Hunter Biden demands financial records be kept secret in child support suit: report

Hunter Biden filed a protective order this week in an effort to seal his financial records from being released publicly -- amid his fears that the information would be used “maliciously” by the media and cause him public “embarrassment,” according to a report.
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s son filed the motion in Arkansas on Wednesday as part of an ongoing child support suit, according to the Daily Mail. His attorneys claim the details would be used by the media, considering his high public profile, to cause him "undue prejudice, annoyance, embarrassment, and/or oppression."
"The likelihood that [Biden's] private records will be used in an inappropriate or malicious manner for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with these proceedings is exceedingly high and should not be tolerated by the court," the filing reads.
"Due to the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the parties involved in this matter, it is in the interest of justice and necessary for a Protective Order to be in place," Biden's attorney says.
An earlier court filing in the case alleged that DNA tests confirm with “scientific certainty” that Hunter is the biological father of a child whose mother he denied having sex with.
A paternity suit filed by Lunden Alexis Roberts was first filed on May 28 when she alleged that she and Hunter Biden “were in a relationship” and that “Baby Doe” was born in August 2018 “as a result of that relationship,” according to reports by The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Roberts is demanding $11,000 in legal fees as well as child support, and has agreed that a protective order is appropriate, according to the Daily Mail.
In a sworn statement, Biden goes on to say he has incurred “significant debts” in part due to his 2017 divorce from Kathleen Biden, that he is unemployed and has had no monthly income since May 2019.
The suit comes amid increased scrutiny on Hunter over his links to a Ukrainian energy company where he once sat on the board.
An apparent effort by White House officials and President Trump to get Ukraine to launch investigations into Hunter’s link to the company -- and Biden Sr.’s push in 2016 to get a prosecutor fired who had investigated the company -- is the current focus of an impeachment inquiry in the House.
The former VP was asked about the paternity suit on the campaign trail last week, and called it a “private matter” on which he had no comment.
Fox News' Vandana Rambaran contributed to this report.

President Trump to hold ‘Keep America Great’ rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania

President Donald Trump speaks during a rally on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2019, in Sunrise, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 4:00 PM PT — Saturday, November 30, 2019

President Trump is returning to the state that helped secure the first Republican victory in nearly three decades. The president is getting ready to hold a ‘Keep America Great’ rally at the Giant Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania. On Saturday, he provided a link to official tickets for his Pennsylvania rally on December 10th.

https://t.co/AUoFQexhR4

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2019

Before President Trump, Democrat presidential candidates had previously won the state in every race since 1992.
In a recent statement, Trump campaign Chief Operating Officer Michael Glassner said the state is booming thanks to the president. He noted the president is delivering on his promises and looks forward to celebrating his successes with the great men and women of Pennsylvania.
“I think we’re going to do great in Pennsylvania,” stated President Trump. “We won Pennsylvania last time, (for) the first time in many years.”

People listen as President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Sunrise, Fla., Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

During his August political rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, President Trump highlighted some of his accomplishments in Pennsylvania.
“We have incredible things going on in Pennsylvania,” he said. “We just opened up a $10 billion plant, we have many of them going up (and) a lot of jobs.”
In a recent tweet, the president showed gratitude for the energy, construction and craft workers of Pennsylvania.

“We are relying on American workers to build our own future right here on American soil. Industry is booming and the hearts of our workers the American spirit is soaring higher, stronger, freer and greater than ever before. It’s an honor for me to be with you in Pennsylvania.” — President Donald Trump

Tickets for Pennsylvania rally are available on the president’s campaign website.
Related: Poll: 53% Of Adult Americans Feel President Trump Is A Better GOP Leader Than Lincoln

Liberal Twitter Cartoons

Inside President Trump's secret trip to Afghanistan

Meet on top of a parking garage. Pack warm. Pack light.
Those were my only instructions as I headed out on a top-secret Thanksgiving trip with the president of the United States.
“Are you Kristin?” said a man on top of the parking garage who looked like he was in the Secret Service, but wouldn’t confirm it. Once we were rolling to Joint Base Andrews, he hit me with the bomb that I knew was coming. “In a few minutes, I’m going to need to take all of your cell phones, iWatch, iPad, MiFi -- anything that can transmit a signal.”
I had prepared for this moment. I’d written down about a dozen phone numbers in a notebook that I never use. I scribbled out the names of people and places I might encounter without access to Google for a spell check. I printed out pages and pages of articles that might be relevant for wherever we were going. And yet, I still felt like I was giving away bodily organs as I said goodbye to my three cell phones. “Maybe a digital detox will be good for me!” I quipped, but didn’t mean it. I was really thinking about all the content-that-could-have-been for my Instagram feed.
I was still compulsively checking my pockets for my ghost phones by the time I boarded an aircraft that I can’t disclose and shook hands with people that I cannot name (not because I don’t want to name them, but because most of them wouldn’t tell me their names). Someone asked me if I’d brought food. No. Someone else asked if I brought ear protection. Definitely no. Someone else told me that if I need to use the restroom, use the aircraft’s built-in restroom and not the moderately fancy port-a-potty that had been brought in for the VIPs we were picking up. Noted.
After a two-hour flight to an undisclosed airport in Florida, I was instructed to move up to the cockpit. “The boss is coming.” The move was meant to give the president and the handful of senior advisers traveling with him some privacy from the only member of the press on the plane. But shortly after boarding, President Trump climbed into the cockpit and said, “Where’s the press?” We shook hands and he asked if I was going “all the way.” Yes but, all the way ... where?
Suddenly, there was a pesky dividing wall between us. The president was taking a seat behind the pilot, while I was getting strapped into a seat facing the opposite direction with no way to see or hear the commander-in-chief. I strained my neck as far as the restraints would let me, to the point one crew member told me, “Don’t worry, we’ll let you look out the window after takeoff when the president leaves.” Wait, he’s staying in the cockpit for takeoff? The crew member nodded like he too couldn’t believe it.
I later learned that the crew had no idea who they would be transporting that day until mere hours before the flight. Imagine being that pilot. You wake up one morning having no idea that a few hours later the president of the United States will be sitting behind you, watching your every move as you help him secretly escape from Mar-a-Lago?
When we landed back at Joint Base Andrews, I learned I wasn’t the only one going through communication withdrawals. The highly wired West Wing staffers were too.
Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media, seemed particularly jittery. As for the tweeter-in-chief, the White House scheduled pre-planned tweets to be sent from the president’s Twitter account during the many hours that he was in the dark.
I scoured the tarmac for the bright lights that usually shine on Air Force One before departure, but didn’t see any. After a short drive, we pulled up to a large hangar with Air Force One hidden inside. I’d never been on the plane before and I was trying to savor the moment, but the rest of the White House press corps was already on board and they were peppering me with questions about the secret flight from Florida before I even found my seat. They’re a feisty bunch and one of the best parts of every trip is getting to know the other journalists that cover this beat.
We all had fears that the embargo would be broken before we were allowed to report on the trip. We all wanted to know when we were going to get our cell phones back. And most of all, we all wanted to know where we were going.
A few hours after the plane took off in total darkness with windows drawn and lights off, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham came to the back of the plane to brief us. “We’re going to Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan.” This would be President Trump’s second trip to a conflict zone, his first to Afghanistan. The highly clandestine nature of this trip underscored just how dangerous the country remains, 18 years after the U.S. war in Afghanistan began.
After a 13-hour flight, we descended in total darkness – lights off, windows drawn – and touched down on a pitch-black tarmac. As I stepped off the plane, I tried to take a second to soak it in. This is a country I’ve always wanted to come to. When I first met my future mother-in-law 10 years ago, I told her, much to my future husband’s horror, that my dream was to be a war correspondent in Afghanistan. Dreams change, but the desire to visit this country has not. I’d only be getting about three hours on the ground at night due to security concerns, but I was thrilled to be here. I spotted two surveillance blimps in the sky above Air Force One. I smelled the wood (and garbage) that often burns on base. And then, we were off.
It was quite possibly the fastest three-and-a-half hours of my life. The 13 reporters and photographers on the trip were raced from place to place. First, to a dining facility decked out in Thanksgiving decorations to watch President Trump serve turkey to the troops; then, a hastily arranged bilateral meeting with the president of Afghanistan, who had been informed of this trip only a few hours earlier due to, once again, security concerns. At this point, the trip went from being mostly a holiday story about turkey and troops, to – in the words of another reporter - “We’re going to get some real news on this trip!”
With microphones on and shutters snapping, President Trump said, “The Taliban wants to make a deal and we are meeting with them, and we are saying there has to be a cease-fire.” It was another one of those hard-to-hear, did-he-just-say-that? moments. I followed up by asking him if this meant that the United States has officially restarted negotiations with the Taliban after he’d called the peace talks “dead” in September. The president nodded and said, “We are talking with the Taliban.”
We were still scrambling to jot down all of the newsiest bits as we were handed back our cell phones and rushed to our final stop: a massive hangar filled with hundreds of troops waiting to hear President Trump deliver a Thanksgiving address. This was also the stop where the embargo would be lifted and we would be filing our reports to let the world know what President Trump had really been up to. Everything I had been writing on my laptop, and all of the video we had been shooting, hinged on our ability to connect to whatever internet the White House advance team had set up for us. There have been problems on past trips, but this time the White House went all out to establish a full filing center. And yet … when the “Go! Go! The embargo’s been lifted” moment came, I couldn’t access my email to hit send. Gmail deemed me to be suspicious and locked me out of my account.
Time slowed. My pulse quickened. Every expletive in the world was begging to be shouted. My bosses back in D.C. and I had discussed at length this very moment. Our plan was to use my personal email because my work email required a cell phone to connect, and we weren’t supposed to get our cell phones back until after … Wait!  My cell phones!  After more than 24 hours without them, I’d almost forgotten that they were back in my pocket. The ghosts glowed to life and I hit send.
At the same time, my crew, Craig Savage and Ed Lewis, two of the most experienced photographers in the business, were beginning to feed their footage and all the cable networks were taking it live. We were supposed to have a full 30 minutes to feed, but we’d already been on the ground in Afghanistan longer than the Secret Service would like. “You’ve got seven minutes!” deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere shouted to the press.
Seven minutes?! This was my only window to shoot a standup, that, 'Hey-look-at-me-I’m-on-the-ground-in-Afghanistan' moment, but we still had over 30 minutes of video left to feed. The standup was dead.
Deere, who was spending his birthday dealing with our constant demands for more time, more access, more internet, had warned us that when he said go, we had to stop our fingers and feeds and move. Air Force One was not going to wait for us. I still begged for more time. “How much time do you need?” asked Deere. As much time as you can give me. “You’ve got two minutes.”
Two minutes?! We fed as much as we could, promised to feed more as soon as possible, grabbed our gear, and ran to the plane.
We were still trying to feed as Air Force One took off. I was standing in the middle of the aisle, shouting over the engines to my desk back in D.C., and marveling that no one had told me to buckle up. Sweating through my silk shirt and dusting sawdust from somewhere off my pants, I took a second to smile at the coolest Thanksgiving Day I’ll ever have.

Mick Mulvaney’s patriotic shirt draws wrath of Twitter fashionistas

These days it seems everyone’s a fashion critic – especially on social media. The latest target: Mick Mulvaney.
The acting White House chief of staff drew numerous critical comments Friday after being photographed at a Florida airport while wearing an American-flag-themed shirt and U.S. Space Force cap.
Mulvaney had just returned to the U.S. after accompanying President Trump on a top-secret visit to Afghanistan to spend Thanksgiving Day with American troops.
The Twitterati didn’t seem to care whether Mulvaney was inspired by the trip to express some patriotic spirit. They just let him have it.
“This is what disrespectful white trash Americans look like,” one Twitter critic wrote. “He thinks that this offensive shirt ‘owns the Libs’. It doesn’t.”

“This is what disrespectful white trash Americans look like. He thinks that this offensive shirt ‘owns the Libs’. It doesn’t.”
— Twitter commenter

“Mulvaney’s shirt direct from the Walmart clearance rack,” another wrote.
“Trump made Mulvaney wear that sniper-target shirt the whole time they were in Afghanistan,” a third critic wrote.
Other Republicans recently targeted over their attire include former White House press secretary Sean Spicer and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.
The Spicer comments were triggered by his recent stint as a contestant on TV’s “Dancing with the Stars,” which involved wearing various costumes for different dance routines.
Perhaps drawing the most scorn was a bright neon rumba shirt.
“Sean Spicer is basically wearing the Puffy Shirt from Seinfeld,” one Twitter user wrote.
“Anytime that image of Spicer in a lime green rumba shirt pops up I question if this isn’t purgatory,” another wrote.

“Anytime that image of Spicer in a lime green rumba shirt pops up I question if this isn’t purgatory.”
— Twitter commenter

After wearing it, Spicer placed the shirt up for auction to raise money for the “Yellow Ribbon” fund, which assists the caregivers of wounded service members.
Jordan, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which recently conducted impeachment hearings, is known for opting against wearing a jacket while performing his congressional duties. Earlier this month, The Washington Post let Jordan know it disapproved.

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has often faced criticism for opting against wearing a jacket during committee hearings on Capitol Hill. (Associated Press) (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

“For dignity’s sake, Jim Jordan, put on a jacket,” the Nov. 13 piece was titled. It later described Jordan’s fashion choice as “his power move” and his “sartorial chest thump.”
For his part, Jordan claims that shedding his jacket simply helps him do his job better.
“I can’t really get fired up and get into it if you’ve got some jacket slowing you down,” he told the Post.

Former President Barack Obama's choice of a tan suit did not go over well in Washington in 2014.

Fashion comments have also run in the opposite political direction: For example, former President Barack Obama was once taken to task over a tan-colored suit, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been the butt of many jokes about her pantsuits.

Ilhan Omar's GOP challenger blasts Twitter after account suspended over 'treason' tweet

A Republican challenging U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., in 2020 blasted Twitter on Friday after having her accounts permanently suspended this week following a tweet suggesting that the incumbent congresswoman should be hanged if found guilty of treason.
Danielle Stella wrote on her campaign Twitter account Tuesday, “If it is proven @IlhanMN passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for #treason and hanged," The Washington Examiner reported.
She later added a link to a blog post that included a drawing of a stick figure being hanged.
Stella's tweet followed media reports that Omar's name came up in a Canadian businessman's deposition in a Florida court case.
The businessman, Alan Bender, claimed that Qatari officials told him Omar was the "jewel in the crown" of U.S. politicians who allegedly were Qatari assets and shared information with Iran, the Washington Examiner reported.
But several journalists have tweeted that they have found no evidence to support any of Bender's claims about Omar, the Examiner added.
Meanwhile, a Twitter spokesperson said Stella's accounts were closed for “repeated violations of the Twitter rules," The Examiner reported.
“To clarify, I said, "If it is proven ____ passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for #treason and hanged". Treason is the only thing mentioned in the constitution for the death penalty, punishable by hanging or firing squad," Stella wrote in a statement posted on Facebook on Friday. "I believe all involved should be thoroughly investigated. I did not threaten anyone.”
Stella said people were “making this into something it's not. You are making it about race, about religion, about anything but the truth.”
“My suspension for advocating for the enforcement of federal code proves Twitter will always side with and fight to protect terrorists, traitors, pedophiles and rapists,” she told The Examiner.
She added that she’s received death threats over her comments.
Omar tweeted in response, “This is the natural result of a political environment where anti-Muslim dogwhistles and dehumanization are normalized by an entire political party and its media outlets. Violent rhetoric inevitably leads to violent threats, and ultimately, violent acts.”
Stella’s website describes her as a special-education-needs professional who has dedicated her life to “teaching, supporting, and caring for children with Autism.”
Stella also claism she is a strong supporter of President Trump and free speech.

Tech giants promise $3B to help solve nation’s housing crisis

A couple takes in the view of the San Francisco, California skyline. (Reuters Photo/Robert Galbraith)

Tamara Mitchell, a volunteer for the Coalition on Homelessness, said it’s becoming impossible to live in San Francisco as the country’s housing crisis is only getting worse. Major cities in the Bay Area, including San Francisco, have the third largest population of people experiencing homelessness.

“We’ve been homeless, we’ve been staying in hotels, we’ve been staying with family members – it’s been a lot,” she explained.
However, help may soon be on the way. That’s because companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have promised to pay more than $3 billion to help solve the problem. This comes as many blame the housing crisis, in part, on Big Tech for building companies like the ones in Silicon Valley without considering where their employees would live with factors like strict house zoning laws and the possibility of prices skyrocketing.
This comes at the heels of a bipartisan initiative in Congress called the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, which would give incentives to purchase homes by setting a locked-in tax credit rate. The bill would also create more housing units, which would hopefully drive down prices.
So far, a large number of house legislators and U.S. senators from both parties have backed the bill. Lawmakers say the legislation would also make the country’s housing credit more effective for veterans, rural residents and Native American communities.

 

FILE – A man stands outside his tent on Division Street in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

Business leaders say it’s about time Big Tech owns up to its role in causing the housing crisis and that Congress also finally takes action to remedy the issue.
“As long as I’ve lived here, and that’s 30 years, people have said, ‘oh the housing is just out of control, it’s no longer connected to reality, this can’t continue’ and yet here we are,” said Russell Hancock, president and CEO Joint Ventures. “What’s happening most recently though is now we’re referring to it as a crisis.”
Hancock suggested that the most marginalized communities will continue to be hit the hardest by the housing crisis if action isn’t taken soon by Congress, Big Tech or both.

NYT Cartoons

The Latest: Trump, in Afghanistan, says Taliban wants deal

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump’s first visit to Afghanistan (all times local):

12:20 a.m.

President Donald Trump is returning to the U.S. after an unannounced trip to Afghanistan, his first visit to the site of America’s longest war.

Trump took off after midnight from Bagram Air Field after several hours with the troops and a brief meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Trump says the U.S. and Taliban have been engaged in ongoing peace talks and he thinks the Taliban want to make a deal.

Trump abruptly broke off peace talks with the Taliban in September, canceling a secret meeting with at Camp David after a bombing in Kabul that killed 12 people, including an American soldier. It was not immediately clear how long or substantive the U.S. reengagement with the Taliban has been.

White House spokesman Judd Deere said Ghani was notified of the president’s visit a few hours before Trump’s arrival and accepted an invitation to meet at the base.

___

11:50 p.m.

President Donald Trump is thanking U.S. troops in Afghanistan during a surprise visit to Bagram Air Field in his first trip to the site of America’s longest war.

He says he flew 8,331 miles to be there to tell them the U.S. has never been stronger. He says, “There is nowhere I’d rather celebrate Thanksgiving.”

Trump spoke to a crowd of about 1,500 troops gathered in a hangar on the base. He stood behind a podium surrounded by army green sandbags and flanked by military equipment.

Trump at one point invited Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to join him onstage. Ghani wished the troops a “Happy Thanksgiving” and commended Trump for his leadership.

Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and more than 2,400 American service members have been killed since America’s longest war began 18 years ago.

___

11:40 p.m.

President Donald Trump had a Thanksgiving meal with U.S. troops at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, where he traveled secretly Thursday.

Trump’s first stop was a dining hall decked out in paper Thanksgiving decorations where he plated turkey for the troops at the largest U.S. base in the country.

He was then greeted by a round of loud cheers as he headed into a main dining area and sat down for a meal, chatted and posed for photos.

He also thanked the troops and joked that, “It’s a long flight, but we love it.”

The meal included turkey, ham, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and candied yams. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, Entertainment Tonight and a Harry Potter movie played on dining hall TVs.

___

11:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump is making a surprise visit to Afghanistan to spend time with U.S. troops on Thanksgiving.

Trump arrived at Bagram Air Field shortly after 8:30 p.m. local time and spent more than two-and-a-half hours on the ground. Reporters were under strict instructions to keep the trip a secret to ensure his safety.

The visit comes more than two months after Trump abruptly broke off peace talks with the Taliban after a bombing in Kabul killed 12 people, including an American soldier.

And it comes at a pivotal moment in Trump’s presidency, with the impeachment inquiry moving quickly.

The president and first lady made a similar trip last year to Iraq on Christmas night — their first to an active conflict zone.

Vice President Mike Pence also visited troops in Iraq this week.

___

11 p.m.

The White House went to great lengths to keep the president’s surprise Thanksgiving trip to Afghanistan secret after his cover was blown last year.

Cell phones were confiscated from everyone traveling aboard Air Force One to Bagram Air Field. And Thanksgiving-themed tweets were teed up to publish ahead of time from the president’s account to prevent suspicions arising about his silence.

The president first flew back to the Washington area secretly from Florida, where reporters had been told he’d be spending Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, the plane he’d flown to Florida remained parked on the tarmac at West Palm Beach Airport to avoid revealing the president’s movement.

Last year, Air Force One was spotted en route to Iraq by an amateur British flight watcher.

Trump impeachment drive has parallels to Wisconsin recall

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A divisive leader drove the opposition to extreme measures. The political climate was toxic — with little civil debate or middle ground. The clash ended in a high-risk political showdown that captured the nation’s attention and shaped the next election.

This was the 2012 battle to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker, not the 2019 fight to impeach President Donald Trump. But for some who lived through the former, the episodes have clear similarities and a warning for Democrats about overreach and distraction.

“In both cases, they thought just as they were upset about something, everyone was,” Walker said, describing one of his takeaways from the campaign that failed to remove him from office. “Just because your base feels strongly about something doesn’t mean that the majority of other voters do.”

Although moderates declined to join liberals back then in voting to eject Walker, Democrats warn against presuming they’ll break the same way for Trump next year in Wisconsin, a state seen as pivotal in 2020. Voters who were likely wary of undoing Walker’s election via a rare recall face a simpler choice in whether to hand Trump a second term, they say.

“People may not like impeachment, simply because it adds to the drama of his presidency, but that doesn’t mean they are on the fence or sympathetic to Trump,” said Jon Erpenbach, a Democratic Wisconsin state senator.

The Walker recall sprang from a law he signed just months into his first term that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public employees. Walker didn’t reveal his plan until after he was elected in 2010, and the move sparked massive protests that made Wisconsin the center of a growing national fight over union rights.

Angry activists gathered nearly a million signatures to force the recall. Although Democrats had fought hard against the bill, with some state senators even fleeing the state at one point to avoid a vote, they were initially reluctant to embrace the recall for fear it would hurt then-President Barack Obama’s reelection hopes in 2012.

The recall became a proxy battle ahead of the presidential election, with Democrats arguing that Walker unfairly targeted teachers, nurses and other public employees to weaken the unions that traditionally supported Democratic candidates. Walker argued that his proposal shouldn’t have been a surprise since he campaigned on forcing public employees to pay more for their benefits while capping how much they could bargain for in raises. He also argued that it wasn’t proper to use the extraordinary option of recall over a policy dispute.

Walker ultimately won the recall election in June 2012, becoming a conservative hero on his way to a short-lived run for president in 2015. In a testament to Wisconsin’s political division, just five months after Walker won the recall vote, Obama cruised to victory in Wisconsin on his way to reelection.

Trump is accused of improperly withholding U.S. military aid that Ukraine needed to resist Russian aggression in exchange for Ukraine’s new president investigating Trump political rival Joe Biden and his son. Trump has argued that he was within his rights to ask Ukraine to look into corruption and that impeachment is just an attempt by Democrats to remove him from office.

Both impeachment and attempting to recall governors from office are exceedingly rare. Impeachment has only been leveled by the House against two presidents, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton 130 years later. Richard Nixon was on the brink of it in 1974 before he resigned. Walker was only the third governor in U.S. history to face a recall election and the first to survive it.

The rarity of the remedy may help explain why voters are reluctant to do either one, said Charles Franklin, who has regularly surveyed voter attitudes in Wisconsin for Marquette University.

A Marquette University Law School poll conducted just as public impeachment hearings were beginning earlier this month showed 53% of voters in Wisconsin were against removing Trump for office, with just 40% in support. National polls have shown a more even divide.

Even more troubling for Wisconsin Democrats was that while 78% of Democrats supported removing Trump through impeachment, 93% of Republicans were against it. That stronger rallying behind the incumbent, with the other side not as unified, parallels what was seen during the Walker recall, Franklin said.

Walker saw his support among independent voters go from about even six months before the recall election to positive 16 points just before the election. The latest Marquette poll also shows independents currently breaking against impeachment, with 47% against and 36% in favor.

Mike Tate, who was chairman of the state Democratic Party during the recall and continues to work in the state as a consultant, cautioned against making too much of where independents are on impeachment — and where they may be next November. After the impeachment process runs its course, Democrats will move on to talk about many other issues throughout the presidential campaign, Tate said.

“Impeachment will be in the rearview mirror,” he said.

But Stephan Thompson, who led the state GOP during the recalls and went on to manage Walker’s successful 2014 reelection campaign, said impeachment is “such a monumental event in history and politics” that it will hang over Democrats the rest of the cycle and make it difficult for them to bring moderate voters back to their side.

“When the left pushes this hard and overreaches, it helps you band together with people because you’re all in the foxhole together,” Thompson said. “I think that’s something they don’t realize.”

Erpenbach, the state senator, was among those who fled to Illinois for two weeks to try to kill the anti-union bill. He argues that unlike the recall, which was motivated by a policy disagreement, Congress was forced to hold impeachment hearings because Trump is alleged to have violated the Constitution.

Democrats are taking a political chance, Erpenbach said, but they’re doing what the Constitution requires, a key distinction from the recall.

“It worries me that it could backfire,” Erpenbach said, “but that’s not the point.”

___

Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbauerAP