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

[GreyhoundFan]

50 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

they sound rather petulant and inept.

In other words, right on par with the rest of this sham administration.

[WiseGirl]

I know I'm late to this but I wanted to share this anyway.

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Dana Milbank: "And the White House defense is ... well, there isn’t one"

Spoiler

The hour of 1 p.m., the designated time for the start of President Trump’s impeachment trial, came and went. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was in the Capitol, cooling his heels. But the Senate remained in recess.

Half an hour later, we found out why: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and his Senate Republicans had been rewriting the trial rules on the fly, minutes before bringing them to the floor for a vote. They are quite literally making things up as they go along.

Public pressure on moderate Republican senators had, for the moment, forced McConnell to soften a couple of the most egregious trial rules — notably, a plan that would have forced the case to be argued in the middle of the night — but it did nothing to slow McConnell’s pell-mell rush to acquit. McConnell, who during a break in proceedings Tuesday huddled with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, succeeded in rebuffing, along party lines, efforts to call witnesses and demand documents that Trump withheld.

Why such a hurry? The answer became apparent as soon as Trump’s lawyers opened their mouths for the first time during the impeachment proceedings.

They shouted. They spouted invective. They launched personal attacks against the impeachment managers. But they offered virtually nothing in defense of the president’s conduct, nor anything but a passing reference to Ukraine.

“These Articles of Impeachment … are not only ridiculous, they are dangerous to our republic,” declared Cipollone.

“It's ridiculous,” he added.

“It's ridiculous! It's ridiculous,” he repeated, for those who may have missed the point.

“They’re here to steal two elections — it’s buried in the small print of their ridiculous articles of impeachment,” he alleged.

Cipollone closed with a request to “end this ridiculous charade.”

But he didn’t rest his case there. He and his colleagues built on this playground-worthy argument: “Outrageous!” “No crime!” “No case!” “False allegations!” “Concocted!” “Hypocrisy!” “They don’t have the guts!” “A complete fake!”

Here were the president’s men, in the flesh, occupying a factual universe all their own. “The president was not allowed to have a lawyer present” in House proceedings, said the presidential lawyers who refused to be present in House proceedings.

“They ask you to trample on executive privilege,” they said, even though Trump hasn’t invoked executive privilege.

The impeachment managers have “evidence … that we haven’t been allowed to see,” said the White House officials who blocked the release of all documents.

Day One offered the starkest of contrasts: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and his impeachment managers framing their case in somber terms and painstaking detail — and the other side responding with what amounted to an extended reading of Trump’s tweets.

Most of the 53 Senate Republicans are lawyers, so they had to be aware that what they were getting from the White House did not amount to a defense. Their body language suggested they wanted the whole thing to end — quickly. Patrick Toomey (Pa.) chewed his reading glasses. Marco Rubio (Fla.) chewed at a fingernail. Ted Cruz (Tex.) slouched in his chair.Tim Scott (S.C.) studied the ceiling. Bill Cassidy (La.) sent for a fresh glass of water, though his was not empty. John Hoeven (N.D.) yawned. So did Lindsey Graham (S.C.).

The White House’s case is unlikely to improve from here. Also appearing for Trump will be Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz, lately members of Jeffrey Epstein’s defense team. Dershowitz has already distanced himself from the brief the White House filed. And the New York Times reported that one of the lawyers cited in Trump’s brief has called the White House argument “constitutional nonsense” and “sophistry.”

Republicans find themselves defying public opinion in their attempts to avoid testimony. A CNN poll found that 69 percent of Americans say witnesses should testify in the trial, including 48 percent of Republicans. Trump himself said in December that he wants White House officials “to testify in the Senate where they’ll get a fair trial.”

But Trump is now trying so hard to avoid witnesses that the White House is working on backup plans to silence them even if the Senate votes for testimony. Tuesday’s arguments made clear why: The White House has no substantive defense.

Rather, it has grievances. Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow stood at the lectern with a notebook full of what looked like ransom notes: typed pages full of scrawls in the margins, with scribbled note cards haphazardly interspersed. Like Cipollone, he shouted. He attacked two of the impeachment managers. He attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). He ricocheted from Eric Holder to Peter Strzok to the “failed” Russia investigation.

Cipollone returned to the lectern with yet another complaint. The House’s case, he declared, “is too much to listen to, almost.” But he didn’t attempt a refutation.

No wonder McConnell can’t be done with this trial fast enough.

 

[scoutsadie]

I was pleased with Speaker Pelosi's choices for the House manager positions when they were announced - women, men, white, African American, attorneys and a former police chief and a veteran, from the West coast and Mountain West, the South, the Mid-Atlantic.

I've been even more pleased with their arguments so far, about why specific witnesses and documents are important for the Senate to focus upon.

The managers are prepared and serious and well-spoken. Quite a contrast to the President's team.

Edited January 22, 2020 by scoutsadie

[scoutsadie]

It's 12:02 am and Shumer just proposed the Bolton amendment. I'm drinking sparkling rosé and eating sour cream crackers and chocolate caramels. Hypatia is sitting on my lap. At this point, I kind of stubbornly want to stay up until they're done tonight, just to spite the Orange Menace.

2 minutes ago, scoutsadie said:

It's 12:02 am and Shumer just proposed the Bolton amendment. I'm drinking sparkling rosé and eating sour cream crackers and chocolate caramels. Hypatia is sitting on my lap. At this point, I kind of stubbornly want to stay up until they're done tonight, just to spite the Orange Menace.

PS - I admit that I am muting the president's legal team. They are big fat liars and are not even trying to take this seriously.

Ha ha sorry for quoting myself when adding a postscript.

PPS - I don't have a job right now, so I have the luxury of doing this.

Edited January 22, 2020 by scoutsadie
Wine and patriotism

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

Democrats lay out the case; Republicans close ranks

Quote

Tuesday was not the boring parliamentary nitpicking you might have expected.

While the order of business at the opening day of the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump was focused on the rules, Democrats used the opportunity to revisit the revelations about Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine into weakening his political opponent Joe Biden. 

The impeachment managers brought paper

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's impeachment managers came prepared with videos and slides. Drawing on moments from the House impeachment hearings, Reps. Adam Schiff of California, Zoe Lofgren of California and Val Demings of Florida wove Democrats' allegations against Trump into their arguments that the Senate should subpoena documents from the White House and State Department.

"Eventually, this will all come out," said Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, another of the Democratic impeachment managers. "We will have answers to these questions. The question now is if we will have them in time, and who here will be on the right side of history." 

Party-line votes

The effort lasted hours and got Democrats nowhere in the Senate, as their pleas were rejected on party-line votes. This could go on for a while. As of this writing, Republicans had defeated calls for the Senate to subpoena the White House and the State Department. They seemed likely to defeat a call for information from the Office of Management and Budget. Other requests from Democrats are expected later on.

An admonishment from the chief justice

Chief Justice John Roberts admonished both the House impeachment managers and Trump's legal team after a feisty exchange, in which impeachment manager Jerry Nadler accused Republican senators of "voting for a coverup" and White House counsel Pat Cipollone said Nadler should be "embarrassed."

"I think it is appropriate for me to admonish both the House managers and the President's counsel in equal terms to remember that they are addressing the world's greatest deliberative body," Roberts said. "One reason it has earned that title is because its members avoid speaking in a manner and using language that is not conducive to civil discourse."

The process argument

The Republican counterargument largely rested on process -- the idea that the House should have waited to get the information through the courts rather than impeach Trump and ask the Senate to do more subpoenas. 

Republican senators stick together, for now

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who has said she'd like to hear from witnesses, rejected the argument in favor of subpoenas on a technicality. She'd rather wait, perhaps to consider it again.

"I will vote to table any attempts by either side to subpoena documents or witnesses before that stage in the trial," she said in a statement. "While I need to hear the case argued and the questions answered, I anticipate that I would conclude that having additional information would be helpful. It is likely that I would support a motion to subpoena witnesses at that point in the trial just as I did in 1999. "

There was some acquiescing to Collins by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, giving a bit more time for opening statements and guaranteeing that the House evidence will be a part of the record. But on the key points, Republicans stuck together on Tuesday.

Collins was also the lone Republican to break ranks and vote with Democrats on one of the 11 amendments proposed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. That amendment was defeated, like all the others.

I'm curious about which amendment Collins voted for documents and witnesses, instead of against. It was probably just for show, in a weakling attempt at being 'fair', but still, it could say something about which arguments she is actually interested in.

[fraurosena]

Sweet Rufus, Trump keeps putting his foot in it, doesn't he? The horrible thing though, is that nobody on the R side of the Senate gives a damn. They're going to support him no matter what.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"An embarrassing moment for Trump’s legal team"

Spoiler

President Trump’s impeachment managers made little secret Tuesday that they’d rather put House Democrats on trial than Trump. They repeatedly alleged mistreatment of Trump in his impeachment, rather than dwelling upon the evidence against him.

But in one instance, one of them badly overreached.

Appearing shortly after 6 p.m. Eastern time on the Senate floor, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Jay Sekulow offered an indignant rebuke of the Democrats’ impeachment managers. What he was so incensed about: that they had allegedly referred to “lawyer lawsuits” in prosecuting the case against Trump.

“And by the way — lawyer lawsuits?” Sekulow began. “Lawyer lawsuits? We’re talking about the impeachment of a president of the United States, duly elected, and the members — the managers are complaining about lawyer lawsuits? The Constitution allows lawyer lawsuits. It’s disrespecting the Constitution of the United States to even say that in this Chamber — lawyer lawsuits.”

Sekulow added that it was “a dangerous moment for America when an impeachment of a president of the United States is being rushed through because of lawyer lawsuits. The Constitution allows it, if necessary. The Constitution demands it, if necessary.”

There was one problem: Sekulow was referring to a quote that doesn’t appear to exist. He appeared to have badly misunderstood what one of the Democratic impeachment managers said.

Shortly prior, Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) laid out her case against Trump. In the course of it, she referred to “FOIA lawsuits” — not “lawyer lawsuits” — referring to the Freedom of Information Act.

And it wasn’t just one wayward acronym that could explain the misunderstanding; Demings’s remarks repeatedly referenced the law.

“The president’s lawyers may suggest that the House should sought — that this House should have sought these materials in court, or awaited further lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act, a.k.a. FOIA lawsuits,” Demings said. “Any such suggestion is meritless.”

She added soon after: “FOIA lawsuits filed by third parties cannot serve as a credible alternative to congressional oversight.”

The next person to refer to “lawsuits” after that was Sekulow, eight minutes later.

What’s even more remarkable about the flap is that the White House actually stood by Sekulow’s allegation. Asked about the remark by reporters later in the night, White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland reportedly walked away, only to return a while later — apparently after checking? — and suggest that Sekulow had not erred.

“When you read the transcript, it says ‘lawyer lawsuit,’ ” he said.

It’s not clear to what transcript Ueland is referring, but the Federal Document Clearing House transcript includes no references to “lawyer lawsuits” besides Sekulow’s. And video of Demings’s remarks are clear that she did, in fact, say “FOIA lawsuits” both times. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) also referred to “FOIA lawsuits” shortly before 2 p.m. — hours before Sekulow’s retort. There are no other references in the transcript to “lawsuits” that could even have been reasonably mistaken for “lawyer lawsuits.”

It might seem like a small point in the grand scheme of things, even if you set aside Sekulow’s demonstrative and indignant response to something that doesn’t appear to have actually been said. But if anything, the White House’s remarkable double-down would seem to speak volumes about its strategy here — and its devotion to the facts.

 

[fraurosena]

Take that, Susan Collins!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

They may not want any documents during the impeachment trial, but the American public is getting to see them anyway. And they are damning.

This is American Oversight's statement on the matter:

Quote

At 11:58 p.m. on Jan. 21, just two minutes before the deadline, the Office of Management and Budget released 192 pages of Ukraine-related documents, including records that have not been produced to Congress in its impeachment investigation.

Included in the documents are emails from OMB Acting Director Russell Vought and Michael Duffey, OMB’s associate director for national security, including one from Duffey on the day of President Donald Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy. Both officials were key players in the withholding of aid to Ukraine last fall, which last week the Government Accountability Office said was illegal.

As the president’s defenders in the Senate repeatedly voted down amendments to subpoena documents and witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial, these documents — obtained through the Freedom of Information Act — show a flurry of activity on a number of days in late June 2019 after a Washington Examiner articleabout military assistance for Ukraine. Additional emails through the summer and early fall, when Pentagon official Elaine McCusker was raising concerns about the legality of the freeze, are heavily redacted.

American Oversight filed several FOIA requests with OMB on for a range of records related to the office’s role in suspending military aid to Ukraine as part of the president’s attempt to pressure Ukraine to launch a political investigation. OMB agreed to search for and release by Jan. 21, 2020, records of emails sent by Vought and Duffey containing key terms related Ukraine, as well as copies of the July 25 OMB memo justifying the withholding of aid. 

Statement from Austin Evers, American Oversight’s executive director:

“President Trump’s lawyers stood in the Senate on Tuesday arguing that documents are totally unnecessary for the impeachment trial, but these documents give lie to that entire position. Despite the Trump Administration’s obstruction and the rhetoric at the trial, the public can now see even more evidence of the president’s corrupt scheme as it unfolded in real time. The volume of material released, and the volume of material still secreted away, only highlights how much the administration has withheld from the House, the Senate, and the American public.”

You can read the documents here.

[FluffySnowball]

Saw this on twitter earlier: 

[fraurosena]

Oh, I really hope they do that.  I'm already imagining the faces at the defense table. 

 

[Dandruff]

Why doesn't Bolton do an Op Ed?

[fraurosena]

22 minutes ago, Dandruff said:

Why doesn't Bolton do an Op Ed?

Because he's got a book coming out. If he talks about what he knows now, nobody will need to buy it, will they?

Contrary to the opposition, the impeachment managers are taking their jobs seriously.

 

[fraurosena]

For those of you who want to follow along with Day 2 of the Impeachment Trial and don't have access to (American) television:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting thread from Rick Wilson:

Spoiler

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Dandruff]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Because he's got a book coming out. If he talks about what he knows now, nobody will need to buy it, will they?

He could talk about some of what he knows, enough to build enthusiasm for the book...and maybe help get a certain someone out of office sooner.  I see your point though.  Priorities.

[GreyhoundFan]

From the WaPo live updates thread:

Quote

5:30 p.m.

Trump breaks his Twitter record with 131 tweets and counting

On the first day of the House managers’ arguments against him, Trump broke his own Twitter record. As of 4:25 p.m., he had sent 125 tweets and retweets — the most in a single day since his inauguration.

Trump’s previous record as president was 123 tweets on Dec. 12, 2019, according to FactBase, which tracks the president’s words.

Most of Trump’s tweets were impeachment-related, and 110 were retweets.

As of 5:20 p.m., Trump had tweeted an additional 16 times.

With many hours left in the trial, Trump is closing in on his record of 161 tweets set on Jan. 5, 2015.

I'm glad he's so busy that he has time to send a ridiculous number of tweets.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Why Democrats owe a debt to Mitch McConnell"

Spoiler

Democrats owe a debt to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Yes, you read that right.

Recall that when Democrats were debating whether to impeach President Trump last year, those opposed to the move argued there was no chance that Senate Republicans would remove him from office, committed as they are to marching off any cliff toward which the president directs them.

The fear was that Trump would inevitably tout acquittal in the Senate as vindication. He’d say that impeachment was, to use a word invoked over and over by his hapless lawyer Pat Cipollone on the Senate floor (because he had little of substance to say), “ridiculous.”

But #MidnightMitch, as the Senate leader was labeled by his Twitter critics, rode to the rescue. By working with Trump to rig the trial by admitting as little evidence as possible, McConnell robbed the proceeding of any legitimacy as a fair adjudication of Trump’s behavior.

Instead of being able to claim that Trump was “cleared” by a searching and serious process, Republican senators will now be on the defensive for their complicity in the Trump coverup.

It gets worse. Thanks to assertions by Trump’s lawyers that he did absolutely nothing wrong, an acquittal vote, as The Post editorialized, “would confirm to Mr. Trump that he is free to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election and to withhold congressionally appropriated aid to induce such interference.”

Is that the position that Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Martha McSally (Ariz.), among others, want to embrace as they run for reelection this fall? Good luck with that.

McConnell’s initial rules were so outrageous that even some Republicans, among them Collins and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, gagged and forced their leader to relent just a bit. But by making his opening proposal so absurd, McConnell could be cast as giving ground to “moderates” without giving up very much.

The Republican leader initially wanted to cram 24 hours of opening arguments into two days for each side — thus “#MidnightMitch,” since this would force much of the debate into the dead of night — and to require a formal vote before admitting evidence already gathered by the House. After the outcry, McConnell went from two days to three, and allowed in House evidence unless there is an objection.

But this did not protect his Republican colleagues from having to walk the plank and vote down one amendment after another proposed by Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to admit evidence and call witnesses at the beginning of the trial rather than later. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the lead impeachment manager who burnished his image as a Democratic star with clear and quietly passionate interventions, made the fundamental point: Why didn’t the senators want to question witnesses at the outset rather than later? Why indeed?

How scared are Republicans of the facts, and of Trump’s vindictiveness? A little before 2 a.m. Wednesday, they voted down an amendment offered by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) that would have allowed Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the presiding officer — who is, to say the least, no enemy of the Republican Party — to decide on what evidence to admit and what witnesses to call, with the Senate having the opportunity to override him.

As Van Hollen argued, in rejecting his proposal to sidestep partisan divisions, McConnell’s majority “abandoned all pretense of impartiality.”

There’s talk that a handful of Republicans, realizing how their party is doing all it can to discredit itself, may agree to call witnesses later. But by requiring his followers to reject any sort of bipartisan agreement on the rules, McConnell has sent an indelible message.

Republicans don’t want to “try” the case, as the Constitution says the Senate should. They don’t want to deal with the mountains of evidence the impeachment managers previewed effectively during the procedural debate and began to detail Wednesday. They just want to make Trump happy by making impeachment go away as quickly as possible.

No Democrat has been kinder in his comments about Senate Republicans over the years than former vice president Joe Biden. So when he was asked about the GOP’s behavior on impeachment on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, Biden offered his verdict with quiet sadness. “I think it’s one of the things they’re going to regret,” he said, “when their grandchildren read in history books what they did.”

And many of them may regret it sooner than that, when voters cast their ballots in November.