The First@TheFirstonTV 7h7 hours ago Libs: "why won't you take our impeachment seriously?" Also libs:pic.twitter.com/3aewgnhSWM 73 replies 315 retweets 1,164 likes
Emerald Robinson ✝️Verified account@EmeraldRobinson 2h2 hours ago Just like I told you: as the House hearings start, a campaign by "moderate Republicans" begins to encourage the Senate to take "a secret ballot vote" on impeachment. This is called: a trial balloon. There’s a Surprisingly Plausible Path to Removing Trump From Office It would take just three Republican senators to turn the impeachment vote into a secret ballot. It’s not hard to imagine what would happen then. By JULEANNA GLOVER November 12, 2019 Juleanna Glover has worked as an adviser for several Republican politicians, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Rudy Giuliani, and advised the presidential campaigns of John McCain and Jeb Bush. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/11/12/path-to-removing-donald-trump-from-office-229911
Getty Images In The Arena There’s a Surprisingly Plausible Path to Removing Trump From Office It would take just three Republican senators to turn the impeachment vote into a secret ballot. It’s not hard to imagine what would happen then. By JULEANNA GLOVER November 12, 2019 Juleanna Glover has worked as an adviser for several Republican politicians, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Rudy Giuliani, and advised the presidential campaigns of John McCain and Jeb Bush. By most everyone’s judgment, the Senate will not vote to remove President Donald Trump from office if the House impeaches him. But what if senators could vote on impeachment by secret ballot? If they didn’t have to face backlash from constituents or the media or the president himself, who knows how many Republican senators would vote to remove? A secret impeachment ballot might sound crazy, but it’s actually quite possible. In fact, it would take only three senators to allow for that possibility. Story Continued Below Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he will immediately move to hold a trial to adjudicate the articles of impeachment if and when the Senate receives them from the House of Representatives. Article I, Section 3, of the Constitution does not set many parameters for the trial, except to say that “the Chief Justice shall preside,” and “no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.” That means the Senate has sole authority to draft its own rules for the impeachment trial, without judicial or executive branch oversight. During the last impeachment of a president, Bill Clinton, the rules were hammered out by Democrats and Republicans in a collaborative process,as then Senate leaders Trent Lott and Tom Daschle recently pointed out in a Washington Post op-ed. The rules passed unanimously. That’s unlikely this time, given the polarization that now defines our politics. McConnell and his fellow Republicans are much more likely to dictate the rules with little input from Democrats. But, according to current Senate procedure, McConnell will still need a simple majority—51 of the 53 Senate Republicans—to support any resolution outlining rules governing the trial. That means that if only three Republican senators were to break from the caucus, they could block any rule they didn’t like. (Vice President Mike Pence can’t break ties in impeachment matters.) Those three senators, in turn, could demand a secret ballot and condition their approval of the rest of the rules on getting one. Some might say transparency in congressional deliberations and votes is inviolable, and it’s true that none of the previous Senate impeachments have been conducted via secret ballot. But the Senate’s role in an impeachment is analogous to a U.S. jury, where secret ballots are often used. When Electoral College gridlock has resulted in the House picking the president—the House elected Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and John Quincy Adams in 1824—that vote has been secret. And, of course, when citizens vote for president, they do so in private. Trump and those around him seem confident that he won’t lose the 20 Republican senators needed to block a guilty verdict. But it’s not hard to imagine three senators supporting a secret ballot. Five sitting Republicansenators have already announced their retirements; four of those are in their mid-70s or older and will never run for office again. They might well be willing to demand secrecy in order to give cover to their colleagues who would like to convict Trump but are afraid to do so because of politics in their home districts. There are also 10 Republicansenators who aren’t up for reelection until 2024 and who might figure Trumpism will be irrelevant by then. Senators Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski have been the most vocal Republicans in expressing concerns about Trump’s behavior toward Ukraine. Other GOPsenators have recently softened in their defense of him, as well—all before the House has held any public hearings. There’s already been some public speculation that, should the Senate choose to proceed with a secret ballot, Trump would be found guilty. GOP strategist Mike Murphy said recently that a sitting Republican senator had told him 30 of his colleagues would vote to convict Trump if the ballot were secret. Former Senator Jeff Flake topped that, saying he thought 35 Republican senators would vote that way. While it’s unlikely Trump would support a secret ballot, it’s possible he might actually benefit from one in the long run. If a secret ballot is agreed on and Trump knows the prospect of impeachment is near, he could then focus his energies on his post-presidency. Once he leaves office, Trump faces multiple possible criminal investigations, at the federal, state and local level. He almost certainly knows that a President Pence could pardon him only for federal crimes. To avoid the prospect of serving time, Trump could negotiate a collective settlement—just as the Sackler family has done in the OxyContin matter—with all the jurisdictions now running independent investigations into his activities. Trump’s impeachment, followed by a quick resignation, might appease Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s and New York Attorney General Letitia James’s thirst for justice, making them more likely to agree to a deal. Even McConnell might privately welcome the prospect of a secret ballot.He has always been intently focused on maintaining his Republican majority in the Senate. Trump’s approval numbers continue to languish, and support for impeachment has been rising. McConnell himself, facing reelection next year, has an approval rating of just 18 percent in Kentucky, not to mention that the Republican governor there just suffered a stunning upset in last week’s election. All of which suggests McConnell might warm to the possibility that he and his caucus could avoid a public up-or-down vote in defense of behavior by the president that’s looking increasingly indefensible. A secret ballot might get Trump out of office sooner than everyone expects: The sooner any three Republican senators make clear that they will support nothing short of a secret ballot, the sooner Trump realizes his best course could be to cut a deal, trading his office for a get-out-of-jail-free card—a clean slate from prosecutors—just as Vice President Spiro Agnew did. And if Trump were to leave office before the end of the year, there might even be enough time for Republicans to have a vibrant primary fight, resulting in a principled Republican as the nominee. UPDATE: Some constitutional scholars have pointed out that Article 1, Section 5, of the Constitution designates that 20 senators can oppose a secret ballot on “any questions,” but “questions” are defined as “Any matter on which the Senate is to vote, such as passage of a bill, adoption of an amendment, agreement to a motion, or an appeal.” No mention of impeachment proceedings is made. And, as others have pointed out, preceding this one-fifth requirement is crucial language: “Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy.” Precedents are so thin here, but it is clear the Senate has the power to make its own rules over the trial proceedings. Those rules have historically required a simple majority of support.
AAA has had a stroke or something. Unconnected Greta post and double posting the same thing. FIX your double post bitch.
I quoted the full article just because it illustrates how deeply in denial the establishment republicans are. They actually think they can backstab our president, one who is extremely popular with the republican base, and just go back to business as usual, ie selling out the same base for foreign and big business interests. In their own way, they are even more despicable than the dems. The dems and media make no effort to disguise how much they despise the people who form the backbone of this country. You have to respect their honesty, if nothing else. Establishment republicans have no discernible admirable qualities. They act like doing the very least that could be expected of them, eg voting to confirm Kavanaugh, is deserving of their bust on Mt. Rushmore.
https://apnews.com/6d318542e50b45dc9e1d4d829ad36c96 AP source: Second US official in Kyiv heard Trump call WASHINGTON (AP) — A second U.S. Embassy staffer in Kyiv overheard a cellphone call between President Donald Trump and his ambassador to the European Union discussing a need for Ukrainian officials to pursue “investigations,” The Associated Press has learned. The July 26 call between Trump and Gordon Sondland was first described during testimony Wednesday by William Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Taylor said one of his staffers overhead the call while Sondland was in a Kyiv restaurant the day after Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that triggered the House impeachment inquiry. The second diplomatic staffer also at the table was Suriya Jayanti, a foreign service officer based in Kyiv. A person briefed on what Jayanti overheard spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter currently under investigation. The accounts of the two embassy staffers could tie Trump closer to alleged efforts to hold up military aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations into political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings. In defending Trump on Wednesday, Republicans repeatedly highlighted that Taylor never directly heard the president direct anyone to demand that the Ukrainians open the probe. Trump on Wednesday said he did not recall the July 26 call with Sondland. “No, not at all, not even a little bit,” Trump said. The White House did not respond to questions Thursday about the second witness to the call with Sondland. The staffer Taylor testified about is David Holmes, the political counselor at the embassy in Kyiv, according to an official familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. Holmes is scheduled to testify Friday before House investigators in a closed session. Taylor was one of the first witnesses called Wednesday during the impeachment inquiry’s initial open hearing. He testified that his staffer could hear Trump on the phone asking Sondland about “the investigations.” Later that day, a Twitter account that appears to belong to Ukraine’s then-Defense Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk posted a photo of himself at dinner with Sondland, Taylor and Ambassador Kurt Volker, who was then Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine for peace negotiations. Since 2014, the Ukrainian government has been battling Russian-backed separatists in the country’s eastern region, and the continuation of U.S. military aid is crucial to its defense. Whether Trump directed nearly $400 million in aid to be withheld to force the Ukrainians to open investigations into Democrats is a key question of the impeachment inquiry. Current and former U.S. officials say Sondland’s use of a cellphone in a public place in Ukraine to speak with anyone in the U.S. government back home about sensitive matters, let alone the president, would be a significant breach of communications security. Jayanti is an attorney who joined the State Department in 2012 and was previously posted at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. She has been stationed since September 2018 at the embassy in Kyiv where she helps coordinate U.S. business interests with the former Soviet republic’s energy industry. Jayanti was in Washington last month and scheduled for a closed-door interview with impeachment investigators. But the deposition was canceled because of the funeral for former House Oversight Chair Elijah Cummings and has not yet been rescheduled. Holmes, a career diplomat, joined the Foreign Service in 2002 and has served in Afghanistan, Colombia, India, Kosovo and Russia as well as on the White House National Security Council staff. He won an award for constructive dissent from the American Foreign Service Association in 2014 for complaining about problems that an alternate diplomatic channel had caused in South Asia and recommending organizational changes to the State Department’s bureaucratic structure for the region. U.S. diplomats and other government employees are instructed not to use cellphones for sensitive official matters while traveling anywhere abroad and notably in countries known to be targeted for surveillance by intelligence agencies such as Russia, China and Israel. Ukraine has long been among the countries of concern, particularly since a 2014 incident in which the U.S. accused Russian intelligence of eavesdropping on and then leaking a recording of a conversation between two senior U.S. officials in Kyiv that led to great embarrassment and strains between the U.S. and its European allies. In that recording, then-Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland is heard telling former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoff Pyatt “F-ck the EU,” because of the European Union’s slowness to respond to the political crisis in the country. “That phone call was also a mistake the way it was conducted and it had huge implications for our foreign policy,” said Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia who is now at Stanford University. “Particularly after that, anybody should understand how dangerous it is to make an unsecured call in Kyiv, or anywhere else for that matter.” “Obviously, making a phone call from Kyiv to the president of the United States means that not just the Russian intelligence services will be on the call, but a whole lot of other people, too,” McFaul said. “If it was that important, he (Sondland) could have easily gotten up from the restaurant, gone to the embassy and made a secure call through the White House operations center.” Steven Pifer, who served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000, said he always assumed his cellphone calls were being monitored and would not discuss anything sensitive unless he was on a secure phone at the embassy or his residence. “Any unsecure call is vulnerable, but there’s a special risk if it’s the president’s number on your phone,” Pifer said. “You have to know everyone is going to be interested in it and not just the Russians.” In a closed-door hearing last month, former White House Russia adviser Fiona Hill said she was concerned that Sondland posed a counterintelligence risk, according to a transcript released by the House. Hill cited a Sondland habit of giving out personal cellphone numbers — hers and national security adviser John Bolton’s as well as his own — and his failure to get appropriately briefed ahead of meetings. “So he was often meeting with people he had no information about,” said Hill, who served as the senior director for Russia at the National Security Council. “It’s like basically driving along with no guardrails and no GPS on an unfamiliar territory.” She said Sondland was meeting with foreign officials “that we had derogatory information on that he shouldn’t have been meeting with” or he was giving out his phone number or texting foreign officials. “All of those communications could have been exfiltrated by the Russians very easily,” she said. Hill said officials from Europe would literally appear at the gates of the White House and call her personal phone, which was kept in a lockbox. She said she’d later find messages from irate officials who’d been told by Sondland that they were supposed to meet with her. She said she found it deeply concerning and asked for someone from the Intelligence Bureau to “sit down with him and explain that this was a counterintelligence risk.”
Day 2: Yovanovitch set to testify she was pushed out for corrupt reasons related to Trump’s misuse of foreign services. I hear this lady gets emotional so some of this stuff may be tough to watch. Also, expect Rudy Giuliani to come up a lot.