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Democratic Lawmaker: ‘I Am Struggling’ to See a Case for Impeachment; Trump Declines to Take Part in ‘Baseless’ House Impeachment Inquiry; Trump Rips CNN Report About Device He Uses for Official Calls

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By Washington Examiner. Several moderate Democratic House representatives are balking at impeaching President Trump as they worry doing so will have severe political consequences.

One anonymous member said he is “struggling” to see the case for impeachment and expressed concern that all of the information being used to draft articles of impeachment is “secondhand,” according to CNN.

The anonymous admissions from Democratic lawmakers comes nearly two weeks after Democratic Rep. Brenda Lawrence of Michigan told a local radio host she favors censure over impeachment. Lawrence walked back that statement after it hit national news, and she pledged to support impeachment.

“I would say, ‘Look, I am concerned about not knowing what the articles will have in them. I am concerned about the timeline of this whole impeachment process,'” one Democratic lawmaker said. “For me, right now, I am struggling to see how the evidence supports impeachment at this point.” (Read more from “Democratic Lawmaker: ‘I Am Struggling’ to See a Case for Impeachment” HERE)

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Trump Declines to Take Part in ‘Baseless’ House Impeachment Inquiry

By NPR. President Trump has decided to stay out of the impeachment inquiry being conducted by the House of Representatives.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone rejected an offer from House Democrats that would have allowed the president to send counsel to represent him at future impeachment hearings.

In a short two-paragraph letter to Democrats, Cipollone said the impeachment inquiry is “completely baseless and has violated basic principles of due process and fundamental fairness.”

“House Democrats have wasted enough of America’s time with this charade,” Cipollone said. “You should end this inquiry now and not waste even more time with additional hearings.” (Read more from “Trump Declines to Take Part in ‘Baseless’ House Impeachment Inquiry” HERE)

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Trump Rips ‘Fake News’ CNN, Demands Retraction over Report He Still Uses Personal Cellphone

By Fox News. President Trump went after CNN on Friday night after the anti-Trump network reported that he still uses a personal cellphone, which he insisted is “totally false.”

CNN reported on-air during “Out Front with Erin Burnett” that “multiple officials” from the Trump administration have told the network that the president continues to use his personal device to make phone calls “despite repeated warnings” by his staff and that he “doesn’t care.”

White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins told CNN anchor Erin Burnett that Trump had been repeatedly warned that his calls could be vulnerable to “foreign surveillance,” which had been a concern of the staff “since he took office” and how the ongoing impeachment inquiry has “revived” such concerns.

Moments later, the president took to Twitter and blasted the report.

(Read more from “Trump Rips ‘Fake News’ CNN, Demands Retraction over Report He Still Uses Personal Cellphone” HERE)

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The Supreme Court Temporarily Blocked Trump’s Bid to Restart Federal Executions

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The Supreme Court dealt a temporary setback Friday to the Trump administration’s bid to revive the death penalty after a 17-year hiatus, refusing the government’s request to clear the way for four federal executions a lower court judge put on hold.

The high court did not disclose the vote count or its reasoning, as is typical of orders of this nature. However, the justices did instruct the lower courts to speedily process the dispute.

“We expect that the Court of Appeals will render its decision with appropriate dispatch,” Friday’s order reads. Justice Samuel Alito put a finer point on that directive in a statement accompanying the decision, which Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined.

“The Court has expressed the hope that the Court of Appeals will proceed with ‘appropriate dispatch,’ and I see no reason why the Court of Appeals should not be able to decide this case, one way or the other, within the next 60 days,” Alito’s opinion reads. “The question, though important, is straightforward and has already been very ably briefed in considerable detail by both the Solicitor General and by the prisoners’ 17-attorney legal team.”

The Trump administration resumed executions after a near-20 year reprieve in July. Attorney General William Barr directed the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to use a single-drug pentobarbital lethal injection protocol for capital punishment, which was at issue in the case before the high court. (Read more from “The Supreme Court Temporarily Blocked Trump’s Bid to Restart Federal Executions” HERE)

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WATCH: Dem Rep. Says They’ll Never Stop Trying to Impeach Trump

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Democratic Texas Rep. Al Green said Thursday that House Democrats could impeach President Donald Trump multiple times.

Green said in a C-SPAN interview that a “president can be impeached more than once” and that there is “no limit” to the number of times the House can vote on impeachment.

“I think that the Mueller report has some issues in it that ought to be considered. I think the obstruction of the Comey investigation has issues that should be considered, and I think the invidious discrimination that I have called to the attention of the public ought to be considered,” Green said. . .

“My hope is we will expand this and take up additional issues. I would also say this for your viewers, for edification purposes — a president can be impeached more than once. So we can do this — we can move forward with what we have on the table currently. We can take this before the Senate, and we can still investigate other issues, and when the president has committed additional offenses — and my suspicion is that he will — we can take those before the Senate,” he continued.

(Read more from “Dem Rep. Says They’ll Never Stop Trying to Impeach Trump” HERE)

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Swalwell Changes Tune on Impeachment

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California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell on Tuesday said he has not made a decision yet about whether President Donald Trump should be impeached, after previously calling for his impeachment.

Swalwell’s comments come after House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff declined to say whether or not he supports impeaching Trump and his removal from office by the Senate. In November, Swalwell said on Twitter “I am one of them. I called for impeachment the day @realDonaldTrump told @GStephanopoulos he would again take help from a foreign government to win an election. That was June. Little did any of us know he was already trying to do that with Ukraine.”

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released their report on Tuesday regarding the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

The 123-page report, which was written by Republican staffers of the House Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs panels, says that the evidence provided by Democrats is not enough to impeach the president and called the Democrats’ continued efforts to impeach Trump “an orchestrated campaign to upend our political system,” Roll Call reported.

The White House told House Democrats on Sunday that they will not take part in the House Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment hearing, after being invited by House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler. (Read more from “Swalwell Changes Tune on Impeachment” HERE)

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Justice Department Asks Supreme Court to Allow Execution of Four Child Murderers

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The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court Monday night to clear the way for four federal executions, after a judge in Washington, D.C., put them on hold.

The first of the executions is set for Dec. 9. The condemned inmate is Daniel Lewis Lee, who belonged to a white supremacist organization. A jury sentenced him to death for the 1999 murders of three people, among them an 8-year-old girl. Juries also convicted the other convicts — Alfred Bourgeois, Dustin Lee Honken and Wesley Ira Purkey — for the murders of children.

Attorney General William Barr revived the federal death penalty after a 17-year hiatus in July. The attorney general directed the Bureau of Prisons to use a single-drug pentobarbital lethal injection protocol for capital punishment, clearing the way for long-stalled executions to proceed.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said that “uniform procedure” violates a provision of the Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA). That provision says federal executions must be carried out “in the manner prescribed by the law of the state” in which the death sentence issued.

Though all the relevant states allow lethal injection, Chutkan said the word “manner” encompasses both the means used and the procedural particulars. The judge found there are technical differences between the Barr protocol and relevant state practices, such as how the catheter should be inserted. (Read more from “Justice Department Asks Supreme Court to Allow Execution of Four Child Murderers” HERE)

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WATCH: After These Remarks About the Trump Impeachment Circus, Does This Mean House Democrats Are Russian Agents?

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Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) is one of the few Democrats who aren’t insane. Yes, that club has lost a lot of members since 2016. She’s still a liberal Democrat, but she’s not nuts. She has noted how identity politics has hijacked her party. She hates it when people generalize all Trump supporters as racist. And she warned her party in 2016 that the Clinton campaign was ignoring the Rust Belt, and her state, at their peril. Now, she’s observing that the overtly partisan public impeachment hearings are pretty much accomplishing what Russia wants with this circus: division. And it’s the Democrats leading that charge because…‘orange man, bad.’

Fox Business host Charles Payne interviewed Dingell where he commented on how a partisan impeachment push is accomplishing things Russia has only dreamed of concerning sowing division in Washington.

“I think some of this has probably been caused by some of the actions that they’ve taken,” replied Dingell.

Is that a subtle shot at Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)? Schiff is the chair of the House Intelligence Committee who held the first series of public hearings that really didn’t do much. The needle hasn’t moved in impeachment. It’s still unpopular in battleground states. No one watched it. No one cared. And the witnesses were pretty much career bureaucrats who were huffy because they disagreed with Trump on Ukraine policy.

Yeah, the hill Democrats are willing to die on is that the president tried to shake down the Ukrainians in a July phone call, where Trump threatened to withhold military aid unless a corruption probe was opened into Hunter Biden’s position at Burisma. Aid was never withheld. In fact, Trump’s Ukraine policy has teeth unlike Obama, who refused to dole out military aid out of fear of hurting Putin’s feelings.

During these hearings, it was revealed that the president could legally put a hold on aid. This is shoddier and more pathetic than the Russian collusion narrative that turned out to be a total myth. (Read more from “After These Remarks About the Trump Impeachment Circus, Does This Mean House Democrats Are Russian Agents?” HERE)

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MSNBC Host Disparages Evangelical Christians, Trump Supporters as ‘Racial and Religious Cult’

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MSNBC host Joy Reid took aim at evangelical Christians and supporters of President Donald Trump on her show Saturday, likening them to a “cult.”

“There’s a lot of ways if you look at like the Public Religion Research Institute numbers that, you know, it isn’t just a pejorative to say that it’s a cult,” Reid said.

“There’s a lot of evidence that is a racial and religious cult of personality in which his base is solidly among the white evangelicals that almost worship him and say that he’s the chosen one of God,” she continued.

Reid’s comments come after the Economist/YouGov weekly tracking poll showed that Republicans now believe that Trump is a better president than Abraham Lincoln. The poll found that Republicans — 53 percent to 47 percent — select Trump over Lincoln as a better president.

However, Americans overall, when Democrats and Independents are measured, still rate Lincoln as better than Trump. (Read more from “MSNBC Host Disparages Evangelical Christians, Trump Supporters as ‘Racial and Religious Cult'” HERE)

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America’s First Black Billionaire: No 2020 Democrat Can Beat Trump

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BET founder Robert Johnson is not convinced any of the Democratic candidates seeking to face President Trump in 2020 has a shot at winning the White House.

Johnson, America’s first black billionaire and a lifelong Democrat, told CNBC that the Trump economy is strong and he has an ability “to dominate the news cycle” that makes it hard for his Democratic challengers to focus on substance.

“If you take a snapshot today, I don’t think that group is capable of beating Donald Trump despite what the polls say,” Johnson said.

“I do not see anybody in the Democratic primary race today that is enough in the center where I believe most of the voters are, and I particularly think where most of the African American voters are,” he added. (Read more from “America’s First Black Billionaire: No 2020 Democrat Can Beat Trump” HERE)

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President Makes Surprise Thanksgiving Trip to Troops in Afghanistan; Trump Says Peace Talks With Taliban Have Resumed

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By CBS News. President Trump showed up in Afghanistan on Thursday for a surprise Thanksgiving visit with troops engaged in America’s longest-ever military conflict. Mr. Trump arrived at Bagram Air Field shortly after 8:30 p.m. local time and spent more than two-and-a-half hours on the ground, speaking to troops and meeting with Afghanistan’s president.

Reporters were under strict instructions to keep the trip a secret to ensure his safety. Mr. Trump’s public schedule said he would be at Mar-a-Lago to host a videoconference call with troops. It’s his first trip to the country as president. While in Afghanistan, Mr. Trump said he hopes to bring the number of troops in Afghanistan down to 8,600 from the current 14,000. . .

During his whirlwind trip, the president served turkey to troops. Military personnel told reporters on the ground there were roughly 500 troops in the rooms where the president went.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather celebrate this Thanksgiving than right here with the toughest, strongest, best and bravest warriors on the face of the earth – you are indeed that,” the president told the troops. (Read more from “President Makes Surprise Thanksgiving Trip to Troops in Afghanistan” HERE)

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Trump Says Peace Talks With Taliban Have Resumed During Surprise Visit to Afghanistan

By Fox News. On a surprise trip to Afghanistan on Thursday, President Trump said that the United States has reopened peace talks with the Taliban – just three months after the president scuttled negotiations between Washington and the Afghan insurgents following a terror attack that killed 11 people, including one U.S. soldier.

Trump, who made his first trip to Afghanistan under a veil of secrecy for security reasons, told troops gathered at the Air Force base for Thanksgiving dinner that the Taliban “wants to make a deal very badly.”

“We’re going to stay until such time as we have a deal, or we have total victory, and they want to make to make a deal very badly,” Trump said. “The Taliban wants to make a deal — we’ll see if they make a deal. If they do, they do, and if they don’t they don’t. That’s fine.” . . .

The president arrived in Afghanistan just in time to serve troops Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. Standing alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, he dished out turkey to roughly two dozen troops at a dining facility decorated with red, orange and yellow Thanksgiving banners and tablecloths. Mulvaney, Barrasso, and O’Brien were also behind the counter.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather spend Thanksgiving than with the toughest, fiercest warriors,” Trump said. “I’m here to say Happy Thanksgiving and thank you very much. As president of the United States, I have no higher honor than serving as commander-in-chief.” (Read more from “Trump Says Peace Talks With Taliban Have Resumed During Surprise Visit to Afghanistan” HERE)

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President Trump Blocks Impeachment Testimony

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President Trump on Tuesday defended blocking top officials from testifying as part of the House impeachment inquiry, arguing the decision was made to protect the office of the presidency and “future presidents” — even as he claimed he’d otherwise support the testimony. . .

He claimed that former national security adviser John Bolton, whom Democrats have sought for testimony due to his involvement in discussions central to the impeachment inquiry, could actually back his claims. While Democrats allege Trump delayed aid to Ukraine in order to seek the launch of politically advantageous investigations, Trump said Bolton “may know that I held back the money from Ukraine because it is considered a corrupt country, & I wanted to know why nearby European countries weren’t putting up money also” — an argument Trump allies have made. . .

The president’s tweet comes as the House is winding down its impeachment inquiry. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who was largely leading the inquiry, said Monday that the panel would be working on its report to transmit to the House Judiciary Committee, which could prepare potential articles of impeachment, after Thanksgiving.

Democrats have subpoenaed top administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney for records or testimony — but the administration has blocked them.

When asked Tuesday about the president’s tweet on testimony, Pompeo said cryptically, “When the time is right, all good things happen.” (Read more from “President Trump Blocks Impeachment Testimony” HERE)

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