Public Impeachment Hearings

Temple really does need to cut down on his "vegan" smoke intake regimen.

The Wise And Powerful wrote:

Temple really does need to cut down on his "vegan" smoke intake regimen.

Something has surely warped his mind and rotted his brain ...I often wonder how he can write while he doesn't seem to have the ability to read

Grackle wrote:

The Wise And Powerful wrote:

Temple really does need to cut down on his "vegan" smoke intake regimen.

Something has surely warped his mind and rotted his brain ...I often wonder how he can write while he doesn't seem to have the ability to read

And yet he claims to run a successful business. Go figure.

GOP Rep: Democrats Still Withholding Secret Impeachment Transcripts
JOSHUA CAPLAN, 27 Dec 2019

Appearing Friday on the Fox News Channel, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) revealed House Democrats are still withholding transcripts of depositions conducted by the House Intelligence Committee inside Congress’s Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) as part of their impeachment inquiry.

A partial transcript is as follows;

ANCHOR: Democrats and Nancy Pelosi have said they are waiting on these articles to ensure there’s a fair trial in the Senate, but there have been a lot of other theories floated by Republicans, by folks from the other side of the aisle that think that Nancy Pelosi is stalling for all sorts of reasons. So I want to get your thoughts on why these articles are being held.

REP. MICHAEL BURGESS: My first take is that they’re holding the articles of impeachment because they really had nothing in the first place, so if they send them to the Senate and it crashes and burns, the president is exonerated and they did not accomplish what they set out to accomplish, which was to politically harm the president at the beginning of a political year.

ANCHOR: So you think they’re stalling, in essence, to continue digging, that they’re hoping they find something more?

REP. BURGESS: Look, they had all the tools at their disposal on the House side, they made it secret. They had armed guards outside the doors. They still haven’t made all of the transcripts available to members of Congress. And according to House rules, any committee hearing, the transcript is supposed to be available to other House members. But they have not done so, and no one has asserted that these are classified briefings. They were just simply secret hearings because it behooved the speaker to have secret hearings. That doesn’t pass muster. That’s not a constitutional part of the process.

Senator prepares measure to dismiss impeachment outright
'This will expose Dems' circus for what it is'
By WND Staff, Published January 2, 2020 at 7:28pm

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., warned Thursday that if Democrats fail to deliver their articles of impeachment to the U.S. Senate, he will introduce a measure on Monday to dismiss them.

In a series of Twitter messages, Hawley noted House Democrats insisted impeaching Trump was an urgent matter.

"Now they don't want to have a trial, because they have no evidence," he said.

The senator argued that in the "real world," if the prosecution doesn't proceed with its case, it gets dismissed.

"So on Monday, I will introduce measure to dismiss this bogus impeachment for lack of prosecution," he wrote. "This will expose Dems' circus for what it is: a fake impeachment, abuse of the Constitution, based on no evidence."

Hawley said his proposal will take the form of a motion "to update Senate impeachment rules to account for this unprecedented attempt to obstruct Senate trial."

"Stay tuned," he added.


Josh Hawley

@HawleyMO
Dems said impeachment was URGENT. Now they don’t want to have a trial, because they have no evidence. In real world, if prosecution doesn’t proceed with case, it gets dismissed. So on Monday, I will introduce measure to dismiss this bogus impeachment for lack of prosecution

30.1K
1:07 PM - Jan 2, 2020


Hawley was spotlighted by columnist Andy Schlafly as his choice for "conservative of the year in the Senate." After defeating entrenched liberal favorite Claire McCaskill 2018, Hawley earned a coveted seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee "and quickly became its strongest member," Schlafly wrote.

Hawley blocked the confirmation of a liberal nominated to the federal bench, despite intense pressure to stand down. He also took on Big Tech, sponsoring legislation against censorship by internet giants. And he promoted the "America First" agenda of President Trump. In a speech, the senator called pro-America policies and the rejection of the failed globalism approach of the past.

JANUARY 15, 2020 / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO
U.S. House votes to send Trump impeachment charges to Senate for trial
Richard Cowan, David Morgan | Reuters
6 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to send two formal charges against President Donald Trump to the Senate, clearing the way for only the third impeachment trial of a U.S. president to begin in earnest next week.

Lawmakers voted 228 to 193 to give the Senate, controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, the task of putting him on trial on charges of abuse of power for asking Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden and of obstruction of Congress for blocking testimony and documents sought by Democratic lawmakers.

The vote, which also approved a team of seven Democratic lawmakers named by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve as prosecutors in the trial, was largely along party lines.

The 100-seat Senate is expected to acquit Trump, keeping him in office, as none of its 53 Republicans has voiced support for removing him, a step that under the U.S. Constitution would require a two-thirds majority.

But Trump’s impeachment by the House last month will remain as a stain on his record and the televised trial in the Senate could be uncomfortable for him as he seeks re-election on Nov. 3, with Biden a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to challenge him.

“We are here today to cross a very important threshold in American history,” Pelosi said on the House floor before the vote.

Pelosi launched the impeachment inquiry in September after earlier resisting such a move centered on Trump’s actions to impede a federal investigation that documented Russian interference in the 2016 election to boost his candidacy.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a Trump nemesis who served as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles for six years, was selected to head the team of House “managers.” The White House has yet to unveil its defense team. The trial will overseen by U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts.

Trump, during a White House signing ceremony for a China trade deal, took a few shots at what he called the impeachment “hoax.” He excused House lawmakers who needed to go to vote on impeachment and singled out for praise every Republican senator in the audience, whose support he will need at the trial.

White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said Trump “expects to be fully exonerated,” saying in a statement, “President Trump has done nothing wrong.”

Opening statements in the trial are expected next Tuesday, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose fellow Republicans will set the rules for the trial.

A pivotal event in Trump’s impeachment was a July 25 telephone call in which he asked Ukraine’s president to open a corruption investigation into Biden and his son, as well as a discredited theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.

Democrats have called this an abuse of power because Trump asked a foreign government to interfere in a U.S. election for his own benefit at the expense of American national security. Biden is one of 12 candidates vying for the Democratic nomination to face Trump in the presidential election.

Republicans have argued that Trump’s actions did not rise to the level of impeachable offenses. They have accused Democrats of using the Ukraine affair as a way to nullify Trump’s 2016 election victory.

‘PRIVATE ATM MACHINE’

Democrats also accused Trump of abusing his power by withholding $391 million in security aid to Ukraine as leverage to pressure Kiev into conducting investigations politically beneficial to him. The money - approved by Congress to help Ukraine combat Russia-backed separatists - eventually was provided to Ukraine in September after the controversy spilled into public view.

“The president considered that his private ATM machine, I guess,” Pelosi said of the aid on Wednesday.

Schiff, 59, spearheaded the House impeachment investigation and he is a frequent target of Trump attacks. Trump in December called Schiff “a deranged human being.” The House managers also included Jerrold Nadler, who crafted the two articles of impeachment against Trump as House Judiciary Committee chairman, and Val Demings, a former police chief of Orlando, Florida.

Schiff urged Republicans to allow more evidence and witnesses at the trial. McConnell has resisted the idea of calling witnesses, saying senators should consider only the evidence amassed by the House.

“If McConnell makes this the first trial in history without witnesses, it will be exposed for what it is, and that is an effort to cover up for the president,” Schiff told a news conference.

Democrats want Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton summoned as a witness. Other impeachment witnesses have said Bolton was a vocal critic of the effort by Trump’s administration to pressure Ukraine.

No U.S. president has been removed as a direct result of impeachment. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 in the Watergate corruption scandal before the full House could vote on articles of impeachment. The House impeached Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998, but the Senate did not convict them.

Clinton’s trial lasted five weeks. If the Senate conducts the Trump trial along those lines, as McConnell has suggested, the televised proceedings would occur even as the first nominating contests of the 2020 presidential race are held in Iowa and New Hampshire in February.

Additional reporting by David Morgan, Steve Holland, Susan Cornwell, Doina Chiacu, Makini Brice and Richard Cowan; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Will Dunham

Interesting article:

Impeachment trial: Why did Pelosi use so many pens?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51139740

Just saw this elsewhere:

.....$2025.00 per pen. Aaron Donahue wanna tell me about that national debt again?

The above 9 second snippet is from this:

Published 3 hours ago
McConnell considers 'kill switch' option at Trump impeachment trial: report
Fox News

GOP senators considering 'kill switch' option should impeachment trial spiral out of control

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly is close to finalizing a rule that would allow President Trump's team to move to dismiss the articles of impeachment in the Senate quickly after some evidence has been presented, as a sort of safety valve in case Democrats try to drag out the trial for weeks.

The discussions came as Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that the trial could extend "to six to eight weeks or even longer" if the Senate decided to hear from additional witnesses -- a prospect that could interfere with the imminent presidential primary contests, as Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., likely would get pulled off the campaign trail.

McConnell, R-Ky., wouldn't be obligated to publicize the final version of his resolution setting the parameters of the impeachment trial until Tuesday, but top Republicans have said they supported affording Trump the opportunity to cut the trial short. Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, for example, told Axios he would be "very, very surprised" if McConnell's resolution didn't include that kind of kill switch.

More on this at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-trial-republican-senators-kill-switch-mcconnell

MSNBC Anchor Ends Segment When Guest Says Trump Did Nothing Wrong