Twenty-Eight ways the impeachment move could crumble for Democrats


  1. Democrats keep learning that this President fights back and start learning that other Republicans have picked up the habit

In a 22 November 2019 One American News Network article, we find that the White House has pushed the Senate to hold trial if House mobilizes on the impeachment.

WhiteHouseSayaHoldA_TrialPresident Trump has ordered the Senate to hold a full trial in the event the House impeaches him. A team of top level senators reportedly sat down with White House counsel Pat Cipollone this week to discuss a potential “dooms day” plan.

The White House is reportedly urging senators against immediately dismissing articles of impeachment as some GOP lawmakers have suggested in the past. The administration said establishing a “factual affirmative defense” for the president before dismissing impeachment is important since it shows due process, which is something conservatives say Democrats have lacked during their inquiry.

“It’s a hoax, it’s a disgrace, it’s an embarrassment to our country,” said President Trump. “Shifty Schiff, he stands up and he tells lies all day long and even with that,so we have no due process…”

This comes amid reports the House could be pursuing four different articles of impeachment against the president on charges of obstruction of justice, abuse of power, bribery, and contempt of Congress. The White House maintains that holding a Senate hearing would give them an opportunity to disprove each of those charges.

During a recent interview, the president said that those hearings would allow the upper chamber a chance to question Hunter Biden, the whistleblower, and House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff.

Senators are currently mulling strategies to not only dismantle Democrats’ impeachment narrative, but disrupt Democrat primaries as payback for holding impeachment proceedings during the president’s re-election campaign. One of those plans could entail holding Senate impeachment hearings during primary debates. The move would force senators like Kamala Karris, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to cut into their campaign times to attend hearings.

(Read the entire article at One American News Network)

We’ve endured eight years of Obama and four years of “The Resistance.” Now Conservatives are ready for representation that fights back.

Far from the submissive conservative embodied in President George W. Bush, today’s conservative has been looking for a leader who will resist the evil that comes in the abortion-centered party.

Additionally, just to get things on an even footing, in a similar way to how the Democrat party has changed the rules mid-stream (as with the nuclear option) and thinks nothing of circling the wagons around obviously-guilty Democrats (like Senator Mendoza and Secretary of State Clinton), the Republicans need to start dishing equal amounts back to the Democrats. The years of “my esteemed colleague from across the aisle” have wrought nothing but wins for Democrats and loses for Republicans. Now, we need to live by “an eye for an eye” until there is a sign of Democrats’ collegiality.

  1. Trump: Schiff Risks Senate Grilling If Impeachment Moves Ahead

NewsMax reports in a 23 November 2019 article that President Trump suggests that Schiff risks a grilling if the impeachment moves forward.

President Donald Trump on Saturday warned that Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., risks voter disapproval — and a grilling in the Senate — if he moves forward with impeachment.

In a tweet, Trump suggested unnamed polling shows Americans are against impeachment.

AdamSchiff“Adam Schiff will be compelled to testify should the Democrats decide, despite the fact that my presidential conversations were totally appropriate (perfect), to go forward with the Impeachment Hoax,” Trump tweeted.

“Polls have now turned very strongly against Impeachment!”

Republicans have pushed for Schiff to testify in the impeachment because he was in contact with the whistleblower whose concerns sparked the proceeding.

(Read more at NewsMax)

If Schiff thinks that he can suspend rules, suspend due process, and not have it bite him, he has “another think coming”

Southerners have a colloquialism that they use when a person lives in delusive state where they think their plans will run unchallenged. In those instances, Southerners might admit the person might think something, but “they’ve got another think coming.”

If Schiff thinks that he can eliminate due process and equal protection under the law, he might discover several things. First, he might discover that he does not control the Senate and might come under a revived due process and equal protection under the law there. Second, he might find that he has set a precedent that might be useful against the next Democrat minority or Democrat president. I’m hoping he has.

Biased ABC News backs Schiff in ignoring Biden corruption

Left-leaning ABC News in a backward way reports how Adam Schiff does not believe that Biden’s admitted pressuring of Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma and Hunter Biden should be investigated.

After President Donald Trump said it would be “appropriate” for him to speak to his attorney general about initiating an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden’s diplomacy in Ukraine while Biden’s son was serving on the board of Ukrainian energy company, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday that such a move would not be appropriate and expressed concern that the attorney general — who he said was lacking integrity — “just might do it.”

GeorgeStephanopoulos“Of course it’s not appropriate [to discuss that],” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in an interview with ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” Sunday. “The president of the United States is saying it’s perfectly OK for him — and he’s said this before — to go to the attorney general and get [the Department of Justice] to open an investigation of his rivals. And sadly, this attorney general has turned out to be so … partisan and so without — frankly, without integrity — he just might do it.”

Trump told POLITICO on Friday that he hadn’t yet discussed it with Attorney General William Barr, but also said, “It could be a very big situation.”

(Read more tripe at ABC News)

So what else is new here? How many years have the main stream media been focused on their own issues?

By the end of this list of articles, we have at least one instance of a main stream media source discovering an inkling of the concepts that the conservative counter-press discusses regularly. However, they don’t spend too much time on those conservative concepts. I guess we cannot expect too much.

  1. Republicans will gain the upper hand with the Senate hearings

A 22 November 2019 NewsMax article pointed out how Senator Ron Johnson suggested that the Senate should take up the flawed impeachment case.

GOP-Sen-JohnsonSen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Friday that the Senate should allow the House and President Donald Trump to make their case before deciding whether to dismiss articles of impeachment that the House might send over.

“I know outside pundits are just bringing up, dismiss this thing out of hand and move on, but at the same time that would not afford President Trump the ability to really defend himself. So I think the consensus viewpoint literally is we’ll take it up in the Senate,” Johnson told KHOW in Colorado.

He added that if the House sends articles of impeachment to the Senate, they will inevitably be “incredibly flawed,” and House leaders and members of Trump’s team would have to make their case to the Senate.

“I don’t think we should ever just bring up a motion to dismiss. I think if at some point in time if we’ve heard enough, if we’ve really got the votes, we should bring up a motion to vote. Let’s actually vote on the articles of impeachment and then dispense with it that way,” Johnson continued.

(Read more at NewsMax)

Have you noticed that many of these articles center on a Conservative reaction to Democrat lawlessness?

Hopefully, this theme will be echoed on thousands of blogs, hundred of thousands of tweets, proportionately more Facebook posts, and in numerous other social media posts. While I don’t have illusions about the effect of this blog, I have great hopes for the voices of the American.

  1. Anti-Trump Schiff Will Be Seriously Responsible for Tearing Our Nation Apart

Lifezette points out how Schiff’s anti-Trump agenda may be responsible for tearing our nation apart.

death-to-america-terrorists-adam-schiffWe’ve seen show trials before, inquiries before the one the nation has endured in the House of Representatives this week and last.

The Communist Chinese used to love them, especially during the Cultural Revolution.

The Khmer Rouge of Cambodia was fond of the process. They favored a prosecution of anyone who wore glasses.

But the all-time champs were the Soviets. During the 1930s, they perfected the process to such a point that innocent men would plead guilty to anything the state wanted, lest their families be put to death.

Of course, if the state could find them guilty of anything the state desired, then the state had to come up with some pretty interesting stuff, as most of the men tried were actually the recent comrades of the accusers.

Thus, the Soviets perfected a technique that upended reality: They would charge the defendants with crimes so absurd, so ridiculous, so patently untrue on the very face of it.

When the prosecution said the sky was black, no matter what the sky looked like, the defendant agreed. Up was down and wrong was right until biased perceptions, not truth or reality, were the order of the day.

Arthur Koestler wrote an amazing novel about the Soviet show trials called “Darkness at Noon.”

But, hey, chill. That only happened in early 20th century totalitarian countries.

Could never happen here, right?

That brings us to the recently closed impeachment inquiry hearings in front of the House Intelligence Committee, led by Democrat Chairman Adam Schiff of California.

From the first day of the George Kent, Bill Taylor, and Marie Yovanovitch appearances last week to Thursday’s serving of the Fiona Hill and David Holmes testimonies, we have seen the most absurd charges leveled at the president of the United States with the active collusion of the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

(Read more at Lifezette)

This “inquiry” has shown us several things

First, it shows the degree to which Democrats will stoop to regain power. Making rules for a “court” that wouldn’t be acceptable in a banana republic does not pass muster here. Second, Pelosi and Schiff have shown that, when the real testimony given at the hearings do not match the summaries uttered by the House leadership and reported in the “evening news,” it’s time to change the leadership and news.

  1. Democrat Representative Adam Smith: Investigation Of Nunes ‘Quite Likely’

NewsMax reports in a 23 November 2019 article how Democrat Representative Adam Smith plans to retaliate with an investigation of Representative Nunes. Never mind that Schiff claims that an investigation of the Joe Biden is inappropriate.

Adam_Smith
Democrat Adam Smith

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said Saturday it’s “likely” Rep. Devin Nunes , R-Calif., will face an ethics probe over allegations he met with an ex-Ukrainian prosecutor who’s a key figure in the impeachment inquiry.

In an interview on MSNBC, Smith was asked if Nunes could be investigated for the meeting with former Ukrainian prosecutor general Victor Shokin.

“Quite likely, without question,” Smith responded.

“I understand a lot of this is about Joe Biden, but the bigger thing is about what President [Donald] Trump and the Russians and all these people have been doing … is a systematic problem that is a threat to the country because of what Russia is doing to democracy,” Smith told MSNBC.

A lawyer for Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told CNN a Ukrainian official informed his client that Nunes met with Shokin last December in an attempt to dig up dirt on the former vice president.

(Read more at NewsMax)

It seems that Adam Schiff cannot stand the criticism he deserves and wants to investigate in retaliation.

It seems that we have a little megalomaniac in Adam Schiff. It seems that, should anyone stand up against he little dictator, he wants to retaliate.

I wonder how he will react to inquiries from the Senate?

  1. Impeachment witness labeled ‘operative with an agenda’

OneNewsNow digs into the Democrat skulduggery of the impeachment drive.

alexander-vindman-3-energy-v1Not all military veterans are raving about the credentials and loyalties of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council director who was front and center this week during the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry hearings on Capitol Hill this week.

The former Navy SEAL who shot and killed Osama bin Laden has labeled Vindman (pictured), one of the star witnesses of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, as an “operative with an agenda.” Decorated SEAL Robert O’Neil described the Army officer and combat veteran as a conspiring partisan pawn joining Democrats’ anti-Trump campaign to oust the president before he has a chance at a second term in the 2020 presidential election.

In response to Donald Trump, Jr.’s, critical take on Vindman as a “low-level partisan bureaucrat and nothing more” – as noted by The Western Journal – O’Neil offered his own synopsis via social media on the highly publicized witness.

“I agree [with Trump, Jr.],” O’Neill tweeted Tuesday. “I wish the left wouldn’t use his uniform to make him a saint. He’s an operative with an agenda.”

The Western Journal article suggests that Vindman’s track record is anything but admirable.

“Although Vindman wore his uniform during his testimony, his actions are not exactly what you’d expect from a commissioned officer,” the Journal’s Jared Harris argued. “The lieutenant colonel even went outside his chain of command – a move that lends weight to the theory he is simply an anti-Trump operative taking the one chance he had to hurt the president.”

His questionable conduct while in uniform has raised many brows.

“The importance of a chain of command was even emphasized by Vindman in his own deposition – despite the officer’s apparent disregard for the crucial system,” Harris added. “This – along with Vindman’s other actions to undermine Trump – has not exactly made him a hero in the military community.”

In addition to O’Neil’s unfavorable take on Vindman and his part in the impeachment inquiry, Marine veteran Mark Geist – who defended the United States consulate in Benghazi, Libya, when it was attacked by Islamic militants – did not view the U.S.S.R.-born witness in high regard.

“Vindman is a disgrace to all who have served,” Geist posted on Twitter Tuesday, using hashtags calling him a traitor and labeling him an expletive. “Transcript of his previous closed-door testimony he clearly admits to undermining the @POTUS foreign policy, and now he has chairman Schiff advising him on how to answer questions.”

With such criticisms against the Democrats’ top witness, it appears their impeachment inquiry could already be unraveling at the seams.

“There’s not much room left for interpretation in these scorching posts,” Harris asserted. “This show of opposition against Vindman from two modern-day military legends proves that the cracks in the Democrats’ impeachment attempt are beginning to show.”

(Read more at OneNewsNow)

Kudos to the real journalists who read, connected, and wrote articles that showed the true path of events

Just like the Mueller probe, these continual impeachment inquiries yield nothing but rumor and innuendo. For someone to be removed from office, we need proof.

  1. FBI Lawyer Who Sent Anti-Trump ‘Resistance’ Text Message Also Altered Russia Probe Documents: Report

We find from a 22 November 2019 article in the Daily Caller that the lawyer who sent the anti-Trump “resistance” text message also changed key documents in the Russia probe.

kevin-clinesmithThe former FBI lawyer who is reportedly under investigation for altering documents in the Russia probe took part in a 2017 interview with Trump adviser George Papadopoulos, and also wrote anti-Trump text messages that were revealed in a Justice Department report released last year.

Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith altered an email that was included in an FBI application to renew a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Carter Page, according to The New York Times.

Investigators working in the Justice Department’s office of the inspector general (OIG) discovered the email as part of an investigation into whether the FBI abused the FISA process.

A report of the investigation is set to be released Dec. 9.

People briefed on the report said it will fault the FBI for carelessness and unprofessionalism in how investigators conducted the investigation, according to The NYT. But it will stop short of accusing FBI leaders of acting out of anti-Trump bias. The report will also say that the FBI met the low legal threshold to obtain FISA warrants against Page.

But the allegations against Clinesmith are unlikely to alleviate Republican concerns of anti-Trump bias during the investigation.

Clinesmith added material to the bottom of an email from an official at another government agency that was included in a FISA renewal application, according to The NYT. Clinesmith included the email in an affidavit that was presented to another FBI official to sign as part of the process to submit the renewal application.

CNN reported Thursday night that an unidentified FBI official was under investigation in the matter. Michael Horowitz, the inspector general, referred the lawyer, since identified as Clinesmith, to federal prosecutors as part of a criminal investigation.

Clinesmith resigned from the FBI two months ago following an interview with Horowitz’s team, The NYT reported. He was removed from the special counsel’s investigation in February 2018 after the OIG found text messages he wrote criticizing Trump.

An inspector general’s report released on June 14, 2018, found that an FBI lawyer identified as Clinesmith sent another FBI official a text message on Nov. 9, 2016 lamenting Trump’s election victory.

“I am so stressed about what I could have done differently,” Clinesmith wrote in the text.

Clinesmith also expressed concerns about Trump’s election win because of the lawyer’s role investigating the campaign.

“Plus, my god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff,” wrote Clinesmith, who is referred to as “FBI Attorney 2” in the June 2018 report.

In a Nov. 22, 2016 text message discussion about Trump, Clinesmith wrote: “Viva le Resistance!”

A spokesman for the special counsel’s team downplayed Clinesmith’s role on the investigation when contacted last year by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The spokesman described Clinessmith as having an administrative role.

But the OIG report released last year described Clinesmith as the “primary FBI attorney” on the Trump-Russia investigation in early 2017.

(Read more at the Daily Caller)

Just like the other players in the “deep state” act, Clinesmith has nothing but rumors and resistance.

Considering that Clinesmith seems to have been focusing on trying to undermine Trump from the moment of the Trump inauguration, it seems like one of two things: insurrection or example.

Maybe it’s both, Democrats.

  1. Lifezette reports additional details on Clinesmith

A 22 November 2019 article at Lifezette adds certain details to the story about the document-changing lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith.

CNN reported on Friday morning, and The Washington Post largely confirmed, that the report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz on FBI and DOJ surveillance abuses contains a charge that an FBI lawyer allegedly tampered with a document in the bureau’s investigation of a former Trump campaign adviser, according to multiple reports.

The tampering by the FBI attorney apparently changed the gist of the entire document.

And the FBI official who supposedly did the tampering? He’s been fired from the bureau, reports say.

Amusingly, there must have been a call from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on this.

The Post removed the part of its own story on the development, as Fox News reported, that noted the lawyer who allegedly changed the document worked for disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok.

It was gone mere hours after the publication posted it.

washington-post-logoThe Post’s removed paragraph reads, “The person under scrutiny has not been identified but is not a high-ranking official — they worked beneath former deputy assistant director Peter Strzok, according to people familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss material that has not yet been made public.”

  1. Adam Schiff Is Like A Modern Day ‘Admiral Yamamoto,’ Just ‘Awakened A Sleeping Giant’

Mark Levin calls out Adam Schiff through a 21 November 2019 Daily Caller article where he points out the similarities between Adam Schiff and Admiral Yamamoto.

yamamoto-isoroku
Admiral Yamamoto

Conservative radio host Mark Levin compared Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff to a modern-day Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who after attacking Americans at Pearl Harbor lamented that his country had awakened a “sleeping giant.”

Commenting on Thursday night’s “Hannity” about the ongoing House impeachment inquiry led by Schiff as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Levin contended that the California lawmaker had thrown “everything” he had at President Donald Trump, yet still came up empty.

“After we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto of Japan, he said, ‘I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve,’” Levin said. “You know, Adam Schiff, you are in some ways Admiral Yamamoto — you just awakened a sleeping giant. You through everything you had at the president, at the Republicans at 63 million voters who voted for this president, and this is the best you have? This is the best you have? You have nothing.”

This is, according to Levin, despite the fact that Schiff “controlled everything,” including the witness, information, hearing room, rules, timing, press events and ultimately the charging documents.

“You are the Democrat party’s Yamamoto,” he said. “Even now, with all the control that you’ve had and all the positive press, and all the clownish legal analysts and the rest, and the propaganda that they’re pushing and they’re celebrating, the polls for Donald Trump are going up.”

The Fox News weekend host explained that soon, the GOP-led Senate will have control, and the American people, who “revere their Constitution,” will “demand fairness from their representatives.”

(Read the closing points at the Daily Caller)

An eye for an eye

This may just be the beginning.

  1. Democrat Representative Earl Blumenauer called for boycott of Gordon Sondland hotels prior to Sondland’s testimony before the House

Oregon Live reported that Rep. Blumenauer has been intimidating the witness Gordon Sondland by calling for a boycott of the Sondland hotels.

The Constitutional crisis brewing in Washington, D.C., may cost Gordon Sondland.

Representative Earl Blumenauer
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore. calls for a boycott of Ambassador Sondland’s hotels until he testifies against Trump

Congressman Earl Blumenauer on Wednesday called for a boycott of the hotels owned by the businessman-turned diplomat. He did so after Sondland declined to testify before the House Intelligence Committee as part of the Trump impeachment proceedings.

Sondland said he was ordered by the Trump administration not to testify. Sondland’s refusal marks a new strategy by the Trump administration in the face of an impeachment threat. Trump and his administration have refused to cooperate with the impeachment proceedings declaring them to be an illegitimate power-grab by the Democrats.

“Anyone who cares about America should not do any business or stay at any of Gordon Sondland’s hotels,” Blumenauer said. “Not until he fulfills his duty as a citizen to testify and turn over all relevant documents to the House of Representatives. “Nobody is above the law. Mr. Sondland and the entire Trump administration need to be reminded of that.”

Sondland issued his own statement late Wednesday afternoon blasting Blumenauer. “Congressman Blumenauer’s irresponsible attempt to hurt a homegrown business that supports hundreds of jobs in our local economy is just shameful and ought to outrage all Oregonians,” said Jim McDermott, a Portland lawyer representing Sondland.

Sondland, who Trump appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, is the founder of Provenance Hotels, which oversees a slew of upscale hotels across the country, including six in Portland, Oregon—Hotel Lucia, Hotel deLuxe, The Heathman Hotel, Dossier, Sentinel, and The Woodlark.

Sondland said he was ordered not to appear before the House Intelligence Committee about his involvement in the Trump scandal involving the Ukrainian government. Records show that Sondland traveled to Ukraine more than once to pursue the Trump agenda.

Blumenauer has been a vocal supporter of an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s actions. He was the seventh member of Congress to call for an impeachment inquiry.

McDermott said Sondland has turned over all relevant documents sought by Congress to the Department of State, as federal law requires. It is now up to the state department to decide whether to produce the documents to the House committees, he argued.

“Congressman Blumenauer would do well to learn and understand the laws that Congress has passed before he makes reckless and destructive threats that would only economically injure hardworking Oregon employees,” McDermott added.

(Read the original at Oregon Live)

Odd that a tweet can be considered “witness intimidation” by Democrats and their allies in the press, but BOYCOTTING BY A REPRESENTATIVE DOES NOT GET MENTIONED

When main stream media does not mention a boycott called by Congressman Blumenauer for months prior to Sondland’s testimony, that seems like a type of collusion between press and government.

  1. Jim Jordan Asks Sondland About The ‘Meeting That Never Happened’

The Daily Caller gives some of the better blows in the fight between Jim Jordan and Ambassador Sondland.

Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan questioned U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland Wednesday on a “meeting that never happened.”

“When did the meeting happen again?” he asked Sondland Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

“It never did,” Sondland responded.
https://youtu.be/QfHqcuitwI4

  1. Former CIA Analyst: ‘An American Insurrection Is Underway’

The Christian Broadcasting Network tells us how a former CIA analyst told them how an American insurrection is underway.

If you follow politics, you’ve heard people talking about the “deep state”. But is there really some sort of coup going on at a deeper level among career bureaucrats in Washington, or is it just a fantasy?

At a recent Federalist Society dinner in our nation’s capital, US Attorney General William Barr said an “avalanche of subpoenas” and constant attempts to derail Trump administration appointments only serve to ‘incapacitate” the executive branch.

He stopped short of calling what is happening in Washington a political coup, but he suggested forces are engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly-elected government.

Referring to the “resistance” language used by Trump opponents, Barr said, “Now ‘resistance’ is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous and, indeed, incendiary notation to import into the politics of a democratic republic.”

Michael_scheuerAppearing on this week’s episode of the Global Lane, former CIA Analyst Michael Scheuer says he believes an American insurrection is now underway.

“The federal government, at least the executive branch, is being denied the ability to execute its responsibilities, whether it’s here in Washington, or in places like Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco where, under the supremacy clause, Washington is very clearly responsible for immigration. There’s much more disruption and much more insurrection in this country than Lincoln faced until the Confederates fired at Ft. Sumter. It’s staggering to be in this position 160 years later,” Scheuer said.

He says the only thing we’ve heard so far in the impeachment hearings is staffers saying they’re very offended because the president didn’t listen to their advice, contending it’s more about sour grapes than evidence of a crime.

Scheuer also says there’s clear ignorance about the Constitution on behalf of Congress. “When the Constitution says ‘bribery’, the Founders were talking about the President accepting bribes,” not the president making a quid pro quo in exchange for foreign aid, he argues.

Scheuer says the bottom line is there’s a deeper agenda at work here.

“What they’re doing is, as Mr. Barr said, trying to tear down the institutions of this country. They’re not the loyal opposition, they are an infestation of globalists who want to deny nationality to the United States and blend us in with the rest of the world,” he contends.

(Read more at the Christian Broadcasting Network)

  1. Fiona Hill tries to build a straw man

In a 22 November 2019 Breitbart article, we find how

FionaHillFormer National Security Council member Fiona Hill condemned criticism of leftist billionaire George Soros as antisemitic during her impeachment hearing testimony on Thursday.

When asked by Democrat Rep. Raja Krishnamoothi if attacks on George Soros were “antisemitic,” she agreed.

She pointed out the history of government officials attacking Jews as disloyal as far back as the early 1900s, citing “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a Russian forgery that claimed Jews had a secret plot to subvert and control other nations.

“This is the longest-running antisemitic trope that we have in history and the trope against Mr. George Soros was also created for political purposes,” she said. “This is the new ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’”

Hill was a member of the board of Soros’s Open Society Institute from 2000-2006 on Russian and European affairs.

As Breitbart News editor Joel Pollak has written,  criticism of Soros’s leftist policies and causes should not be automatically branded as antisemitic, even though he has faced those kinds of attacks.

Soros has also funded organizations that often oppose Israel, such as J Street, as well as other far-left groups whose views on Israel have themselves been criticized as antisemitic.

Hill admitted during her testimony that she was planning to write an article criticizing the conspiracy theories surrounding Soros.

“I’ve actually intended to write something about this before I was actually invited into the administration because it’s an absolute outrage,” she said.

Hill responded to attacks that she was a “globalist leftist insider,” adding that “my co-workers would be very surprised to hear this.”

She admitted, however, that she was a “leftist” in the European definition of the word.

Hill was first tapped for the Trump White House by National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn, before H.R. McMaster took over the job, ultimately bringing her in from the Brookings Institute to serve President Trump on the White House National Security Council as a top adviser on Russia and Europe.

Hill resigned her position at the National Security Council in June 2019 and departed the Trump White House in August.

(Read the original at Breitbart)

  1. Fiona Hill says ex-Brookings president gave her Steele dossier just before it was published

Fox News reports that Fiona Hill admitted she helped with the Steele dossier (paid for by Hillary Clinton to Ukrainians as opposition research against Trump and the basis for the FISA warrants for investigating Trump).

Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who served on President Trump’s National Security Council, told House lawmakers on Thursday that she obtained the controversial Steele dossier just a day before it surfaced in the media.

Despite Hill’s previous work with Steele, she said she had no knowledge of the dossier before Strobe Talbott, the former president of the Brookings Institution, provided it to her. Talbott, she said, had received a copy of the dossier. It’s unclear how he obtained the dossier, which sparked a media firestorm after BuzzFeed released it in 2017.

Hill, who previously worked at Brookings, was testifying before the House Intelligence Committee as part of House Democrats’ broader probe into the president’s July 25 call with Ukraine. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., had asked Hill about her relationship with Christopher Steele, the former British spy whose allegations fueled the Russia investigation.

rabbitholeHill previously served under former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush’s administrations. She left the Trump administration in August 2019. According to Hill, Steele was her counterpart whom she met with in 2016 and in prior years. When asked for specific dates, Hill said she didn’t remember. She also characterized the dossier as a “rabbit hole.”

Hill told Nunes that she wasn’t aware of who funded the dossier at the time she initially saw it.

Earlier in November, she testified that she had “misgivings and concern that [Steele] could have been played.”

The British-born Hill is a Russia expert who’s written extensively on the Kremlin, and she made that clear from the outset when she scolded Republican lawmakers for propagating what she said was a “fictional narrative” — that somehow Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

“I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary and that Ukraine—not Russia—attacked us in 2016,” she said.

The transcript of Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky shows Trump asking for a “favor” in the form of Ukraine providing information about the hacking of the DNC server in 2016. He referenced CrowdStrike, a cyber firm used by the DNC to investigate the attacks.

(Read more at Fox News)

  1. Impeachment witness Fiona Hill once opposed sending lethal aid to Ukraine in fight with Russia

When the Ukrainians were fighting for their lives and Obama was not honoring his agreement to help them, Fox News reports that Fiona Hill was on record as opposing lethal aid to Ukraine.

A former top Russia expert at the National Security Council who testified Thursday before the House Intelligence Committee as part of its ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump once argued against supplying weapons to Ukraine following the Russian annexation of Crimea.

no_guns_to_UkraineFiona Hill, who resigned from her post at the NSC in August, argued in a 2015 opinion piece published in The Washington Post that sending such lethal military aid to Ukraine could provoke Russia further. If Washington were to send weapons to Kiev, the piece argued, “the Ukrainians won’t be the only ones caught in an escalating military conflict with Russia.”

Hill, who at the time was the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, said in the piece that while the logic of sending arms to Ukraine may seem a “straightforward” way to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression, the move could actually cause Moscow to ramp up its incursion into its neighbor and erode the Western alliance.

“It is hard to find effective alternatives to the current sanctions policy, but if we plunge headlong into sending weapons, we may lose our allies, and we may never have the opportunity to get things right,” Hill wrote, along with Clifford Gaddy, a senior fellow at Brookings.

Hill, however, has since changed her stance on providing lethal aid to Ukraine. She acknowledged in Thursday’s hearing that she was not initially in favor of sending Javelin anti-tank missiles, but eventually learned that a “lot of work” was put into the planning and there was a system for “sustainability long-term of the Ukrainian military.”

“So, I changed my mind,” she testified.

She likewise told lawmakers in her deposition in October that when she was appointed to her position at the NSC by Trump, she saw that the administration “had a proper plan for the long-term sustainability of the Ukrainian military.”

In her deposition, Hill acknowledged her past statements in The Washington Post on not supporting supplying Ukraine with lethal aid.

“Everybody changes their mind, you know, and kind of learns things, I, you know, was basically persuaded that, you know, this was actually worth doing, even though I still had qualms about Russian escalation dominance and was worried about how this would be provided and making sure not to provoke the Russians,” Hill said, according to a transcript of the testimony.

At the heart of the House impeachment inquiry is the question of whether Trump withheld millions in aid from Ukraine as pressure to get officials in the country to announce they were investigating the business dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

(Read more at Fox News)

  1. Senate Republicans Can’t Wait to ‘Stick It’ to Democrats

Wayne Dupree reports that the Senate Republicans cannot wait to “stick it” to the Democrats.

The Democrat’s pathetic “impeachment inquiry” process is over. What will they do next? As polls shifted and overwhelmingly are against impeachment, especially from all-important independents, and TV ratings were in the gutter, do Dems dare to go through with filing articles of impeachment?

Well, if they do, President Trump wants his due process and his day in “court” (Senate court).

He plans to turn the tables on the Dems by dragging in people like Schiff and Joe and Hunter Biden, just to name a few.

In actuality, it seems like Republicans are actually “licking their chops” in anticipation that Democrats in the House will vote to impeach the president.

Revenge is a dish best served ice cold in the Senate:

“Democrats should be worried. They’ve wielded a double-edged sword this whole time.

Every major fact that Democrats have simply glossed over or hand-waved away will be brought up in the Senate. Their sham, partisan stunt will be brought to light.”


(Read the original at Wayne Dupree)

  1. ‘Looks Like An Inside Job’: Former National Security Official Says Impeachment Is Manufactured By Permanent Washington

The Daily Caller points out how the “impeachment” looks like an “inside job.”

Former national security adviser Michael Anton suggested Wednesday the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump looks “like an inside job” lawmakers unhappy with the president manufactured.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff interrupted Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s testimony during an impeachment hearing Tuesday and cited an effort to protect a whistleblower.

“It looks like an inside job of a bunch of career bureaucrats getting together and saying, ‘We’ve wanted to impeach this guy for three years. How do we do it? Oh wait, I think we’ve found a way,’” Anton, a former National Security Council (NSC) spokesman, said to WMAL’s “Mornings on the Mall” co-hosts Vince Coglianese and Mary Walter Wednesday. “Here’s the issue.”

“It just looks phony, and that’s what they’re trying to avoid coming out,” he added.

“I think the reason they don’t want him to say it is not so much to protect the whistleblower’s identity, whoever it is, it’s to protect the phony veneered process that they used to get this impeachment hearing going,” Anton said.

Schiff, a California Democrat, interrupted Vindman Tuesday after the latter said he told an “unnamed official” within the intelligence community about Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s president. GOP California Rep. Devin Nunes, ranking member of the intelligence committee, was questioning Vindman at the time.

AdamSchiff1After Schiff’s interruption, Vindman refused to “answer specific questions about members of the intelligence community,” the NSC aide said. The interruption caused a stir in the day’s impeachment testimony, as many people could be heard vocally protesting Schiff’s actions.

Many questioned Schiff’s move, particularly after the whistleblower’s lawyer Mark S. Zaid tweeted Tuesday, “#ProtectTheWhistleblower,” ahead of Vindman’s testimony. The tweet came alongside a CNN comment noting there could be a “contentious flareup” during Vindman’s testimony when Republicans ask him about the Ukraine phone call.

The Daily Caller News Foundation journalist Chuck Ross noted that Zaid’s tweet “suggests” the person Vindman spoke to on the call could be the whistleblower.

(Read more at the Daily Caller)

  1. Laura Cooper amends her testimony

Breitbart reports in a 20 November 2019 article how Laura Cooper was allowed to amend her testimony.

Laura-Cooper-changing-testimony
Laura Cooper changes testimony

Laura Cooper, the top Department of Defense official dealing with Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, amended her earlier testimony from October in a public hearing at the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday evening.

Cooper told the committee that in reviewing her previous testimony with her staff, she was told of several instances in which Ukrainian officials had asked about the status of aid that had been upheld.

She said that while the only time a Ukrainian official had raised the issue with her personally had been on Sep. 5 — after the publication of the Politico article that most witnesses pinpointed as the moment Ukraine became aware — her staff had received two unclassified emails from the State Department. One arrived on July 25 stating that the Ukrainian embassy and the House Foreign Affairs Committee “asking about security assistance.” The other arrived the same day, saying that Capitol Hill and the Ukrainian embassy both knew about the hold “to an extent.” Cooper said that she did not receive the emails, her staff did not tell her about them, and she knew nothing about them.

She added that on July 3, her staff received an email from the State Department about a block on the aid, and then on July 25 a staff member received an email from the Ukrainian embassy asking “what was going on” with the aid.

Cooper said she did not know what the Ukrainians knew about the situation, but that she and her staff were aware that Ukrainians might raise concerns in August, but it was never addressed openly and they could not remember a date when the question of the hold had been raised.

Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) noted the fact that July 25 was also the date of the phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Later, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale, testifying alongside Cooper, told Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) that he was not aware of any link between the aid and investigations requested by the president.

(Read more at Breitbart)

Of course, it was not just Ms. Cooper who amended her testamony.

Go back and compare the opening statements of the people giving testimony to the answers provided to the Republican House members. Very little matches.

  1. Nunes pointed out that four Obama-era officials called for corruption probe of Burisma

Breitbart points out in a 20 November 2019 article how Representative Nunes noted that four Obama-era officials called for a probe of Burisma.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Jeffrey Piatt in 2015 joined three impeachment probe witnesses in calling for an investigation into the corruption-linked Burisma company and its owner while then Vice-President’s Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was working at the Ukrainian company.

Piatt [or Pyatt], who preceded former U.S. Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, is the fourth official who worked under former President Barack Obama to raise malfeasance concerns about Burisma. Piatt, however, is the only individual who has not testified in the ongoing impeachment probe to deem a corruption investigation into Burisma necessary.

The four complainants against Burisma suggest there is merit to U.S. President Donald Trump’s concerns about Hunter Biden’s work on the company’s board of directors. Corruption concerns about Burisma began with allegations against the Ukranian company’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsy. The United States spent hundreds of thousands helping to investigate Zlochevsy. Combating corruption in Ukraine has long been a significant component of American policy towards Ukraine.

House Democrats, however, refuse to allow Hunter to testify, denying that he is at the center of the impeachment probe.

During the public impeachment probe hearing Tuesday, featuring testimony from U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, testified Rep. Devin Nunes from California, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee hosting the hearing, declared:

You wouldn’t be the first ambassador to be interested in Burisma, did you know that in 2015, U.S. Amb. Jeffrey Piatt’s as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine privately called fro an investigation into Zlochevsky, the president of Burisma. This [Piatt] is the Ukrainian ambassador appointed by Obama in Ukraine.

You would not be the first one to be mentioning that investigations should be done into Burisma because it happened under the Obama administration. Did you know that financial records show Burisma routed more $3 million into the account of Hunter Biden

Sondland claimed he was not aware of Piatt’s concerns about Burisma. He also claimed ignorance of the company’s decision to route more than $3 million over five years to accounts linked to Hunter Biden. Hunter served on the Ukrainian company’s board directors while his father was President Obama’s head honcho for Ukraine policy.

Impeachment probe witnesses — George KentCatherine Croft, and Christopher Anderson — all raised concerns about Burisma’s potential affiliation to corruption, at times when Hunter was working there. Besides former Amb. Piatt, Kent, Croft, and Anderson still all work for the State Department. They did so when they expressed concerns about Burisma.

Kent testified during his October 15 closed-door deposition that he raised concerns about Burisma and its owners, but VP Biden’s office ignored him.

U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and Sondland had both called for investigations into Burisma and its owner, to no avail.

Echoing Volker, Sondland said during his public testimony Tuesday that an investigation into corruption allegations against Burisma would be appropriate.

(Read more at Breitbart)

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  1. Democrat Cindy Axne: ‘Absolutely No Problem Losing’ Congressional Seat over Impeachment

Breitbart reports in a 26 November 2019 article how Cindy Axne does not mind losing her seat due to voting for impeachment.

Freshman swing district Rep. Cindy Axne (D-IA) said Monday that she has “absolutely no problem” “losing” her district due to her support for the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.

Freshman swing district Democrat Axne said that although that she avoids talking about impeachment, she is willing to lose her reelection campaign to support the impeachment inquiry against Trump.

Rep. Axne claimed:

My job is to work for the people here in this district and do a good job for them. But my job also is to protect this country. If we find out that the president has put us in harm’s way, then I have absolutely no problem losing a seat over that.

The Iowa congresswoman also said that impeachment is not a priority for many Iowans:

These are hard working, salt of the earth people who just want to make a living and provide for their families. They’re tired of what they consider the bureaucracy and the politics of Washington and that’s true to what Iowans are. Impeachment is not a priority in their lives.

Axne’s comments follow from a small town hall she hosted in Mount Ayr, Iowa, where she said that she “did not run” to “impeach” President Trump.

(Read more at Breitbart)

  1. Nancy Pelosi Puts Impeachment Ahead of USMCA, Delays Vote

Breitbart reports on how Nancy Pelosi is using USMCA to entice Democrats to vote for impeachment.

house-to-vote-on-impeachment-inquiry-processHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said during a press conference Thursday that she remains skeptical about the House passing the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement this year, as Congress’s lower chamber continues to focus on the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Speaker Pelosi cast doubt during the presser that Congress has enough time to pass the USMCA in 2019.

“I’m not even sure if we came to an agreement today that it would be enough time to finish [this year], but just depends on how much agreement we come to,” Pelosi said.

Last week, she said that a deal on USMCA was “imminent.”

“I’m eager to get this done,” the California Democrat said.

The USMCA’s delayed passage through the House arises as Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) have launched an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

Speaker Pelosi and House Ways and Means chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) will meet with U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer to discuss the Democrats’ remaining concerns surrounding the USMCA.

Pelosi has faced increasing pressure from moderate Democrats, especially those from districts President Donald Trump won in the 2016 presidential election, to finalize the USMCA negotiations with Lighthizer. The moderate Democrats have become frustrated with the USMCA’s slow movement through the House as they face criticism from their constituents over their backing of the impeachment inquiry.

(Read more at Breitbart)

  1. House Judiciary Committee Invites Trump to Testify in First Impeachment Hearing

According to a 26 November 2019 article in Breitbart, Jerry Nadler has invited President Trump or his counsel to testify. However, no changes in the unfair rules voted in by the Democrats have been since voted upon; therefore, Democrats can:

  • Deny legal representation to the President
  • Deny witnesses requested by the President
  • Hold closed-door meetings, denying the President the ability to face his accusers
  • Call prosecution witnesses that cannot be questioned by the President

Therefore, the President would not be best advised to participate. Further, the Breitbart article points out:

The House Judiciary Committee announced Tuesday that the panel will hold its inaugural impeachment hearing next week and has invited President Donald Trump to testify.

NadlerHouse Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said the December 4 hearing, called the “the constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment,” is expected to feature legal experts weighing on purported evidence of President Trump committing impeachable offenses during his July 25 telephone call with the leader of Ukraine.

In a whistleblower complaint, a partisan CIA officer mischaracterized President Trump’s conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, alleging the president pressured the European leader to investigate allegations of corruption against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, in exchange for U.S. military aid. The White House countered this framing of the call with a transcript of the conversation showing neither Trump nor Zelensky tying the potential investigation to the aid money.

(Read more at Breitbart)

  1. Blue State Blues: White House Should Boycott Jerry Nadler’s Impeachment Farce

Breitbart reports in a 29 November 2019 article on reasons why President Trump should skip the impeachment hearings.

NadlerContemptHouse Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler’s invitation to (D-NY) has invited President Donald Trump to participate in his committee’s upcoming impeachment hearings, and to have legal representation.

It is a ruse designed to fool the media into thinking that Democrats are offering Trump a fair process.

The president should refuse, and should continue to reject any participation in an illegitimate inquiry that violates every precedent and legal safeguard.

In his Nov. 26 letter to the president, Nadler claimed: “These procedures, and the privileges afforded to you therein, are consistent with those used by the Committee in the [Richard] Nixon and [Bill] Clinton impeachments.”

That is a lie by omission. Those impeachment inquiries were handled entirely by the House Judiciary Committee. Every witness that was called before the House of Representatives could be questioned by the president’s counsel.

In the Trump inquiry, Democrats deputized the House Intelligence Committee — among others — to handle the initial, fact-finding phase of the investigation. They did so because the Intelligence Committee could make use of the Special Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF), which Republicans have taken to calling “Adam Schiff’s basement.” There, Schiff and his committee could “audition” witnesses and control the flow of information.

Chairman Schiff abused his power — most notably in withholding exculpatory evidence, such as the transcript of the deposition of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official Mark Sandy. Sandy testified in a closed-door hearing that the only reason OMB officials heard for the withholding of U.S. aid to Ukraine was that Trump was concerned that other countries were not contributing.

Schiff did not release that transcript until after public hearings.

The White House was never represented in any of those hearings, and — in another departure from precedent — Republicans were unable to object to witnesses called by Democrats.

That was the critical stage in which the president would have benefited from having legal representation. But those witnesses will not be recalled by the House Judiciary Committee, so the president and his legal counsel will probably not be able to question them.

Instead, the “witnesses” that Nadler plans to call will discuss “constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment.” In other words, they will be lawyers and academics discussing whether Trump’s “alleged actions” are impeachable. Nadler’s hearing presumes the president has done something wrong, without allowing the president or his lawyers to question the (non-)factual basis of that presumption. There is no indication that the fact witnesses will be recalled.

To top it all off, Nadler ended his letter with an admonition that the president should behave with “decorum,” in keeping with the “solemn nature” of impeachment. And he added a threat: if the president continued to refuse to participate, or to withhold witnesses and documents, the committee would “impose appropriate remedies.”

Nadler does not want to wait for the courts to sort out balance-of-powers questions: punishment first, Constitution last.

Nadler’s hearing is not a “solemn” proceeding, but a joke — a “parody,” to borrow the word Schiff used to explain why he read a fake version of the transcript of a call between Trump and the Ukrainian president. Like show trials in China or the USSR, Nadler’s hearings will mimic due process to hide the fact that the outcome is predetermined.

(Read more at Breitbart)

  1. Poll: 69% of Voters Prefer Free Market Capitalism to Socialism, 50% Won’t Vote for Socialist Candidate

Breitbart reports on a poll through a 26 November 2019 article where we find 69% of voters prefer capitalism.

rasmussen_reports_logoThe Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports have released a poll that showed American voters are not in favor of socialism or socialist candidates, regardless of party affiliation.

The poll of 1,000 likely voters – 33 percent Republicans, 37 percent Democrats, and 30 percent independents – revealed that when asked which is better “a free-market economic system or socialism,” 69 percent said a free market system, 12 percent picked socialism, and 18 said they were not sure.

Of the Republicans polled, 87 percent said free-market capitalism was better, and 69 percent of independents agreed. But the poll also found that 53 percent of Democrats said a free-market system was preferable to socialism.

The Heartland Institute reported on the poll:

Only 26 percent of voters said they’d vote for a presidential candidate who identifies as a socialist while 50 percent said they would not. Among voters between the ages of 18 and 39, however, 42 percent said they would vote for a socialist president.

The poll found that two of the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for president, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders – who have both embraced socialist policies – had unfavorable ratings of 49 percent and 48 percent, respectively.

The poll also showed lukewarm support for gun control. Asked if they support “legislation that would ban private ownership of ‘assault-style’ rifles,” 49 percent said yes, 43 percent said no, and 8 percent were not sure. A full two-thirds did not support a repeal of the Second Amendment, which guarantees Americans the right to bear arms.

(Read more at Breitbart)

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  1. House Democrat Brenda Lawrence Flips Back into Support of Impeachment After Expressing Hesitancy

Breitbart reports in a 26 November 2019 article how Democrat Lawrence flipped in and out of supporting impeachment. It seems she first read the polls and then got threats from Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus.

Brenda LawrenceHouse Democrat Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) flipped back into supporting the impeachment of President Trump after stating that she did not “see the value of taking him out of office.”

Lawrence, a House Democrat hailing from a desirable swing state, made waves in recent days after veering from her Democrat colleagues and suggesting that they censure Trump rather than impeach him.

“We are so close to an election. I will tell you, sitting here knowing how divided this country is, I don’t see the value of taking him out of office,” she said during an appearance on No BS News Hour with Charlie LeDuff.

“I do see the value of putting down a marker saying his behavior is not acceptable,” she continued.

“I want to censure,” she added. “I want it on the record that the House of Representatives did their job and they told this president and any president coming behind him that this is unacceptable behavior and, under our Constitution, we will not allow it.”

However, she took a sudden and swift reversal of that position in a statement released on Tuesday.

(Read more at Breitbart)

The Congressional Black Caucus and San Fran Nan must have talked to Ms. Lawrence

The Congressional Black Caucus and Nancy Pelosi must have seen the popularity of President Trump (and of his jobs). Therefore, they could not stand for an independent voice.

  1. If post-hearing polls right, Dems will regret it bigly

OneNewsNow reports that current polls suggest that Democrats will regret the impeachment push.

A veteran of the tea party movement predicts Democratic lawmakers will regret their impeachment push against President Donald Trump.

Congress recessed last week for the Thanksgiving holiday, wrapping up two weeks of impeachment hearings that promised a good plot: a Republican president used military aid to Ukraine as political leverage to convince the country’s leaders to investigate his Democratic rival, but then he got caught thanks to the heroic courage of public servants who are willing to come forward.

But the second-hand testimony of White House officials and State Department bureaucrats failed to interest TV viewers, or may even angered the public who witnessed the “Deep State” at work against the commander in chief.

In fact, a poll of Wisconsin voters showed support dropped four points during the opening week of he hearing, and the same poll found Trump is now leading his potential rivals in the Rust Belt state.

EmersonPollingA poll by Emerson shows President Trump’s approval jumped from 43 percent in October to 48 percent in November, and the same poll found Independent voters have literally reversed their support for impeachment; 49 percent oppose it now when 48 percent supported it a month ago.

Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots Action, says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave in to the far-left push for impeachment. That may cost her on Election Day, she says, when 31 freshman Democrats appear on the ballot in 2020 in districts where President Trump won in 2016.

(Read more at OneNewsNow)

  1. Senators ask Treasury for reports on Hunter Biden

Left-leaning Reuters reports that two Republican committee chairs have asked for Treasury reports on Hunter Biden.

HunterBidenThe Republican chairmen of two U.S. Senate committees have asked the Treasury Department, in a letter, for possible reports of money laundering or fraud on the business dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son with a Ukraine energy firm.

The letter, seen by Reuters on Friday, seeks “suspicious activity reports,” or documents that financial institutions file with the department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network when a case of money laundering or fraud is suspected.

It was unclear if any such reports exist regarding Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son. There letter gave no evidence that Hunter Biden engaged in suspicious activity that would have been covered by such reports.

The agency does not comment on the reports, a spokesman said. Fincen, as the network is known, collects more than 2 million such reports each year, and they are tipsheets that make no findings on whether illegal activity has occurred.

The request comes as Republicans seek to defend President Donald Trump against a Democrat-led impeachment probe into whether the president improperly pressured Ukraine to investigate the Bidens to improve his chances of re-election.

(Read the Democrat talking points at Reuters)

  1. Five questions looming over impeachment

The Hill departs from its slavish commitment to the Democrat line and investigates five questions surrounding impeachment. Here are the first two:

Where will the polls go?

Each side is trying to make the case that public opinion is trending in their favor — but there is little evidence either way.

There was a measurable rise in pro-impeachment sentiment around the time that Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky became public in late September.

In that call, Trump prodded Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, as well as a conspiracy theory relating to purported Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

All of the drama since then — high-profile hearings on Capitol Hill and counterblasts from the president’s Twitter account and his political and media allies — has not shifted the ground appreciably.

A CNN/SSRS poll released Tuesday showed exactly the same split as the previous month on the question of whether Trump should be impeached and removed from office. Fifty percent of U.S. adults surveyed were in favor of his removal, 43 percent were against — the same as in late October.

A Quinnipiac University Poll survey, also released Tuesday, showed less robust support for removal and a slight shift in Trump’s direction from a month earlier. The Quinnipiac survey found 45 percent in favor of Trump’s impeachment and removal, and 48 percent against. In October, those figures had been reversed.

Trump’s deeply polarizing nature is a big part of the reason for the relatively static poll numbers. Republican voters overwhelmingly stand with him; Democrats almost universally detest him.

That being so, much is being made of the effect of impeachment on independent voters. But there, too, the jury is still out.

An Emerson College poll released Nov. 21 caused a big stir in political circles because it appeared to show a significant movement against impeachment among independent voters. The CNN poll, on the other hand, showed independents supporting Trump’s removal from office, albeit by a narrow margin — 47 percent in favor of removal versus 45 percent against.

Partisans can make the case that some shift in public opinion is just around the next corner, but there is sparse evidence to back up that argument.

What will the charges be against Trump?

Democrats are already debating how to frame articles of impeachment against Trump — and the outcome isn’t far away.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said this week in a letter to colleagues that his panel would send its report to the House Judiciary Committee “soon after Congress returns from the Thanksgiving recess.” Lawmakers are due back in town Monday.

But Schiff’s colleagues have divergent views on how to approach the next step.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who taught constitutional law before being elected to Congress, told CNN that he would like to “look at the whole pattern of obstructionism by the White House,” while Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) said that going broad could “pose challenges” and that she strongly believes “in being as focused as possible.”

Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University and the author of a 2017 book on impeachment, told The Hill there was compelling evidence of Trump’s involvement in four crimes: bribery, extortion, conspiracy and violations of campaign-finance laws.

Lichtman also argued there should be another article of impeachment dealing broadly with “abuse of power, which need not charge a crime.”

(Read as a liberal-leaning “news” organization ventures into topics like those above and at The Hill)

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