Monday, April 22, 2019

Last Call For The Reach To Impeach


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team told lawmakers Monday that they had no plans to immediately open impeachment proceedings against President Trump and would focus instead on investigations.

In an evening conference call, the leaders described the near-term strategy after the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report last week, with some in the Democratic Party pressing for the House to initiate steps to oust Trump.

According to three officials on the call, leaders told rank-and-file lawmakers — who were scattered across the nation, back in their districts for a two-week congressional recess — that investigative committees would continue their inquiries and see where they lead.

Even House Financial Services Chairman Maxine Waters, who last week warned that “Congress’ failure to impeach is complacency in the face of the erosion of our democracy and constitutional norms,” did not push the matter. Instead, the California Democrat, a vocal Trump critic who is probing the president’s business practices before he won the 2016 election, made a point of clarifying that she is not pressuring lawmakers to join her effort.

The call came just hours after Pelosi appeared to tap the brakes on impeachment discussions, arguing in a letter to her colleagues that while Democrats would hold Trump accountable for his actions in the Mueller report, they could do so without initiating impeachment hearings. The California Democrat wrote that Congress “will scrupulously assert Congress’s constitutional duty to honor our oath of office to support and defend the Constitution and our democracy” by investigating the president.

“Whether currently indictable or not, it is clear that the president has, at a minimum, engaged in highly unethical and unscrupulous behavior which does not bring honor to the office he holds,” Pelosi wrote.

But the speaker offered a word of caution on impeachment — a step pushed by some 2020 presidential hopefuls, most notably Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in the days following the Mueller report. Without ruling out the concept altogether, Pelosi noted “it is … important to know that the facts regarding holding the president accountable can be gained outside of impeachment hearings.”
“While our views range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment, we all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth,” Pelosi said, trying to strike a note of unity.

She added: “As we proceed to uncover the truth and present additional needed reforms to protect our democracy, we must show the American people we are proceeding free from passion or prejudice, strictly on the presentation of fact.”

So that's it, then.

Democrats are still acting like there's a non-impeachment solution to Donald Trump, and they will spend the next however many months looking for it.

As Trump grinds those efforts to a halt and slow-walks them through the Supreme Court, we'll be left cleaning up the mess of Trump's daily assaults on rule of law and his continuing normalization of his kleptocratic regime.

Perhaps we'll see a series of televised hearing where House Democrats lay out the case, but they will be drowned out in televised Senate Republican hearings where Obama administration officials and Clinton campaign people are grilled as traitors.


Still, Pelosi is basically asking us to trust her.  For now, I don't think we have a better choice until we reach the point we're taking to the streets.

We'll see.

A Taxing Explanation, Con't

The Trump regime is suing to block the release of Donald Trump's financial records, saying that House Democrats are purely abusing political power as no doubt Senate Republicans are salivating over the tax information of all Democrats being fair game for 2020.

President Trump and his business sued House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) in a bid to block a congressional subpoena of his financial records on Monday.

The lawsuit seeks a court order to prevent Trump’s accounting firm from complying with what his lawyers say is an improper use of subpoena power by congressional Democrats.

“Democrats are using their new control of congressional committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump’s personal finances, businesses, and even his family,” the filing by Trump claims. “Instead of working with the President to pass bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit Americans, House Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the President politically.”

The filing, in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, further escalates a clash between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House over congressional oversight.

Last week, Cummings subpoenaed Mazars USA, an accounting firm long used by Trump.

For more than a decade, Mazars and a predecessor firm signed off on financial statements for Trump that he used when seeking loans. Some of the statements include frequent exaggerations or inaccuracies and were accompanied by a note from the firm saying it was not responsible for the accuracy of the information.

The Oversight Committee on March 20 asked the company for copies of “statements of financial condition” and audits prepared for Trump and several of his companies, including the one that owns the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. The panel also requested supporting documents used to produce the reports and communications between the firm and Trump.

The company said last week that it “will respect the legal process and fully comply with its legal obligations.”

Lawyers for the president and the Trump Organization previously wrote in a letter to Mazars’s counsel that an expected committee subpoena “would not be valid or enforceable.”

Not easy being Mazars, I guess.  If they don't comply with Cummings, they face contempt of Congress.  If they do comply, they face a guaranteed FBI raid and Justice Department prosecution.  Either way, this is going to the Supreme Court, and it's a coin flip as to who wins this fight, it's all going to come down to how Chief Justice Roberts feels that day.

Stay tuned.
 

It's Mueller Time, Con't

The Trump regime's gaslighting is getting out of hand, they believe they've achieved total victory and from here on it should be smooth sailing and a steady stream of Democrats going to prison and immigrants going to camps.

President Trump on Sunday continued to wage an attack against special counsel Robert Mueller, calling his investigation's report a "hit job" and claiming it was written by "The Trump Haters and Angry Democrats."

"The Trump Haters and Angry Democrats who wrote the Mueller Report were devastated by the No Collusion finding," Trump tweeted Sunday morning. "Nothing but a total 'hit job' which should never have been allowed to start in the first place!"

Trump added in a separate tweet that Democrats' investigations into him and his administration would cost them in the 2020 election.

"Despite No Collusion, No Obstruction, The Radical Left Democrats do not want to go on to Legislate for the good of the people, but only to Investigate and waste time," he said. "This is costing our Country greatly, and will cost the Dems big time in 2020!"

Trump's minions are spreading the gospel of absolution over Easter.

President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said while he would have advised the Trump campaign to avoid Russian help, he thought there was nothing wrong with a campaign taking information from Russia. 
"There's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians," Giuliani said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." 
Asked by CNN's Jake Tapper if he would have taken information from a foreign source, Giuliani said, "I probably wouldn't." 
"I wasn't asked," Giuliani said. "I would have advised, just out of excess of caution, don't do it."

Trump believes he's gotten away with the crime of the century.

Just days after the release of the highly anticipated Mueller report, one of President Donald Trump's top advisers, Kellyanne Conway, said Sunday the investigation found Trump committed no crime -- and even predicted another term for the president.

"The job of a prosecutor is to gather evidence and decide whether to indict or to decline to indict. They declined to indict," the White House counselor said on “This Week." "The president is not going to jail. He's staying in the White House for five and a half more years. Why? Because ... they found no crime, no conspiracy. That was the central premise."

Until the Democrats make it clear impeachment is coming, Trump is 100% correct, and he most likely will be reelected.

StupidiNews!