This week Donald John Trump was Impeached with a historic vote of 230-197-1 on Abuse of Power, and 229-189 -1 on Obstruction of Congress after hours off final debate on the floor of the House. Immediately after the vote Speaker Pelosi argued that she would not be sending the articles of Impeachment over to the Senate until they establish the rules for their trail so that she can select her impeachment Managers appropriately. Considering the public statements by Senate leader Mitch McConnell suggestions that he will dispose of the articles quickly and without any the witnesses that had been requested by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
As a result, the uncertainty of exactly what will happen in the Senate remains in place and the potential for 20 Republicans to switch over and vote for Trump's removal remains remote. However, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsay Graham has called for Rudy Giuliani to testify, separately from the Impeachment trial itself where he can put forth all of his wacky KGB theories about Joe Biden in Ukraine which should be a hoot.
Most of the Impeachment debate featured Democrats outlining how wrong it is to use the office of the Presidency to try and benefit yourself and you campaign personally, while Republicans basically spend the entire time denying the words mean words and claiming that Dems were only going through this effort because they just “hate” Trump so much.
On that point, I myself wrote this two months ago before the Whistle-blower report was released.
Most Democrats I’m aware of are strongly, deeply in favor of impeachment and feel that we need to have impeach Donald Trump immediately in order to save the country from a POTUS who believes he can redirect the path of a hurricane, either with a Nuclear Bomb or with a Sharpie. Either “presidential” action shows a lack of comprehension that is simply beyond the pale.
I have to state that I’m sympathetic to that pro-impeachment view. I would prefer an end to Trump’s dark reign far sooner rather than later. If it could be, it wouldn’t be too soon. But there are realities and difficulties that need to be faced, and it’s because of those difficulties that we have to engage in considerably more discussion.
The whistle-blower changed all that.
There was once a time when impugning and disparaging the motives and of your opposition was considered bad form. It wasn't considered polite or justified to argue the character of the other person, rather than the specifics of the point at hand. Those days are long gone now. Nearly every Republican was arguing that “Dems always wanted to Impeach Trump” and frankly in a few isolated cases that might be true, but it’s not true for every Democrat and Nancy Pelosi had been pushing back against an Impeachment Inquiry for the last three years until the Whistle-blower finally came forward. In arguing the inherent “unfairness” that was being heaped on Trump, they argued that he was being treated worse the Jesus of Nazareth, who was flayed and crucified, worse than the Salem Witch Trials where innocent people were also put to death using false charges, and worse than the day of infamy that was Pearl Harbor where several Battleships were sunk and thousands of people died.
Over the top much?
There wasn’t much actual defense of Trump actions other than to claim that the holding of the military aid money to Ukraine was part of a “general review” of corruption when that subject had pretty much never been brought up with countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey or the Philippines where are all lead by corrupt dictators. Trump had actually cut funding for anti-corruption programs in Ukraine and the only version of corruption he managed to bring up with President Zelensky, even though the subject was listed in his call notes, was investigating Crowdstrike and the Bidens.
It was just one long shitshow, and that’s very likely to be the case during the Senate trial. Whenever there is a Senate trial.
Meanwhile, OAN Network has apparently finished their 3-Hour documentary on Rudy Giuliani merry romp through Budapest, Kyiv and Vienna where he gathered documents from KGB trained operatives like Andriy Derkach and interviewed both former prosecutor Lutshenko and Viktor Shokin who claimed that he had been poisoned and killed twice only to be revived both times. His host on this trip was Chanel Rion who happens to be a Seth Rich conspiracy theorist.
And it got even more nuts from there.
At its core, the series tells a story in which Giuliani has been unfairly smeared for trying to open a good-faith investigation into so-called Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. Along the way, the story goes, Giuliani stumbled upon head-spinning evidence that the Bidens are corrupt.
OAN host Chanel Rion managed to throw in some additional allegations — culled in part from Ukrainian politicians fighting off corruption allegations of their own — that Schiff himself is personally corrupt due to his investments in Franklin Templeton-run mutual funds.
The allegations don’t make sense, and frequently contradict themselves. Watching the series, it becomes clear that OAN failed to do basic research in numerous areas. For example, the documentary ties Ambassador Yovanovitch to the release of the so-called “black ledger,” a purported bribe ledger in Ukraine that named Paul Manafort, even though the document was made public months before she arrived at the post.
And yet, the documentary appears to be a key feature of Giuliani’s — and, by extension, his client, the President’s — ongoing attempt to gather useful political dirt, in spite of the fact that that effort has already led to the third impeachment in U.S. history.
[...]
Throughout the series, Giuliani repeatedly calls for Joe Biden to be prosecuted, and criticizes the Justice Department for not doing so while imagining what charges he would bring — and how — were he to be in charge of the Biden case.
At one point, Giuliani muses that he could bring a “Hobbes Act extortion case” or a “Foreign Corrupt Practices Act” case against the Democratic frontrunner.
During a conversation with former Ukrainian general prosecutor Viktor Shokin in Kyiv, Giuliani also calls for the release of phone transcripts from conversations that Biden had with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
[...]
At another point, one-time Ukrainian diplomat Andrii Telizhenko drops the name of the alleged whistleblower whose August 2019 disclosure wound up spurring House Democrats to open an impeachment inquiry, accusing the supposed tipster of being part of an elaborate Obama White House conspiracy to thwart Trump.
But most of all, Giuliani and others use the allegations of corruption against Biden to justify Trump’s effort to withhold congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine.
Trump, the argument goes, was obligated to “investigate” allegations of corruption, given that, in the documentary’s extended cinematic universe, it was Biden who misused $1 billion in U.S. government funds to extort Ukraine into dropping an investigation of his son.
While this has been going on, Judicial Watch decided to sue the State Dept for records related to former Ukrainian Ambassador Yovanovich providing Lutshenko with a “no prosecute list” which allegedly included companies linked to George Soros.
The theory here is the Biden and the Obama Administration were redirecting US taxpayer funds for foreign aid to specific companies owned by people such as Soros in some type of $billion kickback scheme, except that none of the US funds actually went to those companies. Also, there was no “do not prosecute” list.
All of this is overcooked Kremlin bullshit which has been pushed out through RT then repeated on Fox News by Sean Hannity and shoved right into Trump’s ear.
And one more thing, Trump also apparently heard that Ukraine was responsible for the hacking, from Putin himself.
All roads lead to Putin.
Here are the rest of the events for this week in the Trump Corruption Timeline, the upcoming month will be updated here as well.
December 13th —
- Trump threatens to boycott debating the Dem opponent next year. [Yeah, well he did lose all his debates with Clinton.] NYTimes reports that Trump is privately fretting about Impeachment while bragging that he’ll be acquited in the Senate. He says he’d like a long Senate Trial so that Whistleblower can be “exposed as a fraud”, but he’ll do whatever his lawyers and McConnell say, or “whatever I want”, or whatever. He mocks the “Lieutenant Colonel” in a wild anti-Impeachment rant then he orders that access to his foreign calls now be “locked down” to only small groups.
- LATimes reports that $20 Million of the Ukraine aid money still hasn’t reached them.
- McConnell says that his position in the Senate on Impeachment will be the same as the WH. [So the jury is aligned with the defense? Captain Kangaroo Court.]
- House Judiciary votes to approve both Articles of Impeachment in a short 10 min hearing.
- Rudy is back from his mad Ukraine trip with more conspiracy theories which was apparently arranged by Andriy Telizhenko and OANN and makes a B-Line for the WH, taking a call from Trump on the plane. He claims $5.3 Billion in US aid for Ukraine was redirected under Yovanovich and Biden into the pockets of George Soros and Franklin Templeton. KGB School graduate Andriy Derkach wrote Graham, Nunes and Mulvaney letters suggesting the creation of a joint investigative commission between the US and Ukraine to “stop corruption” by the “children of Soros.” The only problem is the $5.3 billion came from foreign supporters, the US only provided $1.44 Billion and that money went to security and safety for Ukraine Nuclear power plants, not any NGOs.
- Federal judge rejects a request from the DOJ to delay deciding the census subpoena case until the McGahn case is resolved.
- A crazed “MAGA Mom” interrupts and MSNBC News shoot to rant about the “Impeachment Coup.” [Impeachment is a constitutional process, a coup isn’t. It’s either one or the other, not both.]
- Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) went into deep denial when asked by Manu Raju if she thought it was appropriate for Trump to ask a foreign nation to investigate a political rival. “He didn’t!” she replied. “He didn’t do that.” [Yeah, he did exactly that.]
- FBI Veterans fear Trump’s attacks on the Bureau will lead to violence against agents.
- Vindman's lawyer says that he deserves better than to be “mocked, taunted and bullied by the commander-in-chief.”
- Jim Acosta reports that a top WH advisor says “Trump will come out of Impeachment unhinged.”
- Laurence Tribe argues that Moscow Mitch’s blunder means Trump can never be vindicated.
- 52.3 percent of Americans believe that President Donald Trump should be impeached.
- A federal judge orders the State Dept to search for communications between Giuliani and Pompeo
- Megyn Kelly says that Roger Ailes was afraid Trump would steer viewers away from the network.
- John Brennen says Trump is the “world's greatest snake oil salesman.”
- SCOTUS will review the case of the subpoena for Trump’s tax return next June.
- Rep. Val Demings demands that McConnell to recuse himself from the Impeachment trial arguing that he plans to act on Trump’s behalf.
- Preet Bharara says it’s hard to argue Trump is “innocent” while Giuliani keeps digging in Ukraine.
December 14th —
December 15th —
December 16th —
December 17th —
- Trump’s campaign manager Brad again mistakenly publishes a poll that shows Democrats will keep the House in 2020.
- Trump supporters are humiliated by the Daily Show when it’s shown that none of them have “read the transcript.”
- Conway, Schmidt and Wilson burn Trump to the ground in a scathing op-ed.
- Giuliani continues giving interviews and bragging about ousting Yovanovich and claiming that she was the “corrupt” one.
- Rick Gates is sentenced to 45 days in jail to be served on weekends and 3 years of probation.
- Rep. Jackie Spiere says #MoscowMitch is unfit to serve as an Impeachment Juror.
- Rep. Jamie Raskin shoots down anti-Impeachment talking points one-by-one and bulldozes GOP claims that Trump was only interested in fighting general corruption in Ukraine during the House rules committee hearing while Rep. Doug Collins rambles incoherently.
- McConnell says that he will have a vote to dismiss impeachment after opening statements and he remains at odds with the WH on how to handle the trial.
- Centrist Democrats appear to be standing firm on Impeachment, dashing Trump’s hope that they would crumble.
- GOP Rep. Francis Rooney breaks free of several anti-Impeachment narratives while talking with Jim Scuitto at CNN.
- Trump writes Nancy Pelosi a bonkers spittle-flecked lie-filled six-page letter that rants like his tweets and chopper-talk moments about how unfair Impeachment is, that it’s like the “Salem Witch Trials”, that the Democrats are the ones who betrayed their oath of office, violated obstruction of justice and abuse of power merely for their own political gain and out of spite.
- Pelosi says Trump’s letter is Ridiculous and Really sick.
- John Avlon calls the letter “unhinged.”
- Neal Katyal says that Trump’s letter shows he must testify in the Senate.
- Jake Tapper; “This almost seems like a letter than Kim Jong-Un wrote.”
- Critics call the letter the ravings of a “delusion paranoid.”
- 600 Impeach and Remove Rallies are staged nationwide.
- Steve Schmidt, John Kasich, John Weaver, Jennifer Horn, George Conway and Rick Wilson form a SuperPac called the Lincoln Project to defeat Trump in 2020.
- Judge rules Parnas can remain free on bail despite the $1 Million he received from Dmitri Furtash as both Parnas and Fruman are looking at a buzzsaw for violating the anti-foreign bribery statute.
- Bill Taylor is stepping down as acting ambassador to Ukraine at the end of the year.
- Ukrainian energy firm sues over a drilling contract given to pals of Rick Perry.
- Feinstein, Ron Wyden and Gary Peters write a letter to Graham, Grassley and Ron Johnson saying that their plans to investigate bogus claims made by Andriy Telizhenko about Ukraine which are merely “part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”
- Rep. Jeff Van Drew is now “reevaluating” his life after switching from Dem to Republican.
- Watchdog sounds the alarm after Elaine Chao delivers a major federal contract to her husband Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.
- Lisa Page rips Trump for a “simulated sex act” at his rally during an interview on Maddow and calls out Pompeo and Barr for no defending their staff from WH attacks.
- Trump has yet another late-night twitter meltdown on the eve of his Impeachment and he claims that Giuliani will provide information to put the “Ukraine hoax in a new light.”
December 18th —
December 19th —
December 20th —
December 21st —
December 22nd —
December 23rd —
December 24th —
December 25th —
December 26th —
December 27th —
- Prosecutors indicate they want a harsher sentence for Michael Flynn.
- Trump hastily brushes off questions about whether he learned about the Ukraine conspiracy from Putin at the G-20 while he continues to push the right-wing to reveal the Ukraine whistle-blower, and he has a bright new lie about disposing broken fluorescent light bulbs. Trump also went golfing today [and is about to break Obama’s two-term record for golf in one term], and attacks Pelosi "demanding fairness” in the Senate Trial. [That’s bad how?] He also has a list of stodgy white guys in line to replace Pompeo if he jumps ship for a Kansas Senate seat. National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and Mulvaney top the list.
- A Congolese woman seeking asylum died in custody of CBP at the US-Mexico border.
- CIA veterans slam the Durham investigation for targeting former CIA head John Brennen.
- Talk of GOP Senators Murkowski, Tillis, Earnst, Collins, McSally, Gardner and Alexander pushing back against McConnell’s rigged show acquittal for Trump begins to grow.
- Marco Rubio accuses Fox News Contributor Sara A. Carter of “informational warfare” for writing on her personal blog 18-months ago that she saw no problems with the Carter Page FISA Warrant. [IG Horowitz actually said the warrant was legitimate and valid too, even with the mistakes.]
- The whistle-blower’s attorney calls for Senator Marsha Blackburn to be removed from the Senate Whistle-blower protection caucus after she made comments claiming Lt. Col Vindman was his “handler”, claiming he or she is “not at real whistle-blower” and asking if he was a “democratic operative.”
- Navy Seal who testified against Eddie Gallagher shreds Trump for pardoning a man his fellow soldiers called “Evil” for murdering unarmed civilians.“When you look at politicians getting involved in military justice — whether it’s a congressman from San Diego or the president — with their involvement, it isn’t justice,” the witness said. “It’s political when shooting civilians and executing prisoners shouldn’t be.”
- Joe Biden confirms that he will not testify before the Senate if subpoenaed for Trump’s impeachment trial. [Say what?]
- Federal Reserve study reveals that Trump’s tariffs have backfired causing job losses and higher prices. “We find that the 2018 tariffs are associated with relative reductions in manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices,” concluded Fed economists Aaron Flaaen and Justin Pierce, in an academic paper.
- Radio host Don Imus dies and is widely noted as a racist and a misogynist. [Who the fuck didn't know that?]
- Sarah Toce of The New Civil Rights Movement writes that Pelosi has achieved a masterstroke by making Trump squirm on the hook of Impeachment.
December 28th —
December 29th —
- Graham now worries that Giuliani’s information on Ukraine may be Russian propaganda. [Yeah, ya think?] “My advice to Giuliani would be to share what he got from Ukraine with the IC [Intelligence Community] to make sure it’s not Russia propaganda,” the Republican senator added. “I’m very suspicious of what the Russians are up to all over the world.” [Two weeks ago he said he listen to whatever Giuliani had to say.]
- Sen. Kennedy defends McConnell’s alliance with the WH: “The Senate is not really a jury.”
- Chuck Todd explains how uninformed journalists spread lies by asking stupid questions. [Noticed, did ya?] “If you do push back and you don’t have the facts then you can… just simply ask questions,” the NBC host continued. “‘We’re not sure what’s going on… Maybe where are those servers? You know, I’ve never seen them.'” Earlier this month, Todd told Rolling Stone magazine that he had been “absurdly naive” about disinformation spread by Republicans.[No kiddin’?]
- 5 people are stabbed by an intruder at a Hannukah celebration at a rabbi’s home in New York.
- Tulsi Gabbard says that Impeaching Trump will do “lasting damage to America” only to be slapped down by Emmanuel Cleaver.
- Ivanka defends family separation at the border in a bonkers Face the Nation interview; “Immigration is not part of my portfolio.” [No, it’s part of Stephen Miller’s.]
- Daily Beast reports that GOP lawmakers are refusing to meet or talk with Giuliani.
- George Conway wonders if Trump is unraveling because of the investigations by the NY Attorney General.
- Franklin Graham links the Hannukah stabbing to “hatred for Trump”; “I blame people in the media.”
- Axios reports that companies such as AT&T are forcing their workers to train foreign replacements, and Trump has done nothing about it.
- Michael Flynn’s attempt to use the IG Report to prove “prosecutorial misconduct” in his case, fails again.
- Biden backtracks and says he’ll obey any subpoena.
- Immigration judges are quitting in protest of the unfair conditions they are being placed under, but that is only making conditions worse.
- Multiple fatalities are reported at a shooting at the West Freeway Church in White Settlement, TX near Fort Worth.
- Gov. Cuomo calls the Hannukah attack “domestic terrorism.”
- Christian evangelicals seem to be on a collision course over supporting Trump.
- GOP Sen. Lankford says Trump is not a role model: “I don’t like the way that he tweets.”
- Giuliani unleashes an unhinged attack on de Blasio after the Hannukah party stabbings. “The rise in anti-Semitic violence in NYC is something that could have been stopped at a much earlier stage if the City had a Mayor who embraced the Broken Windows Theory, or at the least, a Mayor who worked full time & paid attention to what was going on,” Giulini wrote. [That’s pure horseshit, crime is DOWN in NYC without broken-windows.]
- Constitutional Scholar Laurence Tribe writes that Trump has violated Whistle-blower protection and witness intimidation laws with his tweet.
December 30th —
- Trump and Putin spoke on the phone again according to the Kremlin, supposed they spoke about US help thwarting a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg, [He got his annual performance review.] The WH delivered a readout hours later. Meanwhile, Trump tries to make the NYC stabbing attack all about himself.
- Civil Rights leader John Lewis seeks treatment for stage IV pancreatic cancer.
- WaPo reports are that Giuliani also meddled in foreign affairs involving Venezuela by having direct conversations with President Nicolas Maduro in an attempt to have him step down with the help of Rep. Pete Sessions, but against the desires of John Bolton.
- Pompeo dodges questions about a 2020 bid for Senate.
- This year Manafort, Cohen and Stone were all convicted, which of Trump’s bagmen will be next?
- Trump’s massive farm bailout is obscuring how much damage his tariffs have done.
- NYTimes reports that Trump’s freeze of the aid for Ukraine started 84 days of turmoil in the WH. When it began on June 27th Robert Blair warned: “Expect Congress to become unhinged.” Defense Sec Mark Esper, Pompeo and Bolton all tried to tell Trump in an Oval Office meeting to release the aid because it was in the interests of the US, but he refused until Sept 11th, the day after Bolton was forced out of the WH, where he finally released the aid. [All of this shows why McConnell needs to let them testify.] Meanwhile, Trump had government lawyers cooking up a theory that his Article 2 Foreign Policy powers overrode Congressional budgeting authority which is a twice-failed argument he tried with his emergency wall funding.
- Mnuchin’s Treasury dept handed corporations more tax breaks than Trump asked for.
- Axios reports that animous by Black American voters against Trump may generate a massive turnout in 2020.
- Michael Moore argues that Trump could be re-elected if Dems don’t choose a candidate that excites the base.
- USCIS Chief Ken Cuccinelli smears the alleged Hannukah stabbing attacker Grafton Thomas and his family, even though he was a US citizen, for being the son of an undocumented immigrant who received amnesty in 1986. “Apparently, American values did not take hold among this entire family, at least this one violent, and apparently bigoted, son,” he wrote. The Daily Beast could not confirm that this claim is true.
- Judge throws out subpoena case for Bolton deputy Kupperman claiming the point is moot since Congress has dropped it,
- West Virginia's graduating class of correction officers performed a Nazi salute due to “poor judgment” and “fear of reprisals.”
- U.S. stages Air Strikes in multiple locations in Iraq and Syria without permission of the Iraqi government.
- Peter Strzok argues that his first amendment rights were violated by the release of his text messages in response to the DOJ motion to dismiss his lawsuit.
December 31st —
January 1st —
January 2nd --
- Pardoned War Criminal Eddie Galagher starts a casual clothing line.
- An Anti-Muslim crank with ties to the WH tells Fux and Fools that we should bomb Iran in retaliation for the embassy attack in Iraq.
- Morning Joe tries to unravel Giuliani’s “racketeering rant” to no avail.
- Trump rants that it’ the “CRIME OF THE CENTURY” that the “Dirty Cops” at DOJ prosecuted all his pals like Manafort, Stone, Gates, Flynn, Papadopoulos, Van Der Zwaan and Cohen.
- Julian Castro drops out of the 2020 race.
- Trump again lists the Vets Choice bill as one of his accomplishments, when it was signed by Obama in 2014.
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Pompeo cancels his trip to Ukraine for a second time.
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New FOIA’d emails reveal OMB telling the Pentagon that Trump himself personally ordered the Ukraine funds withheld — “Clear direction from POTUS to hold” — beginning on July 25h and that the Pentagon repeatedly argued this was illegal under the Impoundment Act which “established procedures to prevent the President and other government officials from unilaterally substituting their own funding decisions for those of the Congress.” This continued until Politico revealed the hold on Aug 28, at which point talking points of denial were drafted. “No action has been taken by OMB that would preclude the obligation of these funds before the end of the fiscal year.” Then Duffey at OMB tried to blame the Pentagon for the delay in funds causing acting comptroller Elaine McCusker to respond “You can’t be serious.”
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McConnel and Schumer made no progress on a deal for the Impeachment Trial.
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Sen. Josh Hawley intends to introduce a resolution to dismiss the articles of Impeachment.
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More FOIA’d documents from the Mueller investigation including redacted interviews with Manafort are released. They reveal that Manafort used Sean Hannity as a “backchannel” to pass messages back and forth to Trump while he was being investigated by the FBI. They also show that Roger Stone’s associate Jerome Corsi ultimately admitted to believing his own BS cover story while he was passing info between Stone and Wikileaks to have the Podesta emails released in order to shift attention from the Billy Bush tape. Lastly, the interviews show that Trump blew up with Michael Flynn because he forgot to tell him he had received a congratulations phone call from Putin on inauguration day.
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JustSecurity’s analysis comparing the redacted versions of the documents indicate that the DOJ blocked out sections that referenced potential violations of the law. Redactions should involve classified material, or else confidentiality for an outstanding case. Neither of those is the case with these omissions indicating that the DOJ has attempted a cover-up that Trump violated the law.
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The leader of the Iranian Quds Force Gen. Qasem Soleimani is killed by a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport, Defense Sec Esper confirms the strike was implemented on orders from Trump.
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Iran TV cuts its broadcasts and only shows pictures of Soleiman.
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Kentucky’s Republican attorney general asks the FBI to investigate former Governor Matt Bevin.
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Trey Gowdy will not be joining Trump’s defense team. “He has enough lawyers.”
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Napolitano says Trump will welcome Putin to Mar-a-Lago and abandon his border wall. [I doubt that.]
January 3rd —
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An audiotape of Trump official Justin Clark includes his bragging about plans for 2020 using voter suppression “as the GOP has traditionally done.”
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State Dept urges US Citizens to leave Iraq after the drone strike.
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Pompeo admits on live TV that there was no specific pending threat from Soleimani although he does claim that Soleimani was “planning big action” against the US, he has no specifics.
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US deploys 3,000 additional soldiers to Iraq.
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Pelosi declares the drone strike to be a “dangerous escalation” as there is no AUMF for Iran, and there was no briefing with the Gang of Eight prior to the attack. [This may have been an illegal assassination of the head of the Iranian forces.]
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Lindsay Graham says he was briefed on the Soleiman strike while golfing with Trump in Florida. Chuck Schumer wasn’t briefed. He also told Matt Gaetz.
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Years ago Trump tweeted that Obama would attack Iran before his re-election. [There’s a tweet for everything.] There’s also a video of him ranting the same thing claiming Obama has “no ability to negotiate.” [Yeah, that why he negotiated the Nuclear Deal with Iran that you broke.]
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Christianity Today editor says evangelicals have widespread ignorance of Trump’s moral failings. [Ya think?]
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Trump is reportedly considering a pardon for the Blackwater contractor who was convicted of murder in the 2007 Nisour Square Massacre in Iraq. “There are more warriors out there who he believes have been treated unfairly and whose [cases] need another look.” [What the fuck is his malfunction with murderous scum?] He also says that Iraq is ungrateful for “all we’ve done for them.” [We invaded and destroyed their country, then didn’t rebuild it. Grateful for what?] and claims that his airstrike against Soleimani was an attempt to “Stop a War” and “De-escalate” and that he has no intention of “regime change.” He apparently briefed Israel about the Soleimani attack ahead of time, he told his Mar-a-Lago crowd to expect “Big action in Iran”, and he told Putin, but he didn’t tell Congress.
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Fox Business Host Stuart Varney says we can’t Impeach Trump now that he’s killed Soleiman. [The fuck we can’t.]
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McConnell defends the Soleiman drone strike. He then complains about how Democrats “plowed ahead with a historically weak impeachment” fed by “Trump derangement syndrome” then they "Flinched” and got cold feet by holding the articles until he specifies the structure of the trials. He says he will follow the model of the Clinton Impeachment Trial, which passed 100-0. He claims Clinton committed a “felony” and should have been removed except for “partisan concerns.” [It was not a material falsehood in relation to the case and didn’t meet the requirements for perjury.] He argues being partisan is “normal” not that a Senator should be blind to what the House has done, but they should “cooly consider the facts.” “We’re content to continue the ordinary business of the Senate, while the House flounders.”
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Schumer complains that there wasn’t advance consultation and transparency over the Soliemani drone strike. He argues that there has never been an Impeachment trial without witnesses and that McConnell has no intention of being impartial. He goes on to point out that emails released from one of his requested witnesses Michael Duffey indicate that POTUS directed the hold of Ukrainian funds and that the Senate needs "the whole truth.” He also points out that the redactions of the FOIA documents are suspicious and questionable, and that there were indeed witnesses in the Clinton Impeachment trial who had already testified. "If we don't have witnesses this will be a meeting of the 'mock trial club.'” He says McConnell's promise to hear the arguments and vote on witnesses later is a "trap."
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Geraldo and Kilmeade get into a heated argument over the Soleimani strike. “Don’t start cheerleading on this...”
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Judge allows Indicted Lev Parnas to give House Intel his iPhone data and documents.
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DOJ argues that the courts have “no role” in between a fight between the WH and Congress on the McGahn case. [Uh, then who resolves the fight?]
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Trump's DC hotel has a potential buyer.
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Pentagon officials say that attacks by Soleimani did not appear to be imminent.
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Mike Pence blames Iran for the 9/11 attacks which is clearly bullshit.
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Iranian ambassador to the UN says the Soleimani attack was an “act of war.”
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NYTimes reports that Trump’s admin is withholding 20 emails between Mulvaney and OMB about the holding of Ukraine funds from congress despite an FOIA court order.
- WaPo reports that White House Officials including the National Security Council were left out of the loop on Soleimani.
January 4th —
January 5th —
January 6th —
January 7th —
- SecDef Esper rejects Trump's threats against Iranian cultural sites. Then he says that Soleimani was “caught red-handed” planning attacks with fellow terrorists, while Iran says he was conducting diplomacy.
- Iran Foreign Minister accuses the US of State Terrorism.
- Napolitano says Bolton testifying could be good news for Democrats.
- Rep. Ro Khanna moves to subpoena Bolton for testimony this week, or next.
- WH continues to claim, without evidence, that the Soleimani strike “saved lives.”
- Pompeo offers no specifics when asked about Soteimani’s “imminent threat.” Then he joins Esper and plays down the idea of bombing cultural sites.
- Ftucker Carlson slams his Fox colleagues for suddenly believing the Deep State Intel agencies on Soleimani.
- Kevin McCarthy says that Trump attacked Soliemani because of Adam Schiff and Impeachment. [That’s a bit of Wag the Dog truth there.]
- DOJ takes a tough line with Michael Flynn’s sentencing and begins to ask for jail time due to his resistance.
- Conway deflects from Trump’s potential war crimes by saying reporters are asking “hypotheticals.”
- Iraq has spread the withdrawal letter around and is now expecting it to happen.
- McConnel states he has the votes to begin an impeachment trial without witnesses.
- Trump apparently decided to assassinate Soleimani after his other plan of “maximum pressure" had failed. He expected that he would be praised and would gain a benefit, but it’s backfiring instead. He then says that he attacked Soleimani because of a previous attack and the fact he was “meeting with the head of Hezbollah, and they weren’t planning a picnic. We didn’t like where he was stopping. I’ve been hearing from countries that are extremely happy. They’re allowed to kill our people and there’s nothing that stops them, and according to various laws we have to be very careful with their cultural institutions. I like to obey the law, so it’s ok with me.” [You didn’t already know that as illegal?] “Ours was an attack based on what they did, he killed an American. He was called a monster, and he’s no longer a monster, he’s dead.”
- Palm Beach police are investigating an “incident” at Mar-A-Lago last night.
- Conservative attempts to gaslight and intimidate war critics isn’t working.
- Jared Kushner secretly met with Saudi Arabia's Vice Minister of Defense yesterday in the Oval Office and the WH tried to cover it up. (This minister happens to be the same person who told Jamal Khashoggi it was "safe" for him to visit the Saudi consulate in Istanbul)
- The Congressional Gang of Eight is briefed on the Soleimani attack.
- Iran performs a ballistic missile strike on two US bases in Iraq, there are no casualties.
January 8th —
January 9th —
- Rep. Doug Collins accuses Democrats of being “in love with terrorists.” over the War Powers vote. He also claims Democrats “mourn the loss of Soleimani more than our Gold Star families” which is a statement that echoes Nikki Haley. [RIght, just look how Trump has treated the families of John McCain, Khazir Khan and Sgt. LaDavid Johnson.]
- Senator Tammy Duckworth responds to Collins: “I left parts of my body in Iraq, fighting terrorists”
- NYTimes reports that our bases in Iraq had a three-hour warning about the incoming missiles.
- CNN reports that McConnell met with Trump Wednesday (1/8) to discuss the impeachment trial.
- Trump's unclassified memo on Soleimani fails to claim that he was an “imminent threat.”
- Pence hits back and the bipartisan complaints about the Iran briefing. “If we were to share all of the intelligence — and, in fact, some of the most compelling evidence that Qasem Soleimani was preparing an imminent attack against American forces and American personnel — also represents some of the most sensitive intelligence we have,” Pence said. “It could compromise those sources and methods.” [The sources and methods would still be classified, there’s no reason not to include them.]
- Jared Kushner rushes to talk Senator Mike Lee down after he supports putting a check on Trump’s War Powers.
- Pelosi says she’ll send over the articles “when I’m ready, which will be soon.”
- US Officials believe that the Iranian plane that crashed was shot down by Iran. This is later confirmed by video that the plane was struck by an Iranian surface to air missile, reportedly by mistake.
- Kilmeade: “Taking shots at Obama for the Iran strike doesn’t make any sense.” [Nope, no it doesn’t.]
- Trump does a press event on the environment and goes on a bunch of strange tangents including the YMCA song a “rough neighborhood” near Tehran. Then he tweets asking how everyone's “409k” is doing? Andrea Mitchell immediately hits back at his claim about Democrats “loving Terrorists.”
- Kevin McCarthy claims he only met Lev Parnas “one time” after receiving campaign donations from him.
- Polls indicate the vast majority of Americans think the Soleimani strike made the US less safe.
- Rep. Justin Amash blasts SHuckabee’s complaints about the War Powers Bill saying she “can’t think of anything dumber than the Consitution.”
- The Fifth Circuit court of appeals has lifted the injunction on $3.6 Billion in military funds for Trump’s border wall.
- Stephanie Grishan ducks a $175,000 offer from Stephen King to do an actual press conference.
- CNN Jeff Zeleny argues that Pelosi is holding the articles so that Impeachment begins in February during the SOTU.
- A new book American Oligarchs: The Kushners, The Trumps And The Marriage Of Money And Power documents how Don Jr. and Ivanka avoided prosecution for defrauding renters and investors in their Trump Soho project by having their lawyer give a campaign contribution to Cyrus Vance.
- New Yok City Bar Association slams Bill Barr and asks Congress to investigate him for bias.
- Middle-East experts say that Soleimani’s death was a gift to ISIS.
- Trump supporter claims “he’s our OJ.” [What? Even the most hardcore OJ supporter still thinks he committed murder.]
- White Supremacist Richard Spencer says he deeply regrets voting for Trump after the Iran debacle.
- Former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka welcomes Iran’s attacks on US Troops.
- Giuliani uncorks a bizarre rant that Trump’s impeachment should be declared “illegal.”
- The GOP has devolved into a PR firm trying to clean up Trump’s messes and lying to the public.
- Max Boot blasts Republicans who claim that if you don’t love Trump, you love terrorists.
- Trudeau announces that Canada has intel that the Iranian plane was shot down by a surface to air missile.
- McConnell expects the Impeachment Trial to begin next week.’
- Several Republicans may back Tim Kaine’s War Powers resolution.
- Lt. Gen. Francis M. Beaudette denied the reinstatement of the Special Forces tab for pardoned war criminal Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn,
- Mike Lee tries to clean up his “worst briefing ever” statements by saying the actual worst was the Obama era Benghazi briefing. [Which stinks of partisan bullshit. In Benghazi we were attacked by unknown agents, this time we initiated an attack for unknown reasons.]
- The House passes their War Powers resolution, which is also supported by Matt Gaetz, and sends it to the Senate.
- Journalist and producer of HBO ‘Succession” Frank Rich argues that there will ultimately be a “reckoning” for Trump’s rabid cult.
January 10th—
- Schiff doesn’t plan on having John Bolton testify ahead of the Senate trial.
- State Dept rejects Iraqi formal request to begin troop withdrawals.
- Trump's attempt to have the defamation suit by E. Jean Carrol dismissed fails. He also claims that Soleiman had plans to threaten four US embassies, probably and he claims that he should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize over a deal in Egypt about a dam on the Nile river. He tells Laura Ingraham that the public doesn’t have a right to know what the rationale for drone strike against Soleimani was and he brags that the US has received $1 Billion from Saudi Arabia in exchange for US Troops.
- Pompeo says there was a “threat” from Soleimani but they didn’t know from when or where.
- The DOJ investigation by John Huber of Hillary Clinton involving the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One begins to shut down with a whimper without any indictment or findings.
- Pelosi sets the stage to send Articles of Impeachment and House Managers to the Senate next week.
- Doug Collins retracts his attack on all Democrats who “love terrorists” and apologizes, just 45 mins after sending out a fundraising letter where he declared he would not apologize.
- Bloomberg reports that US Intel agencies are examining if Russia is targeting Joe Biden. [Ya think? Kremlin-linked fracks in Ukraine have been accusing him of money-laundering with cash he had no control of.]
- Sen. Collins says she is working with other GOPers to ensure the Senate has witnesses.
- McConnell backs a resolution to dismiss the Impeachment articles before they are presented.
- WaPo and WSJ report that Trump tried to kill a second Iranian commander Quds Force leader Abdul Reza Shahlai by ordering a drone strike against him in Yemen, but it failed to kill him.
- Rep. Jayapal slams McConnell for trying to kneecap the Impeachment process.
- Mariane Willamson ends her bid for 2020.
- WSJ accidentally reveals that Trump killed Soleimani to appease GOP Senators who will be voting in this impeachment trial. “Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said (my italics).”
- Colin Powell’s former Chief of Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson slams Mike Pence’s ridiculous claims that Iran was linked to 9-11, pointing out the Solteimani helped fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. “Pence’s words are laughable,” Wilkerson said on “Democracy Now!” “Soleimani and his entourage were actually helping us in Afghanistan in 2001, early 2002, to fight the Taliban. We got indispensable help from Iran in that regard.”
- DOJ doesn’t want the SCOTUS to hear the Texas Obamacare case before the election.
- Hannity melts down over the DOJ dropping the Uranium One case and he begins threatening to “give out phone numbers” of GOP Senators who support the Impeachment process going forward.
- LATimes writes that Trumpism is a Cult based on the view of former Moonie Stevan Hasan.
January 11th —
January 12th —
- Rick Santorum claims that the Impeachment process has been “overtly political.” “And I think people will view it in that lens,” Santorum said. “And I think by the time that the November election comes around, I think the issues with the FBI and what happened with FISA and what happened with the original [Russia] investigation are going to be a lot more important issue for the American public than impeachment.” [For Right-wing Trumpers that might be true, but then it’s always true that they worry about dumb bogus conspiracy theories.]
- Giuliani says the Impeachment Trial would be “Good for Trump” since he’ll be quickly acquitted although he also argues that Justice John Roberts could “dismiss” the entire case.
- MSNBC Host Allan Smith argues that Giuliani’s proposal that John Roberts could rule on a “motion to dismiss” the Impeachment is false since the Senate has its own rules and there would have to be a 50/50 vote for the Justice to break the tie. “And it’s really difficult to see Chief Justice Roberts, if such a 50-50 vote did take place, be willing to put his thumb on the scale that hard and dismiss the case outright before anything is even heard — anything is presented from the House,” he added. “The scenario Giuliani is presenting is highly, if not downright impossible to take place — so difficult to see it happening.”
- Trump tweet whines that the “Stigma of Impeachment is now attached to his name.” [Bwaah hahahahahaww. Yes, it is. Permanently.] He warns Iran that about the disdain of “Human Rights Groups” if the government creates a “massacre” to suppress protestors of the 737 Flight being shot down. [Two days ago they were protesting Trump!] On Fox he makes Giuliani’s demand that Justice John Roberts “dismiss the phony Impeachment, that should not be allowed to proceed” and he accuses former Secretary of State John Kerry of “funding the Middle East Rampage of terror attacks.”
- Sen. Mike Lee says lawmakers weren’t aware of “multiple embassy threats” until Trump blurted it out.
- Lindsay Graham praises McConnell saying his “finest hour” has been standing up to Pelosi on Impeachment.
- Pelosi slams Trump’s projection: “When he calls someone crazy, he knows that he is.”
- Former Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer comes out against renewed briefings because of the “hostility” of the press. [They get “hostile” when they get repeatedly lied to.]
- Tony Swartz says that Trump’s slurring might be early dementia.
- Jake Tapper grills Mark Esper over the claim that four embassies were targeted. Esper says he “believed” that as well, but doesn’t offer a shred of proof or any specific intel.
- WH says Trump will issue new rules to expand “constitutional prayer” in public schools. [How’s that work with the First Amendment clause that the “Congress shall establish no law with respect to establishing religion?”]’
- McCarthy accuses Pelosi of holding back Impeachment Articles to help Joe Biden and to hurt Bernie Sanders. [Uh, whut?]
January 13th —
January 15th —
January 15th —
- Nancy Pelosi announces her Impeachment Managers and releases the articles of Impeachment to the Senate. The managers include Reps. Schiff, Nadler, Jeffries, Demings, Jason Crow, Zoe Lofgren and Sylvia Garcia. [I’m a little disappointed they didn’t include Rep. Jamie Raskin who is a constitutional professor or former Republican Justin Amash.]
- Trump counter programs his big “Phase One” China Deal signing to go against the Impeachment Articles being delivered, although this deal largely allows China to go back to what they were doing before and doesn’t help the trade deficit. It’s mostly a “ceasefire” on the trade war with Trump’s tail between his legs.
- Trump claims Impeachment is “another conjob by the Dems and all this was supposed to be done by the House, not the Senate.” [That’s not how this works, it’s not how anything works. The House functions as a Grand Jury and doesn’t perform the trial, the Senate does that.]
- Robert Hyde tells CNN “No fucking way” when they ask if he intended to harm Amb. Yovanovich. “That’s a bullshit question.” [Some of his text messages to Parnas indicate he offered to “take care of” her.]
- Former CIA Officer Douglas London writes that Trump’s impulse for targeting terrorists was driven by his need for celebrity and praise, not national security priorities including the attack on Soleimani.
- Neal Katyal and former DOJ official Joshua Geltzer state that the Parnas docs have destroyed Trump’s defense case: “This is what he’s been afraid of.”
- Sen. Tina Smith reacts to news that Trump was having Yovanivich kept under surveillance: “That is creepy.”
- Morning Joe howls in laughter at Trump’s latest meltdown over toilets and water pressure during his rally and he points out that Sec Pompeo hasn’t said anything in defense of Yovanovich still.
- Vox reports that the Pentagon knows nothing about a $1 billion payment from Saudi Arabia for US Troops.
- Putin announces Constitutional Changes which will increase the power of the Prime Minister, and the entire Russian government agrees to resign.
- George Conway says that the new Parnas’ stalking docs show Trump is a “Narcissistic Psychopath.”
- Former Prosecutor Joyce Vance lays out the timeline of events involving the stalking and removal of Ambassador Marie Yovanovich.
- Trump reportedly abused and harrassed DHS Sec. Kirstjen Neilsen when she protested his illegal command to “shut down the border.”
- New Book claims that Trump was itching to meet Putin before the inauguration.
- House Dems release a 2nd tranche of evidence from Parnas.
- Lev Parnas is interviewed by Rachel Maddow and reveals many things:
- “Trump knew everything.” Giuliani kept him fully informed and they didn’t do anything without his consent. [This is supported by a letter from Giuliani to Zelensky asking for a meeting which states that he is representing Trump in his private capacity with his “knowledge and consent” — which seems like a confession to Logan Act violation.]
- Parnas took handwritten notes while on the phone with Giuliani and documented that getting Ukraine to announce an “investigation into the Bidens” was paramount. It wasn’t about corruption, it was about and Hunter and Joe Biden.
- Mike Pence was pulled out of Zelensky’s Inauguration because one of his aides wouldn’t commit to investigations at Parnas’ request. Parnas had told the aide that not just military aid b“all aid” was being held. When Pence didn’t show up, they knew Parnas was a serious player.
- Pence was also supposed to meet with Zelensky in Warsaw and extract a commitment to announce investigations. “Pence must have known” about the investigation request because he was supposed to deliver it. [Pence’s phone conversation with Zelensky is still “classified.”]
- On the advice of John Soloman, Parnas had arranged to have Dimitry Firtash hire Toensing and diGenova as lawyers to help get his US corruption charges dropped in exchange for dirt and information on Biden in Ukraine.
- Bill Barr also kept in the loop as was practically “part of the team.”
- He also says that Robert Hyde was an acquaintance who was “always drunk” and that the didn’t trust to believe his WhattsApp messages about stalking Yovanovich.
- He says he knew Devin Nunes and his deputy, Derek Harvey, who was already familiar with the accusations against the Bidens.
‘January 16th —
- Giuliani distances himself from Parnas: “Believe him at your peril.”
- Ukraine announces a criminal investigation into the surveillance of Yovanovich.
- The GAO reveals that the OMB violated the Impoundment Control Act by withholding aid to Ukraine on Trump’s orders.
- Morning Joe accuses Trump and Bolton of conspiring on his testimony and says that Parnas “tore the lid off Impeachment” with his interview.
- Former prosecutor Joyce Vance says that Bill Barr can't do an investigation of himself. [But he won't assign a Special prosecutor either.]
- Former prosecutor Gene Rossi says Barr should consult a defense attorney.
- WH insists Trump still doesn’t know Parnas despite his interview and numerous pictures.
- New texts from Parnas' phone show Giuliani’s frustrations with an interview between Soloman and Lutsenko. “The anti-corruption prosecutor made some very weak comments that are equivocal at best. And not consistent with the facts. Story would get blown up. Don’t want to lead with my weakest hand.” They also show that it was Lutsenko who had problems with Yovanovich — because he was corrupt and she was fighting him — and removing her was a gift to get him on board with the investigations.
- Another dump of Parnas data shows that the push to get investigations announced by Ukraine went back long before Zelensky to the previous president Poroshenko as Parnas described to CNN: “The first quid pro quo was when we met with President Poroshenko,” in February of 2019. Also “In April 2018, Lutsenko reportedly froze the country’s investigations into Manafort and halted any pending cooperation that it had with the Mueller investigation,” just as Trump implemented security assistance and sold them Javelin missiles.
- the Senate begins the Impeachment trial with the reading of the articles by Rep. Adam Schiff, the Senators are sworn in while Chief Justice Roberts presides. Proceedings will continue on Tuesday (1/21).
- McConnell is reportedly planning a minefield of procedural moves to save Trump's ass.
- FBI visits the home of Robert Hyde to ask him about his text messages about Yovanovich.
- Devin Nunes finally admits that he does know Lev Parnas and claims he’s a “person who doesn’t tell the truth.”
- Senate GOP blows off the GAO finding that Trump’s hold of Ukraine aid was illegal. “The GAO report identifies the OMB and not the President and said it was for policy reasons, not for political reasons,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told reporters Thursday. “I don’t think that it changes anything.” [The OMB was acting on Trump’s orders, and the reasons don’t matter since he doesn’t have the power to hold the aid.] “They shouldn’t be deciding who broke the law,” Sen. Shelby said. [Yeah, they should just like CIA counsel who made a criminal referral to the DOJ.]
- Judge postpones Michael Flynn’s sentencing while considering the withdrawal of his guilty plea.
- Kellyanne says she doesn’ t know Parnas, but pictures tell a different story.
- The View’s audience gasps as Parnas rains bombshells on Trump.
- Sen. Martha McSally calls Manu Raju a “liberal hack” when he asks about the documents released by Lev Parnas.
- Trump snaps “Quiet” at a CNN’s Jim Acosta asking about Lev Parnas as he denies knowing him and claims again that his Zelensky call was "perfect”, the economy is great and “it’s a hoax.”
- Laura Ingraham suggests Pelosi has "dementia" for her handling of Impeachment.
- Don Jr. spread another debunked theory that Yovanovich was “monitoring me.”
- The DOJ is again investigating James Comey this time for supposedly “illegally leaking information about the Russian investigation” to reporters. [As head of the FBI he had the authority to permit leaks to the press, so this is bogus.]
- Sen. Collins says she’s “likely” to vote for additional witnesses. [Oh, show us another football why don’t cha Lucy!!]
- Legal experts agree with the GAO: Trump broke the law.
- Intelligence leaders as Congress to cancel scheduled briefings to avoid angering Trump by telling them things he refuses to believe.
- Fathers torn from their children for months sue the Trump admin over their separation policy and national group sue over the policy of flying asylum seekers to Guatemala.
- Trump admin finally releases $billions in relief funds for Puerto Rico, but with strings.
- Maddow broadcasts part 2 of her interview with Parnas
January 17th —
- Eleven US Troops were Medevac’d out of Iraq for potential brain injury following the Iran missile attack, while Trump was tweeting “All is well” and said no soldiers were harmed. Trump and Esper misled the nation.
- Trump is furiously grilling his staff on how well Impeachment is playing with voters, Trump lashes out at Mike Bloomberg for not qualifying for the debates, he declares himself "exonerated of the GAO complaint” because Alan Dershowitz said on Fox News that the "GAO has it backward, the Congress has no right to dictate foreign policy for the President” [Yeah, they do, it's called "the law.”] and a new book states he unleashed an expletive-filled rant at his military leaders. “You’re all dopes and babies.” He claimed we’re getting ripped off by NATO, that they didn’t know how to win in Afghanistan, and he demanded we get out of the Iran deal, Pence was silent as a wax museum. The book also documents that Trump doesn't know basic geography or history, such as the fact that India and China share a border or the meaning of the Pearl Harbor attack. Trump apparently wants to repeal the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act so US companies can accept and pay foreign bribes and he also orders cuts to Michelle Obama’s nutritious school lunch program on her birthday because he’s shitty like that.
- Morning Joe claims Trump doesn’t realize how much trouble he’s in and the GOP is unsure how to defend him. GOP Senators are apparently weighing their allegiance to Trump.
- Fux and Fools floats a conspiracy theory about the GAO finding that Trump violated the Impoundment Control Act. “A senior administration official said they are doing this so they can insert themselves into the impeachment when there is so much media attention,” Earhardt said. “If you look at all the networks, and we’re going to go through it in a moment, and their coverage of the impeachment trial, they love to hear this. They love to hear that this watchdog agency, they love to hear that they have determined that the president violated the law when it withheld that aid to Ukraine.” “However the Office of Management and Budget disagrees with it,” she added. “They say the president has a right to do this.” [The Pentagon said OMB was breaking the law also.]
- Rick Santorum gets flattened by Rick Burman after claiming Parnas’ revelations are “extraneous” to Impeachment. “It seems to me that you’re saying even if President Trump came up today and said, ‘you know what? I did this. I withheld the aid. I’m guilty of this. I admit to all of it,’ you would say ‘you know what? It’s inadmissible because it didn’t come up at the House impeachment investigation.”
- Treasury's Inspector general is looking into abuse of the Opportunity Zone program for low-income housing by high-end luxury condos.
- Trump pics Fox News lawyers Ken Starr, Alan Dershowitz and Robert Ray to join Cippilone, Sekolow, Pam Bondi and Jane Raskin on his defense team. Dershowitz is in a defamation lawsuit fight over allegations he assaulted a woman in connect with Jeffrey Epstein and Starr was forced out as head of Baylor university after a sexual harassment scandal.
- Sen McSally [who was appointed to John McCain’s seat after he died and she lost against Kysten Sinema] takes a victory lap and fundraises after calling Manu Raju a “Liberal Hack” and faces a tough election against former Astronaut Mark Kelly this year.
- Rand Paul threatens GOP Senators with “severe consequences” for any rogues who won’t stay in line.
- Robert Hyde distances himself from Parnas in a furious tweetstorm. [We have the receipts, Bob]
- Three Neo-Nazis are arrested in a plot to kill an Antifa couple.
- Pompeo finally begins to look at the surveillance of Yovanovich.
- House Foreign Affairs Chair Elliot Engle says he will use “all legal means” to force Pompeo’s appearance at an Iran briefing.
- FBI releases a new batch of FBI memos from the Mueller probe. The documents include heavily redacted pages from the interviews of Stephen Miller, Peter Aven, Michael Cohen, Bob Forseman, Denis Klimentov who worked with NES and described how excited the Russians became when they heard Carter Page was working with Trump, Dmitri Klimentov who is Denis brother and only knew Page by reputation, Andrej Krickovic, communications with KT McFarland, Sam Patten, Anotoli Samochornov who was in litigation with Natalia Veselnitskaya, Shlomo Weber and Paul Manafort.
- Robert Ray claimed “Contempt of Congress” is illegal, just days before being selected as a member of the Trump defense team.
- Manafort client Serhiy Lyovochkin told him that the US Embassy in Kyiv had asked for information about him from the Ukraine anti-corruption group, and this he considered “interference by Ukraine” into the 2016 election.
- Dershowitz claims on CNN that he’s a non-partisan civil libertarian and he’s support Trump because the articles are “not impeachable.” He says that “Abuse of Power” is not a High Crime and that “Obstruction of Congress” isn’t in the constitution and they could have resolved the issue in the courts even though this was an attempt to attack the 2020 election and courts take months. He argues that they could have “expedited” the issue even though the Judge in the Kupperman case didn’t even schedule an initial hearing for three weeks. Jeffrey Toobin says that’s all a load of crap. [Also the DOJ is currently arguing that the courts can’t resolve a fight between Congress and the WH in the McGahn subpoena case, so how ya like dem apples?]
- A Kansas City radio station strikes a deal that allows them to broadcast Russian funded propaganda for six hours a day.
January 18th —
January 19th —
January 20th —
- NYT Editorial board endorses both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobachar.
- Thousands descend on Virginia’s Capitol for a huge pro-gun rally in opposition to some proposed gun control laws. Unfortunately, Neo-Nazis also attend the rally which causes actor Jeffrey Wright to compare it to a Klan Rally.
- CNN’s John Berman blasts Dershowitz as being “wrong on the law, wrong about history.”
- Morning Joe argues that Devin Nunes keeps getting caught in “one lie after another.”
- McConnel is allegedly considering a “Kill Switch” that will allow him to turn off Impeachment at any time. [Perhaps when Trump’s defenders start losing?]
- Trump has been following McConnell's lead on the Impeachment case and whines about the Senate possibly calling John Bolton to testify. “It’s not supposed to be that way.” [Yes, it is.]
- Bloomberg reports that Fiona Hill and Tim Morrison's replacement as Chief WH Russian advisor Andrew Peek is escorted out of the WH due to security concerns.
- Trump's legal team issues a 110-page rebuttal to Impeachment that claims that the entire effort is illegitimate because it doesn’t include a criminal offense [although Impeachment according to Hamilton is for “political crimes which break the public trust”], they claim the entire effort is partisan overreach, they admit the Trump solicited investigations from Zelensky and claim that he “had every right to a make those requests” [even though both cases were bogus and weren't part of US Foreign policy but were for his own personal political gain] and that they had a right to block all testimony and documents because again, the inquiry was “invalid.” They also claim that information and testimony which has come to light outside of the House case shouldn’t be considered and that he can’t be removed even if the House proves every assertion against him. [He can, but will they?]
- 22 years ago Alan Dershowitz argued that you don’t need to commit a crime to be Impeached. [Whoops!!!]
- House Managers provided a 9-page response to the rebuttal and call it "Chilling.” [And was also a confession that admitted that he did the crime(s).] ““The Framers deliberately drafted a Constitution that allows the Senate to remove Presidents who, like President Trump, abuse their power to cheat in elections, betray our national security, and ignore checks and balances. President Trump believes otherwise and insists he is free to engage in such conduct again, only highlights the continuing threat he poses to the Nation if allowed to remain in office. ”
- Geoge Conway says the Impeachment rebuttal reads as if it was written by a 9th grader.
- HUD is making rules changes that disable the ability of black homeowners to sue for being overcharged for taxes under the Fair Housing Act.
- Jennifer Rubin states that Lev Parnas has blocked Trump from denying his central role in the Ukrain plot.
- Bill Kristol blasts GOP Senators for treating their oath like a “joke.”
- A Politico report shows that Trump has multiple foreign conflicts of interests which are violations of the emoluments clause.
- Virginia gun rights activists bum rushes an MSNBC reporter’s live shot by shouting F-Bombs.
- Maggie Haberman catches Trump inflating his poll numbers. [Shocker!]
- NAACP’s Sherrilyn Ifil blast Kellyanne Conway for saying Trump is preparing for MLK day [which is today] by “getting ready for Davos.” She also claims that Trump fighting Impeachment is similar to the injustices that MLK fought. [Really man?!]
- Sen. Durbin says just before the trial they still lack “basic information” about the proceedings.
- Some Democrats want to call the GOP’s bluff on calling Hunter Biden to testify in exchange for John Bolton.
- Lev Parnas calls on Bill Barr to recuse himself from any investigation of Trump due to a conflict of interest.
- Trump polls have now tanked; 51% want him removed. 57% don’t approve of his handling of Impeachment. 58% say he's guilty of power, 57% believe he obstructed congress. 67% say Russia is a serious threat.
- McConnel lays out his rules for the Trial which require each side to lay out their case in 24 hours within 2 days. The House witnesses and evidence can be admitted with a vote, additional information can be admitted with a vote, and the entire procedure can be shut down with a dismissal vote at any time. Schumer blasts the rules as a “sham.”
- Trump adds a second Team of defenders from the House including Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ), Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY). These defenders are not likely to speak in the Senate but they will show up talking BS on Fixed News.
January 21st —
January 22nd —
- Trump says he’d “Love for Pompeo, Mulvaney and Perry to testify but it would be a national security problem.” [You could waive that issue if they could prove your innocence.] He makes a bizarre statement about the inventor of the wheel, brags about obstructing Congress and while hobnobbing with billionaires in Davos says he’d be willing to cut Social Security.
- DC Attorney General Karl Racine sues the Trump inaugural committee for failing to comply with non-profit rules and booking a $1 million ballroom at Trump's DC hotel. This investigation seems to implicate Ivanka in directing inflated payments to the DC hotel.
- Jonathan Turley, the GOP’s defense witness, blasts Trump’s defense against Impeachment. “The developing defense by the White House is also a mistake. It would again ‘expand the space for executive conduct’ by reducing the definition of impeachable conduct to the criminal code,” the lawyer wrote. “It is an argument that is as politically unwise as it is constitutionally shortsighted.”
- Fox's Chris Wallace is unimpressed with the WH defense. “They are basically saying, ‘There’s nothing to see here, all of this is bogus,’ while the House managers are taking every second of their one hour to make whatever case they want to make,” “I don’t know why you wouldn’t take the time and every second you have to make an argument on behalf of the President,” he said. “If I were the President watching this, I would not be especially pleased.”
- Tulsi Gabbard sues Hillary Clinton, her political rival, for $50 million for saying that she is a “Russian asset.”
- FBI complains that Parna's lawyer was supposedly unable to unlock his iPhone when working with them but easily provided information from the phone to the House.
- Flynn's lawyers say he shouldn’t serve any jail time and accuses the DOJ of “vindictiveness.” [Why would they be vindictive since you guys violated your cooperation agreement and accused them of lying and entrapping him in a corrupt coup plot?]
- UN reports that the Saudis sought to silence Khashoggi after he criticized Trump in his column.
- WaPo issues warning that the Senate GOP is "laying the groundwork to sabotage our democracy"
- Lindsay Graham goes berzerk on the Dems: "I'm covering up nothing, I'm exposing your hatred.”
- Schumer blasts Trump's "confused" defense team: It was like watching the ‘histrionics you see on Fox News’ [Exaclty like Fox News.] He also says that a "Witness swap” of Hunter Biden for John Bolton is “off the table."
- Joe Biden says again that he will not testify because he’s not a fact witness.
- Mark Meadows sputters as he's asked about witnesses by CNN’s Dana Bash.
- George Conway tells CNN that Trump has played right into Schiff's hands. “Trump is not very smart.”
- Adam Schiff delivers his opening statement on Impeachment and torches Trump's actions with Ukraine “So we don’t have to fight Russia over there.”
- Jay Sekulow begins spewing persecution fantasies because they have no defense. He also claims that the articles don’t describe a “quid pro quo" when they do exactly that in detail.
- GOP Senators whine that Jerrold Nadler called their voting against all witnesses a “cover-up" [Because it is.] “There was open gasping on the Senate floor when Nadler was saying these things,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). “If the goal was to persuade, they took a huge step backward last night.” “If the Democrats are smart, they won’t put Jerry Nadler on the field again,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said. “He was so out of line. It’s offensive accusing us of a cover-up.” [Hm, Snowflakes R Us.] Even Lisa Murkowski says she was "offended.” [Too F-ing Bad.]
- Asha Rangappa slams Ted Cruz’s claim that there were "serious concerns" about Hunter Biden in Ukraine by pointing out that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and MLAT's would apply, but none do in his case.
- WaPo's E.J. Dionne argues that McConnell has given Dems "a gift" by tainting trump's eventual acquittal.
- Senator John Cornyn complains that the presentation it's repetitive. "Why do we have to keep hearing the same thing over and over and over again?” [Until it starts to sink in.]
- Jason Crow "pulled rank" on Roberts by pointing out that Senators are taking extended breaks away from their seats.
- A protestor screams "Schumer is he Devil” from the gallery as Hakeem Jeffries gives his presentation.
- FBI misses the deadline to provide Kushner interview memos from the Meuller probe.