Pant's On!
Susan Collins says she's 'open' to calling witnesses in Senate impeachment trial
BY JORDAIN CARNEY - 12/30/19 09:19 PM EST
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said on Monday that she is "open" to calling witnesses as part of the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump but stressed that it is still too early to decide who, if anyone, should be called.
Collins — in separate interviews with Maine Public Radio and WCSH, a Maine TV station — said a decision on potential witnesses should wait until after opening arguments from both House impeachment managers and Trump's team.
"I am open to witnesses. I think it's premature to decide who should be called until we see the evidence that is presented and get the answers to the questions that we senators can submit through the Chief Justice to both sides," Collins told Maine Public Radio when asked about calling acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney or former national security adviser John Bolton.
Collins said she thought Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) should look to the Clinton impeachment trial as a framework for their negotiations. Collins, one of the 15 senators in the chamber in 1999, said the Clinton agreement was "fair" and "thorough."
During the Clinton trial, senators voted 100-0 on a resolution detailing the rules and process for the proceeding. A second resolution that called for closed-door depositions of three specific witnesses broke down along party lines.
"We then had a vote on whether or not we needed further information, and we decided to depose three witnesses. So they did not testify in person, but they were deposed by both sides, and that was a valuable way to proceed in that trial," Collins told WCSH recalling the Clinton process.
Collins added that it was "hard to envision" that McConnell and Schumer will be able deal on the start of the impeachment trial that would pass 100-0. The Senate left town earlier this month until January with the two leaders at an "impasse" over the impeachment trial rules.
Collins told Maine Public Radio that she's spoken in the GOP caucus about urging leaders to use the Clinton trial as their framework.
"I have shared with my colleagues my belief that the Clinton approach, the approach to the Clinton trial worked well," she said.
Collins's comments come even as many of her GOP colleagues, including McConnell, are lining up behind a quick impeachment trial with potentially no witnesses from either Trump's team or the House impeachment managers.
Republicans want to punt the decision on potential witnesses until after opening arguments, but McConnell told Fox News Radio earlier this month that "after we've heard the arguments, we ought to vote and move on."
Collins has emerged as a key swing vote to watch in the Senate impeachment proceeding. She has not tipped her hand as to how she might vote on conviction or acquittal.
Democrats are requesting four witnesses as part of the trial, including Mulvaney and Bolton, as well as Ukraine-related documents. They'll need to win over four GOP senators in order to successfully call a witness during the trial and have pledged that they will force votes on the Senate floor.
But Schumer wants to pass one resolution at the outset of the trial that would include both a deal on process and a deal on specific witnesses instead of two separate resolutions.
The House voted earlier this month to impeach Trump on two counts: one charging him with abuse of power in his dealings with Ukraine and the second with obstruction of Congress during its investigation of those actions.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hasn't said when she will send over the articles. Senators expect the Senate trial will start in January.
"The House chose to ignore the option of going to court and rushed to get through the articles of impeachment by Christmas and yet has still not sent them over to the Senate," Collins said about the House process.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/476312-susan-collins-says-shes-open-to-calling-witnesses-in-senate-impeachment-trial
Giuliani associate asks court to allow handing over documents sought in Trump impeachment
Reuters•December 31, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of U.S. President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has asked a court for permission to turn over the contents of Parnas' phone and other documents to a House of Representatives panel for use in the Trump impeachment inquiry, his lawyer said on Monday.
Lawyer Joseph Bondy said in a tweet that the Justice Department on Tuesday would be producing the documents and the contents of the phone seized from Parnas when he was arrested in October.
The government "does not object" to Parnas handing over the documents to the House Intelligence Committee, subject to approval by the court, Bondy wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken in New York.
Parnas, a Ukraine-born U.S. citizen, was charged alongside another Florida businessman, Belarus-born Igor Fruman, with illegally funneling money to a pro-Trump election committee and other politicians. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Giuliani has said Parnas and Fruman assisted him in investigating one of the Republican president's political rivals, former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden, and Biden's son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
Trump was impeached by the Democratic-led House on Dec. 18 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The House intelligence panel played a leading role in the investigation, which focused on Trump's effort to push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open investigations into Biden, a leading contender to run against Trump in the 2020 election, and a debunked theory on election interference.
In the letter to Oetken, Bondy said review of the material, which the House panel had subpoenaed, was essential for its "ability to corroborate the strength" of Parnas' potential testimony.
Bondy said he and Parnas did not know "whether we intend to produce the entirety of the materials, or a subset filtered for either privilege or relevancy."
Bondy said in early November that Parnas was prepared to comply with requests for records and testimony from congressional impeachment investigators.
(Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Peter Cooney)
https://news.yahoo.com/giuliani-associate-asks-court-allow-032627498.html
Buttigieg: I would not have wanted my son on Ukraine board
Dec 31, 2019 By Canadian Press
FORT MADISON, Iowa — Pete Buttigieg said Monday that he “would not have wanted to see” his son serving on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company while he was leading anti-corruption efforts in the country, an implicit criticism of the controversy that has ensnared his 2020 Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden’s position on the board of the company Burisma has been a rallying point for Republicans as they try to defend President Donald Trump against impeachment charges over Trump asking Ukraine’s new president to investigate the former vice-president and his son while also withholding crucial U.S. military aid.
Buttigieg, the childless mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said in an Associated Press interview that his administration would “do everything we can to prevent even the appearance of a conflict. That’s very important because as we see it can create a lot of complications even when there is no wrongdoing.”
Still, he insisted that the issues raised about Hunter Biden and his father by Trump and his defenders are a diversionary tactic.
But his competitors have suggested that is not sufficient to take on problems on a global scale and politics that are dramatically more complex and bitter. He said a Democratic president would have a mandate for measures to advance health care, curb climate change and enact gun restrictions.
President Barack Obama, who had served as a U.S. senator, soon found that the solid wall of Republican opposition, led by McConnell, made even modest change fundamentally difficult. Buttigieg said he is not daunted by Obama’s experience.
He promises to staff his White House with savvy legislative aides, but more broadly, he is calling for circumventing McConnell to build public pressure for the issues that enjoy broad bipartisan majorities, larger than 10 years ago, he said.
“It’s not that I don’t understand the ways of official Washington,” he said. “It’s that I don’t accept them.”
And though he referred to Trump on Sunday at a rally in Fort Madison as a “bully who specializes in identifying your vulnerabilities,” Buttigieg, wrapping up a three-day trip through central and eastern Iowa, stopped short in the interview of suggesting he was expecting Trump to make his sexual identity an issue.
“I don’t possess enough imagination to speculate exactly what forms of creative meanness this president will develop toward me or any fellow Democrat,” he told the AP.
Thomas Beaumont, The Associated Press
https://rdnewsnow.com/2019/12/31/buttigieg-i-would-not-have-wanted-my-son-on-ukraine-board/
Expect bounce back from revolution in 2020
Posted Dec 30, 2019 at 10:37 AM
In a republic ravaged by political correctness, it’s almost inevitable that 2020 will be a year for clearer vision.
And too many people will be using that same ophthalmological allegory.
After the 2016 election, the “resistance” went mad. Liberal members of Generation Z, who experienced the inconceivable situation of not getting everything they wanted for the first time in their lives, led the angry revolution to radicalize our culture.
But the pendulum swung too far. Drawing upon historian Crane Brinton’s stages of revolution — and my own long-ago studies of revolutions, which I am finally putting to use — it appears we’ve passed through the crisis stage in which moderates are rejected, radicals take over and mob justice reins.
The 2016 election began the recovery stage in which radicals are overthrown and the status quo, national pride and faith are restored. I see this trend maturing in 2020.
Youngsters sniping back with “OK, Boomer” can’t stop it.
Three full years of accusations, complaints, hearings and investigations produced only weak and partisan articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. The once-anticipated Mueller Report gathers dust on congressional bookshelves and the salacious Steele dossier used to discredit the 2016 election has been itself discredited.
While it’s nice to see U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her comrades suddenly respecting our flag and the U.S. Constitution, expect them to forget all that soon enough. The American people, not so much. And they are watching.
Expect the worm to turn on Russia in 2020. The criminal investigation about the origins of the collusion accusations may result in John Brennan, James Clapper and other intelligence officials in former President Barack Obama’s administration facing their own charges of corruption.
More winning at the link!
David Almasi is the vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
https://www.agjournalonline.com/opinion/20191230/expect-bounce-back-from-revolution-in-2020
Hopefully righting the world as well.
Navy has been called in to evacuate people on east coast beaches.
Shit is really on fire yo.