Tag: Trump impeachment

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

Top House Republican gets slammed for blatantly lying about the FBI investigation of Trump campaign aides

AlterNet logoHouse Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pushed blatantly false allegations about the FBI investigation into four associates of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign over the weekend — lies that were retweeted more than 34,000 times at the time of this writing.

He claimed that the recent Justice Department inspector general report showed that “The FBI broke into President Trump’s campaign, spied on him, then tried to cover it up.” In fact, the report demonstrated clearly that McCarthy’s claim wasn’t true.

In the Fox News video clip accompanying the tweet, McCarthy explained what he meant by saying the FBI “broke into” the campaign: “They broke into his campaign by bringing people into it. They have been trying to cover it up for the whole time.” Continue reading

Former GOP senator warns Republicans they must ‘put country over party’ — ‘before it’s too late’

AlterNet logoWhen Arizona Republican Jeff Flake was serving in the U.S. Senate, he could be critical of President Donald Trump at times yet wasn’t a full-fledged Never Trump conservative like Washington Post columnist Max Boot, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough or GOP strategists Rick Wilson and Ana Navarro. And in an op-ed for the Washington Post, he addresses his former colleagues and urges them to “put country over party” when the time comes to serve as jurors in President Donald Trump’s Senate trial.

With Trump having been indicted on two articles of impeachment by the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can send them to the Senate for a trial —although she is holding onto them for now over concerns that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has no intention of honestly evaluating the articles.

Flake tells Republicans he used to serve with in the Senate, “I don’t envy you…. President Trump is on trial. But in a very real sense, so are you. And so is the political party to which we belong.” 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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The Memo: Impeachment’s scars cut deep with Trump, say those who know him

The Hill logoPresident Trump is blasting back at impeachment, but he will feel its scars deeply, according to people who know him.

Trump, for all his belligerence and bluster, is viewed by many who have been close to him as acutely insecure.

He has sought validation and respect for much of his adult life — and has often been frustrated when it has not been forthcoming.

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White House official directed hold on Ukraine aid shortly after Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky

Washington Post logoAn official from the White House budget office directed the Defense Department to “hold off” on sending military aid to Ukraine less than two hours after President Trump’s controversial phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to internal emails.

Michael Duffey, a senior budget official, told Pentagon officials that Trump had become personally interested in the Ukraine aid and had ordered the hold, according to the heavily redacted emails, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity on Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. He also asked the Pentagon not to discuss the hold widely.

“Given the sensitive nature of the request, I appreciate your keeping that information closely held to those who need to know to execute the direction,” Duffey wrote in a July 25 email to Pentagon Comptroller Elaine McCusker and others.

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