« The big Trump administration mistake that led to impeachment | Two hours of dog barking: Adam Schiff tries to bore us into Getting Trump »
January 23, 2020

Highlights (or lowlights) of the impeachment so far

By Andrea Widburg

On Tuesday afternoon, CBS pulled the plug on covering the impeachment hearing taking place in the Senate.  It was getting more revenue running the daytime soaps.  This reflects a general feeling that most Americans don't want to sit there and be insulted.  And by "insulted," we mean things like Adam Schiff saying something that translates to "You, the People, are too dumb to be trusted with the vote, lest you vote again for Trump":

Americans understand what's going on: Democrats said the evidence they'd gathered in a handful of secret basement hearings established that it was urgent to impeach Trump.  They then frantically came up with two articles of impeachment.

The first says, "We, the House Democrats, find Trump guilty of practicing foreign policy in a way the foreign policy establishment finds offensive."  The second says, "We, the House Democrats, won't do the normal practice of asking a court to rule upon Trump's claims of executive privilege; we'll just accuse him of abuse of power."

Then, contrary to their claims or urgency, the House Democrats sat on the articles for a month.  It was only after Mitch McConnell forced her hand that Nancy Pelosi presided over a mock solemn ceremony, complete with souvenir pens, before walking the articles over to the Senate.

On Tuesday, the first day of Senate hearings, Democrats insisted that, although they had overwhelming proof that Trump had done bad things, they still needed to call an endless parade of witnesses without whom they could not prove that Trump had done bad things.  This led to fiery speeches and a remonstrance from Chief Justice Roberts for those speeches.

Also, Adam Schiff lied.  Apparently Schiff sent Jerry Nadler a letter last week claiming that Lev Parnas (the impeachment's Christine Blasey Ford, owing to his ever-changing stories) had tried to arrange a meeting with Ukrainian president Zelensky or, as Schiff quoted from a redacted text message, "mr. Z" — except that the unredacted version of the full message chain showed that "Z" referred to Mykola Zlochevsky, Burisma's founder.  That's why the message referred to "mr.," not "president."  Truth and Schiff have, at best, only a nodding acquaintance.

The Republicans then voted to fast-track the hearings, just as McConnell had suggested.

On Wednesday, there was more of the same.  It's impossible to gather all the details in a single post, so this is a swift overview of Wednesday's top impeachment-related stories (with a nod to Schiff's statement at the top of this post):

Kimberley Strassel caught Schiff lying again:

1) Why is it that nobody in MSM calls out @RepAdamSchiff for a basic and repeated falsehood in this trial? To wit, that Russia helped Trump win an election (and that Trump was trying to repeat this with Ukraine). Where is there any evidence for this outrageous Russia claim?

2) Even if you buy that Russia's sole aim was to "help" Trump in the election (rather than generally sow discord), numerous congressional committees and the Mueller report itself found that Russia failed. It's hacking/trolling efforts did not effect the vote.

3) The media was forced to report this truth, yet ignores it now. Also ignores even bigger point that Mueller confirmed no collusion. I know that was all a bitter pill for Ds to swallow, but that shouldn't allow them to rewrite history on the Senate floor. #ImpeachmentTrial

Paul Sperry revealed that, after Trump's inauguration, co-workers overheard Eric Ciaramella, the Obama CIA analyst turned whistleblower, tell his friend Sean Misko that they needed "to take out Trump."  Misko went to work for Adam Schiff right before Ciaramella whistled those hearsay opinions about the Ukraine phone call.

Ciaramella is not a unique Democrat.  This video sums up the Democrats' mindset from the moment Trump rode down that escalator through to today:

Also, Joe Lockhart, a CNN political analyst, tweeted out a bald-faced lie that was quickly retweeted thousands of times:

Overheard convo between two Republican Senators who only watch Fox News. "is this stuff real? I haven't heard any of this before. I thought it was all about a server. If half the stuff Schiff is saying is true, we're up s---- creek. Hope the White House has exculpatory evidence

Nine minutes later, Lockhart had to tweet that his earlier tweet was just a joke or maybe a mind-reading trick:

Ok maybe I made up the convo, but you know that's exactly what they're thinking.

The only sanity to come out of the day was a letter from 21 Republican state attorneys general begging the Senate to end the impeachment because it "establishes a dangerous historical precedent":

"If not expressly repudiated by the Senate, the theories animating both Articles will set a precedent that is entirely contrary to the Framers' design and ruinous to the most important governmental structure protections contained in our Constitution: the separation of powers," they wrote.

[snip]

"Even an unsuccessful effort to impeach the President undermines the integrity of the 2020 presidential election because it weaponizes a process that should only be initiated in exceedingly rare circumstances and should never be used for partisan purposes," the letter continued.

Amen.

On Tuesday afternoon, CBS pulled the plug on covering the impeachment hearing taking place in the Senate.  It was getting more revenue running the daytime soaps.  This reflects a general feeling that most Americans don't want to sit there and be insulted.  And by "insulted," we mean things like Adam Schiff saying something that translates to "You, the People, are too dumb to be trusted with the vote, lest you vote again for Trump":

Americans understand what's going on: Democrats said the evidence they'd gathered in a handful of secret basement hearings established that it was urgent to impeach Trump.  They then frantically came up with two articles of impeachment.

The first says, "We, the House Democrats, find Trump guilty of practicing foreign policy in a way the foreign policy establishment finds offensive."  The second says, "We, the House Democrats, won't do the normal practice of asking a court to rule upon Trump's claims of executive privilege; we'll just accuse him of abuse of power."

Then, contrary to their claims or urgency, the House Democrats sat on the articles for a month.  It was only after Mitch McConnell forced her hand that Nancy Pelosi presided over a mock solemn ceremony, complete with souvenir pens, before walking the articles over to the Senate.

On Tuesday, the first day of Senate hearings, Democrats insisted that, although they had overwhelming proof that Trump had done bad things, they still needed to call an endless parade of witnesses without whom they could not prove that Trump had done bad things.  This led to fiery speeches and a remonstrance from Chief Justice Roberts for those speeches.

Also, Adam Schiff lied.  Apparently Schiff sent Jerry Nadler a letter last week claiming that Lev Parnas (the impeachment's Christine Blasey Ford, owing to his ever-changing stories) had tried to arrange a meeting with Ukrainian president Zelensky or, as Schiff quoted from a redacted text message, "mr. Z" — except that the unredacted version of the full message chain showed that "Z" referred to Mykola Zlochevsky, Burisma's founder.  That's why the message referred to "mr.," not "president."  Truth and Schiff have, at best, only a nodding acquaintance.

The Republicans then voted to fast-track the hearings, just as McConnell had suggested.

On Wednesday, there was more of the same.  It's impossible to gather all the details in a single post, so this is a swift overview of Wednesday's top impeachment-related stories (with a nod to Schiff's statement at the top of this post):

Kimberley Strassel caught Schiff lying again:

1) Why is it that nobody in MSM calls out @RepAdamSchiff for a basic and repeated falsehood in this trial? To wit, that Russia helped Trump win an election (and that Trump was trying to repeat this with Ukraine). Where is there any evidence for this outrageous Russia claim?

2) Even if you buy that Russia's sole aim was to "help" Trump in the election (rather than generally sow discord), numerous congressional committees and the Mueller report itself found that Russia failed. It's hacking/trolling efforts did not effect the vote.

3) The media was forced to report this truth, yet ignores it now. Also ignores even bigger point that Mueller confirmed no collusion. I know that was all a bitter pill for Ds to swallow, but that shouldn't allow them to rewrite history on the Senate floor. #ImpeachmentTrial

Paul Sperry revealed that, after Trump's inauguration, co-workers overheard Eric Ciaramella, the Obama CIA analyst turned whistleblower, tell his friend Sean Misko that they needed "to take out Trump."  Misko went to work for Adam Schiff right before Ciaramella whistled those hearsay opinions about the Ukraine phone call.

Ciaramella is not a unique Democrat.  This video sums up the Democrats' mindset from the moment Trump rode down that escalator through to today:

Also, Joe Lockhart, a CNN political analyst, tweeted out a bald-faced lie that was quickly retweeted thousands of times:

Overheard convo between two Republican Senators who only watch Fox News. "is this stuff real? I haven't heard any of this before. I thought it was all about a server. If half the stuff Schiff is saying is true, we're up s---- creek. Hope the White House has exculpatory evidence

Nine minutes later, Lockhart had to tweet that his earlier tweet was just a joke or maybe a mind-reading trick:

Ok maybe I made up the convo, but you know that's exactly what they're thinking.

The only sanity to come out of the day was a letter from 21 Republican state attorneys general begging the Senate to end the impeachment because it "establishes a dangerous historical precedent":

"If not expressly repudiated by the Senate, the theories animating both Articles will set a precedent that is entirely contrary to the Framers' design and ruinous to the most important governmental structure protections contained in our Constitution: the separation of powers," they wrote.

[snip]

"Even an unsuccessful effort to impeach the President undermines the integrity of the 2020 presidential election because it weaponizes a process that should only be initiated in exceedingly rare circumstances and should never be used for partisan purposes," the letter continued.

Amen.