Hillary Clinton is still peddling election-related conspiracy theories, this time hinting that 2020 Democratic contender Tulsi Gabbard is being ‘groomed’ to split the Democratic vote as a third party candidate, thus handing the election to President Trump.
Speaking with former Obama 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe on his podcast, “Campaign HQ with David Plouffe,” Clinton said – without mentioning Gabbard by name: “I’m not making any predictions but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians.”
Of course, that’s “assuming Jill Stein will give it up – because she’s also a Russian asset,”Clinton continued.
Earlier in the interview, Clinton hinted that the Trump 2020 campaign is still in “contact with the Russians,” and that “we have to assume that since it worked for them, why would they quit?”
“Donald Trump is Vladimir Putin’s dream,” Clinton added. “I don’t know what Putin has on him – whether its both personal and financial, I assume it is. But more than that, there’s this bizarre adulation Trump has for dictators.”
Clinton also insisted that Russia “did affect the outcome of the election” in 2016, despite the DOJ concluding otherwise.
According to a new declassified ruling FBI employees abused NSA mass surveillance data in 2017 and 2018. In 2017 FBI employees conducted over 3.1 million searches from the NSA database including searching activities of US citizens.
Under current FBI rules surveillance data can only be searched if there is reasonable suspicion of crimes having taken place or clear risks to national security. But FBI employees and even contractors were searching the database to see what information they could find on U.S. citizens.
According to a new declassified ruling from the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), FBI personnel systematically abused National Security Agency (NSA) mass surveillance data in both 2017 and 2018. The 138-page ruling, which dates back to October 2018, was only unsealed 12 months later in October 2019. It offers a rare look at how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been abusing the constitutional privacy rights of U.S. citizens with alarming regularity. The court ruling is also a stinging rebuke to the FBI’s overreach of its ability to search surveillance intelligence databases.
Key elements of the FISA court ruling
The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, itself a super-secret court that traditionally approves each and every request of law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, found that employees of the FBI searched data collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in an inappropriate and potentially unconstitutional manner. These abuses, says the FISA court, included accessing NSA surveillance data to look into the online communications of U.S. citizens, including fellow FBI employees and their family members. All told, there may have been tens of thousands of these improper queries, all of them carried out without any reasonable suspicion of a crime or illegal activity posing a risk to national security. Moreover, many of the FBI’s backdoor searches did not differentiate between U.S. citizens and foreign intelligence targets.
In 2017 alone, the FBI conducted over 3.1 million searches of surveillance data, compared to just 7,500 combined searches by the CIA and NSA. This is particularly troubling because, under current FBI operating procedures, this surveillance data can only be searched if there is reasonable suspicion of crimes having taken place or clear risks to national security. And, yet, FBI employees and FBI contractors were at times searching the database to see what information they could find on U.S. citizens not at all connected to foreign intelligence matters.
The FBI and deep state operatives were also spying on the Trump family, the Trump administration and conservatives during this same time period.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) confirmed to her Democrat Caucus on Tuesday that there will be no formal floor vote to officially launch an impeachment probe against President Trump.
Fox News Congress reporter Chad Pergram and Congress writer for The Hill Scott Wong both confirmed Pelosi has no plans to hold a full House vote.
Rather, Pelosi and her fellow Democrat coup plotters are moving full steam ahead with secret impeachment proceedings ‘to keep President Trump and his lawyers in the dark,’ as Adam Schiff previously stated.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) admitted on Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the reason for holding secret testimonies behind closed doors is to keep President Trump and his lawyers in the dark.
And so Schiff can selectively leak to the media…
The crooked Democrats on Tuesday changed the rules again in their sham impeachment inquiry.
The Dems shifted the closed-door interviews to depositions in order to limit the questioning to one attorney per round.
Another reason why Pelosi won’t hold a full House vote on the floor is because she will expose vulnerable red-state Democrats who are up for a tough reelection in 2020 — Pelosi knows the majority of Americans do no support impeachment.
Furthermore, the Dems are able to block the Minority members from issuing subpoenas and questioning witnesses.
CNN: The 2020 presidential candidates comment on the impeachment inquiry at the CNN/New York Times debate in Westerville, Ohio.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN MODERATOR: Since the last debate, House Democrats have officially launched an impeachment inquiry against President Trump, which all the candidates on this stage support. Senator Warren, I want to start with you. You have said that there’s already enough evidence for President Trump to be impeached and removed from office. But the question is, with the election only one year away, why shouldn’t it be the voters who determine the president’s fate?
WARREN: Because sometimes there are issues that are bigger than politics. And I think that’s the case with this impeachment inquiry.
When I made the decision to run for president, I certainly didn’t think it was going to be about impeachment. But when the Mueller report came out, I read it, all 442 pages. And when I got to the end, I realized that Mueller had shown, too, a fare-thee-well, that this president had obstructed justice and done it repeatedly. And so at that moment, I called for opening an impeachment inquiry.
Now, that didn’t happen. And look what happened as a result. Donald Trump broke the law again in the summer, broke it again this fall. You know, we took a constitutional oath, and that is that no one is above the law, and that includes the president of the United States.
Impeachment is the way that we establish that this man will not be permitted to break the law over and over without consequences. This is about Donald Trump, but, understand, it’s about the next president and the next president and the next president and the future of this country. The impeachment must go forward.
COOPER: Thank you, Senator Warren. You’re all going to get in on this, by the way. Senator Sanders, do Democrats have any chance but to impeach President Trump? Please respond.
SANDERS: No, they don’t. In my judgment, Trump is the most corrupt president in the history of this country. It’s not just that he obstructed justice with the Mueller Report. I think that the House will find him guilty of — worthy of impeachment because of the emoluments clause. This is a president who is enriching himself while using the Oval Office to do that, and that is outrageous.
And I think in terms of the recent Ukrainian incident, the idea that we have a president of the United States who is prepared to hold back national security money to one of our allies in order to get dirt on a presidential candidate is beyond comprehension. So I look forward, by the way, not only to a speedy and expeditious impeachment process, but Mitch McConnell has got to do the right thing and allow a free and fair trial in the Senate.
COOPER: Vice President Biden, during the Clinton impeachment proceedings, you said, and I quote, “The American people don’t think that they’ve made a mistake by electing Bill Clinton, and we in Congress had better be very careful before we upset their decision.” With the country now split, have Democrats been careful enough in pursuing the impeachment of President Trump?
BIDEN: Yes, they have. I said from the beginning that if, in fact, Trump continued to stonewall what the Congress is entitled to know about his background, what he did, all the accusations in the Mueller Report, if they did that, they would have no choice — no choice — but to begin an impeachment proceeding, which gives them more power to seek more information.
This president — and I agree with Bernie, Senator Sanders — is the most corrupt president in modern history and I think all of our history. And the fact is that this president of the United States has gone so far as to say, since this latest event, that, in fact, he will not cooperate in any way at all, will not list any witnesses, will not provide any information, will not do anything to cooperate with the impeachment. They have no choice but to move.
COOPER: Senator Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that members of Congress have to be, in her words, fair to the president and give him a chance to exonerate himself. You’ve already said that based on everything you’ve seen, you would vote to remove him from office. Is that being fair to the president?
HARRIS: Well, it’s just being observant, because he has committed crimes in plain sight. I mean, it’s shocking, but he told us who he was. Maya Angelou told us years ago, listen to somebody when they tell you who they are the first time.
During that election, Donald Trump told us he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. And he has consistently since he won been selling out the American people. He’s been selling out working people. He’s been selling out our values. He’s been selling out national security. And on this issue with Ukraine, he has been selling out our democracy.
Our framers imagined this moment, a moment where we would have a corrupt president. And our framers then rightly designed our system of democracy to say there will be checks and balances. This is one of those moments. And so Congress must act.
But the reality of it is that I don’t really think this impeachment process is going to take very long, because as a former prosecutor, I know a confession when I see it. And he did it in plain sight. He has given us the evidence. And he tried to cover it up, putting it in that special server. And there’s been a clear consciousness of guilt. This will not take very long. Donald Trump needs to be held accountable. He is, indeed, the most corrupt and unpatriotic president we have ever had.
COOPER: Senator Booker, you have said that President Trump’s, quote, “moral vandalism” disqualifies him from being president. Can you be fair in an impeachment trial? Please respond.
BOOKER: So, first of all, we must be fair. We are talking about ongoing proceedings to remove a sitting president for office. This has got to be about patriotism and not partisanship.
Look, I share the same sense of urgency of everybody on this stage. I understand the outrage that we all feel. But we have to conduct this process in a way that is honorable, that brings our country together, doesn’t rip us apart.
Anybody who has criticisms about a process that is making all the facts bare before the American public, that works to build consensus, that’s what this nation needs, in what is a moral moment and not a political one. So I swore an oath to do my job as a senator, do my duty. This president has violated his. I will do mine.
COOPER: Thank you, Senator Booker.
Senator Klobuchar, you have — what do you say to those who fear that impeachment is a distraction from issues that impact people’s day-to-day lives, health care, the economy, and could backfire on Democrats?
KLOBUCHAR: We can do two things at once. That’s our job. We have a constitutional duty to pursue this impeachment, but we also can stand up for America, because this president has not been putting America in front of his own personal interests.
He has not been standing up for the workers of Ohio. He’s not been standing up for the farmers in Iowa. And I take this even a step further. You know, when he made that call to the head of Ukraine, he’s digging up dirt on an opponent. That’s illegal conduct. That’s what he was doing. He didn’t talk to him about the Russian invasion. He talked to him about that.
So I’m still waiting to find out from him how making that call to the head of Ukraine and trying to get him involved in interfering in our election makes America great again. I’d like to hear from him about how leaving the Kurds for slaughter, our allies for slaughter, where Russia then steps in to protect them, how that makes America great again. And I would like to hear from him about how coddling up to Vladimir Putin makes America great again.
It doesn’t make America great again. It makes Russia great again. And that is what this president has done. So whether it is workers’ issues, whether it is farmers’ issues, he has put his own private interests…
COOPER: Thank you.
KLOBUCHAR: … and I will not do that.
COOPER: Thank you. Secretary Castro, is impeachment a distraction?
CASTRO: Not at all. We can walk and chew gun at the same time. And all of us are out there every single day talking about what we’re going to do to make sure that more people cross a graduation stage, that more families have great health care, that more folks are put to work in places like Ohio, where Donald Trump has broken his promises, because Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania actually in the latest jobs data have lost jobs, not gained them.
Not only that, what we have to recognize is that not only did the Mueller Report point out 10 different instances where the president obstructed justice or tried to, and he made that call to President Zelensky of the Ukraine, but he is in ongoingly — in an ongoing way violating his oath of office and abusing his power.
We have to impeach this president. And the majority of Americans not only support impeachment, they support removal. He should be removed.
COOPER: Mayer Buttigieg, you have said that impeachment should be bipartisan. There’s been, obviously, very little Republican support to date, yet Democrats are proceeding. Is that a mistake?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, it’s a mistake on the part of Republicans, who enable the president whose actions are as offensive to their own supposed values as they are to the values that we all share.
Look, the president has left the Congress with no choice. And this is not just about holding the president accountable, for not just the things emerging in these investigations, but actions that he has confessed to on television. It’s also about the presidency itself, because a president 10 years or 100 years from now will look back at this moment and draw the conclusion either that no one is above the law or that a president can get away with anything.
But everyone on this stage, by definition, is competing to be a president for after the Trump presidency. Remember, one way or the other, this presidency is going to come to an end. I want you to picture what it’s going to be like, what it’s actually going to feel like in this country the first day the sun comes up after Donald Trump has been president.
It starts out feeling like a happy thought; this particular brand of chaos and corruption will be over. But really think about where we’ll be: vulnerable, even more torn apart by politics than we are right now. And these big issues from the economy to climate change have not taken a vacation during the impeachment process.
I’m running to be the president who can turn the page and unify a dangerously polarized country while tackling those issues that are going to be just as urgent then as they are now.
COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Congresswoman Gabbard, you’re the only sitting House member on this stage. How do you respond?
GABBARD: If impeachment is driven by these hyperpartisan interests, it will only further divide an already terribly divided country. Unfortunately, this is what we’re already seen play out as calls for impeachment really began shortly after Trump won his election. And as unhappy as that may make us as Democrats, he won that election in 2016.
The serious issues that have been raised around this phone call that he had with the president of Ukraine and many other things that transpired around that are what caused me to support the inquiry in the House. And I think that it should continue to play its course out, to gather all the information, provide that to the American people, recognizing that that is the only way forward.
If the House votes to impeach, the Senate does not vote to remove Donald Trump, he walks out and he feels exonerated, further deepening the divides in this country that we cannot afford.
COOPER: Thank you, Congresswoman.
Mr. Steyer, you’ve been calling for impeachment for two years. Does there need to be bipartisan support?
STEYER: Well, Anderson, this is my first time on this stage, so I just want to start by reminding everybody that every candidate here is more decent, more coherent, and more patriotic than the criminal in the White House.
(APPLAUSE)
But I also want to point out that Anderson’s right. Two years ago, I started the Need to Impeach movement, because I knew there was something desperately wrong at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that we did have the most corrupt president in the country, and that only the voice and the will of the American people would drag Washington to see it as a matter of right and wrong, not of political expediency. So, in fact, impeaching and removing this president is something that the American people are demanding. They’re the voice that counts, and that’s who I went to, the American people.
COOPER: Mr. Yang, do you think there’s already enough evidence out there to impeach the president? Please respond.
YANG: I support impeachment, but we shouldn’t have any illusions that impeaching Donald Trump will, one, be successful or, two, erase the problems that got him elected in 2016. We’re standing in the great state of Ohio, the ultimate purple state, the ultimate bellwether state.
Why did Donald Trump win your state by eight points? Because we got rid of 300,000 manufacturing jobs in your towns. And we are not stopping there. How many of you have noticed stores closing where you work and live here in Ohio? Raise your hands.
It’s not just you. Amazon alone is closing 30 percent of America’s stores and malls, soaking up $20 billion in business while paying zero in taxes. These are the problems that got Donald Trump elected, the fourth industrial revolution. And that is going to accelerate and grow more serious regardless of who is in the Oval Office.
The fact is, Donald Trump, when we’re talking about him, we are losing. We need to present a new vision, and that even includes talking about impeaching Donald Trump.
COOPER: Congressman O’Rourke, on impeachment, please respond.
O’ROURKE: You know, I think about everyone who’s ever served this country in uniform. We have two examples here on this stage tonight in Mayor Buttigieg and Congresswoman Gabbard, those who have willingly sacrificed their lives to defend this country and our Constitution. We are the inheritors of their service and their sacrifice.
And we have a responsibility to be fearless in the face of this president’s criminality and his lawlessness. The fact that as a candidate for the highest office in the land, he invited the participation, the invasion of a foreign power in our democracy. As president, he lied to investigators, obstructed justice, fired James Comey, head of the FBI, tried to fire Mueller, head of the investigation, then invited President Zelensky to involve himself in our politics, as well as China, in exchange for favorable trade terms in an upcoming trade deal.
COOPER: Thank you, Congressman.
O’ROURKE: If we do not hold him to account, if there is not justice, not only have we failed this moment, our Constitution and our country, but we have failed everyone who has sacrificed and laid their lives down on the line.
Last week House Democrats called in fired US Ambassador Marie Yovanovich to testify in their sham impeachment proceedings.
Ambassador Yovanovich is a noted Trump-hater who blocked Ukrainian officials from traveling to the United States to hand over evidence of Obama misconduct during the 2016 election to President Trump.
Yovanovich was US ambassador to Ukraine during the 2016 election when the Ukrainian government was colluding with the DNC and Hillary Campaign to undermine the US presidential election.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenkoko told journalists in March that Yovanovitch gave him a “do not prosecute” list during their first meeting.
The president ordered her removal from her post in Ukraine in May 2019.
She was openly anti-Trump.
Starting in 2018 Yovanovich denied Ukrainian officials visas to enter the United States to hand over evidence of Obama administration misconduct to Trump administration officials.
Wednesday night on Hannity John Solomon announced that the former Ambassador Yovanovich was monitoring the reporters digging into Ukrainian lawlessness.
There is evidence now that Yovanovich was spying on John Solomon.
What a crook.
UPDATE– We heard from a trusted source that this is much broader than is being reported and that the ambassador is out of her mind. This is going to be a really big story!
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is in a tough spot. After caving in to pressure from her party to launch an impeachment inquiry based on a CIA ‘whistleblower’ report that Trump abused his office to pressure Ukraine into investigating 2020 rival Joe Biden, Pelosi must now decide on whether to proceed with a formal vote amid mounting evidence that Trump did nothing wrong.
Trump has pushed for a vote – which would allow Republicans to issue subpoenas, as well as grant the White House the ability to cross-examine witnesses. To that end, the White House outlined in a Tuesday letter that they will refuse to cooperate with an inquiry that is “invalid” due to Pelosi’s refusal to make it official.
“Never before in our history has the House of Representatives — under the control of either political party — taken the American people down the dangerous path you seem determined to pursue,” wrote White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
Think about if you went through a trial, but you weren't allowed to call any witnesses. That's what Speaker Pelosi is doing to President Trump right now.
When asked on Wednesday if he would cooperate with Pelosi’s impeachment inquiry, Trump told reporters “we would if they give us our rights, it depends.”
Pelosi, meanwhile, says the effort to force a vote is nothing more than a “Republican talking point.”
“If we want to do it, we’ll do it. If we don’t, we don’t. But we’re certainly not going to do it because of the president,” said Pelosi in an interview last week with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
A decision whether to call the president’s bluff is likely to be a main topic when Pelosi convenes a conference call with House Democrats at the end of the week. Representative Dan Kildee of Michigan, one of the leadership’s vote counters, said Democrats could easily pass a resolution authorizing the impeachment inquiry with as many as 230 votes.
…
With the White House vowing to block any cooperation, Pelosi is scheduled to hold the conference call on Friday to chart the next steps. The committees conducting the investigation have already issued a salvo of subpoenas for testimony or records directed at administration officials such as Secretary of State Michael Pompeo as well as Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. –Bloomberg
“We continue investigating and digging to uncover more of the truth. Nothing has changed,” said Pelosi spokeswoman Ashley Etienne on Wednesday, adding that Democrats have yet to settle on legal or tactical responses to the White House letter.
Pushback
House Republicans led by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthyof California have been “using ads, press releases and other efforts to hammer Democratic House members from GOP-leaning districts over impeachment,” according to Bloomberg.
Trump and Republicans also have complained about the fairness of the process, citing closed-door hearings, and what they say are limitations by committee Republicans to subpoena their own rebuttal witnesses, or for the White House to have legal counsel in the room during depositions. –Bloomberg
According to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): “If Democrats were interested in fairness, they would follow the same process as previous impeachment proceedings. Instead, they just make up the rules as they go along.”
Quid Pro Nope
The House impeachment inquiry was launched after a CIA officer reported that President Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter for alleged corruption.
After Democrats uncritically launched their impeachment inquiry based on the initial whistleblower report, the White House upset their strategy – releasing a transcript of the call between Zelensky and Trump and the whistleblower complaint itself – plain readings of which reveal that Trump did not threaten, pressure or suggest a quid pro quo in exchange for a Biden investigation. Furthermore, Zelensky himself has said as much.
So as the case against Trump continues to unravel, Pelosi and the Democrats have some tough decisions to make as we head into the 2020 election.
On Wednesday, 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful former Vice President Joe Biden at a town hall in Rochester, NH called for President Donald Trump to be impeached.
CNN was there with cameras to capture the moment.
Biden said, “With his words and his actions, President Trump has indicted himself by obstructing justice, refusing to comply with the congressional inquiry. He’s also convicted himself in full view of the world and the American people, Donald Trump has violated his oath of office, betrayed this nation and committed impeachable acts.”
He continued, “You know to preserve our constitution, our democracy, our basic integrity. He should be impeached. That’s not only because of what he’s done. To answer whether he’s committed acts sufficient to warrant impeachment is obvious. We see it in Trump’s own words. We see it in the texts from state department officials that have been made public. We see it in his pulling much of the United States government into his corrupt schemes, individuals within the government, his appointees. But we have to remember that impeachment isn’t only about what the president’s done. It’s about the threat the president poses to the nation if allowed to remain in office. One thing about this president is absolutely clear, and I don’t think anyone can contradict this, he has seen no limits to his power regardless of what the Constitution says.”
He added, “He believes the entire United States government can be corrupted into furthering his personal political needs. He’s even willing to hold Congress and congressionally appropriated aid to a foreign nation hostage to his personal political demands. He believes if he does something, it’s legal, period. And perhaps most importantly, he believes there is nothing we can do about it. He believes he can and will get away with anything he does. We all laughed when he said he could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone and get away with it. It’s no joke. He’s shooting holes in the Constitution, and we can not let him get away with it.”
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