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The Senate voted along party lines to approve the rules for the trial, after a long night of debate that stretched to nearly 2 a.m. Wednesday [22 Jan].Senators adopted the updated resolution, 53-47, shortly before 2 a.m. Wednesday morning. [...] The change means the trial days, which start at 1 p.m., will likely now conclude around 9 p.m. and could extend the trial by two days. [...] Schumer offered a series of amendments -- all rejected on roll call votes, mostly along party lines -- that would have instructed Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to subpoena acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former National Security Adviser John Bolton and other administration officials, as well as certain White House, State Department, Defense Department and Office of Management and Budget* documents pertaining to the impeachment charges.2 p.m. | Flooded phone lines: Thousands of constituents called into the offices of GOP senators in swing states Tuesday imploring them to vote to allow witnesses at the Senate impeachment trial, according to analytics provided to Roll Call by Stand Up America, a political advocacy group that opposes Trump.
Senators adopted the updated resolution, 53-47, shortly before 2 a.m. Wednesday morning. [...] The change means the trial days, which start at 1 p.m., will likely now conclude around 9 p.m. and could extend the trial by two days. [...] Schumer offered a series of amendments -- all rejected on roll call votes, mostly along party lines -- that would have instructed Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to subpoena acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former National Security Adviser John Bolton and other administration officials, as well as certain White House, State Department, Defense Department and Office of Management and Budget* documents pertaining to the impeachment charges.
supra the twitterverse of Lindsey Graham Cracker acolytes would be delighted ...
The one-page document relates to a phone call that took place between Pence and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a week before Zelensky met with President Trump at the United Nations. This latest development is a win for House Democrats who have unsuccessfully pressed the White House to declassify the document, which Pence aide Jennifer Williams submitted to the House in late November to supplement her public testimony earlier that month.
This latest development is a win for House Democrats who have unsuccessfully pressed the White House to declassify the document, which Pence aide Jennifer Williams submitted to the House in late November to supplement her public testimony earlier that month.
supra William, classified supp'l. Pence-Zelensky call (Sep 2019)
"We fight Russia over there so we don't have to fight them here," says Dem impeachment leader Adam Schiff in his opening statement. I understand that Democratic Party leaders & allied media pundits are Cold War kooks now. Do the rest of us want to be enlisted in this lunacy?— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) January 22, 2020
"We fight Russia over there so we don't have to fight them here," says Dem impeachment leader Adam Schiff in his opening statement. I understand that Democratic Party leaders & allied media pundits are Cold War kooks now. Do the rest of us want to be enlisted in this lunacy?
Now, here's the bad news.
No one has updated the Congressional Record (transcripts of floor proceedings, daily, in both chambers) in the senate since 17 Jan 2020. Consequently, there's no means to verify that report accurately records HUAC Rev. Chairman Mr. Schiff's remarks either today or yesterday.
The Senate is broadcasting floor proceedings of the impeachment trial in real-time. Evidently, technical support for floor "managers" does not include fixed chron identification by name (eg. Rep. Jason "Mr Smith Filibuster" Crow, reciting text of 'Material Facts'). BUT it does include editing facilities, such as simulcast of stock/file VoD, to illustrate a "talking point" to the chamber (not shown in frame is one or more monitors in situ displaying said illustration).
The senate's Floor Activity digest, however, is updated daily. Find here precisely how many procedures, amendments for exampled, introduced and disposed.
At this rate, it was please me to learn that the senators will not adjourn for the weekend, forthcoming.
Mr. Manager [!] SCHIFF. Mr. Chief Justice, Senators, counsel for the President, and my fellow House managers: I want to begin by thanking you, Chief Justice, for a very long day, for the way you have presided over these proceedings. I want to thank the Senators also. We went well into the morning, as you know, until I believe around 2 in the morning. You paid attention to every word and argument you heard from both sides in this impeachment trial, and I know we are both deeply grateful for that. It was an exhausting day for us, certainly, but we have adrenaline going through our veins. ....
He told President Zelensky: I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Think about this contrast. The President bashed a career American diplomat [YOVANOVITCH] and an anti-corruption champion whom he unceremoniously removed because she was viewed as an obstacle to his efforts to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election and then at the same time praised someone who he thought could be an asset--a former Ukrainian prosecutor whom the free world views as an obstacle to the rule of law. The idea that President Trump cares about corruption is laughable. It is laughable.
I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved.
The State Department called Lutsenko's claim of receiving a do not prosecute list, "an outright fabrication." [...] Lutsenko also said that he has not received funds amounting to nearly $4 million that the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine was supposed to allocate to his office, saying that "the situation was actually rather strange" and pointing to the fact that the funds were designated, but "never received."
On October 3rd, Kurt Volker, Trump's former special envoy to Ukraine, said in a closed-door deposition, "My opinion of Prosecutor General Lutsenko was that he was acting in a self-serving manner, frankly making things up, in order to appear important to the United States, because he wanted to save his job." In a closed-door deposition on October 11th, Yovanovitch described Lutsenko as an "opportunist" who "will ally himself, sometimes simultaneously . . . with whatever political or economic forces he believes will suit his interests best at the time." On the first day of public testimony, Kent accused Lutsenko of "peddling false information in order to exact revenge" against Yovanovitch and his domestic rivals. Lutsenko told me they were all liars. In our conversations, which took place in the course of several weeks, he veered between self-pity and defiance. "I gave my country so many years," he told me one night, after his third or fourth Scotch. "I had a good story and good results, but I became a bad person. I can't understand it."
Mrs. Manager DEMINGS. After the meeting, Dr. Hill followed up with Ambassador Bolton and relayed what transpired. Bolton was alarmed. In other words, Ambassador Bolton didn't want any part of it. He directed Dr. Hill to brief the NSC's top attorney, John Eisenberg, as she explained during her hearing. (Text of Videotape presentation:)GOLDMAN. What was that specific instruction? Dr. HILL. The specific instruction was that I have to go to the lawyers, to John Eisenberg, our senior counsel for the National Security Council, to basically say, you tell Eisenberg, Ambassador Bolton told me, that I am not part of this whatever drug deal that Mulvaney and Sondland are cooking up. GOLDMAN. What did you understand him to mean by the drug deal that Mulvaney and Sondland were cooking up? Dr. HILL. I took it to mean investigations for a meeting. GOLDMAN. Did you go speak to the lawyers? Dr. HILL. I certainly did.Mrs. Manager DEMINGS. As a former chief of police, I think it is quite interesting that Ambassador Bolton categorized the corrupt scheme--the pressure campaign--as a "drug deal."
GOLDMAN. What was that specific instruction? Dr. HILL. The specific instruction was that I have to go to the lawyers, to John Eisenberg, our senior counsel for the National Security Council, to basically say, you tell Eisenberg, Ambassador Bolton told me, that I am not part of this whatever drug deal that Mulvaney and Sondland are cooking up. GOLDMAN. What did you understand him to mean by the drug deal that Mulvaney and Sondland were cooking up? Dr. HILL. I took it to mean investigations for a meeting. GOLDMAN. Did you go speak to the lawyers? Dr. HILL. I certainly did.
In this image from video, House impeachment manager Rep, Adam Schiff, D-Calif., holds redacted documents as he speaks during the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump in the Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020. [Senate Television via AP]
The team led by Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of House Intelligence Committee, constructed a gripping account of Trump's political pressure on Ukraine and attempt to cover up the "corrupt scheme" central to the charges. But the limits are apparent. Prosecutors must rely on the same loops of videotaped testimony -- ambassadors, national security officials and even the president himself -- after Trump's GOP Senate allies blocked new witnesses.
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