Not only is the 2016 election not going to be undone, it appears from the polls the impeachment trial is improving Grabem's favourability standing. In this past week he's matched his highest point. This was the danger of going for impeachment. He's being turned into a martyr and his inevitable acquittal will simply reinforce that view.

Which polls were they Jim?

none. Trump's approval improved prior to the trial, but has fallen since then.

edit: when I say "improved", I meant by like...1-2%.

he is still the only US president in history to NEVER poll above 50% approval.

it is not an encouraging sign for him.

Rasmussen had him at +1% once.

Here's the article I got it from:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

But that article explicitly argues that its the economic performance, NOT the impeachment, that is the basis for his improved standing. I doubt that will continue.

And its still 44% approval vs 51% disapproval.

Rasmussen is a FOX house poll, and has at least a 6% bias to it. probably more like 10%.

but I am sure you knew that.

Yep. But some adults still believe in the tooth fairy.

False and Misleading Claims at Impeachment Trial
By Eugene Kiely, Lori Robertson and D'Angelo Gore

White House lawyers distorted the facts on the impeachment process and other issues during the Jan. 21 Senate trial:

White House counsel Pat Cipollone falsely suggested Republicans were barred from the closed-door depositions conducted by the House intelligence committee. But members of three committees — both Democrats and Republicans — participated.

Jay Sekulow, President Donald Trump’s attorney, falsely said, “During the proceedings that took place before the Judiciary Committee, the president was denied the right to cross-examine witnesses … the right to access evidence and … the right to have counsel present at hearings.” The committee chair invited Trump and his lawyers to participate, but they declined.

Cipollone claimed Rep. Adam Schiff, the House intelligence committee chairman, “manufactured a false version” of the July 25 phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian president and “he didn’t tell” the American people “it was a complete fake.” Schiff indicated he was giving “the essence” of Trump’s remarks and about an hour later said it was “at least part in parody.”

Sekulow said the special counsel’s report on Russian interference during the 2016 election found Trump committed “no obstruction.” That’s not what the report said. While the report “does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” it said, citing “multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence.”

In addition, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said his resolution outlining the impeachment trial procedures “tracks closely” with the rules of trials for other presidents. How closely McConnell’s resolution tracks with the procedures used in the past may be a matter of opinion. However, there are some differences between the rules for Trump’s trial and President Bill Clinton’s.

The lawyers and McConnell made their remarks during the opening comments and debate over the rules for the trial of the president.

Republicans Weren’t Blocked from Closed-Door Interviews
White House counsel Cipollone falsely suggested that Republicans weren’t given the same access as Democrats to the closed-door depositions in the fall led by the House intelligence committee.

Cipollone, Jan. 21: The proceedings took place in a basement of the House of Representatives. … Not even [House intelligence committee chairman Adam] Schiff’s Republican colleagues were allowed into the SCIF.

Cipollone was referring to the closed-door interviews conducted in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, a secure room used to discuss or view classified and sensitive material. But both Democrats and Republicans on the committees leading the impeachment inquiry in the House had access to the SCIF.

Transcripts of the closed-door proceedings, which were held before public hearings began on Nov. 13, show Republican committee members asking questions of the witnesses. For instance, the Oct. 17 closed-door testimony of Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, was later publicly released, and it shows several Republican lawmakers were present, including the ranking minority members of the intelligence, oversight and foreign affairs committees: Republican Reps. Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan and Michael McCaul. They all asked questions of Sondland, the transcript shows. The House intelligence committee Democratic and Republican lawyers — Daniel Goldman and Steve Castor — also were present and questioned Sondland.

Similarly, the Nov. 16 deposition of Mark Sandy, the deputy associate director for national security at the Office of Management and Budget, shows both Democrats and Republicans from the committees were present and asked questions.

During the Jan. 21 Senate proceedings, Schiff, who is also one of the House impeachment managers, later addressed Cipollone’s claim, saying: “He’s mistaken. Every Republican on the three investigative committees was allowed to participate in the depositions. And more than that, they got the same time we did.”

Cipollone may have been misleadingly referring to an effort by Republicans who weren’t on the intelligence, oversight or foreign affairs committees to gain entrance to the SCIF. That Oct. 23 event, led by Reps. Matt Gaetz and Steve Scalise, was held to protest the non-public aspect of the impeachment inquiry at that point, the lawmakers said.

Cipollone further complained that “the president was forbidden from attending” the closed-door depositions and that “the president was not allowed to have a lawyer present.”

The depositions weren’t hearings or trials, but rather a congressional inquiry. As we mentioned, Republican counsel — though not the president’s — did participate.

Trump Declined to Participate in Judiciary Hearings

In his opening remarks, Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal attorneys representing him at the Senate impeachment, criticized how the House Judiciary Committee conducted its impeachment hearings. But he got the facts wrong.

Sekulow’s comment came after Schiff spoke of “the trifecta of constitutional misconduct justifying impeachment.”



None of that is true. Trump was offered all of that, but he declined to participate in the House Judiciary Committee hearings.

In a Nov. 26, 2019, letter, Rep. Jerry Nadler — the chairman of the Judiciary Committee — invited Trump and his lawyer to attend the committee hearings and ask questions of the witnesses (subject to Nadler’s approval).

The letter also offered to provide Trump with evidence gathered during the impeachment inquiry – including transcripts of the closed depositions and appending information and materials.

“I write to ask if — pursuant to H. Res. 660 and the relating Judiciary Committee Impeachment Inquiry procedures — you and your counsel plan to attend the hearing or make a request to question the witness panel,” Nadler’s letter said.

The resolution itself, which was included in the letter, said: “The House authorizes the Committee on the Judiciary to conduct proceedings relating to the impeachment inquiry referenced in the first section of this resolution pursuant to the procedures submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the chair of the Committee on Rules, including such procedures as to allow for the participation of the President and his counsel.”

In a section of the letter that bears the headline “Impeachment Inquiry Procedures in the Committee on the Judiciary,” Nadler laid out the procedures – including this offer to the president and his legal team:



Section 2 of H. Res. 660 refers to these records:



The records referenced in section 3 described “additional materials” that may be transferred from the House intelligence committee to the Judiciary Committee.

Nadler gave the president until Dec. 1 to respond — three days before the first hearing, which was scheduled for Dec. 4.

Cipollone, the White House counsel, replied by the Dec. 1 deadline with a letter that said the president and his legal team would not participate in the Dec. 4 hearing, but reserved the right to decide if he will attend future hearings. Cipollone criticized the hearing format, which he described as “an academic discussion” that would not “provide the president with any semblance of a fair process.”

The Dec. 4 hearing was limited to testimony from four constitutional scholars on the constitutional grounds for impeachment.

“[A]n invitation to an academic discussion with law professors does not begin to provide the President with any semblance of a fair process,” Cipollone wrote. “Accordingly, under the current circumstances, we do not intend to participate in your Wednesday hearing.”

On Dec. 6, Cipollone wrote a second letter to Nadler that called the impeachment inquiry “completely baseless” and a “waste” of time. He didn’t say whether the White House would participate in any future hearings, but that same day an unnamed White House official told CNN: “The letter communicates that we will not participate in this process.”

The Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Dec. 9 that was limited to testimony from the majority and minority committee lawyers for the House intelligence and judiciary committees.

On Dec. 13, the committee voted along party lines, 23-17, to approve two articles of impeachment against Trump.

In a 658-page report, “Impeachment of Donald J. Trump President of the United States,” the committee said, “Consistent with House precedent, after the evidence arrived at the Judiciary Committee, the Committee invited President Trump and his counsel to participate in the process. Notably, and unlike past Presidents, President Trump declined to attend any hearings, question any witnesses, or recommend that the Committee call additional witnesses in his defense.”

Schiff’s Dramatic Reading, Misrepresented

Cipollone repeated a false talking point about a dramatic interpretation Schiff once gave of Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.



On Sept. 25, Trump did release a White House memo of his July 25 phone call, which was at the heart of an anonymous whistleblower complaint that prompted the impeachment inquiry. That memo backed up the main points the whistleblower made about the phone call. In fact, Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testified that the complaint “is in alignment with” the memo.

There was a second, previous phone call on April 21, for which Trump released a memo in mid-November, but that call wasn’t the focus of the complaint.

Schiff did give an embellished rendition of the White House memo of the July phone call at the start of a Sept. 26 House intelligence committee hearing. As we’ve explained before, Schiff said he was recounting “the essence of what the president communicates” and “in not so many words.”

We leave it for readers to judge whether or not it was immediately clear that Schiff was giving his own take on the call. Some of what he said was similar to the memo, and some of it wasn’t. But it was clear to at least one Republican member in the hearing, who called out Schiff for the embellishments about an hour after the chairman’s dramatized remarks.

A few minutes later, Schiff responded: “My summary of the president’s call was meant to be at least part in parody.”

Mueller Report on Collusion, Obstruction

Sekulow also made a misleading claim about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The Mueller report concluded that “[t]he Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion” in a successful attempt to help elect Trump.

Russia did this through two operations: “a social media campaign that favored … Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton,” and “computer-intrusion operations” that allowed Russia to steal and then release emails and documents that were damaging to the Clinton campaign.

The special counsel’s office also investigated whether Trump or his campaign associates and allies coordinated with Russia on any of this illegal activity. Sekulow said that part of the investigation came up “empty.”



It’s true that the Mueller report did not conclude that Trump committed a crime by either coordinating with the Russians or obstructing justice, but the investigation did not come up “empty” on either obstruction of justice or collusion.

On obstruction of justice, the Mueller report documented 11 “key events” where the president attempted to influence the investigation.

“Our investigation found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigations,” the report said. “The incidents were often carried out through one-on-one meetings in which the President sought to use his official power outside of usual channels. These actions ranged from efforts to remove the Special Counsel and to reverse the effect of the Attorney General’s recusal; to the attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the investigation; to direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.”

The report, however, said there were “difficult [legal] issues that would need to be resolved,” in order to reach a conclusion on Trump’s conduct.

Factoring into his decision not to weigh in on prosecution, Mueller wrote, was an opinion issued by the Office of Legal Counsel finding that “the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions” in violation of “the constitutional separation of powers.”



The special counsel’s investigation also “did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities.” But it presented evidence of “multiple contacts … between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government.”

Those contacts included Donald Trump Jr.’s eagerness to accept “very high level and sensitive information” that promised to “incriminate Hillary” as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” as laid out in an email Trump Jr. received from a Russian acquaintance. “[I]f it’s what you say I love it,” responded Trump Jr., who days later attended a meeting expecting to obtain the material from a Russian lawyer who “had previously worked for the Russian government and maintained a relationship with that government throughout this period of time,” the Mueller report said.

Among other incidents, Trump Jr. also made direct contact with WikiLeaks’ Twitter account and Trump confidant Roger Stone exchanged Twitter messages with Guccifer 2.0, which the Mueller report describes as one of two “online personas” used by Russian military intelligence to release hacked Clinton campaign emails to media outlets and WikiLeaks.

“In sum, the investigation established multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government. Those links included Russia offers of assistance to the Campaign. In some instances, the Campaign was receptive to the offer, while in other instances the Campaign officials shied away,” the report said. “Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities.”

Differences Between Trump and Clinton Trial Rules

Senate Majority Leader McConnell claimed that his resolution outlining the Senate impeachment trial procedures “tracks closely” with the rules in trials of former presidents.



But the proposed Senate impeachment trial procedures that McConnell released on Jan. 20 — and the amended ones the Senate later adopted in a party-line vote the next day — differ from the unanimously approved Clinton trial rules in a few ways.

For example, McConnell’s original resolution does not automatically admit into evidence records from the House impeachment inquiry, which is what happened during the Clinton impeachment trial. Instead, McConnell was pressured by Democrats and some Republicans into amending his resolution to state that materials from the House inquiry “will be admitted into evidence,” rather than “may be admitted into evidence” based on a vote. Still, McConnell added language stipulating that the admission of such evidence was subject to an objection from Trump’s defense team.

McConnell’s original proposal also called for members of the House and the president’s defense team to make their respective opening cases for or against impeachment in 24 hours, over no more than two days. But during the Clinton trial, House managers and the president’s lawyers were given 24 hours to do the same, with no restriction on the number of days it could take.

McConnell ended up changing his resolution to permit both sides up to three days to make their arguments.

And while the Clinton trial rules called for senators to vote on a motion to dismiss the impeachment, that same language was not included in the rules for the Trump trial. It’s possible, though, that Trump’s defense could still propose such a motion.

During Trump’s trial, after both sides make their opening case, senators will be given 16 hours to ask questions. That is to be followed by an additional four hours of arguments, split equally between the House managers and the team representing the president. This will occur before the senators debate and then vote on whether to subpoena new witnesses or documents not already admitted into the record.

Those additional rules are much like those for Clinton’s trial in 1999.

SOURCE

Why aren't McConnell and Graham impeached for lying under oath?

perjury? they certainly could be.

There's certainly a recent precedent.

I stand to be corrected but wouldn't that require action on the part of the Department of Justice? And no way that Barr is going to do anything against Trump.

Not that I'm aware of.

SHEEEEESH!!!!! ~ ~ Dershowitz et al are definitely well beyond their "use by" date! ~ Sooz

Facing daunting facts, Trump lawyer pushes ‘even if true’ defense
01/28/20 09:20 AM
By Steve Benen

By any fair measure, reports on former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton’s book have jolted Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in ways that were difficult to predict as recently as a few days ago.

At the heart of the president’s defense is that he did not connect military aid to a vulnerable ally and investigations into his domestic enemies. Bolton, however, has written a book that says Trump personally told him that he’d withhold military assistance until Ukraine agreed to help go after the Biden family. Or put another way, a prominent far-right Republican is a first-hand witness who can discredit Team Trump’s principal defense.

It was against this backdrop that the president’s defense attorneys spent their first full day on the Senate floor, making oral arguments during the impeachment trial. By and large, Trump’s lawyers ignored the subject that had jolted the political world, though there was one notable exception. NBC News reported:


This comes on the heels of Dershowitz arguing in a recent television interview that presidential abuses of power cannot be the basis for impeachments, and presidents caught abusing their power should face no congressional consequences.

In a way, reaching this point was probably inevitable. The initial defense from Trump and his allies was that the president did not do what he was accused of doing. But as the mountain of uncontested documentary evidence grew, and the facts pointed in an incriminating direction, the original line proved untenable. It had to be replaced with a defense that accommodated the truth.

Which, naturally, led to the “even if true” defense – a line that effectively says that even if Trump is guilty of what he’s been accused of, it simply doesn’t matter.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent had a good piece along these lines, riffing on an argument he heard from one of Trump’s Fox News allies: “It has long been obvious that Republicans would ultimately converge on this final defense of President Trump: Even if he did everything he has been accused of doing, and perhaps a lot more that we don’t know about, it’s absolutely fine!”

Greg wrote this 11 days ago. It looks like he was onto something.

The larger question, of course, is whether Senate Republicans are prepared to embrace this tack with the same enthusiasm as Dershowitz. For the most part, GOP senators spent yesterday expressing skepticism about Bolton and his perspective, suggesting they didn’t much care about his ability to shred a foundational White House defense.

How long until they decide that Trump is innocent even if he’s guilty?

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... ue-defense

Of course it's an impeachable offence. He's impeached, isn't he?

Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow just made a huge public misstep and undermined his own defense at the impeachment trial.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=158913218874347

This has turned into a gong show. Wonder if its deliberate.

Isn't it about time?

Adam Schiff just delivered his most BRUTAL takedown of Trump and his lawyers' ABSURD argument against impeachment.

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrat ... live_video

An excellent commentary that speaks the truth! ~ ~ Sooz

This Won't End Quickly or Soon
By Josh Marshall | January 30, 2020 1:24 p.m.

I’ve said many times that it’s the Republican Senate rather than Donald Trump who is on trial in this exercise. That seems confirmed by everything we’ve seen so far. Nothing we’ve learned from Lev Parnas or John Bolton in recent days adds anything material to what we know about President Trump’s actions. Yes, we have an even higher level of proof or confirmation. But when a fact is already obvious and indisputable it’s pretty hard to prove it more.

What we have seen is more and more evidence or at least a clearer and clearer illustration of what Senate Republicans will accept from President Trump. No real trial. No witnesses. Open arguments that using state power to coerce foreign leaders to sabotage U.S. elections is fine and indeed proper.

To my mind, Democrats have done a good job on this.

Their job hasn’t been to remove the President from office because Senate Republicans have made clear they are inflexibly opposed to removing Trump from office literally no matter what he does. What the Impeachment Managers can do and I think have done a decent job of is to make the extent of that commitment and its implications absolutely as clear as possible. That to me is clearly what we’ve seen.

There’s always a strong tendency to take consistent and insistent misbehavior as a baseline. It’s presumed and people look for someone else to blame. So isn’t it Democrats’ fault that Republicans have decided that they will back Donald Trump absolutely no matter what he does?

We already see efforts to do just this and paint this as some kind of Democratic failure. Here is CNN’s Dana Bash from a few moments ago asking Sen. Amy Klobuchar if there wasn’t something Democrats could have done differently to convince Republicans to allow witnesses.


Setting aside this nonsense, in recent days I’ve been most struck by the necessity for people to steel themselves — and I think about steeling myself — to the fact that none of this is going to be fixed in a day or a month or frankly many years.

I continue to think it is more likely than not that President Trump will be defeated for reelection later this year. But that is far from a certainty, indeed his odds seems to have mildly improved in recent months. We’re filled with predictions about how our democratic story is basically over if that happens. Or that all his wrongdoing and corruption will be essentially vindicated and confirmed by his reelection, making a whole new level of corruption and law-breaking inevitable. It’s hard for me to make much of an argument against either claim. But the reality is that if it happens all of us who care about this country and its future will wake up the next morning with a lot of work in front of us and need to get down to doing it. We can say now that will mean there’s no going back. But we’ll wake up the next morning and have to decide whether we still want to try to go back. I will. I assume you will too.

But even if Trump is not reelected we will still have the very same people now helping to finalize Trump’s cover up either running the Senate or in sufficient numbers to block its action if they don’t get their way. We’ll have a judiciary that has been stacked over the last three years to perpetuate GOP political rule.

There’s no simple turning back the clock. Trump is much less the issue than the political environment in which he has thrived. He might be booted next year but the climate and bases of support that made him possible won’t have gone anywhere.

I know this all sounds like kind of a downer. It’s not meant that way. It’s simply to note that perseverance is one of our most necessary, basic, indeed essential tools.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/this-wont-end-quickly-or-soon

it doesn't sound like a downer to me. it sounds like politics.

It is so maddening and frustrating listening to the spineless sycophants. Truly they can't believe the bullshit they spew. They are tarnishing the institutions from which they received their educations and making all of their constituents look like morons.