Impeachment 3: The MF Has Been Impeached! The Trial Has Begun!

[GreyhoundFan]

"Nancy Pelosi gamed the impeachment trial brilliantly"

Spoiler

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has decided to finally transmit the articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate. Some pundits contend she didn’t get anything out of her decision to withhold them for nearly a month because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) did not give ground on any Democratic demands concerning the Senate’s trial rules. They’re wrong.

Pelosi’s act is best understood as an attempt to do what she excels at: managing intraparty tensions. Withholding the articles over the Christmas holiday season gave her three distinct wins in that never-ending battle.

Her biggest win will be among progressive activists and donors. They wanted Trump impeached since his inauguration, yet when Pelosi took the speaker’s gavel last January, she pointedly did not authorize an immediate impeachment proceeding. Instead, she waited until a new revelation gave her public grounds — some might say a pretext — to initiate them. This was smart politics but clearly came at some cost to her as she held back the progressive tide.

Withholding the articles allowed her to show progressives that she would fight, not just acquiesce, to remove Trump from office. She’s a good enough politician to know that she had to send them over sometime in January because she had no leverage to force McConnell to deal. But her simple act of defiance signaled to an important party audience that she was on their side. This should help her raise money and motivate activists as she defends her precarious majority in the fall.

She also wins by pinning the blame for Trump’s eventual acquittal on McConnell. Democratic failure to persuade Trump backers to even consider impeaching the president has always meant the Senate trial’s outcome is a foregone conclusion. By holding the articles and forcing McConnell to do what he was going to do — run the trial his way — Pelosi gives Democrats a scapegoat for their eventual failure to remove Trump. They can blame McConnell’s allegedly unfair and prejudicial rules for the debacle rather than their own failure to bring even a small portion of the non-Democratic electorate behind them. Since Democrats already view McConnell as a mendacious partisan, this is an easy sell.

Pelosi also wins by pushing the Senate trial’s timetable back. Had she sent the articles immediately after passage, the Senate could have started the trial after returning from the holiday break. Now, however, they won’t be able to start the trial until after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. This means the Senate will be in trial six days a week for the period before the Iowa caucuses and may well be in session through the New Hampshire primary, too. That will likely hurt the progressives’ favorites, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), as they will have to stay in Washington rather than campaign in those crucial early voting states.

This in turn makes it slightly more likely that the two leading moderate contenders, former vice president Joe Biden and former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, will prevail. Pelosi surely knows that polls show Biden is the candidate best placed to beat Trump and reassure moderate independents. Buttigieg’s intelligence and calm demeanor also would be likely to reassure that crucial set of swing voters. Either would be a better candidate at the top of the ticket for the 30 Democrats who represent districts Trump won in 2016 than the vocal, unyielding progressivism of Sanders or Warren. Pelosi’s move means those men will likely be the only major candidates actively campaigning in the final days before the first primary season votes.

Pelosi was always going to be playing a weak hand once the articles left the House. She’s played a poor hand exceedingly well, using the articles to give a boost to her chances of returning as speaker next year. That’s an excellent use of a holiday vacation period.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Suddenly Trump has lost enthusiasm for his trial"

Spoiler

Nobody ever accused President Trump of being consistent.

For weeks, the president clamored for a “fair trial” in the Senate to clear him of impeachment charges.

“I look forward to it,” he said on New Year’s Eve.

Trump also stated he wanted his aides “to testify in the Senate where they’ll get a fair trial.” White House counsel Pat Cipollone urged House Democrats to finish impeachment “so we can have a fair trial in the Senate.”

Now the House is about to deliver the impeachment articles — and suddenly Trump has lost enthusiasm for a trial.

“Many believe that by the Senate giving credence to a trial,” Trump tweeted on Sunday afternoon, “rather than an outright dismissal, it gives the partisan Democrat Witch Hunt credibility that it otherwise does not have. I agree!”

Lest “many believe” that was just a fleeting thought, Trump retweeted it Monday morning.

“Many believe,” of course, is Trump-speak for “I believe.” And I understand why “many believe” a fair Senate trial would hurt Trump, if it means producing the documents and witnesses Trump refused to provide to the House. His defenses would wither faster than his explanations for the assassination of Iran’s Qasem Soleimani.

First, Trump said Soleimani was planning “imminent” attacks on U.S. interests. When lawmakers, including Republicans, said their classified briefings produced zero evidence of an imminent threat, Trump took his case to Fox News.

“I can reveal that I believe it would have been four embassies” that Soleimani attacked, Trump declared.

But it turns out Trump believes this in the absence of evidence. Asked by CBS News’s Margaret Brennan on Sunday about whether there was a specific threat to four embassies, Trump’s defense secretary, Mark Esper, replied: “I didn’t see one with regard to four embassies.”

So, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Esper: “Was Trump embellishing?”

“I don’t believe so,” Esper replied. This is because Esper shares Trump’s evidence-free belief that Soleimani would have attacked four embassies.

This is fun! The truth is whatever Trump believes it to be — much as when he said his net worth was based on how he feels.

There was a time when people got in trouble for making things up like this. George W. Bush never lived down the infamous “Sixteen Words” in his 2003 State of the Union address: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

And when the Obama administration used talking points falsely claiming the attack on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi was sparked by an anti-Islam video, Republicans answered with years of rage.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called Obama White House officials “scumbags” that “lied about” the Benghazi attack. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said the administration “made up a tale” and declared it “worthy of investigation.”

But now Graham and McConnell can both be expected to embrace Trump’s faith-based defense, both on the “imminent” Iran threat and on the president’s innocence in the Ukraine affair. It brings to mind the “I Believe” number from the musical “The Book of Mormon.” (“I believe that God lives on a planet called Kolob! … And I believe that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri.”) A Republican just believes.

How would the I-believe defense play out in the Senate trial?

Chief Justice John Roberts: Did President Trump ask the government of Ukraine to announce investigations into a political opponent and a discredited theory about Ukraine interfering in the 2016 election?

Cipollone: I don’t believe so.

Roberts: Did Trump withhold security aid to Ukraine and a White House meeting contingent on these investigations?

Cipollone: I believe otherwise.

Roberts: Did Trump direct officials to defy subpoenas and withhold documents?

Cipollone: I believe you are mistaken.

Graham: Move to dismiss!

Trump, after expressing his newfound belief that a Senate trial wouldn’t help his case, moved on to sharing other beliefs Monday with his Twitter followers, including a belief that “I was the person who saved Pre-Existing Conditions in your Healthcare” and a belief that “the corrupted Dems [are] trying their best to come to the Ayatollah’s rescue.” His evidence for the latter belief: a doctored picture of Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing Muslim garb in front of an Iranian flag.

It’s a safe bet that when the trial begins late this week or early next, Trump’s Senate sycophants will seek the dismissal he requested. Others may try to blow up proceedings by hauling in Hunter Biden. I’d like to think the requisite four Republican senators will join Democrats in demanding a legitimate trial.

But I’ll believe it when I see it.

 

[fraurosena]

15 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Nancy Pelosi gamed the impeachment trial brilliantly"

  Hide contents

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has decided to finally transmit the articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate. Some pundits contend she didn’t get anything out of her decision to withhold them for nearly a month because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) did not give ground on any Democratic demands concerning the Senate’s trial rules. They’re wrong.

Pelosi’s act is best understood as an attempt to do what she excels at: managing intraparty tensions. Withholding the articles over the Christmas holiday season gave her three distinct wins in that never-ending battle.

Her biggest win will be among progressive activists and donors. They wanted Trump impeached since his inauguration, yet when Pelosi took the speaker’s gavel last January, she pointedly did not authorize an immediate impeachment proceeding. Instead, she waited until a new revelation gave her public grounds — some might say a pretext — to initiate them. This was smart politics but clearly came at some cost to her as she held back the progressive tide.

Withholding the articles allowed her to show progressives that she would fight, not just acquiesce, to remove Trump from office. She’s a good enough politician to know that she had to send them over sometime in January because she had no leverage to force McConnell to deal. But her simple act of defiance signaled to an important party audience that she was on their side. This should help her raise money and motivate activists as she defends her precarious majority in the fall.

She also wins by pinning the blame for Trump’s eventual acquittal on McConnell. Democratic failure to persuade Trump backers to even consider impeaching the president has always meant the Senate trial’s outcome is a foregone conclusion. By holding the articles and forcing McConnell to do what he was going to do — run the trial his way — Pelosi gives Democrats a scapegoat for their eventual failure to remove Trump. They can blame McConnell’s allegedly unfair and prejudicial rules for the debacle rather than their own failure to bring even a small portion of the non-Democratic electorate behind them. Since Democrats already view McConnell as a mendacious partisan, this is an easy sell.

Pelosi also wins by pushing the Senate trial’s timetable back. Had she sent the articles immediately after passage, the Senate could have started the trial after returning from the holiday break. Now, however, they won’t be able to start the trial until after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. This means the Senate will be in trial six days a week for the period before the Iowa caucuses and may well be in session through the New Hampshire primary, too. That will likely hurt the progressives’ favorites, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), as they will have to stay in Washington rather than campaign in those crucial early voting states.

This in turn makes it slightly more likely that the two leading moderate contenders, former vice president Joe Biden and former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, will prevail. Pelosi surely knows that polls show Biden is the candidate best placed to beat Trump and reassure moderate independents. Buttigieg’s intelligence and calm demeanor also would be likely to reassure that crucial set of swing voters. Either would be a better candidate at the top of the ticket for the 30 Democrats who represent districts Trump won in 2016 than the vocal, unyielding progressivism of Sanders or Warren. Pelosi’s move means those men will likely be the only major candidates actively campaigning in the final days before the first primary season votes.

Pelosi was always going to be playing a weak hand once the articles left the House. She’s played a poor hand exceedingly well, using the articles to give a boost to her chances of returning as speaker next year. That’s an excellent use of a holiday vacation period.

 

There is another reason not mentioned in this article that is a win for Pelosi -- and the Democrats in general -- by withholding the articles of impeachment until now. Chuck Schumer has been able to use this time to garner support on the Republican side of the Senate for calling witnesses and documents. He sounded rather positive yesterday on TRMS that he just might be able to get enough Republican votes to get a fair trail -- although it's not a done deal by any means. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Top Senate Republicans reject Trump’s renewed call for immediate dismissal of impeachment charges"

Spoiler

Top Senate Republicans on Monday rejected President Trump’s call for outright dismissal of the impeachment charges against him, but continued to grapple with the shape of the Senate trial that could begin as soon as this week.

Most Senate Republicans are eager to stage a trial that ends with Trump’s acquittal and vindication on charges that he abused the power of his office in his dealings with Ukraine and obstructed a subsequent investigation in the House. But over the weekend, Trump urged the Senate simply to dismiss the charges against him — without hearing arguments from House prosecutors or his own legal team.

On Monday, senior Republicans said immediate dismissal could not win approval in the chamber, where Republicans hold a 53-seat majority. And even some staunch Trump allies argued that the president’s legacy would benefit from a robust trial.

“I don’t think there’s any interest on our side of dismissing,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the fourth-ranking GOP senator. “Certainly, there aren’t 51 votes for a motion to dismiss.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said that he wants the trial — only the third impeachment of a president in U.S. history — to follow the format used 21 years ago in the trial of President Bill Clinton. In that case, the Senate approved a resolution that would have allowed the Senate to vote to dismiss the charges.

But senior Republicans signaled Monday that they are not inclined to include such a provision in the resolution that will kick off Trump’s trial, perhaps as soon as Thursday.

“I think the only reason it would be in there is if there’s just some argument for consistency,” Blunt said.

Another GOP senator, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss legislation that is not yet public, also said the inclusion of a provision to dismiss is unlikely.

Republicans were maneuvering behind the scenes about the vexing issue of witnesses as former national security adviser John Bolton said last week that he would be willing to testify if he receives a Senate subpoena.

Still, Trump, in a post Sunday that he also retweeted on Monday, made clear that he was still pressing for the Senate to dismiss the charges.

“Many believe that by the Senate giving credence to a trial based on the no evidence, no crime, read the transcripts, ‘no pressure’ Impeachment Hoax, rather than an outright dismissal, it gives the partisan Democrat Witch Hunt credibility that it otherwise does not have. I agree!” he wrote.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said during a Fox News interview that while Trump is seeking a dismissal “because he did nothing wrong,” if he faces a Senate trial, “he does want it to be fair, which is all he deserves.”

Meanwhile, a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss strategy, said the White House wants the dismissal option “available to the president” and not necessarily tucked into the organizing resolution. The official also noted that a motion to dismiss could come later in the trial, once the senators have had ample time to digest opening arguments and ask questions.

Any senator can move to dismiss the charges, as long as it is done in writing.

Trump has been eager to use the Senate trial on the campaign trail as evidence that he has done nothing wrong and that his impeachment by the House was a political “witch hunt” by Democrats.

The House voted Dec. 18 to impeach Trump, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has held the two articles of impeachment as she sought concessions from McConnell on witnesses. He refused to budge and Pelosi relented last week, signaling that the House would vote this week to approve a slate of impeachment managers who will deliver the articles to the Senate and prosecute the case against Trump.

Senate Republicans, most of whom are prepared not to convict Trump on the two charges, believe a vote to acquit will provide a more emphatic statement to rebut the abuse-of-power and obstruction-of-Congress charges he faces over his demands that Ukraine launch investigations that would benefit him politically.

For that reason, McConnell has long preferred a vote to acquit Trump, rather than a vote to dismiss that has a higher likelihood of failure on the Senate floor — a view echoed Monday by his closest allies and rank-and-file senators.

Several closely watched Republican senators said Monday that they would reject immediate dismissal of the charges against Trump, including Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Mitt Romney (Utah) and Susan Collins (Maine).

“My understanding is most Republicans wanted to have a full trial and then have a vote on acquittal or a conviction, which is at a 67-vote threshold,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.).

Chatter about dismissing the charges began to ramp up last week after Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a measure to alter Senate rules to allow for dismissing articles of impeachment, but only if the House had failed to transmit them to the Senate within 25 calendar days.

McConnell announced last week that he had the votes to proceed with Trump’s impeachment trial without support from Democrats and within the parameters that he sought: hours of opening statements for the House managers and Trump’s defense team, as well as a period for questioning from senators. No Republicans signaled dissent from that strategy last week.

As Senate GOP leaders work to finalize the resolution that would establish Trump’s trial, they also began contending with a growing chorus of Republican senators who could be influential swing votes on procedural matters on the question of witnesses.

One of them, Collins, said last week that she has spoken with a small circle of Republican senators to ensure that the process for Trump hews as closely to the structure that Clinton was granted during his trial.

On Monday, Collins explained that her negotiations are not about “specific witnesses” getting called but are merely an attempt to make sure that no senator could short-circuit the trial without first letting all 100 senators vote on whether to call additional witnesses.

Other like-minded senators on Monday echoed Collins’s view.

“I am working to make sure that we will have a process so that we can take a vote on whether or not we need additional information,” which could include witnesses, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Romney said Monday that he plans to vote against early motions by Democrats for witnesses before opening arguments but that later in the trial, “I presume I’ll be voting in favor of hearing from John Bolton perhaps among others. That could change depending on what happens in the ensuing days and during those arguments, but I’m not going to be voting for witnesses prior to the opening arguments.”

Senior Republicans stressed Monday that such a vote would probably occur, with Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) telling reporters: “I don’t think there’s any question that there’ll probably be that vote at some point in the process.”

“I think we should hear the case. We have a constitutional duty to do that,” Alexander said. “That means to me, number one, hear the arguments. Number two, to ask our questions. Number three, to be guaranteed the right to vote on whether we need additional evidence following hearing the case. Evidence could be witnesses, it could be documents.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"How GOP senators are already pre-spinning their coverup for Trump"

Spoiler

If you pay careful attention, you can see that Republican senators are already revealing how they will turn President Trump’s trial into a coverup — and even subtly telegraphing the spin they’ll employ to insulate themselves from the political fallout of their inevitable sham-acquittal.

Here’s the game: Republicans are making loud noises of disapproval about a current effort by Trump’s allies to get the trial dismissed before it starts, to lay the groundwork to spin an eventual witness-free trial as fair by reverse-comparison.

Republicans will then count on the media’s both-sidesing instincts to treat the story as a conventional Washington tit-for-tat, in which one side wants witnesses, and the other does not, without clearly conveying the core objective realities about the situation needed to appreciate the lopsided absurdity of the Trump/GOP position.

With House Democrats set to send articles of impeachment to the Senate, numerous Senate Republicans are now nixing a proposal — which Trump supports — to change Senate rules to allow for the dismissal of impeachment charges at any time. But how they’re doing this contains a key tell.

Here, for instance, is Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee:

“We’re taking an oath to be impartial,” he said, “and that to me means we have a constitutional duty to hear the case, ask our questions and then decide whether we want additional evidence in terms of documents or witnesses.”

Note the sleight of hand: It’s an “impartial” fulfillment of “constitutional duty” to hear the case, and then decide whether the Senate will allow additional evidence and witnesses. In comparison to outright dismissal at the outset, not allowing for either will magically be transformed into an impartial approach.

And here’s another quote along these lines:

“I think our members, generally are not interested in the motion to dismiss. They think both sides need to be heard,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who is part of GOP leadership.

Similarly, this lays the groundwork to portray an eventuality in which no additional evidence or witnesses are permitted as both sides being heard.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell claims he has 51 votes for a process in which opening arguments are heard first, after which there will be votes on whether to dismiss the charges and on whether witnesses and additional evidence will be heard. It’s not entirely clear that McConnell has those 51 votes, but it seems likely.

If so, after opening arguments from both sides, Republicans could either vote to dismiss the trial or vote to proceed with zero witnesses and new evidence if 51 GOP senators support doing so, according to this Politico overview. Though Democrats could force tough votes, the bottom line is that Republicans could lose three GOP senators and still pull this off.

Now, if any vulnerable GOP senators do vote for dismissal or against new witnesses, Democrats will work to extract a political price for it. This worries McConnell, who wants to ensure that vulnerable senators can “credibly claim to voters that they took their constitutional duties seriously,” as the New York Times puts it.

And so, if either of those — a dismissal, or no new witnesses or evidence — does take place, the spin would then become that this is a fair and impartial process, relative to the dismissal at the outset that some Trump allies demanded.

Trump’s media allies are also floating another related trick. They are calling for a “one for one” approach: If Democrats get to call former national security adviser John Bolton, then Trump’s defenders get to call, say, Hunter Biden. This is absurd on its face:

Beyond that, it’s doubtful that Trump and McConnell would even want such an outcome. Trump cannot permit testimony from witnesses such as Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, because they have direct knowledge of his actual conduct — his freezing of military aid to Ukraine — even in exchange for Hunter Biden, since Trump’s entire narrative about the Bidens is mostly an invention.

Indeed, the idea is likely an obvious ruse: The goal, again, is to spin a no-witnesses outcome as a fair one. This banks on both-sidesing media coverage playing along: Not hearing from witnesses with direct knowledge of Trump’s extortion scheme will get placed on a plane of equivalence with not hearing from the Bidens. Neither side got its way!

Please get this right, media

It’s true that the structure McConnell wants — opening statements, then votes on dismissal and witnesses — mirrors the one employed for Bill Clinton’s trial. But in this case, glaring realities make the situation very different.

So let’s hope coverage of this standoff includes the following:

• McConnell flatly vowed to run the trial in absolute coordination with Trump’s legal team. This must not be treated as mere tactical or procedural shrewdness. It cannot be squared with impartiality.
• Trump actually called for a trial before deciding he didn’t want one. Notably, he did so when he thought it would include only witnesses he wants, such as the Bidens. Only after Trump realized that a trial could mean hearing from incriminating witnesses did he oppose having one.
• Trump already blocked the witnesses Democrats want from testifying to the House, precisely because they have the most direct knowledge of his freezing of military aid. So a vote against witnesses is a vote to never hear from those with this direct knowledge of Trump’s corruption.
• The witnesses Democrats want have direct knowledge of the conduct for which Trump was impeached, conduct that actually did happen. The Bidens can shed zero light on that conduct, and just about everything Trump claims the Bidens did is invented. So in no sense are the two sides’ demands for witnesses equivalent.

A lot is riding on the coverage getting this right.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Be prepared to fight a dangerous new wave of disinformation during the Senate trial"

Spoiler

During her testimony in the House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings last year, former National Security Council senior director Fiona Hill scolded U.S. representatives for believing and sometimes echoing Russian-inspired disinformation about alleged Ukrainian interference in our 2016 presidential election. She stated bluntly: “This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”

In a matter of days, U.S. senators will be exercising one of their most solemn constitutional duties as they take part in the second phase of the impeachment process. When they do so, they — and the rest of us — should take heed of Hill’s warning. By now it should be amply clear that Russian-style disinformation tactics, whether employed by Russians or Americans, represent a major threat to American democracy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his proxies deploy several methods of disinformation to strengthen their power and influence. The first is to deny facts. For instance, Putin initially denied that Russian soldiers had seized control of Crimea in February 2014, denies Russian involvement in the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014, and denies any Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

A second tactic is to deflect attention from the facts, also known as “whataboutism.” When criticized about Crimean annexing Crimea, Putin’s media shoot back, what about Kosovo? Or New Mexico? When criticized about civilian casualties from Russian military intervention in Syria, Kremlin defenders retort, what about Iraq, Vietnam or Hiroshima? When confronted with evidence of Russian meddling in U.S. elections, the Russian standard refrain is, you do it all the time.

A third practice is the dissemination of lies. Russian state media once asserted that President Barack Obama and former Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi embraced the same ideology. I may be more sensitive than most about this tactic, because when I was serving as U.S. ambassador to Russia, Kremlin media outlets accused me of fomenting revolution against Putin’s regime; perhaps most disgustingly of all, a video was circulated suggesting I was a pedophile. When Putin met with President Trump in July 2018 in Helsinki, the Russian president again lied about me, claiming I had broken Russian law while working in the White House.

A cumulative effect of all these tactics is nihilistic debasement of the very concept of truth. Putin is not trying to win the argument; instead, his propaganda machine aims to convince that there is no truth, no right and wrong, or no data or evidence, only relativism, point of view and biased opinion.

We must not let these Kremlin-style tactics distort our public deliberations during the Senate trial.

First, we cannot allow denials to confuse our understanding of the facts of Trump’s withholding of military assistance to Ukraine. Trump denies he did anything wrong. We have heard extensive testimony from officials working in the Trump administration that clearly established the facts. Several current and former Trump administration officials, who have not yet testified, may know even more. Senators and the American people deserve to know them, too.

Second, senators and the media must avoid the temptations of whataboutism. At another time and place, a discussion may be warranted of the ethics of children of elected officials (Democrats and Republicans) being involved in businesses related to their parents’ public work. Congress also should conduct hearings about the Trump administration’s efforts to combat Ukrainian corruption. But neither of these issues has anything to do with impeachment.

Third, we must reject categorically falsehoods. The American cybersecurity company CrowdStrike did not cover up Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 presidential election; this is an entirely invented story. Former vice president Joe Biden was not freelancing on behalf of his son when implementing U.S. government policy — supported by the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, Republican senators, and the Ukrainian anti-corruption nongovernmental-organization community — to seek the ouster of corrupt Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

Indeed, because Shokin was not prosecuting corruption in Ukraine, his removal produced greater scrutiny, not less, of the now-infamous Burisma Holdings energy company on which Hunter Biden used to serve as a board member. As Shokin’s deputy, Vitaliy Kasko, reported, “There was no pressure from anyone from the U.S. to close cases against Zlochevsky [Burisma’s owner]. … It was shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015.” Trump’s own political appointee, former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, confirmed, “The allegations against Vice President Biden are self-serving and non-credible.”

Neutral reporting on false claims amplifies disinformation. Even those aiming to refute such falsehoods run the risk of spreading them more widely at the same time — a dynamic on which the purveyors of disinformation rely. At minimum, public figures and the media should resist the temptation to put false narratives at the center of their stories. Lies should be treated as such.

Putin controls the media and dominates public discourse in his country; it is for precisely that reason that he will never face impeachment. But the United States is a democracy. In our society, independent media and elected officials have the opportunity to access facts and data as a means toward more accountable government. The propagation of disinformation degrades this valuable attribute of democracy. Let’s not undermine this crucial principle of our republic — especially at this most serious moment in the life of our nation.

 

[fraurosena]

Sweet Rufus, this thread about Parnas’ text messages is 

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1217235213224415233?s=21

This tweet has a link to the messages:

 

[fraurosena]

So, no press allowed to cover the cover-up?

 

Giuliani’s letter is particularly noteworthy. Because damning. How will the trumplicans spin this one? Giuliani lied? Fake letter?

 

[fraurosena]

Trump gets caught in yet another lie.

 

[fraurosena]

Not that McConnell is going to care. But. But... other R- senators just might.

 

[fraurosena]

Good for her! Only I fear that Barr will stymie any real investigation.

 

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

You are known by the company you keep.

 

[fraurosena]

 

Here is the Republican operative that is the new poster boy for why Trump was impeached

Quote

The House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday transmitted a huge cache of evidence from Lev Parnas to the House Judiciary Committee.

Parnas, an indicted associate of Donald Trump defense attorney Rudy Giuliani, is a key figure in the upcoming impeachment trial.

Robert Hyde, who is running to represent Connecticut’s fifth congressional district in the 2020 election, features heavily in the documents.

“Hyde is 40 and a resident of Simsbury and a Republican who is running for Congress in Connecticut’s 5th District. He is a relative unknown who hopes to unseat Rep. Jahana Hayes, a Democrat,” the Hartford Courant reports. “Hyde made headlines last month after he posted a sexist and vulgar tweet about California Sen. Kamala Harris. On Dec. 3, after Harris suspended her presidential campaign, Hyde posted this on Twitter: ‘went down, brought to her knees. Blew it,’ Hyde tweeted. ‘Must be a hard one to swallow. #KamalaHarris #heelsup’”

“In May, Hyde was removed by police from Trump National Doral Miami in Florida. According to an incident report filed by the Doral police department, Hyde told the responding officer that he was in fear for his life and ‘a hit man was out to get him.’ Hyde gave police with a variety of names and contacts to provide information about why he felt his life was in danger,” the newspaper reported.

“He was not arrested. Police escorted him from the hotel and transported him to an undisclosed location. In the vehicle, Hyde said his computer had been hacked by the Secret Service and that the Secret Service was watching him at the premises, according to the incident report,” the newspaper added.

Hyde has also made interesting choices as to how he has prioritized his expenses.

“Hyde donated at least $2,000 to Trump’s reelection fund and at least $750 to the Connecticut Republican Party, according to the FEC,” the Courant reported. “Hyde owed the mother of his 13-year-old son more than $2,000 in child support, according to court records, even as he continued to donate thousands to President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee.”

Here’s some of what other people are saying about Hyde:

[there are many more tweets in the linked article, these are some noteworthy ones]

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Dana Milbank: "This has to be one of the most successful failures in modern political history"

Spoiler

This had to be one of the most successful failures — one of the most triumphant defeats — in modern political history.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) clearly failed in the stated aim of her four-week delay in sending impeachment articles to the Senate: to withhold the articles and the naming of impeachment managers until, as she put it last month, “we see the process that is set forth in the Senate.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) didn’t reveal his impeachment resolution and made no commitment to bring forth witnesses or documents.

But Pelosi’s delay seems to have blunted any hope President Trump’s defenders had of dismissing the charges without a trial. Before the speaker’s gambit, McConnell pledged that “there will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this.” Trump is now calling for a dismissal, but Senate Republicans say they won’t allow that.

Credit the delay. Public attention to the dispute and to former Trump national security adviser John Bolton’s willingness to testify makes it more difficult for Republicans to dismiss the charges. It also left time for investigators to obtain notes and phone records of indicted Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas; released in part Tuesday night, they show, among other things, that people working with Giuliani apparently had Marie Yovanovitch, then the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, under surveillance.

The biggest benefit of the 28-day delay, though, could not have been predicted when Pelosi sent the nation on this path. Many of the behaviors that got Trump impeached have returned in other guises for all to see:

• He took the nation to the verge of war with Iran based on a lie: that his assassination of a top Iranian general was justified by an “imminent” threat, specifically a planned attack against four U.S. embassies. When the world learned that Trump had fabricated it, he claimed “it doesn’t really matter” whether there is an imminent threat before he engages in hostilities — an assault on congressional authority to declare war.
• He is simultaneously preparing to assault congressional power of the purse. As The Post’s Nick Miroff reported, Trump plans to divert an extra $7.2 billion for a border wall — five times the amount Congress authorized — by siphoning money away from military construction and counternarcotics efforts.
• Trump has also refused to release $18 billion of congressionally approved disaster aid for Puerto Rico, which just suffered a 6.4-magnitude earthquake on top of the lingering effects from Hurricane Maria in 2017. Other (whiter) U.S. citizens got better treatment following natural disasters.
• Trump’s 2016 political benefactor, Russia, has been caught interfering in the 2020 election to help Trump. Russia’s military spy agency, the GRU, hacked Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served and that was at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. Trump tried to force Ukraine to give him politically helpful dirt on the Bidens — and now Russia appears ready to oblige.

After the past four weeks, Senate Republicans will have a more difficult time disregarding the consequences of excusing Trump’s wrongdoing. They’re knowingly blessing his claims of unilateral power to make war and spend taxpayer dollars and leaving him in a position to owe reelection to the same man who helped him win a first term: Vladimir Putin.

Pelosi announced her official surrender in the Capitol basement Tuesday morning, telling House Democrats the impeachment managers would be named Wednesday and the articles sent. During a news conference after the meeting, Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times pointed out that Pelosi failed to get McConnell’s commitments. “So what’s changed?”

The Democratic caucus chairman, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), argued that the stall “created space” for three Republican senators — Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah) — to support witness testimony. Only one more Republican vote is needed to hear from witnesses such as Bolton.

Will vulnerable Republicans still try to quash testimony about Trump withholding Ukrainian security for political dirt — even now that Russia has violated Ukrainian sovereignty to steal precisely the sort of dirt Trump sought? Jeffries suggested blocking testimony would look like “a coverup” by “Moscow Mitch and the Senate Republicans.”

Nearby, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) held a news conference declaring Pelosi’s delay a dud: “No one questions about what she gained, it was nothing.”

McCarthy went on to claim that Pelosi withheld the articles to help Joe Biden defeat Bernie Sanders — renewing a Democratic conspiracy from 2016, he alleged, when “e-mails came out to show that … Sanders was cheated.”

Emails came out? Incredibly, McCarthy was citing emails stolen by Putin when the Democratic National Committee was hacked by the GRU — the same Russian military outfit that just hacked Burisma.

Add that to the many benefits of Pelosi’s delay: exposing the utter perfidy of McCarthy, relying on Russians’ 2016 dirty work on Trump’s behalf even as those same spies were just caught trying to help Trump in 2020.

Surely a few Senate Republicans, now in the spotlight, will feel pressure to show more integrity.

 

[fraurosena]

Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff, Zoe Loffgren and Hakeem Jeffries, Val Demmings, Jason Crow and Silvia Garcia, all experienced litigators will be the impeachment managers. 

 

[fraurosena]

I know what I'll be watching when I wake up in the morning.

 

[fraurosena]

Everybody with half a braincell already surmised that Barr and Pence -- and Nunes! -- are up to their eyeballs in this corrupt controversy, but now there is a witness who's talking. 

It's up to the House to investigate this to the fullest. Neither the administration or the Senate will -- of course -- do anything about it, let alone install a special prosecutor per normal procedure.

[GreyhoundFan]

"4 takeaways from the Lev Parnas interview and revelations"

Spoiler

Lev Parnas has leaped to the center of the impeachment of President Trump, with House Democrats releasing a series of documents from Parnas that detail his work with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and Ukrainian officials. Parnas also spoke with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night, during an interview in which he lodged some explosive allegations that have yet to be substantiated.

Below, some takeaways.

1. Ukraine knew this was about hitting Biden, not ‘corruption’

On Tuesday night, we got documents that indicated there was an early quid pro quo between Parnas and then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko. During the administration of Volodymyr Zelensky’s predecessor, then-President Petro Poroshenko, Parnas and Lutsenko tied information about Hunter Biden and Burisma Holdings to the removal of then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, whom Lutsenko wanted out.

And the new documents seem to make it even clearer that Lutsenko was seeking to trade derogatory information about the Bidens — rather explicitly so.

At one point, relations between Parnas and Lutsenko turn testy, with Lutsenko expressing frustration at the lack of reciprocation.

“I’m sorry, but this is all simply b------t,” Lutsenko wrote on March 13 in Russian. “I’m f-----g sick of all this. I haven’t received a visit. My [boss] hasn’t received jack all. I’m prepared to [thrash] your opponent. But you want more and more. We’re over. ”

Given the previously released text messages, it’s difficult not to read Lutsenko preparing to deliver negative information about “your opponent” as him recognizing this effort was aimed at political dirt on the Bidens. And it undercuts the Trump team’s repeated and strained claims that this was actually about Ukrainian corruption more broadly.

The new Ukrainian administration has been very diplomatic about it all; Lutsenko seemed to say privately exactly what he knew it was.

And Parnas clarified to Maddow on Wednesday night: “It was never about corruption. ”

2. Parnas implicates pretty much everybody

Parnas’s credibility as a witness has yet to be established. He is under indictment right now and seems to be motivated to incriminate people. But in his interview with Maddow, he said there was no secret about what was going on among Trump team members in Ukraine — including with some key people.

Crucially, Parnas indicated that then-national security adviser John Bolton was well aware of what was going on. He said Bolton spoke with Zelensky and that he was a “key witness. ”

“One hundred percent, he knows what happened,” Parnas said.

That quote could loom as Democrats seek to persuade four Senate Republicans to join them and vote to allow Bolton to testify in the impeachment trial. Bolton has indicated he is willing, and his lawyers have said he knows about key events that other witnesses, at least as of early November, hadn’t testified about. Thus far only Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) has indicated he’d likely vote to allow Bolton to testify, while Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) appear willing to consider it.

Parnas also indicated that Vice President Pence, who was pulled out of a visit to Zelensky’s inauguration in a move that may have been used as leverage, was in-the-know.

“I’m going to use a famous quote by [U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland]: ‘Everybody was in the loop,'" Parnas said. Asked to state it more plainly, he paused and said of Pence: “He couldn’t have not known. ”

Parnas added that, to a novice politician such as Zelensky, a White House meeting and having top U.S. officials at his inauguration was actually more important than U.S. aid, which was also withheld later on and has also been tied to quid pro quos.

Perhaps Parnas’s most newsworthy implication, though, was reserved for Attorney General William P. Barr, who he said was in contact with Giuliani about everything.

“Mr. Barr absolutely knew everything,” Parnas said. “I mean, It’s impossible [that he didn’t].”

He added: “Attorney General Barr was basically on the team."

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec responded to Parnas’s claim by saying, “100 % false.”

3. Doubting the surveillance of Yovanovitch

One of the big headlines from Tuesday night’s document release was that Parnas’s text messages appeared to indicate Yovanovitch was under surveillance by an associate of Parnas’s — or even worse. Ukraine is investigating, and Yovanovitch has called for U.S. authorities to do the same.

But Parnas told Maddow he never believed the man behind those texts, Robert F. Hyde, was actually doing the things described in the text messages and distanced himself from him.

“I don’t believe it’s true,” Parnas said. “I believe he was either drunk or was trying to make himself bigger than he was. ”

Parnas added: “He was drunk all the time. … I’ve never seen him not drunk."

Parnas said he was told that Hyde was up to no good. Reporting since the initial text messages were released on Tuesday night has revealed a very colorful past for Hyde, a Trump loyalist who is now a congressional candidate in Connecticut. Parnas, at the same time, has incentive to downplay the potential surveillance, given he was wrapped up in it.

In his own interview Wednesday night, Hyde appeared to confirm to Sinclair TV that the texts were the product of drinking and weren’t true.

“You know, we had a few pops way back when I used to drink,” he said when asked about the texts. Asked directly whether he had surveilled Yovanovtich, he said, “Absolutely not, are you kidding me?” He described himself as just “a little landscaper” from Connecticut, using an expletive.

4. Nunes admits contact with Parnas — suddenly

When Rep. Devin Nunes’s (R-Calif.) phone number showed up in Parnas’s phone records, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said he “didn’t really recall” speaking with Parnas.

Now he has recalled.

In a conspicuously timed disclosure shortly before Parnas’s interview aired, Nunes appeared on Fox News on Wednesday night and admitted to talking to Parnas, while maintaining he didn’t recognize the name at the time.

“It was very clear,” Nunes said. “I remember that call, which was very odd, random, talking about random things. And I said, ‘Great, just talk to my staff,’ and boom boom boom.”

Parnas, though, in keeping with what he said about Bolton, Pence and Barr, said there was more to it.

“He knew very well that he knew what was going on,” Parnas said. “He knew what’s happening. He knows who I am."

Parnas said Nunes “was involved in getting all this stuff on Biden.”

"It’s hard to see them lie like that when you know it’s like that scary, because you know, he was sitting there and making all statements and all that when he knew very well that he knew what was going on,” Parnas said.

 

[fraurosena]

This really puts America to shame. Ukraine is immediately investigating the truth about potential illegal surveillance of an American ambassador whilst America chooses to ignore it.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Dana Milbank: "Impeachment descends into darkness"

Spoiler

Under the glare of 61 floodlights, the House voted Wednesday to appoint managers to transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Projectors beamed each lawmaker’s name and vote onto a wall for all to see.

And now comes the darkness.

As the long-delayed transfer of the impeachment articles finally got underway, President Trump’s allies in the Senate announced extraordinary new restrictions on press coverage of the upcoming trial, shielding senators in unprecedented ways from the prying eyes of the American public.

When House managers arrived with the impeachment articles in a ceremonial procession Tuesday evening, Senate Republican leadership had already decreed that their arrival would be filmed only by a single, shared TV camera (partially obstructed, it turned out) at the doors of the chamber in which the mostly empty desks of Republican senators also could not be seen.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his team — the Senate sergeant-at-arms and Rules Committee make the decisions, but McConnell (R-Ky.) is the driving force behind the restrictions, people involved tell me — further decreed that journalists would be confined during the entire trial to roped-off pens, forbidden from approaching senators in Capitol corridors.

They also required journalists to clear a newly installed metal detector before entering the media seats above the chamber. Why? Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) suggested to PBS’s Lisa Desjardins, The Post’s Paul Kane and others that journalists might bug the chamber with surveillance equipment.

The GOP leadership likewise rejected a request from the Standing Committee of Correspondents to allow journalists to bring laptops or silenced phones into the chamber so they could write (the House allows this) or to allow cameras in to capture the history of the moment (the House allowed this during the impeachment process).

Republican senators (spooked by aggressive protests during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation) claim they are following procedures used during Bill Clinton’s impeachment. But the new rules are more restrictive, even though the media landscape has entirely changed since 1999, when Twitter didn’t exist and cable news was in its infancy. Perhaps we should be grateful McConnell didn’t follow the Andrew Johnson impeachment precedent and ban television entirely?

It’s obvious what the restrictions are about, because they mirror McConnell’s general approach to the trial. He had signed on to a proposal to dismiss the House impeachment articles without a trial. He has resisted allowing documentary or testimonial evidence to surface during the trial. And now he’s doing everything in his power to shield senators from reporters — and from the public.

Because still and TV cameras aren’t allowed in the chamber, the only images will be C-SPAN-style footage from fixed TV cameras operated by government employees. The public won’t be able to see which senators are sleeping, talking or missing entirely.

McConnell’s team also decided to claw back seats typically reserved for the general public, to “augment” seating for their own friends and family; they’ll have at least 134 such seats. They offered no such augmentation for the media, which has 107 seats, only about 20 of which provide a full view of the Senate floor.

Nor can the senators be observed outside the chamber. At a private luncheon of Republican senators this week, Blunt showed where the media would be penned in and reportedly “joked” that the senators could now avoid reporters.

It’s a curious attempt at fortress-building after House Republicans noisily objected to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) taking depositions in his “basement bunker.” They can’t quash the trial itself, but McConnell’s restrictions will go a long way toward restricting what the American public sees of this historic moment.

Wednesday, therefore, may have been the last moment to capture the candor of impeachment: the stain on House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler’s tie; Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Schiff chuckling together as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) condemned them by name; Pelosi pumping her fist when McCarthy scolded her; Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) shaking his head while Pelosi spoke; and the American tapestry of the impeachment managers huddling with Pelosi: four men and three women; two African Americans and a Latina; a veteran from the Rockies; a police chief from central Florida; and representatives from the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts.

At sunset, after Pelosi declared a “threshold in American history” and signed the impeachment articles with multiple souvenir pens, the managers set off, two by two, through Statuary Hall and the rotunda — and into the darkness of McConnell’s Senate.

“If McConnell makes this the first trial in history without witnesses,” manager Schiff warned, “it will be exposed [as] an effort to cover up for the president.”

“Does the Senate conduct a trial?” asked manager Nadler. “Or does the Senate participate in the president’s crimes by covering them up?"

McConnell, in his attempt to restrict the public’s view of the trial, has made his intentions clear.

 

[fraurosena]