A Steaming Pile of Shampeachment, with a Light Dusting of Russiagate

First, to sprinkle the Russiagate on top, from Leslie Macadoo Gordon at Da Fed, Why Michael Flynn’s Lawyers And Prosecutors Don’t Understand Each Other, an actual thoughtful article on why the Federal prosecutors and Flynn's defense team are at loggerheads. I still think he's being railroaded.

Now, about that Shampeachment. WaPoo has "Trump impeachment trial live updates". In case you didn't watch the first day and want to, Sundance at CTH has it on YouTube Day One – Senate Impeachment Trial – 1:00pm Livestream… and is starting on Day 2.

Ann Althouse Are you watching the impeachment theater? "I walked out." I saw a little last night. Best comment:

As best as I can tell, Schumer keeps making motions to send subpoenas to various people, followed by a Motion to table the amendment, followed by long-winded speeches, which ends with 53-47 vote to table it. They keep doing this over and over and over again.

It is worse than a school board meeting.

and later, "Late night congress is great stuff! I'm switching between Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock and the impeachment hearings and it's all starting to make sense." "Said Mr. Forward in last night's "Are you watching the impeachment theater?/I walked out."" But Scott Johnson at Power Line calls it The Trial of the Century, but to be fair, it's still early in the century. "Piercing the rhetorical fog, we observe that this is the Seinfeld impeachment. If the farce isn’t quite about nothing, it is the farce in which nothing happened," while his post Impeachment Then and Now highlights the hypocrisy of the Democrats (don't worry, there's plenty on the Republicans side; CNN, McConnell said in 1999 he would have voted for whatever the House managers wanted). Pretty good clip, though. Tyler O'Neil at PJ Media, Jay Sekulow Demolishes Schiff, Pelosi on Executive Privilege: Remember Eric Holder?

Schiff whinesTo Senate: Many Americans, Maybe Most, Think You’re Not Going To Hold A Fair Trial, You Know We’ll be hearing this a lot from Schiff and Schumer over the next two weeks so it’s worth noting up front that it’s not true. “Most” Americans don’t think the Senate trial is a sham. . . . And we already have multiple polls already to prove it. "(AllahPundit)

Althouse catches when Chief Justice Roberts admonishes the House Managers and the President's counsel to "remember where they are" and "avoid speaking in a manner and avoid using language that is not conducive to civil discourse.". Yeah, like that'll happen. Jazz Shaw at Hot Air wonders Could The Impeachment Trial Lead To Recusals For John Roberts? No.

EBL, It is time for Cocaine Mitch to show us his Senate Kung Fu. Kung Fu makes the hard look easy. Capt. Ed at Hot Air VIP, McConnell’s Curveball: Senate Must Vote To Admit House Evidence In Impeachment Trial. CNN, Impeachment resolution shortens trial's opening arguments to two days per side, it just seems like forever. Capt. Ed reports Pierre Delicto Romney: I’m Pretty Cool With McConnell’s Rules; Update: “If Everything Is An Outrage …” Allah Pundit at Hot Air, C’mon: Did McConnell Really “Back Down” By Tweaking The Rules Of The Impeachment Trial At The Last Minute? Now 3 days each for "opening arguments?" Oh Gawd, couldn't they just pee into a bottle? Capt Ed, Politico: Could The Senate Trial Be Over By The State Of The Union Speech? It's tight, but maybe, if Mitch wants to make it happen.

Eric Felten, RCP, No Slam 'Debunk': Analyzing the Dems' Repetitive Impeach Text. The secret to a convincing lie is repetition. Politico?, Schiff may have "mischaracterized" Parnas evidence, documents show. My scare quotes. Expect much more. Politico has  five Senate factions that will decide Trump’s fate, fairly obvious ones. WaPoo (at SF Gate) Collins and Romney hold the keys in the impeachment trial. At RCP,  Peters' Duty to Mich. Voters Conflicts With Mega-Donor Demands.  And it's all just about how painful it will be, because, as Sen. Perdue notes We’ve Got The Votes “Right Now” To Acquit Trump From The Dems’ Kavanaugh Trap (Capt. Ed).

From streiff at Red State, Ted Cruz Roasts Former Clinton Creature Joe Lockhart Over a Childish Tweet as Only He Can

https://t.co/FNTogu1IUt pic.twitter.com/cuO8Sz5Vls

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 21, 2020

Paul Bedard at WaEx, Impeachment 'increasing' support for Trump. Breitbart, Maxine Waters on Possible Trump Acquittal: ‘We Will Not Stop’ Investigating Him, and at Politico, Renato Mariotti, Why Congress Must Keep Investigating Trump After the Impeachment Trial. Dr. John at Flopping Aces, democrats promise impeachment as sole 2020 platform and beyond.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. Rushbo, Democrats Are Impeaching Trump Because They Can’t Beat Him. When all you have is a hammer. . . Even Charles Lane at WaPoo, Don’t tell the partisans, but so far impeachment’s political fallout is negligible. Dan Sobieski, Flopping Aces, Pelosi’s Pens Not Mightier Than Trump’s Sword.

Althouse again, The NYT expresses a belief that there's a "legal consensus" on constitutional law and that anyone who doesn't follow along is spouting "constitutional nonsense." "The evidence of a consensus among scholars (which scholars?) is that one scholar asserts that there is a consensus. We're given no reasoning at all on the notion that anything not in the "consensus" is "nonsense."" Like the consensus on Global Warming, declaring a consensus is an attempt to create one. Anxious,
GAO report poses evidence test in Trump impeachment trial

The backdrop: The GAO found that the White House Office of Management and Budget violated the law when it withheld military aid to Ukraine.

The agency's report, which dropped just hours the Senate impeachment trial began last Thursday, determined that the OMB violated the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which mandates that the White House and its agencies release funds appropriated by Congress.

Yes, but: The GAO's only tool to hold violators of the ICA accountable is to sue the administration to distribute the funds. OMB already released the aid to Ukraine in September.

Not a High Crime or Misdemeanor, it's barely a parking ticket in the usual turf battle between the Congress and Executive branches. More like a verbal warning.

And witness, particularly Bidens and Bolton? AllahPundit, Report: Trump Lawyers, Senate GOP May Force Bolton To Testify Secretly Due To National Security, and boy is he pissed. Allah I mean.   WaPoo, Senate Democrats privately mull witness trade in impeachment trial: A Biden for Bolton. Hmm. Take Joe. Hunter did nothing wrong by taking a million or two for a no show job. It's Joe that used the might of the US treasury to protect Hunter's business. But Matt Margolis at PJ Media finds Jerry Nadler Suggesting Having No Impeachment Witnesses Preferable to Hunter Biden Testifying

GWU Constitutional Law Professor Jonathan Turley believes that Nadler is suggesting that “if a trade is needed to secure House witnesses, the managers will not agree to any witnesses if Hunter Biden is part of the deal.”

“If true, is the House prepared to give up on proving its case to protect the Bidens from the ignoble moment of answering questions about the Ukraine contract? That is a considerable price to pay to protect Joe Biden,” Turley added.

Karen Townsend Hot Air, Team Biden Demands Reporters Debunk Corruption Claims Against Candidate and I expect to the extent that they haven't already, most MSM reporters will scurry to oblige. Kevin Williamson, NR, Media Refuses to Cover Joe Biden Family Corruption.  AllahPundit, Biden Campaign Releases Video: “What Really Happened In Ukraine” but as John Solomon Reports, Joe Biden’s ‘conspiracy theory’ memo to U.S. media doesn’t match the facts.

Fact: Joe Biden admitted to forcing Shokin’s firing in March 2016. . . .
Fact: Shokin’s prosecutors were actively investigating Burisma when he was fired. . . . Fact: Burisma’s lawyers in 2016 were pressing U.S. and Ukrainian authorities to end the corruption investigations. . . .
Fact: There is substantial evidence Joe Biden and his office knew about the Burisma probe and his son’s role as a board member. . . .
Fact: Federal Ethics rules requires government officials to avoid taking policy actions affecting close relatives. . . .
Fact: Multiple State Department officials testified the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine created the appearance of a conflict of interest. . .
Fact: Hunter Biden acknowleged he may have gotten his Burisma job solely because of his last name. . . .
Fact: Ukraine law enforcement reopened the Burisma investigation in early 2019, well before President Trump mentioned the matter to Ukraine’s new president Vlodymyr Zelensky.

Stephen VodkaPundit Green at PJ Media, Sanders Apologizes to Biden for Bringing Up Biden's Corruption Problem. I don't think he really wants to be Preznit.

Sundance, The Senate Exists For Moments Like This…. "Awesome video from the National Republican Senatorial Campaign motivating all U.S. Senators to hold the line and dispatch this attack on the constitution. WATCH:" But also true, from the Atlantic, This Is Not the Senate the Framers Imagined "The Constitution originally provided for the selection of senators by state legislatures, but the Seventeenth Amendment changed that, and with it, the Senate itself."

The Imaginative Conservative, Impeachment, the End of an Era, and the Conservative Challenge. It's the end of the era and you know it. I don't feel sad. Boston Herald's Howie Carr, Trump’s only crime is being Trump

Forget the two “counts” against President Trump in the Senate trial that begins today, the reality is he is charged with only one crime.

He is accused of being Donald J. Trump.

For that high crime, the Democrats say, he must be removed from office.
. . .
This is an assault on the Constitution. Thank God it’s almost time for the Super Bowl.

Is he aware the Patriots are out? AP reports Bloomberg calls for Trump’s removal in new impeachment ad. He can certainly afford to.

And another point of amusement, Michael Avenatti being held in same cell that housed Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, lawyer says "His lawyer has requested that Avenatti be moved from the cell where it "feels like it is in the mid-40s" to general population." I'm not really worried he's going to burrow out.

And more links from the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 01.21.20, Victory Girls: Schumer Has Tantrum On Senate Floor Over Impeachment Rules and theVolokh Conspiracy: The Case Against The Slippery Slope Argument Against Impeachment For “Abuse Of Power”

Wombat has taken a turn for the worse, and is requesting aid. Another Crisis for the Wombat?

As our loyal colleague Wombat explained earlier, he’s run into a financial crisis caused by his health problems, and we must raise $500 for him by noon Wednesday to prevent the repossession of his automobile.

We can do this, folks: I just hit his tip jar for $15 myself, and if 33 readers will do the same, that’s a total of $510. Think crowdfunding — even if you can only give $5, please do so, and I’m certain that Wombat will be more responsible about his thank-you emails than I have been (he says, plagued by a guilty conscience). Getting the Wombat back on his feet (and keeping him on his wheels) is a worthy endeavor, a patriotic duty as it were, so if all our readers will chip in what they can, certainly we can stave off the arrival of that tow truck. Because I will make a slight alteration to the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT WOMBAT’S FREAKING TIP JAR!

I matched Stacy (and a little more).