#John Duffey Jr.

[thefrogholler]

Musical Birthday Notes - March 4th

Musical Birthday Notes – March 4th

[twins2994]

Toronto Blue Jays-Minnesota Twins Series Preview

8.4.22-Alek Manoah RHP (11-5) 2.43 ERA Vs. Sonny Gray RHP (6-3) 3.41 ERA

8.5.22-Jose Berrios RHP (8-4) 4.96 ERA Vs. Tyler Mahle RHP (5-7) 4.40 ERA

8.6.22-TBA Vs. Dylan Bundy RHP (6-4) 5.04 ERA

8.7.22-Kevin Gausman RHP (8-8) 3.06 ERA Vs. Chris Archer RHP (2-5) 4.05 ERA

The Blue Jays At A Glance- The Toronto Blue Jays have been interesting since we last saw them. They had a stretch of nine out of ten games with a loss and Charlie Montoyo was fired on July 13th. John Schneider was promoted to interim manager and the Jays finished July (14-12). Toronto has won eleven of their last fourteen games and sit three games on in the first Wild-Card spot in the American League. The Jays made some under the radar moves by tradeing for Whit Merrifield, Zach Pop, Anthony Bass, and Mitch White at the trade deadline. Merrifield can play anywhere and the other three were acquired for pitching depth. Vlad Guerrero Jr. leads the team with twenty-one homers and sixty-three RBI. Matt Chapman is having a good first year in Toronto with twenty homers and fifty-seven RBI. Alejandro Kirk was an All-Star by hititng .305 at catcher. Hyun-Jin Ryu will miss the rest of the season with elbow surgery. The Jays have been able to withstand it with Alek Manoah becoming an All-Star and Kevin Gausman doing a great job as well. Jose Berrios had a much better month of July after a bad May and June. Jordan Romano is one of the best closers in the game that nobody knows about. He has forty-four strikeouts in 39 2/3 innings with twenty-five saves. David Phelps, Tim Mayza, and Yimi Garcia are also part of a loaded bullpen for Toronto. 

The Twins At A Glance- The Twins had three of their four new acquisitions shine in the series finale against the Tigers. Sandy Leon had two hits and handled the pitching staff well, Michael Fulmer threw a scoreles inning against his old team, and Jorge Lopez needed seven pitches for a 1-2-3 ninth for the save. The Twins won the series and are one game ahead of the Indians for first in the American League Central. The task gets tougher this weekend with four games against a hot Blue Jays team. Kyle Garlick was held out of the lineup with a rib injury on Wednesday, but the team hasn’t put him on the injured list. The team decided to designate Jharel Cotton and Joe Smith for assignment to make room for Caleb Thielbar, Michael Fulmer, and Jorge Lopez. Tyler Mahle will get activated and Jovani Moran was sent down to make room. Gilberto Celestino might be back this weekend after being placed on the paternity list on Monday. Jose Miranda is hitting .395 in the second half of the season. Nick Gordon is hitting .348 and is doing fine in left or center field. I think we saw how the bullpen will look with a Twins lead yesterday. Jorge Lopez will get the ninth, Jhoan Duran will get the eighth, Caleb Thielbar gets the lefty matchups depending on the inning, and Micahel Fulmer should figure somewhere in the sixth or seventh innings. You also have Emilio Pagan, Griffin Jax, Tyler Duffey, and Trevor Megill to put in any situation. 

What To Watch For- The Twins won two out of three games against the Jays in Toronto in early-June. The Jays won two out of three games in their last meeting at Target Field in September of last year. Alek Manoah went 5 2/3 innings and allowed two runs in his only career start against the Twins last year. Sonny Gray is (4-4) with a 3.20 ERA in thirteen starts against the Jays. Teoscar Hernandez has two career homers off him. Jose Berrios is (32-21) with a 3.61 ERA in sixty-five games at Target Field. Dylan Bundy is (5-5) with a 3.76 ERA in seventeen games versus the Jays. George Springer has two homers off Bundy. Kevin Gausman is (0-4) with a 7.30 ERA in eight starts against the Twins. Chris Archer is (7-4) with a 3.01 ERA in twenty-five starts against the Jays. Overall this weekend should be a good test for the Twins to see how they stack up against playoff teams now that the roster is built up better. 

-Chris Kreibich-

[goalhofer]

2022 Minnesota Twins Players By Nationality

American: 22 (Chris Archer, Dylan Bundy, Byron Buxton, Danny Coulombe, Randy Dobnak, Tyler Duffey, Kyle Garlick, Nick Gordon, Sonny Gray, James Jax, Ryan Jeffers, Max Kepler-Różycki, Alex Kirilloff, Trevor Larnach, John Ober, Chris Paddack, Emilio Pagán, Joe Ryan, Joe Smith, Cody Stashak, Caleb Thielbar & Josh Winder)

Dominican: 6 (Jorge Alcalá, Gilberto Celestino, Jhoan Durán, Jorge Polanco, Gary Sánchez & Miguel Sanó)

Puerto Rican: 3 (Carlos Correa; Jr., José Miranda & Jovani Morán)

Colombian: 2 (Jhon Romero & Gio Urshela)

German: 1 (Max Kepler-Różycki)

Japan: 1 (Maeda Kenta)

Venezuelan: 1 (Luis Arráez)

[thebryanandsilvergarbage]

The Drama Main Races - 2017

BEST DRAMA SERIES:

The Americans (F/X)

Better Call Saul (AMC)

The Crown (Netflix)

The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)

Stranger Things (Netflix)

This Is Us (NBC)

Westworld (HBO)

Lead Actor in a Drama Series:

THE AMERICANS - Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings (F/X)

BETTER CALL SAUL - Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill (AMC)

HOUSE OF CARDS - Kevin Spacey as President Frank Underwood (Netflix)

MR. ROBOT - Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson (USA)

RAY DONOVAN - Liev Schreiber as Ray Donovan (Showtime)

THIS IS US - Sterling K. Brown as Randall Pearson (NBC) THIS IS US - Milo Ventimiglia as Jack Pearson (NBC)

Lead Actress in a Drama Series:

THE AMERICANS - Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings (F/X) THE CROWN - Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth II (Netflix)

THE GOOD FIGHT - Christine Baranski as Diane Lockhart (CBS All-Access)

THE HANDMAID’S TALE - Elisabeth Moss as Offred (Hulu) HOMELAND - Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison (Showtime)

HOUSE OF CARDS - Robin Wright as Claire Underwood (Netflix)

HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER - Viola Davis as Annalise Keating (ABC)

Supporting Actor in a Drama Series:

BETTER CALL SAUL - Giancarlo Esposito as Gustavo Fring (AMC)

BETTER CALL SAUL - Michael McKean as Chuck McGill (AMC) THE CROWN - Jared Harris as King George VI (Netflix)

THE CROWN - John Lithgow as Sir Winston Churchill (Netflix)

MR. ROBOT - Christian Slater as Mr. Robot (USA)

RAY DONOVAN - Jon Voight as Mickey Donovan (Showtime)

WESTWORLD - Jeffrey Wright as Bernard Lowe (HBO)

Supporting Actress in a Drama Series:

THE AFFAIR - Maura Tierney as Helen Solloway (Showtime)

BATES MOTEL - Vera Farmiga as Norma Louise Bates (A&E)

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - Uzo Aduba as Crazy Eyes Warren (Netflix) STRANGER THINGS - Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers (Netflix)

THIS IS US - Chrissy Metz as Kate Pearson (NBC)

UNREAL - Constance Zimmer as Quinn King (Lifetime)

WESTWORLD - Thandie Newton as Maeve (HBO)

Younger Actor in a Drama Series or Limited Series: American Crime - Connor Jessup as Coy Henson (ABC) BATES MOTEL - Freddie Highmore as Norman Bates (A&E) GOTHAM - David Mazouz as Bruce Wayne (Fox) RAY DONOVAN - Devon Bagby as Conor Donovan (Showtime) STRANGER THINGS - Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson (Netflix) STRANGER THINGS - Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair (Netflix) STRANGER THINGS - Noah Schnapp as Will Byers (Netflix)                   

Younger Actress in a Drama Series or Limited Series: THE AFFAIR - Julia Goldani Telles as Whitney Solloway (Showtime)

THE AMERICANS - Holly Taylor as Paige Jennings (F/X)

BIG LITTLE LIES - Shailene Woodley as Jane Chapman (HBO)

FEUD: BETTE VS. JOAN - Kiernan Shipka as B.D. (F/X)

RAY DONOVAN - Kerris Dorsey as Bridget Donovan (Showtime)

STRANGER THINGS - Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven (Netflix)

Guest Actor in a Drama Series: MASTERS OF SEX - Beau Bridges as Dr. Barton Scully (Showtime) MR. ROBOT - B.D. Wong as Whiterose (USA) RAY DONOVAN - Hank Azaria as Ed Cochran (Showtime) THIS IS US - Brian Tyree Jones as Ricky (NBC) THIS IS US - Gerald McRaney as Dr. Nathan “Nate” Katowski (NBC) THIS IS US - Denis O’Hare as Jessie (NBC)

Guest Actress in a Drama Series:

AMERICAN GODS - Cloris Leachman as Zorya Vechernyaya (Starz)

THE AMERICANS - Alison Wright as Martha (F/X)

THE GOOD FIGHT - Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tasconi (CBS All-Access)

THE HANDMAID’S TALE - Alexis Bledel as Ofglen (Hulu)

HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER - Cicely Tyson as Ophelia Harkness (ABC)

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - Laverne Cox as Sophia Burset (Netflix)

Writing in a Drama Series:

THE AMERICANS (F/X) - “The Soviet Division”

BETTER CALL SAUL (AMC) - “Lantern”

THE HANDMAIDS TALE (Hulu) - “Offred (Pilot)”

MR. ROBOT (USA) - “eps2.4_m4ster-s1ave.aes”

STRANGER THINGS (Netflix) - “Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers”

THIS IS US (NBC) - “The Trip”

Directing in a Drama Series:

THE AMERICANS - “The Soviet Division” (Chris Long, Director)

THE CROWN - “Hyde Park Corner” (Stephen Daldry, Director)

THE HANDMAIDS TALE - “Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundrum” (Mike Barker, Director)

HOMELAND - “America First” (Lesli Linka Glatter, Director)

STRANGER THINGS - “Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers” (The Duffey Brothers, Directors)

THIS IS US - “The Game Plan” (George Tillman Jr., Director)

Performance by a Cast in a Drama Series: The Americans (F/X) The Crown (Netflix) Orange Is The New Black (Netflix) Stranger Things (Netflix) This Is Us (NBC) Westworld (HBO)

DRAMA EPISODE OF THE YEAR: The Americans - “The Soviet Division” (F/X) Better Call Saul - “Chicanery” (AMC) The Crown - “Hyde Park Corner” (Netflix) Stranger Things - “Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers” (Netflix) This Is Us - “The Trip” (NBC) Westworld - “The Bicameral Mind” (HBO)

[shamefulright]

Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion

Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion

The inside story of President Trump’s demand to halt military assistance to an ally shows the price he was willing to pay to carry out his agenda.

[bountyofbeads]

Justice Department acknowledges 24 emails reveal Trump’s thinking on Ukraine

By Colby Itkowitz | Published February 01 at 1:26 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted February 2, 2020 |

Hours after the Senate voted against seeking new evidence in the impeachment case against President Trump, the administration acknowledged the existence of two dozen emails that could reveal the president’s thinking about withholding military aid to Ukraine.

In a midnight court filing, the Justice Department explained why it shouldn’t have to unredact copies of more than 100 emails written by officials at the Office of Management and Budget and the Defense Department about the hold on funds to Ukraine.

Heather Walsh, an OMB lawyer, wrote that of the 111 redacted emails in the lawsuit, 24 are protected by “presidential privilege.”

“Specifically, the documents in this category are emails that reflect communications by either the President, the Vice President, or the President’s immediate advisors regarding Presidential ­decision-making about the scope, duration, and purpose of the hold on military assistance to Ukraine,” Walsh wrote.

Democrats spent much of the Senate impeachment trial imploring GOP senators to allow new evidence in the case against Trump.

In the weeks since the December House vote to impeach the president, new evidence against him has emerged, including reports that former White House national security adviser John Bolton says there was a quid pro quo conditioning the aid on investigations by Ukraine that could help the president politically.

Trump and administration officials repeatedly stonewalled the House impeachment probe, refusing to allow some witnesses to testify and to provide requested documents.

Ultimately Democrats could persuade only two Republicans that more evidence was needed. On Friday, the Senate voted 51 to 49 to block new witnesses and documents, clearing the way for Trump’s acquittal this week.

Democrats are likely to seize on the new court filing as proof that the trial was incomplete and thus invalid.

“Every single Republican Senator voted to endorse the White House coverup of these potentially important truth-revealing emails,” Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Saturday. (GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah voted with Democrats to subpoena Bolton but against admitting new documents.) “Make no mistake, the full truth will eventually come out and Republicans will have to answer for why they were so determined to enable the president to hide it.”

A spokesman for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to comment.

Heavily blacked-out versions of the emails in question were released in two batches in December in response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Public Integrity after the administration ignored a Freedom of Information Act request for the materials.

The government’s filing Friday asked the court to deny the organization’s request for unredacted copies.

The earliest correspondence labeled as protected presidential privilege is from June 24, 2019, between Pentagon officials and has the subject line: “POTUS follow up.”

The crux of the impeachment case against Trump is whether he used the $391 million in military aid, and a coveted White House meeting for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as leverage to force the foreign leader to conduct political investigations, including one focused on former vice president Joe Biden.

In a July 25 call, Trump had asked Zelensky to “do us a favor.”

Why Trump wanted Congress-approved assistance to Ukraine delayed is the central question of his impeachment and was a major point of tension in the Senate trial.

On Wednesday, Romney asked Trump lawyer Patrick Philbin on what specific date Trump first ordered the hold on military aid to Ukraine and what reason he gave.

Philbin couldn’t answer. “I don’t think there is evidence in the record of a specific date,” he said.

Referencing the June 24 email, Philbin said the president had been asking since late June about how much other countries spent supporting Ukraine and had raised concerns about corruption later in the summer — the issues the White House has claimed were the impetus for the hold.

“So the evidence in the record shows that the president raised concerns, at least as of June 24th, that people were aware of the hold as of July 3rd,” Philbin said.

Many of the witnesses who testified in the House, some defying the White House’s orders, said they were never given an official reason for the hold.

During his Oct. 22 deposition, William B. Taylor Jr., the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, recalled that he first learned of the hold on a July 18 conference call, when an OMB aide said the security assistance was being held but couldn’t say why.

“All that the OMB staff person said was that the directive had come from the president to the chief of staff to OMB,” Taylor said. “In an instant, I realized that one of the key pillars of our strong support for Ukraine was threatened.”

Several days after that conference call, on July 25, Trump spoke to Zelensky. Two hours later, a senior official at OMB, Michael Duffey, sent an email to Pentagon officials directing the hold on military aid and asking them to keep it quiet.

House Democratic managers prosecuting the case against Trump argued throughout the Senate trial that there was sufficient evidence to conclude that the president was using the money as leverage to pressure the Ukrainian government to launch a public investigation into Biden and his son Hunter.

But White House lawyers contended that Democrats could not prove motive and suggested it was possible that Trump had mixed motives in placing a hold on the aid, both personal and in the public interest.

The House managers said that was why they wanted the Senate to subpoena additional documents and witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the president’s thinking, such as acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser Bolton.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who led the prosecution, warned Friday that the contents of such emails will eventually be public.

“The facts will come out in all of their horror,” Schiff said in his closing remarks. “The documents the president is hiding will come out. The witnesses the president is concealing will tell their stories. And we will be asked why we didn’t want to hear that information when we had the chance.”

*********

Inside the Senate trial: McConnell stops rebel push in GOP for witnesses

By Seung Min Kim and Rachael Bade |

Published February 01 at 7:04 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted Feb 2, 2020 |

Inside the Mansfield Room at the Capitol, where Senate Republicans have held daily strategy sessions during President Trump’s impeachment trial, senators began walking through their arguments on why they should block witnesses from testifying in the proceedings.

But at this lunch on Thursday, Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) was getting visibly annoyed.

If this is meant to persuade me, Romney told his colleagues, it’s not helpful, according to two officials with knowledge of the exchange. The senator, a near-lone GOP voice in seeking witnesses for the trial, felt as if other Republicans were singling him out.

That private remark illustrated how Romney has become a rarity in the Senate GOP conference and his party — the man Republicans rallied around for the presidency in 2012 was an outlier in a GOP bound to Trump and unwilling to challenge the president. That political reality helped Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hold his conference together in preventing witnesses.

Ultimately, Romney and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) — who faces a tough reelection in a Democratic-leaning state — sided with Democrats, but other key Republicans such as Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) aligned with the rest of the conference on the critical vote Friday, paving the way for Trump’s likely acquittal this week on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress.

“There’s never been arm twisting,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said. “It was going to disproportionately rest on a few shoulders because most in each conference were pretty clear what they wanted to do.”

This account of how McConnell and enough Senate Republicans blocked witnesses from entering Trump’s trial — the issue that was most in question during the contentious proceedings — is based on interviews with 13 senators and other officials familiar with the deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly.

Trump’s acquittal was never in question in the Republican-controlled Senate, but the uncertainty about whether to call witnesses — as had been done in each of the previous 15 impeachment trials — created last-minute drama amid new revelations about Trump’s move to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating his domestic political rivals.

In the end, McConnell held his conference together, arguing that witnesses would drag the trial out for weeks and delay other Senate work. Several Republicans acknowledged that the president did use nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine as leverage to benefit himself politically, calling it inappropriate, but argued it wasn’t grounds to oust him from office.

“What was, I think, the most persuasive was just the open-ended consequences of starting down that path, and particularly the delays inherent in litigation that would ensue in the middle of the trial,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.).

McConnell was among the first to argue that Republicans should avoid calling witnesses despite Trump’s clamor for the whistleblower whose report triggered the House impeachment probe, former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, to testify. The leader warned in a mid-December lunch that a protracted witness fight would be dangerous for both parties.

“Mutually assured destruction,” he told them.

But McConnell, navigating a narrow 53-47 majority, was contending with the influential clutch of four senators who — had they and others banded with Democrats to call witnesses — could have stretched the trial proceedings for weeks with fraught political ramifications for the Republican Party. Early on, the four prevailed in getting McConnell to include a vote on witnesses in the measure setting the scope of the proceedings.

Just days before the trial began, former national security adviser John Bolton stunned Washington when he said he would be willing to testify before the Senate if subpoenaed. The ex-Trump official, who had likened the Ukraine pressure scheme to a “drug deal,” according to one witness, left a message with McConnell to alert him of his announcement, but the senator never returned the call.

The news, however, got Romney’s attention. Receiving testimony from Bolton was a “no-brainer,” he believed, according to an individual familiar with his thinking who, like others interviewed for this story, requested anonymity to speak frankly.

 “Here we have somebody who has obviously talked about this issue with the president who may have helpful information,” the person said, summarizing Romney’s thinking. “So why wouldn’t we want to hear from him?”

But there were other currents working against Romney. An idea promoted by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) of a Republican witness for every one proposed by Democrats was gaining traction within the conference — a clear signal from Republicans that any successful attempt in the Senate to summon witnesses would devolve into a messy, prolonged fight.

Cruz and other Republicans met privately with McConnell in mid-January to pitch him on the idea. The majority leader was on board quickly, Cruz recalled.

“He and I have famously disagreed in other contexts,” said Cruz, who called McConnell a liar in a 2015 showdown on the Senate floor. “But in this instance, both of us were working to keep the conference together and ensure the outcome of the trial was the outcome dictated by the Constitution, which was an acquittal because the House managers hadn’t proven their case.”

Meanwhile, McConnell was working to ensure Trump and the White House trusted him to handle the trial strategy as he dealt with a mercurial president who had his own ideas about the proceedings. In one phone call shortly before Christmas, McConnell bluntly told Trump that while the president was getting a lot of feedback about how the trial should be conducted, he knew the Senate better than anybody who had been advising the president and, most importantly, how to make his members comfortable.

McConnell told Trump that he needed to trust him, according to a person familiar with the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly. Trump responded that he did.

The administration mostly left the wavering senators alone — namely out of McConnell’s insistence. He warned Trump in the fall not to alienate moderates lest he make the situation worse, according to Republicans.

“The White House has not asked for calls,” said one senior GOP official close to the moderate senators. “They’ve not asked for meetings. They’ve not texted.”

Indeed, the last time Alexander and Trump spoke directly was on Dec. 19 at a private Oval Office education bill signing. Trump summoned an aide to bring him a copy of the six-page letter he had fired off to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) two days prior in which he repeatedly criticized the impeachment process. The president wanted Alexander to read the letter, complaining that what the Democrats were doing to him was ridiculous, but the senator deflected and shifted to the topic at hand: the bill being signed into law.

Early in the process, the four senators — Romney, Collins, Alexander and Murkowski — often talked strategy while McConnell found various ways to cater to them. For example, he gave Collins, Murkowski and Romney the first shot at querying the legal teams during the trial’s question-and-answer session.

Once the trial started, the swing votes stayed in touch during breaks in the proceedings, but otherwise, they primarily kept their own counsel.

Alexander wouldn’t give any hints of how he would vote on the pivotal witness question to McConnell — his closest friend in the Senate — until he privately informed the majority leader during a dinner break on Thursday evening. Aware that Collins and Romney would likely vote in favor of witnesses, Alexander also sat down with Murkowski later that night, informing her of his decision.

Unlike other issues in the Senate, there were no substantive attempts to broker a bipartisan agreement that would cool tensions, ensuring that the impeachment proceedings began — and ended — as a near-partisan exercise.

“It has just been a lot harder over the last two weeks to have conversations with Republican friends,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “The mood in that room is super tense and super heavy.”

Democrats heavily pressured vulnerable Senate Republicans up for reelection this fall, driving a message declaring any trial without witnesses would be a “coverup.” But GOP senators and aides were confident that voters were paying little attention based on a survey conducted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the official campaign arm of Senate Republicans.

“You know, Iowans right now — honest to God — they want us to get this thing over with,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). “They’re like, ‘Why aren’t you doing the business of the American public?’ ”

In a closed-door party meeting in McConnell’s suite of offices — where GOP senators have held some of their most consequential strategy sessions — it was those precise swing-state Republicans like Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) who said they were prepared to just move on to a final vote without calling additional witnesses.

That was after Bolton’s blockbuster allegation, laid out in an unpublished manuscript of his book as reported by the New York Times, that Trump directly tied the holdup of aid to Ukraine to the political investigations.

The Times report rocked the GOP conference and made Romney believe it increased the likelihood that more Republicans would join in his effort to call Bolton. At a Jan. 27 lunch, Sens. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) spoke up about a witness trade, appearing to briefly consider the notion. Romney joined them, making a forceful argument that they had a duty as senators to hear all the relevant evidence.

At that moment, the GOP conference was in chaos reacting to the Bolton news, with leaders worried for the first time that they might actually lose the witness vote. During the meeting, McConnell warned members to stay calm and hear out Trump’s defense team.

The majority leader delivered an even sharper message in a private meeting the following day. While McConnell, who faces his own reelection this year, often frames his argument in the context of retaining the Senate majority, he delivered a different message: The Senate exists to stop partisan fevers from jeopardizing our institutions, and Republicans must ensure that did not happen in the fight over Trump’s impeachment.

The news from Bolton’s book emerged in the trial’s question-and-answer session, as Cruz and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) worked with Murkowski and Alexander in the GOP cloakroom to devise a question to the White House counsel that Cruz and Graham hoped would help persuade the swing votes.

That question: Even if Bolton’s allegations of a quid pro quo were true, isn’t that still not an impeachable offense, so would his testimony add anything? Patrick Philbin, a deputy White House counsel, responded that it would not be an impeachable offense.

“That answer was pivotal, especially in getting Lisa’s vote,” Cruz said.

*********

Trump, Unrepentant and Unleashed

The diabolical duo of Donald and Mitch, serving their own interests, not the national one.

By Maureen Dowd | Published Feb. 1, 2020 | New York Times | Posted February 2, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — During a meeting with Donald Trump at Trump Tower in June of 2016, with the opéra bouffe builder improbably heading toward the nomination despite a skeletal campaign crew on a floor below, I asked when he would pivot.

We all assumed he would have to pivot, that he would have to stop his belittling Twitter rants, that he would have to cease attacking fellow Republicans like John McCain, that he would have to get more in line with the traditional stances of his party, that he would have to be less of a barbarian at the gates of D.C.

He crossed his arms, pursed his lips and shook his head — a child refusing vegetables.

How naïve he was, I thought to myself. But I was the naïve one. Trump has forced the world to pivot to him.

The state of the union is upside down and inside out and sauerkraut. Trump has changed literally everything in the last three years, transforming and coarsening the game. On Friday night, he became, arguably, the most brutishly powerful Republican of all time. Never has a leader had such a stranglehold on his party, subsuming it with one gulp.

As the Senate voted 51 to 49 to smother the impeachment inquiry, guided by the dark hand of Mitch McConnell, it felt like the world’s greatest deliberative body had been hollowed out, diminished.

McConnell let Mitt Romney and Susan Collins vote to allow documents and witnesses such as John Bolton, knowing two could strain at the leash safely.

The rest of the senators fell into line as sycophantic clones of Mike Pence. The impeachment trial amounted to one side being earnest and one pretending to be. It was exactly what Nancy Pelosi feared would happen before she was reluctantly drawn into the show trial.

“Now the State of the Union is going to be the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man coming down the street and standing in the rubble of what’s left of the Congress,” keened one Democrat on Friday night. “The Republican Party has now lost whatever control they could exert over this president, any oversight they could have. It’s gone. The state of the union is there is no union. How can there be, when one side is petrified of their Godzilla?”

Senator Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat, dismissed Republicans as “a cult of personality” around Trump.

“This trial in so many ways crystallized the completely diametrically opposed threats that Democrats and Republicans see to the country,” Murphy told The Times’s Nicholas Fandos. “We perceive Donald Trump and his corruption to be an existential threat to the country. They perceive the deep state and the liberal media to be an existential threat to the country.

“That dichotomy, that contrast, has been growing over the last three years, but this trial really crystallized that difference. We were just speaking different languages, fundamentally different languages when it came to what this trial was about. They thought it was about the deep state and the media conspiracy. We thought it was about the president’s crimes.”

I feel like I have spent my career watching the same depressing dynamic that unspooled Friday night: Democrats trying, sometimes ineptly, to play fair and Republicans ruthlessly trying to win.

I watched it with the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings. I watched it in the 2000 recount with Bush versus Gore. I watched it with the push by W., Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to go to war in Iraq. I watched it with the pantomime of Merrick Garland.

Democrats are warning Republicans that they will be judged harshly by history. But in the meantime, the triumphant Republicans get to make history. And a lot of the history that Republicans have made is frightening: the endless, futile wars, the obliviousness to climate change, the stamp on the judiciary.

As Carl Hulse writes in his book, “Confirmation Bias,” about the Garland fiasco: “The success in naming judges was the signal achievement of Trump’s first two years. In the coming years, those judges will be among the members of the federal bench called to rule on Trump’s policies and practices in cases arising from challenges initiated by increasingly confrontational Democrats and other legal adversaries around the nation. Mitch McConnell made a snap decision one night in 2016. The consequences will reverberate for decades.”

For hours on Friday, the House managers made their vain final arguments. Pressing for Bolton’s testimony, Val Demings implored Republican senators: Aren’t you worried that, if left in office, Trump will harm America’s national security, seek to corrupt the upcoming election and undermine our democracy to further his own personal gain? Don’t you want to hear the witnesses and see the documents that would give the full story and make this a fair trial rather than a mock one?

“This is the American way and this is the American story,” Demings told the Republican senators as they looked back at her, impassive or impatient.

But, of course, they didn’t want that. As he voted against witnesses and documents, Lamar Alexander, McConnell’s pal, said Trump did something inappropriate but they just did not accept that it was impeachable, and they did not want to tear up ballots and “pour gasoline on cultural fires that are burning out there.”

So why not shut it down and cover it up? The books were cooked from the start.

As with so many other pivotal moments in modern history, Republicans wanted to win, not look for the truth. And history, God help us, is written by the winners.

*********

Impeachment is a wrenching process. The coming election will be, too.

By Dan Balz | Published February 01 at 1:44 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted February 2, 2020 |

DES MOINES — The opening of the political year has collided with the end of the impeachment of President Trump. The coincidence of timing, unplanned perhaps but symbolic nonetheless, points directly to what is at stake when Americans vote in November. For now, healing is not on the agenda.

Impeachment is an infrequently used tool to restrain a runaway or corrupt president. On Wednesday, Trump will become the third president to be acquitted after being impeached. No president has ever been impeached and convicted, though, of course, Richard M. Nixon resigned and left town to avoid such a fate.

Trump will never escape the fact of having been impeached, but he will, no doubt, see acquittal as a victory. His supporters will share in that conclusion, offended that it ever came to this. Half of the country, however, that portion of the population that has said in polls they believe Trump should be removed from office for abusing his powers, will be at a minimum disappointed. Many of them will be genuinely angry.

That is the pretext for this election year. For both sides, November will offer the only avenue to resolve the question of how long Trump remains in office and what boundaries the American people choose to set on a presidency. There is no more significant question facing voters, and they are sharply divided in their views.

On Tuesday night, on the eve of the Senate’s scheduled acquittal vote, the president will deliver his State of the Union address before an evermore divided House chamber. No matter what he says, no matter the claims he makes about himself and his accomplishments, the real state of this union at the beginning of 2020 is fraught: sour despite a good economy; distrustful of the opposition; despondent over seemingly permanent divisions; anxious about the future of democracy at this point in the country’s history. Impeachment has only intensified those feelings.

The Senate trial has done nothing to help restore public confidence. On Friday, by 51 to 49, the Senate voted against calling witnesses to testify, preferring to push ahead to final votes. For a time, the outcome of that vote seemed in the balance. By the time it came, only two Republicans were prepared to buck their leadership and the president.

The vote blocked an appearance by former national security adviser John Bolton — or anyone else with potentially relevant knowledge of what the president said and did in withholding military aid to Ukraine in an effort to get that country to announce investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Bolton has made clear he is willing to testify. Leaks of what he has written in his forthcoming book have been tantalizing, if not dispositive.

All senators swore to weigh impartial justice during the trial. In the end, the GOP showed what it means to be a member of what used to be called the Republican Party but now is simply the Party of Trump. This is not a new observation: Over the past four years, the president has remade the party into a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump Inc.

Friday’s vote showed the value of that remaking, and the explanations provided by two Republicans — Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, whose votes ultimately blocked witnesses — are telling examples of how distorted the process became.

Murkowski concluded that the impeachment process was a failure and there was no reason to continue it. “Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate,” she said. “I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.”

Alexander offered a different rationale for his vote. He waited until he was faced with the decision on whether to allow testimony to express real misgivings about what the president did. He concluded that the House managers had proved their case, that the president’s actions were inappropriate but that what Trump did was not enough to warrant removal from office.

“The Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate,” he said. “The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday.”

Most Republican senators have been unwilling even to describe what the president did as inappropriate. Instead, they have preferred to criticize House Democrats for what they say was a rushed and partisan impeachment process. By blocking witnesses, those senators have chosen to deny voters, in whose judgment they claim to be entrusting so much, additional and relevant information that might inform their decisions about whether the president deserves a second term in office.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) resisted impeachment for months and months, despite facing pressure from her liberal bloc. When the details of the president’s pressure campaign against Ukraine in pursuit of his own political interests became public last fall, she changed her position, and her troops rushed to finish, pushing against an arbitrary, year-end deadline. In the end, the vote to impeach failed the test Pelosi had set out earlier, which is that, for impeachment to be successful, it should be bipartisan.

The Senate took a page from the House, deciding that a rushed process was in their interest and certainly the interest of the president, despite strong support from the public for testimony from witnesses who had relevant information and not yet been heard. They have ended up drawing no lines on presidential behavior. Trump, whose view of presidential power is extravagant, will interpret the result as he pleases.

That leaves the issue of Trump’s future — and questions about presidential powers, presidential behavior and the parameters of the Constitution — back where it always was destined to be, with the voters.

The impeachment process has left many Democrats frustrated or worse. The votes in the Senate were stacked against them. That is not the case for the election that will be held in November.

Trump starts with advantages, the normal benefits of incumbency as well as the strength of the economy. He also starts, however, with almost half the people in the country saying they definitely will vote against him.

On Monday night, Iowa Democrats will trigger the process by which the party selects a nominee to challenge the president. Despite a year of campaigning, that choice has left countless people who want nothing more than to defeat the president almost frozen in indecision as they evaluate a field of candidates, none of whom appear to be a sure winner in November.

The impeachment process will soon be over, but its impact and meaning will remain to shape the choice in this election year. Because Trump is no ordinary president, this was never to be an ordinary reelection campaign. It was always destined to be one of the most significant in voters’ lifetimes. After impeachment, the choices for voters are all the more fundamental — and the outcome all the more consequential for the future of the country.

*********

Senate to emerge from impeachment trial guilty of extreme partisanship

By Paul Kane | Published February 01 at 1:59 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted February 2, 2020 |

The Senate is poised to end its impeachment trial of President Trump far deeper in the partisan trenches than when it started.

That’s a remarkable feat given how deep the Senate has already descended the past decade, but conversations with several of the more widely respected senators revealed a troubling state of affairs that looks nothing like the last time the supposedly august chamber came out of a presidential impeachment trial.

“I’ve got to figure out where we go from here, because right now, my view, this is the saddest day that I’ve seen in the Senate,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Friday. “I’m really disgusted with everybody, just really — the House, the Senate, the Republicans, the Democrats. It’s just a sad day.”

Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), known for an easygoing Western demeanor, expressed just as much rage.

“This was run hyperpartisan, and I think everybody is very angry and so that’s where we are, and I think it will take a while for people to settle down,” Udall said Friday night as he left the Capitol for a weekend break from the trial.

And Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, posted a picture of the Capitol dome at sunrise Saturday with a diatribe about today’s Senate.

“I try not to make these posts overtly political, but yesterday was the most disappointing and dispiriting day since I started this job 7 years ago. For the first time in American history, we are about to complete an impeachment trial without the Senate calling a single witness,” King wrote on Instagram.

So much for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s prediction on Jan. 15, when the House articles of impeachment first arrived, that the Senate would rise above “factional fervor” and bring the nation together.

Instead, when the verdict is rendered with a public roll call Wednesday, the trial will serve as a three-week microcosm of the modern Senate. It has become a completely top-down institution in which the rank-and-file senators feel marginalized, if not completely ignored, and the days of ad hoc bipartisan groups helping cool political passions have vanished.

If the Senate itself were on trial, “guilty” would win the vote in a landslide.

Part of the problem is the senators themselves and their unwillingness to actually do anything about their anger.

Murkowski issued a statement Friday morning, before the vote on having more witnesses, declaring “Congress has failed.” She said the Senate was incapable of holding a “fair trial” but did not spell out the causes, other than taking a thinly veiled shot at Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for her question Thursday about the “legitimacy” of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. overseeing a trial with no witnesses.

Had Murkowski voted to call more witnesses, the tally would have been 50-50 and, as he later said, Roberts had no intention of weighing in with a tiebreaker vote. She seemed to indicate that one reason for voting against witnesses was to spare Roberts from a decision that could open him to attacks.

Yet later, in an interview, she declined to say what Republicans had done that so angered her. “That will be a conversation for a later time,” she said, drawing a long breath, “when I’ve just kind of taken a deep breath.”

For all their griping about the firm grip McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) have on their caucuses, none of the rank-and-file senators made a single real effort to negotiate their own compromise on witnesses.

“Nope. I’ve made phone calls, I’ve sent emails,” Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) said Friday. “And the returns have been polite but brief.”

Just 16 months ago, Coons and then-Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) angered both leaders when they forced an extra week of consideration of the nomination of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, allowing for a bit more work by the FBI on an allegation of sexual assault he was accused of committing when he was a teenager. He denied the charge.

This time, senators spoke so little to one another that some Democrats believed Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) might lead a GOP rebellion to call witnesses — when in fact Alexander never viewed the case as anywhere near his threshold for removing a president.

McConnell claimed he would model this trial on the 1999 impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, with a format that would allow the House managers to present their case, have the president’s legal team rebut it and then go into a two-day question-and-answer session.

That much resembled the Clinton trial over the past two weeks, but little else did.

Back then the Senate called three witnesses and held private, videotaped depositions. Democrats are furious that Republicans fell in line behind McConnell and Trump’s legal team in blocking witnesses.

But there’s a more glaring difference, something that speaks volumes about today’s Senate. When the presentations ended in 1999, the Senate closed its doors and held off-the-record deliberations that spanned more than 22 hours over three days.

Some decried the private sessions as a blow against transparency, but the senators of that era have long recalled those jury deliberations as one of their most meaningful experiences — they talked to one another; they didn’t preen for the cameras.

Instead of such an experience this time, McConnell and Schumer negotiated a deal to adjourn the chamber for the weekend, hold closing arguments Monday and then allow senators to give public speeches explaining their votes until the scheduled 4 p.m. Wednesday vote.

Even Alexander said he doesn’t see the point of private deliberations.

“I don’t really see the need — the question is, did he do it? We had nine days of presentation, of arguments, and 11-hour days, we had nearly 200 witnesses’ video clips shown to us,” Alexander said in an interview Friday.

He believes Trump did everything he is accused of but that the crime does not rise to the level of removing him from office. “I don’t see what there is to deliberate about,” Alexander said.

Udall thinks this is a big mistake. In 2010 he served on a special committee to run an impeachment trial of a federal judge, which led to a period of closed-door deliberations. “Everybody dropped their pretensions, they were asking us questions, they were agonizing with themselves,” he said.

In the coming days, with speeches for the cameras, Udall expects more heated partisan warfare. Retiring at the end of the year, he wanted his final year in office to be focused on his policy issues rather than raising $15 million for a reelection campaign.

Does he feel liberated from fundraising?

“Not after this. No, no, no,” Udall said. “This is a pretty sour experience.”

*********

The Only Way to Remove Trump

To eject the president, you need to beat him.

By Ross Douthat | Published Feb. 1, 2020 | New York Times ||Posted February 2, 2020 |

All you have to do is beat him.

Donald Trump is not a Caesar; he does not bestride our narrow world like a colossus, undefeatable save by desperate or underhanded means. He is an instinct-driven chancer who has exploited the decadence of his party and the larger system to grasp and hold a certain kind of power.

But he is also a reckless and distracted figure, a serial squanderer of opportunities, who barely won the presidency and whose coalition is united only in partisan solidarity and fear of liberalism. He may not be removable by the impeachment process, but is not a king; he is a widely hated, legislatively constrained president facing a difficult re-election.

All you have to do is beat him.

For a long time during Trump’s ascent I wrote columns demanding that the leaders of the Republican Party do something to keep this obviously unfit, chaotic, cruel man from becoming their nominee for president. Those columns were morally correct but structurally naïve, based on theories of party decision-making that no longer obtain in our era of institutional decay.

But Trump could have been stopped in the Republican primaries the old-fashioned way — by being beaten at the polls. His base was limited, his popularity fluctuated, and if his rivals had recognized the threat earlier, campaigned against him consistently, strategized with one another more effectively, and avoided their own meltdowns and missteps, there was no reason he could not have been defeated.

All you have to do is beat him.

After Trump’s administration began and immediately descended into chaos, I had one last flare of institutionalism, one last moment of outrage and 25th Amendment fantasy. But since then I have left the outrage to my liberal friends, watching them put their hopes in Robert Mueller’s investigation, in law-enforcement and intelligence-agency leaks and whistle-blowing, and finally — though with less real hope, and more grim resignation — in the House’s articles of impeachment.

Now that last effort is ending, as everyone with eyes could see it would, with the Republicans who failed to beat Trump when it counted declining to turn on him now that partisan consolidation and improving national conditions have sealed their base to him. The mix of expedience and cravenness with which the institutional G.O.P. approached impeachment is no different than the way the institutional G.O.P. behaved during Trump’s initial ascent, and it leaves Trump’s opposition no worse off than before. A failed impeachment doesn’t give him new powers or new popularity; it just shows that the normal way to be rid of an unpopular president is the way that Democrats must take.

All you have to do is beat him.

Of course, in trying to beat him they have to cope with the fact that he is chronically unscrupulous, as the Biden-Ukraine foray shows. And they have to overcome the advantage that his particular coalition enjoys in the Electoral College.

But in other ways the Democrats are lucky to have Trump to run against, as they were lucky in 2016. In a year when the fundamentals mildly favored Republicans, Hillary Clinton got to face off against the most-disliked G.O.P. nominee of modern times. And she would have beaten him — even with Russia, even with Comey — had her campaign taken just a few more steps to counter his team’s long-shot strategy to flip the Midwest.

All you have to do is beat him.

As with 2016, so with politics since. Liberal hand-wringing about their structural disadvantages ignores the advantages that Trump keeps giving them — the fact that in the best economy in 20 years he can’t stop making people hate him, can’t stop missing opportunities to expand his base, can’t stop forcing vulnerable Republicans to kiss his ring and thereby weaken their own prospects.

Impeachment has only extended this pattern, with Republicans voting to shorten the trial even when it makes them look like lackeys, and too cowed in many cases to even take the acquit-but-still-condemn approach that Democrats took with Bill Clinton. So now most of the country thinks the president did something wrong, most of the country thinks Republicans are protecting him, and most of the country is open, entirely open, to voting Trump and the most vulnerable Republican senators out in nine short months.

All you have to do is beat him.

It’s worth remembering, too, that liberalism is not just struggling in America, with our Electoral College and right-tilting Senate; it is struggling all around the world. Which, again, suggests that American liberals are fortunate to have Trump as their Great Foe. If he were merely as disciplined and competent as Boris Johnson or Viktor Orban, to choose leaders with whom he has a few things in common, he would be coasting to re-election.

Instead it is very likely that he will lose. But it was likely that he would lose in 2016 as well. One essential lesson of the Trump era is that likelihoods are not enough; if you want to end the Trump era only one thing will suffice.

You have to beat him.

*********

Does It Matter Who the Democrats Choose?

In terms of actual policy, probably not very much.

By Paul Krugman | Published January 31, 2020 | New York Times | Posted February 2, 2020 |

At this point, the Democratic presidential nomination is very much up in the air. Not only is it unclear who will be the nominee; it’s unclear whether the nominee will be a centrist like Joe Biden or Amy Klobuchar, or a representative of the party’s left like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Whoever wins, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the other side.

So I’d like to offer an opinion that will probably anger everyone: In terms of actual policy, it probably doesn’t matter much who the Democrats nominate — as long as he or she wins, and Democrats take the Senate too.

If you’re a centrist worried about the gigantic spending increases Sanders has proposed, calm down, because they won’t happen. If you’re a progressive worried that Biden might govern like a Republican, you should also calm down, because he wouldn’t.

In practice, any Democrat would probably preside over a significant increase in taxes on the wealthy and a significant but not huge expansion of the social safety net. Given a Democratic victory, a much-enhanced version of Obamacare would almost certainly be enacted; Medicare for All, not so much. Given a Democratic victory, Social Security and Medicare would be protected and expanded; Paul Ryan-type cuts wouldn’t be on the table.

Why do I say this? Consider first the lessons from three years of Donald Trump.

In 2016 Trump ran as a different kind of Republican, promising that unlike other candidates, he wouldn’t slash social programs and cut taxes on the rich. But it was all a lie. Aside from his trade war, Trump’s economic policies have been straight right-wing orthodoxy: huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, attempts to take health care away from tens of millions of Americans. And lately he has been talking about possible cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

The point is that even though Trump commands humiliating personal subservience from his party, he hasn’t caused any significant shift in its policy priorities.

Now, the Democratic Party is very different from the G.O.P. — it’s a loose coalition of interest groups, not a monolithic entity answering to a handful of billionaires allied with white nationalists. But this if anything makes it even harder for a Democratic president to lead his or her party very far from its political center of gravity, which is currently one of moderate progressivism.

It’s still far from clear who will come out on top in the primary, but it’s enough to think about what would happen if either of the two current front-runners, Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, were to become president — and also have strong enough coattails to produce a Democratic Senate, because otherwise nothing will happen.

Sanders has a hugely ambitious agenda; Medicare for All is just part of it. Paying for that agenda would be difficult — no, Modern Monetary Theory wouldn’t actually do away with the fiscal constraint. So turning Sanders’s vision into reality would require large tax increases, not just on the wealthy, but on the middle class; without those tax increases it would be highly inflationary.

But not to worry: it won’t happen. Even if he made it to the White House, Sanders would have to deal with a Congress (and a public) considerably less radical than he is, and would be obliged to settle for a more modest progressive agenda.

It’s true that Sanders enthusiasts believe that they can rally a hidden majority of Americans around an aggressively populist agenda, and in so doing also push Congress into going along. But we had a test in the midterm elections: Progressives ran a number of candidates in Trump districts, and if even one of them had won they would have claimed vindication for their faith in transformative populism. But none did; the sweeping Democratic victory came entirely from moderates running conventional campaigns.

The usual take on this progressive setback is that it raises questions about Sanders’s electability. But it also has a very different implication: Moderates worried about a radical presidency should cool it. A President Sanders wouldn’t be especially radical in practice.

What about Joe Biden? The Sanders campaign has claimed that Biden endorsed Paul Ryan’s plans for sharp cuts in Social Security and Medicare; that claim is false. What is true is that in the past Biden has often been a Very Serious Person going along with the Beltway consensus that we need “adjustments” — a euphemism for at least modest cuts — in Social Security. (Actually, if you go back a ways, Sanders turns out to have said similar things.)

But the Democratic Party as a whole has moved left on these issues, and Biden has moved with it. Even if he has a lingering desire to strike a Grand Bargain with Republicans — which I doubt — he would face such a huge intraparty backlash that he would be forced to back off.

So in terms of policy, here’s what I think would happen if Sanders wins: we’ll get a significant but not gigantic expansion of the social safety net, paid for by significant new taxes on the rich.

On the other hand, if Biden wins, we’ll get a significant but not gigantic expansion of the social safety net, paid for by significant new taxes on the rich.

One implication, if I’m right, is that electability should play a very important role in your current preferences. It matters hugely whether a Democrat wins, it matters much less which Democrat wins.

But my main point is that Democrats should unify, enthusiastically, behind whoever gets the nomination. Any moderate tempted to become a Never Bernie type should realize that even if you find Sanders too radical, his actual policies would be far more tempered. Any Sanders enthusiast tempted to become a Bernie or Bust type should realize that these days even centrist Dems are pretty progressive, and that there’s a huge gap between them and Trump’s G.O.P.

Oh, and all the Democrats believe in democracy and rule of law, which is kind of important these days.

*********

[pinktheoristcollector]

The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump began in earnest on Tuesday with a fight in the Senate over the rules that will guide the proceedings.

The trial kicked off with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell revising two proposed rules for the proceedings, after he came under criticism for repeatedly claiming the trial rules would follow a precedent set by President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, but released a resolution that did not necessarily hew to those standards.

Trump’s impeachment trial centers on allegations that the President pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, by threatening to withhold U.S. military aid.

Ahead of Tuesday, McConnell defended his plan for rules as sticking to a precedent set by Clinton’s trial. The Senate in 1999 unanimously passed the proposed resolution that would guide the proceedings against Clinton. “Fair is fair. The process was good enough for President Clinton and basic fairness dictates that it ought to be good enough for this president as well,” McConnell said while releasing the initial proposed rules on Monday.

McConnell’s initial resolution, released Monday, allowed the Democratic House managers 24 hours to argue their case across two session days. The side representing Trump would also have up to 24 hours over two session days to make their arguments.

But on Tuesday, McConnell amended the resolution to allow each side 24 hours for presentation over three session days. McConnell also changed a second rule, allowing evidence collected during the House’s impeachment inquiry to be automatically admitted into the official record, unless someone objects to the addition, the resolution now says.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate rejected along party lines a proposed amendment from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to subpoena witnesses and documents related to Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Lead House impeachment manager Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff argued Tuesday that McConnell’s rules do not go far enough to ensure a fair trial. The resolution does not include a guarantee for new witnesses and documents to be presented in the trial, despite calls from Democrats to ensure that such evidence be seen.

“Without the documents, you can’t make important judgments about even which witnesses should be called or what questions should be asked of the witnesses when you do,” Schiff said Tuesday morning. “That is a profound departure from the Clinton precedent.”

Here’s how Trump’s impeachment trial rules differ from Clinton’s.

Witnesses and documents

Difference between Clinton and Trump’s trial

As the Senate impeachment trial against Trump continues, the focus turns to McConnell’s resolution not guaranteeing that any witness testimony will be allowed. The rules state that following opening statements and questioning, senators will decide if they want to call forth any new witnesses, documents or any form of new evidence. The evidence will be allowed if a majority of senators agree it can be considered.

The rules are similar to the resolution outlining Clinton’s impeachment proceedings. During Clinton’s impeachment trial, senators ultimately heard video excerpts from three witnesses, including Monica Lewinsky, who were subpoenaed to appear for taped off-site depositions. Vernon Jordan Jr. and Sidney Blumenthal had also testified.

However, during impeachment proceedings against Clinton in the House of Representatives, Republicans had access to testimony from other interviews collected by then-special counsel Ken Starr.

Clinton also provided more than 90,000 pages of documents and other information ahead of his trial, according to a Clinton White House response to a referral from the Office of Independent Counsel. By contrast, the Trump White House have not provided documents or complied with subpoenas for more than 70 records, the House wrote in its impeachment inquiry report. The White House has cited executive privilege in its refusal to comply.

What the changes means for Trump

If the Senate votes to leave out testimony from new witnesses or documents, the impeachment trial for Trump could move ahead without any new evidence. Fifty-one votes are required to allow new witness testimony per the Democrats’ request, meaning four Republican Senators would have to vote in favor of it. Although moderate Republican Senators like Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney have signaled they may be open to hearing from witnesses, their votes might not be enough.

Trump notably blocked at least 12 potential witnesses from testifying in the House’s impeachment inquiry. One former Administration official in that group, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, said earlier in January that he would be willing to testify in the Senate’s trial if he is subpoenaed.

Bolton is among the top four witnesses Democrats want to interview, with the others including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House officials Michael Duffey and Robert Blair.

[itsfinancethings]

The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump began in earnest on Tuesday with a fight in the Senate over the rules that will guide the proceedings.

The trial kicked off with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell revising two proposed rules for the proceedings, after he came under criticism for repeatedly claiming the trial rules would follow a precedent set by President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, but released a resolution that did not necessarily hew to those standards.

Trump’s impeachment trial centers on allegations that the President pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, by threatening to withhold U.S. military aid.

Ahead of Tuesday, McConnell defended his plan for rules as sticking to a precedent set by Clinton’s trial. The Senate in 1999 unanimously passed the proposed resolution that would guide the proceedings against Clinton. “Fair is fair. The process was good enough for President Clinton and basic fairness dictates that it ought to be good enough for this president as well,” McConnell said while releasing the initial proposed rules on Monday.

McConnell’s initial resolution, released Monday, allowed the Democratic House managers 24 hours to argue their case across two session days. The side representing Trump would also have up to 24 hours over two session days to make their arguments.

But on Tuesday, McConnell amended the resolution to allow each side 24 hours for presentation over three session days. McConnell also changed a second rule, allowing evidence collected during the House’s impeachment inquiry to be automatically admitted into the official record, unless someone objects to the addition, the resolution now says.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate rejected along party lines a proposed amendment from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to subpoena witnesses and documents related to Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Lead House impeachment manager Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff argued Tuesday that McConnell’s rules do not go far enough to ensure a fair trial. The resolution does not include a guarantee for new witnesses and documents to be presented in the trial, despite calls from Democrats to ensure that such evidence be seen.

“Without the documents, you can’t make important judgments about even which witnesses should be called or what questions should be asked of the witnesses when you do,” Schiff said Tuesday morning. “That is a profound departure from the Clinton precedent.”

Here’s how Trump’s impeachment trial rules differ from Clinton’s.

Witnesses and documents

Difference between Clinton and Trump’s trial

As the Senate impeachment trial against Trump continues, the focus turns to McConnell’s resolution not guaranteeing that any witness testimony will be allowed. The rules state that following opening statements and questioning, senators will decide if they want to call forth any new witnesses, documents or any form of new evidence. The evidence will be allowed if a majority of senators agree it can be considered.

The rules are similar to the resolution outlining Clinton’s impeachment proceedings. During Clinton’s impeachment trial, senators ultimately heard video excerpts from three witnesses, including Monica Lewinsky, who were subpoenaed to appear for taped off-site depositions. Vernon Jordan Jr. and Sidney Blumenthal had also testified.

However, during impeachment proceedings against Clinton in the House of Representatives, Republicans had access to testimony from other interviews collected by then-special counsel Ken Starr.

Clinton also provided more than 90,000 pages of documents and other information ahead of his trial, according to a Clinton White House response to a referral from the Office of Independent Counsel. By contrast, the Trump White House have not provided documents or complied with subpoenas for more than 70 records, the House wrote in its impeachment inquiry report. The White House has cited executive privilege in its refusal to comply.

What the changes means for Trump

If the Senate votes to leave out testimony from new witnesses or documents, the impeachment trial for Trump could move ahead without any new evidence. Fifty-one votes are required to allow new witness testimony per the Democrats’ request, meaning four Republican Senators would have to vote in favor of it. Although moderate Republican Senators like Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney have signaled they may be open to hearing from witnesses, their votes might not be enough.

Trump notably blocked at least 12 potential witnesses from testifying in the House’s impeachment inquiry. One former Administration official in that group, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, said earlier in January that he would be willing to testify in the Senate’s trial if he is subpoenaed.

Bolton is among the top four witnesses Democrats want to interview, with the others including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House officials Michael Duffey and Robert Blair.

[hellofastestnewsfan]

The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump began in earnest on Tuesday with a fight in the Senate over the rules that will guide the proceedings.

The trial kicked off with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell revising two proposed rules for the proceedings, after he came under criticism for repeatedly claiming the trial rules would follow a precedent set by President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, but released a resolution that did not necessarily hew to those standards.

Trump’s impeachment trial centers on allegations that the President pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, by threatening to withhold U.S. military aid.

Ahead of Tuesday, McConnell defended his plan for rules as sticking to a precedent set by Clinton’s trial. The Senate in 1999 unanimously passed the proposed resolution that would guide the proceedings against Clinton. “Fair is fair. The process was good enough for President Clinton and basic fairness dictates that it ought to be good enough for this president as well,” McConnell said while releasing the initial proposed rules on Monday.

McConnell’s initial resolution, released Monday, allowed the Democratic House managers 24 hours to argue their case across two session days. The side representing Trump would also have up to 24 hours over two session days to make their arguments.

But on Tuesday, McConnell amended the resolution to allow each side 24 hours for presentation over three session days. McConnell also changed a second rule, allowing evidence collected during the House’s impeachment inquiry to be automatically admitted into the official record, unless someone objects to the addition, the resolution now says.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate rejected along party lines a proposed amendment from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to subpoena witnesses and documents related to Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Lead House impeachment manager Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff argued Tuesday that McConnell’s rules do not go far enough to ensure a fair trial. The resolution does not include a guarantee for new witnesses and documents to be presented in the trial, despite calls from Democrats to ensure that such evidence be seen.

“Without the documents, you can’t make important judgments about even which witnesses should be called or what questions should be asked of the witnesses when you do,” Schiff said Tuesday morning. “That is a profound departure from the Clinton precedent.”

Here’s how Trump’s impeachment trial rules differ from Clinton’s.

Witnesses and documents

Difference between Clinton and Trump’s trial

As the Senate impeachment trial against Trump continues, the focus turns to McConnell’s resolution not guaranteeing that any witness testimony will be allowed. The rules state that following opening statements and questioning, senators will decide if they want to call forth any new witnesses, documents or any form of new evidence. The evidence will be allowed if a majority of senators agree it can be considered.

The rules are similar to the resolution outlining Clinton’s impeachment proceedings. During Clinton’s impeachment trial, senators ultimately heard video excerpts from three witnesses, including Monica Lewinsky, who were subpoenaed to appear for taped off-site depositions. Vernon Jordan Jr. and Sidney Blumenthal had also testified.

However, during impeachment proceedings against Clinton in the House of Representatives, Republicans had access to testimony from other interviews collected by then-special counsel Ken Starr.

Clinton also provided more than 90,000 pages of documents and other information ahead of his trial, according to a Clinton White House response to a referral from the Office of Independent Counsel. By contrast, the Trump White House have not provided documents or complied with subpoenas for more than 70 records, the House wrote in its impeachment inquiry report. The White House has cited executive privilege in its refusal to comply.

What the changes means for Trump

If the Senate votes to leave out testimony from new witnesses or documents, the impeachment trial for Trump could move ahead without any new evidence. Fifty-one votes are required to allow new witness testimony per the Democrats’ request, meaning four Republican Senators would have to vote in favor of it. Although moderate Republican Senators like Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney have signaled they may be open to hearing from witnesses, their votes might not be enough.

Trump notably blocked at least 12 potential witnesses from testifying in the House’s impeachment inquiry. One former Administration official in that group, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, said earlier in January that he would be willing to testify in the Senate’s trial if he is subpoenaed.

Bolton is among the top four witnesses Democrats want to interview, with the others including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House officials Michael Duffey and Robert Blair.

from TIME https://ift.tt/30GiJWt

[newstechreviews]

The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump began in earnest on Tuesday with a fight in the Senate over the rules that will guide the proceedings.

The trial kicked off with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell revising two proposed rules for the proceedings, after he came under criticism for repeatedly claiming the trial rules would follow a precedent set by President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, but released a resolution that did not necessarily hew to those standards.

Trump’s impeachment trial centers on allegations that the President pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, by threatening to withhold U.S. military aid.

Ahead of Tuesday, McConnell defended his plan for rules as sticking to a precedent set by Clinton’s trial. The Senate in 1999 unanimously passed the proposed resolution that would guide the proceedings against Clinton. “Fair is fair. The process was good enough for President Clinton and basic fairness dictates that it ought to be good enough for this president as well,” McConnell said while releasing the initial proposed rules on Monday.

McConnell’s initial resolution, released Monday, allowed the Democratic House managers 24 hours to argue their case across two session days. The side representing Trump would also have up to 24 hours over two session days to make their arguments.

But on Tuesday, McConnell amended the resolution to allow each side 24 hours for presentation over three session days. McConnell also changed a second rule, allowing evidence collected during the House’s impeachment inquiry to be automatically admitted into the official record, unless someone objects to the addition, the resolution now says.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate rejected along party lines a proposed amendment from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to subpoena witnesses and documents related to Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Lead House impeachment manager Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff argued Tuesday that McConnell’s rules do not go far enough to ensure a fair trial. The resolution does not include a guarantee for new witnesses and documents to be presented in the trial, despite calls from Democrats to ensure that such evidence be seen.

“Without the documents, you can’t make important judgments about even which witnesses should be called or what questions should be asked of the witnesses when you do,” Schiff said Tuesday morning. “That is a profound departure from the Clinton precedent.”

Here’s how Trump’s impeachment trial rules differ from Clinton’s.

Witnesses and documents

Difference between Clinton and Trump’s trial

As the Senate impeachment trial against Trump continues, the focus turns to McConnell’s resolution not guaranteeing that any witness testimony will be allowed. The rules state that following opening statements and questioning, senators will decide if they want to call forth any new witnesses, documents or any form of new evidence. The evidence will be allowed if a majority of senators agree it can be considered.

The rules are similar to the resolution outlining Clinton’s impeachment proceedings. During Clinton’s impeachment trial, senators ultimately heard video excerpts from three witnesses, including Monica Lewinsky, who were subpoenaed to appear for taped off-site depositions. Vernon Jordan Jr. and Sidney Blumenthal had also testified.

However, during impeachment proceedings against Clinton in the House of Representatives, Republicans had access to testimony from other interviews collected by then-special counsel Ken Starr.

Clinton also provided more than 90,000 pages of documents and other information ahead of his trial, according to a Clinton White House response to a referral from the Office of Independent Counsel. By contrast, the Trump White House have not provided documents or complied with subpoenas for more than 70 records, the House wrote in its impeachment inquiry report. The White House has cited executive privilege in its refusal to comply.

What the changes means for Trump

If the Senate votes to leave out testimony from new witnesses or documents, the impeachment trial for Trump could move ahead without any new evidence. Fifty-one votes are required to allow new witness testimony per the Democrats’ request, meaning four Republican Senators would have to vote in favor of it. Although moderate Republican Senators like Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney have signaled they may be open to hearing from witnesses, their votes might not be enough.

Trump notably blocked at least 12 potential witnesses from testifying in the House’s impeachment inquiry. One former Administration official in that group, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, said earlier in January that he would be willing to testify in the Senate’s trial if he is subpoenaed.

Bolton is among the top four witnesses Democrats want to interview, with the others including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House officials Michael Duffey and Robert Blair.

[goalhofer]

2022 Minnesota Twins Roster

Pitchers

#12 Emilio Pagán (Greenville, South Carolina)

#16 John Ober (Charlotte, North Carolina)

#17 Chris Archer (Clayton, North Carolina)

#18 Maeda Kenta (Tadaoka, Japan)

#20 Chris Paddack (Cedar Park, Texas)

#21 Tyler Duffey (Bellaire, Texas)

#37 Dylan Bundy (Owasso, Oklahoma)

#38 Joe Smith (Batavia Township, Ohio)

#41 Joe Ryan (San Anselmo, California)

#45 Jharel Cotton (St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands)

#50 Jhon Romero (Cartagena, Colombia)

#53 Danny Coulombe (Scottsdale, Arizona)

#54 Sonny Gray (Smyrna, Tennessee)

#56 Caleb Thielbar (Randolph, Minnesota)

#59 Jhoan Durán (Esperanza, Dominican Republic)

#61 Cody Stashak (Hamilton Township, New Jersey)

#66 Jorge Alcalá (Bajos De Haina, Dominican Republic)

#68 Randy Dobnak (South Park Township, Pennsylvania)

#74 Josh Winder (Chesterfield County, Virginia)

Catchers

#24 Gary Sánchez (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)

#27 Ryan Jeffers (Raleigh, North Carolina)

Infielders

#1 Nick Gordon (Orlando, Florida)

#2 Luis Arráez (San Felipe, Venezuela)

#4 Carlos Correa; Jr. (Barrio Velázquez, Puerto Rico)

#11 Jorge Polanco (San Pedro De Macorís, Dominican Republic)

#15 Gio Urshela (Cartagena, Colombia)

#22 Miguel Sanó (San Pedro De Macorís, Dominican Republic)

Outfielders

#19 Alex Kirilloff (Plum, Pennsylvania)

#25 Byron Buxton (Baxley, Georgia)

#26 Max Różycki-Kepler (Berlin, Germany)

#67 Gilberto Celestino (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)

Coaches

Manager Rocco Baldelli (Woonsocket, Rhode Island)

Bench coach Jayce Tingler (Smithville, Missouri)

Assistant bench coach Tony Diaz (Scottsdale, Arizona)

Pitching coach Wes Johnson (Sherwood, Arkansas)

Assistant pitching coach Luis Ramirez (Valencia, Venezuela)

Bullpen coach Pete Maki (Woodbury, Connecticut)

Bullpen catcher Connor Olson (St. Paul, Minnesota)

Hitting coach Rodolfo Hernández (Turmero, Venezuela)

Assistant hitting coach David Popkins (San Diego, California)

1st base/catching coach Hyun Conger (Huntington Beach, California)

3rd base coach Tommy Watkins; Jr. (Ft. Myers, Florida)

[shamefulright]

Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion

Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion

The inside story of President Trump’s demand to halt military assistance to an ally shows the price he was willing to pay to carry out his agenda.

[bountyofbeads]

Could Trump Muzzle John Bolton? The Limits of Executive Privilege, Explained https://nyti.ms/3aGTfN9

Could Trump Muzzle John Bolton? The Limits of Executive Privilege, Explained

If senators vote to subpoena testimony for the impeachment trial, the president may not be able to block or delay a willing witness.

By Charlie Savage | Published Jan. 25, 2020, 10:15 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 25, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — Republican senators allied with President Trump are increasingly arguing that the Senate should not call witnesses or subpoena documents for his impeachment trial because Mr. Trump has threatened to invoke executive privilege, and a legal fight would take too long to resolve.

But it is far from clear that Mr. Trump has the power to gag or delay a witness who is willing to comply with a subpoena and tell the Senate what he knows about the president’s interactions with Ukraine anyway — as Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser John R. Bolton has said he would do.

Here is an explanation of executive privilege legal issues.

What IS EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE?

It is a power that presidents can sometimes use to keep information secret.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution implicitly gives presidents the authority to keep internal communications, especially those involving their close White House aides, secret under certain circumstances. The idea is that if officials fear that Congress might someday gain access to their private communications, it would chill the candor of the advice presidents receive and inhibit their ability to carry out their constitutionally assigned duties.

CAN INVOKING EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE BLOCK A WILLING WITNESS?

Not by itself.

The privilege has traditionally been wielded as a shield, not a sword. It has no built-in enforcement mechanism to prevent a former official from complying with a subpoena in defiance of a president’s orders, or to punish one afterward for having done so.

Mr. Bolton, one of the four current and former officials whom Democrats want to call as a witness, has said that he will show up to testify if the Senate subpoenas him for the impeachment trial, even though the White House has told him not to disclose what he knows about Mr. Trump’s private statements and actions toward Ukraine.

WHAT CAN EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE DO?

A valid assertion of the privilege would protect a current or former official who chooses not to comply with a subpoena.

Three other officials Democrats want to call as witnesses — Mr. Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney; a top national-security aide to Mr. Mulvaney, Robert Blair; and Michael Duffey, an official in the White House budget office who handled the military aid to Ukraine — are expected to resist appearing if subpoenaed.

Normally it is a crime to defy a subpoena, but the Justice Department will decline to prosecute a recalcitrant official if the president invokes the privilege. Congress can also sue that official seeking a court order, but the department, defending that official, will cite the privilege to argue that case should be dismissed — and as grounds to appeal any ruling that the subpoena is nevertheless valid, keeping the case going.

The Trump administration has broadly pursued a strategy of fighting House oversight and impeachment subpoenas, resulting in a string of lower-court losses that have nevertheless succeeded in running down the clock. Senate Republicans have argued that any effort to enforce impeachment subpoenas could result in a long and drawn-out judicial battle as a reason for the moderate members of their caucus not to break ranks and join Democrats in voting to subpoena witnesses and documents.

WHAT IF ROBERTS RULES THAT THE PRIVILEGE IS NOT VALID?

Representative Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who is leading the House impeachment managers, has proposed that the Supreme Court Chief Justice, John G. Roberts Jr., who is presiding over the trial, could swiftly rule on the validity of any executive privilege claim. The trial has “a perfectly good judge sitting behind me,” Mr. Schiff said.

But Chief Justice Roberts does not embody and is not functioning as the Supreme Court. Several legal experts said that even if he were to rule that any invocation of the privilege is not valid, a subpoena recipient could ignore him and continue to defer to the president.

Then the Senate would likely still have to go through the normal court process to seek a judicial order to hear from the witness.

COULD TRUMP GO TO COURT TO BLOCK BOLTON FROM TALKING?

The administration could try, but it would face serious hurdles.

In theory, the Justice Department could file a lawsuit and ask a judge to issue a restraining order barring Mr. Bolton from testifying on the grounds that he might divulge information that is subject to executive privilege. But the government has never tried to do that.

Even if a judge agreed that the information the Senate would be seeking is covered by a valid claim of executive privilege, it is not clear that any judge or higher court would issue a restraining order. Under a constitutional doctrine called prior restraint, the First Amendment severely limits the ability of the government to gag speech before its expression.

“A restraining order is unlikely because it would be unprecedented, a threat to First Amendment values, and — in this context — a threat to fundamental checks and balances,” said Peter Shane, an Ohio State University professor and the co-author of a casebook on separation-of-powers law.

WHAT INFORMATION DOES THE PRIVILEGE COVER?

It’s fuzzy. The scope and limits of the president’s power to keep internal executive branch information secret are ill-defined because in practice, administration officials and lawmakers have typically resolved executive privilege disputes through deals to accommodate investigators’ needs to avoid definitive judicial rulings.

In a 1974 Supreme Court case about whether President Richard M. Nixon had to turn over tapes of his Oval Office conversations to the Watergate prosecutor, the court ruled that executive privilege can be overcome if the information is needed for a criminal case. Nixon resigned 16 days later.

The Supreme Court in the Nixon case noted several times that the information sought did not involve presidential discussions about diplomatic or military matters, so the Justice Department might argue that the Watergate precedent does not cover Mr. Trump’s internal communications about military aid to Ukraine.

Nevertheless, the courts would most likely use a balancing test, weighing the presidency’s need for private internal deliberations against Congress’s need for the specific information to investigate possible high-level wrongdoing, said Mark J. Rozell, a George Mason University professor who has written books about executive privilege.

Noting the Nixon-era precedent, he said he doubted that a claim of executive privilege would be upheld in the context of impeachment because “the courts don’t give all that much deference to claims of presidential secrecy in cases of alleged wrongdoing.”

IS PRIVILEGE THE SAME THING AS ‘ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY’?

No.

In a related legal dispute, the Trump administration has argued that White House officials are “absolutely immune” from being compelled to respond to a subpoena when Congress is seeking information about their official duties.

If that were true, it would mean they did not even have to show up, separate and apart from whether they can lawfully decline to answer a particular question in deference to a president’s claim that the answer is covered by executive privilege.

Late last year, a Federal District Court judge rejected that theory in a case involving a congressional subpoena to Mr. Trump’s former White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II. But Mr. McGahn does not want to cooperate and has permitted the Justice Department to file an appeal on his behalf, and the litigation is continuing.

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What to Watch For in Trump’s Impeachment Trial on Saturday.... House impeachment managers will step back as the president’s legal team fires its first salvo.

By Zach Montague | Published Jan. 25, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET |New York Times | Posted January 25 2020 |

President Trump’s lawyers will begin presenting their defense on Saturday, hoping to deliver a sharp counterargument to three days of presentations that House impeachment managers wrapped up Friday night.

As Democrats ended their opening arguments, Republican senators appeared largely unmoved in their belief that Mr. Trump should remain in office, and dismissed the notion that the president’s actions rose to the level of an impeachable offense. But some conceded that the managers, in particular Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, had pieced together a case that at times was impressive.

For a few hours this weekend, Mr. Trump’s legal team will have a chance to change the tone in the Senate chamber.

THE BASICS.

What we’re expecting to see: A first look at how the president’s defense strategy will play out in the Senate, and at the confrontational approach his lawyers seem prepared to take in their full formal arguments next week.

When we’re likely to see it: The Senate has asked Mr. Trump’s team to begin at 10 a.m. and limit itself to three hours.

How to follow it: The New York Times’s congressional and White House teams will be following all of the developments. Visit nytimes.com for coverage throughout the day.

A THREE-HOUR TRAILER?

On Friday, Jay Sekulow, a member of Mr. Trump’s legal team, characterized the presentation he and his colleagues plan to make on Saturday as “a trailer” and “coming attractions.” He added that the more meaningful and substantial presentation of his team’s case will be reserved for next week.

Nonetheless, the president’s lawyers will have three hours, and anything they say will resonate over the weekend and could be seized on by Democratic presidential candidates who will be campaigning aggressively ahead of the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3.

With this in mind, the president’s lawyers are likely to take the opportunity to try out a few sound bites that could foreshadow the arguments they plan to push in their fuller presentation on Monday.

NEW EVIDENCE HAS EMERGED. WILL IT BE CONSIDERED?

Senate Democrats on Friday began openly expressing doubt that they would be able to muster the support they need from Republicans to subpoena new witnesses or introduce new evidence in the trial. Yet as House managers brought their opening arguments to a close, new evidence emerged in the form of a recording that seemed to document the president demanding the removal of Marie L. Yovanovitch as the United States ambassador to Ukraine.

How Republicans react to the recording’s existence could provide clues as to whether it has the potential to affect the vote expected next week on whether any additional evidence will be entered into the record before the trial’s conclusion.

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Who Are Trump’s Impeachment Defense Lawyers?

The president’s legal team must maintain his support in the Senate while arguing his case to a broader jury: voters watching at home.

By Michael Levenson | Published Jan. 25, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 25, 2020 |

President Trump has expanded his legal team in hopes of securing a quick acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial. The lawyers he has enlisted include frequent guests on Fox News and former independent counsels who investigated President Bill Clinton. Together, they must maintain Mr. Trump’s support in the Senate while arguing his case to a broader jury: voters watching at home.

Here is a look at the team defending the president from impeachment articles charging him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

PAM BONDI, SPECIAL ADVISER

Pam Bondi, who served as Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019, has been considered a rising Republican star. When she endorsed Mr. Trump for president in 2016, she said they had been friends for years. In 2013, Mr. Trump donated $25,000 to a group supporting Ms. Bondi and later faced questions over whether the gift was intended to ward off a review by Ms. Bondi’s office of fraud allegations at Trump University.

Last year, Ms. Bondi joined a lobbying firm run by a top fund-raiser for Mr. Trump. The firm has since been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors as part of an investigation into two associates of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, who have been charged with violating campaign finance laws, according to people familiar with the investigation. A frequent guest on Fox News, Ms. Bondi has called the president’s impeachment a “sham.”

PAT A. CIPOLLONE, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL

Since being named White House counsel a year ago, Pat A. Cipollone has earned Mr. Trump’s trust, according to people close to the president. Unlike his predecessor, Donald F. McGahn II, who privately referred to Mr. Trump as “King Kong” and sought to curb some of his potentially self-destructive impulses, Mr. Cipollone is known to stay behind the scenes and has been described as more temperamentally agreeable to Mr. Trump.

Born in the Bronx to Italian immigrants, Mr. Cipollone, who is 53 and a father of 10, has been deeply involved in Catholic activities such as helping found the National Prayer Breakfast. During the House impeachment inquiry, Mr. Cipollone signed an eight-page letter that made a blistering argument against cooperating with the inquiry in any way.

[Read more about Mr. Cipollone below]

ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ, PROFESSOR EMERITUS AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL

Alan M. Dershowitz, who has represented a long list of famous clients such as Claus von Bülow, O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson, will present oral arguments at the Senate trial, Mr. Trump’s legal team said. Once seen as a liberal, he prides himself on being a contrarian. In 2008, he helped negotiate a lenient sentence for Jeffrey E. Epstein, the wealthy financier who was accused of sex trafficking and killed himself last year in a Manhattan jail. He has also been accused of engaging in sex with an underage girl he met through Mr. Epstein. Mr. Dershowitz, 81, has denied the claim.

Mr. Dershowitz, an acquaintance of Mr. Trump’s since the 1990s, has become a Fox News staple, attacking the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and defending Mr. Trump’s right to fire James B. Comey as F.B.I. director.

[Read more about Mr. Dershowitz on below.]

ERIC D. HERSCHMANN, LAWYER IN PRIVATE PRACTICE

Eric D. Herschmann, the least familiar name on Mr. Trump’s legal roster, is a partner at Kasowitz Benson Torres in New York who specializes in white-collar defense and investigations as well as commercial and securities litigation.

From 2009 to 2012, he was vice chairman of Southern Union Company, a natural gas firm. Mr. Herschmann was also legal counsel for Citibank’s corporate audit department, a senior litigation counsel and an assistant district attorney in Manhattan.

JANE SERENE RASKIN, MR. TRUMP’S PERSONAL LAWYER

A former federal prosecutor who specializes in white-collar defense, Jane Serene Raskin has been a constant but little-known presence in Mr. Trump’s orbit since the special counsel’s Russia investigation.

In 2018, Mr. Trump hired her and her husband, Marty Raskin, after the F.B.I. searched the home and office of Michael D. Cohen, then Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, as part of an investigation into payments Mr. Cohen had made to silence a pornographic film star who claimed that she had had an affair with Mr. Trump. In the 1980s, Ms. Raskin worked for William F. Weld, an assistant attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, who later became the governor of Massachusetts and is now running a quixotic campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. It remains to be seen whether Ms. Raskin will have a speaking role during the Senate trial. If her history with Mr. Trump is any guide, she may remain a silent partner.

[Read more about Ms. Raskin below.]

ROBERT W. RAY, FORMER INDEPENDENT COUNSEL

Robert W. Ray succeeded Ken Starr as the independent counsel investigating Mr. Clinton in 1999. A former federal prosecutor, Mr. Ray had planned to indict Mr. Clinton when he left office for the same crimes considered during the impeachment.

But Mr. Ray and Mr. Clinton struck a deal that prevented Mr. Clinton from being prosecuted in return for surrendering his law license and paying a $25,000 fine. After leaving the federal government, Mr. Ray, 59, went into private practice. In 2006, he turned himself into the police on a low-level charge of stalking a former girlfriend. A law enforcement official said the case was sealed, suggesting it was most likely dismissed.

[Read more about Mr. RAY below.]

JAY SEKULOW MR. TRUMP’S PERSONAL LAWYER

A conservative media personality with deep ties to the evangelical community, Jay Sekulow will lead the president’s impeachment defense with Mr. Cipollone. He is one of the longest-serving members of Mr. Trump’s personal legal team, and is a frequent commentator on Fox News and on Christian television.

Mr. Sekulow, 63, was once an observant Jew, but he would embrace Christianity while attending Atlanta Baptist College, now Mercer University, where he also attended law school. In 1990, the televangelist Pat Robertson hired Mr. Sekulow as chief counsel for the American Center for Law & Justice, a group founded in opposition to the American Civil Liberties Union. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Sekulow won a string of Supreme Court cases by arguing that bans on various forms of religious expression in public places violated the right to free speech.

[Read more about Mr. Sekulow below.]

KEN STARR FORMER INDEPENDENT COUNSEL

One of the best known and most polarizing legal figures in the country, Ken Starr conducted the investigation of Mr. Clinton that led to the president’s impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice in 1998. A household name in the 1990s, he was reviled by critics as a moralistic, sex-obsessed prosecutor and admired by others as an upright truth-seeker pursuing a lying, philandering president who had dishonored the Oval Office. Mr. Starr resigned as independent counsel in 1999, lamenting the “intense politicization” of his investigation.

He later served as dean of the Pepperdine University Law School and as president of Baylor University but was demoted by and later resigned from Baylor after an investigation found the university had mishandled accusations of sexual assault against members of its football team. In recent months, Mr. Starr, 73, has become a regular commentator defending Mr. Trump on Fox News.

[Read more about Mr. Starr below.]

______

Reporting was contributed by Annie Karni, Maggie Haberman, Elizabeth Williamson, Eileen Sullivan and Peter Baker.

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Pat Cipollone: White House Counsel Who Will Help Lead Trump Legal Team

The top White House lawyer is less resistant to President Trump’s whims and wishes than his previous counsel.

By Maggie Haberman | Published Jan. 17, 2020 | New York Times | Posted January 25, 2020 |

When President Trump needed to replace his first White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, he was looking for someone different.

So when people recommended Pat A. Cipollone, a conservative lawyer who was well-liked by some of Mr. Trump’s aides, the president welcomed him to the role.

Where Mr. McGahn plays guitar in a band, Mr. Cipollone, 53, drives a pickup truck and stays almost entirely out of view of the news media. Where Mr. McGahn privately referred to Mr. Trump as “King Kong” and sought to curb some of his potentially self-destructive impulses, Mr. Cipollone has been described as more temperamentally agreeable to the president.

In discussions about his legal team, Mr. Trump has asked aides whether Mr. Cipollone can do well in the impeachment defense, given that it will be a televised spectacle. Still, most people close to the president say that during their year working together, Mr. Cipollone has earned the president’s trust.

Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Cipollone comes from New York City. He was born in the Bronx, the son of Italian immigrants, and graduated from Fordham University. When his father, a factory worker, was transferred to Kentucky, he attended Covington Catholic High School.

At Fordham, he was the valedictorian of the class of 1988. After graduation, he clerked for a judge before taking a speech-writing job with William P. Barr, who was then the attorney general under President George Bush — and is now back in the job under Mr. Trump.

Mr. Cipollone has worked in private practice since, and has been involved in Catholic efforts such as helping found the National Prayer Breakfast. He has 10 children, and is family friends with Laura Ingraham, the Fox News commentator who is supportive of Mr. Trump.

When the controversy over Mr. Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president on July 25 emerged, Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Barr advocated releasing a reconstructed transcript, believing it raised no legal issues for the president, and that it did not match the speculation about what had been said during the call. Mr. Cipollone told associates he believed transparency made the most sense.

But that call — and the president’s order to withhold congressionally-approved military aid to Ukraine — became the center of the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry that has made Mr. Trump only the third president to face a trial in the Senate and potential removal from office.

During the House inquiry, Mr. Cipollone signed his name to an eight-page letter that made a blistering political argument against cooperating with the inquiry in any way. The letter raised eyebrows among White House counsels from past administrations.

But it won Mr. Trump’s approval, and the White House’s adherence to that stance formed the basis for one of the two articles of impeachment against the president, for obstruction of Congress.

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Alan Dershowitz Adds Trump to the List of His High-Profile Clients

Past clients have included Claus von Bülow, O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson and Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier who was accused of sex trafficking and killed himself last year in a Manhattan jail.

By Annie Karni | Published Jan. 17, 2020 | New York Times | Posted January 25, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — When Alan M. Dershowitz told President Trump this week that he would join the legal team for his impeachment trial in the Senate, his transformation from a onetime liberal standard-bearer into a conservative provocateur appeared to be complete.

Mr. Dershowitz, 81, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, prides himself on being a civil libertarian and a contrarian who isn’t afraid to defend the seemingly indefensible, especially if that person has a high-profile, tabloid-friendly name. His past clients include Claus von Bülow, O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson and Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier who was accused of sex trafficking and killed himself last year in a Manhattan jail.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Dershowitz was also known as an advocate for the First Amendment who defended neo-Nazi speech and pornography and served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union. Back then, according to The New Yorker, he also worked pro bono to represent clients involved in challenges to censorship and the death penalty.

Mr. Dershowitz’s connections to Mr. Epstein, however, have proved the most complicating in recent years. In 2014, one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, said in a court filing that Mr. Dershowitz was one of the Epstein friends to whom she was offered for sex.

Mr. Dershowitz has vociferously denied the allegations. On Fox News, he noted that he had a “perfect, perfect sex life during the relevant period of time.” The accusations even inspired him to write a book, “Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo.”

Since Mr. Trump took office, Mr. Dershowitz has frequently visited the West Wing, consulting with the president and his top aides on various issues, including the Middle East and the Mueller inquiry.

Mr. Dershowitz, who lives in New York, summers on Martha’s Vineyard, and says his family of Democrats is deeply disturbed by his association with Mr. Trump, has known the president as a casual acquaintance since the 1990s.

But Mr. Trump took a greater interest in him after his regular Fox News appearances, during which Mr. Dershowitz often attacked the legal grounds for the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and defended the president’s right to fire James B. Comey as the F.BI. director.

Despite Mr. Trump’s frequent tweets praising him, Mr. Dershowitz has always maintained to reporters that he had no interest in formally joining Mr. Trump’s legal team. In a brief interview on Friday, Mr. Dershowitz said that had not changed and tried to play down his role.

“I’m presenting an independent argument as an independent academic against impeachment, which is a view I’ve held for a long time,” he said.

Mr. Dershowitz is expected to present oral arguments in the Senate trial next week and he insisted that those arguments would be the extent of his involvement in the trial.

“I felt it was important for the Constitution and for precedent and the future of the impeachment,” he said.

His final conversation about joining the team took place on Wednesday night with Mr. Trump himself. “We discussed it and I agreed,” Mr. Dershowitz said.

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In Jay Sekulow, Trump Taps Longtime Loyalist for Impeachment Defense

Mr. Sekulow, who will co-lead the president’s impeachment defense team, has stayed on as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer while others have left their posts.

By Elizabeth Williamson | Published Jan. 17, 2020 | New York Times | Posted January 25, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — Jay Sekulow, who will lead President Trump’s impeachment defense team with Pat A. Cipollone, is one of Mr. Trump’s longest-serving personal lawyers, an achievement in itself as the legal team’s revolving door spins wildly.

Mr. Sekulow, 63, coordinates the work of eight lawyers from a cooperative working space a few blocks from the White House, under the name Constitutional Litigation and Advocacy Group.

He is a conservative media personality with deep ties to the evangelical community, a critical part of Mr. Trump’s base. But Mr. Sekulow does not possess extensive experience in the proceedings that Mr. Trump will face in the Senate.

“Jay is not a criminal lawyer, and he’s not even a checks-and-balances constitutional lawyer,” said Paul Rosenzweig, who was senior counsel to Ken Starr for the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton administration. “But he’s been at it for two years, so maybe he’s got more experience in defending this president than anybody.”

Mr. Sekulow is a frequent presence on Fox News and on Christian television. He has his own daily radio show, “Jay Sekulow Live,” on which he and his son Jordan Sekulow, who works in Mr. Sekulow’s legal firm, defend and flatter Mr. Trump and echo White House talking points on impeachment.

Jay Sekulow was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Long Island and in Atlanta. His New York roots contribute to his rapport with Mr. Trump, who is said to view him as a no-nonsense sounding board. Once an observant Jew, Mr. Sekulow embraced Christianity after exploring the Bible while attending Atlanta Baptist College, today known as Mercer University, where he also attended law school.

Mr. Sekulow opened a law firm in Atlanta with Mercer classmates and his brother Gary Sekulow. Soon after, he went into business renovating and flipping historic properties, at the time a popular tax shelter for the wealthy.

The venture imploded in 1986. Sued for fraud and securities violations, Mr. Sekulow, his brother, father, law partner and other associates declared bankruptcy and left a trail of unpaid debts.

Mr. Sekulow swiftly reinvented himself as a litigator for the Christian right, funded by televangelists and donations they solicited for him and his faith-based advocacy group, Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, or CASE. In 1990, the televangelist Pat Robertson hired Mr. Sekulow as chief counsel for the American Center for Law & Justice, a group founded in opposition to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Mr. Sekulow won a string of Supreme Court cases in the late 1980s and 1990s by arguing that bans on various forms of religious expression in public places violated the practitioners’ right to free speech.

After Mr. Trump was elected, the president’s adviser Stephen K. Bannon recommended the hiring of Mr. Sekulow to help guide Mr. Trump’s legal response to the investigation of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

Mr. Sekulow works for the president while continuing to run his law firm and Christian advocacy group.

*********

Ken Starr Returns to the Impeachment Fray, This Time for the Defense

The independent counsel whose investigation resulted in a Senate trial for President Bill Clinton has joined the team defending President Trump.

By Peter Baker | Published Jan. 17, 2020 | New York Times | Posted January 25, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — The last time a president was on trial, few were more responsible for putting him in the dock than Ken Starr. Now the former independent counsel whose investigation led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment two decades ago will come to the defense of another president charged with high crimes and misdemeanors.

In adding Mr. Starr to his legal team, President Trump enlisted one of the best known and most polarizing lawyers in the country, someone who in recent months has become a regular defender of the president on Fox News. Mr. Starr will argue that while Mr. Clinton’s impeachment was legitimate, Mr. Trump’s was out of bounds.

But Mr. Starr’s return to the public stage 21 years after Mr. Clinton’s trial was just the latest head-spinning turn in a saga that at times has echoed the dramatic battle of the late 1990s in oddly distorted ways. Many players from that impeachment are leading figures in this one, though on the other side. Democrats now make arguments often heard last time from Republicans and vice versa.

When Mr. Starr takes his place at the defense table on the Senate floor, his presence will almost guarantee that the battle over Mr. Trump’s impeachment in some ways will effectively replay the battle over Mr. Clinton’s. And every word Mr. Starr uttered and every position he took back then will be subject to new scrutiny by Mr. Trump’s adversaries, who will try to use them against the current presidential defendant.

“The addition of Ken Starr to President Trump’s legal team for the impeachment trial is a shrewd move,” said Ken Gormley, the president of Duquesne University and the author of “The Death of American Virtue” about the struggle between Mr. Starr and Mr. Clinton. “Starr clearly brings with him abundant expertise,” knows many of the senators sitting as jurors and once worked with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who will be presiding.

But Mr. Gormley added that Mr. Starr’s participation in the new Senate trial is sure to bring back memories of a divisive time that seemed to presage the red-state-versus-blue-state fracturing of the country that has become so pronounced in Mr. Trump’s era, a time when a low-key former judge became one of the biggest lightning rods of his generation.

“Half the country loved him. The other half loathed him,” Mr. Gormley recalled. “Those deeply personal feelings will be revived, with more intensity, as Starr steps back onto the stage in the Trump trial, creating flashbacks and a sense of unfinished political combat for those who lived through those divisive and painful days in the late ’90s.”

Even some of those who once worked for Mr. Starr wondered on Friday whether his selection would distract from Mr. Trump’s case by essentially relitigating Mr. Clinton’s. In his report to Congress, for instance, Mr. Starr argued that Mr. Clinton had committed an impeachable offense by unlawfully invoking executive privilege to try to block witness testimony and documents. One of the articles of impeachment passed by the House last month charged Mr. Trump with obstructing Congress by blocking testimony and refusing to turn over documents.

“I do not see how this benefits President Trump,” said Paul Rosenzweig, who served as a lawyer in Mr. Starr’s investigation. “Throughout the Clinton impeachment, Judge Starr consistently opposed the invocation of executive privilege and called for all the witnesses to come forward. Trump will have a hard time squaring that historical record with his current conduct.”

Others said Mr. Starr would be best suited to explain the principled differences because of his experience. “Ken is an excellent choice to help the president,” said Robert J. Bittman, a former deputy. “Ken is one of the few lawyers who has extensively studied and experienced the precedents and nuances of the impeachment process. He will be a valuable resource to the president and the Senate.”

For a time in the 1990s, Mr. Starr, 73, was a household name, the prosecutor pursuing Mr. Clinton first over the Whitewater land deal and then over the president’s efforts to thwart a sexual harassment lawsuit by covering up an affair with a White House intern. To his admirers, Mr. Starr was an upright pursuer of a lying, philandering president who had dishonored the Oval Office. To his critics, Mr. Starr was a moralistic, sex-obsessed Inspector Javert persecuting a president out of ideological animus.

Mr. Starr’s investigation confirmed that Mr. Clinton had a sexual relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky despite the president’s denials under oath and efforts to coach other potential witnesses to hide his indiscretions during a lawsuit brought by Paula Corbin Jones, a former Arkansas state worker who accused him of sexual harassment when he was governor.

Acting on Mr. Starr’s findings, the House impeached Mr. Clinton in December 1998, largely along party lines, but the Senate acquitted him in February 1999, concluding that the president’s wrongdoing did not justify removing him from office. Mr. Starr testified in the House but played no direct role in the Senate trial.

Mr. Clinton was separately found in contempt of court and fined by a federal judge and later struck a deal with Mr. Starr’s successor in which the president admitted not telling the truth under oath, paid a fine and surrendered his law license.

Mr. Starr, who served as a federal appeals court judge and then as President George Bush’s solicitor general, was once a legal star among Republicans and seen as a possible Supreme Court justice. But his time as independent counsel made him politically radioactive.

He went on to serve as dean of the Pepperdine University Law School and as president of Baylor University but was demoted and later resigned from Baylor after an investigation found the university mishandled accusations of sexual assault against members of the football team. The investigators rebuked the university leadership, saying that it had “created a perception that football was above the rules.”

Mr. Clinton’s circle remains as critical as ever. “Whether it was representing Big Tobacco, obsessing about President Clinton’s sex life or disgracing himself in the Baylor rape scandal, Ken Starr has always been on the wrong side of history, ethics, and common decency,” said Paul Begala, a former White House counselor to Mr. Clinton. “He is therefore the perfect lawyer for Donald Trump.”

In the past 18 months, Mr. Starr has sought to reshape his legacy, publishing a new memoir about his time as independent counsel called “Contempt” sharply criticizing Bill and Hillary Clinton. He also has become a regular commentator defending Mr. Trump against House Democrats seeking to impeach him for abuse of office and obstruction of Congress.

Mr. Starr has distinguished between Mr. Clinton’s actions, which he called clear felonies, and Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to provide incriminating information about Democrats, which he called “woefully inadequate” justification for removal from office.

“That is abuse of power,” Mr. Starr of the House vote to impeach Mr. Trump in December, speaking on Mark Levin’s Fox News show. “We are going to impeach him before he’s done anything. Excuse me, you are using your power in a very vicious way. Whatever you think of him — you don’t think well of him; you think ill of him — it is not your business to use power in such an unprincipled way. Again, shame on you.”

His defense contrasted with previous moments when he seemed more critical of Mr. Trump. After Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, testified to the House about Mr. Trump’s Ukraine pressure campaign, Mr. Starr said it was “bombshell” testimony that would be cited by Democrats as evidence that “the president, in fact, committed the crime of bribery.”

He said the testimony could prompt Republican senators to decide that “we need to make a trip down to the White House” to tell Mr. Trump to resign the way Republican lawmakers did with President Richard M. Nixon in 1974. He added he did not think that would happen but that Mr. Sondland’s account had “the potential to be a game-changer.”

As the proceedings made their way to a final vote, however, Mr. Starr firmed up his position on the president’s side, condemning House Democrats for what he called an “anti-constitutional exercise of power” by impeaching Mr. Trump.

*********

Jane Raskin, Who Helped Trump in Mueller Inquiry, Joins President’s Defense Team

Ms. Raskin, who worked in the Justice Department in the Reagan administration, has been a constant but little-known presence in Mr. Trump’s orbit since the Mueller inquiry.

By Maggie Haberman | Published Jan. 17, 2020 | New York Times | Posted January 25, 2020 |

In April 2018, President Trump moved quickly to beef up his legal team. Days earlier, the F.B.I. had searched the home and office of his personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, as part of an investigation into payments Mr. Cohen had made to silence a pornographic film star who claimed that she had had an affair with Mr. Trump.

Separately, there was the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian election interference and whether the Trump campaign participated in those efforts.

As his attack dog, Mr. Trump hired Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor. But for his legwork with federal prosecutors, he hired Marty and Jane Raskin, married lawyers who are based in Mr. Trump’s adopted state of Florida.

Ms. Raskin is now part of the legal team who will defend Mr. Trump in his Senate impeachment trial.

She and Mr. Raskin were originally brought into the Trump fold through another of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, Jay Sekulow, who, along with Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, will lead the president’s defense in the trial.

But Ms. Raskin has been a constant but little-known presence in Mr. Trump’s orbit since the Mueller inquiry.

Early in her career, she represented The Boston Globe, going on to work for the federal government.

In 1988, while in the criminal division of the Justice Department, Ms. Raskin joined several colleagues in resigning in protest over concerns with President Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, Edwin Meese III.

At the time, Ms. Raskin worked for William F. Weld, the assistant attorney general, who later became the governor of Massachusetts and is now running a quixotic effort to unseat Mr. Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.

During the Mueller investigation, the Raskins declined to speak to the news media. But people close to the president credited them with effectively fighting for him behind the scenes as he faced the investigation by the special counsel, as well as the investigation into Mr. Cohen in the Southern District of New York.

As the impeachment inquiry has unfolded, she quietly advised Mr. Sekulow before she formally joined the team, according to people familiar with the discussions.

It remains to be seen whether she will have a speaking role during the Senate trial. If history is any guide, she will remain a silent partner.

*********

Robert Ray Wanted to Indict Clinton. He Thinks Trump Will Be Vindicated.

As Ken Starr’s successor, Mr. Ray ended up striking a deal that prevented Mr. Clinton from being prosecuted.

By Eileen Sullivan | Published Jan. 17, 2020 Updated Jan. 18, 2020 | New York Times | Posted January 25, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — One of the newest members of President Trump’s defense team, Robert W. Ray, has had pointed words about the highest office in the country: “No person is above the law, even the president of the United States.”

But that was nearly 20 years ago when he succeeded Ken Starr as the independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton. Mr. Starr is also a late addition to the president’s legal team for the Senate trial, which starts Tuesday.

At the time of those remarks in April 2000, Mr. Ray faced criticism for drawing out the Clinton investigation  when many believed he should have been wrapping it up.

Mr. Ray was a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York when he was called to replace Mr. Starr and had plans to indict Mr. Clinton when he left office for the same crimes considered during Mr. Clinton’s impeachment. On his way out of the Oval Office, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Ray struck a deal that would prevent Mr. Clinton from being prosecuted in connection to his affair with Monica Lewinsky, an unpaid White House intern, in return for surrendering his law license and paying a $25,000 fine.

After leaving the federal government, Mr. Ray went into private practice and currently works at the New York-based firm Zeichner Ellman & Krause.

In 2006, Mr. Ray turned himself into the police in response to a low-level charge that he was stalking a former girlfriend. A law enforcement official said the case was sealed, suggesting it was most likely dismissed. Mr. Ray declined to comment.

In representing Mr. Trump, Mr. Ray will be working with a goal of a quick Senate trial — the White House has suggested it would last two weeks and “vindicate” the president of accusations that he pressured a foreign ally to personally benefit him.

Mr. Trump is charged with two articles of impeachment — one for abuse of office and the other for obstruction of Congress by preventing witnesses from testifying in defiance of subpoenas.

In November, Mr. Ray said there was not enough evidence to convict Mr. Trump of a crime, calling the Democratic-led House’s legal theory “flawed.” And he praised Mr. Trump’s decision not to send witnesses to the impeachment hearings during a December interview on Fox News.

“The president certainly doesn’t have to aid in the impeachment effort,” Mr. Ray told Fox News. “He’s made a judgment now, and I think that’s probably the right judgment.”

_____

William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting from New York. Kitty Bennett contributed research.

*********

[pinktheoristcollector]

New story in Politics from Time: How the Trump Impeachment Trial Rules Compare to Clinton’s Trial

The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump began in earnest on Tuesday with a fight in the Senate over the rules that will guide the proceedings.

The trial kicked off with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell revising two proposed rules for the proceedings, after he came under criticism for repeatedly claiming the trial rules would follow a precedent set by President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, but released a resolution that did not necessarily hew to those standards.

Trump’s impeachment trial centers on allegations that the President pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, by threatening to withhold U.S. military aid.

Ahead of Tuesday, McConnell defended his plan for rules as sticking to a precedent set by Clinton’s trial. The Senate in 1999 unanimously passed the proposed resolution that would guide the proceedings against Clinton. “Fair is fair. The process was good enough for President Clinton and basic fairness dictates that it ought to be good enough for this president as well,” McConnell said while releasing the initial proposed rules on Monday.

McConnell’s initial resolution, released Monday, allowed the Democratic House managers 24 hours to argue their case across two session days. The side representing Trump would also have up to 24 hours over two session days to make their arguments.

But on Tuesday, McConnell amended the resolution to allow each side 24 hours for presentation over three session days. McConnell also changed a second rule, allowing evidence collected during the House’s impeachment inquiry to be automatically admitted into the official record, unless someone objects to the addition, the resolution now says.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate rejected along party lines a proposed amendment from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to subpoena witnesses and documents related to Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Lead House impeachment manager Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff argued Tuesday that McConnell’s rules do not go far enough to ensure a fair trial. The resolution does not include a guarantee for new witnesses and documents to be presented in the trial, despite calls from Democrats to ensure that such evidence be seen.

“Without the documents, you can’t make important judgments about even which witnesses should be called or what questions should be asked of the witnesses when you do,” Schiff said Tuesday morning. “That is a profound departure from the Clinton precedent.”

Here’s how Trump’s impeachment trial rules differ from Clinton’s.

Witnesses and documents

Difference between Clinton and Trump’s trial

As the Senate impeachment trial against Trump continues, the focus turns to McConnell’s resolution not guaranteeing that any witness testimony will be allowed. The rules state that following opening statements and questioning, senators will decide if they want to call forth any new witnesses, documents or any form of new evidence. The evidence will be allowed if a majority of senators agree it can be considered.

The rules are similar to the resolution outlining Clinton’s impeachment proceedings. During Clinton’s impeachment trial, senators ultimately heard video excerpts from three witnesses, including Monica Lewinsky, who were subpoenaed to appear for taped off-site depositions. Vernon Jordan Jr. and Sidney Blumenthal had also testified.

However, during impeachment proceedings against Clinton in the House of Representatives, Republicans had access to testimony from other interviews collected by then-special counsel Ken Starr.

Clinton also provided more than 90,000 pages of documents and other information ahead of his trial, according to a Clinton White House response to a referral from the Office of Independent Counsel. By contrast, the Trump White House have not provided documents or complied with subpoenas for more than 70 records, the House wrote in its impeachment inquiry report. The White House has cited executive privilege in its refusal to comply.

What the changes means for Trump

If the Senate votes to leave out testimony from new witnesses or documents, the impeachment trial for Trump could move ahead without any new evidence. Fifty-one votes are required to allow new witness testimony per the Democrats’ request, meaning four Republican Senators would have to vote in favor of it. Although moderate Republican Senators like Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney have signaled they may be open to hearing from witnesses, their votes might not be enough.

Trump notably blocked at least 12 potential witnesses from testifying in the House’s impeachment inquiry. One former Administration official in that group, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, said earlier in January that he would be willing to testify in the Senate’s trial if he is subpoenaed.

Bolton is among the top four witnesses Democrats want to interview, with the others including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House officials Michael Duffey and Robert Blair.

from Blogger https://ift.tt/3arimU9 via IFTTT

[itsfinancethings]

The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump began in earnest on Tuesday with a fight in the Senate over the rules that will guide the proceedings.

The trial kicked off with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell revising two proposed rules for the proceedings, after he came under criticism for repeatedly claiming the trial rules would follow a precedent set by President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, but released a resolution that did not necessarily hew to those standards.

Trump’s impeachment trial centers on allegations that the President pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, by threatening to withhold U.S. military aid.

Ahead of Tuesday, McConnell defended his plan for rules as sticking to a precedent set by Clinton’s trial. The Senate in 1999 unanimously passed the proposed resolution that would guide the proceedings against Clinton. “Fair is fair. The process was good enough for President Clinton and basic fairness dictates that it ought to be good enough for this president as well,” McConnell said while releasing the initial proposed rules on Monday.

McConnell’s initial resolution, released Monday, allowed the Democratic House managers 24 hours to argue their case across two session days. The side representing Trump would also have up to 24 hours over two session days to make their arguments.

But on Tuesday, McConnell amended the resolution to allow each side 24 hours for presentation over three session days. McConnell also changed a second rule, allowing evidence collected during the House’s impeachment inquiry to be automatically admitted into the official record, unless someone objects to the addition, the resolution now says.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate rejected along party lines a proposed amendment from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to subpoena witnesses and documents related to Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Lead House impeachment manager Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff argued Tuesday that McConnell’s rules do not go far enough to ensure a fair trial. The resolution does not include a guarantee for new witnesses and documents to be presented in the trial, despite calls from Democrats to ensure that such evidence be seen.

“Without the documents, you can’t make important judgments about even which witnesses should be called or what questions should be asked of the witnesses when you do,” Schiff said Tuesday morning. “That is a profound departure from the Clinton precedent.”

Here’s how Trump’s impeachment trial rules differ from Clinton’s.

Witnesses and documents

Difference between Clinton and Trump’s trial

As the Senate impeachment trial against Trump continues, the focus turns to McConnell’s resolution not guaranteeing that any witness testimony will be allowed. The rules state that following opening statements and questioning, senators will decide if they want to call forth any new witnesses, documents or any form of new evidence. The evidence will be allowed if a majority of senators agree it can be considered.

The rules are similar to the resolution outlining Clinton’s impeachment proceedings. During Clinton’s impeachment trial, senators ultimately heard video excerpts from three witnesses, including Monica Lewinsky, who were subpoenaed to appear for taped off-site depositions. Vernon Jordan Jr. and Sidney Blumenthal had also testified.

However, during impeachment proceedings against Clinton in the House of Representatives, Republicans had access to testimony from other interviews collected by then-special counsel Ken Starr.

Clinton also provided more than 90,000 pages of documents and other information ahead of his trial, according to a Clinton White House response to a referral from the Office of Independent Counsel. By contrast, the Trump White House have not provided documents or complied with subpoenas for more than 70 records, the House wrote in its impeachment inquiry report. The White House has cited executive privilege in its refusal to comply.

What the changes means for Trump

If the Senate votes to leave out testimony from new witnesses or documents, the impeachment trial for Trump could move ahead without any new evidence. Fifty-one votes are required to allow new witness testimony per the Democrats’ request, meaning four Republican Senators would have to vote in favor of it. Although moderate Republican Senators like Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney have signaled they may be open to hearing from witnesses, their votes might not be enough.

Trump notably blocked at least 12 potential witnesses from testifying in the House’s impeachment inquiry. One former Administration official in that group, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, said earlier in January that he would be willing to testify in the Senate’s trial if he is subpoenaed.

Bolton is among the top four witnesses Democrats want to interview, with the others including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House officials Michael Duffey and Robert Blair.

[goalhofer]

Last MLB Player To Wear Each Jersey Number: Minnesota

1: Nick Gordon (2019-present)

2: Luis Arraez (2019-present)

3: Harmon Killebrew (1961-74)(retired for Killebrew 1975)

4: Octavio Ojeda (2004)

5: Eduardo Escobar (2012-18)

6: Tony Oliva (1962-76)(retired for Oliva 1991)

7: Joe Mauer (2004-18)

8: Zack Granite (2017)

9: Marwin Gonzalez (2019-present)

10: Hosken Powell (1978-81)(retired for Jay Kelly 2012)

11: Jorge Polanco (2014-present)

12: Jake Odorizzi (2018-present)

13: Ehire Adrianza (2019-present)

14: Kent Hrbek (1981-94)(retired for Hrbek 1995)

15: Jason Castro (2018-present)

16: Jonathan Schoop (2019-present)

17: Jose Berrios (2016-present)

18: Mitch Garver (2017-present)

19: Ryne Harper (2019-present)

20: Eddie Rosario (2015-present)

21: Tyler Duffey (2018-present)

22: Miguel Sano (2015-present)

23: Nelson Cruz (2019-present)

24: C.J. Cron (2019-present)

25: Byron Buxton (2015-present)

26: Max Kepler-Roczycki (2015-present)

27: John Curtiss (2017-18)

28: Jesse Crain (2004-10)(retired for Rik Blijleven 2011)

29: Rod Carew (1967-78)(retired for Carew 1987)

30: James Beresford (2016)

31: Devin Smeltzer (2019-present)

32: Oliver Drake (2018)

33: Martin Perez (2019-present)

34: Kirby Puckett (1984-95)(retired for Puckett 1997)

35: Michael Pineda (2019-present)

36: Robbie Grossman (2016-18)

37: Juan Senteno (2016)

38: Blake Parker (2019-present)

39: Trevor Hildenberger (2017-present)

40: Gregorio Petit (2018)

41: Drew Butera (2010-13)

42: Louis Stephen (1968)(retired league wide for Jackie Robinson 1997)

43: Addison Reed (2018)

44: Kyle Gibson (2013-present)

45: Phil Hughes (2014-18)

46: Chris Gimenez (2018)

47: Dietrich Enns (2017)

48: Torii Hunter (2015)

49: Adalberto Mejia (2016-present)

50: Aaron Slegers (2017-18)

51: Mike Morin (2019-present)

52: Zack Littell (2018-present)

53: Kohl Stewart (2018-present)

54: Ervin Santana (2015-18)

55: Taylor Rogers (2016-present)

56: Fernando Rodney (2018)

57: Ryan Pressly (2013-18)

58: Gabriel Moya (2017-present)

59: Stephen Gonsalves (2018-present)

60: Jake Cave (2018-present)

61: Chase De Jong (2018-present)

62: Andrew Vasquez (2018-present)

63: Yohan Pino (2014)

64: Willians Astudillo (2018-present)

65: Trevor May (2014-present)

66: Juan Graterol (2018)

67: Alan Busenitz (2017-present)

68: Matt Magill (2018-present)

69: Never issued

70: Never issued

71: Lewis Thorpe (2018-present)

72: Never issued

73: LaMonte Wade; Jr. (2019-present)

74: Never issued

75: Never issued

76: Felix Jorge (2017)

77: Fernando Romero (2018-present)

78: Never issued

79: Never issued

80: Ryan Eades (2019-present)

81: Never issued

82: Never issued

83: Never issued

84: Never issued

85: Never issued

86: Never issued

87: Never issued

88: Never issued

89: Never issued

90: Never issued

91: Never issued

92: Never issued

93: Never issued

94: Never issued

95: Never issued

96: Never issued

97: Never issued

98: Never issued

99: Logan Morrison (2018)