About Us
Mission Statement
Rules of Conduct
 
Name:
Pswd:
Remember Me
Register
 

Steamrolling
Author: BobR    Date: 12/04/2019 14:05:08

Sen Kamala Harris (D-CA) decided to end her campaign for president yesterday. I had planned on writing about that, but the Impeachment Train continues barrel ahead, steamrolling Republicans as it goes. Today is another big day.

The House Intelligence Committee released its report yesterday to the House Judiciary Committee. It's the latter committee which decides whether or not to file articles of impeachment. The report is pretty damning:
The report, which can be read here, directly accuses the president of a “scheme” that leveraged his power in office for his own personal and political gain. Democrats allege there is enough evidence from witness testimony and documents to find that Trump conditioned a White House meeting, as well as nearly $400 million in military aid, on Ukraine’s willingness to launch an investigation that included Trump’s 2020 political rival Joe Biden.

The 300-page report also accuses the president of obstructing the impeachment inquiry by telling witnesses to ignore subpoenas for documents and testimony. Several of those witnesses defied those demands and testified anyway.

[...]

While the report makes no explicit recommendation for possible articles of impeachment, it offers a detailed roadmap that the House Judiciary Committee is expected to use to write them. The report details the president’s actions to leverage Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy with the help of his close advisers -- specifically naming acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, along with other administration officials.

The report accuses the president of undermining U.S. national security interests and U.S. policy as it relates to Ukraine. It is divided into two sections -- one focused on the substance of the allegations detailing the president’s alleged abuse of power and the second section outlines the obstruction of the impeachment inquiry, focusing on witness intimidation and blocking witness testimony.

You can read the report via the link in the quote above, or download it here..

What is not in the original report is information that Rep Devin Nunes (R-CA) - who ran the Republican side of the inquiry - may actually be complicit in the whole thing. Lev Parnas - the Ukranian arrested for violating campaign finance law - and Rudy Ghouliani apparently had numerous conversations with Nunes. That information was posted as an addendum to the report, which should result in Nunes facing an ethics inquiry and possible censuring or even expulsion from the House. Nunes - in a sad effort to distract from the facts - is suing CNN for reporting them.

Ukranian president Zelensky is finally speaking out about the withholding of aid. He seems to be hedging his position to not piss off tRump, while at the same time criticizing the fairness of being asked to help tRump in order to receive the aid. Yeah President Zelensky - that IS Quid Pro Quo.

The next phase begins today, as the House Judiciary committee takes up the report. Republicans are vowing to turn this into a circus by asking Intel Comm. Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) to testify. Of course, that means that the Dems can ask Devin Nunes to testify about his calls with Ghouliani and Parnas. That would be worth the price of admission to see.
 
 

17 comments (Latest Comment: 12/04/2019 17:42:52 by Scoopster)
   Perma Link

Share This!

Furl it!
Spurl
NewsVine
Reddit
Technorati