Tag: Adam Schiff

Really?

I try to follow governmental/political news in the US and often write about it here, but, there has been such an avalanche of stories lately that I have been too overwhelmed to write about it. Yesterday, though, was such an odd conglomeration of things that I thought I’d try to post about it.

Speaker McCarthy and his slim majority in the House of Representatives seem incapable of actual governance, even after resolving the debt ceiling crisis. Instead of working on budget bills that put that legislation into practice, the majority-Republican committees are drafting proposals that make cuts in human needs programs that were slated to stay flat. They are also having a lot of investigations, even when they can’t produce evidence to support their allegations. They don’t seem interested in actually governing for the good of the people.

For example, yesterday they held a hearing with John Durham, who led a four-year investigation centered on the origin of the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ inquiry into possible ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. You may recall that the investigation headed by Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election resulted in multiple indictments and plea deals, including Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Konstantin Kilimnik, and over two dozen Russians, including military intelligence officers and companies and employees related to a Russian troll farm that hacked into the campaign- and election-related computers in the US. While not charging him as a sitting president, the Mueller report also detailed instances of potential obstruction of justice by Trump. By contrast, the Durham investigation only resulted in one minor plea deal and two acquittals at trial, hardly the revelation of a “deep-state conspiracy” that some Republicans had suspected.

Curiously, during the hearing, Durham seemed ignorant of much of the Mueller report and contemporaneous news accounts from the 2016 election cycle. He did, however, praise Mueller as “a patriot” and state unequivocally that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. A number of the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, which has invited Durham to testify, seemed frustrated that he wasn’t engaging in their more conspiratorial ideas.

Then, in a bizarre counterpoint, the House Republicans voted to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) because of his work on investigating Trump, including the issue of Russian election interference. (A similar measure which had included a possible $16 million fine in addition to censure had failed last week.) Six Republicans, including five on the House Ethics Committee voted present; all other Republicans voted for censure while all Democrats voted against. Rep. Schiff, who was then chair of the Intelligence Committee and became one of the impeachment managers in the first Trump impeachment, appears to have been censured for fulfilling his Congressional duties. It’s expected that this is a first salvo in what may be a long siege of Republican efforts to impeach members of the Biden administration, including the President himself. It doesn’t seem, though, that the Republicans have evidence of actual wrongdoing that would warrant impeachments. They have been doing a lot of investigating of allegations but don’t have the actual evidence needed to prove their case.

Meanwhile, last night, Special Counsel Jack Smith turned over mounds of evidence, including grand jury testimony, to Donald Trump’s lawyers in the documents case that is being litigated in the Southern District of Florida. This is part of a process called discovery, in which the prosecutors give the defendant’s lawyers the information underlying their case, including any possibly exculpatory evidence. The indictment in the case is quite detailed but it seems that many Congressional Republicans have yet to read it. It’s sad that they seem convinced by conspiracy theories while ignoring actual evidence and that they spread this malady to voters.

It makes me very nervous for the future of our democracy, both short-term and long-term.

awesome

I have been watching major chunks of the impeachment proceedings against Donald John Trump, as he is officially referred to in the impeachment and trial.

The House managers, members of the House of Representatives who act a prosecutors, have been impressive in presenting their case, as well as pointing out which documents and testimony they have subpoenaed, but not received, which relates to the second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress. (The first article is abuse of power, which, in this trial, is related to solicitation of Ukraine for help in the president’s election bid.)

The House managers take turns presenting evidence in a very methodical way, using video clips, emails, phone records, etc. to make their case. They are all well-prepared and well-spoken, but one is especially awesome – Representative Adam Schiff of California.

Rep. Schiff was a federal prosecutor and has comprehensive knowledge of the law. He chairs the Senate Intelligence committee, which did most of the fact-finding in the case, and was named lead House manager. As such, he has acted as the “closer” for the presentations, speaking with conviction and, at times, passion about the United States, our laws, and our futures. I found the closing of the second day of testimony to be especially powerful.

There was some talk, although not from him, that Adam Schiff might run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. I’m glad that he didn’t, because he is exactly where our country needs him the most right now, speaking up for the Constitution and laws and against corruption.

The case that he and the other House managers have made is so compelling that I am frightened when I hear that some Republican members of Congress are dismissing them totally and that the president will engage in even more corrupt behavior, knowing he will not have to suffer the consequences for his actions.

I am terrified for both the short-term and the long-term consequences for our democracy if a president is allowed to be so openly corrupt and is not removed from office. With Rep. Schiff, I believe, “Right matters and the truth matters.”
*****
Usually when I post on Saturdays, I follow Linda’s Stream of Consciousness prompt. This week’s involved writing about the last unsolicited business call we received, but, between caller id, do not call registry, and new spam blocking, I don’t receive those kinds of calls anymore. Instead, you are subjected to more non-stream-of-consciousness posting on the ongoing impeachment trial of Donald John Trump. I’m sure that is more painful than unsolicited business calls.

But, please visit Linda here, and join the fun for Stream of Consciousness Saturday and/or Just Jot It January.

testimony

I have spent (a lot of) hours over the past two weeks listening to testimony in the Trump impeachment inquiry.

I was particularly impressed with Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, and Dr. Fiona Hill. They were all knowledgeable and forthright, despite attacks on them personally by the president and his allies. The White House instructed nearly all the witnesses not to testify, even though they were under Congressional subpoenas. It was brave of them to appear, first in closed door depositions and later in public testimony.

Some of the Republicans complained about the closed door depositions, but they proved to be very valuable. It meant that each witness could share what they knew without being influenced by another person’s testimony. As it turned out, most of the witnesses’ recollections jibed with all the others, except for EU Ambassador Sondland, who amended his deposition after reading some of the others’ when they were released publicly. For the record, it is not true that Republicans were shut out of the depositions. There were three committees involved and the Republican members and their legal counsel had equal opportunity to question the witnesses. Some also complained that the White House lawyers were not involved, but their role will come later, if there is a trial in the Senate. The House is investigating possible articles of impeachment, which are like an indictment in the courts. The House committees are, essentially, acting as a grand jury would in gathering evidence and deciding to bring charges or not. Defense lawyers do not take part in grand jury proceedings.

Because the (hours and hours of) deposition transcripts were released prior to the public hearings, it was assumed that the hearings would be pretty routine, highlighting certain aspects of the depositions. However, new information emerged. One noteworthy incidence of this was when Ambassador Bill Taylor testified that a member of his staff had told him that he had overheard a phone call dealing with Ukraine between Ambassador Sondland and President Trump. This led to the staff member, David Holmes, flying from Kyiv to Washington to give a deposition and public testimony about it.

Another big surprise was when Ambassador Sondland acknowledged very plainly that there had been a quid pro quo; the administration in the US had withheld military aid and a promised White House meeting for the new Ukrainian president in order to get him to announce in public that he was launching an investigation of former US vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as an investigation of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, despite abundant evidence and indictments of Russian, not Ukrainian, operatives. The president and many of his allies have been saying for weeks that there was no quid pro quo, so such a frank admission from Sondland was startling.

Sondland was full of surprises. Another big one was that he implicated President Trump, Vice-president Pence, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as all being “in the loop” about the situation. He also said that the president was directing their actions, which demolished the theory that some individuals were doing these things as rogue elements.

It would be helpful if documents, such as memos, contemporaneous notes, and call records, were available to the committees, but the White House is refusing all requests for documents, as well as blocking witnesses from testifying. This is bad. It seem like a coverup and obstruction of Congress/justice. Obstruction appeared in articles of impeachment for presidents Nixon and Clinton.

I was also perturbed by some of the statements and questions from the Republican members of the committee. They sometimes listed as facts things that are not. They kept asking about things that are not relevant to the impeachment inquiry and already debunked conspiracy theories.  They also insulted some of the witnesses by asking questions about unpatriotic behavior without any basis in fact. I remember during the Watergate hearings that there were Republican members of Congress who took their responsibilities very seriously, even though Nixon was also a Republican. In particular, I remember Senator Howard Baker.

Interestingly, Intelligence Committee chair Representative Adam Schiff in his at times impassioned closing remarks asked “Where is Howard Baker?” At the moment, no Republican members of Congress appear to be fulfilling their Constitutional role to discover and act on the truth, as Howard Baker did. Rep. Schiff concludes his remarks invoking the recently deceased Representative Elijah Cummings, “We are better than that.”

I hope we, as a country, are still able to uphold the Constitution and our highest ethical principles. If Republicans can’t imagine themselves as above partisanship, perhaps they can imagine how they would have reacted had President Obama acted the way President Trump has and then lied about it. During the eight different Congressional investigations into what happened in Benghazi, the Obama administration provided documents and testimony over and over, even after it was clear there was no conspiracy or crime involved. How would Congressional Republicans have acted if the Obama administration had stopped cooperating? Are they treating the Trump administration’s lack of cooperation in the same way? If the answer is no, they need to look at their duties to the country and their oath of office and consider if they are fulfilling them.