IMPEACHMENT: WEEK NINE WHAT MATTERED
After a month of waiting, the House transferred the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate last week triggering a series of solemn You Tube-ready moments - first walking the articles over to the Senate. Read the articles of impeachment.
... then Rep. Adam Schiff reads the articles of John Roberts, chief justice of the United States, impeachment in the well of the Senate. swears in the senators. The Senate adjourned for a week
But for those who wondered if Nancy Pelosi's gambit - withholding the articles of impeachment - would make a difference, a glimmer of hope came in 100 minutes of Guiliani associate Lev Parnas telling all to Rachel Maddow.
President Trump knew exactly what was going on. He was aware of all my movements. " – Lev Parnas " LEV-BOMBS: A MUCH WIDER CONSPIRACY
John Bolton knew, Mike Pence knew, Bill Barr knew, Devin Nunes knew, and on and on. Lev Parnas, working hand-in-glove with presidential pal and attorney Rudy Giuliani, armed with "special envoy" status, liaised with Ukrainian elected officials including then-president Petro Poroshenko and former top prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko. They wanted US ambassador Marie Yovanovitch out and offered information about the Bidens and Burisma to get it. It was never about fighting corruption, Parnas said. Yovanovitch's movements may have been tracked and, it seems, she was under some kind of surveillance.
In one of the text messages turned over by Parnas and released by federal prosecutors in New York, Lutsenko loses his cool: “I’m sorry, but this is all simply b------t,” Lutsenko wrote on March 13 in Russian. “I’m f-----g sick of all this. I haven’t received a visit. My [boss] hasn’t received jack all. I’m prepared to [thrash] your opponent. But you want more and more. We’re over. ” Many question the credibility of Parnas, who is under federal indictment in New York. But he's not asking us to rely on his words alone. Lordy, he has documents! And a lot of them. A federal judge has permitted federal investigators to give a trove of photos, voicemails, texts, calendar entries and letters between Parnas, Rudy Giuliani, an other operatives, to the House investigators. READ THEM FOR YOURSELF. There's one way to know for sure, call witnesses under oath to answer these charges. Will the Senate do their duty? Stay tuned. Watch the Rachel Maddow interviews. COMING UP: THE TRIAL OF DONALD J. TRUMP, PREISDENT
JUSTICE ROBERTS ROLE? TRUMP IS A THREAT TO Will Roberts, with his concern for NATIONAL SECURITY history and how the court will be judged, insert himself in some So say House prosecutors in their larger way in this trial? The 111-page required legal brief Constitution is silent, as pundits laying out their case against the say, on what the presiding judge president. can or cant, should or shouldn't do. But the Lawfare blog has a Investigators delivered their brief good piece on some of the options on Saturday afternoon, as Dershowitz joins team Trump and whether or not Roberts would required. "The evidence The legendary attorney will argue take them. overwhelmingly establishes he is that abuse of power is not an guilty of both (articles)." The impeachable offense. Alan president has until noon Monday Dershowitz bases this on the to file its brief detailing the defense of Andrew Johnson. That defense. still leaves obstruction of Congress.