The Schiff impeachment circus run should end this week
The handful of wobbly Republicans will look like the clowns if they capitulate to the Kavanaughing of the Senate trial.
We are approaching the witching hour in the Senate impeachment trial. It could all but end this week, or go on for weeks or months, depending on which way the media wind blows a handful of wobbly Republican Senators.
So far, the impeachment process has been a bad faith effort by Adam Schiff and crew, and that’s being charitable towards him.
As noted by me and others, Schiff’s strategy has been to ‘Kavanaugh’ the trial, to drag the process out by serial supposed ‘bombshells’ exploited for the purpose of justifying calling witnesses Schiff either never subpoenaed or never sought to compel the testimony of in the House.
It’s an attempt to make the trial process so miserable and chaotic that it becomes political punishment. It has zero to do with finding the truth, which is something Democrats never sought through their biased House process.
Lev Parnas, under federal indictment for providing false information, served the role of Julie Swetnick, making accusations made for MSNBC. Then a paraphrase of a section of John Bolton’s manuscript of his book was leaked to the NY Times — Bolton is Deborah Ramirez to follow through on the Kavanaugh analogy.
Today Democrat Representative Elliot Engel joined the circus, claiming that months ago Bolton made an admission to Engel expressing concern over the treatment of the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (so what?). Engel, extending the Kavanaugh analogy, is the person who reported the fictitious Rhode Island boat incident.
For reasons not clear, key House impeachment chairman keeps his claim of 9/23 conversation with Bolton secret until final hours of impeachment trial. Makes House failure to subpoena Bolton even more perplexing. https://t.co/izKwhJpVX7
— Byron York (@ByronYork) January 29, 2020
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1222589889348358144
The Schiff circus run should end this week. The handful of wobbly Republicans will look like the clowns if they capitulate to the Kavanaughing of the Senate trial.
Vote to dismiss, or move quickly to a verdict, guilty or not guilty.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
I have been following bits and pieces of the proceedings on Fox and CNN (at the gym where both are on).
Of course, it’s like night and day. Fox usually just shows the proceedings while CNN puts up salacious headlines trying to push their agenda.
Anyways, from what I’ve seen, the lousy bad guys have done enough convincing to bring on witnesses, and too few of the good guys have taken them to task on it.
It would be nice if people like Rombot were only claiming to consider witnesses knowing that it will break down when the Dems refuse to allow the Bidens, Schiff, and Pelosi to be called. However, I’m not holding my breath that this is the case.
Fox has been horrible, barley even presenting President Trumps Defense, putting on The Five for God sakes, this after presenting non stop coverage of the Democrats. Didn’t miss a beat there!
President has tweeted about Fox’s non support, people are livid…
My point is that Fox is trying to play the middle road game like media used to do. CNN doesn’t even try any more.
Fox has had a change at the top level and become more democrat than what they were before. Someone, somewhere obviously made the decision that there was more money to be made by being one of the pack instead of being the lone conservative media voice.
Murdoch’s leftist, idiot kids are taking over the running of most of his businesses. Fox will be no different from CNN when the old man dies.
Gave up on Fox pretty early in the proceeding. C-span and the Senate’s web-site both carried the proceeding, uninterrupted.
The House Managers are beclowning themselves.
For example: “The President must be brought to heel” — Rep. Nadler.
What heel? Unemployment down, wages up, solid trade agreements. Clearly, Nadler is tired of all the Trump WINNING.
I suspect Nadler and his pathetic posse want voters brought to heel.
I read somewhere that Nadler back in the early 90’s as a NYC pol was involved in denying DJT a road deviation for a project. These guys have a history. I think DJT May have teased him too.
Here’s the story.
Wow, Nadler using the same Racist language as Hillary when she was out to use Mass Incarceration against as may Black Americans that needed to Brought to Heal.
What Nadler means is “voters need to be brought to heel”. As Schiff said, “We can’t trust the vote[rs]!”.
I have bottomless faith in the ability of Republicans to craft defeat from certain victory.
God, I wish you were wrong, but …
Me, too, my friend. Me, too.
This Kavanaugh 2. The Dims tried to do it again with a last-minute “Witness” and it is going to fail. Even the Utah snake will vote to have no witnesses. No Republican even Collins will support the unethical mess the House has sent to the Senate. If the Senate acquiesced they would know with certainty that the future of all new impeachments would result in them doing all the work whether or not they wanted to. This attempt by the House is a charade and they all see through it. Not one R will vote against McConnell and maybe as many as three or four D’s will vote with them.
I hope you are right. Like Anonamom above, I have no faith that the squishes will manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory…especially Romney who for some reason appears to have an absolute hatred for Trump (probably because somewhere along the line Trump probably banged his mother or something ??).
While I too, “have bottomless faith in the ability of Republicans to craft defeat from certain victory,” I do find one aspect of this fundamentally different than other situations:
If Senators vote to have more witnesses, they will be sentencing themselves to sit in their seats for an indeterminate period of time. I’m a lawyer, I know what it’s like to have to sit through dull material like this, and frankly, I can’t imagine what would be worth it, that I would VOTE to do so.
In addition to the points that you make, there’s the fact that some of the Senators will want to be out campaigning.
do you mean acting in their own political interests instead of the interests of the country?
One word: power…or if you prefer the synonym: leverage.
You’d be surprised what some of these aristocratic a-holes would do for another ounce of it.
Except, Bernie is cleaning Bribery Joe’s clock by just sitting in the Senate chambers.
The Republicans don’t stand a chance against the Democrats, they simply cannot lie anywhere near as effectively as the Democrats will.
The repubs inability to lie like a Democrat isn’t their problem, it’s cowardice!
Hopefully 51 Senators will gather the fortitude to end this farce. If not, then the Senate, as an institution, will be voluntarily granting to every future HoR the ability to effectively shut down the Senate. Every future session of the HoR will be able to vote articles and force the Senate to stop it’s legislative session and deal with a ginned up impeachment trial which will apparently require the Senate to issue subpoena to receive testimony from witnesses the HoR failed to call.
I hope that even the least bright bulbs in the Senate have figured out by now that continuing this farce will permanently weaken the Senate in favor of the HoR.
We will certainly see the answer later this week.
According to almost all of the statements out last night, the Democrats have folded and there will be no witnesses. The way this happened is really quite amazing – on Monday, Dem’s were running a full press for More Witnesses!! and the GOP squishes like Romney were all starting to cave – and suddenly, by last night, all of the will to do this on both sides had completely collapsed, and you can sense that everyone, even Schumer, now wants this over and done with.
It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to realize that *something* happened, or *some* information was leaked to all of them, that was devastating to the Dem side. I’ll be fascinated to find out what that was – and I hope we eventually do. I do kind of fault the Republicans for not telling us about it yet, but just look at McConnell now; he seems awfully smug.
First, the WH has indicated they have reviewed the FULL manuscript and rejected it. So they know what Bolton really said, not the anonymous leakers.
Second, Bolton’s vid showing he had no problem with the calls.
Third, Schiff’s vid saying he doesn’t trust Bolton at all from 10 years ago.
And lastly, the R’s saying if any witnesses are called, Hunter Biden will be one of them.
Checkmate.
Add the WH reviewed it 3 days BEFORE the leak.
From Fox News (3 hours ago):
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/schiff-bolton-lack-credibility-senate-impeachment-trial
A string of newly resurfaced video clips of former national security adviser John Bolton spurred President Trump and his supporters Wednesday to highlight what they described as serious credibility questions — raised by both Democrats and Republicans — amid the Senate impeachment trial, as the president tweeted, “GAME OVER!”
In his tweet, Trump linked to an interview of Bolton in August 2019 where he discusses Ukraine policy. In the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty interview clip, Bolton made no mention of any illicit quid pro quo, and acknowledged, as Republicans have claimed, that combating “corruption” in Ukraine was a “high priority” for the Trump administration.
Bolton also called Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “warm and cordial,” without mentioning any misconduct. It seemingly contradicted reported assertions in Bolton’s forthcoming book that Trump explicitly told him he wanted to tie military aid to Ukraine to an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden. (Zelensky has said his communications with Trump involved no pressure for any investigation.)
Separately, Fox News has identified clips of Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., now the lead House impeachment manager, in which he says Bolton had a distinct “lack of credibility” and was prone to “conspiracy theories.” This week, Schiff said Bolton needed to testify in the impeachment trial as an important and believable witness.
In weak defense of Bolton, there’s no proof that he had put any of that into his book draft. What the NYT said may have the same relationship to Bolton’s actual words as when Adam Schiff read the fake transcript of the original phone call. We are still kind of shocked that the NYT will just blatantly falsify major stories by using this “sources say!!!!” dodge, but they’ve been doing it for years now. They are truly a joke paper now, but the joke isn’t even slightly funny.
Those two statements don’t contradict each other.
Perhaps not, but since very few people have warm and cordial conversations with the shakedown artist who is coercing them, it indicates that the alleged shakedown hadn’t started as of the conversation date. Since the aid that is the reputed subject of the shakedown was released shortly afterwards, it does question the accuracy of the shakedown allegation. Add to that the fact that the alleged victim denies he was ‘shaken down’ and the conspiracy kinda evaporates, along with Bolton’s credibility.
It seems that Bolton has a case of the Schiffs… he lies.
Looking at the release and the timing of it, then learning the publication was denied due to classified information being in it, and given so many other things Bolton himself has been recorded as saying, it seems to me he and Schiff-ace are from the same school, leave no opportunity to lie go lied about.
So much for the straight shooter, when neither side finds him credible, even though the left is trying to say otherwise now.
This sham needs to end, and Schiff needs to be arrested and prosecuted for sedition. He has broken many laws in addition to his seditious behavior in this coup attempt.
There needs to be huge consequences for these lies being told.
The left will go back to hating Bolton as soon as they realize he is no longer useful to their cause. Most of the right will no longer trust him or have any interest in his interventionist philosophy. Bolton is trapped in the ever-shrinking NeverTrump/Neocon bubble, from which there is no escape.
GADDDD… it’s like trailer park divorce court.
Look, the system is skating along the edge of violent collapse. Granting that the Nomenklatura think they will always avoid reality, but history shows that they don’t. Everybody better be careful what they do, or there will be consequences in all directions.
Subotai Bahadur
Exactly. In one of the few name calling confrontations, Schiff and Derkowitz got into this very argument. This has been Derkowitz’s concern from the very beginning, a concern he reiterated again directly to Schiff, et al, by name, in response to a question put to the chair. Subsequently, Schiff called out the professor by name in an aside after replying to a different question. There’s a terrible game of chicken being played here; it is depressing that the outcome may be decided by the likes of Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney. Who knows if reports are true, but even the horribly disingenuous Diane Feinstein May sense the danger.
I’ll that, while Democrats are all in this together, Nancy Pelosi, who engineered this disgraceful turn of events, should somehow be made to pay for it and brought down. She simply must.
Kind of hard to call a witness that says he would lie for national security!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrM3uTaGA8M
A more complete version, he says he would break the law for national security interests:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGvoX9GMml8
Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t anybody?
I hear so many of the baddies use the phrase, “national security”. I would welcome the chance to ask them: 1) which nation, and 2) whose security.
How many times during the Muller probe did we here that phrase used to cover for DOJ/FBI malfeasance? Your correct! It has become a tool for criminal cover-ups.
It might be ending but we need the Intelligence IG testimony that the Democrats still refuse to release to the public. It’s the only testimony taken during this impeachment sham that they have refused to make public or leak.
You know what that means? It means it makes the Democrats look real bad.
The proper venue for this is for Lindsey Graham to demand this as Chairman of his Committee as soon as this shampeachment is over. He has the authority to demand it; we can only hope he has the fortitude to stick with it and not sweep it all under the rug.
The impeachment equivalent of follow the money is watch the polls.
Patrick Philbin is brilliant. He should be on SCOTUS. I could listen to him speak all day.
The House can restart the investigation and issue subpoenas and such – as can the various Senate committees – they can bring Hunter Biden in for questioning. And “he who must not be named”.
So they can continue this farce until election day if they want, but stop wasting the Senate’s time. Bannon wants witnesses for exhonoration theatre, but he also complains about the huge waste of time – waste more time?
Even if they want Bolton to testify, just to preserve the Constitution, Executive Privilege would have to be litigated up to SCOTUS.
THIS x1000
I still cannot fathom why the Senate Judiciary Committee did not review the House’s case and witnesses – aka getting these hearsay witnesses to answer the Republican questions – before it got to the Senate floor
then the Senate committee could have made known the information and testimony the Schiftt show has not made public
to me – that was the “smartest” move to break this House impeachment sham before it even started
I agree; but that committee can still do it even after this Schitt-show is over. If *that* was the plan – get impeachment off the table, then do the tedious process of exposing what they did, I’m ok with that. If Ms. Lindsey decides to sweep it all under the rug and say “oh well that’s old news now” I won’t be.
The upcoming Durham Report is not a farce. It will be a momentous and hopefully consequential beginning to breaking up the entrenched culture of corruption infecting the highest tiers of American society. We can’t rely on the “there but for the grace of God go I” paralyzed Congress to clean up their house. It’s this or civil war may become inevitable.
the problem here is AG Barr has been slowrolling the entire process
couple the above with no indictments on Hillary, Comey, McCabe (just to name a few) and it does not inspire confidence he was the right man for the top prosecutor job
then there is a recent story of him stonewalling a couple Senators in not declassifying some key items from the latest IG report
the turd can try and prove me wrong but it is looking like Barr is just a more ‘vocal’ Jeff Sessions at the helm
the fact we don’t hear a bleep from these supposed investigations speaks miles of what isn’t going to happen
I believe Barr is simply allowing the biggest issue, the impeachment, to be cleared from the decks so the real issue of massive corruption can be addressed cleanly. This may be another reason to add to the fear of RBG dying in the near future as to why the impeachment process has been allowed to fester.
Remember, the GOP is every bit as corrupt as the Dems and the entrenched bureaucrats. The least the GOP could do to demonstrate their good faith is to contain Gang Romney and move on to the real game. Then let the finger pointing war begin in earnest.
How, exactly, do you contain him? What can you threaten him with short of extra-judicial means? You take him off his committees, he jumps ship to the Democrats. Do that twice more for Collins and Murky and Mitch McConnell loses control.
@SDN: Romney and Collins are fighting for their political lives. I think Collins knows it but is stuck between her unhappy liberal voter base and what she knows she has to do to have any reason to be a Republican. Romney is so blinded by his bitterness to Trump for not having appointed him to anything that he seems oblivious to how disastrous this has been to his chances of re-election to the Senate.
Besides, what difference would it make if those two switched parties now? It wouldn’t change their vote.
Romney is not fighting for anything. There is nothing anyone can do to him. He doesn’t have to face any voters until well after Trump will be out of office.
What difference does it make? We lose the ability to confirm judges, for openers.
They aren’t going to get enough to convict no matter what they do.
Sadly, this will never end.
Willy Wonka: “The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.”
“According to almost all of the statements out last night, the Democrats have folded and there will be no witnesses.”
1. Democrats wish to retain the right to use “It was a coverup- the Senate called no witnesses!” in the 2020 election. Conveniently forgetting the House’s disgraceful performance, of course.
2. If there are witnesses, these likely will include the Bidens (pere and fils). That is, calling the Bidens as witnesses might expose some nasty corruption, but even if it doesn’t, a lame, halting and barely competent on-camera performance by Biden might cost him the nomination.
Democrats should welcome the possibility of disqualifying Biden now rather than after he’s been nominated, but they seem too Trump-reactive to realize and act on that.
Their alternative to Biden is Bernie. They’re stuck with Veep-n-Creep