Category: bolton

Highlights from the first two weeks of the Republican Party’s sham impeachment trial

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Two weeks of history came to something of a head on Friday. The Senate Impeachment trial, while a coverup orchestrated by the Republican Party, is also a historic attempt by American patriots to begin the process of fixing a corrupted executive branch before irreparable damage is done. Lead House Manager Adam Schiff began by explaining the seriousness of the charges against Donald Trump.

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And then a quick reminder of how Sen. Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republican party has hamstrung this essential Democratic process,

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House Manager Jerrold Nadler from New York spoke on the Senate floor on Thursday, and brought some receipts. First the fact that the evidence is overwhelming.

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And then a relentless barrage of video showing that the conservatives arguing on Trump’s behalf, with names like Alan Dershowitz and Lindsey Graham, arguing the absolute opposite just a few years ago. 

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One of the most glaring realities of the “perfect” phone call, and subsequent statements about Trump’s personal interest in getting an investigation started into the Bidens is the fact that he didn’t care if there were actual investigations into corruption … just the perception of investigations.

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Schiff came back and delivered what many called an “historic” 30-minute closing argument to end day two of the Senate Impeachment trial. The final eight minutes included a powerfully stark reminder of what is at stake.

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On Friday, House Manager Hakeem Jeffries once again reminded the world that this is not a partisan process—at least it is not supposed to be one.

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On Saturday, the Republican Party—who has made this a thoroughly partisan procedure—had their chance to begin the defense of Donald Trump. As all the president’s men began their disinformation campaign to muddy the waters with conspiracy theories, news began circulating of an almost 90-minute long audio tape purportedly secretly recorded by Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas. Highlights included Trump angrily saying he wanted people to “get rid of” then-Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Besides the myriad questions this should bring to anyone’s mind didn’t seem to faze Republican lawmakers: 1) Does Donald Trump not realize he has the right, as president, to replace her, and if he does 2) What was he suggesting be done with Yovanovitch, and 3) What kind of crap national security is being run if any dubious character can record the president secretly for almost 90 minutes? 

On Sunday, news came out that former Ambassador John Bolton’s new memoir would feature smoking gun statements of Trump’s guilt in the Ukraine affair. Calls for witness testimony were reinvigorated. It would seem that allowing for such testimony as Bolton’s would be a fait accompli but, with the republic under fire from inside, there is nothing we can take for granted.

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This, of course, was followed by the deafening silence of Republican officials, and vitriol on Twitter from the the chief executive of our country. On Monday, all the president’s men went back to their posts to defend the indefensible. This might have to do with their fear of their fearful leader. Who is more cowardly, the coward or the cowards afraid of him? And while they went to work, trying to figure out what to do about the John Bolton-sized elephant in the room, the Trump defense spewed lie after lie after lie.

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Oops. Sorry, that’s a different Republican Senator clearly from an alternate reality.

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It is hard to sum up how outrageous the Trump-defense presentation on Monday was.

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A considerable amount of Monday’s “defense” was dedicated to figuring out ways to use old-fashioned phraseology that could be succinctly grabbed for headlines. Words like “poppycock” provided the deepest defense Trump’s team had to offer. The day ended with a promise of one thing, though.

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To place you in time, Monday also included Iowa Sen. Jodi Ernst embarrassing herself in remarkable fashion.

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By Tuesday it became more and more clear that the leaked John Bolton manuscript was becoming too hard to control and witnesses would likely need to be called in to testify. However, the plan for Republican leadership at this point was how best to hide testimony from the public, so that the rightwing propaganda machine could more easily lie about the framing and characterization of said testimonies. The summary of Trump’s defense by the end of Tuesday was best summarized by Steve Vladeck.

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By the end of Tuesday, Republican Majority Leader McConnell had brought fellow GOP senators into his lair for a closed-door session, to discuss whether or not they had the votes to stop witnesses from actually being called during this “trial.” Reports from numerous media outlets contradicted one another, with the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post reporting that McConnell did not have the votes secured to stop something resembling a real impeachment trial from breaking out, while Politico and The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman saying he did. 

By Wednesday morning, it seemed that the Republican Party was exactly where they’ve always been—inside of Donald Trump’s pocket. The White House, after telling everybody that John Bolton’s memoir meant nothing, decided to threaten legal action against Bolton and his publisher. Republican leadership sent out the new day’s talking points which consisted of admitting that Donald Trump did indeed hold up money in order to force Ukraine to publicly “investigate” a political rival, but … so what? “#WeWantWitnesses” went viral as protestors descended upon our nation’s capital.

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And then the questions began:

Sens. Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz thought they were able to put together a real stumper, using the old Obama whataboutism.

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Trump attorney Dershowitz took the fragments of what was left of his career and integrity and flushed them down the drain of history, by arguing that a president couldn’t be impeached for crimes, because his belief in himself as being awesome made it not a crime. The law scholar he repeatedly cited during this extraordinary argument went on television and also wrote an op-ed in The New York Times to say that Alan Dershowitz was as full of shit as you suspected him to be.

Meanwhile, news broke that Chief Justice Roberts had denied Republicans from outing the “whistleblower,” in the most cowardly fashion available to them: by getting Chief Justice Roberts to read their name as one of the submitted questions. Chief coward amongst them, Sen. Rand Paul.

Lead Manager Schiff  presented the Joseph Heller-level Catch-22 breaking news story of Trump’s Department of Justice, arguing in federal court—resisting subpoenas—that a president can’t be impeached by the House if they cannot be in court to fight for subpoenas … because they are in the Senate making their case for impeachment. “You can’t make this stuff up.”

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And sadly, none of us have made any of this up. It’s just the lazy writing of corruption and cowardice and incompetence. Americans rolled out of their beds on Friday to news that Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Lamar Alexander, and Cory Gardner—all possible swing votes—were all in agreement that there was no such thing as crime. Just as Donald Trump’s new favorite lawyer Alan Dershowitz instructed. The rest of the day was filled with the bad, illogical theater one has come to expect from this Republican Party. Sen. Murkowski voted against new witnesses and new evidence, even with Bolton revelation after Bolton revelation getting leaked to the public. Her statement on the matter should truly disabuse anyone of the belief that Lisa Murkowski is anything but a corrupt tool of a politician, with zero ethical convictions whatsoever.

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#RIPAmerica began trending on Twitter.

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And the cowards we have come to know under Donald Trump continued to fly their bright yellow colors.

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The Republican Party made their decision clear. Our democracy means far less to them than the promise of short-term power. As Friday wore down, we were left with murmurs of amendments and promises of votes to come.

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In the end, this was the takeaway for next week, when the United States Senate, led by the Republican Party, decide to set the precedent that a president can be corrupt as long as he—and they are definitely talking about a man—thinks it is in his best interests to be corrupt.

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But before the very end of Friday, Republican Senators all stepped up to write the first line of their obituaries, voting to nix witnesses and to block five amendments Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer put up.

Commiserate below in the comments. If you feel up to it.

#WeWantWitnesses takes off on Twitter as Americans demand justice

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

As the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump continues, the Republican Party, behind Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, continues to work a cover-up. Americans everywhere are fed up with the transparent abuses of power of the conservative-led Senate, and #WeWantWitnesses has begun to trend on social media.

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And people are taking this opportunity to make those calls ...

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… and to organize people on the ground.

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“Do your job.”

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And the theatricality resulting from McConnell’s creation of a fiction to hide the facts increases.

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And while all of this is going on, the White House, after saying that John Bolton’s book didn’t matter, is making a legal play because … it seems to matter.

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And a reminder: Donald Trump is guilty.

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White House Issues Threat to Bolton Over New Book

Posted on by Jack Hadfield

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.

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.

Bolton’s team denies leaking his book, contends White House made copies

Posted on by Lauren Floyd

President Donald Trump claimed to reporters Monday that he hadn't seen the manuscript from former national security adviser John Bolton’s new book, but Bolton’s team reportedly believes the White House was not only given the manuscript but made copies of it, according to NBC News. The book, which The New York Times obtained a copy of, alleges that Trump told Bolton military aid to Ukraine was being delayed until the country investigated Trump’s political adversary, which is now the central claim of the president’s impeachment trial.

NBC News correspondent Carol Lee reported Monday that one hard copy of Bolton's book was delivered to the White House in December for a national security review. "What happened to the copy of the book is unknown to Bolton's team, but it appears copies of it were made," NBC News said in its report. "Bolton's team submitted the book 'in good faith' and now feels that process was corrupted." 

In an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Lee said Bolton’s team is contending: “Essentially it's hard to get your head around the idea you have one copy of a book and everyone is passing it around, and then all of those people are going and talking to reporters about what they read in this one copy that they've all been sharing.” Lee added: “So it suggests that there are multiple copies floating around and from the Bolton team's perspective, they're saying we give them one copy. What they did with it, we don't know, but clearly it's gotten out there and it's not coming from us. They really want to distance themselves from the idea he is somehow behind leaking this.”

RELATED: This one on John Bolton was a big, stupid lie even by Trump standards

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Watch Fox host contort himself as new damaging info emerges in Trump impeachment trial

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

The Republican Party continues forward with its oblique defense of Donald Trump’s impeachable crimes. This on the heels of bombshell news that former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his soon-to-be-published memoir that Trump froze the congressionally earmarked financial aid to Ukraine subject to them opening up a public corruption investigation into the Biden family. By any measure this would be a smoking gun. In fact, back in September, even Fox & friends’ Steve Doocy could agree to that. In a clip you can watch below from Sept. 24, 2019, Doocy explains how the whistleblower complaint only means something if someone could truly point to Donald Trump withholding aid because he wanted an investigation into a campaign rival—Joe Biden.

STEVE DOOCY: If the president said, you know, “I’ll give you the money but you’ve got to investigate Joe Biden,” that is really off-the-rails wrong.

Ainsley Earhardt agreed.

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Steve Doocy spent Monday pushing back those goal posts, while Fox News brought on corrupt politician after corrupt politician to pooh-pooh these bombshell revelations. Speaking with alleged sexual molestation accessory after the fact Rep. Jim Jordan, Doocy asked this of the new Bolton allegations. Calling these allegations something that “we have heard before,” Doocy went on to both illustrate exactly why the news is damning, while also saying it didn’t matter now, for no reason.

DOOCY: This is something we have heard before but now, because it’s John Bolton, and he was in the room, what does this change?

Media Matters put together this clip showing Doocy in September and Doocy on Monday.

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Listen, everybody has the right to change their minds about things. In fact, as more and more evidence is revealed, one should be able to change their mind as they now have new information to work with. And yet, somehow, Steve Doocy is so filled with the poison of cynicism, he is able to seamlessly change the parameters of the argument in such a way that it makes me wonder if Steve Doocy’s mind is simply filled with a gaseous sulfur-smelling void.

Rep. Adam Schiff makes the irrefutable case for Bolton’s testimony

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Donald Trump impeachment trial manager Rep. Adam Schiff has been so very stolid in his handling of the Republican-sham impeachment circus being orchestrated by the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. As another day of appearances by Trump’s impeachment defense team began, House impeachment managers spoke to reporters in front of the Senate. The last question reporters asked was whether Schiff trusted former national security adviser John Bolton. Schiff used his response to point out the important issue: that the testimony of a witness such as Bolton is vital to a fair trial in the Senate.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF: It's not a question of whether I trust John Bolton or the Republican senators [trust] John Bolton, or the Democratic senators. He should be placed under oath. And this is why we think the testimony should be public. It should be live. Let the American people, along with the senators, evaluate John Bolton’s credibility when he testifies, and make their own judgment. But to say that we’re going to blind ourselves from a witness who has so clearly relevant testimony to one of the central most serious allegations against the president, I don't see how you could have a fair trial without testimony like that.

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