同情特朗普

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/politics/republican-response-trump-china-biden/index.html

 

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/politics/donald-trump-impeachment-ukraine-week-in-review/index.html

 

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New York (CNN Business) A version of this article first appeared in the "Reliable Sources" newsletter. You can sign up for free right here.

In a sign that the right-wing media's relentless defense of President Donald Trump may be cracking, Fox News host Tucker Carlson published an op-ed with Daily Caller co-founder and publisher Neil Patel zinging Trump for his call with Ukraine's president. "Donald Trump should not have been on the phone with a foreign head of state encouraging another country to investigate his political opponent, Joe Biden," Carlson and Patel wrote. "Some Republicans are trying, but there's no way to spin this as a good idea."

Carlson and Patel added, "Like a lot of things Trump does, it was pretty over-the-top. Our leaders' official actions should not be about politics. Those two things need to remain separate. Once those in control of our government use it to advance their political goals, we become just another of the world's many corrupt countries. America is better than that."

Now, the two Daily Caller founders did use the same op-ed to applaud investigations into the Obama administration. And they did write that "it's hard to argue" that Trump's conduct rises "to the level of an impeachable offense."

A tactical signal?

That's what NBC's Benjy Sarlin thinks the op-ed was. "There's a pretty massive tactical signal here," Sarlin tweeted, "which is to pivot away from defending the behavior (which has been a brutal slog so far for those who've tried) and instead toward arguing impeachment goes too far."

BuzzFeed's Jon Passantino appeared to agree, tweeting Friday evening, "This is ultimately Tucker/Patel excusing away Trump's actions, fiercely advocating that he should not face any consequence for his actions and giving nervous Republicans cover: It's just Trump being Trump and that's what the voters wanted."

And CNN's Abby Phillip reacted to the column this way: "This is a pretty transparent effort to provide a roadmap for Republicans looking for a way to publicly condemn Trump's actions but still oppose impeachment. Their argument is: what Trump did is bad and corrupt but we are so close to the election that voters should decide."

 

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And documents reviewed by The Washington Post showed that Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, defended Biden in a statement to Congress that directly undercut Trump’s claims of corruption by the former vice president.

“I know him as a man of integrity and dedication to our country,” Volker said in his testimony Thursday.

Trump’s concession that he would probably be impeached by the House was the latest development in what has become an ad hoc response strategy largely shaped by the president’s impulses. Since Democrats announced their inquiry last week, Trump has shown flashes of anger, frustration, aggression, defiance and even indifference.

On Friday, Trump continued to take a combative stance and cast himself as a victim of overzealous Democrats. “We’ve been treated very unfairly, very different from anybody else,” he said.

Trump said he would spell out his complaints in a letter to Pelosi, D-Calif., whom Republicans have increasingly accused of short-circuiting the formal impeachment process by not holding a vote on the House floor to launch an inquiry.

The process-based argument has become a central part of the GOP response to the impeachment debate, with few Republicans publicly defending Trump’s behavior or his assertion that he has the “absolute right” to ask foreign governments to investigate his political opponents.

Meanwhile, House Democrats have ramped up their inquiry, interviewing key Trump administration officials and issuing subpoenas as part of their probe of the president’s dealings with the Ukrainian government. On Friday, three House committees subpoenaed the White House for documents and wrote a letter to Vice President Mike Pence, demanding that he turn over documents related to his talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The letter called for Pence to deliver documents by Oct. 15 to explain what role he had in the White House’s effort to pressure Zelensky to open investigations of Trump’s political opponents. Pence met with Zelensky last month in Poland as the White House was withholding nearly $400 million in aid approved for Ukraine.

Pence’s office dismissed the request as unserious.

“The Office of the Vice President received the letter after it was released to the media and it has been forwarded to Counsel’s Office for a response,” Katie Waldman, spokeswoman for the vice president’s office, said in a statement. “Given the scope, it does not appear to be a serious request but just another attempt by the Do Nothing Democrats to call attention to their partisan impeachment.”

Democrats are investigating whether Trump or others in his administration linked the release of the aid to the president’s request that Ukraine investigate Biden and his son Hunter.

During a July phone call with Zelensky, Trump pushed for Ukrainian prosecutors to work with Attorney General William Barr and Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani on an investigation of alleged corruption by the Bidens.

Hunter Biden served for nearly five years on the board of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest private gas company, whose owner came under scrutiny by Ukrainian prosecutors for possible abuse of power and unlawful enrichment. Hunter Biden was not accused of any wrongdoing in the investigation. As vice president, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who Biden and other Western officials said was not sufficiently pursuing corruption cases. At the time, the investigation into Burisma was dormant, according to former Ukrainian and U.S. officials.

Republicans have struggled to find a consistent defense of Trump in the wake of the whistleblower’s report, which was published last week. The anonymous whistleblower claimed that Trump pushed for the Ukrainian government to investigate his political rival, allegations that have been confirmed as the congressional probe has uncovered text messages, internal documents and sworn testimony from the Trump administration.

“Democrat House members cannot be allowed to hide behind @SpeakerPelosi when it comes to an impeachment inquiry of President @realdonaldTrump,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., tweeted Friday. “They should – and must – vote to open an inquiry of impeachment so their CONSTITUENTS, COUNTRY, and HISTORY can evaluate their actions.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., sent a letter to Pelosi on Thursday requesting that she suspend the impeachment inquiry and ensure that the full House be allowed to vote on whether to proceed. McCarthy said that Pelosi risked creating “a process completely devoid of any merit or legitimacy” if she did not follow specific guidelines to give “the bare minimum rights granted to his predecessors.”

In an interview with The Washington Post, Pelosi said holding a vote on the House floor was an option but not a requirement for proceeding with an inquiry.

“There’s nothing anyplace that says that we should. However, the people who are most afraid of a vote on the floor are the Republicans,” she said. “That’s why they’re beating their tom toms like they want it, but they don’t. They have the most to be concerned about because for some of their members, to say that we shouldn’t go forward with this is a bad vote.”

Some Republicans have spoken out against Trump’s behavior. After the president said Thursday that China should also investigate Biden, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said it was “wrong and appalling.”

“When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated,” Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, said in a statement Friday.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., who is up for reelection next year, distanced himself from Trump’s call for a Chinese investigation targeting Biden.

“Americans don’t look to Chinese commies for the truth,” he said in a statement to the Omaha World-Herald.

Sen. Marco Rubio , R-Fla., did not defend Trump but said he did not take the president’s calls for foreign investigation of political rivals seriously.

“I don’t think it’s a real request,” he told reporters Friday.

But the release of several text messages from the State Department late Thursday revealed a concerted effort to push Ukraine to begin the investigations desired by Trump.

The texts show how Volker and other State Department officials coordinated with Zelensky’s top aide and Giuliani to leverage a potential summit between Trump and Zelensky on a promise from the Ukrainians to investigate Burisma.

In his statement to Congress, Volker said his efforts to persuade Trump to support Zelensky were undermined by information that Giuliani and others had been feeding the president about corruption. Trump has since linked those corruption allegations to Biden, calling for an investigation.

Texts among Volker, Giuliani and the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, showed that the men coordinated on a draft statement for the Ukrainians in an effort to satisfy Trump’s demands. After sending it to Giuliani, who wanted an explicit reference to Burisma and the 2016 election investigation, Volker and Sondland messaged back and forth to work up the text to send back to the Ukrainians, according to Volker. The Ukrainians ultimately did not agree to the statement upon receiving that version.

At least one U.S. official, William “Bill” Taylor, the charges d’affaires in Ukraine, voiced concern about an apparent quid pro quo.

“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” Taylor texted Sondland on Sept. 9, complaining that the Trump administration’s decision to withhold congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine had already created a “nightmare scenario.”

“The president has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind,” Sondland replied.

On Friday, Trump defended the texts by referring to Sondland’s statement. “He said, by the way, there’s ‘no quid pro quo,’ ” the president said. “And there isn’t.”

 

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A second whistleblower has spoken to the U.S. intelligence community's internal watchdog and has information that backs the original whistleblower's complaint about President Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine, according to the lawyer for the pair.

Mark Zaid told The Associated Press in a text message Sunday that the second whistleblower, who also works in intelligence, hasn't filed a complaint with the inspector general but does have "first-hand knowledge that supported" the original whistleblower.

The original whistleblower, a CIA officer, filed a formal complaint with the inspector general on Aug. 12, ultimately triggering the impeachment inquiry currently being led by House Democrats. The complaint alleged Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 election.

The disclosure of a second whistleblower threatens to undermine arguments made by Trump and his allies against the first whistleblower: That the complaint was improperly filed because it was based on second- or third-hand information.

Trump and his supporters have rejected accusations he did anything improper. But the White House has struggled to come up with a unified response. No administration officials appeared on the Sunday news shows, but several congressional Republicans came to the president's defence during television interviews.

Rep. Jim Jordan, of Ohio, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, two of Trump's most vocal backers, sharply criticized the way House Democrats are handling the impeachment inquiry.

Graham said there was nothing wrong with Trump's July phone call during which the president pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former vice-president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The conversation has raised questions about whether Trump was using near $400 million US in critical American military aid to Ukraine as leverage to get help on the Biden issue.

Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, at the same time his father was leading the Obama administration's diplomatic dealings with Ukraine. Though the timing raised concerns among anti-corruption advocates, there has been no evidence of wrongdoing by either Biden. Joe Biden is currently running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

"I think this is a nightmare for the Biden campaign," Graham said.

In an opinion piece for The Washington Post published over the weekend, Biden wrote that he had a message for Trump and "those who facilitate his abuses of power."

"Please know that I'm not going anywhere. You won't destroy me, and you won't destroy my family."

Trump lashes out on Twitter
As for Trump, rather than visiting his golf course in Sterling, Va., for a second day, he stayed at White House Sunday, where he tweeted and retweeted, with the Bidens serving as a main target.

"The great Scam is being revealed!" Trump wrote at one point, continuing to paint himself as the victim of a "deep state" and hostile Democrats, even after standing on the South Lawn last week and publicly calling on another foreign government, China, to investigate Biden.

As the president often does when he feels under attack, he trumpeted his strong support among Republican voters and kept lashing out at Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, one of the few Republicans who has publicly questioned Trump's conduct.

"The Democrats are lucky that they don't have any Mitt Romney types," Trump wrote, painting the former presidential candidate as a traitor to his party. Romney had said on Twitter that, "By all appearances, the President's brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling."

Trump again lashed out at Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, one of the few Republicans who has publicly questioned the president's conduct. (Patrick Semansky/Associated Press)

A Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Florida Rep. Val Demings, said she believes the original whistleblower is a "patriot" who stepped forward to report wrongdoing despite the potential career risk.

"The reporting that a second whistleblower has come forward or is about to come forward, I believe again would be someone who sees wrongdoing, hears wrongdoing and wants to do something about it," Demings said.

In response to news of an additional whistleblower, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, another Democratic presidential candidate, said Trump is "acting like a global gangster."

Additional details about Trump's July 25 call with Zelensky emerged Sunday.

Shaylyn Hynes, a spokesperson for Energy Secretary Rick Perry, said Perry had encouraged Trump to speak with the Ukrainian leader — but on energy and economic issues.

Trump, who has repeatedly described his conversation with Zelensky as "perfect," told House Republicans on Friday night that it was Perry who teed up that call, according to a person familiar with Trump's comments who was granted anonymity to discuss them. The person said Trump did not suggest that Perry had anything to do with the pressure to investigate the Bidens.

Hynes said Perry's interest in Ukraine is part of U.S. efforts to boost Western energy ties to Eastern Europe.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-ukraine-impeachment-inquiry-second-whistleblower-1.5310956

 

[lindamy]

总统身边卧底深喉还真不少，气死他老人家了。我在前方打仗，后方尽是些打进来的吹哨人。

 

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https://nationalpost.com/news/world...says-team-now-representing-multiple-officials

 

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ny-trump-tax-returns-1.5311596

 

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more ...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-impeachment-1.5313040

 

[parkdale]

 

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President Donald Trump and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, in Brussels in 2018.

Oct. 9, 2019, 1:43 PM EDT
By Michael Conway, Former counsel, U.S. House Judiciary Committee

The Trump administration’s ill-conceived blatant defiance of congressional demands for the testimony of State Department witnesses and documents in its ongoing impeachment inquiry into the Ukraine scandal has dramatically increased the likelihood that the president will be impeached.

Donald Trump's lawless flouting of the Constitution adds an independent ground for his impeachment to the questions already being investigated, and the collateral damage to other administration officials is the real prospect of criminal prosecution for obstructing a congressional investigation — though such a prosecution would have to be pursued by a future Justice Department.

The latest example of presidential stonewalling occurred Tuesday when Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union whose text messages have revealed his deep personal involvement in the administration’s efforts to press Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden and his son, abruptly refused to testify. During the night, administration officials had ordered Sondland not to appear; Sondland also passed documents sought by Congress to the State Department, where they remain hidden.

The White House’s intransigence further flared late Tuesday in a caustic and meandering 8-page letter from White House counsel Pat Cipollone to House committee chairmen declaring that no administration officials will appear to testify or provide documents sought in the impeachment inquiry, claiming that the entire process is unconstitutional and a violation of due process, among other poorly-sourced legal and primarily political arguments.

The House Democrats’ immediate and blunt response was the issuance of a subpoena for Sondland to produce documents and give his deposition Oct. 16.

The White House is on thin ice. The words of the Constitution, the history of prior American impeachments, the adoption in 1974 by the House Judiciary Committee of Article III of impeachment against President Richard Nixon and a 1993 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court refute the legitimacy of the White House’s battle plan to interfere with impeachment proceedings.

The Constitution, for one, vests the “sole power of impeachment” in the House of Representatives and, in an impeachment proceeding, it has the wide-ranging ability to demand both documents and testimony.


In its 1974 final report in the impeachment of Nixon, the Judiciary Committee described the sweeping breadth of congressional impeachment power to require testimony and documents from the executive branch. For instance, when President James Polk in 1846 declined to provide information to a House committee in a legislative investigation, he “cheerfully admitted” the House’s sweeping power to investigate during an impeachment inquiry, the report stated.

Polk wrote that “the power of the House in the pursuit of this object [impeachment] would penetrate into the most secret recesses of the Executive Departments. It could command the attendance of any and every agent of the Government, and compel them to produce all papers, public or private, official or unofficial and to testify on oath to all facts within their knowledge.”

This actually occurred in the 1867 impeachment proceedings of President Andrew Johnson: “Cabinet officers and presidential aides were questioned in detail about Cabinet meetings and private conversations with the President;” “[w]itnesses answered detailed questions on the opinions of the President, statements made by the President, and advice given to the President,” the 1974 report explained.

Nixon, for his part, famously refused to comply with Judiciary Committee subpoenas for White House tapes. In the immediate aftermath, the committee rejected a motion to recommend that the House hold Nixon in contempt because the consequences of his stonewalling demanded a more serious response: impeachment.

The Supreme Court, too, rejected the president’s executive privilege claim in ruling 8-0 that Nixon had to produce White House tapes in response to a subpoena in a criminal trial.

During the debate over whether the committee should adopt Article III — impeaching Nixon for interfering with the House’s sole power of impeachment by defying committee subpoenas — Rep. Robert McClory, R-Ill., spoke eloquently in favor of its adoption. “We have this challenge on the part of the Executive with respect to our authority,” he said. “And if we think of the whole process of impeachment, let us recognize that this is a power which is preeminent, which makes the Congress of the United States dominant.”

“It bridges the separation of powers and gives us and reposes in us the responsibility to fulfill this mission,” he added. “And the only way we can do it is through acting favorably on Article III.”

McClory predicted that, if a future president were subject to impeachment, adopting Article III would be a “precedent that we might establish here [that] would be effective then.” McClory and another Republican then joined 19 Democrats in adopting Article III.

History aside, Cipollone’s central legal claim that the current impeachment inquiry denies Trump due process is too specious to be overlooked. Even an essay by Stephen Presser in the conservative Heritage Foundation’s “Guide to the Constitution” states: “The appropriate place of bringing charges of impeachment, which power is analogous to the bringing of criminal charges by a grand jury, is in the lower house of the legislature. Just as the grand and petit juries are popular institutions, so it made sense to have the branch closest to the people charged with this indictment-like power.”

Exactly so. And like a grand jury, witnesses are not entitled to be accompanied by counsel when they testify, and the subject’s lawyers have no right to attend.

Beyond that, the law is clear that the judicial branch cannot and will not interfere in the legislative branch’s impeachment prerogatives. In 1993, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that an impeached and convicted federal judge Walter Nixon could not challenge in court the Senate trial removing him.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist referred to the constitutional language giving the House the “sole” power to impeach and the Senate the “sole” power to try the articles of impeachment, writing: “The common sense meaning of the word ‘sole’ is that the Senate alone shall have the authority to determine if an individual should be acquitted or convicted.” The court ruled that the Senate’s conduct could not be reviewed by the courts as it is a “political question.”

Similarly, the House impeachment procedures are established in its sole discretion and may not be challenged on any basis in court.

The text of the Constitution and history will doom Trump’s flailing effort to escape the consequences of his actions. The House will do its duty, likely giving 100 senators a vote that will determine how each will be viewed by history — and his or her constituents in the elections to come.

 

[ottawa_tj]

Trump真是丑闻不断啊，反正债多了不愁。。。



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...de-to-help-giuliani-client-facing-doj-charges

 

[ccc]

他不会辞职。