Teresa Hanafin, writer of the Boston Globe’s daily Fast Forward, succinctly summarizes the state of the impeachment inquiry. If you think it is wrong to use foreign aid as a weapon to gather dirt on your election opponents and then lie about it, this will disturb you. If you think it’s okay, it won’t.
So I’m not sure how many times we have to hear it, but just in case there’s anyone left out there who still doesn’t think that Trump refused to give Ukraine desperately needed military funds until it launched an investigation into his political rivals: Just read the opening statement delivered yesterday by Ukraine ambassador William Taylor, a highly respected career diplomat, to the House committees holding an impeachment inquiry.
The bottom line: He directly implicated Trump personally in an effort to withhold military aid until Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, agreed to publicly announce investigations of Trump’s rivals.
Important point: Trump didn’t really care whether Ukraine actually carried out those investigations; he just wanted Zelensky to make a public statement that he could use against Joe Biden on the campaign trail. He also showed no concern about any other corruption in Ukraine.
So how will Congress, particularly Republicans, respond today? Here’s an explanation of Taylor’s testimony:
> First, his street cred: Taylor, 72, graduated from West Point and was an Army infantry officer for six years, including with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. He has served in every administration of both parties since 1985. All of which makes the attempt by White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham to trash him as one of those “radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution” pretty insulting.
> He had left government service when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asked him to replace Marie Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine in June after Trump’s henchman, Rudy Giuliani, had smeared her and gotten Trump to fire her when she refused to go along with his Biden scheme. Taylor, upset about Yovanovitch’s shoddy treatment, hesitated to take the job, but eventually agreed after a trusted Republican mentor advised him, “If your country asks you to do something, you do it — if you can be effective.” (I bet he regrets listening to that guy.)
> He soon realized that in addition to normal diplomatic channels, there was a “highly irregular” policymaking process being run off the books by Gordon Sondland, the big-money Trump donor who was rewarded with the EU ambassadorship; Kurt Volker, a special representative to Ukraine; Energy Secretary Rick Perry; and Giuliani.
> He discovered that the oddball group was focused on just one thing: Making sure that Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, publicly announced that his government was going to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who had been on the board of a Ukrainian energy company while his father was VP. He also was being pressured to say that he would look into a bizarre conspiracy theory that held that despite what every US intelligence agency had concluded, it wasn’t actually Russia that had tried to interfere in the 2016 election to help Trump; it really was Ukraine, and it was trying to help — you guessed it — Hillary Clinton.
> By July, Taylor realized that Trump was withholding millions in military aid that Ukraine needed to fight off attacks from Russian-backed troops because Zelensky still hadn’t agreed to make that public statement about Trump’s political rivals. Around that time, he visited the front lines of Ukraine fighting, where he saw “armed and hostile Russian-led forces.” In one of the more poignant parts of his statement, he said he realized that “more Ukrainians would undoubtedly die without the U.S. assistance” that Trump was holding up to boost his personal political goals.
> In September, Sondland told Taylor that Trump had told him that he wanted Zelensky to state publicly that Ukraine would investigate Burisma, the company where Hunter Biden had sat on the board of directors, and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US election.
Sondland also said he had been wrong when he said that a White House visit was contingent on such an announcement. In fact, “everything” was dependent on a public statement, including security assistance. This upset Taylor so much that he threatened to quit.
> At the end of his statement, Taylor pleaded with lawmakers to continue to “support Ukraine in its fight against its bullying neighbor. Russian aggression cannot stand.”
He also spoke of two Ukraine stories: One a positive, bipartisan story about “a young nation, struggling to break free of its past, hopeful that [a] new government will finally usher in a new Ukraine.” But the other story dominating the past several months is much darker: a “rancorous story about whistleblowers, Mr. Giuliani, side channels, quid pro quos, corruption, and interference in elections.”
There is adequate proof that Trump is deeply involved in using taxpayer money to bribe another country to investigate his political opponents.
His normal response to being besieged is to sue everyone. This is how the president has often responded over the decades. The pressure of the impeachment inquiry is intensifying so he is now thinking of retaliating against news outlets such as CNN, WaPo and MSNBC. .
The media is responsible for telling the truth, not doctoring it up to please a president who is ignorant but wishes to be worshiped.
Nobody is above the law!!
The corruption is so much more than whether or not trump did this… it is the entire corruption of the administrant, t he justice department, the state department It is in the how. –the ways in which— the s mobster does things,. A few of mylinks
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/23/hidden-revelation-taylor-hints-worse-come-trump/?wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Bill Taylor’s 15-page opening statement goes into excruciating detail highlighting the chronology of the Trump Administration’s corrupt effort based on contemporaneous notes. Let’s dive into the testimony.
Click to access 75965f57-6561-42f8-af40-a9e984a85660.pdf
The Key Moments Of Bill Taylor’s Statement, From Start To Finish
https://mailchi.mp/ffc078471cb7/quid-pro-quo-confirmed-bill-taylors-testimony-paves-impeachment-roadmape
Yes, it was a huge red flag that the White House hid the transcript of the phone conversation and still has only released an edited version with the most incriminating parts left out.
It is now likely there are lots more conversations like that where the White House criminals acted to cover up for Trump by illegally hiding evidence of his wrongdoing.
We already knew about the rot from the illegal cover-up of the conversation. Now we are learning just a bit of how far the rot goes. But the cover up made it clear that the entire White House and the Republican Party are complicit.
It is beyond frightening that Trump is still in office. There is nothing he can do that his minions and acolytes and followers won’t approve of. It is just fortunate that the Democrats won the House in 2018 or we would already be in a proto-Fascist state and it is questionable that elections in 2020 would even happen. Or more likely they would look like Russian elections.
First Trump says this had nothing to do with Biden. Then when there is proof that he mentioned Biden by name, his enablers say “but there was no quid pro quo”. Then when there is proof that there was “quid pro quo”, his followers say “but quid pro quo is fine as long Trump does it.”
The fact is that Trump and his White House cronies have blatantly lied to the American people. The White House covered up Trump’s phone call because they knew it was a huge problem. When that got found out, they insist that the phone call was perfectly fine because it didn’t show quid pro quo. When there is testimony that Trump clearly asked for a quid pro quo, his enablers say “but that’s okay because Trump is allowed to do that”.
Bottom line is the cover up itself was blatantly illegal — we still can assume that the edited version of that conversation that Attorney General William Barr provided to Congress bore as much relationship to reality as the letter that William Barr wrote summarizing the Mueller Report as totally exonerating Trump.
It is clear that the most incriminating part of Trump’s conversation has been edited out of the transcript and that’s why they rushed to hide it.
Now the fascist Republicans have stormed the hearing to prevent it from happening because no one must investigate Trump.
Scary times.
Abandoning the Kurds in Northern Syria, withholding military aid from Ukraine, withdrawing from the INF and Open Skies treaties–all against the wishes of his own defense and intelligence departments, career State Department officials, and ALMOST EVERY Senator and Representative IN HIS OWN PARTY. What’s the common thread here? Why these UNILATERAL moves? Cui bono?
Russia
How clear, exactly, does Trump have to make it that he is playing for the other team?
Alphonse Capone orchestrated murders and ran illegal prostitution, gambling, and alcohol rackets, but he wasn’t convicted for any of that. He was put away for tax evasion. Trump might go down for the quid pro quo with Ukraine, but there is a far, far greater issue, here, than just that. Trump is a traitor, and his election to the presidency was the most horrific espionage coup in history. And every day he remains in office, our part-time president, Asset Orange, works–to the extent that he does any work–to make Vlad glad.
The personal differences between Trump and Putin could not be more stark. Trump is profoundly ignorant and famous for his unexamined impulsiveness. Putin is extremely intelligent and calculating–a judo master literally and figuratively. I recently ran across a video of Putin discussing the promise and perils of genetic engineering. It was a thoughtful and frightening analysis. And the first thing I thought of, watching this, was that we have a president who boasts that his “intuition” is much better than science, who praises the city of Belgium, who speaks with the vocabulary and syntax of a third grader, who is infamous for being unwilling and largely unable to read. Donald Trump. The guy who put the “idiot” in “useful idiot.”
Now, this clown wants to build a border wall in Colorado! He really needs a map. https://denver.cbslocal.com/2019/10/24/president-trump-border-wall-colorado-building/
retired teacher: What a fantastic reply from the governor of Colorado:
Jared Polis
✔
@GovofCO
Well this is awkward …Colorado doesn’t border Mexico. Good thing Colorado now offers free full day kindergarten so our kids can learn basic geography
retired teacher,
Polis’ response is on the front page of the Boulder Camera. 👍🏽
I had to laugh when I read it.
Can’t believe those hard hats actually CLAPPED. Are they drunk?
Here it is …as published in the Boulder Camera:
Trump says he’s building the wall in Colorado
By Justin Wingerter
The Denver Post
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his administration is building a wall in Colorado, an apparent misstatement that was immediately met with jeers online.
“Do you know why we’re going to win New Mexico? Because they want safety on their border, and they didn’t have it. And we’re building a wall on the border of New Mexico and we’re building a wall in Colorado,” the president said, drawing cheers from an oil and gas conference crowd.
The remark came about 40 minutes into a speech to an annual shale conference in Pittsburgh, during which the president spoke about a wide range of topics.
Colorado does not border Mexico as New Mexico does, and it’s unclear where the president’s confusion came from. The government is building fencing near the Colorado River, which may have led to the misstatement.
Gov. Jared Polis, the force behind the expansion of full-day kindergarten throughout Colorado this past session, was among many Democrats “correcting” Trump on Twitter: “Well this is awkward … Colorado doesn’t border Mexico. Good thing Colorado now offers free full day kindergarten so our kids can learn basic geography.”
Bingo
Orange Is the New Slack, unless, ofc, there is Moscow’s work to do.
In the meantime, the news today is that Republicans stormed the hearings, disrupting the entire process and breeching security.
According to Politico,
“The GOP stunt, led by House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), comes as Trump has demanded that Republicans “get tough and fight” for him in the impeachment probe. But Republicans have struggled to defend Trump on the substance of the allegations against him, and have instead focused on hammering Democrats over what they see as an illegitimate impeachment process.”
If the inquiry becomes a call for impeachment, what is the likely outcome? Clearly Trump and friends are prepared to claim everything was illegitimate. Today’s media event means he is ready to call in more of his street fighting cronies to spread damage as far and wide as possible. They are all thumbing their nose at the process and loving the media attention. Republics are spineless enablers of a President who is certain he is above the law.
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/23/impeachment-republicans-trump-055688
House Republicans are supine in service to Trump, even to the point of sacrificing the Constitutional authority of their branch so Trump can be Emperor.
Jim Jordan- part of the “stunt”, part of a pattern.
Jordan reportedly sidled up next to powerful men. The locker rooms at OSU were allegedly a place where the men he knew got what they wanted at the expense of the student wrestlers.
This is the junk that Fox listeners are getting. Trump can abuse power but it isn’t an impeachable offense. Impeaching Trump is ‘not good for the Republic”.
…………………………
Matthew Whitaker, former acting AG: ‘Abuse of power is not a crime’ suitable for impeachment
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Matthew G. Whitaker, the Trump administration’s former acting attorney general, said Tuesday that “abuse of power is not a crime” warranting of impeachment.
While appearing on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” Mr. Whitaker said the Democrats’ handling of President Trump’s impeachment inquiry is “not good for the Republic.”
“Remember, these global elitists, these careerists have made promises and have set in place a world establishment that operated a certain way, and President Trump has asks questions like ‘Why do we do this this way?’ ” Mr. Whitaker said.
“I’m a former prosecutor and what I know is this is a perfect time for preliminary hearings, where you would say ‘Show us your evidence. What evidence of a crime do you have?’ Abuse of power is not a crime. Let’s fundamentally boil it down, the Constitution is very clear that there has to be some pretty egregious behavior and they cannot tell the American people what this case is even about.”
The impeachment clause of the president requires “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” to warrant the rejection of a president…
Link: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/23/matthew-whitaker-former-acting-ag-abuse-of-power-i/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=email_this&utm_source=email
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was a Roman Christian poet who lived from 348 to perhaps 413 CE. In his Psychomachia (The Battle for the Mind/Soul of Man), the allegorical figure of Pride has Deceit prepare a trap for Lowliness (everyone else is, to pride, among the low). But Pride, being heedless, gallops forward and falls into her own trap.
As the king of the narcissists just fell into the trap that his web of deceit laid for Joe Biden. LMAO.
With Trump, it’s always been just a matter of time. Melania saw this early on. She was furious at Donald when he won the presidential race that he never was supposed to have won, the one that he, himself, expected to lose (before going on to build his tower in Moscow). I can just imagine her saying, “Donald, luke now what you heve done. Everysing veell be mede to be knawn. EVERYSING!”
cx: vaht you have done
Trump’s voters think he won the election fairly, which to them makes Democrats look as if they are trying to overturn a legal election, which makes Democrats seem undemocratic, when the country is based on free and fair elections. There seems to be little to no evidence that the election was improperly influenced. Mueller tried hard to try to find some, but he failed. Even the Schiff investigation is clearly improper lacking due process for Trump. When the Democrats proceed without due process, they seem to be trying to destroy the fundamental process of law going back all the way to Magna Carta. Not giving him due process makes it seem Democrats want to rule by mob pressure. Trump’s supporters see this, and thus remain staunchly behind him, fearing that their own liberties can be taken away if his are. The 2020 election will show whether the Democrats will get away with their strategy. Take your pick between the socialist old white guy, the corrupt bumbling plagiarist, Pocahontas the capitalist, the gay young white guy whom blacks will not support because of his orientation, and the out of money others, none of all of whom has the stature to step into the ring with good old orange hair. Prepare for a big win and four more years of Betsy DeVos. It ain’t that great for the country, but it will happen no matter with what ingenuity you continue vilifying him. Barron will have graduated from high school.
Pat Robetson said, “The president of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen.”…over abandoning our allies the Kurds. It’s impossible to find anyone FURTHER from a ‘mandate from heaven’ than Trump. Trump is vicious in his words against any criticism. He hates brown people and has no problem with putting children in cages. He abhors anyone who thinks he isn’t the greatest thing to have happened to the United States since the inception of this nation. Trump is increasingly showing that he is mentally disturbed. This nation needs to impeach Trump and let the rest of history understand that he is NOT the chosen one who is above the law.
“Not giving him due process makes it seem Democrats want to rule by mob pressure.”
This is an impeachment inquiry. As soon as enough material has been gathered, what has been found will be told. Democrats in Congress are making a necessary stand against Trump’s actions. The younger and more moderate Republicans support the impeachment investigation. Republicans have already seen that Trump’s base is not big enough to help them win elections. Republicans in Congress who defend Trump are going to be damaged by sticking up for Trump’s potential crimes against this country.
House Democrats are preparing to move their largely private impeachment inquiry onto a more public stage as soon as mid-November and are deciding how best to present the complex Ukraine saga to the American people.
Trump is a political disaster for this country. He is ignorant and makes his decision by his wonderful gut. HIs gut doesn’t see climate change, allies that matter, immigrants who aren’t rapists, drug dealers & criminals nor understands anything beyond the false blatherings of Fox news.
Republicans storm closed-door impeachment hearing as escalating Ukraine scandal threatens Trump
Oct. 23, 2019
…Before entering the closed-door hearing, Republican lawmakers held a news conference to decry how Schiff, the California Democrat who runs the Intelligence Committee, was carrying out the panel’s portion of the impeachment inquiry. Several complained about the private nature of the proceedings and claimed that the inquiry was part of a long-running attempt by Democrats to overturn the result of the 2016 presidential election.
But none of the 13 Republicans who spoke defended Trump on the central allegation that he had pushed Ukraine to investigate Democrats while blocking military aid that had been approved for Kyiv.
Damning testimony from William B. Taylor Jr., the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, has rocked the White House’s impeachment defense, making it more difficult for Republicans to claim that Trump did nothing wrong. Taylor told lawmakers that Trump had personally intervened to push Ukraine to announce investigations targeting Democrats as part of a quid pro quo linking stalled U.S. military aid to political assistance from Ukraine…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republicans-storm-closed-door-impeachment-hearing-as-escalating-ukraine-scandal-threatens-trump/2019/10/23/29877c06-f5a5-11e9-8cf0-4cc99f74d127_story.html
Matt Gaetz is a pitbull for #45. Some of the people that “stormed” the meeting were on the inquiry committee. This is political theater.
Harlan Underhill thinks Trump supporters are fascists. Harlan believes that Trump voters want Trump to be above the law. Harlan Underhill says Trump voters are not like Republicans who voted for Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon won the electoral college (49 states!) and the popular vote by a HUGE margin (unlike Trump, who got fewer votes overall than his Democratic opponent). When Nixon’s crimes were investigated, Nixon voters did not say “My President is against the law and Congress must not investigate his crimes”. Nixon voters believed in the Constitution. Harlan says that Trump voters hate America and hate the Constitution.
Trump agrees with Harlan Underhill. Trump says he could kill someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would be fine with it. Apparently, Harlan Underhill agrees with Trump about that.
Maybe Harlan Underhilll is a Russian and he hates America. Very few Americans want America to look like Putin’s Russia. But Russians who hate America and those Americans who hate America join together in their hatred for the US Constitution.
Well said.
Nixon understood the Constitution. Trump does not. Nixon resigned rather than be impeached. Trump will not. Nixon had a sense of shame. Trump does not.
Amusing, Harlan, as always, to read your fervent defense of Moscow’s Asset Governing America (MAGA). Tell us another one!
If you are still working on this routine, however, I have a suggestion: It would have been better if in the same breath you had given us one of your screeds about them Socialists! The irony would have been so delicious.
Warm regards, Bob S.
You know, in the oath that brand-new citizens take, it contains six different references to ‘the law.’ If it’s good enough for us to ask brand-new citizens to affirm their devotion to the law, is it too much to ask that the president do the same?
—Trey Gowdy
October 24, 2019
Author Headshot
By David Leonhardt
Opinion Columnist
The House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry into President Trump have both Democratic and Republican members.
That fact seems difficult for some people to comprehend, so I’ll repeat it with some italics: The House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry into President Trump have both Democratic and Republican members.
The stunt that House Republicans pulled yesterday — storming a secure room in Congress, where sensitive national security matters are discussed, in order to halt an investigative hearing — was based on a falsehood. The Republicans claimed they were fed up with being shut out of the investigation. But they are not being shut out.
As Politico put it: “More than 45 House Republicans — nearly a quarter of the House G.O.P. conference — already have full access to the depositions through their membership on one of the three panels leading the impeachment inquiry.” (The three are the Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees.)
Even some of the Republicans who stormed the room yesterday already had access, as Ursula Perano of Axios noted: “13 of the 41 Republican lawmakers who stormed a closed-door hearing Wednesday to protest an alleged lack of transparency in the impeachment inquiry sit on committees with the power to question witnesses and review documents.”
So why are so many House Republicans claiming otherwise — and why did a few of them jeopardize national security by smuggling phones into the hearing room? Because they understand that the emerging evidence is extremely damaging to Trump. They’ve decided that they would rather try to protect him than exercise their constitutional duty as members of an equally powerful branch of government.
It’s a sad and worrisome spectacle. But I don’t think it is likely to succeed in the end. Adam Schiff, the House Democrat leading the inquiry, has made clear that this phase of the investigation is happening behind close doors because that’s where all serious investigations are initially conducted. But Congress is eventually going to hold hearings where witnesses will testify publicly.
When that happens, Trump’s enablers are going to need to come up with a better excuse than the one they tried yesterday.
Lindsey Graham seems to have difficulty deciding where the law stands on impeachment. Impeachment is against the law when done to Trump but is just fine when put against Clinton. Hypocrite.
…….
Graham first floated the idea of discarding articles of impeachment during an interview this week with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, where he argued the Senate should go “on record condemning the House.”
“Here’s the point of the resolution: Any impeachment vote based on this process, to me, is illegitimate, is unconstitutional, and should be dismissed in the Senate without a trial,” Graham said.
………….
During former President Clinton’s impeachment trial, Graham — then a House member who served as a floor manager — spoke out against a motion to dismiss that was offered by then-Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). Byrd’s motion ultimately failed.
“To dismiss an impeachment trial under these facts and under these circumstances would be unbelievable, in my opinion, and do a lot of damage to the law and to the ultimate decision this body has to make whether or not Bill Clinton should be our president. And as I understand the general nature of the law, the facts and the law break our way for this motion,” Graham said, according to a transcript of the deliberations.
New York Bar Association tells Bill Barr to immediately recuse himself from the Ukraine scandal
October 23, 2019
The New York Bar Association has asked Attorney General William Barr to immediately recuse himself from any matters pertaining to President Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal, believing that any further involvement would be a conflict of interest on the part of the head of the Justice Department.In a statement Wednesday, the association explained: “Despite this commitment to the role of the attorney general, Mr. Barr’s actions in office have failed in precisely the role that he described with eloquence when nominated. That failure has jeopardized the confidence that the public can reasonably have in the DOJ as the place ‘where the rule of law, not politics, holds sway.’”
The statement goes on to assert, “Our concern has been brought to a head by Mr. Barr’s failure to recuse himself from the DOJ’s review — itself of uncertain propriety — of the ongoing ‘whistleblower’ complaint with respect to the president’s efforts during his July 25, 2019 telephone call to request the Republic of Ukraine to investigate Mr. Trump’s allegations of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections and former Vice President Biden and his son.”Barr has often been criticized for conducting himself like a Trump loyalist, and the New York Bar Association makes the same complaint — asserting that Barr’s “actions during his brief tenure in office have demonstrated to us that, contrary to the responsibilities of his office, he appears to view his primary obligation as loyalty to the president individually rather than to the nation. In serving the president, he has been willing to take or countenance actions that are contrary to the professional standards of the DOJ, his oath of office and his own obligations as an attorney….
https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/new-york-bar-association-tells-bill-barr-to-immediately-recuse-himself-from-the-ukraine-scandal/#.XbHJ2hulXcw.gmail
Thanks for the info.
Morning Consult reports on, “Trump’s standing across America” (polls). The shift in states that elected him is interesting. His approval in Alabama dropped 14% since he took office.
The Republicans’ ‘due process’ arguments are nonsense
Oct. 24, 2019
…Many of the reasons for grand jury secrecy apply equally to the impeachment inquiry. One is to protect the integrity of the investigation. Secrecy prevents witnesses from reviewing the testimony of others and tailoring their own testimony to be consistent or “get their stories straight.” It also prevents targets of the investigation from engaging in obstructive acts in response to the testimony, such as witness intimidation or destruction of evidence. Volume Two of the report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III provides ample reason for Congress to be concerned about this president’s potential willingness to attempt to obstruct an ongoing investigation.
Grand jury secrecy also can provide some comfort to reluctant witnesses who may fear retaliation by powerful people against whom they testify. Secrecy assures them that the targets of the investigation will not know exactly what they said. In the context of the impeachment inquiry, witnesses reasonably may fear becoming the subject of a Twitter tirade by the president or vitriolic attacks by his most devoted followers. Taking depositions behind closed doors may allow witnesses to feel more comfortable and be more forthcoming.
In a congressional investigation, secrecy serves another important function. Open congressional hearings are a notoriously ineffective method of investigation. They frequently degenerate into squabbles involving members of Congress primarily concerned with scoring political points and generating cable TV sound bites. The typical five-minute rounds of questioning do not allow even a skilled examiner to make much headway with a witness. Closed-door hearings, with questioning by trained staff attorneys and no television cameras, provide a much better opportunity to discover the truth…
Before a final vote on any articles of impeachment, the House committees will need to present publicly the evidence that supports those articles. And at any trial in the Senate, the president will have the full array of rights to be represented by counsel and to confront the witnesses and the evidence against him.
Claims about a lack of due process are frivolous. It’s understandable that Republicans would rather manufacture procedural objections than confront the reality of the president’s misconduct….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/24/republicans-due-process-arguments-are-nonsense/
“This is like presenting a case to a grand jury which is never done in public. This is not the impeachment hearing.The impeachment hearings have to be held in public by the House Judiciary Committee.” FOX, are you listening. Stop supporting Trump and blathering about ‘secret impeachment hearings’ and how ‘worried’ the Democrats are.
………………………………………………………….
Fox Judge destroys Republicans over “secret impeachment hearings”
Oct 24, 2019
Brian Tyler Cohen
BREAKING: Fox News Judge Andrew Napolitano just destroyed Republicans over their “secret impeachment” complaints.
I saw Judge Napolitano explain to his co-panelists that the Republicans made the rules for closed hearings in 2015, and Trey Gowdy explained that they make much more progress when the hearings are not public.
They made the rules, now they want to throw them out.
I can’t wait for public hearings, so all the world can hear Ambassador Bill Taylor explain the quid pro quo, to which he objected.
I lOVE good news!! [Barr is Trump’s personal lawyer.]
………………………………………………….
NYT
BREAKING NEWS
The House is legally engaged in an impeachment inquiry, a judge found, ruling that lawmakers can see some of Robert Mueller’s secret evidence.
Friday, October 25, 2019 4:12 PM EST
The ruling delivered a major legal victory to House Democrats, undercutting arguments by President Trump and Republicans that the investigation is a sham.
The House Judiciary Committee is lawfully entitled to view secret grand jury evidence gathered by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, Judge Beryl A. Howell of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in a 75-page opinion. Attorney General William P. Barr had withheld the material from lawmakers.