The Impeachment Process Has Officially Begun (1 Viewer)

[Andrus]

By Laura Bassett

After months of internal arguing among Democrats over whether to impeach President Donald Trump, the dam is finally breaking in favor of trying to remove him from office. The Washington Post reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would announce a formal impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, following a bombshell report that Trump illegally asked Ukraine’s government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, one of his political opponents. (He essentially admitted to having done so over the weekend.)

“Now that we have the facts, we’re ready,” Pelosi said Tuesday morning at a forum hosted by The Atlantic. At 5 p.m. the same day, she was back with more. "The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the constitution, especially when the president says Article Two says I can do whatever I want," referring to the segment of the Constitution that defines the power of the executive branch of the government. Pelosi's message was that checks and balances of those branches are just as central to the Constitution. And one more thing: "Today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry," she said at a conference broadcast on Twitter by the Huffington Post. ...

Read the Full Story - InStyle

 

[Dadsdream]

I wrote it myself, based upon things trump has done.

I see.

 

[wardorican]

Where did you get that list?

Why are you asking him to do homework or go play fetch? (for something he came up with himself.. which I know, because when I google all or parts of that, all I get are a few stand alone articles talking about one of items, but nothing verbatim, and nothing in list form, because I actually give it a shot before I lob an accusation)

 

[RegularChuck]

An aside, and this interview was pretty good.

I just read that Mary Louise Kelly has a masters in European Studies. LOL. That whole map pointing routine seems so cartoonish.

 

[wardorican]

Full Transcript.

Transcript: NPR's Full Interview With Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talks to NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about U.S. policy in Iran and about Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

www.npr.org

The audio will probably be released tomorrow.

 

[wardorican]

I just read that Mary Louise Kelly has a masters in European Studies. LOL. That whole map pointing routine seems so cartoonish.

Her bio.. Yeah, she's not dumb. Which is an understatement.

Mary Louise Kelly is a co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine.

Previously, she spent a decade as national security correspondent for NPR News, and she's kept that focus in her role as anchor. That's meant taking All Things Considered to Russia, North Korea, and beyond (including live coverage from Helsinki, for the infamous Trump-Putin summit). Her past reporting has tracked the CIA and other spy agencies, terrorism, wars, and rising nuclear powers. Kelly's assignments have found her deep in interviews at the Khyber Pass, at mosques in Hamburg, and in grimy Belfast bars.

Kelly first launched NPR's intelligence beat in 2004. After one particularly tough trip to Baghdad — so tough she wrote an essay about it for Newsweek — she decided to try trading the spy beat for spy fiction. Her debut espionage novel, Anonymous Sources, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2013. It's a tale of journalists, spies, and Pakistan's nuclear security. Her second novel, The Bullet, followed in 2015.

Kelly's writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Washingtonian, The Atlantic, and other publications. She has lectured at Harvard and Stanford, and taught a course on national security and journalism at Georgetown University. In addition to her NPR work, Kelly serves as a contributing editor at The Atlantic, moderating newsmaker interviews at forums from Aspen to Abu Dhabi.

A Georgia native, Kelly's first job was pounding the streets as a political reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 1996, she made the leap to broadcasting, joining the team that launched BBC/Public Radio International's The World. The following year, Kelly moved to London to work as a producer for CNN and as a senior producer, host, and reporter for the BBC World Service.

Kelly graduated from Harvard University in 1993 with degrees in government, French language, and literature. Two years later, she completed a master's degree in European studies at Cambridge University in England.

 

[wardorican]

Fast and Furious

Obama asserts executive privilege and backs Holder over Fast and Furious

House Republicans vow to press on with contempt vote with scene set for protracted struggle over attorney-general's future

www.theguardian.com

Lois Lerner

"But the GOP decided to hold her in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena. "

Congress vs. Lerner: A Time Guide to IRS Targeting Scandal

A TIME guide to the controversy over IRS targeting

time.com

David Simas

Simas Ignores Subpoena Again as White House Defies Issa (Updated) (Video) - Roll Call

Updated 12:27 p.m. | Top White House political adviser David Simas refused again Friday to honor a congressional subpoena, prompting Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to vote to rebuke the administration. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted...

www.rollcall.com

Ben Rhodes - I was mistaken, I thought he was subpoenaed but h was not, instead the WH did not allow him to testify citing Executive Privilege.

There are more, but I am not going to look for them right now.

So, I want to revisit this a bit.

You've been claiming (and I may be wrong here) that Obama, for the Fast and Furious problem, also ignored subpoenas and stonewalled congress.

However, it appears, the DOJ did release a lot of documents about the case, just not about if Holder was or wasn't informed. When it was about to come to a committee vote, Obama claimed executive privilege on those specific documents. Not everything, unless I'm missing something that says, Obama or the DOJ ignored everything from Congress on this subject.

it then went to court.

Judge rejects Obama's executive privilege claim over Fast and Furious records

The judge left open the possibility that some of the records could be held back from Congress.

www.politico.com

The Judge rejected the claim, but only because the DOJ already said things in public, so the damage was done. Had they not, I think the judge would have gone with the Executive in this much more narrow case.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department's public disclosures about its response to the so-called "gun walking" controversy undercut Obama's executive privilege claim.


"There is no need to balance the need against the impact that the revelation of any record could have on candor in future executive decision making, since any harm that might flow from the public revelation of the deliberations at issue here has already been self-inflicted," Jackson wrote. "The Department itself has already publicly revealed the sum and substance of the very material it is now seeking to withhold. Since any harm that would flow from the disclosures sought here would be merely incremental, the records must be produced."

Jackson said she wasn't questioning the propriety of Obama's claim of privilege, but ruling that the claim could not be sustained in view of other information the Justice Department had released on the topic, chiefly an Office of Inspector General report released in September 2012.

"This ruling is not predicated on a finding that the withholding was intended to cloak wrongdoing on the part of government officials or that the withholding itself was improper," the judge wrote.

The Obama administration view is that it has already released to the House committee all the documents directly related to Fast and Furious and that the subpoena is a fishing expedition, applying not to the operation but the response of Holder and other officials to it.

Holder met Issa on Tuesday and offered to hand over the requested documents in return for an assurance that this would end the dispute. Issa rejected the offer, prompting Holder to accuse Issa of political gamesmanship.

maybe someone else can explain this better, but what the Trump Admin has done seems a lot more widespread and without any specific reasons. Other than saying all of his aides are immune from having to testify to congress. That seems absurd on face value.

All the president's privileges | Brookings

President Trump has limited the information the House has had available for its impeachment and other investigations, by repeatedly instructing both current and past members of his administration to refuse to recognize the authority of congressional subpoenas. The president’s claim is that...

www.brookings.edu

President Trump has limited the information the House has had available for its impeachment and other investigations, by repeatedly instructing both current and past members of his administration to refuse to recognize the authority of congressional subpoenas. The president’s claim is that executive privilege immunizes his close aides from an obligation to testify before or to turn over to Congress documents in their possession. Trump’s exercise of this claim to withhold evidence from Congress forms the basis for the House’s second article of impeachment. If President Trump is correct and his aides and their records are immune from subpoena, then he will have acted within his sphere of executive authority, and Impeachment Article II, for obstruction of Congress, is likely to fail. However, as applied to anyone other than the president himself, this is an extreme and questionable interpretation of the protections executive privilege affords, as evidenced by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s decision in November. In it she rejected former White House counsel Don McGahn’s claim that executive privilege immunized him from having to appear before the House Judiciary Committee in response to its subpoena.

I'd also like to see what the specific claims were ignoring the subpoena's of documents.

 

[TaylorB]

Why are you asking him to do homework or go play fetch? (for something he came up with himself.. which I know, because when I google all or parts of that, all I get are a few stand alone articles talking about one of items, but nothing verbatim, and nothing in list form, because I actually give it a shot before I lob an accusation)

I searched for instances of free speech affronts by trump that I remembered happening, read articles to refresh my memory of the particulars, then some of the articles would jog my memory about other instances. There was a good WaPo opinion article I used for some of the early ones; most of the others were isolated articles or just from memory.

Didn’t occur to me that I might have been subtly accused of plagiarizing or recycling info (apologies if that’s a misread). It definitely was not all taken from one place, as I didn’t even source a few of them, though I think I could support them all with multiple links if asked. I’m much more interested in debating whether Dadsdream or FWtex think these are good examples of affronts to free speech

 

[wardorican]

I searched for instances of free speech affronts by trump that I remembered happening, read articles to refresh my memory of the particulars, then some of the articles would jog my memory about other instances. There was a good WaPo opinion article I used for some of the early ones; most of the others were isolated articles or just from memory.

Didn’t occur to me that I might have been subtly accused of plagiarizing or recycling info (apologies if that’s a misread). It definitely was not all taken from one place, as I didn’t even source a few of them, though I think I could support them all with multiple links if asked. I’m much more interested in debating whether Dadsdream or FWtex think these are good examples of affronts to free speech

Yeah, pretty sure they think you're copying and pasting from some partisan site, or a political operative. It's a way to avoid discussing the issue.

 

[RegularChuck]

An aside, and this interview was pretty good.

The State Department said she couldn’t identify Ukraine on the map. Never mind the fact that she’s more credible than he is, but they just admitted that he pulled that school kid level map stunt.

You can’t make this stuff up.

NPR reporter says Pompeo shouted, cursed at her after she pressed him on Ukraine during interview

An NPR reporter alleged on Friday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out at her after an interview in which she pressed him on the ouster of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

www.foxnews.com

 

[wardorican]

The State Department said she couldn’t identify Ukraine on the map. You can’t make this stuff up.

NPR reporter says Pompeo shouted, cursed at her after she pressed him on Ukraine during interview

An NPR reporter alleged on Friday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out at her after an interview in which she pressed him on the ouster of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

www.foxnews.com

OMG....

"A State Department official disputed Kelly's claim, telling Fox News that she was not able to identify Ukraine on the map and that she was wrong. "

Wrong about what?

I mean, Ukraine isn't that hard to find, you just need to know where Turkey and/or the Black Sea is. Then just go north. What, are they going to claim her finger was near Moldova? or better yet.. "sorry, that was Crimea" haha.

 

[MT15]

So, I want to revisit this a bit.

You've been claiming (and I may be wrong here) that Obama, for the Fast and Furious problem, also ignored subpoenas and stonewalled congress.

However, it appears, the DOJ did release a lot of documents about the case, just not about if Holder was or wasn't informed. When it was about to come to a committee vote, Obama claimed executive privilege on those specific documents. Not everything, unless I'm missing something that says, Obama or the DOJ ignored everything from Congress on this subject.

it then went to court.

Judge rejects Obama's executive privilege claim over Fast and Furious records

The judge left open the possibility that some of the records could be held back from Congress.

www.politico.com

The Judge rejected the claim, but only because the DOJ already said things in public, so the damage was done. Had they not, I think the judge would have gone with the Executive in this much more narrow case.





maybe someone else can explain this better, but what the Trump Admin has done seems a lot more widespread and without any specific reasons. Other than saying all of his aides are immune from having to testify to congress. That seems absurd on face value.

All the president's privileges | Brookings

President Trump has limited the information the House has had available for its impeachment and other investigations, by repeatedly instructing both current and past members of his administration to refuse to recognize the authority of congressional subpoenas. The president’s claim is that...

www.brookings.edu

I'd also like to see what the specific claims were ignoring the subpoena's of documents.

you are definitely right to point out the difference. Jim and others want to act like what Trump is doing is normal, and it is clearly not normal. No other administration has ever claimed “absolute” or “total” immunity like he has. There has never been a case where every document was denied. As I have heard people explain recently, you cannot claim executive privilege on such a broad sweeping level, you must examine the documents first. And if the documents are fact based, they cannot be withheld due to executive privilege. Only documents that deal with the decision making process should be privileged. Same with testimony.

 

[JimEverett]

I am not sure where this idea that "everything" has been withheld. 12 witnesses testified. I believe most were and still are employed by the Executive branch. The WH turned over a transcript of the telephone conversation.

Further, and more importantly, none of the elements of obstruction are based on some level of withholding or ignoring requests/subpoenas. There is no calculus that says withholding 83% of requests is obstruction, but withholding 80% is not. To try to paint it as such is another example of manipulation by the Democrats in this impeachment.

The point about Obama ignoring requests/subpoenas is that Presidents have not infrequently ignored subpoenas.

 

[wardorican]

I am not sure where this idea that "everything" has been withheld. 12 witnesses testified. I believe most were and still are employed by the Executive branch. The WH turned over a transcript of the telephone conversation.

Further, and more importantly, none of the elements of obstruction are based on some level of withholding or ignoring requests/subpoenas. There is no calculus that says withholding 83% of requests is obstruction, but withholding 80% is not. To try to paint it as such is another example of manipulation by the Democrats in this impeachment.

The point about Obama ignoring requests/subpoenas is that Presidents have not infrequently ignored subpoenas.

I'm trying to see a difference here, or if there isn't. Did Obama ignore the subpoena, or exercise an executive privilege claim that went to court. Looks like the judge would have granted it, had the IG not already put something out there.

The people that testified for this hearing, did they defy the white house? I'm trying to find more granular data to see if this really is similar or not. "ignoring subpoenas" is somewhat of a vague term.

I may be wrong, I'm just under the impression that the Admin has just told all departments to ignore all subpoenas.. not reject them, or argue something, just don't respond.

historically the two sides will negotiate this out, but it seems like the WH has no interest in that. They usually don't want the courts to say if the admin must do this or not, because I think the other two branches enjoy that idea that they both either could have that authority, so just negotiate from perceived power.

 

[JimEverett]

I'm trying to see a difference here, or if there isn't. Did Obama ignore the subpoena, or exercise an executive privilege claim that went to court. Looks like the judge would have granted it, had the IG not already put something out there.

The people that testified for this hearing, did they defy the white house? I'm trying to find more granular data to see if this really is similar or not. "ignoring subpoenas" is somewhat of a vague term.

I may be wrong, I'm just under the impression that the Admin has just told all departments to ignore all subpoenas.. not reject them, or argue something, just don't respond.

historically the two sides will negotiate this out, but it seems like the WH has no interest in that. They usually don't want the courts to say if the admin must do this or not, because I think the other two branches enjoy that idea that they both either could have that authority, so just negotiate from perceived power.

In Fast and Furious the House subpoenaed documents that the WH refused to turn over. That is what I mean by "ignoring." The House then filed a lawsuit seeking to compel the documents.
In the impeachment case the House has not, to my knowledge, filed a lawsuit seeking to compel. The only lawsuit over an impeachment subpoena was the Kupperman lawsuit in which Kupperman himself filed.

As far as the people who have testified - I am not sure if any of them defied the WH. But the WH certainly could have tried to stop/delay any Executive Branch official's testimony.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

As far as the people who have testified - I am not sure if any of them defied the WH. But the WH certainly could have stopped/delayed any Executive Branch official's testimony.

Vindman was ordered not to testify.

 

[JimEverett]

Vindman was ordered not to testify.

I should have said "tried to stop/delay" and will edit it

 

[MT15]

JimE, everyone who did testify ignored the WH directive of no cooperation. So they did try to stop everyone.

And the summary of the call was released to the press, not a transcript, and not turned over to the House.

And your percentage talk is sort of a distraction, no? Nobody is proposing any percentages, that would be silly.

The difference is between “some” with efforts to negotiate the rest, and “none” with “you have no right to make such a request” or your request is not valid.

This is a position no other administration has ever taken.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

I should have said "tried to stop/delay" and will edit it

If someone in the executive branch wants to testify and the executive branch does not want them to testify, how can the executive branch stop them from testifying? Genuine question, I'm not aware of the mechanism for stopping someone from testifying if they want to, as long as they are willing to risk losing their job. Vindman was likely relying on the Military's Whistleblower protection rules.