Summations Only

I agree that the evidence they already have is sufficient for voting articles of impeachment, but the more narrow and shallow the less impact. If I didn't already say it in this thread, I would like to see every Senator go on the record for every impeachable act, not just the Ukraine. House Democrats risk going down in history as giving greater weight to their political fortunes than to their constitutional responsibilities. I think there's only one person here who doesn't understand the difference between impeachment in the House and trial before the Senate, and they aren't a participant in this thread. The lower the bar is set for articles of impeachment, i.e., the less their breadth and evidence, the easier they can be dismissed. Congressional Republicans are pushing this view on their constituents because they know they will not listen to anyone with correct information. The contradictions from the Republican side abound. First the process is too private, then it is too public. First it is too slow, then it is too fast. First it is presumptuous for desiring testimony from principles, then it relies too much on testimony from non-principles.--Percy

In a post back in January of 2017 about Trump's inauguration (Message 138) I said this that resulted in a relatively brief sub-discussion with NoNukes about the value of political influence: When I wrote those words Obama was worth $12.2 million according to Google. Today he is worth $40 million. He has made $27.8 million in his nearly three years of retirement. He commands around $500,000 for a single speech. Just yesterday he closed on a $12 million house on Martha's Vineyard (an upscale island off the coast of Massachusetts).I continue to object to politics as a road to riches. The main driving force is the value of political influence. The rich are willing and able to pay a great deal of money for it. We have to get money out of politics. We want politics to attract our best and brightest, not our most greedy.To tie this back into the topic, I think Trump was attracted to the presidency because he's attracted to power and because he saw it as the ultimate money making opportunity.--Percy

From White House Officials Huddle With Senate Republicans On Impeachment Trial : NPR:

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Across from a Capitol Hill impeachment hearing that President Trump and his allies loudly rebuked, members of the White House legal team and its top legislative aide huddled Wednesday with Senate Republicans over lunch to plot out a potential trial in the upper chamber.

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Why is this not considered highly inappropriate collusion between the defendant and the trial judges?--Percy

Trump has committed multiple impeachable offenses, but if only Ukraine articles of impeachment reach the Senate then for that trial its a one-off crime. The first successful removal of a president will require a broad range of charges that are deep in evidence. Wouldn't wending through the legal challenges only push the trial out to next spring or summer?--Percy

I think you're alluding to Southern District of New York lawsuit. Expedited legal proceedings are possible and probably likely for presidential impeachment lawsuits where the principles are the legislative and executive branches.An example of the courts moving quickly are the rulings issued by the Florida and US Supreme Courts after the 2000 election.--Percy

This editorial in the NYT, Opinion | Please, Democrats, Don’t Make the Impeachment Articles Too Narrow - The New York Times, precisely captures what the Democrats are doing wrong concerning impeachment. The impeachment needs to be broad in terms of charges brought, and the evidence needs to be deep:

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Turley...argued that the impeachment investigation was too truncated, and that more effort should have been made to coerce testimony from key figures like Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, and John Bolton, his former national security adviser.
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Democrats had little to lose by taking their time excavating the full record of Trump’s wrongdoing before turning impeachment over for trial to the Republican-controlled Senate.
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A central point of contention is whether the articles will include Trump’s obstruction of justice in Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russia’s attack on the 2016 election. It is vitally important that they do.
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But to make clear the full gravity of what Trump tried to do in Ukraine, Democrats need to demonstrate that it was part of a pattern. [emphasis mine]
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Impeachment isn’t just about holding Trump accountable for a discrete scandal. It’s about trying, against the odds, to stop an ongoing campaign to subvert the 2020 election, one that is building on tactics from 2016.
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Given America’s political polarization, public opinion on impeachment is unlikely to move much no matter what Democrats do. Nevertheless, they’d be mad to let centrist trepidation stop them from making the strongest possible case for Trump’s removal. Doing that requires a willingness to put Trump’s Ukraine corruption in context.

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Democrats have only one chance to impeach the most corrupt and disloyal president in American history. They say they’re rushing through it because it can’t wait. They have a duty to explain not just why Trump betrayed America when he sought to extort election help from Ukraine, but how we know that he’ll nearly certainly try the same thing again.

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--Percy

There are only three levels of federal courts: District, Circuit and Supreme. Lawsuits would start at the District court level, and, given the critical nature, it's reasonable to expect they'd be fast-tracked. There aren't a lot of level of appeals. A loser in District Court can appeal to the Circuit Court, and a loser in Circuit Court can appeal to the Supreme Court. There can be more appeals when application is made to an individual judge (appeal to a 3-judge panel or to the full court) or a 3-judge panel (appeal to the full court), but given the urgency I think each lawsuit would be brought to the full court. Yes, that would be best, but still not of much value without a broad array of charges and a great depth of evidence. I can't see any scenario where enough Republicans would vote to convict on any article. The best that can be hoped for is that Republicans are forced to vote on articles that are broad and deep rather than narrow and flimsy, and that are supported by a majority of Americans. Again, I can't see any scenario where the Republicans would need to nominate a new candidate.https://www.washingtonpost.com/...06-df3c54b3253e_story.html, an op-ed piece in today's post by David Von Drehle, makes several points relevant to my deepest concerns:

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Striking at a president through impeachment is a serious business and should be done only with a reasonable prospect of success. It requires more more evidence, more persuasion, more clarity, more discipline than other less fraught, less perilous, projects.

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What we have instead is an undisciplined House majority giving up on persuading the undecided public.
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Rather than keep grinding away, using gumshoes and courts to expose more conclusive evidence, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) has hung out the closed sign and dropped the blinds on his impeachment inquiry. His staff spat out a report that could have been titled, Preaching to the Choir.
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Speaking of a body of evidence that has convinced zero Republican senators and less than half of the American people, professor Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina declared: If what we’re talking about is not impeachable, nothing is impeachable.

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Nothing?

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This offense that House Democrats can’t be bothered to fully investigate, can’t be troubled to thoroughly document, can’t discipline themselves to coil into a mortal blow this is the very worst thing any president could conceivably do? No crime will ever be impeachable unless this halfhearted mess is seen through to defeat?

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--Percy

Pick your favorite poll, but according to Do Americans Support Impeaching Trump? | FiveThirtyEight it's currently 47.8%. It's more than are against impeachment - maybe that's what you meant, that more people favor impeachment than oppose it? I don't think so. I think any Republican Senator would only vote to convict if they felt it wouldn't hurt their own political fortunes. I don't think human beings in general are swayed by facts or logic. Trump supporters are just an especially dramatic example of this. In all fairness, Democrats aren't much different. Two House Democrats have already come out against impeachment, and they're both from districts that Trump won in 2016.--Percy

It seems to have been little noticed (I think Vox picked it up) that Rudy Giuliani admitted in a tweet that Trump administration interest in Ukrainian corruption was based upon "compelling evidence of criminal conduct by then VP Biden, in 2016": There it is in a nutshell: to Trump, Ukrainian corruption means Joe Biden.--Percy

CNN reports about a Growing divide between Trump and McConnell over impeachment trial | CNN Politics. While it's reassuring to hear that McConnell will not be Trump's lapdog in defining how the impeachment trial will be conducted in the Senate, how is it appropriate that they are even talking about this subject at all? Why is the defendant permitted to negotiate with the lead juror, the jury foreman so to speak? If the principles need to speak then it should be in the judge's chambers, which would be Chief Justice John Roberts' chambers.I understand that the Constitution doesn't cover these kinds of details, but legal precedent, mere propriety, and maintaining at least the appearance of conducting a fair and unbiased trial, all demand that there be no informal contact on this subject between the White House and the Senate. All contact should go through formal proscribed channels, likely formal letters and memoranda.Just for the record, the article says that McConnell wants a quick and concise trial, while Trump wants a lengthy show trial where he calls witnesses like Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and the whistleblower. McConnell seems to want an actual trial, while Trump wants political theater with himself as the director.--Percy

The Inspector General's report on the Carter Page FISA applications can be found here: Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.Here are the problems the IG found with the first Carter Page FISA application:

1. Omitted information the FBI had obtained from another U.S. government agency detailing its prior relationship with Page, including that Page had been approved as an "operational contact" for the other agency from 2008 to 2013, and that Page had provided information to the other agency concerning his prior cont acts with certain Russian intelligence officers, one of which overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA application;
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2. Included a source characterization statement asserting that Steele's prior reporting had been "corroborated and used in criminal proceedings," which overstated the significance of Steele's past reporting and was not approved by Steele's handling agent, as required by the Woods Procedures;
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3. Omitted information relevant to the reliability of Person 1, a key Steele sub-source (who was attributed with providing the information in Report 95 and some of the information in Reports 80 and 102 relied upon in the application), namely that (1) Steele himself told members of the Crossfire Hurricane team that Person 1 was a "boaster" and an "egoist" and " may engage in some embellishment" and (2) the FBI had opened a counterintelligence investigation on Person 1 a few days before the FISA application was filed;
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4. Asserted that the FBI had assessed that Steele did not directly provide to the press information in the September 23 Yahoo News article based on the premise that Steele had told the FBI that he only shared his election-related research with the FBI and Fusion GPS, his client; this premise was incorrect and contradicted by documentation in the Woods File-Steele had told the FBI that he also gave his information to the State Department;
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5. Omitted Papadopoulos's consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in September 2016 denying that anyone associated with the Trump campaign was collaborating with Russia or with outside groups like Wikileaks in the release of emails;
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6. Omitted Page's consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in August 2016 that Page had "literally never met" or "said one word to" Paul Manafort and that Manafort had not responded to any of Page's emails; if true, those statements were in tension with claims in Report 95 that Page was participating in a conspiracy with Russia by acting as an intermediary for Manafort on behalf of the Trump campaign; and
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7. Included Page's consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in October 2016 that the FBI believed supported its theory that Page was an agent of Russia but omitted other statements Page made that were inconsistent with its theory, including denying having met with Sechin and Divyekin, or even knowing who Divyekin was; if true, those statements contradicted the claims in Report 94 that Page had met secretly with Sechin and Divyekin about future cooperation with Russia and shared derogatory information about candidate Clinton.

Here are the problems the IG found in the three subsequent Carter Page FISA renewals:

8. Omitted the fact that Steele's Primary Subsource, who the FBI found credible, had made statements in January 2017 raising significant questions about the reliability of allegations included in the FISA applications, including, for example, that he/she did not recall any discussion with Person 1 concerning Wikileaks and there was "nothing bad" about the communications between the Kremlin and the Trump team, and that he/she did not report to Steele in July 2016 that Page had met with Sechin;
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9. Omitted Page's prior relationship with another U.S. government agency, despite being reminded by the other agency in June 2017, prior to the filing of the final renewal application, about Page's past status with that other agency; instead of including this information in the final renewal application, the OGC Attorney altered an email from the other agency so that the email stated that Page was " not a source" for the other agency, which the FBI affiant relied upon in signing the final renewal application;
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10. Omitted information from persons who previously had professional contacts with Steele or had direct knowledge of his work-related performance, including statements that Steele had no history of reporting in bad faith but "[d]emonstrates lack of self-awareness, poor judgment," "pursued people with political risk but no intelligence value," "didn't always exercise great judgment," and it was " not clear what he would have done to validate" his reporting;
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11. Omitted information obtained from Ohr about Steele and his election reporting, including that (1) Steele's reporting was going to Clinton's presidential campaign and others, (2) Simpson was paying Steele to discuss his reporting with the media, and (3) Steele was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. President";
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12. Failed to update the description of Steele after information became known to the Crossfire Hurricane team, from Ohr and others, that provided greater clarity on the political origins and connections of Steele's reporting, including that Simpson was hired by someone associated with the Democratic Party and/or the DNC;
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13. Failed to correct the assertion in the first FISA application that the FBI did not believe that Steele directly provided information to the reporter who wrote the September 23 Yahoo News article, even though there was no information in the Woods File to support this claim and even after certain Crossfire Hurricane officials learned in 2017, before the third renewal application, of an admission that Steele made in a court filing about his interactions with the news media in the late summer and early fall of 2016;
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14. Omitted the finding from a FBI source validation report that Steele was suitable for continued operation but that his past contributions to the FBI's criminal program had been " minimally corroborated," and instead continued to assert in the source characterization statement that Steele's prior reporting had been "corroborated and used in criminal proceedings";
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15. Omitted Papadopoulos's statements to an FBI CHS in late October 2016 denying that the Trump campaign was involved in the circumstances of the DNC email hack;
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16. Omitted Joseph Mifsud's denials to the FBI that he supplied Papadopoulos with the information Papadopoulos shared with the FFG (suggesting that the campaign received an offer or suggestion of assistance from Russia); and
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17. Omitted information indicating that Page played no role in the Republican platform change on Russia's annexation of Ukraine as alleged in the Report 95, which was inconsistent with a factual assertion relied upon to support probable cause in all four FISA applications.

--PercyEdited by Percy, : Replace the link to the Fox News version of the IG report to the one at the Justice Department which is much better because it is searchable and copyable.

I extracted the problems the IG identified with the Carter Page FISA application and renewals to make it easier to find them. I think people should make of them what they will.If you want my own opinion it's that when you spend at least a hundred times more effort and time analyzing documents than it took to create them you'll inevitably find issues and problems.I also think that a number of the points are very poorly described and lack a great deal of context, making them very difficult to interpret. It's often difficult to ferret out where the problem lies that is purportedly being described, or even why it is a problem at all.Probably someone could easily write a report detailing the deficiencies of the IG's investigation and report. People writing these things with the benefit of hindsight and much greater time and manpower forget that their own efforts are as colored with human imperfection as the subject of their own report. For example, if Report 95 is so important it should be footnoted, and the footnote should point to where in the document Report 95 is described. I still don't know what Report 95 is. It's first mention is in point 3 - it isn't previously described. Reports 80 and 102 that are also referenced are not described. Were I grading the IG report for clarity I would give it a D-.The points are also a hatchet job on Christopher Steele. The investigation obviously made a great effort to seek out derogatory information, but Steele worked for MI6 for 22 years in positions of increasing responsibility, and over the years he must have received a number of very complementary reviews, but no mention of this is made at all in the IG's Steele hit list, er, report.I also think that even though Attorney General Barr and Senator Lindsey Graham and other Republicans who have gone over to the dark side do not believe the IG went far enough in pursuing and endorsing Trump's conspiracy theories, I believe he was still influenced by the knowledge that Trump makes it very, uh, uncomfortable for those he perceives as lacking sufficient enthusiasm for them. As compensation for not buying into the Trump conspiracy theories I believe the IG came down far harder on the FBI than was warranted by the evidence.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

Assuming the House passed the two articles of impeachment, Trump will face trail before the Senate. Trump is the defendant and will be defended by his defense team, the Senate is the jury, and prosecutors will be appointed by the House.Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the Senate, is, in essence, the jury foreman, and he has a unique twist on fair and unbiased trials. In a late Thursday interview with Sean Hannity, Mitch McConnell committed to "total coordination" with the White House and Trump's defense team. A better example of collusion could not be found.Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/...c1-fd0d91b60d9e_story.html--Percy

Here is a link to the House Judiciary Committee Report on the Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. It's 658 pages long, start reading now if you want to be done by Christmas.--Percy

As reported by the Daily Beast: Rudy Giuliani Doubles Down on Fox News, Says ‘I Forced’ Marie Yovanovitch Out of Ukraine. When asked by Fox News host Laura Ingraham if he forced Yovanovich out, especially since he wasn't an official representative of the U.S. government, he said he forced her out and that she was corrupt:

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"Of course I did. I didn’t need her out of the way. I forced her out because she’s corrupt."

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Of course there is no evidence of corruption on the part of Yovanovich.And in a recent interview in The New Yorker, Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer and not a representative of the United States, declared in no uncertain terms that he forced Yovanovich out of her ambassadorship of the Ukraine because she was "corrupt" and was making "investigations difficult for everybody.":

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"I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way. She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody."

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He also told the magazine that he had compiled a dossier of information on Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Yovanovich. New Yorker reporter Adam Entous obtained a copy of the dossier and said it included some outlandish and some impossible claims. People are claimed to be where they could not possibly be (e.g., Hunter Biden breakfasting with Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken when he was at the hospital where his brother lay dying). People are claimed to be involved in things they could not possibly have been involved in (e.g., Kent and Yovanovich helped set up NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine) in order to protect the Bidens when neither was stationed in Ukraine at the time). He claimed Yovanovich has a relationship with George Soros that does not exist.It turns out Giuliani was being passed information by Yuriy Lutsenkio, the disgraced former Prosecutor General of the Ukraine. Lutsenko is known for letting Manafort co-conspirator Kilimnik, who Mueller wanted for witness testimony, flee to Russia. He further thwarted Mueller's investigations into Manafort by not providing documentation and secret records of double bookkeeping.Giuliani was also "pissed off at her" for blocking the visa application of Viktor Shokin, another disgraced Ukrainian Prosecutor General, to visit New York because he had, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent put it, "knowingly subverted and wasted U.S. taxpayer money."Giuliani passed the dossier to the FBI where, at least publicly, they did nothing with it. Certainly none of it's highly questionable information turned up at the House hearings. Meanwhile Giuliani's henchmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, have been arrested and indicted, and it's not impossible that at some point Giuliani himself could be arrested.Giuliani seems to be expert at what could best be described as, given Trump's monarchical aspirations, palace intrigue. We can only hope that it all catches up with him sooner rather than later.--Percy