Impeachment Inquiry 2: Now It's Official!

[fraurosena]

10 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

Lots of communications between Nunes and Rudy G. Things that make you go hmmm.

Adam Schiff was asked about Nunes during his press co, and although he wouldn’t answer directly, he heavily implied that Nunes was deeply involved in the scandal (but would not be part of this impeachment; instead he could be subjected to other processes that deal with Congressmen).

If you read between the lines of what he said, it’s pretty obvious Schiff knows for a fact Nunes is a traitor.

[fraurosena]

As expected, 13-9. Along party lines.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Good analysis from Amber Phillips: "5 takeaways from the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment report on Trump"

Spoiler

Democrats’ road map for impeaching President Trump is here. The House Intelligence Committee, which with the committees on Oversight and Foreign Affairs has been investigating allegations that Trump manipulated U.S.-Ukraine relations for his political benefit, on Tuesday released its report on its findings.

Intelligence Committee members will vote on it Tuesday night, and the House Judiciary Committee will take over from there. That committee is planning to write articles of impeachment within a week or so, and the full House is expected to vote on whether to impeach Trump by Christmas.

On Monday, Republicans involved in the impeachment inquiry released their own report, which fails to rebut the facts as we know them.

Here are five takeaways from the report.

1. Democrats lay out why Trump should be impeached.

“The impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election,” the executive summary of their report reads.

How Democrats pieced together that allegation gives us clues as to what they think some of the articles of impeachment should be. Like:

Abuse of power: This is described throughout the report, such as here:

President Trump used the power of the Office of the President and exercised his authority over the executive branch, including his control of the instruments of the federal government, to apply increasing pressure on the President of Ukraine and the Ukrainian government to announce the politically-motivated investigations desired by President Trump.

And later, they write that asking Ukraine to investigate Democrats “was the act of a president who viewed himself as unaccountable and determined to use his vast official powers to secure his reelection.”

Obstruction of Congress: This allegation is an entire section of the report, encompassing more than 50 pages. Democrats point out that an article of impeachment drawn up against Richard M. Nixon was for his failure to comply with subpoenas. Here’s their central allegation:

President Trump ordered and implemented a campaign to conceal his conduct from the public and frustrate and obstruct the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry by refusing to produce to the impeachment inquiry’s investigating Committees information and records in the possession of the White House, in defiance of a lawful subpoena; directing executive branch agencies to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of all documents and records from the investigating Committees; directing current and former executive branch officials not to cooperate with the Committees, including in defiance of lawful subpoenas for testimony; and intimidating, threatening, and tampering with prospective and actual witnesses in the impeachment inquiry in an effort to prevent, delay, or influence the testimony of those witnesses.

Compromising national security:

By withholding vital military assistance and diplomatic support from a strategic foreign partner government engaged in an ongoing military conflict illegally instigated by Russia, President Trump compromised national security to advance his personal political interests.

Faced with the revelation of his actions, President Trump publicly and repeatedly persisted in urging foreign governments, including Ukraine and China, to investigate his political opponent. This continued solicitation of foreign interference in a U.S. election presents a clear and present danger that the President will continue to use the power of his office for his personal political gain.

This report touches on the fact that the Ukraine allegations stemmed from an effort to undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, but it doesn’t solve the internal debate among Democrats about whether to fold the Mueller report’s findings that Trump tried to undermine the special counsel into the impeachment articles.

2. Trump’s White House gave Democrats their most solid evidence.

Democrats weren’t able to pin down that Trump himself explicitly laid out a quid pro quo with Ukraine when he held up Ukraine’s military aid and an Oval Office meeting. Because top Trump aides wouldn’t comply with subpoenas, the inquiry relied on people who hadn’t directly communicated with the president to paint a picture of what he wanted. U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified he heard this through Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, and others implicated Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s acting chief of staff, in the quid pro quo.

So Democrats’ most solid evidence pinning the quid pro quos to Trump came from things people in the Trump administration did and said. Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky features heavily in the Intelligence Committee’s summary of why Trump should be impeached, taking up 10 pages. A key line:

During a July 25, 2019, call between President Trump and President Zelensky, President Zelensky expressed gratitude for U.S. military assistance. President Trump immediately responded by asking President Zelensky to “do us a favor though” and openly pressed for Ukraine to investigate former vice president Biden and the 2016 conspiracy theory. In turn, President Zelensky assured President Trump that he would pursue the investigation and reiterated his interest in the White House meeting.

As Democrats note in their report, they aren’t alone in this analysis of the call being damaging for Trump. It was also referenced in many witnesses’ testimony as the moment it clicked that Trump had held up the military aid to Ukraine so that he had leverage to demand investigations. “I guess for me it shed some light on possible other motivations behind a security assistance hold,” testified Jennifer Williams, a Russia adviser to Vice President Pence. “There was no doubt,” Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the White House’s top Ukraine expert, testified when asked if he heard a political quid pro quo in that call.

Mulvaney did not comply with a subpoena to testify, but his public comments make their way to the top lines in the report: “At a press conference weeks after public revelations about the scheme, Mr. Mulvaney publicly acknowledged that the President directly tied the hold on military aid to his desire to get Ukraine to conduct a political investigation, telling Americans to ‘get over it.’ ” (Mulvaney tried to walk back those comments later the same day.)

The report also tries to counteract any attempts by Trump to push Giuliani under the bus, by using Giuliani’s own words. Here’s the tweet they held up:

3. Democrats describe broad complicity in the Trump administration.

Pence. Mulvaney. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Former energy secretary Rick Perry. Senior White House aides. They’re all implicated in this report. They “had knowledge of, in some cases facilitated and furthered the President’s scheme, and withheld information about the scheme from the Congress and the American public,” Democrats write.

They rely heavily on the testimony from Sondland, who was the closest Trump ally that Democrats got to testify. Sondland testified that as he negotiated political quid pro quos with Ukraine, he looped in all of these senior officials. He brought emails and text messages to his public hearing as proof.

In particular, Sondland stated his belief in a meeting with Pence that the release of military aid to Ukraine was tied to the Ukrainians announcing the launch of investigations. Sondland said Pence didn’t express his objections.

The report’s authors include as evidence that Pence was in on Trump’s efforts the fact that the vice president spoke to Zelensky in September, after Sondland told Ukrainians there were conditions on getting their military aid — and that Pence won’t share the transcript of his call.

Pence has said he has “no recollection of any discussions” with Sondland before the Zelensky meeting.

4. Devin Nunes’s name is repeatedly listed in the report.

Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, is mentioned in the report dozens of times, and not just in his role as a counterpart to the leadership of the investigation. A former Nunes staff member is on the National Security Council, and the report says this staffer, Kash Patel, talked with Giuliani at a key moment in the pressure campaign and may have found a way to talk to the president about Ukraine, even though it wasn’t in his portfolio. The report also shows records of several phone exchanges between Giuliani and Nunes in April, as the campaign to dig up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine and oust the American ambassador there was ramping up.

The report doesn’t fill out Nunes’s role, but it provides some records that are consistent with the allegation by an indicted Ukrainian American, Lev Parnas, that Nunes was involved in this. (Nunes has said stories reporting this are “demonstrably false” but did not issue a direct denial when asked about his involvement with Ukrainians.)

5. They feel the need to impeach fast.

Democrats are pursuing Trump’s impeachment without hearing from top former aides, some of whom may have spoken directly to Trump about this and seem willing to testify. (We’re specifically thinking of former national security adviser John Bolton, who has said he’ll abide by the results of an ongoing lawsuit from another NSC official about what carries more weight, a subpoena from Congress or a White House ban on complying with that subpoena.)

The Democrats have faced some criticism for that, both inside and outside Congress. If they waited a few more months, could they connect the political quid pro quos to Trump without a shred of doubt? Instead, they are rushing to impeach Trump before it’s officially a presidential election year. To defend that rushed timing, they made an interesting argument in this report: that Trump might do this again if he’s not impeached ASAP.

Given the proximate threat of further presidential attempts to solicit foreign interference in our next election, we cannot wait to make a referral until our efforts to obtain additional testimony and documents wind their way through the courts. The evidence of the President’s misconduct is overwhelming, and so too is the evidence of his obstruction of Congress.

Of course, that argument ignores the fact that barring any major defections from Senate Republicans in a trial, Trump could be impeached by the House and remain president, free to negotiate with other countries as he sees fit.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s personal attorneys remain largely on the sidelines as the president contends with impeachment inquiry"

Spoiler

President Trump enters a perilous phase of the impeachment inquiry with very limited help from his personal lawyers, who remain largely on the sidelines and in the dark about evidence at the heart of the probe gathered by the White House, according to two people familiar with the situation.

As the House begins discussing specific articles of impeachment, the president is relying almost exclusively on White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and his in-house team of attorneys, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

In the face of allegations that Trump abused his office for political gain, the White House lawyers are not sharing with his personal attorneys some internal government records central to the inquiry about the pressure the administration put on Ukraine, citing the need to protect executive privilege.

The unusual decision to have the White House counsel captain the president’s defense — at least for now — departs from how previous presidents have contended with impeachment proceedings and has worried some Trump allies, who believe a multipronged defense would be stronger.

It also contrasts sharply with the legal strategy the White House deployed in responding to former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. In that case, Trump’s personal lawyers led his defense in coordination with select White House attorneys.

Since then, Cipollone has become the White House counsel, replacing Donald McGahn, who considered himself a fact witness and recused himself from dealing with the special counsel’s office. With the impeachment probe, Cipollone has taken the lead, operating separately from Jay Sekulow, a conservative Christian legal advocate who is the leader of the president’s personal legal team, joined by seasoned white-collar defense lawyers Jane and Marty Raskin.

A fourth member of the team — former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani — is largely walled off from the legal strategy because of his role in the Ukraine pressure campaign, Trump allies said.

Cipollone, Sekulow and the Raskins declined to comment. Giuliani and his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

The White House counsel has been in regular contact with Sekulow, and the two men agreed that Cipollone should maintain the lead role as the House moves this week to draft articles of impeachment, one of the people said. However, that arrangement could change quickly, depending on how the House drafts the articles of impeachment, people familiar with the discussions said.

Cipollone began meeting with senators a few weeks ago to discuss the format of an expected Senate trial and is scheduled to attend a lunch Wednesday with Senate Republicans.

Lawyers who have experience with prior impeachment proceedings and experts in executive privilege said the White House’s legal strategy deprives Trump of a personal advocate who is well-versed in facts that could be damaging or helpful to his defense.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” said Bob Bennett, a veteran white-collar defense lawyer who represented President Bill Clinton when he faced a sexual harassment lawsuit from Paula Jones.

The decision to place the White House Counsel’s Office in the lead role — and to withhold from his outside attorneys government records, including documents about Trump’s order to hold U.S. security assistance to Ukraine — is based on two factors, according to people briefed on the decision.

White House lawyers and Trump’s attorneys determined that the impeachment probe centers squarely on actions he took in his official role as president, which are properly defended by the White House counsel. They view the scenario as very different from the 1990s, when the House investigated Clinton for lying about a personal, sexual relationship with a White House intern.

Lawyers in the counsel’s office have also expressed concern that sharing records with people outside the White House could potentially weaken their efforts to block the release of documents to Congress. Cipollone’s office has asserted a very broad claim that it will not provide any White House records to House investigators because they are all probably covered by executive privilege.

Trump’s allies argue that the president acted properly in withholding aid and pushing for an investigation of the Bidens out of concern about corruption in Ukraine.

“This is the White House defending his actions as president,” said one person briefed on the legal decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing inquiry. “It’s completely different than Clinton, which was about his personal actions. It’s the mirror opposite of the Clinton probe.”

That has put Cipollone front and center as the president’s primary legal advocate.

When the House impeachment inquiry began, the White House counsel sent congressional leaders a fiery letter in which he declared the probe unconstitutional and vowed not to cooperate.

In September, Cipollone’s office began an intensive review of internal records and emails to determine the facts of White House interactions with Ukraine. The review looked closely at how the administration held up nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine and what officials did in response to alarm among some government officials who feared Trump had improperly pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25 call.

On Sunday, Cipollone notified the House Judiciary Committee that Trump would not participate in its upcoming hearings, criticizing the effort as a partisan effort by Democrats to tarnish the president.

Trump’s personal lawyers could eventually increase their role, depending on which impeachment charges are brought, whether any include matters investigated by Mueller and what form the future Senate trial takes. The personal legal team has the most experience with the facts of the special-counsel investigation.

In past impeachment inquiries, presidents had the benefit of personal counsel at their side amid the proceedings. Clinton had David Kendall, who worked closely with White House counsel Charles Ruff. President Richard M. Nixon was represented by personal counsel James St. Clair before the House Judiciary Committee.

Several legal experts said they see no legal reason — and little benefit to Trump — to keep the president’s personal lawyers at bay. Experts note that a president’s personal advocates have a unique and valuable role in building a defense, one that is different than a White House counsel defending the institution of the presidency.

They also questioned the wisdom of holding back records from the president’s outside advocates, noting that they expect courts to reject Cipollone’s broad claim that all White House records related to Ukraine are protected by executive privilege. Keeping the records from Trump’s personal lawyers doesn’t better shield them in the eyes of the law, they said.

“If it’s relevant to a legitimate investigation that seeks factual information about potential wrongdoing, I don’t think a claim of executive privilege would be upheld by the courts,” said Mark J. Rozell, an expert on executive privilege and dean of the government and public policy school at George Mason University. “It’s not privileged information; it’s evidence.”

Rozell said the strategy of withholding records from all parties may be motivated by a desire to “run out the clock” — to create a delay in ultimately turning over records if a court orders it.

“They may want to keep it away from a congressional committee or others trying to peer into the inner sanctum of the White House,” Rozell said, “but the president’s own attorneys? Why? Other than in a confessional, I can’t imagine anyone less likely to leak this information than someone’s personal lawyer.”

Mike Conway, who was counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment inquiry of Nixon, said sharing records with the president’s attorneys will not increase their chances of public release.

“First, the communications between the president and his attorney would be protected by the attorney-client privilege. Congress will honor that privilege,” Conway said. “Second, providing documents to the lawyer does not alter its status as to privilege. If the document is protected by executive privilege, it would remain so. If it is not protected, giving it to a lawyer does not make it privileged.”

Trump’s limited legal team leaves open a big question: Who would represent the president in a Senate trial?

During the special-counsel investigation, Trump had difficulties in recruiting a high-profile white-collar attorney. More than a dozen well-known lawyers turned him down initially, and as The Washington Post reported, he struggled to find a replacement after his personal attorney John Dowd quit in frustration in spring 2018.

In April 2018, Trump hired Giuliani and the Raskins, who drew praise for their below-the-radar professionalism and rigor. Giuliani, a longtime Trump advocate, largely served as the president’s surrogate and defender in television appearances. With the House launch of an impeachment investigation in September, the Raskins returned from a short hiatus after the Mueller investigation and rejoined Trump’s legal defense.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I don't know if I can handle watching tomorrow's hearings live: "‘Bunch of brawlers’: Judiciary panel’s most aggressive members ready to rumble in impeachment probe"

Spoiler

Defenders of President Trump often describe the impeachment inquiry as a “circus.”

But after the partisan theatrics expected during Wednesday’s first hearing in the House Judiciary Committee, they might need a stronger word.

When Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) gavels the room to order at 10 a.m., some of Capitol Hill’s most aggressive and colorful characters — Republicans and Democrats — will be seated on the dais, ready to inject new friction and hostility into the second phase of the inquiry.

There could be disruptions from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the Fox News favorite who led a conservative revolt against impeachment in mid-October by storming the secure room where depositions were taking place.

There could be conspiracy theories from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), who nearly named the intelligence community whistleblower during a recent speech on the House floor.

And there could be antics from Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), a vocal Trump critic who brought a bucket of fried chicken to a hearing in May to highlight the absence of Attorney General William P. Barr, who was scheduled to testify.

Add to these another 38 lawmakers — many Trump loyalists or pro-impeachment Democrats ready to do battle — and you have a potentially explosive mix of personalities whose excesses could dominate the proceedings.

“It’s a bunch of brawlers sometimes on the Judiciary Committee, so it should get pretty hot under the collar as we go along,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a member of the panel, during an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“I don’t think things have been done the way they’ve been done in the past . . . so it causes some rancor and it should be much more feisty, I would say, than the Intel Committee was,” he said.

The potential for drama underscores the rising stakes for Democrats as the spotlight shifts from the Intelligence Committee and toward Nadler’s panel. More than two months into the impeachment inquiry, public opinion remains divided, and recent polls show that few voters were swayed in either direction by last month’s public hearings. Now, with the Christmas holiday fast approaching and a possible floor vote looming, Democrats face renewed pressure to make their case while avoiding delays or partisan provocations that could alienate more moderate members of the party.

The Judiciary Committee, by its nature, makes this more difficult. Though it has a constitutional responsibility for impeachment, the panel hasn’t had the clout of other committees in recent years and tends to attract political instigators who desire a platform for advocacy on abortion, immigration and law enforcement issues. These members benefit from the panel’s role overseeing the Department of Justice, which brings widely covered hearings and ample opportunity to raise their public profiles.

Lawmakers and aides from both parties predicted a dramatic shift in tone from the earlier spate of hearings run by the more sober Intelligence Committee, whose members are handpicked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). This is in part because the two panels play different roles in the impeachment process, with Intelligence focused on fact-finding and Judiciary on making the case to the public that Trump’s actions constituted “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) was also known for keeping lawmakers on a tight leash, while Nadler has let his members — even those prone to partisan outbursts — operate more freely.

Republicans believe these differences will offer them a chance to derail Wednesday’s hearing and are planning procedural roadblocks to throw at Nadler and his members, according to a GOP aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private party strategy. The party has already found success with this approach, disrupting a September hearing with former Trump campaign aide Corey Lewandowski to such a degree that Democratic leaders sidelined the Judiciary Committee from the impeachment inquiry for a time. Last month, Schiff managed to thwart Republican efforts to delay the public hearings, but it was unclear if Nadler will be able to do the same.

An antagonist of Trump since his days in the New York State Assembly, Nadler has been one of the House’s most aggressive backers of impeachment this year. In May, he said that if Trump was impeached, “maybe I’ll cry out of happiness.”

Nadler's Republican counterpart is Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.), a fast-talking veteran who has come up with inventive talking points aimed at attacking Democrats and defending Trump.

The other personalities on the panel will determine much of the outcome Wednesday.

On the Democratic side, there is Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (Tex.), never one to shy from conflict, and Cohen, who caused an uproar with his references to “chicken” after Barr failed to show in May. (That day, the Tennessee Democrat ate Kentucky Fried Chicken on the dais and placed a ceramic chicken next to Barr’s name card at the witness table.

The majority also includes several members who agitated for starting impeachment proceedings as far back as early spring: Reps. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) has become one of his party’s most effective Trump critics on Twitter, going from fewer than 10,000 followers at the beginning of 2017 to 1.2 million as of Tuesday afternoon. And Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), famous for his onetime suggestion that the U.S. military presence on Guam could cause it to capsize, could add an eccentric note.

The Republican side is dominated by members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and the Republican Study Committee.

It includes Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a combative Trump supporter whose stinging, rapid-fire rebukes set the tone for GOP questions during last month’s impeachment hearings.

Biggs and Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) were both part of Gaetz’s incursion into the basement of the Capitol on Oct. 14, when Republicans occupied a deposition room for several hours in violation of long-standing and bipartisan rules governing secure areas.

“Reporting from Adam Schiff’s secret chamber . . .” Biggs tweeted that day, apparently breaking the rule barring phones from the room. Later, he tweeted that his messages were being posted by staff.

Gaetz himself has been called “Trumpiest Congressman in Trump’s Washington” and received a personal rebuke from Schiff when he led members into the secure room.

“Mr. Gaetz, why don’t you take your spectacle outside? This is not how we conduct ourselves in this committee,” Schiff said, according to a transcript released by the Intelligence Committee.

“I’ve seen how you’ve conducted yourself in this committee, and I’d like to be here to observe,” Gaetz replied.

Some of the Judiciary Committee’s chief Republican rabble-rousers made up a peanut gallery of sorts through many of the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings, sitting in the first row of the audience and muttering responses to what transpired on the dais.

Gohmert was a vocal presence.

When acting ambassador to Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr. stated that he was “not here to take one side or the other or to advocate for any particular outcome of these proceedings,” Gohmert chuckled and told his seatmates that no, Taylor was just “here to spread gossip.”

And when Schiff “cautioned” Taylor, and witnesses generally, against taking a lawmaker’s word on “facts not in evidence,” Gohmert raised his voice.

“Are you kidding me? You have the nerve to say that?” he blurted out, presumably at Schiff, who was far away and likely couldn’t hear the commentary.

 

[fraurosena]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I don't know if I can handle watching tomorrow's hearings live: "‘Bunch of brawlers’: Judiciary panel’s most aggressive members ready to rumble in impeachment probe"

  Hide contents

Defenders of President Trump often describe the impeachment inquiry as a “circus.”

But after the partisan theatrics expected during Wednesday’s first hearing in the House Judiciary Committee, they might need a stronger word.

When Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) gavels the room to order at 10 a.m., some of Capitol Hill’s most aggressive and colorful characters — Republicans and Democrats — will be seated on the dais, ready to inject new friction and hostility into the second phase of the inquiry.

There could be disruptions from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the Fox News favorite who led a conservative revolt against impeachment in mid-October by storming the secure room where depositions were taking place.

There could be conspiracy theories from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), who nearly named the intelligence community whistleblower during a recent speech on the House floor.

And there could be antics from Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), a vocal Trump critic who brought a bucket of fried chicken to a hearing in May to highlight the absence of Attorney General William P. Barr, who was scheduled to testify.

Add to these another 38 lawmakers — many Trump loyalists or pro-impeachment Democrats ready to do battle — and you have a potentially explosive mix of personalities whose excesses could dominate the proceedings.

“It’s a bunch of brawlers sometimes on the Judiciary Committee, so it should get pretty hot under the collar as we go along,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a member of the panel, during an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“I don’t think things have been done the way they’ve been done in the past . . . so it causes some rancor and it should be much more feisty, I would say, than the Intel Committee was,” he said.

The potential for drama underscores the rising stakes for Democrats as the spotlight shifts from the Intelligence Committee and toward Nadler’s panel. More than two months into the impeachment inquiry, public opinion remains divided, and recent polls show that few voters were swayed in either direction by last month’s public hearings. Now, with the Christmas holiday fast approaching and a possible floor vote looming, Democrats face renewed pressure to make their case while avoiding delays or partisan provocations that could alienate more moderate members of the party.

The Judiciary Committee, by its nature, makes this more difficult. Though it has a constitutional responsibility for impeachment, the panel hasn’t had the clout of other committees in recent years and tends to attract political instigators who desire a platform for advocacy on abortion, immigration and law enforcement issues. These members benefit from the panel’s role overseeing the Department of Justice, which brings widely covered hearings and ample opportunity to raise their public profiles.

Lawmakers and aides from both parties predicted a dramatic shift in tone from the earlier spate of hearings run by the more sober Intelligence Committee, whose members are handpicked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). This is in part because the two panels play different roles in the impeachment process, with Intelligence focused on fact-finding and Judiciary on making the case to the public that Trump’s actions constituted “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) was also known for keeping lawmakers on a tight leash, while Nadler has let his members — even those prone to partisan outbursts — operate more freely.

Republicans believe these differences will offer them a chance to derail Wednesday’s hearing and are planning procedural roadblocks to throw at Nadler and his members, according to a GOP aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private party strategy. The party has already found success with this approach, disrupting a September hearing with former Trump campaign aide Corey Lewandowski to such a degree that Democratic leaders sidelined the Judiciary Committee from the impeachment inquiry for a time. Last month, Schiff managed to thwart Republican efforts to delay the public hearings, but it was unclear if Nadler will be able to do the same.

An antagonist of Trump since his days in the New York State Assembly, Nadler has been one of the House’s most aggressive backers of impeachment this year. In May, he said that if Trump was impeached, “maybe I’ll cry out of happiness.”

Nadler's Republican counterpart is Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.), a fast-talking veteran who has come up with inventive talking points aimed at attacking Democrats and defending Trump.

The other personalities on the panel will determine much of the outcome Wednesday.

On the Democratic side, there is Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (Tex.), never one to shy from conflict, and Cohen, who caused an uproar with his references to “chicken” after Barr failed to show in May. (That day, the Tennessee Democrat ate Kentucky Fried Chicken on the dais and placed a ceramic chicken next to Barr’s name card at the witness table.

The majority also includes several members who agitated for starting impeachment proceedings as far back as early spring: Reps. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) has become one of his party’s most effective Trump critics on Twitter, going from fewer than 10,000 followers at the beginning of 2017 to 1.2 million as of Tuesday afternoon. And Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), famous for his onetime suggestion that the U.S. military presence on Guam could cause it to capsize, could add an eccentric note.

The Republican side is dominated by members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and the Republican Study Committee.

It includes Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a combative Trump supporter whose stinging, rapid-fire rebukes set the tone for GOP questions during last month’s impeachment hearings.

Biggs and Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) were both part of Gaetz’s incursion into the basement of the Capitol on Oct. 14, when Republicans occupied a deposition room for several hours in violation of long-standing and bipartisan rules governing secure areas.

“Reporting from Adam Schiff’s secret chamber . . .” Biggs tweeted that day, apparently breaking the rule barring phones from the room. Later, he tweeted that his messages were being posted by staff.

Gaetz himself has been called “Trumpiest Congressman in Trump’s Washington” and received a personal rebuke from Schiff when he led members into the secure room.

“Mr. Gaetz, why don’t you take your spectacle outside? This is not how we conduct ourselves in this committee,” Schiff said, according to a transcript released by the Intelligence Committee.

“I’ve seen how you’ve conducted yourself in this committee, and I’d like to be here to observe,” Gaetz replied.

Some of the Judiciary Committee’s chief Republican rabble-rousers made up a peanut gallery of sorts through many of the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings, sitting in the first row of the audience and muttering responses to what transpired on the dais.

Gohmert was a vocal presence.

When acting ambassador to Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr. stated that he was “not here to take one side or the other or to advocate for any particular outcome of these proceedings,” Gohmert chuckled and told his seatmates that no, Taylor was just “here to spread gossip.”

And when Schiff “cautioned” Taylor, and witnesses generally, against taking a lawmaker’s word on “facts not in evidence,” Gohmert raised his voice.

“Are you kidding me? You have the nerve to say that?” he blurted out, presumably at Schiff, who was far away and likely couldn’t hear the commentary.

 

I tend to mute them as soon as they begin to speak/yell. That might not be enough for today’s hearing though, if they are planning disruptive stunts. I really hope Nadler is upbringing the task and able to keep their shenanigans in check. I’m only familiar with a handful of the Dem members, so I’m not sure what to expect from them. I’m lumping the other side together under the trumplican banner and don’t expect any deviations from their abject abasement in the defense of their dear leader.

[fraurosena]

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

  Hide contents

4. Devin Nunes’s name is repeatedly listed in the report.

[...] The report also shows records of several phone exchanges between Giuliani and Nunes in April [...]

The report doesn’t fill out Nunes’s role, but it provides some records that are consistent with the allegation by an indicted Ukrainian American, Lev Parnas, that Nunes was involved in this. (Nunes has said stories reporting this are “demonstrably false” but did not issue a direct denial when asked about his involvement with Ukrainians.)

 

Faced with irrefutable evidence, Nunes has is now going with the well established trumplican defense of ‘I do not recall’.

 

[fraurosena]

Anyone watching yet?

Here's a link if you want to watch along:

 

[Flossie]

I'm watching.  The party of Trump is already acting like a bunch of snide asses.

[fraurosena]

Ugh, why do the trumplicans have to scream and shout all the time? Do they think that raising their voices somehow lends truth to the crap they're spouting?

It's obvious that they haven't changed their tactics either: not come up with factual arguments, but attack the dems. This is the only thing they have, and it's actually rather sad to see. Infuriating, but also very sad to see the slow but deliberate demise of American democracy. Because they are not on the side of democracy. They don't give a shit about that or the Constitution at all. 

[fraurosena]

The obstructive stunts have begun, constantly interruptions asking for silly motions, but I'm glad to see that although at times he seems a little flustered by them, Nadler is staying firm. 

[Flossie]

Oh yes, House Judiciary Ranking Member Collins, the American public will not forget.

Since I can't walk in and punch the Trump humpers in the nose, I can only let my distaste and dissatisfaction with their behavior this way:  

I hope your dog bites you when you get home.
I hope you get a flat tire while driving in bad weather, no one stops to help you change it, and the tow truck can't seem to find you.
I hope you get a stye in your eye, a boil on your butt, a persistent itch you cannot scratch while on-screen, and every time you open your mouth you belch.
I hope you get audited.
I hope your sewage line backs up.
I hope that when you go out to eat, your order arrives cold and the other diners glare at you.
I hope the purple pill fails you, and your wife is OK with that.
I hope that someone farts, and everyone around you blames you.
I hope that you forget to zip up and you don't figure it out until after you get home and the pictures are used by late night talk show hosts for their monologues.
I hope you stub your toe and it really hurts.
I hope someone betrays you the way you are betraying our country.

[fraurosena]

Good grief, these stupid motions are not serving any other purpose other than to show the childishness of the trumplicans for all the world to see. Talk about making yourself a laughingstock...

@Flossie, I would add...

I hope you get indicted and prosecuted for your treachery to the fullest extent the of the law.

Wow, while I'm typing this, Pamala Karlan is taking Collins to task. She's pretty mom-angry at him. So good to see.

[WiseGirl]

[SassyPants]

Yes, Prof Karlan!

[fraurosena]

 

 

[fraurosena]

Oh, Rufus on high, now their asking to subpoena the whistleblower.... 

And the motion is tabled once again, and once again, they want a roll call. Sheesh, this shit is getting old really soon.

[fraurosena]

Oh my, Kaplan just quoted Kavanaugh to make her point! 

 

True to form, of course.

 

[fraurosena]

Meanwhile, as America is focussed on the impeachment hearings, Giuliani still unabashed and boldly keeps doing what caused all of this in the first place.

Giuliani, Facing Scrutiny, Travels to Europe to Interview Ukrainians

Quote

Even as Democrats intensified their scrutiny this week of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s role in the pressure campaign against the Ukrainian government that is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry, Mr. Giuliani has been in Europe continuing his efforts to shift the focus to purported wrongdoing by President Trump’s political rivals.

Mr. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, met in Budapest on Tuesday with a former Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, who has become a key figure in the impeachment inquiry. He then traveled to Kyiv on Wednesday seeking to meet with other former Ukrainian prosecutors whose claims have been embraced by Republicans, including Viktor Shokin and Kostiantyn H. Kulyk, according to people familiar with the effort.

The former prosecutors, who have faced allegations of corruption, all played some role in promoting claims about former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a former United States ambassador to Ukraine and Ukrainians who disseminated damaging information about Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in 2016.

Those claims — some baseless and others with key disputed elements — have been the foundations of the effort by Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani to pressure the Ukrainian government to commit itself to investigations that would benefit Mr. Trump heading into his re-election campaign. That effort in turn has led to the impeachment proceedings in the House against the president.

Mr. Giuliani is using the trip, which has not been previously reported, to help prepare more episodes of a documentary series for a conservative television outlet promoting his pro-Trump, anti-impeachment narrative. His latest moves to advance the theories propounded by the prosecutors amount to an audacious effort to give the president’s supporters new material to undercut the House impeachment proceedings and an eventual Senate trial.

It was Mr. Giuliani’s earlier interactions with some of the same Ukrainian characters that set the stage for the impeachment inquiry in the first place, and also led to an investigation by federal prosecutors into whether Mr. Giuliani violated federal lobbying laws.

Mr. Giuliani’s trip has generated concern in some quarters of the State Department, coming amid scrutiny of his work with American diplomats earlier this year on the pressure campaign. His trip to Budapest and Kyiv suggests that he is unbowed by the intense scrutiny that has enveloped him and his associates, including revelations from the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday of frequent calls from Mr. Giuliani to the White House and other figures in the pressure campaign at key moments this year.

The European trip was organized around the filming of a multipart television series featuring Mr. Giuliani that is being produced and aired by a conservative cable channel, One America News, or OAN.

The series, the first two installments of which have already aired, is being promoted as a Republican alternative to the impeachment hearings, including Ukrainian “witnesses” whom House Democrats running the inquiry declined to call. Some of the Ukrainians interviewed by Mr. Giuliani were sworn in on camera to “testify under oath” in a manner that the network claims “debunks the impeachment hoax.”

Mr. Giuliani was joined in Budapest by an OAN crew, including the reporter hosting the series, Chanel Rion, who conducted an interview in the Hungarian capital with Mr. Lutsenko, according to someone familiar with the interview.

Earlier this year, Mr. Lutsenko played a formative role in what became Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign, meeting with Mr. Giuliani in New York, where he made claims about a gas company that paid Mr. Biden’s son as a board member and the dissemination of a secret ledger listing slush payments from a Russia-aligned Ukrainian political party earmarked to Mr. Manafort and others. When The New York Times revealed the payments earmarked to Mr. Manafort in August 2016, it forced him to resign under pressure from the Trump campaign.

Mr. Lutsenko, whom Mr. Giuliani considered representing as a client, is facing allegations in Ukraine of abuse of power during his years as a prosecutor and was characterized by some American officials in the impeachment inquiry as untrustworthy. But his office moved to pursue investigations sought by Mr. Trump, and he was praised by the president as a “very good prosecutor” during a July 25 phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

Mr. Lutsenko discussed some of the subjects into which Mr. Trump sought investigations during his interview on Tuesday with Ms. Rion, said the person familiar with the interview.

Also joining Mr. Giuliani and the OAN crew in Budapest were two former Ukrainian officials who have been supportive of Mr. Trump, Andrii Telizhenko and Andrii V. Artemenko.

The pair, along with a third former Ukrainian official, Mykhaylo Okhendovsky, recorded interviews at OAN’s studios in Washington late last month with Ms. Rion and Mr. Giuliani for an episode of the series that aired on Tuesday night.

The three Ukrainians questioned the Democrats’ case for impeachment during the episode. And they asserted that Mr. Trump had ample reason to ask Mr. Zelensky during their July 25 phone call to investigate the Bidens and whether Ukrainians acted improperly to damage Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The July 25 call helped trigger a whistle-blower complaint about the pressure wielded by Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani against Mr. Zelensky, and the whistle-blower complaint incited the impeachment inquiry into whether Mr. Trump abused his power for political gain.

In the OAN episode broadcast on Tuesday, Mr. Telizhenko reiterated his claims that, while working in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in 2016, he was instructed to help a Democratic operative gather incriminating information about Mr. Manafort. The Ukrainian Embassy has denied his account.

Mr. Artemenko, a former member of Parliament, and Mr. Okhendovsky, the former chairman of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission, both called into question the authenticity of the ledger listing payments to Mr. Manafort.

Ms. Rion falsely claimed on air that the Democratic operative connected to the Ukrainian Embassy, who has become a frequent target of House Republicans, provided the ledger to The Times. She declared that her interviews with Mr. Telizhenko, Mr. Artemenko and Mr. Okhendovsky “pulls the rug out from under” Democrats’ “central premise that Trump was wrong to ask about Joe Biden and the Democrat party’s starring role in Ukrainian corruption.”

Ms. Rion, Mr. Telizhenko, Mr. Artemenko and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Giuliani rejected any notion that it was audacious or risky for him to continue pursuing the Ukrainian mission, given the scrutiny of him by impeachment investigators and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, or S.D.N.Y.

“If S.D.N.Y. leaks and Democrats’ threats stopped me, then I should find a new profession,” he wrote in a text message on Wednesday.

Asked about his interview with Mr. Lutsenko and efforts to interview other Ukrainian prosecutors, he responded that “like a good lawyer, I am gathering evidence to defend my client against the false charges being leveled against him” by the news media and Democrats.

He accused Representative Adam B. Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which conducted impeachment hearings last month, of preventing testimony that could help Mr. Trump. “I am hoping that the evidence concealed by Schiff will be available to the public as they evaluate his outrageous, unconstitutional behavior.”

He did not respond to a question about whether he briefed Mr. Trump on his trip or his involvement in the OAN series, but he has said that he keeps Mr. Trump apprised of his efforts related to Ukraine.

In a news release Tuesday, OAN indicated that the third installment of its series with Mr. Giuliani was “currently in the works with OAN investigative staff outside the United States conducting key interviews at undisclosed safe houses.” It said the network would release additional details “upon return of OAN staff to U.S. soil.”

In Budapest, Mr. Giuliani had dinner on Tuesday night at the residence of the United States ambassador to Hungary, David B. Cornstein, a longtime friend and associate of both Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani.

A businessman who made a fortune operating jewelry counters inside department stores and worked in Mr. Giuliani’s New York mayoral administration, Mr. Cornstein has courted Viktor Orban, Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, who in turn has provided fodder for Mr. Trump’s critical view of Ukraine.

A spokesman for the American Embassy in Budapest issued a statement describing the Tuesday night get-together as “a private dinner” hosted by the ambassador “with his longtime friend,” Mr. Giuliani, and Mr. Giuliani’s assistant. “No one else was present at the dinner.”

A reporter who showed up outside the ambassador’s residence during the dinner was turned away by a security guard.

Some State Department officials said they were tracking Mr. Giuliani’s continued efforts to engage the Ukrainians with concern. One department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive topic, called it “shocking” that, in the face of scrutiny of his prior efforts related to Ukraine, Mr. Giuliani was traveling internationally in continued pursuit of information from Ukrainians.

One of the former prosecutors with whom Mr. Giuliani is seeking to meet in Kyiv is Mr. Shokin, who claims his ouster was forced by Mr. Biden to prevent investigations into the gas company paying Mr. Biden’s son Hunter Biden. Allies of the oligarch who owns the gas company say they welcomed Mr. Shokin’s firing, but not because he was actively investigating the company or the oligarch. Rather, they say, he was using the threat of prosecution to try to solicit bribes.

Another prosecutor with whom Mr. Giuliani was seeking to meet, Mr. Kulyk, had compiled a seven-page dossier in English accusing Hunter Biden of corruption, and had taken steps to pursue an investigation into Burisma Holdings, the gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served. Mr. Kulyk was fired recently by Mr. Zelensky’s new top prosecutor as part of an anti-corruption initiative.

OAN’s crew hopes to interview the former prosecutors as well, Ms. Rion suggested during the first episode of the series, which aired late last month.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Is it me, or does Collins (R-Whine) sound like a toddler who has been denied a cookie while mommy shops at Walmart? Wah, the Dems are mean. Wah, impeachment is mean. Wah, life isn't fair. Wah, wah, wah.

[fraurosena]

 

3 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Is it me, or does Collins (R-Whine) sound like a toddler who has been denied a cookie while mommy shops at Walmart? Wah, the Dems are mean. Wah, impeachment is mean. Wah, life isn't fair. Wah, wah, wah.

I've already put him on mute. 

[onekidanddone]

OneKid is on a field trip to the Capitol today. Man I wish I could have taken her place 

Update:

OneKid just walked in the door. Her class wasn’t allowed in the House, but they did go into the Senate.  She got to see Romney, Cruz and Rubio ?   
 

Edited December 4, 2019 by onekidanddone

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

 

 

 

[fraurosena]