Category: Impeachment

Nancy Pelosi Says Even if President Trump is Acquitted ‘He Will Not Be Acquitted’

Posted on by Guest Author

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left members of the press confused during her weekly briefing Thursday when she said that President Trump “will not be acquitted” even if he actually is acquitted by the United States Senate.

‘He will not be acquitted’

“When this is over, do you think that President Trump will understand that he’s got a Congress watching this? Or will he be emboldened because the Senate will have acquitted him?” asked a reporter.

“Well, he will not be acquitted. You cannot be acquitted if you don’t have a trial. You don’t have a trial if you don’t have witnesses and documentation,” replied Pelosi.

Pelosi then doubled-down in saying she wanted more witnesses in the ongoing Senate impeachment trial, insisting that Republicans must allow further investigations or “pay a price.”

“It’s about a fair trial. They take an oath to have a fair trial. We think that would include witnesses and documentation. The ball is now in their court, so either do that or pay a price,” warned Pelosi.

RELATED: Pelosi Frets: End of the World If Trump Wins in 2020

Pelosi spoke with reporters Thursday after signing her Articles of Impeachment, saying the entire process is not a “question of proof” but “allegations.”

“It’s not a question of proof, it says what allegations have been made. That has to be subjected to scrutiny as to how we go forward, but it should not be ignored in the context of other events that could substantiate some of that,” said Pelosi.

RELATED: Democrats Have Already Decided Trump is Guilty, They Just Need To Find Something To Make Him So

Pelosi Living in Fantasy Land

What kind of fantasy land is Pelosi living in?

If the Senate acquits President Trump, which it looks like they will likely do this week, how in the world can she still say “he will not be acquitted?”

Trump Derangement Syndrome obviously takes many forms. The usual TDS is just partisan Democrats saying ridiculous things just to oppose Trump.

But now the Speaker of the House believes even if the President is acquitted, he really won’t be? An elected official of this ranking is just going to completely ignore reality?

If this isn’t proof the Democrats have completely lost it, I don’t know what is.

The post Nancy Pelosi Says Even if President Trump is Acquitted ‘He Will Not Be Acquitted’ appeared first on The Political Insider.

Fascism rises: Graham says Senate GOP will do whatever it can to expose the whistleblower

Posted on by Hunter

If you missed it, yesterday strident Donald Trump toady Sen. Lindsey Graham explained to Fox "Business" host Maria Bartiromo what he believes the Republican Senate will do next, after voting to immunize Trump from a clearly criminal extortion scheme meant to gain foreign help in winning his reelection. Graham said the Senate will move on from declaring that no administration witnesses must be called in an impeachment trial to calling a litany of Obama-era administration officials to interrogate them about Trump's targets in that scheme, Joe and Hunter Biden.

Graham also vowed to do something far more serious: Summon the "whistleblower" who first told Congress of Trump's criminal conspiracy. This is so that Graham and Trump's other Republican allies can interrogate Dear Leader’s nameless critic and, possibly, expose, threaten, and target that person to the full force of the Republican’s treason-approving, violence-threatening, mail-bombing base.

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Graham told his host, Angry Fascist Banana, that Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr told him the committee will be calling the whistleblower to testify. Graham said that he intended to expose "how all this crap started" and launched into a stream of absolutely false, propaganda-based conspiracy theories about who the whistleblower was "working with" that we will not repeat here. He did not, however, indicate whether Burr still intended to keep the whistleblower's identity secret or whether he had been pressured into changing his mind on that.

Graham, obviously, believes that he will find some conspiracy that will require, or at least justify, doing Trump's personal bidding by exposing the only White House-linked official in the entire administration who put their duty to their country above their fealty to a raving, corrupt man damaging national security and our elections for his own personal gain.

There can be little argument that the Republican Party is now a fascist organization. It has put Dear Leader above the rule of law. It has given Dear Leader an "absolute immunity" to solicit as much foreign government assistance as he can muster or extort for the purposes of throwing the next election in his favor, while insisting that it will still be a “free election” regardless of how much false, conspiracy-premised propaganda Dear Leader can bring to bear. Now it insists that Dear Leader's law-protecting supposed enemies be exposed, and made examples of.

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Collins’ legacy: To be ‘remembered not for her courage, but for her capitulation’

Posted on by Joan McCarter

The convention wisdom, for some unknown reason (laziness? lack of imagination?), that Sen. Susan Collins is a "moderate" still persists. Here's a headline in Sunday evening's Washington Post: "Republican Sen. Susan Collins finds it's lonely in the middle."

"Here in Maine," the story says, "where the famously independent Collins is locked in a tight reelection campaign, the choice elicited a wintry mix of cold shoulders and icy glares." The choice meaning her vote for witnesses in impeached president Donald Trump's trial, a vote that was carefully choreographed in Mitch McConnell's conference. That's because her "famous independence" is a sham, and people like Bill Nemitz, Maine's leading political observer, know it. In Sunday's Portland Press Herald, he laid out the whole con job.

Collins has chosen her side, and Maine knows it. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races, but especially the one in Maine!

"She will say she tried her best. She'll note that she voted for witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Trump, but that vote fell short," he writes. "Then, when the final impeachment vote comes on Wednesday afternoon, expect Maine Sen. Susan Collins to fall back into the Republican line and vote to acquit." She has "pages upon pages of detailed notes" to justify her vote, but since they just could hear from those witnesses she really wanted to hear from, the case just hasn't been proven so she, sadly, has no choice. She has to stand with Trump. But Nemitz remembers when Collins "demonstrated integrity," when she wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post explaining "Why I Cannot Support Trump."

"Collins’ statement of conscience bears revisiting," Nemitz writes, "if only to show that while Trump hasn't changed, the senior senator from Maine most certainly has." She's no longer a moderate, an independent voice for Maine, and Maine knows that. This is what Maine is expecting to see this week: "So, come Wednesday and the final impeachment vote, look for Collins to express her deep concern at how nasty everyone has become, wring her hands over how difficult her life has grown and then, ever loyal to a party that now devours those who dissent, vote to let Trump off the hook." Yes, Nemitz knows her very well. "And long after this national trauma passes into history, Maine's Susan Collins will be forever remembered not for her courage, but for her capitulation."

Pelosi serves well-deserved shade on McConnell, Chief Justice Roberts over sham impeachment

Posted on by Joan McCarter

No one can twist a political knife quite like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Think of the now-legendary clapback at impeached president Donald Trump at last year's State of the Union address. She's the queen of shade, and you just knew that Mitch McConnell was going to be on the receiving end of some of that. It hit Saturday morning in a brutal tweet that cast a wide penumbra, taking in the potted plant who presided over last week's sham impeachment trial.

"It is a sad day for America to see Senator McConnell humiliate the Chief Justice of the United States into presiding over a vote which rejected our nation's judicial norms, precedents and institutions which uphold the Constitution and the rule of law," she wrote. Ouch. That's all she said. That's all she needed to say. Chief Justice John Roberts is going to come out of this thing looking like a tool, and it's because of McConnell's machinations. It's because there was no way McConnell was going to let this impeachment trial be anything but a travesty.

History is not going to look kindly on either of those men.

It's time to end McConnell's destructive stranglehold on the republic. Please give $1 to our nominee fund to help Democrats and end McConnell's career as Senate majority leader.

Impeachment trial resumes with closing arguments as Republicans finalize their cover-up

Posted on by Laura Clawson

The impeachment trial of Donald Trump resumes at 11 AM ET, with Republicans still determined to make it a full cover-up. The House impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team will each have two hours for closing arguments—most likely facts on the one side, conspiracy theories on the other.

Between the closing arguments and Wednesday’s final vote in the trial, senators will have the chance to deliver remarks. In preparation for that, many Republicans have been honing their “Sure, it wasn’t ideal that Trump tried to get Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 elections, but it’s just not worth removing him over attempted election cheating” talking points. Democrats have a little more to work with—like all of the facts of the matter.

Senate Republicans have no regrets over impeachment cover-up, even as White House hides key emails

Posted on by Laura Clawson

News that the Trump White House is blocking the release of dozens of emails described in a court filing as “regarding Presidential decision-making about the scope, duration, and purpose of the hold on military assistance to Ukraine” didn’t change the message from Senate Republicans on Sunday’s talk shows: They regret nothing and will continue to cover up for Donald Trump. Why, it’s almost like nothing Trump could have done would have lost him the support of members of his own party determined to protect their own political power.

Sen. Lindsey Graham even proposed a major program of revenge against Democrats—one that would continue Trump’s efforts to damage former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 election prospects.

Graham used his time on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures to call on Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Jim Risch to launch a major investigation of Biden, also targeting the whistleblower who launched the House’s Trump-Ukraine probe. “Jim, if you’re watching the show, I hope you are ... let’s call these people in. Eventually, we’ll get to Hunter Biden,” Graham said.  

“We’re not going to let it go. Jim Risch, you need to start it,” he pledged.

Sen. Lamar Alexander didn’t sketch out a revenge plan for Democrats daring to conduct oversight of Trump, but he stuck to his story that, sure, Trump’s efforts to extort Ukraine into interfering in the U.S. elections were “wrong. Inappropriate was the way I’d say — improper, crossing the line,” but that doesn’t mean anyone should do anything about it. “I’m very concerned about any action that we could take that would establish a perpetual impeachment in the House of Representatives whenever the House was a different party than the president. That would immobilize the Senate.”

Gee, Lamar, maybe the issue isn’t just the House being held by a different party than the president—after all, as much as the Republican-controlled House from 2011 to 2016 would have looooved to impeach President Barack Obama, he didn’t give them even a shred of an excuse to do so—but all of Trump’s flagrant abuse of power.

Sen. Joni Ernst, facing re-election this November, couldn’t bring herself to condemn Trump’s actions as strongly as Alexander’s weak sauce. “Maybe not the perfect call,” Ernst said. “He did it maybe in the wrong manner.” Because apparently there’s a right manner for using the power of the presidency to get another country to launch sham investigations into a political rival.

It’s not just Trump. The Republican Party is rotten all the way through.

WATCH LIVE: President Trump’s 2020 State of the Union

Posted on (Updated by Gretchen Frazee
President Donald Trump will deliver his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday, Feb. 4 in the U.S. House of Representatives--a day before he is expected to be acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial and a day after the Iowa caucuses provide the first results in the Democratic presidential race.

Next Three Days Vital for President Trump

Posted on by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | February 3, 2020

Monday marks the beginning of three of the most important days in the history of modern America.

On Monday the resumption of the Senate impeachment trial will likely bring the process only two days away from a finish. Senators will get to make speeches on the Senate floor for or against impeachment. From those speeches a good count on the final votes on the charges before the Senate should be able to be discerned. Our call remains 55-45 for the president, thus handing him an impressive victory and complete vindication.

This is the de facto and de jure result no matter what the Democratic strategy may be to ignore the trial outcome and possibly embark on another impeachment investigation and vote. That would be timed for the GOP convention or the fall, when the Democrats still have control of the House. If they do that they will lose the House. So pray that they at least try.

Related: Taylor Swift Gets Political Again As She Attacks Republican Senator

The Iowa Democratic caucus on Monday looks like a close battle between Sanders and Biden. We think Biden will pull it off because many Sanders supporters are young and those under 30 do not usually vote or caucus in large numbers. Trump is probably pulling for Sanders, as are we, for the obvious reason of his non-electability in November. But the Democratic establishment will probably not allow his nomination, just as they cheated him out of it in 2016.

Tuesday brings more trial speeches and the State of the Union address by the president. Expect the Democrats to try a stunt to disrupt the president’s speech. Shouting from the audience, a walkout or boycott, even turning their back on the president are all in their playbook. One or more may take place.

Wednesday should close the chapter, for now, on one of the most divisive and unnecessary dramas in American history, as the Senate will likely vote to acquit President Trump on one count of abuse of power and another of obstruction of Congress. Current smart money has Democrats Manchin and Sinema possibly voting with the president on one or both counts. Jones could also jump to Trump on the votes.

RELATED: Ilhan Omar Launches Bill To Stop Trump From Carrying Out ‘Muslim Ban’

Republicans Romney and Collins could vote to remove the president on one or both counts, with Romney the more likely guilty vote on both charges.

Stay with LifeZette for the latest fast breaking coverage on all these events.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
Ilhan Omar Launches Bill To Stop Trump From Carrying Out ‘Muslim Ban’
Trump Wins Witness Vote 51-49, Acquittal Looks Solid
Taylor Swift Gets Political Again As She Attacks Republican Senator

The post Next Three Days Vital for President Trump appeared first on The Political Insider.