The post Trey Gowdy blasts Schiff’s arguments as ‘wildly stupid trial strategy’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election — now just months away,” the legal filing said. “The highly partisan and reckless obsession with impeaching the president began the day he was inaugurated and continues to this day.”

“The articles of impeachment are constitutionally invalid on their face,” the seven-page filing continued.

The legal paperwork is the first formal response to the two articles of impeachment read in the Senate on Thursday for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

PELOSI GLOATS: TRUMP HAS BEEN IMPEACHED ‘FOREVER’

Trump’s lawyers argued that the articles of impeachment “violate the Constitution” and are “defective in their entirety” because they were the product of invalid House proceedings that “flagrantly denied the President any due process rights.”

At the crux of Trump’s defense is that he did nothing wrong in his July 25 phone call with the president of Ukraine when he asked for investigations into Democrats. The White House argues that military aid to Ukraine was ultimately released without any announcement of investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

The lawyers contend House Democrats fail to allege any crime or violation of law whatsoever, let alone, high crimes or misdemeanors.

“In order to preserve our constitutional structure of government, to reject the poisonous partisanship that the Framers warned against, to ensure one-party political impeachment vendettas do not become the ‘new normal,’ and to vindicate the will of the American people, the Senate must reject both Articles of Impeachment,” Trump’s legal team wrote. “In the end, this entire process is nothing more than a dangerous attack on the American people themselves and their fundamental right to vote.”

The response is the first of many expected in the coming days from Trump’s growing legal team as they battle to acquit the commander in chief in the Senate impeachment trial.

The House impeachment managers released their opening trial briefing Saturday evening, and Trump’s lawyers will give their response by Monday at noon.

HOUSE DEMOCRATS URGE SENATE TO ‘ELIMINATE THE THREAT’ OF TRUMP, IN OPENING IMPEACHMENT TRIAL SALVO

Adding to the Democrats’ case is a legal opinion Thursday from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which found that the Trump administration broke the law by withholding defense aid to Ukraine. But a source close to Trump’s legal team rejected the findings and accused the GAO of trying to insert itself into the impeachment “news cycle.”

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The third presidential impeachment trial formally began Thursday when Chief Justice John Roberts swore in the senators and each signed an “oath book” to cement their role as impartial jurors.

The trial will kick off in earnest Tuesday when House impeachment managers will prosecute the case and Trump’s lawyers will offer a robust defense over a period of days.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-lawyers-respond-impeachment-articles

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The post Schiff responds to House GOP members wanting Hunter Biden to testify first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The GOP witness list, obtained by Fox News earlier Saturday, included Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president Joe Biden, and the anonymous intelligence community whistleblower whose complaint about a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky triggered the impeachment inquiry.

“The committee … will not facilitate efforts by President Trump and his allies in Congress to threaten, intimidate and retaliate against the whistleblower who courageously raised the initial alarm,” Schiff said in a letter to Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif. ” … The whistleblower has a right under laws championed by this committee to remain anonymous and to be protected from harm.”

REPUBLICANS WANT HUNTER BIDEN, UKRAINE WHISTLEBLOWER AS IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY WITNESSES

“The impeachment inquiry, moreover, has gathered an ever-growing body of evidence — from witnesses and documents, including the president’s own words in his July 25 call record — that not only confirms but far exceeds the initial information in the whistleblower’s complaint … ” Schiff concluded his letter. “In light of the president’s threats, the individual’s appearance before us would only place their personal safety at grave risk.”

Earlier in his letter, Schiff had warned Nunes that the impeachment inquiry and the House Intelligence Committee “will not serve as vehicles” for what he called “sham investigations into the Bidens or debunked conspiracies about 2016 U.S. election interference that President Trump pressed Ukraine to conduct for his personal political benefit.”

The impeachment inquiry began when a whistleblower reported that Trump had pushed Zelensky to launch an investigation into the Biden family’s dealings in Ukraine— specifically, why former Vice President Joe Biden pressured former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire a top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, where Hunter held a lucrative role on the board, bringing in a reported $50,000 per month.

Republicans noted that testimony from former State Department official George Kent raised concerns about “the appearance of a conflict of interest stemming from Mr. Biden’s position on Burisma’s board,” and added that former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich was prepared by the Obama State Department to address questions about Mr. Biden’s position on Burisma during her Senate confirmation process.

Republicans also planned to call the younger Biden’s former long-time business partner, Devon Archer, who also sat on the board of Burisma. Republicans claim Archer can help the public to understand “the nature and extent of Ukraine’s pervasive corruption information that bears directly on President Trump’s longstanding and deeply-held skepticism of the country.”

Schiff himself said in September the whistleblower would appear before Congress “very soon,” but in recent weeks has suggested that testimony is unnecessary.

The post Schiff denies GOP request to have Ukraine whistleblower testify publicly, warns against ‘sham investigations’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Appearing on “Fox & Friends: Weekend” with host Jedidiah Bila, Strassel said, “We’ve been told for three years that it’s Donald Trump who is breaking institutions, destroying democracy, undermining the way we operate…I think if you stepped back and looked at it objectively, the lasting damage that we’re getting is to institutions that are coming under assault as part of this resistance drive to push him out of office.”

Strassel said that impeachment is one of the ” most awesome sober tools we are provided in the constitution,” noting that the Founding Fathers almost didn’t write it into the Constitution because “they were worried that it’d be misused.”

“And, that’s what we see happening,” she told Bila. “For three years, people were calling about impeachment, calling for impeachment the day Donald Trump was elected.”

According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, 89 percent of Democrats approve of the House of Representatives’ decision to conduct an impeachment inquiry and 93 percent think Trump has done things that are grounds for impeachment.

A recent Quinnipiac poll, in addition to finding 9 in 10 Democrats expressing approval of the impeachment inquiry, found 85 percent of Democrats say they think Trump should be impeached and removed from office.

At a 2020 campaign rally in Dallas on Thursday, the president hit back: “For three straight years, radical Democrats have been trying to overthrow the results of a great, great, election, maybe the greatest election in the history of our country. They want to impose an extreme agenda.”

“They cannot pass it and they cannot win it at the ballot box. They’re not going to win that evening again. They won’t come close in 2020. They know it. They know they’re not going to win it,” he said. Adding, “You know, I really don’t believe anymore that they love our country.”

“Look at their own words,” Strassel pointed out. “They say that the original offense was that Donald Trump demanded a quid pro quo that he was going to withhold Ukrainian aid for the Ukraine unless the country gave him dirt on Joe Biden.”

“We saw the transcript. We’ve had Ukraine say, ‘No, there was no quid pro quo.’ They’ve even said that they didn’t even know the money was being withheld,” she added.

The post Kim Strassel: The impeachment inquiry will be ‘damaging’ to America first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.