Schiff Issues Subpoena for Whistleblower Complaint Being Unlawfully Withheld

[Hayabusa Rider]

They won't cooperate, anyway.

Why yes, yes they will. They'll naturally attempt to stall and the House needs to have the necessary paperwork citing contempt for those who refuse to cooperate and subpoenas while sending Trump's obstruction to the SCOTUS or highest court for immediate action. Even this court will slap him down by majority vote and now the Senate will either vote for removal or have a very pissed-off set of justices and you never want that. Such abuse of power would weigh heavily in favor of the argument that the Founders would not have permitted such abuses and that includes pardons of anyone related to Trump's activities or those conducted on his behalf.

Don't piss off judges when there is a legal argument to be made.

More than that there may be a blanket action by the SCOTUS which states the Administration, everyone shall comply immediately and that legal obfuscations and multiple challenges will be seen as contempt of both Court and Congress.

 

[ewdotson]

So... can I put to a vote that we refer to everyone involved in this mess as the "Ukraine Clown Posse" moving forward?

So let it be written, so let it be done!

(I have also seen it proposed that [blank]gate is dated and that all scandals should now be referred to as [blank]-a-lago. So, the scandal as a whole is the Ukraine-a-lago scandal. YMMV, but I'll allow it.)

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1180097943141048320

wut?

Sounds like the administration trying to prosecute potential political rivals with he machinery of the state if indeed accurate.

Trump wasn't charged because OLC said he couldn't be. Not because he didn't merit charges.

Remember it's "Trump's justice department" to quote Corwyn and I could not agree more on that point.

 

[fskimospy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1180097943141048320

wut?

Sounds like the administration trying to prosecute potential political rivals with he machinery of the state if indeed accurate.

Trump wasn't charged because OLC said he couldn't be. Not because he didn't merit charges.

It seems one of the other new plays is to muddy the waters and conflate investigations undertaken by career law enforcement through official processes with the president telling people to investigate his enemies. If FBI agents had developed credible evidence that Joe Biden was corrupt and then launched an investigation nobody would have said a thing because it would have followed the nonpolitical process. That's not what happened here, which was that the president launched his own extralegal campaign to have his enemies investigated.

Everyone should read this thread about just how destructive this is to our country. Impeachment is an absolute necessity.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1179819361533616130

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I think Corwyn is part of the desperate spin machine and the House needs to bring up the FBI and ask pointed inquiries under the impeachment umbrella as Corwyn has claimed another impeachable offense is ongoing.

As an aside I was wondering who the VP will be if Trump but not Pence is removed and I'm thinking probably no one. He can't make someone VP or have a stand-in, he must appoint and both House and Senate must approve by a simple majority. I suppose he could put Mayor Pete up

 

[K1052]

It seems one of the other new plays is to muddy the waters and conflate investigations undertaken by career law enforcement through official processes with the president telling people to investigate his enemies. If FBI agents had developed credible evidence that Joe Biden was corrupt and then launched an investigation nobody would have said a thing because it would have followed the nonpolitical process. That's not what happened here, which was that the president launched his own extralegal campaign to have his enemies investigated.

Interestingly a lot of people seem to actually make that distinction. The impression that Trump got caught with his hand in the cookie jar is going mainstream. The true believers will never be convinced because they've decided not to be for various reasons (greed, racism, idiotically self defeating culture wars, etc). Those people aren't enough to secure his re-election or more importantly safeguard the vulnerable Senate seats up in 20.

 

[K1052]

I think Corwyn is part of the desperate spin machine and the House needs to bring up the FBI and ask pointed inquiries under the impeachment umbrella as Corwyn has claimed another impeachable offense is ongoing.

As an aside I was wondering who the VP will be if Trump but not Pence is removed and I'm thinking probably no one. He can't make someone VP or have a stand-in, he must appoint and both House and Senate must approve by a simple majority. I suppose he could put Mayor Pete up

I think Pence would become president but would be too damaged to make a serious run at 2020. Republicans could lose the presidency but retain the senate possibly. This silent defense of Trump no matter what risks everything politically. If say Warren became president with a D senate every GOP policy gain for the last several decades would be in jeopardy.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I see I misspelled Cornyn's name incorrectly. Perhaps that has something to do with Roger Corwyn (sic) as he's a horror.

 

[Jhhnn]

Cornyn conveniently forgets that no sitting president can be charged with a crime. Impeachment is the only remedy for a criminal president.

 

[fskimospy]

Lol. Shocker.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1180135362750009346

 

[kage69]

Please please please may Team Treason never run out of shovels.

 

[K1052]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1180174953532002304

I about spit out my coffee for this one.

Effective team GOP messaging really filtering down to *checks notes* a GOP US Senator who recently defended Trump's actions to extort Ukraine into political collusion.

 

[PJFrylar]

You're surprised? I live in Wisconsin. I'm genuinely shocked lol.

 

[Denly]

Saw a headline saying that the WH is going to tell Nancy there will be no cooperation with impeachment probe until they vote to authorize it.

Time to dust off the mace and unlock the cell.

 

[cytg111]

I didnt think I could think any less of Trump than I already do
But seeing this well knowing he is lying flat out to their faces.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1180149731303071744

Damn. Rock bottom just got knocked at hole in it.

 

[interchange]

I disagree, if Michael Cohen’s description of Trump’s communication style is accurate then Trump knows exactly what he is doing. As a person who has been engaged in absolutely massive amounts of litigation in his life I think he is EXTREMELY aware of the benefits of plausible deniability.

I'll clarify:
1. I think Trump knows that asking directly for one thing in exchange for another is quid pro quo
2. I think Trump understands that implying one thing in exchange for another is something you don't do in public
3. I don't think that Trump thinks implying is actually quid pro quo itself
4. I think Trump believes using political leverage to investigate your enemies is what everyone does and isn't actually wrong
5. I think that Trump believes that any investigative activities of his campaign not only involved Obama, but in fact were a direct result of Obama's direction

Ultimately, we as humans can only consider in the realm of the behaviors of others what is present in us in some form. Some might take exception to that because they aren't corrupt, murderous, idiots. But those things are part of all of us whether we ever think it possible to consider acting on them. If they weren't part of us, why would we like violent movies and ever pick criminals for protagonists?

Put simply, all of us have a little Trump in us, but Trump's basic failing is he doesn't have a little bit of decent human person in him. Thus, his interpretations of other's motivations are always personal gain. Listening to him under this constraint makes his day to day statements a lot more understandable. He also isn't limited by the developmental need that the explanations for a set of happenings logically conform with each other. It's amazing how cooperative we all usually are in agreeing to keep a thread of logical consistency going in our communications and therefore how helpless we become when someone decides not to cooperate with this premise. It is often, even, that we make up some logic on the nonconformer's behalf.

 

[K1052]

yikes


CIA's top lawyer made criminal referral on whistleblower's complaint about Trump conduct

Weeks before the whistleblower's complaint became public, the CIA's top lawyer made what she considered a criminal referral to the Justice Department about the whistleblower's allegations that President Donald Trump abused his office in pressuring the Ukrainian president, U.S. officials familiar with the matter tell NBC News.

The move by the CIA's general counsel, Trump appointee Courtney Simmons Elwood, meant she and other senior officials had concluded a potential crime had been committed, raising more questions about why the Justice Department later closed the case without conducting an investigation.

While that timeline and the CIA general counsel's contact with the DOJ has been previously disclosed, it has not been reported that the CIA's top lawyer intended the call to be to make a criminal referral about the president's conduct, acting under rules set forth in a memo governing how intelligence agencies should report allegations of federal crimes.

The fact that she and other top Trump administration political appointees saw potential misconduct in the whistleblower's early account of alleged presidential abuses puts a new spotlight on the Justice Department's later decision to decline to open a criminal investigation — a decision that the Justice Department said publicly was based purely on an analysis of whether the president committed a campaign finance law violation.

On that call, Elwood and John Eisenberg, the top legal adviser to the White House National Security Council, told the top Justice Department national security lawyer, John Demers, that the allegations merited examination by the DOJ, officials said.

According to the officials, Elwood was acting under rules that a report must occur if there is a reasonable basis to the allegations, defined as "facts and circumstances…that would cause a person of reasonable caution to believe that a crime has been, is being, or will be committed."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/tr...l-referral-whistleblower-s-complaint-n1062481

 

[TheVrolok]

I think we all agree that’s what Republicans will TRY, and hey, it might even work! From a logical perspective though it’s complete bullshit.

Of course it is, but a significant portion of the electorate love bullshit. I hope it's a smaller portion than I estimate.

Sounds like Trump has already centered in Sondlands text.

 

[TheVrolok]

So... can I put to a vote that we refer to everyone involved in this mess as the "Ukraine Clown Posse" moving forward?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1180112376013697025

I really enjoy Rick Wilson, he's on Julie Mason's SiriusXM show with some regularity.

 

[emperus]

I can respect what Bill Taylor was trying to do in those texts. It seems he wanted to make sure he memorialized his issues by texting them in that exchange.

 

[K1052]

NYT says there is a potential 2nd whistleblower on Ukraine.

I need a drink.

 

[emperus]

This is nuts. Fox news is still talking about the whistleblower and Schiff. As if by discrediting the whistleblower all the texts and info that has come out the last few days disappears.

 

[woolfe9998]

It looks like Sondland was very clear that "The President is not interested in quid pro quos" (my summary not verbatim). Sondland was very particular to articulate that POTUS did not want quid pro quo. I think they're going to latch onto that text pretty hard. The rest of those texts seem to contradict that, but it's a possible defense.

This was the set between Taylor and Sondland on page 9.

Yes, and right after he wrote that, he said, we need to stop this back and forth texting. What does that tell you?

 

[TheVrolok]

Yes, and right after he wrote that, he said, we need to stop this back and forth texting. What does that tell you?

As I said above, I don't believe it's anything more than him trying to cover his bases after he realized how the conversation read. I'm simply describing how it will be used, verbatim, by the POTUS and his ilk, and bought by a large party of the population

 

[emperus]

It looks like Sondland was very clear that "The President is not interested in quid pro quos" (my summary not verbatim). Sondland was very particular to articulate that POTUS did not want quid pro quo. I think they're going to latch onto that text pretty hard. The rest of those texts seem to contradict that, but it's a possible defense.

This was the set between Taylor and Sondland on page 9.

Except Rep. Sen Ron Johnson revealed that Sondland told him that Trump was withholding the aid to ensure the investigation. So, that text reads like an attempt at a false defense.