RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Impeaching Trump

What you call nothing looks to be Bolton’s first hand account that confirms Trump withholding the foreign aid that congress passed for his own personal gain. The nation is watching what the GOP controlled Senate is doing. A trial without Bolton testifying would be a transparent sham.

You’re only lying to yourself at best WB. As I’ve said before more stuff will keep coming out. Trump isn’t going to be able to undue what has already leaked out of Bolton’s book. And voters will see Senate Republicans vote to have a true soviet styled trial with no witnesses.

They allowed republicans that were on those committee’s to be there and ask questions. They did not allow republicans to derail the hearings, and that is what they tried to do. We’ve been through that before so repeating purposely deceitful things like that accomplishes what exactly for you? Do you need to repeat the one sided trump talking points for yourself? The leaked stuff from Bolton’s book is clearly not nothing as you say. We know that not only from the leaks but Trump’s responses and Bolton not denying any of it. I don’t think Bolton is a magic bullet that will take Trump down in this impeachment “trial” but even if you don’t want acknowledge it Bolton is very much a first hand account on this. Not having him testify is a blatant cover up. Yeah Trump supporters don’t care, I get it. It is my hope that the rest of the nation does and vote the corruption out.

REP. MATT GAETZ, R-FLA.: Behind those doors they intend to overturn the results of an American presidential election. We want to know what's going on.

REP. TED LIEU, D-CALIF.: They are trying to be disruptive because the facts are not on their side. The law is not on their side.

REP. MARK MEADOWS, R-N.C.: The fundamental question is a question of fairness, and especially on the most important vote that many members will take.



REP. ERIC SWALWELL, D-CALIF.: They are doing this because this is what the guilty do. Innocent people cooperate with investigations. Innocent people follow the rules of the House. People who are doing this are clearly doing it at the behest of the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Dramatic images up on Capitol Hill today as House Republicans, I guess, took the advice of President Trump and decided to step up, and in this case tried to get into a hearing where there was a deposition of a deputy assistant secretary of defense, Laura Cooper, first career official to testify from the Pentagon. The DOD had tried to block Cooper from appearing before the deposition. The House Intel Committee issued a subpoena. She complied to testify. She had assumed responsibility for policy concerning Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and western Balkans.

But the scene was these Republicans storming in, causing a big scene on Capitol Hill today. Let's bring in our panel, "Washington Post" columnist Marc Thiessen, Mara Liasson, national political correspondent for National Public Radio, Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent for the "Washington Examiner," and Steve Hayes, editor of "The Dispatch."

Susan, first to you. The scene today kind of a little different up on Capitol Hill.

SUSAN FERRECHIO, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": Right, although I will argue the case here that there has been building discontent. I'm not sure Trump is really behind all this. Republicans have become increasingly frustrated with being shut out of the process. Today you had a witness testify about spending security aid, an employee of the Defense Department, the assistant secretary, yet members of the Armed Service Committee were not in there. In fact they don't have access to the transcripts in this instance.

Now, this was a deposition, so the Democrats argue all depositions are handled this way. But the overarching argument against that is this is about the impeachment of the president of the United States. So you pull back the scope a little bit and look at it and say, why shouldn't this be open to the press? Why shouldn't it be open to the public? That is the case Republicans are making today, and they have been getting increasingly upset about it as the weeks have gone on and witness after witness has come and gone from the Capitol without any of them hearing it.

BAIER: What about that argument, Marc? Is that a powerful argument for Republicans to make? It's a process argument that is made in Washington, but there is substance that is being leaked out, but we are not really seeing the Q and A part of some of these depositions.

MARC THIESSEN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Americans care about fairness, so if the process is not fair, then of course it's an effective argument. Swalwell was just quoted on your show saying that guilty people don't behave this way. People who are interested in an impartial investigation aimed at finding the truth don't behave the way the Democrats are doing. And just in that example, the room they were storming the room was a SCIF, a secure compartmented facility that is designed for accepting classified information. Yesterday Bill Taylor testified there, and his testimony was leaked as cell phone photographs of his testimony out of this secure compartmented facility. It's ridiculous.

And on top of that, the Democrats criticized Donald Trump for putting the Zelensky transcript on a secure server that was reserved for highly classified information, yet they are using a secure compartmented facility to prevent people from being able to get access to the information that is being given in the deposition. It is total hypocrisy.

BAIER: Which is unclassified, we should point out.

THIESSEN: Yes, most of it is not classified. So why are they doing it in a SCIF? Have it in a hearing room.

by Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist
January 30, 2020


President Donald Trump will not be removed from office following his impeachment by the House of Representatives and a trial in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has reportedly told colleagues they have the votes to finish things this week.

Whether the senators put the trial out of its misery this week or drag it on for months, the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Here are the eight big reasons why Trump won impeachment.


1. Trump Didn’t Commit An Impeachable Offense

It’s an obvious point, but the most important point.

Impeaching President Trump has been the stated goal of the Resistance since his inauguration. The main effort toward impeachment was through the investigation of a false and dangerous theory of treasonous collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election.

Even with a limitless special counsel appointed to achieve that end, the Russia collusion hoax ended with not a single American found to have colluded with Russia, not to mention anyone close to Trump, or Trump himself. A mini-effort to get impeachment going — on the special counsel’s murky near-findings that Trump had objected too strenuously to being falsely accused of treason — also fell apart.

Other impeachment efforts for, among other things, mean tweets, went nowhere. With time running out, the Resistance cobbled together what was always a weak theory regarding a phone call with the Ukrainian president.

At first the alleged crime was supposed to be a campaign finance violation, then bribery, then extortion. It ended with two articles of impeachment, neither of an actual crime, and one [ contempt of Congress ] a more or less laughable claim that the president can’t use courts to defend his rights.

The other was a complicated argument regarding abuse of power that required not just hiding all exonerating evidence but the worst possible construction on what remained. It was such a weak argument that not a single Republican in the House fell for it and three Democrats declined to go along with their own party.

The range of opinion outside the Resistance about the phone call between world leaders ranges from it being, in Trump’s words, “perfect” to merely good or fine to not good. Resistance members tried to put forth the claim that the call was none of these things but impeachably bad. Even with the help of a compliant media, there is simply not enough consensus around this extreme viewpoint to justify even censure, much less bipartisan agreement toward impeachment, much less a removal from office.

Trump’s avoidance of a crime or any real break with public trust is the single biggest factor in his acquittal.


2. Terrible Decision-Making By House Democrats

With a histrionic media and political base spending the last few years demanding impeachment, House Democrats surely had hoped that President Trump would do something justifying an impeachment inquiry. They undoubtedly were not pleased when the best they had to work with was Trump asking for help investigating Ukraine’s known 2016 election meddling or investigation into Biden family corruption in Ukraine.

So they started with a weak hand. But they failed to follow a good process. They didn’t have the House authorize an impeachment inquiry until late in the process. This decision made it unlikely that the many early subpoenas they sought would be deemed valid by a court of law if contested.

They refused to have courts validate their subpoenas, refused to let the GOP call their own witnesses, and suppressed information that was not helpful to their impeachment cause. Of the 78 days of the impeachment proceedings, they denied the president any right to counsel or due process for 71 days of them.

In general, the procedure was rushed and information that could have helped them seem more credible was never sought or acquired.



3. Democrats Failed to Get a Single Republican on Board Their Impeachment Scheme

It is nothing short of amazing that not a single Republican member of Congress joined with Democrats in their impeachment effort. There are plenty of Republican members who either dislike or even loathe the president. But even they didn’t find the impeachment to be credible.

The Resistance was also failed by its NeverTrump wing. That wing had pushed Justin Amash to dramatically leave the Republican Party earlier last year. He published his op-ed as to why and promptly lost any sway with anyone other than the tiny NeverTrump movement.

NeverTrump has long demonstrated trouble with strategic thinking and impulse control, so following their advice and leaving the party in a snit was an unforced error. Had Amash stayed with the party, the Resistance in the media and Democratic Party would have been able to make much more use of him.



4. Inexplicable 1-Month Delay In Sending Impeachment to the Senate

A main argument in favor of impeaching President Trump was that the situation, whatever it was supposed to be that day, was so dire that it required his immediate removal from office. The House Democrats couldn’t afford to wait a matter of months until a new election would be held and Americans could decide whether the “perfect” phone call was in fact so bad that it required the first removal from office of an American president in history.

Impeachment and removal had to happen immediately, they claimed. But then after voting to impeach the president, perhaps sensing the problems caused by a weak case and hoping for more information to come to light, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi inexplicably sat on the articles for a month. It killed whatever momentum the Resistance had and made a mockery of the whole process.



5. The Defense Team Was Amazing

Instead of turning things over to the effective Republicans who had handled the impeachment process so well on the House side, President Trump instead opted to put together a powerhouse collection of attorneys uniquely suited to address an audience of senators and the American people.

Even among their class of politicians, senators have an extremely high view of themselves and their office. Every senator’s ego must be stroked. They don’t want to feel upstaged, spoken down to, or lectured.

Patrick Philbin, Trump’s deputy general counsel, exemplified the defense team’s deliberate choice to put in front of senators someone who had encyclopedic knowledge of the law and this particular case, someone not there to make a name for himself. Philbin’s humble and bookish demeanor was neither bombastic nor flamboyant as he calmly explained the facts of the case and their significance. The other members of the team were also well chosen to argue their points.



6. Grating and Juvenile House Managers

By contrast, House Democrats picked impeachment managers who seemed perfectly calibrated to annoy and grate on those handful of senators whose votes were up for grabs. Reps. Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler were the leaders of a group that repeated their highly partisan talking points and used hyperbolic and loaded language. The media loved it, but it went over like a lead balloon with the non-Resistance senators.

The House Democrats accused senators of being cowards who were complicit in a cover-up. They suggested that the senators were unable to vote properly because President Trump would put their heads on pikes if they didn’t vote to acquit. They refused to answer specific and direct questions about whether the whistleblower worked for Biden, was involved in any decisions regarding Burisma, or about his interaction with Schiff’s staff. Even the Washington Post — even the Washington Post — gave Schiff four Pinocchios for lying about his staff’s secret collusion with the whistleblower.

At some point, the difference between the competent and highly skilled attorneys on the White House team and the bumbling and somewhat mediocre team of House managers was so pronounced it was almost embarrassing. It was as if one side belonged in front of the Supreme Court and the other failed to make the finals at a middle school debate tournament.



7. Kavanaugh Smear Operations No Longer Work

Along with the delay of the articles of impeachment, the House managers deployed a slow drip of supposedly damaging information. First they put Lev Parnas out as a “bombshell” witness who would bring Trump down. Parnas is indicted for various crimes and is something of a hustler and influence peddler who worked his way through Washington and supposedly had some type of negative information about Trump.

While the argument that Rudy Guiliani shouldn’t have been working with him in any way has merit, it’s a difficult argument to make while walking hand-in-hand with the same individual. Senate Minority Leader [Chuck Schumer] went so far as to invite Parnas to be his guest at the trial, which made the scene look more like a circus than a deliberative effort.

Late this week, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel issued a press release saying that he had been given information from a disgruntled former employee of Trump’s [John Bolton] in mid-September to look into the firing of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, suggesting additional witnesses needed to be called. A good time to release this information — if it needed to be released, that is — would have been four months ago or during the House’s impeachment proceedings.

These tactics of deploying information late to create “bombshell” news stories are losing their effectiveness post-Kavanaugh. Republican senators — perhaps with the exception of Mitt Romney, who didn’t even learn this lesson after he was called a racist, hair-raping woman murderer during his presidential bid — are finally wising up to the operation played by the media and Democrats.



8. Media Malfeasance

The media always owned this impeachment process. Pelosi did her best to avoid impeachment but the media all but forced her into it. They championed it every step of the way and provided help, including the blocking of arguments against it.

For instance, although it’s fairly standard to name whistleblowers and to do journalism figuring out who key players are, many in the media decided to help Democrats keep from having to answer questions about his [Rep. Schiff's] role with the whistleblower. They steadfastly avoided looking into him and his motivations or how that might have affected the entire proceedings.

Each day provided evidence that the media didn’t just want Trump impeached and removed from office, but desperately wanted that. There are videos of scrums of reporters fighting with Republicans over their case, but none of them fighting with Democrats. Republican senators are hounded by reporters to pressure them to change their vote, but Democratic senators don’t receive the same treatment.

It didn’t help that in the midst of the circus, a CNN host [Don Lemon] and his panel were openly yukking it up about how Republicans are all stupid.

________________________________________


Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway

House Republicans demand transparency from Democrats' impeachment inquiry

Traanscribed from Fox News' 6PM Special Report evening news panel discussion, Oct 23, 2019:



In other words, House Democrats keep "secure" what they don't want known with closed-door testimony. And then they leak what is advantageous to Dems to their pals in the media, despite that it was in closed-door SCIF testimony!
And as I said, this testimony was back in October, and the transcript from intelligence community inspector general (I C I G) Michael Atkinson's testimony has >>>STILL<<< not been released to Republicans. Clearly revealing something behind closed doors the Democrats don't want Republicans to know.

The highlighted portions are by a Washington Exaaminer news reporter. It is and was common knowledge that Republican committee members were not permitted to hear testimony firsthand, and had to wait for transcripts long after.
Rep Lee Zeldin (R-NY) said that even when the transcripts were given to him 2 or 3 weeks later, they were incomplete, and he was deprived of being able to see the witnesses and observe their body language during questions firsthand.

Whatever liberal-controlled "Factcheck" and "Politifact" sites allege, it was and is common knowledge that Republican House members were excluded from testimony, and had to wait for testimony transcripts, usually several weeks after the actual closed-door testimony of witnesses. And in the case of Atkinsson's testimony, never received at all.

My point is that there was a very tight lid on Republican access to firsthand testimony, where Democrats would only permit them to read testimony in transcripts after-the-fact. If they were permitted to read testimony before transcripts were given them weeks later, they would have to go in a special room with a Democrat standing with them watching them all the time. Even in cases where Judiciary committee member Republicans were permitted to attend they could not take notes, and Republican committee members of related committees like the Armed Services committee were not allowed to enter the SCIF and watch testimony.
EVEN AS DEMOCRATS WERE ABLE TO LEAK ANYTHING THEY WANTED KNOWN, TO REPORTERS WAITING EAGERLY OUTSIDE FOR PRECISELY THAT PURPOSE!

First impeachment trial that didn’t have witnesses. It was pretty much a given that republicans would use their majority to shield Trump’s corruption so no surprise that they didn’t want Bolton or others to testify.

First impeachment trial that didn’t have witnesses. It was pretty much a given that republicans would use their majority to shield Trump’s corruption so no surprise that they didn’t want Bolton or others to testify. What an obvious sham. And you might not want to think about it but all that evidence and testimony will continue to come out. The sham trial may be ending soon but you would be very naive to think it’s far from over.

Now who's lying, M E M?

In the Clinton impeaachment, the Republican-majority House conducted impeachment hearings for a year and certainly had testimony from a number of witnesses. When it was handed over to the Senate, there were no further witnesses. Just like Senate hearings for Trump impeachment. The simple fact is, the Democrats were in such a rush to impeach Trump, for P.R./lying narrative reasons, that House Democrats didn't do their job!

A review:

Richard Nixon impeachment: A special investigation found Nixon guilty of ACTUAL CRIMES.

Bill Clinton impeachment: A special investigation found Clinton guilty of ACTUAL CRIMES.

Donald Trump: A special investigation found Trump guilty of NO CRIMES, NONE!
And that is where it should have ended. But for pure slanderous narrative reasons, Democrats pushed impeachment without evidence. And Democrats, just because they have a majority and could do it, corruptly rubber-stamped an impeachment in the House. And then Pelosi self-consciously clung to the vote and wouldn't give it to the Senate, KNOWING they hadn't made a case for impeachment. And even the "articles of impeachment" were bogus charges, not actual crimes.

If the Republican Senate majority agreed to see another hundred witnesses, or even a thousand witnesses, Democrats would still say the Republicans are corrupt and hiding the truth. No matter what the evidence.

The Senate overwhelmingly acquitted President Trump on both articles of impeachment against him Wednesday afternoon following a brief trial, in a historic rejection of Democrats' claims that the president's Ukraine dealings and handling of congressional subpoenas merited his immediate removal from office.

Several Congressional Democrats, speaking to Fox News, were dejected on Capitol Hill late Wednesday, even as they said they hoped to weaponize the acquittal votes by several moderate Republicans in swing states.

"We all knew how this was going,” one senior House Democratic source told Fox News. “But everyone’s depressed. Especially because of Iowa," where the first-in-the-nation caucuses have been plagued by mismanagement.

Another Democratic source also said that impeachment “went as well as it could go.” There was significant consternation among House Democrats about heading down the impeachment road at all over the summer, Fox News is told, but Democratic leaders felt they had to get in front of the impeachment movement and embrace it – or they may have been steamrolled by the progressive wing of the party.

In the final vote, all Democratic senators supported convicting the president of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, including swing-vote moderate Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Doug Jones, D-Ala.

The only party defection was on the abuse of power charge from Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who declared hours before the final vote that Trump had engaged in as "destructive an attack on the oath of office and our Constitution as I can imagine." Romney voted not guilty on the obstruction charge.

By a final vote of 52-48 against conviction on the abuse of power charge and 53-47 against conviction on the obstruction charge, the Senate fell far short of the two-thirds, 67-vote supermajority needed to convict and remove the president. Swing-vote Republican senators -- including Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee -- voted to acquit on both counts.

by Jonathan Turley, editorial, in The Hill
February 5, 2020


The House has its share of infamies, great and small, real and symbolic, and has been the scene of personal infamies from brawls to canings. But the conduct of Speaker Nancy Pelosi(D-Calif.) at the State of the Union address this week will go down as a day of infamy for the chamber as an institution. It has long been a tradition for House Speakers to remain stoic and neutral in listening to the address. However, Pelosi seemed to be intent on mocking President Trump from behind his back with sophomoric facial grimaces and head shaking, culminating in her ripping up a copy of his address.

Her drop the mic moment will have a lasting impact on the House. While many will celebrate her trolling of the president, she tore up something far more important than a speech. Pelosi has shredded decades of tradition, decorum and civility that the nation could use now more than ever. The House Speaker is more than a political partisan, particularly when carrying out functions such as the State of the Union address. A president appears in the House as a guest of both chambers of Congress. The House Speaker represents not her party or herself but the entirety of the chamber. At that moment, she must transcend her own political ambitions and loyalties.

Tensions for this address were high. The House impeachment managers sat as a group in front of the president as a reminder of the ongoing trial. That can be excused as a silent but pointed message from the Democrats. Trump hardly covered himself with glory by not shaking hands with Pelosi. I also strongly disliked elements of his address which bordered on “check under your seat” moments, and the awarding of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh with the Presidential Medal of Freedom inside the House gallery like a Mardi Gras bead toss. However, if Trump made the State of the Union look like Oprah, then Pelosi made it look like Jerry Springer.

What followed was an utter disgrace. First, Pelosi dropped the traditional greeting before the start of the address, “Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the president of the United States.” Instead, she simply announced, “Members of Congress, the president of the United States.” It was extremely petty and profoundly inappropriate. Putting aside the fact that this is not her tradition, but that of the House, it is no excuse to note that the president was impeached.

Such an indignity was not imposed on President Clinton during his own impeachment proceeding, and anyone respecting due process would note that Trump has been accused, not convicted, at this point in the constitutional process. Pelosi proceeded to repeatedly shake her head, mouth words to others, and visibly disagree with the address. It was like some distempered distracting performance art behind the president.

My revulsion over this has nothing to do with impeachment. Ten years ago, I wrote a column denouncing Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito for mouthing the words “not true” when President Obama used his address to criticize the court for its decision in the Citizens United case. I considered his response to be a disgrace and wrote a column criticizing Chief Justice John Roberts for not publicly chastising Alito for breach of tradition. Instead, Roberts seemed to defend Alito in criticizing Obama for his “very troubling” language and saying that it was unfair to criticize the court when the justices, “according to the requirements of protocol,” have “to sit there expressionless.” That was not unfair. That was being judicious.

I also wrote a column denouncing Republican Rep. Joe Wilson (S.C.), who shouted “you lie!” at Obama during his State of the Union address in 2009. Wilson should have been severely sanctioned for that breach. When I wrote those columns, I had never imagined that a House Speaker would engage in conduct far in excess of those controversies. After all, House Speakers often have been required to sit through addresses they despised from presidents of the opposing party. The House Speaker is third in line of succession to the presidency and the representative of the chamber as a whole. She is not some Sinéad O’Connor ripping up a photograph of the pope on "Saturday Night Live" while shouting aloud “fight the real enemy!”

Pelosi, like her predecessors, is supposed to remain stone-faced during the address even if the president leaves her personally enraged. Indeed, House Speakers have been the authority who kept other members in silent deference and respect, if not to the president, then to the office. However, Pelosi appeared to goad the mob, like a high schooler making mad little faces behind the school principal at an assembly. It worked, as members protested and interrupted Trump. Pelosi became another Democratic leader, little more than a twitching embodiment of this age of rage.

This is not to suggest that the House has always listened to its better angels. More than 180 years ago, a confrontation between Democratic Rep. Jonathan Cilley (Maine) and Whig Rep. William Graves (Ky.) led to a duel over what Graves viewed as a slight on the House floor. In February 1838, the two decided to meet in Maryland for a duel with rifles, and Graves killed Cilley after both missed each other twice. In response, the House quickly pushed forward antidueling legislation in Congress.

Pelosi has demolished decades of tradition with this poorly considered moment. Of course, many will celebrate her conduct and be thrilled by the insult to Trump. However, even those of us who disagree with his policies should consider what Pelosi destroyed in her moment of rage. She shredded the pretense of governing with civility and dignity in the House. Notably, she did not wait to rip up her copy of the speech until after she left the House floor. Pelosi wanted to do it at the end of the speech, in front of the camera, with the president still in the chamber.

That act was more important to Pelosi than preserving the tradition of her office. In doing so, she forfeited the right to occupy that office. If Pelosi cannot maintain the dignity and neutrality of her office at the State of the Union, she should resign as the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

___________________________________

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law for George Washington University and served as the last lead counsel during a Senate impeachment trial. He testified as a witness expert in the House Judiciary Committee hearing during the impeachment inquiry of President Trump.

Clinton enjoyed higher approval during his impeachment

The trial might be over but you have to know after the Bolton leaks that more evidence will keep rolling out. In the short term Trump has a reprieve thanks to his party (and it really is his) blocking evidence but that isn’t going to last. And of course his pettiness won’t allow him not to go after Romney and maybe even all the others that were at least honest about him being guilty but still voted to acquit.

Not sure what SOTU has to do with this topic? You don’t really have much credibility if you support Trump’s corruption but can’t handle some sheets of paper being torn, lol

Props to Romney btw. I think I can still hear Trump jr crying for his head

Does Bolton strike you as someone who would lie under oath over a grudge? And I don’t see it as magic bullets but proper oversight. It’s not like your party wanting to investigate Hillary over and over plus whoever Trump is worried about having to face in an election.

Romney is a self-serving traitor with an axe to grind. Trump doesn't have to do anything. The voters of Utah will not re-elect Romney. He just ended what was left of his political career.

Romney wasn't right or serving any higher purpose. It was a petty vindictive act against Trump, much like McCain's vindictive vote against Obamacare. With that act Romney destroyed himself.

Uhm how is Romney being self serving? Reading what he said about Trump’s guilt he made it pretty clear that he was going to pay for doing the right thing. Trump is well known for petty attacks even after the other person has died. Romney knows he’s probably committed political suicide but he was willing to vote his conscience.