IMPEACH NOW!

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Seriously! This is a matter of public safety.

Read more at Vox:
http://bit.ly/2EkA8LI
 

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On Trump, new congresswoman says 'we're gonna impeach the motherf---"
By:


Posted: Jan 04, 2019 09:02 AM CST

Updated: Jan 04, 2019 09:02 AM CST


WASHINGTON, D.C. - Shortly after being sworn into to office, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman ever elected to congress, vowed to impeach President Donald Trump.

According to the New York Post, Rep. Tlaib delivered the remarks at a Thursday reception for the MoveOn campaign.

And when your son looks at you and says, ‘Mama, look you won. Bullies don’t win,’ and I said, ‘Baby they don’t’ — because we’re gonna go in and impeach the motherf—-r,” she said in a clip circulating online.


WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE:


Jon Levine

✔@LevineJonathan

https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/...s-we-re-gonna-impeach-the-motherf-/1686445134

Congresswoman @RashidaTlaib tells cheering crowd that Trump impeachment coming

“We’re going to go in and impeach the motherfucker”


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10:58 PM - Jan 3, 2019 · Manhattan, NY

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Tlaib is one of a record number of women and minorities who were sworn in to the 116th Congress on Thursday.

Tlaib took her oath using an antique Koran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson and dates back to 1734.
 

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Fareed Zakaria:

A better strategy for Democrats than impeachment



20180212_13dceediw-1.jpg

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images North America. Oher Democrats can be irresponsible in calling for
impeachment so long as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remains responsible.


NEW YORK — Consider, for a moment, what the growing talk of impeachment among Democrats sounds like to the tens of millions of people who voted for Donald Trump. Many of them supported him because they feel ignored, mocked and condescended to by the country’s urban, educated and cosmopolitan elites — especially lawyers and journalists. So what happens when their guy gets elected? These same elites pursue a series of maneuvers to try to overturn the results of the 2016 election. It would massively increase the class resentment that feeds support for Trump. It would turn the topic away from his misdeeds and toward the Democrats’ overreach and obsessions. And ultimately, of course, it would fail — two-thirds of this Republican-controlled Senate would not vote to convict him — allowing the president to brandish his “acquittal” like a gold medal.

I know, I know, many argue passionately that this is not a political affair but rather a moral and legal one. After reading the Mueller report, they say, Congress has no option but to fulfill its obligation and impeach Trump. But this view misunderstands impeachment entirely. It is by design an inherently political process, not a legal one. That’s why the standard used — “high crimes and misdemeanors” — is not one used in criminal procedures. And that is why the decision is entrusted to a political body, Congress, not the courts.

In 1970, when he was House minority leader, Gerald Ford provided the most honest definition of an impeachable offense: “whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.” Of the three cases in America’s past, history’s judgment is that only one — the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon — was wholly justified. Andrew Johnson’s decision to fire his secretary of war — clearly lawful — should not have led to his impeachment. The same is true for Bill Clinton’s failed Whitewater land deal, which triggered an independent counsel inquiry that went into completely unrelated arenas and used questionable methods of investigation.


Harvard Law School’s Noah Feldman points out that neither history nor the Founders’ intent yields clear lessons on the topic. “It’s quite possible that many Founders would have supported impeachment for serious substantive matters like the usurpation of power by the president. By that standard would (Abraham) Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, FDR’s internment of the Japanese Americans or (Lyndon) Johnson’s massive expansion of the Vietnam War all have been impeachable offenses? Possibly.” But these presidents were not impeached, because Congress and the country exercised political judgment. And that is why it is entirely appropriate for Democrats to think this through politically.

For some Democrats, impeachment talk might be a smart, if cynical, short-term calculation. If you are running for the Democratic nomination and languishing in the polls, it is a way to get attention. If you are consolidating your support with the party’s base, the more fiercely anti-Trump you are, the better. But all these moves only work as long as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slow-rolls the process and stops it from getting out of hand. Others can be irresponsible on the assumption that Pelosi will be responsible. But what if things snowball, as they often do in politics?

The Democrats have a much better path in front of them. They should pursue legitimate investigations of Trump, bring in witnesses, and release documentary proof of wrongdoing, providing a national education about the way Trump has operated as president. But they should at the same time show the public that they would be a refreshing contrast to Trump — substantive, policy-oriented, civil and focused on the country, not on their narrow base. America is tired of the circus of Donald Trump. That doesn’t mean they want the circus of the House Democrats.

Trump is vulnerable. With strong economic numbers, he has astonishingly low approval ratings. He will likely run his 2020 campaign on cultural nationalism, as he did the last one. Democrats need to decide what their vision will be. That should be their focus for the next two years, not the unfounded hope that if they pursue impeachment, somehow a series of miracles will take place — a deeply divided country will coalesce around them and Republicans will finally abandon their president.

The real challenge the Democrats face goes beyond Trump -- it is Trumpism

a right-wing populism that has swelled in the United States over the past decade.

Surely the best way to take it on is to combat it ideologically and defeat it electorally.

That is the only way to give the Democrats the real prize, which is not Trump’s scalp -- but the power and legitimacy to forge a governing majority.

https://www.dailycamera.com/2019/04...tter-strategy-for-democrats-than-impeachment/


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...cfeff232e8f_story.html?utm_term=.1ddef1c3b32f

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Dems see GOP effort to drive them to impeach Trump


The Hill
By Mike Lillis
and Cristina Marcos -
May 5, 2019


House Democratic leaders facing liberal calls for impeaching President Trump are confronting increasing pressure from an unlikely faction: Republicans who appear eager to goad them into it.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her leadership team have repeatedly sought to defuse the appeals for impeachment hearings, deeming them premature, and some Democrats sense the Republicans are setting a political trap to boost their ally in the White House.

But recent stonewalling actions by the administration have only fueled the liberal push to oust the president, complicating leadership efforts to keep a lid on the campaign.

GOP leaders know impeachment divides Democrats, and see a clear political advantage in promoting the debate. The Republicans’ campaign arm is steadily blasting emails linking moderate Democrats in swing districts to the impeachment effort. And a growing number of GOP lawmakers are all but daring Democratic leaders to launch the process while it remains unpopular with voters — a strategy not overlooked by top Democrats vowing to resist the bait.

“They would love to drive this to an impeachment, because they think it will be their political salvation,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a Judiciary Committee member, said of Republicans.

“If we get there, we will get there on our own time and our own way. We're not going to be baited into it,” Raskin said.

Those dynamics appeared front-and-center last week during the partisan fight over Attorney General William Barr’s scheduled testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Behind Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Democrats had demanded that Barr submit to interviews by staff attorneys from both parties. Barr declined, refusing to appear at all, and Republicans quickly accused Democrats of trying to employ the legal powers provided by impeachment before they’ve formally launched the process.

Rep. Doug Collins (Ga.), the top Republican on the Judiciary panel, seemed to challenge Nadler to take that step, saying in a Fox News interview that Democrats “don't have the fortitude to actually bring an impeachment inquiry."

“The procedural and legal perks of impeachment do not apply, and the chairman can’t have it both ways. He can’t try to pacify his liberal base by pretending to do impeachment without actually taking the plunge,” Collins wrote in prepared remarks for Thursday’s hearing. “The reality of our chamber and this distinguished committee is that when it comes to impeachment, you’re either in, Mr. Chairman, or you’re out, and, right now, you’re out.”

Collins was hardly the only Republican to invoke impeachment while attacking House Democrats’ treatment of Barr.

“Chairman Nadler decided to change the rules to satisfy the very obvious desire to impeach President Trump,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters at a press conference on Thursday. “Nadler has been wanting to impeach the day after the election. He can't have the facts to prove why he should, but he will not stop.”

“I view this as nothing more than a trial run for impeachment,” echoed Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.).

Democrats face a balancing act as they seek to unite their diverse caucus in response to the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

Pelosi, joined by an overwhelming majority of Democrats, favors an aggressive investigative approach that seeks to gather more evidence of potential administrative wrongdoing — and swing more voters against the president — before they consider impeaching him.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll hints at the logic in that design, finding that 66 percent of voters currently oppose impeachment, versus just 29 percent who support it.

“Obviously, impeachment is the ultimate [option],” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “But we need to pursue this in a very, very vigorous way. Because this goes to the very essence of the relationship between two co-equal branches of government.”

Yet the Democrats' tough talk has done little to prompt new cooperation from the administration. Trump has vowed to fight “all the subpoenas.” And Barr’s refusal to testify last week — combined with the recent airing of Mueller’s evident grievances with Barr's assessment of the investigators' findings — have left Democrats inching ever closer to impeachment proceedings.

“If the Trump administration wants impeachment, they're doing a good job of pushing the Democrats there,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a Judiciary Committee member, told CNN Thursday. “We want to first gather facts to decide if we should impeach. If we can't gather facts, then we're going to launch an Article III impeachment.”

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) is threatening again to force another House floor vote on impeachment. And Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a progressive freshman who has proposed legislation requiring the Judiciary Committee to begin examining potentially impeachable offenses, said interest in her resolution has spiked in the last week.

“For me, the Mueller letter to Barr, that is confirmation that Attorney General Barr works for Trump, not the country,” she said. “This is more and more looking like a coverup, right?”

Putting even more pressure on Democratic leaders, some presidential primary contenders are advocating for impeachment, particularly if the administration continues to refuse requests for information from the investigative committees. Joe Biden, the former vice president and now frontrunner in primary race, joined that chorus last week.

Few Democrats on Capitol Hill are sounding that alarm, however, weighing lesser legal options to gather documents and compel witness testimony, including Nadler’s recent threat to hold Barr in contempt of Congress.

“There's a process that's involved here,” Pelosi said Thursday. “The committee will act upon how we will proceed.”

Even Democrats who already support impeachment say the investigations effectively serve a similar purpose.

“In terms of the immediate next steps, I think functionally all the same things I would want to see in an impeachment inquiry are already under way,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). “Speaker Pelosi is making it clear that she's not pulling any punches on President Trump. She's not giving him any passes, we're going to hold him accountable.”

Whatever route the Democrats choose, they’re insistent that the Republicans’ pressure campaign will play no role whatsoever.

“If they want to impeach the president, they should go ahead and introduce the articles,” Raskin said. “As for us, we'll take our actions on our own schedule, and on our own volition.”



https://thehill.com/homenews/house/442115-dems-see-gop-effort-to-drive-them-to-impeach-trump
 

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Dems move closer to impeachment in strategy shakeup
But Nancy Pelosi remains resistant to opening an impeachment inquiry.


Politico
By SARAH FERRIS
and ANDREW DESIDERIO
July 26, 2019

190726-pelosi-gty-773.jpg

“I’m willing to take whatever heat there is, there. The decision will be made in a timely fashion. This isn’t endless,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images


House Democrats on Friday took a major step forward in their legal fight against President Donald Trump — one that looks much like the beginning of impeachment, even as Speaker Nancy Pelosi continues to resist a formal inquiry.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s announcement on Friday that the House is formally seeking special counsel Robert Mueller’s grand-jury information complicates the far more cautious message on impeachment coming from Pelosi and her top deputies.


Nadler (D-N.Y.) said the action “in effect” is part of an impeachment inquiry — though one has not been formally launched — and in petitioning a federal court for the grand-jury evidence, House Democrats put in writing for the first time that they are actively considering whether impeachment is warranted.

“We are continuing an investigation of the president’s malfeasances,” Nadler said. “And we will consider what we have to consider, including whether we should recommend articles of impeachment to the House. That’s the job of our committee.”

But on the same day, Pelosi reiterated that she’s still not ready to endorse a push to launch impeachment proceedings, and dismissed the idea that she was feeling pressure from her caucus.

“We will proceed when we have what we need to proceed — not one day sooner,” the California Democrat said at her weekly press conference.

House Democrats’ court petition comes two days after Mueller’s appearance re-energized the campaign to open impeachment proceedings, spurring seven more Democrats — including a member of Pelosi’s inner circle — to announce their support in the last 72 hours. At least 100 House Democrats now favor opening an impeachment inquiry.

The dual appearances by Nadler and Pelosi on Friday — which caused some confusion on Capitol Hill — underscored the challenge for the Democratic Caucus about how, and whether, to move ahead with high-stakes legal proceedings that could be seen as a back-door to the start of the impeachment process.

“We’re crossing a threshold, absolutely,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who was among 10 Democrats standing alongside Nadler Friday who publicly support an impeachment inquiry.


The mode that we were operating under before, it really was an oversight function.

We’re now crossing a threshold with this filing, and we are now officially entering into an examination of whether or not to recommend articles of impeachment,” the freshman Democrat said.

In substance, Nadler and Pelosi remain very much in line, and the speaker has approved each move that brings the House closer to impeachment proceedings.

“I don’t know that there are real divisions with the speaker,” Nadler said, adding that he agrees with Pelosi that House Democrats should be able to make the “strongest possible case.”




Pelosi has stated all along that her committees have been investigating Trump’s conduct in order to determine whether impeachment is the right path, affirming that the dramatic action remains on the table.

Friday’s court filing is more explicit: “[T]he House must have access to all the relevant facts and consider whether to exercise its full Article I powers, including a constitutional power of the utmost gravity — approval of articles of impeachment.”

Their public messages, however, appeared disjointed on Friday. Nadler’s press conference, which was broadcast live on cable television, laid bare the delicate balance many members are seeking to strike between Pelosi’s position and their own desire for a formal inquiry to begin.

Nadler has, on multiple occasions, explained to Pelosi in private the benefits of launching a formal impeachment inquiry — only to be rebuffed.

Pelosi, at times this week, has appeared more open than ever to impeachment, disputing the idea that she has resisted moving ahead because of Senate Republicans, who surely wouldn’t move forward with proceedings to impeach Trump. But Pelosi has held firm against impeachment and reiterated that she won’t be rushed in her judgment and wants to deepen the House’s investigations.

Seven lawmakers have come out in favor since Mueller’s testimony, including House Democratic Caucus vice-chair Katherine Clark (D-Mass.). Reps. Ann Kuster (D-N.H.), a senior Democrat, and Mike Levin (D-Calif.), a freshman in a battleground district, both announced their support Friday afternoon.


Pelosi on Friday denied accusations from some on the party’s left that she and other top Democrats have intentionally dragged their feet on impeachment.

“No, I’m not trying to run out the clock. Let’s get sophisticated about this, OK?” Pelosi said.

Several lawmakers have privately speculated that Pelosi and other top Democrats have sought to drag out investigations and court battles in hopes of stalling the impeachment push through the fall — when it becomes less politically feasible — though none have gone so far as to formally criticize her decision.

Some members of Democratic leadership believed that Pelosi would be able to maintain her hold on the impeachment debate as long as the caucus could make it to the six-week August recess without a stampede toward ousting the president. That goal was achieved on Thursday night, when members departed the Capitol for their districts with just a handful of new members in favor of the effort.

Pelosi said Friday that House Democratic leaders are seeking further evidence before moving ahead — specifically focusing on Trump’s personal finances and business dealings. She said she has “no complaint” with lawmakers who have called for launching impeachment proceedings.

“I’m willing to take whatever heat there is, there. The decision will be made in a timely fashion. This isn’t endless,” Pelosi said.

Trump on Friday called the effort to obtain Mueller’s grand-jury evidence a “disgrace.”

“All they want to do is impede. They want to investigate. They want to go fishing,” Trump said.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.po...nancy-pelosi-donald-trump-impeachment-1437530

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Raising Prospect of Impeaching Trump, House Seeks Mueller’s Grand Jury Secrets
In a court filing, House Democrats said they need access to secret grand jury evidence because they are weighing whether to recommend impeaching President Trump.

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Representative Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, spoke during a press conference Friday at the Capitol.CreditTom Brenner for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee on Friday asked a federal judge to unseal grand jury secrets related to Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, using the court filing to declare that lawmakers have already in effect launched an impeachment investigation of President Trump.

In a legal maneuver that carries significant political overtones, the committee told a judge that it needs access to the grand jury evidence collected by Mr. Mueller as special counsel — such as witness testimony — because it is “investigating whether to recommend articles of impeachment” against the president.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ny...us/politics/donald-trump-impeachment.amp.html
 

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congress

Majority of House Democrats
now support impeachment inquiry


Pelosi will now face increased pressure to back impeachment proceedings.



90

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has urged a methodical approach to investigating the president, but may
have to reconsider her opposition to impeachment proceedings. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo


Politico
By KYLE CHENEY
August 1, 2019

More than half of House Democrats say they would vote to launch impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, a crucial threshold that backers said will require Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reconsider her steadfast opposition.

Though Pelosi has given no indication that even a significant majority of House Democrats embracing impeachment proceedings would shift her view, supporters of an inquiry argue that crossing the halfway mark among the caucus isa symbolic boost that could shift the political dynamic.

“The president’s repeated abuses have brought American democracy to a perilous crossroads," said Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who announced his support on Tuesday. "Following the guidance of the Constitution — which I have sworn to uphold — is the only way to achieve justice."

The number of House Democrats who support impeachment proceedings passed the halfway mark — 118 out of 235 voting members now support the effort — on Thursday when Rep. Ted Deutch of Florida announced his support. Deutch was also the 23rd Democratic lawmaker to support impeachment proceedings in the days after former special counsel Robert Mueller testified to Congress, affirming publicly his damning evidence suggesting Trump attempted to obstruct justice.

Mueller's appearance reignited a push for impeachment proceedings among Democrats, who had been slowly gathering momentum for the effort since April. Though his testimony was at times halting, Mueller confirmed to lawmaker his report’s findings that Trump’s 2016 campaign welcomed Russian assistance and that Trump repeatedly attempted to undermine the investigation into Russia’s hacking and propaganda operation.

Perhaps more significant than the number of Democrats backing an inquiry are the identities of the members themselves. The latest additions include Reps. Mike Levin of California, Jennifer Wexton of Virginia and Jason Crow of Colorado, three freshmen who flipped Republican-held districts in November. Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, a member of Pelosi's leadership team, added her name to the list on Friday.


The level of support for an inquiry, as calculated by POLITICO, does not take into account the positions of the handful of Democrats from Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories because they don't get to vote on the House floor — though they do have influence in the Democratic Caucus and on committees. On Tuesday, Washington, D.C.'s delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who sits on the Oversight Committee, voiced her support for an impeachment inquiry. Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.), who left the Republican Party in July shortly after declaring his support for impeaching Trump, also is not reflected in the count.

Trump’s continued attacks on black lawmakers, particularly Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), has ratcheted up the fervor for supporters of impeachment as well. Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who forced a July 17 vote on a measure to impeach the president because of his racist comments about four freshman lawmakers of color, said simply condemning the president has proved ineffective.


In a sign of a shifting dynamic for House Democrats, though, Pelosi last week signed off on a legal argument lodged by the Judiciary Committee to obtain Mueller’s secret grand jury evidence. That argument indicated to a judge that the Judiciary Committee is already weighing whether to recommend articles of impeachment against Trump, obviating the need for a formal declaration of impeachment proceedings.

That announcement, though, hasn’t dampened calls among House Democrats. Four Washington state House Democrats and Patty Murray of Washington — the No. 3 Senate Democrat — called for impeachment proceedings against Trump on Sunday. And the Senate Democrats' No. 4, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, also came out this week to publicly support an impeachment inquiry.

Full Article: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/01/majority-house-democrats-support-impeachment-1440799


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Report: Judiciary panel preparing to vote on procedures for impeachment probe


nadlerjerrold_072619gn.jpg



The Hill
September 7, 2019


The House Judiciary Committee is preparing to vote on a resolution laying out the procedures for its widespread probe into the Trump administration.

The vote, expected to take place Wednesday, will reportedly focus on procedures for future hearings as the Judiciary panel weighs potentially recommending articles of impeachment against President Trump.

Multiple sources briefed on the discussions told Politico, which first reported on the move, that the panel would vote on the bounds of the probe that chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) calls an ongoing “impeachment investigation.”

The resolution’s exact language is still being configured and the legislation is expected to be released Monday.

A source familiar with the issue told Politico any movement next week would be intended to increase the “officialness” of the ongoing probe into obstruction of justice.

The Judiciary Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

The move comes as a majority of the House Democratic delegation has come out in support of opening impeachment proceedings. But some members have blurred the lines of what they’d like to see by supporting a probe but declining to say they'd be ready to vote to immediately impeach Trump when they return to Washington from their August recess next week.

Nadler first announced in August that his panel had launched impeachment proceedings, sparking widespread confusion after the committee did not formally vote to do so.

The prospect of impeaching the president has gripped the House Democratic conference for months and created a rift between the party’s leadership and the rank and file.

Nadler, along with several party foot soldiers, have come out in support of an official impeachment investigation, saying it would help unite the sprawling probes being conducted by several different committees and help Democrats obtain sought after documents the administration has refused to provide.

Members of the party’s leadership have said impeachment is unpopular among the broader American public, has no chance of passing the GOP-controlled Senate and could unite Trump’s base heading into the 2020 election.


https://thehill.com/homenews/house/...ote-on-parameters-of-impeachment-probe-report


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POLITICS
Ayanna Pressley to Introduce Impeachment Inquiry of Brett Kavanaugh

Anne Branigin

Yesterday 11:00am
September 17, 2019
ultuchtbct373vgv1ho7.jpg

Photo: Mary Schwalm (AP Photo)
Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley plans on introducing a House resolution Tuesday calling for an impeachment inquiry of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

A New York Times story published over the weekend revealed a new allegation from Kavanaugh’s time at Yale University, in which a former classmate said he witnessed Kavanaugh “with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party,” his penis pushed into the hands of a female student by his friends. The incident was not investigated by the FBI.

However, the Times published an update on Monday noting the female student “declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident.’”


The incident described in the Times mirrors that of another Kavanaugh accuser, Deborah Ramirez, on whom much of the article is focused. His history of sexual assault was also a focal point during his confirmation hearings, which featured long and grueling testimony from Christine Blasey Ford.

Ford testified that Kavanaugh assaulted her at a house party when they were both teenagers. What


“I believe Christine Blasey Ford. I believe Deborah Ramirez,” Pressley said Monday. “It is our responsibility to collectively affirm the dignity and humanity of survivors.”

A survivor of sexual abuse herself, Pressley has long championed the rights of women and survivors. Before taking office, Pressley—then a Boston city councilor—spoke out against Kavanaugh’s confirmation at a rally last fall and wrote an op-ed in the Boston Globe calling out the confirmation process, which she criticized for its lack of transparency.

“Justice should not be a partisan issue. And I am supremely confident that Kavanaugh has proven himself to be unhinged, unfit, and unqualified,” Pressley wrote. “Kavanaugh’s tenure on the bench will be indelibly colored by the stories of Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and Julie Swetnick.”

Pressley’s resolution would allow a congressional committee to open an investigation into Kavanaugh issuing subpoenas and obtaining affidavits and depositions.

Several Democratic presidential hopefuls have called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment since the Times story broke. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro said Kavanaugh lied under oath during his confirmation testimony last year. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) also called for impeachment, tweeting that Kavanaugh’s nomination “was rammed through the Senate without a thorough examination of the allegations against him.”

“Confirmation is not exoneration, and these newest revelations are disturbing,” Warren added. “Like the man who appointed him, Kavanaugh should be impeached.”


https://www.theroot.com/ayanna-pressley-to-introduce-impeachment-inquiry-of-bre-1838179707


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Report: Whistleblower complaint about Trump involves Ukraine

The whistleblower complaint filed on Aug. 12 by a U.S. intelligence official involves Ukraine, two people with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the Post reported that the complaint centers around Trump's communications with a foreign leader, and a "promise" he made. The intelligence official was so troubled by this that they notified Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who marked the complaint as being of "urgent concern" and passed it along to acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. His refusal to pass the complaint on to Congress has sparked a battle between Democratic lawmakers and Maguire. Two-and-a-half-weeks before the complaint was filed, Trump had a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, an actor and comedian elected in May.

Source: The Washington Post
 

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U.S. Attorney General William Barr, right, and President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on May 15, 2019. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

https://theintercept.com/2019/09/20...-the-whistleblower-complaint-is-no-exception/


William Barr Has Long Tried to Limit What a President Must Share With Congress. The Whistleblower Complaint is No Exception.

Before the acting director of national intelligence decided to stonewall Congressional requests to see a mysterious whistleblower complaint deemed “urgent,” he reportedly took the highly unusual step of seeking guidance from the White House and Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel.

Acting DNI Joseph Maguire’s decision not to share the substance of the complaint with Congress aligns with a long-held legal theory of Donald Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, who spent decades advocating that the executive branch should control what information Congress receives.

The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community is required by law to report all claims to the DNI when the “complaint or information appears credible.” The DNI is then supposed to transmit the complaint to Congressional intelligence committees within seven days.
The complaint reportedly “centers on Ukraine” and a “promise” Trump made in the course of his communications with a foreign leader. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “about eight times” to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

House Democrats were already looking into whether Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani had pressured Ukraine to intervene in the upcoming U.S. presidential election by launching an anti-corruption investigation of Hunter Biden, who served on the board of directors of a Ukrainian Energy company. Giuliani admitted in a CNN interview Thursday that he asked Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden.
Trump denied doing anything inappropriate, noting that many members of the intelligence community and other government entities listen to such calls. “s anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially ‘heavily populated’ call,” he tweeted.

It is unclear how – or whether – the attorney general himself has weighed in on the question of what to share with Congress. But the situation carries echoes of his decades-long legal crusade to shield the executive branch from outside scrutiny. Throughout his career as a government attorney, Barr has been a leading proponent of what is known as the “unitary executive,” a legal theory under which the president has near absolute constitutional authority over the administration of the executive branch.
In 1989, when Barr was the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, he wrote a memo outlining common practices that he called “attempts to intrude into the functions and responsibilities assigned by the Constitution to the executive branch.” One such practice, he wrote, was passing laws that automatically require the transmission of information to Congress, a practice that Barr’s memo said was “preventing the President from exercising his constitutionally guaranteed right of supervision and control over executive branch officials.”

Barr wrote that “such provisions infringe upon the President’s authority as head of a unitary executive to control the presentation of the executive branch’s views to Congress. Accordingly, such concurrent reporting requirements should be opposed.” The example he cited involved situations in which Congress wanted to see budget requests that were concurrently sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget, not Inspector General investigations, but his point was clear: Congress should not have any control over what information the executive branch shares with them.

In the decades after Barr’s memo, the executive branch continued to maintain that it should retain final control over how and whether classified information can be sent to Congressional committees. A 1996 memorandum from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel says that Congress cannot “divest the President of his control over national security information” by allowing government employees to “furnish such information to a Member of Congress without receiving official authorization to do so.” But Congress has never subscribed to that legal theory.

Prior to his confirmation as Attorney General, Barr also sent an unsolicited memo to then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, arguing that special counsel Robert Mueller’s obstruction of justice investigation was “fatally misconceived.” And in the weeks before the Mueller report cleared declassification review and was released publicly, Barr issued a highly misleading summary that falsely claimed the report did not “draw a conclusion” as to whether certain actions by Trump constituted obstruction of justice.
On Friday, House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff said he would pursue an investigation of the whistleblower’s complaint “come hell or high water.”

“This involves something more sinister, something involving a serious or flagrant abuse or violation of law or misappropriation,” Schiff said. “The IG underscored the seriousness of this, and also that this needs to be looked into. And right now, no one is looking into this.”
Wait! Before you go on about your day, ask yourself: How likely is it that the story you just read would have been produced by a different news outlet if The Intercept hadn’t done it? Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. Who would hold party elites accountable to the values they proclaim to have? How many covert wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if our reporters weren’t on the beat?
 

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Ukraine foreign minister denies Trump pressured Zelensky


Ukraine's Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko denied that President Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, during a July phone call.

"I know what the conversation was about, and I think there was no pressure," Prystaiko said during an interview with Ukrainian television station Hromadske that aired Saturday. "There was talk, conversations are different, leaders have the right to discuss any problems that exist. This conversation was long, friendly, and it touched on a lot of questions, including those requiring serious answers."

Still, others are concerned about how the accusations will affect Ukraine's relationship with the U.S. "It's a diplomatic disaster for our relations with the United States," said Alyona Getmanchuk, the director of the New Europe Center, a Kiev-based foreign policy think tank.


Source: The Washington Post, Fox News

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Trump admits he discussed Biden during call with Ukrainian president


President Trump on Sunday acknowledged that he talked about former Vice President Joe Biden's son during a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July, but defended the conversation, saying he was talking about "all of the corruption taking place." Trump told reporters he congratulated Zelensky on his election, and told him "we don't want our people like the vice president and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine."

Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani have been accusing Biden's son, Hunter, of corruption linked to his business in Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal reported that over the course of the call, Trump encouraged Zelensky eight times to work with Giuliani on an investigation into the Bidens.


Source: The New York Times

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BREAKING: A former high-ranking CIA chief just blew the lid off a MASSIVE cover-up of Trump’s Ukrainian treason by Attorney General Barr and Republican officials. This is terrifying…

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"I never thought I actually had the option to refuse to forward a valid, credible whistleblower complaint," former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper tells @ChrisCuomo. "I also don't recall [a complaint] being submitted that was characterized by my IG … as urgent."

 

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I wonder if Spicer will come out and say “this is the biggest crowd to ever witness an impeachment in the history of impeachment… EVER!”


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Nancy Pelosi Announces Formal Impeachment Inquiry of Trump
Faced with new allegations against President Trump and administration stonewalling, Democrats have ended months of caution.

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By Nicholas Fandos
Sept. 24, 2019


WASHINGTON — Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Tuesday that the House would begin a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump, saying that he had betrayed his oath of office and the nation’s security in seeking to enlist a foreign power for his own political gain.

“The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the Constitution,” she said after emerging from a meeting of House Democrats in the basement of the Capitol. Mr. Trump, she said, “must be held accountable — no one is above the law.”

The announcement was a stunning development that unfolded after months of caution by House Democrats, who have been divided over using the ultimate remedy to address what they have called flagrant misconduct by the president. It had the potential to reshape Mr. Trump’s presidency and to cleave an already divided nation only a year before he plans to stand for re-election.

In this case, with an avalanche of Democrats — including many who had resisted the move — now demanding it, Ms. Pelosi said that Mr. Trump’s reported actions, and his administration’s refusal to share details about the matter with Congress, have left the House no alternative outside of impeachment.


At issue are allegations that Mr. Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to open a corruption investigation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, and his son. The conversation is said to be part of a whistle-blower complaint that the Trump administration has withheld from Congress.

Mr. Trump said on Tuesday that he would authorize the release of a transcript of the conversation, practically daring Democrats to try to find an impeachable offense in a conversation that he has called “perfect.” But Democrats, after months of holding back, demanded the full whistle-blower complaint, even as they pushed toward an expansive impeachment inquiry that could encompass unrelated charges.

“The actions of the Trump presidency revealed dishonorable facts of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections,” Ms. Pelosi said.

The president, in New York for several days of international diplomacy at the United Nations, issued a defiant response on Twitter, in a series of fuming posts that culminated with a simple phrase: “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!”



Ms. Pelosi’s decision to push forward with the most severe action that Congress can take against a sitting president could usher in a remarkable new chapter in American life, touching off a constitutional and political showdown with the potential to cleave an already divided nation, reshape Mr. Trump’s presidency and the country’s politics, and carry heavy risks both for him and for the Democrats who have decided to weigh his removal.


Though the outcome is uncertain, it also raised the possibility that Mr. Trump could become only the fourth president in American history to face impeachment. Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were both impeached but later acquitted by the Senate. President Richard M. Nixon resigned in the face of a looming House impeachment vote.

It was the first salvo in an escalating, high-stakes standoff between Ms. Pelosi, now fully engaged in an effort to build the most damning possible case against the president, and Mr. Trump, who angrily denounced Democrats’ impeachment inquiry even as he worked feverishly in private to head off the risk to his presidency.

Mr. Trump, who for months has dared Democrats to impeach him, issued a defiant response on Twitter while in New York for several days of international diplomacy at the United Nations, with a series of fuming posts that culminated with a simple phrase: “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!” Meanwhile, his re-election campaign and House Republican leaders launched a vociferous defense, accusing Democrats of a partisan rush to judgment.

“Such an important day at the United Nations, so much work and so much success, and the Democrats purposely had to ruin and demean it with more breaking news Witch Hunt garbage,” Mr. Trump wrote. “So bad for our Country!

For the past two years, talk of impeachment had centered around the findings of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections and Mr. Trump’s attempts to derail that inquiry. On Tuesday, Ms. Pelosi, Democrat of California, told her caucus and then the country that new revelations about Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, and his administration’s stonewalling of Congress about them, had finally left the House no choice but to proceed toward a rarely used remedy.


“Right now, we have to strike while the iron is hot,” she told House Democrats in a closed-door meeting in the basement of the Capitol. Emerging moments later to address a phalanx of news cameras, Ms. Pelosi, speaking sometimes haltingly as she delivered a speech from a teleprompter, invoked the Constitution and the nation’s founders as she declared, “The times have found us” and outlined a new stage of investigating Mr. Trump.


At issue are allegations that Mr. Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to open a corruption investigation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and his son. The conversation is said to be part of a whistle-blower complaint that the Trump administration has withheld from Congress. And it occurred just a few days after Mr. Trump had ordered his staff to freeze more than $391 million in aid to Ukraine.

Mr. Trump has confirmed aspects of his conversation with the Ukrainian leader in recent days, but he continues to insist he acted appropriately.

The president said on Tuesday that he would authorize the release of a transcript of the conversation, part of an effort to pre-empt Democrats’ impeachment push. But Democrats, after months of holding back, were unbowed, demanding the full whistle-blower complaint and other documentation about White House dealings with Ukraine, even as they pushed toward an expansive impeachment inquiry that could encompass unrelated charges.

Ms. Pelosi told fellow Democrats that Mr. Trump told her in a private call on Tuesday morning that he was not responsible for withholding the whistle-blower complaint from Congress. But late Tuesday, the White House and intelligence officials were working on a deal to allow the whistle-blower to speak to Congress and potentially even share a redacted version of the complaint in the coming days, after the whistle-blower expressed interest in talking to lawmakers.

Although Ms. Pelosi’s announcement was a crucial turning point, it left many unanswered questions about exactly when and how Democrats planned to push forward on impeachment.

READ MORE
The Impeachment Process, Explained

House Democrats plan to bring up a resolution on Wednesday condemning Mr. Trump’s reported behavior toward Ukraine and the whistle-blower, and demanding his administration release the whistle-blower complaint — daring Republicans to vote against it.

And Mr. Trump’s allies mostly took it as a sign that a vote on articles of impeachment was inevitable.

Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, warned that the Democrats’ move “destroyed any chances of legislative progress for the people of this country by continuing to focus all their energy on partisan political attacks.” Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, tried to turn the political spotlight onto Mr. Biden, as the campaign launched a new fund-raising plea for an “Official Impeachment Defense Task Force.”

“Democrats can’t beat President Trump on his policies or his stellar record of accomplishment, so they’re trying to turn a Joe Biden scandal into a Trump problem,” he wrote. “The misguided Democrat impeachment strategy is meant to appease their rabid, extreme, leftist base, but will only serve to embolden and energize President Trump’s supporters and create a landslide victory for the president.”

A smaller number of Republicans in the House and Senate reserved judgment, and signaled that they were interested in learning more facts about the Ukraine situation before denouncing the Democrats. Representative John Curtis, Republican of Utah, for example, said in a statement that he had the “utmost confidence in the investigative tools Congress has at its disposal” and would be “closely monitoring” the inquiryRepresentative Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The committee has been conducting its own impeachment investigation.

The outpouring reached a crescendo just after noon, when Representative John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights icon who for a generation has been regarded as the conscience of the House Democrats, dropped his resistance to impeachment and urged his colleagues to meet what he said was the call of history.

“I have been patient while we tried every other path and used every other tool,” Mr. Lewis thundered from the well of the House. “We will never find the truth unless we use the power given to the House of Representatives — and the House alone — to begin an official investigation as dictated by the Constitution.”

“The future of our democracy is at stake,” Mr. Lewis declared.

The House Judiciary Committee has been conducting its own impeachment investigation focused on Mr. Mueller’s findings, as well as allegations that Mr. Trump may be illegally profiting from spending by state and foreign governments and other matters. But that inquiry had not gotten the imprimatur of a full House vote or the full rhetorical backing of the speaker, as Democrats remained divided about the wisdom and political implications of impeaching a president without broader public support.

Now, after the revelation of a conversation between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in which Mr. Trump pressed the foreign leader to investigate the Bidens, a cascading flood of Democrats had come out in favor of a formal impeachment proceeding.

READ MORE Trump’s Calls With World Leaders Are Freewheeling, but Few Have Access


The developments that have turned the tide began less than two weeks ago, when Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the Intelligence Committee chairman, first revealed the existence of a secret whistle-blower complaint that the intelligence community’s internal watchdog had deemed “urgent” and credible but that the Trump administration had refused to share with Congress.

Democrats have given Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, until Thursday to turn over the whistle-blower complaint or risk reprisal. And they have threatened to subpoena the Trump administration for a copy of the transcript of the president’s call with Mr. Zelensky and other relevant documents after Thursday if they are not shared voluntarily.

The temperature was considerably cooler in the Senate, where any charges against Mr. Trump would be weighed. Even lawmakers in the majority party were working to get to the bottom of the Ukraine situation.

When Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, offered a symbolic resolution calling for the whistle-blower complaint to be provided to both the House and Senate intelligence committees, not a single Republican objected. And the Senate Intelligence Committee was working on a bipartisan basis to demand explanations both from Mr. Maguire and the inspector general.

Reporting was contributed by Catie Edmondson, Emily Cochrane and Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington; Michael Crowley from New York; and Jonathan Martin from Los Angeles.

Nicholas Fandos is a reporter in the Washington bureau covering Congress. @npfandos


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ny...politics/democrats-impeachment-trump.amp.html


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Jeffrey Toobin TOTAL CHOKES Trump When Transcript Shows Trump Pushed Ukraine to Investigate Biden

 

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The Stunning History of William Barr’s Crusade to Bury Evidence to Protect Republican Presidents
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CONTINUES . . .

William Barr Hit a New Low In His Crusade to Bury the Whistleblower Complaint
Impeachment may be the only remaining tool to discover the truth.

Slate

By Mark Joseph Stern
Sept 25, 20195:42 PM

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U.S. Attorney General William Barr, Mark Wilson/Getty Images


As more details emerge about Donald Trump’s whistleblower scandal, it’s clear the man standing in the way of any investigation into the president’s actions, once again, is Attorney General William Barr. The House’s now formal impeachment inquiry may be the last remaining tool that Barr cannot tamper with.


Barr has already successfully stymied one investigation of presidential misconduct: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. The attorney general released a misleading “summary” of the report before its publication, one that rankled Mueller himself. He also devised dubious legal standards to find insufficient evidence that Trump obstructed justice. Barr then prefaced the report’s release with an appalling press conference that painted Trump as the real victim. In congressional testimony, he trashed his own Justice Department to further defend Trump. Later, Barr took pains to hide the full Mueller report from Congress, deploying a baseless legal theory to conceal key redactions from lawmakers.


With each new development in the Ukraine scandal, we are seeing the Trump administration run the Barr playbook all over again. But there is an important difference. When Barr took the reins at DOJ, the Mueller investigation was near its end: Barr could not interfere with the probe itself; he could only run damage control once it concluded. This time, Barr has been in control from the start. And his Justice Department has blocked every avenue through which Trump might be held accountable.

Notes on the telephone conversation between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky suggest Barr is implicated in Trump’s dirty work.

(The memo is not a transcript, but rather a compilation of “notes and recollections” from officials listening in.) Trump mentions his attorney general six times as a resource for Zelensky. The president urges Zelensky to investigate his potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden—referring to unsubstantiated allegations that, as vice president, Biden used his position to quash a Ukrainian investigation into his son. “[W]hatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,” Trump adds. He also told Zelensky that he would have his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani “give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it.”​
The Justice Department released a statement Wednesday claiming that neither Trump nor Giuliani have spoken with Barr about pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son. But there is ample evidence that Barr played a substantial role in protecting Trump from a whistleblower complaint over the call. House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler has already insisted that Barr recuse himself “until we get to the bottom of this matter.” House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff also sent a letter to Barr Wednesday saying the DOJ’s involvement “raises the specter that the Department has participated in a dangerous cover-up to protect the President.”
Before Barr’s possible involvement in the Ukraine affair had even been made public, the DOJ stepped in to mute the whistleblower complaint over this call. Under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, or ICWPA, whistleblowers in a federal intelligence agency must send their complaint to Michael Atkinson, Intelligence Community inspector general. The law tasks Atkinson with deciding whether the complaint is credible and of “urgent concern.” If it is, Atkinson must send it to acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. ICWPA states that Maguire, in turn, “shall … forward” the complaint to congressional intelligence committees within seven days.

This process worked as intended—until the DOJ stepped in. Atkinson received the whistleblower complaint and found it to be a credible allegation of “urgent concern.” So he sent it to Maguire. Instead of sending it to Congress, as he was legally obligated to do, Maguire asked the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, which makes law that binds the executive branch. The OLC declared that he could not pass it on in an opinion later released to the public in modified form, holding that the whistleblower complaint did not pertain to a matter of “urgent concern.”

This opinion is bizarre, because the law does not allow Maguire—and, by extension, the OLC—to overrule Atkinson’s assessment of a whistleblower complaint. It tasks Atkinson with deciding whether the complaint meets ICWPA’s standards, not Maguire. OLC claimed a right, on Maguire’s behalf, to independently determine whether the complaint constitutes an “urgent concern.” No such right exists.

The OLC then followed a different law, which requires executive branch officials to notify the attorney general if they discover potential “violations of Federal criminal law involving Government officers.” So instead of going to Congress, the whistleblower’s complaint went to the DOJ and, apparently, to Barr himself. The DOJ then assessed whether Trump may have committed a campaign finance violation, since it is a federal crime for any person to “solicit” any “thing of value” from a foreign national in connection with an election.

On Wednesday, the DOJ released a statement announcing that the agency had determined that “that there was no campaign finance violation and that no further action was warranted.” It reached this finding by deciding that dirt on a political opponent is not a “thing of value”—disagreeing with Robert Mueller, who believed opposition research could qualify as a “thing of value.” The DOJ’s contrary conclusion theory of campaign finance law is far-fetched if not outright incorrect, ignoring the immense value that Trump and Giuliani evidently saw in a Biden investigation.

We don’t know for sure that Barr’s fingerprints are on this decision. But the OLC purported to follow a statute that required the whistleblower complaint to be “expeditiously reported to the Attorney General.” Thus, Barr was, at a minimum, presumably aware of the criminal referral. Moreover, there is no indication that Barr recused himself from the whistleblower matter, even though Trump invoked him on the call at the center of the affair.

In short, Barr’s Justice Department first manipulated ICWPA to prevent Maguire from sending the whistleblower complaint to Congress. It then manipulated campaign finance law to determine that Trump had committed no crime and refused to open an investigation. And the Attorney General himself, who appears to be implicated in the whistleblower’s complaint, almost certainly played a role in quashing any probe into the president.

Faced with this stonewalling at DOJ, House Democrats have no choice but to pursue impeachment if they want to get to the bottom of this scandal and punish Trump accordingly. Barr and his allies at the Justice Department certainly aren’t going to do it. To the contrary, the Justice Department seems eager to shield the president from any consequences. Under Barr, the DOJ has defended Trump’s refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas into his personal finances. It has even intervened on behalf of his former campaign chairman, convicted felon Paul Manafort, lobbying for him to receive special privileges behind bars. The Justice Department has all but announced that it will aide Trump’s allies and fight his enemies.

Barr will do whatever he can insulate Trump from federal law. We can certainly expect his DOJ to fight the House’s impeachment inquiry by attempting to stop executive officials from testifying, as it has before. But there is one important power that Barr lacks: He cannot stop Congress from concluding that the president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.



https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/barr-trump-ukraine-doj-whistleblower-complaint.html

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