Russiagate Ramblin' On

Where to start? The stupid comment of the day from AOC, who says Trump defending himself against Adam Schiff’s allegations is ‘targeted antisemitism’ (and people have thoughts), I thought defending himself was obstruction, but now it's antisemitism too? Rich coming from a girl who pals around with actual antisemites.

The Guardian, Stephen Miller blamed impeachment on Deep State – Bannon says that’s for ‘nut cases’, but what he really said was that their not deep, they're not even bothering to hide themselves anymore. He should know; he was one.

There is a formidable government bureaucracy in the US, he adds, but “there’s nothing ‘deep’ about it. It’s right in your face.”

I spent two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers because of a fake investigation. Many of my fellow staff did.

So you are saying Democrats can create a fake story to investigate us but we can’t take a true story and ask for an investigation? 🤔

Hypocrisy 💯

— Brad Parscale (@parscale) October 5, 2019

Dan Sobieski at AmThink, Schiff Collusion with Whistleblower the Last Straw

Adam Schiff is a political hack, a swamp creature slithering past the truth while saying the American people can't handle the truth. What they can't handle is swamp things like Adam Schiff. It is he who should be impeached and removed from office

Well, yes, but that's a job for his district. If we got rid of all the political hack swamp creatures in Washington D.C. it could go back to being an actual swamp. The Daily Gator, Even the Washington Post and New York Times knows Adam Schiff is a lying sack of camel dung, but he's their lying sack of camel dung.

Althouse, "But that didn’t stop the New York Times, reprising their gambit with Brett Kavanaugh, from shouting that a second anonymous 'whistleblower' had been found who was just about to come forward and spew more malign anti-Trump gossip into the cloaca maxima of the effort to rid the world of Donald Trump."  "I had to look up "cloaca maxima." Lawyers, so ignorant of the real world.

It's from Roger Kimball's "Anti-Trump Fraternity and NeverTrump Sorority Collude in Impeachment Scam/Donald Trump asked President Zelensky to help with the Justice Department’s investigation of efforts to subvert the 2016 election. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. It is part of his responsibility to see that our elections are open and fair. Bottom line: not much to work with there for the anti-Trump fraternity."

But Democrats and the media don't want open and fair elections if they lose. From Gateway Pundit, IT’S A COUP: Former CIA Analyst Fred Fleitz Says SCHIFF AND NANCY PELOSI Colluded on CIA Whistleblower Complaint to Gin Up Impeachment.



Althouse, "When I was at the White House, there was a very deliberative process of the president absorbing information from people who had deep substantive knowledge of the countries and relationships with these leaders. Preparation for these calls was taken very seriously. It appears to be freestyle and ad-libbed now."

Said Joel Willett, "a former intelligence officer who worked at the National Security Council from 2014 to 2015," quoted in "Trump’s calls with foreign leaders have long worried aides, leaving some ‘genuinely horrified" (WaPo).
. . .
It sounds as though Trump is freakishly comfortable with being President of the United States and actually believes the leaders of other countries are fellow human beings with whom he can have a real relationship. Aides are flummoxed. To them, formality is crucial.

They worry that he'll figure out he doesn't need them. Mark Thiessen, NYPo, Sorry, Dems: It’s OK to ask for foreign help in a criminal justice investigation. It's part of his job. Is he supposed to ignore that Democrats and their kids are chest deep in Ukrainian corruption?

President Trump’s critics are now complaining that he asked the Australian prime minister to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe and that Attorney General William Barr has traveled overseas to ask foreign intelligence officials to cooperate with that investigation. The New York Times called it another example of “the president using high-level diplomacy to advance his personal political interests.”

No, it’s not. The president’s critics are conflating two different things: the investigation by Trump’s private lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, into Hunter Biden’s business dealings, and the inquiry by US Attorney John Durham into the counterintelligence investigation directed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. The former is opposition research activity; the latter is a criminal justice matter.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking foreign heads of state or intelligence officials to cooperate with an official Justice Department investigation.

As George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley explains, “It is not uncommon for an attorney general, or even a president, to ask foreign leaders to assist with ongoing investigations. Such calls can shortcut bureaucratic red tape, particularly if the evidence is held, as in this case, by national security or justice officials.”

Sean Davis, DaFed, Testimony From Ukraine Envoy Kurt Volker Directly Contradicts Democrats’ Impeachment Narrative

Congressional testimony from the former top American envoy to Ukraine directly contradicts the impeachment narrative offered by congressional Democrats and their media allies. Ambassador Kurt Volker, who served for two years as the top U.S. diplomatic envoy to Ukraine, testified on Thursday that he was never aware of and never took part in any effort to push the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden or his son Hunter. He also stressed that the interactions between Giuliani and Ukrainian officials were facilitated not to find dirt on Biden, but to assuage concerns that the incoming Ukrainian government would not be able to get a handle on corruption within the country.

Volker’s full remarks, which were obtained by The Federalist, can be read here.

Which is why Democrats tried to suppress their release. The New Neo comments on the above article, Sean Davis on Ukraine envoy Volker’s testimony,

Sean Davis has done excellent and thorough work on Whistlegate.

The left thinks it can completely control the narrative on Whistlegate (and everything else), because it controls so many of the organs of the press, and it has successfully demonized the press on the right to a certain extent. But the left can’t control the narrative as completely as it used to, and many people don’t trust the MSM as well.

The pressure is starting to get to Biden. Karen Townsend, Hot Air, Unhinged Biden Snaps At Reporter: “Focus On This Man”, but they continue to love him nonetheless. But they might just  love Liz Warren more . . .

On Da Hill, Trump lawyer Giuliani tells Fox his mission is 'to disrupt the world', but we featured the video yesterday.

"Why are you, the president’s personal attorney, what is your personal — what’s your mission?" Fox News host Martha MacCallum asked Giuliani.

"To disrupt the world," he said, adding, "My mission is to defend my client in the best traditions of the legal profession."

MacCallum pressed Giuliani on whether it was in the president's interest — and not the nation's — to urge a foreign country to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump's political rival.

Trump's push for Ukraine to investigate Biden, a leading Democratic presidential contender, has drawn mounting scrutiny and spurred House Democrats to launch an impeachment inquiry last week.

“That’s a mischaracterization, Martha,” Giuliani fired back. “It’s in the best interest of my client to unravel the corruption in the Ukraine, which involved mostly collusion in the election into which Joe Biden inserted himself.”

Via Hot Air, the WSJ whines that In Months Before Trump Call, Ukraine Officials Sweated White House Pressure. We want foreign leaders to sweat White House pressure, not vice versa.

Town Hall's Jerry Bowyer: The Verdict Remains the Same

When the law is working the way it’s supposed to work, the prosecution decides what the charge is and then the jury decides the verdict. In the case of the Resistance vs. Trump, the verdict has always been known in advance: Guilty. It’s the charges which keep changing.

When the verdict never changes, but the charges keep changing, that’s a thumb on the scale of justice. That’s what we’ve seen in recent weeks with Trumpeachment 2.0: Ukraine edition. New charge, collusion with Russia is out, collusion with Russia’s enemy is in. Only the verdict remains the same.

Remember: Impeachment is an extraordinary legal step, designed to investigate under-investigated matters. By what objective measure could anyone argue that Trump has been under-investigated?

Oh, I forgot, he will always be seen as under investigation, because no matter what the official charge is, the real offense is that he won the election.

Elizabeth Vaughn at Red State, Andy McCarthy: ‘The Fact That House Democrats Invite You To Their Circus Does Not Require You To Beclown Yourself’  and fresh from McCarthy (NR), If the House Won’t Vote, Impeachment Inquiry Is Just a Democratic Stunt. One thing Nancy can do is count votes. If she had them, safely, she'd use them.

Sundance, CTH, Nancy Pelosi is “Grubering” The American Electorate on Impeachment – Committee Requests, aka “Subpoenas”, Constructed to Manufacture “Obstruction”…

Several years ago the architect of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber, admitted on camera the Democrats who were assembling healthcare legislation were “relying upon the stupidity of the American voter”…. Fast forward to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2019 and her “official impeachment inquiry” by decree; she’s doing the exact same thing.

Speaker Pelosi, working through a carefully constructed political dynamic assembled by the hired staff from the Lawfare alliance, has sold her constituency on an impeachment process that structurally doesn’t exist.

Jonathon Bernstein, Bloomberg, Oust Pelosi From the Presidential Succession Line - Democrats should make it legally impossible for impeachment to deliver them the White House. I think of her as impeachment insurance. Want to keep Republican Senators in line? Remind them that if they vote to impeach convict both Trump and Pence, as some Demucrats seem to be moving to, Pelosi becomes Preznit. I want at least two people between her and that job.

Tom Maguire at Just One Minute, Good Jobs Report and The White House Strikes Back On "Formal" Impeachment Inquiry

As Speaker of the House, she has an eye on history and would like to pick up a few Republicans on a full House impeachment inquiry vote. Thirty-one Democrats crossed over in October 1998 to open an inquiry against Bill Clinton; Pelosi was there and might have that number in mind. I doubt she is near that so far.

As Herder of Cats my guess is that Pelosi, oddly enough, shares a fear with Team Trump. She may be very concerned that the Maddow wing of her party will take the focus off the Ukraine by subpoenaing Trump's tax returns and promptly leak them, irresistibly and illegally.

And with that dive down a rabbit hole the process will collapse amidst mutual accusations of lawlessness and bad faith. But with great CNN ratings!

But, alas for her GOP unlikely to reprise role it played in Nixon’s 1974 exit. They may be the stupid party (as opposed to the evil party), but they're not that stupid. They know they can't count on any reciprocity from today's Dems. But, in the Bangor Daily News, Susan Collins calls Trump’s invitation to China ‘completely inappropriate’ Rubio Says Trump Was Trolling Media By Calling On China To Investigate Biden (DaCaller). It's pretty silly to think China takes orders from Trump. Bloomberg, Biden Won’t Say If He’d Vote to Convict Trump, but he would.

AP, Impeachment probe reaches into White House with new subpoena. Fortunately, Obama established the precedent that you can ignore congressional subpoenas.

For the first time, the impeachment inquiry reached directly into the White House on Friday as Democrats subpoenaed officials about contacts with Ukraine and President Donald Trump signaled his administration would not cooperate.

The demand for documents capped a tumultuous week that widened the constitutional battle between the executive branch and Congress and sharpened the political standoff with more witnesses, testimony and documents to come.

Trump said he would formally object to Congress about the House impeachment inquiry, even as he acknowledged that Democrats “have the votes” to proceed. They’ll be sorry in the end, he predicted. “I really believe that they’re going to pay a tremendous price at the polls,” Trump said.

But Democrats accused Trump of speeding down “a path of defiance, obstruction and cover-up” and warned that defying the House subpoena would in itself be considered “evidence of obstruction” and a potentially an impeachable offense.

Zogby hits polls: ‘I do not hear anyone talking about impeachment’ in Midwest

But his approval poll numbers remain in the mid-40s. One poll has the president at 41% approval but has a differential of 11 percentage points more Democrats — meaning the pollster has never been to Kentucky, Nebraska, or Kansas. I do not hear anyone talking about impeachment, and when I ask, folks tell me they are so tired of it all and can't watch any of it.