Impeachment, Democrats, and those 90,000 documents

For weeks, Democrats have been demanding to see new witnesses and documents for the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. Mostly they have emphasized witnesses. But on Tuesday, the first full day of the trial, the Democratic House managers seemed to turn up the call for documents, claiming that President Bill Clinton provided tens of thousands of pages of documents for his impeachment trial in 1999. "In the Clinton case, the president provided all of the documents – more than 90,000 pages of them – before the trial took place," the managers said in a statement released Tuesday morning. "[Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell's resolution rejects that basic necessity.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi backed up the managers. "For the Clinton trial, witnesses were deposed and the president provided more than 90,000 documents," she said Tuesday. "All of the documents in the Clinton trial were turned over prior to the trial," said lead impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff when arguments before the Senate began. "All 90,000 pages of them, so they could be used in the House's case." So a question: Where did the figure of 90,000 pages, or documents, come from? Did Bill Clinton helpfully cooperate with the House Republicans who were trying to remove him from office 20 years ago?

It turns out Schiff, Pelosi, and their colleagues were not telling the whole story. They got the 90,000 figure, apparently, from Clinton's rebuttal to the Starr report, the report independent counsel Kenneth Starr turned over to Congress on September 9, 1998, after seven months of investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair. In that rebuttal, given to Congress on September 11, Clinton's lawyers wrote: "During the past four and a half years, the President has…produced more than 90,000 pages of documents and other items" to investigators. But not to Congress. The Clinton situation was entirely different from the one Schiff and his fellow Democrats face today. Starr was an independent counsel, with full law enforcement powers, and his office issued many grand jury subpoenas, pushing Clinton, who often resisted fiercely, to turn over the 90,000 documents over the course of four and a half years, covering the Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, and Lewinsky probes. "If memory serves me correctly, I don't think he voluntarily gave us anything," said Sol Weisenberg, a former Starr prosecutor, in a conversation Tuesday.

With Trump, the House has been involved in a different process. Speaker Nancy Pelosi chose not to seek the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the Trump-Ukraine matter. (The old independent counsel law under which Starr was appointed expired years ago; a Trump-Ukraine special counsel investigation might have operated along the lines of the Mueller Trump-Russia investigation.) Instead, House Democrats conducted a hurried investigation that did not involve a grand jury or engage in the type of fighting for documents that Starr did. The House did issue a subpoena for documents, directed at White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, on October 4, 2019. The subpoena seemed almost certain to stir conflict, calling "for documents and communications that are highly delicate and would typically be subject in almost any White House to claims of executive privilege," according to the New York Times. The White House declined to provide the documents, arguing that the House impeachment process did not formally exist because the House had not at that point taken a formal vote beginning the process.

And when the White House did not turn over documents, the House did…nothing. "Did the House take any steps to remedy that?" asked Trump lawyer Patrick Philbin on the Senate floor Tuesday. "Did they try to dispute that? Did they go to court? Did they try to resolve that problem? No. Because as we know, all they wanted to do was issue a subpoena and move on."

Now, Democrats say they really, really want documents. After all, they claim, Bill Clinton turned over those 90,000 documents for his impeachment trial. How could Donald Trump do less? It sounds persuasive – until one finds out what really happened way back in 1998.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/impeachment-democrats-and-those-90-000-documents

GOP senator calls for ‘serious consequences for Chinese malfeasance’ after coronavirus outbreak

GOP Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas called for “serious consequences” against China as the deadly coronavirus begins to spread around the globe. During an interview on the Brian Kilmeade Show, Cotton ripped the Chinese government for failing to contain the spread of coronavirus after it was announced that the contagious disease had been detected in the United States. The first case of coronavirus appeared in Washington state after being previously isolated to China. Six had died, and nearly 300 were infected in China.

Cotton blamed China for the spread, saying, "The Chinese communist party has once again been caught red-handed covering up, suppressing, and censoring a serious public health risk." The Republican senator warned that the disease could be a “global public health risk.” He called on U.S. agencies to prioritize stopping the disease’s spread while demanding that China face international consequences for not quarantining the virus. "First off, our global public health authorities in the United States have to work to get this under control,” Cotton said. “But second, there needs to be serious consequences for Chinese malfeasance yet again.” He added: "For weeks, China did not come clean about the coronavirus that they first said was only being passed from animals to humans in a seafood market in Wuhan in China. But now we know … that it is increasingly being passed from person to person. We had our first confirmed U.S. case happen just in the last couple of days, and it is spreading around the globe." Cotton also expressed his outrage on Twitter, writing, “The [Chinese Communist Party] is once again keeping the world in the dark about a deadly outbreak. This harmful approach will only ensure the virus spreads further. Beijing must be fully transparent starting now to prevent this from becoming a pandemic.”

The infected person had been overseas before returning to his home north of Seattle, Washington. The state’s health secretary, John Wiesman, said the man “acted quickly” after feeling symptoms. He has since been quarantined and is receiving treatment. Authorities are also conducting screenings at airports throughout the U.S. to contain the disease.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/gop-senator-calls-for-serious-consequences-for-chinese-malfeasance-after-coronavirus-outbreak

55% say media are ‘corrupt’ and 'exaggerate' news

It’s been a tough few days for the news media, having exaggerated the involvement of white supremacists and haters at the gun rally in Richmond, Virginia, hyping impeachment coverage, and watching in dismay as level-headed Arizona Sen. Martha McSally called a CNN reporter a “liberal hack.”

And now, there’s a survey that shows just how much confidence in the news media consumers have lost, a trend started decades ago but supercharged since the 2016 election. According to a survey done for SeniorList, a medical device firm focused on older Americans, 55% of Americans believe that the media is “corrupt.” In addition, many, especially Republicans, believe that the media exaggerates stories while some Democrats believe reporters minimize issues, a sign that the political polarization in media has deepened. And, said the survey provided exclusively to Secrets, consumers are bored with the repetitive nature of some electronic and internet outlets.

“The repetitive programming on networks and websites and the emphasis of the media to pump the news cycle with the same stories can create burnout, causing many to question the overall quality of the news,” said the survey analysis. The answer, it said, is to read more news sources and check facts out.

And it offered some tips to news media consumers:

Be aware of inherent bias in reporting, and stick to media that deliver quality news stories.

Read up on which sources have a high level of bias and which are objective in their reporting.

Enjoy opinion-based programming with a grain of salt, knowing they have a narrative to push.

Fact-check whenever possible, even when you trust the source.

Question what you see on the internet, and be aware of satire or fake news websites that promote false stories.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/55-say-media-is-corrupt-and-exaggerates-news