TODAY IN CONGRESS (TIC):
Your One Stop Shop For Learning What Our Congress Critters Are Up To!
COMMITTEE SUBPOENA WARS & IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS —
COMMITTEE ACTIVITY:
Introduction:
NOTE #1: Before I get started with today’s long list of subpoena and impeachment activity, let me say that I have decided to do away with posting the repetitive “Background” section here on each Committee activity, in an effort to shorten an already too long post. Instead each background section will include a link to my September 26 Diary containing the full backgrounds for those who need to get up to speed. I will keep editing that Diary as time goes on to keep the background up to date. Below, I will post only recent developments (stuff that happened the day before) and any new developments.
NOTE #2: Because of all the impeachment stuff happening all at once, these TIC diaries are getting way too long. So in a somewhat futile attempt to shorten things a bit, I have removed the Committee subpoenas that have been inactive for weeks. You can still find out about them in my September 26 Diary (CLICK HERE). Also, I will still keep a check on them and if something new happens in any of them, I will post it in future TIC diaries.
NOTE #3: Well my September 26 Diary containing the full backgrounds on each of the subpoena and impeachment activities has gotten too long, so the character limit has made it impossible for me to use this diary to post new background information. So starting November 22, I will post background information from November 22 going forward in this November 22 TIC Diary and keep it updated until I run out of space again. After today (November 22) I will put in a new link to the November 22 TIC for you to access it. I will also keep the old link to the September 26 Diary so you can obtain the pre-November 22 background information. I hope this makes sense? If not, just send me any questions you have in the comment section.
Now on with the show. (New and Important stuff in bold)
House Judiciary Committee Barr Subpoena for Unredacted Mueller Report —
Background — For Before Nov. 22, 2019 background CLICK HERE.
On Monday (Dec. 2), the DoJ filed a Legal Brief with the DC Court of Appeals in opposition to the release of Mueller Grand Jury materials to Congress. According to this NPR Report:
The Justice Department says releasing secret grand jury documents from then-special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe to House lawmakers engaged in the impeachment inquiry could discourage future witnesses to presidential abuse from cooperating with grand juries.
"It is not difficult to imagine that a witness in a future investigation of alleged presidential misconduct might be deterred from testifying fully or frankly if she believed that her testimony would be readily disclosed to the House for use in impeachment proceedings," Justice Department lawyers wrote in a brief filed on Monday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Attorneys for the Justice Department are asking the appeals court to reverse a lower court's decision ordering the transfer of Mueller grand jury material to House investigators on a two-pronged argument: that an impeachment inquiry is not a "judicial proceeding" and that the House does not really need the documents to complete the impeachment investigation.
Also, there is this:
On Monday, Justice Department lawyers disputed that the 1974 case settled the issue, insisting that since the impeachment inquiry is not a "judicial proceeding," the material cannot fall within the confidential material exception the House lawyers cite.
"Even within the terms of the 'judicial proceeding' exception, the Supreme Court has stressed that secrecy remains the default," Justice Department attorneys wrote in their brief.
So the Trump/Barr DoJ is now trying to re-argue the Nixon case. We will see how far that gets them with the Appeals Court on Jan. 3.
December 16:
House Lawyers say the House still needs Mueller Grand Jury materials for impeachment process. The US House told a federal appeals court on Monday that it still needs access to confidential grand jury information from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation for use in the current impeachment proceedings. "The withheld material is needed to evaluate President Trump's solicitation of an announcement by Ukraine that it was launching an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, President Trump's political rival, and into alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Understanding the circumstances surrounding President Trump's solicitation of those investigations is vital to informing the consideration of the Articles of Impeachment," the House said.
Interesting and Encouraging! Awaiting Jan. 3 Appeals Court Hearing.
January 3-6:
On January 3, a hearing was held in an appeal by the Trump administration seeking that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reverse a district judge’s decision authorizing the disclosure of the Mueller Grand Jury materials to Congress — or at the very least, send the case back for the district court to re-examine in light of what the House has done on impeachment since the district judge’s decision. D.C. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith, a George W. Bush appointee who was seen as the swing vote on Friday’s three-judge panel, seemed skeptical of the Justice Department’s claim that impeachment did not fit into the grand jury secrecy exemption for judicial proceedings. Griffith noted that the DOJ’s current position was a departure from what it has argued in previous grand jury material cases, and a departure from the historical precedent of grand jury materials being produced for impeachment proceedings.
So it seems while the swing Judge agrees that Congress is entitled to some of the GJ materials, he seems inclined to send the case back to the lower court to decide on which specific materials Congress is entitled to see (possibly page by page or line by line). But the most shocking part of the Hearing came when Trump-appointed appeals court judge Neomi Rao got into a bizarre discussion with House Committee lawyer Douglas Letter A Trump-appointed appeals court judge and the House’s top lawyer tangled for several minutes Friday over the idea that court could authorize the Justice Department to release special counsel Robert Mueller’s grand jury materials, but not compel it to.
Wow! What’s she been smoking! Let me get this straight, she is arguing that the DoJ (part of the Executive Branch) can not only defy Congress, it can defy the Courts and get away with it. AMAZING!
January 25, 2020:
House Democrats sent a letter to the Appeals Court on Tuesday pointing out a contradiction by Trump’s Impeachment Defense Team that has bearing on the Mueller Grand Jury materials’ case. Counsel for the US House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday informing the court that President Donald Trump’s lawyers had made arguments during the impeachment trial that directly contradicted those they made in its ongoing case. In the case, which is now on appeal at the DC Circuit, the Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that impeachment proceedings could not justify the subpoena because they are not “judicial proceedings.” However, as the committee’s Tuesday letter points out, Trump’s defense attorney Ken Starr asserted during the Senate impeachment trial on Monday that during impeachment “the Senate is a court. The committee’s letter tells the DC Circuit that DOJ’s “principal argument” in the case before it “cannot be reconciled with the President’s position in the impeachment.” In an earlier letter to the DC Circuit, the DOJ had argued that the rule governing grand jury materials “requires proceedings before a court, not the Senate.”
Good Point! In the legal world, you can’t have it both ways.
House Judiciary Committee McGahn Subpoena —
Background —For Before Nov. 22, 2019 background CLICK HERE.
On November 19, the House Judiciary Committee requested an expedited ruling on cross motions for summary judgment in Judiciary v. McGahn. (After hearing oral arguments October 31, the District Court judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson, had said she would be busy with another case for two weeks, but that if requested, could provide an expedited oral ruling afterwards.) Also on Nov. 19, the judge responded that the Court plans to issue its Memorandum Opinion and Order on or before Monday, November 25.
On Monday [Nov. 25], Federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson handed down a historic ruling in the McGahn subpoena case, ordering him to honor the Congress’s lawful subpoena to appear before and give testimony to the House Judiciary Committee and thoroughly eviscerated the Trump DoJ argument of “Absolute Immunity”. There is already a lot written about this ruling and this DK Diary by Mokurai has links to many of the news reports. So I am not going to try to summarize the Judge’s 120 page ruling. But here’s my favorite excerpt:
Thus, for the myriad reasons laid out above as well as those that are articulated plainly in the prior precedents of the Supreme Court, the D.C. Circuit, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, this Court holds that individuals who have been subpoenaed for testimony by an authorized committee of Congress must appear for testimony in response to that subpoena—i.e., they cannot ignore or defy congressional compulsory process, by order of the President or otherwise.
Sounds to me the Judge is saying, in a roundabout, read between the lines way, that what McGahn did and other witnesses are doing in refusing to comply with a legal Congressional subpoena because the President requested that they ignore it, was/is illegal. They are personally breaking the law and the President’s request is no shield against prosecution.
In response, to Monday’s ruling, McGahn’s attorney says he will testify unless a stay is issued. On Wednesday morning, the DOJ asked Jackson to halt the implementation of the decision while it prepared an appeal. According to this NBC News Report:
Lawyers for the House had told the judge that while they wouldn't oppose a brief stay, they would oppose a longer one that lasted throughout the appeals process.
"Such a stay would impair the House's ongoing impeachment inquiry," they said. And even if McGahn doesn't play a role in the House process, his testimony might be a factor in a Senate trial, they told the judge.
So, as expected, according to this DK FP Post by the GREAT Mark Sumner:
On Wednesday afternoon, Judge Jackson agreed to do so, but, as TPM notes, the administrative stay is limited to a seven days. The judge made it clear in her statement that the stay should in no way “be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of the motion for stay pending appeal.”
Whether Judge Jackson will give the DOJ a requested longer stay is still up in the air, but considering the force of her decision—which declared that there was no such thing as the Trump White House’s claimed “unlimited immunity” for members of the executive branch, and stated bluntly that “presidents are not kings”—she made clear her position that there is absolutely no merit in the case being pressed by the DOJ. That leaves the possibility that the seven-day time-out could expire in the middle of next week, and that Jackson could very well refuse to extend the stay.
Which means the DoJ will have to hustle (over the Holiday) to put together an Appeal to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and a request for a longer stay. Let’s be clear, a stay does not prevent McGahn from testifying if he so chooses, it just temporarily keeps him out of legal trouble since it stays the Judge’s order compelling him to testify.
On Wednesday [Nov. 27], the same day as Judge Jackson issued her 7 day stay, DoJ Filed an appeal and request for a longer stay the the DC Court of Appeals. In response, the Court of Appeals granted their own stay and agreed to hear the case on an expedited schedule. According to this NBC News Report:
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia acted hours after U.S. District Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson issued a seven-day stay of her own order to give her time to consider the government's request for an even longer stay.
Such holds, known as administrative stays, are often issued to give lawyers a chance to file their appeals, and Jackson said her order "should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits" of keeping her ruling on a longer hold.
The federal government, which argues that senior White House advisers are absolutely immune to congressional subpoenas, then appealed for the extra time to the circuit court, which set an expedited schedule for the underlying appeal with oral arguments on Jan. 3.
So it looks like Jan. 3 is going to be a Big Court Day. BUT!
In a late in the day decision on Monday, U.S. District Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson issued a ruling denying DoJ’s request for an extension of her seven (7) day stay which expired at midnight on Monday. According to this TPM Story:
U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson denied Monday the administration’s request for a stay. The administration has already asked an appeals court to put on hold her order from last week that McGahn testify. The appeals court has put the ruling on an administrative hold, and has scheduled briefing and oral arguments on the merits of the appeal.
On Monday, the judge said that the Justice Department could not “make a persuasive showing of irreparable harm in the absence of a colorable argument that McGahn’s mere appearance before the Judiciary Committee would, in and of itself, be harmful.”
She also brought up the House Judiciary Committee’s emphasis, in opposing the stay request, on the possibility that McGahn could testify for the ongoing impeachment proceedings.
“[T]the Judiciary Committee would almost certainly lose the chance to question McGahn as part of the present impeachment inquiry if a stay order issues, which would unquestionably harm the ongoing investigation that the Judiciary Committee is conducting, and by extension, would also injure the public’s interest in thorough and well-informed impeachment proceedings,” she said.
HOWEVER, the TPM Story also states:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that the administrative stay would last “pending further order of” the appeals court. It has scheduled oral arguments for Jan. 3.
So not being a lawyer, I am not sure what effect the Judge’s ruling on McGahn’s testimony. I can only surmise that the Appeals Court “Administrative Stay” will allow McGahn to avoid testifying, if he chooses to avoid testifying, through at least Jan. 3, effectively replacing the Judge’s expired stay. My guess is we will see how McGahn responds soon.
December 16:
House Lawyers tell Court that the House still needs testimony from Don McGahn. The Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee told a federal appeals court on Monday that testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn is needed as President Trump’s impeachment speeds toward a likely Senate trial. The push for McGahn’s testimony came just hours after the Judiciary Committee told the same court that it needed secret grand jury materials from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe as part of the impeachment proceedings. Democrats say both sources could provide key insights into Trump’s alleged obstruction of Mueller’s nearly two-year probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. “To obtain information critical to the House’s impeachment proceedings and any trial in the Senate, as well as to assist its consideration of remedial legislation and oversight, the committee issued a subpoena for testimony to Donald F. McGahn,” the Judiciary Committee told the court.
Doubly Interesting and Encouraging! Maybe the House hasn’t given up on including stuff from the Mueller investigation after all. But I’m not getting my hopes up yet. Awaiting Jan. 3 Appeals Court Hearing.
January 3-6:
On January 3, a hearing was held in D.C. federal appeals court as the House Judiciary Committee seeks to enforce a subpoena it issued in April for documents and testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn. DoJ lawyers were arguing that Federal courts should not rule on separation-of-powers disputes between Congress and the White House. However Judge Thomas Griffith pointed out the starkly unprecedented nature of the Trump administration’s stonewalling of congressional oversight in a question for Moopan. “Has there ever been an instance of such a broadscale defiance of congressional inquiries … in the history of the Republic?” Griffith asked, before inquiring whether a president had ever given an instruction “not to cooperate.” “Not to my knowledge,” Mooppan replied.
Furthermore, the panel of three judges also asked what effect the House’s approval of two articles of impeachment against President Trump would have on the case. The Justice Department argued last month that impeaching the President meant that the case no longer needed to be fast-tracked, after the court asked for briefs “addressing the effect of the articles of impeachment on the issues in this case.” However, House attorney Megan Barbero said that the second article of impeachment —- about obstruction of Congress — “refers to the President’s previous efforts to undermine governmental investigations into foreign interference in United States elections.” She added that if McGahn’s testimony were to establish a “pattern,” that could bolster an argument for “whether the remedy of removal is an appropriate remedy.” Barbero added, under questioning from Judge Griffith, that the House may yet approve an additional article of impeachment against Trump, depending on the results of McGahn’s testimony.
January 28:
Just in case you might have missed it, Trump has been caught arguing against himself in this case. As highlighted in this report from POLITICO:
After arguing in court for months [in the McGahn case] that federal judges should stay miles away from disputes between Congress and the White House — for fear that they become political actors in a divisive impeachment probe — the president’s lawyers spent the first working day of Trump’s Senate impeachment trial arguing the exact opposite, and suggesting that those who disagree are hostile to the Constitution.
“The president’s opponents, in their rush to impeach, have refused to wait for judicial review,” said Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal lawyer, who is working alongside White House counsel Pat Cipollone on the president’s impeachment defense. Sekulow also echoed law professor Jonathan Turley, who recently warned against “making a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts.” Turley testified against Trump’s impeachment during one of the House’s public impeachment hearings.
But that argument is in direct conflict with the Trump Justice Department’s own forceful arguments — some as recently as this month — that allowing courts to step into such battles between Congress and the White House would be an affront to the separation of powers.
So in a nutshell, they are arguing in Trump’s impeachment trial that Trump did not commit Obstruction of Congress since the House should have just let the courts decide all the witness subpoena cases, while in at least one of such cases (the McGahn subpoena case) Trump’s DoJ is arguing that the courts have no business resolving such disputes between the legislative and executive branches. I bet you thought they can’t have it both ways, but in Trump World I guess you can. I never thought Trump was talented enough to speak out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, buy I guess I was wrong.
House Oversight Committee Files Lawsuit to Enforce its Subpoenas to Wilbur Ross (Commerce Secretary) and AG William Barr —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Post Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
Recent Developments — If you remember way back when, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed both Ross and Barr for testimony and documents related to Trump’s failed attempt to have a citizenship question added to the 2020 Census form. If you need your memory refreshed, you can go to my August 27 TIC to get it refreshed. As summed up in Hunter's FP Post:
This investigation is over Wilbur Ross' now-proven lies (including perjury) on the origins of the citizenship question the administration attempted to stuff into the 2020 census over the strong objections of census officials.
Both Ross and Barr were held in Contempt of Congress by a House vote for failure to honor their subpoenas, and nothing has happened in this matter since then. Frankly I thought the Committee had decided not to enforce their subpoenas since Trump/Ross decided not to add the citizenship question to the Census. But, on Monday [Nov. 25] the House Committee announced it was filing a lawsuit in Federal Court to enforce these subpoenas. Why, you may ask? I’m really not sure, other than not allowing Barr and Ross to get away with defying Congress. Why Now, you may ask? That’s an easier question. Both Barr and Ross have used the phoney legal argument of “Presidential Absolute Immunity” to defend defying their Congressional Subpoenas. This is the same legal argument that just went down in flames in the Federal Judge’s ruling in the McGahn case. I think that the House Oversight Committee sees this McGahn ruling as adding significant support to their case, and by the time the Ross/Barr case has a Hearing in Federal Court, the McGahn case will have wound its way through the Appeals process and a final decision in that case (if in Congress’s favor as is expected) will make the Barr/Ross case a legal slam dunk.
House Judiciary & Intelligence Committees’ Impeachment Investigation —
NOTE #1: This used to be the “House Intelligence Committee’s Whistleblower Investigation”, but I have changed the heading to include the other committees involved and to allow for a broadening of the scope of the investigation.
Background —For Before Nov. 22, 2019 background CLICK HERE.
November 19:
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Tuesday’s Impeachment Hearings — Schiff once again conducted the Hearings in an orderly and serious fashion, with a firm hand on the gavel and a calm, cool temperament. His summary at the end gave provided a great explanation of what the BRIBERY was in this case, easy for the public to understand. On the Republican side, the score was Witnesses 4; GOP 0. They once again failed to make any convincing arguments in defense of the President and Nunes just kept spreading the sh*t from his cow. Now on to the individual witnesses:
— Lt. Col. Vindman (the Patriot) Fearlessly Lays Out the TRUTH — The highlight of Vindman’s testimony for me and probably many of you came at the end of his opening statement:
”I also recognize that my simple act of appearing here today, just like the courage of my colleagues who have also truthfully testified before this Committee, would not be tolerated in many places around the world. In Russia, my act of expressing my concerns to the chain of command in an official and private channel would have severe personal and professional repercussions and offering public testimony involving the President would surely cost me my life. I am grateful for my father’s brave act of hope 40 years ago and for the privilege of being an American citizen and public servant, where I can live free of fear for mine and my family’s safety.
Dad, my sitting here today, in the US Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth. Thank you again for your consideration, and I would be happy to answer your
questions.”
A powerful truth as to what it means to live in our country. So he reported Trump’s July 25 comments to Eisenberg “without hesitation,” he testified. “It was my duty to report my concerns to the proper people in the chain of command.” “It was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma, it would be interpreted as a partisan play,” Vindman added. “This would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing bipartisan support, undermine U.S. national security, and advance Russia’s strategic objectives in the region.” Vindman testified that he gave two pieces of advice during a bilateral meeting: “To be particularly cautious with regard to Russia and its desire to provoke Ukraine, and to stay out of U.S. domestic" politics. In response to GOP Rep. Stewarts attempt to call Trump’s request a “favor” and not a “demand” as Vindman previously described it, Vindman stated: “I made that judgement and I stand by that judgement.”
— Jennifer Williams (the Pense Protector) Corroborates Other Witnesses — Not a lot of news here, so let me quickly summarize. In a nutshell, Williams did a good job of corroborating the testimony of the other witnesses, while at the same time doing her best to keep her boss VP Pence out of the conspiracy mud, even if she did it by making it look like he doesn’t necessarily read her reports or is stupid.
— “Republican” Witness Kurt Volker (the Truth Needle Threader) Amends Previous Testimony Corroborating Other Witness Accounts — Volker had a sudden recollection of the facts by admitting that in hindsight, this was a BRIBERY scheme. Although he did not use that word he did say that Trump wanted a public statement from President Zelensky that he would investigate Burisma and 2016 elections before Trump would agree to a meeting and release the aid. But in a thinly veiled effort to espouse his innocence, Volker tried to make it look like he never knew Burisma was a company liked to the Biden family. Funny he never thought to use the GOOGLE machine.
— “Republican” Witness Tim Morrison (the Truth Tightrope Walker) Testimony Corroborates Known Facts in His Testimony — Similar to Volker, Morrison did corroborate the testimony of other witnesses, but also tried to keep himself out of trouble. Fortunately for him, he was not involved in any calls or meetings where the BRIBERY Scheme was discussed, except for the infamous July 25 call which he listened in on. In that case his defense was that he saw nothing wrong with the call (no BRIBERY) but for some unknown reason he saw fit to immediately inform NSC Counsel Eisenberg of what transpired on the call, something he never did in the past. Stretches credulity beyond the limit.
November 20:
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Wednesday’s Impeachment Hearings — Before I get into the individual witnesses and what they testified to, let me summarize the Hearings in general. Once again Schiff conducted the Hearings in an orderly and serious fashion, with a firm hand on the gavel and a calm, cool temperament, as he has done in every Hearing so far. And once again he finished with a powerful summary giving a great explanation of what was and was not a CONSPIRACY in this case, both bolstering the REAL conspiracies and slapping down the phoney GOP conspiracies. On the Republican side, things got worse as they obviously were caught off guard by Sonland’s opening statement and had no prepared come back. So it was mainly a “rinse/repeat” of their past already thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories and witness attacks. Jordan even got in a pointless argument with Schiff that David Hale who was on the GOP list of suggested witness given to the Chairman, was not a Republican witness. Probably because Hale wasn’t helping their “so called” case. Oh, and Nunes just kept spreading the sh*t from his cow. Now on to the individual witnesses:
— Sondland (the Happy Fool) Links Trump to the BRIBERY Plot and Throws Pompeo, Pence, Perry and others Under the Bus — After Sondland’s opening statement it sounded like he decided to go the “Full John Dean” route, revealing the entire scheme he was running with Rudy and the other two Amigos (Perry & Volker) which he made clear was ordered by President Trump and that pretty much everyone in the Administration was either in on or knew about. But as the day progressed he got increasingly weasley with regard to what he could remember. He pretty much confirmed the testimony of others and what he knew was in the public released documents, but aside from implicating the President and others in what he described was a “Quid-Pro-Quo” (Trump WH Meeting for Zelensky Public Announcement of Burism/2016 Election investigations), his memory beyond what was already publicly known was severely lacking. Probably the two most unbelievable memory lapses were:
1. When he claimed he was not informed that investigating Burisma meant investigating the Bidens (and like others, he claimed that he didn’t bother to ask or Google it); and
2. When he claimed he was never told that Ukraine military aid was also being held up until a public announcement of the Burisma (Biden) and 2016 investigations were made, although he did say he presumed that was the case.
It was obvious his sole motivation in testifying was to protect his own A$$. So in the end, I rated him about 75% John Dean and 25% Slimy Weasel.
— Laura Cooper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia and Ukraine and David Hale, Under Secretary of State Testify — The highlight of the Cooper testimony was of course when she revealed that her staff had informed her that Ukrainian officials had contacted US DoD officials on July 25 regarding concerns over why the military aid was being withheld. This blew an unexpected hole in one of the GOP’s silly arguments that if Ukraine did not know the aid was being withheld than it was a “no harm, no foul” situation. So now we know they knew, tanking the GOP argument. The only thing I can say about the Hale testimony is that one Dem. Committee member got him to praise Ambassador Yovanovitch and somewhat reluctantly admit that she did not deserve to be recalled from her post.
November 21:
Well the marathon Hearings are over, at least for now. So we can all take some time to catch our breath before the next phase of impeachment inquiry begins, whatever that may be. Now on to the new developments:
- Thursday’s Hearing (in general) — It was another stellar day for Chairman Adam Schiff. As Captain of the Hearing, he once again ran a tight ship. Keeping his cool temperament at all times with gavel always at the ready to maintain order. Today Gym Jordan fell victim of Schiff’s gavel when Jordan continued to interrupt David Holmes as he was providing an answer that Jordan didn’t bargain for and apparently didn’t want Holmes to complete. Jordan finally shut his trap after Schiff gave him at least four gavels so that Holmes could finish his response. For Republicans, it was their worst Hearing day thus far. It got so bad that near the end, they gave up asking questions for fear of getting answers they didn’t want. So they just gave 5 minute BS speeches instead. Schiff did a great job at the end in both summing up the week of Hearings and making a clear and compelling case for IMPEACHMENT. BTW, you can read the entire opening statements of today’s witnesses (Dr. Fiona Hill and Mr. David Holmes) HERE courtesy of NPR.
- Dr. Fiona Hill (the Girl with the Fiery Pigtails and the Fiery Heart) Testifies — Dr. Fiona Hill wasted no time when she said in her opening statement that Russia not Ukraine interfered in the 2016 elections and made it perfectly clear that she would not entertain any of their bogus conspiracy theories. She said:
"I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a US adversary, and that Ukraine, not Russia, attacked us in 2016," Hill said.
So here’s the video of the key excerpt, courtesy of
CNN.
Perfect GOP Slapdown! You could see Nunes cringing in his seat. But the most Republican damaging testimony from Hill came in response to a question from Republican Counsel Castor:
Castor clearly got more than he bargained for! So much so that after that answer, Nunes decided he had had enough of Castor’s questions and took over the questioning.
- David Holmes (the Good Listener) Testifies — Holmes of course recapped what he overheard in the July 26 phone call between Gordon Sondland and President Trump which has cemented Trump’s direct involvement in the BRIBERY scheme. But my favorite part of the Holmes testimony was when Holmes talks about Sondland being aware that a “Burisma” investigation = a “Biden” investigation, which came at about 4:40 minutes into the video clip below from Walter Einenkel's DK Diary:
For those who don’t have time to view the whole thing, let me give you the Cliff Notes version:
“Come on Gym, it was so F#@kin obvious.”
BOOM, goes the Dynamite! Mr. Jordan, does your head hurt from worse from Mr. Holmes’ response or from the Chairman’s gavel being pounded on it?
- So What’s Next? — The answer is way too big to try to squeeze into this Diary. So I will try to cover it in a special TIC post during the Thanksgiving break when I have more time.
Here are the developments for the last 2 weeks of November:
- President Trump (the Impeachment Defendant) and A Group of GOP Senators (Some of the Impeachment Jurors) Meet Over Lunch to Plot Their Senate Trial Strategy — On Thursday [Nov. 21] a group of Republican senators and senior White House officials met privately to map out a strategy for a potential impeachment trial of President Trump, including proceedings in the Senate that could be limited to about two weeks, according to multiple officials familiar with the talks, according to this Washington Post report. The gang consisted of:
Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Ron Johnson (Wis.), John Neely Kennedy (La.), Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) met with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, senior adviser Jared Kushner, and counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, according to the officials, some of whom requested anonymity to discuss a private meeting.
So if this was going to be like a normal trial (which I would argue the Founding Fathers intended it to be) this would be blatant, out in the open Jury Tampering. But this is an Impeachment trial and unfortunately there is nothing written in the Constitution prohibiting such tampering. Still the meer fact that the Constitution calls this a trial with a Judge and refers to the Senators as the “Jurors”, should be enough of a hint that this sort of pre-trial tampering is just plain wrong. Also, as expressed in this DK Diary by Laurence Lewis, it appears the strategy being cooked up by the Defendant and some of his Jurors, is to rush through the trial with the Jury voting to not hear some witnesses. Can you say reverse Kangaroo Court!
- State Department Releasing Documents in Response to a FOIA Court Order — On Friday evening [Nov. 22], the media received a document dump. The State Department released nearly 100 pages of records in response to a Federal Judge’s ruling on FOIA lawsuit filed by American Oversight, a little known non-partisan, nonprofit ethics watchdog group seeking a range of documents related to the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine. According to this Press Release by American Oversight:
Among other records, the production includes emails that confirm multiple contacts in March of 2019 between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, at least one of which was facilitated by President Trump’s assistant Madeleine Westerhout.
American Oversight is reviewing the production to assess whether the State Department has fully complied with the court’s order.
In a statement by American Oversight’s Director Austin Evers:
“We can see why Mike Pompeo has refused to release this information to Congress. It reveals a clear paper trail from Rudy Giuliani to the Oval Office to Secretary Pompeo to facilitate Giuliani’s smear campaign against a U.S. ambassador.
“This is just the first round of disclosures. The evidence is only going to get worse for the administration as its stonewall strategy collapses in the face of court orders.
“That American Oversight could obtain these documents establishes that there is no legal basis for the administration to withhold them from Congress. That conclusively shows that the administration is engaged in obstruction of justice. The president and his allies should ask themselves if impeachment for obstruction is worth it if the strategy isn’t even going to be effective.
“This lawsuit is just one of several American Oversight is pursuing to bring transparency to the Ukraine investigation. The public should expect more disclosures, over the administration’s strong objection, for the foreseeable future.”
Here is a little excerpt of what American Oversight has learned from these documents:
The documents show a March 26, 2019, call between Rudy Giuliani and Mike Pompeo. (Page 39 of document)
A March 28, 2019, email includes a list of scheduled calls for Pompeo. Calls include Rudy Giuliani on March 29, and Rep. Devin Nunes on April 1, 2019.
During his closed-door testimony, career diplomat David Hale mentioned two calls between Pompeo and Giuliani, one on March 28, 2019, and one on March 29. The documents include a March 28 email to Hale indicating that Pompeo had been the one to request a call with Giuliani. (Page 45)
The March 29 call appears on page 46, and the confirmation of its scheduling is on page 44.
You can read the entire 100 pages of released documents HERE courtesy of American Oversight. More litigation to come I presume.
- Lev Parnas (Giuliani Stooge #1) Attorney Announces His Client Wants to Sing Like a Bird — On Friday evening (Nov. 22) there was this CNN Report:
The attorney, Joseph A. Bondy,
represents Lev Parnas, the recently indicted Soviet-born American who worked with Giuliani to push claims of Democratic corruption in Ukraine. Bondy said that Parnas was told directly by the former Ukrainian official that he met last year in Vienna with Rep. Devin Nunes.
"Mr. Parnas learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December," said Bondy.
Shokin was ousted from his position in 2016 after
pressure from Western leaders, including then-vice president Biden, over concerns that Shokin was not pursuing corruption cases.
So Nunes is not just one of the group of GOP House Members pushing the totally phoney, Russian Born Biden/Burisma Conspiracy Theory being peddled by Shokin, he apparently was in on its creation. The CNN Report goes on:
Bondy told CNN that his client and Nunes began communicating around the time of the Vienna trip. Parnas says he worked to put Nunes in touch with Ukrainians who could help Nunes dig up dirt on Biden and Democrats in Ukraine, according to Bondy.
That information would likely be of great interest to House Democrats given its overlap with the current impeachment inquiry into President Trump, and could put Nunes in a difficult spot.
Bondy told CNN his client is willing to comply with a Congressional subpoena for documents and testimony as part of the impeachment inquiry in a manner that would allow him to protect his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
Bondy suggested in a
tweet on Friday that he was already speaking to House Intel though the committee declined to comment.
- Lev Parnas (Giuliani Stooge #1) Has Turned Over TAPES — On Sunday (Nov. 24) it was reported that indicted conspirator Lev Parnas, (through his lawyer) has turned over video/audio recordings and photographs to the House Intelligence Committee of meetings between Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump. According to this ABC News Report:
The House Intelligence Committee is in possession of audio and video recordings and photographs provided to the committee by Lev Parnas, an associate of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who reportedly played a key role in assisting him in his efforts to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and Ukraine, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
The material submitted to the committee includes audio, video and photos that include Giuliani and Trump. It was unclear what the content depicts and the committees only began accessing the material last week.
- Internal White House Correspondence Reportedly Shows an Effort to Cook Up Phoney Reasons for Withholding Ukrainian Military Aid and Determine Legality — According to this Washington Post Report:
A confidential White House review of President Trump’s decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine has turned up hundreds of documents that reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification for the decision and a debate over whether the delay was legal, according to three people familiar with the records.
The research by the White House Counsel’s Office, which was triggered by a congressional impeachment inquiry announced in September, includes early August email exchanges between acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials seeking to provide an explanation for withholding the funds after President Trump had already ordered a hold in mid-July on the nearly $400 million in security assistance, according to the three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.
That is the one thing that stood out to me during the Hearings. Although, Democrats found it hard to find direct witnesses who said explicitly that Trump told them to withhold the Aid until Zelensky publicly announces the Burisma/Biden/2016 investigations, the Republicans were totally unable to offer any other plausible explanation for why the funds were being withheld. Now we find out that the White House Gang was trying to cook up some phoney reasons, but apparently failed since none were made public (of course Mulvaney did blurt out the real reason). They also were trying to determine reasons why it was legal for the President to withhold funds duly appropriated by Congress and signed into law by Trump himself. Apparently, they failed at that too. The actual E-mails detailing what was being planned have not been released, but I did hear a report that the American Oversight watchdog group has filed a FOIA request to obtain them.
- Transcript of OMB Official Mark Sandy’s Closed Door Deposition Released — The transcript of Mark Sandy’s closed door testimony has been released by the House Impeachment Committees. According to this Wednesday [Nov. 27] CNN Report:
Mark Sandy, a career official in the Office of Management and Budget, said that the White House did not tell his office that the aid was being frozen over concerns about other countries' contributions until months after the hold was put in place. Sandy described deep dissatisfaction within the OMB after the hold was put in place, including questions being raised about the legality of the freeze and the resignations of officials who expressed concerns about the move.
Furthermore,
Sandy said that when he learned the aid was withheld on July 19, after returning from a vacation, he raised legal concerns because the funds had to be obligated by September 30, the end of the fiscal year, under the Impoundment Control Act. The law, passed in the 1970s, prohibits a sitting US president from unilaterally withholding funds that were appropriated by Congress. Some liberal-minded scholars have opined that Trump broke the law when he froze the aid, because the $390 million in military help for Ukraine had been appropriated by lawmakers.
You can read the full Sandy transcript HERE.
- House Judiciary Committee Announces First Impeachment Hearing on December 4 — According to this POLITICO Article:
The House Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing next week on the impeachment of President Donald Trump, as Democrats move quickly to the next stage of a process that is likely to lead to the third-ever presidential impeachment before the end of the year.
The hearing, scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 4, will feature a panel of constitutional experts and focus on the definition of an impeachable offense and the “procedural application of the impeachment process,” according to committee aides.
“The impeachment inquiry is entering into a new phase,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “Our first task is to explore the framework put in place to respond to serious allegations of impeachable misconduct like those against President Trump.”
Most notably, the hearing will give Trump and his legal team the option to participate. The president and his allies have blasted Democrats over their impeachment inquiry, saying it has failed to include meaningful due process for the president.
Nadler sent a letter to Trump on Tuesday notifying him of his lawyers’ opportunity to attend and giving the president a deadline of Dec. 1 to inform him of whether his attorneys plan to participate.
Well, things are moving fast on the impeachment front.
November 29:
- House Judiciary Committee Announces Constitutional Expert Witness List — The Committee has released its expert witnesses for this Wednesday’s Hearing. According to this POLITICAL Report:
Democrats will call Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law professor, Pamela Karlan, a law professor at Stanford, and Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina.
Republicans on the panel, meanwhile, will call Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who has written extensively about the Trump impeachment inquiry, as their witness.
Wednesday’s hearing is set to focus on laying out the constitutional grounds for impeachment, as Democrats look to make the case that Trump violated his oath of office by attempting to leverage military aid and a potential White House visit to pressure Ukraine's president to commit to political probes. Republicans, faced with a damaging set of facts laid out in two weeks of public testimony last month, will argue that Democrats have not uncovered evidence that Trump‘s behavior is impeachable.
I was hoping the Dems. requested former Special Prosecutor Ken Starr or Fox News favorite Judge Andrew Napolitano to testify. Both have been on Fox News arguing that what Trump has done are impeachable offenses. It sure would have put Republicans in a difficult spot having to go against their own kind.
- White House Says It Won’t Participate in First Judiciary Committee Impeachment Hearing — According to this POLITICO Report:
The White House informed House Democrats on Sunday that it will not participate in the Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment hearing, excoriating Democrats’ impeachment inquiry as a “baseless” and “partisan” exercise in scathing five-page letter to the panel’s chairman.
The decision indicates that President Donald Trump has listened to his allies and some congressional Republicans who argued that a White House presence at the hearing would validate a process they have harangued as illegitimate and partisan.
Sounds like a win win to me. Now we only have to deal with the crazy Republicans on the Committee and not both them and the crazy Trump defense team. Also, this leaves people to speculate that maybe you don’t want to defend yourself because you have no defense.
- House Intelligence Committee Reviewing Final Impeachment Report — Public Release and Vote on Tuesday — According to this POLITICO Report:
Members of the House Intelligence Committee will begin reviewing a report Monday on the panel's investigation of President Donald Trump's efforts to press Ukraine to investigate his Democratic adversaries, a crucial step in the House's fast-moving impeachment inquiry.
Lawmakers on the panel will get a 24-hour review period, according to internal guidance sent to committee members and obtained by POLITICO. On Tuesday, the panel is expected to approve the findings — likely on a party-line vote — teeing it up for consideration by the Judiciary Committee, which is in turn expected to draft and consider articles of impeachment in the coming weeks.
The House has been moving quickly to investigate Trump since Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry on Sept. 24. Democratic leaders, including Pelosi, have refused to assign a public end date to their investigation but many lawmakers have said privately they hope to wrap up by the end of the year.
After the vote, the ball will be officially in the House Judiciary Committee’s court. Also, on Monday’s Rachel Maddow Show, Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff announced that the report will be made public on Tuesday (TODAY). He described it as long, but he did not go into detail.
December 4:
- House Intelligence Committee Releases and Votes on it’s Impeachment Report — On Tuesday [Dec. 3], the House Intelligence Committee publicly released it’s 300—page Impeachment Report. According to this CNN Report:
The report is broken down into two sections, one on Ukraine and the other on obstruction of Congress — both of which are expected to be separate articles of impeachment.
Democrats alleged that the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — in which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden — was the "dramatic crescendo" of a months-long campaign driven by the President that involved a number of senior officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
"The President engaged in this course of conduct for the benefit of his own presidential reelection, to harm the election prospects of a political rival, and to influence our nation's upcoming presidential election to his advantage," the report says. "In doing so, the President placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the US presidential election process, and endangered US national security."
Democrats charged that the White House's obstruction of their impeachment investigation was an "unprecedented campaign," detailing the numerous subpoenas that were defied over the two-month investigation.
"Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a stronger or more complete case of obstruction than that demonstrated by the President since the inquiry began," the report says.
But most significantly, the report reveals shocking new evidence:
The call logs also spur new questions, such as why Giuliani made several phone calls to the Office of Management and Budget and the White House in April, as the campaign against Yovanovitch was in full swing.
Although the call logs reveal whose phones sent/received the calls and now long they lasted, they don’t provide what was said during each call. Besides Giuliani, the call logs show Lev Parnas (Giuliani’s Associate) and Devin Nunes (the worried man in the opening photo) were involved in numerous calls with Giuliani and other co-conspirators. With regard to Nunes:
Asked about Nunes' involvement, Schiff said: "There's a lot more to learn about that and I don't want to state that that is an unequivocal fact, but the allegations are deeply concerning."
BTW, Schiff also said that Nunes was fully aware of these call logs which implicate him in the plot as he sat in there in the Hearings.
The report also reveals that Lev Parnas is still providing documents to the Committee in response to his subpoena, which Schiff said the Committee is evaluating. Parnas is pretty much begging to cooperate with the Committee and Schiff has said that the Committee is in negotiations with Parnas’ lawyers and the SDNY to possibly get Parnas to testify before the Committee.
Most significantly, Schiff made clear that the Intelligence Committee’s investigation is still ongoing and if new significant evidence is uncovered, they will issue a supplemental report to the Judiciary Committee.
As expected, on Tuesday evening the Committee voted along Party lines to send their report onto the Judiciary Committee. You can read the entire report HERE.
- Judiciary Committee Holds First Impeachment Hearing — The Judiciary Committee will hold it’s first Impeachment Hearing today which will focus on what constitutes and Impeachable offense. As noted above, Democrats will call Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law professor, Pamela Karlan, a law professor at Stanford, and Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, while Republicans will call Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who has written extensively about the Trump impeachment inquiry, as their witness. While having Constitutional Scholars go over what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote impeachment into the Constitution may seem somewhat dull and dry to some, its important to pay attention to the questions being asked to see where the Committee might be heading, as discussed in this PBS Story:
House Democrats still have to decide whether to focus exclusively on Ukraine, or go after Trump on a broader range of issues — a dilemma Democrats have struggled with since formally launching the impeachment inquiry in September.
Should Democrats decide to broaden their case against Trump, they’d likely focus on Mueller’s special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and ties to the Trump campaign. In his final report, Mueller did not draw a conclusion about whether Trump obstructed justice. But Mueller pointed out ten instances where there was evidence the president or his associates tried to interfere with the probe.
If Democrats focus on the special counsel probe Wednesday, it could signal they are leaning towards adding obstruction of justice from that investigation to the list of articles of impeachment.
So how will Nadler Handle the Disruptive Republican Clowns on his Committee? We have this from POLITICO:
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler had a blunt message as he privately addressed Democrats the day before his panel assumes a starring role in the impeachment inquiry.
“I’m not going to take any shit,” Nadler said in a closed-door prep session Tuesday morning — a rare cuss word from the lawyerly Manhattan Democrat that prompted some lawmakers to sit up in their chairs, according to multiple people in the room.
Nadler’s warning shot referred to likely GOP antics to try to undermine the first impeachment hearing in the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
December 5 & 6:
- House Judiciary Committee Wraps Up First Impeachment Hearing With 3 Scholars and A Clown for Witnesses — By now you have seen or read about Wednesday’s Hearing, so I will try not to bore you with a long write up. I will try to keep it brief. In general, with regard to process, I thought Nadler did a fair job of keeping the GOP Clown Show from disrupting the Haering, although he did appear in decisive at times. With regard to substance, the Democrats and their 3 witnesses did a good job of establishing Trump’s actions as Impeachment Level offenses, and the Republicans and their witness did a lot of shouting into the mic and embarrassing themselves. My only negative takeaway was that there wasn’t a lot in the Democrat’s questions and the Witnesses responses that suggested a broadening of the impeachment proceedings beyond Trump’s Ukraine crimes (more on that topic later down the page). But in today’s “soundbite” world, its all about the highlights. So here are mine (and maybe yours, too).
The star of the Hearing was of course Constitutional Scholar and Law Professor Pamela Karlan who put GOP Representative Doug Collins (a.k.a GOP A’Hole) in his place right off the bat. This is how it went down according to this CNN Recap:
In Collins' opening statement, he repeatedly took a dismissive tone toward the quartet of law professors sitting before him. "We got law professors here," he joked at the end of his opening statement. "What a start of a party." One of the four -- Stanford Law professor Pam Karlan -- took considerable umbrage at Collins' dismissals.
"Everything I know about our Constitution and its values and my review of the evidentiary record -- and here Mr. Collins, I would like to say to you, sir [the “Sir” being Collins], that I read transcripts of every one of the witnesses who appeared in the live hearing because I would not speak about these things without reviewing the facts, so I'm insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor I don't care about those facts," Karlan scolded the Georgia Republican.
Collins looked as though he wanted to say something, but didn't interrupt Karlan.
So add Karlan to the list of strong women witnesses (Marie Yovanovitch & Fiona Hill) who are not afraid to take on the Condescending GOP Male, “Good Old Boys” Gang. Why aren’t there more men on the Democrats side with the guts to speak TRUTH TO Republican POWER as these women have? You Go Girls!
Also, while we are discussing Karlan’s testimony there has been a lot of Hoopla over the following:
As the afternoon session began, Karlan was asked by one of the Democratic committee members to elucidate the differences between a king and a president -- as a way to more broadly explain why the founding fathers included the impeachment clause in the Constitution.
She responded this way: "The Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility. So while the President can name his son Barron, he can't make him a baron."
Later, Karlan apologized. "I want to apologize for what I said earlier about the President's son," she said. "It was wrong of me to do that. I wish the President would apologize, for the things he's done that's wrong, but I do regret having said that."
Republicans have already seized on Karlan's comment. Vice President Mike Pence called it a "new low" in the impeachment hearings.
Let’s be clear, there was absolutely nothing in Karlan’s statement that was in any way derogatory about Trump’s youngest son. It was just a harmless, and very clever I might add, illustrative analogy. No apologies should have been asked for or given.
But here’s the Democrat’s Gem of the day:
While Karlan was the shining star of the day for Democrats, it was University of North Carolina Law School professor Michael Gerhardt who offered up what I believe will be the most regularly quoted line of the day.
"If what we're talking about isn't impeachable, then nothing is impeachable," said Gerhardt, referencing what he believed to be the clear impeachable conduct of bribery and obstruction detailed in the
report released Tuesday by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.
Time to Drop The Mic!
- Pelosi Announces Full Steam Ahead With Drafting Articles of Impeachment — Since our own Mark Sumner has already posted an excellent FP Story on this newest development, I won’t waste my time doing my own write up. So here are a few excerpts courtesy of Mark:
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appeared on Capitol Hill Thursday morning to announce next steps in the impeachment of Donald J. Trump.
The brief statement makes it clear that there are not going to be further lengthy hearings in the House; instead, articles will be drawn up for a vote before the full House. It appears that the House will complete the business of impeaching Trump before the Christmas break.
You can read Pelosi’s full statement at the end of Mark’s FP Story.
- House Judiciary Committee to Hold Monday [Dec. 9] Hearing to Review Impeachment Evidence — Once again Mark Sumner has this great FP Post, so I don’t have to do my own write up. Here’s a little excerpt courtesy of Mark:
The House Judiciary Committee has announced that its next impeachment hearing will be Monday. In a statement that followed soon after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House will draft formal articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, the committee said the Monday hearing's purpose will be to "receive presentations from counsels to the [Intelligence and Judiciary Committees."
I refuse to get my hopes up, but what evidence would Judiciary Committee Attorneys be presenting since they have presumably not done much if any work on the Ukraine related investigation. Could it be findings of Trump Obstruction in the Mueller Report? Fingers crossed.
December 9:
- Judiciary Committee Holds Monday Hearing to Begin Scoping Out Impeachment Articles — On Sunday [Dec. 8] the House Judiciary Committee released a report setting the stage for its Monday [Dec. 9] Hearing. The House Judiciary Committee on Saturday released a report ahead of Monday's impeachment hearing laying out historical arguments for impeachment. The report does not accuse President Donald Trump of committing impeachable offenses, but it lays the groundwork for Monday's hearing, where evidence against Trump will be presented by the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees, as well as the possible introduction of articles of impeachment next week.
But the Big Question as to whether Obstruction of Justice charges as documented in the Mueller Report will be included in Articles of Impeachment. Those of you have read my TIC Posts know where I stand on this question (You can read my detailed arguments for a “Shotgun” rather than a “Single Bullet” approach to Articles of Impeachment in
My Special Edition TIC Post). But even if we don’t get the full list of Trump’s crimes (e.g., Emoluments Clause violations, Campaign Finance violations, etc.) which seems unlikely at this point, there is still hope Mueller Report crimes will be included.
In a nutshell, I don’t see how you can include “Obstruction of Congress” charges related to Congress’s Ukraine investigation, and NOT include “Obstruction of Justice” charges related to the Mueller investigation. Is the evidence of Mueller obstruction in the Trump/Russia case somehow less solid than the evidence of Congressional obstruction in the Ukraine case? I Think Not! Is Obstructing a criminal investigation somehow less important or less egregious than Obstructing a Congressional investigation. That just sounds crazy to me.
- Intelligence Committee Requests VP Pence to Declassify Additional Witness Evidence — As evidence that the Intelligence Committee’s Ukraine Impeachment investigation is still ongoing, on Friday [Dec. 7] Chairman Schiff has sent a letter to VP Pence in pursuit of additional evidence. According to this report from POLITICO:
In a letter to Pence, Schiff (D-Calif.) asked the vice president to declassify supplemental testimony from the aide, Jennifer Williams, about Pence’s Sept. 18 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, arguing that there is no “legitimate basis” to keep it secret.
“The Office of the Vice President’s decision to classify ‘certain portions’ of the Sept. 18 call … cannot be justified on national security or any other legitimate grounds we can discern,” Schiff wrote to Pence, requesting a response by Dec. 11.
Schiff indicated that Williams recalled the relevant information about Pence’s phone call after her closed-door deposition on Nov. 7 and wished to convey it to impeachment investigators. The letter indicates Williams submitted the supplemental filing on Nov. 26, a week after she testified publicly.
And on Saturday [Dec. 8], Pence provided a response according to this story from The Hill:
Vice President Pence rejected House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)’s request Saturday to declassify more material from an aide’s testimony in the ongoing House impeachment investigation, saying that his office is unsure what information the lawmaker is requesting.
What a load of BS!
December 10:
- Articles of Impeachment to be Announced on Dec. 10 (9:00 am) — According to POLITICO:
House Democrats plan to unveil two articles of impeachment Tuesday, charging President Donald Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, according to multiple lawmakers and aides.
The Judiciary Committee plans to vote on the articles on Thursday, setting up a vote on the House floor next week to make Trump the third president in history to be impeached. The markup will be the last major step before the House votes to formally impeach Trump.
According to the latest reports I have heard this morning, these two Articles will solely focus on Ukraine, there will be no others from Mueller’s investigation and they will not include BRIBERY which is the Ukraine crime Trump actually committed.
- Kupperman Case (With Bolton ties) Goes to Hearing TODAY — The case brought by Charles Kupperman (a Bolton Aide) goes to Hearing Today in front of a DC Circuit Court Judge. This case involves Kupperman’s (sort of) challenge to a Congressional subpoena. I say sort of because his filling is more of a question to the court as the whether he should honor the Subpoena or honor the will of his boss, President Trump, who has told him not to testify. He is basically saying he will do whatever the court directs him to do. The same goes for John Bolton who has not yet been subpoenaed, but said he will abide by the decision in the Kupperman case. Its highly likely that the Court will rule in favor of the Congressional subpoena, the only questions are when?, will Trump interject and file an Appeal?, and if Appealed, will Kupperman and Bolton wait for the outcome of said Appeal before agreeing to testify? Stay Tuned!
- Monday’s Judiciary Committee Impeachment Hearing — Since many of you probably watched some or all of the Hearing or have read the highlights, I am not going to waste a lot of keystrokes on it. However, I will direct you to this TPM Article which has a very nice chronological summary of the Hearing Highlights. The only think I’ll say is for those of you who picked the phrase “Point of Order” in my non-alcoholic drinking game, you probably had the most trips to the bathroom during the Hearing.
December 11:
- House Democrats Announce TWO Articles of Impeachment — By now, unless you live in a cave with a computer that only receives my TIC posts, you already know that the Democrats announced only TWO Articles of Impeachment, one for Abuse of Power and the other for Obstruction of Congress, both related to Ukraine-Gate. No BRIBERY, No Obstruction of Justice related to the Mueller Investigation and No Articles on Trump’s other crimes (e.g., campaign finance violations, emoluments clause violations, etc.). You can read the two Draft Articles HERE courtesy of CNN.
- Judiciary Committee to Begin Markup of Impeachment Articles TODAY — The House Judiciary Committee will begin Marking Up (i.e., voting on amendments) the two Draft Articles of Impeachment this evening. The process will also go on tomorrow (Thursday) culminating with a vote to recommend the finalized Articles to the Full House. It’s unlikely that Democrats on the committee will offer up any substantive amendments beyond some possible clerical corrections. But, I can’t rule out a surprise offering of an amendment to include the Mueller Obstruction findings by a member who feels strongly that they be included. However, I doubt it since no member wants to have any Party divisions made public at this crucial time. So the only question will be, how many silly and stupid amendments the Republicans will put forth to get shot down by the Dem. majority on the Committee, and what other “Reality Show” antics they might display. Should be fun to watch.
- DC Circuit Court Judge Hears Kupperman Case (With Bolton ties) — On December 10, a DC Circuit Court Judge Heard the case brought by Charles Kupperman (a Bolton Aide) over his filling of a question to the court as the whether he should honor the Subpoena or honor the will of his boss, President Trump, who has told him not to testify. Also, John Bolton who has not yet been subpoenaed, has said he will abide by the decision in the Kupperman case. It is important to note that the House withdrew it’s subpoena of Kupperman before yesterday’s Hearing. Here’s how it went according to this NY Times Report:
During the impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump, Mr. Kupperman’s case became a highly anticipated test of the extent of congressional oversight, and the power House Democrats have to compel senior-level White House officials to testify despite Mr. Trump’s orders not to. The decision in Mr. Kupperman’s case was expected to have implications for other witnesses House Democrats had hoped to call, such as John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser.
But as House Democrats have raced ahead, unveiling articles of impeachment on Tuesday, they lost interest in litigating Mr. Kupperman’s case and asked the judge to dismiss it, leaving open the question of what relevance to the proceedings any decision may now have, or whether there is even still a dispute to settle.
Nearly two weeks after the subpoena was issued, House Democrats announced it had been withdrawn, and House lawyers requested that Mr. Kupperman’s lawsuit be dismissed in the interest of avoiding delays in the impeachment process. Instead, Democrats have made the White House’s blocking of witnesses part of an article of impeachment, though Mr. Kupperman was not named among the nine current and former White House officials described in the document as having defied subpoenas at the president’s behest.
Yet Charles J. Cooper, a lawyer representing Mr. Kupperman, argued that Mr. Kupperman remained in jeopardy of being subpoenaed again or held in contempt later if the case was not resolved.
Judge Richard J. Leon, who did not rule on Tuesday but indicated that he wanted to do so quickly, seemed sympathetic to House lawyers’ assurances that the Democratic leadership had no interest in pursuing Mr. Kupperman’s testimony.
But Mr. Cooper, who also represents Mr. Bolton, pointed to reports from the House Intelligence Committee that seemed to at least leave open the possibility. In particular, he cited a report released last week that does mention Mr. Kupperman by name, and stated that “there remain unanswered questions, and our investigation must continue, even as we transmit our report to the Judiciary Committee.”
The House actions to have this case dismissed seem both troubling and bizarre to me. Troubling because Kupperman (and Bolton too) seem very willing to testify if the Judge upholds the withdrawn subpoena of Kupperman, and a win on this lawsuit by the House Democrats seems likely. Why don’t the House Democrats want to get the Judge to rule in this case, since it would likely be in their favor. Now I understand the desire by House Dems. not to delay the impeachment process, but I find it bizarre because even if Trump would interject and appeal the case, you would least have the Judge’s ruling to support calling Kupperman and/or Bolton as witnesses in the Impeachment Trial, witnesses who likely have new and more damaging evidence against Trump. Also, what happens down the road when the stuff Kupperman and Bolton know eventually comes out. Are we going to look back and say, Gee, if we only got their testimony during the impeachment, things might have turned out differently. I am baffled by the House Dems. strategy here?
December 12:
- Judiciary Committee Markup of Impeachment Articles — First let me recap yesterday’s evening session. Although they didn’t get to the amendment process, they did get through the opening statements of all 41 members of the Committee. Chairman Nadler and the other Democrats did a good job of laying out the case for impeachment in a calm, serious and somewhat somber manner. The GOP clown show of course used their speech time to rail against Democrats in a vane attempt to portray this as a WITCH HUNT, while getting caught by C-Span cameras yucking it up on a number of occasions while Democrats were speaking. So for me the LOWLIGHT of yesterday’s Hearing occurred at about 48.4 minutes into this C-Span LIVE Stream where Crazy Louie Gohmert tried to break the Whistleblower Law by somewhat subliminally sneaking the name of the alleged Whistleblower into his speech. You can read about it in this annieli diary. But the HIGHLIGHT for me came at about 3 hours & 9 minutes into this C-Span LIVE Stream where Freshman Georgia Representative Lucy McBath gives a heartfelt speech telling her story of how her son was innocent gun downed by a white motorist who didn’t like him and his friends playing their music loud. She used her sad story to impress upon us all the solum importance of these proceedings, and unlike all the off mic conversations and GOP giggling going on during the other speeches, there was complete silence in the room as all where simply listening to McBath pour her broken heart out in her speech. I strongly urge you to watch it if you haven’t already. It totally illustrates the seriousness of these proceedings.
- Schiff Sends VP Aide’s Confidential Letter to Judiciary Committee — House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has submitted to the Judiciary Committee a classified letter from an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, according to multiple reports on Wednesday. Jennifer Williams, an adviser to Pence on Russia, filed additional evidence after her testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last month, Schiff said in a note attached to the aide’s written submission. Schiff said Pence’s office failed to declassify the document ahead of the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment markup, which began at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday.
The letter reportedly contains additional information regarding a September 18 phone call between Vice President Mike Pence and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. We will have to wait and see how this plays out in the Committee markup, if it does at all. But it must be important new evidence for Schiff to rush it over to the Judiciary Committee. However, without a long court battle to get it declassified which there is not time for, I don’t see how the public will know what it contains before the House impeachment vote.
December 16:
- Judiciary Committee Passes Out Articles of Impeachment — On Friday (the 13th of December) morning the House Judiciary Committee somewhat unceremoniously passed two (2) Articles of Impeachment, Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress. The next procedural step will be for the House Rules Committee meet on Tuesday, December 17 (TODAY) to set the rules for debate and voting on the Articles on the House Floor.
- Judiciary Committee Submits Impeachment Report to the Full House — On Monday (Dec. 16) the House Judiciary Committee released its Impeachment Report providing supportive details on the Articles of Impeachment that they passed on Friday. The 658-page report explains the decision to charge Trump with two articles of impeachment, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. It also includes the committee reports previously issued from the House Intelligence Committee laying out the evidence against the President and the Judiciary Committee explaining the constitutional grounds for impeachment, as well as Republican views that contest the inquiry and argue the President did not commit impeachable offenses.
However, in a pleasant surprise the report also says. "President Trump's abuse of power encompassed both the constitutional offense of 'Bribery' and multiple federal crimes. He has betrayed the national interest, the people of this Nation, and should not be permitted to be above the law. It is therefore all the more vital that he be removed from office."
It’s nice to see BRIBERY ( a Constitutional Crime) and other crimes mentioned in the Impeachment Report even if they are not spelled out in the Articles of Impeachment. Read the entire Impeachment Report
HERE.
- Schumer Announces Documents & Witness List Needed for a Fair Senate Trial — On Monday (Dec. 16) Senator Charles (Chuck) Schumer released a letter he sent to #MoscowMitch. The letter details documentary evidence from the White House and a list of Four Current/Former White House Staff members to be witnesses at a Senate trial. In the letter, Mr. Schumer proposed a trial beginning Jan. 7 that would give each side a fixed amount of time to present its case, and called for four top White House officials who have not previously testified — including Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump’s acting chief of staff, and John R. Bolton, the president’s former national security adviser — to appear as witnesses. Mr. Schumer also called for the Senate to subpoena documents that could shed light on the events at the heart of the charges against Mr. Trump: his campaign to enlist Ukraine to investigate his political rivals. And he set forth a specific timetable for each side to present impeachment its case, modeled on the one used when President Bill Clinton was tried in 1999. Mr. Clinton’s trial lasted about five weeks.
You can read Schumer’s entire letter HERE. In an afternoon Press Conference on this letter, Schumer also made known that McConnell had not yet approached him to discuss a Bipartisan set of rules for the Senate Impeachment Trial but reached out publicly to #MoscowMitch to begin such discussions. I have previously covered the Senate Impeachment Trial Rules and their importance in this previous TIC, and I plan on providing more information on such Rules in the coming weeks. But I would like to correct a small error in my previous post. According to this FP Post by Laura Clawson, the VP does not get to cast a tie breaking vote during Senate Impeachment Trial proceedings since the Constitution requires the Chief Judge to preside over the Senate during such a trial and not the VP. This could prove interesting since McConnell will need 51 votes from his GOP Senators to get his way on the way the Senate trial is run.
- One Dem. House Moderate Leaves While Others Fall In Line — First, the Despicable Coward who is leaving the Democrat Party before the impeachment vote to try to save his own political hide is of course New Jersey Representative Jeff Van Drew. Although his desertion is indeed cowardly, at least he will be casting his “no” votes on the Articles of Impeachment as a Republican and not as a Democrat. But the good news is a number of the new Freshman Moderate House Democrats have announced that they will vote “yes” on Articles of Impeachment. Most notably among these is Freshman Representative Elissa Slotkin who is placing her own Congressional Career in jeopardy in her 2016 majority Trump District. In doing so she did not only make the announcement in an OpEd, she faced her own constituents in a crowded Town Hall Meeting to explain her decision to support impeachment. Watch the beginning of this CNN Clip where Rep. Slotkin takes on a handful of PAID Republican Protesters in the back of the room at gets a standing ovation from the vast majority of her constituents in the room. A definite Profile in Courage that I hope other Democrats will watch and learn from.
December 17:
- Full House Vote on Trump Articles of Impeachment — Well it’s Arrived! IMPEACHMENT DAY! The day we all was coming since the day Trump took office. Not because we (Democrats) were out to get Trump from Day One, as Republicans want the public to believe. But because from Day One we all knew that the Dotard was bound to do something to get him impeached. I am just amazed it took this long. At this point, it looks like almost all Democrats will fall in line to vote for both articles of impeachment, with two exceptions so far. One is Jared Golden (ME-2) who has announced he will split the baby and vote “yes” on Abuse of Power, but “no” on Obstruction of Congress”. Why he thinks voting no on one of the Articles will help him politically in his mainly rural District is anybody’s guess. The other is possibly New Jersey’s Jeff Van Drew. I say possibly, because its still unclear whether he will go over to the Dark Side (i.e, leave the Dem. Party and become a Republican) before the vote. BTW, he may find himself to be a man without a Party. Turns out the Republicans don’t want him either, LoL! On the Republican side there are no signs any will vote “yes”, unless you count Justin Amash who left the Republican Party a while back to become an independent.
- House Rules Committee Approves Rules for Full House Impeachment Debate & Vote — On Tuesday, the House Rules Committee met to set the rules for debating and voting on Articles of Impeachment. For those who didn’t watch it, it was drier than previous Committee sessions on impeachment. It boiled down to an all day session with Rep. Jamie Raskin (Judiciary Committee Democrat) outlining the facts in the two impeachment articles for the Rules Committee and Rep. Doug Collins (Judiciary Committee Republican) whining about the whole unfair process and telling folks this is all a big partisan Witch Hunt. Now onto the rules that were passed.
The House Rules Committee on Tuesday approved six hours of debate on the House floor Wednesday on the resolution to impeach President Donald Trump. The Rules panel announced the parameters of the impeachment debate after voting to approve the rule on the impeachment articles along party lines. The six hours of floor time will be divided equally by Democrats and Republicans and will be led by the House Judiciary Committee leaders. The House will also have one hour of debate before taking the procedural vote to approve the rule governing the debate.
Also, the rules do not allow introduction of any amendments from the House floor. You can read the Full set of Rules
HERE.
- Rumors Circulating Over Whether Pelosi Will Withhold Sending Articles to the Senate — There are rumors circulating, and I must emphasize that they are only rumors so far, that Pelosi could withhold the Articles of Impeachment from the Senate after passage today, in a bid to help Chuck Schumer get the rules, documents and witnesses he has requested for a Senate trial. According to this BulWark Story:
It is beginning to dawn on Democrats that the moment they send articles of impeachment for Donald Trump to the Senate, they will have lost all of their leverage.
So they shouldn’t do it.
At least not yet, especially in light of the recent comments by Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham.
McConnell has said that he intends to work in “total coordination” with the White House and that “I’m going to take my cues from the president’s lawyers.” He adds: “There’s no chance the president will be removed from office.”
Graham is, if you can believe it, even less subtle. “I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind,” he said over the weekend at Doha Forum in Qatar. “I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here . . . I will do everything I can to make it die quickly.”
It is impossible for McConnell and Graham to square those public comments with the oath that senators are required to take at the opening of the Senate’s impeachment trial: “I solemnly swear … that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God.”
In effect, the majority leader of the Senate and a top Republican have literally said that they intend to violate their oath as judges/jurors.
House Democrats should treat these comments as game changers.
Bill Kristol and Jeffrey Tulis make the case that a small group of senators could “form a constitutional caucus,” that could “determine what the outlines of a full and fair trial would look like.”
But the House should put maximum pressure on the Senate to fulfill its oath, especially the vulnerable senators who might hold the balance of power.
The key here is that there is no requirement that the House immediately send the articles of impeachment to the Senate. This is Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s final card to play.
Yes, Pelosi has the power to do this since as Speaker she must sign any House passed legislation, in this case the Articles of Impeachment, before they can be sent to the Senate. No, her office has not commented on this yet, nor has any other Dem. in Congress. Yes, it’s a good idea. Since the Senate is not going to start a trial until the first week in january anyway, telling them now that you are withholding the Articles to get a FAIR set of trial rules doesn’t delay anything. It only gets tricky in January since #MoscowMitch could say “Fine, don’t send them over, see if I care.” We’ll see shortly.
On December 18:
- Full House Vote on Trump Articles of Impeachment — Well it’s Arrived! IMPEACHMENT DAY! At this point, it looks like almost all Democrats will fall in line to vote for both articles of impeachment, with two exceptions so far. One is Jared Golden (ME-2) who has announced he will split the baby and vote “yes” on Abuse of Power, but “no” on Obstruction of Congress”. The other is possibly New Jersey’s Jeff Van Drew. I say possibly, because its still unclear whether he will go over to the Dark Side (i.e, leave the Dem. Party and become a Republican) before the vote.
- House Rules Committee Approves Rules for Full House Impeachment Debate & Vote — On Tuesday, the House Rules Committee met to set the rules for debating and voting on Articles of Impeachment. For those who didn’t watch it, it was drier than previous Committee sessions on impeachment. It boiled down to an all day session with Rep. Jamie Raskin (Judiciary Committee Democrat) outlining the facts in the two impeachment articles for the Rules Committee and Rep. Doug Collins (Judiciary Committee Republican) whining about the whole unfair process and telling folks this is all a big partisan Witch Hunt. The House Rules Committee approved rules calling for after six hours of debate on the House floor Wednesday on the resolution to impeach President Donald Trump. You can read the Full set of Rules HERE.
- Rumors Circulating Over Whether Pelosi Will Withhold Sending Articles to the Senate — There are rumors circulating, and I must emphasize that they are only rumors so far, that Pelosi could withhold the Articles of Impeachment from the Senate after passage today, in a bid to help Chuck Schumer get the rules, documents and witnesses he has requested for a Senate trial.
On December 19:
- House Debates, Votes & IMPEACHES TRUMP — Well he’s IMPEACHED! Amen! But before we get to the vote let’s recap the debate. My favorite speeches were Nancy Pelosi’s speech at the beginning and Steny Hoyer’s speech at the end. I thought Pelosi did a great job at setting the tone for the debate and Hoyer did a great summary of Trump’s crimes at the end. But in between, in the spirit of “Bill in Portland” here are my Cheers and Jeers. I will start with the Jeers.
Jeers:
1. GOP Rep. #1 Speech — I don’t know who this was but he started off by saying that Putin messed with our 2016 election to divide us and he must be happy now. A little surprising coming from a Republican. Then he said it was the Democrats (not Trump) who are doing our enemy Putin’s bidding and giving him just what he wants. WTF! Total Alternate Reality!
2. GOP Rep. #2 Speech — In trying to claim that Trump was being subjected to an unfair process, this GOP crazy “went there”. Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk (Ga.) has the money quote:
“When Jesus was falsely accused of treason, Pontius Pilate gave Jesus the opportunity to face his accusers,” Loudermilk said on the House floor. “During that sham trial, Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than the Democrats have afforded this president in this process.”
He compared the Democrats to being worse than Romans of Biblical times and equated Trump to Jesus as being equally wrongly accused and crucified. WoW!
Cheers:
1. Dem. Rep #1 Speech — The Dem. Chairman of the Rules Committee asked the question of Republicans that needs to be asked and asked often. He asked them to search their souls and honestly ask themselves how they would vote today if the President accused of these offenses was Clinton, Obama or any future Dem. President. GOP Hypocrisy has no bounds and it needs to be said over and over again.
2. Dem. Rep #2 Speech — Dem. Rep. Johnson from Louisiana issued this quote which pertains to all the Republicans and a very small number of Democrats, and it’s my top CHEER of the day “Politicians cast votes with concern for the next election. Statesmen (and women) cast votes with concern for the next generation.” Amen!
As far as how the voting went, it went pretty much as expected down Party lines with a couple of minor surprises. Golden (D-Me) decided to split the baby and for some reason voted “yes” on Article I, but “no” on Article II. Politically baffling but maybe he actually voted his conscious. Tulsi Gabbard voted “Present” on both Articles. What’s that all about? She is just a strange bird if you ask me.
- Pelosi May Withhold Impeachment Articles in Order to Help Schumer Get FAIR Trial Rules in Senate — This was rumored yesterday, but now is confirmed as being considered by Pelosi and Dem. Leaders in the after impeachment press conference. Because Sen. Mitch McConnell and his allies have been blunt in their public announcements that they will dispense with a Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump "quickly" and without testimony, there have been increasing calls for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to thwart Republican plans to "fix" Trump's impeachment by delaying the official delivery of the House-approved Articles of Impeachment, putting off that trial while the House continues to gather the evidence that Sen. Moscow has already promised his Senate wouldn't be going after. Last night during the Press Conference Pelosi did not confirm or deny that this was being considered. But she did say she warranted to see what the Senate Rules will be before she names her House Managers and sends the Articles to the Senate. She also refused to give any time frame.
January 3-6:
- Pelosi/McConnell Get Into A Mexican Standoff (or Game of Chicken, whichever you prefer) - Pelosi Places the Impeachment Articles on Hold and McConnell Says He Doesn’t Care. Pelosi needs to appoint the House Managers before the Articles of Impeachment can be transmitted to the Senate for trial, since it is the House Managers whose duty it is to actual bring the articles to the Senate. Pelosi has said she wants to see the Senate Rules McConnell intends to use for the trial before she names the House Managers because she says the rules will have a bearing on her choice of House managers. Behind this standoff is McConnell’s desire to have a quick, sham trial, as he has openly admitted. Remember McConnell (one of the 100 Jurors) went on camera and announced that he is fully coordinating the framework of the Senate Trial with the President (the Defendant) and that he is not an impartial juror in this case, despite the general oath he has taken and the specific oath he will take before the trial vowing to be an impartial juror. On the other hand, we have Pelosi’s & Schumer’s desire for a FAIR trial where new documents can be entered into evidence and new witnesses can be called, as specifically laid out in a letter from Schumer to McConnell on December 16. All of this is specifically about the Senate Rules that will be used to conduct the trial and whether those rules will or will not allow new witnesses and documentary evidence.
- Senate Trial Rules Standoff Continues — McConnell and Schumer met just before the Holiday Break to discuss drafting a set of Senate Impeachment Trial Rules. But McConnell subsequently declared the talks at an impasse and left town for the Holidays. Since then nothing much has happened, and neither side has shown any signs of giving in or compromising. Polling on this matter which was taken during the Holidays shows that the vast majority of Americans view this as a Judicial Trial, with 71% favoring a FAIR trial with witnesses and documentary evidence, including 64% 0f Republicans. So it seems Pelosi/Schumer have the political advantage at present, and no reason to give in to McConnell. McConnell on the other hand is trying to play this with an “I don’t give a sh*t” attitude, announcing that he doesn’t care if Pelosi ever sends over the Articles to the Senate, because he doesn’t want a trial anyway. But all the while #MoscowMitch holds out for a sham trial, more and more damaging evidence of Trump’s guilt keeps pouring out (as I will discuss below), making it harder and harder for McConnell to ignore. In order to run his sham trial, he needs a set of rules to keep out all new evidence not already contained in the Articles when they were drafted, even evidence that has since become public. He wants GOP Senators to all close their eyes and ears to this new public evidence and vote for its exclusion from the Senate trial. Anyway, here’s what I think are the options to resolve the standoff:
- 1. Pelosi/Schumer Allow McConnell to Pass Rules Excluding New Evidence — Yes, this seems unlikely if not impossible. But Pelosi & Schumer could decide that allowing McConnell and the other GOP Senators hold their sham trial that 71% of Americans view as unfair may pay significant political benefits in November in terms of retaking the Senate. Still, it would piss off the Dem. base and it’s a big gamble that I don’t see them taking.
- 2. McConnell Backs New Senate Rules Specifying Some or All New of the Witnesses and Documentary Evidence Demanded By Schumer — Yes this is also unlikely because it would amount to an almost total cave on McConnell’s part and an abandonment of Trump. Still, he could decide to cut his losses and get the whole thing over with, knowing that he still has enough GOP votes to acquit Trump regardless of any new evidence. But of course, highly unlikely.
- 3. Hold the Trial Using the 26 Standing (existing) Senate Impeachment Rules — There are 26 Standing Senate Rules governing impeachment trails in the Senate which you can READ HERE courtesy of WaPo. Now I have not yet read these rules thoroughly, nor do I know if they are the same rules as used during the Clinton Impeachment, although I think they are. I will delve into them deeper in a later TIC post. But suffice it to say they allow for a motion of immediate dismissal at the opening of the trial (51 votes needed to dismiss) and they do not contain any pre-approved witness list or documentary evidence. These are pluses for McConnell who has now come out in favor of moving forward with these standing rules. On the other hand they do allow for the introduction of new documentary evidence and the calling of new witnesses on a case-by-case basis. This is a plus for Pelosi/Schumer. So I see it as a possible compromise.
- Senate Trial Rules Resolution — So how does this get resolved? Well, of course I have no crystal ball, but I do know it’s less likely to be resolved by McConnell, Pelosi and Schumer than it is to be resolved by three (3) GOP Senators. My guess is that Pelosi/Schumer would accept the Senate’s Standing Rules for Impeachment Trials (Option #3 above), if they know in advance that at least 3 GOP Senators would vote to allow some or all of the new witnesses and documentary evidence they want to enter into the trial. This would allow them to have Justice Roberts rule on new witnesses and documents on a case-by-case basis. Assuming that he would rule to allow some/all of the new witness/documents, it would take 51 Senators to overrule the Judge and exclude each new witness and documentary evidence under the present Senate Rules. That means if only three (3) GOP Senators vote with the Democrats to sustain the Judge’s ruling (which gives a 50/50 tie with the Chief Judge being the tie breaker) it would allow a particular witness/document into the Senate trial. Documents already in the hands of the House Managers would then come into the trial. However, I am not sure whether such a ruling would include Senate subpoenas for other documents (documents not in the House’s hands) or witnesses or whether that would be a separate vote, or what would happen if a person or persons defy such a subpoena? But I’m getting ahead of things. Right now, I suspect Schumer is trying to sway a small group of GOP Senators behind the scenes to support his document/witness list, as I am sure McConnell is trying to sway them to oppose Schumer’s list. If Schumer can win this battle over 3 or 4 GOP Senators, the trial will likely go forward, despite McConnell’s desire for a short, sham trial. If Schumer cannot win over 3 or 4 GOP Senators, then…, who knows.
- Kupperman (Bolton) “Subpoena” Case Dismissed — On December 30, DC Circuit Court Judge Richard Leon dismissed the subpoena case brought by Bolton Aide Charles Kupperman, as requested by House Committee lawyers. However, I do not see this as a win for our side. Frankly I do not understand the Democrats strategy here. Here’s the timeline as I understand it:
- House Democrats asked (in a letter) both Kupperman and Bolton to testify in depositions before the House Intelligence Committee, both were no shows.
- Then House Democrats subpoena Kupperman, who brings a Federal lawsuit. But his lawsuit is not challenging the subpoena per say, it is simply asking the Court to decide whether he should honor the subpoena and testify or honor the conflicting order from his then boss, President Trump, to defy the subpoena and not testify.
- After his Aide’s lawsuit, Bolton announces that if subpoenaed he would abide by the decision in the Kupperman case, meaning that he would testify (if subpoenaed) if the Judge in the Kupperman case ruled that Kupperman must testify. Remember, Bolton’s lawyer announced that Bolton had additional Trump damaging evidence that he would gladly provide if given the CYA protection of a Court ruling.
- Then, for some reason that is not at all clear to me, the House Democrats withdraw their subpoena of Kupperman and argue before the Court that they have no intention of ever reissuing it, WTF!
- This leads to Judge’s Dismissal of the case on Monday, which was entirely based on the fact that Kupperman’s question is now moot due to the House’s subpoena withdrawal.
Now Senate Democrats, with the support of House Democrats, are arguing that Bolton must be subpoenaed to testify in a Senate trial. So why did the House pull the Kupperman subpoena and argue to have the case dismissed knowing that a win in the Kupperman case would likely give them testimony from Bolton too, based on his lawyer’s past statements? Did they (House Democrats) think they would lose? Not likely since all legal experts said that Trump’s claim of “Absolute Immunity” would be laughed out of Court. It makes no sense (to me anyway).
A Dismissal is not a WIN, it’s a No Decision. Meaning that if Bolton does get subpoenaed, he could file a lawsuit identical to Kupperman’s and start the whole Court proceeding from scratch. If the Dems. would have just kept Kupperman under subpoena they would have likely won the case and netted Bolton too. I don’t get the strategy, but then I never learned how to play 3-dimensional chess like Pelosi.
- Unredacted E-mails Further Incriminating Trump Are Made Public — On January 2, Public Watchdog Just Security publicized that they had in their possession, a series of unredacted internal administration E-mails that completely lay to rest any speculation about whether it was Trump who ordered the hold on Ukrainian Aid. I am not sure how the watchdog group, Just Security was able to do it, but they have apparently viewed unredacted copies of these emails, which begin in June and end in early October. They paint a picture of a frustrated DoD staff trying to get Mulaney’s OMB to release the aid. But here’s the kicker:
“Clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold.”
This is what Michael Duffey, associate director of national security programs at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), told Elaine McCusker, the acting Pentagon comptroller, in an Aug. 30 email, which has only been made available in redacted form until now. It is one of many documents the Trump administration is trying to keep from the public, despite congressional oversight efforts and court orders in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation.
Schumer is already using these E-mails to bolster his argument for witnesses and documents such as these to be allowed in the Senate Trial.
- Judge Rules Lev Parnas (Giuliani Thug #1) Can Cooperate With Congress — On January 3, according to this TPM Report, “A federal judge allowed Giuliani associate Lev Parnas to hand over the contents of an iPhone and other documents to the House Intelligence Committee. Manhattan federal district judge Paul Oetken granted an unopposed request from Parnas to share the contents of the iPhone that Parnas was carrying at the time of his October 2019 arrest in a jetway at Dulles Airport on campaign finances charges. Parnas will also be allowed to share documents that the FBI seized from his home.” Very likely more Trump damaging evidence that McConnell does not want Senators to hear during Trump’s Senate Trial.
January 7:
- Senator Graham May Propose Senate Rules Change to Start Trial — Lindsey Graham is now threatening to change the Senate Rules to allow the Senate to start the trial now even without receiving the Articles of Impeachment from the House. In an effort to put pressure on Pelosi, Graham says he will make the motion at the end of this week if Pelosi does not send over the Articles. Whether this is a bluff or he carries out his threat remains to be seen, as well as if he can get 51 votes for it (which is doubtful) or if it’s even constitutional.
- Bolton Agrees to Testify in Senate Trial if Subpoenaed — Former national security adviser John Bolton said Monday he would testify if subpoenaed as part of the Senate’s impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Bolton, who was asked to testify as part of the House's impeachment inquiry but refused to appear for a deposition, said in a statement he wants to meet his “obligations” both as a citizen and as a former top presidential adviser.
“Since my testimony is once again at issue, I have had to resolve the serious competing issues as best I could, based on careful consideration and study,” Bolton wrote. “I have concluded that, if the Senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, I am prepared to testify.”
Bolton is a person who is careful with his words, especially under such high profile proceedings. So his use of the word “testify” means he is willing to truthfully answer any and all questions. Now I have heard some pundits suggest that Chairman Adam Schiff should now immediately subpoena Bolton to testify in front the House Intelligence Committee instead of waiting for things to play out on the Senate side. But we shouldn’t get too far in front of our skis on this. Bolton, who again chooses his words carefully, said he is willing to testify before the “Senate”, not before the “Congress”. Now I’m not saying that Bolton would fight a “House” subpoena, but he might. His use of the word “Senate” may suggest that he is comfortable to testify in front of the Senate controlled by his own Party, but not in front of a Democratically controlled House Committee. House Democrats should not assume he will now be willing to testify in the House, and they at least should find out from Bolton before issuing any House subpoena.
- Pelosi’s Hold On Impeachment Articles Continues — The latest word on the standoff from Pelosi is that nothing has changed in her position to get the GOP Senate to spell out the rules with new documents and witnesses before she hands over to them the Articles of Impeachment. Why should she when by all measures she is winning. As the delay continues, the investigation is continuing, and that is allowing more information to surface in various ways. First, there is new reporting on how Trump operatives engineered a freeze on military aid to Ukraine last summer as a maneuver to pressure that country’s government to investigate the son of former vice president and Trump rival Joe Biden, and on Pentagon concerns that the freeze was illegal. Then on Monday, former National Security Adviser John Bolton said for the first time that he would testify in a Senate trial if subpoenaed. Also, Lev Parnas got permission from the Court to pass on incriminating phone and E-mail records to Congress. All of this makes it harder for the GOP Senate to deny new witnesses and documentary evidence in a Senate Trial. And if they do, it will greatly contribute to the accurate perception that they are conducting a SHAM trial (i.e., closing their eyes, putting their hands over their ears and loudly going “LaLaLaLaLa...” until it’s over).
January 8:
- McConnell Says He Has The Votes To Start Senate Trial and Decide On Evidence/Witnesses Later — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that he has the votes to set the ground rules of the impeachment trial for President Donald Trump -- without Democrats' support. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah have said they back the leader's approach. Now while some in the media will argue that this would be a loss for Pelosi/Schumer in their standoff to get a “FAIR” trial with new documentary evidence and witnesses, it is nothing of the tsort. Neither is it a win for Pelosi/Schumer, although one can argue that it did allow time for more damaging evidence to become public. It would simply be a punt on McConnell’s part, to push the questions of new documentary evidence and witnesses down the road to be dealt with during, rather than before the Senate trial. Although McConnell has not yet put forth a specific set of rules for the trial, he has indicated that they would be similar to those used in the Clinton Impeachment trial, which would presumably allow for a Motion to Dismiss the case after each side (House Managers/Prosecutors and Trump’s Defense Team) makes their opening arguments, and if not dismissed, allow for the introduction of new documentary evidence and the calling of witnesses on likely a case-by-case basis.
- Is The Pelosi/Schumer vs. McConnell Standoff Nearing An End? — It would seem so based on the McConnell announcement above saying he has the votes to move forward with a trial without any upfront agreement on documentary evidence and witnesses (with the confirmation by the GOP Senators holding the swing votes). Also, it seems Schumer is throwing in the towel and prepared to let the trial begin without any new evidence or witness guarantees. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he will force votes on witnesses at the beginning of the impeachment trial, even as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has enough votes to delay the decision. Schumer also added: "If every Republican senator votes for a rigged trial that hides the truth, the American people will see that the Republican Senate is part of a large and awful cover-up." Exactly when Pelosi/Schumer will end the present standoff by Pelosi naming House Managers and sending the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate is yet unknown. She could do it today, or she could wait a bit longer for a number of balls currently in the air to drop (Bolton’s level of cooperation, Mueller Grand Jury Material and McGahn Court Cases, etc.).
- Will Adam Schiff Subpoena Bolton? — It’s not been ruled out. In response to a question from NBC News Kasie Hunt Schiff said: "I'm not foreclosing anything we continue to do investigative work in the House," he said. "At the same time, what makes the most sense given that we are on the precipice of the trial in the Senate is to have him come and testify before the Senate. The Senate will make the decision about whether the president should be convicted or removed from office, so why get it secondhand?" He added, "it makes the most sense for him to come before the Senate and these other witnesses as well so that is what we are pushing for but I am foreclosing nothing in terms of the House." I doubt if Schiff will simply let this whole process play out without someone subpoenaing Bolton. But he will first have to confirm through Bolton’s lawyers whether he (Bolton) would comply with a House subpoena since his statement was that he would comply with a Senate subpoena. If not, Schiff would be forced to subpoena Bolton and basically start the Kupperman case all over again, the one the House successfully (and stupidly in my opinion) got dismissed, and now there is no time for. If Bolton indicates he would honor a House subpoena, than Schiff will have to gauge what the swing GOP Senators might do during the Senate trial. If he feels confident that there are enough GOP Senate votes to get Bolton on the witness stand in the Senate, he probably won’t subpoena Bolton. But if he feels getting Bolton on the witness stand in the Senate is “iffy” at best, my guess is he will subpoena Bolton to testify before the House Intelligence Committee and then try to get that testimony admitted into the Senate trial.
January 9:
- Pelosi Not Budging on Holding Onto Impeachment Articles — Yesterday when cornered by a reporter in a hallway scurrying between meetings, Nancy Pelosi stopped and once again made her position quite clear on when she will send the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate. “I said when we saw what the arena is that we would be sending them was in, then we would send over the articles. We haven’t seen that...when we see the arena in which this will happen we will then be prepared to send articles. Pelosi then went on to birade the reporter by asking her how many times does she have to answer the same question and give the same answer. Although yesterday’s answer is a little different. Notice she did not say anything about having to have a “fair” trial or a trial with documentary evidence and witnesses as mentioned in previous statements. She simply said she would send the Articles over when she sees the trial arena, which I would guess means when she sees what specific set of Senate Rules for the trial McConnell plans to introduce. That’s important, because unlike the Orange Turd in the White House, Nancy Pelosi always chooses her words carefully. She simply wants Mitch to show his cards. I also think there is a lot more going on behind the scenes, in terms of Bolton, the new damaging evidence that just keeps pouring out with each passing day and discussions with certain GOP Senators to see if there are at least 3 who will vote for new documents to be put into evidence and witnesses to be subpoenaed, especially Bolton. I suspect Pelosi is waiting to get some of these things resolved.
- Pelosi Getting Under McConnell’s Skin — As pointed out in DK Post by Kerry Eleveld, remember when McConnell got on the Senate Floor and basically said he could give two sh*ts when Pelosi sends over the Articles of Impeachment because he could care less if there ever was a Senate trial? Well as more damning evidence comes out with each passing day, #MoscowMitch seems to be changing his tune. “The House Democrats’ turn is over," McConnell said, complaining about Pelosi’s refusal to transmit Trump’s impeachment articles to the upper chamber. "The Senate has made its decision. There will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure." Sounds like he is in a hurry for a trial now. What happened Mitch? Did your Sith Master in the White House tell you to get the ball rolling because he is in a hurry for his acquittal? I can’t help but feel a little sweet revenge for McConnell’s delay and squashing of Obama’s Merrick Garland nomination.
- Public Watchdog FOIAs Yield More Documentary Evidence — There was a relatively small document dump from the State Department yesterday as the result of a Court Order with respect to a FOIA request by the Watchdog Group American Oversight. For the most part the released documents are letters regarding Ukraine from the Congress to Pompeo which they released in full and Ukraine internal E-mails which of course are heavily redacted. You can download them from HERE. We will have to see if American Oversight will challenge the redactions. There is another dump due on Friday of this week.
January 10:
- Pelosi Plays Great Sounding Broken Record on Impeachment Articles — Pelosi went to the microphones on Wednesday and repeated, for nearly the 99th time, the same response she has given in the past to the question of when she will send the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate. That response being when “we see the arena [(i.e., the Senate Trial Rules)] in which this will happen we will then be prepared to send articles.” She also said that they will be sent when she is ready, but that that would be “soon.” She also consolidated Democrat support for her withholding of the Articles as some impatient Democrats who eluded they would like to see the Articles now brought to the Senate in the morning were solidly behind the Speaker in afternoon statements.
- McConnell Makes Laughable Threat To Get Articles From Pelosi — On Wednesday on the Senate Floor #MoscowMitch “threatened” Pelosi by saying (paraphrasing here) “If she doesn’t send over the Articles by week’s end, the Senate will to go back to doing the work of the people.” LoL, I feel threatened, don’t you? This is laughable on so many fronts. For one, when has McConnell’s Senate ever been doing the “people’s work”? If you exclude voting on Trump nominations, which are arguably not the “people’s work” they have done almost nothing since 2018 while the House has passed hundreds of Bills that lay in a pile on McConnell’s desk. Another thing, what does he mean by “they will get back to” regular business in the Senate. They have been voting on nominations since the year began. So what exactly are they getting back to? That Mitch, what a funny guy!
January 13:
- Pelosi Ending Hold on Articles This Week — This is old news for you folks at this point since Pelosi announced her plans to send the Articles on Saturday, so I won’t go into the details here. I just want to say a few things with regard to the “Why Now?” and on some in the medias notion that she is waving the White Flag. Let’s look at what her delay has definitely accomplished and the one very important thing it now seems to have accomplished:
- Substantial quantities of documentary evidence damaging to Trump has come to light over the delay period via court decisions on FOIA requests by outside groups;
- Internal unredacted memos/E-mails have come out that show definitively that Trump ordered the illegal withholding of military aid to Ukraine;
- Lev Parnas has come forward begging to spill his guts to Congress and has succeeded in getting a court to agree to allow him to turn over incriminating documentary evidence (e.g., recorded phone conversations, texts, e-mails, etc.) he has to Congress; and most importantly;
- It seems Pelosi/Schumer now have at least Four (4) GOP Senators who are willing to vote AGAINST an immediate Dismissal of Trump’s trial and FOR the calling of witnesses.
On that last point, although the media has not made the connection, it has not been lost on me that on the same day Pelosi made her announcement that she was ending her holding of the Articles, rumors started circulating that a small group of GOP Senators were working behind the scenes to prevent an early dismissal and allow witnesses / new documents into the trial (e.g., Romney, Collins, ??, ??). That’s not a coincidence!
- The Four (4) (or more) GOP Horsemen(women) of Trump’s Apocalypse — Evidence is mounting that there are at least four (4) GOP Senators that will break from Trump/McConnell to vote against an immediate dismissal and for documents/witnesses. First, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told reporters on Monday that the Senate Republican caucus doesn't have the votes to dismiss the articles of impeachment against President Trump, who endorsed an "outright dismissal" over the weekend. "I think our members generally are not interested in a motion to dismiss. ... Certainly there aren't 51 votes for a motion to dismiss," Blunt, the No. 4 Senate Republican, told reporters after a closed-door leadership meeting. Also, Senior White House officials tell CBS News they increasingly believe that at least four Republicans, and likely more, will vote to call witnesses. In addition to Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and possibly Cory Gardner of Colorado, the White House also views Rand Paul of Kentucky as a "wild card" and Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee as an "institutionalist" who might vote to call witnesses, as one official put it.
- Pelosi To Name House Managers, Maybe TODAY — Pelosi is holding a meeting with her caucus Tuesday morning where she's expected to discuss the path forward on sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Members also expect a vote on the resolution to approve the impeachment managers and send the articles of impeachment to the Senate to potentially take place Wednesday. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the House vote to name the impeachment managers "could be" on Wednesday, adding that the Senate has "practical problems" if they were to move sooner since three Democratic senators are participating in the presidential debate.
January 14:
- House Vote on Resolution Naming Impeachment Managers TODAY — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans on Wednesday morning to unveil the list of House Democrats who will serve as impeachment managers in the Senate trial and act as prosecutors by presenting the case against President Donald Trump in the Ukraine scandal, in a long-awaited move that sets up the next phase of the impeachment fight.
- Pelosi & House Managers to Walk Articles of Impeachment Over to Senate Chamber — Yes, as they did for Andrew Johnson and every impeached President since, there will be a ceremonial walking of the Trump Articles of Impeachment by the House Managers. They will physically carry the Articles from the House Chambers through the halls of the Capitol and into the Senate Chambers where they will be formally presented to the Senate. For me, an avid Congressional enthusiast and lover of such rare legislative ceremonies, this will be riveting C-Span viewing. For some of you it may be as exciting as watching grass grow. But remember, it may be something that you will see only once in your lifetime.
- Released Parnas Documents Show Spying on Yovanovitch — On Tuesday, the House Intelligence Committee sent over to the Senate and publicly released the treasure trove of documents it received from former Giuliani associate Lev Parnas. I won’t go into detail here because folks are still reading through the documents and this DK FP Post by Kerry Eleveld does a great job of summing up what we know so far. But in a nutshell they show that Parnas and others under the direction of Consigliere Rudy Giuliani were ILLEGAL spying on US Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. At best it appears they were spying on her to try to dig up dirt to get her fired and out of the way of their Biden/Burisma plot. At worst they were trying to intimidate her to try to get her to leave out of fear. You can read the whole Parnas Document Pile HERE courtesy of CNN.
- Senate Impeachment Trial to Begin Next Week — So here is the latest on how things will likely unfold with regard to the start of the Trump Impeachment Trial from #MoscowMitch. The GOP leader said this “would set us up to begin the actual trial next Tuesday.” The Senate will not start debating a resolution to set up time for the opening arguments of the House prosecutors and the president’s defense team until Tuesday. McConnell indicated he will not reveal the details of the organizing resolution until next week. However, McConnell did say, “The organizing resolution that all 53 GOP senators back, McConnell said, will be “very, very similar” to the 1999 precedent [the “Clinton Impeachment Rules’], which also gave senators 16 hours to ask questions after which the Senate considered the question of calling for additional witnesses and evidence. The divisive question of witnesses will not be considered until after opening arguments and the senators’ question time. The key question will be whether the Rules will require a vote on Dismissal before allowing a vote on the calling of witnesses and/or the introduction of new evidence as they did in 1999. You can read all of the details on both the Senate’s Standing Rules governing Impeachment and the Supplemental “Clinton Rules” in this previously posted SPECIAL TIC Diary.
January 15:
- House Passes Resolution Naming Impeachment Managers and Sending Articles to Senate — Unless you live under a rock, by now you all know that the House Managers (i.e., the Seven (7) Horsemen/women of Trump’s Apocalypse) are Adam Schiff (Lead Counsel), Gerald Nadler, Zoe Lofgren, Hakeem Jeffries, Val Demings, Jason Crow and Sylvia Garcia. As Pelosi stated in her announcement each of these folks has a background as prosecutors and/or in law enforcement. They are also diverse in gender, race and geography. If you want to know more about each of these folks POLITICO has good summaries of their backgrounds.
- House Managers Conduct Engrossment Ceremony — So an “Engrossment Ceremony” is where the House Managers accompanied by the House Secretary and Sergeant-At-Arms physically walk the Articles of Impeachment from the House Chamber through the Halls of the Capitol and into the Senate Chamber to be presented to the Senate for trial. The ceremony dates back to Andrew Johnson’s impeachment when there was no other way to transmit the Articles to the Senate than hand delivering them on paper. I found yesterday’s ceremony fascinating in an historical context. However, I expect many of you don’t share my enthusiasm for such Congressional ceremonies.
- Parnas Spills His Guts To Rachel Maddow — In Part One of a two part series, former Giuliani Associate and indicted criminal dumped a boatload of alligations and damaging new information on to Rachel and the rest of us on Wednesday evening. There are currently two great diaries on the Rec. list regarding the Parnas Bombshell interview, on by jamess and the other by annieli, so I suggest going to them to get the details which I will not present here. But let me just give you my top three (3) takeaways from last night’s interview:
- 1. Parnas Clearly Implicated Trump — Parnas made very clear that not only did Trump know everything Parnas was doing both with regard to the ousting of Ambassador Yovanovitch and with regard to pressuring Officials in the Ukraine government to announce an investigation into the Bidens (or else), Trump was directing the whole show either directly or indirectly through Giuliani.
- 2. Parnas Does His Best Gordon Sondland Impersonation — Parnas, as Sondland did, threw everybody under the bus, saying they were all involved in the plot, all being Pompeo, Mulvaney, Perry and others Sondland previously named. But he went further also naming VP Pence and AG Barr as both not only aware of what was going on, but being part of the plot to pressure Zelinsky.
- 3. Parnas Says Bolton Knows Everything — Parnas made clear that Bolton knows everything, with “everything” meaning stuff not yet public and stuff that even he, Parnas does not know since he was not in on some of the meetings. So even if Bolton is the only witness to appear in the Senate trial, that should be enough to completely open Pandora’s Box.
- Senate Impeachment Trial Starts Today (Sort Of) — Today the Senate will officially announce the receipt of the Impeachment Articles. Also, Chief Justice Roberts will be sworn in by the Presiding Officer (i.e. President Pro-Temp of the Senate, Chuck Grassley who holds this title by virtue of being the oldest GOP Senator). At that point, Roberts will become the Presiding Officer for the duration of the trial, and today will swear in all 100 Senators as Jurors, first verbally and then by signing there name in a book next to the pledge. That will be it for today, since #MoscowMitch has announced the “real” trial will get underway this coming Tuesday (January 21).
January 16:
Senate Impeachment Trial — Day One Recap — January 16 — The Senate officially announced the receipt of the Impeachment Articles which were read on the Senate Floor by Lead House Manager Adam Schiff. Following the reading of the Articles, Chief Justice Roberts entered the Senate Chamber and was sworn in by the Presiding Officer (i.e. President Pro-Temp of the Senate, Chuck Grassley who holds this title by virtue of being the oldest GOP Senator). At that point, Roberts became the Presiding Officer for the duration of the trial, and swore in 99 of the 100 Senators as Jurors, first verbally and then by signing there name in a book next to the pledge (Senator Inhofe was absent and will be sworn in separately before the trial actually gets underway). The above are more like the Trial’s “Opening Ceremonies”, with the real trial getting underway on Tuesday (January 21). Note, Day One’s proceeding were conducted using the 26 Standing Rules of the Senate with regard to Impeachment, since the Senate has not yet passed any supplemental rules specific to the Trump Impeachment Trial. McConnell says he will introduce such supplementary rules on Tuesday and that they will be very, very similar to the supplemental rules used during the Clinton Impeachment Trial.
- Parnas Continues To Spill His Guts To Rachel Maddow — In Part Two of the two part series, former Giuliani Associate and indicted criminal continued dumping a boatload of alligations and damaging new information on to Rachel and the rest of us. Here is the highlight from last night’s show. Lev Parnas, an associate of President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, said Thursday night that Mr. Trump tried to fire former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch "at least four or five times" before she was eventually removed from her post. "The president kept firing her, and she wouldn't leave," Parnas told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. Parnas described one of those attempts in detail. He told Maddow that on April 30, 2018, he dined with Mr. Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and three other people in a private section of the Trump Hotel. At the dinner, he alleged, he told Mr. Trump that Yovanovitch had been bad-mouthing him and saying he would be impeached. "And at that point, he turned around to John DeStefano, an aide at the time, and said, 'Fire her,'" Parnas said. "And we all — there was a silence in the room. And he responded to him and said, 'Mr. President, we can't do that right now because Pompeo hasn't been confirmed yet.'" He claimed both Pompeo and former national security adviser John Bolton would not let Mr. Trump fire her. "He fired her when he gave an order to Mike Pompeo once which he didn't do — Secretary Pompeo didn't fire her," he said. "Then Rudy came back and he told him, go speak to Pompeo. Rudy went to speak to Pompeo. They got into it. Then they had another meeting at the White House where he told Bolton to fire her. Bolton didn't want to fire her."
- Senate Impeachment Rules Still Up In The Air — Although the Senate will have to vote on any new Supplemental Rules for the trial as soon as it reconvenes on Tuesday (January 21) at 1:00 pm, #MoscowMitch has still not released his version of these rules. Beyond saying that they will be very similar to the “Clinton Rules” no specific details have been revealed. You can read my previous Special TIC Diary on the Senate Impeachment Rules for the details. But a remark McConnell reportedly made has me worried. He apparently said that in the event of a 50/50 tie vote on any motion made during the trial, the motion would fail. This would mean that the Chief Justice in his Constitutional Role as Presiding Officer would NOT have a vote to break a tie and it would take 51 Senators to pass any motion, further meaning it would take 4 GOP Senators and all Democrats to pass, instead of 3 GOP Senators, all Democrats and the affirmative vote of the Presiding Officer (Chief Justice Roberts) to pass. Now it is true that the Constitution gives the VP the tie breaking vote in everything except impeachment trials, but it makes no mention of whether that tie breaking role extends to the Chief Justice when he is presiding over the Senate in an Impeachment trial. However, the Senate’s Standing Rules governing impeachment trials (specifically Rule VII) states that the Presiding Officer may (at his/her discretion) rule on any and all motions, thereby requiring at least 51 Senators to overrule the Presiding Officer. This seems to imply that the Presiding Officer has a tie breaking role. So this is a grey area. In the Clinton Trial, the Presiding Officer did have a tie breaking role, but that was only after a motion to negate him of that tie breaking role failed to get the necessary 51 Senators to pass. So will Mitch try to put in a Supplemental Rule specifically removing Chief Justice Roberts of any role in breaking ties? I hope not, but Mitch only knows one way to play the political game and that’s RUTHLESSLY.
January 21:
Senate Impeachment Trial — Day Two Recap — January 21 — Well although the trial was supposed to start at 1:00 pm, a lot of the real action apparently took place before that at the GOP Caucus Lunch. At the last minute, apparently, #MoscowMitch was confronted by presumably at least 4 GOP Senators (hereafter to be known as the “Unnamed Gang of Four”) who presumably told him that they did not like certain parts of McConnell’s Draft Organizing Resolution, and would not vote for it in its original form. So McConnell was forced to take out the Sharpie Trump gave him and apparently proceeded to mark up the paper copy he had (Yes, this happened because the version of the Resolution that went to the Clerk’s Desk for reading out loud actual had handwritten changes on it, I Kid You Not! You can see the actual final marked up version HERE). McConnell made two (2) small but significant changes to his draft.
1. He changed the maximum time period each side has to present their 24 hours of Opening Arguments from 2 to 3 days. This change probably had more with the old Unnamed Gang of Four Senators trying to avoid 12 hour days than any real favor to the House Managers. But it still resolved the issue.
2. He changed the provision regarding the House’s package of evidentiary documents compiled on/previous to transmission of the Impeachment Articles to the Senate. Instead of requiring a motion to enter these House materials as evidence in the Senate trial record (a motion that could only be made after motion(s) dealing with witnesses was dispensed with later on in the trial), the Resolution was changed to automatically incorporate the House materials as evidence in the Senate trial record. Yes, this is a small victory for our side since it prevents the GOP Senate from keepin all or part of these materials out of the Senate’s evidentiary record. So it helps to make it a little less of a SHAM trial.
After these changes were revealed, they told me two (2) things, one good, one bad. The good thing is that this confirms that there is an Unnamed Gang of (at least) Four GOP Senators who will push back against McConnell’s SHAM trial plan, and that McConnell will bend to their will. That’s a good thing going forward. The Bad Thing is that after the changes were made to satisfy the Unnamed Gang of Four, I knew how the rest of the day/night was going to go. I knew McConnell not only had the votes he needed to pass his revised Organizing Resolution, he also had the votes to table all of Schemer’s proposed a=amendments.
After the revised Resolution was introduced, the day went pretty much as expected from an outcome perspective. Schumer proceeded to introduce a number of amendments for documents and witnesses with 2 hours of debate equally divided between the House Managers and the President’s Lawyers followed by a McConnell motion to table each amendment and successful votes to table them. The day/night ended early in the wee hours of the morning with a successful vote on the revised Organizing Resolution. But here are the highlights of the day/night as I saw them:
- Sekulow Lied - Jay Sekulow, Trump's personal lawyer, said that the House had prevented Trump from taking any part in the House Impeachment proceedings. This he had to know was a bald faced LIE since Trump had been invited in a letter to Sekulow to participate in the House Judiciary Committee proceedings but refused. Although the Trump "legal" team uttered other half-truths and mischaracterizations during the day which were caught and corrected by Adam Schiff each time, Sekulow's was a blatant LIE uttered in the Senate Chamber in front of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
- House Manager Jason Crow — Although all the House Managers did a great job, I thought the use of Jason Crow (an Iraq War Veteran) to argue amendments for subpoenaing OMB and DoD documents was a stroke of BRILLIANCE! In debating these amendments, Crow was able to utilize his military experience to spell out and emphasize the detrimental and sometime deadly effects withholding aid from our allie Ukraine has in its soldiers. No one else could have pulled this off as effectively as a former soldier who has been on the front line of battles.
- Quorum Call — Quorum Calls are never exciting unless you know what’s going on behind the scenes. Last night, Mitch made a call for a Senate “Timeout” so he could beg Schumer to consolidate the remainder of his amendments into one, so they could wrap things up and go home before the majority of his GOP Senate Caucus fell asleep in their chairs. Schumer's response was that he would be glad to adjourn now and resume with his amendments the next day. But McConnell said “no deal” since he did not want to add a day to his planned short trial schedule. So Schumer said no to McConnell’s amendment consolidation request and the amendments continued until the wee hours of the morning. Score on Procedure Battles: Chuck 1; Mitch 0.
The big overall takeaway for me was the very large and obvious mismatch between the House Managers and Trump’s “Legal” Team. It wasn’t even close. The House managers all had clean, crisp, well reasoned and well presented arguments in their debates throughout the day/night. While Trump’s “lawyers” kept spouting and repeating the same talking points filled with mischaracterizations of the facts (and at times outright lies) that had no basis in legal theory. As Brian Williams remarked at one point, you did not even need to here what both sides were saying to know which side was the best prepared. You just had to look at the desks on each side. The House Managers had a desk covered with piles of documents, while the Trump “Legal” Team’s desk was almost bare meaning they were mostly winging it. Also, the House Managers had a number of well timed graphics and videos in their presentations, while the Trump team had none. I can just imagine what Trump (who loves and can only comprehend pictures) was saying as he watched the proceedings, “Hey, where the Hell are Our Graphics and Videos.” My overall assessment was this was not the Harvard vs. Yale Debate Teams I was watching, it was more like Harvard Debate Team vs. Ms. Brown’s 4th Grade Class Debate Team. But I thought kelly Ann’s Husband George Conway put it best in his “Tweet-of-the-Day”:
DROP THE MIC!
Other Impeachment News:
- House Intelligence Committee Releases New Lev Parnas Documents — On Friday (January 17), the House released yet another Treasure Trove of documents from former Giuliani thug, Lev Parnas. They new information about the apparent surveillance of former US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and additional contacts between Parnas and an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes of California. The new documents include screenshots of undated text messages that appear to show Robert Hyde, a Republican congressional candidate in Connecticut, messaging with a foreign number from Belgium, which appear to describe efforts to surveil Yovanovitch. Hyde appeared to share the screenshots with Parnas, which is how they wound up on his phone that he turned over to House investigators. The new documents also show communications between Parnas and Nunes aide Derek Harvey, in which they arrange interviews with Ukrainian officials and apparent meetings at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., including with Giuliani. Since Friday, more information has come out about the newest character in this ever unfolding Yovanovitch spy story, Robert Hyde. Robert Hyde, the GOP congressional candidate who had claimed to have Yovanovitch under surveillance, pointed the finger at another man: Anthony de Caluwe. Hyde claimed that he had merely copied and pasted information he had received from de Caluwe and sent it to Parnas, the indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani. Initially, de Caluwe denied involvement, telling NBC News in emails Friday that Hyde’s statements were "incorrect." But then a new batch of text messages released by House Democrats on Friday seemed to corroborate Hyde's claim that he was a middleman in the supposed surveillance operation. In a new statement Saturday obtained by NBC News, de Caluwe reversed course, admitting he had sent the messages to Hyde but insisting there was no actual monitoring of Yovanovitch. He apologized for "contributing to any confusion through these communications." You can read the entire 3 sets of the Parnas documents HERE courtesy of CNN.
- Trump Responds to Articles of Impeachment — On Saturday (January 18), President Trump’s legal team filed a brief to the Senate in response to the Articles of Impeachment. According to this article from the Intelligencer, below is the highlight of the Trump Team’s Brief:
In the White House’s response, Trump lawyers Jay Sekulow and Pat Cipollone wrote that the president “categorically and unequivocally denies each and every allegation,” argued that neither article of impeachment alleged real crimes in the first place, and called Trump’s impeachment “a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election.”
You can read the entire legally baseless Trump Response to the Articles of Impeachment HERE.
- House Releases Impeachment Trial Brief — On Saturday (January 18), the House Managers released their prosecutorial brief to the Senate and public. According to this article from the Intelligencer, below is the highlight of the Manager’s Brief:
“President Trump’s conduct is the Framers’ worst nightmare,” argued congressman and impeachment manager Adam Schiff. He and the other House prosecutors reiterated the House impeachment inquiries findings, arguing that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Trump was guilty of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — and that the Senate “must eliminate the threat” he poses to the country by convicting him. “The only remaining question is whether the members of the Senate will accept and carry out the responsibility placed on them by the Framers of our Constitution and their constitutional oaths,” House prosecutors wrote.
You can read the entire brief HERE courtesy of the Lawfare Blog.
- Schiff Says CIA & NSA Withholding Ukraine Evidence — On the Sunday talks shows, Schiff made a new allegation of Executive Branch Congressional Obstruction. House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, who is on that prosecution team, has warned that the CIA and National Security Agency could be holding on to further key evidence regarding the Ukraine scandal that led to the president's impeachment, ahead of the commencement of the Senate trial on Tuesday.
January 22:
Senate Impeachment Trial — Day Three Recap — January 22 — The House Managers began their Opening Arguments laying out a devastating chronology of the factual record in the case from the plot to get rid of Ambassador Yovanovitch to the eventual release of the Ukraine Aid and subsequent cover up operation. It was a thing of beauty! It was a crisp, professional presentation complete with graphics and perfectly timed videos of witness testimony that would make any Hollywood Producer proud. Also, Schiff did a masterful job of pointing to documents throughout his statement that Senators might want to Subpoena if they want to learn more about Trump’s scheme. I think this paragraph from POLITICO sums it up best:
It was a presentation that seemed designed to demonstrate what Democrats have long professed: that the facts of the Ukraine scandal threatening Trump’s presidency are so overwhelming as to be almost infallible. As Republicans harangued Democrats for failing to “do their homework,” the House managers were intent to emphasize just how much “homework” they did.
Here are some of my takeaways:
- During the day some pundits and GOP Senators were complaining about the repetition of the presentation. Which there was a bit, since instead of running through a straight chronology of events, there was some overlap and replay of the same bits of testimony, each time in a slightly different context. But as others observed, there were two important reasons for the repetition. One is for a lot of the Senators in the room this is the first time they have heard some of these facts. In the past many GOP Senators have been too busy or only got some of the information through the Fox News filter or avoided listening to anything about impeachment altogether. So in their case, as any teacher knows, the best way to get these critical facts to stick in their brains is through repetition. The other important reason for repeating important points throughout the day/evening is that except for some of us here at DK, the public in general are not watching this trial from beginning to end each day. They are tuning in at different times during the day for a few minutes/hours. So by repeating the important facts, you increase the chances that more of the general public who are occasionally tuning in will hear them at least once. SMART MOVE!
- There were varying reports throughout the day that some Senators (mainly GOP Senators) were leaving the Chamber during the House Manager’s’ presentation, some for several minutes at a time (one even gave a Fox interview possibly breaking Senate Rules of silence during the trial). Certainly, Lindsey Graham was one of them, who is of course a lost cause. Some reporters estimated that as many as 20 were out in the hall at a time. But Chuck Schumer when asked about the Chamber absentees downplayed the extent of the problem, saying that he saw only a handful of Senators leave and that the vast majority were sitting in their seats taking it all in.
- Near the end, the Chief Justice made an interesting announcement. He indicated that a classified one page document from the House would not be entered into the trial record, but would be made available to each Senator to view in a secure setting. It’s fairly certain that this one page document is the supplemental testimony provided to the intelligence committee by the Vice President’s Aide Jennifer Williams which the VP’s office has labeled as “CLASSIFIED”. It’s the same document that House Manager Zoe Lofgren referred to earlier in the day as, in her opinion, not containing any classified information and that the classification was being used to hide a crime, which is in itself’ illegal. We will have to wait and see if at some point, the House Managers move have the Presiding Officer (Chief Justice) rule on the classification. If so, it will most certainly be brought to a vote. We will also see if a Senator, on his/her own determines it is not classified and decides to make it public.
- The most impactful moment (IMO) occurred during Adam Schiff’s closing remarks at the end of the day where he miraculously condensed the whole days factual chronology of Ukraine-Gate into a 5 to 10 minute speech. Although we didn’t know it at the time, we later learned from Chuck Schumer, that during that summary speech, every Senator was in their seat with ears open and eyes glued on Schiff. The most impactful moment came at the very end where Schiff was remarking on the tremendous courage the witnesses had in appearing before the House Intelligence Committee putting their careers at risk. He then acknowledged that voting to convict this President also could put some Senator’s careers at risk and asked them if they had the same courage as those witnesses to do the right thing. Here’s his Closing Statement:
"Some courageous people came forward. Courageous people that risked their entire careers," Schiff said. "They risked everything, their careers. And yes I know what you're asked to decide may risk yours, too. But if they could show the courage, so could we."
POWERFUL ENDING!
January 23:
Senate Impeachment Trial — Day Four Recap — January 23 — The House Managers began the day with Opening Arguments on Article I by convincingly demonstrating how Trump’s misdeeds rise to the level of impeachable offenses as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. They then wisely went on to totally dismantling many of the arguments that the President’s Defense Team is likely to make, including offering mountains of evidence to totally debunk the Crowdstrike (2016 Election) and Biden/Burisma (phoney) conspiracy theories. Smart move, since unlike in a regular trial, they will not get a chance to argue against the Defenses ‘exculpatory” theories later after the Defense Team completes its Opening Arguments. Finally, they wrapped up their Article I presentation by making convincing arguments as to why what Trump has done are not only impeachable offenses, they warrant his conviction and removal from office.
Here are some of what I consider to be the highlights and lowlights of Trial Day Four:
"Adam Schiff is hailing Alexander Vindman as an American patriot," Blackburn's
Twitter account posted at about 4 p.m. ET on Thursday.
"How patriotic is it to badmouth and ridicule our great nation in front of Russia, America's greatest enemy?
Later, at about 6 p.m. ET,
she added, "It makes sense that Alexander Vindman leaked the July 25th phone call to his friend (aka the 'whistleblower'). They both have lots in common."
WTF! BTW, there is nothing to support Blackburn’s crazy allegations that Vindman and the whistleblower are “friends” or that they even know one another. Fortunately, many good folks in the twitter universe slammed Blackburn for her vicious attacks on Lt.Col. (Purple Heart Recipient) Alexander Vindman. Including this from Vindman’s Attorney:
"This difficult moment in our country calls for seriousness and seriousness of purpose. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman has sacrificed enormously for our country. He believes in our country. And he believes in our country's great institutions, including the United States Senate," Pressman said.
"That a member of the Senate -- at a moment when the Senate is undertaking its most solemn responsibility -- would choose to take to Twitter to spread slander about a member of the military is a testament to cowardice. While Senator Blackburn fires off defamatory tweets, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman will continue to do what he has always done: serve our country dutifully and with honor."
All I can say to Blackburn is, “Have You No Shame!”
- Ultra-Highlight — Just when you think Adam Schiff can’t top himself, he does. If you haven’t seen it yet or even if you have seen it, you really need to watch Schiff’s Article I closing argument on why Donald J. Trump needs to be convicted and removed from office. Here’s the clip.
DROP THE MIC!
Here are some other developments:
- Ted Cruz Dealing Behind the Scenes — There has been a lot of talk amongst the Punditry about a “behind-the-scenes deal” Ted Cruz is trying to swing by which the Dems. would allow the Bidens as witnesses and in return the GOP would allow Bolton and Mulvaney to be called. Folks this is just nuts! Cruz has delusions of turning the trial into a circus so he can be Ringmaster. It ain’t gonna happen. First of all, Cruz has almost zero friends amongst his Senate Colleagues. He is pretty much hated on a Bipartisan basis. Even if he could somehow get 4 GOP Senators to buy into his crazy deal, there is zero chance that he could get all 45 Democrats and 2 Independents to go along. This deal is DEAD!
- New Evidence in FOIA Released Documents — There is some new evidence regarding the President’s withholding of aid to Ukraine which shows it was being discussed by OMB Staff prior to the infamous July 25 call. 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 article about 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. What role, if any, these heavily redacted documents will play in the Senate Trial is still up in the air. However, they do strengthen the case for subpoenaing unredacted documents. You can download and read all 192 documents HERE, courtesy of American Oversight.
- Pompeo To Visit Ukraine — Secretary of State will be visiting Ukraine at the end of the month to meet with President Zelinsky and other Ukrainian Officials. The top US diplomat will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as the foreign minister, defense minister and members of civil society and the business community, the State Department said Monday. A senior State Department official said that the leaders would discuss issues including security assistance, reform and strengthening the rule of law. However, that official didn't deny outright that Pompeo could also raise the prospect of the investigations sought by Trump into his political rival Joe Biden, Biden's son Hunter and the debunked theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. Could this be a trip to offer a second Quid-Pro-Quo?
January 24:
Senate Impeachment Trial — Day Five Recap — January 24 — The House Managers Opening Arguments began the day with a wrap up of Article I and then went into Trump’s attempt to cover up his Article I crimes by committing Article II crimes (i.e., Obstructing Congress). They started where they left off on Thursday, by totally dismantling many of the arguments that the President’s Defense Team is likely to make, including the debunking of all the false, after-the-fact reasons for why the Ukraine Aid was withheld. The Managers went on to subtly slide into Article II be describing the Trump cover up beginning in early September when the Trump White House first learned about the Whistleblower Report. The cover up argument contained 3 main elements: 1) Over-classifying Trump's call and hiding the call record on a super secret server; 2) Hiding the hold on military aid and creating bogus after the fact excuses; and 3) Taking illegal steps to conceal the whistleblower complaint. They then go on to cite the Cipollini letter to link all of the obstruction directly to Trump. The Managers then make the historical argument about how extreme Trump’s obstruction was, beyond Clinton and even beyond Nixon, who except for the infamous tape, turned documents over to Congress and allowed (even encouraged) witnesses to testify. Finally, they wrapped up their Article I and Article II arguments with an appeal to give America a Fair Trial. You can view Adam Schiff’s January 24 Closing Remarks HERE courtesy of C-Span. You can also read the transcript HERE.
Senate Impeachment Trial — Day Six Recap — January 25 — Full Disclosure here, I didn’t watch Day One of the Trump Clown Show, so I am not a first hand witness. I had something better to do (went on a soup stroll). Anyway, I guess they decided to speak for only two hours on Saturday because Trump wants his Defense Team to present his case in “Prime Time” (Weekday evenings), even though his team is made up of the “Not Ready For Prime Time Players”. So anyone who thought they were just having mercy on our souls by limiting our torture to 2 hours, don’t worry, the worst is yet to come.
As I said, I did not watch Saturday’s arguments by Team Trump, but I think Adam Schiff summed it up pretty well. In his recap he said that the Trump legal team did not contest the basic facts the House Managers put forth. They did not contest that Trump solicited (extorted) a Foreign government to help him CHEAT in an election. He also says the Trump Team argued that the President did not explicitly state a Quid-Pro-Quo in the July 25th call so there was none. As Schiff points out, this completely ignores the fact that the President’s famous “I need you to do us a favor, though” remark came right after Zelinsky’s remark about needing US javelin missiles, as well as the sworn testimony of numerous credible witnesses. So as I predicted a few TICs ago, they mainly used their time so far to bash Democrats for wanting to take Trump down and raising the thoroughly debunked Burisma/Biden conspiracy theory. Also, although they didn’t argue explicitly for the calling of witnesses like the Biden’s they did, inadvertently, help the House Manager’s case for witnesses. Deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin in his attempt to emphasize that the House Manager’s case is built on “second hand” witnesses, made a remark that seemed to support the Manager’s argument for the need to call “first hand” witnesses (e.g., Bolton, Mulvaney, etc.). I’m sure he later wished he could take it back, but rest assured the House Managers will pounce on it when it comes time to argue for witness subpoenas.
Finally, Trump Team indicated that their overall opening argument would be “short”, although they didn’t offer a specific time period. They are blatantly using the old defense lawyer trick of saying there is no need for a lengthy defense since the Prosecutors have failed to make a credible case against their client. Of course, it apparently doesn’t matter to them that a High School student can see that this is just a poor excuse. It is likely a very thinly veiled attempt to hide the fact that they don’t have much of a real defense at all. I suspect that the House Manager’s “pre-butal” of many of the Trump Defense Team’s anticipated points have caused them to leave the bulk of their case on the cutting room floor, leaving them with only a few hours of BS to present.
Pompeo Explodes — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that he would testify in the Senate impeachment trial against President Trump if compelled by law. “If I am legally required to testify, as I’ve said before, I’d be happy to do it,” the secretary said when asked during a press conference alongside Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness during a visit to Kingston. I guess that all depends on what your definition of “legally required” is!
January 25:
Senate Impeachment Trial — Day Seven Recap — January 27 — So the Trump Clown Show continued yesterday and it was as funny as it was tragic. Once again, full Disclosure here, I didn’t watch every minute of the Clown Show today, only snippets. My stomach couldn’t handle that much BS. Fortunately though, the Front Page Posters here at DK apparently have cast iron stomachs and were able to watch the the whole thing. So, again being honest, the day’s highlights and lowlights below are significantly based on the DK Staff posted observations:
- Lowlight — Ken Starr 2020 Argues With Ken Starr 1998 — Yes, Ken Starr 2020 today did a complete backflip arguing that in 2020 you need a “crime” to have been committed by the President before an Abuse of Power Article of Impeachment can be brought to the Senate. While Ken Starr 1998 argued in the Clinton case that a specific crime is NOT necessary to bring an Abuse of Power Article of Impeachment to be brought to the Senate floor. So, now 2020 Ken Starr is arguing that Clinton was charged with “actual crimes” and Trump isn’t. So lying about a consensual affair is a crime but a President trying to fix a Presidential election by extorting the leader of Foreign Allie and withholding aid approved by Congress for that Country in violation of the Impoundment Control Act are not crimes.
- Highlight — Sekulow & Parpura Make Case For Witnesses — Both Sekulow and Parpura presented long detailed arguments that the House Managers presented a “Quid-Pro-Quo” case (investigations of 2016 & Bidens in return for US Aid previously authorized by Congress) based entirely on hear-say evidence and second hand witnesses. There arguments seemed to be totally oblivious to the Bolton developments over the weekend. So why did they present an argument that obviously supports calling Bolton as a first hand witness? My guess is they had this all written up and didn’t have time for majors revisions, so they probably said “’F’ it, with it.
- Lowlight — Giuliani, Burisma & Biden — So the Trump Team went on to try to convince us that Giuliani was a small bit player who was being elevated by the Democrats as a distraction, while simultaneously arguing that the Biden Conspiracy Theory he was peddling is REAL and a big thing that warrants investigation. Trying To Baffle With Bullshit! BIZZARE!
- Highlight — Finishing the Day with Dershowitz — So in the afternoon we had 2020 Starr arguing against 1998 Starr. Now we finish the day with 2020 Dershowitz arguing against 1998 Dershowitz. I first thought Dershowitz was going to make the same argument as Starr, “no crime, no impeachable offense”. But I was wrong. Dershowitz came up with this thing he called “crime-like” conduct, which would not technically be a crime, but would be an impeachable offense. He then gave an example, and I kid you not, this is the example he gave:
A President who bribed or extorted a foreign leader could not be charged with a crime in a US Court, but this would be a “crime-like” impeachable offense.
THANK YOU Mr. Dershowitz! When Dershowitz made this statement, I have to wonder if Sekulow and Cipollone rolled their eyes and turned to each other to ask, who the hell put this “A”hole on our team?
Here are some other developments:
- As in the Nixon Case, We Now Have A TAPE — The saga of the Trump TAPE began Friday evening when ABC News stated they had in their possession an audio tape of an April 2018 Dinner where Trump is discussing Ukraine with his guests (i.e., Big Money Donors). On Saturday, we learned from Lev Parnas’s attorney Joseph Bondi who appeared on MSNBC, that it is actually a 1 hour and 23 minute video/audio recording made by Igor Fruman (Giuliani Thug #2) during an April 30, 2018 private dinner with the President which his client, Lev Parnas (Giuliani Thug #1) acquired from his buddy Fruman. Bondy confirmed that Parnas has provided the entire tape to the House Intelligence Committee. During the show, it was learned that the tape was publicly released by a source other than Parnas and Bondy. You can watch/listen to the Full tape HERE courtesy of the Washington Post or HERE from Fox News if you don’t have a WaPo subscription. The money quote everyone is talking about occurs at about the 39 minute mark in the tape. The person who appears to be Parnas later says, "the biggest problem there I think, where you need to start, is we gotta get rid of the ambassador. She's still left over from the Clinton administration." Trump responds, "the ambassador to Ukraine?" "Yeah, she's basically walking around telling everybody, 'wait, he's going to get impeached, just wait,' the man says. About 10 seconds later, an agitated Trump says, "Get rid of her. Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Ok? Do it."
Although the media is interpreting Trump’s remarks as asking for Yovanovitch to be fired, the phraseology used by Trump, “Take Her Out”, is straight Gangster talk for ordering a hit. SCARY!
In addition, there is also this exchange which sounds like it’s between Parnas and President Trump: Trump asks a person who appears to be Parnas how long Ukraine would "last in fight against Russia." Parnas says "without us, not very long," and another person chimes in, "about 30 minutes."
Months later, Trump would try to cut off military aid to Ukraine.
- Pompeo Blows A Gasket — It all started with a Pompeo interview by NPR’s host of “All Things Considered”, Mary Louise Kelly in which Pompeo would not give a straight answer as to whether he defended former Ambassador Yovanovitch in the face of Trump’s push to fire her. You can read the Full Transcript of the Interview HERE. After the interview, according to Kelly and NPR, this is what happened next:
An aide of Pompeo asked Kelly to follow her into Pompeo's private living room at the State Department without a recorder. The aide did not say the ensuing exchange would be off the record.
Inside the room, Pompeo shouted his expletive filled displeasure at being questioned about Ukraine and asked Kelly to identify the country on a map, which she did. He used repeated expletives, according to Kelly, and asked, "Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?" He then said, "People will hear about this."
After Kelly made her “taken to the woodshed” encounter with Pompeo public, Pompeo fired back Saturday night with this statement:
"NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice. First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record," he said. "It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency. This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity."
"It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine."
NPR has since defended their reputable reporter:
In a statement, NPR Senior Vice President for News Nancy Barnes said, "Mary Louise Kelly has always conducted herself with the utmost integrity, and we stand behind this report."
Finally, not to be left out of the action, Trump had to pour more gasoline on the fire Pompeo ignited. In a response to this tweet by Mark Lavin:
Why does NPR still exist? We have thousands of radio stations in the U.S. Plus Satellite radio. Podcasts. Why are we paying for this big-government, Democrat Party propaganda operation.
Trump tweeted back by saying:
”A very good question.”
- Bolton’s Book Manuscript is Beginning to Leak Out — Bolton has apparently begun circulating a manuscript of his yet-to-be-released book and according to reports from The New York Times, Bolton writes that Donald Trump personally told him he would continue to freeze the nearly $400 million in aid until Ukrainian officials aided his desired investigations into “Democrats” and “the Bidens.” But what is even more shocking is the following for Hunter's FP Sunday Night Post:
Importantly, The Times reports that the Trump White House was sent the manuscript for a standard pre-publication administration review in “recent weeks”—meaning Trump, his legal team, and others implicated have known what Bolton would testify to during this period in which they have loudly and angrily insisted that the Senate call no witnesses. If the White House has intentionally delayed or frozen the book’s publication in an attempt to block it until after the conclusion of the Senate impeachment trial, it could constitute yet another act meant to obstruct justice.
January 28:
Senate Impeachment Trial — Day Eight Recap — January 28 — So the Trump Clown Show is finally over. Although they only used about half of the 24 hours they were entitled to, it felt like an eternity. No, it’s not because they wanted t show mercy on our souls. While they expected us all to believe that they cut the show short because the House Managers had such a weak case, a lengthy defense was not necessary, the truth is they’re the ones with the weak case, they simply ran out of material. Anyway, they were probably informed that Mitch wanted to finish early so he could go count GOP votes against witnesses (more on that later). Like previous days, I admit I didn’t watch every minute of the Clown Show, only snippets. But I saw enough over the three (3) agonizing days to determine that their whole defense of Trump boiled down to “Even if all the facts in this case are true, including the ones in the leaky Bolton manuscript (i.e., even if Trump shot someone on Fifth Avenue), none of it rises to the level of impeachment, as handed down from the mountain by the Constitutional God Alan Dershowitz.
Here are some other developments:
- The Slow Motion Explosion of the Leaked Bolton Manuscript Continues — A lot is happening at a very fast pace with regard to the leaked manuscript, so I will try to do my best to catch you up. First, more leaks from the manuscript continue to dribble out in what must be like a Japanese water torture for Trump. The latest I have heard is that Bolton went to Barr about concerns he had that Trump was doing favors for China’s President Xi and Turkey’s President Erdogan. He found that Barr shared his concerns. Second, details about how the leak might have occurred are themselves leaking out. Bolton’s attorney says they only gave one hard copy of the manuscript to the NSA records office on December 30 to review for “classified” information as is normally the case. However, it is rumored that someone in that office made an unknown number of copies for distribution to White House staff, and that some staff member or members leaked parts of the transcript to the NY Times. But the major news regarding the leaked transcript is how it is upending the GOP Senate and giving #MoscowMitch extreme “adgita”. According to this report from The Hill:
The GOP leader urged fellow Republicans at a lunch meeting Monday to keep their powder dry and not make a decision on the need to subpoena witnesses and documents until the end of next week, after Trump’s defense team has presented its arguments and senators have had a chance to ask questions on the Senate floor.
McConnell told colleagues that they don’t need to answer persistent media questions about additional subpoenas until phase one of the trial is complete, as outlined in the organizing resolution passed last week by all 53 Republican senators, according to senators at the meeting.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who attended the lunch, said McConnell told GOP senators to “remember we passed a rules package that gives us an opportunity to vote on this very issue of witnesses after we hear both sides and ask our questions.”
“He just reiterated that a couple times, as did some other people, just to remind us that we have dealt with this and we don’t have to deal with the next step of it until the end of phase one,” Cramer added.
Still, McConnell’s once iron hold on his GOP caucus appears to be slipping a bit. Except for Romney and Collins who have both said they are likely to vote to subpoena at least Bolton, the others have been silent so far. However, now that the Bolton Bombshell is out, most news organizations are reporting there are at least 51 votes for considering the subpoenaing of documents and witnesses. If true, this will allow Democrats to request the Presiding Officer (Chief Judge Roberts) to rule on motions to subpoena document sets and individual witnesses including Bolton. Subsequently, there will likely be votes, and depending on how Robert’s rules it will take either 50 or 51 votes to get subpoenas for document sets and individual witnesses.
- GOP Senator Witness Deals — Apparently Pennsylvania Senator Patrick Toomey has taken up Ted Cruz’s crazy witness deal. Reportedly, Toomey told his colleagues that a “one-for-one” deal (Biden for Bolton) with Senate Democrats might be necessary, especially as pressure builds for witness testimony, according to the Washington Post. LoL! This one had me rolling on the floor. There is now way a single Dem. would vote for such a deal, mainly because they don’t need to. All our side needs is an up or down vote on Bolton which it is increasingly likely we will get. Either the GOP is going to vote for Bolton or their not. Either way we win. They don’t need a single Dem. vote if they want to hear Bolton or Biden or both or neither. That decision is entirely in the hands of the GOP Senate Caucus. So apparently they are arguing amongst themselves.
January 29:
Senate Impeachment Trial — Day Nine Recap — January 29 — As expected, the day was a ping pong match of Senator’s questions, alternating between Republican and Democratic Senators. One by one Senators got up, were acknowledged by the Presiding Officer (Chief Judge Roberts), sent their written questions up to the Chief Judge (via Senate Pages) who read the questions and then were responded to by either the House Managers and/or the President’s Defense Team as designated by the Senator with a a 5 minute response limit.
For those who were expecting this would be a Q & A session filled with riveting questions from Senators designed to get at the truth and to give Senators and the rest of us a better understanding of the fact in this case, I’m sorry you were sadly disappointed. Instead, almost all the questions from Democrats were designed to let House Managers prop up their case and counter ridiculous arguments made by Team Trump, while almost all the questions from Republicans were designed to let the Trump Defense Team prop up their case and counter arguments made by the House Managers. This tit-for-tat continued all day until it got repetitive and silly with Senators just asking for their side to respond to what the other side just said. I don’t want to make this sound critical because I fully understand that House Managers couldn’t just let Team Trump’s baseless and mostly silly arguments go unanswered, but in an effort to play an effective Defense (which I thought they did), they weren’t able to go on Offense to sway fence sitting Senators on the question of documents and witnesses.
Here are some other developments:
- Mitch Ain’t Got The Votes — There was a lot of speculation and rumors during the day that McConnell had weathered the Bolton Storm and he had the votes to swiftly end the trial. But, as reported by CNN:
GOP senators met soon after Trump's legal team rested its defense on Tuesday to try to find a way out of a morass. A source in the room said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told his troops he still did not have sufficient votes to block the Democrats' demand for witnesses.
It was further reported that Mitch handed out cards to all 53 GOP Senators in the room that have a “yes” box for witnesses, a “no” box for witnesses and a “maybe” box, and asked them each to check the box that represents their current feeling towards witnesses. He then collected all the cards and secretly counted the votes. Although he did not share the detailed results, it was obvious to everyone in the room that he did not have enough “no” votes to block witnesses. As the Bolton manuscript stuff continues to dribble out and the polls continue to show more and more Americans want witnesses (we’re now up in the neighborhood of 70 to 80% wanting witnesses), I don’t see how the numbers are going to get better for McConnell, only worse.
January 30:
Senate Impeachment Trial — Day Ten Recap — January 30 — The ping pong match of Senator’s questions, alternating between Republican and Democratic Senators went yesterday as it did the day before. The questions from Democrats were designed to let House Managers prop up their case and counter ridiculous arguments made by Team Trump, while almost all the questions from Republicans were designed to let the Trump Defense Team prop up their case and counter arguments made by the House Managers. Again, I fully understand that House Managers can’t just let Team Trump make baseless and mostly silly arguments without responding, but in an effort to play an effective Defense (which I thought they did), they weren’t able to go on Offense which was needed to sway fence sitting Senators on the question of documents and witnesses.
Overall, the two days of Q & A probably did little to change any Senator’s mind in terms of witnesses/documents or the final verdict. Those mind changes, if any, that may be occurring are due to events happening outside the Senate Chamber.
Lastly, before I end this Day Ten recap, let me leave you with this Highlight:
- From The Annals of “You Can’t Make This
Shit Stuff Up — In the middle of today’s Senate Q & A, Adam Schiff announced a remark made by the Trump DoJ during a Court Hearing on the Barr and Ross Subpoenas (details below under “Committee Activity”). Here is the remark which lead to immediate spontaneous laughter in the Senate Chamber:
“"In the category of you can't make this stuff up," Schiff said on the Senate floor. "The judge says if the Congress can't enforce its subpoenas in court, then what remedy is there? And the Justice Department lawyer's response is impeachment."”
That of course is the exact opposite case Trump’s legal team is making in the Impeachment Trial, saying that the House should resolve subpoena challenges through the courts, not through impeachment. You can’t have it both ways.
House Financial Services Committee and House Intelligence Committee Deutsche Bank and Capital One Subpoenas (Trump’s Banking Records) —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
December 4: Well, the House’s Deutsche Bank and Capital One Subpoenas of Trump’s financial records is back in the news, so it’s been added back to the TIC list. And its another legal loss for Trump in his bid to keep his financial past a secret. According to this POLITICO Report:
President Donald Trump suffered another loss Tuesday in his effort to block House Democrats from obtaining his financial records, a matter that is now likely to make its way to the Supreme Court.
A federal appeals court in New York ruled 2-1 that Deutsche Bank and Capital One should comply with subpoenas from the House Financial Services and House Intelligence committees seeking information about Trump’s finances, upholding a decision by a federal court in May.
The subpoenas seek documents including tax returns, evidence of suspicious activity and, in the case of Deutsche Bank, any internal communications regarding Trump and his ties to foreign individuals.
Trump now has seven days to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court, and the 2nd Circuit is ordering a process that will allow the president to object to specific items, like checks, that may be particularly personal and explain why those should be excluded.
Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Trump, said the president is considering an appeal.
With each Judicial win the House moves closer and closer to obtaining Trump’s financial history which is sure to be criminal based on the lengths Trump is going to to hide his finances.
December 9:
SCOTUS Justice Ginsburg issues stay of Appeals court ruling compelling Deutsche Bank and Capital One to comply with a Congressional subpoena to turn over Trump’s Banking Records. According to this POLITICO Story:
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg temporarily blocked a lower court ruling ordering two banks to release President Donald Trump's financial records to House Democrats.
Trump had asked Ginsburg to consider the emergency request earlier Friday. The temporary stay sets the issue on hold pending full consideration by the high court, it does not reflect how judges will rule in the underlying case.
The stay is ordered until 5 p.m. on Dec. 13, and the court ordered that a response must be filed on or before Dec. 11 by 11 a.m.
The House will have to respond by this Wednesday to Trump’s request for a longer stay, and SCOTUS will have to rule by FRIDAY THE 13th whether to grant a longer stay in order to consider an Appeal. BTW — This also includes Banking Records of two (2) Trump family members.
December 10:
Nadler Surprises GOP By Abruptly Ending Thursday’s Committee Session — Tells Them To Go Home and Think About the Consequences of Their Impeachment Vote — Nadler wielded his gavel and sent the GOP home to think about the ramifications of the impeachment votes they will take on Friday. Will it make a difference? Probably Not. But their outraged reaction in the video of being told they will have to come to work on a FRIDAY is LoL funny (Hey GOP, most of your constituents work on FRIDAYS!)
December 16:
On FRIDAY THE 13th, SCOTUS announced it will hear this case which involves a Congressional Subpoena of the Trump Organization Banking Records from Deutsche Bank and Capital One, and issued a Stay on the Appeals Court ruling requiring the banks’ compliance with the Congressional Subpoena. The case is likely to be heard by the Court in March with a final ruling expected in June. More below under “Trump’s Tax Returns” Below.
House Oversight and Reform Committee Subpoena (Mazars Financial Records) —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE.
December 16 — Well this subpoena case is back in the news, so I have taken out of my “Dead Story’s” pile and restored it to life for posting in today’s TIC. On FRIDAY THE 13th, SCOTUS announced it will hear this case which involves a Congressional Subpoena of the Trump Organization Financial Records (including Trump’s tax returns) from Mazar’s (Trump’s former Accounting firm), and issued a Stay on the Appeals Court ruling requiring Mazar’s compliance with the Congressional Subpoena. The case is likely to be heard by the Court in March with a final ruling expected in June. More below under “Trump’s Tax Returns” Below.
House Ways & Means Committee & Manhattan DA Subpoenas (Trump’s Tax Returns) —
Background — For Before Nov. 22, 2019 background CLICK HERE.
BTW — I know this gets confusing but there are really four (4) cases three (3) cases (CORRECTED) going on aimed at Trump’s financial records and his tax returns.
1. The first is the Deutsche Bank and Capital One case (above) brought by Trump against the the two banks in an effort to block a subpoena from the House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees for the Trump Organization’s banking records, including tax returns. It is important to note that, in response to the lower court Judge inquiry, Deutsche Bank has denied having any Trump tax returns while Capital One says they have the tax returns of two, yet to be revealed, Trump family members.
2. The second is the Congressional Mazar’s case (above) brought by Trump against Mazars (the Trump Organization’s former Accounting Firm) in an effort to block a subpoena from the House Oversight and Reform Committee for the Trump Organization’s financial records, including tax returns.
3. The third is a case brought by Trump against the Manhattan DA to block the DA’s subpoena of Trump’s tax returns from Mazars (the Trump Organization’s former Accounting Firm). The DA has subpoenaed these takes returns in conjunction with his criminal investigation of Trump’s hish money pay off to Stormy Daniels (the case where Michael Cohen sits in jail and where the SDNY has named Trump an unindicted co-conspirator).
4. The fourth case is a lawsuit brought by the House Ways & Means Committee against the IRS and Treasury Department for their failure to turn over Trump’s tax returns upon the Committee’s request as required BY LAW.
I would note that there was a fifth case where Trump was trying to Block NYS from turning over his State tax returns to Congress. However, that case was thrown out by the Federal Courts since Congress has not yet requested Trump’s State tax returns from NYS and the Federal Court told Trump that the State and not the Federal Courts have jurisdiction in this matter.
I hope this helps keep things straight!
On Nov. 18 there was a legal ruling in the third case which is the one brought by Trump against NYS to block his State tax returns from being turned over to Congress in accordance with a recently passed NYS Law. A federal judge late Monday ordered House Democrats to notify President Donald Trump contemporaneously if they seek his state tax returns from New York, and barred the Democrats from receiving any records for 14 days after a request so the court can decide whether it's lawful. D.C. District Judge Carl Nichols rejected Trump's request for advance notice from Democrats if they decide to use a recently passed New York law to obtain the president's state returns.
Remember, Congress has not yet requested Trump’s NYS tax returns, so this ruling simply sets up a legal process in case they do. My guess is they will wait to see what SCOTUS decides in the other two tax cases before going down this NYS path.
November 21:
In Case #1, on Thursday (Nov. 21), House lawyers told the Supreme Court that the House is well within their authority to subpoena President Donald Trump's financial papers (including the Trump tax returns). In their letter to SCOTUS (courtesy of this CNN Report) House lawyers argued that:
Lower courts have sided against the President, who made the emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to block the release of the records.
Thursday, House General Counsel Douglas Letter said in a court filing that Congress has broad investigative power.
"This Court has long recognized that Congress's power to conduct oversight and investigations -- a power of inquiry, with process to enforce it -- is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function," Letter argued.
Letter said the subpoena seeking "financial documents and records from the longtime accountant of" Trump is necessary to "shed light on the accuracy of President Trump's disclosures, and thereby to inform the Committee's oversight of the Executive Branch and its consideration of remedial legislation."
SCOTUS is meeting TODAY (Friday, Nov. 22) to decide whether they will hear Case #1 or allow the lower court ruling to stand requiring Mazars (Trump’s former accounting firm) to turn over his financial records (including his tax returns) to Congress. If you remember, Chief Justice Roberts temporarily blocked the lower court’s November 20 deadline for turning over the records until today (November 22). So there is a good chance we will find out very soon whether SCOTUS will or will not hear Trump’s Appeal of this case.
Also, from the CNN Report:
Already, the justices are reviewing a similar case concerning a subpoena from a Manhattan District Attorney seeking Trump's tax returns.
The two cases before the justices mark the last stop for Trump who has worked for years to shield his financial papers and hopes the conservative leaning Supreme Court, including two of his own nominees, will side with him.
This is Case #2 (Manhattan DA’s case) which is similar to Case #1 in that they are both seeking Trump’s tax records from Mazars, but for different reasons. In Case #1 Congress is seeking the returns as part of its oversight role and impeachment investigation, while in Case #2, the DA is seeking the returns as part of criminal investigation. So we will have to see if SCOTUS decides to take one, both or none of these cases.
Here’s what happened during the Thanksgiving Break:
SCOTUS Issues A Stay In The Case Involving the House Committee’s Subpoena of Trump’s Tax Returns — In a one page ruling on Monday [Nov.25], which you can read HERE courtesy of the DK Diary by MTmofo, SCOTUS granted Team Trump its requested stay in the case of Congress’s subpoena of Mazars (Trump’s former Accounting Firm) for Trump’s financial records including his tax returns. The stay temporarily prevents Mazars from handing over Trump’s financial records/tax returns by the deadline imposed by the Court of Appeals ruling. As stated in the SCOTUS ruling, the stay is to allow for the filing and disposition by SCOTUS of a writ of certiorari by Team Trump by no later than December 5 (i.e., Trump must submit a request for SCOTUS to take the case by December 5, and if he does, the stay will remain in effect at least until SCOTUS makes its decision on whether to hear the case or not).
I have heard a lot of legal Pundit speculation that this means SCOTUS is planning to take the case and a lot that this doesn’t provide any indication that they will or won’t hear the case. The most plausible legal opinion I have heard on this is that SCOTUS is just buying itself time to consider whether to hear both Trump tax cases that are now being elevated to the Supreme Court level. The two cases are this Congressional subpoena case and the case of the Manhattan DAs subpoena of Mazars for Trump’s tax returns. Since they are similar with respect to the fact that they both involve the subpoenaing of Trump tax returns from Mazars, it makes sense that SCOTUS would want to decide on whether to hear them at the same time. However, the cases are different in that Congress is seeking the returns as part of its Executive Oversight role and the Manhattan DA is seeking them as part of a criminal investigation into Trump’s payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels for which Michael Cohen was convicted and incarcerated. They could decide to hear both cases, hear neither case or hear one and not the other. We will see.
December 16:
Well in response to Appeals filed by Trump, on Friday December 13 (as somewhat expected) SCOTUS announced that it had agreed to hear the first 3 of the 4 cases listed above, and in conjunction with their decision issued a Stay in all 3 cases pending a final ruling in these cases by SCOTUS. According to the usual SCOTUS calendar, it is expected that they will hear the cases in March and make their final rulings in June.
The reports I heard are that SCOTUS will hear the two Congressional cases (Deutsche Bank/Capital One and Mazars) together, but will hear the Manhattan DA’s Mazar’s case separately. That makes sense since the Congressional cases involve Congress oversight authority with respect to the Executive Branch, while the Manhattan DA’s involves a State criminal investigation. It is important to note that in all 3 of these cases, Trump consistently lost in the lower courts where his claim of “Absolute Immunity” was laughed at. So the chances SCOTUS will overturn all of these lower court rulings based on the Trump argument is likely small (I don’t see Roberts buying into Trump’s Dictator-like argument). It is also important to note that if SCOTUS rules against Trump in the Manhattan DA case (which seems very likely) and the DA gets Trump’s tax returns, it is unlikely that they would become immediately public, since they would be held confidential by the DA as Grand Jury material. However, a loss for Trump in either of the Congressional cases would likely result in public disclosure of Trump’s tax returns in June/July. Too late for the current Impeachment proceedings, but just in time for the Republican convention and the November election.
The status of the forth case (lawsuit brought by the House Ways & Means Committee against the IRS for failure to turn over Trump’s taxes to Congress) is uncertain. The case was brought by the House in the Spring, but since then we have heard nothing but crickets. Not even a Hearing date. Also, as a reminder, this case also involves a Whistleblower complaint over an alleged mishandling of the Trump tax return audit by the IRS.
On December 19:
There is something new with respect to Case 5 above. Apparently when the Circuit Court Judge dismissed this case, he required Congress to notify Trump if they intend to request his NYS tax returns. So House Democrats said Tuesday they are appealing a district judge’s order requiring them to alert President Donald Trump if they seek his state tax returns under a recently passed New York law. So this case is going back to Court.
January 3-6:
Here’s a little recap as to where the above cases stand at the moment.
Cases 1, 2 & 3 Above — These three (3) cases are all at the SCOTUS level awaiting hearing dates to be scheduled sometime in March. It’s reported that SCOTUS will hear the Manhattan DA’s case (Case #3) separately because it involves a criminal investigation, while they will hear the two House Committee cases (Cases 1 & 2) jointly because they both involve matters of Congressional Oversight and Impeachment powers.
Case 4 Above — This case was heard by U.S. DC District Judge Trevor McFadden back in early November, but, to my knowledge, he has yet to issue a ruling. Also, this case also involves a Whistleblower complaint over an alleged mishandling of the Trump tax return audit by the IRS, and the Treasury Department IG is investigating this complaint.
Case 5 Above — A Federal Judge dismissed this case back in November on the grounds that the Federal Courts do not have jurisdiction over matters involving NYS law (i.e., Trump would need to sue in NYS Court). However, the Judge ordered the Ways and Means Committee to give the court and Trump notice if they request the President’s state tax returns from the New York Department of Taxation and Finance, and ordered the committee to not receive any requested state tax returns for a period of 14 days. However, the House Democrats said they are appealing the district judge’s order requiring them to alert President Donald Trump if they seek his state tax returns under a recently passed New York law.
January 14:
Well there appears to be some action on Case #4 above and it isn’t good.The federal judge handling the House Ways and Means Committee’s lawsuit against the Treasury and IRS for President Donald Trump’s tax returns decided to stay the case on Tuesday pending the outcome of the Don McGahn subpoena case. This prompted some truly perplexing reactions online, since the cases seem to be entirely unrelated. But they are, in at least one important respect, related. In a minute order, U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden pumped the brakes on the case “[f]or the reasons stated on the record” during a Tuesday telephone conference. There was no additional information provided, and the reaction was fast and furious, in no small part because McFadden is a Trump-appointed federal judge who donated money to the Trump presidential campaign.
WTF! There is a lot of speculation you can read in tweets connected to the Law & Crime, with regard to the connection between this tax return case and the McGahn case, or lack thereof, but one cannot help but smell a Trump Rat behind the motives of this ruling.
January 29:
Well this gets complicated, so let me recap a little first to provide some context. About 2 weeks ago Judge Trevor N. McFadden pumped the brakes on Case #4 above when he issued a stay in the case pending the outcome of the Don McGahn subpoena case. As I said before what one has to do with the other is murky at best, but he’s a Republican Judge so you know. However, now Democrats have sent a letter to the Court to try to end the stay based on arguments made by Trump’s Impeachment Defense Team. House Democrats are asking a judge to end a delay in their suit seeking President Donald Trump’s federal tax returns, citing comments from Kenneth Starr, one of Trump's defense attorneys in his impeachment trial. “Indeed, just yesterday, former D.C. Circuit Judge Kenneth Starr told the Senate on behalf of President Trump that a House subpoena-enforcement action could have been fully litigated even through the Supreme Court in a very short time, as was done in the Pentagon Papers case,” the lawyers wrote. “President Trump is telling the Senate that cases like this one can and should be litigated in a highly expedited way, while here he argues that the Court should delay,” they added.
It will probably fall on deaf ears with this Judge, but at least Democrats are trying.