Impeachment Inquiry 2: Now It's Official!

[fraurosena]

Trump is gaslighting as usual.

 

[JMarie]

53 minutes ago, nokidsmom said:

And when Schiff mentioned going over the "highlights", I noticed the "oh shit" look on Sondland's face.  Wow.  

Sondland looked like he was begging for a massive heart attack or stroke.

[GreyhoundFan]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

I wish Rufus' sweet blessings give you patience in the coming weeks then! 

Speaking of being uninformed:

 

I think I lost 10 IQ points listening to her. Only the best people...

[JMarie]

10 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I think I lost 10 IQ points listening to her. Only the best people...

Another conservative blond woman... oh wait. Wasn't she the Florida AG who got an illegal campaign contribution from Trump? And now she's his special advisor?

[GreyhoundFan]

29 minutes ago, JMarie said:

Another conservative blond woman... oh wait. Wasn't she the Florida AG who got an illegal campaign contribution from Trump? And now she's his special advisor?

Yes, and minutes after she received the campaign contribution, she decided not to join the lawsuit against Trump U. She's now his "impeachment advisor".

[church_of_dog]

1 hour ago, thoughtful said:

I now really want someone to sell shopping lists on which the first two items are "I WANT SOMETHING! I WANT SOMETHING!" in Trump's handwriting.

First thought:  I could never use this as a grocery list -- seeing his handwriting would cause me to lose my appetite.

Second thought:  Hmm, might make a good diet strategy.

[GreyhoundFan]

From Dana Milbank: "In Gordon Sondland, Trump has met his match"

Spoiler

Given the gravity of what he was about to do, Gordon Sondland seemed oddly relaxed.

The ambassador’s lawyer sat at his right elbow, picking at his cuticles and staring straight ahead. But Sondland smiled at the cameras, looked curiously around the room, gave a friendly nod to the chairman and sipped his coffee.

Why so at ease? It was the look of a man about to unburden himself.

“Was there a quid pro quo?” asked the most important Trump administration figure to testify in the impeachment inquiry to date. “ . . . The answer is yes.”

He knew that President Trump, through personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, required Ukraine’s president to announce investigations into Trump’s political opponent to secure a White House visit, and Sondland believed the same condition applied to nearly $400 million in U.S. military aid.

What’s more: Others knew what was going on, too, he said. Mick Mulvaney. Mike Pompeo. John Bolton. Vice President Pence. And Trump himself. “Everyone was in the loop,” Sondland testified.

Boom.

Gone were the claims that there was no quid pro quo, that allegations against Trump were hearsay, that there was no direct connection to Trump. Here was Sondland, a Trump donor whose calls Trump frequently took and a political appointee to be U.S. ambassador to the European Union, confirming that Trump was bent on using his official powers to coerce Ukraine’s president to announce investigations into Democrats.

Sondland testified that he reluctantly worked with Giuliani under “the president’s orders.” He confirmed that Trump asked him personally about the political investigations. Raising an index finger, he read a message from a Ukrainian official confirming the quid pro quo.

Sondland even blamed the inaccuracy of his earlier deposition on the refusal of the White House and State Department to release any documents related to the Ukraine affair.

Unloading on his boss and colleagues seemed to energize the ambassador. Under the table, his feet tapped out a steady drum roll as he talked. Others in the administration had testified about the “Gordon Problem” that was interfering with Ukraine policy. Now, the one with a Gordon Problem is Trump.

At the first break in Sondland’s testimony, Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the committee’s ranking Republican, turned to the minority counsel, Steve Castor, with a look as though his favorite uncle had died. In the audience, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), one of Trump’s biggest defenders, stroked his forehead as though trying to ease a migraine. Republicans in the audience filtered out. Several Republican members of the panel decamped to a staff room — presumably to revise strategy.

Apparently, the resulting consensus was that Sondland would have to be discredited. “You don’t have records, you don’t have notes, you don’t have a lot of recollections,” Castor later told Sondland. “This is the trifecta of unreliability.” Alas for Castor, Sondland’s testimony came with incriminating emails and text messages.

In Sondland, Trump may have met his match. The two hoteliers are both emotional and coarse, unpredictable and sometimes untruthful, and ultimately disloyal. Sondland said the two chatted about rapper A$AP Rocky’s legal travails in Sweden. Laughing, Sondland didn’t dispute telling Trump the Ukrainian president “loves your ass”: “Sounds like something I would say. That’s how President Trump and I communicate, a lot of four-letter words.”

Now, Sondland is what Trump might call a “John Dean type ‘RAT’ ” — saving himself from potential perjury charges, and potentially being the administration’s fall guy, by pointing the finger at colleagues and the boss.

Nunes seemed not to know what to do with Sondland’s revelations; he settled on declaring that Democrats would have impeached George Washington. Ohio’s Jim Jordan shouted at Sondland. Others pronounced worthless Sondland’s “presumption” that Trump tied military aid to political investigations. Several took comfort in Sondland’s testimony that Trump, when asked what he wants from Ukraine, told Sondland, “no quid pro quo.”

“And you believed the president, correct?” Castor asked.

“I’m not going to characterize whether I believed or didn’t believe,” Sondland replied. That political investigations were tied to military aid, Sondland said, was as clear as “two plus two equals four.”

A befuddled Nunes dismissed this “funny math problem.”

But there was no escaping the significance of Sondland’s testimony. His statement, delivered under 13 stage lights and a massive chandelier, brought a hush to the cold, cavernous committee room but for the clicks of shutters and keyboards.

To refute what Sondland said would require documentary evidence or the testimony of senior officials — both of which the administration has, so far, refused to provide. If it would help their case, one suspects, they would have allowed both.

Otherwise, Sondland seems perfectly happy to be Trump’s “Gordon Problem.”

“That’s what my wife calls me,” he quipped when told the phrase.

Informed that Trump went from calling Sondland “a great American” to somebody “I hardly know,” Sondland laughed. “Easy come, easy go,” he said.

He is a truly Trumpian John Dean.

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

12 hours ago, Smash! said:

So Sondlands parents fled Germany during holocaust. Why exactly did he participate in those crimes? He should know from his family first hand where Trumps behaviour would lead to?

See Steven Miller. And Miller is a young Voldemort.

[Howl]

 

[Smash!]

Love Moos expression here https://twitter.com/aifan1234/status/1197324291508965377?s=21

And again in slow motion with music! [emoji23] https://twitter.com/sir_lanzolot/status/1197332668377120768?s=21

 And look who's working with an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani? Moo! Twitter says todays hearings could get interesting.

Lev Parnas Helped Rep. Devin Nunes’ Investigations

Edited November 21, 2019 by Smash!

[fraurosena]

Sondland is just a cowardly crook who's trying to save his own ass.

Gordon Sondland Is a Smug Plutocrat Who Was OK With All of It Until He Wasn't

Quote

On Tuesday afternoon, as Gordon Sondland was winding things up in his eventful meeting with the House Intelligence Committee, I was starting to despair that no one would point out that he’s still a smug plutocrat who bought himself an ambassadorship for which he was not qualified. And that, had the whistleblower not blown the whistle, Sondland would still be a willing participant in the Ukraine shakedown. And, in fact, had other witnesses not completely shredded his previous testimony, Sondland would be blissfully walking the streets of Brussels, pretending to be a man of international influence, and waiting to be served with a warrant for perjury.

Not that his testimony wasn’t a lethal broadside below the waterlines of every presidential alibi in the current scandal. Not that he didn’t leave the current administration in a pile of smoking meat by the side of the road. Not that he wasn’t pivotal, or that today’s hearing wasn’t an important marker on the road to whatever comes next. I mean, when Ken Starr gets on Fox News and suggests that, maybe, in the light of Sondland’s testimony, some Republican senators should Go To The White House, something important has kicked in.

But, Lord above, that fatcat grin of his was enough, as the late Molly Ivins would put it, to gag a maggot. And, finally, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrat of New York, dropped a megaton of receipts on his head.

MALONEY: We can probably from today until the end of time set aside any confusion that when somebody is asking for an investigation over the summer what they really meant was the Bidens.

SONDLAND: With hindsight, yes.

MALONEY: The day after the president's famous call, you're having lunch with David Holmes. We have covered this. He overhears your conversation. You have no reason to dispute what Mr. Holmes said, I think you said you wouldn't have reason to think he didn't speak about the investigations with the president. The president raised investigations with you, right?

SONDLAND: Correct.

MALONEY: Let's pick up right there. You would have preferred if they just had the meeting with the President of Ukraine without these conditions. Is that what you're saying?

SONDLAND: Yes.

MALONEY: But there were these conditions. And it involved an investigation—

SONDLAND: Remember the initial invitation that the president sent to President Zelensky had no conditions.

It was about here where Maloney began to get fed up with Sondland’s little wire-walk over the actual truth.

MALONEY: That didn't last very long. Then there were conditions. This is not controversial at this point, I dove don't believe. The president wanted investigations. You thought it was the 2016 election. We now know it was the Bidens.

SONDLAND: Today we do.

And puffs of steam begin to emerge from Maloney’s ears.

MALONEY: Mr. Holmes said you said Bidens, but you don't recall that? Do you dispute it?

SONDLAND: I do.

MALONEY: But you don't recall it. But that's what the president said. You do confirm he wanted to talk about investigations.

SONDLAND: Now with the complete picture what he said 24 hours before, yes, it makes sense.

At this point, Maloney began to take on the demeanor of a Irish NYPD detective—Mike Logan from Law and Order, maybe, or Andy Sipowicz. And, as Sondland continued to try and stay on the wire, Maloney got progressively fed up, until...

MALONEY: Who would benefit from an investigation of the president's political opponent?

SONDLAND: Presumably the person who asked for the investigation.

MALONEY: Who is that?

SONDLAND: If the president asked for the investigation, it would be he.

And, yes, that is the very loud steam whistle of an oncoming freight train that you hear.

MALONEY: it's not a hypothetical. We just went around this track. The president asked you about investigations. It was talking about the Bidens. When he asked you about the Biden investigation, who was he seeking to benefit?

SONDLAND: He did not ask me about the Biden investigation. I said that about 19 times.

Uh, oh.

MALONEY: Sir, we we just went through this. When we went through the investigations, we just did this about 30 seconds ago, right? It's pretty simple question, isn't it?

SONDLAND: When he asked about investigations, I assumed he meant [unintelligible].

MALONEY: Who would benefit from an investigation of the Bidens?

SONDLAND: They are two different questions.

We are reaching the end of our moving bullshit. Please use caution while leaving.

MALONEY: I'm just asking you one. Who would benefit from an investigation of the Bidens?

SONDLAND: I assume President Trump.

MALONEY: There we have it. It didn't hurt a bit, did it? It didn't hurt a bit. Let me ask you something.

This drew some laughter and applause from the crowd, which apparently unnerved Sondland to the point where he decided to get all huffy.

SONDLAND: I have been very forthright. I really resent what you're trying to do.

And, finally, the train arrived. And there’s a mess at the level crossing.

MALONEY: You have been very forthright. This is your fourth try to do so so. It didn't work so well the first time. We had a declaration. Remember that? Now we're here a a third time. We have a doozy of a statement this morning. There's a bunch of stuff you didn't recall. We appreciate your candor, but let's be really clear on what it took to get it out of you.

Thank the Lord for Maloney, who reminded us at the end that Sondland was merely one of a pack of crooks, regardless of what damage his testimony on Tuesday may eventually do to El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago. There are no innocents on that side of things. There are no heroes left. John Dean did the nation a great good service when he turned on Richard Nixon. John Dean also went to jail. And deserved to.

 

Edited November 21, 2019 by fraurosena
freaking heck, you'd think by now I'd know my posts merge if I post too soon after the other

[fraurosena]

The tangled web of corruption and collusion is slowly being unwound. With Parnas poised to do a Sondland, I'm keeping my fingers crossed he takes Nunes down with him.

Lev Parnas Helped Rep. Devin Nunes’ Investigations

Quote

Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, helped arrange meetings and calls in Europe for Rep. Devin Nunes in 2018, Parnas’  lawyer Ed MacMahon told The Daily Beast.

Nunes aide Derek Harvey participated in the meetings, the lawyer said, which were arranged to help Nunes’ investigative work. MacMahon didn’t specify what those investigations entailed. 

Nunes is the top Republican on the House committee handling the impeachment hearings—hearings where Parnas’ name has repeatedly come up.

Congressional records show Nunes traveled to Europe from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 2018. Three of his aides—Harvey, Scott Glabe, and George Pappas—traveled with him, per the records. U.S. government funds paid for the group’s four-day trip, which cost just over $63,000. 

The travel came as Nunes, in his role on the House Intelligence Committee, was working to investigate the origins of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election-meddling. 

Parnas’ assistance to Nunes’ team has not been previously reported. A spokesperson for Nunes did not respond to requests for comment. 

Nunes has been helming the GOP’s involvement in the impeachment inquiry. He has spent much of his time criticizing the probe and the media’s coverage of it. “In their mania to attack the President, no conspiracy theory is too outlandish for the Democrats,” he said on Wednesday morning before Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s testimony. Later in the day, Nunes accused Democrats of harboring “Watergate fantasies.”

“I guess they fantasize about this at night,” he said. 

Giuliani has been a subject of much discussion at the impeachment hearings. To a lesser extent, so have Parnas and his associate, Igor Fruman, who worked with Giuliani as he attempted to find damaging information on Joe and Hunter Biden from Ukrainian sources.

Nunes has been at the center of the broader story about foreign influence in President Donald Trump’s Washington. When congressional investigators began probing Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, Nunes made a late-night visit to the White House and announced the next day he’d found evidence of egregious wrongdoing by Intelligence Community officials. The move appeared to be an effort to corroborate a presidential tweet claiming that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. Nunes then stepped back from the committee’s work scrutinizing Russian efforts. Instead, he ran a parallel probe looking at the origins of Mueller’s Russia probe. The undertaking made him a hero to the president and Sean Hannity, and a bête noire of Democrats and Intelligence Community officials. That work was still underway when he traveled to Europe in 2018. 

Last month, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York charged Parnas and Fruman with illegally moving money from foreign donors to American political campaigns. Both men maintain their innocence. 

“Contrary to many aspersions in the press to date, Lev Parnas is a proud United States citizen, who has lived here since he was four years old,” said Joseph Bondy, an attorney on his legal team.

“Raised in Brooklyn, and now living in Florida, Mr. Parnas is happily married with six children—five living at home—and a zeal for America and its democratic values. At all times throughout, he has believed that what he was doing was furtherance of the President’s and thus our national interests. President Trump’s recent and regrettable disavowal of Mr. Parnas has caused him to rethink his involvement and the true reasons for his having been recruited to participate in the President’s activities. Mr. Parnas is prepared to testify completely and accurately about his involvement in the President and Rudy Giuliani’s quid pro quo demands of Ukraine.”

When Nunes traveled to Europe in 2018, Giuliani—who is Trump’s personal attorney—was working to oust Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from her post in Kyiv. The Justice Department indictment of Parnas and Fruman alleges they illegally moved money into American elections to “advance the political interests of... a Ukrainian government official who sought the dismissal of the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine.”

Allegations against Yovanovitch blew up in American conservative media, including at The Hill and on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. Donald Trump Jr. even joined the chorus of voices calling for Yovanovitch to be recalled. And on May 20, she was. 

Numerous U.S. officials, however, have testified to the impeachment inquiry that the claims against her were baseless. Yovanovitch herself testified to investigators last week. As with all the other impeachment hearings, Nunes led Republicans’ questioning of her. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

14 hours ago, church_of_dog said:

Actually it's worse than that -- he wrote it ZELLINSKY with 2 Ls ?

At least this time he didn't misspell common English words, that's an improvement from the last time photographers captured his notes.

ETA and yet, who the hell needs notes to remember something like "I don't want it"? WTF?

Edited November 21, 2019 by laPapessaGiovanna

[GreyhoundFan]

I was too worn out to watch the second round of hearings yesterday. Here's a bit from the WaPo about them: "3 takeaways from Laura Cooper’s and David Hale’s testimony"

Spoiler

On Wednesday, after diplomat Gordon Sondland testified there was a quid pro quo with Ukraine, two government officials, the Defense Department’s Laura Cooper and the State Department’s David Hale, took the stand to talk about how they learned U.S. military aid to Ukraine had been put on hold.

Cooper provided new information about when Ukraine knew there were conditions on receiving its military assistance. Here are three takeaways from their testimonies.

1. The July 25 date conspicuously surfaces again.

Cooper is a Russia and Ukraine expert at the Defense Department who oversees the department’s long-term strategy on Russia. She testified that she viewed the military aid for Ukraine as critically important and that she had no idea why it was held up over the summer, despite Congress authorizing the money and the Defense Department having assured that Ukraine had met the qualifications for receiving it in May.

But then she added something else notable: that she has since learned the Ukrainians reached out on July 25, asking members of her staff what was going on with the military aid. That’s big for two reasons:

• July 25 is the same day Trump talked with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the phone and asked for “a favor,” to investigate a debunked notion about the 2016 election and the Bidens. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the Ukrainians reach out to the Pentagon, to Cooper and her staff, to get more information about why they hadn’t received the aid that same day. This is just days after officials in the State Department learned the aid had been held up. Cooper said the Ukrainians “likely” knew about the aid being held up then, too.
• It is the earliest date we’ve heard so far that Ukrainians may have known their military assistance had been withheld. Previously, U.S. diplomats testified Ukrainians became aware they weren’t getting their military aid in August, after a Politico article reported on it. But it changes the game if Ukrainians were concerned about their aid being withheld when their president was talking to Trump. If the Ukrainians knew Trump had the ability to give them $400 million in military help when Trump asked Zelensky “a favor, though,” it weakens a Republican defense that there couldn’t have been a quid pro quo evident in that request.

2. Republicans don’t catch a break on the witnesses.

Republicans can request witnesses to testify in the impeachment inquiry. Democrats can and did overrule many of their requests, such as on the whistleblower and Hunter Biden. On Tuesday, two they had listed among their requests, former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and former White House Russia national security expert Tim Morrison, both said it was troubling if Trump had held up military aid to investigate his political opponent.

On Wednesday we heard from another person Republicans had on their list of requested witnesses: Hale, the No. 3 at the State Department and the top professional diplomat there. Under questioning from Democrats, he said something similar that was unhelpful to Trump’s case:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.): Would you agree, though, that it would be very unusual to place a hold on military aid to leverage a foreign country to get them to investigate a political opponent?

Hale: Yes.

Schiff: And I take it you would agree that that would be completely inappropriate.

Hale: That would be inconsistent with the conduct of our foreign policy in general.

Schiff: And it’d be wrong, wouldn’t it?

Hale: It’s certainly not what I would do.

Later, Hale agreed something else Trump did was wrong: that former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was ousted under allegations driven by Trump personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Hale jumped at the chance to defend Yovanovitch: “I believe that she should have been able to stay at post and continue to do the outstanding work —”

Rep. Denny Heck (D-Wash.) cut him off, by asking directly: Would Hale agree “that what happened to her was wrong?”

Hale: “Yes, sir.”

Finally, Hale confirmed what Trump himself has acknowledged: Office of Management and Budget officials said Trump ordered the hold on the aid.

3. Republicans aren’t bowed by Sondland’s testimony.

Sondland is a Trump donor and a Trump appointee who was doing Trump’s bidding in Ukraine. And he testified Wednesday that there were conditions for Ukraine’s president to get a meeting and a phone call with Trump: They had to announce investigations into Democrats. He also knocked down a number of Republicans’ defenses for the president.

But House Republicans have been remarkably unified in this whole impeachment inquiry, and they didn’t miss a beat following Sondland’s testimony.

They regrouped and asked questions of Cooper and Hale that underscored that presidents sometimes do want to pause foreign aid to make sure it’s going to the right place. Or that neither Cooper nor Hale had evidence the aid was stopped to pressure Ukrainians, despite their high-level rankings in their respective agencies.

This unity is Trump’s best strength. It’s possible if/when the House of Representatives votes to impeach him, it will be an entirely Democratic vote. And Trump can continue to try to argue this impeachment inquiry is a partisan effort against him.

 

[fraurosena]

Today's hearing with Fiona Hill and David Holmes will start in an hour and 15 minutes. Here's a link so you can follow along:

 

[Smash!]

The benefit of being sick at home with the stomach flu if there is any? I get to watch the impeachment hearings [emoji4]

[laPapessaGiovanna]

14 hours ago, Smash! said:

One of my favourite exchanges. 

https://twitter.com/repseanmaloney/status/1197254948586741766?s=21

For all of you who have family members, friends or acquaintances with a fierce love for Trump to deal with: Show them this thread. He makes some great points from the view of a conservative who supports impeachment (but pleaaaase no Pence as president ?) https://twitter.com/bryangividen/status/1197196374787448832?s=21

You are right these tweets should be framed and hung in the WH hall.

Spoiler

 

[fraurosena]

Here's Fiona Hill's opening statement

 

@Smash!, I hope you'll be feeling better soon!

[Howl]

6 hours ago, Smash! said:

And look who's working with an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani? Moo! Twitter says todays hearings could get interesting.

 

and this, especially this: 

 

[fraurosena]

And we're off! 

The big question for now: Will Nunes repeat his opening statement, that he has held six times in a row already?

[fraurosena]

So, it's partially a repeat, and now a "they got caught" attacking the Dems. Something like, Imma use your arguments against you, even if it's ridiculous.

Oh, and we're fanatics, for believing the Dem arguments... 

Good grief, now he wants a day of minority hearings... to hear blocked witnesses... sheesh.

And let's attack Fiona Hill before she has even said anything. 

[nvmbr02]

37 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

And we're off! 

The big question for now: Will Nunes repeat his opening statement, that he has held six times in a row already?

I think that sums it up. ? 

[fraurosena]

Fiona Hill's opening statement is harshly critical of the trumplicans promoting the 'Ukraine meddled in the elections' conspiracy' theory.

Boom. Take that, Nunes, Jordan and Stefanik!

Edited November 21, 2019 by fraurosena

[GreyhoundFan]

[fraurosena]

Wow, Fiona Hill is incredibly eloquent. I don't think she's going to take any shit from the trumplicans...