RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://spectator.us/schiff-vindman-impeachment-flop/

No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’ ‘No.’

That pretty much sums up yesterday’s testimony.

‘Did you receive any indication whatsoever, or anything that resembled a quid pro quo?’

Former envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker: ‘No.’

Devin Nunes to Tim Morrison, former NSC official: ‘Did anyone ever ask you to bribe or extort anyone at any time during your time in the White House?’

‘No.’

This follows the responses of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to the question of whether he was offered a quid pro quo: US aid in exchange for investigating Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings with the natural gas company Burisma: ‘No.’

Ditto Gordon Sondland, US ambassador to the European Union: was there a quid pro quo: ‘No.’ (Sondland’s testimony has just begun at the time of writing: rest assured it will be more of the same.)

Last week’s hearings were preposterous, a disaster for the Democrats. This week’s hearings are shaping up to be even worse news for the partisans of the Adam Schiff Show.

Remember that old hippie slogan, ‘suppose they gave a war and nobody came?‘ It’s been updated and applied not to international conflicts but partisan intramural sniping: suppose they gave a hearing and nobody came?

For that’s the truth of the matter. The ratings for this reality TV show are in the tank. During Watergate, during the Clinton impeachment, people were glued to the news. Now, despite the screaming CNN chyrons, anti-Trump Washington Post and New York Times sermons, nobody cares.

https://spectator.us/founding-fathers-focus-group-impeachment-1787/

House Democrats are concentrating their impeachment drive on “bribery” because focus groups liked it so much better than other terms Democrats have floated.As all thoughtful citizens know, focus-group testing is the best way to deal with grave constitutional matters, as well as marketing breakfast cereals and e-cigarettes.
That’s why we are so fortunate our leading scholars have discovered the most important of focus group in American history, one dealing precisely with this topic. Adam Schiff has finally released the transcript of the 1787 meeting. I am publishing it here for the first time.

Focus-group testing is widely recognized as the best way to deal with grave constitutional matters, as well as marketing breakfast cereals and e-cigarettes. It is not surprising, then, that legal scholars are scouring focus groups throughout American history to see what light they shed on the Trump impeachment.

The most important of these earlier focus groups was that of the Founding Fathers, secretly convened in Philadelphia in 1787. Chairman Adam Schiff has finally released the much-anticipated transcript:

Speaker Pelosi: Hi, everybody. Let’s keep this informal and fun. Just call me Madam Speaker. Anybody want a cappuccino before we get started? Perhaps a vegan sandwich?

Mr Benjamin Franklin: What the hell is a cappuccino? Give me a plain ole venti with soy milk.

Mr James Madison: What the hell is vegan?

Speaker Pelosi: It’s sort of like eating grass, Mr Madison. Let’s just skip it and get to the main topic for today.

Mr George Washington: Yes. Let’s leave this grass thing up to the states. What’s the next topic?

Speaker Pelosi: What if the people are stupid enough to elect the wrong president? How can we kick him out of office?

Mr George Mason: Are they really that dumb?

Speaker Pelosi: Take my word for it. It happens. Have any of you been to Kentucky? Alabama? Just kidding. What if we really, really don’t like the president? What do you think about that as a reason for giving him the heave-ho?

Mr John Jay: ‘Really, really not liking him’ seems a little vague.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/20/all-eyes-on-judge-in-michael-flynn-case-after-weeks-of-shocking-developments/

After a flurry of court filings and blockbuster developments last month, the Michael Flynn criminal case has been dormant for nearly three weeks. The parties and the public now await word from presiding Judge Emmett Sullivan on the pending motion to compel and motion for sanctions filed by Sidney Powell, the lead attorney who took over Flynn’s case shortly after the special counsel team disbanded.

Powell’s motion seeks to force federal prosecutors to provide Flynn an array of documents withheld from his attorneys and to sanction government lawyers for their failure to provide relevant evidence to the defense team in a timely manner. When and how Judge Sullivan will rule is unclear.

A Flurry of October Surprises

In late October, Judge Sullivan issued a short order canceling a hearing on Flynn’s motions previously scheduled for November 5, 2019, prompting predictions that the long-time federal judge had already made up his mind. This development also triggered a panicked filing by the government complaining that Flynn’s lawyers had raised new issues in their reply brief and cautioning the court not to rule without hearing more from the prosecutors. Sullivan okayed a response by the government and a final rebuttal by Flynn’s attorneys, but added a terse endnote that no more briefing would be had on the issue.

Then, mere days after the final briefing came in, federal prosecutors found themselves forced to admit that for nearly three years, they had wrongly identified the authors of the handwritten notes taken by the FBI agents during their January 24, 2017, interview of then-National Security Advisor Flynn. Prosecutors had told defense counsel (and the court) that the notes written by Peter Strozk had been compiled by FBI Agent Joe Pietka, and those taken by Pietka had been written by Strozk.

This embarrassing mea culpa surely added strength to Powell’s plea for access to other withheld evidence. After all, if federal prosecutors made such a basic blunder concerning key evidence, what other mistakes lay buried in the undisclosed evidence?

Foreshadowing a Motion to Dismiss

While the currently pending motion concerns only the question of access to evidence and sanctions for the never-provided, or the late-provision of, evidence, Powell’s briefing foreshadows the filing of a motion to dismiss the indictment. In her briefing, Powell teases several factual and legal theories supportive of such a motion.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/20/pence-perry-pompeo-all-reject-sondlands-claims-during-impeachment-testimony/

Vice President Mike Pence, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo each categorically denied EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s claims that the three White House officials were aware of Trump’s alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in a quid pro quo for military aid.

During testimony delivered to the House Intelligence Committee Wednesday on day four of the Democrats’ latest round of partisan impeachment hearings, Sondland said he informed each, Pence, Perry, and Pompeo that the ambassador raised concerns about the president withholding aid to Ukraine as part of a quid pro quo to investigate the Biden family, the central issue at the heart of the Democratic impeachment inquiry.

“I mentioned to Vice President Pence before the meetings with the Ukrainians that I had concerns that the delay in [US military aid to Ukraine] had become tied to the issue of investigations,” Sondland told lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The vice president’s office however, denied the conversation ever took place.

“The vice president never had a conversation with Gordon Sondland about investigating the Bidens, Burisma, or the conditional release of financial aid to Ukraine based on potential investigations,” said Pence Chief of Staff Marc Short in a statement.

“Multiple witnesses have testified under oath that Vice President Pence never raised Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden, Crowdstrike, Burisma, or investigations in any conversation with Ukrainians or President Zelensky before, during, or after the September 1 meeting in Poland,” Short pointed out.

Energy Secretary Perry also pushed back on Sondland’s assertion that he too, was informed of an apparent quid pro quo being put in place by Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani.

https://nypost.com/2019/11/20/gordon-sondlands-testimony-frees-team-trump-to-adopt-the-best-defense-the-truth/

Wednesday’s impeachment testimony by US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland underscored the folly of the main defense strategy adopted by President Trump and his supporters against Democratic allegations that he traded military aid for dirt on the Bidens.

That strategy has been to categorically deny any quid pro quo. Yet contrary to other witnesses’ versions of events, Sondland clearly and explicitly acknowledges that there was a quid pro quo.

Specifically, Sondland testified that he knows Trump was stalling on a promised White House visit for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Sondland came to realize Trump was also withholding $400 million in defense aid. That was the quid.

The quo sought by the president was Kiev’s announcement that it would conduct investigations of Ukraine’s meddling in the 2016 election and of Burisma — a Ukrainian energy company that was lavishly compensating Joe Biden’s son Hunter. While serving as Team Obama’s point man on Ukraine policy, then-veep Joe Biden forced the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.

Sondland later admitted that he presumed the quid pro quo. Even so, the president’s defenders shouldn’t fight the notion that there was a quid pro quo. Virtually all foreign relations involve quid pro quo, a Latin phrase that just means “this for that” — and doesn’t necessarily imply corrupt ends. Plus, discourse between foreign powers typically involves pressure. The domestic criminal-law concept of “extortion” has no application in foreign relations, where countries squeeze each other, and worse, to force accommodations.