Omg, this the trial and they’re complaining about due process. In a normal trial this is when you get to cross examine witnesses and bring new evidence to your defense. But this isn’t a normal trial is it?
Call the witnesses!! Bring the evidence! Stop stonewalling Congress!
Not by any measure. But I am finding Philbin increasingly punchable as he drones on. This is the least exciting man on the face of the earth.
You got that right…a legal-sounding Mr. Rogers, but that is giving him waaaaay too much credit.
Well, looks like Trump gets his ratings. They gave a bare bones effort today so they can push off to Monday.
I am eager to see what the fact checkers make of this. Already we have them pushing the Russian-manufactured “Ukraine attacked us” lie and claiming this is about corruption while Trump is trying to do away with our laws against bribing foreign officials.
Ok adjourned until Monday. This was the “preview” of their defense?
Weird that they’re not denying the facts and are making mostly a process argument from within the greatest deliberative body in the world presided by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Unbelievable.
The idea that this needs to go to lower court before they bring it to trial in the Senate is ludicrous. They know is the trial this is it and that there is no appeal right? When the Senate sits for an impeachment trial they are at the height of their constitutional powers. Certainly a higher opinion than from any appellate court.
Mike Pompeo has a law degree from Harvard.
Yet he expects us to believe Mary Louise Kelly, who graduated MAGNA CUM LAUDE from Harvard with degrees in Government & French Literature & has a masters in European Studies from Cambridge mistook Bangladesh, 3,610 miles away in Asia, for Ukraine.
a pompous attitude/superiority complex/misogynist. bent towards this reporter/full of bile-BS-lies and a bully.
Period FULL STOP
I like this counter measure coming from the Democrats - delivering 28,578 pages of trial evidence accumulated for the Impeachment trial just before the trial began this morning. So for every claim T’s lawyers were making to deny the Dems their arguments for all the substantive issues which the Dems brought up, there will be back up evidence to show otherwise.
The House managers dropped off a 28,578-page record of the trial evidence to the Senate.
Their argument finished, the House managers made one last stab on Saturday morning to underscore the power of their impeachment case by marching from the House to the Senate with boxes filled with 28,578 pages of transcripts and other evidence collected during their inquiry.
Shortly after 9:45 a.m., the impeachment managers, led by Mr. Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, emerged from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and walked to the Senate as their aides wheeled four carts of white bankers boxes stuffed with binders of documents behind them.
“The record delivered today presents a mountain of evidence showing the president has committed the impeachable offenses that the House has charged — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — and he should be removed from office,” the managers said in a statement. “The factual and legal record laid out by the House managers has yet to be substantively rebutted by President Trump or his lawyers, who have instead sought to hide behind novel and frivolous legal theories
Full video with T, Parnas, Fruman, Donald Jr.,(seen) around the dinner table for 20 at Trump International. T picking the brains of the Parnas and Fruman team on their views on Russia’s ability to go to war with Ukraine, to their opinion on Marie Yovanovitch, ex-Ambassador of Ukraine.
Joseph Bondy, an attorney for Lev Parnas, told NewsHour that Parnas, an associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, was at the dinner with the president and several others when Trump said he wanted Yovanovitch out.
About 42 minutes into the hour-long video, Parnas appears to say, “The biggest problem there, I think where we need to start, is we gotta get rid of the ambassador. She’s still left over from the Clinton administration.”
Trump then appears to say, “Where? The ambassador to Ukraine?”
Parnas replies, “Yes. She’s basically walking around telling everybody ‘Wait, he’s gonna get impeached, just wait.’”
A few seconds later, Trump appears to say, “Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it.”
Bondy said Parnas attended the dinner along with Igor Fruman, another of Giuliani’s business associates. Both Parnas and Fruman have been indicted on federal charges, including violating campaign finance laws.
Saturday, Bondy said he released the video because he saw it as critical to the public’s understanding. “Given its importance to the national interest, we decided to release this recording in a manner intended to ensure equal public access, and in an effort to provide clarity to the American people and the Senate as to the need to conduct a fair trial, with witnesses and evidence,” he said.
Watching Rick Wilson make Don Lemon crack up entirely over his U-Crane comment is the best thing I’ve seen all day.
The GOP is hammering on the non-release of closed door testimony from intelligence community IG Michael Atkinson in articles like this one. Adam Schiff knows the GOP will use it to try to out the whistleblower, as they have with less-knowledgeable witnesses.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/23/michael-atkinson-testimony-concealed-adam-schiff/
President Trump escalated his attacks on Rep. Adam B. Schiff on Sunday, issuing what appears to be a veiled threat against the California Democrat one day before Trump’s team is expected to deliver the crux of its defense in the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history.
“Shifty Adam Schiff is a CORRUPT POLITICIAN, and probably a very sick man,” Trump tweeted Sunday morning. “He has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!”
Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is the lead impeachment manager in the Senate trial.
Schiff responded in an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” saying he believes Trump’s remarks were intended as a threat.
On impeachment, by a 50-44 percent margin, voters think the Senate should vote to convict Trump and remove him from office. Most Democrats say remove (81 percent) and most Republicans disagree (84 percent). Among independents, more say Trump should be removed by a 19-point margin (53-34 percent).
A fresh rocket attack has struck the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. This report says it was a direct hit, but others are saying only the grounds were damaged and there are no casualties. Waiting to hear more.
https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/bb950a05-0e98-40f5-8baa-a93be30339d9
President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.
The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense: that the holdup in aid was separate from Mr. Trump’s requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his perceived enemies, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, who had worked for a Ukrainian energy firm while his father was in office.
Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.
Multiple people described Mr. Bolton’s account of the Ukraine affair.
The book presents an outline of what Mr. Bolton might testify to if he is called as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial, the people said. The White House could use the pre-publication review process, which has no set time frame, to delay or even kill the book’s publication or omit key passages.
Over dozens of pages, Mr. Bolton described how the Ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the White House in September. He described not only the president’s private disparagement of Ukraine but also new details about senior cabinet officials who have publicly tried to sidestep involvement.
For example, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani that the ambassador to Ukraine was corrupt and believed Mr. Giuliani may have been acting on behalf of other clients, Mr. Bolton wrote.
Holy Guacamole. 
The House should have subpoenaed John Bolton like yesterday.
Former Ambassador to Ukraine, William B. Taylor explains why Ukraine is so vital to US foreign policy.
As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo prepares to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv later this week, he has reportedly asked, “Do Americans care about Ukraine?”
Here’s why the answer should be yes: Ukraine is defending itself and the West against Russian attack. No matter the outcome of the debate about the propriety of a phone call between the two presidents, the relationship between the United States and Ukraine is key to our national security. Americans should care about Ukraine.
Russia is fighting a hybrid war against Ukraine, Europe and the United States. This war has many components: armed military aggression, energy supply, cyberattacks, disinformation and election interference. On each of these battlegrounds, Ukraine is the front line.
For the last seven months, I represented the United States in Ukraine and regularly visited the front line of the military conflict. After its occupation of Crimea, Russia sent its army, security forces, undercover agents, weapons, funding and political instruction into Ukraine’s southeastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, a region known as the Donbas. The 280-mile line of contact between Russian-led forces and Ukrainian forces has stabilized but has not gone quiet.
To the contrary, the front line in the Donbas region marks the only shooting war in Europe. Every week Russian-led forces kill Ukrainian soldiers — and take casualties in return. During the 12 hours of my last visit, in November, a Ukrainian soldier was killed and another wounded. Since the Russians invaded in 2014, 14,000 Ukrainians have died in this war.
There’s more but this is the gist of it.
To support Ukraine means to support a young democracy, fighting to regain sovereignty over its internationally recognized borders. It is to support a nation that has broken from its troubled past to embrace European and Western values and that seeks to join European and North Atlantic institutions, to defeat post-Soviet corruption, and to give its citizens the chance to prosper in a normal country.
To support Ukraine is to support a rules-based international order that avoided war among major powers in Europe for seven decades. It is to support democracy over autocracy. It is to support freedom over unfreedom. Most Americans do.
And there’s the smoking gun. If (and we still need to wait for final confirmation) this manuscript really says what the New York Times asserts, and if the manuscript is proved genuine, then it exposes everything Trump has been claiming as a lie – an outright lie. And it shames every Republican Congressperson who has defended Trump during his impeachment.
President Trump waved off the possibility that his former national security advisor John Bolton’s testimony in the upcoming Senate impeachment trial would be of any consequence saying Bolton “would know nothing about what we’re talking about,” in regards to Trump’s phone call with the president of Ukraine back in July.
“He would know nothing about what we’re talking about because if you know, the Ukrainian government came out with a very strong statement, no pressure, no anything, and that’s from the boss, that’s from the president of Ukraine,” Trump said during a press conference following a bilateral meeting with the prime minister of Greece on Tuesday. “The foreign minister came out with a statement that was equally as strong.”
And here’s some other reporting on the lie if you can’t bear clicking on a Fox News link – can’t fault you there – I just posted it to show how deeply immersed Trump’s base is in the quagmire of his lies.
Axios reported on Trump’s statement at the time, but had the journalistic integrity to point out that many witnesses have testified that Bolton must have relevant testimony – and this was even before today’s bombshell report that Bolton, himself, has written that Trump was at the center of the scheme.
From January 7:
President Trump said Tuesday that former national security adviser John Bolton “would know nothing about what we’re talking about” if he testified in the Senate impeachment trial, adding that it will be “up to the lawyers” and the Senate to decide whether he appears.
Reality check: A number of witnesses told the House impeachment inquiry that Bolton was present in several meetings and conversations related to President Trump’s decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine. Axios also reported in November that current and former administration officials believe Bolton was the most prolific note-taker at the top level of the White House.
- Former National Security Council official Tim Morrison told impeachment investigators Bolton met privately with the president in August to convince him to release nearly $400 million in frozen military aid to Ukraine.
- Former White House official Fiona Hill recounted an episode during which Bolton told her, “I am not part of whatever drug deal [EU Ambassador Gordon] Sondland and [acting chief of staff Mick] Mulvaney are cooking up,” and asked her to relay that message to White House lawyers.
- Bolton’s lawyer confirmed in November he was a “part of many relevant meetings and conversations” that would be significant to the impeachment inquiry.
The state of play: Bolton said on Monday that he would testify in Trump’s impeachment trial if the Senate subpoenaed him. However, that would require four GOP senators to vote with Democrats to call him as a witness, and it’s unclear whether enough moderate Republicans would be willing to break ranks.
- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he plans to move forward on approving rules for the trial without negotiating with Democrats.
- McConnell has expressed no interest in subpoenaing Bolton, but Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will still likely bring votes on witnesses after each side makes its opening arguments.
Of note: Trump tweeted in November about Bolton and his dealings with Ukraine, stating, “John Bolton is a patriot and may know that I held back the money from Ukraine because it is considered a corrupt country, & I wanted to know why nearby European countries weren’t putting up money also.”
UPDATE: I located the news conference where Trump delivered this lie (meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kriakos Mitsotakisin in the Oval Office on January 7, 2020).
Here’s the clip, queued up. It’s difficult to hear the reporter ask his question, but the transcript records it as, “Will you be okay if John Bolton testifies? He indicated yesterday that he would if he is subpoenaed.”
Then you can hear the President clearly state that Bolton would know nothing (a 5-second C-Span intro will play before the clip starts):
Bolton’s book is called “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir“?
The impeachment trial of Donald Trump resumes on Monday with the president’s defence team’s main presentations in the US Senate. Here’s what’s coming up:
Monday: Donald Trump has no plans to appear at his own impeachment trial. His defence team will begin their main arguments today, after a short curtain-raiser at the weekend. Ken Starr, who prosecuted at his impeachment trial (in which Clinton was acquitted), is now a presidential defender and could begin his presentation as early as today.
Tuesday: The Trump defence team has more time today to complete its presentations, if it chooses to take all the time allocated to it.
Wednesday: Trump’s team has the right to raise objections against specific elements of the impeachment case and could use today to do it, perhaps followed by the start of Senators’ questions.
Thursday: Senators can ask questions for a total of 16 hours spread over two days, submitted in writing only, to the presiding judge, supreme court chief justice John Roberts. This will be followed by a debate that could kick off today or more likely tomorrow, on whether to bring fresh witnesses and documents to the trial.
Friday: The debate on witnesses could begin or continue today, followed by the crucial vote on that topic.
Saturday: If the Senate votes to hear new witnesses and evidence then the trial will go on for much longer. If, more likely, Democrats lose that vote, expect closing deliberations and a final, monumental, vote on whether to remove Donald Trump from office or acquit him of the charges some time Monday (the date of the Iowa caucuses) or Tuesday (when Trump has expressed the hope to be in the clear in time for his State of the Union address that night).
There are only 6 working days until Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Feb. 4 (7 days if you add Saturday). As recently as yesterday, that looked like plenty of time for Republican Senators to railroad through a win for the President. But now that the nation knows Bolton has crucial evidence to deliver under oath, it’s going to be much harder for Republicans to vote against witness testimony. So now we have a no-win situation for Trump and his supporters in the Senate because this can only play out in three possible ways:
OR
OR
Did Nancy plan this all along? I like to believe she did. Brilliant!
Thanks @Keaton_James for laying out the probable scenarios. The assumption for many has been that the vote/impeachment proceedings under the R Senate is ‘rigged,’ and that #1 Aquittal still has the leading edge.
I want to believe #2 that through public pressure, and more revelations concerning what Bolton’s testimony could say contradicting T’s position that T did only think about Ukraine’s corruptness and other countries need to join in in helping them defend themselves…And I want to believe that vulnerable R Senators may cave to public pressure…And I do think that calling Witnesses and calling in evidence is FAIR…
But saving face, saving power…and deliberating behind their leader is the only role the R’s will take. I do NOT want to believe this…BUT we’ve seen that hunkered down deliberative en masse support for T.
I want CJ John Roberts to take a stand too…
Let’s hope shifting public opinion, some moral rectitude/reflection may get in the way of option #1.
