Rep. Devin Nunes, D-Calif., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, questioned George Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, in the first public hearing in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. The probe centers around a July phone call in which Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate former vice president and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Both Kent and Taylor testified to lawmakers in October behind closed doors.
At the beginning of the first public impeachment inquiry hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who was temporarily moved to the Intelligence Committee, asked Schiff when they could vote on having the whistleblower testify since it was he who wanted to hear their testimony in the first place.
“You are the only member who knows who that individual is, and your staff is the only staff of any member of Congress who has had a chance to talk with that individual,” Jordan said. “We would like that opportunity. When might that happen in this proceeding today?”
“First, as the gentleman knows, that’s a false statement. I do not know the identity of the whistleblower and I’m determined to make sure the identity is protected,” Schiff replied. “But as I said to Mr. Conway, you’ll have an opportunity after the witnesses have testified to make a motion to subpoena any witness and compel a vote.”
Well, Schiff needs to look at reports from September and October.
Back in October, the Intelligence Community Inspector General said “the whistleblower did not disclose contact w Schiff/Committee staff – so IG never looked into it.”
A few days before that The New York Times reported Schiff knew about the whistleblower’s accusation before anyone filed a complaint.
Even The Washington Post gave Schiff four Pinocchios because for two months he kept claiming no one on his committee spoke to the whistleblower….
THIS VIDEO below has been removed by YouTube twice. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. But I removed almost all of the description in the text of it thinking that is why? (HERE IS MORE ON THAT!) Below is an expansion of the original comments and then some.
MUST LISTEN TO Rush Limbaugh — who reads from Rep. Lee Zeldin’s questioning of Ambassador Bill Taylor. The media went with the Democrats summary of the witness testimony — so the media [in other words] didn’t report just how horrible the witness was. As usual, it took a couple minutes to cut through the muck by a Republican. TWITCHY notes some of the devastating “fact” witness B.S.
The “Whistleblowers” name appears in both the Mueller Report (PUBLIC ACCESS) and released PUBLIC documents by Schiff. And, he is not a whistleblower. The statute does not say anywhere in it that a name cannot be released. It merely protects a whistleblower from being fired arbitrarily or having work-place harassment from happening. Second, the “blower” did not mention anything to do with intelligence from his community. He passed along (leaked) 3rd-hand information.
TWITCHY has a great story on Lee Zeldin’s cross-examination… here is one of the Tweets noted by them:
Also, the lawyer for Ciaramella said he was beginning a coup against President Trump… something he should (and may) lose his law licence over. Here President Trump reads the Tweets you will dind below:
LEGAL INSURRECTION has more, but here are a couple Tweets by Zaid, dating back to the day of Trump inauguration (2017):
REMEMBER, the WASHINGTON POST also mentioned the impeachment plan had begun… 19-minutes after Trumps inauguration (NOQ REPORT):
(DAILY CALLER) Fox News host Tucker Carlson reported Thursday night on email evidence that President Barack Obama’s Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, may have perjured herself under oath.
A lie is only a lie if you get caught. Otherwise, it’s treated in the same regard as the truth, especially regarding sensitive issues such as the impeachment inquiry. We’ve already seen a flurry of lies coming from Adam Schiff and his office, including the strangely-suppressed whopper that he repeated multiple times, saying he didn’t know who the Ukraine whistleblower was. We later learned through leaks that he not only knew the whistleblower but actually consulted with him before the complaint was filed.
But the latest lie appears to be even more significant, not based on the lie itself but the situation surrounding it. Tucker Carlson’s team learned President Obama’s Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, appears to have perjured herself under oath when asked about an email from a Democratic congressional staffer. The email was seeking a meeting to discuss information that would eventually become the basis for the impeachment inquiry. When asked if she responded to the email by Representative Lee Zeldin (R-NY), she said she didn’t.
This turned out to be a lie.
Here’s the content of the email:
According to Carlson, Yovanovitch replied, “looked forward to chatting with you.”
The apparent perjury is big, but what’s more important is this reveals Democrats were well aware of the contents of the whistleblower complaint over a month before the public was made aware.
The issue mentioned below about calling witnesses (supoena power by Republicans) is not granted under Pelosi’s resolution. So NOT like the majority offered rights to the minority during Nixon and during Clinton. Here is another example of Schiff’s almost Soviet style circus show. Rep. Jim Jordan is now telling us that Adam Schiff is blocking the witness from answering specific questions from Republicans (RIGHT SCOOP):
NEW: Rep. Jim Jordan says Adam Schiff has blocked Republican questions that could lead to the unmasking of the whistleblower. pic.twitter.com/QBk3xxXNKi
If this is truly an open and fair process, both sides should be able to ask questions of the witnesses, and Adam Schiff should not be preventing witnesses from answering questions or stopping Republicans from asking questions. This is clearly not a fair process. “This has been a tainted process from the start,” Scalise said. “What happened today confirms even worse just how poorly Adam Schiff is handling this process, denying the ability for Republicans to even ask basic questions that are critical to the heart of whether or not a President of the United States is impeached.”
After showing some TWEETS by Sean Davis and Byron York, RED STATE sums up the resolution by Nancy Pelosi well:
Someone point out to me how this changes anything. The chair is Adam Schiff. The resolution gives him sole authority to release transcripts. All this does is legitimize his selective leaking. Now he can release excerpts as he sees fit without having to shovel them through CNN. If a testimony helps Donald Trump, he can simply hold it back and no doubt he will (I have a story tomorrow coming about Schiff instructing witnesses not to answer the questions of Republican members).
But maybe he’s giving subpoena power to the minority party like Republicans did during the Clinton impeachment investigation? Nope. Adam Schiff once again garners full authority to veto any requested witnesses or subpoenas and the only appeal is to the entire committee, which is majority Democrat and will always vote to back up Schiff. Again, nothing has changed.
Nearly every single anti-transparency dynamic Republicans have pointed out still exists, just with prettier language around it. This resolution is window dressing. It’s an attempt to shovel fodder to the media, knowing they will now proclaim all Republican concerns moot. The fact that some conservatives are going along with the gambit is disappointing.
Republicans aren’t asking for a lot. We simply want to see the transcripts. We want to be able to judge the contradictions, context, and any possible evidence for ourselves. Adam Schiff being the arbiter of that is not acceptable and as long as that dynamic exists, this inquiry will continue to be a sham.
Below you will see in my upload (3rd video below), that it is true that the witnesses the Democrats call are refuting their narrative. EVEN WITHOUT REPUBLICANS calling witnesses of their own. So while the total count on the committees are 58 Democrat and 47 Republicans — the Founders set it up for the entire House to be involved. And as you will see, the inquiry has begun last week (again, 3rd video).
And when they are allowed to cross examine (the Democrats often times stop this from happening by shift which committee is handling the interview, or making it an Intel case), QUID PRO QUO is not crossing the witnesses lips:
REP. RATCLIFFE: Ambassador Taylor again today I found him to be forthright. He had very strong opinions on Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy. But again the mainstream media reporting that he provided evidence of a quid pro quo involving military aid is false. I questioned him directly on that. Under Adam Schiff’s rules I can’t tell you what he said but I can tell you what he didn’t say. Neither he or any other witness has provided testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aide was being withheld. You can’t have a quid pro quo with no quo!
I put together a “collage” of issues detailing why Republicans would “STORM” these secretive — nonConstitutional — hearings in order to try and make them public. Public. They are not trying to cover up anything, they are trying to make it fair and open. You would think the media would flock to this idea… however they are not. What follows are talking heads, politicians, and the like discussing and clarifying the issues.
Here is a person intimately involved in the process during the Clinton process in the house, Newt Gingrich. His NEWSWEEK article is excellent!
…two very different approaches can be seen in the voting pattern in the House. In November 1973, the House voted to fund the investigation into President Richard Nixon on a bipartisan 367-51 vote. By February 1974, everyone was so convinced that Rodino was being fair and nonpartisan that the resolution to conduct a formal investigation passed 410-4.
[….]
The result of our openness was that a substantial number of Democrats continued to vote with us on the procedures despite intense pressure from the White House and outside groups. In September 1998, the House voted to release the Starr report by 363-63 (nine failed to vote). Among Democrats, 138 voted to proceed in a fair way, and only 63 voted against investigating President Clinton.
Think about that. In 1998, we carried House Democrats by better than 2:1 to investigate President Clinton.
In the current atmosphere—with the dishonest, one-sided rigged game, and indeed, an obvious liar as chair of the investigation—can you imagine two-thirds of the House Republicans voting with Pelosi and Schiff for a witch hunt conducted under totally partisan rules?
Everyone who is interested in better understanding how fair people used judicial standards and basic fairness in 1973 and 1998 should read former Congressman and current Judge Jim Rogan’s personal history of the process in an important book: Catching Our Flag: Behind the Scenes of a Presidential Impeachment.
It will make crystal clear that the current partisan actions are a complete sham.
Mark Levin had an excellent dressing down of Jake Tapper from CNN regarding his recent commentary on the GOP “STORMING” the sham process the Democrats are calling an impeachment inquiry. Levin plays audio of Jake Tapper discussing the impeachment issue of the recent “STORMING” of the sham process the Democrats have made the vaunted impeachment inquiry. The GOP, mind you, merely wants the process in the public with the same rights afforded to Trump as were afforded to Nixon and Clinton. You would assume the media want the same thing… but in fact they are supporting the “Star Chamber” like process.
What kind of issues might the GOP regarding witnesses they would call up? Hunter Biden maybe? Joe Biden? Bill Taylor… in cross-examination? Maybe on the following snippet from ACE OF SPADES?
Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, who provided key testimony to the Democrats’ controversial impeachment inquiry yesterday, has evidenced a close relationship with the Atlantic Council think tank, even writing Ukraine policy pieces with the organization’s director and analysis articles published by the Council.
The Atlantic Council is funded by and works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
In addition to a direct relationship with the Atlantic Council, Taylor for the last nine years also served as a senior adviser to the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC), which has co-hosted events with the Atlantic Council and has participated in events co-hosted jointly by the Atlantic Council and Burisma.
Meanwhile, a search of government records reveals that Joe Biden intervened with both the DHS and the DOJ on behalf of Graft Hunter’s clients.
Joe Biden privately contacted the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice when he was a senior and influential U.S. senator to discuss issues that his son Hunter’s firm was being paid to lobby on, according to government records.
On at least two occasions, Biden contacted federal departments to discuss issues related to Hunter’s firm’s lobbying clients, according to records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
…
Government records show that Biden, who has always insisted he knows nothing about his son’s business activities, helped Hunter’s work with strategic and highly specific interventions that could have benefited his son to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars….
If the hearing was fair and honest… the Democrats know they would lose the public confidence. Hence the secrecy. Even with the Republicans — with biased rules, are prevailing when allowed to cross examine.
More Video Fodder
After Rep. Adam Schiff read a false version of President Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Zelensky and claimed it to be parody, Larry decides to do a little investigating into why the Congressman is so confident in the whistleblower, whether he had contact with him, and whether the whistleblower actually had firsthand knowledge of the call. Larry also takes a look into why the whistleblower process requirement for firsthand knowledge was mysteriously removed.
I was challenged by a friend when I brought up the weighted aspect by this: “Have you taken any graduate level courses on polling Sean? I have.” So I guess you have to take graduate level courses in statistics to be fooled? I don’t know… I don’t put ANYTHING past these #NeverTrumpers any-longer. But I never say, “have you read over 2,000 books cover-to-cover, have a library of over 5,000 books as well as 3,000 more digitally?” — to make a point become true.
…The problem is that the poll was heavily biased because it over-sampled Democrats, thereby leading to skewed results.
According to analysis by the New York Post, a poll weighted for party affiliation would’ve concluded that 44.9% of voters favor impeachment, while 44.4% oppose it.
In other words, a less-biased poll would’ve shown that the majority of voters (55.1%) oppose impeachment.
Braun Research conducted the Fox News poll by sampling a pool comprised of:
48% Democrats.
40% Republicans.
12% Independents.
In reality, registered American voters are:
31% Democrat.
29% Republican.
38% independent.
Any poll that oversamples Democrats will lead to a skewed result. This is exactly what Fox News host Greg Gutfeld said this week when he dismissed the Fox News poll as bogus.
“We got to point out that it’s weighted toward Democrats,” Gutfeld said. “It’s 48% Democrats, 40% Republicans, 12% other. Also, it’s being taken at the fever pitch of media coverage about a single topic, so what do you expect?”
Gutfeld underscored: “We have to remind ourselves how many Democrats and how many Republicans are in this poll, and that these polls have been known to be wrong.”…
AMERICAN THINKER continues the breakdown and shows how Rasmussen attempts to correct for such things:
…How did the Fox polling unit come up with this number?
The Fox news polling companies interviewed 1,003 registered voters, ostensibly throughout the length and breadth of the United States. Many polling companies use either all adult Americans (254 million) or registered voters (158 million in 2016) as their universe for polling. Obviously, the greater the number of potential people to contact and question, the easier a poll is to complete and to skew a result. In reality, what matters is who votes in an election. In 2016, 86% (or 136.6 million) of registered voters cast a vote. A poll of likely voters would inherently be more reliable but more difficult to achieve. Currently, only Rasmussen among national polls uses exclusively likely voters and they are among the most reliable.
As the issue of impeachment is overtly political, the political make-up of the respondents in any poll is critical. In this recent Fox poll, 48% of those polled claimed to be Democrats, 40% Republican, and 12% independent. However, as Gallup points out in its most recent research, 31% of all Americans identify as Democrats, 29% as Republican and 38% as independent.
Ideally, all polls, as does Rasmussen, should strive to reflect that political affiliation dichotomy or as close as possible, considering the difficulty in finding people willing to be polled and be honest in their responses.
Therefore, the Fox poll, with its political make-up of respondents, is manipulated to come up with a desired result. The issue isn’t the difference between the number of Democrat and Republican respondents, but the gross undercounting of independents and the massive overcounting of Democrats.
Over the past three months to date, in a variety of polls, an average of nearly 84% of all Democrats favored the impeachment of Donald Trump. Therefore, when Fox uses 48% Democrat registered voters, the poll immediately, before taking into account any other group, will indicate 41% in favor of impeachment and removal. Thus, to get to 51%, only 20% of those identifying as Republican or independents in this poll would have to be in favor of impeachment.
However, if Fox had used the actual political breakdown of 32% of Americans identifying as Democrats, then instead of an immediate impact of 41% in the result, it would have been 27%, or 14 percentage points less.
Further, over the past three months, polls have averaged 92% of Republicans and 56% of independents opposed to impeachment and removal. If the Fox poll sample had been 29% Republican and 39% independent, using these average poll results, the final tabulation would have been 44% instead of 51%.
But there would have been no headlines and breathless anchors on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, and ABC, nor any banner headlines in the Washington Post and New York Times trying to convince the nation that the citizenry is turning on Donald Trump….
Here is the news almost everyone knew was coming, via RIGHT SCOOP and THE WASHINGTON TIMES: “Pelosi has reportedly informed her caucus that there will be no official impeachment vote in the House”
Now, my feeling on this final decision (of course, in politics nothing is ever “final”) is that after Marie Yovanovitch testified — presumably under oath — and apparently denied using State Dept resources to spy on American citizens, THI may have been a bridge too far for Nancy. So far everything has backfired on the Dems… this being the latest. And as more is known about the illegality of her and her staffs actions, the more Democrats stand to be hurt in 2020.
HOT AIR has a great post involving ALL THE ISSUES of this story… some of it is not too helpful to pro-Trumpers like myself… but for a good balance of this, read their whole piece… which ens thus:
So where does this ride come to a stop? How much of this is true — all of it, none of it, or only some of it? Trump loyalists will surely consider all of this as more evidence of a Deep State plot that now involves both the State and Justice Departments. Trump haters will see this as another case of foreign influence on the administration and a plot to smear Trump’s opponents, both electoral and otherwise. The rest of America might just be hoping that the [expletive deleted] ride would come to an end, period.
At this point, the mess is too complicated to suss out which conclusion reflects the truth. What does appear to true is that we’re not going to know for sure what’s true for a long, long time — and it might turn out, ironically, that the DoJ could end up as the most credible player in Ukraine-Gate.
Here are two videos discussing the issue introduced above:
JOHN SOLOMON: I can confirm to you tonight. The US government had open source intelligence and was aware that as early as February in 2019 that the Ukrainian government was planning on reopening the Burisma investigation. This was long before the president ever imagined to have a call with President Zelensky. In fact it’s before President Zelensky was even elected. This is a significant shift in the factual timeline. This is information that was omitted from the whistleblower’s complaint.
SORRY DEMOCRATS, IT’S OVER!…
John Solomon DROPS BOMB: Info Omitted from Whistleblower Report – Ukraine was Re-Opening Probe into Hunter Biden’s Company in February
Amidst the latest attempt to remove President Trump, Larry discusses the circumstances of the whistleblower’s report to Congress over President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—in what was claimed to be diplomatic pressure to investigate Joe Biden and his son’s business dealings in the country. Larry further delves into all the other failed attempts to unseat a duly elected president.
I have to think this is all choreographed… that the full script was written and the MSM is following it to the “T.” This second “whistle blower” was set to come out at this time and the media was suppose to run with it because they all thought Trump would still be obfuscating the details. EXCEPT, Trump fast-lined the call transcript and complaint to be released…. hence the responses to George Stephanopoulos on his Twitter:
TWITCHY notes Legal Insurrections take down of the latest revelation of a 2nd whistle blower:
LEGAL INSURRECTION continues it’s cogent thinking by noting that the “[w]eaponization of whistleblower laws is yet another breach of norms in an effort to unwind the 2016 election and manipulate the 2020 election.” Continuing LI notes failure after failure of the Left to oust Trump:
Circulating claims of Trump-Russian collusion prior to the 2016 election didn’t work.
Using foreign-supplied fake intelligence, from a British spy who utilized Russian sources, to obtain surveillance of the Trump campaign and transition team didn’t work.
Intimidating Electoral College Electors to change their votes after the election didn’t work.
Having the Director of the FBI lie to, set up and try to entrap the president didn’t work.
Having that same FBI Director leak memos to the media to manufacture grounds for a Special Counsel didn’t work.
Trying to invoke the 25th Amendment to declare the president unable to perform the job didn’t work.
Two years of the Mueller Investigation didn’t work.
Three years of a permanent crisis news cycle meant to paralyze the administration didn’t work.
After all these failures to unwind the 2016 election, Democrats and the mainstream media are trying a new tactic: Create a Star Chamber “impeachment” process fueled by anonymous whistleblowers and selective leaks that is not so much designed to remove the president, though they would if they could, but to manipulate the 2020 election.
The first intelligence community whistleblower is not so much a whistleblower as a politically biased operative (according to the Inspector General) who gathered information from various sources, went to Adam Schiff’s office for guidance, then filed a so-called Whistleblower Complaint that almost certainly was drafted by a team of lawyers. WhistleBlower No. 1, because he or she filed the claim as a whistleblower, is entitled to anonymity, there will not be the type of cross-examination and investigation of the whistleblower’s background and information that was so critical when Democrats rolled out a series of accusers against Brett Kavanaugh.
With Whistleblower No. 1 failing to fulfill the mission, there was a leak to the NY Times of a potential Whistleblower No. 2. That’s how this is going to work, there will be leaks to the media to frame the public narrative just like regarding supposed Russian-collusion.
That potential Whistleblower No. 2 is not actually a whistleblower, he or she is reportedly a witness already interviewed as part of the first Whistleblower Complaint. Whistleblower No. 2 is not blowing the whistle on anything.
[….]
At the same time that evidence is being funneled through whistleblower secrecy, Democrats are intent on shutting Republican’s out of the investigative process by conducting a non-impeachment impeachment investigation……
(Video added by RPT)
…..There has been no formal vote authorizing an impeachment investigation, so Republicans are without procedural mechanisms to fully participate in the process and to use congressional powers to conduct their own investigation.
Expect Schiff and team to leak like sieves, but only the information they gather in secret that they think helps them.
This has all the makings of a congressional Star Chamber of secret “whistleblowers” and Democrat leaks meant to manipulate both the public perception of the need for impeachment and the 2020 election.
And to end, this is a great “Tweet Storm” by Fred Fleitz:
1/As a former CIA analyst and former NSC official who edited transcripts of POTUS phone calls with foreign leaders, here are my thoughts on the whistleblower complaint which was just released… (Complaint PDF)
2/This is not an intelligence matter. It is a policy matter and a complaint about differences over policy. Presidential phone calls are not an intelligence concern. The fact that IC officers transcribe these calls does not give the IC IG jusrisdiction over these calls.
3/ It appears that rules restricting access and knowledge of these sensitive calls was breached. This official was not on this call, not on the approved dissem list and should not have been briefed on the call.
4/The way this complaint was written suggested the author had a lot of help. I know from my work on the House Intel Commitee staff that many whistleblowers go directly to the intel oversight committees. Did this whistleblower first meet with House Intel committee members?
5/It is therefore important that Congress find out where this complaint came from. What did House and Senate intel committee dem members and staff know about it and when? Did they help orchestrate this complaint?
6/ My view is that this whistleblower complaint is too convenient and too perfect to come from a typical whistleblower. Were other IC officers involved? Where outside groups opposed to the president involved?
7/This complaint will further damage IC relations with the White House for many years to come because IC officers appear to be politicizing presidential phone calls with foreign officials and their access to the president and his activities in the White House.
8/ Worst of all, this IC officer — and probably others — have blatantly crossed the line into policy. This violates a core responsibility of IC officers is to inform, but not make policy.
9/ This is such a grevious violation of trust between the IC and the White House that it would not surprise me if IC officers are barred from all access to POTUS phone calls with foreign officials.
Larry Elder reads from the VERY Left wing magazine, THE NATION’S — article: “The Ukraine Scandal Might Be a Bad Gambit for Democrats”. In it we find some damning tear-downs of positions taken at times over the past days by the media, and Facebook friends. An excellent tour of an honest Lefty worried about 2020.
And this is the million-dollar question, answered by Rep. Chaffetz… House Speaker Pelosi does not want to give subpoena power to House Republicans, says Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz, former chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
