Attorney General Bill Barr clashed with Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday over accusations that he is carrying out President Trump‘s political wishes, as he appeared for a long-awaited hearing where tensions also flared over protests and riots following George Floyd’s death in police custody.

The hearing, originally scheduled for 10 a.m. local time, was delayed after committee chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., was in a car accident. Nadler did not suffer any injuries.

Once the hearing began, which lasted until mid-afternoon, Nadler did not hesitate to express his scorn for Barr and his Justice Department.

NADLER INVOLVED IN CAR ACCIDENT BUT UNHURT; BARR HEARING DELAYED

“Thank you for being here, Mr. Barr,” Nadler said with a note of sarcasm, pointing out that this was the attorney general’s first time appearing before the committee.

The chairman went on to claim that Barr and his department have “downplayed the effects of systemic racism” in the wake of Floyd’s death and ongoing protests.

Addressing the department’s approach to cases related to the Russia probe, Nadler summed up the DOJ’s attitude by claiming that “the president’s enemies will be punished, his friends will be protected,” no matter the cost, and saying that the DOJ’s actions have caused “real damage to our democratic norms.”

“In your time at the department, you have aided and abetted the worst failings of the president,” Nadler said.

Ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, fired back in his opening that Democrats’ hostility toward Barr is based on one thing: “Spying.”

Jordan said that Democrats took exception to Barr accusing the Obama administration of spying on the Trump campaign, despite evidence that has come out revealing flaws in the FBI’s process in acquiring a warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Jordan also pointed to evidence that the FBI engaged in questionable tactics in investigating Michael Flynn, whose criminal case the DOJ requested be dismissed. At another point in the hearing, Barr affirmed earlier reporting that he has appointed U.S. Attorney John Bash of the Western District of Texas to investigate the practice of “unmasking” Americans who have had conversations with foreign officials.

Jordan then addressed the ongoing unrest in the U.S., showing a lengthy montage of media clips that began with reporters calling the incidents “peaceful protests” and then going into a string of clips of violence and fires in various parts of the country.

Barr, speaking next with his opening remarks, did not shy away from Democrats’ accusations against him. He insisted that he acts independently of the president and that his goal is to make sure that everyone is treated equally under the law.

He emphatically stated that Trump “has not attempted to interfere” in decisions regarding the handling of criminal matters.

DEM IMPEACHMENT LAWYER DINGS NADLER’S ‘INEFFECTIVE’ QUESTIONING OF BARR

“On the contrary, he has told me from the start that he expects me to exercise my independent judgment to make whatever call I think is right,” he continued. “That is precisely what I have done.”

Barr also addressed the racial tension following Floyd’s death. While acknowledging the tragedy, he defended the criminal justice system by arguing that in the past 50 years progress has been made and that any racism on the part of individual officers is not due to “some deep-seated racism generally infecting our police departments.” He noted that “[p]olice forces today are far more diverse than ever before.”

BARR SAYS LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH FOR YOUNG BLACK MALES IS HOMICIDE: ‘THOSE LIVES MATTER’

The attorney general responded by recent calls to defund police as “grossly irresponsible.”

Barr also spoke out against “violent rioters and anarchists” that he said have “hijacked legitimate protests,” specifically mentioning the ongoing unrest in Portland as an example.

The Trump administration has been blasted in the media for sending federal officers in to quell the unrest, but Barr defended the effort, arguing that these are not peaceful protests, but “an assault on the Government of the United States.” He described the weapons that some demonstrators have used and noted that a federal courthouse has been under siege.

The tension only escalated once the questioning began, with Nadler implying that Barr was using federal forces responding to unrest to provide material to aid Trump’s campaign.

When asked if he has discussed the campaign with Trump, Barr answered sharply, stating, “I’m a member of the Cabinet and there’s an election going on, obviously the topic comes up,” adding that “it shouldn’t be a surprise.”

Nadler later accused Barr of using federal forces to provide Trump with footage for campaign ads. When Barr tried to respond and say that he was not using federal law enforcement to help Trump’s campaign, Nadler spoke over him.

Later in the hearing, Barr got an opportunity to explain federal activities in Portland.

PROTESTS FLARE UP IN TEMPE, ARIZ. AND AUSTIN, TEXAS – AS PORTLAND SEES 61ST CONSECUTIVE NIGHT OF UNREST

“Federal courts are under attack. Since when is it OK to burn down a federal court?” Barr said.

He said: “If someone went down the street to the Prettyman Court here, that beautiful courthouse we have right at the bottom of the hill and started breaking windows and firing industrial-grade fireworks in to start a fire, throw kerosene balloons in and start fires in the court, is that OK? Is that OK now? No, the U.S. Marshals have a duty to stop that and defend the courthouse, and that’s what we are doing in Portland. We are at the courthouse, defending the courthouse.”

“We are not out looking for trouble.”

At another point in the hearing, Barr lamented that only one political party seemed to be sticking up for federal property and condemning mobs.

“What makes me concerned for the country is this is the first time in my memory that the leaders of one of our two great political parties, the democratic party are not coming out and condemning mob violence and the attack on federal courts,” Barr said. “Why can’t we just say, you know, violence against federal courts has to stop? Could we hear something like that?”

Barr also had an opportunity to explain his positions in the Michael Flynn and Roger Stone cases, and launched an impassioned defense against the accusations that he has treated the president’s friends with particular and improper favor and gone after his enemies.

“What enemies have I indicted?” Barr asked.

He then turned to the cases involving Trump’s associates.

“The cases that are cited, the Stone case and the Flynn case, are both cases where I determined that some intervention was necessary to rectify the rule of law, to make sure people are treated the same,” Barr said.

“Stone was prosecuted under me. And I said all along I thought that was a righteous prosecution, I thought he should go to jail, and I thought the judge’s sentence was correct,” he continued. “But the line prosecutors were trying to advocate for a sentence that was more than twice anyone in a similar position had ever served, and this was a 67-year-old man, first-time offender, no violence. And they were trying to put him in jail for seven to nine years. And I wasn’t going to advocate that, because that is not the rule of law.”

Barr said: “I agree the president’s friends don’t deserve special breaks but they also don’t deserve to be treated more harshly than other people and sometimes that’s a difficult decision to make, especially when you know you’re going to be castigated for it.”

AG BARR DECRIES ‘LAWLESS, EVIL ACTION’ AFTER SHOOTING ATTACK OF FEDERAL JUDGE’S SON, HUSBAND

Later in the hearing, Barr touched on the Flynn case, noting that the case against him warranted dismissal in light of exculpatory evidence surrounding his initial FBI interview, which had recently become public. This included notes that indicated that federal agents may have been trying to get Flynn to lie so that he could be prosecuted.

“The interview was untethered to any legitimate investigation,” Barr said.

Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., called into question Barr’s claim that there is no inherent racism in the American justice system, pointing to Barr’s own department as evidence to support his claim.

“The one thing that you have in common with your two predecessors, both Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions and [acting] Attorney General [Matt] Whitaker, is that when you all came here and brought your top staff, you brought no black people,” Richmond said. “That, sir, is systematic racism. That is exactly what John Lewis spent his life-fighting.”

Early in his opening statement, Barr paid his respects to Lewis, who was a champion of civil rights. Richmond did not appreciate the kind words.

“You really should keep the name of the Honorable John Lewis out of the Department of Justice’s mouth,” Richmond said.

Richmond also brought up an issue that Democrats have raised, regarding whether or not the president would leave office if he loses November’s election. Trump himself has refused to state whether he would accept the election results, claiming that the election would be rigged by a Democratic push for mail-in voting.

When asked if an election result could be contested, Barr pointed to 2000’s Gore v. Bush, in which the Supreme Court had to intervene before an outcome was finalized. When asked if the president could contest the election if the result is not close, Barr said, “Not that I’m aware of.”

Barr said that he has no reason to believe that the election will be rigged, although he did state that mail-in voting exposes the system to a high risk of fraud.

The hearing was also full of tension between Barr and Democratic lawmakers as they fought to speak over one another. The questioning from Reps. Lou Correa, D-Calif., and Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., became particularly heated as kept trying to respond to their comments.

“This is a hearing,” Barr said. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to be heard?”

Jordan came to Barr’s defense when he questioned Nadler on why he was permitting Democratic lawmakers to interrupt the attorney general and not let him respond to questions.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“For months you’ve tried to get the attorney to come,” Jordan told Nadler. “He’s here. Why don’t you let him speak? Why don’t you let him answer the questions?”

Jordan continued: “If you want the attorney general to come at least let him answer the accusations made against him…Time after time you refuse to let the attorney general answer the questions posed to him.”

Fox News’ Andrew O’Reilly contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/barr-testifies-before-house-judiciary-committee-maintains-independence-from-trump

The post Barr spars with Dems on Trump ties, riots at fiery House hearing first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Jerrold Nadler, Maxine Waters, and Eliot Engel during a press conference announcing articles of impeachment

The Democratic party is dying from its hatred of President Trump. The impeachment fiasco is just the latest symptom. After weeks of testimony, Democrats have not been able to come up with any charges more concrete than ‘abuse of power’ and ‘obstruction of Congress.’ Abuse of power is certainly a serious thing — but only if it’s real. Partisans think that almost anything a president from the opposing party does amount to an abuse of power. For impeachment to amount to anything more than partisan harassment, an actual crime ought to be found somewhere along the line: an act of wrongdoing objectively contrary to the law. Otherwise, any procedural or policy disagreement — or any pretext whatsoever — can be construed by a party out to get an enemy president as an ‘abuse of power.’

Adam Schiff discovered that ‘bribery’ was a crime that polled well in focus groups. But Democrats fell so far short of the mark of proving that bribery took place in President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine that they dared not even make the accusation in their articles of impeachment. Instead, they used the abuse of power simply to refer to actions they didn’t like, and they whipped up a new non-crime, ‘obstruction of Congress’, in an act of desperation. But Trump’s refusal to let administration officials play along with the Democrats’ pantomime impeachment proceedings is simply a bold assertion of the Constitution’s separation of powers. Congress can demand testimony, but it needs the executive branch to enforce the demand. And the executive branch is constitutionally independent — it can exercise its own judgment about the legitimacy of the demand and whether it must be enforced. There is no crime, and while the majority in Congress may be piqued by executive defiance, pique makes a lousy basis for impeachment. If voters think that Congress is right to demand cooperation and the executive is wrong to refuse, then voters can take action by voting out the president or voting in a larger congressional majority. But Democrats don’t want Trump’s fate to be decided by voters in November 2020. They want it to be decided by Congress.

Now Democrats are going to regret getting their wish. Trump’s acquittal in a Senate trial is a virtual foregone conclusion, and there are several indications that the humiliating failure of impeachment will hurt Democrats in November 2020. Some moderate Democrats have been quietly pushing for a vote to censure the president rather than impeach him. They know that they risk alienating voters in battleground districts by voting for impeachment. But Nancy Pelosi’s leadership in the House is now more responsive to the activist wing of the Democratic party — the wing driven above all else by hatred for Donald Trump — than to the moderates who stand to pay the price for the activist left’s vendetta. Trump’s own poll numbers in key battleground states have risen as the impeachment process has dragged on without uncovering plain criminal wrongdoing. Instead of removing Trump from office or putting Senate Republicans from battleground states in a tough position in 2020, impeachment may wind up guaranteeing Trump’s re-election and endangering vulnerable House Democrats. The electorate in 2020, after all, will almost certainly be more Republican than the electorate in 2018 was — midterms are always better for the party in opposition to the White House, while presidential elections maximize turnout for everyone. That puts the congressional Democrats’ marginal victors from the midterms in serious jeopardy. Impeachment has only hurt them.

But the Democrats have a bigger problem. Their party has lost its identity, and only Trump-hatred keeps its factions — the McKinsey consultants and the Democratic Socialists of America — together. Republicans have been here before: in the late 1990s, the party was excessively defined by its opposition to President Bill Clinton, in place of any positive program or vision of its own. The result in 2000 was the nomination of a bland and apologetic Republican — George W. Bush — as party’s presidential contender. Republicans stood for nothing except not being Clinton, and Bush embodied that nothingness. He was a ‘compassionate conservative’ — implying that other conservatives were not compassionate — and he promised a bipartisan education-driven agenda. Right-leaning Republican voters, especially conservative Christians, stayed home in droves that November. As a result, he came within a Florida recount (or a single Supreme Court justice) of losing the election.

The GOP did not learn its lesson. In 2004, Bush seemed to be a victorious war president, and Karl Rove worked like the devil to get the missing ‘values voters’ from 2000 to come out and re-elect Dubya. But Bush’s re-election in an environment still in the shadow of 9/11 only disguised the continuing weakness of the Republican brand. The 2006 midterm elections, the 2008 presidential and congressional elections, and ultimately Donald Trump’s destruction of the old GOP and its champions in the 2016 primaries (and ever since) showed how weak and unappealing the GOP and its self-embarrassed conservatism had become. Only having another Democratic president to oppose — Barack Obama as the new Bill Clinton — gave the pre-Trump Republican party a jolt upright in the 2010 and 2014 midterms. But the 2012 presidential election showed that the party and its ideology were still basically a corpse.

Democrats will be just as dead if they continue to let Trump-haters define their party. Democrats are struggling to adjust to the 21st century, with superannuated 2020 front-runners such as Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders as a case in point. Sanders, nearly 80, is in fact the most forward-looking candidate: his socialism might be a relic of the 20th century, but he recognizes that this outmoded idea has a new chance today because what passes for capitalism is even more obviously past its expiration date. (Socialism’s decrepitude is something Americans haven’t had to think seriously about in a long time, while the senility of the quasi-capitalist, post-industrial economy is something they live with every day.) Joe Biden stakes his appeal on nostalgia for Barack Obama. Pete Buttigieg is a cipher. And Elizabeth Warren has managed the feat of failing to win over the Sanders vote even while seeming too far to the left economically to appeal to the center. But as philosophically fractured as the Democratic field may be, the activist base of the party is less concerned with choosing a clear direction than with hyperventilating about Trump.

Sanders is the most ideologically focused Democratic contender. But that focus and the devotion it inspires on the left are set to run headlong into the anti-Trump mania of the party’s other activists. There is a parallel here to Pat Buchanan’s position on the right in the 1990s. He pointed the GOP toward the nationalist future it would embrace under Trump, but in the Bill Clinton era his nationalist conservatism could never overcome those Republicans who preferred to squelch philosophical considerations and focus on partisan opposition to the Democratic president. Now Sanders and his supporters may find themselves in the paradoxical position of holding the Democratic Party’s future while being powerless to claim its nomination in the present. Anti-Trump Democrats will vote for Biden or Buttigieg (a young old man) just as fervently as anti-Clinton Republicans voted for Bob Dole in 1996. But just as that anti-Clinton vote wasn’t enough to elect Dole president, a merely anti-Trump vote will not do it for Biden or Buttigieg. And in Congress, the solidarity that Democrats derive from opposing Trump only masks the contradiction of an increasingly hard-left party led by establishment figures like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

Trump has already won the impeachment war, but it’s only the beginning of the defeats that are in store for Democrats if they continue to be a party defined by their rage against him.

Source: https://spectator.us/democrats-lost-impeachment-war-probably-2020/

The post How Democrats lost the Impeachment War — and probably 2020 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“House Democrats have wasted enough of America’s time with this charade,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone said in a scathing one-page letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., obtained by Fox News. “You should end this inquiry now and not waste even more time with additional hearings.”

PELOSI CALLS FOR ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST TRUMP: ‘NO CHOICE BUT TO ACT’

Friday was the deadline for Trump to respond to Nadler’s request for participation in committee proceedings.

But instead of giving House Democrats a direct “no” answer, Cipollone penned a two-paragraph letter derailing the entire process.

“As you know, your impeachment inquiry is completely baseless and has violated basic principles of due process and fundamental fairness,” he wrote. “Nevertheless, the Speaker of the House yesterday ordered House Democrats to proceed with articles of impeachment before your Committee has heard a single shred of evidence.”

A senior administration official, though, made it clear they won’t be participating, telling Fox News: “We don’t see any reason to participate because the process is unfair. Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi has already announced the predetermined result. They will not give us the ability to call any witnesses.”

Nadler is set to continue hearings in the committee on Monday.

The decision by the administration likely accelerates the pace of impeachment.

In 1998, the Clinton Administration took 30 hours to present its side of things to the Judiciary Committee. That means there may not be another hearing after Monday’s session.

Trump telegraphed Thursday he wanted to sidestep the House impeachment process and move quickly to the Senate where he believes he’ll be acquitted by the GOP-led upper chamber.

“Therefore I say, if you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate and so that our Country can get back to business,” Trump tweeted. “We will have Schiff, the Bidens, Pelosi and many more testify, and will reveal, for the first time, how corrupt our system really is.”

Cipollone repeated Trump’s comments in the letter and said the House Democrats would be making a historically unjust mistake by plowing forward.

“Adopting articles of impeachment would be a reckless abuse of power by House Democrats, and would constitute the most injust, highly partisan and unconstitutional attempt at impeachment in our Nation’s history,” he said.

Trump and his allies in Congress have dismissed the impeachment as a “sham” partisan exercise aimed at undoing the results of the 2016 presidential election. Trump says his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “perfect” when he asked the newly elected foreign leader to investigate the Bidens and the Democratic National Committee server.

Pelosi, however, said the facts of Trump’s wrongdoing involving Ukraine are “uncontested” and announced Thursday Democrats are plowing forward with drafting articles of impeachment against Trump.

“The president abused his power for his own personal political benefit at the expense of our national security,” Pelosi said.

WHITE HOUSE, IN FIERY LETTER, DECLARES TRUMP WON’T PARTICIPATE IN HOUSE JUDICIARY IMPEACHMENT HEARING

Trump declined to have his lawyers participate in the House Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment hearing Wednesday when four legal scholars debated whether Trump’s conduct was impeachable.

Cipollone blasted the “baseless and highly partisan inquiry” in a letter Sunday declining to attend. The White House also accused the Judiciary Committee of “purposely” scheduling its first impeachment hearing when Trump would be meeting with NATO leaders in London and couldn’t attend.

At Wednesday’s hearing, the three lawyers the Democrats invited made the case that Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine for personal political purposes and his stonewalling of Congress are impeachable. The lone GOP witness, George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, said Trump’s call was “anything but perfect” but said Democrats haven’t made the case.

“One can oppose President Trump’s policies or actions but still conclude that the current legal case for impeachment is not just woefully inadequate, but in some respects, dangerous, as the basis for the impeachment of an American president,” Turley said.

Nadler, D-NY,  had set a deadline of 5 p.m Friday in a letter he penned to the president a week ago.

“I am writing to determine if your counsel will seek to exercise the specific privileges set forth in the Judiciary Committee’s Impeachment Procedures … and participate in the upcoming impeachment proceedings,” Nadler wrote in the Nov. 29 letter.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Nadler scheduled the next impeachment hearing for 9 a.m. on Monday, where lawyers for Democrats and Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee will present their evidence.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-responds-to-impeachment-deadline-i

The post White House won’t participate in impeachment hearings, tells Nadler to ‘end this inquiry now’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Sept. 13 (UPI) — House lawmakers requested internal documents from Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple as part of an antitrust investigation examining competition in digital markets.

The House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee sent letters to the four tech companies seeking communications and documents related to their market dominance.

“Today’s document requests are an important milestone in this investigation as we work to obtain the information that our members need to make this determination,” Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., said in a statement. “We expect stakeholders to use this opportunity to provide information to the committee to ensure that the internet is an engine for an opportunity for everyone, not just a select few gatekeepers.”

The letter to Google, for example, questions how the search engine’s algorithm determines the ranking of search results and whether it downplays non-Google content or services that compete with Google.

Judiciary chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said there’s growing evidence that a handful of corporations control the bulk of the online commerce and communication.

“It is increasingly difficult to use the Internet without relying on these services,” Nadler said in the statement. “The documents requested will provide the committee with a better understanding of the degree to which these intermediaries enjoy market power, how they are using that market power, whether they are using their market power in ways that have harmed consumers and competition, and how Congress should respond.”

The investigation has support from both sides of the aisle.

The post Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple face antitrust probe by House first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The House judiciary committee chairman, Jerrold Nadler, listens during opening statements on Monday in the first hearing on Robert Mueller’s report. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

The House judiciary committee expects to receive the first files of underlying evidence from Robert Mueller’s report soon, after a sudden shift by the justice department as Democrats weigh impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

It is unclear if the deal, announced moments before the start of a judiciary committee hearing with Watergate star witness John Dean, will ultimately be enough for Democrats, who have called for the full, unredacted report and underlying documentation from the special counsel’s work.

However, it signalled the first real breakthrough in the standoff over the report and came at the start of a week of increased activity by the House in the Trump-Russia investigation.

The Republican senator for New York, Jerrold Nadler, , the chairman of the committee, said the justice department will provide some of Mueller’s “most important files” and all members of the committee will be able to view them. He said the files will include those used to assess whether Trump obstructed justice.

In response to the agreement, Nadler said the panel will not vote to hold the attorney general, William Barr, in criminal contempt, for now. But the House will still vote on a resolution on Tuesday that would empower the committee to file a civil lawsuit for the materials, if Democrats decide to do so.

That was the expected outcome even before the deal, as Democrats have shifted their strategy toward lawsuits and away from criminal contempt. Criminal contempt would be referred to the justice department, where it would certainly be rejected. And Democrats have been encouraged by some early wins in court as Trump has broadly fought congressional oversight.

Nadler said in his statement he would give the justice department time to comply.

“If the department proceeds in good faith and we are able to obtain everything that we need, then there will be no need to take further steps,” Nadler said in a statement. “If important information is held back, then we will have no choice but to enforce our subpoena in court and consider other remedies.”

The sudden turn of events came ahead of a pivotal week for House Democrats, who are torn over whether to move forward with impeachment proceedings and searching for ways to focus public attention on Trump’s actions.

Dean, a White House counsel under Richard Nixon who helped bring down his presidency, testified on Monday that Mueller had provided Congress with a “road map” for investigating Trump.

He said he saw parallels between Mueller’s findings regarding Trump and those of congressional investigators looking into Nixon’s administration decades ago. He pointed to the way the presidents used their pardon power in an attempt to influence witness testimony, and their efforts to seize control of the investigation and direct the efforts of prosecutors.

Trump, who was apparently watching the televised hearing, tweeted: “Can’t believe they are bringing in John Dean, the disgraced Nixon White House counsel.” He added his oft-repeated claim of “No Collusion – No Obstruction!”

Democrats and Republicans are vying to win over public opinion in the fallout from Mueller’s investigation. While the special counsel concluded there was not sufficient evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to swing the 2016 election, Mueller also said he could not exonerate the president of obstruction of justice in the investigation.

The procession of hearings and votes in the week ahead is partly designed to mollify anxious Democrats who have pushed the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to begin impeachment proceedings immediately. A growing number of Democrats say the House should start impeachment proceedings in part because Trump is obstructing justice by refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas for documents and testimony. Pelosi prefers to continue the investigations.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/11/trump-russia-house-committee-to-see-mueller-evidence

The post Trump-Russia: House committee to see Mueller evidence first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The announcement on Monday by the House Judiciary Committee, which holds the power to begin impeachment proceedings, came as Congress will return later that evening from a weeklong recess and House Democrats will resume its interparty debate on whether to move forward with opening an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Witnesses will include the likes of former White House counsel John Dean, who worked for President Richard Nixon during the crux of the Watergate scandal that later led to impeachment proceedings, and other unnamed “former U.S. Attorneys and legal experts,” according to the Judiciary Committee.

“These hearings will allow us to examine the findings laid out in Mueller’s report so that we can work to protect the rule of law and protect future elections through consideration of legislative and other remedies,” Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, said in a statement.

Committee Chairman of U.S. House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) speaks to members of the press on May 29 in New York City.GETTY/STEPHANIE KEITH

The public events, the first of which will be June 10, will play a crucial role in Democrats’ ability to convince the American people that the House should open an impeachment inquiry into the president, as a growing number of party members have called for since the Mueller report’s release. Several Judiciary Committee Democrats viewed Mueller’s public remarks last week, the first of their kind, as a call for Congress to proceed with substantial action, like impeachment.

“Russia attacked our elections to help President Trump win, Trump and his campaign welcomed this help and the President then tried to obstruct the investigation into the attack,” Nadler said. “Mueller confirmed these revelations and has now left Congress to pick up where he left off.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with other Democratic leaders in the chamber, have continued to downplay impeachment talk. Speaking at a Commonwealth Club event shortly after Mueller reiterated his report could not exonerate Trump of any criminal wrongdoing, the California Democrat cautioned her party.

“You don’t bring an indictment, or you don’t bring an impeachment, unless you have all of the facts, the strongest possible case, so that the president is held accountable one way or another,” she said.

But patience could be running thing, as one member of leadership—on top of rank-and-file Democrats—warning has now suggested impeachment proceedings could be inevitable.

Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, told CNN over the weekend he believed that at some point in the future, impeachment proceedings will be brought against the president.

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/house-impeachment-hearing-john-dean-nixon-trump

The post House Democrats to hold hearings on Mueller Report first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Barr canceled his scheduled appearance on Thursday before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee after clashing with Democratic Chairman Jerrold Nadler over the hearing’s format. Barr testified on Wednesday to the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee, stoutly defending the Republican president in the wake of the release of Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“We will have no choice but to move quickly to hold the attorney general in contempt if he stalls or fails to negotiate in good faith,” Nadler said at the outset of a brief committee session held in place of Barr’s testimony.

Nadler painted the confrontation with Barr in stark terms.

“Ladies and gentleman, the challenge we face is that the president of the United States wants desperately to prevent Congress, the co-equal branch of the government, from providing any check whatsoever to even his most reckless decisions,” Nadler said.

“He is trying to render Congress inert as a separate and co-equal branch of government. The challenge we face is that if we don’t stand up to him together today we risk forever losing the power to stand up to any president in the future. The very system of government of the United States – the system of limited power, the system of not having a president as a dictator – is very much at stake,” Nadler said.

Nadler’s comments indicated that the Democrats, who control the House, prepared to escalate a showdown with Trump’s administration, which has resisted their demands for documents and information on a wide range of topics, from Trump’s taxes to his potential financial conflicts of interest.

“I am certain that there is no way forward for this country that does not include a reckoning with this clear and present danger to our constitutional order,” Nadler said.

Representative Doug Collins, the committee’s top Republican, blamed Nadler for the standoff, saying the only reason Barr did not appear to testify as planned was that Nadler had made demands about the format of the hearing. The panel adopted an aggressive format with an extra hour of questioning from its own lawyers, in addition to those from the committee’s lawmakers.

‘POLITICAL STUNT’

Collins called the move a “political stunt.”

“They want it to look like an impeachment hearing because they won’t bring impeachment proceedings,” Collins said, referring to the process laid out in the Constitution for removing a president from office.

“The reason Bill Barr is not here today is that the Democrats decided they didn’t want him here today,” Collins added.

The Justice Department said on Wednesday it would not comply with a subpoena issued by Nadler’s committee seeking an unredacted copy of Mueller’s report and evidence gathered in the 22-month investigation. Democrats have said they may issue a subpoena to try to force Barr to testify before their committee.

Barr, whose on April 18 released a version of the report with parts blacked out to protect sensitive information, spent more than four hours at a Senate hearing on Wednesday defending his handling of the report on Russia’s interference in President Donald Trump’s favor and whether Trump subsequently tried to obstruct Mueller’s probe.

The report detailed extensive contacts between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Moscow and the campaign’s expectation that it would benefit from Russia’s actions, which included hacking and propaganda to boost Trump and harm Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The report also detailed a series of actions Trump took to try to impede the investigation.

Mueller, a former FBI director, concluded there was insufficient evidence to show a criminal conspiracy and opted not to make a conclusion on whether Trump committed obstruction of justice, but pointedly did not exonerate him. Barr has said he and Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, then determined there was not enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction.

Barr is under fire for how he characterized the Mueller report’s main conclusions in a letter to lawmakers on March 24, weeks before the report was released. Trump seized on Barr’s summary to declare he had been fully exonerated.

Democrats have said Barr gave misleading testimony to Congress about criticism he received from Mueller over the handling of the disclosure of the report’s conclusions.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, among those seeking the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, on Wednesday night called for Barr’s resignation, the Washington Post reported.

Lawmakers are also seeking testimony from Mueller as soon as this month.

The post Top Democrat threatens to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“How do you impeach a Republican President for a crime that was committed by the Democrats? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump tweeted shortly after arriving in Washington following an Easter Sunday spent at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

Trump’s tweet came after several Democratic leaders in Congress made clear on Sunday that the possibility of impeachment was still on the table, despite opposition from Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and others.

“Impeachment is likely to be unsuccessful,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC’s “This Week,” before adding, “It may be that we undertake an impeachment nonetheless.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, expressed similar views on the Sunday show circuit, insisting Democrats would continue to look into the issue.

The possibility of impeachment gained new urgency after the release of Mueller’s redacted report on Thursday. Though the special counsel’s team concluded there was no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, it also outlined in vivid detail ways in which Trump had possibly sought to interfere with the investigation, raising questions over whether he obstructed justice.

Mueller himself declined to draw a conclusion one way or the other on that matter. But the open-ended nature of that section of the report has led to renewed calls by congressional Democrats to look into whether Trump should be impeached.

Shortly after the report’s release, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), arguably the most influential of the current crop of progressive lawmakers on Capitol Hill, said she would sign on to a resolution from Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) that would examine the issue of impeachment.

Then, on Saturday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) became the first 2020 presidential hopeful to explicitly call for the House to begin impeachment proceedings.

Those new calls are likely to cause friction with Democratic leaders such as Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who have sought to quell talk of impeachment, arguing it would be too divisive going into a heated presidential election.

Pelosi has repeatedly said pursuing impeachment against Trump “is not worth it,” echoing the argument made by figures who have said the best way to defeat Trump is to vote him out of office, including former FBI Director James Comey, who played a key role in Mueller’s investigation.

That view was also endorsed by a more moderate 2020 hopeful, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who on Sunday argued Congress should not pursue impeachment just yet.

“Let the process play itself out,” Ryan said on CNN. “And let’s educate the American people too. This is a very nuanced document. Let the American people really see what’s going on here.”

Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/439937-trump-takes-aim-at-dem-talk-of-impeachment

The post Trump takes aim at Dem talk of impeachment first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

It’s clear that Democratic leaders have been misleading the American people for months by assuring them that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report will be the determining factor as they consider any impeachment inquiry.

The post David Bossie: Anti-Trump Democrats practice politics of personal destruction against president first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Kennedy said that some Democrats are indeed acting in “good faith” but that many are not.

He and Bill Hemmer discussed probes or pending probes from committees led by Reps. Maxine Waters of California, Jerrold Nadler of New York, Richie Neal of Massachusetts and Adam Schiff of California.

NRA Chief LaPierre Slams Gov. Andrew Cuomo: ‘He’s Covertly Violating the Constitution’ to ‘Blacklist’ Us

WATCH: Former ICE Agent Blasts ‘Ridiculous’ New Attack on Agency by Ocasio-Cortez

“This is all part of the reason the American people don’t trust Congress,” he said. “Some people are still… angry about [the 2016 election outcome].”

Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner claimed Sunday that there are “enormous amounts of evidence” incriminating Trump in regard to Russian collusion.

Watch more above.

Trump Jr. at CPAC: POTUS Proves My 4-Year-Old Knows More About NoKo Than the ‘Experts’

NRA Chief LaPierre Slams Gov. Andrew Cuomo: ‘He’s Covertly Violating the Constitution’ to ‘Blacklist’ Us

Source: https://insider.foxnews.com/2019/03/04/senator-john-kennedy-donald-trump-investigations-all-about-democrats-tearing-down

The post Sen. John Kennedy on Dems’ Trump Probes: ‘This Is All About Tearing the President Down’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.