Impeachment
November 14, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Inside the impeachment inquiry is a classic satire of democratic politics struggling to get out. (I would like to take up Quigley on Evidence. For the moment I will only observe that Quigley should find his place in a sequel to My Cousin Vinny.) On the substance of yesterday’s hearing in the impeachment inquiry hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, I wondered: wasn’t it only yesterday that the Obama administration
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November 13, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I was able to watch the first hour and a half of today’s impeachment hearing until a prior, far more enjoyable commitment took precedence. I saw the opening statements of Adam Schiff and Devin Nunes, plus the opening statements of today’s two witnesses, George Kent and Bill Taylor. Here are my impressions: Schiff devoted his opening statement to a summary of what he says the evidence will show. He presented
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November 13, 2019 — John Hinderaker
As the Democrats’ sham impeachment hearing got under way this morning, ranking Member Devin Nunes delivered a blistering opening statement that attacked the Democrats’ sordid history and asserted the illegitimacy of the impeachment process. I thought it was a highly effective statement, highlighting a number of historical elements that deserve to be remembered. I think that, given the Democrats’ obvious bad faith, this sort of scorched-earth response is the only
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November 13, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Today the House Intelligence Committee holds its first public hearings in the Schiff show. The Schiff show is a sort of preface to the impeachment article(s) that the House will send over to the Senate before the end of the year. Something’s happening here. Why is the House Intelligence Committee holding impeachment hearings in search of a high crime or misdemeanor? The structure of the production has struck me from
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November 12, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The Democrats’ effort to take down President Trump over his dealings with Ukraine consists of three stages. The first stage was to develop the evidence that Trump withheld aid for a period of time as a way of pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. The second stage is to present that evidence to the public through good witnesses. The third stage will be to press the argument that what Trump
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November 12, 2019 — John Hinderaker
The whistleblower Democratic Party activist who triggered the Democrats’ impeachment frenzy apparently has set up a GoFundMe page (or had such a page set up by others) that has already collected $227,000. That has led to an ethics complaint against the “whistleblower” that is embedded at the bottom of this post. Fox News reports: A newly filed complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) alleges that the whistleblower whose
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November 10, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
It seems ludicrous that in an open society, a president could be impeached and possibly removed through a process that begins with a report by a bureaucrat whose identity is never formally revealed and who is immune from examination. After all, the impeachment process is an attempt to override the decision of the electorate as to who shall be president. It should not be undertaken, and certainly not consummated, without
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November 10, 2019 — Scott Johnson
On the FOX News Sunday gabfest this morning, Karl Rove made the salient point that I highlighted here, quoting Byron York. Rove put it this way (my transcription): I love, I love the fact that the Democrats are now decrying the president’s decision not to move aid, lethal aid, rapidly to Ukraine. After all, the previous administration, a Democratic administration, did nothing to send lethal aid to Ukraine — and
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November 8, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Byron York has a valuable column that in its own way exposes the malicious duplicity behind the Democrats’ current impeachment initiative. It appears under the headline “Testimony: How Trump helped Ukraine.” This is the opening: One notable and little-reported conclusion emerging from the House Democratic impeachment proceedings is a consensus among some foreign policy professionals that President Trump’s Ukraine policy has been an improvement over President Barack Obama’s. Ukraine was
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November 7, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The New York Times reports that Ukraine’s president was about to yield to pressure from the White House to investigate the Bidens when, suddenly, the White House released the military aid it had been withholding. At that point, a relieved President Zelensky was free not to undertake the investigation. He did not undertake it. According to the Times, Zelensky wanted to avoid getting caught in the middle of American partisan
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November 7, 2019 — John Hinderaker
I confess to being baffled by the Democrats’ impeachment proceeding. They are laboring manfully, as Paul described yesterday, to show a quid pro quo in the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine. The “quid” was military aid that Ukraine wanted, but the Obama administration had been unwilling to provide, and about which many were concerned because of Ukraine’s history of endemic corruption. The “quo,” allegedly, was Ukraine’s undertaking to investigate the
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November 6, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the EU and a key player in the dispute over what the Trump administration said or didn’t say to Ukraine about military aid, has revised his testimony to the House impeachment probers. He says the revision is the result of having his memory refreshed by the testimony of Bill Taylor, the acting ambassador to Ukraine. The Washington Post reports: In a “supplemental declaration” provided to
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November 3, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The impeachment farce continues unabated behind closed doors for the time being under the leadership of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. One is invited to ponder the imponderables. Why behind closed doors? Why the House Intelligence Committee? Is there a more vile figure in American public life than Adam Schiff? And — related question — who is leaking the “secret” testimony to which we are treated in the daily
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November 1, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Julie Kelly calls it “The impeachment Schiff show” (emphasis on “show”) and sets it in the proper context. As Adam Schiff becomes the face the Democratic Party at the moment, what is to be said? The Democrats deserve that face. Jerry Nadler’s is to follow. They deserve his too. With an almost entirely partisan vote yesterday, the House adopted the resolution that will govern the impeachment “inquiry.” (I have posted
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October 31, 2019 — John Hinderaker
The House voted today to go forward with impeachment proceedings against President Trump. This is, I guess, a news story, although it couldn’t possibly have been news to anyone. The Democrats have been talking about impeaching Trump since before he was inaugurated, and it was a foregone conclusion, when they took over the House last November, that he would be impeached. The brief pause in providing arms to Ukraine (which
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October 31, 2019 — John Hinderaker
This morning the RNC emailed some poll data on impeachment–or, rather, a report on the data, since the raw results were not included. So I take this “breakdown of internal polling” with even more than the usual grain of salt. Still, I hope it’s right. The GOP polling was conducted between October 1 and October 24, focused on 17 “target states,” and sampled 3,400 likely voters. This last point is
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October 31, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Paul Sperry blows the whistle on the “whistleblower” in the RCI column “The Beltway’s ‘Whistleblower’ Furor Obsesses Over One Name.” Sperry can’t do that, can he? Ladies and gentlemen, meet Eric Ciaramella. Read the whole thing. House Democrats plan to pass their long-awaited impeachment resolution today. Byron York dubs it “The Adam Schiff Empowerment Act.” Byron can’t do that, can he? In the October 29 American Greatness column “The ‘Demedia’s’
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