Category: Impeach

Sen. Rand Paul tries to out whistleblower during impeachment, #ArrestRandPaul goes viral on Twitter

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Wednesday evening, reports came out that Sen. Rand Paul was trying his darndest to out the alleged “whistleblower” by getting Chief Justice Roberts to say the name inside of a question, to be read during the Senate impeachment trial. It’s the kind of rich kid douchebaggery one expects from a 1980s teen movie villain … and Rand Paul. Because of the bad press that justifiably rained down on him, Sen. Paul illegally went out to talk with reporters during the Senate impeachment trial to clear his name by continuing to be a gruesome person and even worse senator. It’s important to note here that Sen. Rand Paul does shitty things on occasion like this, mostly to remind the country that he’s still here. Also because, like his dad, he’s mostly interested in his own power, and also like his dad, his libertarian ideas are worthless and cyclically ebb and flow with the rise and fall of fascism.

And so Rand was able to make the day’s headlines, and stay in those headlines, but not because people think the gold-diapered baby senator is a patriot. No, people had Sen. Paul on their minds for a very different reason altogether—American history and common sense. #ArrestRandPaul began to trend on Twitter, and took off.

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No. No there’s not.

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And people aren’t saying it simply as a joke.

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And while it is preaching to the choir, the depth of this move, the true inhumanity and bleakness of soul that it takes to put people’s lives in jeopardy over some worthless political points that you might get from Donald Trump, is pathetic.

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If our justice system was even half working at this point, Sen. Rand Paul would be in a whole heap of very real trouble.

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Nixon backers’ obits suggest history won’t be kind to those who don’t support Trump impeachment

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Ryan Goodman, editor in chief over at Just Security, published a very interesting piece on Wednesday. In it, Goodman goes back through history and looks at the 10 Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who voted both for and against the impeachment of then-President Richard Nixon in 1974. More importantly, he looks at their obituaries to see whether his backers’ decisions to support a clearly unhinged and corrupt politician were remembered. According to Goodman, not only was it mentioned in these long-deceased officials’ obituaries, but it was the defining moment of their careers. Reading some of obituary headlines, you begin to get the scope.

“Former Rep. Joseph Maraziti, 78, Defender of Nixon on Watergate”

“Wiley Mayne; House GOP Member Who Voted Not to Impeach Nixon”

“Sandman, Nixon Supporter, Dies”

“Charles Wiggins, 72, Dies; Led Nixon’s Defense in Hearings”

Alternately, Goodman looked at the obituaries of Republican congressmen who voted in favor of impeaching Nixon. Those GOP officials’ careers were also definitively marked by their decision to break with party rank-and-file to make the right decision. 

Just Security is a U.S. national security law and policy think tank and media outlet. 

#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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‘I am now proudly a registered Democrat standing with the Constitution,’: #ILeftTheGOP goes viral

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Can people change their minds? Of course they can. Will certain cults of personality lose their followers this coming election cycle? Some people have traveled too far down a very dark road and are unwilling to face up to their own fears and faults. But some people have started out one way and went another. My father was a conservative kid from a working-class Queens, New York, family who went from being a conservative who liked late-1950s Nixon into a bleeding heart liberal a few years later. For him, a young woman telling him his ideas were like those in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead made him rethink his values. People change, and for many people, watching the current Republican Party under Donald Trump debase the Constitution and walk back virtually everything they’ve said they stood for, is enough to get #ILeftTheGOP to begin trending on Twitter.

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There are a mixture of serious testimonials as well as some funny digs at the Grand Old Party.

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Many people who showed up at the Kos blog porch over 10 years ago to talk about their feelings and ideas might remember a similar story to this:

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And there are the more modern converts.

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For some it was coming for a long time.

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And these hearings, with such stark hypocrisy on the part of the Republican Party, will hopefully have more people making these moves.

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But, never forget, we do not choose when and where and to whom we are born. We all have to make our ways to the light in different ways.

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And there is a lot of pain involved in changing what might once have been a strongly held belief system.

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And just for some of us, showing our support.

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If you were once conservative, share your story below.

‘Get your facts straight!’ Chris Wallace gets testy with Fox News pundit’s spin on Bolton

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Fox News’ Chris Wallace slammed conservative pundit Katie Pavlich on air, telling her to “Get your facts straight” after she tried to claim all kinds of made-up facts in her defense of Donald Trump. In question was Pavlich’s revisionist retelling of how the Democratic House’s impeachment inquiry was hampered by obstruction. In Pavlich’s imagineering, the Democratic Party is breaking with impeachment tradition by pushing an incomplete case, “and every impeachment beforehand, the witnesses that were called had been called in the House before being brought to the Senate. So there are questions here about the process.”

That’s not true. It’s not even a little bit true, and Wallace cut Pavlich off to tell her as much: “They hadn’t all been called in the House, and in the Clinton impeachment, they’d been called by the general independent counsel. They had not been called by the House.” 

Right-wing pundit Katie Pavlich is just the kind of dumb that Trump’s Republican Party loves: willing to toe any line of misinformation, no matter how many obvious facts and contradictions there are. Appearing on Fox News with conservative luminaries such as Brett Baier, Pavlich was promoting the old conservative trope that the difference between Clinton’s impeachment trial and Trump’s is that the Democratic Party keeps trying to add new things to it, because it’s going so terribly. The basis of this bit of bullshit is that Donald Trump’s White House has refused to allow anyone to testify, while his Department of Justice has done more work trying to cover up his criminal behavior than any of the actual work it’s supposed to do as a department. 

Wallace has been as critical of President Trump as anyone can be on the Fox News network, even admitting to the public that Trump has damaged our freedom of the press. But it’s hard to tell whether Wallace is angry at the lies being spread, or how stupid the spin is. The segment opened with Wallace saying proof that the John Bolton news that broke over the weekend was “big” was how intensely people like Pavlich were trying to spin it. 

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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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‘Right matters and the truth matters’: Read Adam Schiff’s history-making impeachment trial speech

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Thursday evening marked the end of a second long day on the Senate floor in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. Democratic officials presented the evidence to America, detailing how and why Donald Trump must be removed from office. The highlight was lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff's powerful 30-minute argument that closed out the day.

Schiff once again detailed some of the steps Trump and his White House took to obstruct the inquiry into his abuses of power. He underlined how the Trump White House went to his handpicked attorney general, William Barr, and got him to refuse to release evidence to Congress. “I know what the law says and it says you shall, doesn't say you may, doesn't say you might, doesn't say you can if you like to, doesn't say if the president doesn't object—it says you shall.” Just like at every other turn in this saga, it’s only because of the Democratic Party’s insistence that a whistleblower’s warnings be heeded that we even discovered how deep our executive branch’s corruption goes. 

Finally, Rep. Schiff finished with the powerful, already often-quoted conclusion of his argument, where he tied together why Donald Trump must be removed from office with what’s at stake for America. The final nine minutes of Schiff’s speech is transcribed below.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF: But even now, our ally can’t get his foot in the door. Even now, our ally can’t get his foot in the door. And this brings me to the last point I want to make tonight, which is, when we’re done, we believe that we will have made the case overwhelmingly of the president’s guilt. That is, he’s done what he’s charged with. He withheld the money. He withheld the meeting. He used it to coerce Ukraine to do these political investigations. He covered it up. He obstructed us. He’s trying to obstruct you and he’s violated the Constitution. But I want to address one other thing tonight. Okay, he’s guilty. Okay, he’s guilty. Does he really need to be removed? Does he really need to be removed? We have an election coming up. Does he really need to be removed? He’s guilty. You know, is there really any doubt about this? Do we really have any doubt about the facts here? Does anybody really question whether the president is capable of what he’s charged with? No one is really making the argument “Donald Trump would never do such a thing,” because of course we know that he would, and of course we know that he did. It’s a somewhat different question though to ask, okay, it’s pretty obvious whether we can say it publicly or we can’t say it publicly. We all know what we’re dealing here with this president, but does he really need to be removed? And this is why he needs to be removed.

Donald Trump chose Rudy Giuliani over his own intelligence agencies. He chose Rudy Giuliani over his own FBI director. He chose Rudy Giuliani over his own national security advisers. When all of them were telling him this Ukraine 2016 stuff is kooky, crazy Russian propaganda, he chose not to believe them. He chose to believe Rudy Giuliani. That makes him dangerous to us, to our country. That was Donald Trump’s choice. Now, why would Donald Trump believe a man like Rudy Giuliani over a man like Christopher Wray? Okay. Why would anyone in their right mind believe Rudy Giuliani over Christopher Wray? Because he wanted to and because what Rudy was offering him was something that would help him personally. And what Christopher Wray was offering him was merely the truth. What Christopher Wray was offering him was merely the information he needed to protect his country and its elections, but that’s not good enough. What’s in it for him? What’s in it for Donald Trump? This is why he needs to be removed.

Now, you may be asking how much damage can he really do in the next several months until the election? A lot. A lot of damage. Now, we just saw last week, a report that Russia tried to hack or maybe did hack Burisma. Okay. I don’t know if they got in. I’m trying to find out. My colleagues on the Intel Committee, House and Senate, we’re trying to find out, did the Russians get in? What are the Russian plans and intentions? Well, let’s say they got in and let’s say they start dumping documents to interfere in the next election.

Let’s say they start dumping some real things they hack from Burisma. Let’s say they start dumping some fake things they didn’t hack from Burisma, but they want you to believe they did. Let’s say they start blatantly interfering in our election again to help Donald Trump. Can you have the least bit of confidence that Donald Trump will stand up to them and protect our national interest over his own personal interest? You know you can’t, which makes him dangerous to this country. You know you can’t. You know you can’t count on him. None of us can. None of us can. What happens if China got the message? Now you can say, he’s just joking of course. He didn’t really mean China should investigate the Bidens. You know that’s no joke.

Now maybe you could have argued three years ago when he said, “Hey Russia, if you’re listening, hack Hillary’s emails.” Maybe you could give him a freebie and say he was joking, but now we know better. Hours after he did that Russia did, in fact, try to hack Hillary’s emails. There’s no Mulligan here when it comes to our national security. So what if China does overtly or covertly start to help the Trump campaign? You think he’s going to call them out on it or you think he’s going to give them a better trade deal on it? Can any of us really have the confidence that Donald Trump will put his personal interests ahead of the national interests? Is there really any evidence in this presidency that should give us the iron-clad confidence that he would do so?

You know you can’t count on him to do that. That’s the sad truth. You know you can’t count on him to do that. The American people deserve a president they can count on to put their interests first, to put their interests first. Colonel Vindman said, “Here, right matters. Here, right matters.” Well, let me tell you something, if right doesn’t matter, if right doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter how good the Constitution is. It doesn’t matter how brilliant the framers were. Doesn’t matter how good or bad our advocacy in this trial is. Doesn’t matter how well-written the Oath of Impartiality is. If right doesn’t matter, we’re lost. If the truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost. Framers couldn’t protect us from ourselves, if right and truth don’t matter. And you know that what he did was not right.

That’s what they do in the old country that Colonel Vindman’s father came from. Or the old country that my great grandfather came from, or the old countries that your ancestors came from, or maybe you came from. But here, right is supposed to matter. It’s what’s made us the greatest nation on earth. No Constitution can protect us, right doesn’t matter any more. And you know you can’t trust this president to do what’s right for this country. You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump. He’ll do it now. He’s done it before. He’ll do it for the next several months. He’ll do it in the election if he’s allowed to. This is why if you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed. Because right matters. Because right matters and the truth matters.

Otherwise, we are lost.

You can watch Rep. Adam Schiff’s closing argument in three parts below.

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Adam Schiff’s perfect shutdown of Trump’s ‘executive privilege’ claims is mandatory viewing

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Rep. Adam Schiff took time away from wiping the floor of the U.S. Senate with Donald Trump’s weak-sauce arguments, to go in front of cameras outside of the Senate to … wipe the floor with the president’s weak-sauce arguments. Speaking alongside the other House Impeachment managers, Rep. Schiff wanted to disabuse the Republican-media narrative that the reason there are zero witnesses being allowed into the Senate’s trial is because of some kind of legitimate claim on Trump’s behalf of executive privilege. Calling it a “camouflage” and explaining that the Chief Justice has already been empowered to make those determinations in the trial, Schiff very adeptly and succinctly debunks what will likely be a large part of the upcoming Trump defense.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF: I do want to address one issue that the president's team has been pushing out, not in the senate chamber but evidently everywhere else. And that is their last refuge. The last refuge of the Republican—not the Republican—of the president's team’s effort to conceal the evidence from the American people, and that is this claim of executive privilege. Now, we urged at the beginning of the trial that any witness issues be resolved at the beginning of the trial. The president's team wished to push that off, as did Senator McConnell, so that later in the process they could say, “well, if we were to entertain those questions now that would simply take too long.” That's nonsense. This is not a trial for a speeding ticket or shoplifting.

This is an impeachment trial involving the president of the United States. These witnesses have important firsthand testimony to offer. The House wishes to call them in the name of the American people and the American people overwhelmingly want to hear what they have to say. Now unlike in the House where the president could play rope-a-dope in the courts for years—that is not an option for the president's team here—and it gives no refuge to people who want to hide behind executive privilege to avoid the truth coming out. We have a very capable justice sitting in that Senate chamber empowered by the Senate rules to decide issues of evidence and privilege. And so if any of these witnesses have a colorful claim that they wish to make, or the president on their behalf, we have a justice who is able to make those determinations, and we trust that the chief justice can do so.

The Senate will always have the opportunity to overrule the justice, but what they fear, what the president’s team fears, is that the justice will, in fact, apply executive privilege to that very narrow category where it may apply. And here that category may be nowhere at all. Because you cannot use executive privilege to hide wrongdoing or criminality or impeachable misconduct. And that is exactly the purpose for which they seek to use it.

And finally, they have withheld hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of documents for which there is no colorable claim of privilege. Several of the witnesses that we seek to call have no even colorable claim of privilege. This is merely the latest camouflage and merely the latest effort to obstruct the Congress in its investigation and now to obstruct the Senate in the trial.

That’s a fact. Rep. Schiff continues to just land devastating body blow after body blow.

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New clip of young Lindsey Graham talking about impeachment confirms his hypocrisy knows no bounds

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds. It is hard to write this in new ways every few minutes, but it is the job of any honest person to acknowledge it. With Donald Trump’s impeachment trial playing out in the Senate and a Republican Party now actively colluding to cover up his crimes, old videos of very visible Republicans and Trump allies contradicting their current positions have started springing up.

Sen. Lindsey Graham is one of the more obvious examples because his 180-degree turnabout on executive powers, the abuse of those powers, and the subject of impeachment is arguably the most transparent example of how craven the Republican Party has become in its amoral quest for power. 

Dating back to Jan. 23, 1999, the clip below shows a younger Sen. Graham speaking at a press conference and basking in that camera limelight he so clearly desired and now requires.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: The law allows a different disposition if the offender comes before the court: “yes I’m guilty and I’m sorry and I throw myself on the mercy of the court.”  The sentence is usually different in a case like that versus someone who takes the legal system to the bitter end, and uses every twist and turn, and every gimmick, to try and beat the charges, for lack of a better word. So I’m going to argue that proportionality is something we need to consider, but is something that the defendant usually has to earn. And when you have someone who has flouted the law at every turn, then usually the sanctions are much more severe.

This was Sen. Graham’s attempt to dismiss the fact that the Republican Party’s “high crime” against then president Bill Clinton was that he obstructed justice in order to hide and lie about an extramarital affair he was having. The “proportionality” being brought to his mouth was the fact that none of it seemed very high crime-like, and Graham wanted to angle for the idea that Clinton’s lack of remorse showed an elitism and a belief he was above the law.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has arguably committed high crimes not only every day that he has been president, but every day since he began running for president.

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