On Tuesday, House Democrats launched a new demand for the Senate&#8217;s nascent impeachment trial of President Donald Trump: White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, who is helping to lead the president&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trumps-impeachment-team-adds-more-big-names-two-from-bill-clinton-report">prolific legal defense team</a>, must either disclose any pertinent information he has about Democrats&#8217; substantive impeachment claims or otherwise be dismissed as a Trump defense lawyer at trial.
&#8220;President Donald Trump&#8217;s lead impeachment lawyer, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, was a central witness to many of the facts of the case against Trump, House Democrats argued Tuesday, demanding that the Cipollone disclose any firsthand knowledge and warning that his role &#8216;threatens to undermine the integrity of the pending trial,'&#8221; Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/21/pat-cipollone-trump-ukraine-scandal-101355">reported</a>.
&#8220;You may be a material witness to the charges against President Trump, even though you are also his advocate,&#8221; House Democrats&#8217; impeachment managers wrote in a letter to Cipollone, the outlet noted. &#8220;[A]t a minimum, you must disclose all facts and information as to which you have first-hand knowledge that will be at issue in connection with the evidence you present or arguments you make in your role as the President&#8217;s legal advocate so that the Senate and Chief Justice can be apprised of any potential ethical issues, conflicts, or biases,&#8221; the impeachment managers continued.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has been a consistent defender of the president&#8217;s throughout the entirety of Democrats&#8217; partisan impeachment push, is having none of it. The junior senator from Texas, a formerly prolific constitutional attorney who clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court for former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, blasted the Democratic demand in no uncertain terms. Cruz called the demand an &#8220;absurd request&#8221; on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/tedcruzpage/posts/10157741123607464">Facebook</a>:
<blockquote>Democrats’ opening salvo in impeachment: they demand Trump get rid of his lawyer, Pat Cipollone.
Absurd request.
Unlike the House, the Senate will have a FAIR trial. That means we won’t deny the President his lawyer ON THE DAY the trial starts.
The Sixth Amendment provides the accused the right &#8220;to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.&#8221; Note that the Sixth Amendment does not apply to the prosecution; it protects only the accused. Under the standard put forth by the House Democrats today – that any potential fact witness cannot serve as counsel in the impeachment hearing – there is an obvious person who should be disqualified: Adam Schiff.
Schiff, it has been alleged, spoke directly with the so-called &#8220;whistle-blower&#8221; and may even have helped him draft the complaint that launched this entire impeachment.
So, maybe we should disqualify Schiff as a lawyer, and schedule him instead as a witness to explain his role in creating the &#8220;evidence&#8221; in this proceeding?</blockquote>
The Constitution affords no role for the impeachment trial prosecution to impose procedural demands upon the Senate itself. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei">Article I, Section 2, Clause 5</a>  says that the House “shall have the sole power of impeachment,” and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei">Article I, Section 3, Clause 6</a> says that the Senate “shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.” The <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/19/pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold/">obvious textual implication</a> is that House members and Senate members, respectively, possess plenary authority to establish their own internal procedures for conducting the impeachment process.

Ted Cruz being interviewed

Ted Cruz Blasts Democrats’ Opening Impeachment Demand

Adam Schiff

Constitution

Democratic Party

Impeachment

Ted Cruz

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Tomorrow will commence the third presidential impeachment trial in the history of the United States Senate. And on the eve of such a rare and solemn institutional undertaking, it is still not entirely clear what exactly President Donald Trump has done to deserve such a fate.
At the outset of this saga, House Democrats spent weeks promoting an oh-so nefarious &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221; that transpired during Trump&#8217;s now-infamous July 25 phone call last summer with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It turns out that abstruse Latinate didn&#8217;t poll-test well — and never mind that such a &#8220;quid pro quo,&#8221; when cabined to a public official&#8217;s lawful exercise of his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-trumps-alleged-impoundment-of-ukraine-money-doesnt-make-for-an-impeachable-offense">constitutional authority</a>, amounts to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-there-is-one-terrific-impeachment-defense-that-the-white-house-is-not-making">constitutionally protected free speech</a>. Democrats next engaged in the hilariously public floating of bribery — which is actually enumerated as a presidential impeachment criterion in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii">Article II, Section 4</a> of the Constitution — before deciding that they simply lacked the grist to advance such a claim. Democrats ultimately settled on the mealy-mouthed, amorphous gibberish of &#8220;abuse of power&#8221; and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-obstruction-of-congress-is-an-utterly-ridiculous-impeachment-charge">utterly nonsensical</a>, constitutionally illiterate &#8220;obstruction of Congress&#8221; as their charges of choice.
As Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro and I have each <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-todays-judiciary-committee-impeachment-hearing-is-yet-another-waste-of-time">observed</a> countless times since Democrats first glommed onto the Ukraine phone call as possible grounds for impeachment, it is true that actually committing a black-letter crime is not a constitutional requirement to impeach a sitting president. &#8220;High crimes and misdemeanors,&#8221; the catch-all presidential impeachment criterion enumerated in the Constitution after treason and bribery, was a well-known term of art in the English common law. Alexander Hamilton <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp">explained</a> in <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp">The Federalist No. 65</a> that it encompasses &#8220;offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.&#8221;
True, the Hamiltonian language presents a necessarily political and malleable standard. But it is also true that the Constitution&#8217;s Framers did not view everything as a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-stop-calling-everything-impeachable-offense-josh-hammer">potentially impeachable offense</a>. To wit, the Framers <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-founding-fathers-debate-over-what-constituted-impeachable-offense-180965083/">expressly deliberated</a> whether to make the far lesser &#8220;maladministration&#8221; an impeachment criterion before rejecting it out of fear that it could lead to highly partisan impeachment proceedings motivated by either a mere policy disagreement or the raw pursuit of political power. Hamilton certainly understood that, writing in the same Federalist that impeachment would &#8220;seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused.&#8221;
Accordingly, even though the actual violation of a law is not constitutionally required, Democrats&#8217; current partisan gambit represents the first time in the history of the republic that an impeachment has nonetheless been attempted without the undergirding of a legally violative act. President Andrew Johnson violated the Tenure of Office Act — an unambiguously unconstitutional statute, but technically a statutory violation nonetheless. President Bill Clinton, investigated for years by former independent counsel Ken Starr, committed perjury. President Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace before a formal House vote on impeachment, was knee-deep in the Watergate scandal.
What exactly has President Trump done? He acted in a ham-fisted and sloppy manner on a phone call with a foreign leader when it came to the conducting of his foreign policy — an action squarely within his well-established <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-trumps-alleged-impoundment-of-ukraine-money-doesnt-make-for-an-impeachable-offense">constitutional bailiwick</a>. True, he should not have mentioned Joe Biden by name. But ultimately, Trump tried to attach <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair/">corruption-related strings</a>, however clumsily, to the doling out of one of the most consistently <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/03/11/foreign-aid">politically unpopular</a> items in annual federal budgets: Foreign aid.
The conduct upon which Democrats are now attempting to impeach the president is orders of magnitude less destructive than the conduct upon which the Framers would have considered impeachment justified. It reeks of the sort of petty politics and jostling for power that led the Framers to conscientiously reject the far lesser &#8220;maladministration&#8221; as a possible grounds for impeachment. What&#8217;s worse, House Democrats rushed their process due to political timing and, in their rush, have <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-12-09/opinion-trump-impeachment-hearings-democrats">fundamentally failed to make their case</a> to the American people. They have <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2020/01/20/democrats-have-failed-at-impeachment-trump-will-remain-president/">failed at impeachment</a>, and they have no one to blame but themselves. And in their recklessness, Democrats have also set a deeply pernicious precedent for the future of the Constitution&#8217;s carefully calibrated separation of powers framework.
Alas, let the trial commence.

House Speaker Pelosi And Senator Schumer Hold News Conference On DACA Case

HAMMER: What Exactly Are They Impeaching Him For, Again?

2020 Election

Charles Schumer

Donald Trump

Federalist

Jerry Nadler

Joe Biden

In the soon-to-be-released documentary about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, &#8220;Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words,&#8221; the jurist has some harsh words about former vice president and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/who-will-win-democratic-primary-latest-2020-josh-hammer">current leading</a> 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden. At the time of Thomas&#8217;s infamously raucous confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden, a Delaware Democrat, was the committee&#8217;s chairman.
Director Michael Pack, <a href="https://video.foxnews.com/v/6124958353001">speaking this morning</a> to Fox News host Steve Doocy on &#8220;Fox &amp; Friends,&#8221; described the much-anticipated documentary as a chance for viewers to &#8220;hear [Thomas&#8217;s] whole story&#8221; from the famously reticent justice himself. Pack noted that Justice Thomas and his wife Ginni are the only two people directly interviewed in the film.
Thomas, a black man who grew up in extreme poverty in Jim Crow-era Georgia, endured an extraordinarily nasty Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing following his nomination to the nation&#8217;s highest court by then-President George H.W. Bush. Thomas famously described the efforts to derail his nomination, in the aftermath of the public airing of allegations of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, as a &#8220;high-tech lynching.&#8221; Thomas is seen in the film&#8217;s trailer telling the camera: &#8220;We know what this is all about. This is the &#8216;wrong black guy.&#8217; Just say it.&#8221;
In December, The Daily Wire&#8217;s Amanda Prestigiacomo <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-trailer-for-new-clarence-thomas-documentary-drops-justice-says-liberals-worse-than-the-klan">highlighted</a> how, in the documentary, Thomas also claims that modern-day liberals have proved to be a bigger &#8220;impediment&#8221; for him throughout his meteoric rise than has the Ku Klux Klan itself:
<blockquote>“I felt as though, in my life, I had been looking at the wrong people as the people who would be problematic toward me,” Thomas reportedly says in the documentary, according to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/justice-clarence-thomas-rebukes-biden-led-confirmation-hearings/story?id=67235780" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ABC News.</a> “We were told that, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be the bigot in the pickup truck; it’s gonna be the Klansmen; it’s gonna be the rural sheriff.&#8217;”
“But it turned out that through all of that, ultimately the biggest impediment was the modern-day liberal,” the justice continued. “They were the ones who would discount all those things because they have one issue or because they have the power to caricature you.”</blockquote>
That Thomas excoriates Biden in the documentary has been previously reported. Earlier this month, The National Interest <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/we-watched-new-clarence-thomas-documentary-its-not-good-biden-113466">wrote</a> that, &#8220;[a]t one juncture of the film, Thomas was asked about a colloquy with Biden over natural law philosophy and the Constitution. Though he did not cite Biden by name, Thomas lamented that lawmakers do not seem to have full command of the subject matter during judicial confirmation hearings.&#8221;
In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-2020-democratic-field-will-come-down-josh-hammer">Daily Wire op-ed</a> last March, I noted the leading role that Biden had similarly played in the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/12/19/167645600/robert-borks-supreme-court-nomination-changed-everything-maybe-forever">vicious 1987 smearing</a> of then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Robert Bork:
<blockquote>Biden simply has too much baggage, in the current environment. Who in their right mind thinks that coquettish <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/joe-bidens-woman-touching-habit" data-reader-unique-id="48">creepy</a> “Uncle Joe” is a good fit for the current #MeToo moment? Who in their right mind thinks that Biden’s formerly held views on <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/joe-biden-record-on-busing-incarceration-racial-justice-democratic-primary-2020-explained.html" data-reader-unique-id="49">race</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/politics/joe-biden-criminal-justice/index.html" data-reader-unique-id="50">crime</a> won’t come back to destroy him in the minds of the increasingly dominant hard left faction of the Democratic base? Biden has simply been in the national spotlight for too long, and has too long a track record to cleanly avoid opposition research-driven scrutiny. And, amazingly, the man who once tag-teamed with Ted Kennedy to vilely <a href="https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/america-freer-with-bork-on-supreme-court/" data-reader-unique-id="51">savage Robert Bork’s</a> judicial career is almost assuredly now too “moderate” for the batcrap crazy hard Left.</blockquote>

Clarence Thomas Confirmation Hearing

Justice Clarence Thomas Blasts Joe Biden In Soon-To-Be Released Documentary

Clarence Thomas

Fox News

Judicial Branch

Judiciary

Supreme Court

The only people that were really going to watch President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate were reporters and die-hard Trump haters privileged enough to not have to work.
So, naturally, journalists “are up in arms,” as The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/19/business/media/senate-impeachment-trial-media.html">reported</a>, about not getting free rein inside the Capitol building during the impeachment trial, which they themselves baited House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) into starting. As the Times noted, however, Republican Senate leadership hasn’t even written down the rules for coverage yet, but reporters don’t need much to get them outraged at Republicans.
“Even sedate C-Span is aggrieved, calling on the Senate to allow its television crews to document the trial, instead of the government-controlled cameras that — as was the case during Bill Clinton’s trial 21 years ago — will limit what viewers see and hear inside the Senate chamber,” the Times reported.
NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/01/17/797126423/reporters-battle-new-restrictions-in-trying-to-cover-senate-impeachment-trial">reported</a> that the “restrictive new ground rules” that confine reporters “to small cordoned-off sections in areas where unrestricted access was typically standard.” Reporters also will not be allowed to walk with senators for interviews even if the senator wants to talk. Finally, reporters will not be allowed to “approach senators for interviews in the halls surrounding the Senate chamber.”
The Times painted the rules as a threat to the free press and, of course, democracy itself.
“There’s long been this understanding that we both serve the same people at the end of the day, and that it’s a mutually beneficial relationship,” Sarah Wire, a Los Angeles Times reporter, told The New York Times. “Senators want to talk to us because they know we’re communicating their message to their voters back home.”
Senators don’t need reporters to communicate their message to voters. They have their own platforms to do this. The press is no longer some gatekeeper to information, no matter how much they like to tell that to themselves.
The Times suggested the reason for the restriction may be valid due to the presence of Chief Justice John Roberts, who will be presiding over the trial.
“Typically, reporters’ movements in the Capitol are limited when high-profile people visit, like Vice President Mike Pence,” the Times contended.
Impeachment proceedings began after the media reported a “whistleblower” raised serious concerns over a phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. The whistleblower claimed Trump demanded a quid pro quo from Zelensky in exchange for U.S. aid. Pelosi announced they would start an impeachment inquiry soon after news of the whistleblower’s complaint broke. A day later, the White House released the transcript of the phone call, which showed no such quid pro quo.
Democrats then started claiming Trump bribed Zelensky into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden, who is running for president, and his son, Hunter for their Ukraine dealings while the elder Biden was part of the Obama administration. Bribery, however, was not included in the articles of impeachment that Pelosi sent to the senate nearly a month after the House of Representatives voted on the allegedly urgent threat to our nation.

Trump

Senate To Limit Press Coverage Of Impeachment Trial That Almost No One Was Going To Watch Anyway

Media

On the heels of the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) trolled leading pro-impeachment Democrat Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
&#8220;An anonymous &#8216;whistleblower&#8217; informs us that this was found in a hotel room that [Rep. Adam Schiff] recently check out of. Hmmm&#8230;,&#8221; Senator Paul captioned a mock photo of a note.
&#8220;Things to do,&#8221; the fake note reads, &#8220;Remember to tap Devin Nunes phone.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
An anonymous “whistleblower” informs us that this was found in a hotel room that <a href="https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepAdamSchiff</a> recently check out of. Hmmm&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/hk3ni4G7ms">pic.twitter.com/hk3ni4G7ms</a>
&mdash; Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) <a href="https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/1217831149671723010?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In early December, the House Intelligence Committee &#8220;released a report on the impeachment inquiry which included records of calls from Nunes, presidential lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, journalist John Solomon, Fox News host Sean Hannity, a Giuliani connection Lev Parnas, and other <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/politics/executive/white-house" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Whit</a>e<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/politics/executive/white-house" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> House</a> associates,&#8221; <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/devin-nunes-adam-schiff-phone-record-impeachment-subpoena">Fox News</a> reported at the time. &#8220;Schiff subpoenaed both AT&amp;T and Verizon for the information. The act has sent a chill among Republicans concerned about the chairman&#8217;s reach.&#8221;
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) smacked Schiff over the power grab and apparent civil rights violation during a Fox News appearance following the news.
&#8220;They have now set a precedent where Adam Schiff can go get any phone number he has to AT&amp;T and AT&amp;T is going to comply,&#8221; the congressman explained, according to Fox.
&#8220;If you look at what he did then, it&#8217;s not just the president&#8217;s phone records — okay — or the president&#8217;s lawyer&#8217;s phone records, he also was able to get a journalist who they hate &#8230; who they say is a conspiracy theorist,&#8221; continued Nunes. &#8220;And, he was able to figure out that that was John Solomon&#8217;s phone number.&#8221;
&#8220;Then, he was able to get my number, right? And, because I had talked to Rudy Giuliani and somehow that&#8217;s now a crime, and then I make it into his report,&#8221; the Republican said.
&#8220;And, we have to remember &#8230; we spent the last three years, at first if any Republican ever talked to any Russian at any time — even if you are Russian-American — that was a no-no. Then we were criticized,&#8221; Nunes emphasized. &#8220;We switched to Ukraine. If you talk to any Ukrainian that&#8217;s now a crime. Now, I can&#8217;t even talk to Rudy Giuliani who I have known for 10 years. That&#8217;s supposedly a crime.&#8221;
Spokesman for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee Patrick Boland told <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/adam-schiff-no-we-didnt-subpoena-john-solomons-phone-records">The Daily Beast</a> that investigators “did not subpoena call records for any member of Congress or their staff &#8230; or for any journalist.&#8221;
“Any questions about the fact that Members, congressional staff, or journalists appear in call records released by the Committee should be directed at those individuals, who were in contact with individuals of investigative interest to the impeachment inquiry,” Boland said.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi named Schiff as one of the seven individuals to serve as House managers during the Senate impeachment trial.
&#8220;I&#8217;m humbled by the solemn responsibility of serving as lead House Manager in the Senate impeachment trial,&#8221; Schiff posted Wednesday. &#8220;Together, the Managers will work on behalf of the American people in defense of our Constitution. The House upheld our Constitutional duty. The Senate must do the same.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I&#39;m humbled by the solemn responsibility of serving as lead House Manager in the Senate impeachment trial.
Together, the Managers will work on behalf of the American people in defense of our Constitution.
The House upheld our Constitutional duty. The Senate must do the same.
&mdash; Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/1217476087292289027?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Rand Paul, Adam Schiff

Rand Paul Trolls Adam Schiff: ‘Whistleblower Informs Us That This Was Found In’ Your ‘Hotel Room’

Rand Paul

whistleblower

George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley, who served last month as one of three House Judiciary Committee <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-todays-judiciary-committee-impeachment-hearing-is-yet-another-waste-of-time">legal academic witnesses</a> on the topic of the U.S. Constitution&#8217;s specified criteria for impeachment, has been very outspoken since his testimony. Shortly after testifying, Turley took to the Los Angeles Times to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-12-09/opinion-trump-impeachment-hearings-democrats">pen an over-arching message</a> to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Democrats: You have rushed this process and have not sufficiently convinced the American public. &#8220;The problem is that this is the thinnest record of any modern impeachment as well as arguably the shortest impeachment investigation in history,&#8221; he wrote in the Times.
Later last month, as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/liberal-law-prof-turley-not-a-sin-to-testify-for-republicans">reported</a>, Turley — who, despite being House Republicans&#8217; lone witness at the aforementioned House Judiciary Committee hearing last month, is hardly a Republican partisan and is best described as an old-school liberal civil libertarian — took to The Hill to defend his decision to testify as a Republican-called witness. “Journalist Henry Louis Mencken once observed, ‘Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them,&#8217;” Turley <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/476088-testifying-for-republicans-should-not-be-a-sin-for-academics">wrote</a>. “Despite unending respect for Mencken, this is an occasion in which I found him mistaken, after I violated the Eleventh Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not testify for Republicans.&#8217;”
Now, as Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/jonathan-turley-pelosi-blunder-impeachment">reports</a>, Turley has written a blog post that is simply scathing of Pelosi&#8217;s decision to delay the formal transmission of impeachment articles from the House of Representatives to the Senate in a (failed) attempt to extract procedural concessions from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as to the conduct of a prospective impeachment trial.
&#8220;From the outset, the ploy of Pelosi withholding the House impeachment articles was as implausible as it was hypocritical,&#8221; Turley <a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2020/01/14/pelosis-blunder-how-the-house-destroyed-its-own-case-for-impeachment/">wrote</a> yesterday in a column entitled, &#8220;Pelosi&#8217;s Blunder: How the House Destroyed its Own Case for Impeachment.&#8221;
&#8220;There was no reason why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would make concessions to get an impeachment that he loathed,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;More importantly, just a couple of days earlier, House leaders insisted that some of us were wrong to encourage them to wait on an impeachment vote to create a more complete record. Pelosi previously insisted that House committees could not pursue direct witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton because there was no time to delay in getting this impeachment to the Senate. She then waited a month and counting to send the articles over to the Senate.&#8221;
&#8220;The fact is that Pelosi played into the hands of McConnell by first rushing this impeachment forward with an incomplete record and now giving him the excuse to summarily change the rules, or even to dismiss the articles,&#8221; Turley later added.
At the time that Pelosi announced her withholding of the formal transmission of impeachment articles, I pointed out Democrats&#8217; hypocrisy in a <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/19/pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold/">New York Post op-ed</a>:
<blockquote>
Thorny legal issues aside, ­Pelosi’s gambit lays bare the brazen hypocrisy of the sanctimonious “norm”-worshippers. Most of Trump’s purportedly grievous sins pale in comparison to the destructive and ­destabilizing nature of Pelosi’s transmission delay — not to mention the unfair and underhanded nature of the proceedings in her own chamber.
The president may not have an explicit constitutional right to a Senate trial. But if Democrats really cared about rule of law and good order, they would have allowed the Framers’ process to unfold as it was supposed to do. Their delay tactics merely expose the frivolity of their Trump-induced mass hysteria.
</blockquote>

Jonathan Turley testifying at House Judiciary Committee

Law Prof Turley: Pelosi ‘Destroyed’ Democrats’ Case For Impeachment

Nancy Pelosi

Last night, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, a constitutional attorney by training, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRvUG6NTn78&amp;feature=youtu.be">joined</a> “Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler” on One America News Network to discuss the latest twists and turns in Democrats&#8217; ongoing partisan impeachment saga, as well as to recap the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-obstruction-of-congress-is-an-utterly-ridiculous-impeachment-charge">deeply flawed nature</a> of House Democrats&#8217; two finalized articles of impeachment.
&#8220;House Democrats emerged from a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning to finally announce the much-delayed vote on sending their articles of impeachment against President Trump — passed nearly a month ago without a single Republican vote — to the Senate,&#8221; The Daily Wire&#8217;s James Barrett <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/defeated-democrats-announce-vote-on-sending-impeachment-articles-but-not-wholl-be-running-the-show">reported</a> earlier today. &#8220;The big vote will take place Wednesday, though one particularly important detail has yet to be determined: who exactly from the House is going to be presenting the Democrats’ case against the duly elected president during the Senate trial,&#8221; Barrett continued.
In a <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/13/obstruction-of-congress-is-an-utterly-ridiculous-impeachment-charge/">New York Post op-ed</a> last month, Hammer explained why House Democrats&#8217; second article of impeachment, &#8220;obstruction of Congress,&#8221; is &#8220;an utterly ridiculous impeachment charge&#8221;:
<blockquote>
Our tripartite separation-of-powers edifice was hardly devised for the purpose of ensuring amiability between the legislative, executive and judicial branches. On the contrary, the Framers envisioned a national government in which the three branches existed in a state of continuous, unyielding tension with one another.
In particular, the two political branches — Congress and the executive branch — were meant to be jealous guardians of their own ambits and spheres of influence. Ceaseless tussling between them was to be the norm. “Ambition,” James Madison told us in Federalist 51, “must be made to counteract ambition.” &#8230;
That is how our separation of powers is supposed to function — in a state far closer to animosity than to geniality. Which is precisely why House Democrats alleging “obstruction of Congress” as an article of impeachment makes no sense.
</blockquote>
Wheeler began the segment last night by asking about that deeply problematic second article of impeachment. Wheeler noted that the Democrats accused the president of &#8220;obstructi[ng]&#8221; Congress without even waiting for the judiciary to weigh in with respect to congressional subpoenas issued for Trump administration officials. Hammer agreed and also reiterated, in similar fashion to the Post op-ed, that the article of impeachment is also non-sensical from the broader perspective of structural constitutionalism:
<blockquote>[T]his impeachment charge is so risible. &#8230; The entire separation of powers construct is built around tension. The three branches of government — the legislative branch, the executive branch, the judicial branch — are not &#8230; intended to exist in some state of harmony. &#8230; No, that&#8217;s not what the Framers envisioned.
James Madison, in The Federalist No. 51, maybe the most famous Federalist Paper of them all, clearly says &#8220;ambition must be made to counteract ambition.&#8221; They&#8217;re supposed to be zealous guardians of their own idiosyncratic spheres of influence. They&#8217;re supposed to butt heads. They&#8217;re supposed to use all the various tools at their disposal to push back and try to encroach upon each other&#8217;s spheres. They&#8217;re [each] supposed to want to be the most dominant branch. Each one is supposed to not get along with the others. &#8230;</blockquote>
Wheeler agreed, noting that the second impeachment charge is therefore &#8220;both practically and philosophically ridiculous.&#8221;
WATCH:
<iframe title="Impeachment Proceedings to Begin in the Senate" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yRvUG6NTn78?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hammer OANN screen grab 1.13.20

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: A Senate Impeachment Trial Looms

Mitch McConnell

The overall state of play in the Democrats’ partisan impeachment imbroglio has not changed a whole lot over the past week. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are still working in tandem to seek to extract procedural concessions from Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) before Pelosi formally transmits impeachment articles over to Congress’s upper chamber for a prospective impeachment trial.
But as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mcconnell-rejects-pelosis-attempt-to-dictate-rules-of-senate-impeachment-trial">reported</a> last Friday, McConnell took to the Senate floor to reject Pelosi’s bid to dictate any rules. “[J]ust before the holidays, this sad spectacle took another unusual turn: As soon as the partisan impeachment votes had finished, the prosecutors began to develop cold feet,” McConnell said, shortly after he excoriated Democrats’ gambit as “short-term partisan rage. Alas, Pelosi hit back earlier this week, as also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pelosi-spurns-mcconnell-no-articles-until-mcconnell-publishes-senate-impeachment-trial-details">reported</a> by The Daily Wire. “Tuesday night, Pelosi released a note, sent to McConnell, demanding that McConnell give House Dems an outline of the Senate trial and ‘immediately’ publish a resolution detailing the Senate trial rules, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/politics/nancy-pelosi-mitch-mcconnell-impeachment-latest/index.html">according to CNN</a>,” Daily Wire Senior Editor Emily Zanotti noted.
Pelosi’s adamance here is, in a nutshell, bizarre. As has been incandescently obvious since the outset of this <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/19/pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold/">silly exercise in self-beclowning</a>, McConnell and Senate Republicans have no incentive whatsoever to substantively negotiate with House Democrats and concede anything to them. Senate Republicans, in short, would be just fine to see the House Democratic “prosecution” indeed get “cold feet” — to borrow McConnell’s verbiage. In that scenario, the president would be acquitted by procedural default, Republicans could credibly appeal to swing voters turned off by the time-wasting and utterly destructive nature of the Democrats’ folly, and Democrats could still tell their base that they (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/us/trump-feldman-impeach.html">kind of/sort of</a>) impeached the president.
One new twist in the impeachment drama is the resolution recently introduced by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-senator-josh-hawley-most-important-freshman-josh-hammer">ascendant</a> freshman Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) wherein the Senate would formally drop impeachment articles after 25 days of failure to formally transmit due to the House’s lack of “prosecution,” as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senator-josh-hawley-introducing-measure-to-dismiss-democrats-articles-of-impeachment">reported</a> last week. As a constitutional attorney by training, <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/19/pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold/">I do think</a> the Senate clearly has the legal authority to unilaterally change its own internal rules and proceed along Hawley’s proposed path. Ditto Texas Public Policy Foundation General Counsel Rob Henneke, who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/henneke-josh-hawley-is-right-to-tell-nancy-pelosi-to-fish-or-cut-bait-on-impeachment">wrote this week</a> at The Daily Wire that “Sen. Hawley’s proposal is by no means revolutionary. … This idea of dismissal for want of prosecution, or ‘DWOP,’ is commonplace in both civil and criminal litigation.”
As far as impeachment polling is concerned, <a href="https://email.dailywire.com/e2t/c/*W961dZ78ss0n9W3MHLkg3_dLp20/*W81xXsB7_r95nW2VqHlG5YMh740/5/f18dQhb0S64C2dYTs8LC6h0MtYQsN6MZMtxj8SDGW3_d4Sh6GmRQdN2LGfK7BY2-lN6HgrnQT7ZPFVBCQ6L23yjHyV8bRZz19M9jdW8wzwBj555Pd0W5411QW8jT5bqW4x_rks8JBjh-W92jW6c4mB4DLW2TJLc347znF9W3-DFjr1j6CxjMq4TH1QXGfLW3Z67wb833v6hN1xP3vwNxvl5V4_dy35Pmr07N5CTZ1VfbNk9Ml1YchJYFQ6W7NRNbR8ZCD21W4LBKjx2CrCHCW3xZVyH3HDbHWW124WPF8CjYLmW81LxjT2ZCd5pW7CY2sT9k85xTN1Db_rkp14zNW816bHW51x6BMW3ZFWpV1qhs8zW4Qhlqw6zBp3TW2RXhzn432yWkW3YM4b023y9RWW4VQMKT7mXxpVW1gzBr58dVNX7W5t6qk68n_kftW16_ZDs7g3j2SW2vwsdd4kHn1pW3zMPlr5tdfP5W2Z-YLL7rR904W1FdxDh6SQ30-W7BKmFM8vRVVmW6Dd5m27BycrMW8cWs6g6XFfJSW66Hm-Q6X_k6gW8RqlSv4mMCGQW9jJ93B3ng3fFVjQfxn1sQRJpV2VJrH73W79g103">FiveThirtyEight</a> — which Impeachment Wire has consistently cited — still shows a slim majority in support of impeachment. The <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/public_approval_of_the_impeachment_and_removal_of_president_trump-6957.html">RealClearPolitics average</a> shows opposition to impeachment polling slightly higher than support for it, and I only expect to continue.
Moving ahead, the only relevant question is how long Pelosi and Schumer continue to delay an impeachment trial. At this point, considering Pelosi’s latest riposte to McConnell, it does not seem at all obvious that there will ever be a Senate trial. And it is extraordinarily difficult to see how that could possibly help Democrats, come November.
&nbsp;
This piece will be frequently updated.
RELATED: <a href="http://lp.dailywire.com/getelectionwire/">Sign up here for Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer&#8217;s weekly newsletter on election news, polling data, and analysis: &#8220;Election Wire.&#8221;</a>

House Democrats Hold Meeting To Discuss Impeachment Inquiry

Impeachment Wire: The Latest On The Effort To Impeach President Trump

Fissures have erupted between the House and Senate Democrats, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) continues to delay sending articles of impeachment to the upper chamber of Congress in an effort to force Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) into revealing the trial details, such as witnesses called and topics discussed.
According to Laura Litvan of Bloomberg News, none other than Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has called upon Nancy Pelosi to send over the articles, arguing that delay will do no good.
&#8220;If we&#8217;re going to do it, she should send them over,&#8221; Feinstein said, as reported by Litvan. &#8220;I don&#8217;t see what good delay does.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Dianne Feinstein says it’s time for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to send the impeachment articles to the Senate.
“If we’re going to do it, she should send them over,” the California Democrat said. “I don’t see what good delay does.”
&mdash; Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) <a href="https://twitter.com/LauraLitvan/status/1214954518900854788?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) also said, “Now that we have John Bolton saying he wants to testify, she’s accomplished something.”
Working in tandem with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Pelosi has been withholding two articles of impeachment from proceeding to a Senate trial in an effort to negotiate more favorable terms with McConnell.
“It is important that he immediately publish this resolution, so that, as I have said before, we can see the arena in which we will be participating, appoint managers and transmit the articles to the Senate,” Pelosi wrote in a note on Wednesday.
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-impeachment-live-updates/2020/01/07/e0f49d52-313b-11ea-91fd-82d4e04a3fac_story.html">The Washington Post</a> also reported that Pelosi &#8220;told Democrats in a closed-door meeting Tuesday that she will not send articles of impeachment to the Senate until she learns more about how the chamber would conduct a potential trial, according to three people present for her remarks who were not authorized to comment publicly.”
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-mcconnell-has-the-votes-to-block-witnesses-in-senate-impeachment-trial">reported</a> by The Daily Wire&#8217;s Emily Zanotti, Mitch McConnell announced on Tuesday that he has whipped up the votes to call whatever witnesses he likes, effectively blocking any witnesses the Democrats might wish.
<blockquote>The Democrats’ effort to forestall the Senate half of the impeachment process may have backfired, according to reports from outlets in Washington, D.C. With the extra time, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has reportedly whipped enough votes to block Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) bid to force witness testimony in the Senate impeachment trial.
<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/477045-mcconnell-has-the-votes-to-block-democrats-witness-demands-in-trump">The Hill reports Tuesday</a> that McConnell is confident that he has at least 51 votes — a simple majority — against allowing witnesses to give testimony in front of the Senate, blocking a Democratic effort to plug holes in their case for impeaching President Donald Trump, something Democrats in the House had been pushing for with the help of Senate Democratic leadership.
It seems the House Democrats’ decision to withhold the articles of impeachment from the Senate until McConnell agreed to a trial that involves witnesses worked against them, giving McConnell time to convince even moderate Republicans that a Senate trial should operate according to the rules crafted by Schumer and others back in 1998, when then-President Bill Clinton was on trial.</blockquote>
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Nancy Pelosi <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-08/pelosi-still-holding-on-to-trump-charges-impeachment-update?srnd=politics-vp&amp;sref=tmIR2vcd">said</a> the House will continue to wait and see what the terms are in order to &#8220;see the arena&#8221; in which they will be competing.
“We are waiting to see what the terms are,” Pelosi said. “How we choose our managers depends on what the arena is that we are going into. We can’t do it until we see the arena they’re going into.&#8221;
Speaking on the Senate floor, Mitch McConnell blasted House Democrats for “dragging their heels and refusing to proceed to a Senate trial.&#8221;
“There will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedures,” McConnell said. “We will not cede our authority. The Senate is not a creature of the House.”

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz Testifies Before Senate Judiciary Committee

Sen. Dianne Feinstein Tells Pelosi To Send Over Impeachment Articles: ‘I Don’t See What Good Delay Does’

Dianne Feinstein

For House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), it’s time to fish or cut bait.
Most Missouri voters are familiar with this colloquial expression; it means either take action or step back —and do something useful instead. That’s the position Pelosi finds herself in, now that Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senator-josh-hawley-introducing-measure-to-dismiss-democrats-articles-of-impeachment">introduced a resolution</a> that would allow the Senate to dismiss the articles of impeachment if the House continues to refuse to formally transmit them to the Senate.
The Republican senator’s message is as sensible as it is salient — the Constitution does not abide your half measures, and neither will we.
Sen. Hawley’s proposal is by no means revolutionary. According to his resolution, if the House has failed to send the articles to the Senate after 25 days, a senator could offer a motion to dismiss “with prejudice for failure by the House of Representatives to prosecute such articles” with a simple majority vote. This idea of dismissal for want of prosecution, or &#8220;DWOP,&#8221; is commonplace in both civil and criminal litigation.
To date, House Democrats’ rationalizations for holding impeachment in a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold">perpetual state of suspension</a> are marked by rampant hypocrisy and duplicity. A month ago, when the House announced that it would move forward with an impeachment vote, Pelosi claimed there was urgency to do so because “civilization as we know it &#8230; is at stake in the next election.” But once the House, with bipartisan opposition, did vote to impeach, House Democrats acted immediately and urgently — to go home for the holidays.
The Constitution clearly establishes each chamber’s role in the impeachment process. While Article I, Section 2 gives the House the power to impeach, Section 3 unequivocally provides the Senate with “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” This was, by no means, an inconsequential part of the Framers’ constitutional design.
As Alexander Hamilton explained in <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed66.asp">The Federalist No. 66</a>, dividing impeachment “between the two branches of the legislature, assigning to one the right of accusing, to the other the right of judging, avoids the inconvenience of making the same persons both accusers and judges.” It is the Senate’s sole prerogative to resolve the impeachment process.
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/josh-hawley-dismiss-impeachment-senate-pelosi" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.foxnews.com/media/josh-hawley-dismiss-impeachment-senate-pelosi&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578499082587000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFAtj6CNmkObeLQd_BuqSksdA1JMQ">As Hawley himself has pointed out</a>, perpetual stalemate in the impeachment process could easily result in some sort of October surprise (a last-ditch attempt to sway the November election) or, worse still, an attack on the president’s second term following re-election. If House Democrats truly respected the will of the people, they would act now on impeachment rather than using it to influence or undermine this year’s election. If the House won’t decide whether to cast or cut the line, then Hawley, joined by 10 original co-sponsors, signaled that the Senate will.
Congress already has a long list of unfinished business from 2019 and other urgent matters at hand in 2020 that are vital to the continued safety and prosperity of our country. Iran continues to make threats and escalate tensions. The border remains unsecured. Obamacare is failing, with no legislative fix in sight. And our government’s reckless spending continues to pilfer from future generations.
If House Democrats still think that all these things should be placed on the back burner in order to impeach this president, they should get on with it. And if not, they should move on. But either way, Hawley is right — delaying the process while distracting from the important work that needs to be done on behalf of the American people should no longer be an option.
&nbsp;
The Honorable Robert &#8220;Rob&#8221; Henneke is the general counsel and director of the Center for the American Future at the <a href="https://www.texaspolicy.com">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a>.

Josh Hawley

HENNEKE: Josh Hawley Is Right To Tell Nancy Pelosi To &#8216;Fish Or Cut Bait&#8217; On Impeachment

Senator Ted Cruz wants Democrats to publicly declare their feelings on the Trump Administration&#8217;s mission to kill Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, and his office reports that they have constructed and are circulating a Senate resolution praising the attack.
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ted-cruz-senate-resolution-praising-soleimani-mission">According to Fox News</a>, Cruz wants Senate Democrats &#8212; including a handful of contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination &#8212; to go on the record on where they stand regarding Soleimani, particularly given that many have expressed concerns and reservations in the wake of the drone strike that left Solemani and a handful of Iranian and Iraqi military officials dead.
Per the senator&#8217;s aides who spoke to Fox News on Friday, Cruz&#8217;s resolution is &#8220;structured and worded the same way as a 2011 resolution commending the Obama Administration&#8221; for locating and eliminating terror mastermind and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The resolution, the outlet says, praises “the members of the military and intelligence community who carried out the mission that killed Qasem Soleimani.”
Cruz has been a staunch defender of the Administration&#8217;s decision to target Soleimani &#8212; a decision that President Donald Trump said came about because the intelligence community reported that Soleimani, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of members of the United States military in several Middle East conflicts, was planning &#8220;imminent and sinister attacks&#8221; against American interests inside Iraq. The head of Iran&#8217;s Qud&#8217;s Force, the president added, was looking to destabilize Iraq.
“Soleimani made the death of innocent people his sick passion,” Trump said Friday. &#8220;[W]hat the U.S. did yesterday should have been done long ago.&#8221;
Democrats have, to no one&#8217;s surprise, been critical of Trump&#8217;s decision, sounding the alarm of &#8220;World War III&#8221; and accusing the Administration of failing to have a long-term plan following the strike or considering the consequences of eliminating a major player in Middle East conflict.
Several Democrats, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), have accused Trump of &#8220;assassinating&#8221; a &#8220;government official&#8221; in violation of international conventions and have vowed to exercise control over Trump&#8217;s mission and any further military actions. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, has pledged to introduce a Senate resolution of his own, cutting the Trump Administration off from pursuing any further action against Iran until a new &#8220;use of force&#8221; authorization can be drafted and approved by Congress (something rather unlikely given the partisanship in Congress and particularly in the Democrat-controlled House).
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) are reportedly drafting their own competing resolution to Cruz&#8217;s, also condemning the Trump Administration&#8217;s decision to engage in a &#8220;war&#8221; with Iran.
&#8220;The Senate must not let this President march into another war in the Middle East without debate and authorization from Congress,&#8221; Durbin tweeted on Saturday. &#8220;Yesterday I joined <a class="PrettyLink profile customisable h-card" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/timkaine" data-mentioned-user-id="172858784" data-scribe="element:mention">@timkaine</a> to introduce a resolution preventing Pres. Trump from starting a war with Iran all on his own.&#8221;
Kaine added that Congress should &#8220;stop President Trump from entangling America in yet another unnecessary war in the Middle East.”
So far, a more intense conflict has not materialized, and experts are quick to point out that there is much room between a few strategic attacks and an all-out global war, headlined by a conflict between the United States and Iran. Iran has, reportedly, continued a string of air attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq &#8212; missile strikes have been ongoing in that region for some months.

Ted Cruz Dares Democrats, Offers Senate Resolution Praising Soleimani Mission

Dick Durbin

Iran

Qasem Soleimani

Qassem Soleimani

Tim Kaine

Saturday night’s bloody machete attack in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/29/us/new-york-stabbing-rabbi-home/index.html">Monsey, New York</a> against a rabbi and his congregants celebrating Chanukah shocked in ways beyond its sheer brutality. This anti-Semitic assault by a man influenced by the “Black Hebrew Israelite” movement comes amidst a spate of crimes against Jews, with the New York Police Department now investigating <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anti-semitic-attacks-new-york-city-hanukkah_n_5e06227ac5b6b5a713ada7f9">six hate crimes</a> that occurred during the holiday.
Certainly, churches, synagogues, and mosques are under siege in America, from <a href="https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2018/11/10/Robert-Bowers-extremism-Tree-of-Life-massacre-shooting-pittsburgh-Gab-Warroom/stories/201811080165">Pittsburgh</a> to <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mikehayes/jury-sentences-dylann-roof-to-death">Charleston</a>, and from <a href="https://jewishjournal.com/news/los_angeles/220410/synagogues-carry-face-bomb-threats/">Los Angeles</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/us/minnesota-mosque-bombing-suspects.html">Minnesota</a>. However, under the pretense of protecting places of worship and faith-based nonprofits, Congress stands poised to spend millions of taxpayer dollars effectively providing pro-jihadist Islamist groups — with documented ties to overseas terrorist organizations — with their own private armed militias.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and co-sponsor Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) have put forth a new bill, the <a href="https://www.portman.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/portman-peters-introduce-legislation-increase-security-resources-faith">Protecting Faith-Based and Nonprofit Organizations From Terrorism Act</a>, which provides <a href="https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2019/09/as-hate-attacks-on-houses-of-worship-mount-congress-needs-to-do-more-to-help-with-security-rob-portman.html">$75 million annually</a> over the next five years for security to religious groups.
Lawmakers need to address two notable problems as they consider this security bill.
First, <a href="https://www.portman.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/Protecting%20Faith-Based%20and%20Nonprofit%20Organizations%20from%20Terrorism%20Act.pdf">the proposal</a> provides funding to 501(c)(3) nonprofits. <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2005/05/the-muslim-brotherhoods-american-goals">Muslim Brotherhood</a>-linked Islamist groups such as the <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/3437/cair-islamists-fooling-the-establishment">Council on American-Islamic Relations</a>, the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/swindle-california-islamist-activists-protest-david-m-swindle">Muslim American Society</a>, and the <a href="https://www.investigativeproject.org/732/isna-admits-hamas-ties">Islamic Society of North America</a> would therefore be eligible for funding under the plan, providing security dollars to advocacy organizations that share a common Islamist ideological heritage. Another network of Muslim nonprofits, including the <a href="https://www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/57929/catalogue-of-icna-links-to-jamaat-e-islami">Islamic Circle of North America</a> and the <a href="https://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/84.pdf">Muslim Students Association</a>, would also benefit from the bill despite being tied to <a href="https://www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/59929/jamaat-e-islami-a-threat-at-home-and-abroad">Jamaat-e-Islami</a>, a violent South Asian Islamist movement.
Assuredly, Islamists are not the only extremists exploiting 501(c)(3) laws; <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-supremacist-groups-tax-break-educational-2017-8">white nationalists also have a long history</a> of doing the same thing.
Second, the bill fails to adequately limit how grant monies can be spent. It identifies three general types of uses for the funds: “Target hardening,” “security training,” and “any other appropriate activity.” But what is to prevent religious centers and nonprofits from hiring or training armed guards to enforce religious law?
Some Muslim American communities have previously recruited security guards to serve as enforcers of Islamic law. These vigilante patrols have often been less concerned with local security than they are with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/09/02/a-breach-in-guards-invincibility/d0f9c4cc-4562-482f-9aac-fb9be699d003/">converting</a> their neighbors, enforcing standards of dress, and prohibiting drug and alcohol use.
Sunni Muslim secu͏r͏i͏ty patrols can be traced back to January 1988, when New York City imam <a href="https://www.meforum.org/6576/svcf-hate-speakers-siraj-wahhaj">Siraj Wahhaj</a> — listed as a potential <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/02/blind-sheikh-dies-terrorist-evangelist/">un-indicted co-conspirator</a> in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings — announced his <a href="https://clarionproject.org/clarion-special-report-nys-sharia-patrol/">“40 Days and 40 Nights”</a> campaign to expel crack cocaine dealers from Brooklyn. Armed with guns and nightsticks, Wahhaj’s team of nearly 50 men drew recruits from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/23/nyregion/muslims-start-patrol-to-fight-crack-in-brooklyn.html">homeless shelters</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/16/nyregion/security-guards-vigilantes-special-report-brooklyn-private-police-violent-their.html?mtrref=www.google.com&amp;assetType=REGIWALL&amp;fbclid=IwAR2bJlupgVwbKMXoKgDHADEtNRa5_ZILHylCaZfAnK_IFpa26DzMmfvUEqA">prison converts.</a>
From this “40 Days” event arose a more formalized, permanent, and licensed group of paramilitary guards and enforcers, known as SSI Patrol Services. In 1991, a New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/16/nyregion/security-guards-vigilantes-special-report-brooklyn-private-police-violent-their.html?mtrref=www.google.com&amp;assetType=REGIWALL&amp;fbclid=IwAR2bJlupgVwbKMXoKgDHADEtNRa5_ZILHylCaZfAnK_IFpa26DzMmfvUEqA">headline</a> described SSI as “private police as violent as their enemy” and questioned whether the firm employed “Security Guards or Vigilantes?”
The imam’s foot soldiers had no concept of proportionality: “If they spill one pin drop of our blood, we spill gallons of theirs,” one member promised. And indeed, they <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/16/nyregion/security-guards-vigilantes-special-report-brooklyn-private-police-violent-their.html?mtrref=www.google.com&amp;assetType=REGIWALL&amp;fbclid=IwAR2bJlupgVwbKMXoKgDHADEtNRa5_ZILHylCaZfAnK_IFpa26DzMmfvUEqA">followed through with this threat</a>: One guard received a second degree murder charge, a second was held in a case involving the shooting of a disabled man, and a third faced a lawsuit for a brutal beating.
SSI was not the only Muslim paramilitary group with a questionable record. In 1996, The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/09/02/a-breach-in-guards-invincibility/d0f9c4cc-4562-482f-9aac-fb9be699d003/">exposed</a> how the Nation of Islam’s (NOI) “Fruit of Islam” wing inspired the creation of multiple private security corporations that received “an estimated $20 million in public contracts in 10 cities.” Residents of areas patrolled by NOI security groups claimed “that guards paid with public money were proselytizing for Farrakhan, pestering residents to stop eating pork, go to the mosque or buy subscriptions to the Final Call, the Nation&#8217;s newspaper.”
<a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/03/11/black-muslim-security-firm-makes-false-claims-in-bid-to-secure-port-of-oakland-contract/">BMT International Security Services</a> is another black Muslim security group accused of defrauding the government and lying about its credentials to secure a $450,000 contract patrolling parks at the Port of Oakland. Such behavior was in keeping with the group’s background since “prosecutors have called it a cult that ran a wide-ranging criminal enterprise, committing crimes from real estate and mortgage fraud to murder.”
More recently, last year Wahhaj <a href="https://spectator.org/brooklyns-islamist-vigilantes/">revived his Islamist security group</a> under a new name: The <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/12/24/new-york-muslims-have-a-new-security-patrol-group/">Muslim Community Patrol (MCP)</a>. Just weeks after its founding, MCP members initiated a <a href="https://christianaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/The-Secret-Agenda-of-New-York-Citys-Muslim-Patrol-Cars.pdf">conflict</a> when they attempted to stop a group of African-American men from smoking marijuana near a mosque. According to “Abdul,” <a href="https://clarionproject.org/clarion-special-report-nys-sharia-patrol/">an informant who attended an MCP meeting</a>, Wahhaj said, “The mosques need protection and the MCP cars can help stop people who were not following the rules and regulations of the Sharia …”
“Everything is going to be Sharia,” Abdul explained. “That’s Wahhaj’s main thing. He’s working on a ‘one sheikh’ and ‘one government’ system that practices Sharia.”
Portman should  therefore consider one major revision for his bill: Funds must be allocated to increase the presence of trained local police — not dangerous and unprofessional faith-based patrols. The fungibility of funding to Islamist groups must also be considered; every taxpayer dollar dispensed to these groups frees up funding for other extremist activities.
If there’s one thing at which American Islamists are particularly adept, it is exploitation of the good intentions of others. And indeed, the intentions behind this bill are obviously well-meaning, but for such efforts to succeed, Congress must recognize the potential for abuse.
&nbsp;
David M. Swindle is a fellow for <a href="https://www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/">Islamist Watch</a> and the Southern California associate of the <a href="https://counterislamist.org/">Counter-Islamist Grid</a>. He also works as the Director of Research for <a href="https://theisraelgroup.org/">The Israel Group</a>. Follow him on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/daveswindle">@DaveSwindle</a>.

Capitol Hill

SWINDLE: Stop Taxpayer Money From Funding Islamist-Tied Security Agencies

CAIR

Congress

New York Police Department (NYPD)

Police

Radical Islam

Radical Islamic Terror

Rob Portman

Speaking on the U.S. Senate floor on Friday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) emphatically rejected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s (D-CA) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold">procedural gambit</a> to influence and dictate the rules of a prospective Senate impeachment trial.
&#8220;Their turn is over. They’ve done enough damage. It’s the Senate’s turn now to render sober judgment,&#8221; said McConnell, as <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/impeachment-impasse-deepens-as-mcconnell-rejects-pelosi-bid-to-shape-trial-their-turn-is-over">reported</a> by Fox News.
Earlier in the speech, McConnell lambasted House Democrats&#8217; &#8220;short-term partisan rage,&#8221; according to a full copy of the majority leader&#8217;s remarks obtained by The Daily Wire:
<blockquote>The Senate will soon have to address some of the deepest institutional questions contemplated by our Constitution. We’ll have to decide whether we are going to safeguard core governing traditions or let short-term partisan rage overcome them. &#8230;</blockquote>
McConnell continued, referring to Pelosi&#8217;s ultimate decision to delay formal transmission of the House&#8217;s articles of impeachment as the fruition a &#8220;sad spectacle.&#8221;
<blockquote>[U]ltimately House Democrats cared more about attacking President Trump than keeping their promises. So they rushed through a slapdash investigation. They decided not to bother with the standard legal processes for pursuing witnesses and evidence. &#8230;
[J]ust before the holidays, this sad spectacle took another unusual turn: As soon as the partisan impeachment votes had finished, the prosecutors began to develop cold feet. Instead of sending the articles to the Senate, they flinched.
That’s right: The same people who’d just spent weeks screaming that impeachment was so serious and so urgent that it could not even wait for due process now decided it could wait indefinitely while they checked the political winds and looked for new talking points.</blockquote>
McConnell concluded: &#8220;Their turn is over. They have done enough damage. It’s the Senate’s turn now — to render sober judgment as the framers envisioned. But we can’t hold a trial without the articles. The Senate’s own rules don’t provide for that. So, for now, we are content to continue the ordinary business of the Senate while House Democrats continue to flounder. For now.&#8221;
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) responded harshly, as also <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/impeachment-impasse-deepens-as-mcconnell-rejects-pelosi-bid-to-shape-trial-their-turn-is-over">reported</a> by Fox News: &#8220;Will we fulfill our duty to conduct a fair impeachment trial of the president of the United States or will we not?&#8221; asked the veteran New York politician. &#8220;That is most pressing question facing this Senate. The country just saw McConnell’s answer to that question. The answer is no.&#8221;
&#8220;Never, never in the history of our country has there been an impeachment trial in which the Senate was denied the ability to hear from witnesses, yet the Republican leader seems intent on violating that precedent and denying critical evidence to this body and to the American people,&#8221; Schumer eventually added.
As previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold">noted</a> by The Daily Wire, Pelosi has delayed the formal transmission of House Democrats&#8217; partisan articles of impeachment while she attempts to extract procedural concessions from McConnell and Senate Republicans as to how a prospective Senate impeachment trial is conducted. In a New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/19/pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold/">op-ed</a> last month, I defended the legality of Pelosi&#8217;s move while nonetheless castigating her:
<blockquote>Thorny legal issues aside, ­Pelosi’s gambit lays bare the brazen hypocrisy of the sanctimonious “norm”-worshippers. Most of Trump’s purportedly grievous sins pale in comparison to the destructive and ­destabilizing nature of Pelosi’s transmission delay — not to mention the unfair and underhanded nature of the proceedings in her own chamber.
The president may not have an explicit constitutional right to a Senate trial. But if Democrats really cared about rule of law and good order, they would have allowed the Framers’ process to unfold as it was supposed to do. Their delay tactics merely expose the frivolity of their Trump-induced mass hysteria.</blockquote>

McConnell Rejects Pelosi’s Attempt To Dictate Rules Of Senate Impeachment Trial

Last night, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, a constitutional attorney by training, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aPkR8lrtLU">joined</a> &#8220;Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler&#8221; on One America News Network to discuss the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-pelosi-considers-withholding-articles-of-impeachment-from-senate-heres-the-insane-reason-why">news</a> that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) intends to withhold the formal physical delivery of the House&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-multiple-democrats-vote-against-impeachment-only-democrats-vote-for-it">passed articles of impeachment</a> to the Senate unless and until she and House Democrats can be assured a &#8220;fair process.&#8221; The delay raises a myriad of complex legal issues, and there is also the distinct topic of the political fallout from such a stunt.
Hammer also has an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold">op-ed</a> in today&#8217;s <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/19/pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold/">New York Post</a> that breaks down the topic:
<blockquote>
Some prominent lawyers on the right, such as former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tom Dupree, have ­argued that it is outright unconstitutional for Pelosi to delay transmission. He has suggested that Trump has a constitutional right to see his impeachment proceed to a possible acquittal in the Senate.
I disagree. As a matter of constitutional construction, it is generally inappropriate to read duties and rights that aren’t there in the text. When the Constitutional text is silent, we have to turn to hierarchically lower bodies of law. Here, that means the internal rules governing the House and the Senate. &#8230;
The president may not have an explicit constitutional right to a Senate trial. But if Democrats really cared about rule of law and good order, they would have allowed the Framers’ process to unfold as it was supposed to do. Their delay tactics merely expose the frivolity of their Trump-induced mass hysteria.
</blockquote>
Hammer and Wheeler probed the legal and political issues at length on the &#8220;Tipping Point&#8221; television segment, with Hammer first discussing the legal intricacies and Wheeler then breaking down the politics.
Wheeler began by asking whether the Senate has to wait for the House&#8217;s physical delivery of impeachment articles to begin a trial. Hammer responded that, under the Senate&#8217;s own rules, it currently does have to wait:
<blockquote>&#8230; [W]hen we&#8217;re interpreting the Constitution, I think it&#8217;s inappropriate to read in implied rights and duties that are not there. So, the Constitution is pretty silent on this.
What that means [is] we then look to House and Senate internal rules. There is nothing in the House&#8217;s internal rules that mandates that the speaker of the House pass any kind of resolution or legislation and physically deliver that to the Senate. It&#8217;s totally up to the discretion of the speaker of the House. As far as the Senate is concerned, there&#8217;s a Tulane law professor — who&#8217;s apparently one of the country&#8217;s only &#8220;impeachment law&#8221; experts — who has digged up this Senate Rules provision that, according to the Senate&#8217;s own internal rules, they say that the trial does not start until the articles of impeachment have been physically delivered to the Senate.
So the Senate can always amend its own rules, but unless and until they do so, [Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell has his hands tied right now.</blockquote>
Later in the conversation, Wheeler expressed her opinion that Pelosi&#8217;s stunt will backfire, politically speaking: &#8220;I don&#8217;t know how this is going to help her. It shows that this is partisan, which we all know, but this shows that even to the people who were maybe on the fence. The Democrats who are on the fence, it shows that this is partisan. She&#8217;s essentially &#8230; trying to coerce Mitch McConnell into allowing [Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer and the Democrats to call witnesses that they want.&#8221;
WATCH:
<iframe title="Can Pelosi Delay the Senate Impeachment Trial?" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-aPkR8lrtLU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hammer OANN screen grab 12.19.19

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: Can Pelosi Delay The Senate Impeachment Trial?

New York Post

Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who is a constitutional attorney by training, has the following piece today at the <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/19/pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold/">New York Post</a>.
Ever since President Trump took office, liberals have ­bewailed his degradations, real and imagined, of various “norms.” Trump needs to stop tweeting, they say. He needs to start acting like a dignified leader of the Free World ought to act. He needs to cut out the gratuitous attacks on the media. And so forth.
Those same “norm”-exalting Democrats and Never-Trump Republicans are now awfully ­silent as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/nancy-pelosi-unsure-when-articles-of-impeachment-will-be-sent-to-senate/" data-reader-unique-id="3">makes a mockery of the impeachment process</a> and its centuries-old norms.
Democrats this week fulfilled the longing of their base by making Trump the third president in American history to have formal articles of impeachment against him <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/house-votes-along-party-lines-to-impeach-trump/" data-reader-unique-id="5">passed by the House</a>. They knew the process would ultimately go nowhere; a decisive acquittal in the Senate trial was clearly the foregone conclusion.
But then came a bizarre development. Pelosi told reporters after the vote that she intends to delay formal, physical delivery of the articles of impeachment to the Senate until Democrats can be assured a “fair process” in the upper chamber.
Such a delay would be historically ­unprecedented.
The law doesn’t require Pelosi to deliver the articles of ­impeachment to the Senate. But politically, her latest reckless stunt makes an already unserious partisan effort look even more patently unserious.
The Constitution is silent on how to resolve such an impasse between the House and the Senate. Article I, Section 2, Clause 5 says that the House “shall have the sole power of impeachment.” And Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 says that the Senate “shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.”
In constitutional law, the use of the word “sole,” in each provision, bars any actor other than the specified legislative body from establishing its own ­impeachment-related internal procedures.
But the Constitution makes no reference to the scenario now before us: The House <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/18/with-partisan-impeachment-dems-just-ignored-hamiltons-pelosis-warnings/" data-reader-unique-id="12">passing articles of impeachment</a> but ­refusing to transmit them to the Senate. Simply put, it is a situation that the Constitution’s Framers didn’t envision.
Some prominent lawyers on the right, such as former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tom Dupree, have ­argued that it is outright unconstitutional for Pelosi to delay transmission. He has suggested that Trump has a constitutional right to see his impeachment proceed to a possible acquittal in the Senate.
I disagree. As a matter of constitutional construction, it is generally inappropriate to read duties and rights that aren’t there in the text. When the Constitutional text is silent, we have to turn to hierarchically lower bodies of law. Here, that means the internal rules governing the House and the Senate.
There is nothing whatsoever in the House’s internal rules that requires the delivery of any particular resolution or bill to the Senate. As for the Senate, Tulane Law School Professor Ross Garber, an expert on the impeachment process, has observed that the Senate process gets triggered only after the formal delivery of the articles and the appointment of impeachment managers.
<a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/19/pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold/">Read the rest here.</a>

Hammer At The ‘New York Post’: Pelosi’s Newest Dirty Trick: Putting Trump’s Senate Trial On Hold

In a letter leaked to the press Sunday night, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spelled out the Democrats&#8217; demands for the all-but-inevitable impeachment trial in the Senate, including a list of new witnesses Democrats insist on interrogating. In response, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered a statement on the Senate floor Tuesday rejecting the Democrats&#8217; demands and reminding them about how the impeachment process works.
&#8220;We don’t create impeachments, Mr. President. We judge them,&#8221; said McConnell, in comments reported by <a href="https://www.axios.com/mitch-mcconnell-senate-impeachment-trial-chuck-schumer-5fe8ffed-0a9f-412b-b4a4-abc7cad04b48.html">Axios</a>. &#8220;The House chose this road. It is their duty to investigate. It&#8217;s their duty to meet the very high bar for undoing a national election.&#8221;
McConnell then used Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s own words against her. &#8220;As Speaker Pelosi herself once said, it is the House’s obligation to, quote, &#8216;build an ironclad case to act,'&#8221; said McConnell.
&#8220;If they fail, they fail,&#8221; he added. &#8220;It is not the Senate’s job to leap into the breach and search desperately for ways to get to guilty. That would hardly be impartial justice.&#8221;
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In the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chuck-schumer-issues-list-of-democrat-demands-for-senate-impeachment-trial-gets-wrecked">letter</a>, that was leaked to the press, Schumer demands that Democrats have the ability to subpoena witnesses, including key White House witness, among them acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security advisor John Bolton. The Democrats also insist on the ability to present evidence.
&#8220;In the trial of President Clinton, the House Managers were permitted to call witnesses, and it is clear that the Senate should hear testimony of witnesses in this trial as well,&#8221; Schumer wrote. &#8220;I propose, pursuant to our rules, that the Chief Justice on behalf of the Senate issue subpoenas for testimony by the following witnesses with direct knowledge of Administration decisions regarding the delay in security assistance funds to the government of Ukraine and the requests for certain investigations to be announced by the government of Ukraine: Robert Blair, Senior Advisor to the Acting White House Chief of Staff; Mick Mulvaney, Acting White House Chief of Staff; John Bolton, former National Security Advisor; and Michael Duffey, Associate Director for National Security, Office of Management and Budget.&#8221;
Schumer, apparently assuming the role of majority leader, told McConnell that the Democrats would also be &#8220;open&#8221; to hearing testimony from other witnesses, if need be. &#8220;We would of course be open to hearing the testimony of additional witnesses having direct knowledge of the administration’s decisions regarding the delay in security assistance funds to the government of Ukraine and the requests for certain investigations to be announced by the government of Ukraine, if the president’s counsel or House Managers identify such witnesses,&#8221; said Schumer.
</div>
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But, as his statement on the Senate floor Tuesday made clear, McConnell, isn&#8217;t going to let the minority party dictate terms, and he is certainly not going to do the House Democrats&#8217; job for them after the fact. The Democrats, McConnell and his fellow Republicans maintain, have &#8220;rushed&#8221; the investigative process and obstinately refused to pursue subpoenas through the court, resulting in the failure to hear from some witnesses the Senate Democrats now insist on interviewing.
As Axios notes, McConnell also ripped Schumer for sending a letter that was conveniently leaked to the press rather than simply meeting with him in person to discuss the process.
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chuck-schumer-issues-list-of-democrat-demands-for-senate-impeachment-trial-gets-wrecked">The Daily Wire</a> reported, Schumer was hit with strong backlash for his apparent reversal on the Senate calling witnesses. Ahead of the Clinton impeachment trial, Schumer opposed calling witnesses. &#8220;It seems to me that no good case has been made for witnesses,” Schumer said during a press conference. &#8220;I wonder if the House managers aren’t a little more interested in political theater than in actually getting to the bottom of the facts,&#8221; he insisted later.
In an attempt to defend his flip-flop, Schumer said during a press conference Monday that the Clinton impeachment trial was &#8220;a different case&#8221; and there were &#8220;obvious reasons why they did not want a witness like Monica Lewinsky testifying in public,&#8221; including that &#8220;children would be watching.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senate-gop-fires-back-at-schumer-over-impeachment-trial-may-call-hunter-biden-as-witness">Senate GOP Fires Back At Schumer Over Impeachment Trial, May Call Hunter Biden As Witness</a>
</div>

McConnell Trump

Democrats Demand More Witnesses In Senate; McConnell Responds With Brutal Reminder, Pelosi Quote

Attorneys representing House Democrats have told a federal court that House Democrats intend to continue impeachment investigations against President Donald Trump after they vote on impeachment this week, regardless of the eventual outcome of the Senate&#8217;s impeachment trial.
&#8220;In a filing to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, House General Counsel Douglas Letter argued that the House’s demands for grand jury materials connected to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were still urgent because such evidence might become relevant to the Senate’s expected impeachment trial next month,&#8221; Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/16/house-impeachment-mueller-086251">reported</a>. &#8220;But Letter went further to note that even apart from the Senate trial, the House Judiciary Committee intends to continue its impeachment investigation arising from the Mueller probe on its own merit.&#8221;
In the court filing, Democrats accused the Department of Justice (DOJ) of essentially engaging in a cover-up to protect Trump, claiming that the DOJ took an “extraordinary position in” the Democrats’ impeachment investigations by not “disclosing grand-jury material needed for the House’s impeachment of President Trump and the Senate’s trial to remove him from office.”
Democrats&#8217; insistence at continuing to investigate the findings of the Mueller probe comes after Attorney General William Barr <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/barr-no-collusion-investigation-completely-baseless-obama-talked-to-the-bad-guys-about-election-interference">said</a> last week in an NBC News interview that &#8220;there was and never has been any evidence of collusion.&#8221;
House Democrats have said in recent days that there is no limit to the number of times that they can impeach the president.
“A president can be impeached more than once,” Rep. Al Green (D-TX) said earlier this month. “So, we can do this, we can move forward with what we have on the table currently, we can take this before the Senate and we can still investigate other issues and when the president has committed additional offenses, and my suspicion is that he will, we can take those before the Senate.”
“There is no limit on the number of times the Senate can vote to convict or not a president, no limit to the number of times the House can vote to impeach or not a president,” Green continued. “So, my belief is that the speaker will probably say we’re going to move forward with what we have now, but we’re not going to end investigations and that there may be possible opportunities to do other things at a later time.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en">
Permanent Impeachment Party!
🚨 “Lawyers for the House told a federal court on Mon. that lawmakers will continue their impeach. investigation even after the House votes later this week”🚨
House vows to continue impeach. probes regardless of Sen. outcome <a href="https://t.co/jX18PnLyXQ">https://t.co/jX18PnLyXQ</a>
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonMillerinDC/status/1206671088714993664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
Neal Katyal, an acting solicitor general under former Democrat President Barack Obama, made remarks along the same lines earlier this month.
Katyal tweeted: “[Important] note on future: If the Senate doesn’t vote to convict Trump, or tries to monkey w his trial, he could of course be retried in the new Senate should he win re-election. Double jeopardy protections do not apply. And Senators voting on impeachment in the next months know this.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Impt note on future: If the Senate doesn’t vote to convict Trump, or tries to monkey w his trial, he could of course be retried in the new Senate should he win re-election. Double jeopardy protections do not apply. And Senators voting on impeachment in the next months know this.
&mdash; Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) <a href="https://twitter.com/neal_katyal/status/1202594066942353409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Democrat Rep. Jeff Van Drew (NJ) is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-democrat-congressman-leaves-party-over-impeachment-becomes-republican">leaving the party and becoming a Republican</a> over the issue of impeachment, which he has long been opposed to.
Van Drew <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-congressman-warns-his-party-be-careful-what-you-wish-for-on-impeachment-its-tearing-the-nation-apart">told</a> CNN earlier this month that Democrats should “be careful what [they] wish for” because impeachment “is tearing the nation apart.”

Schiff Nadler Pelosi

Democrats Vow To Continue Impeachment Investigations Regardless Of Senate Outcome

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), apparently under the impression that he controls the Senate and can dictate the parameters of President Donald Trump&#8217;s upcoming impeachment trial, issued a list of Democrat &#8220;demands&#8221; to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other leading Republicans, outlining witnesses, evidence, and testimony he would like presented, as well as proposed timeline for proceedings.
Schumer sent the three-page letter to McConnell late Sunday, ostensibly to maximize visibility and capture headlines Monday morning, and to coincide with an appearance on CNN.
In his remarks, Schumer called the impeachment trial a &#8220;bipartisan&#8221; effort and suggested that Republicans and Democrats should work together for a mutually beneficial trial scenario.
&#8220;I am sending this letter to all of my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, in the hopes that we can come together on a fair trial,&#8221; he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/16/politics/chuck-schumer-mitch-mcconnell-lindsey-graham-impeachment-white-house-cnntv/index.html">told CNN Monday</a>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
News —&gt; Schumer lays out his impeachment trial demands in a letter to McConnell. The specifics of what he’s requesting laid out in doc below <a href="https://t.co/DJkPUbJyl5">https://t.co/DJkPUbJyl5</a> <a href="https://t.co/wAIb11WLFv">pic.twitter.com/wAIb11WLFv</a>
&mdash; Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) <a href="https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1206364238127730688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Most importantly, it seems, Schumer wants the ability to subpoena witnesses, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security advisor John Bolton, and to present evidence, perhaps to make up for Rep. Adam Schiff&#8217;s (D-CA) shortcomings in the House. Schiff greatly limited witness testimony and denied Republican requests for subpoeans altogether, likely out of fear that officials who were once close to the president might present some exculpatory evidence on national television.
&#8220;In the trial of President Clinton, the House Managers were permitted to call witnesses, and it is clear that the Senate should hear testimony of witnesses in this trial as well,&#8221; Schumer wrote.
“I propose, pursuant to our rules,&#8221; Schumer continued, &#8220;that the Chief Justice on behalf of the Senate issue subpoenas for testimony by the following witnesses with direct knowledge of Administration decisions regarding the delay in security assistance funds to the government of Ukraine and the requests for certain investigations to be announced by the government of Ukraine: Robert Blair, Senior Advisor to the Acting White House Chief of Staff; Mick Mulvaney, Acting White House Chief of Staff; John Bolton, former National Security Advisor; and Michael Duffey, Associate Director for National Security, Office of Management and Budget.”
&#8220;We would of course be open to hearing the testimony of additional witnesses having direct knowledge of the administration&#8217;s decisions regarding the delay in security assistance funds to the government of Ukraine and the requests for certain investigations to be announced by the government of Ukraine, if the president&#8217;s counsel or House Managers identify such witnesses,&#8221; he concluded.
But Schumer had barely issued his demands before Republicans and conservatives on social media fired back, noting that, ahead of former President Bill Clinton&#8217;s impeachment trial, Schumer actively opposed allowing witnesses to testify.
&#8220;It seems to me that no good case has been made for witnesses,” Schumer told a press conference in 1999, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/schumer-dismissed-calling-witnesses-in-clinton-impeachment-as-political-theater-demands-testimony-from-four-in-trump-trial">according to Fox News</a>. “I wonder if the House managers aren’t a little more interested in political theater than in actually getting to the bottom of the facts,&#8221; he added just a few days later.
Schumer tried and failed to make a distinction between the two trials, claiming witnesses at Clinton&#8217;s trial could have turned a very serious proceeding into a salacious media circus.
&#8220;1999 was a different case, there were all the obvious reasons why they did not want a witness like Monica Lewinsky testifying in public,&#8221; he said during a press conference Monday. &#8220;I was there, and it related to what the questions might be about, that the whole nation including children would be watching. It’s a totally different situation – there’s no analogy.&#8221;
Schumer probably won&#8217;t get what he wants, regardless. The Senate will decide whether they want to call witnesses in a floor vote, and McConnell was clear &#8212; he will take direction on the issue from the White House counsel, not from the opposition.
There will &#8220;be no difference between the president&#8217;s position and our position as to how to handle this,&#8221; McConnell told Fox News last week. &#8220;Everything I do during this, I will be coordinating with White House counsel.&#8221;
The House is expected to vote on articles of impeachment this week, after the official report dropped overnight between Sunday and Monday. Schumer wants the Senate to get right on the trial, scheduling it for as early as January 9th, so as not to affect the 2020 Democratic nomination process or the early primaries. McConnell will have the final say over the calendar.

Sen. Chuck Schumer

Chuck Schumer Issues List Of Democrat Demands For Senate Impeachment Trial, Gets Wrecked

As the year 2019 comes to a close, many will reflect upon their own productivity and accomplishments over the past 12 months. Fortunately for America’s elected representatives in Congress, they don’t need much time.
Congress has done little to nothing in terms of “major legislation” — so much so that any bill that hits the president’s desk makes national news. Since September, one of President Trump’s <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%22do%20nothing%20democrats%22%20(from%3ArealDonaldTrump)&amp;src=typed_query&amp;f=live">favorite phrases on Twitter</a> has been “Do Nothing Democrats,” thereby blaming the House majority for the lack of meaningful legislation in this calendar year. Given Trump’s tendency to exaggerate, a legitimate question to ask is: Which is actually the worst offender, the Democratic-controlled House or the Republican-controlled Senate?
Knowing they were at a partisan impasse on most topics important to the American people, the House seemed to  largely focus on investigating President Trump and the Senate focused on confirming federal judicial nominees. Ironically, both of these courses of action play well for Trump, who began his year speaking directly to the new House majority. “An economic miracle is taking place in the United States,” Trump said during the State of the Union Address this past February, “and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous partisan investigations. If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn&#8217;t work that way!”
The latest debacle in the House over the Ukraine issue, which was preceded by the House investigations over the findings of the Mueller Report, shows that Trump’s words were not heeded. The lack of legislative action has even become <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1143456276044544">a Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) talking point </a>on the Democratic presidential primary campaign trail.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) <a href="https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1198692784930217984?s=11">tweeted at</a> President Trump her list of “accomplishments” after he derided the “Do Nothing Democrats.” “In my first 11 months,” she said, “I’ve cosponsored 339 pieces of legislation, authored 15, took on Big Pharma w/ my colleagues in hearings that brought PreP generic a year early &amp; exposed abuse of power. In 4 years, you’ve jailed kids &amp; made corruption the cause celebré. Try to keep up.” While this may have gotten her Twitter lackeys all fired up, its patently ridiculous. There have been over 8,000 congressional bills introduced this year, so signing your name onto 339 of them is not an accomplishment. Of the “authored 15,” 10 are new bills which have not been brought to the floor to a vote and five were amendments to current bills.
This is par for the course for the House Democratic majority. While the Democrats complain about the lack of a vote in the Senate on such bills as <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/5">H.Res 5</a>, the &#8220;Equality Act,&#8221; or <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8">H.Res 8</a>, the ironically named &#8220;Bipartisan Background Check Act of 2019,&#8221; both of those bills are largely partisan efforts with little to no compromise attempted. Each bill had a mere eight out of 197 Republicans voting for it.
Legislation introduced in the Senate isn’t going anywhere, either. Unlike the House, though, the major legislative moves that are occurring on the Senate floor do have strong bipartisan support.
Take, for example, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1321?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22actionCode%3A%5C%2217000%5C%22+AND+billIsReserved%3A%5C%22N%5C%22%22%5D%7D&amp;r=56&amp;s=7">S.1321</a>, the &#8220;Defending The Integrity of the Voting Systems Act.&#8221;  This was introduced by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) in May, passed the Senate unanimously, and has been sitting in the House since July 19th. Or take <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/395?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22actionCode%3A%5C%2217000%5C%22+AND+billIsReserved%3A%5C%22N%5C%22%22%5D%7D&amp;r=27&amp;s=7">S.395</a>, the &#8220;Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act of 2019.&#8221; This was also passed unanimously, sent to the House in June, and has been sitting there since then. <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/488?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22actionCode%3A%5C%2217000%5C%22+AND+billIsReserved%3A%5C%22N%5C%22%22%5D%7D&amp;r=31&amp;s=7">S.488</a>, the &#8220;Justice for Victims of Lynching Act of 2019,&#8221; was introduced by presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and was passed by a voice vote; it has been sitting in the House since March. Then there’s <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22actionCode%3A%5C%2217000%5C%22+AND+billIsReserved%3A%5C%22N%5C%22%22%5D%7D&amp;r=1&amp;s=7">S.1</a>, the &#8220;Strengthening America&#8217;s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019,&#8221; which passed 77-23 — including 27 of 49 Democrats voting for it; it has been held in the House since February 6th.
All of these bills are strong, bipartisan issues that should be brought up in the House for a vote. However, any one of these bills, were they to be signed by President Trump, would be seen as a “win” for both the president and Republicans. Much like the never-ending investigations, House Democrats are more interested in victory during the next election cycle than they are in actually accomplishing anything for the American people.
While it may be a fair accusation to blame Congress, as a whole, for doing nothing in 2019, analyzing the partisanship and the willingness to work across the aisle finds that Democrats are guiltier of unwillingness to govern than are Republicans. So when Trump rants on Twitter that they &#8220;do nothing,&#8221; he certainly has a ground to stand on.
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You can follow Moshe Hill on facebook at <a href="https://facebook.com/aHillwithaView">facebook.com/aHillwithaView</a> and Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/themohill">@theMoHil</a>.

U.S. Capitol

HILL: Who&#8217;s To Blame For The &#8216;Do-Nothing Congress?&#8217;

Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp intends to select business executive Kelly Loeffler this week to represent the state in the United States Senate and fill the seat of retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA).
Isakson is scheduled to give his farewell address on the Senate floor tomorrow and Kemp is expected to officially announce that he has selected Loefller to fill the Senate seat on Wednesday during a news conference in Atlanta.
&#8220;The pick comes despite strong opposition from prominent allies of President Trump, who is reported to have favored Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., for the seat,&#8221; NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/12/02/783453064/georgia-governor-sparks-fight-with-trump-allies-over-senate-appointment">reported</a>. &#8220;Loeffler is a wealthy businesswoman without political experience. The CEO of Bakkt, a bitcoin-focused subsidiary of Intercontinental Exchange Inc., casts herself as a &#8216;lifelong Republican&#8217; and tells a personal narrative of working her way up the corporate ladder from her family&#8217;s farm in rural Illinois.&#8221;
Numerous Trump allies told The Daily Wire that selecting Loeffler to the position instead of Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), who is the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, was a mistake by Kemp that could cost him down the road.
A source close to the White House told The Daily Wire: &#8220;Brian is going to learn how unhappy people are with this decision the next time he tries to raise any serious money.&#8221;
A source close to the Trump campaign told The Daily Wire: “Now is not the time to nominate a liberal, establishment elitist like Kelly Loeffler. Doing so hurts President Trump and jeopardizes the conservative successes of the last three years. Rep. Collins is the obvious choice to represent the people of Georgia as he has an actual record of achievement and is a proven fighter for his constituents.”
A third source, who is a former White House official, told The Daily Wire: &#8220;It’s disappointing that Gov. Kemp would appoint a never-Trump, Mitt Romney donor to the open Senate seat in Georgia. The Governor should remember that he wasn’t elected to do the bidding of the swamp, he was elected to stand with President Trump to fight back against it. Make no mistake about it, Kelly Loeffler is the swamp’s choice for Senate in Georgia.&#8221;
Trump publicly praised Collins on Monday for his performance over the weekend defending the president against impeachment.
Trump tweeted: &#8220;Great job by [Rep. Doug Collins] of Georgia over the weekend in representing the Republican Party, and myself, against the Impeachment Hoax!&#8221;
During an interview on Fox News this weekend, Collins addressed the possibility that he could be selected to the Senate seat, saying, “I appreciate the support I&#8217;ve received from the president and many others &#8230; I have a big job in the next three weeks and that&#8217;s impeachment.”
Kemp fired back at the notion that he was not selecting a strong Republican to fill the seat, writing on Twitter: &#8220;I stand with hardworking Georgians and [POTUS]. The idea that I would appoint someone to the U.S. Senate that is NOT pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-freedom, and 100% supportive of our President (and his plan to Keep America Great) is ridiculous. The attacks and games are absolutely absurd. Frankly, I could care less what the political establishment thinks. Happy Thanksgiving! More information after the holiday!&#8221;
WABE, NPR&#8217;s Local Atlanta Radio Station, reported: &#8220;Phil Kent, conservative pundit and public relations consultant, worked with Loeffler in 2013 when her name was previously floated as a candidate to replace former U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss. He vouched for her conservative platform.&#8221;
“I know she was a big opponent of Obamacare,” Kent said. “She’s a proponent of the second amendment. She was very tough on illegal immigration. So she would check some of those boxes with the president.”
WABE added that Loeffler wrote the following in her cover letter to Kemp: “From working on the family farm to creating jobs and opportunity in the business world, I have been blessed to live the American Dream. I am offering myself to serve hardworking Georgians as a political outsider in the United States Senate to protect that dream for everyone.”

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