McCONNELL WILL WORK WITH WHITE HOUSE IN RUNNING TRIAL OF PRESIDENT TRUMP

…This man says “The president will not be removed from office”.

Senate may decide on rules to not allow witnesses to be called to testify at Trial.

As all the talking heads keep saying, yesterday and today in Congress is an historical two days.  Not only did we see the House Democrats agree to send an impeachment of the president to the full House for an obvious impeachment vote.  Plus we saw a tweet from President Trump where he mocked the 16 year old Greta Thunberg, a day after she was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.  (Trump mocked the Swedish climate activist on Twitter, telling her to “chill” and to “work on her Anger Management problem.” Thunberg, has said she has Asperger’s syndrome.)

Yesterday you also could have watched 14 hours of Congressional battle and frustration between both parties.  As one group presented us with the truth of our president’s wrong doing, and the other party offered up concerns over the impeachment process and other misinformation such as inputs on Hunter Biden’s drug problems, President Trump’s sex life, and info about a Florida congressman that had a DUI arrest.

But in the end, the House Judiciary Committee voted to pass two articles of impeachment un-amended. The impeachment articles will now be debated and voted on, on the House floor.

Now that it appears that this all will go to the Republican run Senate where the Majority Leader McConnell has already said that he and the White House will work together and will decide just how to run the event.  (He did not use the word “Trial”.) It has been said that with the GOP control of the Senate, they may just decide to make the rules that do not allow anyone to call any witnesses for the Senate Trial.  That would make the trial very short, which would make it in Trump’s favor.

In that case, all those people that the president has told to not talk to the House Impeachment Inquiry, would not be called.  That means we would not hear from any former or current White House officials, or from any of Trump’s cabinet.  They have all the info that if they were under oath, they would be asked those questions that would most likely nail the president.

One Democrat, Cedric Richmond (D-LA) had the following comment: “Today I’m reminded of Judas, because Judas for 30 pieces of silver, he betrayed Jesus. For 30 positive tweets for easy reelection, the other side is willing to betray the American people.”

The Republican Jim Jordan (R-OH) aid to the Democrats: “You guys don’t respect the 63 million people who voted for this guy. That’s why the speaker of the House called the president an ‘impostor.’ That’s what’s wrong.”

Actually the House speaker called Trump “an imposter whose insecurity drove his real-time Twitter attack on former US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.”

The Democrats article one item concluded that Trump withheld military aid and a White House meeting from Ukraine to pressure the country’s leaders into announcing investigations that would benefit him politically. Often, the discussion veered into a broader debate over Trump’s conduct with Democrats.  They also highlighted other questionable episodes from his presidency.

Republicans accused their counterparts of hating the president since day-one of his presidency.  They said that many of the Democrats had been talking about Trump's impeachment since November of 2016, which is probably true.

There were also comments about the over 12,000 lies that Trump has told since day one of his presidency.

Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH), who had served during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, said the difference with Trump’s impeachment was that “President Clinton committed a crime: perjury.”

“This president isn’t even accused of committing a crime,” Chabot said.  Actually, much of what Trump is accused of is criminal.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who also served during Clinton’s impeachment, argued that Trump has committed a far greater offense, and she brought up one of Trump’s alleged sexual partners to make her point.

 “I would just like to note that [Republicans’] argument that somehow lying about a sexual affair is an abuse of presidential power, but the misuse of presidential power to get a benefit somehow doesn’t matter,” she said. “If it’s lying about sex, we could put Stormy Daniels’s case ahead of us. We don’t believe that’s a high crime and misdemeanor.”

Daniels, an adult film actress, has stated that she had a brief affair with Trump in 2006. 

As expected, Trump has denied a relationship.

One of the most dramatic moments of the day came after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) proposed an amendment to add a mention of Hunter Biden and his former position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, to the articles of impeachment.  Biden is the son of former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Gaetz then proceeded to discuss Biden’s struggle with drug addiction, reading directly from a New Yorker article that discussed it and an episode involving a crack pipe discovered in Biden’s Hertz rental car.

The article noted that the glass pipe contained cocaine residue, according to test results, but investigators didn’t find any fingerprints on it and public prosecutors declined to bring a case against Hunter, “citing a lack of evidence” that Biden used the pipe.

“I don’t want to make light of anybody’s substance abuse issues. I note that the president is working real hard to solve those throughout the country. But it’s a little hard to believe that Burisma hired Hunter Biden to resolve their international disputes when he could not resolve his own dispute with Hertz,” Gaetz said.

This stunned at least one Democrat, who responded by indirectly noting that Gaetz’s had previously had a DUI arrest in 2008.

“The pot calling the kettle black is not something that we should do,” said Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), without specifically naming Gaetz.

That moment had left the room silent as Johnson waited for Gaetz to respond.  Gaetz did not respond.

The stage is now set for a vote by the full house next week.

Copyright G. Ater 2019