No #IMpotus45 witnesses will exculpate Donald Trump under oath - GOP Senators must face the truth

Associated Press (AP) echo report published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee) by Colleen Long, Mike Balsamo, Eric Tucker, Laurie Kellman, Alan Fram, Zeke J. Miller and Matthew Daly in Washington, who contributed to this report.

Since the AP report was published on November 13, 2019, the following headline was released in Time.com:
Ukraine Ambassador Bill Taylor, a Key Player in the Impeachment Inquiry, to Leave Post

Obviously, Donald Trump has zero witnesses who can give testimony under oath to exculpate his guilt in the Ukraine quid pro quo impeachment #IMpotus45.

Impeachment witness says Trump asked about Ukraine probes

WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first time a top diplomat testified under oath Wednesday that Donald Trump was overheard asking about "the investigations" he wanted Ukraine to pursue that are central to the #IMpotus45 impeachment inquiry.

William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, revealed the new information as the House Intelligence Committee opened extraordinary hearings on whether the 45th president of the United States should be removed from office.

Taylor said his staff recently told him they overheard Trump when they were meeting with another diplomat, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, at a restaurant the day after Trump's July 25, 2019, phone call with the new leader of Ukraine (Volodymyr Zelensky) that sparked the impeachment investigation.

The staff explained that Sondland had called the president and they could hear Trump on the phone asking about "the investigations." The ambassador told the president the Ukrainians were ready to move forward, Taylor testified.

The hearing Wednesday was the first public session of the impeachment inquiry, a remarkable moment, even for a White House full of them.

It's the first chance for America, and the rest of the world, to see and hear for themselves about Trump's actions toward Ukraine and consider whether they are, in fact, impeachable offenses.

An anonymous whistleblower's complaint to the intelligence community's inspector general — including that Trump had pressed Ukraine's president to investigate Democratic foe Joe Biden and Bidens' son and was holding up U.S. military aid — ignited the rare inquiry now unfolding in Congress.

The country has been here only three times before, and never against the 21st century backdrop of real-time commentary, including from the Republican president himself. The proceedings were being broadcast live, and on social media, from a packed hearing room on Capitol Hill.

The session unfolded in measured, quietly dramatic tones. Taylor, a former Army infantry leader, his voice weathered after a 50-year career in foreign service, paused for sips of water during what he acknowledged was a lengthy recitation of facts. It took 40 minutes.

The scene, with Republican questioning still to come, was offering the credibility that Democrats wanted to set the stage and sway public opinions, but Trump still offered counter-programming.

Moments after the hearings began, his Trumpzi reelection machine sent out an email blast: "FAKE IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS HAVE BEGUN! ... I WANT TO RAISE 3 MILLION DOLLARS IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS."

At the start, Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the Intelligence Committee, outlined the question at the core of the impeachment inquiry -- whether the president used his office to pressure Ukraine officials for personal political gain.

"The matter is as simple and as terrible as that," said Schiff of California. "Our answer to these questions will affect not only the future of this presidency but the future of the presidency itself, and what kind of conduct or misconduct the American people may come to expect from their commander in chief."

Republicans lawmakers immediately pushed Democrats to hear in closed session from the anonymous whistleblower.

Schiff denied the request at the time but said it would be considered later.

"We will do everything necessary to protect the whistleblower's identity," Schiff declared.

The top Republican on the panel, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, accused the Democratic majority of conducting a "scorched earth" effort to take down the president after the special counsel's Russia investigation into the 2016 election failed to spark impeachment proceedings.

"We're supposed to take these people at face value when they trot out new allegations?" said Nunes, a top Trump ally. He derided what he called the "cult-like atmosphere in the basement of the Capitol" where investigators have been interviewing witnesses behind closed doors for weeks. Transcripts of those interviews have been released.

(MoooooveOn stupid!) Nunes* called the Ukraine matter a "low rent" sequel to the Russia probe. "Democrats are advancing their impeachment sham," he said.

Both Taylor and the other public witness, George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary at the State Department, defied White House instructions not to testify. They both received subpoenas to appear.

The veteran foreign service officers delivered heartfelt history lessons about Ukraine, a young and hopeful democracy, situated next to Russia but reaching out to the West.

Kent, in his opening remarks, directly contradicted a core complaint against Joe Biden being raised by allies of the White House, saying he never heard any U.S. official try to shield a Ukraine company from investigations.

Kent acknowledged that he himself raised concerns in 2015 about the then vice president's son, Hunter Biden, being on the board of Burisma, a Ukraine gas company. He warned that it could give the "perception of a conflict of interest." But Kent indicated no one from the U.S. was protecting the company from investigations in Ukraine as Republicans have implied.

"Let me be clear; however, I did not witness any efforts by any U.S. official to shield Burisma from scrutiny," Kent said.

The career diplomat did not go into detail about the issues central to the impeachment inquiry, but he voiced his concerns with them.

"I do not believe the United States should ask other countries to engage in selective, politically associated investigations or prosecutions against opponents of those in power, because such selective actions undermine the rule of law regardless of the country," he said.

So far, the narrative being unspooled in weeks of investigations for the inquiry is splitting Americans, mostly along the same lines as Trump's unusual presidency. The Constitution sets a dramatic but vague bar for impeachment, and there's no consensus yet that Trump's actions at the heart of the inquiry meet the threshold of "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Trump calls the whole thing a "witch hunt," a retort that echoes Nixon's own defense.

At its core, the inquiry stems from Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukraine's newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy when he asked the Zelenskiy for "a favor."

Trump wanted the Ukraine government to investigate Democrats in the 2016 election and his potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden, all while holding as leverage military aid the young democracy relies on as it confronts an aggressive Russia.

The anonymous whistleblower first alerted officials to concerns about the phone call. The White House released a rough transcript of the conversation, with portions deleted.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was initially reluctant to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. But she pressed ahead in September after the whistleblower's complaint.

Over the past month, witness after witness has appeared behind closed doors to tell the investigators what they know.

Whether Wednesday's proceedings begin to end a presidency or help secure Trump's position, it was certain his chaotic term had finally arrived at a place he could not control and a force, the constitutional system of checks and balances, that he could not ignore.

Unlike the Watergate hearings and Richard Nixon, there is not yet a "cancer-on-the-presidency" moment galvanizing public opinion. Nor is there the national shrug, as happened when Bill Clinton's impeachment ultimately didn't result in his removal from office. It's perhaps most like the partisanship-infused impeachment of Andrew Johnson after the Civil War.

*Devin Nunes Demands Satirical Internet Cow Stop Making Fun Of Him… Or Else

Representative Jim Jordan slithers to serial cover ups- Cleveland point of view

https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2019/11/jim-jordan-was-imposed-on-us-for-egregiously-partisan-reasons-now-hes-afflicting-the-nation.html

Here is the fact - Jim Jordan is obviously involved in a cover up of sexual misconduct at Ohio State University. 

Therefore, his morals are corrupted.  Cover ups are serial misconducts. 

Rep. Jim Jordan - He may be the most unfit man to ever represent part of Greater Cleveland in Congress. Echo opinion.

By Brent Larkin, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Of all the regions in all the states in all the country, Jim Jordan got dragged into ours. There was no good reason to punish Greater Cleveland by making the person who’s now the second most contemptible human being in the entire U.S. government part of the region’s delegation to Congress. 

Worse yet, the betrayal was bipartisan.

When Ohio’s political and legislative leaders were drawing new congressional boundaries prior to the 2012, election, Democrats wanted a district that would protect U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge. Republicans wanted districts that would elect the maximum number of GOP congressmen. And some people from both parties wanted a district that would likely lead to the defeat of longtime Cleveland Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

They all got what they wanted.

But to make it work required drawing a hideously gerrymandered district for the southwest Ohio congressman, one that meanders some 200 miles from near Dayton north into Lorain County near Cleveland.

And now it’s fitting that Republicans have given this seven-term sycophant a starring role in the televised House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings against Donald Trump. The assignment comes as Jordan is being credibly accused by some of knowingly turning a blind eye to sexual abuse by a team doctor when Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University from 1987 to 1994.

At least five people – four of them former wrestlers and one of them a longtime friend – have said Jordan had to have known former OSU team doctor Richard Strauss was on a sexual rampage that would include -- according to OSU -- 1,429 sexual assaults and 47 rapes of student patients during Strauss’ time at the school (1978 to 1998) prior to his suicide in 2005.

That makes Jordan an ideal candidate to lead the defense of a malignant president who has bragged about physically abusing women and who has been accused by two dozen women of sexual assault or misconduct.

Jordan was appointed to the Intelligence Committee the same day, Nov. 8, that NBC reported on a lawsuit filed early this month in which a former wrestling referee alleges Strauss masturbated in front of him in the shower following an OSU wrestling match in 1994.

People have every right to believe Jordan’s angry dismissals. Common sense suggests they’d probably be better off believing five men who have no reason to lie.


When Jordan slithers out from under his rock each morning, dons a shirt and tie - sans the jacket, lest he be mistaken for Joe McCarthy - his life’s work is to besmirch everything America stands for in service of Donald Trump.

If it takes undermining yet another principle of democracy by condoning attacks on men and women who have devoted their lives in honorable service to this country, Jordan is always ready and willing.

If it takes changing the Trump defense strategy on an almost daily basis because facts keep getting in the way, Jordan is the ideal bootlicker. Trump’s support is all that seems to matter to the man former House Speaker John Boehner regularly referred to as "a legislative terrorist” – along with a whole bunch of other descriptions unfit for print.

When the referee told Jordan what happened, he alleges that Jordan blew him off with, “Yeah, that’s Strauss.”

As the allegations pile up, Jordan’s denials remain unchanged. 

He dismissed the latest one as “ridiculous.”

Why would Jordan so readily ruin what little was left of his reputation? One theory holds he hopes to inherit Trump’s base for a presidential run of his own in 2024. The swamp will be a crowded place in four years, overrun with loathsome folks angling to continue the dastardly business of shredding the Constitution.

Michael Gerson’s credentials to analyze Jordan are impeccable. He is an evangelical Christian, lifelong Republican and onetime chief speechwriter to former President George W. Bush.

In his Washington Post column of Nov. 14, Gerson showed his keen understanding of Jordan, describing him as “the Truly Trumpian Man – guided by bigotry, seized by conspiracy theories, dismissive of facts and truth, indifferent to ethics, contemptuous of institutional norms and ruthlessly dedicated to the success of a demagogue.”

Gerson applied the identical description to Stephen Miller, the White House resident white supremacist.

Everything about Jordan reeks of a man willing to cast aside common decency and fairness in service of a corrupt and cruel president.

He may be the most unfit man to ever represent part of Greater Cleveland in Congress.

Brent Larkin was The Plain Dealer’s editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.

Whistleblower Strong! What we know

"I'm sorry, but I don't want to be involved in the democratic elections of U.S.A.," Zelensky said to reporters at the U.N. General Assembly. - Reported in Newsweek

Two White House officials named in the whistle blower complaint are Rudy Giuliani (Trump stool pigeon) and Attorney General (Trumpzi!) William Barr.

Here's a brief summary of what the whistle blower complaint asserts:
A dozen White House officials were on the call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and several later intervened to "lock down" records of the call, according to the whistleblower.
After pleasantries were exchanged, the president "used the remainder of the call to advance his personal interests," said the whistleblower, citing White House officials with direct knowledge of the call.

The document describes the whistleblower's concerns that these actions constitute a "serious or flagrant" problem, abuse, or violation of the law.

The whistleblower said these actions pose risks to U.S. national security and undermine the U.S. Government's efforts to deter and counter foreign interference in elections.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-26/whistle-blower-complaint-about-trump-released-to-public

Multiple White House officials were “deeply disturbed” by President Donald Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president and the administration attempted to “lock down” records of the interaction, according to a whistle-blower’s complaint made public Thursday.

The complaint from the whistle-blower, who hasn’t been publicly identified, “appears credible,” the intelligence community’s inspector general said in a separate letter released Thursday, by House Intelligence Committee.

“The White House officials are deeply disturbed by what had transpired in the phone call. They said that there was already a ‘discussion ongoing’ with White House lawyers about how to treat the call because of the likelihood, in the officials’ retelling, that they had witnessed the president abuse his office for personal gain,” the complaint says.

The whistle-blower said that senior White House officials used unusual procedures when handling the records of Trump’s July 25, conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. They said it wasn’t the first time that a presidential transcript was put into a “code word-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive -- rather than national security sensitive -- information.”