Impeachment inquiry

[swordfish]

Needed an upgrade.

[swordfish]

https://www.davidharrisjr.com/stevenahle/whistleblower-worked-with-joe-biden-and-may-have-accompanied-him-to-ukraine-at-least-once-2/

 

The CIA whistleblower allegedly worked with Joe Biden at the White House and is said to have traveled with him at least once on a trip to Ukraine. The report comes from the Washington Examiner and includes statements from intelligence sources and former White House officials. The whistleblower is, at best, a dubious source since all of his or her information is second and third hand. To top it off, the alleged whistleblower is now refusing to testify and says he will only answer written questions. That tells me he or she is scared of having to face tough questioning and should be totally disregarded.

Democrat presidential hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden had a “professional” tie to the CIA Whistleblower, according to a report from the Washington Examiner, which includes statements from intelligence officers and former White House officials.

After two separate reports from the New York Times, the Washington Examiner has established the whistleblower “is a career CIA analyst who was detailed to the National Security Council at the White House and has since left.”

A now-retired CIA officer told the Washington Examiner, “From everything we know about the whistleblower and his work in the executive branch then, there is absolutely no doubt he would have been working with Biden when he was vice president.”

The Washington Examiner noted:

As an experienced CIA official on the NSC with the deep knowledge of Ukraine that he demonstrated in his complaint, it is probable that the whistleblower briefed Biden and likely that he accompanied him on Air Force Two during at least one of the six visits the 2020 candidate made to the country.d Out More >

A former Trump administration official also spoke with the Washington Examiner and claimed Biden’s work on foreign affairs put him in the whistleblower’s circle either at the CIA or at the White House.

“This person, after working with Biden, may feel defensive towards him because he feels [Biden] is being falsely attacked. Maybe he is even talking to Biden’s staff,” the former Trump administration official stated. “Maybe it is innocent, maybe not.”

 

 

Hmmm - Perhaps the "whistleblower" is concerned for his/her life/safety since he/she potentially has damning information on the Biden/Clinton/Obama clan......?

And BTW - Why still "whistleblower"?  The phone call where Trump allegedly sold out the country has been released for the public to see.....

[gonzoron]

[gonzoron]

18 hours ago, swordfish said:

And BTW - Why still "whistleblower"?  The phone call where Trump allegedly sold out the country has been released for the public to see....

Well, you can be the best government employee for many years, do your job, keep your mouth shut when you see improprieties, try to make everyone happy and you'll never be called the greatest government employee ever. But blow one whistle, and you're known as a dirty whistleblower for the rest of your life.

[Howe]

 

[gonzoron]

On 10/11/2019 at 2:15 PM, swordfish said:

Hmmm - Perhaps the "whistleblower" is concerned for his/her life/safety since he/she potentially has damning information on the Biden/Clinton/Obama clan......?

The new hat is looking great. So shiny.

[swordfish]

On 10/12/2019 at 8:36 AM, gonzoron said:

Well, you can be the best government employee for many years, do your job, keep your mouth shut when you see improprieties, try to make everyone happy and you'll never be called the greatest government employee ever. But blow one whistle, and you're known as a dirty whistleblower for the rest of your life.

On 10/13/2019 at 3:09 AM, gonzoron said:

The new hat is looking great. So shiny.

Thanks!!

 

[swordfish]

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/pelosi-impeachment-votes-jason-chaffetz?fbclid=IwAR1lDlqFyMZaJwKv6S85RZZOTueDyngqZN-coI7o_9A9o8YrnyE2IKgTNa4

Speaker Pelosi isn't refusing to hold a vote on impeachment. She is refusing to hold a fourth vote on impeachment. There have already been three votes.  They all failed. Miserably.

In other words, Congress has explicitly voted NOT to pursue impeachment.

In December 2017, January 2018, and again in July 2019 under Pelosi's leadership, the House held votes on whether to open an impeachment inquiry. The results weren't even close.

All three votes came up as "privileged resolutions." Under Congressional rules, members can vote to table the resolution or to proceed.  To affirmatively table a privileged resolution kills it, meaning the resolution has failed.

Though the first two impeachment votes came up during the Republican majority, the votes to reject or table them were indisputably bipartisan.Video

In December 2017 there were 126 Democrats who joined House Republicans to reject Rep. Al Green's impeachment resolution 364-58.

A month later, a new resolution was introduced with similar results: Again, 121 Democrats voted to table. Support for impeachment rose from 58 votes in December to 66 in January. But that was before Democrats won a majority in 2018 and Nancy Pelosi became Speaker.

Do any of us want to live in a country where Congress can unambiguously reject legislation and the Speaker of the House can force it through anyway? 

With Democrats having won dozens of new seats, Rep. Green tried again just three months ago in July 2019. His impeachment resolution was one of four introduced in the 116th Congress. This time even more Democrats voted against an inquiry – 137 up from 121 in the previous Congress.

After this third rejection to pursue impeachment, Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, introduced a resolution to dethrone Chairman Nadler from the House Judiciary Committee for pursuing impeachment proceedings after the House had voted explicitly not to move forward with impeachment.

No wonder why Speaker Pelosi is reluctant to hold a fourth vote. It could fail again.

And that’s true despite the fact that she gets the added benefit of a supportive press thoroughly lacking intellectual and professional curiosity.

The Speaker’s quest for impeachment gets the benefit of the daily drip of negative propaganda against President Trump and no accountability or pressure for following the rule of law, fairness, precedent, or respect for the will of “the people’s house.”

Many Republicans, including President Trump, are calling on Speaker Pelosi to hold an impeachment vote. But the truth is – she already has. Until she holds another vote, the previous vote should stand. The House has explicitly voted against pursuing an impeachment inquiry, hence the current proceeding is invalid.

Pelosi claims to have the impeachment votes, but how do we know she has the votes?  Like everything else about this impeachment inquiry, facts and evidence are being carefully hidden.

Americans should recognize this power grab for what it is and reject those who endorse it. Just because Speaker Pelosi decrees there is an impeachment inquiry doesn't make that inquiry valid.To the contrary, that motion was brought to the floor of the House and it failed three times.  These are the seeds of a Constitutional crisis.

 

To those who have been listening to the MSM - Congress has already voted and until that changes, (DJT is correct) this impeachment inquiry is invalid and potentially illegal.......

 

[gonzoron]

[swordfish]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/22/least-house-democrats-called-bill-clintons-impeachment-lynching/

Criticism came fast from Democrats, Trump critics and some Republicans on Tuesday after President Trump compared the current impeachment inquiry to a “lynching.” But by the afternoon, Trump allies were pointing out that variations of that word were invoked several times by House Democrats to describe the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton in 1998.

Rep. Gregory Meeks

 

✔@RepGregoryMeeks

 

 

I don’t expect Trump to be sensitive to the weight of that word, or see how insulting and hurtful it is to invoke it here.

I do expect Republicans to not even dare defend this language.

I do expect this administration to comply with our constitutional right to issue subpoenas. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1186611272231636992 …

Donald J. Trump

 

✔@realDonaldTrump

 

So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here - a lynching. But we will WIN!

 

8

9:50 AM - Oct 22, 2019

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At least five House Democrats talked about a “lynching” or “lynch mob” as pertaining to Clinton, according to a Fix review.

“The highest officeholder should think about these words. The rural south where I was born has a tarnished and painful history,” Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) tweeted Tuesday.

 

“I don’t expect Trump to be sensitive to the weight of that word, or see how insulting and hurtful it is to invoke it here,” Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.) tweeted Tuesday.

 

In 1998, however, both Davis and Meeks called the Clinton impeachment proceedings a “lynching” on the House floor the day before the president was impeached. Then-Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) described what he called a “lynch mob mentality, that says this man has to go” during a floor speech the same day.

Democratic criticisms of the Republican-led impeachment proceedings against Clinton were not limited to the House floor.

Then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) called the impeachment proceedings against Clinton a “partisan lynching” during an October 1998 appearance on CNN. On Tuesday, Biden called Trump’s tweet “abhorrent.”

 

“Our country has a dark, shameful history with lynching, and to even think about making this comparison is abhorrent. It’s despicable,” Biden tweeted.

On three occasions in 1998, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who now chairs the committee that would consider articles of impeachment against Trump, called the impeachment process against Clinton a “lynch mob.”

 

“We shouldn’t participate in a lynch mob against the president,” Nadler told Newsday on Sept. 13, 1998.

Five days later, Nadler said he saw “no evidence that the Republicans want to do anything other than organize a lynch mob,” according to the South China Morning Post.

And on Oct. 4, 1998, Nadler told the Associated Press that Republicans were “running a lynch mob” against Clinton.

 

Then-Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), who served nearly 20 years in the House, slammed the impeachment proceedings against Clinton during an interview with the Baltimore Sun on Sept. 12, 1998.

“This feels today like we’re taking a step down the road to becoming a political lynch mob,” McDermott said at the time. “Find the rope, find the tree and ask a bunch of questions later.”

Meeks acknowledged his 1998 remarks in a statement to The Fix.

 

“Yes, I said those words, but context matters. There is a difference when that word is used by someone of my experience and perspective, whose relatives were the targets of lynch mobs, compared to a president who has dog-whistled to white nationalists and peddled racism,” Meeks said. “This is the birther president, who called African nations s---holes and urban cities infested. Those he called ‘very fine people’ in Charlottesville were the kind of people who lynched those who looked like me. So, yes — there are certain words I am more at liberty to invoke than Donald J. Trump.”

Several Republicans criticized Trump for his characterization Tuesday.

“That’s not the language I would use,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said at a weekly news briefing.

“Given the history in our country, I would not compare this to a lynching,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said at a weekly Senate news briefing. “That was an unfortunate choice of words.”

So the same guys that collectively lost their minds this week over DJT's use of the L-word (Lynch) actually used that exact same word back in 1998 when Bill Clinton was the impeachment target........I guess it was probably accurate, though since WJBC was actually considered the first black President.......

So now I am to realize the use of the word "Lynch or Lynching" can only be invoked by a black man........

[BARRYOSAMA]

7 hours ago, swordfish said:

 

So now I am to realize the use of the word "Lynch or Lynching" can only be invoked by a black man........

No but when SC senator Graham says it is a lynching "in every sense of the word", he is showing a severe lack of historical intelligence.

Just another distraction from the distractor in chief.

[gonzoron]

"Lynching" is a bad choice of words, no matter who uses it.

I wonder if Nixon used it also? His road to impeachment had many similarities to today's proceedings. An investigation was launched a year before a formal Impeachment Inquiry. That's what we have now, an investigation. And I feel an investigation is warranted.

Do I feel someone made a mistake by calling the investigation an impeachment inquiry? Yes.

[Howe]

[swordfish]

On 10/3/2019 at 1:05 PM, swordfish said:

With all the MSM's focus on the "impeachment" headlines and working to keep this as the top news, AG Barr and John Durham (and their recent travels) are being kept out of the news for some reason.....

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/amid-impeachment-furor-barr-and-durham-flew-to-rome-to-hear-a-secret-tape-of-joseph-mifsud-mysterious-professor-at-center-of-mueller-probe

Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham met with Italian intelligence and listened to a secret recording of Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious professor at the center of the Trump-Russia saga.

 

The quiet trip to Rome by Barr and Durham last week as impeachment furor swept Washington, D.C., was part of the “investigation of the investigators.” The Justice Department is looking into the origins of the counterintelligence investigation into Russian election interference in 2016 and any possible ties to the Trump campaign, which later became part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Barr and Durham listened to a taped deposition of Mifsud at the U.S. Embassy in Rome as well as met with Italian security officials who provided them with other information that the Italian government had on Mifsud, according to the Daily Beast. Mifsud explained why he was leaving his job at Rome’s Link University and asked for police protection, claiming that his life might be endangered.

The Trump administration's interest in Mifsud likely stems from a 2016 conversation in which Mifsud allegedly told Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos about possible Russian dirt on then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos allegedly mentioned this to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who passed it to the Australian government, who passed it to the United States, leading to the official launch of the Trump-Russia investigation in July 2016.

The Australian government is also cooperating with Barr in his efforts, and the DOJ said last week that Barr and Durham were reaching out to foreign governments for help.

“Mr. Durham is gathering information from numerous sources, including a number of foreign countries,” DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. “At Attorney General Barr’s request, the president has contacted other countries to ask them to introduce the attorney general and Mr. Durham to appropriate officials.”

Stephan Roh, a lawyer who says he represents Mifsud and shared a picture of Mifsud allegedly signing a power of attorney in 2018, told the Washington Examiner that Mifsud “is in Italy, at least until recently.” But Roh said Mifsud, whose whereabouts are unknown, hadn’t contacted him in a while.

Mifsud denied he told Papadopoulos the Russians had Clinton's emails, and Roh claims his client cooperated with Western intelligence, not Russian intelligence, aligning with what some GOP investigators have said. Roh previously said Durham was seeking an interview with Mifsud, but it was not clear if Durham and Barr were doing so.

Papadopoulos has claimed Mifsud has “connections to Italian intelligence.”

The Mueller report confirmed the role information from Mifsud played in prompting the FBI “to open an investigation into whether individuals associated with the Trump campaign were coordinating with the Russian government in its interference activities.” The investigation “did not establish” any criminal conspiracy between the Kremlin and anyone associated with Trump.

Mueller's report said Mifsud “had connections to Russia” and “maintained various Russian contacts.” Mueller also said Mifsud misled investigators when they questioned him, but he was not charged. As part of Mueller’s Russia investigation, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in 2017 to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Mifsud and served 12 days in prison late last year.

Republicans have alleged that foreign intelligence agencies, like those in Western Europe, may have played a role in monitoring Trump associates in 2016.

Durham’s investigation is separate from the one just finished by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. The DOJ watchdog investigated allegations of abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the DOJ and the FBI, and Horowitz has spoken with Durham, who is handling any criminal referrals from Horowitz’s investigation.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/10/02/bill-barr-risks-becoming-joseph-mifsuds-new-coffee-boy/

There are a ton of reasons why this trip is batshit crazy. For one, Barr is placing himself in the role of a line Special Agent, someone without the requisite expertise chasing off to watch taped depositions while he should be running DOJ. For another (as I’ll show in more detail later), Barr is literally just chasing conspiracy theories sown by sworn liar George Papadopoulos, conspiracy theories which fabulist John Solomon (and his obvious sources named Rudy Giuliani and some Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs including Oleg Deripaska) has both fed and magnified. That Barr is doing it as he becomes personally embroiled in a scandal which could implicate him criminally suggests he and Trump may be trying to beat the clock, produce results before the shit really hits the fan.

But what’s most remarkable about the trip is the Attorney General of the United States went out on this goose chase without first ensuring he’d get what he was promised.

There’s a principle often aired when discussing Trump’s failed diplomacy with North Korea. You don’t send out the Principal for a meeting before getting certain commitments that advance your own goals. Trump should not have met with Kim Jong-Un without first getting concessions, because by doing so he took away several things of value (such as conferring credibility on the world stage) that Kim was most interested in.

The same is true here. The Attorney General should never run off to do the work of an FBI line Special Agent. But he certainly shouldn’t do so unless he was getting what he was really after.

And Billy Barr just flew to Italy without getting what he was really looking for.

Handily, for this scandal, Papadopoulos and Solomon and Chuck Ross have been ready scribes for the script that Trump and Billy Barr are supposed to be following. It’s all out in the open.

The Attorney General’s voyage to Italy got set in motion last fall when Ross published two stories relying on Mifsud’s “attorney” Stephen Roh (who himself has close ties to Russia). The first, dated September 10, reported that Mifsud was alive and well hiding in Italy. The second, published October 24, was explicitly a set-up for George Papadopoulos’ testimony before the joint OGR/HJC investigation into the Russian investigation. It included comments from Roh alleging that Mifsud was not a Russian asset, but was instead a Western one. Ross included those comments almost as a side note, even though the comments make what would normally be big news.

SF thinks that if this trip by the AG was such an epic failure as depicted by the story above, it would be front page news and widely reported, not quietly hidden and ignored........SF believes that the AG is beginning to get close enough to the source that there is deep concern among the dem's that this is going to blow up directly at some of their highest ranking members......

 

 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-agents-manipulated-flynn-file-as-clapper-urged-kill-shot-court-filing

https://trumptrainnews.com/articles/shock-report-fbi-altered-flynn-docs-clapper-called-for-kill-shot

And so it begins.....

[gonzoron]

POLITICS NEWS

Rudy Giuliani butt-dials NBC reporter, heard discussing need for cash and trashing Bidens

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/rudy-giuliani-butt-dials-nbc-reporter-heard-discussing-need-cash-n1071901?fbclid=IwAR26YPW_Hge0FkHD7opkFq1If0AOL3PcsVuOFgBZCtASigtX1lanq1EGUSA

[Howe]

 

[gonzoron]

[gonzoron]

[gonzoron]

 

[Howe]

MSNBC is Fake News

 

[gonzoron]

[Howe]

 

[gonzoron]

[Howe]

This is like watching that ridiculous Mueller hearing

 

[gonzoron]

The scandal facing Trump defender Jim Jordan

https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/the-scandal-facing-trump-defender-jim-jordan-73308741692