If you’re curious about the context of my last post, the editors of the Wall Street Journal are happy to supply it for you:
The House impeachment of President Trump is only a day old and it has already moved from folly to farce. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now threatening to withhold the articles of impeachment that Democrats just passed until the Senate sets trial terms that she and her left-wing faction deem adequate.
“We cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the Senate side,†Mrs. Pelosi said Wednesday night after the impeachment vote, referring to the House Members who would present the case for removal to the Senate. “So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us.â€
The Constitution gives the House “the sole power of impeachment.†It also gives the Senate “the sole power to try all impeachments.†Mrs. Pelosi nonetheless wants to use the articles the House has passed as leverage to force the Senate to do what she wants. The idea was floated this week by Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe and has been picked up on the left, apparently as a way to discomfit Senate Republicans.
This further trivializes the impeachment power that the Pelosi Democrats have already done so much to diminish. The House raced to an impeachment vote to please swing-district Members who wanted it over before Christmas. Democrats barred GOP witnesses and truncated questioning. Rep. Adam Schiff even said speed was essential and the House couldn’t wait for court rulings on witnesses, lest Mr. Trump steal the 2020 election.
But now Mrs. Pelosi says speed isn’t essential because Senate Republicans might not hold the kind of trial she wants. She is running interference for Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, who is demanding that the Senate call witnesses the House refused to call. The goal seems to be to turn the Senate trial into a second impeachment investigation ad infinitum. Keep the machinery running, and who knows what else might turn up that pressures Republicans to convict.
This isn’t what the Founders intended for the Senate trial, which is supposed to judge the President based on the charges in the House articles. The Senate can call any witnesses it thinks will shed light on House claims, incriminating or exculpatory, but Mrs. Pelosi can’t dictate which witnesses the Senate calls or anything else about the trial.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, ridiculed all of this in remarks on Thursday. “Speaker Pelosi suggested that House Democrats may be too afraid to even transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate. The prosecutors are getting cold feet in front of the entire country and second-guessing whether they even want to go to trial,†he said. “They said impeachment was so urgent that it could not even wait for due process but now they’re content to sit on their hands. It is comical.â€
He’s right, but the harm from Mrs. Pelosi’s impeachment shenanigans is too serious to dismiss as comic relief. The Senate needs to quarantine the damage by taking the trial more seriously than the House took impeachment.
Mr. McConnell may be tempted to let Mrs. Pelosi delay naming managers for as long as she wants, figuring that she’ll look increasingly cynical to the public. But now that the House has voted to impeach, Republicans should honor the Constitution by holding a trial. It needn’t be long, but the President deserves the chance to marshal a defense that he didn’t get in the House, and to get a Senate verdict.
Frankly, I’m skeptical that either house of Congress is able to corner the other in the way that’s being suggested. It does raise a series of questions.
At what point has the president been impeached? When the House has voted to impeach him? When it has delivered its articles of impeachment to the Senate? When it has named its floor managers?
Is failure of either house to “do its constitutional duty” justiciable? I have substantial confidence that the Supreme Court would determine that was a political question.
Who would enforce either house of the Congress doing “its constitutional duty”? Is the assumption that the Marshall’s Service could arrest the Speaker of the House for non-performance? I certainly would hope not.
We haven’t done enough of these to really have set precedent, and we know McConnell (remember Garland) will just do whatever he wants. I was surprised that he publicly said that he was not going to be impartial. Plays well with Trump fans but would have been better to just pretend to be impartial.
Steve
In the Constitution, the ultimate accountability for non-performance of constitutional duties is from the people.
The more this drags out beyond January, the more accounting that will happen in November.
Its fascinating to watch the about face. When it was convenient, and the notions of due process, the right to call witnesses or confront your accuser which reside in normal court proceedings was denied, the Democrats and their supporters reminded us that this is a political act. So screw you. We will be as unfair and unserious as we please.
Now we have all this amateur lawyering going on with cyphering and hand wringing about the Constitution. Political act? No way, Ray. Now we need to know the rules!
Its all political, as I pointed out in a comment a good month ago. And its been an embarrassing farce all the way. For the life of me I don’t understand Pelosi’s gambit. Every person who’s perspective I respect looks at it as nothing but bizarre on the legal merits, and politically nonsensical, if not suicidal.
Public opinion polls suggest that in the only poll that matters the jig is up for the Democrats. Even those who pleaded ignorance or argued out of pure partisanship are concluding the Democrats look like fools.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Horowitz exposes the FBI and Comey is believable only to the nut jobs. And more importantly, Durham tightens the noose day by day.
McConnell took his lead from what became The Biden Rule, dealing with leaving Supreme Court picks to the next administration when an election is imminent. Then of course there was Bork who was “borked†by the Dems, something the Dems unsuccessfully tried to pull off with Clarence Thomas.
BTW, more articles and legal commentary questioning if impeachment really has been settled, regarding Pelosi’s latest stunt withholding the Senate’s ability to do their job.
Drew, I don’t know about you, but for me listening to the Dems twist, distort, use God’s name in vain, virtual signal, go from gleeful to sanctimonious, while symbolically dressing in black as a symbol of their seriousness in pushing this impeachment – it’s just become too nauseating to witness.
Frankly, I doubt it. In any given general election about 10% of the House seats are uncontested. The trend has been to an increasing percentage of uncontented seats for the last several Congresses.
It’s been while since it’s been polled but according to Gallup, the approval rating of individuals’ own Congressmen is running about 50%.
There are probably fewer than 30 House seats that are actually competitive.
When you add all of this up, you get that nobody is accountable for anything. That will be true until it isn’t and my guess is that when it does happen it will be explosive, maybe literally so.
Bork was the one without a bit of integrity will participated in the Saturday night massacre carrying out Nixon’s wishes. The election was not that imminent AND McConnel is on record saying he will advance a GOP nomination if one opens up next year. He has been quite open about ignoring any rules and making it pure power based politics.
Just as many GOP congressmen are retiring as we saw in the last election which, if IIRC, was a near record. Kind of suggests that at least the Congress folks aren’t so sure this is going well.
Steve
When Andrew Johnson was impeached, the President of the Senate was next in line to become President if convicted.
I think Pelosi is “playing the ref” here. She knows that both legislative chambers assiduously hold to their exclusive authority to make and interpret their own internal rules, and even if she could get some sort of commitment, there is nothing to prevent the Senate from changing their rules.
Having Trump reelected is too much accountability for many Democrats.
It’s still early days and I think we should treat the speculation with caution.
I think Pelosi is smart enough to know that she doesn’t really have any leverage over the Senate, especially when the impeachment itself was such a rush-job and not as thorough as it could and should be.
IMO the longer the House sits on it the worse it will be for Democrats.
Jan – I find it nauseating as well. Totally disingenuous. But I find it curious as well. I understand playing to the base etc. But its so transparent that one wonders who they are playing to. And steves delusion aside, its not going well at all.
PD – I’m sure Pelosi knows the rules. And I’m sure she knows the whole thing is a sham. She’s not stupid. But I’ve never believed that the so-called squad and their metastatic influence could explain her decision to run with this whole thing. I’ve always believed they know that Durham is on the hunt and not susceptible to media propaganda or political hyperbole. A day of reckoning is coming. Horowitz can be smothered by the media. Durham cannot. Its a Hail Mary attempt at distraction and erosion of credibility. In that context, considering this will ultimately go to very senior levels, the consequences of looking silly pail in comparison to discovery of widespread corruption.
Our present setup and configuration makes politicians stupid. Only 10% of House districts are competitive. That means that the only real threat to holding office indefinitely is being challenged in the primaries. Said another way being challenged in the primaries is the only existential threat.
Speaker Pelosi has never run in a competitive House district in her political career and that’s the experience of nearly every other Congressman not only in her caucus but in the Republican caucus as well. But as I have said many times the situation of the Republicans and Democrats is not symmetric. In the 2018 elections 40 districts held by Democrats were uncontested. 3 districts held by Republicans were uncontested.
That’s exactly what I think. It’s also why I’ve said that the workable alternatives for her are to sit on the articles of impeachment until after the holidays OR never submit them to the Senate at all.
That ain’t the half of it. As long as Majority Leader McConnell can hold his caucus together, the rules for the trial are whatever he says they are. Schumer must get Republican defectors or he has no influence whatever on the rules under which the trial will be held. The likelihood of that decreases with every day in which the House engages in gamesmanship.
There is some speculation that Pelosi will without the articles of impeachment until the new Congress is installed in 2021. But unfinished business dies when there is a new Congress, so we could have another year of impeachment hearings in 2021.
It seems that some on the left are engaging in a gamesmanship fantasy that goes something like this:
– Sit on the impeachment articles and use them in the election to either beat Trump or win the Senate.
– If Trump wins and Dems take the Senate, then remove him from office.
To me, that is just delusional.
Whatever one think’s of Pelosi’s politics, she is a very savvy and smart politician who seems to understand the capabilities and limitations of the Democratic caucus better than anyone. I just don’t see her spending a lot of time and energy playing games with the Senate to try to get them to alter any rules.
It’s interesting to see how undignified elected officials become when faced with the fear that Donald John Trump could be re-elected and given a majority in the house as well. Doesn’t worry me a bit. Trump’s doing quite well as President and making us friends around the world as well.
I just know that this is all a set up to impeach Lincoln for asking Generals to furlough soldiers to return home so they could vote for the Republicans. The Constitution does not provide a defense to the dead from impeachment.
You highlight a point I made in an earlier post today. Just because something is not in the Constitution does not make it an open issue or fair game in any way.
Trump and co still believe Obama is from Kenya. We should expect these mystical GOP investigators to find proof and impeach Obama.
Steve
Obama from Kenya?
Wait, I’ve got that address.
1500 my ancestors sold slaves
2008, I cashed that check.
2016 no forwarding address
I know that is your standard line about politicians being stupid, Dave. She’s not an astrophysicist. But she’s not politically stupid. (I have a friend who is a retired Chicago cop. Will never be confused with a brain surgeon, but very street savvy. BTW – the stories he can tell). I simply cannot put together any reasonable scenario for her actions other than it’s a simple damned if you do damned if you don’t. Expose the whole Obama Admin scandal complete with CIA, State and FBI involvement……….or look like a fool and attempt to distract. You can afford to swing for the fences with an entire media machine behind you.
Pelosi is not dumb. Just the opposite, in fact, she is a political survivor who employs whatever theatrics or cagey strategies she can get away with.
Also, what’s happening in Congress is indeed high level gamesmanship, with Pelosi playing a chameleon who changes course, colors and attitude at will. First she rushes the impeachment proceeding, breaking rules and protocols along the way. She bypasses the judiciary in order to speed the process up. Now, that she has solemnly gaveled the impeachment as a done deal, urgencies have morphed into foot-dragging, the kangaroo atmosphere choreographed and cheered on by Schiff, Nadler, and approved by Pelosi, is being preemptively excoriated when McConnell hints that the same expedited, closed court proceedings might be replicated in the Senate. Oh the horror….
The hubris is so thick that it makes government representatives look like misshaped jokes, with absolutely no integrity or direction, other than getting Trump. – over and over again if necessary. House members are already casually saying that if impeachment doesn’t work now, they will just try it all over again. What corrupt geniuses they are!
Note:
Prof Turley, one of the few academic commentators I listen to, has opined that by his reading of the law, Trump has in fact been impeached. Even as a layman that makes intuitive sense. The vote matters, filing the paperwork not so much.
On the other hand, one of the witnesses called by the Democrats, a Constitutional law expert, has stated that impeachment isn’t finished until the paperwork is delivered to the Senate.
I still think it is a dead letter if Pelosi delays until the new Congress is seated in 2021.
Not exactly. I think that Speaker Pelosi is savvy enough but the peculiar conditions that politicians encounter right now inform their reactions. Speaker Pelosi is only really concerned about intra-party politics and that has made her willing to trade a tactical victory for what I suspect will be a strategic defeat.
She will not be able to maintain the Schrödinger’s cat impeachment trope she’s maintaining right now for long and the Senate will not adopt the House’s rules for the trial that is now inevitable. When that begins events will be beyond her control and, unless the Senate is much more statesmanlike than anything I’ve seen in recent memory, it will be more a trial of the House and the Democratic leadership than it is of Trump.
Bob – Ken Starr has now similarly opined that he is impeached. But he is also similarly flummoxed at Pelosi’s action. It makes the House, and her, look like fools.
Dave – That sounds nice, trading tactical for strategic, but I think it accomplishes neither. Look at this professor/witness. He’s screeching “no impeachment” to goad her into delivery of the articles. He’s bloodthirsty as are the whole squad types. Nothing will placate them and she gets nothing for her weak effort. Meanwhile she and the process look utterly foolish. Back in the real world, McConnell must be belly laughing in his office. You may call for statesmanship, but payback is a bitch, and Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler earned it fair and square. Its a despicable thing they engineered. She’ll be lucky if she doesn’t end up with her dentures up her……….
Which is why she’s trying to mollify them. It reminds me of Winston Churchill’s wisecrack that an appeaser is someone who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
The only way to deal with a vendetta is to stop. We can’t survive as a nation with everybody at daggers drawn.
Sometimes I really question how our nation can survive with so many dishonest, self-serving politicians making up the rules of political engagement – on both sides of the aisle.
“We can’t survive as a nation with everybody at daggers drawn.”
Sure we can. We have since inception, with only slavery and the Civil War bringing us to the breach. What you are advocating is surrender in the wake of what was essentially an attempted coup. We can’t survive as a nation in the face of that; and the Dems and the careerist bureaucrats have demonstrated that they will in no way shape or form suddenly see the light and behave like statemen, or even obey the law. For them, full exposure of their efforts is an existential threat. I find the can’t-we-all- just-get-along view to be, at this stage, horrifyingly naïve.
I can think of only one other reason for pursuing such an obviously bizarre impeachment exercise, and it isn’t as trivial as Pelosi vs Omar and AOC. Its about stopping the judge appointments, especially the Supreme Court, the lefts’ now favored way to govern. To them, that’s also a hill worth dying on.
I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree.
Yes.
R. B. G. would explain a lot of the intensity on the Left.
“What you are advocating is surrender in the wake of what was essentially an attempted coup. We can’t survive as a nation in the face of that; and the Dems and the careerist bureaucrats have demonstrated that they will in no way shape or form suddenly see the light and behave like statemen, or even obey the law.”
This all applies to the Clinton impeachment. Which proves you really dont care about principles, only if your tribe is the one that might be harmed.
” Its about stopping the judge appointments”
Pence would take over if Trump was gone. Really dont see him naming liberal judges.
Steve
If you’re in full conspiracy mode, the next step will be to impeach Pence as well.
And yes, Adam Schiff is hinting that he intends to also impeach Pence (yes, it’s Redstate, but still):
https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2019/12/20/here-we-go-again-adam-schiff-claims-he-has-evidence-on-mike-pence
Schiff has already opened the case for attacking Pence by implying he has stuff on him – the same ploy he used leading up to Trump’s impeachment. The Dems love to plant seeds of supposed wrongdoing – Harry Reed did it to Romney about not paying taxes – truth being of no concern, as long as it gets the job done of electing a democrat. Consequently, it’s not necessarily being in conspiracy mode to point out patterns of character assassination behavior that is commonly practiced by the democrat party for years.
“Consequently, it’s not necessarily being in conspiracy mode to point out patterns of character assassination behavior that is commonly practiced by the democrat party for years.”
And the GOP never does character assassination? Please.
“isn’t as trivial as Pelosi vs Omar and AOC”
Have been really busy at works haven’t had much time to read the usual right wing notes other than skim Drudge. People on the left and the MSM dont write that much about Omar. That coverage is mostly limited to the far right sites. What have they done now, or is this just made up stuff so you can use the name of Omar to scare everyone?
Steve
Some examples of democrat behavior applying character assassination:
1). Bill Clinton’s association with Larry Flint who liked digging up dirt on GOP opponents; 2) dog-on-the-roof, teen prank on a school mate exploitation to smear Romney + the whole tax returns Reid lie; 3) exploiting a story about GWB’s earlier drinking problem right before the election; 4) Hillary Clinton/DNC paying for the Steele Dossier, just one of the dirt-collecting schemes applied to the current president.
In the meantime all you hear about, in “they do it too†retorts from the Dems, is how republicans used Obama’s birth certificate to spread disinformation about him – totally refusing to acknowledge that it was HRC’s friend, Sidney Blumenthal, who was the one initiating the investigative curiosity, regarding Obama’s legitimate birth place, by approaching McClatchy News first with the story. Also, when complaints are made how unfair the Dems opposition have been to this president, all you hear about is the much publicized McConnell comment when he asserted Obama would be a “one term president.†However, there is simply no comparison to the grief given Obama vs what has been heaped, continuously, on this presidency, along with the full cooperation of the MSM, intelligence agencies, an out-of-control Democrat House, and the overreach of selected district courts.
Whats sad is that I think you believe this nonsense. Kerry really was a decorated veteran and he got Swiftboated. If who starts it matters, then the Steele dossier investigation was started by Republicans. You have your own POTUS claiming that a former well respected Congressman is in hell. Going after Michelle Obama for stuff she wrote in a college (or was it high school?) term paper. Spreading the rumors that Obama didnt really go to his stated college. Really, the list could go on for pages. Note that I am not claiming the GOP is worse, but there has been so much that I have no idea how you can claim better behavior.
Trump supporters whine about how much Trump gets criticized and attacked, forgetting that they ran non-stop investigations on Obama, doing Benghazi 8 times. All the investigations were an attempt to prove scandal in the Obama admin, but they couldn’t find it. In fact, just to choose one, with the IRS case they even dropped (the Trump DOJ) all charges against Lois Lerner. It was all just an attempt to smear Obama.
Last of all this completely forgets never before seen levels of bad behavior by a POTUS. I know that you Trump supporters were happy that Trump physically mocked a disabled reporter, but if you arent a Trump supporter, or even just the rare Trump supporter possessed of some personal integrity, you recognize that is something you just dont do, and you realized it somewhere back in High School. The constant, obvious lies over even trivial things. Attacking the family of a deceased soldier. This has been an unprecedented lack of common decency.
Steve
Is Clinesmith doctoring an email/FISA evidence a conspiracy theory?
Are the FISA judges demand a conspiracy theory?
Are 17+ errors in an investigation, all going one way, a conspiracy theory?
Was Bruce Ohr being used to circumvent claimed disassociation with Steele a conspiracy theory?
Are Schiffs denials of the assertions in the Nunez memo, even though he issued a rebuttal memo, a conspiracy theory?
Are Comey and McCabes sworn, but diametrically opposite, testimony conspiracy theories?
Or are these facts and indicative of a pattern of behavior.
It can all be casually waived away on internet sites and by narrative controlling media and spinmeisters. But it’s why I’ve said, Durham is the key. That won’t be just waived away, even though the campaign to discredit Barr and Durham has begun.
Just another Republican conspiracy theory…………..asserted by the IG.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/20/fbi-had-spies-inside-trump-campaign-ig/
Ahem.
CNN’s Dec. 22 headline on the subject of Ukraine: “Effort to freeze Ukraine aid began about 90 minutes after call between Trump and Zelensky.â€
The news network claims that this is what newly-released emails reveal.
It appears entirely likely that CNN is assuming the bulk of its readers will get no further than this arguably explosive headline, much less read down as far as the eighth paragraph, in which a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quoted.
“It’s reckless to tie the hold of funds to the phone call. As has been established and publicly reported, the hold was announced in an interagency meeting on July 18,†the agency’s Rachel Semmel told CNN.
That statement – which happens to be a true and accurate reflection of established fact – entirely contradicts the story’s headline. In fact, as Semmel goes on to point out, the media picked out one line from an email and chose to interpret it in a certain way.
The reality is that the emails – or what can be extracted from them, given the many redactions – paint a different picture. Government officials were anxiously trying to get the aid released in the face of questions about where and how the money would be spent, how much of it – if any – would go to U.S. companies, and how much money Ukraine was receiving from other nations.
In context, then, the emails support the Trump administration’s account of why aid was being held up in the first place: The president was skeptical about sending aid to a foreign country without knowing how the funds would be used. Additionally, he was loathe to have the U.S. shoulder the burden of aiding Ukraine if the Europeans were not sufficiently pitching in.
The opening paragraph of an NBC News article on the same subject claimed that “a request to withhold funds came less than two hours after President Donald Trump’s July phone call with the Ukrainian president…â€
Five paragraphs further down, though: “The administration put a hold on critical defense aid for Ukraine as early as the week of July 18, one week before the phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy…â€
A Dec. 21 headline from The Hill screamed: “Ukraine funding freeze ordered hours after Zelensky call.†This article doesn’t even mention the fact that aid was put on hold before the call. It appears likely that, as has happened many times in the past, the Democratic Party issued a request – or, perhaps, a decree – to its media minions that they report this story in a way that supports the party’s political agenda: In this case, to support the effort to ensure the Senate convicts President Trump of the non-crimes for which he has now been impeached.
Now hold on just a second. Who has been saying this:
“In context, then, the emails support the Trump administration’s account of why aid was being held up in the first place: The president was skeptical about sending aid to a foreign country without knowing how the funds would be used. Additionally, he was loathe to have the U.S. shoulder the burden of aiding Ukraine if the Europeans were not sufficiently pitching in.â€
Uh, er, well, Guarneri has. But he’s just a conspiracy theorist. Better to listen to those Honest Abe’s in the media, or the Dem party…….or steve, or Mataconis. (Snicker). They’ll give you truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
But the vote has been held, He’s impeached. Now the Senate where five Dem. Senators should recuse themselves for conflict of interest since they are trying like hell to get His job for themselves.
Let all of those people testify if you want to find out a better picture of what happened. The hold was announced but the reason for the hold is what we learn from the phone call, and from the efforts of Rudy et al.
Steve
Let’s see the transcripts from testimony already compiled. Like IG Atkinson’s testimony that Schiff refused to release. The only reasonable reason not to provide them is because they don’t advance the narrative or worse.
Schumer & Co intend to keep on demanding witnesses until they hear the story that they want, if necessary into 2021. Classic moving the goalposts/Lucy holding the football BS.
Again, why is it so necessary to remove Trump before his time is up? That it’s worth completely shredding the rule of law and precedent (except when it is not in his favor)? That is the 64-trillion dollar question.
And these are the people who loudly proclaim that they’ll go back to politics as usual after Trump is gone. Except for the minor fact that they’ve just made seize-power-at-any-cost the new normal.
Just a bit OT- But would you Trump supporters explain to me why we should take his word that he has studied windmills better than anybody? I know you guys believe everything he says so please explain.
“We’ll have an economy based on wind. I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody. I know it’s very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly — very few made here, almost none. But they’re manufactured tremendous — if you’re into this — tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint — fumes are spewing into the air. Right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything — right? So they make these things and then they put them up.
Stop with the high school debating tactics, steve. It’s cringworthy.
Truly pathetic. It’s all coming apart at the seams. I don’t think the media can contain it, although they have done a damned good job so far. But legal entities can get to the bottom of things. Mueller didn’t. Durham is a different cat. He’s got material to work with.
Durham is going to fillet these people, and sycophants like you, like fish.
“ Truly pathetic. It’s all coming apart at the seams.“
I agree the media narrative is completely biased. But the problem for you is that doesn’t exculpate Trump.
In my view the entire situation is pathetic. It’s like two homeless drunks arguing over who has a drinking problem.
No one is coming out of this a winner especially those of us who aren’t in the tank for one side or the other.
For Steve:
Fact Check: Did Republicans pay for the Trump dossier/
During the Republican presidential primary, an unknown Republican “client†funded Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump, The Washington Post reports. Trump at that time was still seeking the Republican nomination for the 2016 presidential election.That client cut off funds to Fusion GPS as the primary winded down, and the Clinton campaign hired the firm through its lawyer Mike Elias in April 2016. The DNC and Clinton campaign continued funding the project until October 2016.
Steele “authoredâ€Â the Trump-Russia dossier that Fusion GPS produced using a “compilation of reportsâ€Â he worked on while at the firm, and all of his work happened while the Clinton campaign was funding the opposition research.
While part of the material may have been gathered by Fusion GPS when the firm was bankrolled by a Republican client during the primary, the entirety of Steele’s work on the dossier he was hired to produce took place while Fusion GPS was funded by the Clinton campaign. The dossier centers on Russia, and likely almost entirely came from Steele, who is well-sourced in Russia, because of his experience as a spy.
The claim that the “Steele dossier†was funded by Republicans doesn’t hold up to the facts.
Steve, your facts are sometimes missing the “rest of the story.” You pluck out what follows your own desired narrative, and leave substantial parts out that are contrary to what you’ve heard. Yes, we all do that. However, you often seem so unwilling to even consider another side to what is being spun in the news. For instance, while both presidents (Obama and Trump) have received a lot of opposition party grief, hands down the latter president has been inundated far more than his predecessor who people also wanted to impeach but didn’t; who saw his government staffed, nominees approved far more quickly than the guy following him into office; who didn’t have a counterintelligence probe done before taking office, intelligence agencies working and/or wired, listening in on him, unmasking others around him…it just goes on and on the mind games, traps and tack strips laid out to take down the current presidency.
Now, it’s being reported more articles of impeachment are being sought, more holiday drama is being imposed on the country…it’s just too much! Enough already!!!!
“While part of the material may have been gathered by Fusion GPS when the firm was bankrolled by a Republican client during the primary”
A Republican started the process, as you help document. April -October simply wasn’t enough time to compile everything. It is pretty clear that a lot of the work was already done and Steele just had to put it together.
“nominees approved far more quickly than the guy following him into office”
Actually, McConnell refused to hold votes on a lot of Obama judge nominees and I hope the name Garland means something to you. Also, it was well documented that the Trump admin was slow to name nominees to office. There remains no evidence that Trump was wired. Trump is the only candidate ever to publicly ask a foreign company to help with his election. The list goes on and on….
Drew- I keep waiting for this Durham guy. I am a bit concerned. You guys claim he, unlike anyone else in the Trump executive branch, possesses some integrity and doesn’t leak. Yet, you keep coming here with a constant stream of leaks about the investigation. This is sounding more like Ken Starr, the most corrupt, partisan special counsel in our history. Guess we will have to wait and see. Meanwhile, you keep posting all of the leaked stuff from this man who is so impartial.
Steve