Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
SCHIFF ADMIT YOU HAVE A PROBLEM!
December 15th, 2019 | 
Author: Nunes tells Schiff he needs ‘rehabilitation’
after IG report: ‘Admit you have a problem’
Fox News Flash top headlines for Dec. 15
Fox News Flash top headlines for Dec. 15 are here. Check out what’s clicking on FoxNews.com
House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., that he is “in need of rehabilitation” after a Justice Department Inspector General report on the FBI’s Russia investigation and its use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) contradicted Schiff’s past assertions.
In a 2018 memo, Schiff dismissed Nunes’ concerns about the FBI’s use of a FISA warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The IG report confirmed that the FBI’s warrant applications included 17 “significant errors and omissions,” including a doctored email and reliance on unverified information from former British spy Christopher Steele.
COMEY ADMITS ERROR IN DEFENSE OF FBI’S FISA PROCESS AFTER IG REPORT: ‘I WAS WRONG’
“After publishing false conclusions of such enormity on a topic directly within this committee’s oversight responsibilities, it is clear you are in need of rehabilitation, and I hope this letter will serve as the first step in that vital process,” Nunes said in a Sunday letter.
Schiff’s memo downplayed Steele’s role and denied FBI wrongdoing, saying, “FBI and DOJ officials did not ‘abuse’ the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.” Schiff also claimed at the time that the DOJ “made only narrow use of information from Steele’s sources” for the Page warrant.
Nunes listed these statements and others, such as how the FBI conducted a “rigorous process” when vetting Steele’s information, noting that “[t]he IG report exposed all these declarations as false.”
IG Michael Horowitz’s report indicated that Steele’s information was not properly vetted, yet was key in convincing attorneys to give the go-ahead to the FISA warrant application, which was previously deemed a “close call.”
READ: DOJ IG HOROWITZ STATEMENT TO SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE ON RUSSIA PROBE REPORT
Nunes recognized Schiff’s acknowledgment of the “issues and errors” described in Horowitz’s report, but said that his opposition to concerns raised by Attorney General Bill Barr and Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham — who is conducting a broader probe of the Russia investigation’s origins — “makes it clear your rehabilitation will be a long, arduous process.”
Nunes cited Schiff’s failure to use his committee to conduct proper oversight while using it “as a launching pad to impeach the president for issues that have no intelligence component at all.” He accused him of “hijacking” the committee, claiming, “As part of your rehabilitation, it’s crucial that you admit you have a problem.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Schiff’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment about the letter, but in an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Schiff acknowledged the FBI’s issues as described in Horowitz’s report, and claimed he “would have called out the FBI” had he known of them.
The GOP ranking member called on the Democratic chairman to call Horowitz before their committee “at the nearest opportunity.” Horowitz has already appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and is scheduled for another hearing before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Posted in 
BREAKING: Democrat Congressman Leaving Party Over Impeachment, Becoming Republican By Ryan Saavedra
New Jersey Democratic Congressman Jeff Van Drew, who has strongly opposed the Democrats’ impeachment efforts, is leaving the Democratic Party and becoming a member of the Republican Party after meeting with President Donald Trump. “Van Drew’s congressional and campaign staff were informed he was planning to switch parties on Saturday, according to Democratic sources,” Politico reported. “The question was now when, not if, Van Drew was joining the Republican Party, according to several Democrats with knowledge of the ongoing conversations.”
Van Drew reportedly met “at length” with Trump on Friday and his decision to switch parties is supposed to be officially announced in the near future, a top GOP source told Politico.
The Washington Post reported that his decision to switch parties delivered “a political jolt to Democrats ahead of next week’s expected vote to impeach the president.” News of Van Drew’s defection went viral online moments after the story broke with many noting that the move is highly damaging to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment efforts.
Federalist co-founder Sean Davis tweeted: “Nancy Pelosi isn’t just hemorrhaging votes for her impeachment gambit, she’s now facing wholesale defections from the Democrat party because of its impeachment hysteria.”
Sean Davis ✔@seanmdav
Nancy Pelosi isn’t just hemorrhaging votes for her impeachment gambit, she’s now facing wholesale defections from the Democrat party because of its impeachment hysteria. https://twitter.com/MZanona/status/1205946597974118400 …
Melanie Zanona✔@MZanona
CONFIRMED: Democratic Rep. Jeff Van Drew has informed staff he is SWITCHING PARTIES and will become a Republican, following a lengthy meeting w/ Trump. And senior Dems have been scrambling to reach him all day. story w/ @heatherscope: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/14/jeff-van-drew-change-parties-085036 …Bryan Dean Wright, a Democrat and former CIA officer, responded to the news by writing on Twitter: “Turns out people get tired of defending a party that’s spent the past three years embracing Socialists, anti-Semites, and hysteria.”
Bryan Dean Wright ✔@BryanDeanWright
Turns out people get tired of defending a party that’s spent the past three years embracing Socialists, anti-Semites, and hysteria. https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1205952637486731270 …The Hill ✔@thehill#BREAKING: Anti-impeachment Democrat poised to switch parties http://hill.cm/IJzbMNm
In a recent interview with USA Today, Van Drew said, “My job isn’t really to like or dislike him. My job is to exact as much goodwill and help for my district and for this nation and for this world that I possibly can while he’s president.”
On the issue of impeachment, Van Drew said, “To some folks, that’s reminiscent of what was done to kings and queens many years ago. Everything our country doesn’t stand for.”
Speaking on impeachment this week, Van Drew told reporters: “It was supposed to be bipartisan, it was supposed to be incontrovertible. It was supposed to be something that was always on the rarest of circumstances. Well it’s not bipartisan.”
Van Drew is not the only Democrat to warn his party on impeachment, Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) warned the Democrats that if Trump gets removed from office that it could be a bad move politically because of who the Democrats may have to face from the GOP in 2020.
“I do think that it’s the right thing to do to remove him from office. I believe he is an imminent danger to this country and to our democracy, but I was saying that the political consequences may not be very good for the Democrats,” Yarmuth said. “I will guarantee you the Republican Party would not nominate Mike Pence to succeed him. They would nominate someone like Nikki Haley who would be much more difficult for Democrats to defeat.”
In late November, Democrat Rep. Brenda Lawrence (MI) said that Trump should be censured but not removed from office.
“You can censure, you don’t have to remove the president,” Lawrence said. “We are so close to an election. I will tell you, sitting here, knowing how divided this country is, I don’t see the value of kicking him out of office, but I do see the value of putting down a marker saying his behavior is not acceptable.”
This is a breaking news story, refresh the page for updates.
Read more in:
President Trump Shreds Apart The House’s Case
President Trump Shreds Apart The House’s Case After Articles Of Impeachment Pass In Judiciary Committee
Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. comes to speak to members of the media after the House Judiciary Committee passes both articles of impeachment, accusing President Donald Trump of abusing power and obstruction of Congress, Friday, Dec. 13, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 11:55 AM PT — Friday, December 13, 2019
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have pushed through two articles of impeachment against President Trump. Representatives held roll-call votes Friday, where the committee approved both articles in a 23-to-17 vote.
One is for alleged abuse of power and the other is for alleged obstruction of Congress. The articles will now move to the House Rules Committee for a mark-up on Tuesday before a full House vote on Wednesday.
Just after the vote, press secretary for the president’s re-election campaign Kayleigh McEnany took to Twitter to state “the angry Democrats have made a choice to betray the American people.” She went on to say that choice will “backfire” on them come November 3, 2020 “when voters will re-elect the president.”
Meanwhile, President Trump said the Democrat’s use of impeachment “is an embarrassment to this country.” While speaking at the White House Friday, the president stated the House is trivializing what it means for a president to be impeached and said they are “making a fool of themselves.”
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Paraguay’s President Mario Abdo Benitez in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Dec. 13, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
He went on to say that once the process reaches the Senate, he wouldn’t mind a long or short trial since it would end up strengthening him politically. The president also blasted key members of the House, including Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi. He said they are leading this scam at the expense of the American people.
“It’s a witch hunt, it’s a sham, it’s a hoax, nothing was done wrong, zero was done wrong — I think it’s a horrible thing to be using the tool of impeachment,” he stated. “It’s something that shouldn’t be allowed and it’s a very bad thing for our country, and you’re trivializing impeachment.”
President Trump also noted that the second whistleblower and the informant of the first whistleblower have disappeared since the transcript was released.
Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrumpHow do you get Impeached when you have done NOTHING wrong (a perfect call), have created the best economy in the history of our Country, rebuilt our Military, fixed the V.A. (Choice!), cut Taxes & Regs, protected your 2nd A, created Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, and soooo much more? Crazy!
We are becoming a country of tribes. The idea of multi-racialism—the notion that we’re of different races but we share a common culture—is eroding.
“American citizenship is eroding”
The following is an abridged version of a talk delivered at Hillsdale College on October 2, 2019, during the College’s 175th anniversary gala. Videos of this and other speeches delivered during the gala are available at fourpillars.hillsdale.edu.
Today many condemn the idea of nationalism by connecting it to race hatred (e.g., white nationalism). But historically, the modern nation-state has proven uniquely suitable to preserving individual rights. The American nation in particular was successful in uniting individuals of different races, ethnic backgrounds, and creeds into one people based on shared principles, a unique physical space, and a common national story. Our nation is the best example in human history of positive nationalism.
The key to this benign nationalism is American citizenship, based on an understanding of American exceptionalism and formed by the American melting pot. But today, our citizenship is eroding and, along with it, American nationalism in the positive sense is disappearing.
American citizenship is eroding in three ways.
First, we are blurring the line between mere residents and citizens. We have between 45-50 million non-native-born residents in the U.S. today—the largest absolute number we’ve ever had. There’s no legal problem with the 30 million of them who have green cards or have acquired citizenship—although even 30 million is a challenge for the American melting pot to assimilate and integrate.
But we also have, according to a recent Yale and MIT study, about 20 million people who are here illegally. In regard to them, the classical ingredients of American citizenship—the right to leave or enter the country as one pleases, for example, or to vote in elections, or to reside here as long as one pleases—are being blurred.
Where I live, in California, if you’re here illegally, you can de facto go back and forth across the border as you wish. In San Francisco, you can vote in some school board elections (the same is under consideration in some places in New England). And as we see with the DACA program, illegal residents can de facto live in the U.S. indefinitely.
Some policies even discriminate against citizens. An illegal resident in California who is charged with a crime is not subject to federal immigration law to the full extent, whereas a citizen who flies into Los Angeles from overseas without a passport will be detained. If you are in California as an illegal resident, you can obtain a driver’s license as citizens have in the past; whereas for citizens, starting next year, there will be an extra burden: to travel by commercial air, they will have to provide at least three sources of proof of citizenship to obtain a valid ID—given the apparent devaluation of the driver’s license.
People who come to the U.S. illegally and in great numbers usually do not have the degree of investment citizens do in our constitutional documents and are often unacquainted with our national story. Candidates from south of the border today fly into California’s Central Valley to campaign. Illegal residents vote in their home countries’ elections—and yet are unacquainted with political issues and candidates here in the U.S.
To avoid a fragmentation of society based on racial and ethnic chauvinism takes an extra effort to keep the melting pot working. We’re no longer making that effort. Indeed, we’re doing the opposite, encouraging diversity rather than unity.
Second, we’re becoming a country of tribes. The idea of multi-racialism—the notion that we’re of different races but we share a common culture—is eroding.
At many colleges and universities today, you can choose in advance the racial background of your roommate. Campuses have “safe spaces” that are reserved for people of particular races. There are dorms where students segregate according to race. Ethnic studies departments thrive by emphasizing racial exceptionalism.
Do we wonder why Elizabeth Warren chose to be a Native American, which, according to her own logic—the power of white privilege and systemic racism—would put her at a disadvantage? The answer is that she sought a careerist advantage. And Harvard was happy to comply: the law school bragged that she was its first “woman of color” faculty member.
I went to a grammar school that was about 90 percent Mexican-American. Some people who I went to first grade with later changed their names from Juan to John and dropped the accent on their last names. Now in their 60s, they’re changing back to Juan and adding back the accents. Why? Because there is now a disadvantage in identifying as an un-hyphenated American, and an advantage to belonging to a tribe. And the danger is that this logic of tribalism leads to the kind of social breakup and civil discord that we saw in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and Iraq.
Third, the middle class, which had been encouraged and celebrated since the time of the American Founding, is now under sustained attack.
A solid, property-owning middle class anchors the nation. Traditionally, its members show the sobriety and judgment to achieve autonomy. They don’t look to government for help. They stand as a barrier against both property redistribution and crony capitalism.
Today, America’s middle class is threatened. Homeownership is down to about 62 percent from 71 percent just over ten years ago. The percentage of a family budget that goes to housing has risen from 20-30 percent in the 1950s to 30-40 percent today, especially in coastal corridors. Middle class wages, until an annual increase of three percent under President Trump, had been frozen for ten years. And we have an aggregate $1.6 trillion in student debt.
If the middle class continues to erode, we will become a nation of peasants and oligarchs. In California, more than one out of five people live below the poverty line—despite the fact that California has one of the highest number of zip codes of America’s most affluent people and the highest number of billionaires. If you drive through Palo Alto, you’ll see people living in RVs because they can’t afford to buy or rent a home—and these are people working for Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Oracle, and Apple, with a total market capitalization of nearly $4 trillion.
Additionally, we are seeing a formal assault on the Constitution by our elites.
Consider the nullification of federal law through the creation of sanctuary cities, in direct defiance of the immigration statutes. (Of course, such nullification seems to go only one way: otherwise, imagine how our elites would respond if the people of Provo, Utah, decided within their municipal jurisdiction to nullify federal handgun registration or the Endangered Species Act.)
Almost every single Democratic candidate for president is in favor of abolishing the Electoral College, which is in the Constitution to ensure equal representation to people living outside big cities, and to prevent the splintering of the electorate into several small parties.
There is also a growing academic attack on the mode of electing the U.S. Senate—“Why should North Dakota or Wyoming have the same number of U.S. Senators as New York?” progressives ask, in their eagerness to make U.S. Senators proportionally elected in the manner of House members.
This insidious assault on the Constitution results from the fact that popular elections haven’t been going the Left’s way, and the Left believes that its superior moral agenda justifies using any means necessary.
Ancient authors from Plato and Aristotle to Petronius and Tacitus have suggested that affluence combined with leisure paradoxically creates a laxity that leads to the kind of societal and institutional disintegration we are currently seeing. Another major ingredient of our current crisis is the failure of our education system to offer disinterested instruction, following from the post-1960s takeover by the Left of our colleges and universities.
In response, we need to support colleges that continue to teach the principles and practices of liberty. We must support policies that recognize the distinction between citizens and non-citizens and that bolster the middle class. And we need to defend the Constitution, our last great hope to ensure American continuity and security.
Canada Free Press
Dmitri Volkogonov died, having fully faced the realization that his life, largely devoted to propagating the virtues of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, had been the living of one, long, lie.
Comrade Bernie and 20th Century Russian Socialism
By 
“Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov (22 March 1928 – 6 December 1995) was a Russian historian and colonel-general who was head of the Soviet military’s psychological warfare department. After researching the secret Soviet archives, he published biographies of Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, among others. Despite being a committed Stalinist and Marxist-Leninist ideologue for most of his career, Volkogonov came to repudiate communism and the Soviet system within the last decade of his life before his death from cancer in 1995.” (Source)
Bolshevism destroyed everything in Russia
Does Bernie Sanders know Dmitri Volkogonov? Has he read any of his books? It seems not.
Volkogonov was once Commanding General of the Soviet’s Army’s Propaganda Department, the Director of the Institute for Military History, and, eventually, Defense Adviser to President Yeltsin from 1991 until Volkogonov died in 1995. After Mikhail Gorbachev was deposed, Volkogonov was given free access to the Soviet military archives, Communist Party documents, and classified presidential files. And he read, he learned, and he wrote.
Which means he forgot more about the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics than Bernie Sanders—a longtime admirer of the USSR—ever knew, or likely imagined.
Should you or a friend admire Bernie’s political philosophy, you might contemplate a sampling of Volkogonov’s conclusions, from his four main books, about the political system to which he dedicated his adult life.
LENIN: “Lenin, A New Biography,” ©1994, The Free Press, Chapter 6: The One-Dimensional Society, p. 326.
“Bolshevism destroyed everything in Russia, starting with the weak and ineffective Provisional government, followed by private property, the peasant commune and the Church. Everything connected with Lenin was anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, anti-liberal, anti-reformist, anti-human and anti-Christian. There can scarcely have been another man in history who managed so profoundly to change so large a society on such a scale.
Marxism in Russia developed in three stages: Leninism, Trotskyism and Stalinism
Perhaps the single most characteristic feature of the new society was its one-dimensionality, its uniformity. The infinite variety of social and intellectual life, culture, historical tradition and the creative potential of millions of people was reduced to the harsh, uniform, uncompromising ideological paradigm of Leninism. Dogmatic thinking, totalitarian bureaucracy, authoritarian and irrational fear became the characteristic features of the new society.”
TROTSKY: “Trotsky, The Eternal Revolutionary,” ©1996, The Free Press
Netflix is hyping an upcoming series on Leon Trotsky with this promo: “Banishment didn’t silence him. Neither did his assassination. Loathed and revered, he has become an icon.” Obviously, a statement drafted by someone who hasn’t a clue as to who and what Leon was, nor how speech for him was impossible after his head was cleaved with a small ax in Mexico, on Stalin’s orders. But Dimitri Volkogonov knew all about Leon the Icon.
“Thanks to decades of brainwashing, most people in the Soviet Union are not even aware that Marxism in Russia developed in three stages: Leninism, Trotskyism and Stalinism, all of them deriving from the same root. Despite some major differences, what all three men shared was reliance on social violence, a belief in the absolute certainty of only one ideology, and the conviction that they had the right to dispose of the destinies of nations.” p. xxxv.
Trotsky, among the founders of Soviet Russia, most matches Bernie Sanders
Trotsky, among the founders of Soviet Russia, most matches Bernie Sanders.
“All his [Trotsky’s] strivings were aimed towards revolution, and while such dedication implied great mental strength, is also denoted a great weakness: strength because such people are capable of influencing human life, and weakness because they are prisoners of the Idea. They do not have the capacity to change or adapt to new circumstances. For such people this kind of Marxism is a revolutionary religion. Their values, however, are not the universal human values of the world’s great religions, but are embodied in the dictatorship of the proletariat, the class struggle, and the unlimited predominance of a single party.” p. 484
STALIN: “Stalin, Triumph & Tragedy – The First Glasnost Biography,” ©1988, Dmitri Volkogonov/Novosti,
Chapter 19, Dictatorship and Democracy: “In the early 1930’s it was plain to those with eyes to see that Lenin’s words, ‘The apparatus does not belong to us, we belong to it,’ had become a reality. The dictatorship of the bureaucracy, the collective bureaucracy, was born. And the bureaucracy gradually spawned an elite, and entire hierarchy of bosses. Rule by decree became virtually the chief means of social intercourse. Everything was decided inside offices. Meetings, sessions, congresses and plenums merely ‘approved’ or ‘supported’. People’s power was nothing but a hollow phrase. The wheels of the bureaucratic machine did not turn fast, but they were irreversible. Stalin sat at the main control panel, watching his brainchild through the windows of the Kremlin. The transfer to socialism had become deformed into the transfer to Stalinism.” p. 185.
Whatever the problem or short coming, the solution was to create a new agency, a new organization
Chapter 57, Absolute Bureaucracy: “Total bureaucracy was independent of economic expediency. It worshipped at the shrine of the omnipotent apparat. Whatever the problem or short coming, the solution was to create a new agency, a new organization, with the result that, despite the flow of instructions to curtail the administrative system, it grew all the faster, for an administrative system cannot be combatted with administrative methods. Only economic, social and political means could have rid society of the bureaucracy, especially as it was so multi-faceted, with its endless titles, degrees, ranks and offices rising to the mysterious heights of the top echelons, where it was—and remains—impossible to find a ‘responsible’ official.” p. 560.
AUTOPSY FOR AN EMPIRE: “The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime,” © 1998, Novosti Publishers, p. 393.
“As the Polish thinker Leszek Kolakowski has written, in totalitarian societies, the lie fulfils a special function: ‘Versions are released for the people from above and can be altered the very next day. There is no reliable criterion of truth apart from what is the declared truth at any moment. Thus, the lie in fact becomes the truth, or at any rate the distinction between truth and lies, in the ordinary sense of these words, disappears. This is the great triumph of socialism in the sphere of knowledge: to the extent that it succeeds in demolishing the notion of truth, it cannot be accused of lying’.”
Shortly after completing this, his last book, Dmitri Volkogonov died, having fully faced the realization that his life, largely devoted to propagating the virtues of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, had been the living of one, long, lie.
But in the end, he made up for it, with the truth.
Since November 2007, Lee Cary has written hundreds of articles for several websites including the American Thinker, and Breitbart’s Big Journalism and Big Government (as “Archy Cary”). and the Canada Free Press. Cary’s work was quoted on national television (Sean Hannity) and on nationally syndicated radio (Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin). His articles have posted on the aggregate sites Drudge Report, Whatfinger, Lucianne, Free Republic, and Real Clear Politics. He holds a Doctorate in Theology from Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, is a veteran of the US Army Military Intelligence in Vietnam, and lives in Texas.
The Impeachment Vote Farce – The FBI and DOJ Massively Violated the Law
Coup Update: Impeachment Abuse of President Trump
The Impeachment Vote Farce
As I told the press today in a statement, the Judiciary Committee’s vote on the articles of impeachment was both a tragedy and a farce. Truly, it was a sad day for America because a grave injustice was committed. There is no abuse of power by President Trump, however, it is clear that abuses were committed against him by the DOJ, the State Department, the FISA court, and certainly by Democrats in the House.
This impeachment scam was corruptly formed and is being corruptly pursued. A coup cabal has hijacked the House to violate the rights of President Trump and undermine our constitutional republic. It is not too late to “stop the coup.” Americans should call their members of Congress to share their views on this wild attack on self-government.
The House vote is set for next week, so contact your congressman ASAP. You can find all the contact details here: www.house.gov.
The FBI and DOJ Massively Violated the Law
As the coup proceeds against President Trump, the Justice Department’s inspector general finally issued his report on the Russiagate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse this week, and it provides abundant evidence that the FBI and DOJ massively violated the law to obtain the Carter Page spy warrants targeting President Trump.
As IG reports are both exposés and cover-ups at the same time, it is no surprise that the IG punted on implicating senior officials directly in the spy scandal.
President Trump should appoint a special counsel from outside of the DOJ and FBI to investigate the Obama/Clinton/Deep State Spygate scandal and other crimes that are in plain sight.
In the meantime, we will continue our dozens of FOIA lawsuits and investigations, which have already revealed much of what is known about Spygate – the biggest corruption scandal of all time.
Truth is, President Trump is actually the victim of a crime, as I explain here and here. The IG report provided our team with many investigative leads – so you can be sure that your Judicial Watch will continue to uncover more truths (and get more accountability) on what is the worst corruption scandal in American history.
Court Hearing on House Democrat IT Awan Bros Scandal
While the House Democrat leadership fiddles with impeaching it President, it is also has been long busy trying to squelch a serious scandal involving the contractors who managed information technology for top Democrats.
Now it seems that Deep State bureaucrats in the Justice Department are sticking their heads in the sand as well. We’re not. We sued in November 2018 to dig out the details, and this week we were in court for a hearing on the matter.
U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta ordered the hearing in our lawsuit, which we filed after the FBI failed to respond adequately to our two separate FOIA requests (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-02563)).
Our first request, filed on May 26, 2017, sought:
-
All records related to any investigations or preliminary investigations involving former congressional IT support staffers Abid Awan, Imran Awan, Jamal Awan, and Hina R. Alvi. As part of this request, searches should of records [sic] should include, but not be limited to, the FBI automated indices, its older manual indices, and its Electronic Surveillance (ELSUR) Data Management System (EDMS), as well as cross-referenced files.
-
All records of communication sent to or from FBI employees, officials or contractors involving the subjects in bullet item 1.
We are seeking records from May 2015 to the present.
Our second request, submitted on July 3, 2018, sought:
-
All records related to any investigations or preliminary investigations involving former congressional IT support staffers Abid Awan, Imran Awan, Jamal Awan, Hina R. Alvi and Rao Abbas. As part of this request, searches of records should include, but not be limited to, the FBI automated indices, its older manual indices, and its Electronic Surveillance (ELSUR) Data Management System (EDMS), as well as cross-referenced files.
-
All records of communications, including but not limited to emails (whether on .gov or non-.gov email accounts), text messages, instant chats or messages on the Lync system, sent to or from FBI employees, officials or contractors involving the Awan brothers, Ms. Alvi and Mr. Abbas. Records of communications searched should include but not be limited to those between FBI officials, employees and contractors and officials with the Capitol Police, the Office of the Inspector General of the House, and the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer of the House.
In August 2019, the Justice Department told the court that it would begin producing records by November 5, 2019. After producing no records, the agency told us on November 13, 2019, that it was having “technical difficulties,” and in a recent email claimed that, “difficulties with the production remain.”
In a joint status report filed on December 5, 2019, we reported to the court that the DOJ claimed in a phone call that it was now unable to produce any records to either of the FOIA requests “because the agency was waiting for some unspecified action by Judge [Tanya S.] Chutkan in some other matter so as to avoid having to produce records in this case.” In that same report the DOJ told the court that Judge Chutkan is “presiding over a related sealed criminal matter” that prohibits the government from releasing the requested FOIA information. [Emphasis added]
At the court hearing today, the Court ordered the Justice Department to provide, by January 10, an explanation to him on the issues Judicial Watch raised.
Imran Awan and his family were banned from the House of Representatives computer network in February 2017 after the House’s top law enforcement officer wrote that Imran is “an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems,” and that a server containing evidence had gone “missing.” The inspector general said server logs showed “unauthorized access” and procurement records were falsified.
Imran Awan was Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s (D-FL) top information technology aide. Most lawmakers fired Awan in February, but Wasserman Schultz kept him on until he was arrested in July 2017 trying to board a flight for Pakistan.
In July 2018, Imran Awan was given a plea deal, and pled guilty to federal bank fraud, but prosecutors found no evidence that Awan “violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems.”
The Awan brothers reportedly “were not given background checks before being given access to highly sensitive government information and no explanations have been given as to why.” Additionally, “If they would have run this background check it would have found out not only multiple criminal convictions, but $1 million bankruptcy, a dozen lawsuits … it would have found a whole host of major red flags and the Democrats didn’t do any of those checks.”
This scandal is a matter of national security. It involves a cover-up by House Democrat leadership and, now, the Deep State DOJ. We won’t let this go.
New York Becomes 13th State to Give Illegal Immigrants Driver’s Licenses
Given the murders committed by a Saudi national in Pensacola this week, and daily reports of violent crimes by illegal aliens across the country, everyone is more alert to who comes into our country. Everyone but New York state politicians, that is. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports on that state’s move to make it easier for illegal aliens to reside here in violation of the law:
This month New York will become the 13th state in the U.S. to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses, and officials in counties throughout the Empire State warn they are not equipped to handle the predicted onslaught. One state lawmaker is offering free care for the children of illegal aliens who attend a workshop to help them navigate the process of obtaining a license. More than half a million undocumented immigrants are expected to qualify, and all they need is an expired passport, consulate identification or license from their country of citizenship.
Local Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) clerks throughout New York are deeply concerned about their ability to authenticate the unfamiliar documents—written in foreign languages—acceptable under the new law to obtain a license. One county clerk in the state’s eastern region said in a local news report that his office, which services a population of about 160,000, will not issue licenses to illegal aliens and instead will let the state deal with the applicants. “They want to us to make a decision right at the window as to whether something is fraudulent or acceptable,” Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola said in the article. “I’m not going to make a major mistake.” In the state’s southern tier, Chemung County Clerk Catherine Hughes blasted lawmakers for leaving her and her colleagues to deal with the mess. “They don’t really realize the ramifications that it causes by doing something like this,” said Hughes, who serves a population of about 90,000. “There are no set of rules and regulations on how to get it done. And that puts us county clerks in a very precarious situation because we don’t know how to do it.”
Officials in some New York counties have filed lawsuits to block the measure, officially called the Driver’s license Access and Privacy Act but popularly known as the Green Light Law, from being implemented. It was passed by the legislature over the summer and signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo after he was assured federal immigration officials would not be able to obtain DMV records. That’s where the “privacy” portion of the bill’s language comes in. Officials in several counties—including Erie, Monroe and Rensselaer—are suing to thwart the law, which is scheduled to take effect on December 14. New York State Senator Julia Salazar, a former community organizer and proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, announced this week that she is holding an “informational session” to guide illegal immigrants through the process of obtaining a license. Free childcare will be provided, according to the announcements, which were issued in English and Spanish.
Besides New York, a dozen states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. They include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Vermont and Washington. More than half of the states passed their measures in 2013. In 2019 several states—including Florida, Kansas, Minnesota and North Carolina—introduced legislation to grant illegal aliens driver’s licenses, but those haven’t been resolved and it’s not clear if they’ll pass. This week the Department of Justice (DOJ) challenged New York’s soon-to-be-implemented measure, writing in a federal court filing that it conflicts with federal law.
New York is also undermining national security, according to a report published by a Washington D.C. think tank dedicated to researching U.S. immigration policy. New York’s Green Light Law equips illegal aliens and others with nefarious intentions with legitimate, state-issued identification, prohibits federal authorities from using information maintained by the state’s DMV and inhibits public safety as well as immigration enforcement. “The federal government should not simply surrender to the unreasonable and potentially unconstitutional limitations imposed on federal immigration and local law enforcement agencies by this law,” the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) writes in its extensive report, which includes ideas to circumvent New York’s law. Among them is withholding federal funding and taking legal action. Over the summer a federal appellate court ruled that the Trump administration could withhold federal funding to local governments that offer illegal immigrants sanctuary.
Until next week …
Boy named only as Tyler, 14, was hospitalized after the brutal 5-on-1 attack
Shocking moment school bus bullies pummel 14-year-old boy leaving him hospitalized with head injuries ‘because he’d worn a Trump 2020 hat’
- Shocking incident occurred on November 21 in Hamilton County, Florida
- Boy named only as Tyler, 14, was hospitalized after the brutal 5-on-1 attack
- Mother says he had been relentlessly bullied after wearing Trump hat previously
- Calls for the attackers to be prosecuted for hate crime and attempted murder
By KEITH GRIFFITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
|
Shocking video has emerged showing a 14-year-old boy being attacked on a school bus, allegedly because he’d previously worn a hat supporting President Donald Trump. The incident occurred on November 21 in Hamilton County, Florida, and the video first emerged on Thursday after the boy’s family retained attorney Foye B. Walker for possible legal action.
The incident left the boy, identified only as Tyler, hospitalized with head contusions, according to his mother, a Trump supporter who tweets under the handle @AmericanDiaries. The attorney, Walker, verified in a tweet that the incident occurred on a school bus in Hamilton County, and that he was representing the family. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.
The boy’s mother explained on Twitter that she believed the attackers were motivated by a Trump 2020 campaign hat that her son had previously worn to school. She said that the boy stopped wearing the hat due to harassment, but that the bullying continued.
‘To be clear, my son bought his Trump 2020 hat with his own money at the flea market a few weeks ago,’ the mother wrote.
‘He was proud to wear it. He wore it to School, but due to immediate bullying he put it away & didn’t wear it to school again, sadly the damage was already done & [he] was now a target,’ she said. ‘From that point on he was steadily getting messed with. He was getting hit, tripped & verbally abused on the bus, but it all came to a head yesterday on his bus ride home,’ she continued.
Lawsuit Targets Intelligence Community Watchdog’s Communications
BY December 5, 2019 Updated: December 5, 2019
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has refused to release an eight-hour closed-door interview transcript with Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, but a new lawsuit could help shed light on Atkinson’s involvement in the origins of the ongoing House impeachment inquiry—and much more.
Atkinson received a complaint from a mysterious whistleblower in August that served as the basis for impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Atkinson’s actions in bringing the complaint forward have raised questions, and conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch is suing for his unclassified communications.
Judicial Watch announced a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice on Dec. 3, seeking all of Atkinson’s communications relating to Trump and emails and text messages with Schiff and his staff. The suit also seeks communications referencing Hillary Clinton, Anthony Weiner, the 25th Amendment, and impeachment.
“Mr. Atkinson has been a key Deep State official involved with questionable and abusive investigations of President Trump,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “As Adam Schiff keeps Atkinson’s testimony on the impeachment attack on President Trump secret, Judicial Watch goes to court for transparency under the law.”
The whistleblower complaint alleged Trump abused his power by pressuring the government of Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden. It also alleged Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr were involved.
Those assertions are currently being debated in the House Judiciary Committee and could lead to an impeachment vote and subsequent Senate trial. Atkinson was at the center of events that led to congressional involvement.
At the outset, Atkinson changed internal IG policy requiring firsthand information to allow the complaint to qualify for the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act. He then recommended the complaint be referred to Congress, although acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire disagreed, and the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel determined the complaint didn’t involve an “urgent concern.”
Under intense questioning from Schiff on Sept. 26, Maguire testified that the whistleblower complaint was essentially “hearsay” and uncorroborated. “This is secondhand information,” he said. Days later, it was revealed that the whistleblower had contacted Schiff and his staff before submitting the complaint to the IG’s office, about which Atkinson has denied any foreknowledge.
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, wrote about the issue on Nov. 30. When a reporter asked why Schiff has held back Atkinson’s transcript despite releasing 15 other witness transcripts, Ratcliffe wrote on Twitter: “It’s because I asked IG Atkinson about his ‘investigation’ into the contacts between Schiff’s staff and the person who later became the whistleblower. The transcript is classified ‘secret’ so Schiff can prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions.”
Prior to his appointment to oversee the intelligence community, Atkinson served as an assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s National Security Division from 2016 to 2018. Judicial Watch noted that during his two-year tenure, Atkinson was the senior legal counsel for both John Carlin and Mary McCord when they respectively headed the National Security Division.
Carlin was Robert Mueller’s chief of staff when Mueller was FBI director, and McCord accompanied former acting Attorney General Sally Yates to confront White House counsel Don McGahn about Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn in 2017. Flynn later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the Mueller special counsel investigation, though his attorney insists he was targeted to “take out” the president.
During the same period, the National Security Division partnered with the FBI Counterintelligence Unit on Operation Crossfire Hurricane, a covert investigation headed by then-FBI Director James Comey that involved surveillance of the Trump campaign and presidential transition. In April 2017, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found “significant non-compliance with the NSA’s minimization procedures involving queries of data,” which Judicial Watch called “spying.”
Judicial Watch also noted that FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page worked on Crossfire Hurricane, with Page being the liaison between FBI Counterintelligence and the DOJ National Security Division.
Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wrote to Atkinson on Oct. 2, expressing concern about intelligence community leaks of classified information that fall under his purview. The letter was a follow-up to a May 6 inquiry.
“In response to our May 6, 2019, letter, although you shared in our concern about the harms posed by leaks during the Russia investigation, you refused to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation,” the senators wrote. “We request that you show the same transparency that you and the White House have shown with respect to making the IC complaint’s allegations and supporting documentation public.”
The Ukraine whistleblower complaint was itself illegally leaked. The transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was declassified on Sept. 25, and the complaint was made public a day later. But The Washington Post had already written about them.
“News reports used anonymous sources to report on information relating to the complaint and phone call that were classified at the time,” Grassley wrote to Atkinson. “There was only a finite amount of individuals that had access to the complaint and phone call transcript.”
To date, no one has been held accountable, and Atkinson hasn’t committed to an investigation.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking minority member on the House Intelligence Committee, referred to Atkinson as a member of the “deep state” after his Oct. 4 closed-door testimony led by Schiff.
“[Atkinson is] either totally incompetent or part of the deep state, and he’s got a lot of questions he needs to answer because he knowingly changed the form and the requirements in order to make sure that this whistleblower complaint got out publicly,” Nunes said.
“He’s going to have more to answer for, I can promise you, because we are not going to let him go. He is going to tell the truth about what happened.”
Public hearings of the Trump-hater witnesses has begun!
The Democrat Party: An Existential Threat to the US Constitution and the USA
By Sher Zieve —— Bio and Archives—December 6, 2019
American Politics, News, Opinion| Print Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us
There have never been such times as these in the United States of America. We the People are facing not only the growing insanity of a, seemingly, never ending search by the Socialist Democrat Party for even more deliberately inane items of political correctness but, now they are besieging us with new attempts to weaken and destroy the US presidency and the Constitution itself.
The greatest existential threat to our nation is coming not from China or Russia…but from the Democrat Party which has now turned blatantly, irrevocably and in-our-faces tyrannically Socialist.
The day after President Trump was elected, much of the “mainstream media” began talking about impeachment and naming the president as a Russian asset. In truth, it was the Clinton campaign that received help and $$$ from Russia that would later add the infamous and false “dossier,” which contained false and inflammatory lies about the new president. The formal investigation (aka “The Mueller Report”) was begun by the (still) Obama-Clinton FBI 17 May 2017 with the appointment of Robert Swan Mueller III as Special Counsel. The “investigators” were, virtually, all Democrats and unabashed “Trump Haters” as email evidence later confirmed. The full investigation began July 31, 2016 and continued (dragged on) until 22 March 2019.
In April 2019, the Mueller Report was released and President Trump was exonerated of any crimes…whatsoever. That is, the entire FBI…and all of the other debauched alphabet groups within the US government…couldn’t find any illegality to pin on our president. The now fiercely anti-Trump FBI, however, tried their best—which included witness intimidation and overt threats to family members (think Lieutenant General Michael Flynn’s con, being threatened and an FBI gestapo-styled middle-of-the-night raid on Paul Manafort who chaired Trump’s campaign team for 3 months in 2016 ). More threats from the Obama FBI came in the form of almost endless interrogations (and the arrest of many via forced process crimes) of some of the low-to-medium level people who worked on the Trump campaign. Note: This is precisely how all Communist (Marxist) countries throughout the world conduct business against their opposition. The style of “business” has now infected and infested the US Democrat Party…which has not been “democratic” for many years.
As the Mueller Report didn’t ‘nail’ President Trump, the Democrats were forced to grab a new piece of whole cloth and fabricate yet another charge against Trump. Therefore, a formal impeachment inquiry was launched on September 24, 2019. This time, it was due to a phone call made by President Trump to Ukraine President Zelensky for winning his recent election. The Dems claimed that President Trump, in this congratulatory call, had “threatened” him by stating he would withhold funds from the country unless Zelensky investigated the Bidens…both Joe and his son Hunter. The portion of the call eliciting most of the new charges against President Trump by the unhinged Dems is: According to the call summary, Mr. Trump told Zelensky, “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that. So whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it…It sounds horrible to me. I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair,” he said. “A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved.”
There is nothing illegal there!
What needs to, also, be noted here is that former US VP under Obama Joe Biden has bragged loudly and widely about his own real bribe and is shown proudly talking about his threat below. President Trump was commenting on something that a member of the Obama administration had done and that is already in the public domain. That is not a crime.
Foreign leaders ask favors of one another all of the time. It’s normal and it’s human. But, Biden’s was an obvious threat and Biden is shown in the video being extremely proud of himself for making it. Not only did President Trump not threaten the new Ukrainian president but, monetary aid was transferred to Ukraine a few weeks after the two presidents’ conversation and no prosecutor in Ukraine has or is currently investigating the Bidens.
On November 18, 2019, behind closed door witness questioning was convened by the Democrats who, notably, would not allow Republicans to bring any witnesses and would be denied them questioning of said witnesses if the chairman—Adam Schiff—didn’t like the questions. The “witnesses” called on this phase of the hearings had not listened in on the call between Trump and Zelensky and were going on second and sometimes third and fourth hand information. These were not witnesses, folks. They were shills. One of these—Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman—claimed that someone who had heard the conversation had told him about it and Vindman (who it came out later had been offered a high-level job in Ukraine) was shocked…SHOCKED by what he’d heard…‘er what someone told him…or something like that.
Public hearings of the Trump-hater witnesses has begun!
And…now the public hearings of the Trump-hater witnesses has begun! On Tuesday this week, the legal eagle non-witnesses, all Democrat and all admitted anti-Trumpers Noah Feldman, Harvard Law School, Pamela S. Karlan, Stanford Law School and Michael Gerhardt, University of North Carolina School of Law were called to testify before the Democrat Kangaroo Court. The Republicans were allowed only one non-witness to any of the events in question and chose (anti-Trumper by the way yet the only sane Constitutional non-witness in the chamber) Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law School. Of particular note is one of the Democrat non-witnesses Pamela S. Kalan hates Trump so much that she decided in a particularly nasty and condescending manner to berate both President Trump and his 13-year-old son, Barron.
The bottom line to all of these, at least bordering on extra-legal activities and “witnesses” brought to bear by the Democrats, is that there has been no crime committed by President Donald J. Trump…let alone anything impeachable. The Mueller report found no crime…let alone high crimes and misdemeanors…had been committed by President Trump.
The US citizenry can read the transcript of the congratulatory phone call (not the patently fake one that Adam Schiff read into the Congressional record that he later said was “satire”) themselves and draw their own conclusions. Unfortunately for us all, members of the Democrat Party have had to go even deeper into their self-made mud pools to pull this garbage and new series of lies out.
Take a deep and well-deserved deep breath, folks and know that the only way to end this insanity is to vote all Democrats out of office in November 2020. This has gone on way too long!
Democrat Rep. Al Green said it the best for the Dems on the reason they’re engaging in this chicanery: “I’m concerned if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.”
Sher Zieve — Bio and Archives
Sher Zieve is an author and political commentator. Zieve’s op-ed columns are widely carried by multiple internet journals and sites, and she also writes hard news. Her columns have also appeared in The Oregon Herald, Dallas Times, Sacramento Sun, in international news publications, and on multiple university websites. Sher is also a guest on multiple national radio shows.
IG punted on implicating senior officials directly in the spy scandal in FISA Report.
Judicial Watch Statement on FISA Application Report
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding today’s Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General report:
Today’s IG report on the Russiagate FISA abuse provides abundant evidence that the FBI and DOJ massively violated the law in order to obtain the Carter Page spy warrants targeting President Trump.
As IG reports are both exposés and cover-ups at the same time, it is no surprise that the IG punted on implicating senior officials directly in the spy scandal.
President Trump should directly appoint a special counsel from outside of the DOJ and FBI to investigate the Obama/Clinton/Deep State Spygate scandal and other crimes that are in plain sight. In the meantime, Judicial Watch will continue its dozens of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits and investigations, which have already revealed much of what is known about Spygate – the biggest corruption scandal of all time.
FINAL RESULTS OF THE HIGHLANDS TEA PARTY 2019 GUN RAFFLE DECEMBER 10, 2019
The highlands Tea Party held their 2019 raffle drawing on the evening of December 10, 2019, the following individuals were the winners:
The winners of our 2019 raffles, are:
Thanks to the owners of the guns show for allowing us this opportunity to raise funds.
White House tells Nadler to ‘end this inquiry now’
White House won’t participate in impeachment hearings, tells Nadler to ‘end this inquiry now’
By Marisa Schultz, John Roberts | Fox News
Trump administration faces deadline to decide whether to cooperate with impeachment probe
Reaction and analysis from Fox News contributor Guy Benson, host of ‘The Guy Benson Show,’ and Brett Bruen, former director of global engagement in the Obama White House. The White House said Friday it will not participate in House Judiciary Committee impeachment proceedings, blasting the inquiry as “completely baseless” in a curt response to Democrats ahead of Monday’s scheduled hearing.
“House Democrats have wasted enough of America’s time with this charade,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone said in a scathing one-page letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., obtained by Fox News. “You should end this inquiry now and not waste even more time with additional hearings.”
Friday was the deadline for Trump to respond to Nadler’s request for participation in committee proceedings.
But instead of giving House Democrats a direct “no” answer, Cipollone penned a two-paragraph letter derailing the entire process.
“As you know, your impeachment inquiry is completely baseless and has violated basic principles of due process and fundamental fairness,” he wrote. “Nevertheless, the Speaker of the House yesterday ordered House Democrats to proceed with articles of impeachment before your Committee has heard a single shred of evidence.” A senior administration official, though, made it clear they won’t be participating, telling Fox News: “We don’t see any reason to participate because the process is unfair. Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi has already announced the predetermined result. They will not give us the ability to call any witnesses.”
Letter to Nadler by Fox News on Scribd
Nadler is set to continue hearings in the committee on Monday.
The decision by the administration likely accelerates the pace of impeachment.
In 1998, the Clinton Administration took 30 hours to present its side of things to the Judiciary Committee. That means there may not be another hearing after Monday’s session. Trump telegraphed Thursday he wanted to sidestep the House impeachment process and move quickly to the Senate where he believes he’ll be acquitted by the GOP-led upper chamber.
“Therefore I say, if you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate and so that our Country can get back to business,” Trump tweeted. “We will have Schiff, the Bidens, Pelosi and many more testify, and will reveal, for the first time, how corrupt our system really is.”
Cipollone repeated Trump’s comments in the letter and said the House Democrats would be making a historically unjust mistake by plowing forward. “Adopting articles of impeachment would be a reckless abuse of power by House Democrats, and would constitute the most injust, highly partisan and unconstitutional attempt at impeachment in our Nation’s history,” he said.
Trump and his allies in Congress have dismissed the impeachment as a “sham” partisan exercise aimed at undoing the results of the 2016 presidential election. Trump says his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “perfect” when he asked the newly elected foreign leader to investigate the Bidens and the Democratic National Committee server.
Pelosi, however, said the facts of Trump’s wrongdoing involving Ukraine are “uncontested” and announced Thursday Democrats are plowing forward with drafting articles of impeachment against Trump. “The president abused his power for his own personal political benefit at the expense of our national security,” Pelosi said.
Trump declined to have his lawyers participate in the House Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment hearing Wednesday when four legal scholars debated whether Trump’s conduct was impeachable. Cipollone blasted the “baseless and highly partisan inquiry” in a letter Sunday declining to attend. The White House also accused the Judiciary Committee of “purposely” scheduling its first impeachment hearing when Trump would be meeting with NATO leaders in London and couldn’t attend.
At Wednesday’s hearing, the three lawyers the Democrats invited made the case that Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine for personal political purposes and his stonewalling of Congress are impeachable. The lone GOP witness, George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, said Trump’s call was “anything but perfect” but said Democrats haven’t made the case.
“One can oppose President Trump’s policies or actions but still conclude that the current legal case for impeachment is not just woefully inadequate, but in some respects, dangerous, as the basis for the impeachment of an American president,” Turley said.
Nadler, D-NY, had set a deadline of 5 p.m Friday in a letter he penned to the president a week ago.
“I am writing to determine if your counsel will seek to exercise the specific privileges set forth in the Judiciary Committee’s Impeachment Procedures … and participate in the upcoming impeachment proceedings,” Nadler wrote in the Nov. 29 letter. Nadler scheduled the next impeachment hearing for 9 a.m. on Monday, where lawyers for Democrats and Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee will present their evidence.
Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
OAN WITNESSES SPLIT ON IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES
Witnesses Split On If President Trump Committed Impeachable Offenses
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 1:53 PM PT — Thursday, December 5, 2019
Witnesses appear to be split on if President Trump committed impeachable offenses, following the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearings.
One America’s John Hines spoke with several committee members to get their take on Wednesday’s testimonies.
President Trump: Pelosi Just Had A Nervous Fit
President Donald Trump attends a luncheon with members of the United Nations Security Council in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 11:32 AM PT — Thursday, December 5, 2019
President Trump said Nancy Pelosi “just had a nervous fit” after she announced Democrats would be moving forward with articles of impeachment. He made the comment in a tweet Thursday, where he also pointed out that there will soon be 182 new judges. He went on to praise the stock market as well as employment records under his presidency.
Nancy Pelosi just had a nervous fit. She hates that we will soon have 182 great new judges and sooo much more. Stock Market and employment records. She says she “prays for the President.” I don’t believe her, not even close. Help the homeless in your district Nancy. USMCA?
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the Democrats impeachment push “political theater.” He criticized Nancy Pelosi Thursday, saying she’s more focused on a partisan inquiry rather than the needs of Americans.
The Kentucky lawmaker pointed out that as Democrats hold impeachment hearings, the U.S. military is going unfunded and a major trade deal is not being passed. The majority leader also said while they wait on Democrats to move legislation forward, the senate is confirming more of President Trump’s judicial nominees.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., addresses community members at the dedication of a Recovery Community Center in Manchester, Ky., Monday, Nov. 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale also slammed Democrats for continuing to pursue impeachment with less than a year left before the 2020 election. Parscale said this has always been Democrats’ goal and the so-called “swamp” would be exposed during a Senate trial.
Alex Salvi@alexsalvinews
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is asked as she leaves her press conference, “Do you hate the president?”
She walks back to the podium to deliver a heated rebuttal to the question.
WHAT HAVE WE BECOME AS A NATION?
It Snowed Last Night
8:00 am: I made a snowman.
8:10 – A feminist passed by and asked me why I didn’t make a snow woman.
8:15 – So, I made a snow woman.
8:17 – My feminist neighbor complained about the snow woman’s voluptuous chest saying it objectified snow women everywhere.
8:20 – The gay couple living nearby threw a hissy fit and moaned it could have been two snow men instead.
8:22 – The transgender man/woman…person asked why I didn’t just make one snow person with detachable parts.
8:25 – The vegans at the end of the lane complained about the carrot nose, as veggies are food and not to decorate snow figures with.
8:28 – I was being called a racist because the snow couple is white.
8:31 – The Muslim gent across the road demanded the snow woman wear a burqa.
8:40 – The police arrived saying someone had been offended
8:42 – The feminist neighbor complained again that the broomstick of the snow woman needed to be removed because it depicted women in a domestic role.
8:43 – The council equality officer arrived and threatened me with eviction.
8:45 – TV news crew from ABC showed up. I was asked if I know the difference between snowmen and snow-women. I replied “Snowballs” and am now called a sexist.
9:00 – I was on the news as a suspected terrorist, racist, homophobe sensibility offender, bent on stirring up trouble during difficult weather.
9:10 – I was asked if I have any accomplices. My children were taken by social services.
9:29 – Far left protesters offended by everything marched down the street demanding for me to be beheaded.
Moral: There is no moral to this story. It is what we have become.
1600 Daily
The White House • December 5, 2019
Read the White House’s response to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment stunt
Back in March, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi inadvertently previewed what would happen if Democrats rewarded their far-left base with a partisan impeachment stunt.
“Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country,” she said.
Many rolled their eyes—not because Pelosi was wrong, but because they knew that liberal Democrats would force the Speaker’s hand sooner or later. Sure enough, this morning, she announced that House Democrats would pursue articles of impeachment.
Press Secretary: Here’s what Congress could’ve been doing this week.
Keep in mind: In October, two moderate Democrats broke with the far left and joined all Republicans in voting against just the impeachment probe. In other words, even their phony “investigation” itself had bipartisan opposition. An actual impeachment vote is only more likely to drive a wedge between mainstream Americans and House liberals.
Speaker Pelosi and her caucus are now rushing full-speed ahead toward the fastest impeachment in American history. Why is that? It turns out the more Americans pay attention to what Democrats are doing, the more public support for impeachment drops. Democrat leaders thought that hours of free advertising through marathon TV hearings would work, but when witness after witness failed to produce any evidence of actual criminal wrongdoing by the President, most Americans tuned out.
So Pelosi was right, of course. A partisan impeachment stunt to appease the left’s anti-Trump base will divide our country deeply. House Democrats just don’t care.
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham issued the following statement today in response to Speaker Pelosi’s announcement:
“At this morning’s press conference, Speaker Nancy Pelosi could have finally announced a vote on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that would immediately help America’s farmers, ranchers, businesses, and workers; or outlined a plan to work with the President to lower prescription drug prices; or addressed our Nation’s infrastructure.
Instead, Speaker Pelosi did exactly what she always does – ignore the needs of the American people and advance her selfish political desires. Democrats’ sham impeachment is a blatant, purely partisan attempt to overturn the results of a free and fair election. By their own admission, Democrats say they have to ‘impeach the President’ because they cannot defeat him at the ballot box.”
Read the full statement from Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham.
More: Democrats’ impeachment report highlights their own “colossal overreach”
The line the Swamp doesn’t want you see
There’s something Democrats weren’t counting on when they decided to make their impeachment blitz official in September. Right after Speaker Pelosi launched the probe, President Trump released the full transcript of his call with Ukrainian President Zelensky.
All the information House Democrats were hoping to dig up—and then selectively leak to their friends in the media—became instantly available to every American citizen.
One line from that call came up during this week’s hearing, as Democrat witnesses tried to spin President Trump’s request for Ukraine to investigate corruption into a personal political favor.
Here’s what President Trump actually said: “I would like you to do us a favor though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.” The President goes on to call out potential foul play and meddling during the 2016 election.
The language makes clear that President Trump’s focus was on keeping his promise to the American people. For more than three years, after all, Washington politicians have claimed to want to get to the bottom of any potential corruption in our elections. Yet when it’s Democrats who may get in trouble, the Swamp fights to cover it up—every time.
Given that Speaker Pelosi is the same person who said, “We have to pass [Obamacare] so that you can find out what’s in it,” it’s fair to ask a simple question: Did she bother to read the Ukraine transcript, either?
Photo of the Day
Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian
Marine One, with President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump aboard, prepares to land on the South Lawn of the White House | Dec
DECEMBER 7,1941 “A DATE WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFAMY” Theodore Roosevelt
‘The Fateful Day’
‘Twas the day before that fateful day,
December Sixth I think they say.
When leave trucks passed Pearl Harbor clear
The service men perched in the rear.
No thought gave they, of things to come.
For them, that day, all work was done.
In waters quiet of Pearl Harbor Bay
The ships serene, at anchor lay.
Nor did we give the slightest thought
Of treacherous deeds by the yellow lot.
Those men whose very acts of treason,
Are done with neither rhyme nor reason.
For if we knew what was in store
We ne’re would leave that day before.
For fun and drink to forget the war
Of Britain, Europe, and Singapore.
For all of us there was no fear
This time of peace and Christmas cheer.
Forget the axiom, might is right,
Guardians of Peace, were we that night.
We passed the sailors in cabs galore,
Those men in white who came ashore.
But some will ne’re be seen again,
In care-free fun, those sailor men.
The Sabbath Day dawned bright and clear,
A brand of fire ore the lofty spear,
Of Diamond Head, Hawaii’s own.
A picture itself that can’t be shown,
Unless observed with naked eye,
That makes one look, and stop, and sigh.
What more could lowly humans ask
To start upon their daily task.
The men asleep in barracks late,
Knew no war, that morn at eight.
The planes on fields, their motors cold,
Like sheep asleep among the fold.
The ships at anchor with turbines stilled,
Their crews below in hammocks filled.
And faint, as tho it were a dream,
A sound steels on upon this scene.
A drone of many red tipped things,
The Rising Sun upon their wings.
Those who saw would not believe,
And those that heard could not conceive.
A single shocking, thundering roar,
Followed by another and many more.
To rob the sleep from weary eyes,
Or close forever those that died.
A hot machine gun’s chattering rattle,
Mowed men down like herds of cattle.
A bomb destroys an airplane hangar,
The planes within will fly no more.
Bombs explode upon a ship,
Blasting men into the deep,
To sink without the slightest thought
Of what brought on this hell they caught.
What seems like years, the horrible remains,
Blasting men and ships and planes.
And just as quick as they had come,
Away they went, their foul deeds done.
To leave the burning wreckage here,
The scorching hulks of dead ships there.
And blasted forms of dying men,
Alive in hell, to die again.
At night the skies were all but clear,
The rosy glow of a white hot bier,
Showed on clouds the havoc wrought,
And greedy flames the men still fought.
But from the ruins arose this cry,
That night from those who did not die,
“Beware Japan we’ll take eleven,
For every death of December Seven.”
And from that day there has arisen,
A cry for vengeance, in storms they’re driven.
This fateful day among the ages,
Shall stand out red in Historys pages.
Those men whom homefolk held so dear,
Will be avenged, have no fear.
And if their lives they gave in vain,
Pray, I too, may not remain.
MUST READ – Impeachment inquiry: It’s a question of who should run the show
