Inspector General Michael Horowitz's long-awaited report this week on
FBI and Justice Department surveillance abuses does not provide the
name of an unidentified FBI supervisory special agent (SSA) who made a
series of apparent oversights in the bureau's so-called "Crossfire
Hurricane" probe into the Trump campaign.
However, a review of
Horowitz's findings leaves little doubt that the unnamed SSA is Joe
Pientka -- someone who could soon play a prominent role in the ongoing
prosecution of Michael Flynn, as the former Trump national security
adviser fights to overturn his guilty plea on a single charge of making
false statements.
Specifically, Horowitz's report
states that "SSA 1" was one of the FBI agents to interview Flynn at the
White House on Jan. 24, 2017, in a seemingly casual conversation that
would later form the basis for his criminal prosecution.
It was previously reported
that the interviewing agents were Peter Strzok, who was later fired by
the FBI for misconduct and anti-Trump bias, and Pientka, whom Strzok previously identified as his notetaker for the Flynn interview. Flynn's attorney has also mentioned Pientka's role during past court proceedings. Of the two agents, only Strzok is openly named in the Horowitz report, which strongly indicates that the other is Pientka.
"SSA
1," Horowitz's report states, may have helped mislead the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) about material facts concerning
former Trump adviser Carter Page and British ex-spy Christopher Steele,
whose unverified dossier played a central role in the FBI's warrant to
surveil Page.
Page has not been charged with any wrongdoing, even
though the FBI flatly called him a foreign "agent" in its surveillance
warrant application. And former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation,
which concluded earlier this year, found no evidence that the Trump
campaign had engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russians to influence
the 2016 election, despite multiple outreach efforts by Russian actors.
On
Aug. 1, 2016, just after the official inception of the FBI’s
investigation into the Trump campaign, Strzok and Pientka traveled
overseas to meet with the Australian officials who had spoken with Trump
adviser George Papadopoulos in May of that year. The officials had
overhead Papadopoulos mention his now-infamous conversation with Joseph
Mifsud about suggestions of potential Russian leaks of Hillary Clinton’s
emails, apparently touching off what would become the Russia probe.
SSA
1 was given a supervisory role on the Crossfire Hurricane team,
overseeing agents and reporting directly to Strzok. The special agent
created the electronic sub-file to which the Steele reports would be
uploaded and, according to Horowitz, these reports were used to support
the probable cause in the Page FISA applications.
Then, on
Sept. 23, 2016, Yahoo News published an article describing U.S.
government efforts to determine whether Page was in communication with
Kremlin officials. The article seemed to closely track information from
one of Steele’s reports. As a result, one FBI case agent who reported to
SSA 1 believed Steele was the source, according to Horowitz.
SSA
1 apparently thought the same, as his notes from a Sept. 30, 2016,
meeting said: “Control issues -- reports acknowledged in Yahoo
News.” When questioned by Horowitz's office, the agent explained he was
concerned -- but not sure -- that Steele was the Yahoo News source.
The
drafts of the Page FISA application, however, tell a different story.
Horowitz found that until Oct. 14, 2016, drafts state that Steele was
responsible for the leak that led to the Yahoo News article. One draft
specifically states that Steele “was acting on his/her own volition and
has since been admonished by the FBI.”
These assertions, which
could have pointed to political motivations by their source soon before
the 2016 presidential election, were changed to the following: Steele’s
“business associate or the law firm that hired the business associate
likely provided this information to the press.”
Horowitz found no facts to support this assessment.
Former Trump adviser Carter Page was falsely accused of being a "foreign agent" in the FBI's secret surveillance warrant.
And, even after receiving “additional information
about Steele’s media contacts, the Crossfire Hurricane team did not
change the language in any of the three renewal applications regarding
the FBI’s assessment of Steele’s role in the September 23 article,"
Horowitz found.
On Oct. 11, 2016, Steele met with then-State
Department official Jonathan Winer and Deputy Assistant Secretary
Kathleen Kavalec. Steele informed Kavalec that a Russian cyber-hacking
operation targeting the 2016 U.S. elections was paying the culprits from
“the Russian Consulate in Miami.” Kavalec later met with an FBI liaison
and explained to them that Russia did not have a consulate in Miami.
SSA 1 was informed of Steele’s incorrect claim about the Russian
Consulate on Nov. 18, 2016, but the FISA court was never provided this
information, according to the IG report.
Additionally, the agent
was aware of Page’s denials to an FBI confidential human source (CHS)
that he knew Russian officials Igor Sechin and Igor Divyekin – officials
that Steele alleged Page had secret meetings with in Moscow in July
2016. In fact, Horowitz found that SSA 1 “knew as of October 17 that
Page denied ever knowing Divyekin."
"This
inconsistency was also not noted during the Woods Procedures on the
subsequent FISA renewal applications, and none of the three later FISA
renewal applications included Page’s denials to the CHS," Horowitz
wrote, referring to the FBI's practice of reverifying facts in its FISA
application before seeking renewals.
SSA 1 also had the
responsibility for “confirming that the Woods File was complete and for
double-checking the factual accuracy review to confirm that the file
contained appropriate documentation for each of the factual assertions
in the FISA application," according to Horowitz.
But Horowitz
found numerous instances “in which factual assertions relied upon in the
first FISA application targeting Carter Page were inaccurate,
incomplete or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon
information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application
was filed."
In particular, the FBI misled the FISC by asserting
that Steele’s prior reporting "has been corroborated and used in
criminal proceedings.” Horowitz's review found there was no
documentation to support this statement; SSA 1 told Horowitz they
“speculated.”
SSA
1 was also aware, according to Horowitz, that Steele had relayed his
information to officials at the State Department, and he had
documentation showing Steele had told the team he provided the reports
to his contacts at the State Department. Despite this, the FISC was
informed that Steele told the FBI he “only provided this information to
the business associate and the FBI.”
After Steele was terminated
as an FBI source for leaking to the media, there was a meeting with
Crossfire Hurricane team members and Justice Department official Bruce
Ohr, whose wife had been hired by Steele employer Fusion GPS. SSA 1 told
Horowitz that Ohr likely left the meeting with the impression that he
should contact the FBI if Steele contacted him; Ohr told Horowitz that
SSA 1 became his initial point of contact when relaying Steele’s
information to the FBI.
Pientka was selected to provide an Aug.
17, 2016 FBI security briefing to the Trump campaign once the FBI was
informed that Flynn would be in attendance. According to Pientka, the
briefing gave him “the opportunity to gain assessment and possibly have
some level of familiarity” with Flynn. He was there to “record” anything
“specific to Russia or anything specific to our investigation.”
Pientka
found the opportunity to interact with Flynn “useful” because he was
able to compare Flynn’s “norms” from the briefing with Flynn’s conduct
at his Jan. 24, 2017, interview. It was this assessment that
purportedly helped lead Pientka to conclude that Flynn was not lying
when questioned about his interactions with the Russians after the
election and his calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
With Strzok's termination from the FBI, Pientka is perhaps the only remaining FBI witness against Flynn.
Horowitz's descriptions of SSA 1's conduct came as U.S. Attorney John Durham announced Monday that he did not "agree" with
some of the inspector general's conclusions, stunning observers while
also highlighting Durham's broader criminal mandate and scope of review.
Durham is focusing on foreign actors as well as the CIA, while Horowitz
concentrated his attention on the Justice Department and FBI.
"Based
on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is
ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not
agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how
the FBI case was opened," Durham said in his statement, adding that his
"investigation is not limited to developing information from within
component parts of the Justice Department" and "has included developing
information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and
outside of the U.S."
Pientka is hardly the only bureau employee to
come under scrutiny. Prior to the FBI's warrant application to monitor
Page, the FBI reached out to the CIA and other intelligence agencies for
information on Page, Horowitz discovered. The CIA responded in an
email by telling the FBI that Page had contacts with Russians from 2008
to 2013, but that Page had reported them to the CIA and was serving as a
CIA operational contact and informant on Russian business and
intelligence interests.
An FBI lawyer then doctored the CIA's
email about Page to make it seem as though the agency had said only that
Page was not an active source. And, the FBI included Page's contacts
with Russians in the warrant application as evidence he was a foreign
"agent," without disclosing to the secret surveillance court that Page
was voluntarily working with the CIA concerning those foreign contacts.
For several years, Democrats and analysts at The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN have
repeatedly claimed that key claims in the Clinton-funded anti-Trump
dossier had been corroborated and that the document was not critical to
the FBI's warrant to surveil Page. Horowitz repudiated that claim, with
the FBI's legal counsel even describing the warrant to surveil Page as
"essentially a single source FISA" wholly dependent on the dossier.
Among
the unsubstantiated claims in the dossier: that ex-Trump lawyer Michael
Cohen traveled to Prague to conspire with Russian hackers; that the
Trump campaign was paying hackers working out of a nonexistent Russian
consulate in Miami; that a lurid blackmail tape of Trump existed and
might be in Russian possession; and that Page was bribed with a 19
percent share in a Russian company.
The FBI declined Fox News' request for an on-the-record comment late Friday. Wilson Miller contributed to this report.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
