Month: January 2020

Toomey Proposes One Witness Deal in Senate Trial

Posted on by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 28, 2020

Pennsylvania GOP Senator Pat Toomey, a Trump supporter but not particularly close to the White House, is reportedly floating a plan that would permit the Democrats and the Trump defense team one witness each during the impeachment trial of President Trump in the Senate.

He bills it as a compromise that would limit the time spent on witnesses and would avoid a potential Trump loss on the question when it comes up soon to a Senate vote.

The vote could be won with a simple majority of 51 and several Senators out of the 53 member GOP caucus, to include Alexander, Collins, Romney, Murkowski, McSally, and Gardner, are said to be thinking about supporting the current Democrat proposal for unlimited witnesses.

RELATED: GOP Brings Out Three Big Guns in Senate Trial of Trump

The Democrats would need four GOP turncoats to win that vote.

Collins, McSally, and Gardner are up for reelection this year in light red to purple states and they may be thinking they need to vote for the Democrat measure to keep swing and moderate support. Toomey believes this gambit will keep them and the other possible rebels on board.

LifeZette has learned that Toomey has spoken directly with Romney and Collins on the issue and they have not shot it down out of hand.

Who would those witnesses be?

According to Capitol Hill staffers on both sides of the aisle the Democrats would go with John Bolton and the GOP defense team is leaning towards informer Eric Ciaramella or Adam Schiff.

If Bolton testified against Trump and said the president directly linked Ukrainian military aid to a political hit on Biden it would mark the greatest case of political betrayal DC has seen in a while. It would also be the Fort Sumter in outright political warfare between the Warhawk and America First wings of the GOP.

RELATED: Bolton Manuscript Leaked, Romney and Collins May Vote Against the President

Putting Ciaramella on the stand could expose his partisan nature and his lack of direct knowledge of everything he alleges, thus undercutting the entire Democrat case.

Watching Schiff squirm under cross examination from Jay Sekulow, Eric Herschmann, or, please God, Alan Dershowitz, would not only be spiritually satisfying on the order of a Bach High Mass but would set forth the firm case that the entire House process was a sham from the beginning.

Witnesses would also add to the drama of the proceeding and the media feeding would only get more frenzied.

The vote on the issue could happen this week.

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 Toomey Proposes One Witness Deal in Senate Trial appeared first on The Political Insider.

Top Republican Leader Sends Stern Message to GOP Senators Thinking About Caving To Democrats On Impeachment

Posted on by Guest Author

During a Monday night interview by CBS News, Congressman Mark Meadows warned Republican Senators that if they side with Democrats and break with President Donald Trump during the impeachment trial, they could face “political repercussions.”

Meadows Says John Bolton Shouldn’t Testify

“Congressman Meadows, would you support a White House effort to block a Bolton testimony if he were called as a witness?” CBS News host Norah O’Donnell asked Meadows.

“You know, I’ve been one of the few that believe that Secretary Pompeo and Secretary Perry could have testified when it was over here in the House,” Meadows replied. “I’m also one that believes that when you get close to the president, whether it be his chief of staff or his national security advisor, you have to allow for that free flow of conversation back and forth, where ideas can be shared. And so I do believe that executive privilege should be invoked on that and that we shouldn’t hear from Ambassador Bolton.”

RELATED: Dem Impeachment Manager Echoes Adam Schiff – This is About the Election

Believes Republicans Who Sided with Democrats Would Face ‘Political Repercussions’

“Do you think Republican senators face political repercussions if they break with the president?” O’Donnell asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Meadows said. “I mean, listen, I don’t wanna speak for my Senate colleagues. But there are always political repercussions for every vote you take. There is no vote that is higher-profile than this.”

Meadows is not wrong. As the impeachment circus becomes more and more absurd, whether or not some moderate Republicans decide to stick with President Trump or side with the Democrats is a decision that will rightly define them.

Trump is a Republican president of particular significance, as Meadows rightly pointed out last week.

RELATED: Video Surfaces of Pelosi Accusing Republicans of Impeaching Clinton Out of Hatred

Desperate Dems

If any Republicans decide to go against Trump, Meadows is right that they will likely pay a political price for it. The Democrats have had it in for Trump since day one, and this Ukraine impeachment angle is only the latest ploy of many. When this doesn’t work, there will be more.

You can expect Democrats to be all in on each of these desperate gambits. Republicans should have sense enough to avoid them.

Or else.

The post Top Republican Leader Sends Stern Message to GOP Senators Thinking About Caving To Democrats On Impeachment appeared first on The Political Insider.

Actress Evan Rachel Wood Gets Major Backlash For Calling Kobe Bryant A ‘Rapist’ After His Death

Posted on by LifeZette

By PopZette Staff | January 28, 2020

Evan Rachel Wood, who is best known for starring in the HBO television series “Westworld,” has found herself in hot water this week after she called late NBA star Kobe Bryant a “rapist” hours after his death on Sunday.

Bryant tragically passed away on Sunday at the age of 41 in a helicopter crash that also killed his 13 year-old daughter Gianna as well as seven other people. Just hours later, Wood took it upon herself to say that Bryant was both a “sports hero” and a “rapist” in a tweet to her over 444,000 followers.

“What has happened is tragic. I am heartbroken for Kobe’s family. He was a sports hero. He was also a rapist. And all of these truths can exist simultaneously,” Wood tweeted.

Wood’s tweet refers to allegations stemming from 2003, when a 19 year-old woman accused Bryant of choking and sexually assaulting her in a hotel room in Colorado, according to The Daily Beast. After being arrested, Bryant admitted to cheating on his wife with the woman, but claimed that their encounter in the hotel room was consensual. All charges against Bryant were later dropped when the woman refused to testify against him in court, instead choosing to hear an apology from him that was read by his lawyer.

Despite the fact that the charges against Bryant were dropped, Wood still decided to portray him as a “rapist” less than a full day after his passing. Unfortunately for her, however, this came back to bite her in a big way when social media users fired back at her for condemning the NBA hero.

The backlash eventually got so great that Wood finally responded in a second tweet.

Twitter users were still having none of it, however.

For Wood to defame a man hours after his death and that of his child based on allegations from seventeen years ago that were eventually dropped in a court of law is truly beyond the pale. Her tweet is also especially hypocritical coming from someone who works in the industry of Hollywood, which turned a blind eye to the sexual deviances of someone like disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein for decades.

Wood owes the entire Bryant family an apology, and she deserves all of the social media backlash that she is receiving.

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 Actress Evan Rachel Wood Gets Major Backlash For Calling Kobe Bryant A ‘Rapist’ After His Death appeared first on The Political Insider.

Impeachment witnesses are ‘increasingly likely,’ but top Republicans are still pushing cover-up

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Republican sources are telling reporters that the news about former national security adviser John Bolton’s book makes it more likely that witnesses will be called at Donald Trump’s impeachment trial—but the dam hasn’t exactly broken wide open, and top Senate Republicans are still fighting to keep the cover-up intact.

“I think it’s increasingly likely that other Republicans will join those of us who think we should hear from John Bolton,” Sen. Mitt Romney said Monday. Sen. Susan Collins said the revelations that Bolton’s book manuscript recounts Trump saying that yes, he was holding up military aid to Ukraine until the country dug for dirt on his political opponents, “strengthen the case for witnesses and have prompted a number of conversations among my colleagues.” But no Republican senators previously opposed to calling witnesses has come forward to say they’ve changed their minds.

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—who reportedly feels blindsided by the Bolton news getting out at this juncture and released a statement saying he “did not have any advance notice” that this was coming—is not any more open to witnesses. Senate Majority Whip John Thune told reporters that “I don’t think that anything that he’s going to say changes the fact...I think people kind of know what the fact pattern is.” Despite all those times Republicans complained that there were no firsthand witnesses who heard directly from Trump that he was holding up the Ukraine aid to get an investigation of a political opponent, the emergence of a witness who could provide exactly that testimony changes nothing.

And in Thune’s telling, calling Bolton would just kind of be a big hassle. “If you start calling him, then the Democrats are going to want to call Mulvaney and want to call Pompeo ... and our guys are going to want to start calling witnesses on the other side to illuminate their case,” he said, continuing “And I think that gets us into this endless cycle and this drags on for weeks and months in the middle of a presidential election where people are already voting. My view is the fact pattern is what it is. I don’t think it’s going to change.” 

Oh. The fact pattern is what it is? So basically, all that talk of how Democrats hadn’t adequately made the case that Donald Trump withheld congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine because he wanted the country to interfere in the 2020 elections was just more Republican lies. It’s hard to draw any other conclusion from the fact that the number two Republican in the Senate says hearing from a firsthand witness who’s a longtime Republican official wouldn’t add any facts.

Some Republicans are operating with a little less bluster and bravado, though they’re still looking to cut a favorable deal. Sen. Pat Toomey wants a trade: one relevant witness to what Trump did for one irrelevant Republican witness with which to attack the very Democrats Trump was trying to attack all along. Sen. Lindsey Graham has a proposal to make it look like Republicans took Bolton seriously without actually allowing the public to hear what he has to say. And so on. 

There may be some cracks in the unified Republican determination for a cover-up, but there are just as many Senate Republicans frantically slapping spackle onto those cracks.