Impeachment Inquiry

[fraurosena]

So...

Trump threatens to sue top Democrats Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi amid impeachment inquiry

Quote

President Donald Trump threatened on Saturday night to sue top congressional Democrats Rep. Adam Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi amid the House impeachment inquiry into the President.

Trump, who has a long track record of calling for lawsuits against his critics and not following through, said, "We're going to take a look at it. We're going after these people. These are bad, bad people." The President was speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC.

Trump said he spoke to his lawyers about Schiff and told them, "Sue him anyway, even if we lose, the American public will understand." Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence committee, is spearheading the impeachment inquiry.

"And sue Nancy Pelosi," Trump continued. "Or maybe we should just impeach them, because they're lying and what they're doing is a terrible thing for our country." Members of Congress cannot be impeached, according to the US Constitution.

Trump condemned Schiff's characterization in a committee hearing of a White House transcript that shows Trump repeatedly pushed for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Trump's potential 2020 political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, during a July 25 phone call. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Joe or Hunter Biden in Ukraine.

The speech and debate clause in the US Constitution, which appears in Article 1, section 6, protects members of Congress from being sued over their statements made on the floor, which also would apply to committees.

CNN has reached out to Schiff and Pelosi's offices for comment.

Trump's comments come as impeachment proceedings into the President deepen in Washington. This week, the White House declared political war on the impeachment inquiry and blocked testimony by a key diplomat.

A released complaint also details various ways in which a whistleblower believes Trump sought to "solicit interference" from Ukraine ahead of the 2020 election, including by encouraging the Ukrainian president to dig into Hunter Biden's past. It also laid out an alleged pattern of efforts by the White House to cover up those attempts. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

"Impeachment," Trump said. "I never thought I'd see or hear that word with regard to me. Impeachment. I said the other day it's an ugly word. To me, it's an ugly word. Very ugly word. It means so much. It means horrible, horrible crimes and things, I can't even believe it. It's a witch hunt."

Trump's attorney Jay Sekulow told CNN the President's legal team is "looking at all options" after Trump floated the possibility of a lawsuit against Schiff and Pelosi.

"Nothing off the table," Sekulow wrote in a text to CNN. He wrote they are "in the research stages," suggesting no legal action is imminent.

"The pattern and practice of irregularities in this inquiry is reminiscent of the irregularities in the Mueller investigation," Sekulow said. "No President should be subjected to this political theater."

Thing is...

 

[Howl]

Heh.  Matt Gaetz tried to sit in on the Fiona Hill hearing and was escorted out after the parliamentarian was consulted and ruled that Gaetz was not eligible to be there.  

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Ruh-roh!

 

Giuliani is going down. I don’t think he’ll go quietly or... alone.

 

[fraurosena]

More about Fiona Hill’s devastating testimony. You can bet Bolton will be receiving a subpoena, if he hasn’t already.

 

[Howl]

What's that sucking sound?  It's Mick Mulvaney  sucked into the vortex through being implicated by Bolton, via Fiona Hill's testimony. 

Mick Mulvaney is a mini Jared, with multiple portfolios. He is STILL head of OMB (Office of Management and Budget) as well as acting Chief of Staff.  

As head of OMB, he would  be the person to put a block on the military funding to Ukraine and also release it at Trump's command. 

The evil fucking genius of the Deep State running this administration. Each person is put in place to do a specific job. Mulvaney is just one more example of this. 

[GreyhoundFan]

3 minutes ago, Howl said:

What's that sucking sound?  It's Mick Mulvaney  sucked into the vortex through being implicated by Bolton, via Fiona Hill's testimony. 

I would cheer loudly at this. I've always despised Mulvaney. He's a little weasel...wait, that is an insult to weasels.

[fraurosena]

Yup.

 

[fraurosena]

More corroboration:

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Mick Mulvaney just told House investigators everything they need to know about Trump and Ukraine"

Spoiler

PRESIDENT TRUMP may be formally refusing to cooperate with a congressional impeachment inquiry, but on Thursday his acting chief of staff revealed all that House investigators need to know in order to determine whether Mr. Trump abused his oath of office.

Yes, Mick Mulvaney said, Mr. Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine, money that had been appropriated by Congress and was desperately needed to resist Russian aggression, in order to induce the government of Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate a conspiracy theory about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 election. In other words, the president was using U.S. aid as leverage to advance his personal political agenda.

“We do that all the time with foreign policy,” Mr. Mulvaney said with stunning brazenness. “I have news for everybody: Get over it. There is going to be political influence in foreign policy.”

he chief of staff’s declaration represented an about-face in the White House defense on the Ukraine affair. Until now, Mr. Trump’s main argument has been that the whistleblower who described his July 25 phone call with Mr. Zelensky and his subordination of U.S. diplomacy to his reelection campaign had gotten it all wrong: There was no quid pro quo. But testimony to Congress by half a dozen present and former State Department and White House officials, and a rough transcript of the phone call, have fully confirmed the whistleblower’s memo.

The new defense outlined by Mr. Mulvaney: Okay, we did it. So what?

The chief of staff argued that every administration seeks concessions from foreign governments in exchange for aid or meetings with the president. That’s true — but the difference here is that Mr. Trump was demanding help for his personal political cause, not for the United States. In the phone call with Mr. Zelensky, which took place a week after he suspended $391 million in military aid, Mr. Trump asked for an investigation of the far-fetched theory that the DNC server hacked by Russia had somehow been spirited away to Ukraine.

There is no evidence for that claim and thus no cause for an investigation. But Mr. Trump is seeking to undermine the unanimous conclusion by U.S. intelligence agencies and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III that Russia penetrated the server and subsequently leaked emails stored there in order to help Mr. Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

In the same phone call, Mr. Trump asked for an investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company. Mr. Mulvaney tried to draw a distinction between seeking a probe of the 2016 election and one of Mr. Biden, which he claimed was not linked to the aid. But he confirmed that the president had told his aides to arrange his dealings with Ukraine through his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani. As testimony and documents provided to Congress clearly show, Mr. Giuliani subsequently demanded that Mr. Zelensky issue a statement promising to investigate the Biden-associated gas company as well as the 2016 election.

There is still more to learn about the Ukraine affair. But this much is now undisputed: Mr. Trump conditioned U.S. defense aid, as well as a visit to the White House, on the Ukrainian president’s help in providing him with political dirt.

It was a quid pro quo. It was corrupt. And Mr. Trump is now confessing it, in the cynical expectation that Republicans will not hold him accountable. If he is right, our political system will be grievously damaged.

 

[Howl]

Here's my current thinking on impeachment.  Pelosi and Dems are forestalling a vote for as long as possible, because each day reveals Trump unraveling and imploding and more malfeasance is exposed, so buying time for the WH to self destruct. 

After the House votes for impeachment and the trial moves to the Senate, there will be incessant and relentless Republican rat fuckery/dirty tricks courtesy of #MoscowMitch.  They will be desperate to move things along at warp speed (we'll be meeting six days a week!) because everyday that goes by sees Trump unraveling and imploding and additional malfeasance is exposed.  After this Kurdish cluster fluck, I think even the most ardent Trump supporters realize that he is perfectly capable of moving on from being horrible to doing something truly insane.  

Two scenarios: they KNOW explicitly that some very bad shit implicating Trump is going to be exposed in the future and they desperately want that trial done before that happens, or of course they know that the cray will continue unabated and they want to get past the trial with the country still somewhat intact and before every single person in the US knows that Trump is barking mad.  

Also, can second impeachment to take place should something be exposed after the first impeachment? 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

Also, can second impeachment to take place should something be exposed after the first impeachment? 

If you mean impeachment of Trump, then it depends. If he hasn't been removed from office the first time, then of course he can be impeached for other, new articles. If he has been removed from office the first time, then impeachment would be completely unnecessary, because the only purpose of an impeachment is to determine if there are grounds for removal from office. 

If the second scenario were to happen, namely that more malfeasance and misdemeanors are discovered after removal from office, then those facts will be referred for criminal prosecution. 

As to your remarks about what will happen when Trump is impeached the first time, I believe that the anti-Trump sentiments among repugs are becoming more pronounced. Mitt Romney's speech yesterday was telling, as are Lindsey Graham's and Marco Rubio's comments, which were more critical of Trump than they have been since after he was nominated in 2016. The tide seems to be turning. 

People are resigning from the administration left, right and center, a lot of them in an attempt to steer clear of the shit that they know is going to hit the fan soon, and/or to free themselves up to testify. 

This impeachment is going to happen. Removal from office is not quite a given, but getting closer every single day.

[fraurosena]

The administration's defence, in a nutshell.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm not a violent person, but I so wanted to punch Mulvaney's smug face when he said, "Get over it".

[kpmom]

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm not a violent person, but I so wanted to punch Mulvaney's smug face when he said, "Get over it".

Smug, yes, but also an idiot.  Intentionally or not, he basically threw his boss under the bus.  I can't imagine he has his job for much longer.

[Smee]

9 hours ago, Howl said:

Here's my current thinking on impeachment.  Pelosi and Dems are forestalling a vote for as long as possible, because each day reveals Trump unraveling and imploding and more malfeasance is exposed, so buying time for the WH to self destruct. 

I’m on board with this. I want everything to take a long time but be REALLY crystal clear, so everyone’s time is spent scrambling to try deal with this instead of find a new right to remove or way to screw over poor people, and then when it’s finally all over I want it to be mere months from an election so the public can’t possibly forget and the Dems win in a landslide.

[SassyPants]

12 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm not a violent person, but I so wanted to punch Mulvaney's smug face when he said, "Get over it".

I hope that defines his career, forever. Perhaps, ends it.

[fraurosena]

I've something to say to Pompeo. Get over it.

Pompeo feels frustrated and victimized amid impeachment controversy

Quote

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has become increasingly frustrated in recent weeks by the departure of top State Department officials and claims that he failed to defend the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, from a smear campaign against her, according to three sources familiar with the situation.

As part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, Yovanovitch testified to Congress this week that she was unfairly removed based on false claims pushed by Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

One of the sources tell CNN that Pompeo was alerted to internal and external concerns about Giuliani's effort to push out Yovanovitch, but Pompeo failed to act -- he was wary of getting too deeply involved over fears of derailing US-Ukraine policy and potentially sharing the fate of his former colleague John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser who was fired for not being aligned with the President.

In a letter sent in the spring, which has not been previously reported, a handful of former US ambassadors to Ukraine urged top State Department officials to take action and defend Yovanovitch. They got a response from one of Pompeo's closest senior officials, Counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl, saying the message had been received and would be considered.

Yet Pompeo did nothing and less than two months later, Yovanovitch was recalled from her post at the behest of Trump.

Pompeo's apparent choice not to put guardrails between State officials and Giuliani has come under scrutiny by House Democrats who are bent on learning as much as they can about what exactly Pompeo knew of Giuliani's dealings. In recent interviews, Pompeo has declined to answer questions about Giuliani's entanglement in the administration's Ukraine policy.

He was however aware of it. In March, Pompeo received a packet from Giuliani containing unfounded claims about Yovanovitch, as well as former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter regarding their dealings in Ukraine.

Giuliani has claimed Pompeo spoke with him to confirm the packet had been received and that he was passing along the information for an investigation. It is unclear if Pompeo actually did share the packet with the Department of Justice. Pompeo's deputy, Brechbuhl, did pass it to the State Department's inspector general.

Pompeo has had to accept the resignation of two top State Department officials, Kurt Volker, the former special representative to Ukraine, who resigned last month, and Michael McKinley, his hand-picked senior adviser, who quit last week. Both have testified to Congress despite the State Department's refusal to comply with subpoena requests.

The State Department did not return CNN requests for comment.

Mounting criticism about his handling of the matter has left the Secretary of State feeling victimized, according to those familiar with his thinking.

"He has been very disappointed," explained one of the sources who spoke with Pompeo. "He feels that with these departures, the actual good work on Ukraine policy has come to a halt."

[...]

 

[Audrey2]

57 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

I've something to say to Pompeo. Get over it.

Pompeo feels frustrated and victimized amid impeachment controversy

 

please correct me if I'm wrong... Isn't pompeo or republican? Aren't they the ones who are always calling the Democrats snowflakes? He sounds like a snowflake to me...

[fraurosena]

I confess to gloating at the way the Trump apologists are squirming and struggling in their attempts to downplay and smooth over Mulvaney's very public open confession of guilt. Pompeo's having such a difficult time coming up with something that he doesn't even try and simply passes the ball.

 

[fraurosena]

Another article of impeachment, right there. Mulvaney is the gift that keeps on giving.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Another article of impeachment, right there. Mulvaney is the gift that keeps on giving.

I would love it if Mulvaney ended up working in the sewage treatment facility in prison, just like Nixon's COS, Haldeman.

[fraurosena]

The WSJ video linked in this tweet takes an interesting dive into Lev Parnas' instagram account. It totally negates the lie that Trump doesn't know him.

 

[fraurosena]

One hundred and eighty-five.