Tag: Trump abuse of power

Figures to watch as White House mounts impeachment defense

The Hill logoSpeculation is increasing about the defense team being assembled by the White House as President Trump stares down an impeachment trial in the GOP-controlled Senate. 

While Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s (D-Calif.) decision to delay transmitting the articles of impeachment has created uncertainty around the contours and timing of the trial, it’s still widely expected the Senate will begin the proceedings in January.

The Trump administration has disclosed very little about its forthcoming defense apart from signaling that White House counsel Pat Cipollone will play a significant role, but the president is considering tapping others to play a part in the trial. Continue reading

Trump retweets a post naming the alleged whistleblower

Washington Post logoPresident Trump retweeted a post naming the alleged whistleblower who filed the complaint that became the catalyst for the congressional inquiry that resulted in his impeachment by the House of Representatives.

On Friday night, Trump shared a Twitter post from @surfermom77, who describes herself as “100% Trump supporter,” with his 68 million followers. That tweet prominently named the alleged whistleblower and suggested that he had committed perjury.

By Saturday morning, the post did not appear on Trump’s timeline, though it was visible to certain users and via direct link. On Saturday evening, Twitter acknowledged that a technical glitch made Trump’s retweet appear visible to some users but not others. Continue reading

New Poll Shows Record-Level Voter Support For Impeachment

A new poll released on Christmas Day shows record-level support among U.S. voters for the ouster of President Donald Trump—a finding that indicates the Republican Party’s effort to obstruct accountability for the president is not having the desired result.

The daily tracking poll from Microsoft News published Wednesday asked respondents if they “support or oppose the Senate voting to remove President from office?” It found that while 55 percent of people support only 40 percent oppose—a dramatic surge for those backing Trump’s ouster and a record for the poll that has been asking that same question since late September of this year.

Notable in the responses was the dramatic swing since the poll was taken just one week ago, when 48 percent were in favor and 47 percent opposed. Continue reading

Key Trump aide gets massive promotion after refusing to testify in impeachment probe

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump gave a promotion to Robert Blair, a top aide to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, just weeks after Blair refused to testify before the House of Representatives in its impeachment inquiry.

Trump appointed Blair as the special representative for international telecommunications policy, an office that will give him the responsibility to “promote a secure and reliable global telecommunications system,” according to Politico. According to a White House statement, Blair “will support the Administration’s 5G efforts led by the Assistant to the President for Economy Policy, Larry Kudlow. Mr. Blair will continue to serve as Assistant to the President and the Senior Advisor to the Chief of Staff.”

Blair refused to appear at a Nov. 4 deposition intended to explore what he may have known Trump’s order to withhold military aid from Ukraine, which was apparently linked to Trump’s effort to force the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. House Democrats had subpoenaed Blair on Nov. 3. Continue reading

Moderate GOP senator ‘disturbed’ by McConnell’s coordination with White House

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she is “disturbed” by coordination between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the White House over the upcoming Senate impeachment trial.

Senate leaders have yet to reach an agreement on the rules of the trial, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not sent the Senate the impeachment articles necessary to begin the proceedings. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has called for the Senate to pursue witnesses and documents, which McConnell opposes, leading to a holiday impasse and uncertainty as to when the trial will begin.

But Murkowski said McConnell had “confused the process” by saying he was acting in “total coordination” with the White House on setting the parameters for the trial. Continue reading

Not only does Donald Trump believe he hasn’t been impeached — he also thinks he can be unpeached

AlterNet logoThroughout the House impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, Republicans worked hard not just to derail both the initial inquiry and the later votes, but also to attack the process at every turn. Democratic representatives rightly pointed out that Republicans were unwilling to defend Donald Trump on the evidence—and no, ungrounded talking points are not a defense—because the evidence universally demonstrated the case against Trump. Now, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi withholds the articles of impeachment from the Senate while awaiting some glimpse of what Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has planned for the Senate trial, Republicans are pretending that it’s Pelosi who is fixated on process. But that’s not it at all. Pelosi wants only to see that there is a process.

Before the House interviewed a single witness or sought its first document, it passed House Resolution 660 laying out all the rules under which its inquiry would take place. On the Senate side, McConnell has done nothing. There are no rules, no promises, no hint of what would happen should Pelosi turn over the articles—other than McConnell’s promise that he’s working closely with the White House to turn the whole thing to Trump’s advantage.

Meanwhile, Trump is maintaining what may be the most delusional position of the entire impeachment by claiming that he has not really been impeached at all. As CNN reports, Trump is leaning into a comforting “technical argument” that insists he’s not really impeached until McConnell says he’s impeached. Which McConnell isn’t going to do. The White House is actually considering a lawsuit in an attempt to force Pelosi’s hand, allowing the process to be ended on the terms that Trump likes best. Continue reading

With yet another Mar-a-Lago trip, the taxpayer bill for Trump’s stays at his own resorts tops $118 million

AlterNet logoBecause a wizened fortune teller once told Donald Trump that he would die unless he visited one of his golf resorts at least once per week, a rough approximation of the “vampire must sleep on the dirt of his home country” restrictions on immortality, Donald Trump is closing out the year by visiting one of his golf resorts. Specifically, he flew off to the international spy and lobbyist haven of Mar-a-Lago. Yet again.

That means that the American public has now spent over $118 million sending Donald Trump to his own for-profit real estate holdings during the first three years of his term. That covers travel to and from Mar-a-Lago, Bedminster, his Scotland and Ireland resorts; his Secret Service protection; the staff he takes with him; and so forth. Whenever Trump travels to one of his properties, his necessary staff must book rooms there as well, and the Secret Service gets charged for everything from golf carts to meals. And we don’t know how much of that Donald Trump is personally pocketing because he won’t tell us. At a bare minimum, it’s in the millions.

To give some idea of just how much money $118 million is, that is more than 12 Starbucks coffees. Or, as HuffPo’s S.V. Date puts it, it is “the equivalent of 296 years of the $400,000 presidential salary that his supporters often boast he is not taking.” Continue reading

Legal experts: ‘Goofy partisan brawling’ and ‘Republican antics’ can’t erase the ‘seriousness’ of Trump impeachment

AlterNet logoWednesday, December 18 will be remembered as the day in which the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted to indict President Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment: one for abuse of power, the other for obstruction of Congress. The day was full of buffoonish, over-the-top theatrics, and legal experts Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic stress in a December 23 article for The Atlantic that all of the silliness of December 18 doesn’t erase how serious a matter Trump’s impeachment is.

“The pettiness of the day masked the seriousness — even momentousness — of the events that took place,” Wittes and Jurecic observe. “This was, as the press reminded people unceasingly, only the third time in the country’s history that the House of Representatives has impeached a president. The Democrats were not entirely above the nonsense, offering endless platitudes that felt arch and preachy. But it was the Republican antics that threatened to make the process look ridiculous, though the allegations were, in fact, historic in their severity.”

Wittes and Jurecic are both key figures at the Lawfare blog: the 50-year-old Wittes is editor-in-chief and co-founder, while Jurecic is managing editor. Both of them werite for The Atlantic as well, and in their December 23 Atlantic article, they stress that some of Trump’s supporters in the House of Representatives turned the impeachment process into a circus.  Continue reading

Democrats aren’t ruling out more articles of impeachment against Trump: ‘McGahn’s testimony is critical’

AlterNet logoSome critics of President Donald Trump — Democrats as well as Never Trump conservatives — have argued that the U.S. House of Representatives should have brought more than two articles of impeachment against Trump. But there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution saying that House Democrats cannot pursue additional articles if they decide to, and according to a House Judiciary Committee court filing on Monday,  they aren’t ruling out that possibility.

Politico reported on Monday (12/31/19) that the House Judiciary Committee was trying to enforce a subpoena of former White House Counsel Don McGahn to determine “whether to recommend additional articles of impeachment.”

According to House of Representatives Counsel Douglas Letter in the court filing, testimony from McGahn “remains central to” the House Judiciary Committee’s “ongoing inquiry into the president’s obstructive conduct. If McGahn’s testimony produces new evidence supporting the conclusion that President Trump committed impeachable offenses that are not covered by the articles approved by the House, the Committee will proceed accordingly — including, if necessary, by considering whether to recommend new articles of impeachment.”

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‘Trump is terrified’ and ‘addicted to conflict’: Psychiatrist Justin Frank on the president’s mental decompensation

AlterNet logoDonald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives last week. He is now the third president to be impeached, and will be the first to run for re-election after impeachment. Neither previous impeachment involved the blatant corruption of foreign policy seen in Trump’s apparent plot to extort the president of Ukraine into aiding him in the 2020 election.

In the days following Trump’s impeachment new evidence of his wrongdoing has been uncovered.

On Friday, a Freedom of Information request by the Center for Public Integrity uncovered documents showing that almost immediately after Trump’s July 25 shakedown conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, military aid to that country was stopped.

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