Tag: Trump impeachment

White House lawyer says he will defy impeachment subpoena

The Hill logoWhite House lawyer John Eisenberg said that despite being subpoenaed to appear, he will not show up for testimony in the House impeachment inquiry on Monday, on instructions from President Trump. 

White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in a letter to William Burck, Eisenberg’s attorney, on Sunday that the Justice Department had advised him that Eisenberg, as a senior adviser to Trump, is “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters related to his service as a senior adviser to the President.”

“The constitutional immunity of current and former senior advisers to the President exists to protect the institution of the Presidency and, as stated by former Attorney General [Janet] Reno, ‘may not be overborne by competing congressional interests,” Cipollone wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Hill.

View the complete November 4 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Trump faces challenging path one year out from election

The Hill logoNEWTON, Iowa — A year before voters head to the polls to pick America’s next president, the country stands bitterly divided over its own future, the leaders who will guide us there and even their fellow citizens.
The America that both President Trump and his Democratic rivals seek to lead is backed more strongly into its partisan corners than at any point in recent memory, less likely to give the benefit of the doubt to those on the other side of the aisle, less interested in compromise and even more suspicious of the other side’s motives.
There are two things Americans do agree on: The first is the extent of the division within the country. Three-quarters of voters recently told Pew Research Center pollsters that most Republicans and most Democrats do not even agree on the same set of basic facts from which to begin a debate.

View the complete November 4 article by Reid Wilson on The Hill website here.

Trump demands testimony from whistleblower

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Monday demanded that the anonymous whistleblower who raised an alarm about his contacts with Ukraine testify.

Trump said it was “not acceptable” for the whistleblower to answer written questions from Republican lawmakers in connection with the House impeachment inquiry, as his attorneys communicated was on the table on Sunday. And he claimed without evidence that the whistleblower gave “false information.”

The president also referenced revelations that the whistleblower contacted House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) committee for guidance before filing the complaint, calling the top Democrat “corrupt.”

View the complete November 4 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

GOP lawmakers fear Trump becoming too consumed by impeachment fight

The Hill logoSenate Republicans want President Trump to focus more on his agenda and not let himself become personally consumed by the House impeachment inquiry, which is likely to hit a dead end in the Senate.

Senate Republicans have urged the president on multiple occasions to keep his eye on top policy priorities and let his allies on Capitol Hill handle more of the day-to-day skirmishing over impeachment, according to GOP sources familiar with communications with the president.

One instance came late last month during a meeting between Trump and Republican senators at the White House, when Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) urged the president to follow the model of how President Clinton handled impeachment in 1998 and 1999.

View the complete November 4 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Trump Threatens Government Shutdown To Thwart Impeachment

President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters from the South Lawn of the White House Sunday afternoon, refused to rule out a shutdown of the Federal government if Democrats don’t end the impeachment inquiry.

The president took time to erroneously frame the impeachment inquiry, falsely claiming it is over just his July 25 phone call during which he attempted to extort the president of Ukraine.

Asked if he would “commit to no government shutdown,” President Trump refused.

View the complete November 3 article by David Badash from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

Trump’s impeachment inbox

The president is obsessively following media coverage of his political predicament and monitoring Republican reaction in near real time.

President Trump doesn’t think House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry should get any media coverage.

Meanwhile, he’s ravenously consuming news about the subject — primarily through a friendly lens. From the Oval Office to the White House residence to Air Force One, he’s closely tracking how Republican members of Congress are digesting the latest revelations on his handling of Ukraine, and monitoring their statements for any sign of hesitation or perceived disloyalty.

“We’re getting fucking killed,” Trump often gripes — a complaint about media coverage that is escalating in volume and frequency amid the impeachment probe, according to a Republican close to the White House. “He does make that comment literally every day.”

View the complete November 3 article by Daniel Lippman on the Politico website here.

Trump inches closer to outing purported whistleblower

The president complained about the impeachment inquiry on the same day top Democrats vowed to release details from their closed-door proceedings

President Donald Trump on Sunday reiterated his calls to reveal the name of the whistleblower behind the complaint that led to the House’s formal impeachment inquiry, mentioning unconfirmed reports about the person’s identity and possible ties to the previous administration.

Trump sought to discredit the whistleblower, linking the individual to his Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama, as well as former CIA director John Brennan and former national security adviser Susan Rice — two of Obama’s top aides.

“There have have been stories written about a certain individual, a male, and they say he’s the whistleblower,” Trump told reporters outside the White House. “If he’s the whistleblower, he has no credibility because he’s a Brennan guy, he’s a Susan Rice guy, he’s an Obama guy. And he hates Trump.”

View the complete November 3 article by Rishika Dugyala and Sarah Ferris on the Politico website here.

Democrats to test Trump as impeachment moves to new stage

The Hill logoThe House impeachment inquiry is set to move into a new, more public phase in the coming weeks that will test the viability of President Trump’s defense strategy.

Trump is in uncharted waters, as he may become the first president to seek reelection after being impeached.

“We are prepared for an impeachment to happen,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Friday on Fox News, underscoring the air of inevitability surrounding the proceedings.

View the complete November 3 article by Brett Samuels and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Republican House members planning all-out attack on whistleblower and more ‘stunts’ during public impeachment hearings: report

AlterNet logoAccording to a report from the Daily Beast, Republican House members who failed in their attempt to derail the private impeachment hearings are gearing up their attack machine for the public hearings on Donald Trump after the House voted to proceed last week.

Now that Republicans have had their “process” complaints about secrecy taken away with the move to open hearings, they are planning an all-out assault to disrupt the hearings in any way they can.

“According to GOP lawmakers and aides, the party’s game plan includes calling for witnesses who could bolster their narrative and hammering away at the anonymous whistleblower whose account launched the inquiry in the first place,” the Beast reports. “They’re also holding out the possibility of more tactics to disrupt impeachment—like last week’s stunt to shut down the inquiry’s secure hearing room. Lawmakers are also likely to release a report when the probe is concluded to counter the report the Democratic majority will release to form the basis for impeachment.”

View the complete November 3 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

‘We’re done with this conversation’: CNN host cuts off interview with Trump defender spewing conspiracy theories

AlterNet logoOn CNN Saturday, former Lt. Gov. André Bauer (R-SC) tried to deflect from President Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal by changing the subject to Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton — only for host Victor Blackwell to shut him down.

“Let’s start here with what we’re getting from the Washington Post. Senators now willing to acknowledge, yeah, it was a quid pro quo,” said Blackwell. “You think that’s — one, are you willing to acknowledge what acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged, and do you think it’s right for Republicans to do so too?”

“I don’t think it’s a quid pro quo … Trump to me said it in a jovial manner, look, you all ought to investigate this guy, his son’s making $50,000 a month,” said Bauer.

View the complete November 2 article by Matthew Chapman from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.