Russiagate Grinding Along

Again, not much activity. Sundance, as always, follows the Sunday talks and caught Rep. John Ratcliffe Discussing Fraudulent Impeachment and Spygate…



as well as Senator Lindsey Graham -vs- Maria Bartiromo… and  Rep. Doug Collins Discusses Speaker Pelosi’s “Stalled” Impeachment Strategy… According to George Bardmesser at AmGreat, There Is No Clever Democratic Impeachment Strategy "There is no brilliant plan here, no clever chess move, no ace up Nancy Pelosi’s sleeve. The Democrats’ “strategy” is failing." But Beth Bauman at Town Hall explains why Shifty Schiff thinks Pelosi Withholding Articles of Impeachment Seems to Be Working

"One success that this has already had has been flushing out McConnell, showing that he is working in cahoots with the president, that he has made himself an active participant in the president's coverup so the American people needed to see that and now they do," Schiff explained.

Even though the House is unlikely to get what they want, Schiff argued that members of Congress have had to go on record to say whether or not they want to hear from additional witnesses and see documents, something he considers a win.

“I think withholding the articles has thus far flushed out where Mitch McConnell’s coming from. It's required senators to go on record," he said. "It’s my hope that that pressure will result in a real trial fair to the American people as well as fair to the president.”

Ironically, Schiff said senators should approach the impeachment trial with an open mind.

"No senators should be expressing opinions here. What we should want is a fair trial and what we should want of senators is that they take their oath seriously and that oath requires them to be impartial," he said.

From DaHill, Jonathon Turley proclaims the Democratic impeachment case collapses under weight of time

Securing an impeachment so fast does not earn you a historic prize. It simply earns you a historic failure. By not seeking to compel numerous key witnesses, the House now relies on the Senate to complete its case. Since the House has maintained that the record overwhelmingly proves that Trump is guilty, the Senate could simply try the case on the record supplied by the House. Indeed, in the 1999 impeachment of President Clinton, Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Charles Schumer, fought against any witnesses and sought a summary vote without a trial.

I was particularly concerned about moving forward by Christmas on the second article of alleged obstruction of Congress. The House elected to push through impeachment with an abbreviated period of roughly three months and declared any delay by Trump, even to seek judicial reviews, to be a high crime and misdemeanor. The administration is currently in court challenging demands for witnesses and documents. Just a couple weeks ago, the Supreme Court accepted one such case for review then stayed the lower court decisions ordering the production of the tax and finance records of Trump. The House impeached Trump before that court or other federal courts could rule on the merits of claims of presidential privileges and immunities. Both Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon had been able to take such challenges to the Supreme Court before they faced impeachment.

The House refused to seek to compel several witnesses in court, burning months in which it could have secured not just decisions in its favor but also testimony. Indeed, a year ago, I testified before the House Judiciary Committee and encouraged it not only to hold a vote on impeachment but to go to court to force testimony of figures like former White House counsel Donald McGahn. While refusing to use its impeachment powers with such a vote, it did take him to court. It won that case shortly before its impeachment vote. The case will be heard by the appellate court this week, even without being expedited for the impeachment investigation.

When faced with the embarrassing timing of that ruling after the hurried impeachment vote, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff insisted there was no time to waste in getting the case to the Senate and that “it has taken us eight months to get a lower court ruling” to compel McGahn to testify. But after members claimed there was a “crime spree in progress” and no time to waste, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked any submission to the Senate to demand witnesses that the House unwisely omitted in its investigation. So it seems time is no longer of the essence.

As  Bronson Stocking at Town Hall notes:

Democrats rushed impeachment because the polls confirmed that the more Americans learned about Trump's handling of foreign aid to Ukraine, the higher Trump's approval numbers climbed. Now, Democrats want to paint Mitch McConnell as the one responsible for the weak impeachment case against the president when it was the House's decision to rush the articles before the holidays.

And from Twitchy, Mike Pompeo gives an epic answer when Chris Wallace asks him whether U.S. enemies think Trump is ‘vulnerable’ because of impeachment

Chris Wallace on @FoxNewsSunday: Do you think our enemies think the President is more vulnerable because of the impeachment effort?

Secretary Pompeo: You should ask Mr. Soleimani.

— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) January 5, 2020

Tal Kopan at the SF Chronic whines that Rudy Giuliani mixed White House role, personal business in cybersecurity. Well, that's the advantage of being a private citizen, and not a government employee.

There are several federal laws governing his private sector work that would have applied to Giuliani had he held a formal administration position. For example, career federal ethics officials would have reviewed his financial holdings and connections for possible conflicts of interest. In Giuliani’s case, because he didn’t hold an official position, no such reviews were conducted, and there is no documentation revealing how much he may have made — if anything — by being promoted as a White House cybersecurity adviser.