Cross-posting
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In the five stages of grief, this is bargaining.
Trump aide calls drug price deal possible if impeachment fades
The aide said Democrats were making it harder to achieve the goal while being “distracted” by impeachment
Trump’s Sunday Nightmare: A New ABC News/Ipsos Poll Found That 64% of Americans Believe He Shook Down Ukraine For Biden Dirt
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The number of Americans who support impeachment has shot up since the process kicked into high gear; it currently sits at 58% in favor of the proceedings, and 49% in favor of removing him.
Romney rejecting donors’ calls for him to primary Trump, but he’s planning to rally Senate Republicans to vote against Trump in impeachment trial.
American ambassador to the European Union, Gordon D. Sondland, Witness in Trump-Ukraine Matter, Ordered Not to Speak in Impeachment Inquiry
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Who could have predicted? 
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This is a bizarre twist:
Lindsey Graham has invited Rudy Giuliani to testify before his Senate Judiciary Committee. Nobody knows what to make of this, but it seems likely it will be a chance for Giuliani to spread more propaganda.
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I just want to expand on that NYT article. Good catch!
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration directed a top American diplomat involved in its pressure campaign on Ukraine not to appear Tuesday morning for a scheduled interview in the House’s impeachment inquiry.
The decision to block Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, from speaking with investigators for three House committees is certain to provoke an immediate conflict with potentially profound consequences for the White House and President Trump. House Democrats have repeatedly warned that if the administration tries to interfere with their investigation, it will be construed as obstruction, a charge they see as potentially worthy of impeachment.
Democrats from the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees did not immediately respond on Tuesday.
But in making the decision, hours before he was scheduled to sit for a deposition in the basement of the Capitol, the Trump administration appears to be calculating that it is better off risking the House’s ire than letting Mr. Sondland show up and set a precedent for cooperation with an inquiry they have strenuously argued is illegitimate.
On Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump attacked the impeachment inquiry.
“I would love to send Ambassador Sondland, a really good man and great American, to testify,” he wrote on Twitter, “but unfortunately he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court, where Republican’s rights have been taken away.”
Robert Luskin, Mr. Sondland’s lawyer, said in a statement that as a State Department employee, his client had no choice but to comply with the administration’s direction. He said Mr. Sondland had been prepared and happy to testify, and would do so in the future if allowed.
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Lindsey Graham invites Giuliani to testify before Senate Judiciary panel
Sen. Lindsey Graham has invited President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his efforts to convince the Ukraine government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.
The South Carolina Republican’s offer comes as Giuliani appears poised to defy a subpoena to provide documents to the Democrat-led House Intelligence Committee. Giuliani has also indicated he may decline to testify to the House committee, which is run by Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). Graham seized on Giuliani’s reluctance to testify to the House to seek Giuliani’s testimony himself.
“I have heard on numerous occasions disturbing allegations by Rudy Giuliani about corruption in Ukraine and the many improprieties surrounding the firing of former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin," Graham said in a statement. “Given the House of Representatives’ behavior, it is time for the Senate to inquire about corruption and other improprieties involving Ukraine."
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What a lame, lame, lame situation…T is being impeached, all his loyalists will not cooperate, and the subpoenas are refuted. There’s going to be a showdown I hope soon - get some R’s stirred up (Turkey situation may rock them to speak up) and mark up more articles of impeachment on OBSTRUCTION of justice.
The clowns are all in the car…waiting for them to come out, and take off their masks and speak truth to power plz (my editorial.)
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House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff on Tuesday called the State Department’s blocking testimony of a key witness “strong evidence of obstruction” of Democrats’ impeachment investigation, and the move is prompting House Democrats to issue a subpoena for the testimony in response.
The State Department on Tuesday directed US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland not to testify before Congress, scrambling Democrats’ impeachment investigation and raising questions about whether they will be able to obtain testimony from other witnesses. But Schiff’s sharp response to Sondland’s absence is a sign of the escalating impeachment fight between the White House and Democrats.
"The failure to produce this witness, the failure to produce these documents, we consider yet additional strong evidence of obstruction of the constitutional functions of Congress," Schiff told reporters.
In addition to blocking Sondland’s testimony, Schiff said the ambassador indicated he had text messages or emails on a personal device provided to the State Department that State was withholding from Congress, which Democrats also planned to subpoena.
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US Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Russian active measure’s campaigns and interference in the 2016 U.S. Election Volume 2: Russia’s use of social media with additional views
News:
Bipartisan Senate report calls for sweeping effort to prevent Russian interference in 2020 election
A bipartisan panel of U.S. senators Tuesday called for sweeping action by Congress, the White House and Silicon Valley to ensure social media sites aren’t used to interfere in the coming presidential election, delivering a sobering assessment about the weaknesses that Russian operatives exploited in the 2016 campaign.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, a Republican-led panel that has been investigating foreign electoral interference for more than two and a half years, said in blunt language that Russians worked to damage Democrat Hillary Clinton while bolstering Republican Donald Trump — and made clear that fresh rounds of interference are likely ahead of the 2020 vote.
“Russia is waging an information warfare campaign against the U.S. that didn’t start and didn’t end with the 2016 election," said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the committee’s chairman. “Their goal is broader: to sow societal discord and erode public confidence in the machinery of government. By flooding social media with false reports, conspiracy theories, and trolls, and by exploiting existing divisions, Russia is trying to breed distrust of our democratic institutions and our fellow Americans.”
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The more they stonewall, the worse it looks, the more obvious the obstruction is, and information is STILL pouring out despite all of that.
Let them drag their feet. It’s their one and only strategy right now aside from the Mike Pence Anti-Impeachment Town Halls, and I can’t WAIT to see how long those last after the first few hecklers get through with him.
Pence going after Democrats over impeachment — in their districts
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The White House has reached out to outside counsel for impeachment advice. Trey Gowdy turned them down, and the internet loves it.
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White House is still in ‘tirade’ mode and sending an 8 page letter to Pelosi and Schiff saying they will not cooperate with impeachment inquiry.
Ok…battle lines are drawn.
Letter HERE
In the White House’s letter to Congressional Democrats, President Trump’s lawyers take direct aim at House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff for saying his committee hadn’t had contact with the whistleblower and for reading a dramatized version of Trump’s call with Ukraine’s president.
Some context: The whistleblower first contacted the staff of the House Intelligence Committee for guidance before sending the complaint to the Trump administration. However, the committee said members did not see the complaint before it was submitted.
The White House letter also addresses what White House lawyers contend are irregularities in the way Democrats have moved forward with the impeachment inquiry.
It identifies the current inability for House Republicans to call witnesses or issue subpoenas, or for the President’s own lawyers to cross-examine witnesses.
The letter is expected to be sent to the Hill soon.
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Phone calls and texts between Sondland-Taylor and phone discussions with Sondland and T between the time of those texts, makes for a very dicey set of facts.
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So basically the White House is confirming they are going to cross their arms, pout, hold their breath, and never ever ever ever ever cooperate with the impeachment process.
Got it.
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Cross-posting for the timeline 
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Russian Operative Said ‘We Made America Great’ After Trump’s Win
Kremlin-directed operatives opened champagne when Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, according to a communication disclosed in a new Senate Intelligence Committee report outlining Russia’s sweeping social media efforts to help him win.
“We uncorked a tiny bottle of champagne … took one gulp each and looked into each other’s eyes … We uttered almost in unison: ‘We made America great,’” one operative at the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency said in the message obtained by the Republican-led committee.
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Trump just posted this. It alleges the whistleblower has connections to one of the Democratic candidates. Trump ignores the fact that Atkinson also said:
“such evidence did not change my determination that the complaint relating to the urgent concern ‘appears credible,’ particularly given the other information the ICIG obtained during its preliminary review.”
Also note that the Washington Examiner has a well-known pro-Trump bias, and even it didn’t really try to spin this the way Trump is.
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