Reports: President Trump may use Declaration of Taking Act to speed wall construction

FILE – In this July 17, 2019 file photo, three migrants who had managed to evade the Mexican National Guard and cross the Rio Grande onto U.S. territory walk along a border wall set back from the geographical border, in El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)

The Trump administration is preparing to acquire privately owned land along the Mexico border to build new sections of the border wall. Thursday reports said President Trump’s team is preparing the paperwork to start buying privately held land as soon as this week.
Administration officials said they may use the Declaration of Taking Act to speed up legal proceedings. In the past, Washington had to pay landowners and battle legal challenges for access to their land to build border infrastructure. This time, the president may use emergency powers to expedite wall construction.
This comes amid efforts to increase security along the U.S.-Mexico border. Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said there is significant progress being made to secure the border, despite Congress and the lower courts fighting their efforts.

Acting Customs and Border Protection director Mark Morgan speaks with reporters in the briefing room at the White House, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

During a Thursday press conference, Morgan noted that the Trump administration’s strategies are successfully sending a message to Mexico’s drug cartels and other criminal organizations contributing to the national security crisis at the border.
The commissioner reported that the U.S. is continuing to see an overall decline in migrant apprehensions and an increase in drug seizures.
“The month of October has continued with that trend, reaching a 14 percent decline compared to September — with just over 42,000 apprehensions,” stated Morgan. “Last month on the southwest border, CBP seized more than 47,000 pounds of drugs — a 50 percent increase from this time last year.”
He added though there is progress, there still needs to be more wall constructed in order to put the cartels permanently out of business.

Ukraine Foreign Minister: U.S. aid was never connected to Biden probes

FILE – In this Jan. 30, 2010, file photo, former Vice President Joe Biden, left, with his son Hunter, right, at the Duke Georgetown NCAA college basketball game in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass, File)

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UPDATED 6:27 PM PT — Friday, November 14, 2019

A top Ukrainian diplomat is saying U.S military aid was never tied to an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden’s corruption. On Thursday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said U.S. envoy to the EU Gordon Sondland never linked aid to probes into the Bidens.
The minister said the Bidens were mentioned during U.S.-Ukrainian talks, but emphasized there was no conditionality attached to the investigation.
On Wednesday, two witnesses in an open impeachment hearing claimed a ‘quid pro quo’ took place. Prior to that, witnesses in closed-door depositions made similar claims.
Colonel Alexander Vindman reportedly listened in on the July phone call between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart. The White House Ukraine expert told the House panel that the release of a military aid package to Ukraine was “contingent” on the Ukrainian government investigating Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
“If Ukrainians took a partisan position, they would significantly undermine the possibility of future bipartisan support,” stated Vindman. “Losing bipartisan support, they would then lose access to potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance funds.”

Former National Security Council Director for European Affairs Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman returns to the Capitol to review transcripts of his testimony in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The colonel went on to say that the call went well until a meeting between the two presidents was suggested. Former EU Ambassador Gordon Sondlond then “proceeded to discuss the deliverable required in order to get the meeting and alluded to investigations.”
“The Ukrainians saw this meeting as critically important in order to solidify the support for their most important international partner,” said Vindman. “When Ambassador Sondland started to speak about Ukraine delivering specific investigations in order to secure the meeting with the President, Ambassador Bolton cut the meeting short.”
Ukrainian lawmakers have said impeachment proceedings in the U.S. may hurt bilateral ties.
“Of course, I see the risk of losing bipartisan support,” stated MP Volodymyr Ariev. “But I suppose that American politicians are going to be more wise than some Ukrainian leaders or politicians.”
Ukrainian officials also said anticorruption probes into energy company Burisma never formally stopped and never had a connection to U.S. military aid.

Pencil Neck Schiff Cartoons

Trump vows new Ukraine transcript release in post-impeachment hearing press conference

President Trump tore into House Democrats' ongoing impeachment inquiry Wednesday during a press conference with Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, decrying the hearsay-laden "witch hunt" and saying he hadn't watched that day's public hearing "for one minute."
"This is a sham, and shouldn't be allowed -- it was a situation that as caused by people who couldn't have allowed it to happen. I want to find out who's the whistleblower," the president said, claiming that the whistleblower behind the impeachment inquiry has made provably inaccurate statements.
"I'm going to be releasing, I think on Thursday, [another] transcript, which actually was the first of the two [phone calls with Ukraine's leader]," he said.
The White House has already released a transcript of Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine's president, in which the two discussed past U.S. "support" for Ukraine, as well as Ukraine's issues with corruption. On the call, Trump asked Ukraine to investigate reports that Ukraine was involved in 2016 election interference. The president also mentioned Joe Biden's push to have Ukraine's chief prosecutor fired, and suggested the country look into the matter.
Asked at the press conference about acting ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor's testimony about an alleged July 26 phone call between the president and U.S. envoy to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Trump said: "I know nothing about that -- first time I've heard it."
Taylor testified, for the first time, that the president was overheard by a member of his staff on July 26 asking Sondland about “the investigations,” to which Sondland responded that “the Ukrainians were ready to move forward.” Taylor said that following Sondland’s call with Trump, the member of his staff asked what Trump thought about Ukraine.
“Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for,” Taylor said, revealing new information from his prior testimony last month. “At the time I gave my deposition on October 22, I was not aware of this information. I am including it for completeness.”
At the press conference, the president pointed to Sondland's written testimony: "The one thing I've seen that Sondland said, he did speak to me for a brief moment, he did speak to me for a brief moment -- [he testified previously that] I said, no 'quid pro quo,' under any circumstances. And that's true. In any event, it's more second-hand information. ... The only thing, and I guess Sondland has stayed with his testimony, that there was no quid-pro-quo, pure and simple."
Trump added that witnesses summoned by Democrats during the impeachment hearings had produced "all third-hand information" and unreliable hearsay. "This statement that I made, the whole call that I made with the president of Ukraine, was a perfect one. ... I'd much rather focus on peace in the Middle East."
Despite a BBC report that Erdogan had recently thrown a letter from Trump in the trash, Erdogan began the news conference by telling reporters Trump was a "good friend." Trump reciprocated, calling the autocrat a "great president" and claiming that Turkey had a "great relationship with the Kurds."
Erdogan announced that between six months to two years from now, Turkey could repatriate about one million refugees into a safe zone established in northern Syria. Outside the White House, dozens of Kurds and their supporters waved Kurdish and American flags in protest.
The press conference came after the two leaders met in the White House, and followed a meeting with five Republican senators, including Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. (After Trump urged his Erdogan to call on “a friendly reporter from Turkey," Graham reportedly turned to an ABC News reporter to remark, “There aren’t any others left.” The president joked afterward that the Turkish reporter Erdogan called on appeared to work for the Turkish government.)

Trump and Erdogan in the Oval Office. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

In a statement late Wednesday, Graham vowed that the United States "cannot and will not abandon our Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) allies," and added: "I realize Turkey has legitimate national security concerns regarding certain Kurdish elements of the U.S.-led counter-ISIS coalition, but Turkey’s incursion into Syria has been incredibly disruptive.  I believe it is possible to deal with Turkey’s national security concerns by creating a Safe Zone, but Turkey cannot do it through force of arms.
“As to Turkey’s purchase of the S-400 Russian missile system: it is almost a universally held position in Congress that the S-400 is incompatible with the F-35 fighter," Graham continued. "Turkey’s activation of the Russian S-400 will require the U.S. to keep Turkey from the F-35 program and issue sanctions.  I’m hopeful we can find a way forward with the S-400 where Turkey’s national security needs can be met without compromising the F-35 program."
Erdogan and Trump had a difficult agenda for their talks, which included Turkey's decision to buy a Russian air defense system despite Ankara's membership in NATO and its incursion into neighboring Syria to attack Kurdish forces that have fought with the U.S. against the Islamic State (ISIS) group.
Despite those disputes, Trump said the two countries were poised to agree to increase U.S. goods and services trade with Turkey, which totaled about $24 billion in 2017.
Trump defended his decision to invite Erdogan despite Turkey’s widely denounced advance into Syria. He said that he and Turkey’s president have been “very good friends” for a long time and understand each other’s country.
“We’re going to be expanding,” Trump said. “We think we can bring trade up very quickly to about $100 billion between our countries.”
The president was "pleased" that Turkey was increasing spending on its own defense, and noted that other NATO allies have been lagging behind.
"I know that the ceasefire, while complicated, is moving forward -- and moving forward at a very rapid clip," Trump said, later adding that Turkey's acquisition of advanced Russian military equipment presents "serious challenges."

Demonstrators hold Kurdistan flags in front of the White House as thy protest Erdogan's visit Wednesday. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Republican lawmakers have pressed Erdogan about why Turkey bought the S-400 Russian air defense missile system. The U.S. and fellow NATO nations say the S-400 would aid Russian intelligence and compromise a U.S.-led fighter jet program.
The U.S. has since kicked Erdogan out of a multinational program producing components of America's high-tech F-35 fighter jet. In response, Erdogan attended an air show this summer in Moscow and expressed interest in buying the latest Russian Su-35 fighter jets.
"We have a lot of trade with Turkey, but it could be many times higher ... We intend to bring it up to about $100 billion, which would be about four times what it is now," Trump said.
Trump also said Turkey has been helping the U.S. "a lot" in fighting ISIS.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, two Democrats introduced legislation denouncing Turkey's targeting of journalists, political opponents, dissidents, minorities and others. They said the Turkish government has imprisoned more than 80,000 Turkish citizens, closed more than 1,500 nongovernmental organizations on terrorism-related grounds and dismissed or suspended more than 130,000 civil servants from their jobs.
In October, Trump moved U.S. forces out of the way of invading Turkish troops, a decision that critics said amounted to abandoning America's Kurdish allies, but that Trump defended as an important end to an otherwise "endless" military engagement in the Middle East.
Trump administration officials have said Trump told Turkey not to invade Syria. But when Erdogan insisted, they say, Trump decided to move 28 Green Berets operating on the Turkey-Syria border so they wouldn't be caught in a crossfire between Turkish-backed forces and the Kurds.
"I think a tremendous amount of progress is being made," Trump said.
Fox News' Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Day One of public impeachment hearings puts pressure on moderate Dems

All eyes were on moderate House Democrats in swing districts Wednesday night, after the first day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry against President Trump wrapped up with no major revelations -- but also highlighted weaknesses in Democrats' key witnesses, who relied primarily on second-hand information and never once interacted with the president.
At one point in Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., even appeared to embrace hearsay testimony, claiming that "hearsay can be much better evidence than direct" and that "countless people have been convicted on hearsay because the courts have routinely allowed and created, needed exceptions to hearsay." It was unclear which of those limited exceptions would apply to Wednesday's testimony -- and whether Quigley's argument would persuade critical swing-vote Democrats.
The House is now comprised of 431 members, meaning Democrats need 217 yeas to impeach Trump. There are currently 233 Democrats, so Democrats can only lose 16 of their own and still impeach the president. 31 House Democrats represent more moderate districts that Trump carried in 2016.
Freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. -- who flipped a GOP district in 2018 that Trump won by 7 points in 2016 -- told Fox News that she was tentatively weighing all the evidence.
"My constituents expect me to make an objective decision," Slotkin said as the hearings concluded, "not one based on an hour of testimony."
Slotkin went on to acknowledge that launching an impeachment inquiry was a "politically tough thing to do."
"I'm not waking up in the morning looking for some golden poll," Slotkin said, insisting that she would analyze all testimony carefully in the coming days.
Reports have emerged that, should Trump be impeached by a majority vote in the House, Senate Republicans might strategically hold a lengthy trial to "scramble" the 2020 Democratic presidential primary -- including by requiring several of the contenders to remain in Washington to handle the trial. Trump is all but certain to be acquitted by the GOP-controlled Senate in the event of impeachment, given that a two-thirds vote is required in the Senate to remove the president.
As the public hearing wrapped up on Wednesday, the panel voted 13-9, along party lines, to table a Republican motion to subpoena the whistleblower -- signaling that not many minds had been swayed.
A GOP source close to the House Intelligence Committee told Fox News late Wednesday that Republicans have full confidence in counsel Steve Castor, and he will continue to lead the questioning in the next round of public impeachment hearings. GOP members were pleased with his questioning today, the source said.
The day offered one previously undisclosed allegation. Career diplomat William Taylor, the charge d’affaires in Kiev, offered testimony, for the first time, that the president was overheard by a member of his staff on July 26 asking EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland about “the investigations,” to which Sondland supposedly responded that “the Ukrainians were ready to move forward.” Taylor said that following Sondland’s call with Trump, the member of his staff asked what Trump thought about Ukraine.
“Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for,” Taylor said, revealing new information from his prior testimony last month. “At the time I gave my deposition on October 22, I was not aware of this information. I am including it for completeness.”
But, Republicans pointed out that Taylor's testimony was unverifiable hearsay, several layers deep -- and that Sondland has previously testified that Trump explicitly told him there were "no quid pro quo’s of any kind" with Ukraine, including one in which military aid would be conditioned on any politically motivated investigations.
"'Ambassador Taylor recalls that Mr. [Tim] Morrison told Ambassador Taylor that I told Mr. Morrison that I had conveyed this message to Mr. [Andriy] Yermak on September 1, 2019, in connection with Vice President Pence’s visit to Warsaw and a meeting with President [Volodymyr] Zelensky,'" Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan said, incredulously reading a statement from Sondland.
"We’ve got six people having four conversations in one sentence, and you just told me this is where you got your 'clear understanding,'" Jordan continued, as Taylor appeared to laugh. "Ambassador, you weren't on the call, were you? You've never talked to Chief of Staff [Mick] Mulvaney? You've never met the president. ... And you're their star witness?"
Even CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin noted that Democrats had a "problem," in that their key witnesses Wednesday had never directly interacted with Trump. "And, that's a problem if you're going to impeach the president," Toobin said.
Jordan also reminded viewers that President Obama had declined to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, even after Russia's invasion. Trump, on the other hand, eventually provided Javelin missiles. And, Ukraine's president has said he felt no pressure, improper or otherwise, from the Trump administration to engage in any investigations.
Trump, for his part, said he was too busy to watch on Wednesday and denied having such a phone call. "First I've heard of it," he said when asked.
At a news conference with Turkey's leader, Trump vowed to release another transcript of an earlier call with Ukraine on Thursday. He called Democrats' efforts a hopeless "witch hunt."
The president pointed to Sondland's written testimony: "The one thing I've seen that Sondland said, he did speak to me for a brief moment, he did speak to me for a brief moment -- [he testified previously that] I said, no 'quid pro quo,' under any circumstances, and that's true. In any event, it's more second-hand information. ... The only thing, and I guess Sondland has stayed with his testimony, that there was no quid-pro-quo, pure and simple."
Media observers questioned whether the proceedings ultimately would sway any opinions, or make things any easier for moderate Democrats. ABC News' George Stephanopoulos mused on-air, "part of me is wondering, what do facts matter anymore in these debates?"
Meanwhile, Christian Jacobs, 50, sat in a beach bar in St. Petersburg, wearing a fedora and reluctantly watching the drama on television, as The Associated Press put it.
"I did not want this," Jacobs, a Democrat, said, glancing at the TV and vaping. He said he had been leaning closer toward impeachment.
"I'm so afraid, left to his own devices, what else he may do," Jacobs said of Trump.

"I did not want this."
— Christian Jacobs, 50, wearing fedora and sipping marijuana vape pen

Anthony Harris, cutting hair in Savannah, Georgia, had the hearing on in his shop, but he said, "It's gotten to the point now where people are even tired of listening."
Lawmakers largely signaled that the hours of partisan back-and-forth did not appear to leave a singular moment etched in the public consciousness the way the Watergate proceedings or former President Clinton's impeachment did.
"No real surprises, no bombshells," said committee member Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah.
Taylor and Kent had defied White House instructions not to appear. Both received subpoenas.
They were among a dozen current and former officials who already testified behind closed doors. Wednesday was the start of days of public hearings expected to stretch into next week.
All day, the diplomats testified about how an ambassador was fired, the new Ukraine government was confused and they discovered an "irregular channel" -- a shadow U.S. foreign policy orchestrated by the president's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani which raised alarms in diplomatic and national-security circles.
For their part, Republican lawmakers observed that the president -- not unelected career bureaucrats -- dictated foreign policy.
At its core, the inquiry has stemmed from Trump’s July 25 phone call when he asked Zelensky for "a favor."
The White House already has released a transcript of the call, in which the two discussed past U.S. "support" for Ukraine, as well as Ukraine's issues with corruption. On the call, Trump asked Kiev to investigate reports that Ukraine was involved in 2016 election interference.
Later on, the president also mentioned former Vice President Joe Biden's push to have Ukraine's chief prosecutor fired, and suggested the country look into the matter.
The call came a day after former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's widely derided appearance on Capitol Hill appeared to leave Democrats' hopes for impeachment dashed.
Fox News' Chad Pergram, Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Gosar fires back after Katie Hill rips his 'Epstein' tweets: You taught the country what a 'throuple' was

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., slammed his former colleague Katie Hill who had criticized his cryptic Epstein tweets, telling her she taught the country a new word: "throuple."
Hill criticized Gosar over a series of tweets that spelled out "Epstein didn't kill himself." The saying has been appearing in memes and on social media. Hill blasted him for "tweeting out real conspiracy theories."
"No like this actually happened. Real members of Congress tweeting out real conspiracy theories. In an acrostic no less," Hill tweeted.
Gosar fired back, "You’re surprised by me? You single-handedly taught an entire country a new word. #throuple," Gosar reacted. "And wth is up with that tattoo? Relax."
"Throuple," which is a term to describe a three-person relationship, was the arrangement Hill reportedly had with her estranged husband and a female campaign staffer. Hill accused her estranged husband of leaking the nude photos as "revenge porn" amid their messy divorce. Hill's attorneys also vehemently denied allegations made in a DailyMail story that one of the nude photos shows a “Nazi-era Iron Cross” tattoo.
Gosar drew some attention to his Twitter account on Wednesday with a series of tweets he wrote in reaction to the ongoing testimony of U.S. diplomat Bill Taylor and State Department official George Kent as the first witnesses in a public impeachment hearing of President Trump, sharing videos and articles that memorialized the event.
"Evidence of a link between foreign aid and political investigations simply does not exist. The longer this circus continues the clearer it becomes that @realDonaldTrump has done absolutely nothing wrong," Gosar wrote on his official Twitter account.
Before that, "President @realDonaldTrump voluntarily chose to release the transcript of his phone call which clearly shows he did nothing wrong. This impeachment circus is a total sham, and Adam Schiff is the clown at the center of it all."
And, before that, "Schiff’s star witness is crumbling under pressure. He wasn’t listening to the phone call and he has never even met President Trump."
However, the Daily Wire and others took notice that as readers scrolled down Gosar's profile, the first letters of each tweet spelled, "Epstein didn't kill himself."
The "Epstein didn't kill himself" meme has spread like wildfire after the death of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The New York City medical examiner determined he had taken his own life, but vocal skeptics have suggested otherwise during random blurt-outs on television and other signs.
In a statement to Fox News, Gosar stressed that his tweets were all "substantive" but appeared to have some more fun in the process.
"All of the tweets pertained to testimony from today’s hearing.
Rest assured, they are substantive.
Every one of them.
All of them.
5 were brilliant.
1 was ok.”
In other words, "Area 51."
Hill resigned from Congress earlier this month after she was accused of having multiple inappropriate relationships with subordinates, including a congressional staffer that prompted an investigation from the House Ethics Committee.

Donald Trump Jr. on day one of public impeachment hearings: ‘I’ve never seen anything more ridiculous’

Donald Trump Jr. reacted to the first day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry against his father on Wednesday saying, ‘‘I’ve never seen anything more ridiculous.”
The first day of public hearings wrapped up with no major revelations -- but he said it also highlighted weaknesses in Democrats' key witnesses, who relied primarily on second-hand information.
Speaking on “Hannity” on Wednesday night, Trump was quick to point that out.
"You see exactly what America voted against in 2016, career government bureaucrats doing their thing,” the executive vice president of the Trump Organization said.
“Everything was hearsay, ‘I heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, how heard it from a friend.’ I’m saying, ‘this is a joke.’”
At one point in Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., even appeared to embrace hearsay testimony, claiming that "hearsay can be much better evidence than direct" and that "countless people have been convicted on hearsay because the courts have routinely allowed and created, needed exceptions to hearsay." It was unclear which of those limited exceptions would apply to Wednesday's testimony -- and whether Quigley's argument would persuade critical swing-vote Democrats.
Trump commented on Quigley’s statements telling Sean Hannity, “Then I heard the Democrats, and this is when you realize how bad or, frankly, nonexistent their case is, ‘well hearsay is often times much better than regular evidence.’ I’m saying, ‘did that guy say that with a straight face?’”
Trump then compared Quigley’s comments to “the telephone game we learned about in Kindergarten.”
“So it’s better to have heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend than to have heard it with your own ears? I mean that’s the level of insanity that you’re seeing from these bureaucrats who’ve taken an anti-Trump position,” he said.
Earlier Wednesday Trump Jr. also tweeted about Quigley’s comments writing, “Can you believe this insanity? “Heresay [sic] can be much better evidence than DIRECT EVIDENCE” according to Democrat Mike Quigley. Are you fricken kidding me? 3rd and 4th party info better than hearing it yourself?”
On "Hannity" Trump said, “When Republicans start questioning, [House Intelligence Committee Chairman] Adam Schiff changes the rules, changes the goal posts, pretends they can’t even ask that question anymore. It’s never ending. It’s a comedy at this point.”
The House is now comprised of 431 members, meaning Democrats need 217 yeas to impeach Trump. There are currently 233 Democrats, so Democrats can only lose 16 of their own and still impeach the president. 31 House Democrats represent more moderate districts that Trump carried in 2016.
Trump Jr. told Hannity on Wednesday that the left “is not looking to govern, they’re not looking to do anything, they are looking to try to resist. Because they know they can’t beat Trump in the polls, they’re going to try to impeach and it’s not going to work in the long run and the American people see through it. They are sick of this garbage.”
Fox News’ Gregg Re contributed to this report.

Impeachment Cartoons

Impeachment hearings go live on TV with first witnesses

WASHINGTON (AP) — The closed doors of the Trump impeachment investigation are swinging wide open.

When the gavel strikes at the start of the House hearing Wednesday morning, America and the rest of the world will have the chance to see and hear for themselves for the first time about President Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine and consider whether they are, in fact, impeachable offenses.

It’s a remarkable moment, even for a White House full of them.

All on TV, committee leaders will set the stage, then comes the main feature: Two seasoned diplomats, William Taylor, the graying former infantry officer now charge d’affaires in Ukraine, and George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary in Washington, telling the striking, if sometimes complicated story of a president allegedly using foreign policy for personal and political gain ahead of the 2020 election.

So far, the narrative is splitting Americans, mostly along the same lines as Trump’s unusual presidency. The Constitution sets a dramatic, but vague, bar for impeachment, and there’s no consensus yet that Trump’s actions at the heart of the inquiry meet the threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Whether Wednesday’s proceedings begin to end a presidency or help secure Trump’s position, it’s certain that his chaotic term has finally arrived at a place he cannot control and a force, the constitutional system of checks and balances, that he cannot ignore.

The country has been here just three times before, and never against the backdrop of social media and real-time commentary, including from the president himself.

“These hearings will address subjects of profound consequence for the Nation and the functioning of our government under the Constitution,” said Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee leading the inquiry, in a memo to lawmakers.

Schiff called it a “solemn undertaking,” and counseled colleagues to “approach these proceedings with the seriousness of purpose and love of country that they demand.”

“Total impeachment scam,” tweeted the president, as he does virtually every day.

Impeachments are rare, historians say, because they amount to nothing short of the nullification of an election. Starting down this road poses risks for both Democrats and Republicans as proceedings push into the 2020 campaign.

Unlike the Watergate hearings and Richard Nixon, there is not yet a “cancer on the presidency” moment galvanizing public opinion. Nor is there the national shrug, as happened when Bill Clinton’s impeachment ultimately didn’t result in his removal from office. It’s perhaps most like the partisanship-infused impeachment of Andrew Johnson after the Civil War.

Trump calls the whole thing a “witch hunt,” a retort that echoes Nixon’s own defense. Republicans say Democrats have been trying to get rid of this president since he first took office, starting with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference to help Trump in the 2016 election.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was initially reluctant to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. As Democrats took control of the House in January, Pelosi said impeachment would be “too divisive” for the country. Trump, she said, was simply “not worth it.”

After Mueller’s appearance on Capitol Hill in July for the end of the Russia probe, the door to impeachment proceedings seemed closed.

But the next day Trump got on the phone.

For the past month, witness after witness has testified under oath about his July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the alarms it set off in U.S. diplomatic and national security circles.

In a secure room in the Capitol basement, current and former officials have been telling lawmakers what they know. They’ve said an earlier Trump call in April congratulating Zelenskiy on his election victory seemed fine. The former U.S. reality TV host and the young Ukrainian comedian hit it off.

But in the July call, things turned.

An anonymous whistleblower first alerted officials to the phone call. “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election,” the person wrote in August to the House and Senate Intelligence committees. Democrats fought for the letter to be released to them as required.

“I am deeply concerned,” the whistleblower wrote.

Trump insisted the call was “perfect.” The White House released a rough transcript. Pelosi, given the nod from her most centrist freshman lawmakers, opened the inquiry.

“The president has his opportunity to prove his innocence,” she told Noticias Telemundo on Tuesday.

Defying White House orders not to appear, witnesses have testified that Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was withholding U.S. military aid to the budding democracy until the new Ukraine government conducted investigations Trump wanted into Democrats in the 2016 election and his potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter.

It was all part of what Taylor, the long-serving top diplomat in Ukraine, called the “irregular” foreign policy being led by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, outside of traditional channels.

Taylor said it was “crazy” that the Trump administration was withholding U.S. military assistance to the East European ally over the political investigations, with Russian forces on Ukraine’s border on watch for a moment of weakness.

Kent, the bowtie-wearing State Department official, told investigators there were three things Trump wanted of Ukraine: “Investigations, Biden, Clinton.”

On Friday, the public is scheduled to hear from Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who told investigators she was warned to “watch my back” as Trump undercut and then recalled her.

Eight more witnesses will testify in public hearings next week.

“What this affords is the opportunity for the cream of our diplomatic corps to tell the American people a clear and consistent story of what the president did,” said Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., a member of the Intelligence panel.

“It takes a lot of courage to do what they are doing,” he said, “and they are probably just going to be abused for it.”

Republicans, led on the panel by Rep. Devin Nunes, a longtime Trump ally from California, will argue that none of those witnesses has first-hand knowledge of the president’s actions. They will say Ukraine never felt pressured and the aid money eventually flowed, in September.

Yet Republicans are struggling to form a unified defense of Trump. Instead they often fall back on criticism of the process.

Some Republicans align with Trump’s view, which is outside of mainstream intelligence findings, that Ukraine was involved in 2016 U.S. election interference. They want to hear from Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a gas company in Ukraine, Burisma, while his father was the vice president. And they are trying to bring forward the still-anonymous whistleblower, whose identity Democrats have vowed to protect.

The framers of the Constitution provided few details about how the impeachment proceedings should be run, leaving much for Congress to decide. Democrats say the White House’s refusal to provide witnesses or produce documents is obstruction and itself impeachable.

Hearings are expected to continue and will shift, likely by Thanksgiving, to the Judiciary Committee to consider actual articles of impeachment.

The House, which is controlled by Democrats, is expected to vote by Christmas.

That would launch a trial in the Senate, where Republicans have the majority, in the new year.

___

Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

White House to set up cameras to livestream border wall construction: report

President Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner and other White House officials are planning to set up web cameras to livestream construction along the border wall, according to a report.
Kushner first offered the proposal during a July meeting, pitching the idea as a way to confront criticism that Trump has not followed through on his signature 2016 campaign promise, The Washington Post reported, citing unnamed officials
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have told Kushner they’re opposed to the initiative because certain construction contractors do not want their proprietary techniques shown to competitors, the sources told the Post.
Trump reportedly asked Kushner to reinvent messaging and communication about the border wall project after the government shutdown last year. The current website for the CBP shows information about construction along the border, but a new site, currently being designing by Trump administration’s chief digital officer Ory Rinat, will reportedly incorporate the live camera feeds, allowing the public to visibly track the wall’s progress.
Under the Trump administration, 81 miles of border wall, most of which was built as "replacement" barrier to reinforce older fencing, has been completed. The new barriers built of steel bollards stand anywhere from 18 to 30 feet tall.
An additional 155 miles of border fencing is currently under construction. And 273 miles are under “preconstruction,” according to the most recent CBP data. The Trump administration aims to build a total of 400 to 500 miles of border wall to complete the project. The project has been facing delays as officials work to acquire privately held land in Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border. It has cost taxpayers $10 million to date, the Post reported.