impeachment inquiry hearings thread

[tantric superman 4668]

On 6/10/2019 at 3:39 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

“Remarkably” is being used loosely 

It's just so bizarre and the report seems so straightforward that there are folks that simply look the other way when it comes to this report and its findings.  

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

 

[David Dennison 19518]

I can't wait to vote for her.

[Zepol87 9340]

You mean stuff like, the Russians interfered in our election and Trump's people tried to help them? I remember that, what a load of horse shit.

Seriously dude, Hugo is one of the only posters that doesn't engage in personal attacks and posts actual information. Nobody buys your schtick

The last paragraph is definitely true. He doesn't really engage in the bullshit from others. Facts and I enjoy reading them. Now I really think he is a bot

[triplehorn 2664]

 

[triplehorn 2664]

speaking of Rats

 

[4th&Five 41985]

 

[Message Board User 12405]

 

[Irwin F Fletcher 3555]

 

Trump is going to be up all night calling all these Representatives racist.

[hookem48 4838]

On 6/10/2019 at 2:55 PM, Captainant said:

Man, Gaetz has such a punchable face. Same permanent smile as huckster-beef. Got owned several times by Dean, which was good for a chuckle at least.

I know you guys are in the middle of your latest circle jerk but even you have to admit there's not a more punchable face on the planet than this guy

[TDunk 590]

9 minutes ago, hookem48 said:

I know you guys are in the middle of your latest circle jerk but even you have to admit there's not a more punchable face on the planet than this guy

Not sure about everyone else, but I don't usually look at the face of a guy when I'm circle jerkin.  

[henrygandorf 29225]

33 minutes ago, hookem48 said:

I know you guys are in the middle of your latest circle jerk but even you have to admit there's not a more punchable face on the planet than this guy

when matt gaetz is on the screen, they don't need to put (r) or "florida" because both are so fucking obvious.  but nice try.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

 

[triplehorn 2664]

Aligns with start of Roger Stone/Wikileaks/RUS traitor trial starting in early Nov., and would flow into primary season in the Spring.  Not random timing, imo.

 

 

[triplehorn 2664]

Also keep an eye on the federal appeals court ruling on the House subpoena for Trump's financials from Deutsche Bank and Capital One Financial Grp., expected as early as late this month.

 

[triplehorn 2664]

Mueller got the ball rolling and farmed out a lot of investigations yet to be known, but House Dems appear to have been doing a lot of explosive work below the radar following the money - all the while taking a lot of public heat for not impeaching Trump immediately upon taking the House last Fall.  

Summary article with a reference to yesterday's WSJ reporting:

An exclusive report just revealed that House Democrats have actually gathered a lot more financial information about Donald Trump and his Russian ties than previously known.

 

"The Journal also revealed that there is a previously under-reported joint investigation between the House Financial Services Committee and the House Intelligence Panel.

Six major banks or Wall Street firms have already turned over information on the Trump Organization’s business dealings to Congress, and a seventh bank who financed one of Donald Trump’s flagship midtown Manhattan condo-conversion projects named Trump Park Avenue.

[...]

“Deutsche Bank has a lot of exposure to knowingly providing banking services to disreputable sources, and their executives may be looking to cut a deal to manage their own exposure to liabilities for doing so,” says a well-placed source on The Hill familiar with the proceedings, who that said the Journal’s story doesn’t come as a surprise. “This is the real reason why Trump has been going after Chairman Waters in public for a long time.

“There is a knot of crimes here, and the House committees are each pulling the threads of the same problem,” says the source. “This is the first time we’re seeing a tangible result of a joint investigation.

Significantly, the banking records could shed even more light on the financial dealings between Donald Trump and the Crocus Group, a firm led by an Azerbaijani-Russian oligarch named Aras Agalarov whose son set up the infamous Trump Tower meeting with an emissary of Putin’s government.

[...]

This past June, the House Finance Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) told the Journal that her panel has gotten information from a lot of banks, which the New York-based newspaper just revealed today.”

 

-- With the surprising revelation House committees already have a lot of key banking and financial information tied to Trump/Russia, I get the feeling this summer recess is being put to good use.  They'll use this Fall to gather and untangle the evidence they have, and will continue to receive, and go with what they've got to kick off a presidential election year.

[triplehorn 2664]

House panel to take formal steps on impeachment probe next week

(CNN) — The House Judiciary Committee is prepared to vote next week on a resolution laying out the procedures for its investigation now that it is actively considering moving to impeach President Donald Trump, a major step toward formalizing its sweeping probe, according to multiple sources familiar with the effort.

The vote, which is expected to occur on Wednesday, will lay out the ground rules for conducting hearings now that the committee has publicly announced it is considering recommending articles of impeachment against Trump. It is expected to follow the precedent set in 1974 over the committee's procedures during then-President Richard Nixon's impeachment proceedings.

Sources told CNN on Friday that the resolution is expected to spell out that Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, has the authority to call hearings at either the full committee or subcommittee level in connection with its impeachment deliberations.

The resolution, sources say, is expected to make clear that future House Judiciary hearings can be conducted in ways different from most congressional hearings since the panel is considering impeachment. For instance, the resolution is expected to authorize committee staff counsels to question witnesses, something that is typically not done at congressional hearings.

The resolution also will spell out how secret grand jury information can be reviewed in closed-door sessions. And it will say that the President's counsel can respond in writing to the committee.

[cont.]

—> thankfully ditching the questioning format in fragmented 5 min partisan back and forth bits and using hired counsels to conduct questioning instead.

[triplehorn 2664]

Thursday:

The   *Allow staff to question witnesses longer seems key.  And by staff, that means hired legal counsel approaching this stone cold Watergate style, not tit for tat discontinuity of partisan jabs between committee members in 5 min rounds. It's almost like they have a road map.

Recall legal counsel who Pelosi hired after the midterms to lead:

---> Letter would be the chief point person for any litigation involving enforcement of subpoenas targeting Trump officials.

More on his background from last December:  Nancy Pelosi Announces ‘Very Big Deal’ Lawyer Hire Ahead of Democrats’ House Takeover

With almost no public recognition, Letter was responsible for establishing the the overall strategy, and getting the ball rolling in the courts, beginning right away last January.  It's taken until now to get this far and the House is ready to take the next steps.

They've had a bead on bank fraud and money laundering from the start VVV

Trump has already lost in court preventing Mazars accounting and Deutsche Bank from turning over the rest of their Trump files to the House, currently and actively moving through the appeals process.  There's another Trump suit the NYAG is seeking to have thrown out with Trump attempting to prevent NY state from turning over Trump's state tax returns to the House. 

All of this financial relationships/banking/tax evidence is on the brink of being handed to Congress for its formal impeachment probe. 

[DDD Dad 14643]

Hey @EuroHorn, don't eat any snacks.  You might spoil your dinner.

[F250 29195]

1 hour ago, triplehorn said:

Thursday:

The   *Allow staff to question witnesses longer seems key.  And by staff, that means hired legal counsel approaching this stone cold Watergate style, not tit for tat discontinuity of partisan jabs between committee members in 5 min rounds. It's almost like they have a road map.

Recall legal counsel who Pelosi hired after the midterms to lead:

---> Letter would be the chief point person for any litigation involving enforcement of subpoenas targeting Trump officials.

More on his background from last December:  Nancy Pelosi Announces ‘Very Big Deal’ Lawyer Hire Ahead of Democrats’ House Takeover

With almost no public recognition, Letter was responsible for establishing the the overall strategy, and getting the ball rolling in the courts, beginning right away last January.  It's taken until now to get this far and the House is ready to take the next steps.

They've had a bead on bank fraud and money laundering from the start VVV

Trump has already lost in court preventing Mazars accounting and Deutsche Bank from turning over the rest of their Trump files to the House, currently and actively moving through the appeals process.  There's another Trump suit the NYAG is seeking to have thrown out with Trump attempting to prevent NY state from turning over Trump's state tax returns to the House. 

All of this financial relationships/banking/tax evidence is on the brink of being handed to Congress for its formal impeachment probe. 

TL/DR version. House Democrats will consider if they will consider doing something.

This is the kind of response you get when you ask someone, "will you at least think about it?"

 

[Captainant 28509]

21 minutes ago, F250 said:

TL/DR version. House Democrats will consider if they will consider doing something.

This is the kind of response you get when you ask someone, "will you at least think about it?"

 

That's a bad take. You know every feckless Republican on this board would cry foul if the dems cut any corners, and they'll be just as happy to concern troll as you are so helpfully demonstrating here. 

I think the dems are moving too slow, but fuck theyve been deliberate every step so far

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

F250 is right, this is a joke. You can tell by the lack of urgency.  They’ve got everyone fooled by acting like they need more information and court cooperation, testimony, blah, blah, blah. 

Meanwhile, everyone with eyes and ears can see the president is a fucking criminal lunatic that will just get more people killed. 

[F250 29195]

29 minutes ago, Captainant said:

That's a bad take. You know every feckless Republican on this board would cry foul if the dems cut any corners, and they'll be just as happy to concern troll as you are so helpfully demonstrating here. 

I think the dems are moving too slow, but fuck theyve been deliberate every step so far

I am not concern trolling. I am literally mocking the Democrat's noodle dick posturing on the proper response to the President's numerous impeachable offenses.

[F250 29195]

26 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

F250 is right, this is a joke. You can tell by the lack of urgency.  They’ve got everyone fooled by acting like they need more information and court cooperation, testimony, blah, blah, blah. 

Meanwhile, everyone with eyes and ears can see the president is a fucking criminal lunatic that will just get more people killed. 

Exactly, my apologies for wanting to cause you harm during the LSU game, I get a little manic when I combine Longhorn football and bourbon.

 

[DixonHur 11959]

4 minutes ago, F250 said:

I am not concern trolling. I am literally mocking the Democrat's noodle dick posturing on the proper response to the President's numerous impeachable offenses.

This.  The GOP will balk no matter what, so the Dems need to start getting them on the record and use their cowardliness/complicity against them in the 2020 election cycle.

 

[tantric superman 4668]

This seems appropriate to me.  Needle dick Gen. McClellan describing Lincoln.  Seems an apt description of Trump.

The Dems are a bunch of McClellans.

 

DO SOMETHING!

[triplehorn 2664]

19 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

F250 is right, this is a joke. You can tell by the lack of urgency.  They’ve got everyone fooled by acting like they need more information and court cooperation, testimony, blah, blah, blah. 

Meanwhile, everyone with eyes and ears can see the president is a fucking criminal lunatic that will just get more people killed. 

too civil, huh. 

These Dems won't end up like the baseless empty-handed GOP skullfuckers who always go to ground without determinative facts and evidence - just frothy skullfucking. 

This 'too slow' take overlooks basic realities.  As it stands today, the House can't enforce a single subpoena for a Mueller report witness who refuses to testify.  You start by asking and getting stonewalled.  Then you go to the Courts, win, then win again on appeal.  That's where we are.  It's all stacking for the end of this year into early 2020.

When the evidence all gets laid bare, then hand the mic to GOP members of Congress next spring and summer for a response, if you can find them.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

38 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

too civil, huh. 

These Dems won't end up like the baseless empty-handed GOP skullfuckers who always go to ground without determinative facts and evidence - just frothy skullfucking. 

This 'too slow' take overlooks basic realities.  As it stands today, the House can't enforce a single subpoena for a Mueller report witness who refuses to testify.  You start by asking and getting stonewalled.  Then you go to the Courts, win, then win again on appeal.  That's where we are.  It's all stacking for the end of this year into early 2020.

When the evidence all gets laid bare, then hand the mic to GOP members of Congress next spring and summer for a response, if you can find them.

All the democrats need to do is take a vote. Impeach or not impeach.  The evidence has been laid out repeatedly in public and available court documents.  The Republicans are already fleeing.  

There is more than enough to get him on obstruction, conspiracy to obstruct, felony campaign violations, and emoluments right now.  

They’re playing politics with this because it’s in their interest to do nothing. 

They are doing slightly more than nothing to keep voters engaged and assuaged.  It’s a con.  They are not going to fight to remove Trump like we should expect them to. They’ve made this perfectly clear. 

What is unknown are the consequences of their inaction.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Hugo Stiglitz

[triplehorn 2664]

1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

All the democrats need to do is take a vote. Impeach or not impeach.  The evidence has been laid out repeatedly in public and available court documents.  The Republicans are already fleeing.  

There is more than enough to get him on obstruction, conspiracy to obstruct, felony campaign violations, and emoluments right now.  

They’re playing politics with this because it’s in their interest to do nothing. 

They are doing slightly more than nothing to keep voters engaged and assuaged.  It’s a con.  They are not going to fight to remove Trump like we should expect them to. They’ve made this perfectly clear. 

What is unknown are the consequences of their inaction.

You can be upset at Dems and call it a con, but I just see it very differently.  When you say there's more than enough to get him right now, what is "get him" supposed to mean?  What happens now?  It won't sway the GOP Senate and 'now' risks leaving way too much time for people to forget about Senate inaction. 

The evidence they're fighting for could be orders of magnitude worse for Trump and GOP to ignore or spin, especially if rolled out after the start of 2020, if it demonstrates foreign money laundering, bank fraud, and tax evasion. 

Moreover, it's Trump's financial entanglements that Dems are after, the financial compromise, that really goes to the heart of Trump being a Russian asset.  The financials stand to close the loop on the Mueller report.  Mueller acknowledged when he testified to Congress that counterintelligence investigations into Trump were ongoing at the time of his testimony.  DNI Coats is now out and Trump is turning his sights again on Dir FBI Wray, who was reporting on FBI counterintelligence activity to Coats.

Bottom line is that House needs those accounting/tax/banking files to further demonstrate his motives for mass serial obstruction of justice of Mueller's Trump/Russia investigation.  It's not a con, and not playing politics.  

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

2 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

Bottom line is that House needs those accounting/tax/banking files to further demonstrate his motives for mass serial obstruction of justice of Mueller's Trump/Russia investigation.  It's not a con, and not playing politics.

Anything produced by the democrats will be labeled a partisan witch hunt by the republicans and a reason not to impeach.  

That’s why we had Mueller, to avoid the perception of partisan bias in the investigation process.  Mueller more than delivered enough goods on Trump to put him away for years in prison if he was a private citizen.  

The democrats DGAF, they want to hurt Trump and the republicans more in 2020 with this slow bleed impeachment shit. 

[triplehorn 2664]

9 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Anything produced by the democrats will be labeled a partisan witch hunt by the republicans and a reason not to impeach.  

That’s why we had Mueller, to avoid the perception of partisan bias in the investigation process.  Mueller more than delivered enough goods on Trump to put him away for years in prison if he was a private citizen.  

The democrats DGAF, they want to hurt Trump and the republicans more in 2020 with this slow bleed impeachment shit. 

Cries of partisan witch hunt ??  If the financial receipts and paper trail show deep foreign indebtedness, money laundering, bank fraud, and tax evasion, I’d like to see GOP try to fall back on ‘witch hunt’.  They’ll get their asses bbq’d at the Nov. election.

The ‘slow bleed’ is total Trump WH stonewalling and obstruction.  Total lack of cooperation and transparency.  WH is forcing this to go through the courts to delay the inevitable.  Given what it looks like they believe they’ll find (reasons to believe they already have a damn good idea), it would be well worth the wait.  JMO.

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

2 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

If the financial receipts and paper trail show deep foreign indebtedness, money laundering, bank fraud, and tax evasion,

You are assuming the democrats would use this to impeach if they had it.  They won’t.  They would sit on it and use it against Trump in the re-election campaign. 

[triplehorn 2664]

I disagree.  It’s better to use it to impeach next spring/summer.  

Impeachment envelops both a criminal, abusive POTUS and a complicit Senate GOP.  Dems are gunning for Senate control.  Impeachment is a powerful lever to show they are up to competently performing their Constitutional duty and to expose Senate GOP if following the money proves foreign money laundering, bank fraud, and tax evasion.  Having patience with the court process is absolutely warranted right now.  And even if Senate doesn’t convict, force that behavior in the middle of the 2020 campaign.  

 

[Disco Strangler 1913]

1 hour ago, triplehorn said:

Cries of partisan witch hunt ??  If the financial receipts and paper trail show deep foreign indebtedness, money laundering, bank fraud, and tax evasion, I’d like to see GOP try to fall back on ‘witch hunt’.  They’ll get their asses bbq’d at the Nov. election.

The ‘slow bleed’ is total Trump WH stonewalling and obstruction.  Total lack of cooperation and transparency.  WH is forcing this to go through the courts to delay the inevitable.  Given what it looks like they believe they’ll find (reasons to believe they already have a damn good idea), it would be well worth the wait.  JMO.

 

If it's what you say it is, I love it.

[triplehorn 2664]

WaPo op-ed citing HJC Rep. Raskin: 

Dems may broaden their inquiry into articles of impeachment to include info on Trump's finances they get from Deutsche Bank, @RepRaskin tells me.  That could determine whether Trump laundered money or was subject to foreign influence.

Spoiler

House Democrats are dramatically expanding their inquiry into whether to bring articles of impeachment against President Trump. That inquiry, which is being run out of the Judiciary Committee, will now include not just an examination of the special counsel’s findings but also scrutiny of Trump’s corruption — his dangling of pardons and his latest shameless acts of self-dealing.

And this inquiry is expanding even further than that: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a senior member of the committee, told me it might include scrutiny of financial information obtained from Deutsche Bank, which is being sought to determine whether Trump engaged in money laundering or whether his foreign dealings left him subject to foreign influence.

But there’s a serious problem here that cannot be deferred forever: There are still no indications that the House Democratic leadership is prepared to allow a full House vote on articles of impeachment, even if such articles are passed out of the Judiciary Committee.

Yet at the same time, the broadening of this inquiry is likely to make the case for a full House vote on impeachment articles increasingly irresistible.

In an interview with me, Raskin detailed the Judiciary Committee’s plan to broaden its ongoing inquiry into whether to bring articles of impeachment, which the New York Times reported on over the weekend.

“We are expanding the investigation outwards from the Mueller report to what I think every American can understand intuitively — the president has treated the office as an extended get-rich-quick scheme,” Raskin told me.

The reason this is happening: Trump has pushed his corruption to the forefront. He publicly confirmed that he wants to host the next Group of Seven meeting at his Doral resort in Florida, an extraordinarily blatant act of self-dealing.

Meanwhile, his vice president, Mike Pence, stayed at Trump’s resort in Ireland amid circumstances that rendered the move almost comically unjustifiable. And this comes after reports confirmed that Trump privately dangled pardons to officialsafter urging them to break laws to build his border wall faster.

Democrats are now examining all of it. The Judiciary and Oversight committees have demanded documents illuminating Trump’s effort to host the G-7 and the vice president’s stay, arguing that these moves likely violated the Constitution’s ban on foreign and domestic emoluments. They’re also scrutinizing Trump’s dangling of pardons.

Raskin told me that Democrats would conduct hearings on Trump’s violations of the emoluments clauses. And he said Democrats might vote on a resolution calling on Trump to reimburse the emoluments he has pocketed, which, if nothing else, might force the issue to a head.

“If he does not, then he has chosen to escalate the constitutional confrontation,” Raskin said. “At that point, we would probably need to repair to the wisdom of the founders, and exercise the remedy they identified for a president engaging in this extraordinary breach of the public trust.”

Raskin added that all these blatant moves by Trump should help concentrate the public case against Trump’s corruption. “The public is just waking up to the fact that the president has been using his office like a private corporation,” he said.

The Deutsche Bank angle

In a quiet but important move, the Judiciary Committee recently asked multiple other committees — including Intelligence and Financial Services — to share documents or materials they think might assist in deciding on whether to vote on articles of impeachment.

This is suggestive of one route all this could take. The Times has reported that the records of Trump’s finances held by Deutsche Bank — a longtime lender to Trump — go far beyond Trump’s much-coveted tax returns.

These records, the Times reported, are of intense interest to the Financial Services committee, which is examining whether Trump helped Russians or other foreign buyers launder money, and to the Intelligence Committee, which is trying to determine whether Trump’s financial entanglements made him vulnerable to foreign influence.

We don’t know how much of that paperwork House investigators will get, or how far those probes have gotten, or what they will turn up. But if they do bear some fruit, it would likely become part of the inquiry into whether to bring articles of impeachment — and part of the basis for such articles, if they are eventually voted on.

Raskin confirmed as much to me, though he cautioned that Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) makes final decisions.

“All the evidence turned up by these other committees will be used by the Judiciary Committee in making decisions about further actions to be taken, including articles of impeachment,” Raskin told me.

The coming explosion

It seems obvious that Trump’s extraordinary blatant acts of corruption — he’s basically flaunting his ability to carry them out with impunity at this point — can only help build the public case against Trump. If Judiciary does pass articles of impeachment, which appears at least plausible, the question will then be whether Democratic leaders will ever decide that it obligates a full House vote on them.

Here’s where the problem arises. The leadership appears dug in against any such vote. The fact that members in moderate districts aren’t feeling constituent pressureon impeachment isn’t helping.

But if that public case against Trump gets stronger and stronger — indeed, it’s already incredibly strong — that means not acting threatens to do serious political damage to Democrats, further dividing them and making them look feckless and unwilling to hold a corrupt president accountable.

What’s more, not acting threatens civic damage as well — it would send a message to the public that none of this will be subject to accountability via use of the tools the House has at its disposal. Indeed, as Brian Beutler points out, failing to hold a vote clarifying Trump’s corruption also lets the full GOP off the hook for its enabling of that corruption.

How this tension will get resolved is unclear. But it isn’t going away, and as it intensifies, it only threatens to grow more destructive.

the author should focus less on 'if Dem leadership doesn't impeach'.  he's getting impeached.  

[triplehorn 2664]

 

[triplehorn 2664]

Rep. Demings highlights why the House impeachment resolution that passed yesterday is crucially important - it defines an expanded framework for gathering and organizing the evidence for articles of impeachment.  Namely, it provides for skilled lawyers to conduct questioning of witnesses in 1 hour blocks.  Contrast that with alternating 5 min. segments between Dem and the dissembling GOP members.  The resolution also significantly deepens the organizational resources for the House investigatory net.

House GOP chucklefucks know exactly what the implications are.

 

[triplehorn 2664]

this, the day after House passes resolution on how to proceed with its impeachment investigation.

he skeerd.  and for damn good reason.

 

[DDD Dad 14643]

Lewandowski now giving his opening statement.

WTF is that pin he's wearing on his lapel?  US flag with some sort of seal on it?  Isn't that contrary to flag code?  

[Anastasis 23716]

2 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

Lewandowski now giving his opening statement.

WTF is that pin he's wearing on his lapel?  US flag with some sort of seal on it?  Isn't that contrary to flag code?  

looks like a state seal?

[DDD Dad 14643]

Just now, Anastasis said:

looks like a state seal?

I was thinking perhaps RNC seal or something?  Can't tell from my computer screen.

[Anastasis 23716]

Maybe NH?

 

LOL, CL asks for a copy of the Mueller report. 

 

This is going to be a total shit show. 

[DDD Dad 14643]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Maybe NH?

 

LOL, CL asks for a copy of the Mueller report. 

 

This is going to be a total shit show. 

Yeah he doesn't seem evasive at all.

[Anastasis 23716]

2 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

Yeah he doesn't seem evasive at all.

When you call a circus, don't be surprised when the clowns show up. 

[Anastasis 23716]

This is a fucking disaster. 

[DDD Dad 14643]

Collins is a clown for sure.

[Chad Fuck 18134]

3 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

Collins is a clown for sure.

 

3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

This is a fucking disaster. 

Care to summarize for those of us who can't watch?

 

[Anastasis 23716]

Just now, Chad Fuck said:

Care to summarize for those of us who can't watch?

 

Nadler is an ineffective chair, and the Collins is a parliamentary clown. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Accurate 

[DDD Dad 14643]

3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Nadler is an ineffective chair, and the Collins is a parliamentary clown. 

Este.