Impeachment Megathread Part 3

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1213153769111863303

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I haven't caught up on this in weeks. What the hell is Pelosi doing? The delay in sending this to the Senate is ridiculous when she has no real leverage over its leaders.

Even if Pelosi has nothing else up her sleeve, every day she delays is another day for Trump's madness to grow worse, leaving the GOP less room to whine that "he wasn't this bad when we voted to acquit him" and putting their treasonous behavior one day closer to election day.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1216426951163949058

Wow, I wonder who appointed him?

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Personnel to Key Administration Posts

Michael K. Atkinson of Maryland to be Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/1216866337898680320

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/mitchellreports/status/1216914701411635205
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1216913361557999617

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1217243671269183489

Much like their friends in Russia, the Banana Republicans are a criminal organization masquerading as a political party.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Ridiculous! Mike Pence isn't unelectable!

His constituency is the Religious Right and America's numerically-small economic elite. He would have trouble, as a lapsed Catholic, with the Catholic vote.  His star was fading rapidly in Indiana when Trump picked him, possibly as "impeachment insurance".

The dude didn't even win a majority in Indiana - where Romney won 54% of the vote in the same election. He's a dud and the only reason he was picked by Trump was to offset his whorish and ungodly ways to try and satiate the evangelicals.

I doubt that was the only reason. Getting approval from whoever Trump trusts/likes at the moment is also important, as was the often-demonstrated willingness to get down and lick filth from Trump's shoes.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Donald Trump supporters helped monitor ex-US ambassador to Ukraine
Impeachment Hearings: Marie Yovanovitch Says She Felt Threatened by Trump

It's looking like the Trump Administration is, or was, an imminent threat to our diplomatic mission in Ukraine.

How are we supposed to respond to those, Republicans?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/DavidCornDC/status/1217308309356716032

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/DavidCornDC/status/1217640773564485640

The oligarch referenced is Dmitri Firtash btw.

And the "organized crime" of which Firtash is a part? That's Russian organized crime.

Here's a description of Firtash's connection to the Russian mob:

"He is considered to be one of the close associates of [Semion] Mogilevich, who is the head of Russian organized crime, who is Putin's best friend. Lanny Davis has represented him for four or five years. If the newspapers are correct, he gets $80,000 a month from this guy who's considered to be one of the high-level, Russian organized crime members or associates"

And who described Firtash that way? Rudy Giuliani.

Now, in case you don't consider Giuliani a credible source, here's Time saying the same thing:Exclusive: How a Ukrainian Oligarch Wanted by U.S. Authorities Helped Giuliani Attack Biden

By the time the Department of Justice publicly referred to him in 2017 as a senior associate of the Russian mob, Firtash had been under investigation in the U.S. for more than a decade, according to interviews with his investigators.

His alleged ties to the Russian mafia go back to the early 2000s, when his work in the gas trade brought him into contact with Semyon Mogilevich, one of the most notorious leaders in the world of Russian organized crime. As Firtash later told the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, “he needed, and received, permission from Mogilevich when he established various businesses,” according to a U.S. embassy cable published in 2010 by Wikileaks.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

In terms of actually getting Trump out of office, none of this really matters. Republicans hold too much power for that to happen, and they have long ago signaled they are willing to put up with just about anything that can be explained away or safely ignored, mostly to cling to power. The usefulness of all of this is really about establishing a record of what happened so that it will tarnish whatever meager positive legacy he leaves behind, and to hopefully provide a future administration that isn't totally corrupted the ability to roll up all the criminals from the current administration and punish them in a way that isn't possible when their political party is providing legal cover via the executive branch.

It does matter. The Banana Republicans should not be given the out of merely being unscrupulous and power-hungry. They could have all the same power with President Pence or President Rubio or whoever - they'd arguably have a better chance to retain their power with anyone but Trump.

This is about the Republican Party's complete subservience to Donald "Jenius" Trump and his mad whims. Nothing more.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1217647822943727616

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Mitch McConnell brazenly lied under oath today.

In the rest of the country, you get kicked off a jury for doing what he did.  In Clown World, you get reelected for it.

Why don't we ever use the Second Amendment for what it's intended for?

Shooting Republican leadership - no matter how much they may deserve it - will not be good for the nation or the public.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

To me it seems like voters should be more convinced by “Just hear the damn witnesses! What is he hiding?” than smug statements of “We won’t redo the House’s shoddy work” and references to the Clinton impeachment. The process is blatantly being rigged for Trump. However it seems people may have just tuned out entirely.

Reporters are being shut-out of the proceedings, pretty obviously at the instigation of Moscow Mitch the traitor.

Reporters Battle New Restrictions In Trying To Cover Senate Impeachment Trial

But now Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger has imposed new requirements for the impeachment trial, negotiated in part with Republican leadership:

Reporters are being confined to small cordoned-off sections of areas where unrestricted access was typically standard. They are being prevented from walking with senators to continue conversations — even when the senator involved is willingly participating.

Reporters also now may not approach senators for interviews in the halls surrounding the Senate chamber.

Taken together, the new rules effectively prevent members of the press from reaching many senators.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

If this is so obvious and so urgent, then you don’t need anymore witnesses.

So which is it?

More witnesses are only needed to make it obvious to everybody that the GOP is acting in bad faith. Also, if we can get Trump people to testify under oath they are forced to either admit the offense or to lie under oath.

Here's a guy who wants administration officials to testify:
https://twitter.com/EricColumbus/status/1217592556663513089

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1218313076564484099?p=v

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/ScottMStedman/status/1218369912495837185

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1218178723847057410

Translation: "to the best of my recollection" = "I want to deny it now, but I'm afraid someone will be able to prove I'm lying in the near future".

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1218953888914661377

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1218984493526196224

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Fact check: 65 ways Trump has been dishonest about Ukraine and impeachment

President Donald Trump is dishonest about a whole lot of things. But he is rarely as comprehensively dishonest as he has been about his dealings with Ukraine and the impeachment process.

From the eruption of the Ukraine controversy in September to the Senate trial that officially began on Thursday, relentless deceit has seemed to be Trump's primary defense strategy in the court of public opinion. He has made false claims about almost every separate component of the story, from his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to the whistleblower who complained about the call, to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's own relations with Ukraine.

The President has been dissembling about so many different things at once that it can be difficult to keep track of what is true and what isn't. To help you fight Trump-induced dizziness as the trial gets underway, we've tallied his dishonesty on the subject of Ukraine and impeachment. Our original list from mid-November included 45 false claims he has made and a brief fact check of each one.

We have since added 20 more for a total of 65.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1218948777417027586

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Fact check: 65 ways Trump has been dishonest about Ukraine and impeachment

President Donald Trump is dishonest about a whole lot of things. But he is rarely as comprehensively dishonest as he has been about his dealings with Ukraine and the impeachment process.

From the eruption of the Ukraine controversy in September to the Senate trial that officially began on Thursday, relentless deceit has seemed to be Trump's primary defense strategy in the court of public opinion. He has made false claims about almost every separate component of the story, from his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to the whistleblower who complained about the call, to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's own relations with Ukraine.

The President has been dissembling about so many different things at once that it can be difficult to keep track of what is true and what isn't. To help you fight Trump-induced dizziness as the trial gets underway, we've tallied his dishonesty on the subject of Ukraine and impeachment. Our original list from mid-November included 45 false claims he has made and a brief fact check of each one.

We have since added 20 more for a total of 65.

ONLY 65 ways!?

I don't think the list claims to be exhaustive or complete. It's just the ones they've documented.

Really, Trump's lies are like insect species. You can only count the ones you know about and can document. There are countless more just waiting to be discovered and reported.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1219789218500747265

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/djrothkopf/status/1219737315658149888

The entire Republican Party is in the process of voting to break their oaths of office, and to support the destruction of the United States Constitution. There is no coming back from this. The entire party is complicit, from Roberts and Trump, through the whining, moderates, down the the most recently registered Republican voter.

This is not, alas, surprising, but it is a final and irrevocable declaration of war against the United States. Going forward, we can have a free and democratic nation, or we can have a Republican Party - it is clear we cannot continue to have both.