Trump and the Giant Impeachment. Trump thread 97

[AcrossthePond55]

With credit to Stephen Colbert (and Roald Dahl) for the title.

Vote taken, public House hearings to begin. Here we gooooooo!!!

Sorry. Giuliani.

Nothing purposeful for sure.

apnews.com/6d318542e50b45dc9e1d4d829ad36c96?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP_Politics&utm_source=Twitter

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pulled out a new argument in the House’s ongoing impeachment inquiry Thursday: She said President Trump’s Ukraine actions amounted to bribery. Her declaration comes after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) suggested earlier in the week that bribery could be included in the impeachment articles brought against Trump.
Why is that significant? Because bribery is explicitly listed as an impeachable offense in the Constitution. Yet until recently, Democrats seemed content to focus on the other portion of the impeachment clause: “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Indeed, they had seldom even mentioned the other two impeachable offenses: treason and bribery.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/02/impeachable-offense-trump-may-have-committed-democrats-arent-really-talking-about/

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, a Trump ally, concedes reelection bid
www.washingtonpost.com/national/kentucky-gov-matt-bevin-a-trump-ally-concedes-reelection-bid/2019/11/14/5dfed6d8-0715-11ea-ac12-3325d49eacaa_story.html

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin conceded his race for reelection on Thursday, clearing the way for Democrat Andy Beshear to be sworn into office next month after he defeated the incumbent by about 5,000 votes.
Appearing at a news conference, Bevin (R) said the recanvass of the election results that he requested last week was unlikely to change the outcome of the race.
“We’re gonna have a change in the governorship based on the vote of the people, and what I want is to see the absolute best for Kentucky,” Bevin said. “I am not going to contest these numbers that have come in.”

Jennifer Bendery (Huff Post)
@jbendery
·
12m

'There are also handmaids standing outside the Federalist Society-Brett Kavanaugh dinner. As Federalist Society members pass by them in tuxedos.'

They also have Dr Blasey Ford's testimony broadcasting from a loudspeaker.

Damn.

edition.cnn.com/2019/11/14/politics/president-donald-trump-taxes-supreme-court/index.html?cid=web-alerts&nsid=20821835

'(CNN)President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court Thursday to block a Manhattan grand jury subpoena for copies of his financial records and tax returns, teeing up a test of Trump's expansive claims of immunity.

The case marks the first time lawyers for the President have gone to the Supreme Court arguing that the President is immune from criminal proceedings while in office.'

www.politicususa.com/2019/11/14/fox-news-poll-shows-trump-sinking-two-key-swing-states.html

Thank you for your links, lionheart. I particularly liked: "The president has never had the gall to essentially just tell Congress to go screw itself in an impeachment investigation," Bowman said.
Here's Dan Rather on "Yesterday in Impeachment":
"I’m new to some of this internet lingo. But I believe what Speaker Pelosi did today is considered throwing serious shade. Take a walk in the forest. Break out the umbrellas."

Daniel Dale - Lie detector

My personal experience with Trump's dishonesty escalation: in 2017, I could fact check all of his false claims for the week in a few hours on Sunday. In 2018, it started taking almost all of Sunday and some additional time. Now it requires two people.

Trump is now averaging 10 false claims per day over the 18 weeks I've been counting at CNN. It was 3 per day in 2017, 8 per day in 2018.

That includes repeats. I count each new occurrence separately. (If he says the same thing multiple times at the same event, I count that as one occurrence.) So, for example, he'd made his claim that the whistleblower was very wrong 38 times through Sunday.

twitter.com/ddale8/status/1195033506440712198?s=21

www.cnn.com/2019/11/14/politics/fact-check-trump-november-67-false-claims/index.html

I like this idea of a 'deadly dagger' :

pagesix.com/2019/11/14/donald-trump-jr-may-have-bulk-purchased-his-own-book-to-juice-sales/?utm_source=P6Twitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

'Donald Trump Jr.’s new book hit No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list this week — “but with a big caveat,” book insiders noted.

The tome, “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants To Silence Us,” shot to the top of the Times’ nonfiction list. But a source noted of Trump’s achievement: “It has the big dagger [symbol] next to it, which means a large portion of the sales came from bulk orders.”'

which means a large portion of the sales came from bulk orders

There, fixed it for them.

Lots up today. Day 2 of the impeachment, the Stone jury is now deliberating, Scrotus has a case before the Supreme Court re the release of his tax returns.

I expect that the SCOTUS will 'bump' his case to the head of the line as it has a direct bearing on just about everything going on. IF they find in his favour it will pretty much assure that a POTUS does have 'supreme immunity' as Scrotus has claimed. If they find against him, his 'Jericho Walls' will come tumbling down.

Ambassador Yovanovitch now testifying. She's the one who Trump sacked. She has a huge career behind her.

She is articulate and concise and at the moment it is Democrats questioning her. I cannot imagine her getting rattled with Republican questioning.

Bring it.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/laurence-tribe-donald-trump-defenders_us_5dce5ee2e4b029474814d0f2?ri18n=true

Marie Yovanovitch: "Our Ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray, and shady interests the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an American Ambassador who does not give them what they want."

Distractions:

www.thedailybeast.com/transcript-shows-wh-made-up-details-of-trumps-zelensky-call?source=twitter&via=desktop

Plus, Trump is tweeting.

Quite incredible. As Yovanovitch is testifying, Trump is trashing her on Twitter. (This is a woman who has given 33 years impeccable service to the US)
Schiff reads out the tweets to her. She is visibly upset as anyone would be.
Schiff says he will be taking witness intimidation very very seriously.

That man is a disgrace to the human race, let alone to the US Presidency.

Sad.

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
2h

'Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.'

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
2h

'....They call it “serving at the pleasure of the President.” The U.S. now has a very strong and powerful foreign policy, much different than proceeding administrations. It is called, quite simply, America First! With all of that, however, I have done FAR more for Ukraine than O.'

Let the good times roll.

A federal jury has convicted longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone of lying to Congress and tampering with a witness about his efforts to learn about the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks release of hacked Democratic emails in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The panel of nine women and three men deliberated for less than two days before finding Stone, 67, guilty on all seven counts resulting from his September 2017 testimony to a House intelligence committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Kremlin’s efforts to damage Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Stone, in a blue suit, stood at the defense table with his left hand in his pants pocket, watching impassively as verdicts were read.
Stone had argued that he was not intentionally dishonest and that the cases was politically motivated. But jurors sided with prosecutors who said Stone obstructed the House efforts because the truth would be embarrassing to Donald Trump’s campaign.
Stone’s indictment was the last brought by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, putting on trial his slippery brand of political brawling and revealing important new details about the Trump campaign’s keen interest in computer files hacked by Russia and made public by WikiLeaks. He was accused of lying to Congress and tampering with a witness, an associate prosecutors said Stone threatened in a bid to prevent the man from cooperating with lawmakers.
Though prosecutors sought to prove only that Stone had lied to Congress, they asserted that his motive for the falsehoods was protecting Trump from embarrassment — and thus made the president and his campaign a key component in their case.
www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/roger-stone-jury-weighs-evidence-and-a-defense-move-to-make-case-about-mueller/2019/11/15/554fff5a-06ff-11ea-8292-c46ee8cb3dce_story.html

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/15/marie-yovanovitch-becomes-victim-trumps-thuggishness-again-real-time/

www.wsj.com/articles/roger-stone-found-guilty-of-lying-to-congress-11573836593

Just seen that about Roger Stone's conviction and came on here!