Yeah! The House Managers wrapped up their 24 hours of stating their case they feel is “ironclad and undisputed” and sufficient to justify the removal of the 45th President of the United States. And the day did not end without more fireworks.
Friday evening, impeachment manager Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) labeled the president a dictator.
“He is a dictator,” Nadler said, arguing Trump wants to be “all-powerful” and not respect Congress. “This must not stand. And that is why — another reason — he must be removed from office.”
Let’s get right to our roundup of the day: Day 4.
Impeachment Day 4 Bullet Points
- Let’s make Nadler’s comments the number one bullet point of the day. Earlier in the week, Nadler set at least two moderate Republican Senators on fire for his telling all Senators that if they vote to not call witnesses during the impeachment trial, they are complicit in the “coverup.” Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) both were enraged by Nadler’s charges against members of the Senate. Collins even wrote a note about it to Chief Justice John Roberts who presides over this impeachment trial.
- Nadler had a little support with his claim that President Trump is a dictator. Rep. Hassan Jeffries (D-NY) even took it one step farther by making this statement, “The President is a dictator and a despot.”
- Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), who many consider to be a conservative Democrat, stated Friday that he is undecided whether or not the House Managers have made an effective case against President Trump. He said he would like for witnesses to be called. When asked about who would be the arbiter of which witnesses that each party wanted to testify were material to the impeachment and which are not, he stated he would like to see Justice John Roberts make those decisions.
- It defies logic, but House Managers spent a large portion of their time on Friday discussing Joe and Hunter Biden. The point was to show that there was “no legitimate basis” for Trump to be seeking an investigation into the Bidens, and the request to Ukraine’s president was made purely to dirty up a Democratic rival who was polling better than him. No one I’ve heard has yet given an explanation that makes sense for Democrats to actually bring the Bidens up in the context of Ukraine corruption. The only one that might make some sense is for them to get ahead of what they must assume will be an onslaught of allegations from the President’s legal team. I guess we’ll find out if that is there reason in the next few days when the President’s defense team take over the trial.
- House manager Hakeem Jeffries, using witness testimony from the House proceedings, argued the summary of Mr. Trump’s July 25 call was hidden in a secure server because it was politically damaging for the president. The White House “tried to bury” the summary of the call to protect the president, Jeffries said. The problem is that every president — including Barack Obama — uses a secure server for their most confidential and classified communications for, in President Obama’s words, “We don’t want everyone to know what we’re doing before we want to let them know.” Oops!
- House Democrats warned Friday in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial that the president will persist in abusing his power and endangering American democracy unless Congress intervenes to remove him before the 2020 election. “He is who he is,” declared Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He told the senators listening as jurors that Trump put the U.S-Ukraine relationship on the line in a way that benefited Russia just so he could take a political “cheap shot” at Democratic foe Joe Biden.
- Nobody was more shocked than the Democrats and the Mainstream media that the Senate gallery during the first week of the impeachment trial was only half-full each day. Most assumed this being only the third such trial in U.S. history that Americans would fight to witness the trial personally. Explaining why it might have happened, Sen. Rand Paul responded: “You know, 28 hours of hearing the same thing over and over again isn’t all that exciting.” Paul spent much of his trial time in the Senate chamber answering crossword puzzles. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), who underwent back surgery in August, joked: “Well, if I had a choice I’d probably be home watching Chicago PD.” He added: “No, don’t put that in there or that would make me sound terrible.” The reason in my opinion is that Americans don’t live in a world where there is interest to hear the exact same argument by House Managers over and over and over. So Americans thought they’d get the trial bullet points at TruthNewsNetwork!
- The President’s legal team will begin their defense presentation beginning at 10:00 AM Saturday. It is expected to last just two hours with the remainder of their allotted 4-hours in which to present the President’s defense case will resume first thing Monday.
- Republican Senator Pat Toomey sits at a desk in the Senate chamber which, by tradition, must always be stocked with candy. Toomey’s office received a shipment of candy from Hershey’s Friday morning to restock his desk. Eating isn’t allowed on the Senate floor, and as we have noted, water and milk are the only beverages allowed. The exception for the candy desk goes back decades, though, beginning in 1968 when Republican Senator George Murphy, who sat in that chair, began stocking his desk with candy and offering it to his colleagues.
Summary
In losing, let’s do this a bit different than normal. Let’s play the game “Where are they now?”
- Where is Obama’s former National Security Adviser Susan Rice? She during Obama’s term was visible non-stop. She’s the one that went on every Sunday news show regarding the Benghazi attacks blaming those attacks for retaliation by Islamists for a anti-Muslim video produced by an American. That of course was later debunked. Further, she was personally responsible for the unmasking of hundreds of Americans. “Unmasking” refers to the practice of releasing the identities of individuals who are American citizens who are communicating with foreigners that might in some way be dangerous to Americans and are being surveiled by the NSA. In that surveillance, they are identified just for communicating with the foreigner. Federal law protects those Americans. Rice disregarded the law. Where is she now?
- Where is John Brennan? Brennan was the CIA Director under Barack Obama. He is a lifetime intelligence operator that has held several different positions throughout his career. Brennan has been voracious in his non-stop attacks of President Trump through social media and in news interviews labeling the President as a Russian agent, a traitor, and someone who unqualified to serve as President. Brennan has been implicated in several of the criminal investigations underway under the auspicious of the Department of Justice and has been found breaking several federal laws. With the exception of an occasional tweet, Brennan has been invisible. Where is he now?
- Where is Valerie Jarrett? Jarrett is an Iranian American who is a lifetime friend and confidant of the Obamas. She served behind the scenes during the Obama Administration as a “senior political adviser” to the President. Conventional wisdom is that she was President Obama’s “go-to” person for advice and direction for EVERYTHING political under Obama and even when the Obamas were in Chicago. It is thought by many that President Obama did nothing without discussing with Jarrett and never made any political decision without her. Where is she now?
- Where is Nancy Pelosi? Did anyone but me notice that this the first week of the Senate Impeachment trail Pelosi has been totally hidden from the press. Do you find that a bit odd? The House Speaker is constantly paraded from tv network to network, especially when it comes to taking shots at President Trump. Could it be that she is laying low while watching the impeachment process fall apart? Remember: she did not want to go the impeachment route. She saw what doing that did to the Republican Party after the Bill Clinton impeachment: Democrats won control of Congress. Many feel the only reason she relented to the Trump impeachment push was solely to pacify the far-left of her party: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. Pelosi is too shrewd to be totally out of this impeachment process. It’s too big a happening. But her laying low gives her the opportunity to win back the part of the Democrat Party that she was perilously close to losing if she did not agree to the impeachment. This way when the President is vindicated, while many Democrat Party leaders will have egg on their faces, Nancy will be able to point at them and say, “I told you so!”
Four days of the impeachment trial down. How many more are there to come? All we know today is it’s Saturday and they’re meeting for a couple of hours for the Trump legal team to begin their defense of the President.
How long will this thing go on? It should take the President’s team no more than three days (and probably only two) to make their case. In a normal way the Senate would then have a vote on the removal of the President from office. However, if the cries for additional witness testimony and more evidence are successful, this trial could carry-on for several months, God forbid.
Fret not: TruthNewsNetwork is on top of all of the pertinent details for each day of the trial. Make sure you join us daily to get the latest.
Let’s take Sunday off. If something critical is broken in the Saturday two-hour presentation by the President’s legal team we’ll put that out for you early Sunday morning. If not, let’s just take Sunday off, go to church, be with families and enjoy a day away from politics.
See you Monday!
