Trump abuse of power 51 , CD3 DFL

Former NSA lawyer debunks Laura Ingraham’s bogus claim that Adam Schiff used the agency to obtain Devin Nunes’ phone records: ‘Not how the law works’

Throughout the Ukraine scandal and the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham hasn’t been shy about jumping through hoops to defend the president — and she recently claimed that House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, during the inquiry, abused his power by working with the National Security Agenda (NSA) to obtain Rep. Devin Nunes’ phone records. But according to former NSA attorney Susan Hennessey, Ingraham’s comments have zero basis in reality.

Ingraham made her claims about Schiff when far-right podcast host Sara Carter was a guest on her show on December 6. Ingraham asserted, “A knowledgeable source tells ‘The Ingraham Angle’ tonight that not only did Schiff get dirt from the secret subpoenas that he sent to phone companies, he also got help from the NSA. All Americans should be shocked by this and more — and demand a full and immediate investigation.”

Hennessey, on Twitter, responded that Ingraham doesn’t even understand how the NSA works. Now a legal analyst for CNN, Hennessey tweeted, “Hi, former NSA lawyer here. This is not how it works. At all. It’s not how the law works. It’s not how NSA works. It’s not how phone records work.”

The articles of impeachment against President Trump, explained

Now we have it: The reasons House Democrats will give to their fellow House lawmakers, to senators conducting a trial and to the history books for President Trump being unfit for office. They are giving two specific reasons, in the form of articles of impeachment unveiled Tuesday: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Let’s break them down.

1. Abuse of power

What it means: That Trump used the power of the presidency for his own benefit. Specifically the allegation that he leveraged the State Department, the White House budget office, his unique ability to conduct high-level diplomacy and taxpayer dollars to pressure Ukraine to announce political investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and a conspiracy theory that Democrats and Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, downplaying Russia’s broad involvement.

Experts bewildered as GOP counsel Castor offers stunningly weak defense of Trump at hearing

Attorney Steve Castor, the Republican Party’s lead counsel in House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings, did his best to defend President Donald Trump — but many experts believe his best was far from sufficient.

Throughout his opening statement, Castor barely touched upon the core allegations that Trump abused his office in order to pressure a foreign government to launch an investigation into his top rival in the 2020 presidential election.

In fact, Castor spent most of his time attacking Democrats, whom he accused of making up wild charges to bring down the president.

Linda Ronstadt tells Pompeo at dinner that he’ll ‘be loved’ when ‘he stops enabling Donald Trump’

Singer Linda Ronstadt took a swipe at Secretary of State Mike Pompeoduring a State Department dinner celebrating her and other Kennedy Center honorees on Saturday night, Variety reported.

At the start of the reception, during which honorees are typically presentedwith their Kennedy Center Honors medals, Pompeo reportedly referenced the singer’s 1975 track “When Will I Be Loved.”

“As I travel the world, I wonder, when will I be loved?” he reportedly said during his welcome address.

Democrats unveil articles of impeachment against Trump

House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Trump, accusing him of abusing his office for personal political gain and all but guaranteeing he becomes just the third president in the nation’s history to be impeached.

The historic move, which follows weeks of closed-door and public hearings on Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, carries far-reaching implications for a fiercely divided country that’s split roughly in half on whether Trump should be removed from office and ensures that the impeachment debate will carry far into an election year.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had resisted impeachment for most of the year, struck a somber tone when announcing the articles in the Capitol, saying Trump’s handling of foreign policy in Kyiv had left Democrats no alternative.

‘That is not true’: Manic Republican Mark Meadows shut down by CNN host for repeating lies about Ukraine

A fifteen-minute CNN interview with Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) wound down to an abrupt end on Sunday morning as the “State of the Union” host Dana Bash cut off the Trump defender’s insistence there was no quid pro quo offer from the president to Ukraine’s leadership, with the CNN host telling the GOP lawmaker, “That’s not true. I don’t want to debate about it.”

In an interview where Meadows continued to rage about former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, Bash finally brought up Trump’s phone call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to the impeachment inquiry.

Discussing the call where Trump asked for a favor, Meadows pushed back after she said Trump, “Allegedly held up aid and he said it in this phone call.”

Trump heads to court in fight over emoluments

The Trump administration is heading to court this week in two lawsuits charging that the president is violating the Constitution by profiting off of his hotels and other businesses while in office.

The cases revolve around the Constitution’s once-obscure emoluments clauses, which critics say President Trump has flouted, giving foreign diplomats an opening to curry favor with him by patronizing his businesses.

On Monday, a panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments over whether members of Congress can sue the president for alleged emoluments violations, and on Thursday, the full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments over whether state attorneys general can bring their own case.

Judiciary Committee Report Offers Legal Rationale for Impeaching Trump

The report, which echoes one released in 1974 as the House debated impeaching President Richard M. Nixon, comes two days before the committee will formally receive the evidence against President Trump.

WASHINGTON — House Democrats released a report on Saturdayintended to lay out the legal and historical underpinnings of their case for impeaching President Trump while also countering Republican accusations that the investigation of the president’s conduct in office has been unfair and illegitimate.

Democrats have accused the president of abusing his power by trying to pressure the Ukrainian government to announce investigations into his political rivals. They also claim that Mr. Trump obstructed the congressional inquiry by blocking witnesses from testifying and refusing to provide documents.

The 52-page report by the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee argues that the framers of the Constitution intentionally provided a way to remove the occupant of the Oval Office for just such misconduct.

More Than 500 Legal Scholars Call For Trump’s Impeachment

At a public House Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this week, three accomplished legal scholars offered extensive testimony explaining why they believe President Donald Trump should be impeached: Prof. Pamela Karlan of Stanford University, Prof. Noah Feldman of Harvard Law School and Prof. Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina Law School. But the three of them are by no means the only legal scholars calling for Trump’s impeachment, and at least 520 legal scholars — as of Friday afternoon — had signed a pro-impeachment open letter.

The letter goes into detail on specific testimony from the House Intelligence Committee’s recent impeachment hearings — and that testimony, the legal scholars assert, makes a solid case for impeaching Trump.

“William B. Taylor, who leads the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, testified that President Trump directed the withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid for Ukraine in its struggle against Russia — aid that Congress determined to be in the U.S. national security interest — until Ukraine announced investigations that would aid the president’s re-election campaign,” the letter states. “Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified that the president made a White House visit for the Ukrainian president conditional on public announcement of those investigations.”

Schiff: Pence aide provided new impeachment evidence — but VP’s office classified it

A national security aide to Vice President Mike Pence submitted additional classified evidence to House impeachment investigators about a phone call between Pence and Ukraine’s president, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff revealed Friday.

In a letter to Pence, Schiff (D-Calif.) asked the vice president to declassify supplemental testimony from the aide, Jennifer Williams, about Pence’s Sept. 18 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, arguing that there is no “legitimate basis” to keep it secret.

“The Office of the Vice President’s decision to classify ‘certain portions’ of the Sept. 18 call … cannot be justified on national security or any other legitimate grounds we can discern,” Schiff wrote to Pence, requesting a response by Dec. 11.

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1. Abuse of power

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The report, which echoes one released in 1974 as the House debated impeaching President Richard M. Nixon, comes two days before the committee will formally receive the evidence against President Trump.

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