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Mitch McConnell Leaves Door Open for Republicans to Call Hunter Biden to Testify in Impeachment Trial; Democrats Release New Documents on Eve of Impeachment

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By The Blaze. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) left the door open for Republicans to call key witnesses, including Hunter Biden, in the upcoming Senate impeachment trial against President Donald Trump, NBC News reported Tuesday.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday afternoon, McConnell remarked that if witnesses are called, “I can’t imagine” only the Democrats having people they would like to hear from appear before Congress.

In other words, if those who favor impeachment call someone they believe will help the case against Trump, such as former national security adviser John Bolton, it can be expected that those opposed to impeachment would be able to call on witness of their own, including Hunter Biden, who Republicans believe has relevant information validating Trump’s concern about corruption in Ukraine involving former Vice President Joe Biden.

NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Kasie Hunt broke the news when she asked McConnell whether he would back calling Hunter Biden to the witness stand, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has recently suggested.

(Read more from “Mitch McConnell Leaves Door Open for Republicans to Call Hunter Biden to Testify in Impeachment Trial” HERE)

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Democrats Release New Documents on Eve of Impeachment Trial

By AP News. House Democrats have released a trove of documents they obtained from Lev Parnas, a close associate of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, including a handwritten note that mentions asking Ukraine’s president to investigate “the Biden case.”

The documents, obtained as part of the impeachment investigation, show Parnas communicating with Giuliani and another attorney before the removal of Marie Yovanovitch, who was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. A man named Robert F. Hyde disparaged Yovanovitch in messages to Parnas and gave him updates on her location and cell phone use, raising questions about possible surveillance.

Democrats released the files Tuesday as they prepared to send articles of impeachment to the Senate for Trump’s trial. The documents add new context to their charges that Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Democrats as he withheld military aid. (Read more from “Democrats Release New Documents on Eve of Impeachment Trial” HERE)

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Republicans Introduce Resolution to Change Senate Rules in Order to Dismiss Articles of Impeachment

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By The Blaze. Republicans in the U.S. Senate introduced a resolution that would change the congressional rules in order to allow them to dismiss articles of impeachment that are not sent for a trial in the Senate.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) defended the resolution in a statement on Monday, saying that the founders did not envision the eventuality of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) refusing to send articles of impeachment to the Senate.

“The Constitution gives the Senate sole power to adjudicate articles of impeachment, not the House,” Hawley said in the statement.

“If Speaker Pelosi is afraid to try her case, the articles should be dismissed for failure to prosecute and Congress should get back to doing the people’s business,” he added.

The resolution would allow for 25 days for the House to send articles to the Senate after an impeachment vote. (Read more from “Republicans Introduce Resolution to Change Senate Rules in Order to Dismiss Articles of Impeachment” HERE)

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GOP Senators Introduce Resolution to Change Rules, Dismiss Impeachment Without Articles

By The Hill. Roughly a dozen GOP senators want to change the Senate’s rules and allow for lawmakers to dismiss articles of impeachment against President Trump before the House sends them over. . .

The resolution would give the House 25 days to send articles of impeachment over to the Senate. After that, a senator could offer a motion to dismiss “with prejudice for failure by the House of Representatives to prosecute such articles” with a simple majority vote, according to Hawley’s proposal.

The resolution comes as some Senate Republicans have mulled changing the chamber’s rules to allow them to dismiss the impeachment charges against Trump, even though the articles have not been sent over from the House.

Hawley’s resolution has support from GOP Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.), Mike Braun (Ind.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Steve Daines (Mont.), John Barrasso (Wyo.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), David Perdue (Ga.) and James Inhofe (Okla.).

“Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats have made a mockery of our Constitution and abused impeachment for political gain. Now, they’re undermining the role of the Senate by attempting to dictate the terms of the Senate’s trial,” Cruz said in a statement. (Read more from “GOP Senators Introduce Resolution to Change Rules, Dismiss Impeachment Without Articles” HERE)

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WATCH: Liberal Law Professor Noted Something Odd About Schumer’s Trump Impeachment Speech

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By Townhall. . .It’s weak sauce, but the Russian collusion narrative was kaput, bullet-riddled by the facts. The 2020 election is here, so this was their best case. The House passed the articles of impeachment which were grounded in abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, two charges that reek of partisanship. It’s a witch hunt. It’s a joke. And the Senate awaits the transmission of those articles, which are being held hostage by Speaker Nancy Pelosi because they know it faces certain death with the Republican majority in the upper chamber. That’s not her call and her withholding of the articles creates a possible constitutional crisis of its own. Senate Democrats say they want witnesses and new documents included. They know Senate Republicans won’t budge, so this Mexican standoff continues all while Democrats and the liberal media can keep the Trump impeachment echo chamber loaded with sound. They still think they can put a dent in Trump’s approval numbers. They’ve only gone up and swing-state voters have never found this push popular. Still, the goal, as Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel noted, is “rolling impeachment.” Just keep this story around in the news cycle. A trial would further embarrass the shoddy case the Left has against Trump. It’s about keeping the appearance alive. Schumer now says that there has never been an impeachment trial where the Senate was denied testimony from witnesses.

Law professor Jonathan Turley, who may lean Left but isn’t an ideologue and will call out his side for their antics, noted that this was odd coming from a politician who didn’t want witnesses when Bill Clinton was impeached.

(Read more from “Liberal Law Professor Noted Something Odd About Schumer’s Trump Impeachment Speech” HERE)

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Impeachment Trial in Limbo as Senate Leaders Trade Blows

By Politico. Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer have made zero headway on designing a bipartisan set of rules for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial more than two weeks after their first face-to-face meeting on the matter.

The two leaders gave dueling floor speeches on Friday but held no substantive meeting. In a brief conversation on the floor, Schumer told McConnell to focus on his demands. . .

As the Senate waits for the House to send it impeachment articles, McConnell said the Senate will continue its normal business and immediately moved to set up a vote on Trump’s Small Business Administration nominee next week. The House could transmit the articles as soon as next week.

“We are content to continue the ordinary business of the Senate while House Democrats continue to flounder. For now,” McConnell said. “If they ever muster the courage to stand behind their slapdash work product and transmit their articles to the Senate, it will then be time for the United States Senate to fulfill our founding purpose.” (Read more from “Impeachment Trial in Limbo as Senate Leaders Trade Blows” HERE)

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GOP Senator Gives Impeachment End Date

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On Tuesday, one of the GOP’s leaders in the Senate, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said he thinks President Trump’s impeachment trial will be over by the time Trump delivers the State of the Union speech on February 4. Blunt told KSSZ the Senate trial would be “pretty predictable” and happen “quickly,” adding, “My guess is we’ll be done with this by the time the president comes.”

Blunt opined, “What’s happening on the impeachment front doesn’t seem too be complicated; it’s an issue I wish the country wasn’t dealing with. I said on a couple of the Sunday shows a week or two ago that for the first 180 years of the country’s history we’d only gone to presidential impeachment one time and here in the last 46 years or so, we’ve gone to this process three times in a way that is almost become dangerously routine.”

He continued, “If a majority of the House of Representatives can impeach a president as sort of a routine, “Well, we’ve done this 20 years ago and we did it 20 years before that and let’s send it over to the Senate and see what happens,” I think that’s concerning, but Nancy Pelosi said at very start of the year if impeachment wasn’t bipartisan, it wouldn’t work and it clearly was no bipartisan in the House, not a single Republican voted for the articles of impeachment and a couple of Democrats didn’t either. That’s not an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote but it certainly means it wasn’t a bipartisan decision that this is something in an election year we should move forward with.” . . .

Asked if there were a timetable set for the Senate trial, Blunt responded, “Well, at one time both the House and the Senate were of the view that this is constitutionally important that this is something that needs to happen quickly. I think it will still happen quickly. Just reading yesterday in the information we received about the state of the union, that the president’s been invited by the Speaker to come and give the State of the Union speech on February 4th, my guess is we’ll be done with this by the time the president comes.” (Read more from “GOP Senator Gives Impeachment End Date” HERE)

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Congressman: Democrats Still Refusing to Release Transcripts From ‘Secret’ Depositions (VIDEO)

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Texas Republican Representative Michael Burgess revealed during an interview on Friday that Democrats are still refusing to release transcripts of depositions that were conducted in secret by Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Burgess made the remarks during an interview on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” with co-host Molly Line, where he said Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) goal with impeachment was to “politically harm the president at the beginning of a political year.” . . .

“Look, they had all the tools at their disposal up on the House side. They made it secret, not just behind locked doors, but with armed guards outside the doors,” Burgess responded. “They still haven’t made all of the transcripts available to members of Congress and, according to House rules, any committee hearing is supposed to be – the transcript is supposed to be available to other House members, but they have not done so, and no one has asserted that these are classified briefings; they were just simply secret hearings because it behooved the speaker to have secret hearings. That doesn’t pass muster. That’s not a constitutional part of the process.”

(Read more from “Congressman: Democrats Still Refusing to Release Transcripts From ‘Secret’ Depositions (VIDEO)” HERE)

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Nancy Pelosi Is Playing Political Games With the U.S. Constitution Over Donald Trump’s Impeachment; Trump Lashes out at Pelosi on Christmas

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By Newsweek. No one can be sure what her intent is. I’m not sure she even knows but her decision to wait before transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate is setting a bad precedent that puts politics ahead of the U.S. Constitution.

For all the work that’s gone into addressing the charges against President Donald Trump, it’s hard to argue they rise to the level of impeachable offenses. The charge of obstruction of Congress could just as easily be presented as a justifiable defense of executive power for which ample precedent exists. The allegation he abused the power of his office is likewise flawed. While U.S. policy toward Ukraine is legitimately a subject for congressional oversight it is hardly the stuff of which previous presidents were threatened with removal from office. . .

What Pelosi wants is at least one more bite at the apple, maybe more. Her minions have been trying to impeach the president for most of his administration. The votes taken just prior to Christmas on articles of impeachment were not the first and, if you can believe what’s being said over the holiday recess, may not be the last. As Politico is reporting, “The House is open to the prospect of impeaching President Donald Trump a second time, lawyers for the Judiciary Committee said Monday.”

Will it ever end? Probably not. Just as Bill Clinton gave us what came to be called “the permanent campaign,” Nancy Pelosi and her allies are giving America “the permanent impeachment.” For all her high-minded talk about the gravity of the situation and the steps being taken by the House, she’s messing around with the Constitution while trying to overturn the results of the last election and influence the outcome of the next. She might succeed, at least as far as the latter effort is concerned, but not in the way she intends. (Read more from “Nancy Pelosi Is Playing Political Games With the U.S. Constitution Over Donald Trump’s Impeachment” HERE)

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Trump Lashes out at Pelosi on Christmas, Decries ‘Scam Impeachment’

By The Hill. President Trump on Wednesday lashed out at Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a pair of tweets Christmas night, decrying what he called a “Scam Impeachment.”

“Why should Crazy Nancy Pelosi, just because she has a slight majority in the House, be allowed to Impeach the President of the United States?” wrote Trump, who is staying at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., for the holidays.

He also called the impeachment process “very unfair.”

(Read more from “Trump Lashes out at Pelosi on Christmas, Decries ‘Scam Impeachment'” HERE)

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Establishment-Controlled ‘Conservative’ Publications Call for Trump’s Removal From Office

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President Trump on Friday excoriated evangelical magazine Christianity Today after it published an editorial backing his impeachment and removal.

Christianity Today was founded by reknowned preacher Billy Graham in 1956, however in recent years it has not been closely associated with the Graham family. The editorial was written by magazine editor-in-chief Mark Galli, who retires on January 3, 2020. Galli called the President’s actions with regard to Ukraine “a violation of the Constitution” and “immoral” . . .

Trump slammed the editorial in a tweet on Friday morning.

“A far left magazine, or very ‘progressive,’ as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today, knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President,” Trump wrote. (Read more from “Establishment-Controlled ‘Conservative’ Publications Call for Trump’s Removal From Office” HERE)

See also “Evangelical Leaders Hammer Christianity Today” HERE.

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The Inquisitr reported that:

A senior editor of the National Review wrote a damning opinion piece for the news site on Friday calling for Donald Trump to be removed from office, making it the second major conservative outlet to do so… The National Review is a major conservative publication that has led the field since it was established over six decades ago. On Friday, senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru wrote a piece called “Four Tests for Impeachment,” arguing that Trump had met or exceeded each one and deserved to be removed from office.

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GOP Senator: Pelosi Sitting on Impeachment Is ‘an Admission of Failure’ (VIDEO)

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Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Sunday described House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to keep the articles of impeachment from the Senate’s gaze as “a sign of weakness” and “an admission of failure.”

“You can’t make this up,” Cruz told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “Listen, this is a sign of weakness. This is a sign she understands just how weak these articles are. These articles of impeachment that they actually voted on were really an admission of failure.” . . .

“For months they had been promising all of this evidence of criminal activity. For months they had been talking about bribery, talking about quid pro quo. But then they heard all the evidence and they got no evidence of it. These articles don’t allege any crime,” Cruz said.

“This is the first time in the history of our country that a president has been impeached without a single article alleging any criminal conduct. They don’t allege any crime. They don’t allege any federal law violated,” Cruz insisted, adding that “this was, at the end of the day, a political response because Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats hate the president.” . . .

Cruz also commented on the recent release of the Department of Justice Inspector General report that details gross incompetence on the part of the FBI in procuring Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Application (FISA) warrants — especially in the case of then-Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. (Read more from “GOP Senator: Pelosi Sitting on Impeachment Is ‘an Admission of Failure’” HERE)

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‘Home Alone 2’ Wikipedia Page Changed to Note Trump Was Impeached

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The Home Alone 2: Lost in New York Wikipedia page was reportedly altered briefly this week to note the impeachment of President Donald Trump, who appeared in a brief cameo in the Christmas classic.

Trump made a cameo in the 1992 film in which he gave directions to actor Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin McCallister, as the two stood inside the Trump Organization’s Plaza Hotel. . .

“On December 18th, 2019 Donald Trump became the first cast member of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives,” the text read.

Sunday, the entry was removed and the page locked for “Extended confirmed protection, also known as 30/500 protection, allows edits only by editors with the extended confirmed user access level.”

However, the Donald Trump Wikipedia page text read that “Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 18, 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He is the third impeached U.S. president in history.” (Read more from “‘Home Alone 2’ Wikipedia Page Changed to Note Trump Was Impeached” HERE)

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Adam Schiff Got Caught Celebrating Impeachment at a Swanky Steak House; Dems Cheer After Vote, Pelosi Shoots Them A Death Glare

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By Townhall. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who has been driving impeachment against President Trump for months, went out for steak last night ahead of today’s full House vote. Apparently, they’re celebrating.

Meanwhile, Democrats keep pretending they aren’t giddy over today’s impeachment proceedings. They’ve been instructed not to cheer if the articles pass and talking points about it “being a solemn day” have made the rounds. Adding to the drama, many Democratic Congresswomen are wearing black.

(Read more from “Adam Schiff Got Caught Celebrating Impeachment at a Swanky Steak House” HERE)

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Democrats Begin to Applaud Impeachment…Until Pelosi Gives Them a Look

By Townhall. Laughs, smiles, and applause. Does that sound like a “solemn” day to you? Throughout Wednesday’s debate on the House floor over impeaching President Trump, Democrats cracked jokes about wanting to impeach him months before he even called the Ukrainian president, and others applauded while their colleagues painted him as an unconstitutional ogre. . .

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had promised us that today was going to be a “sad and prayerful” day as they prepared to vote on their two articles of impeachment against Trump. Both articles, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, have now passed.

(Read more from “Democrats Begin to Applaud Impeachment…Until Pelosi Gives Them a Look” HERE)

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