Biden confronted on Ukraine but doesn't answer

The Yellow Joe of Texas

Joe Biden performed his own version of a Texas two-step at a campaign stop in San Antonio on Friday night, letting a crowd of supporters drown out a protester who confronted him on Ukraine -- before the ex-vice president could answer -- and then continuing his rhetorical attack on President Trump.
It happened while Biden was assailing Trump’s record on immigration and veteran care.
“America can overcome four years of Donald Trump’s chaos and corruption, but if re-elected it will forever fundamentally change the character of who we are as a nation," Biden told the crowd. "We can’t let this happen. This election is about the soul of our nation and Donald Trump has poisoned our soul.”
Soon a man in the crowd – not shown on camera – interjected to ask: “What about corruption in Ukraine?”
The reference was to Biden's past dealings in the country, where his son, Hunter Biden, reportedly held a seven-figure job with Ukraine’s largest natural gas company, Burisma Holdings. At the same time, the elder Biden -- as vice president under Barack Obama -- was leading an effort to oust a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating the company, raising concerns about a possible conflict of interest.
The Bidens' history in Ukraine has been a growing concern for the White House and Republicans as Democrats in Congress pursue the possible impeachment of President Trump over a July phone call in which the president allegedly tried to make an announcement of a Ukraine investigation into the Bidens a condition for the country's new administration to receive military aid from the U.S.
But before Biden could address the Ukraine question on Friday, the crowd booed the protester and began to chant, “We want Joe!”
Biden seemed to follow the crowd's lead.
“This man represents Donald Trump very well. He’s just like Donald Trump,” Biden said of the protester, who appeared to leave the event, with the  crowd waving goodbye to him -- though it was unclear if he chose to leave or if he was forced out either by security or other attendees.
“A great American,” Biden continued. "Just let him go. … Don’t hurt … Just let him go. … This is not a Trump rally. This is a real rally.”
With Texas considered a battleground state in the 2020 presidential race, Biden refrained from side-swiping any other top-tier Democratic rivals despite tightening polls ahead of February’s primary and caucus in New Hampshire and Iowa, respectively, the first times voters will actually help determine the party’s nominee for the White House.
With the protester gone, Biden resumed his verbal attack on Trump.
“As my mother would say, God bless me. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” Biden said, making the sign of the cross before continuing his rebuke of the president.
Biden then seemed to imply that Trump was responsible for the Aug. 3 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, that left 22 people dead.
“Remember in '18, {Trump] claimed there was an invasion of Latinos coming across the border? 'They’re going to invade and pollute America,'" Biden said. "Well guess what? The words presidents say matter. It didn't take long after that, that a guy down in El Paso walked into a parking lot and gunned down a lot of innocent people and he says, 'I’m doing it to prevent the invasion of Texas by Hispanics.'”
Authorities said the suspect, Patrick Crusius, 21, of Allen, Texas, had written a manifesto that said the shooting was fueled by fear of an "invasion" by illegal immigrants, adding that the city's large Hispanic population played a part in their targeting. In October, Crusius pleaded not guilty in connection with the shooting and is due to return to court Nov. 7.
Trump condemned the shooting as “an act of cowardice” on Twitter, adding, “I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people.”
San Antonio, where Biden spoke Friday, is the city where long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro served as mayor before joining Obama's administration as secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Speaking at an event in Iowa last week, Biden called a man a “damn liar” after he took a swipe at son Hunter's role on the board of a controversial Ukrainian natural gas firm.
“You sent your son over there to get a job and work for a gas company where he had no experience,” the man began during the heated question-and-answer session at the forum in New Hampton. “In order to get access for the president … you’re selling access to the president just like he was.”
Biden fired back: “You’re a damn liar, man. That’s not true and no one has ever said that.”
The claim that Biden “sent” his son to Ukraine for a job at Burisma is not accurate.
Someone appeared to attempt to take the microphone away from the man in the audience, but Biden stopped them, saying, “let him go.”
“No one has said my son has done anything wrong and I did not, on any occasion," he continued, only to be cut off by the man in the audience who shouted that he “never said” Biden was “doing anything wrong.”
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Pelosi 2019 Cartoons

Trial-ready: Pelosi faces choice on impeachment prosecutors

WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s a campaign going on in Washington that even the most garrulous members of Congress aren’t eager to talk about: to be part of a team of uncertain size, with a risky mission, to be named by a leader who isn’t talking about what she’s looking for or when she’ll decide.

Welcome to the race within the House to win a spot on the Democratic team that will prosecute the impeachment case against President Donald Trump. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the sole decider, but she offered no hints Thursday as the impeachment saga accelerated toward an expected vote next week by the full House — and, in January, a Senate trial.

“When the time is right, you’ll know who the people are,” she told reporters Thursday.

But they’ll have to be the right people, by Pelosi’s measure, to press the Democrats’ case that they are defending the Constitution against a president who put betrayed his oath by pushing a foreign country to help him in the 2020 elections.

The impeachment managers will have to withstand the scrutiny and risk of prosecuting the case against Trump from the floor of the Republican-held Senate, before a global audience. And be willing to face the near-certainty of defeat, as the Senate appears unlikely to convict and remove Trump from office.

“They’re ugly,” Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, said of the Senate proceedings. He would know, as a manager of former President Bill Clinton’s trial two decades ago. “I have a lot of sympathy for the House managers that are going to be picked.”

Plenty of ambitious people are quietly jockeying for the job by writing Pelosi letters nominating themselves, spreading the word or just hoping their work impresses her. The campaigns are exceptionally sensitive, since lobbying Pelosi or looking to gain fame or campaign funds from impeachment could backfire. But the widely televised public hearings before the House Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee are thought to have served a kind of audition for the most likely Democrats to be appointed to the team.

The competition has kept aides, reporters and lawmakers talking for weeks. But few, if any, seem to have solid insight into Pelosi’s plans.

Yet a few things seemed likely. Almost certainly, the team won’t include Democratic freshmen from Trump-won districts who are the most at risk in their reelection bids this year.

The group seems certain to be diverse in race and gender, providing a contrast to the 13 white, male Republican lawmakers who prosecuted the case against Clinton. (Trump’s defense at the trial will be conducted by his legal team, not lawmakers.)

Pelosi also has suggested in private that she’s concerned about “geographic diversity” on the team, according to a Democratic aide who was not authorized to speak publicly about her thinking.

That means she’s likely to name at least one manager from someplace other than the robustly Democratic U.S. coasts, which could help counter the GOP argument that impeachment is a partisan, elitist exercise to topple Trump from power.

She’ll also want managers who have legal experience as well as deep knowledge of the case against Trump. That likely means members drawn from the rosters of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees that led the investigation and wrote the articles of impeachment.

The members who check the most boxes start with the chairmen of both panels. Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California has drawn widespread praise — and Trump’s ferocious scorn — for his investigation of the president’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate the family of Democratic hopeful Joe Biden. Schiff, a former prosecutor, is exceptionally close to Pelosi. She yielded the podium to him at a recent press conference and opted to watch his statement from the audience, alongside reporters.

Nadler is a veteran of the Clinton impeachment proceedings, led his panel through the consideration of the articles and will be the sponsor of the legislation when it comes to the full House.

No matter whom Pelosi names, the team will have a sensitive, high-profile role in a process that’s only been undertaken three times in American history.

After the House vote to impeach Trump, it is expected to inform the Senate that it has authorized the managers to conduct the trial in the Senate. According to a November report on the process by the Congressional Research Service, the Senate then informs the House when the managers can present the articles. Doing so will kick off a solemn sequence of pageantry, wherein the House prosecutors cross the Capitol and enter the Senate chamber, presided over by Chief Justice John Roberts and populated with senators who act as the jury.

The House members then read the resolution containing the articles and leave until the Senate invites them back for the trial. The prosecutors, possibly assisted by outside counsel, present the evidence against Trump and respond to any of the president’s lawyers or senators.

Democratic candidates unite against Trump but little else

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic White House hopefuls agree President Donald Trump must be defeated next year. But the unity ends there.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, are locked in an increasingly acrimonious feud that threatens to change the tone of the Democratic primary. The tension was on display Thursday as the candidates knocked one another as being spineless in standing up to the rich or throwing out wildly unrealistic proposals.

That followed a week of barbs between Warren and Buttigieg as they called on the other to be more forthcoming about their past. Buttigieg pressed Warren to reveal her previous legal work for corporations while Warren said Buttigieg should open his private fundraisers and detail the companies he worked for as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. a decade ago.

The hits mark a shift in a Democratic primary that has so far been largely devoid of tension, to the point that some candidates refused obvious opportunities to slam one another when they shared a debate stage last month. But as they prepare to debate again next week, that reluctance has dissipated and a clear battle is emerging between Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who are leading the call for major overhauls to American life, and Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden, who are urging pragmatism.

The scrapping serves as a proxy for the ideological fight that Democrats will need to resolve quickly next year if they are to rally behind a nominee who can inspire the energy and motivation that will be required to beat Trump.

“It’s too early to say how this thing is going to play out,” said David Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama and said the growing intensity of the primary reflects how strongly Democrats feel about the need to win next year.

As the fight deepens, so too do the potential risks for those involved. For Buttigieg, the exchanges are doing little to endear him with the voters he needs to rebuild the type of coalition that twice elected Obama. He’s already struggling to appeal to minorities and acknowledged on Thursday that younger voters are siding with more progressive candidates such as Sanders.

“It is certainly the case that often younger candidates tend to attract more support from older voters,” the 37-year-old Buttigieg told CBS on Thursday. “The Sanders campaign definitely has more young voters. I was a big fan of Bernie Sanders when I was 18 years old.”

More fundamentally, the attention on Buttigieg’s ties to big donors and his past consulting work leaves him vulnerable to being portrayed as a status quo politician instead of a fresh face who could usher generational change into Washington.

He faced new criticism on Thursday for his past consulting work, including a study he helped produce for the U.S. Postal Service. Buttigieg’s campaign said that he was “part of a team tasked with generating ideas to increase revenue like selling greeting cards and increasing the use of flat rate boxes” and that he “never worked on cost-cutting or anything involving staff reorganization or the privatization of essential post office services.”

But Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents over 200,000 postal service workers and retirees, blamed the study for leading to “the closing of many processing centers.”

“I can’t honestly say what section or paragraphs of the reports he was involved with,” Dimondstein, whose union hasn’t endorsed a candidate, told The Associated Press. “But I will say generally, shame on anybody that was part of facilitating these McKinsey reports. This is the opposite of what the people of this country need.”

Warren faces potential trouble of her own. Her strident positions against corporations could alienate voters who work for such firms and would otherwise support a Democrat against Trump. And her plateau in some polls coincides with persistent prodding from Buttigieg over how she would pay for her “Medicare for All” proposal, including its cost and elimination of private insurance coverage.

Yet she’s also forced Buttigieg’s hand in some cases. He began opening his fundraisers this week, leading to some awkward moments.

Liberal protesters followed Buttigieg across Manhattan over two days as he courted major donors at four events. Not knowing the specific addresses of his events, they marched to the apartment buildings of several wealthy donors until they found him.

On Wednesday night, roughly two dozen people, mostly Sanders and Warren supporters, interrupted Buttigieg’s event repeatedly. One protester entered the Upper West Side brownstone yelling “Where’s Mayor Pete?” as the presidential contender addressed roughly 60 donors upstairs, according to a pool report.

Less than 10 minutes later, protesters began banging pots and pans outside, shouting, “Wall Street Pete!”

Buttigieg tried to turn the disruption into a joke. “Wow, they’re excited,” he said, turning to his military experience. “One of the things you learn on a deployment is dealing with distracting noises.”

Neither candidate is backing away from the fight. Without mentioning Buttigieg, Warren seemed to refer to him in a speech she delivered Thursday in New Hampshire.

“I’m not betting my agenda on the naive hope that if Democrats adopt Republican critiques of progressive policies or make vague calls for unity that somehow the wealthy and well-connected will stand down,” she said.

Until recently, Warren and Sanders have focused much of their attention on Biden, who remains the front-runner in many national polls. Warren is testing strategies for confronting both men, who are battling to become the voice of moderation in the race.

In the same speech on Thursday in which she made thinly veiled criticisms of Buttigieg, Warren also decried Biden’s past comment to wealthy donors that “nothing would fundamentally change” if he’s elected.

The former vice president has largely stayed out of the Warren-Buttigieg dust-up, which could prove wise if Biden wants to improve his standing in early voting states. During the 2004 Iowa caucuses, for instance, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt clashed bitterly as voting neared, only to be defeated by Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

“My latest feeling is that Biden is undervalued in this race,” Axelrod said. “He has so lowered expectations that if he were to win Iowa or come close, he’s going to be in pretty good shape.”

___

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in New York and Michelle R. Smith in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.

___

Boris Johnson vows to resolve Brexit by Jan 31st, European markets hit record high after Conservative sweep

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to “get Brexit done” by Jan. 31, 2020 with “No ifs, no buts, no maybes” Friday morning following his Conservative Party’s landslide victory in the country’s general election.
A sudden burst in London-listed companies brought European markets to record peaks early Friday following Johnson’s victory as investors celebrated the probable end of more than three and half years of political turmoil in Britain once the United Kingdom settles on a deal to leave the European Union, Reuters reported.
“This election means that getting Brexit done is now the irrefutable, irresistible unarguable decision of the British people. With this election, I think we put an end to all those miserable threats of a second referendum,” Johnson told supporters early Friday.
“In this election, your voices have been heard and it’s about time too because we politicians have squandered this three years in squabbles about Brexit,” he continued. “I will put an end to all of that nonsense and we will get Brexit done on time by the 31st of January. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. Leaving the European Union as one United Kingdom, taking back control of our laws, borders, money, our trade, immigration system, delivering on the democratic mandate of the people.”
Johnson also promised that it was his Conservative Party’s top priority is to massively increase investments in the National Health Service and “make this country the cleanest, greenest on Earth with our far-reaching environmental program.” “You voted to be carbon neutral by 2015 and you also voted to be Corbyn neutral by Christmas and we’ll do that too,” he said.
The prime minister is scheduled to meet with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, where she will formally ask him to form a new government in her name. President Trump also tweeted his support for Johnson after his victory, hinting that “Britain and the United States will now be free to strike a massive new Trade Deal after BREXIT.”
Labour Party Chairman Ian Lavery told the BBC that he believes his party’s decision to support a second referendum on Brexit ultimately established distrust with voter, ultimately pushing them to put their faith in the Conservative Party at the ballot box in 2019.
“The fact that we went for a second referendum is the real issue in the Labour party. People feel like there’s a lack of trust, people feel like they are let down,” Lavery said.
Former Prime Minister David Cameron also congratulated Johnson, saying that election result "gives us a very strong and decisive government."
The Conservatives Party won 43.6 percent of the popular vote compared to the Labour Party’s 32.2 percent following Thursday night’s election. The Tories won by an 11.3 margin, the largest for the Conservatives since 1987. This compares to 2017 when the Labour Party lost the popular vote by only 2.4 percent.

Republicans erupt as Nadler suddenly postpones impeachment vote near midnight

Gobsmacked Republicans made known their fury and frustration late Thursday as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., abruptly wrapped up an all-day marathon hearing on the adoption of two articles of impeachment against President Trump by delaying planned votes on the matter until Friday morning.
"It is now very late at night," Nadler said shortly before midnight in D.C. "I want the members on both sides of the aisle to think about what has happened over these last two days, and to search their consciences before we cast their final votes. Therefore, the committee will now stand in recess until tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., at which point I will move to divide the question so that each of us may have the opportunity to cast up-or-down votes on each of the articles of impeachment, and let history be our judge."
Ranking Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., raised an immediate objection as Nadler began leaving, saying it was "the most bush-league stunt” he had ever seen.
"Mr. Chairman, there was no consulting with the ranking member on your schedule for tomorrow -- you just blew up schedules for everyone?" Collins asked incredulously. "You chose not to consult the ranking member on a scheduling issue of this magnitude? This is the kangaroo court we're talking about. Not even consult? Not even consult? 10 a.m. tomorrow?"
He later told reporters: “This is why people don't like us. This crap like this is why people are having such a terrible opinion of Congress. What Chairman Nadler just did, and his staff, and the rest of the majority who sat there quietly and said nothing, this is why they don't like us. They know it's all about games. It's all about the TV screens. They want the primetime hit. This is Speaker Pelosi and Adam Schiff and the others directing this committee. I don't have a chairman anymore. I guess I need to just go straight to Ms. Pelosi and say, what TV hit does this committee need to do? This committee has lost all relevance. I'll see y'all tomorrow."
Texas GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert called out the tactic as "Stalinesque," and other Republicans essentially heckled Nadler's conduct as unbelievable and "outrageous." Gohmert also openly suggested that Democrats wanted to have the vote when more people would be watching on television, and that they wanted to be able to say they had a "three-day trial" in the Judiciary Committee, even if they called no fact witnesses to appear before the panel.
“The claim that Republicans promised Judiciary Democrats that Thursday’s markup would end by 5:00 p.m. is false," Jessica Andrews, a spokeswoman for the House Judiciary Committee Republicans, told Fox News. "Republicans were prepared to offer an arsenal of appropriate amendments to address the clear deficiencies in the articles of impeachment and were told that the committee would be voting on articles Thursday evening. Judiciary Democrats broke their promise as the cameras and lights were fading. They chose, instead, to reconvene when ratings would be higher and the integrity of our committee would be at a historic low.”
There is no more time remaining for actual debate on the articles of impeachment under the 41-member Judiciary Committee's rules. On Friday morning, Fox News expects the panel to vote to adopt each article of impeachment on a party-line vote after a hearing that could last between 45 minutes to around 2 hours.
Then, the articles will likely head to the Rules Committee, which controls access to the House floor and sets the parameters of debate there, before the full House votes on whether to impeach the president. That final vote is expected next Wednesday or Thursday. Should the House impeach the president next week, the matter would go to the GOP-controlled Senate for a trial and virtually certain acquittal.
The last-minute confrontation on Thursday night was one final striking moment in long day full of them, where seemingly nothing was off-limits -- from Hunter Biden's rampant drug use to a Republican congressman's past drunken-driving arrest.
Hours earlier, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky looked "as if his daughter was downstairs in the basement, duct-taped" when he publicly undermined Democrats' case by declaring at the United Nations that he felt no undue pressure from the president to conduct any political investigations.
"The picture of President Trump and President Zelensky meeting in New York in September at the UN -- big chair for President Trump, little chair for President Zelensky. Big, 6-foot-4 President Trump, five-foot-eleven President Zelensky. ... There's an imbalance of power in that relationship," Johnson said, as some attendees laughed. Republicans, including Donald Trump Jr., responded by mocking Johnson online for once suggesting that the island of Guam could capsize due to overpopulation, and for deriding Trump supporters in highly personal terms.
"JUST IN: Democrats want to impeach the President for [checks notes] being too tall," the White House tweeted, as the hearing, which began at 9 a.m. ET, extended all the way into the late-night hours.
There was even some intrigue during breaks in the proceedings when a Reuters photographer, Josh Roberts, was caught on camera approaching the dais and furtively taking photographs of private documents that Louisiana GOP Rep. Mike Johnson said belonged to Republicans. Roberts was later escorted out of the Capitol building, and Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz announced at the hearing that Roberts had in fact photographed Democrats' desks. Reuters posted wire photos apparently showing the desk of Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., who was not in attendance at the hearing.
"Media spy games," House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., tweeted.
Democrats, for their part, accused Republicans of plotting procedural tricks. As the clock approached midnight, New York Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries complained that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had vowed in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity earlier on Thursday night that he would coordinate any Senate trial with the White House.
"There will be no difference between the President's position and our position in how to handle this," McConnell said.
In the meantime, though, all eyes were on the 31 moderate House Democrats from districts Trump won in 2016, most of whom have remained mum on how they'll vote, as support for impeachment has flatlined in several battleground-state polls. The House is comprised of 431 members, meaning Democrats would need 217 yeas to impeach Trump. There currently have been 233 Democrats, so they could lose only 16 of their own and still impeach the president.
During the day's markup, as members debated the language of the impeachment resolutions, Republicans repeatedly pointed out that Trump was not accused of any offense actually defined anywhere by law: neither "abuse of power" nor "obstruction of Congress" was a recognized federal or state crime.
Early in the hearing, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., supported Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan's amendment to strike Democrats' "abuse of power" article of impeachment entirely, arguing, "There was no impeachable offense here."
But, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., responded that impeachment articles did not necessarily have to include statutory crimes -- and that Trump’s actions would satisfy criminal statutes such as bribery anyway.
This led Gohmert, R-Texas, to retort, "Well then, why aren't they in this impeachment document?"
Democrats had floated the idea of formally accusing Trump of bribery, after focus groups suggested voters would like that term more. But, the idea fell out of favor after news of the focus group leaked, and analysts pointed out that Trump's conduct didn't seem to constitute bribery.
Later in the day, Gohmert observed that the Trump administration ultimately provided lethal aid to Ukraine, unlike former President Barack Obama, who also withheld military aid to Ukraine and "just let people die over there" by providing only nonlethal assistance.
Gohmert went on to object to the "obstruction of Congress" article of impeachment as "tyrannical," saying it violated separation-of-powers principles for Congress to impeach the president whenever he failed to cooperate fully with their investigations.
Under Obama, the White House repeatedly refused Republicans' document requests concerning the "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal, leading Congress to hold then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt. No impeachment proceedings were commenced.
Democrats countered that it simply was not "credible" that Trump was withholding aid to Ukraine for legitimate anticorruption evidence, even though he also withheld $100 million in assistance to Lebanon this year.
"The president has been talking about foreign corruption and the misuse of American taxpayers' [funds]" since before the 2016 election, Johnson, R-La., said, emphasizing that it was in-character for the president to rein in excess spending for NATO and elsewhere.
"Everybody knows the president s concerned about the misuse of taxpayer dollars overseas. It's one of his primary driving forces. It's one of his main talking points... Oh, Ukraine, the third-most corrupt nation in the world, is the only one he wasn't concerned about? It just doesn't make sense. Let's stop with the games."
At a particularly heated moment in the hearing, Gaetz, R-Fla., brought up Hunter Biden's admitted past substance abuse issues -- and Johnson, D-Ga., shot back by alluding to Gaetz's own past arrest for drunken driving.
Gaetz was arguing that Biden was incompetent and corrupt, citing his lucrative job on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings while his father was overseeing Ukraine policy as vice president. The impeachment inquiry began after Trump suggested the Ukrainians look into Joe Biden's successful effort to pressure Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor by withholding $1 billion in critical U.S. aid -- at a time when Burisma was under criminal scrutiny.
The Florida lawmaker referenced an article in The New Yorker, which included interviews with Hunter Biden and reported on a 2016 car crash in which the younger Biden was involved. According to that story, employees at a rental car agency claimed they found a crack pipe inside the vehicle. It also quoted Hunter Biden describing his attempts to buy crack cocaine in a Los Angeles homeless encampment.
"The pot calling the kettle black is not something we should do," Johnson said. "I don’t know what members, if any, have had any problems with substance abuse, been busted in DUI. I don't know, but if I did, I wouldn't raise it against anyone on this committee." Johnson added: "I don't think it’s proper."
Separately, Gaetz introduced a December 2017 article in The New York Times discussing Nadler's contemplation about impeaching the president years ago. Democrats, Gaetz and other Republicans said, have been trying to impeach and remove the president ever since he stunned the world by defeating Hillary Clinton, first by peddling discredited allegations that his campaign criminally conspired with Russians.
Impeachment, Republicans argued, was politically motivated theater, long in the works and foreshadowed openly by Democrats for months, if not years.
The two-day markup began late Wednesday and saw Republicans lambasting Democrats and the media for pushing discredited claims about the Trump campaign's Russia ties. The rapid pace of the markup and vote came as numerous polls showed declining support for impeachment in key swing states.
For example, impeachment and removal was opposed by 50.8 percent of voters in Michigan, 52.2 percent of voters in Pennsylvania, and 57.9 percent of voters in Wisconsin, according to the Firehouse/Optimus December Battleground State Poll.
Two other polls released Wednesday showed that most Americans did not want Trump impeached and removed.
Politico reported earlier this week that the numbers were making a "small group" of moderate Democrats, who have held seats in districts where Trump won in 2016, nervous about how to vote. They instead have suggested Trump be censured instead, which would prevent the GOP from holding a potentially damaging Senate trial and give them political cover in the upcoming election.
As the members debated Wednesday night, the White House Office of Management and Budget released a lengthy legal justification for the withholding of aid to Ukraine, which was obtained by Fox News. OMB classified the temporary pause in providing the aid to Ukraine as a "programmatic delay" that was necessary and proper under the law to "ensure that funds were not obligated prematurely in a manner that could conflict with the President's foreign policy."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., accused OMB of an "after-the-fact coverup" by writing its justification -- prompting Collins to respond, stunned, by noting that a Senate Democrat had requested the letter.
"It is amazing that this is an after-the fact coverup since it was asked by a Democratic senator," Collins said. "So, that's an after-the-fact coverup? ... This is exactly what I thought would happen when we came back from lunch."
Collins went on to point out that Zelensky repeatedly has said that he did not feel that Trump pressured him in any way, and that Democrats have taken to "belittling" Zelensky by calling him an "actor" and "weak" only because he undermined their case.
Jayapal also lamented that Trump hadn't followed official "talking points" provided by career bureaucrats while on his July phone call with Zelensky, prompting Republicans to respond that the president, as an elected official, is ultimately in charge of foreign policy.
When Democrats repeatedly argued that Trump's suspension of foreign aid had cost Ukrainian lives, Collins angrily responded that, even according to the same media reports cited by Democrats, no causal link had been shown between any Ukrainian casualties and the temporary aid hold up.
"People died!" Swalwell said late in the evening, charging that Collins wanted to ignore reality.
Collins called the arguments a "cheap shot" and "hogwash," reiterating that the Democrats' claims were entirely speculative, and that they were falsely claiming he'd said no one in Ukraine died.
"That is the most amazing, amazing, lack of honesty and integrity that I have ever seen," Collins said emphatically. "In wars, people die. Is that difficult to understand? It's not hard to understand. And, to say that. ... Besmirching the folks who died, that's just amazing to me, even for this majority. To sit there and keep repeating the lie, after lie, after lie. ... People died when there was money we released earlier. Are we going to claim that was because we didn't give them enough money? I don't know. I get it. Y'all have an agenda to push, and the clock is ticking."
Hardline Democrats in safe districts haven't budged on impeachment. California Rep. Karen Bass, for example, said earlier this week she's open to impeaching Trump again even if he were to win the 2020 election.
"This is the other side of it being political -- you’ve got about 30 House Democrats who are in districts won by Donald Trump and they realize that they are going to pay a political price if they go along with impeachment," Fox News contributor Charles Hurt, the opinion editor of The Washington Times, told "Fox & Friends" Wednesday.
Freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. -- who flipped a GOP district in 2018 that Trump won by 7 points in 2016 -- told Fox News last month that she was tentatively weighing all the evidence. On Wednesday, she confirmed she's still undecided.
"The phones are ringing off the hook," she told CNN. "We literally can't pick up the phones fast enough -- and it's people on both sides of it."
In the meantime, Gaetz offered some advice to swing-district Democrats who vote to impeach the president: "For the upcoming year, rent, don't buy, here in Washington, D.C."
Fox News' Chad Pergram, Ronn Blitzer, Julia Musto, Marisa Schultz and Andrew O'Reilly contributed to this report.

Eric Holder Cartoons (Remember)

Trump secures 50th appellate court appointment, with another 9th Circuit judge confirmed

The Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday afternoon confirmed Lawrence VanDyke to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, marking President Trump's 50th successful appellate court appointment in just three years in office, and his second to the historically liberal 9th Circuit in as many days.
By contrast, President Barack Obama nominated a total of 55 circuit judges who were confirmed over eight years -- and Obama's nominees were, on average, approximately ten years older. The White House has dramatically transformed the 9th Circuit, a powerful court with jurisdiction over nine states and Guam that has long been a thorn in the president's side.
Of the 30 active seats on the 9th Circuit, 10 have now been appointed by Trump, and 14 by Republican presidents. Only nine of the court's 19 semi-retired "senior status" judges were appointed by Democrats, with 10 by Republicans. That's a major change from early last year, when only six of the active judges on the 9th Circuit were chosen by Republicans.
"FIFTY CIRCUIT COURT JUDGES!" tweeted Carrie Severino, the conservative Judicial Crisis Network's chief counsel and policy director. "Despite unrelenting Democratic obstruction and smear campaigns," she wrote, Trump and his Senate allies "have answered the call of the American people."
VanDyke's confirmation, by a 51-44 vote, came just 24 hours after Patrick Bumatay, an openly gay Filipino man, was also seated on the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit. Both nominees were fiercely opposed by Democrats, including the senators from their home states -- Nevada Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto for VanDyke, and California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris for Bumatay.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has long drawn the ire of President Trump, who has called it "disgraceful." It's now being transformed. (AP)

But, the White House has long ignored the so-called "blue slip" process of seeking advice from home-state senators in the judicial confirmation process, as it pressed ahead with its goal of transforming the federal appellate bench for generations.
"As the 9th Circuit shifts to become more conservative and better parallels the Supreme Court's ideological baseline, I could only imagine fewer liberal 9th Circuit decisions and fewer overturned 9th Circuit decisions generally," legal scholar and judicial data guru Adam Feldman, who blogs at Empirical SCOTUS, told Fox News.
The confirmations have not been easy for the White House -- or its nominees. VanDyke, a deputy assistant attorney general in the environmental and natural resources division, broke down in tears during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in October, as he disputed suggestions that he would not be fair to members of the LGBTQ community.
The ostensibly nonpartisan American Bar Association (ABA), which rated VanDyke unqualified, sent a letter to committee leadership alleging that people they interviewed expressed this concern, and that VanDyke himself "would not say affirmatively that he would be fair to any litigant before him, notably members of the LGBTQ community."
“There was a theme that the nominee lacks humility, has an ‘entitlement’ temperament, does not have an open mind, and does not always have a commitment to being candid and truthful,” the letter added.
The ABA did note that VanDyke, a Harvard Law School graduate and former solicitor general for Montana and Nevada, is "clearly smart." VanDyke is a former Nevada solicitor general who also waged an expensive campaign for a seat on the Montana Supreme Court in 2014.
"I did not say that," VanDyke told Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., tears welling up in his eyes. "No, I did not say that. I do not believe that. It is a fundamental belief of mine that all people are created in the image of God. They should all be treated with dignity and respect, senator."
VanDyke also said that he was not given a fair opportunity to respond to the allegations during his ABA interview. He said when he was confronted with the concerns about his views, he began to answer but was told they were running out of time, and described himself as “much more hurt than I’ve ever been to get that” assessment from the ABA.
That interview was conducted by Marcia Davenport, the lead evaluator. Hawley noted that Davenport once contributed to the campaign of a judicial candidate who was running against VanDyke.
"I find that absolutely unbelievable," Hawley said, stating it "probably explains the totally ad hominem nature of this disgraceful letter."
Conservative groups came to VanDyke's defense: "Even for the ABA, this is beyond the pale," the Judicial Crisis Network's Carrie Severino said in a statement, accusing the ABA of "bias against conservative nominees to the judiciary."
Bumatay, the nominee confirmed to the 9th Circuit on Tuesday, served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. He was confirmed in a 53-40 party-line vote, and received a “Qualified” rating from the ABA.
He was nominated last year, but the Senate never took up his confirmation, and it eventually expired.
“Patrick Bumatay lacks the knowledge and experience necessary for the 9th Circuit," Feinstein said. "He also acknowledged working on the separation of immigrant families while at the Justice Department and refused to answer questions about other controversial issues."
The conservative Americans for Prosperity (AFP), however, praised Bumatay's credentials.
“In Patrick Bumatay, the president has nominated a highly qualified and experienced individual, committed to supporting and defending the Constitution – rather than seeking to legislate from the bench," Casey Mattox, AFP's vice president for legal and judicial strategy, said in a statement. "We applaud Chairman Graham and the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for their support of Bumatay and Senator McConnell for his continued commitment to confirming fair and qualified nominees to the federal bench.”
Speaking to top Republican lawmakers and Justice Department officials in the East Room of the White House in November, Trump celebrated the appointment of his 150th federal judge, which he called a "profoundly historic milestone and a truly momentous achievement." As of Dec. 11, Trump has appointed a total of 120 judges to federal district courts, which sit below appellate courts -- with dozens more in the pipeline.
The event featured a series of humorous moments as Trump's onetime rivals took the microphone. Sen. Lindsey Graham, for example, fondly recalled the time Trump had given out his personal phone number on the campaign trail and compared him to a "dog" -- and how the two quickly settled their score shortly after Trump took office.
"The defining moment of your president was the Kavanaugh hearing," Graham said. "This room would be empty if we had failed Brett Kavanaugh. Brett Kavanaugh lived a life we should all be proud of. He worked hard. And the way he was treated was the worst experience I've had in politics. A lot of people would have pulled the plug on him. Mr. President, thank you for not pulling the plug."
Trump singled out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for a standing ovation, saying his impact in methodically confirming judges in the Senate was "truly amazing." Trump went on to joke that it was "so easy" to get Supreme Court justices confirmed, in a nod to the contentious Brett Kavanaugh hearings last year.
"Generations from now, Americans will know that Mitch McConnell helped save the constitutional rule of law in America -- it's true," Trump said.
Fox News' Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.