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Führer Trump’s Impeachment Inquiry Thread. Update: The Senate completes the coverup

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There Was No ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Because Ukraine Didn’t Bend To Demands, McCarthy Argues

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) shifted the goalposts for President Donald Trump again on Wednesday, insisting that there could not have been a "quid pro quo" in Trump’s interactions with…
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There Was No ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Because Ukraine Didn’t Bend To Demands, McCarthy Argues


House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) shifted the goalposts for President Donald Trump again on Wednesday, insisting that there could not have been a “quid pro quo” in Trump’s interactions with Ukraine because Ukraine never buckled to Trump’s demands.



Speaking to reporters, McCarthy said the exchange outlined by Acting Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor in written testimony on Tuesday was not a quid pro quo.

Taylor said during his opening statement Tuesday that EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland told him that military assistance to Ukraine was conditional upon Ukraine’s president committing to two investigations: One into the Bidens and the other into allegations of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 elections.

“Name me one thing that Ukraine did to release the money. Nothing,” McCarthy said, referring to U.S. aid that Congress had allocated for Ukraine. The money was released in September after public and congressional outcry over the White House’s interference with the funds.

“To have a quid pro quo, you have to exchange, both sides, for another thing” McCarthy said. “Nothing transformed.”

Asked whether it was OK for Trump to demand investigations even if Ukraine did not comply with the demand, McCarthy pivoted to the White House memorandum of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky, refusing to speak about testimony from State Department officials.

“Nowhere in that phone call is there a quid pro quo,” he said.

That assessment is at odds with White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s comments during a recent press conference. Mulvaney said that Trump’s insistence on an investigation into a pro-Trump conspiracy theory was one reason the White House withheld the aid. Muvlaney soon reversed himself, and McCarthy clung to that reversal.

“I think Mick was very clear in cleaning up the statement,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy also asserted Wednesday that Ukraine had found out about the withheld aid from a Politico article in late August.

In fact, The New York Times reported Wednesday, an official from the country was told by a Pentagon official in the first week of August that the aid was being purposefully withheld.
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New Report Undermines Trumpworld Defense On Ukraine Quid Pro Quo

The Ukrainian government was made aware just a few days after the country’s President spoke with President Donald Trump on the phone that military aid was being held up purposefully…
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New Report Undermines Trumpworld Defense On Ukraine Quid Pro Quo


The Ukrainian government was made aware just a few days after the country’s President spoke with President Donald Trump on the phone that military aid was being held up purposefully, The New York Times reported Wednesday.


The new revelation undermines a defense that Trump supporters grasped hold of in the hours after Ambassador Bill Taylor’s bombshell testimony Tuesday: It couldn’t be a quid pro quo if Ukraine wasn’t aware security assistance was being withheld.

A Pentagon official reportedly discussed the issue directly with a Ukrainian official, the Times said.

The report cited interviews and documents the Times had obtained. The Ukrainians were made aware that the aid freeze was “not a bureaucratic glitch,” in the paper’s words, but rather a problem that ought to be addressed with White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

The White House has pointed to the timeline of Ukraine’s supposed awareness about missing military aid as a defense against charges of a “quid pro quo” by Trump. If Ukraine wasn’t aware that military money was being withheld, the argument goes, how could they have felt pressure to investigate Trump’s political rivals? Trump tweeted such an argument on Wednesday.

The Pentagon announced in June that Ukraine would receive a nine-figure assistance package from the U.S., but months ticked by without that money reaching Ukraine. The country is currently engaged in a years-long war with Russia.

An Aug. 28 Politico article revealed the White House’s hold on the aid. But the Times reported that the Ukrainians actually knew in the first week of August that the money was being purposefully withheld.

Per the Times, an unnamed Pentagon official discussed the freeze with an unnamed Ukrainian official in early August. The Pentagon official urged the Ukrainian to reach out to Mulvaney, who the Pentagon official said had been pushing for the aid to be withheld, the Times said.

The anonymous whistleblower whose complaint kicked off the House’s impeachment inquiry also mentioned an “early August” awareness from the Ukrainians, the Times noted. “As of early August, I heard from U.S. officials that some Ukrainian officials were aware that U.S. aid might be in jeopardy,” the whistleblower wrote.

The Pentagon official also reportedly made clear that Andriy Yermak, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, should reach out to Mulvaney, the Times said.

On July 25, just before Trump pressed Zelensky in a phone call to investigate Trump’s political rivals, the then-U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker texted Yermak.

“[A]ssuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / ‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington,” Volker texted, referring to a meeting with Trump in that Zelensky wanted.

A few days later, on Aug. 2, Giuliani met with Yermak in Spain.

In September, U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland reportedly told Yermak that “the security assistance money would not come until President Zelensky committed to pursue the Burisma investigation,” according to written testimony Tuesday from Taylor.

Mulvaney “had absolutely no communication with the Ukranians about this issue,” an unnamed administration source told the Times.
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A smart thing for Democrats to do right now, since the RNC have their hand all the way other there, right now. Is to slap it, like a mother would do and say "bet you dont do that again". They want private inquiries made public.

Have dude in charge say, ok, aight bet. I will make this public, with written and confirmed to rules that going forward, these ....(......)....inquires and discussion are made public

Watch them scramble like

anigif_enhanced-9176-1428539383-10.gif
Wont even have to follow through on the thread cause they'll cowardly back off.

If someone thinks your not gonna give em that action, they'll have no problem askin for it
 
talkingpointsmemo.com

Pence Reacts To Diplomats Testifying

Pence said that the testimonies by career diplomats as part of the impeachment inquiry only reinforce the Trump administration’s need to “drain the swamp.”
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Pence Says State Dept. Officials’ Testimony Shows Trump Must ‘Drain The Swamp’

In the wake of the explosive Tuesday testimony from career diplomat Bill Taylor, the White House continued to rail against House’s impeachment inquiry.

Although Vice President Mike Pence has yet to directly comment on Taylor’s bombshell 15-page written statement to Congress — which discussed texts, phone calls, and meetings laying out the quid pro quo that President Trump has repeatedly denied — he told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in a Tuesday night segment that the ongoing testimonies by career diplomats as part of the impeachment inquiry only reinforce the Trump administration’s need to “drain the swamp.”

“There is no question when President Trump said we were going to drain the swamp, but an awful lot of the swamp has been caught up in the State Department bureaucracy and we’re just going to keep fighting it,” Pence said. “And we are going to fight it with the truth.”

Pence’s reaction echoed that of White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, who said in a statement earlier Tuesday that Taylor’s testimony was a “coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution.”

When pressed by Ingraham on whether he was ever comfortable with Rudy Giuliani’s role in the Ukraine pressure campaign, Pence demurred, saying his own “involvement in Ukraine was all directly from my conversations with the President, and my conversations and meetings with President Zelensky.”

“We were supporting and encouraging Ukraine to deal with years of corruption and calling on European allies to do more to support the Ukraine people,” Pence said.
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Whitaker Used To Be Acting AG. He Just Declared Abuse Of Power Is ‘Not A Crime’

Former Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker made an unnerving claim during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening.
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Whitaker Used To Be Acting AG. He Just Declared Abuse Of Power Is ‘Not A Crime’

Former Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker made an unnerving claim during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening.

While discussing Democrats’ impeachment efforts with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Whitaker criticized Democrats for collecting “secret testimony and “selective leaking to preferred outlets.” He warned that a possible future Republican majority in the House could seek “payback,” calling Democrats’ probe illegitimate.

He then made a stunning claim based on his experience as a former prosecutor: “Abuse of power is not a crime.”

“I’m a former prosecutor and what I know is this is a perfect time for preliminary hearings, where you would say ‘Show us your evidence. What evidence of a crime do you have?’ Abuse of power is not a crime. Let’s fundamentally boil it down, the Constitution is very clear that there has to be some pretty egregious behavior and they cannot tell the American people what this case is even about.”

The comment comes on the heels of devastating testimony from U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor who told House investigators on Tuesday about the President’s strategic efforts to get the president of Ukraine to investigate his political rival.

The remark was particularly egregious given past impeachment precedent. Both former Presidents Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon’s articles of impeachment included abuse of power as pillars of Congress’ cases against them.
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WH Aides, GOP Lawmakers Having Calls On Impeachment Strategy

In lieu of any impeachment war room, Trump has given his blessing to calls between White House aides and some House GOP to hammer out a response strategy.
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White House Aides, GOP Lawmakers Having Calls On Impeachment Strategy

In lieu of any impeachment war room, President Donald Trump has given his blessing to regular calls between White House aides and some House Republicans to hammer out a response strategy.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the communication was catalyzed by members of the House Freedom Caucus who were deeply perturbed at the lack of White House guidance on how to respond to impeachment developments. The final straw was reportedly when the White House initially blocked ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland from testifying, a maneuver they didn’t see coming.

The few talking points the White House has been pushing center on denigrating Democrats rather than defending Trump’s actions: that the party has been out to get Trump from the beginning, that they are accordingly fast-tracking the impeachment inquiry and that they are ignoring their other work.

The newest narrative team Trump will have to spin came Tuesday, when top State Department aide on the Ukraine Bill Taylor laid out clear instances of Trump and those in his orbit spelling out a quid pro quo to Ukraine centered on the manufacturing of a Biden scandal.
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Republicans Storm Impeachment Inquiry Hearing In Stunt

Gaetz led a swarm of his mostly tie-clad, middle-aged peers to storm the secure room where testimony related to the impeachment inquiry was scheduled.
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Republicans Storm Impeachment Inquiry Hearing In Distracting Stunt


Trump fanatic Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) led a swarm of his mostly tie-clad, middle-aged GOP peers to storm the secure room where testimony related to the impeachment inquiry was scheduled to be shared on Wednesday.

The lawmakers were fueled by anger that they weren’t allowed to listen in on the testimony of top Pentagon official Laura Cooper, despite the fact that none of them sit on the committees overseeing the inquiry. Other firebrand Trump supporters — like Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Devin Nunes (R-CA) — do sit on the committees and were thus included in the closed-door testimonies.

Cooper’s testimony was delayed as the Republicans stormed the room.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who sits on the Intelligence Committee, said that Cooper was already in the hearing room when Republicans started streaming in.

“This is, as you can imagine, also an effort to intimidate witnesses who seek to come forward,” he said. “The witness was in the hearing room at the time Republicans started to come in. We did all we could to get the witness out, to make sure the witness was protected and not affected by these tactics.”

He added that many members refused to give up their electronic devices even when instructed to by the Sergeant at Arms, and that the space would have to be “sanitized” at some point, since they may have brought in the “Russians and Chinese” along with their own “unauthorized bodies.”

When pressed on the Republican talking point that closed-door hearings prevent transparency in the impeachment inquiry, Swalwell said that they had “evidence” that witnesses were communicating to “refresh their memory” before giving testimony, and that the private hearings in the first stage of the investigation were meant to avoid that occurrence.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), a member of the Oversight Committee, also spoke to reporters, saying that he didn’t know if Cooper would still testify Wednesday after the Republicans’ antics.

“As long as Chairman Schiff is going to have a closed session, it’s a waiting game to see if she does the deposition,” he said.

Addressing his peers’ dramatic tactics, he said that “sometimes you have to take unbelievable measures to make sure that due process and civil liberties are upheld.”

Though Meadows denied any coordination with the White House, a Bloomberg report published after the rogue Republicans had dispersed revealed that Trump did have advance notice of the plan, and gave it his blessing. Meadows denied that specific report, calling it “factually incorrect.”

Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), a member of the Judiciary Committee, confirmed later Wednesday afternoon that the Republican non-committee members had left the room, that the SCIF had been re-secured and that Cooper was still slated to give her deposition.

The Republicans who led the charge are likely attempting to change the narrative on the impeachment inquiry, which became extremely damning for President Donald Trump in the past 24 hours with top Ukrainian diplomat Bill Taylor’s testimony. Taylor laid out a clear picture of Trump and those in his close orbit pressing Ukrainians with a quid pro quo meant to politically puncture former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign with a manufactured scandal.
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www.mediaite.com

Rick Wiles: Trump Supporters Will 'Hunt Down' Democrats For Impeachment

“If they take him out, there is going to be violence in America."
www.mediaite.com www.mediaite.com

Far-right evangelical talk radio host Rick Wiles asserted on Tuesday that conservative Americans will “hunt” Democrats if President Donald Trump is removed from office.

Wiles, a Florida pastor who is an ardent antisemite and conspiracy theorist, made the comments while speaking on his televised TruNews show, which is hosted on the End Times broadcasting network, during a segment about the ongoing impeachment inquiry against the president.

“If they take him out, there is going to be violence in America. There are people in this country, veterans, cowboys, mountain men, guys that know how to fight, and they’re going to make a decision that the people that did this to Donald Trump are not going to get away with it and they’re going to hunt them down,” Wiles said, before adding that he is deadly “serious.”

“If these people in Washington think that they are going to get away with it, it’s not going to happen,” he continued. “The Trump supporters are going to hunt them down. It’s going to happen and this country is going to be plunged into darkness and they brought it upon themselves because they won’t back off.”

Wiles, who refers to Jews and Muslims as “the Antichrist,” went on to say that Trump supporters “are fed up” with Democrats and the media and are on the verge of starting another civil war.

“They know if they get away this, there’s no country left it’s done, it’s finished,” he added. “When people have lost everything … they just lose it, alright, they’re going to go on a rampage and you’re not going to be able to put it back in the bottle.”

Wiles’ co-host then chimed in to say, “Once the blood starts flowing, it’s nearly impossible to stop.”

While Wiles’ violent TruNews commentary is on the more extreme end of the right-wing media world, he is far from the only conservative pundit to push civil war rhetoric. Daily Wire founder and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro threatened to “pick up a gun” earlier this month in response to Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s proposed policy of stripping religious institutions of their tax exempt status if they discriminate against LGBTQ people. Fox Business host Trish Regan recently insisted that America is nearing a “breaking point in terms of an emotional civil war with violence that will spill into our streets.”
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CNN: Parnas and Fruman Claimed They Were Traveling To Vienna For A Hannity-Shokin Interview

Two associates of Rudy Giuliani’s arrested for a campaign finance conspiracy earlier this month were on their way to help with a planned interview between Fox News’ Sean Hannity and former Ukrainian…
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CNN: Parnas and Fruman Claimed They Were Traveling To Vienna For A Hannity-Shokin Interview

Two associates of Rudy Giuliani’s arrested for a campaign finance conspiracy earlier this month were on their way to help with a planned interview between Fox News’ Sean Hannity and former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, they told others.



CNN reported the reason for Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman’s trip on Wednesday, citing four people familiar with the duo’s plans.

Parnas and Fruman were arrested the night of Oct. 9 as they boarded a one-way international flight out of Washington, D.C., reportedly to Vienna. Giuliani subsequently told the Atlantic that he too was scheduled for a flight to Vienna on Oct. 10.

According to CNN’s sources, Parnas and Fruman claimed to others that they were going to Vienna to meet Giuliani and help with an interview in the city between Hannity and Shokin.

Shokin is the former Ukrainian prosecutor general. President Donald Trump and his allies have asserted that Joe Biden put pressure on Ukraine’s government to fire Shokin in order to protect Biden’s son, Hunter, who served on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma. In reality, Joe Biden joined scores of western leaders in calling for Shokin’s ouster because the country’s top prosecutor was seen as insufficiently tough on corruption.

But Shokin has readily provided ammunition for Trumpworld’s campaign against Biden, most notably in a sworn affidavit entered into the case of a Ukrainian oligarch that restated the claims about Joe and Hunter Biden. The affidavit quickly became pro-Trump fodder, cited by Giuliani and others on TV interviews.

That oligarch, Dmitry Firtash, has for years lived in Vienna as he’s fought extradition to the United States on bribery charges.

Notably CNN’s report contrasts with what Giuliani told the Atlantic — that he and his clients and business partners, Fruman and Parnas, would coincidentally be in the same city on the same day without having planned on meeting each other.

A Fox News spokesperson relayed a statement from Hannity to TPM. “We never reveal our sources, potential sources, or persons they may or may not request to interview,” it read. “Sean Hannity takes the first amendment seriously.”
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