Tag: impeachment

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Joe Biden Calls For Trump To Face Impeachment Proceedings

Joe Biden has publicly called for Donald Trump to face impeachment proceedings
L-R Donald Trump, Joe Biden
Former Vice President Joe Biden is DONE with Donald Trump. For the first time, Biden publicly called for Trump to face impeachment.

Trump, characteristically, couldn’t help himself from trolling Biden on Twitter:

But Biden was just getting warmed up. He clapped back with SASS! And he threw in a remark about Trump’s eternally-being-audited tax returns while he was at it:

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Poll: 58% Support Impeachment Inquiry Of Trump

According to a Washington Post-Schar School poll, a solid majority of Americans support the decision by House Democrats to begin an impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump. The breakdown of the survey shows: • 58% support the launch of the impeachment inquiry; 38% oppose the inquiry • 49% of those that support the inquiry also endorse removing Trump from office; 6% of those that support the inquiry are not in favor of removing Trump from office at this time • 56% disapprove of how House Republicans have handled the impeachment inquiry; 33% approve • 57% of Independents support the impeachment inquiry, and 49% of those believe Trump should be removed from office The Post notes that earlier Post-Schar School or Post-ABC News polls indicated the majority of Americans opposed the launch of an impeachment proceeding, with 37 percent to 41 percent saying they favored such a step.

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Trump Approval Rating Drops Amid Impeachment Inquiry

From CNN:

A new Gallup poll out this week finds that President Donald Trump’s approval rating is 40%. His disapproval rating is 56%.

Trump is in worse shape than he was in early September when Gallup put his approval rating at 43% and his disapproval rating at 54%.

Throughout the Trump administration, Democrats were arguing among themselves over whether to impeach or, at minimum, start an impeachment inquiry against the President. One of the political arguments against it was that it would cause an electoral backlash — that is, trying to impeach Trump would allow his consistently low approval ratings to rise.

So far, that hasn’t happened. Trump, at this point, has not improved his position following the impeachment inquiry. If anything, his numbers have dipped.

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Support For Impeaching Trump Higher Than Nixon Or Clinton At Same Point

Donald Trump (screen capture)
Axios notes that support for the impeachment of Donald Trump is higher than when impeachment inquiries were launched against Richard Nixon (38%) and Bill Clinton (29%). From Axios:

Support for impeachment of Trump is still less than half the country — 44% in the Monmouth University poll shown here; 47% in a CNN poll. And the polling reflects a 50-50 country. But the Ukraine scandal is pushing the numbers up.

Per CNN: “The change since May has largely come among independents and Republicans. … Support for impeachment and removal has risen 11 points to 46% among independents and 8 points to 14% among Republicans.”

Keep in mind: A majority of the public didn’t support impeaching Nixon until a few weeks before he resigned.

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Trump Attacks Mitt ‘Pompous Ass’ Romney For Criticizing ‘Perfect’ Ukraine Call

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), one of the few Senate Republicans to openly question Donald Trump’s motivations for asking foreign governments to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, criticized the Donald on Twitter Friday.

You knew this was coming, didn’t you? The Donald took to the Twitters calling for ROMNEY’s impeachment! How about that???

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2nd Intel Official Considering Whistleblower Complaint On Trump Corruption

Trump walks past reporters with no comment

And another shoe is just about to drop… From the New York Times:

A second intelligence official who was alarmed by President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine is weighing whether to file his own formal whistle-blower complaint and testify to Congress, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The official has more direct information about the events than the first whistle-blower, whose complaint that Mr. Trump was using his power to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals touched off an impeachment inquiry. The second official is among those interviewed by the intelligence community inspector general to corroborate the allegations of the original whistle-blower, one of the people said.

A new complaint, particularly from someone closer to the events, would potentially add further credibility to the account of the first whistle-blower, a C.I.A. officer who was detailed to the National Security Council at one point. He said that he relied on information from more than half a dozen American officials to compile his allegations about Mr. Trump’s campaign to solicit foreign election interference that could benefit him politically.

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Ukraine Envoy Told Giuliani Info Regarding Biden Was ‘Untrustworthy’

Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani (screen capture)
Via the Washington Post:

The former U.S. special envoy for Ukraine told House investigators on Thursday that he warned President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, that Giuliani was receiving untrustworthy information from Ukrainian political figures about former vice president Joe Biden and his son, according to two people familiar with his testimony.

Kurt Volker, who resigned last week after being named in a whistleblower complaint that sparked the House impeachment inquiry of Trump, said he tried to caution Guiliani that his sources, including Ukraine’s former top prosecutor, were unreliable and that he should be careful about putting faith in the prosecutor’s theories, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting.

Volker’s testimony offers the first inside account of the Trump administration’s efforts to press for a Ukrainian investigation into Biden, who as a leading 2020 Democratic candidate to challenge Trump for the White House has become a fixed target of the president’s attacks.

ABC News adds that text messages have come to light that shows two American diplomats discussing the Trump administration withholding military aid. In the texts,  the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine writes to two other American diplomats that “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

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LIVE On TV: Trump Invites China To Investigate Biden

Yesterday, I reported on the clash between Donald Trump and Reuters reporter Jeff Mason during a White House press event wherein Mason asked Trump what it was he wanted the president of Ukraine to do in regard to investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Trump was evasive in the moment and went on a rant about European countries ‘not paying enough.’ Today, Trump was asked the question again – “What exactly did you hope the Ukrainian president would do about the Bidens?” – and this time, Trump not only said (live on TV) that Ukraine should investigate the Bidens but he also invited China to suss out dirt on the Bidens. Basically, Trump not only did what the whistleblower accused him of in his complaint to Congress, but he actually committed a second offense by inviting China, a geopolitical opponent of the U.S., to investigate his possible Democratic opponent in the 2020 presidential election.

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Trump Tries To Discredit Whistleblower For Approaching Congress

After the New York Times reported that the head of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, had been contacted regarding the outlines of the whistleblower’s concerns that Donald Trump had abused his power before it became public knowledge, Trump and his cohorts tried to spin this into a new conspiracy theory against him. Team Trump even tried to assert that Schiff helped write the whistleblower’s complaint. Nope. The thing is – this is the process when someone in government believes they’ve witnessed something gone awry. Via PBS:

The whistleblower who raised concerns about President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine spoke to staffers on the House Intelligence Committee before filing a formal complaint, giving Democrats advance warning of the accusations of wrongdoing that triggered their impeachment inquiry.

The whistleblower, a member of the intelligence community, contacted the committee for guidance on how to report “possible wrongdoing,” according to Patrick Boland, a spokesman for the Intelligence Committee’s chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. Boland said that “at no point did the committee review or receive the complaint in advance” and that it is a regular occurrence for whistleblowers to seek guidance from the committee.

“Consistent with the committee’s longstanding procedures, committee staff appropriately advised the whistleblower to contact an inspector general and to seek legal counsel,” Boland said. Other congressional committees follow a similar process.

In a news conference in the East Room of the White House after the article was published, Trump ranted, “He knew long before and helped write it, too. It’s a scam.” The NY Times states plainly: There is no evidence that Mr. Schiff did, and his spokesman said he saw no part of the complaint before it was filed.

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Stable Genius Has Meltdown At White House Press Conference

During a press conference with Donald Trump and Finland’s President Niinisto, Jeff Mason from Reuters asked Trump what he wanted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to do when Trump brought up the business ties to Ukraine of Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden? Trump began: “What I want is the following — Why are we the only ones that give the big money to the Ukraine?” And he never actually answered the question, which spurred Mason to followup on the question. Serious props to Jeff Mason for trying to get an answer to his question. The Donald is a bit cray-cray here. And poor President Niinisto for having to be exposed to the Trumpster’s madness.