Four Senators Must Recuse Themselves From Impeachment Trial

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Armed Services Committee, Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said on Wednesday the four Democrat senators running for president should recuse themselves from taking part in President Trump's impeachment trial.

In a statement Blackburn said, “Tomorrow, one hundred United States Senators will be sworn in to serve in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.  Four of those senators must recuse themselves for their unparalleled political interest in seeing this President removed from office.  Senators Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bennet and Elizabeth cannot sit in judgment of the very President they seek to replace.”

Article II of the Constitution stipulates “no impeached President can be removed unless two-thirds of senators agree and when sitting for an impeachment trial they shall be on Oath or Affirmation.”

The oath is separate from the one they take when they are sworn into office.  The Rule XXV oath reads:  “I solemnly swear or affirm that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of President Donald John Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws; So help me God.”

Every senator is required to commit to do impartial justice on pain of perjury.

Blackburn’s point should not be lost on anyone.

During yesterday’s Engrossment Ceremony, Nancy Pelosi said, “And so, with that, I will sign the Resolution transmitting the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, which will be delivered by our Managers, of whom I’m very proud.  When they bring it over to set in motion a process on the Senate side—probably tomorrow, and I don’t know their schedule—but it may be as soon as tomorrow, and the Senators will take an oath of office.  They will take a special oath of office to do impartial justice according to the Constitution and the laws.  Let’s hope that they uphold that oath that they take tomorrow.”

Sen. Klobuchar has stated she’s likely to vote in favor of removing the President from office.  “I’ve said from the beginning, I see this as impeachable conduct.”

Sen. Sanders is perpetually bellicose with remarks like this one.  “And the truth is, Trump is not just a pathological liar, and it’s not just that he is running the most corrupt administration in the modern history of our country, or that he is a racist, sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe and a religious bigot. But that’s only half the story. The other half of the story is that is that he is a total, 100 percent fraud.”  

Sen. Bennet, whose campaign is virtually non-existent and should drop out of the race, is quoted as saying, “Whatever our job is between now and next November, we have to do everything we can to defeat Donald Trump.”  Bennet has called the mounting evidence against the President “quite damning.”  “If the facts don’t change, I think that I’m likely to vote to convict.”

In a series of tweets, Sen. Warren opined, "After the Mueller report, Congress had a duty to begin impeachment. By failing to act, Congress is complicit in Trump's latest attempt to solicit foreign interference to aid him in US elections. Do your constitutional duty and impeach the president."

"A president is sitting in the Oval Office, right now, who continues to commit crimes.  He continues because he knows his Justice Department won't act and believes Congress won't either. Today's news confirmed he thinks he's above the law. If we do nothing, he'll be right."

Democrats are verklempt because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated he would not be an impartial juror.

"Do you think Chuck Schumer is impartial? Do you think Elizabeth Warren is impartial? Bernie Sanders is impartial? So let's quit the charade. This is a political exercise," McConnell said last month. "All I'm asking of Schumer is that we treat Trump the same way we treated [President] Clinton." 

Of course, he will take the same special oath required of the other ninety-nine senators.

UPDATE:  Welcome readers of Pirate’s Cove.  We thank the Admiral for the linky-love.

Dear Sen. Schumer, In An Era Of Video, Everyone Has Receipts

Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is painfully aware his colleagues in the House of Representatives failed so miserably in their impeachment inquiry that they managed to steer public opinion away from removing President Trump.

Democrats are staunchly in favor of impeachment.  Republicans staunchly disapprove of the farce.  Among independents, their support for impeachment, much less removal, erodes by the day.  Worst of all for Democrats, the battleground states and Congressional Districts won by President Trump in 2016 are even less supportive.

His pleadings to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to compel testimony from witnesses the House didn’t pursue through the courts and additional White House documents fell on deaf ears.

The House Intelligence Committee through the malignant liar Adam Schiff insisted “the evidence of the President’s misconduct is overwhelming, and so too, is the evidence of his obstruction of Congress.”

Not so fast.

On the very same day Sen. Schumer was playing the role of the Red Queen in Alice In Wonderland (Sentence First…Verdict Afterwards), Judge Rosemary Collyer of the FISA Court blistered the FBI declaring it misled the Justice Department and the court when it sought permission to wiretap a former Trump campaign aide.

"The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable," Collyer wrote. 

The judge ordered the FBI to outline by Jan. 10, 2020, any changes it has made or plans to make to improve surveillance allowed under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The law, enacted in 1978, outlines procedures investigators must follow when they ask judges for permission to conduct electronic surveillance of people suspected of acting as foreign agents. 

Sen. McConnell isn’t going to give in to Schumer's demands. "The Senate is meant to act as judge and jury, to hear a trial, not to re-run the entire fact-finding investigation because angry partisans rushed sloppily through it," he said.

Let’s hop in the Wayback Machine after the House took its historic vote to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998 when Schumer warned, “We’ve lowered the bar on impeachment so much that it will be used as a routine tool to fight political battles.  My fear is that when a Republican wins the White House, Democrats will demand payback.”

Hunter Biden Has Managed To Catastrophically Sabotage His Father’s Campaign

There is little question Hunter Biden’s proximity to power shaped the arc of his so-called “career”.  There is also little doubt his father Joe used the Office of the Vice President to advance and protect his son’s interests from old controversies surrounding his work for a bank, a lobbying firm, a hedge fund and his recent business dealings in Ukraine and China.

Hunter has struggled for decades with alcohol addiction and drug abuse.  He went through an acrimonious divorce from his first wife and fell into the arms of his deceased brother Beau’s widow.  Just this week we learned a DNA test revealed Hunter fathered a baby with another woman while he was dating the aforementioned widow.  What a slimeball.

Joe Biden’s staffers have spent recent months berating journalists for digging into the Burisma story.  Glenn Thrush and Kenneth P. Vogel of the New York Times reported, “Hunter Biden’s activities struck many of the officials in the Obama Administration working on Ukraine policy as an unnecessary distraction or worse.”

The Washington Post revealed another State Department official’s attempt to get Biden staffers to intervene with their boss. WaPo reported that George Kent, then a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, “raised concerns in early 2015 about then–Vice President Joe Biden’s son serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.”

During Adam Schiff’s two-week shampeachment extravaganza, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee repeatedly asked witnesses about Hunter Biden and his connection to the corrupt Ukrainian energy company.  Schiff shot down every effort by Republicans to call Biden’s son to testify before the Committee.

Whether you like Sen. Lindsey Graham or not, he has joined the House Republicans’ phalanx of attack in an effort to get to the bottom of the Biden corruption scandal by writing a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.  In the letter he requested all documents and communications, call transcripts and/or summaries related to Joe Biden’s phone calls with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, all documents related to the raid on Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky’s home in February 2016 and the firing of Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutshenko.  Graham is also very interested in documents related to a meeting between Devon Archer who served on the board of Burisma and was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, Hunter Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry in March of 2016.

When Sleepy Joe got wind of this news, he was some more kind of pissed.  In an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon, Biden appeared to threaten the sitting senator saying, “Lindsey is about to go down in a way that I think he’s going to regret his whole life.  He knows me; he knows my son; he knows there’s nothing to this.”

The bumbling, stumbling septuagenarian talks a good game.  Remember when he fashioned the tall tale about bringing a chain to a knife fight against a tough, black gang member by the name of Corn Pop?

Biden recalled a hazy summer day in 1962 when he used his authority as a lifeguard to tell the leader of the Romans, the biggest black gang in Wilmington, DE to stop bouncing on the high diving board.

“Corn Pop was a bad dude, and he ran a bunch of bad boys,” Biden said in 2017. “If you used pomade in your hair, you had to wear a bathing cap, and so he was on the board, wouldn’t listen to me, I said, ‘Hey, Esther [Williams, the synchronized swimmer and movie star], you, off the board, I’ll come up and drag you off.’”

“Well, he came off and said, ‘I’ll meet you outside.’” Biden said recalling the event with cinematic vividness, including the fact that Corn Pop had patiently planted himself next to his car until his shift ended. “He was waiting there for me with three guys and straight razors. Not a joke,” he said.

And who can forget the bluster of Joey Plugs back in March 2018 at the University of Miami when he boasted, “If we were in high school, I’d take him [President Trump] behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.”

He later walked back his remark saying, “I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

Joe Biden’s god-awful case of hoof-and-mouth disease may have just put him deeper in the quicksand pit his son put in front of him.  The fallout is going to be delicious.

UPDATE:  Welcome readers of Whatfinger News.  It is our sincere hope your family and friends enjoy a happy, healthy and safe Thanksgiving holiday.

Maybe The Whistleblower’s Attorney Should Have Hillary Come Over And Wipe His Twitter Clean “Like With A Cloth Or Something”

Before President-elect Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States forces unknown and sinister were at work to unseat him by any means necessary.

I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

The President criticized U.S. intelligence agencies even before he took office.  Top intelligence officials Clapper, Brennan and Comey met with the President-elect at Trump Tower on January 6, 2017 to brief him on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, but Comey stayed behind to tell him about the existence of the “dirty dossier.”  Days later, on the afternoon of January 10, 2017, CNN ran a story about the meeting entitled, “Intel Chiefs Presented Trump With Claims Of Russian Efforts To Compromise Him.”  That same evening Buzzfeed [I refuse to link it] posted the dossier online with the title, “These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia.”

Former FBI General Counsel James Baker admitted in May of this year the Bureau was worried Comey would appear to be “blackmailing” Trump during the January 2017 briefing at Trump Tower on the allegations in the dossier written by British ex-spy Christopher Steele.

The dossier, packed with unverified claims about President Trump's ties to Russia, formed a key part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications used to justify surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and others in Trump’s orbit.  [We are still waiting for IG Michael Horowitz’s report to be made public.]

Trump’s criticism, now well-founded, did not escape the notice of Sen. Chuck Schumer when he appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show.  He spoke with naked enthusiasm saying, “Let me tell you:  You take on the Intelligence Community—they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

We know from a published report by Margot Cleveland at The Federalist that principal counterterrorism advisor for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Daniel Benjamin, scripted a scenario for Politico Magazine writing, “Leakers and whistleblowers won’t hesitate. What [former Deputy CIA Director] Morell and other intelligence veterans are too decorous to mention is that Trump’s treatment of his spies will also come back to bite him in the form of leaking and whistleblowing. The Intelligence Community doesn’t leak as much as the Pentagon or Congress, but when its reputation is at stake, it can do so to devastating effect.”

I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in.

Some of you may have missed President Trump’s campaign rally in Monroe, LA last night thinking if you’ve seen one rally you’ve seen ‘em all.  You would be quite mistaken.  President Trump began reading damning tweets from Mark Zaid, the storm trooper in loafers AKA attorney, for the whistleblower who started this impeachment lunacy on the call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: 

#coup has started. First of many steps. #rebellion. #impeachment will follow ultimately. #lawyers https://t.co/FiNBQo6v0S

— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) January 31, 2017

#coup has started. As one falls, two more will take their place. #rebellion #impeachment

— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) January 31, 2017

And 45 years from now we might be recalling stories regarding the impeachment of @realDonaldTrump. I'll be old, but will be worth the wait https://t.co/x6rvUIJJdL

— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) June 20, 2017

Tim Murtaugh, President Trump’s campaign Communications Director declared, “The whistleblower’s lawyer gave away the game.  It was always the Democrats’ plan to stage a coup and impeach President Trump and all they ever needed was the right scheme.  They whiffed on Mueller so now they’ve settled on the perfectly fine Ukraine phone call.  This proves this was orchestrated from the beginning.”

The lawyer behind the so-called whistleblower has been calling for a “coup” against the President of the United States since January 2017.

We should take him at his word that this is a coordinated, premeditated plot to overturn the election.https://t.co/RejktfqU4s

— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) November 7, 2019

*Photograph of President Trump is a screencap from NBC coverage of Trump rally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X10rUS1xod4 

A Disturbing Charade

As President Trump laid his hand upon the Lincoln Bible at high noon on January 20, 2017, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was administering the Oath of Office.  At 12:15 PM, Obama’s National Security Administrator was busily typing an email to herself.

She was adorably concerned [I’m being factious here] about detailing her boss’ guidance at a “high-level meeting” in the Oval Office from January 5 about how “law enforcement should investigate interference in the 2016 Presidential Election.”

In attendance was The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, “Uncle” Joe Biden, FBI Director James Comey and Rice.

In the email, Rice wrote: “On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election, President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office. Vice President Biden and I were also present. President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities “by the book”. The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book. From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia. The President asked Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team. Comey said he would.”

The “unusual” email first surfaced Monday, when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) sent Rice a letter asking her to further explain why she sent the email and whether it pertains to her involvement in the Trump-Russia dossier.

Sens. Grassley and Graham asked her to tell them when she first became aware of the FBI’s investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign. NOTE: The FBI reportedly began investigating links  sometime in July 2016.

They also asked whether Comey and Yates discussed the dossier in the Oval Office meeting with Obama and how Comey described the FBI’s relationship with the dossier's author, Christopher Steele.

Comey denied ever meeting Obama more than twice in his tenure; once in 2015 and again “to say good-bye in 2016”. By failing to inform the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the meeting in his June 8, 2017 testimony, Comey may have deliberately and intentionally misled Congress about his interactions with the former president, especially a meeting so close to Trump entering the White House.

Rice must reply to the letter by Feb. 22.

If Rice abused her position as National Security Adviser to unmask Trump aides as part of an effort to sabotage the Trump Administration, she committed the crime of espionage.

Question No. 5 of the Grassley/Graham letter divulges the strong suspicion they are in possession of documentation contradicting Rice’s email account of the meeting.

5. Is the account of the January 5, 2017 meeting presented in your email accurate? Did you omit any other portions of the conversation?

One wonders what Susan Rice and her colleagues were doing between Jan. 5 and Jan. 20 at noon that made her think she needed to blast out a quick CYA e-mail moments before Trump became president.

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 12, 2018

Obama wanting things done by the book makes perfect sense. He never did anything that wasn’t in Rules for Radicals

— Sean Spicier (@sean_spicier) February 13, 2018

Schumer Shutdown: The State Of Play

After a continuing resolution to keep the government open was passed in December of 2017, Democrats signaled they would not support future spending bills, even clean ones, until the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) were addressed. FISA is a done deal. CHIP was funded for six years with the House spending bill that passed on January 18th and DACA permits won’t expire until March 5th. 

President Trump issued a six-month enforcement delay on DACA when he decided to wind down the program gradually last September, citing the Obama-era program as constitutionally questionable. The delay was meant for Congress to get the DACA legislation right. 

The mantra from the Left when the government shutdown became effective was Republicans control the White House, the House and the Senate.  The Senate make-up is comprised of 51 Republicans, 47 Democrats and 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats.  The Democrats do not control the Senate, but they can obstruct any and all bills due to the 60-vote threshold required to pass legislation.  Majority Leader McConnell asked to take up the Continuing Resolution that would have prevented the shutdown, but Sen. Schumer objected.

During the 2013 debt ceiling negotiations, Sen. Schumer noted tying immigration to budgetary matters was an exercise in chaos. “You know, we could do the same thing on immigration. We believe strongly in immigration reform. We could say, ‘We’re shutting down the government, we’re not gonna raise the debt ceiling, until you pass immigration reform.’ It would be governmental chaos.”

As Congressional leaders and White House officials ran around Capitol Hill like chickens with their heads cut off during a rare Saturday session, Chuck Schumer spoke with a poster strategically placed in the background as he spoke from the floor.  The poster read:  Trump Shutdown.

Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL) spoke from the well of the House with a poster behind him as well which had a photo of Schumer and his 2013 quote:  “A government shutdown is the politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of paralysis.”  This rankled the Democrats who objected to the poster’s presence on the floor.  There was a vote and The Great Poster War of 2018 was settled allowing Byrne to continue his speech.

On Saturday evening, McConnell said he would force another vote on a short-term funding bill at 1 a.m. Monday, unless there's an agreement before then. That will ramp up the pressure on both sides to come up with a deal over the next 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the Twitterverse rightly mocked the Schumer Shutdown.  The graphic above uses an image from the 2009 film The Road.  Within the graphic I took a tweet from Jonah Goldberg I found most amusing.  His tweet was a perfect smackdown of a tweet from CNN’s Jim Acosta lamenting a “completely empty” snack machine in the White House.

5:55 in DC. Dusk falls. GAO and CBO have devastated the Botanical Garden with their pitiless battle for control over the Rayburn Office Building. Corpses lie amidst shattered glass, illuminated by the burning piles of draft legislation. Look away, someone says, but you cannot.

— (((Megan McArdle))) (@asymmetricinfo) January 20, 2018