Sunday, January 19, 2020
Murkowski wants to hear case before deciding on witnesses
JUNEAU,
Alaska (AP) — Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she’s comfortable
waiting to decide if more information is needed as part of the Senate’s
impeachment trial until after hearing arguments from House managers and
attorneys for President Donald Trump and questions from members.
The
Republican said Saturday she wants to make sure there’s a process that
allows senators to “really hear the case” and ask questions “before we
make that determination as to, what more do we need. I don’t know what
more we need until I’ve been given the base case.”
Murkowski spoke to reporters from Anchorage ahead of Senate impeachment trial proceedings expected to begin Tuesday.
If
Democrats try to add certain witnesses to an organizing resolution,
Murkowski said she expects Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would
move to table such a request and that she would support a tabling
motion.
“Because
what I’ve worked hard to do is make sure that we have a process that
will allow for that determination” — whether witnesses or documents are
needed, she said. “But I want to have that at a point where I know
whether or not I’m going to need it.”
She
said there are political pressures “on all of us” but said her
responsibility is “not to focus on the politics of where we are but a
recognition that we are in the midst of an infrequent and in many ways
extraordinary process that the Constitution allows for, and I’m going to
take my constitutional obligations very, very seriously.”
Regardless
of how one views the House’s handling of the impeachment process, the
matter is now before the Senate, she said, adding later she does not
want the proceedings to become a “circus.”
Trump
was impeached by the House on charges he abused his power by pushing
Ukraine to investigate his Democratic political rival Joe Biden and that
he obstructed Congress by blocking witnesses and testimony in the House
investigation. Trump has said he did nothing wrong.
Murkowski
said a recent Government Accountability Office report that concluded
the White House violated federal law by withholding congressionally
approved security aid to Ukraine reminded her of last year’s debate over
Trump’s declaration of a border emergency that he invoked to spend more
for border barriers than Congress had approved.
During
that debate, she said she maintained the president could not take funds
congressionally directed to one area and use them to advance his own
policies. “Whether it was for the wall or for any other thing, I have
been one that has said, ‘Congress has a very specific role when it comes
to appropriation of funding and that needs to be respected,’” she said.
She said she
viewed the GAO report with a “little bit of concern,” in part because of
the need to respect Congress’ appropriation powers.
In
a telephone interview Friday with the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska’s
other Republican U.S. senator, Dan Sullivan, said he supports using the
same rules as the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in the 1990s,
which Sullivan said would give Trump a “fair and balanced” process.
Under those rules, he said, the determination of whether or not to bring
witnesses would happen in the second phase.
“I
think this is going to be a stark contrast to what happened over in the
House where you literally witnessed the most rushed most partisan and
unprepared impeachment proceedings in the House in U.S. history,”
Sullivan said.
National Archives: ‘We made a mistake’ altering Trump photos
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The National Archives said Saturday it made a mistake when it blurred images of anti-Trump signs used in an exhibit on women’s suffrage.
The
independent agency is charged with preserving government and historical
records and said it has always been committed to preserving its
holdings “without alteration.”
But the archives said in a statement Saturday “we made a mistake.” The archives’ statement came one day after The Washington Post published an online report about the altered images.
The
archives said the photo in question is not one of its archival records,
but rather was licensed for use as a promotional graphic in the
exhibit.
“Nonetheless, we were wrong to alter the image,” the agency said.
The
current display has been removed and will be replaced as soon as
possible with one that uses the original, unaltered image, the archives
said.
The
exhibit about the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote,
blurred some anti-Trump messages on protest signs in a photo of the 2017
Women’s March in Washington.
Signs
that referred to women’s private parts, which also were widespread
during the march, which was held shortly after Trump took office, also
were altered.
The
archives said it will immediately begin a “thorough review” of its
policies and procedures for exhibits “so that this does not happen
again.”
T he American Civil Liberties Union called on the archives to issue a more detailed, explanation.
“Apologizing
is not enough,” Louise Melling, the organization’s deputy legal
director, said in a statement. “The National Archives must explain to
the public why it took the Orwellian step of trying to rewrite history
and erasing women’s bodies from it, as well as who ordered it.”
Archives
spokeswoman Miriam Kleiman told the Post for its report that the
nonpartisan, nonpolitical federal agency blurred the anti-Trump
references “so as not to engage in current political controversy.”
References
to female anatomy in the signs were obscured in deference to student
groups and young people who visit the archives, Kleiman told the
newspaper.
Kleiman
did not respond to an emailed request for comment Saturday from The
Associated Press. The public affairs office at the archives emailed the
statement.
The
archives issued the apology as thousands again gathered in Washington
and in cities across the country Saturday for Women’s March rallies
focused on issues such as climate change, pay equity and reproductive
rights.
Trump team, House managers trade sharp views on impeachment
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s legal team issued a fiery response Saturday ahead of opening arguments in his impeachment trial,
while House Democrats laid out their case in forceful fashion, saying
the president betrayed public trust with behavior that was the “worst
nightmare” of the founding fathers.
The
dueling filings previewed arguments both sides intend to make once
Trump’s impeachment trial begins in earnest Tuesday in the Senate. Their
challenge will be to make a case that appeals to the 100 senators who
will render the verdict and for an American public bracing for a
presidential election in 10 months.
“President
Donald J. Trump used his official powers to pressure a foreign
government to interfere in a United States election for his personal
political gain,” the House prosecutors wrote, “and then attempted to
cover up his scheme by obstructing Congress’s investigation into his
misconduct.”
Trump’s
legal team, responding to the Senate’s official summons for the trial,
said the president “categorically and unequivocally” denies the charges
of abuse and obstruction against him.
“This
is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016
election and interfere with the 2020 election, now just months away,”
the president’s filing states.
Stripped
of legalese and structured in plain English, the documents underscored
the extent to which the impeachment proceedings are a political rather
than conventional legal process.
They
are the first of several filings expected in coming days as senators
prepare to take their seats for the rare impeachment court.
Senators
swore an oath to do “impartial justice”′ as the chamber convenes to
consider the two articles of impeachment approved by the House last
month as Trump’s presidency and legacy hangs in balance.
One
Republican whose votes are closely watched, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of
Alaska, acknowledged Saturday the political pressure bearing on them.
“I’m going to take my constitutional obligations very, very seriously,” she told reporters from Anchorage on a call.
The
House’s 111-page brief outlined the prosecutors’ narrative, starting
from Trump’s phone call with Ukraine and relying on the private and
public testimony of a dozen witnesses -- ambassadors and national
security officials at high levels of government -- who raised concerns
about the president’s actions.
The
House managers wrote: “The only remaining question is whether the
members of the Senate will accept and carry out the responsibility
placed on them by the Framers of our Constitution and their
constitutional Oaths.”
The
Trump team called the two articles of impeachment “a dangerous attack
on the right of the American people to freely choose their president.”
Trump’s
team encouraged lawmakers to reject “poisonous partisanship” and
“vindicate the will of the American people” by rejecting both articles
of impeachment approved by the House.
The
Senate is still debating the ground rules of the trial, particularly
the question of whether there will be new witnesses as fresh evidence
emerges over Trump’s Ukraine actions that led to impeachment.
New
information from Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Trump lawyer Rudy
Giuliani, is being incorporated in the House case. At the same time,
Senate Democrats want to call John Bolton, the former national security
adviser, among other potential eyewitnesses, after the White House
blocked officials from appearing in the House.
With
Republicans controlling the Senate 53-47, they can set the trial rules —
or any four Republicans could join with Democrats to change course.
Murkowski
told reporters she wants to hear both sides of the case before deciding
whether to call for new witnesses and testimony.
“I don’t know what more we need until I’ve been given the base case,” Murkowski said.
The House’s impeachment managers are working through the weekend and will be at the Capitol midday Sunday to prep the case.
Trump’s
answer to the summons was the first salvo in what will be several
rounds of opening arguments. Trump will file a more detailed legal brief
on Monday, and the House will be able to respond to the Trump filing on
Tuesday.
Trump’s
team led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump personal lawyer
Jay Sekulow, is challenging the impeachment on both procedural and
constitutional grounds, claiming Trump has been mistreated by House
Democrats and that he did nothing wrong.
The
filings came a day after Trump finalized his legal team, adding Ken
Starr, the former independent counsel whose investigation into President
Bill Clinton led to his impeachment, and Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law
professor emeritus who intends to make constitutional arguments.
White
House attorneys and Trump’s outside legal team have been debating just
how political Monday’s legal brief laying out the contours of Trump’s
defense should be.
Some
in the administration have echoed warnings from Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that the pleadings must be sensitive to the
Senate’s more staid traditions and leave some of the sharper rhetoric
exhibited during the House proceedings to Twitter and cable news.
One
Democratic aide said Saturday that Trump’s initial filing read more
like a Trump campaign fundraising email than a legal document.
People
close to the Trump legal team said Cipollone would deliver the
president’s opening argument before the Senate and that Sekulow would
follow. Starr and Dershowitz would have “discrete functions” on the
legal team, according to those close to the legal team, who were not
authorized to discuss the strategy by name and spoke on condition of
anonymity.
At
issue in the impeachment case are allegations that Trump asked Ukraine
to announce an investigation of Democratic political rival Joe Biden at
the same time the White House withheld hundreds of nearly $400 million
in aid from the former Soviet republic as it faces a hostile Russia at
its border.
The Government Accountability Office said last week the administration violated federal law by withholding the funds to Ukraine. The money was later released after Congress complained.
The
House brief said, “President Trump’s misconduct presents a danger to
our democratic processes, our national security, and our commitment to
the rule of law. He must be removed from office.
Trump’s
attorneys argue that the articles of impeachment are unconstitutional
in and of themselves and invalid because they don’t allege a crime.
Under
the Constitution impeachment is a political, not a criminal process,
and the president can be removed from office if found guilty of whatever
lawmakers consider “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
_____
Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Becky Bohrer in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report.
Trump lawyers respond to articles of impeachment: 'Constitutionally invalid'
President Trump's legal team on Saturday issued a full-throttle defense to the articles of impeachment,
refuting the substance and process of the charges while accusing House
Democrats of engaging in a "dangerous attack" on the right of the
American people to freely choose their president.
"This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election -- now just months away," the legal filing said. "The highly partisan and reckless obsession with impeaching the president began the day he was inaugurated and continues to this day."
"The articles of impeachment are constitutionally invalid on their face," the seven-page filing continued.
The legal paperwork is the first formal response to the two articles of impeachment read in the Senate on Thursday for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Trump's lawyers argued that the articles of impeachment "violate the Constitution" and are "defective in their entirety" because they were the product of invalid House proceedings that "flagrantly denied the President any due process rights."
At the crux of Trump's defense is that he did nothing wrong in his July 25 phone call with the president of Ukraine when he asked for investigations into Democrats. The White House argues that military aid to Ukraine was ultimately released without any announcement of investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
The lawyers contend House Democrats fail to allege any crime or violation of law whatsoever, let alone, high crimes or misdemeanors.
"In order to preserve our constitutional structure of government, to reject the poisonous partisanship that the Framers warned against, to ensure one-party political impeachment vendettas do not become the 'new normal,' and to vindicate the will of the American people, the Senate must reject both Articles of Impeachment," Trump's legal team wrote. "In the end, this entire process is nothing more than a dangerous attack on the American people themselves and their fundamental right to vote."
The response is the first of many expected in the coming days from Trump's growing legal team as they battle to acquit the commander in chief in the Senate impeachment trial.
The House impeachment managers released their opening trial briefing Saturday evening, and Trump's lawyers will give their response by Monday at noon.
Adding to the Democrats' case is a legal opinion Thursday from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which found that the Trump administration broke the law by withholding defense aid to Ukraine. But a source close to Trump's legal team rejected the findings and accused the GAO of trying to insert itself into the impeachment "news cycle."
The third presidential impeachment trial formally began Thursday when Chief Justice John Roberts swore in the senators and each signed an “oath book” to cement their role as impartial jurors.
The trial will kick off in earnest Tuesday when House impeachment managers will prosecute the case and Trump's lawyers will offer a robust defense over a period of days.
"This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election -- now just months away," the legal filing said. "The highly partisan and reckless obsession with impeaching the president began the day he was inaugurated and continues to this day."
"The articles of impeachment are constitutionally invalid on their face," the seven-page filing continued.
The legal paperwork is the first formal response to the two articles of impeachment read in the Senate on Thursday for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Trump's lawyers argued that the articles of impeachment "violate the Constitution" and are "defective in their entirety" because they were the product of invalid House proceedings that "flagrantly denied the President any due process rights."
At the crux of Trump's defense is that he did nothing wrong in his July 25 phone call with the president of Ukraine when he asked for investigations into Democrats. The White House argues that military aid to Ukraine was ultimately released without any announcement of investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
The lawyers contend House Democrats fail to allege any crime or violation of law whatsoever, let alone, high crimes or misdemeanors.
"In order to preserve our constitutional structure of government, to reject the poisonous partisanship that the Framers warned against, to ensure one-party political impeachment vendettas do not become the 'new normal,' and to vindicate the will of the American people, the Senate must reject both Articles of Impeachment," Trump's legal team wrote. "In the end, this entire process is nothing more than a dangerous attack on the American people themselves and their fundamental right to vote."
The response is the first of many expected in the coming days from Trump's growing legal team as they battle to acquit the commander in chief in the Senate impeachment trial.
The House impeachment managers released their opening trial briefing Saturday evening, and Trump's lawyers will give their response by Monday at noon.
Adding to the Democrats' case is a legal opinion Thursday from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which found that the Trump administration broke the law by withholding defense aid to Ukraine. But a source close to Trump's legal team rejected the findings and accused the GAO of trying to insert itself into the impeachment "news cycle."
The third presidential impeachment trial formally began Thursday when Chief Justice John Roberts swore in the senators and each signed an “oath book” to cement their role as impartial jurors.
The trial will kick off in earnest Tuesday when House impeachment managers will prosecute the case and Trump's lawyers will offer a robust defense over a period of days.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Tucker Carlson: Democrats want US to be more like California -- the state that's driving residents away
Tucker Carlson continued to take on the homeless crisis Friday night, this time tying it to the 2020 presidential election and asking viewers what kind of impact the election will have on the United States.
"The issues at stake are bigger than just the economy or even our foreign policy commitments. 2020 is about the broadest possible questions. What kind of country should we have? Who should live here? What will America look like 50 years from now?" Carlson asked on "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
"There are a lot of possible answers to those questions," he added, "but leading Democrats appear to have settled on their position. America, they're telling us, should be a lot more like California."
Carlson, who has covered California's problems extensively, mentioned Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg's recent comments praising the state.
"I think that California can serve as a great example for the rest of this country,” Bloomberg said last week.
Carlson said he sees Bloomberg's view as being woefully outdated.
"The people who moved here in 1960 when Bloomberg graduated high school found their American dream," Carlson said. "But things have changed. Now, the children and grandchildren of those people are fleeing California."
The Golden State's problems have included health and immigration -- and residents leaving the state because of failed policies, Carlson said.
"It's messed up, really messed up," Carlson said after playing a montage of homeless people taking drugs and leaving filth in the street.
"That's right. And so finally normal people are leaving California. For decades, the state led the nation in attracting migrants from other states. Now the flow has reversed."
Carlson blamed the politicians.
"Instead of fixing the problems that are forcing people to flee," he said, "politicians here have spent the last few years on policies that are frivolous and counterproductive."
"The issues at stake are bigger than just the economy or even our foreign policy commitments. 2020 is about the broadest possible questions. What kind of country should we have? Who should live here? What will America look like 50 years from now?" Carlson asked on "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
"There are a lot of possible answers to those questions," he added, "but leading Democrats appear to have settled on their position. America, they're telling us, should be a lot more like California."
Carlson, who has covered California's problems extensively, mentioned Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg's recent comments praising the state.
"I think that California can serve as a great example for the rest of this country,” Bloomberg said last week.
Carlson said he sees Bloomberg's view as being woefully outdated.
"The people who moved here in 1960 when Bloomberg graduated high school found their American dream," Carlson said. "But things have changed. Now, the children and grandchildren of those people are fleeing California."
The Golden State's problems have included health and immigration -- and residents leaving the state because of failed policies, Carlson said.
"It's messed up, really messed up," Carlson said after playing a montage of homeless people taking drugs and leaving filth in the street.
"That's right. And so finally normal people are leaving California. For decades, the state led the nation in attracting migrants from other states. Now the flow has reversed."
Carlson blamed the politicians.
"Instead of fixing the problems that are forcing people to flee," he said, "politicians here have spent the last few years on policies that are frivolous and counterproductive."
Holman Jenkins: The Comey coverup unravels
The
Justice Department is investigating whether then-FBI Director James
Comey illegally leaked secret information concerning a Russian document;
Fox News correspondent David Spunt reports.
In a curious report on Thursday evening, the New York Times carefully averts its eyes from everything that’s interesting. Even Adam Schiff has acknowledged that James Comey’s actions in 2016 may represent the most important and significant Russian influence on the election. (Hoist your shot glass. This will be the umpteenth time I’ve quoted Mr. Schiff on this matter in this column.)Surely one of the most consequential pieces of intelligence ever received by U.S. agencies was, as we now learn, received in early 2016 from a Dutch counterpart. This is the dubious Russian intelligence that set off Mr. Comey’s multiple interventions in the last presidential race, culminating in an improper act that may have inadvertently elected Donald Trump. Even at the time Mr. Comey’s FBI colleagues considered the intelligence, which indicated questionable actions by the Justice Department to fix the Hillary email investigation, to be false, possibly a Russian plant.
The Times adds the unsurprising revelation that Mr. Comey himself is suspected in the illegal leak that, in early 2017, alerted the media to this untold aspect of his 2016 actions, before the matter disappeared again behind a veil of official secrecy. Yet bizarrely, the paper plays down its scoop, suggesting that any inquiry into a “years-old” leak now can only be a political hit job by an “ambitious” Justice Department attorney seeking to please President Trump.
First of all, I doubt this subject pleases Mr. Trump—it re-raises the question of whether his election was an accident caused by Mr. Comey. Second, the information is obviously important. The scandal hiding in plain sight is our intelligence establishment’s misuse of its authority to muck around in the 2016 election.
As a bonus, I’m going to suggest the FBI’s own pursuit of the collusion will-o’-the-wisp may have been occasioned by its hope of finding that the same fabricated Russian intelligence was in the hands of the Trump campaign, providing an ex post justification for Mr. Comey’s actions that he desperately would have wanted once fingers began pointing at him for Mrs. Clinton’s defeat. (I guess we can at least be glad he didn’t plant the information on Carter Page. )
Let’s call a spade a spade. The media is a big part of the coverup. When the Justice Department inspector general issued his damning report on Mr. Comey, not one media outlet in the Factiva database told its readers about the existence of its classified appendix except this column and Britain’s Daily Mail tabloid.
Let’s call a spade a spade. The media is a big part of the coverup.Mr. Comey himself, after allegedly leaking the secret information to the press, penned a sententious memoir suggesting the same info should remain hidden from the American people “decades from now.”
And while flogging fake revelations from the nonexistent Trump-Russia conspiracy, the mainstream press ignored a public plea, uttered before Congress, by the Justice Department’s own inspector general that the secret Comey information be declassified so the people and their representatives can know the truth about 2016.
On Thursday night, former Rep. Trey Gowdy reported that the information Mr. Comey is suspected of leaking to the media he refused to share even with Congress in a classified briefing, saying it was too top secret.
The mainstream media has been uncharacteristically silent about all this for too long—and you’re about to find out why. Whether from design or myopia, it allowed itself to be instrumental in suppressing real news in favor of a fairy tale about Mr. Trump and the Russians. That’s the deeper message of the Times’s weirdly conflicted handling of its scoop about Mr. Comey.
Leaking secret intelligence, if that’s what Mr. Comey did, is a crime. But even more palpable is something else: The information remains officially classified not to protect national security but to protect the national-security establishment from embarrassment.
Leaking secret intelligence, if that’s what Mr. Comey did, is a crime. But even more palpable is something else: The information remains officially classified not to protect national security but to protect the national-security establishment from embarrassment.The story here truly contains something for everybody. If you think Mr. Trump never should have been president, blame Mr. Comey. If you think the “deep state” is running amok, here’s your evidence. If you think the intelligence establishment is incompetent and needs a Trumpian kick in the derrière, even more so.
Alas, every revelation about this matter turns out to be a revelation also about the deviousness and expediency of Mr. Comey, the nation’s former FBI director. What should happen now? More than ever, Attorney General William Barr should act on the authority Mr. Trump has given him and declassify the inspector general’s report as well any material describing the role of other agencies (e.g., the CIA) in Mr. Comey’s election-meddling escapades.
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