The post House Dems announce two articles of impeachment against Trump first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

In a letter sent to Democratic House lawmakers, Pelosi, D-Calif., said the resolution “affirms the ongoing, existing investigation” and “establishes the procedure” for future investigative steps.

“We are taking this step to eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives,” Pelosi said.

Fox News has learned the vote will take place Thursday on the House floor.

It is not an actual article of impeachment, but rather a resolution that sets process ground rules.

MORE QUESTIONS EMERGE ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN’S BUSINESS DEALINGS, EVEN AS TRUMP IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY INTENSIFIES

Republicans hit back Monday at Pelosi over the planned vote, with South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham — the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would play a role in a Senate impeachment trial — saying, “A vote now is a bit like un-ringing a bell as House Democrats have selectively leaked information in order to damage President Trump for weeks.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News: “What it authorizes is that we were right. You can’t go back now.”

The White House argued Monday that the move proves Democrats have been conducting an “unauthorized” inquiry.

“We won’t be able to comment fully until we see the actual text, but Speaker Pelosi is finally admitting what the rest of America already knew – that Democrats were conducting an unauthorized impeachment proceeding, refusing to give the President due process, and their secret, shady, closed-door depositions are completely and irreversibly illegitimate,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.

Republicans for weeks have called for a formal House vote, challenging the legitimacy of the current framework for impeachment proceedings in the absence of one. Earlier this month, the White House wrote a defiant eight-page letter to Pelosi and top Democrats saying it would not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.

“I take pride in the fact that our vigorous response to their underhanded tactics ended up making the House Democrat position untenable,” Graham said Monday. “Today, they were forced to change course.”

Pelosi made clear in her letter that the vote is being conducted because of the Republican complaints. She accused Trump and his GOP allies of holding the position that “because the House has not taken a vote, they may simply pretend the impeachment inquiry does not exist.”

Even as she announced a formal vote, Pelosi insisted Monday that this argument “has no merit.”

“This resolution establishes the procedure for hearings that are open to the American people, authorizes the disclosure of deposition transcripts, outlines procedures to transfer evidence to the Judiciary Committee as it considers potential articles of impeachment, and sets forth due process rights for the president and his counsel,” she said.

In a statement, California Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a key Democrat involved in the inquiry, said: “This week, we will bring to the floor a resolution that establishes the format for open hearings that will be conducted by the House Intelligence Committee as part of the House’s ongoing impeachment inquiry, as well as procedures to transmit any evidence or report to the Judiciary Committee. The American people will hear firsthand about the president’s misconduct.”

Just two weeks ago, Pelosi met with the Democratic caucus and said that there would be no formal vote at that point on the launch of formal impeachment proceedings, despite the GOP pressure. But Democrats said Pelosi is now embracing a vote for strategic reasons.

“She wants to nullify their process argument,” a senior Democratic source told Fox News. “That’s all they talk about. Republicans won’t touch the substance. So this is her way of forcing their hand.”

On Wednesday, the Democratic chairman of the Rules Committee, Massachusetts Rep. James McGovern, said the committee will mark up the impeachment procedure resolution Wednesday. Fox News is told that the resolution should be available for review Tuesday but is not yet complete.

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“As committees continue to gather evidence and prepare to present their findings, I will be introducing a resolution to ensure transparency and provide a clear path forward, which the Rules Committee will mark up this week. This is the right thing to do for the institution and the American people,” McGovern said.

Pelosi on Sept. 24 announced the formalization of the Trump impeachment inquiry, saying at the time that “the president must be held accountable” for his “betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and the betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”

The inquiry was opened after a whistleblower complaint alleged that Trump, during a July phone call, pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter as military aid to the country was being withheld.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram, Mike Emanuel, and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-says-house-will-vote-this-week-on-resolution-formalizing-impeachment-procedures

The post Pelosi says House will vote this week on resolution formalizing impeachment inquiry first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Rep. Devin Nunes (right), chairman of the House Permanent Select committee on intelligence, has widened the net in the panel’s investigation into the use of the unconfirmed Russia dossier against Donald Trump. (Associated Press/File)

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has expanded its 2016 election investigation from a starting point of Russian interference to an end-game that focuses on federal law enforcement and how it conducted a drive to snare President Trump and his people.

Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, California Republican, is accusing the Justice Department and the FBI of misleading him in “a pattern of behavior that can no longer be tolerated.” He charges that Justice claimed it possesses no documents related to the infamous Trump dossier, then, under pressure, produced “numerous” such papers.

Republicans in the first half of 2018 are likely to wind down the starting-point inquiry into Russian hacking of Democrats and whether Trump aides helped.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the committee’s top Democrat, already is protesting the likely move. He is pushing an extended list of witnesses he wants summoned by Republicans, who suspect Mr. Schiff would like to see the probe stay active into November’s midterm elections and beyond.

Democrats, including Mr. Schiff, have conceded in recent weeks that their hope of finding an extensive Russia–Trumpconspiracy to jointly attack former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has fallen short at this point.

What could outlive the initial Russia probe are missions undertaken by Mr. Nunes. He has put in place what amounts to a separate investigation of the FBI and the Justice Department hierarchy.

There are three main components:

• Fusion GPS. The Democrat-friendly opposition research firm and Mr. Nunes have squared off in U.S. District Court over access to Fusion’s financial transactions. Fusion funded the infamous Trump–Russia dossier with money from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

• The FBI and the dossier. Republicans want to know how the document’s unconfirmed felony accusations fueled the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation since July 2016.

• Investigative bias. The committee is demanding appearances from Justice officials who seemed out to get Mr. Trumpand/or had ties to the dossier’s distribution.

On Fusion, Mr. Nunes has used his subpoena power to seek records of Fusion’s financial transactions between law firms, journalists and media companies.

Fusion, founded by former Wall Street Journal reporters, notably Glenn Simpson, argues its records are protected by First Amendment rights.

The Washington Examiner reported that a key subpoenaed witness is David Kramer, an associate of Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, Arizona Republican. Mr. Kramer is one of the few people known to have possessed a hard copy of the dossier.

At the behest of Mr. McCain, Mr. Kramer represented the senator at a Nov. 28, 2016, meeting with Christopher Steele in Surrey, England. A British ex-spy, Mr. Steele compiled the 35 pages of memos making up the dossier based on his paid Kremlin sources, some close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr. Kramer then obtained a copy of the dossier from Fusion GPS. Mr. McCain hand-delivered a copy to then-FBIdirector James B. Comey in December 2016.

Mr. Kramer may be able to disclose the identities of Mr. Steele’s Moscow sources.

Mr. Kramer has been deposed by attorneys for Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev, who is suing the news website BuzzFeed and Mr. Steele for libel over dossier allegations.

A Gubarev attorney told The Washington Times that they now know who gave the dossier to BuzzFeed but cannot publicly identify the person because of a court gag order.

The Daily Caller asked Mr. McCain in October if he supplied the dossier to BuzzFeed.

“I gave it to no one except for the director of the FBI. I don’t know why you’re digging this up now,” Mr. McCain replied.

The bias element

According to an interview in Mother Jones magazine, Mr. Steele said he supplied his memos — the ones accusing Mr. Trump of a Russia conspiracy — to the FBI in “early July” 2016. Mr. Comey has testified he began the counterintelligence investigation in “late July.”

The early memos (they eventually spanned from June to December) accuse the Trump team of a far-reaching conspiracy with the Kremlin to damage Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Steele said the FBI asked for more of his memos in early August.

BuzzFeed at some point also obtained a copy and posted it in full on Jan. 10, 2017.

Concerning the FBI, Mr. Nunes wants more information on how the bureau used the document to investigate Trumppeople. He has been in a behind-the-scenes battle to gain access to FBI documents, only to be rebuffed.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, intervened by openly urging the FBI to cooperate. It then showed Mr. Nunes‘ staff a limited amount of information.

An impatient Mr. Nunes on Dec. 28 came close to accusing Justice and the bureau of a cover-up.

In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Mr. Nunes said the Department of Justice at first said dossier-related FBI interview summaries, known as 302s, “did not exist.”

Weeks later, under an Aug. 24 subpoena, DOJ suddenly located “numerous FD-302s pertaining to the Steele dossier, thereby rendering the initial response disingenuous at best,” the House intel committee chief wrote.

Based on the stonewalling, Mr. Nunes said the committee no longer can accept Justice’s position that it cannot turn over other official investigative forms, called 1032s. They document meetings between the FBI and confidential human sources.

“As a result of the numerous delays and discrepancies that have hampered the process of subpoena compliance, the committee no longer credits the representations made by DOJ and/or the FBI regarding these matters,” Mr. Nuneswrote.

He gave the Justice Department until Wednesday to comply.

“Unfortunately, DOJ/FBI’s intransigence with respect to the August 24 subpoenas is part of a broader pattern of behavior that can no longer be tolerated,” Mr. Nunes wrote. “At this point, it seems the DOJ and FBI need to be investigating themselves.”

A third area of committee inquiry is anti-Trump bias by investigators.

In December, the committee heard closed-door testimony from Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was asked what the bureau confirmed among the dossier’s core collusion charges. He said just one: a trip to Moscow by Trumpcampaign volunteer Carter Page to deliver a public speech to a university.

Mr. McCabe headed the Clinton email investigation after his wife received nearly $700,000 in campaign donations from the Democratic Party and a PAC controlled by a close Clinton ally, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Jill McCabe lost her state Senate race in 2015.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz is investigating whether Mr. McCabe should have recused himself from the probe, which did not recommend criminal charges against Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Nunes also wants testimony from FBI agent Peter Strzok. He headed the Trump inquiry until special counsel Robert Mueller fired him in July over his biased text messages to his FBI lover, Lisa Page. On his FBI-issued phone, Mr. Strzok texted about an unspecified “insurance policy” to keep Mr. Trump from winning the election. Mr. Nunes also demands that Ms. Page to be made available for interviews.

Also on the witness list in 2018 is senior Justice Department lawyer Bruce Ohr. He met with Mr. Steele during the election and with Fusion GPS afterwards. His wife worked as a Russia expert at Fusion, where she may have participated in the company’s anti-Trump campaign behind the scenes.

Source: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/1/devin-nunes-expands-russia-probe-use-Trump-dossier/

The post House expands Russia probe to FBI, Justice use of unconfirmed dossier to snare Trump first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Rep. Devin Nunes (right), chairman of the House Permanent Select committee on intelligence, has widened the net in the panel’s investigation into the use of the unconfirmed Russia dossier against Donald Trump. (Associated Press/File)

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has expanded its 2016 election investigation from a starting point of Russian interference to an end-game that focuses on federal law enforcement and how it conducted a drive to snare President Trump and his people.

Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, California Republican, is accusing the Justice Department and the FBI of misleading him in “a pattern of behavior that can no longer be tolerated.” He charges that Justice claimed it possesses no documents related to the infamous Trump dossier, then, under pressure, produced “numerous” such papers.

Republicans in the first half of 2018 are likely to wind down the starting-point inquiry into Russian hacking of Democrats and whether Trump aides helped.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the committee’s top Democrat, already is protesting the likely move. He is pushing an extended list of witnesses he wants summoned by Republicans, who suspect Mr. Schiff would like to see the probe stay active into November’s midterm elections and beyond.

Democrats, including Mr. Schiff, have conceded in recent weeks that their hope of finding an extensive Russia–Trumpconspiracy to jointly attack former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has fallen short at this point.

What could outlive the initial Russia probe are missions undertaken by Mr. Nunes. He has put in place what amounts to a separate investigation of the FBI and the Justice Department hierarchy.

There are three main components:

• Fusion GPS. The Democrat-friendly opposition research firm and Mr. Nunes have squared off in U.S. District Court over access to Fusion’s financial transactions. Fusion funded the infamous Trump–Russia dossier with money from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

• The FBI and the dossier. Republicans want to know how the document’s unconfirmed felony accusations fueled the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation since July 2016.

• Investigative bias. The committee is demanding appearances from Justice officials who seemed out to get Mr. Trumpand/or had ties to the dossier’s distribution.

On Fusion, Mr. Nunes has used his subpoena power to seek records of Fusion’s financial transactions between law firms, journalists and media companies.

Fusion, founded by former Wall Street Journal reporters, notably Glenn Simpson, argues its records are protected by First Amendment rights.

The Washington Examiner reported that a key subpoenaed witness is David Kramer, an associate of Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, Arizona Republican. Mr. Kramer is one of the few people known to have possessed a hard copy of the dossier.

At the behest of Mr. McCain, Mr. Kramer represented the senator at a Nov. 28, 2016, meeting with Christopher Steele in Surrey, England. A British ex-spy, Mr. Steele compiled the 35 pages of memos making up the dossier based on his paid Kremlin sources, some close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr. Kramer then obtained a copy of the dossier from Fusion GPS. Mr. McCain hand-delivered a copy to then-FBIdirector James B. Comey in December 2016.

Mr. Kramer may be able to disclose the identities of Mr. Steele’s Moscow sources.

Mr. Kramer has been deposed by attorneys for Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev, who is suing the news website BuzzFeed and Mr. Steele for libel over dossier allegations.

A Gubarev attorney told The Washington Times that they now know who gave the dossier to BuzzFeed but cannot publicly identify the person because of a court gag order.

The Daily Caller asked Mr. McCain in October if he supplied the dossier to BuzzFeed.

“I gave it to no one except for the director of the FBI. I don’t know why you’re digging this up now,” Mr. McCain replied.

The bias element

According to an interview in Mother Jones magazine, Mr. Steele said he supplied his memos — the ones accusing Mr. Trump of a Russia conspiracy — to the FBI in “early July” 2016. Mr. Comey has testified he began the counterintelligence investigation in “late July.”

The early memos (they eventually spanned from June to December) accuse the Trump team of a far-reaching conspiracy with the Kremlin to damage Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Steele said the FBI asked for more of his memos in early August.

BuzzFeed at some point also obtained a copy and posted it in full on Jan. 10, 2017.

Concerning the FBI, Mr. Nunes wants more information on how the bureau used the document to investigate Trumppeople. He has been in a behind-the-scenes battle to gain access to FBI documents, only to be rebuffed.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, intervened by openly urging the FBI to cooperate. It then showed Mr. Nunes‘ staff a limited amount of information.

An impatient Mr. Nunes on Dec. 28 came close to accusing Justice and the bureau of a cover-up.

In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Mr. Nunes said the Department of Justice at first said dossier-related FBI interview summaries, known as 302s, “did not exist.”

Weeks later, under an Aug. 24 subpoena, DOJ suddenly located “numerous FD-302s pertaining to the Steele dossier, thereby rendering the initial response disingenuous at best,” the House intel committee chief wrote.

Based on the stonewalling, Mr. Nunes said the committee no longer can accept Justice’s position that it cannot turn over other official investigative forms, called 1032s. They document meetings between the FBI and confidential human sources.

“As a result of the numerous delays and discrepancies that have hampered the process of subpoena compliance, the committee no longer credits the representations made by DOJ and/or the FBI regarding these matters,” Mr. Nuneswrote.

He gave the Justice Department until Wednesday to comply.

“Unfortunately, DOJ/FBI’s intransigence with respect to the August 24 subpoenas is part of a broader pattern of behavior that can no longer be tolerated,” Mr. Nunes wrote. “At this point, it seems the DOJ and FBI need to be investigating themselves.”

A third area of committee inquiry is anti-Trump bias by investigators.

In December, the committee heard closed-door testimony from Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was asked what the bureau confirmed among the dossier’s core collusion charges. He said just one: a trip to Moscow by Trumpcampaign volunteer Carter Page to deliver a public speech to a university.

Mr. McCabe headed the Clinton email investigation after his wife received nearly $700,000 in campaign donations from the Democratic Party and a PAC controlled by a close Clinton ally, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Jill McCabe lost her state Senate race in 2015.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz is investigating whether Mr. McCabe should have recused himself from the probe, which did not recommend criminal charges against Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Nunes also wants testimony from FBI agent Peter Strzok. He headed the Trump inquiry until special counsel Robert Mueller fired him in July over his biased text messages to his FBI lover, Lisa Page. On his FBI-issued phone, Mr. Strzok texted about an unspecified “insurance policy” to keep Mr. Trump from winning the election. Mr. Nunes also demands that Ms. Page to be made available for interviews.

Also on the witness list in 2018 is senior Justice Department lawyer Bruce Ohr. He met with Mr. Steele during the election and with Fusion GPS afterwards. His wife worked as a Russia expert at Fusion, where she may have participated in the company’s anti-Trump campaign behind the scenes.

Source: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/1/devin-nunes-expands-russia-probe-use-Trump-dossier/

The post House expands Russia probe to FBI, Justice use of unconfirmed dossier to snare Trump first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.