is no real public interest at stake here at all," Vance said.

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#1526

Trump wants Senate trial, expects Joe Biden to testify: White House

President Donald Trump wants an impeachment trial to go forward in the U.S. Senate because he would receive due process there and he expects Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden would be among the witnesses, a White House spokesman said on Thursday.

“President Trump wants to have a trial in the Senate because it’s clearly the only chamber where he can expect fairness and receive due process under the Constitution,” spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement.

“We would expect to finally hear from witnesses who actually witnessed, and possibly participated in corruption - like Adam Schiff, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and the so-called Whistleblower, to name a few,” Gidley said, referring to House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff, who is leading an impeachment inquiry into Trump.

WTF? Using his own Impeachment trial to influence the 2020 election.

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#1527

https://twitter.com/mattzap/status/1197699180862554114

Justice Dept. inspector general draft report finds FBI lawyer altered document

The Justice Department inspector general has found evidence that an FBI employee may have altered a document connected to court-approved surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, but has concluded that the conduct did not affect the overall validity of the surveillance application, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The person under scrutiny has not been identified but is a low-level FBI lawyer who has since been forced out of the FBI, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss material that has not yet been made public.

The allegation is contained in a draft of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report analyzing the FBI’s Russia investigation, which witnesses have in recent weeks been allowed to review, people familiar with the matter said. The report is scheduled to be released publicly Dec. 9.

The employee was forced out of the FBI after the incident was discovered, two U.S. officials said. Horowitz found that the employee erroneously indicated he had documentation to back up a claim he had made in discussions with the Justice Department about the factual basis for the application. He then altered an email to back up that erroneous claim, they said.

That conduct did not alter Horowitz’s finding that the surveillance application of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had a proper legal and factual basis, the officials said.

Horowitz has been exploring various aspects of the Russia probe but was focused in particular on applications the FBI filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor Page’s electronic communications.

The alleged alteration of a document by an FBI employee was first reported by CNN.

Separately, Attorney General William P. Barr tapped U.S. Attorney John Durham to explore the origins of the FBI probe and U.S. intelligence agency activities aimed at the Trump campaign, and Durham is expected to pursue the allegation surrounding the altered document to see whether it constitutes a crime, people familiar with the matter said.

Durham’s work is expected to continue well after publication of the inspector general’s report.

A spokeswoman for the inspector general declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for the FBI. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

President Trump and fellow Republicans have been clamoring for the report’s release, particularly as House Democrats have held high-profile impeachment hearings this month.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the panel plans to hold a hearing with testimony from Horowitz on Dec. 11.

The inspector general has been investigating how the FBI pursued allegations of collusion and conspiracy between Trump associates and Russian agents during the 2016 election.

In recent weeks, key witnesses in the investigation have been called in to review and comment on sections of the report. The Washington Post reported last week that, unlike in previous inspector general reports, witnesses were told they could not submit written responses to the report, which remains a classified document. That raised alarms among some witnesses worried they would not be allowed to correct errors or misunderstandings in the report, according to people familiar with the matter.

After The Post’s report, the inspector general’s office clarified to witnesses that they would be allowed to submit written comments.

Democrats and Republicans have eagerly awaited release of the report, hopeful that the Justice Department’s internal watchdog will validate their views on the law enforcement investigation that dogged the first two years of Trump’s presidency.

Conservatives have alleged that a medley of wrongdoing occurred during the investigation, which was eventually taken over by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, and they are likely to seize on any criticism that Horowitz directs at those involved in the probe. Some Trump supporters have referred to the investigation as an attempted “coup.”

Mueller issued a lengthy report this year concluding there was insufficient evidence to support charges of conspiracy between any Trump associates and Russian agents. Mueller also elected not to decide whether the president had obstructed justice in the course of the inquiry, though Barr reviewed Mueller’s findings and concluded the president had not broken the law.

Democrats, meanwhile, are hopeful Horowitz will disprove various conspiracy theories that have been offered about the case and refute Trump’s assertion that Mueller’s probe was a “witch hunt” tainted by political bias against the president.

Looks like this story has no legs.

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Day 1036
#1528

So if Trump didn’t want Ukraine to carry out an “investigation” of the Biden’s; and never withheld the funding for the military aid to Ukraine because he was not interested in any investigation - as he so loudly proclaimed on the White House lawn the other day - why is he wanting the Biden’s to testify in his Senate trial?

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#1529

“If John Bolton keeps refusing to testify, Congress should arrest him”

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#1530

These outtakes from Fox News are hila- they’re live? Oh.

https://twitter.com/AynRandPaulRyan/status/1197878460225470464
https://twitter.com/revrrlewis/status/1197873318772260864


https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/1197872082434084866

The Cybersecurity 202: Trump’s CrowdStrike conspiracy theory shows he still doubts Russian election interference

In other, related, news, Steve Doocey shows why Faux News loves him; it’s his class.

https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/1197140609032761346

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#1531

“This woman.” “Not an angel.” All Trump knows is lies and and misogyny.

Trump tells Fox News Marie Yovanovitch refused to hang his photo in Ukraine embassy: “This was not an angel, this woman”

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#1532

I thank the gentleman as always for his remarks and enter into the record this cross-post.

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#1533

Impeachment is about to get a Robert Mueller reprise

Now that the Ukraine hearings are over, Democrats want to hold at least one Mueller-related impeachment hearing on Trump’s possible obstruction and perjury.

Ultimately, the Judiciary panel — which spent the bulk of its time in 2019 examining Mueller’s work — will vote on any eventual articles of impeachment. Any upcoming hearings on the committee, which is led by Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), likely would follow the same model the Intelligence Committee used in its Ukraine hearings and feature questioning by staff counsel.

Good. The President and his campaign keep trying to cheat in the election while claiming some bullshit supreme presidential immunity from oversight. Make the Republicans defend this bullshit in the impeachment trial and fucking be done with it.

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#1534

For Trump Remarks

OCTOBER 3, 2019

President Trump White House Departure

President Trump talked to reporters before departing to Florida to deliver remarks on a new Medicare proposal.

Transcript:

Q Mr. President, what exactly did you hope Zelensky would do about the Bidens after your phone call? Exactly.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I would think that, if they were honest about it, they’d start a major investigation into the Bidens. It’s a very simple answer.

They should investigate the Bidens, because how does a company that’s newly formed — and all these companies, if you look at —

And, by the way, likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with — with Ukraine.

So, I would say that President Zelensky — if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens. Because nobody has any doubt that they weren’t crooked. That was a crooked deal — 100 percent. He had no knowledge of energy; didn’t know the first thing about it. All of a sudden, he is getting $50,000 a month, plus a lot of other things. Nobody has any doubt.

And they got rid of a prosecutor who was a very tough prosecutor. They got rid of him. Now they’re trying to make it the opposite way. But they got rid —

So, if I were the President, I would certainly recommend that of Ukraine.

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#1535

Trump showed us on ‘Fox & Friends’ how little he actually cares about Ukraine

You never have to wait long for President Trump to say something that refutes whatever argument his allies have been making in his defense.

Friday morning, the president did an interview with his most reliable television cheerleaders, Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” where he repeated the bat-guano-crazy notion that some rich Ukrainian has the Democratic National Committee email server that was memorably hacked during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Referring to the DNC, presumably, Trump told the show’s hosts, “They gave the server to CrowdStrike or whatever it’s called, which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian, and I still want to see that server,” according to the Hill. Adding that “a lot of it had to do, they say, with Ukraine,” Trump asked, “Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?”

So much to unpack here! But rather than offering a close textual analysis, let me just put Trump’s comments in context.

One of the defenses that Republicans have offered for Trump pressuring Ukraine to perform two politically tinged investigations on his behalf was that the president was understandably and justifiably concerned about corruption in that country. To back that up, they point to a series of anti-Trump comments by Ukrainian officials in 2016, the corruption allegations that Ukrainians raised that year against Trump’s then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and some alleged contacts between a DNC contractor and the Ukrainian embassy in search of damaging information about Trump.

But Trump’s own comments betray no interest whatsoever in such topics. Instead, as the impeachment hearings have shown, he is obsessed with two things: the idea that former Vice President Joe Biden, in joining the rest of the Western world in pushing for the ouster of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor several years ago, was somehow trying to protect his son from an investigation the prosecutor had torpedoed; and the notion that Ukrainians had somehow manufactured the evidence that Russians hacked the DNC’s email server.

In other words, Trump’s concerns weren’t about the corruption that was draining billions of dollars from Ukraine’s economy and making the country a minefield for foreign investors. He was focused on a fanciful tale about the origin of a computer hack that had helped his campaign, and a through-the-looking-glass allegation of corruption against one of his top 2020 opponents.

For the record, CrowdStrike is a California company co-founded by a Soviet emigre. So, not Ukrainian. And the idea that Ukrainians, not Russians, were behind the DNC hack has been discredited over and over and over.

Trump’s CrowdStrike villifying is so fact-defying, even Trump’s bestest TV buddy, “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocey, pushed back Friday. Ever so gently. But still.

“Are you sure they did that?” Doocey asked after Trump claimed the DNC gave its server to “a Ukrainian company.”

Replied Trump, “That’s what the word is.” Which is just his way of saying, “That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.”

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#1536

Cross-posting

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#1537

Giuliani associate willing to tell Congress Nunes met with ex-Ukrainian official to get dirt on Biden


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#1538

Summary of Impeachment Inquiry into Trump 2019

November 13th - 22nd

Calendars:

News:

The President’s Public Remarks:

Documents:

Public Hearings:

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

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#1539

Charges of Ukrainian Meddling? A Russian Operation, U.S. Intelligence Says

Moscow has run a years-long operation to blame Ukraine for its own 2016 election interference. Republicans have used similar talking points to defend President Trump in impeachment proceedings.

U.S. Republican Senators Ask Treasury for Suspicious Activity Reports on Hunter Biden

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/11/22/world/europe/22reuters-usa-trump-impeachment-biden.html?searchResultPosition=6

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#1540

Opinion piece from Bret Stephens, conservative opinion writer for NYT, and formerly WSJ. When all the writing is on the wall, we have major corruption at the top and a whole lot of co-signers to this. Compares US to corrupt Ukraine.

Yet the person who is both the principal consumer and purveyor of those falsehoods is the president of the United States, just as he has been a purveyor of so many other conspiracy theories. Even now, this should astound us.

It doesn’t, because we’ve been living in a country undergoing its own dismal process of Ukrainianization: of treating fictions as facts; and propaganda as journalism; and political opponents as criminals; and political offices as business ventures; and personal relatives as diplomatic representatives; and legal fixers as shadow cabinet members; and extortion as foreign policy; and toadyism as patriotism; and fellow citizens as “human scum”; and mortal enemies as long-lost friends — and then acting as if all this is perfectly normal. This is more than a high crime. It’s a clear and present danger to our security, institutions, and moral hygiene.

It’s to the immense credit of ordinary Ukrainians that, in fighting Russian aggression in the field and fighting for better governance in Kyiv, they have shown themselves worthy of the world’s support. And it’s to the enduring shame of the Republican Party that they have been willing to debase our political standards to the old Ukrainian level just when Ukrainians are trying to rise to our former level.

The one way to stop this is to make every effort to remove Trump from office. It shouldn’t have to wait a year.

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#1541

CEO of Ukraine State Gas Firm Preparing to Testify in Giuliani Probe

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