Month: January 2020
White House Issues Threat to Bolton Over New Book
Donald Trump’s White House has issued a threat to former National Security Advisor John Bolton, ordering him to remove “classified information” from his new book.
“Significant Amounts of Classified Information”
On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Bolton’s new book will help the Democrats push their case for the impeachment of President Trump. In the book, Bolton claims that the President did, in fact, delay military aid to Ukraine to pressure them into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden, and their business dealings in the country.
In an email to Bolton’s lawyer, the National Security Council said that from their preliminary review, the manuscript of Bolton’s new book “appears to contain significant amounts of classified information,” with some of this classified information,” being “at the TOP SECRET level.” This is defined by Executive Order 13526 as information that could be “reasonably expected to cause exceptionally grave harm to the national security” of the U.S. if it was released without authorization.
The letter goes onto note that Bolton had signed numerous nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) to be able to gain access to classified information.
“Under federal law and the nondisclosure agreements your client signed… the manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without this classifed information,” the letter argues.
RELATED: Hey Dems, Bolton’s Testimony Won’t Change Anything – Trump Isn’t Being Removed
The manuscript is being kept under review, in order to “identify the classified information within” and ensure the “publication does not harm the national security of the United States.” It concludes by saying that the NSC will do their best to ensure Bolton’s “ability to tell his story in a manner that protects U.S. national security.”
“Nasty & Untrue Book”
The President also attacked Bolton on Twitter, saying that he was fired because, “frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now,” and wondering why he would write such a “nasty & untrue” book directly after he had been fired.
For a guy who couldn’t get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn’t get approved for anything since, “begged” me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying “Don’t do it, sir,” takes the job, mistakenly says “Libyan Model” on T.V., and..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2020
….many more mistakes of judgement, gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2020
RELATED: Tucker Carlson Rips Into Bolton, Compares Him to Snake from Trump’s Parable
The President is spot on. John Bolton is simply mad that he couldn’t start more foreign wars overseas and spill the blood of thousands of American soldiers to make a nice profit for his buddies. This book is nothing more than an expanded temper tantrum, designed to annoy the President and others who hate endless foreign conflict.
If Bolton is found to have broken his NDAs by writing this book, he should be punished to the full extent of the law.
The post White House Issues Threat to Bolton Over New Book appeared first on The Political Insider.
Alan Dershowitz insists Trump can’t be impeached for anything he does to get re-elected
Alan Dershowitz uncorked a defense of Donald Trump Wednesday afternoon that left listeners stunned and bewildered, asking, “Did he really just say that?”
The answer is yes. Specifically, Dershowitz claimed, “If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
So … literally any quid pro quo Trump could dream up would be unimpeachable as long as he believed it would help him get elected and that his election was in the public interest?
Let’s give Dershowitz the benefit of the doubt. Maybe more context would help here. He started with the Israel-Palestine plan Trump unveiled on Tuesday, jumping from that to a hypothetical Israel-Palestine quid pro quo that a future Democratic president might impose, trading funding for some change in behavior on one side or the other.
“The only thing that would make a quid pro quo unlawful is if the quo were, in some way, illegal,” he said, ignoring that soliciting foreign election interference is in fact illegal. “Now, we talked about motive. There are three possible motives that a political figure could have. One, a motive in the public interest. The Israel argument would be in the public interest.”
“The second is in his own political interest, and the third, which hasn’t been mentioned, would be in his own financial interest,” Dershowitz continued. “Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest. And mostly you’re right: Your election is in the public interest. And if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
The generous read here is that Dershowitz merely mangled an argument that, as Josh Marshall characterizes it, “with many foreign policy decisions a President is both advancing the national interest and also looking to his personal political fortunes. That cannot be an impeachable offense, he argues.” It’s a stretch to hear Dershowitz actually saying that, though. If you took out “Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest. And mostly you’re right: your election is in the public interest” and changed the following sentence to “If a president does something that is in the public interest and that he also believes will help him get elected, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
But as it stands, what Dershowitz said is that a president can engage in any quid pro quo that he thinks will help him get re-elected as long as he thinks his re-election is in the public interest. “Accepting this argument would put us on a short path toward dictatorship, benevolent or otherwise. It’s incompatible with government of, by, and for the people. It’s government by egomania,” constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe tweeted.
‘The View’ Goes Off The Rails As Impeachment Lawyer Alan Dershowitz ‘Triggers’ Hosts By Defending Trump
By PopZette Staff | January 29, 2020
The ABC talk show “The View” exploded on Wednesday when Alan Dershowitz defended President Donald Trump from the liberal cohosts’ attacks as they talked about the Senate impeachment trial.
Hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg came particularly unhinged while talking to Dershowitz, with the former calling his arguments “baloney” and the latter cutting him off at one point. When Behar claimed that no other constitutional scholar agreed with his assertion that a crime is necessary for impeachment, Dershowitz tried to give her a quick history lesson.
“In 18…,” Dershowitz began before Goldberg rudely cut him off, saying, “Ok, wait, wait, wait. Alan, you know, in 1492 Columbus sailed the seas blue but listen, I need us to move on.”
Dershowitz fired back by saying that he would not move on before he could give some historical context on impeachment, but Goldberg refused to back down.
“You’re not going to get any time because you got four people trying to ask you questions,” she said.
Undeterred, Dershowitz explained to the women that many scholars have taken their current stances on impeachment because of their personal opinions on Trump.
“Shortly after the Constitution was enacted, the dean of Columbia Law School said that the weight of authority was in favor of it being a crime,” he said. “Now, the academics all say it isn’t. Why? Because Donald Trump is being impeached. If Hillary Clinton was being impeached, they’d all be on my side.”
This simple argument was enough to cause Behar to lose it.
“That’s just baloney, that’s just baloney,” she exclaimed.
Pres. Trump's impeachment attorney Alan Dershowitz to the co-hosts: “The charge of ‘obstruction of Congress’ and ‘abuse of power’ are not within the constitutional terms high crimes and misdemeanors — the Framers rejected terms just like that.” https://t.co/f8u2wbJuik pic.twitter.com/EyMCwKUTNG
— The View (@TheView) January 29, 2020
As chaos continued to erupt, Goldberg finally threatened Dershowitz by saying, “I’m moving you on or I’m cutting you off — one or the other is going to happen.”
Things only went downhill from there, as “The View’s” cohosts tried to make Dershowitz look like a hypocrite by playing a 21 year-old clip in which he said that impeachment “doesn’t have to be a crime.” Though Goldberg accused him of only changing his mind because Trump is the president, Dershowitz countered this by explaining that he actually changed his mind on this point four years ago, when he was looking at the possibility of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton being impeached if she won the presidency.
Trump impeachment attorney Alan Dershowitz reacts to a 1998 video where he says impeachment “doesn’t have to be a crime” — which he now contradicts.
“Academics change their minds on the basis of research. I didn’t do it on a partisan basis.” https://t.co/f8u2wbJuik pic.twitter.com/lwgV8dicCW
— The View (@TheView) January 29, 2020
Despite the fact that the liberal cohosts were clearly ganging up on him, Dershowitz continued to hold his own. At one point, he even caused Goldberg to whine when he referenced Abraham Lincoln, saying, “You have to go back in history. Impeachment doesn’t change since the time of the Constitution.”
RELATED: Chilling Footage Emerges of Kobe Bryant’s Helicopter Flying Erratically Before Crash
“You should never have an impeachment unless there’s broad, widespread, non-partisan support — that doesn’t exist here,” he later added.
Trump impeachment attorney Alan Dershowitz to the co-hosts: "You should never have an impeachment unless there's broad, widespread, non-partisan support — that doesn't exist here." https://t.co/f8u2wbJuik pic.twitter.com/1q9Te5mpoY
— The View (@TheView) January 29, 2020
Behar, Goldberg, and their fellow liberals have this kind of visceral reaction to Dershowitz because deep down, they know he is right. This entire impeachment debacle is nothing more than pathetic vendetta from the Democratic Party, which has still not gotten over Trump beating Clinton in 2016.
In the end, the impeachment effort is nothing more than a huge waste of time, as there is virtually no chance of Trump being impeached by the Senate. All it’s accomplishing is showing Americans everywhere just how much anti-Trump hatred leftists have in their hearts.
This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.
Read more at LifeZette:
Rocket Strikes U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
More GOP Senators Could Defect in Impeachment Trial
Bolton Manuscript Leaked, Romney and Collins May Vote Against the President
The post ‘The View’ Goes Off The Rails As Impeachment Lawyer Alan Dershowitz ‘Triggers’ Hosts By Defending Trump appeared first on The Political Insider.
On the defensive, Mike Pompeo wades into feud with media
Accused of failing to defend his own diplomats in the Ukraine scandal that led to the impeachment of his boss, Mike Pompeo -- who as secretary of state is meant to defend press freedoms around the world -- has now waded into a bitter feud with the media. A key ally of Donald Trump, Pompeo has often echoed the president's disdain for the media. Mary Louise Kelly, a distinguished former national security correspondent, said that once her microphone was off Pompeo launched into an expletive-laden tirade, yelling insults and telling her Americans don't care about Ukraine.
Senators keep asking impeachment hypotheticals about Mitt Romney right in front of Mitt Romney
Trump’s legal team concludes opening arguments in Senate impeachment trial
President Trump's legal team concluded their opening arguments in the Senate impeachment trial Tuesday. CBSN political contributor and AP White House reporter Zeke Miller, Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson, and USA Today politics reporter Nicholas Wu joined CBSN to discuss.
These Republican Senators May Decide Whether Trump's Impeachment Trial Includes New Witnesses
Moscow Mitch’s 2020 campaign fund helped out by Trump’s impeachment defense team
You can't make this degree of corruption up. Moscow Mitch McConnell, the guy who has promised again and again that he is working with Donald Trump's impeachment lawyers to make sure that Trump will not be convicted and removed from office, has gotten campaign donations from those lawyers. This year. For his 2020 reelection campaign.
The Louisville Courier Journal reviewed campaign finance data for McConnell, finding that Ken Starr gave the maximum allowed, $2,800, on July 31, 2019. He's been a donor to every one of McConnell's campaigns since 2020. McConnell's gotten two separate donations from Robert Ray for a total of $5,600. Those were on Sept. 30, 2019, 12 days after The Washington Post reported on the whistleblower report that Trump was withholding aid to Ukraine until the country agreed to announce an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.
McConnell's campaign blew off the glaring appearance of corruption in the transaction, taking a swipe at House Democrats. "The absence of any adequate arguments by House impeachment managers seems to be playing a pretty meaningful role however," McConnell's campaign manager Kevin Golden said. Clearly the money isn't a bribe for McConnell to ensure Trump's acquittal, because that's been a foregone conclusion from the get-go. Moscow Mitch promised it. So it must be a reward.
Watch: The question key GOP senators asked Trump’s team
Republican Senators Susan Collins, Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski collectively asked Trump's impeachment defense team a question during his trial before the Senate.
