https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/senate/475199-gop-chairmen-seek-interview-with-obama-officials-as-part-of-biden-ukraine%3famp
Finally some GIP heavyweights are going to "Schiff" the Obama officials allegedly on review for knowledge of affairs related to Ukraine and other du ious topics that the Obama administration has so far kept under water.

Time to see what a deep dive into their phone calls, transcripts meetings, agreements and conversations can yield in the way of damning evidence of crimes.

Thanks to the idiocy of trumpstain, and the bungling of the repuke leadership in the senate, there is a very strong potential for the democrats to regain 2 to 4 seats, and that will effectively stop trumpstain from continuing his lunacy. Together with the fact that Speaker Pelosi will keep the gavel, and gain even more seats for the democratic majority, and that will be easy with 27 repukes leaving HOR before the e******n

Listening and reading the enraged trumpstain whining and crying will be better entertainment than the usual crap on rightwingnut media and propaganda like the fools at fox or fat limbah




https://www.rawstory.com/2019/12/the-majority-is-in-play-top-e******ns-analyst-explains-democrats-path-to-winning-the-senate/

The first two years if not the whole four of an administration are going to be spent focusing on the damage this administration has done to every aspect of government. Literally every agency will have to be rebuilt and structured as they try to get back to a normal functioning status. Literally every agency is going to be in disarray as a new administration that has access to documents and information on how the agencies were being run comes to light..

And before jumping to the donald's defense, keep in mind that every agency has been headed by people who are against the agencies they are put in charge of. Agency heads have been chosen by a president who has brought the lowest levels of actual experience and expertise to agencies that take seasoned and experienced people with a lifetime of large organization administration sk**ls. Agency heads have been chosen because they are against the agency they are in charge of, it was literally their job to implement their destruction if not elimination entirely. Agencies have been defunded, their best people fired or resigning in disgust of an incompetent management that didn't want them to do their jobs.

The incoming administration will be inundated with reports of corruption and crimes that need to addressed by federal prosecutors, many of the trump state and federal prosecutors will need to be replaced, far more than is typical.

But here is the benefit of running on fixing the mess trump created, it gives dems a chance to air specific things trump has screwed up by discussing what needs to be done to fix it.

Forget universal healthcare, the fight will be keeping the ACA and tuning it up over five to ten years heading it toward more and more coverage. Forget green new deals, just evolve energy the right direction, it takes decades. Run on rejecting the worst of the unqualified judges McConnell has jammed through, not all, just the most glaringly bad according to the ABA.

To hell with changing the world in one term, just work on righting this sinking ship.

Another caution: a blind eye may not work here. And your attention span will be strained.



House Intelligence Committee Democrats released a 300-page report outlining their months-long impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Donald Trump. Based on weeks of dramatic public hearings and additional documents requested from the White House, it’s an indictment of Trump’s pressure on Ukraine and, they say, his threat to the US system of government. We’ve annotated their executive summary and linked to the full report.

The impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 e******n.

This is very good shorthand for the main issue at play. Democratic lawmakers have said Trump’s actions constitute the “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” that the Constitution lays out as grounds for impeachment, while Trump has argued that everything he did was “perfect” and business as usual.

As described in this executive summary and the report that follows, President Trump’s scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his p**********l ree******n campaign.

Here’s a somewhat controversial statement right off the bat. The President, as the elected leader of the United States, sets foreign policy, as the diplomats who testified at impeachment hearings made clear — and by that rationale, the foreign policy Trump wants should be the foreign policy of the country. But multiple witnesses said Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, with their efforts to secure investigations, subverted US interests. Undermining national security is perhaps more straightforward to prove, since Trump’s actions likely served Russian interests.

The President demanded that the newly-elected Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly announce investigations into a political rival that he apparently feared the most, former Vice President Joe Biden, and into a discredited theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 p**********l e******n.

Trump has repeatedly said he never personally made a demand. However, Trump did ask for a “favor” right after Zelensky referred to US missile systems during their key phone call — and other officials t***smitted to the Ukrainians that the aid was contingent on an investigation. Witnesses in the impeachment inquiry were split. Some said it was a request. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified he believed it was a demand.

To compel the Ukrainian President to do his political bidding, President Trump conditioned two official acts on the public announcement of the investigations: a coveted White House visit and critical U.S. military assistance Ukraine needed to fight its Russian adversary.

During a July 25, 2019, call between President Trump and President Zelensky, President Zelensky expressed gratitude for U.S. military assistance. President Trump immediately responded by asking President Zelensky to “do us a favor though” and openly pressed for Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden and the 2016 conspiracy theory.



In turn, President Zelensky assured President Trump that he would pursue the investigation and reiterated his interest in the White House meeting.

Trump pushed Zelensky to meet with his top cop, US Attorney General William Barr, who was overseeing a review into the origins of the Russia investigation. The President also asked Zelensky to meet with Giuliani, who was pushing both the conspiracy theory that Ukraine was trying to bring down Trump’s campaign in 2016 and the idea that H****r B***n, Joe Biden’s son, should be investigated. Trump brought up the Bidens during his call with Zelensky. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Biden.

Although President Trump’s scheme intentionally bypassed many career personnel, it was undertaken with the knowledge and approval of senior Administration officials, including the President’s Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. In fact, at a press conference weeks after public revelations about the scheme, Mr. Mulvaney publicly acknowledged that the President directly tied the hold on military aid to his desire to get Ukraine to conduct a political investigation, telling Americans to “get over it.”

It’s notable that none of the people mentioned here have cooperated with the impeachment inquiry. Mulvaney did hold the news conference as described, though he later tried to walk back the idea there was any “quid pro quo.”

It’s beyond question that Trump bypassed career personnel. That in itself is probably not inappropriate conduct since, as President, he technically sets the policy. It becomes inappropriate if and when he makes policy to benefit himself instead of the national interest.

President Trump and his senior officials may see nothing wrong with using the power of the Office of the President to pressure a foreign country to help the President’s ree******n campaign. Indeed, President Trump continues to encourage Ukraine and other foreign countries to engage in the same kind of e******n i**********e today. However, the Founding Fathers prescribed a remedy for a chief executive who places his personal interests above those of the country: impeachment.

There are actually two remedies. There’s impeachment, whereby Congress removes an official who betrays the public trust. There are also e******ns, which happen every four years. We have one coming up in 2020.

Accordingly, as part of the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in coordination with the Committees on Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs, were compelled to undertake a serious, sober, and expeditious investigation into whether the President’s misconduct warrants that remedy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially announced the impeachment inquiry on September 24, the day before the White House released its transcript of Trump’s call with Zelensky.

In response, President Trump engaged in an unprecedented campaign of obstruction of this impeachment inquiry. Nevertheless, due in large measure to patriotic and courageous public servants who provided the Committees with direct evidence of the President’s actions, the Committees uncovered significant misconduct on the part of the President of the United States.

Impeachment investigators issued subpoenas and sought cooperation from political appointees, but most of them declined to participate. With a few exceptions, it was career professionals at the State Department and on the National Security Council who provided nearly all the evidence. However, the White House and Trump’s Republican allies have not disputed the facts in evidence, but rather have argued they are being misinterpreted.

As required under House Resolution 660, the Intelligence Committee, in consultation with the Committees on Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs, has prepared this report to detail the evidence uncovered to date, which will now be t***smitted to the Judiciary Committee for its consideration.

The House Judiciary Committee will write up the articles of impeachment and consider them before the full House v**es. A simple majority v**e in the House would impeach the President. Senators would then hold a trial and consider the evidence and whether it warrants removing the President from office, which requires a two-thirds supermajority.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/12/politics/trump-ukraine-impeachment-inquiry-report-annotated/

How can I say this? Because an expert on constitutional law says so. Who is this expert? He is law professor Noah Feldman who the Democrats used in the House hearings to say Trump had committed impeachable offenses. He states that until the House has delivered the articles of impeachment to the Senate Trump has not been impeached. if Democrats say that is not true then they is saying he is not really a constitutional expert and therefore his House testimony is invalid. If he really is a constitutional expert and his House testimony was valid then Trumph has not been impeached. Which is it, Democrats?

Levin: McConnell Can Declare Impeachment 'Null and Void' Because Pelosi Failed To T***smit Articles
Levin Says McConnell Can Declare Impeachment 'Null and Void'
Volume 90%
By Randy DeSoto
Published December 19, 2019 at 8:36pm

Talk show host and former top Reagan Justice Department official Mark Levin called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to declare the House impeachment of President Donald Trump “null and void” because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi failed to t***smit the articles to the Senate.

Similarly, Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz argued in a Thursday Op-Ed that a failure to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate would rob Trump of his constitutional rights.

Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution provides that “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments … And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.”

In a series of tweets, Levin, who served as chief of staff to Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese, wrote, “Nancy Pelosi was apparently advised by leftwing Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe to delay sending the impeachment to the Senate. So she’s unilaterally sitting on the impeachment. This is another brazen unconstitutional act.”

“Here’s what Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans must do in response: The Senate has the sole power under the Constitution to adjudicate an impeachment. Therefore, Pelosi is attempting to obstruct the Senate’s power to act on its constitutional authority,” the Fox News host continued.

“McConnell should immediately put an end to this and declare the impeachment null and void as the speaker has failed to complete the impeachment process by timely sending it to the Senate for adjudication,” Levin tweeted.

He then argued that McConnell has “no less authority to [act] unilaterally” than Pelosi.

“Her effort to cripple the presidency & blackmail the Senate must be defeated,” Levin concluded.

Do you think McConnell should follow Levin's advice?

Dershowitz specifically took on Tribe’s notion that the articles of impeachment could be withheld indefinitely.

“[Tribe] would withhold the trial until the Senate agreed to change its rules, or presumably until a new e******n put many more Democrats in the Senate. Under his proposal, there might never be a Senate trial, but the impeachment would stand as a final and permanent condemnation of President Trump,” wrote Dershowitz, who reportedly is being considered to be part of Trump’s Senate impeachment trial legal team.

“It is difficult to imagine anything more unconstitutional, more violative of the intention of the Framers, more of a denial of basic due process and civil liberties, more unfair to the president and more likely to increase the current d******eness among the American people,” the top defense lawyer continued. “Put bluntly, it is hard to imagine a worse idea put forward by good people.”

“President Trump would stand accused of two articles of impeachment without having an opportunity to be acquitted by the institution selected by the Framers to try all cases of impeachment. It would be as if a prosecutor deliberately decided to indict a criminal defendant but not to put him on trial.”

Among the constitutional violations Dershowitz identified would result from a failure to t***smit the articles of impeachment is denying Trump the right to confront his accusers and be acquitted of the charges leveled against him.

RELATED: Fox News Contributor Defies Network's Ban and Names 'Whistleblower' in Segment That Turns Awkward

Speaking from the Senate floor on Thursday morning, McConnell addressed the possible non-t***smission of the articles, saying, “Looks like the prosecutors are getting cold feet in front of the entire country and second-guessing whether they even want to go to trial.”

“They said impeachment was so urgent that it could not even wait for due process but now they’re content to sit on their hands. This is really comical.”

On Tuesday, McConnell responded to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s demand for four new witnesses to appear at a Senate trial, saying the Senate will not do the House’s “homework” for them.

“He wants to volunteer the Senate’s time and energy on a fishing expedition to see whether his own ideas could make Chairman Schiff’s sloppy work more persuasive than Chairman Schiff himself bothered to make it,” McConnell said.

The majority leader further pointed out, “If House Democrats’ case is this deficient, this thin, the answer is not for the judge and jury to cure it over here in the Senate, the answer is the House should not impeach on this basis in the first place.”

What trial?

Pelosi says that she will not forward the "Articles of Impeachment", unless SHE gets to make the rules.

That ain't never gonna happen in this existence, therefore: There can be no trial in the Senate.

That goofy old hag has done gone plumb bat$hit crazy

Pelosi truly has a Tiger by the tail; she cannot hang on, and she dares not let go