We knew this was coming but it’s still worth noting.
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Mueller Memos Part 3: The Documents The Justice Department Didn’t Want Congress To See
BuzzFeed News has obtained some of the most important and highly sought-after documents from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation: summaries of FBI interviews with key White House officials.
The hundreds of pages of documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, were the subject of a protracted legal dispute between the Justice Department and the House Judiciary Committee, which sought them over the summer as part of its impeachment inquiry. The committee had requested access to an unredacted copy of the Mueller report, grand jury testimony from the investigation, and the FBI’s summaries of 33 interviews. The Justice Department resisted, claiming the impeachment inquiry does not entitle the panel to see those records. A federal judge disagreed, ruling in October that “DOJ is wrong” and that the White House and the Justice Department were “openly stonewalling” the committee.
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Is Trump trying to start a war in order to distract from his impeachment proceedings?
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Statement from the Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs 
U.S. Strike on Iranian General Divides Congress
The killing of the powerful commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, in a drone strike on Friday sharply divided congressional leaders along party lines and reignited a debate over whether Congress should curtail the president’s war powers.
The strike, which the Pentagon said President Trump ordered and was “aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” was a significant escalation in the administration’s pressure campaign against Tehran.
“This particular scenario is one that I’ve thought about for many years and it is one that could very well lead to the type of violence and chaos that we’ve been so desperately trying to keep ourselves out of,” said Representative Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey and the former director for Iraq on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council “The coming hours and days will be very important.”
According to Speaker Nancy Pelosi the strike was carried out “without the consultation of Congress.”
“American leaders’ highest priority is to protect American lives and interests,” Ms. Pelosi said in a statement. “But we cannot put the lives of American service members, diplomats and others further at risk by engaging in provocative and disproportionate actions. Tonight’s airstrike risks provoking further dangerous escalation of violence.”
Republican lawmakers praised the president for the strike, saying that Mr. Trump had brought justice to scores of American military families. United States officials considered General Suleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers during the Iraq war as well as for hostile Iranian activities throughout the Middle East.
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I’m no fan of the conservative Washington Examiner which has been a pillar of support for Trump. However, in this new editorial, prompted by the recently unredacted DOD emails, they have condemned Trump for explicitly breaking the law in three ways: 1) Asking Ukraine to investigate a private U.S. citizen 2) Pressuring them to do so by withholding aid 3) Violating U.S. law by blocking disbursement of funds appropriated by Congress. This op-ed has hit the nail on the head in calling out Trump for his impeachable offenses. I hope every Republican Senator reads it.
Unredacted documents reported on Thursday by Just Security help show both why the Senate should hold a full presidential impeachment trial and why President Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine were so improper.
The documents show the repeated warnings from Defense Department officials to White House personnel that Trump’s delay in releasing legally mandated aid to Ukraine was unlawful.
Before examining that evidence, though, please consider that this is only one of three ways in which Trump’s actions were so inappropriate as to be impeachable. First, Trump’s request for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens was, on its own, wildly out of bounds. As former ambassador Bill Taylor testified, the president has no authority to ask a foreign government to investigate a U.S. citizen based on that nation’s laws rather than our own.
Second, to turn the request into what amounts (in the vernacular) to an extortionary demand, the now-famous issue of a quid pro quo, is to misuse presidential power while unlawfully seeking a “thing of value” from a foreign entity for use in an American campaign. And, yes, as even some of Trump’s most learned and eloquent defenders admit, the existence of a quid pro quo was obvious.
Third, as I have argued for months, it was illegal for Trump to withhold the military aid even if he had not asked the Ukrainians for anything of personal and political value in return. By delaying the assistance beyond the point at which it could actually be obligated before the budget year ran out, Trump violated the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and, probably, the Constitution. That 1974 law provides that once an appropriation has been duly passed and signed into law, the president cannot withhold it for policy reasons without formally notifying Congress. Even then, the money must be spent unless Congress approves the president’s request.
While the Impoundment Control Act makes these requirements explicit on statutory grounds, Supreme Court precedent implies (but does not explicitly say) that presidential impoundment of duly appropriated funds is also unconstitutional.
…
The newly unredacted documents show that Pentagon officials repeatedly warned the White House that its funding delays were unlawful. By Aug. 26, acting Pentagon comptroller Elaine McCusker was telling the White House that “impoundment paperwork” was “now necessary” because the delays ordered by Trump made it impossible to “obligate” the funding “consistent with the Impoundment and Control Act.”As it was, more than $35 million of the assistance never did go out the door by the legally required Sept. 30 deadline. That alone was a violation of the law by Trump.
Again and again over the past few months, Trump’s defenders have said, in essence, that the president is a free agent in determining American foreign and defense policy. That assertion is flat-out false. While presidential power is certainly at its most robust on such matters, the president still remains beneath, not above, the law. In this case, he violated the law. The violation should not go unpunished.
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The Just Security documents were things the House tried to subpoena. Now we know why the GOP Senate wanted the trial over and done with already.
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Democrats, DOJ open 2020 in court with doubleheader impeachment fights
The new year starts with one of the biggest court dates in recent memory: oral arguments in a pair of intertwining cases that will define Donald Trump’s presidency and the Democrats’ efforts to remove him from office.
Two partially overlapping, three-judge panels are scheduled to hold back-to-back hearings Friday morning on the litigation, focused on the House Judiciary Committee’s months-long quests to learn Robert Mueller’s secrets and secure testimony from Don McGahn, Trump’s former top White House lawyer.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has both of the impeachment-related cases on something of a fast track, stacking them up for oral arguments in the same courtroom — one right after the other — as its first public business for 2020. Each of the panels will be composed of two Republican presidential appointees and one judge named by a Democrat.
While court decisions are possible by the end of the month, it’s still unclear whether they’ll arrive before the GOP-led Senate has rendered its verdict on whether Trump should be the first U.S. president to be booted from the White House.
The Senate impeachment trial schedule remains a work in progress, with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker Nancy Pelosi still in a standoff over the terms of debate on the two House-passed articles against Trump from December tied to the president withholding military aide to Ukraine until it agreed to investigate his Democratic rivals.
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So, the net is all up in arms about a report from Forensic News, but we know that this is a dubious site and I can’t find corroboration. I was ignoring it for now, but it’s trending so I thought I’d bring it up.
Note: when I click on the link in these posts, it does something funky and tries to download, so be wary.
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They put the article up on Scribd too. Maybe a more shareable link? Worth a glance, if true this is a bombshell 
https://www.scribd.com/document/441601742/Forensic-News-Article-12-3
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Lawrence O’Donnell previously put this story out and then retracted it due to a lack of sources. So far ALL sources I can find lead back to Forensic News, and their site is down.
Lawrence O’Donnell Retracts Claim of Russians’ Role in Trump Loans
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Oh yes, I remember when that happened and you’re right to cautious. Same source, same problem. 
Not the hill I would want to die on that’s for sure. I’m starting to think a lot of these Russia/Trump stories like this one, have become a new kind of political creepypasta.
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Indeed. That’s the danger of it. We all know Trump’s in bed with Russia at some level. How deep is hard to suss out, but it makes any stories that come out about him and Russia both more believable but also potentially misleading. Thanks for the Scribd link, though, I am sharing that with folks who want to see the article but I warned about the potential untrustworthiness of the source.
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Should be safe for casual viewers who just want to know what’s being said.
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Judge: Indicted Giuliani associate may give records to House
A federal judge on Friday allowed a Rudy Giuliani associate indicted on campaign finance charges to turn over documents to Congress as part of the impeachment proceeding against President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oetken granted Lev Parnas’ request to turn over to the House intelligence committee documents and data seized by federal investigators when Parnas was arrested in October.
Parnas’ attorney said in a court filing he expected to receive the materials from the U.S. Justice Department this week.
Who needs creepypasta when you can just read congressional documents? 
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This seems to have more on the whistleblower in question:
The whistleblower in question’s father was a Deutsche Bank executive who committed suicide, leaving him documents he’s been sifting through.
While Enrich describes Broeksmit as an “impatient, erratic, and abusive” source, he also had access to a huge stockpile of corporate secrets related to Deutsche Bank. The files included corporate emails, financial materials, boardroom presentations, and legal reports — all of which are credible, according to Enrich.
This would not be the first time a death has lead to revelations about Trump dealings and doings. A similar event happened concerning his attempt to subvert the census:
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I can’t drop this into the thread I have, but it’s breaking:
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‘It’s the Senate’s turn now,’ McConnell says on impeachment
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated Friday he has little interest in agreeing to Democrats’ demands for new witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial and instead will work swiftly to acquit the president of the charges.
“Their turn is over,” McConnell said about the Democratic-led House. “It’s the Senate’s turn now.”
Congress convened for the new year with Trump’s impeachment trial deeply in flux and the crisis in the Middle East only adding to the uncertainty about how lawmakers will proceed.
McConnell criticized House Democrats as having engineered a “slapdash” impeachment that is the “most rushed, least fair” in history. The House last month approved charges that Trump abused his power in dealings with Ukraine and then obstructed Congress.
The GOP leader invoked the Founding Fathers’ vision of the slower-moving Senate as “an institution that could stop momentary hysteria and partisan passions.”
Trump, only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached, wants not only acquittal in the trial but also vindication from his GOP allies.
While McConnell is hoping for a speedy acquittal, the Senate trial cannot begin until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivers the articles of impeachment, which she is refusing to do until he provides details on whether Democrats will be able to call more witnesses.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “We need the whole truth.”
McConnell has said the trial should start and then senators can decide the scope.
He indicated the Senate will carry on with its other business while it waits for the House to act.** “We can’t hold a trial without the articles,”** he said. “So for now, we are content to continue the ordinary business of the Senate while House Democrats continue to flounder.”
Schumer is pressing for at least four new witnesses, all of whom refused to appear in the House proceedings before the House voted to impeach Trump last month. They are Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and two other officials who were directly involved with Trump’s decision to withhold nearly $400 million in in military aide for Ukraine, which the ally depends on to counter Russia, until President Volodymyr Zelenskiy agreed to publicly announce an investigation into Trump rival Joe Biden.
“Why won’t Trump & McConnell allow a fair trial?” Pelosi tweeted this week.
The Constitution requires that the House and Senate convene on Jan. 3, but few lawmakers were in town for the perfunctory session. But the Senate leaders’ remarks are being closely watched for signs of next steps amid the crisis in the Middle East after the U.S. killed a top Iranian general with airstrikes in Iraq.
Democrats believe their demands for witnesses are bolstered by new reports about the withheld aid and unease among some GOP senator over the situation.
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Democrat Reps. Ted Lieu (CA) and Kathleen Rice (NY) Accuse Trump Of Stock Market Fraud And Open Investigation
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