Good to see I am not the only one by far to recognize that Trump thinks he can wriggle out of his status as #ImpeachedForLife .
Pelosi says Trump ‘impeached for life’ despite McConnell’s ‘gamesmanship,’ ‘coverup’
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maybe we’ll learn more about Nunes? 
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House Democrats will discuss on Tuesday morning how to move forward, Pelosi said on Sunday, with the chamber possibly voting to send the charges to the Senate later that day.
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JOINT STATUS REPORT: AMERICAN OVERSIGHT V. DOE – PERRY AND BROUILLETTE’S UKRAINE RECORDS AND COMMUNICATIONS
Joint Status Report filed by American Oversight and the Department of Energy in American Oversight’s lawsuit seeking the release of Secretary Rick Perry’s communications with high-level Ukraine officials; with outside groups associated with U.S. energy interests in Ukraine; and with particular associates of President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani. American Oversight is also requesting records regarding the U.S. delegation, led by Perry, to Ukrainian President Zelensky’s inauguration, including the records of former Chief of Staff Brian McCormack.
The Department of Energy agreed to make the first production of records on Jan. 28, 2020, prioritizing Perry’s and McCormack’s communications as well as records related to the delegation. Subsequent productions are scheduled for Feb. 4 and March 16.
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This is outrageous. The Russians are not our friends – again and again, we see them taking extraordinary measures to mess up our country any way they can. In this case, are they looking to release dirt on Biden during the 2020 election cycle, the same way they released dirt on Hilary Clinton in 2016? Could they be fabricating dirt? Could they be destroying exculpatory records? Who knows. One thing we do know is that Trump appears to be doing little or nothing to protect our elections or the cyber infra-structure of our government and businesses.
With President Trump facing an impeachment trial over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, Russian military hackers have been boring into the Ukrainian gas company at the center of the affair, according to security experts.
The hacking attempts against Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served, began in early November, as talk of the Bidens, Ukraine and impeachment was dominating the news in the United States.
It is not yet clear what the hackers found, or precisely what they were searching for. But the experts say the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens — the same kind of information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment.
The Russian tactics are strikingly similar to what American intelligence agencies say was Russia’s hacking of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign. In that case, once they had the emails, the Russians used trolls to spread and spin the material, and built an echo chamber to widen its effect.
Then, as now, the Russian hackers from a military intelligence unit known formerly as the G.R.U., and to private researchers by the alias “Fancy Bear,” used so-called phishing emails that appear designed to steal usernames and passwords, according to Area 1, the Silicon Valley security firm that detected the hacking. In this instance, the hackers set up fake websites that mimicked sign-in pages of Burisma subsidiaries, and have been blasting Burisma employees with emails meant to look like they are coming from inside the company.
The hackers fooled some of them into handing over their login credentials, and managed to get inside one of Burisma’s servers, Area 1 said.
“The attacks were successful,” said Oren Falkowitz, a co-founder of Area 1, who previously served at the National Security Agency. Mr. Falkowitz’s firm maintains a network of sensors on web servers around the globe — many known to be used by state-sponsored hackers — which gives the firm a front-row seat to phishing attacks, and allows them to block attacks on their customers.
“The timing of the Russian campaign mirrors the G.R.U. hacks we saw in 2016 against the D.N.C. and John Podesta,” the Clinton campaign chairman, Mr. Falkowitz said. “Once again, they are stealing email credentials, in what we can only assume is a repeat of Russian interference in the last election.” …
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Cross-posting 
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Mmmm… 
Interesting times. The cynic in me says we’ll never see witnesses during the the Senate trial, and then along comes an article like this that offers just a little glimmer of hope. Could this all be posturing by vulnerable Republican Senators just to give the appearance of being fair (à la the Kavanaugh “investigation”)? We’ll find out soon!
The White House is preparing for some Republican senators to join Democrats in voting to call witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial, which could get underway in the coming days.
Senior White House officials tell CBS News they increasingly believe that at least four Republicans, and likely more, will vote to call witnesses. In addition to Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and possibly Cory Gardner of Colorado, the White House also views Rand Paul of Kentucky as a “wild card” and Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee as an “institutionalist” who might vote to call witnesses, as one official put it.
Last week, Collins said she was working with a “fairly small group” of GOP senators to allow new testimony, adding that her colleagues “should be completely open to calling witnesses.” Romney has expressed an interest in hearing from former national security adviser John Bolton, who has said he would testify under subpoena. Murkowski said last week that the Senate should proceed as it did during the 1999 Clinton impeachment trial.
Gardner and Alexander have both said the Senate trial should be fair and impartial. Paul has said the president should be able to call his own witnesses, including the whistleblower whose complaint about Ukraine sparked the impeachment inquiry in the first place.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the question of whether to call new witnesses in the trial would be decided by the full Senate after the trial gets underway. A simple majority of 51 votes will be needed to approve motions to call witnesses, meaning Democrats would need to convince four out of the 53 Republicans in the Senate to vote with them to compel testimony. …
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That makes four. 
But is if it drops back down to three, it’s my understanding that Chief Justice Roberts will break tie votes during the trial.
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More articles for this one. Wow.
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GOP leadership: There aren’t 51 votes to dismiss Trump articles of impeachment
The list: Mitt Romney, Roy Blunt, Susan Collins, Rob Portman, John Cornyn.
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Pelosi Statement on Timing of Appointment of Impeachment Mangers and Transmittal of Articles of Impeachment to Senate
JANUARY 14, 2020
PRESS RELEASE
Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement on the timing of the appointment of impeachment managers and the transmittal of articles of impeachment to the Senate:
“In December, the House upheld its Constitutional duty to defend democracy For The People: passing two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump – abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. I am proud of the moral courage of Members to honor the vision of our Founders for a Republic, the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform to defend it and the aspirations of our children to live freely within it.
“The Senate GOP Leader has signed on to a dismissal resolution. A dismissal is a cover-up. The American people will fully understand the Senate’s move to begin the trial without witnesses and documents as a pure political cover-up. Leader McConnell and the President are afraid of more facts coming to light.
“The American people deserve the truth, and the Constitution demands a trial. The House will now proceed with a vote on transmitting the articles of impeachment and naming impeachment managers on Wednesday, January 15.
“The President and the Senators will be held accountable.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/14/us/politics/trump-impeachment-articles.html
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Trump retweeted Pelosi in Muslim garb. The White House made it worse.
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Press Release: Four Chairs Statement on Transmission of Additional Evidence as Part of Impeachment Inquiry
Today, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Committee on Foreign Affairs provided additional evidence to the Committee on the Judiciary to be included as part of the official record that will be transmitted to the Senate along with the Articles of Impeachment.
The evidence provided today includes phone records, as well as new documents and materials produced to the Intelligence Committee by Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, pursuant to a subpoena served on him on October 10, 2019. These materials are available to both the Majority and Minority of the Committees, and they will be made available to the White House. The phone records provided to the House Judiciary Committee contain sensitive personal information, and the Committees therefore will not be making them public.
Following the transmittal to the House Judiciary Committee of this additional evidence, Chairs Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and Eliot Engel (D-NY) issued the following statement:
“Since the House voted to impeach President Trump, we have continued our investigation so the House Managers can present to the Senate the most complete factual record possible before the trial on the Articles of Impeachment. Despite the President’s unprecedented and sweeping obstruction of our impeachment inquiry, we have continued to collect additional evidence relevant to the President’s scheme to abuse his power by pressing Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election for the President’s benefit.
“Today, additional new evidence will be provided to the House Judiciary Committee for its transmittal to the Senate along with the Articles of Impeachment.
“During the impeachment inquiry, we issued a subpoena to associates of Rudy Giuliani who were involved in the President’s scheme. One of those individuals is Lev Parnas, who responded to his subpoena by turning over a trove of documents that provide more information about the effort to coerce Ukraine into helping the President’s reelection campaign.
“These documents—and those recently released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act—demonstrate that there is more evidence relevant to the President’s scheme, but they have been concealed by the President himself. All of this new evidence confirms what we already know: the President and his associates pressured Ukrainian officials to announce investigations that would benefit the President politically. There cannot be a full and fair trial in the Senate without the documents that President Trump is refusing to provide to Congress.
“We will continue our investigative work and will make available to the Senate and the American people any additional evidence of the President’s misconduct as it is revealed.”
Click here to read the transmittal letter and a description of the relevant documents.
Click here and here to read the some of the relevant documents (two separate files).
Um, wow, just scrolling through this… so they kept hand written notes of all the crimes? 
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Cross-posting
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The House Drops Bombshell Evidence Of Trump’s Ukraine Guilt From Giuliani
The House Intelligence Committee sent new evidence to Senate from arrested Giuliani associate Lev Parnas that Trump knew about and directed the Ukraine scheme.
Chairs Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and Eliot Engel (D-NY) said in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA:
Since the House voted to impeach President Trump, we have continued our investigation so the House Managers can present to the Senate the most complete factual record possible before the trial on the Articles of Impeachment. Despite the President’s unprecedented and sweeping obstruction of our impeachment inquiry, we have continued to collect additional evidence relevant to the President’s scheme to abuse his power by pressing Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election for the President’s benefit.
Today, additional new evidence will be provided to the House Judiciary Committee for its transmittal to the Senate along with the Articles of Impeachment.
During the impeachment inquiry, we issued a subpoena to associates of Rudy Giuliani who were involved in the President’s scheme. One of those individuals is Lev Parnas, who responded to his subpoena by turning over a trove of documents that provide more information about the effort to coerce Ukraine into helping the President’s reelection campaign.
These documents—and those recently released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act—demonstrate that there is more evidence relevant to the President’s scheme, but they have been concealed by the President himself. All of this new evidence confirms what we already know: the President and his associates pressured Ukrainian officials to announce investigations that would benefit the President politically. There cannot be a full and fair trial in the Senate without the documents that President Trump is refusing to provide to Congress.
We will continue our investigative work and will make available to the Senate and the American people any additional evidence of the President’s misconduct as it is revealed.
The most damning evidence was a letter signed by Rudy Giuliani:
There is enough evidence in the House packet to convict and remove Donald Trump from office. Trump doesn’t want a trial because each new piece of evidence adds to his guilt. The proof that Trump is guilty is coming from his own lawyer. There have been no documents or witnesses offered on Trump’s behalf. The president has no one to tell his side of the story because he is guilty.
Senators had a bombshell dropped into their laps, and ignoring it will serve to confirm their complicity in the Trump cover-up.
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McConnell courts GOP hard-liners, moderates and Trump as impeachment trial looms
During the 30-minute session, Cruz pitched McConnell on the idea of witness reciprocity — if Democrats want to hear from former Trump national security adviser John Bolton on the Ukraine scandal, then Republicans get to hear from Hunter Biden. McConnell was open to that message, said a source familiar with the discussion. Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) later raised the strategy to the broader Senate GOP Conference.
Then shortly after, and echoing Cruz and Paul’s message, McConnell publicly warned Democrats that if they want to call additional witnesses during the proceedings, Republicans will counter with some of their own, and Democrats won’t like who’s on the GOP list.
“We’ll be dealing with the witness issue at the appropriate time into the trial,” McConnell told reporters. “And I think it’s certainly appropriate to point out that both sides would want to call witnesses if they wanted to hear from them. So if you get to that issue, I can’t imagine that only the witnesses our Democratic colleagues want to call will be called.”
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Cross-posting
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Ukraine prosecutor offered information related to Biden in exchange for ambassador’s ouster, newly released materials show
New materials released by House Democrats appear to show Ukraine’s top prosecutor offering an associate of President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, damaging information related to former vice president Joe Biden if the Trump administration recalled the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
The text messages and documents provided to Congress by former Giuliani associate Lev Parnas also show that before the ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, was removed from her post, a Parnas associate now running for Congress sent a series of menacing text messages suggesting he had her under surveillance in Ukraine. An attorney for Yovanovitch said Tuesday that the episode should be investigated.
The cache of materials released by House investigators late Tuesday exposed a range of previously unknown details about efforts by Giuliani and his associates to obtain material in Ukraine that would undermine Trump’s Democratic opponents.
Their emergence on the eve of the Senate impeachment trial spurred Democrats to renew calls for the White House to turn over documents related to the Ukraine pressure campaign that it has refused to share with Congress.
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