Introduction by The Editor:
Donald Trump is a political outsider, starting his political career at the top.  His election has upset the political establishment on the left and the right.  Mostly the left.  The party that lost the 2016 election immediately began a campaign to impeach and remove Donald Trump by any means.  Apparently it doesn't matter if there are any legitimate grounds for his impeachment.

The most recent development in the never-ending impeachment crusade is the appearance of a Deep State "whistleblower," who made a derogatory report about President Trump, apparently based entirely on hearsay.  These baseless accusations are enough to keep the Impeachment Wing of the Democratic Party clamoring for Mr. Trump's removal from office, without presenting any evidence of a crime!

Related topics:

The clamor for President Trump's impeachment

Leftists' departures from the truth

Liberals think you're stupid

The Democrats are out of step with the American mainstream

Obstructionism

Media bias against President Trump

Overview / recap articles:

America in the 21st Century: 20 Long Years of Constant Brainwashing.  For six months last fall and winter, the entirety of our news media actively conspired with Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Gerrold Nadler and the entire DC Swamp to brainwash you into believing that you should support the impeachment of President Trump over a phone call in which nothing improper was discussed.  They knew if they could cause a massive shift in public opinion they might be able to convince enough GOP senators to give up the ghost and get it done.  That one failed, other than to get half a vote from the same traitor who threw the 2012 election.

Top 10 Most Bizarre Viral Hoaxes of 2019.  [#10] What would 2019 be without the unraveling of a brand new hoax involving a foreign country now that the Russia collusion hoax has effectively dissolved?  By October, President Trump was accused of withholding aid over a routine phone call he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  Despite the questionable circumstances surrounding the so-called "whistleblower" and no proven quid pro quo, Democrats admittedly turned to "hearsay" for evidence.  With witnesses unable to answer direct questions about what exactly Trump had done that was impeachable, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) disseminating fake transcripts at hearings, and a plethora of other factors, Democrats have nonetheless used the Ukraine hoax as the catalyst for their "impeachment" narrative ahead of 2020.

A Decade of Fake News.  2019: Ukraine phone call and impeachment.  The Democrats, relying on a second- or third-hand complaint from a so-called "whistleblower," claimed that president Trump tried to "solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election."  Trump released the rough "transcript" of the call, showing he had done nothing of the sort.  The Democrats pressed ahead with impeachment, using the media to publish selective leaks of closed-door testimony.

A Shameful Abuse of Congressional Power.  First, [...] not one scintilla of evidence has been adduced that President Trump was seeking a false judgment on the conduct in Ukraine of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.  He was asking for an investigation, not seeking to dictate the conclusion.  Trump said to President Volodymyr Zelensky in his famous July 25 telephone call that it "looked horrible," but was clear he was seeking a neutral judgment of whether there had been influence-peddling or other wrongdoing.  There is absolutely no legal or ethical problem with that, so this entire controversy has been even more fatuous and unfounded than it appears.

The Empire Strikes Back.  From the beginning — that is to say, from November 9, 2016 — impeachment has been a cause in search of a trigger, an occasion.  The president's enemies hoped they'd finally hit pay dirt when an anonymous "whistle blower" alleged that the president made, or attempted to make, foreign aid to Ukraine contingent on that country's government investigating his likely 2020 challenger.  Or, in other words, that Trump attempted to "collude" with a foreign power to influence an American election.  Where have we heard that before?  It only took two years, $32 million, 19 lawyers, 40 FBI agents and other staff, 2,800 subpoenas, and 500 witnesses for a special counsel to "not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities," according to the Mueller Report.  Yet here we go again?

Our Bankrupt Nomenklatura.  Adam Schiff is a Harvard Law School graduate and, as he reminds us, for a time a federal attorney. [...] When Schiff felt the presidential Ukrainian call transcript was too nondescript, he simply made his own up version, before redefining it as a parody when people noticed.  He has now created an impeachment hysteria on the basis of second- and third-hand gossip, bundled together by a former intelligence officer, Trump opponent, and Biden associate, who under the guise of a "whistleblower" first met Schiff's staff to translate his rumors into legalese before notifying the inspector general — a process about which Schiff flat out lied.  Schiff's notion of an impeachment inquiry is to forbid transparency, to hector hostile witnesses in closed session and to publicly praise obsequious ones, and then to step out to cameras, furrow his brow, bite his lip, and lecture that he had never seen such "incriminating" disclosures the substance of which he, unfortunately, cannot disclose, as he leaks distortions to the leftwing media.

Let None Dare Call It Sedition.  Respectfully, Mr. President, this is not a witch hunt.  This is a coup.  The objective and tactics have been clear from the start.  It is no longer silent.  The evidence grows daily.  The recently released tweets from the attorney for the "whistleblower" confirmed what we have long believed.  "Coup has started," he wrote prophetically.  Indeed it had.  And it continues.  They almost succeeded.  The co-conspirators deserve much worse than to be sent packing in the next election.  Long prison sentences are the only sure deterrent to prevent this from ever happening again.  Calling the "whistleblower" a whistleblower is a misnomer.  He is a partisan second-hand leaker.  He is a coward and a traitor.  He and all those who conspired with him should be treated as such.

Where are the mutineers who will save the Democrat Party from Adam Schiff?  Watching Schiff's trumped up inquiry about nothing but a phone call, the transcript of which has been available to the public for many weeks, is like watching The Caine Mutiny (1954) without the drama.  The film is about a naval captain whose first officer relieves him of his command when the man demonstrates obvious signs of mental instability. [...] [Captain] Queeg was obsessed with missing strawberries.  Schiff's impending mental breakdown is demonstrably more obvious, less subtle than Queeg's.  He intends to see President Trump removed from office, no matter what.  His eyes seem to radiate his inner fury and rage.  He sits stone-faced while the smart people in the room destroy every bit of his carefully constructed narrative.  His fellow Democrats all dutifully use the prescribed talking points and focus-grouped terms like "quid pro quo," then "obstruction," then "extortion," now "bribery," a word not one of the so-called "witnesses" used to describe the conversation.  Schiff is Capt. Queeg on steroids.

Timely news and commentary:

The Deep State Wins if Trump Loses.  Some swamp animals are communal and hunt in packs, like Alexander Vindman and his buddy, the "Don't call me Eric Ciaramella" whistleblower.  Surely the softest Ranger that elite group ever produced, Col. Vindman and the Pajama Boy Who Mustn't Be Named conspired to remove President Trump via impeachment.  They were aided in this pathetic spectacle by a lying, bug-eyed loon, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff.  This shady trio produced the most forgettable impeachment in history, such a weak and perfunctory exercise that it's hard to believe the impeachment happened a mere seven months ago.

DHS slams Adam Schiff for unfairly broad probe after whistleblower complaint.  The Department of Homeland Security is requesting that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff narrow the scope of his now-expanded probe into the agency's response to police brutality protests this summer, arguing the investigation had become unreasonably broad.  In a letter dated Monday [9/14/2020] obtained by The [New York] Post, Beth Spivey, assistant secretary for DHS' legislative affairs office, rejected a request from Schiff (D-Calif.) for 11 new interviews with department officials and slammed the investigation as a whole.

Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg Asks Alexander Vindman If Trump is Russian 'Asset'.  The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg scored the first post-impeachment interview with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman on Monday and asked what he described as the "key question": "Does he believe that Trump is an asset of Russian intelligence?"  Vindman's answer largely regurgitates left-wing conspiracy theories about Russian influence. [...] Goldberg, who described Vindman as an "idealist," also took him on a tour of the Watergate building in Washington, DC, to drive home the apparent parallels.  Goldberg did not appear to ask Vindman about his role in informing the so-called "whistleblower" in the impeachment trial ("A whistleblower shared details of the call," he wrote).

Adam Schiff Mounts His Dead Russia Horse Again.  As has been pointed out by many of us recently, the Democrats really aren't behaving as if their presidential candidate had a substantial lead in the polls.  Yes, the polls have been tightening, but the Dems have been in a sort of flop-sweat panic mode since the Republican National Convention ended.  There is, of course, the fact that every public appearance by der Bidengaffer since then has been hovering in the neighborhood of "unmitigated disaster."  The Democrats do seem to be trying to get to their October surprises early this year.  That reeks of desperation.  Speaking of reeking, California's little impeachment pitbull Adam Schiff is back.  Guess what, kids?  He's got another whistleblower!

WSJ Editorial Board:  All the Adam Schiff transcripts — Chair knew there was no proof of Russia-Trump collusion.  Americans expect that politicians will lie, but sometimes the examples are so brazen that they deserve special notice.  Newly released Congressional testimony shows that Adam Schiff spread falsehoods shamelessly about Russia and Donald Trump for three years even as his own committee gathered contrary evidence.  The House Intelligence Committee last week released 57 transcripts of interviews it conducted in its investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.  The committee probe started in January 2017 under then-Chair Devin Nunes and concluded in March 2018 with a report finding no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin.  Most of the transcripts were ready for release long ago, but Mr. Schiff oddly refused to release them after he became chairman in 2019.  He only released them last week when the White House threatened to do it first.

Why Trump was totally right to fire the intel inspector-general.  Firing the US intelligence community's inspector general is a big deal.  I should know.  I was a former longtime Central Intelligence Agency official who blew the whistle on the Clinton White House and agency bosses.  Even so, I believe President Trump's firing last week of IC Inspector General Michael Atkinson was appropriate — indeed, overdue.  Liberals and their media allies are predictably framing the firing as retaliation for Atkinson's decision to inform Congress about a complaint by a so-called whistleblower that set off the Democratic effort to impeach the president.  That's false.

Why Inspector General Michael Atkinson Roundly Deserved To Be Fired.  On Saturday, reporters queried President Trump about his Friday firing of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.  Trump's response seemingly confirmed the left-leaning press and Democrats' narrative that the firing was retaliation for the IG informing the House Intelligence Committee of a whistleblower's complaint.  That complaint concerned Trump's conversation with the Ukrainian president that set in motion Trump's impeachment.  But what the media and Trump's political opponents won't tell you is that Trump is right. [...] A full vetting of Atkinson's handling of the so-called whistleblower's complaint confirms Trump's take that Atkinson "did an absolutely terrible job."  But this does require a deep dive into both the law and the fact, as opposed to a mere mimicking of the Democrats' talking points that seems the default of today's lazy journalists.  So, here are the details you need to know to fully understand why Trump lost confidence in Atkinson and opted to exercise his presidential power-of-appointment prerogative and replace him.

Former ICIG Michael Atkinson Releases Ridiculous Political "Statement".  [Scroll down]  The DOJ and FBI have an internal FISA self-check mechanism.  The DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) chief counsel Michael Atkinson, and the chief counsel for every FBI field office are required to conduct an "Accuracy Review" of selected FISA applications.  One per field office (25 to 30 field offices),which are also sent to DOJ-NSD (main justice) for general counsel Atkinson inspection.  Horowitz detailed 39 examples of Michael Atkinsons' willful violations of law and policy within 42 "accuracy review" files at the DOJ-NSD.  The error rate within the DOJ-NSD files that Atkinson was responsible for was over 93%.  IG Michael Horowitz was so alarmed by the gross incompetence he sent an urgent interim memorandum to the DOJ and FBI notifying the Attorney General and FBI Director of the systemic violations discovered.

"Whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella Was Hosting 2016 WH Meeting Where Ukrainian Officials Were Told To Drop Investigation Of Hunter Biden!  This explains it.  Anti-Trump CIA whistleblower Eric Ciaramella filed his second-hand "whistleblower" complaint against President Trump after speaking with Adam Schiff's team in September.  Ciaramella claimed he was concerned about President Trump's discussion of Hunter Biden during his call with Ukrainian President Zelensky.  Now we know why Ciaramella was so concerned.  According to White House visitor logs Eric Ciaramella was hosting the January 19, 2016 White House meeting where Ukrainian officials were told to drop the investigation into Hunter Biden.

Right firing, right reason:  Trump was right to fire Michael Atkinson.  Doing the Friday-night news dump thang, while attention is in any case focused on the coronavirus, President Trump moved to get rid of the Intelligence Community's inspector general, Michael Atkinson.  That's the guy who changed the rules to accommodate the so-called whistleblower, with zero firsthand knowledge, to file his whistleblowings about President Trump with Adam Schiff's House Intelligence Committee staff, planning it all out beforehand, in order to open the gates to impeachment.  Until Atkinson came along, a whistleblower needed to have firsthand knowledge of official wrongdoing, not water-cooler talk from fellow malcontents in the Deep State trying to come up with some way to Get Trump.  The fact that the likely whistleblower, CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, was able to file such charges with nothing more than disliking Trump as his motive is precisely why the impeachment bid failed against the president and ended as such a farce.

Donald Trump:  Inspector General Michael Atkinson Did a 'Terrible Job'.  President Donald Trump said Saturday at the White House that Inspector General Michael Atkinson did a "terrible job" in his position.  Atkinson was the Inspector General for the Intelligence community that informed Congress of the whistleblower report about President Donald Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  The president announced Friday that he had dismissed Atkinson, prompting criticism from Democrats.

President Trump Removes Coup Plotter ICIG Michael Atkinson — Effective 30 Days From Today.  President Trump has sent a letter to congress giving them 30-days advance notice and informing them of the removal of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson: [...] The necessary, albeit politically controversial, move comes about two months after President Trump assigned Ric Grenell to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; Grenell is ultimately the acting boss of the overall intelligence community.  It is likely DNI Grenell provided some key insight into the sketchy background activity in/around Atkinson's office, and the overall intelligence apparatus writ large.

Trump fires watchdog who handled Ukraine complaint.  President Donald Trump has fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community who handled the whistleblower complaint that triggered Trump's impeachment.  Trump informed the Senate intelligence committee Friday of his decision to fire Atkinson, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Trump fires Michael Atkinson, intelligence IG who told Congress about Ukraine phone call: report.  President Trump has reportedly fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community who alerted Congress to concerns about a Trump phone call with the president of Ukraine — a matter that led to the president's impeachment last year.  Trump formally notified the intelligence committees of both the Senate and House in a letter dated Friday [4/3/2020] that was obtained by Politico.

Rand Paul Blasts YouTube over Censorship of Speech on Senate Floor.  Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has called out Google-owned YouTube after it blacklisted a clip of him speaking on the Senate floor, an act of censorship he calls "chilling and disturbing."  Google censored Paul because he read out the name of the alleged "whistleblower," Eric Ciaramella.  Politico reported the story as "new," even though Breitbart News first revealed that YouTube was blocking clips of the Senator mentioning Ciaramella's name last week.

Saving Private Ciaramella.  During the Senate trial, there was one portentous occurrence when Chief Justice John Roberts declined to read aloud a question addressed to the House managers from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). [...] Paul's question cuts to the heart of the matter.  Regardless of who the whistleblower may be, Paul wants to know if Ciaramella, Misko, and possibly other Schiff staffers conspired to impeach the president.  If it turns out that Ciaramella is the whistleblower, then the follow-up question becomes whether or not he conspired with Schiff, et al., to concoct what is now exposed as a fictitious and materially false and misleading account of the Trump-Zelensky call.  Did Ciaramella submit a false complaint to the inspector general?  If so, was his false report concocted with Schiff, et al.?  Is Ciaramella at the heart of this fraudulent and failed impeachment effort?

Google Censors Rand Paul's Speech Naming the Whistleblower.  The Big Tech company Google, along with its video-sharing subsidiary YouTube, has been banning videos of a speech from the floor of the U.S. Senate where Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) named the whistleblower, according to Breitbart News.  In the speech, Senator Paul highlighted the highly questionable and suspicious interactions between a staffer on the House Intelligence Committee, Shawn Misko, and the whistleblower, CIA operative Eric Ciaramella.  Although numerous investigative journalists have speculated Ciaramella is the whistleblower, Democrats and the media have been suppressing any mention of his name.  As Breitbart notes, YouTube's actions to censor the video in question constitute a direct censorship of the congressional and historical record, an unprecedented act of censorship of public information.

Brennan Lashes Out at Rand Paul For Dropping Eric Ciaramella's Name on Senate Floor — Rand Paul Responds with Fire!  Former CIA Director John Brennan lashed out at Senator Rand Paul for blowing up the impeachment trial by dropping Eric Ciaramella's name on the Senate floor.  Last week Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts played politics and refused to read Senator Rand Paul's question on the Anti-Trump whistleblower during the Senate impeachment trial!  On Tuesday during his closing comments Senator Rand Paul read aloud his question on the floor of the US Senate.  Rand Paul named the anti-Trump CIA operative Eric Ciaramella and his NatSec-crony-turned Schiff-aide Sean Misko on the senate floor.  Brennan planted Eric Ciaramella in the White House in order to spy on President Trump, according to investigative reporter Paul Sperry, who revealed the identity of the whistleblower in an explosive Real Clear Investigations exposé.  Brennan's Russian collusion canard failed to remove Trump from office and his second coup attempt just went up in flames.

The News They Won't Report.  Jake Tapper doesn't want you to know the name of the so-called "whistleblower" who caused the impeachment drama.  Of course, the identity of Eric Ciaramella was never much of a secret — lots of people in D.C. knew that the former National Security Council staffer was the reputed source for California Rep. Adam Schiff's investigation of President Trump's July 25 phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  Ciaramella's name has been in many news stories in recent months: [Examples] to cite just a couple.  But CNN viewers have never heard Ciaramella identified, and Jake Tapper evidently wants to prevent anyone else from reporting this fact, either. [...] If Tapper and his CNN colleagues want to treat Eric Ciaramella's identity as a secret, they are free to do so.  Others, however, are free not only to name Ciaramella but also to point out that CNN is deliberately refusing to report important information relevant to the impeachment trial.

Carter Page and Others Tie Adam Schiff's Ukraine Hoax Suspected Whistleblower Eric Ciaramella to the Deep State Russia Hoax.  Suspected whistleblower Eric Ciaramella is suspected of being involved in both the Ukraine hoax and the Russia hoax.  More and more information supports that claim.  Laura Ingraham reported why suspected whistle blower Eric Ciaramella was so concerned about efforts to look into Obama's activities in the Ukraine.  According to White House visitor logs Eric Ciaramella was hosting the January 19, 2016 White House meeting where Ukrainian officials were told to drop the investigation into Hunter Biden.

Rand Paul Discusses Whistleblower Eric Ciaramella During Floor Speech.  Earlier today [2/4/2020] Senator Rand Paul delivered his remarks on impeachment from the Senate floor.  During his remarks Senator Paul highlighted the real and present danger of allowing agents within government to plot against a sitting president.  Senator Paul asks the same question he presented to Chief Justice John Roberts as the presiding officer of the Senate trial.  [Video clip]

Rand Paul Drops MOAB on Senate Floor — Reads Aloud His Question Naming Anti- Trump CIA Operative Eric Ciaramella and Sean Misko.  Last week Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts played politics and REFUSED TO READ SENATOR RAND PAUL'S QUESTION on the Anti-Trump whistleblower during the Senate impeachment trial!  There is NO LAW that prevents this anti-Trump CIA leaker's name from being revealed in the impeachment investigation!  Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was playing politics and siding with Democrats!

Rand Paul:  Alleged Whistleblower, Friend Plotted For Over A Year To Bring Down Trump.  Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) explains why he thinks Chief Justice John Roberts refused to read aloud a question he submitted to the entire body of Senators in an interview with One America's John Hines.  "I didn't identify anybody or propose that anyone was the whistleblower," Paul said.  "But I did identify two Obama partisans that have worked in the National Security Council.  Sean Misko, who works for Adam Schiff, and then I also identified Eric Ciaramella.  They're friends.  They worked together on the National Security Council."  "There are allegations that they actually plotted together as much as a year or two ago to say that 'we've got to bring this president down,'" Paul revealed.  [Video clip]

'Whistleblower' Censorship Hits Facebook and the Senate.  The nation's top reporters have taken a virtual oath of silence regarding his name, even though it's an open secret inside their newsrooms.  Suppressing their news instincts, they have been unified in complying with Democratic demands to back off identifying the whistleblower and exploring his motives.  As a result, they have left large gaps in reporting on the origins of this momentous story, only the third presidential impeachment in U.S. history.  The Washington Post, which normally would own such a local story, has scarcely touched it.  Instead of doing its own deep reporting, it's assigned reporters to do media stories questioning RCI [RealClearInvestigations] for its journalistic decision to "unmask" the whistleblower, who enjoys limited, not blanket, anonymity.

Who's to Blame for Pelosi-Schiff Impeachment Insanity?  Prior to delaying aid to Ukraine, President Trump threatened to, or actually did, withhold aid from Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.  He also threatened Mexico with tariffs unless the Mexicans halted the caravans marching through their country.  All these demands were transmitted in the clear, and each contained the dreaded quid pro quo, but not a single Democrat eyebrow was raised.  What made the Ukrainian case different?  Why did it rise to the level of impeachment where the others did not?  To Chairman Schiff, the answer was simple:  the president had something to hide.  This time he was right:  the president was hiding information from Russia.

Sekulow Slams Schiff:  Secrecy Ok for Whistleblower, But Not for Trump-Bolton Conversations?  Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House intelligence committee, has released all but one of the transcribed interviews his committee conducted privately as part of their impeachment process.  At the impeachment trial on Wednesday, Republicans asked why Schiff is still withholding the transcript of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who testified about the whistleblower and his complaint in closed, executive session on Oct. 4.

Ukrainian Official Who Attended Jan 2016 White House Meeting on Biden/Burisma Blows Up Schiff's Narrative.  This week, Fox News' Laura Ingraham obtained several emails from the State Department regarding a previously unknown White House meeting held in January 2016. After watching Ingraham's presentation of the story, Ukrainian Embassy official Andrii Telizhenko, who had attended the meeting, issued an exclusive statement and provided several documents which she presented to her audience on Friday night.  On May 1, 2019, New York Times reporter Ken Vogel emailed the State Department to confirm that (State Dept. official) Elizabeth Zentos had attended the January 2016 White House meeting about "Burisma Holdings and concerns that Hunter Biden's position with the company could complicate such efforts."  Vogel wrote that the attendees included "Ukrainian prosecutors and embassy officials as well as Eric Ciaramella from the NSC."  By now, everyone who has read my posts knows that Ciaramella is alleged to be the whistleblower who sparked the current impeachment trial of President Trump.

If Eric Ciaramella is the 'Whistleblower', Then He, IG Michael Atkinson and Adam Schiff Must Be Questioned Under Oath Right Away.  The name of the man many believe to be the "whistleblower," Eric Ciaramella (EC), whose complaint triggered the circus we've been forced to endure, continues to pop up in the most unexpected of places.  As these incidents multiply, it's becoming clearer by the day that EC, the Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, who received his "urgent" complaint, bloviator Adam Schiff and Sean Misko, EC's former colleague at the National Security Council with whom he has a "bro-like" relationship, must all be questioned under oath immediately.  If EC is the individual who filed the complaint, then this is the greatest "hit and run" in American political history.  In the last week alone, we learned from Fox News' Laura Ingraham that EC was one of the principals in a January 2016 meeting between a group of Ukrainian government and embassy officials and their U.S. counterparts at the White House.  Contrary to Democratic talking points, the meeting was set up because Obama Administration officials were quite concerned about Hunter Biden's lucrative position with Burisma Holdings, a company which was under investigation at the time by the Ukrainian government.  In addition to his key role in the meeting, EC's name shows up on the White House visitor log as the person who checked the Ukrainians into the building.

House Democrats conceal testimony of 18th witness from Trump team.  Democrats clamoring for more witnesses at President Trump's impeachment trial are concealing one of those questioned in the House investigation, President Trump's defense team says.  Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, and other impeachment managers repeatedly talk about the 17 witnesses interviewed during the House's secretive depositions.  But they do not mention an 18th witness, Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community's inspector general who has firsthand knowledge of the origins of the whistleblower complaint that led to the impeachment.  Members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who conducted the interview are barred from disclosing details.  But Republicans on the committee said the testimony should be heard at the president's impeachment trial in the Senate.

Dem impeachment witness Vindman unloads on Blackburn as Dems wrap 3rd day of Trump's trial.  As the third day of the ongoing impeachment trial of President Trump wrapped up in the Senate chamber, most of the drama was elsewhere — with one witness for the Democrats accusing a Republican senator of "defamation" and "slander" after she questioned his patriotism and implicated him in a scheme to take down Trump from inside the White House.  The off-field spat began Thursday evening [1/23/2020] on Twitter, when Tennessee GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn quoted the commanding officer of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman as saying that Vindman was a "political activist in uniform."  Vindman, a National Security Council official, testified during House Democrats' impeachment inquiry last year that Trump's Ukraine dealings left him in a state of "shock," and Democrats were quoting from Vindman's remarks during the Senate trial on Thursday.  Vindman has denied knowing the identity of the whistleblower who flagged Trump's fateful July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president — a claim that Republicans have questioned, because under cross-examination, Vindman apparently admitted to leaking the contents of Trump's call to the whistleblower.

Whistleblower Was Overheard in '17 Discussing With Ally How to Remove Trump.  Barely two weeks after Donald Trump took office, Eric Ciaramella — the CIA analyst whose name was recently linked in a tweet by the president and mentioned by lawmakers as the anonymous "whistleblower" who touched off Trump's impeachment — was overheard in the White House discussing with another staffer how to remove the newly elected president from office, according to former colleagues.

Devin Nunes Discusses Sketchy Issues Surrounding ICIG Michael Atkinson and Origination of the "Whistle-blower" Complaint.  House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss two very important issues.  The first is the origination of the "whistle-blower" complaint and new issues surrounding Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.  The second important subject is the background of newly installed FISA Court monitor, David Kris, to oversee the FBI reform promises.  CTH has some explosive new information which has been shared with Mr. Nunes on both issues; but we start with the interview and ICIG Michael Atkinson.

Nunes slams IG probing Trump-Ukraine whistleblower case: 'Origins of this investigation are shady and don't make sense'.  Michael Atkinson, inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community, needs to be completely forthright about inconsistencies in a key form related to the Ukraine whistleblower's complaint, U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes said Wednesday night [1/8/2020].  Nunes, a California Republican who serves as ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on "The Ingraham Angle" that his GOP colleagues on the panel wrote to Atkinson in September, complaining about relevant forms that didn't match, and that the investigator responded in "an inadequate way" a week later.  "From the time that the whistleblower first came forward, to the IG, where the forms didn't match, it wasn't urgent, didn't have any firsthand knowledge, the form later changed, then it was backdated, ... then we had to hear from the whistleblower and then we didn't have to hear from the whistleblower," Nunes said.

Getting the Goods on Schiff.  Real whistleblowers deserve to be treated like heroes.  But the man identified as the whistleblower by Judicial Watch and many media accounts — Eric Ciaramella — is no hero.  To dignify Ciaramella with the term "whistleblower" misrepresents what he allegedly did.  Let's say he filed what is technically called a whistleblower complaint.  He had no firsthand knowledge of Trump's controversial July 25 phone call or motivations.  Every allegation in the complaint begins with "I learned from multiple U.S. officials," or "multiple officials told me" or "officials with direct knowledge informed me."  Just gossip.  He never names any sources.  Ciaramella acted as the anti-Trumpers' frontman.  As for courage, there's not an ounce.  He's cowering from public view.

Why Adam Schiff doesn't want anyone talking to the whistleblower.  The truth behind House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff's role in engineering President Trump's impeachment may soon come out.  Judicial Watch, a nonprofit group promoting government transparency, is suing to get the whistleblower's e-mails.  That's good news.  Because no matter what comes of Trump's Senate trial, Schiff should be held accountable for his devious methods.  The public also needs the truth about the so-called whistleblower.  Real whistleblowers deserve to be treated like heroes.  But Eric Ciaramella — the man Judicial Watch and many media accounts have identified as the whistleblower and who doesn't deny it — is no hero.

Conservative watchdog sues for alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella's communication.  A conservative watchdog is suing the CIA and the Justice Department for the communications of a CIA analyst who is alleged to be the Ukraine whistleblower.  Judicial Watch said Thursday it had filed Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the agency and the department for the communications of Eric Ciaramella.  The watchdog filed FOIA requests in November to the Justice Department seeking communications between Ciaramella and former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI attorney Lisa Page, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and special counsel Robert Mueller's office.  It also filed a request with the CIA for Ciaramella's emails between June 1, 2016, and Nov. 12, 2019.

Schiff preventing release of secret testimony by intelligence community IG Atkinson involving false testimony by Ukraine whistleblower.  In late November, ace investigative reporter Paul Sperry tweeted out a question related to secret impeachment inquiry testimony before the House Intelligence Committee related to Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community.  Specifically, though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Community chair Adam Schiff have released 15 transcripts of testimony, the transcript of Atkinson's testimony has yet to be made public.  Why?

Media, Tech Self-Censorship Over 'Whistleblower' Marks Death Of Free Press In The United States.  It would seem extraordinary for the world's leading democracy to allow an election to be overturned based on the actions of a rogue CIA employee working with the opposition — and even stranger not to be told his name.  Moreover, the "whistleblower" himself admitted that he did not have first-hand information of the events he had described.  It would seem an urgent matter of national security, and public interest, to know who was feeing him information — whether it was an enemy, foreign or domestic.  If the hysteria over Russian influence in the 2016 election had any useful lesson, it was that we ought to be curious about where information comes from, and why.  Yet the media have not only ignored the "whistleblower's" name, but they have also actively suppressed it.  That includes the conservative media.  Earlier this year, I appeared on a morning show in Los Angeles to discuss the impeachment inquiry.  The moment I mentioned the name of the "whistleblower," the hosts ended the interview.

Three Ukrainian Officials Swear Under Oath that Ukraine Interfered in the 2016 US Election Against Donald Trump.  Andrii Telizhenko worked in Washington DC at the Ukraine Embassy in 2016.  Today Andrii is a political consultant.  Andrii was approached by a DNC operative during the 2016 election (March-April 2016).  This past week Andrii Telizhenko joined two other Ukrainian officials who all swore under oath that Ukraine was meddling in the 2016 US election.

Rudy Giuliani:  Yovanovitch Was Part Of The Cover-Up, She Had To Be Ousted.  "Trump was simply asking new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — in a July phone call — to investigate crimes at the "highest levels" of both Kiev and Washington," Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney for President Trump, told Laura Ingraham on "The Ingraham Angle."  "So, he is being impeached for doing the right thing as president of the United States," he said.  Giuliani told Laura Ingraham on "The Ingraham Angle" that he helped forced out Yovanovitch because she was corrupt and obstructing the investigation into Ukraine and the Bidens.

The Impeachment Show Trial.  Adam Schiff went beyond hearsay to outright falsehood.  Speaking on the floor of Congress, he reported that President Trump said to President Zelensky, "I want you to dig up dirt on my opponent and lots of it."  The President said nothing of the kind.  Schiff later claimed it was a "parody."  This is the same Adam Schiff who said he had incontrovertible evidence that President Trump colluded with Russia.  The only conclusion supported by evidence is that Adam Schiff is a pathological liar.  Democrats also violated the principle that the accused has a right to a vigorous defense.  The earliest hearings were closed to Republicans.  Information from those inquiries was selectively leaked to the press.  Depositions were taken in secret.  Rep. Andy Biggs, Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, compared the sessions to Soviet secret hearings.  He proposed a resolution on the House floor to condemn and censure Schiff, but of course House Democrats tabled the proposal.

Libs apoplectic after Louie Gohmert dares to call alleged whistleblower by name at hearing.  Democrats are feigning outrage after Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert called the alleged Ukraine "whistleblower" by name during a televised House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing last night.  Gohmert dropped the alleged whistleblower's name during his opening statement, when he said Eric Ciaramella and others should be questioned as fact witnesses.  Gohmert said:  "Abuse of power [and] obstruction of Congress — the very things the majority has done in preventing us from having the witnesses that could shed light on this.  We needed to hear from those witnesses — people like Sean Misko, Abigail Grace, Eric Ciaramella, Devin Archer, Joe Biden, Nellie Ohr, Alexandra Chalupa — and so many others."

New York Post Names Alleged Ukraine 'Whistleblower,' Demands Answers on Hunter Biden.  The New York Post named the suspected "whistleblower" — Eric Ciaramella — in a column published by the newspaper's editorial board and called for the partisan CIA analyst to answer questions about his knowledge regarding allegations of corruptions against former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden.

Here's the likely whistleblower — and the questions he should answer.  [Scroll down]  The whistleblower is most likely CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella.  Journalist Paul Sperry reported his name in late October, saying that sources inside the closed-door impeachment hearings identified him.  Ciaramella has put out no statement denying these reports.  Whistleblower lawyers refuse to confirm or deny Ciaramella is their man.  His identity is apparently the worst-kept secret of the Washington press corps.  In a sign of how farcical this has become, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said his name as part of a series of names during a live hearing Wednesday night aired on television.  He never called him the whistleblower, just said he was someone Republicans thought should testify, yet Democrats angrily denounced the "outing."  If you don't know the man's name, how do you know the man's name?  Politico's Jack Shafer has eloquently argued that the press should name the whistleblower.  It is not against the law — whistleblower protections are to prevent retaliation in the workplace and apply to his superiors, not the media.

GOP lawmaker demands alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella testify.  Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert said the alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella should testify in the House's impeachment proceedings.  He made the demand during the House Judiciary Committee's hearing on Wednesday night regarding the articles of impeachment against President Trump.  Gohmert was railing against how the Democrats have handled the investigation and subsequent hearings, and he noted that there were several individuals he thought should testify about the situation.  "A vague abuse of power, obstruction of Congress, the very things the majority has done in preventing us from having the witnesses that could shed light on this, not opinion, but fact witnesses.  We needed to hear from those witnesses," Gohmert said.

The 'Whistleblower' and the Politicization of Intelligence.  The whistleblower.  A figure of great controversy, whose actions, manifested in an 11-page report submitted to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) on August 12 alleging wrongdoing on the part of the president of the United States, jump-started an ongoing impeachment process targeting Donald Trump that has divided the American body politic as no other issue in contemporary time.  His identity has been cloaked in a shroud of anonymity which has proven farcical, given that his name is common knowledge throughout the Washington-based national security establishment in whose ranks he continues to serve.  While Trump publicly calls for the identity of the whistleblower to be revealed, the mainstream media has played along with the charade of confidentiality, and Congress continues to pretend his persona is a legitimate national security secret, even as several on-line publications have printed it, along with an extensive document trail sufficient to corroborate that the named man is, in fact, the elusive whistleblower.  There is no legitimate reason for the whistleblower's identity to remain a secret.  The Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff, (D-CA) has cited statutory protections that simply do not exist while using his authority as chairman to prohibit any probe by his Republican colleagues designed to elicit information about the whistleblower's identity.

New Impeachment Poll Shows Pelosi and Schiff May Be Setting Democrats up for a 2020 Election Disaster.  In spite of what the national media and Democrats have been saying about voter support for impeaching President Trump, the writing has been on the wall for weeks suggesting they're on a path to disaster come election time.  A new Politico-Morning Consult poll bears that out, but first, let's look at what other revealing polls have said over the last few weeks.  Roughly two weeks before the public impeachment inquiry hearings began, a Suffolk University poll showed that when it comes to the impeachment issue, the devil is in the details.  In that poll, 31% of those surveyed believed the July call between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky was not a big deal.  21% said that even though they felt the call was wrong, they didn't feel he should be impeached over it, meaning a total of 52% of the 1,000 registered voters surveyed believed Trump had not committed an impeachable offense with the call.

Catherine Herridge, now at CBS, devastates 'Whistleblower's' legitimacy.  Moving from Fox News to CBS has not diminished the immense value of Catherine Herridge's work.  If anything, the move has increased the number of Americans gaining access to insightful work that questions the MSM's phony and biased narratives.

Schiff hired former NSC colleague of alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella the day after Trump-Ukraine call.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff hired a former National Security Council aide who worked with alleged Ukraine whistleblower Eric Ciaramella at the NSC during the Obama and Trump administrations the day after the phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  It was previously reported by the Washington Examiner that public records indicated Sean Misko, 37, started work on Schiff's committee in August as a professional staff member.  A specific start date was not available until this week when the latest congressional quarterly disbursements were released.  The new records show that Misko's official hire date was July 26.  Misko was the director for the Gulf States at the NSC between 2015 until the first half of 2018.

Ratcliffe Says He Knows The Reason Schiff Won't Release ICIG Michael Atkinson's Transcript.  Republican Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe hinted Saturday [11/30/2019] at the reason he believes House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff won't release Michael Atkinson's transcript.  Ratcliffe suggested in a tweet that Atkinson, the Intelligence Community Inspector General, might have revealed information about a possible connection between the whistleblower and members of Schiff's staff.

Impeachment Motivations Part 1 — the Schiff-Ukraine Connection.  For the past week or so, I've been digging through old news articles, looking for a connection between Rep. Adam Schiff and Ukraine.  Schiff has been at the tip of the spear trying to prod President Trump out of office since the day Trump was elected, but when Trump started talking with newly elected Ukrainian President Zelensky, Schiff's behavior became even more weird, and that raised a red flag for me.  Schiff's behavior indicates that he's hiding something, and that he wants to keep it hidden by obfuscating.  Let's start with two irrefutable facts:  [#1] Ukraine's new president ran for office on a campaign of rooting out corruption.  [#2] After Trump and Zelensky talked with one another on the phone, Schiff read a wildly fabricated transcript of the call.  It needs to be emphasized that Schiff created this false narrative even AFTER the actual transcript was released.  How crazy does one have to be to do that?

Rep. Zeldin:  Here's Why 'Adam in Wonderland' Won't Release Mark Sandy Transcript.  When asked by NBC's Chuck Todd why he won't call the whistleblower to testify, [Adam] Schiff responded, "We had a deep interest in having the whistleblower testify until two things happened.  One, we were able to prove everything the whistleblower complaint said with witnesses that had first-hand information."  The truth is Schiff has no first-hand information.  He is referring to testimony from U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland.  During questioning by Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), Sondland admitted his statement that there had been a quid pro quo was his presumption.  This shows that the Democrats' most important piece of evidence is not evidence at all.  Presumptions are opinions, they cannot be considered first-hand information.

Second Adam Schiff Staffer Linked to Burisma-Backed Think Tank, 'Close Friends' with Alleged 'Whistleblower'.  Yet another staffer for Rep. Adam Schiff served as a fellow for the Atlantic Council, a think tank that is funded by and works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.  Sean Misko has been described as "close friends" with Eric Ciaramella, whom Real Clear Investigations suggests is the likely so-called whistleblower.  Misko reportedly joined Schiff's staff at the House Intelligence Committee in August — the same month the so-called whistleblower's complaint was filed after first reportedly interfacing with a staffer for Schiff's office.  Misko in 2015 was a yearlong "Millennium Fellow" at the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council, which has been under the microscope for its ties to other individuals associated with the Trump impeachment inquiry.

The Hatred that Fuels Impeachment.  Neither the NeverTrump Right nor the Progressive Left has yet offered a coherent defense of their de facto, three-year-long singular effort to delegitimize and ultimately remove Trump from office before the 2020 election.  We are now in the midst of a systematic effort to impeach a president on the basis of a thought crime.  Trump's purported quid pro quo sin was issuing a temporary hold on military assistance to Ukraine that supposedly transcended legitimate worries about rampant corruption — to include specifically investigating the suspicious behavior of a corrupt Ukrainian oil company and the compromised relationship of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son around it.

Schiff Refuses to Commit to Testifying in Senate Impeachment Trial.  On Sunday's [11/24/2019] broadcast of CNN's "State of the Union," Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) refused to say he would testify in an impeachment trial of President Donald Trump in the Senate.  When asked if he would be willing to testify in the Senate, Schiff said, "There is nothing to testify about.  I think if the president or his allies in the Senate persist, it means they are not serious about what they are doing."

Democrats May Regret This Dance When Republicans Call the Tune.  As the Democrat impeachment farce concluded its meltdown in the House Intelligence Committee this week, it's clear Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and company think we're idiots.  Schiff claims he doesn't know the identity of the political-operative-masquerading-as-a-"whistleblower" while other Democrats insist that hearsay is sometimes more relevant than first-hand accounts.  (Ponder that one in the context of proposed red-flag gun laws.  Who in his right mind would ever give these people the power over their natural rights?)  All the while, witness after witness made it clear there was no quid pro quo, no bribery, no nothing of anything at all.  Just a lot of discomfort with President Trump's departure from the "interagency consensus."

Impeachment Star Adam Schiff Won First Congressional Race By Campaigning Against Impeachment.  While Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff today is the face of Democrats' impeachment push, the 10-term congressman first won his seat by staking out a hard line against the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.  Schiff defeated former Republican California Rep. James Rogan in 2000 by hammering Rogan's role in the Clinton impeachment.

Deep State Media Whistleblower Double Standard.  Calling Eric Ciaramella a "whistleblower" gives him a certain legitimacy. [...] Ciaramella is not a whistleblower.  He is actually a charlatan.  There is an endless supply of Eric Ciaramellas in the federal government.  Many of them call themselves the Resistance or members of the Interagency.  Members of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau like to refer to themselves as Dumbledore's Army.  Donald Trump is aware of this.  He knows how the Deep State operates and possibly structured his phone conversation to the Ukrainian president to expose members of the Deep State.

GOP 'Spartacus' Needed to Out Whistleblower.  [Scroll down]  His name, as I and others have written on these pages, is Eric Ciaramella.  He is the accuser that President Trump has been denied his due process right to confront.  He is intimately connected with another deep state agent, DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa, a key fact witness deeply involved in the coup being hidden by Schiff.  He is the CIA operative or mole detailed to the White House as a John Brennan plant who is not a genuine whistleblower and, despite what Schiff says, is not entitled to anonymity under the whistleblower law or by the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) statutes. [...] Naming the whistleblower's name is not illegal.  Keeping it secret is not required by law or statute.  Sen. Rand Paul named Ciaramella publically a week ago, and has yet to feel the handcuffs.

Impeachment is surgery with a butterknife.  [Scroll down]  "The Democrats promised the whistleblower's testimony — in fact, they told us we need to speak with the whistleblower."  Now they will not present him.  The Democrat excuse is the whistleblower has to be kept secret because he is getting death threats, which is odd since no one knows who he is.  Not even Schiff or Vindman.  Or so they say.  Impeachment is a prosecution and it should be handled with the utmost care and research.  Before making their case to the public, Democrats needed to convince at least one of their Republican colleagues to join them.

Revealed: Adam Schiff Connected to Both Companies Named in $7.4 Billion Burisma-US-Ukraine Corruption Case.  As reported on Wednesday [11/20/2019] the head of Burisma Holdings was indicted this week in Ukraine!  Ukrainian Prosecutor General indicted Burisma owner Nikolai Zlochevsky.  The claim alleges that Hunter Biden and his partners received $16.5 million over several years for their 'services' in Ukraine.  Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden took a lucrative post on the Burisma Board in 2014.  Hunter Biden was making millions from the corrupt Ukrainian oil and gas company.

FBI Seeks Interview With CIA WhistleLeaker Eric Ciaramella.  The FBI is seeking an interview with CIA snitch Eric Ciaramella over some of the issues raised in his August whistleblower complaint about Trump's July 25 phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

President Trump Never Impounded Even One Dollar from Ukraine Aid.  The president needs better legal counsel, as do the American people.  The current impeachment illusion is based on a pandemic mirage.  The nation has been hypnotized to believe that $391.5 million for Ukraine was held back, frozen, slow-walked, canceled, or subject to a nefarious threat by Trump.  Wake up, America.  Every penny of Ukraine monetary aid, the alleged carrot dangled before Zelensky, was spent on time, according to law, before, during, and after the July 25 call.  The Department of Defense certified Ukraine reforms in a May 23, 2019 letter from John C. Rood to Congress, but this certification was only necessary to release the second $125-million tranche.  Read the letter.  The tables therein refer to that $125 million as "Tranche 2."  So what happened to the first $125 million?  It was already spent on Ukraine before the July 25 phone call with Zelensky.

Fact Check by WaPo yields Three Pinocchios.
Schiff's claim that the whistleblower has a 'statutory right' to anonymity.  Does the whistleblower who filed a complaint about President Trump have a "statutory right" to remain anonymous, as Schiff claims?  It's not a right spelled out in any statute.  But national security experts warn that disclosing the whistleblower's identity could expose him to danger and retribution, and chill whistleblowing in general.

Setting the Record Straight on the Value of US Military Aid to Ukraine.  U.S. military aid is a luxury, not a necessity, for Ukrainian combat operations to counter Russian aggression.  From what I've seen, the country is perfectly capable of fighting its own war — with or without the American military aid.  However, recent news reports and social media commentaries highlight the fact that Ukraine's armed forces suffered at least 13 combat deaths during the 55 days in which the Trump administration withheld nearly $400 million in military aid from mid-July to mid-September.

Republicans to Subpoena Whistleblower, Hunter Biden, Alexandra Chalupa.  Republicans intend to subpoena testimony and documents related to the anonymous whistleblower, Hunter Biden, and Democratic National Committee contractor Alexandra Chalupa, according to a letter they sent to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA).  "Although Speaker Pelosi promised that Democrats would 'treat the President with fairness,' you have repeatedly prevented Republicans from fully and fairly examining issues central to the Democrats' 'impeachment inquiry,'" House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Oversight and Reform Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote in a November 20, 2019, letter.

Photo: Alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella shakes hands with Barack Obama in Oval Office.  A year after Ukraine official and alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella left President Trump's White House, a picture of him shaking Barack Obama's hand was published on a close friend's wedding website.  The Oval Office photograph, obtained by the Washington Examiner, is circulating among Trump allies who consider it evidence that the alleged whistleblower is biased against Trump and had partisan motivations when he filed an Aug. 12 complaint that sparked impeachment proceedings.  In the photograph, a smiling Ciaramella, then Ukraine director on the National Security Council at the White House, is shown shaking Obama's hand.

MPs demand Zelensky, Trump investigate suspicion of U.S.-Ukraine corruption involving $7.4 billion.  Ukrainian members of parliament have demanded the presidents of Ukraine and the United States, Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump, investigate suspicions of the legalization of $7.4 billion by the "family" of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych through the American investment fund Franklin Templeton Investments, which they said has ties to the U.S. Democratic Party.

Emails: Open Society Kept Alleged 'Whistleblower' Eric Ciaramella Updated on George Soros's Personal Ukraine Activities.  Eric Ciaramella, whom Real Clear Investigations suggests is the likely so-called whistleblower, received emails about Ukraine policy from a top director at George Soros's Open Society Foundations.  The emails informed Ciaramella and a handful of other Obama administration foreign policy officials about Soros's whereabouts, the contents of Soros's private meetings about Ukraine and a future meeting the billionaire activist was holding with the prime minister of Ukraine.

GOP senator says 'something going on' with whistleblower lawyer's anti-Trump history.  Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said past statements the whistleblower's attorney made are evidence that the impeachment investigation against President Trump is a partisan attack.  Johnson appeared on NBC's Meet the Press with host Chuck Todd on Sunday [11/17/2019] to defend the president against impeachment proceedings kicked off by a whistleblower complaint.  Johnson pointed to the whistleblower's attorney, Mark Zaid, as evidence the whistleblower may be motivated by partisanship and not merely concern for the country's interests.

Media Given Leaked Sealed Transcripts from Friday Depositions.  Representative Jim Jordan appears on CBS Face The Nation to discuss the ongoing impeachment fiasco.  Ms. Brennan struggles to define a new journalistic concept for "first-hand" information as she claims David Holmes, who claims to have overheard half of a phone conversation that two other people were having, is a "first-hand" witness.  Jordan points out that Ms. Brennan is quoting from a seal transcript given to her by Adam Schiff that has not been released.

A Seditious Conspiracy — Lt. Col. Vindman, CIA "Whistleblower" Source #1, Shaped False Summary of April Trump-Zelensky Phone Call.  Amid increased calls from House Republicans to force the testimony of the CIA "whistleblower", today the Washington Post, the primary outlet for CIA misinformation and public relations, began shaping the "whistle-blower" as a hero.  Because the overall effort involves multiple parts of the deep state apparatus, to see through the construction it is important to note which media outlet holds equity for agency talking points within the coup.  The Washington Post is primary PR for the CIA and IC writ large.  The New York Times is primary PR for the FBI; and CNN is primary PR for the State Dept.  This pattern has been consistent throughout.

Ukraine whistleblower may have liaised with Vindman over Trump call.  The whistleblower whose complaint about President Trump's communications with Ukraine launched House impeachment proceedings was still attending White House meetings recently and may have spoken to Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman prior to filing the complaint, according to the Washington Post.  On Saturday [11/16/2019], the outlet published details about the steps a CIA analyst took to blow the whistle after the president urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a July 25 phone call to start an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, who is also leading the pack of 2020 Democrats.  Notably, the Post was clear that the whistleblower is male.

The Impeachment Clock.  Adam Schiff's impeachment inquiry is incoherent.  Given the impossibility of a senatorial conviction, the only strategy is to taint the president with the brand of impeachment and weaken him in the 2020 election. [...] Once Trump released the transcript of his July 25th call with Ukrainian president Zelensky, the nation learned that the Schiff's gold-standard whistleblower was no such thing.  Instead, he seems a rank partisan and sloppy leaker whose machinations and background are already boomeranging back on those who put him up to this present circus.

The Democrats Have The Country On A Slippery Slope.  The fake "whistleblower's name — Eric Ciamerella — has been known for a long time, but not officially.  Now it is official.  Senator Rand Paul has officially released his name.  Funny, isn't it, that only the Republicans want Ciamerella to testify.  The Democrats won't hear of it.  If the American people are paying attention, the Democrats are in trouble.  When Russiagate fizzled out on them, Adam Schiff (D,CA) orchestrated a fake "whistleblower" who the Democrats cannot risk putting on the stand to testify.  The Democrats' focus shifted to sleazy State Department types who could offer nothing but second or third hand hearsay followed by a hearsay second telephone call that cannot be confirmed.

The silly sanctification of Marie Yovanovitch.  [Scroll down]  The Mueller investigation and this Ukraine nonsense was and remains an attempted cover-up.  And as cover-ups go, this one has gone very badly for the cover-uppers.  Brennan, Clapper, Comey et. al. were bad enough.  The current crop of wannabe-impeachers are like the Three Stooges.  Schiff has bungled his bit of Intel committee tyranny so badly, he's recruiting Trump voters by the thousands.  Like the FSOs and the Comey crowd, Schiff thinks he is smarter than the American public, that we are easily fooled, but in fact, the American public is much smarter than these swamp-dwellers.  They are [much] smarter than Schiff.  He has made an utter fool of himself these past weeks.  Letting him chair the Intel committee was the biggest mistake of Pelosi's career.

Report: John Brennan hand-picked whistleblower for White House.  As the impeachment inquiry continues, new details are emerging about the whistleblower who started the whole process.  One America's Jack Posobiec sat down with a former CIA officer to learn more.  [Video clip]

Anyone testifying against the President, in the Democrat's impeachment scam, [is] part of the scam.  The first day of the Democrat's impeachment scam opened with self-proclaimed American patriots airing their personal disagreement with the President's foreign policy as it pertains to Ukraine.  And, not one so-called witness offered any tangible proof that the President did anything wrong.  All the testimony against the President was based on a lie made up by Adam Schiff.

Former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese Blasts Dems' Impeachment Inquiry And 'Phony' Whistleblower.  Former Attorney General Ed Meese, who served under President Ronald Reagan, called into question the legitimacy of the whistleblower at the center of the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller.  Meese, who now serves as the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at The Heritage Foundation, told the Caller he has seen no evidence that warrants impeachment of the president, and criticized the largely closed-door process being conducted by House Democrats.

Ukraine Foreign Minister:  U.S. Aid, Investigations Were 'Never' Linked.  Ukrainian foreign minister Vadym Prystaiko said Thursday [11/14/2019] that U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland had "never" linked U.S. aid to Ukrainian investigations of the 2016 elections or the Biden's role in stopping a probe of Burisma.  Prystaiko spoke the day after the first public hearings in the House Intelligence Committee as part of the "impeachment inquiry," where two witnesses said they came to believe there had been such a link — though only some time after Politico reported on August 28 that aid had been held up by the Trump administration.

The real Ukraine controversy: an activist U.S. embassy and its adherence to the Geneva Convention.  The Geneva Convention is the UN-backed pact enacted during the Cold War that governs the conduct of foreign diplomats in host countries and protects them against retribution.  But it strictly mandates that foreign diplomats "have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State" that hosts them.

Rand Paul Goes There — Drops 'Whistleblower' Eric Ciaramella's Name on Live Broadcast — Demands Testimony.  Rand Paul finally went there — after threatening to out the CIA whistleleaker, the Kentucky Senator dropped Eric Ciaramella's name during an interview on DC-based WMAL.  "I think Eric Ciaramella needs to be pulled in for testimony, and then I think it will be ultimately determined at that point," Rand Paul said.

Impeachment hearings!  Is that all they've got?  Something is manifestly wrong with Adam Schiff. [...] He does not, apparently cannot, differentiate between the truth and lies. [...] For all who had not previously realized this about Schiff, Wednesday's [11/13/2019] hearing was a wake-up call.  The man is demented.  He outright lied when he said he did not know who the not-whistleblower is! Everyone knows who the not-whistleblower is.  Eric Ciaramella.  He's a longtime, deep state connected Democrat, anti-Trump activist whose own lawyer tweeted in 2017 that "the coup has started."  He is aligned with Brennan and Biden and he is still employed by the CIA! He is part of the cabal that set out to impeach Trump from the moment he was elected when they knew they would have to cover up their crimes against the Trump campaign.  That Schiff thinks he can lie so blatantly and get away with it is a sign of serious mental illness.

ICIG complaint alleges Trump-Ukraine whistleblower may be soliciting illicit donations.  A newly filed complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) alleges that the whistleblower whose allegations touched off House Democrats' impeachment inquiry may have violated federal law by indirectly soliciting more than a quarter-million dollars from mostly anonymous sources via a GoFundMe page.  The complaint, which was filed last week and obtained by Fox News, alleged the donations from roughly 6,000 individuals "clearly constitute" gifts to a current intelligence official that may be restricted because of the employee's official position pursuant to 5 CFR 2635.203 and other statutes.  To date, the GoFundMe has raised over $227,000.

10 reasons why this impeachment 'inquiry' is really a coup.  [#2] False whistleblowers:  The "whistleblower" is no whistleblower by any common definition of the noun.  He has no incriminating documents, no information at all.  He doesn't even have firsthand evidence of wrongdoing.  Instead, the whistleblower relied on secondhand water-cooler gossip about a leaked presidential call.  Even his mangled version of the call didn't match that of official transcribers.  He wasn't disinterested but had a long history of partisanship.  He was a protégé of many of Trump's most adamant opponents, including Susan Rice, John Brennan and Joe Biden.  He did not follow protocol by going first to the inspector general but instead caucused with the staff of Rep. Adam Schiff's impeachment inquiry.  Neither the whistleblower nor his doppelganger, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, was bothered by the activities of the Bidens or by the Obama decision not to arm Ukraine.  Their outrage, in other words, was not about Ukraine but over Trump.

Adam Schiff Threatens Lawmakers with Ethics Violations If They Mention Whistleblower.  Lawmakers may face ethics violations if they talk about the "whistleblower" whose complaint spurred the impeachment inquiry during the upcoming public hearings, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the head inquisitor seeking to impeach and remove President Donald Trump, warned in a memo Tuesday [11/12/2019].

Dirty Business — ICIG Atkinson Receives Ethics Complaint Against CIA 'Whistleblower', Goes to Schiff Basement for Talks.  This is interesting because it was reported today that ICIG Atkinson has now received an ethics complaint about a GoFundMe account set up by the CIA 'whistleblower' attorney, Mark S. Zaid, to finance the ongoing efforts of CIA operative Eric Ciaramella.  The dirty dealing is getting thick.  Attorney Mark Zaid has claimed to be working pro-bono for his CIA client.  Meanwhile Adam Schiff is threatening anyone and everyone about keeping the CIA client hidden and anonymous; and the media is all-in with efforts to support the protection.  A narrative created by a CIA operative favorable to the coup.  So what exactly is this current $228,000 for?

Invitation to an Impeachment.  [Scroll down]  With each passing week, though, it has become ever more clear that what begins today is a hearing of the witnesses only the Democrats deem pertinent.  The House majority is eager to protect the whistleblower, who refuses to face his or her accuser — or the American people.  But only the whistleblower.  Protestations by other officers of the executive branch, it discounts.  It may be within the powers of the House majority to restrict the witnesses to those who will help the prosecution.  It may also, though, explain why the opening of this supposedly historic hearing failed to make Page A1 of the Times.  It has become a foregone conclusion that the House is going to impeach.

Fake Russia and Ukraine Scandals Expose a True One.  There is a striking symmetry between the charge that Donald Trump's 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to sway the outcome of the election and the Democrats' current effort to impeach President Trump.  Both involve our relations with countries that Americans do not think of very often, but over which the elites obsess.  The rhetoric in each case is crafted carefully to turn conservatives' patriotic instincts jiu jitsu-style against the president.  And both cases feature overwrought rhetoric that transforms the ordinary and the unremarkable into "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Plot thickens the day after Mollie Hemingway outed so-called whistleblower on Fox News.  [Scroll down]  Sorry, Howie.  The so-called whistleblower's name has been more than "bandied about" by "some partisan sites."  For example, Real Clear Investigations (RCI) is a reputable, non-partisan news and aggregation site that is part of the RealClearFoundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit.  On October 30, RCI published a detailed article by Paul Sperry that named career CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, 33, as "the anonymous 'whistleblower.'"  Subsequent media reports, including [another] one published November 6 in the Washington Examiner, have fleshed out Ciaramella's background as a deeply embedded partisan Democrat.

Is impeachment all about the SCOTUS?  The Democrats continue to embarrass themselves in their effort to remove President Trump from office.  Adam Schiff, the face of their crusade, is an incompetent fool who never learned the first rule of holes.  He keeps digging.  He interrogates his chosen witnesses in secret, refuses to let the Republicans ask certain questions; he orders the witnesses not to answer questions he does not like.  For the public hearings he is allowing the Republicans no witnesses and ordered them not to even bring up the so-called whistleblower.  To do so would of course implicate Schiff himself and his underhanded, illegal manipulation of the process to jump-start this nonsensical inquiry over a phone call during which there was nothing inappropriate said by President Trump or President Zelensky.  Schiff knows this of course but assumes the rest of us are ignorant boobs incapable of noticing his abject misdirection, lunacy and malignity.

The DC Game Is Rigged to Favor the Deep State.  The Trump-Russia witch hunt is an egregious example of the power of the state being abused for partisan political purposes.  That failed to deliver the goal of deposing the president, and may even backfire as the investigations into it complete and there is a possibility of indictments for some of the conspirators.  Having come at the president and missed, they decided to redouble their efforts, so we come to the impeachment inquiry currently operating in full kangaroo court fashion.

Gaetz: Bribery Charge Against Trump Won't Stick — 'It Fails to Meet an Essential Element'.  Monday [11/11/2019], during an appearance on Fox News Channel's "The Story," Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) dismissed a claim of bribery put forth against President Donald Trump in response to Fox News contributor Andrew Napolitano.  Gaetz argued such a case would lack what he deemed an "essential element" to meet the standard of bribery.  "I would disagree that bribery would be applicable for this reason:  For bribery to have been committed, you have to be asking someone to do something that they would not otherwise do with President Zelinsky, who ran an entire campaign on rooting out corruption," Gaetz said.

Mo Brooks: 'Whistleblower' a Spy Acting on Behalf of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden.  During an appearance on Huntsville, AL radio's WVNN on Monday, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) gave his thoughts on a claim made by former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley alleging then-White House chief of staff John Kelly and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to undermine the will of President Donald Trump.  Brooks chalked the saga up to "palace intrigue," which he said was common in presidential administrations, particularly in the Trump administration, given the variety of worldviews Trump has brought into the White House.  However, Brooks said where the real threat lies is in "people like" the so-called whistleblower, who Brooks deemed to be a spy for Democrats.

The Trump impeachment inquiry is already in big trouble.  The clown show known as an "impeachment inquiry" is getting more comical and hapless by the day.  Consider the latest remark from the circus master himself, California Rep. Adam Schiff, (think Bozo, not Pennywise).  The Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says he doesn't want Republicans turning the impeachment proceedings into a "sham."  The hilarious irony is lost on no one.  Schiff has already managed to accomplish it all on his own.  At first, Schiff wanted the faux "whistleblower" who triggered the impeachment farce to testify.  Then, suddenly, he didn't.  What changed?  In the interim, evidence emerged that Schiff and/or his staff colluded with the "whistleblower" before the complaint was ever filed and then lied about it, earning Schiff "Four Pinocchios" from The Washington Post.

"Whistleblower" Eric Ciaramalla Hosted Jan 19, 2016 WH Mtg. w/Soros Lackey — Same Day Ukraine Told in WH Mtg. to Fire Prosecutor Investigating Hunter Biden.  The New York Times reported that Joe Biden's own staff thought the Ukrainian gas company Burisma paying Hunter Biden $83,333/month while his father was Vice President was "unseemly" or "worse" — and they made State Department officials help them do damage control.  Joe Biden said he first learned of his son't activities in Ukraine when the story broke in 2014 according to Hunter Biden's recollection in a New Yorker piece earlier this year.

Schiff's impeachment fraud: 'I'd take a flamethrower to this place!'  Why Pelosi ever gave Schiff any power over anything, let alone the Intel Committee, is a mystery.  Surely, she is embarrassed by his fascist tactics in service of his obsession.  But then again, perhaps she is not.  Who knows what goes on in her addle-pated, Botoxed brain?  Is she, like Schiff, morally and intellectually challenged?  They are both making fools of themselves. [...] Is it possible she has lost all touch with reality, that she thinks Schiff and his Deep State cohorts can convince enough Republicans to abandon the most successful president since Reagan?  Hard to believe, but possible.

Rep. Dan Bishop Names Alleged Impeachment 'Whistleblower': 'He's Not Voldemort'.  Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) became the first member of Congress to publicly name the alleged "whistleblower," whose second-hand complaint sparked the Democrats' impeachment inquiry, on Twitter Monday evening [11/11/2019].  Bishop on Monday responded to a tweet from an individual who suggested that the GOP refrain from using the term "whistleblower," instead referring to him as "the leaker" or "the operative" or "the deep state spy in the White House."  The North Carolina congressman said he agreed "100%," noting that he refuses "to cower before the authoritarian intimidation campaign."

The Real Mystery about C*aramella and Vindman.  I was chatting with Terry, my writing partner, this morning.  He was in the Intelligence Community for years, as was I; Terry on the analysis side, me in collection and later as a computer security researcher. [...] Now, Terry is a Democrat, pretty liberal, not at all impressed with Trump.  But we were talking about Eric Ciaramella who was fired from the White House staff because he was leaking confidential information to the media.  According to all the sources, he then returned to the CIA, where he currently works.  Which is, frankly, odd.  How, exactly, do you lose a job for security violations and return to the CIA? One would normally lose one's clearance, and even janitors and cafeteria workers at CIA are cleared.

The Impeachment Pantomime.  [Scroll down]  No wonder no one in Washington will name this phantom in plain sight.  The impeachment probe starts to take on a certain reek.  It starts to look as if contempt for Trump takes precedence over democratic process — a dangerous priority.  Sperry quotes Fred Fleitz, a former National Security Council official, thus:  "Everyone knows who he is.  CNN knows.  The Washington Post knows.  The New York Times knows.  Congress knows.  The White house knows....  They're hiding him because of his political bias."  Here we come to another question.  If everyone knows the whistleblower's identity, why have the corporate media declined to name him?  There can be but one answer to this question:  If Ciaramella's identity were publicized and his professional record exposed, the Ukrainegate narrative would instantly collapse into a second-rate vaudeville act — farce by any other name, although "hoax" might do, even if Trump has made the term his own.

Lindsey Graham:  I Will Call Adam Schiff to Testify in the Senate.  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Wednesday evening [11/13/2019] that he will call Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to testify in the Senate if the House impeaches President Donald Trump.  Graham added that he would not allow a trial of President Donald Trump in the Senate based on hearsay evidence alone, and without testimony from the "whistleblower."

Commissar Schiff says 'nyet' to GOP witnesses.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff is taking his "Soviet-style" impeachment to another level.  After first setting the House rules to allow himself alone to say which witnesses can appear before his committee hearings, now going public, he's now vetoing one by one pretty much every witness being called by the GOP to present some kind of defense of President Trump.

Alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella had extensive access in Trump White House.  Eric Ciaramella, the alleged Ukraine whistleblower, was long suspected of deliberately attempting to damage President Trump's foreign policy from the inside and had access to policy information far beyond his regional expertise, according to former National Security Council officials.  Ciaramella, 33, a career CIA analyst, was Ukraine director on the NSC toward the end of the Obama administration and stayed there during the first few months of the Trump administration, when he was acting senior director for European and Russian affairs and then special assistant to Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who was Trump's national security adviser, until he left the White House in summer 2017.

Democrats have a Colonel Vindman problem.  House Democrats conducted their impeachment interviews in secret, but Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman still emerged as star of the show. [...] Vindman has not yet been scheduled to appear before the Democrats' public impeachment hearings.  When that happens, he will undoubtedly again play a prominent role.  But there will be a difference.  The public now has a transcript of Vindman's deposition.  And those who have taken the trouble to read the 340-page document will have a different picture of Vindman's testimony than the one presented in early media reports.

Sunday Talks:  Kevin McCarthy vs Maria Bartiromo.  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the ongoing details within the legislative impeachment process.  As part of his remarks Leader McCarthy states:  "this is a calculated coup orchestrated by Adam Schiff" ...  [Video clip]

Why Republicans MUST Subpoena Eric Ciaramella.  [Scroll down]  Even most people who hate the president know it's a farce.  They're okay with it, of course, because they hate Trump and would use this or any means at their disposal to send him on his way.  But get them talking and you'll soon see them admit that it's not fair — they just don't care.  Which is why, when this idiocy fails, it will be time to return the House to common sense, and a legitimate investigation into the coordination, strategy, and origin of the #fauxpeachment must be commenced.  Key to that investigation would be an honest conversation with a man named Eric Ciaramella.  Ciaramella is an expert on Ukraine.  As a CIA analyst he has a thorough working knowledge of the intricacies of the region and the outgoing administration there.  Ciaramella worked for the Obama administration and figured out a way to place himself as a holdover into the Trump administration — specifically at the White House.

Name of Obama Mole Eric Ciaramella Should Be Shouted From Patriot Rooftops.  Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway called out the name of alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella on-air following a Fox Management network ban on hosts and personalities ever mentioning it.  It's a good start and one we hope that doesn't cost the courageous Hemingway her future contributions to Fox News.  But the name Eric Ciaramella should be shouted from every patriot rooftop because in real life, Ciaramella's the Barack Obama handpicked mole installed in the Deep State — whose assigned mission is to bring America down.

Let's hear from the whistle blower.  It seems ludicrous that in an open society, a president could be impeached and possibly removed through a process that begins with a report by a bureaucrat whose identity is never formally revealed and who is immune from examination.  After all, the impeachment process is an attempt to override the decision of the electorate as to who shall be president.  It should not be undertaken, and certainly not consummated, without the fullest, most open process, including the possibility of investigating the origins of the process.  It's true in theory that the "whistleblower" who set the process in motion might suffer adverse consequences from having his identity revealed. [...] But even if there were adverse consequences, this prospect should not enable him to preserve any degree of anonymity.  Every important witness in this impeachment proceeding faces the possibility of blow back.  The public interest in a thorough impeachment proceeding overrides the desire to make the process pain free for witnesses.

YouTube and Facebook are erasing content with whistleblower's name.  The day has finally arrived when our online media monopolies are blatantly censoring the news that Americans can see. [...] [Eric] Ciaramella is being made into a non-person, because House Democrats are dead set against calling him to testify in the impeachment inquiry that they are putting on starting Wednesday.  They don't want the public to know that he was an associate of John Brennan, evidently a central figure in the manufacturing of the Russia hoax, that he worked for VP Biden, and that he is a registered Democrat.  History has seen similar efforts to pretend in the media that persons inconvenient to the powerful don't exist.

Will Mollie Hemingway still have a job at Fox News after naming the whistleblower on live TV Sunday?  Fox News Contributor Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist and a highly regarded independent journalist, created a stir during a panel discussion on FNC's Sunday morning program Media Buzz hosted by Howie Kurtz.  At 11:19 A.M. E.T., as the program was being broadcast from Washington, D.C. without a delay, the topic of the "whistleblower," who set the ball rolling on the move to impeach the president because of the July 25th Trump-Zelensky phone call, came up.

Schiff:  We Don't Need No Stinking Whistleblower.  When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the Democrats would launch an "official impeachment inquiry," she said this action had been made necessary by a whistleblower complaint concerning a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  Madam Speaker used the term "whistleblower" no fewer than eight times in her five-minute statement.  Saturday [11/9/2019], however, we learned that the anonymous individual whose complaint loomed so large in the speaker's decision to launch the investigation will not be permitted to testify before Congress.  House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), whom Pelosi assigned to lead the inquiry, announced that the whistleblower's testimony would be "redundant."

Schiff's Committee Published Name Of Alleged Whistleblower Last Week.  Last Wednesday, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), chaired by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, published the unredacted name of a man alleged to be the so-called whistleblower who helped launch impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.  During HPSCI testimony, William Taylor, the charge d'affairs of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, was asked by a staff lawyer on the committee whether the name Eric Ciaramella was familiar to him. [...] The transcript of that exchange, which was not redacted, was published and publicly released by Schiff's committee last Wednesday [11/6/2019].  On October 30, Real Clear Investigations published a lengthy article alleging that Ciaramella was the official who filed a formal complaint against Trump on August 12.

NatSec Advisor Robert O'Brien Says Schiff Star Witness Alexander Vindman Will be Removed From National Security Council.  National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien appeared on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday and talked about the major reduction in personnel at the NatSec Council moving forward.  Mr. O'Brien told CBS host Margaret Brennan that the agency became bloated under the Obama Administration and ballooned to over 236 people.

Fox contributor names alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella on-air despite network ban.  Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway named the alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella on-air following a network ban on hosts and personalities doing so.  Appearing on Sunday's [11/10/2019] Media Buzz, Hemingway, who is also a senior editor for the Federalist, discussed whether or not the press should identify the whistleblower at the center of impeachment proceedings against President Trump.  Despite Fox News banning employees from doing so, she said his name.  "The media should be in the business of sharing information that is in the public interest," she argued.

Is Pelosi finally sick of the terrible damage Schiff is doing to her party?  [Scroll down]  Is it possible that even she is sick and tired of Schiff's mendacity, his secrecy, his shutout of Republican questions, his witness tampering?  He even advised "witnesses" not to answer questions from Republicans.  Most of these people being called to testify are not witnesses to anything relevant; they are just vague anti-Trumpers willing to prostitute themselves in one way or another before Schiff's cloak-and-dagger, repressive little show trial that, as many have commented, is reminiscent of the tactics of the former Soviet Union.  His campaign to impeach the president, in this shoddy manner, denying Trump any due process, is so transparently unconstitutional that it boggles the mind.  Whom does he think he is fooling?

Ron Johnson:  Testimony from White House Officials Contradicting Trump [was] 'Just Their Impression'.  On Sunday's broadcast of CNN's "State of the Union," Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) argued the testimony from current and former White House officials that contradicted President Donald Trump was "just their impression."  [Video clip]

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter all ban any mention of "whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella as the Overton Window of allowable speech collapses.  Anyone publishing the name of the so-called deep state CIA "whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella is being systematically de-platformed by Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.  This is happening because lawless Leftists fully understand that the more people learn about Eric Ciaramella, the more rapidly the "Ukrainegate" impeachment hoax collapses.  An insane effort has been undertaken by the entire CIA-run fake news media and CIA-puppeted tech giants to memory hole the name "Eric Ciaramella" and erase it from reality.  What they are really trying to pull off is history's first secret impeachment proceedings characterized by anonymous accusers who may never be identified, cross-examined or even named.

Mollie Hemingway Turns Fox Studio Into HAZMAT Area as She Names the Whistleblower.  For over a month now it has been an open secret in Washington that the so-called whistleblower whose complaint kicked off the impeachment farce led by Adam Schiff is a CIA employee named Eric Ciaramella.  Ciaramella has ties to the Democrat party, to Joe Biden, to John Brennan, to Democrat operative Alexandra Chalupa, and was booted from the National Security Council for leaking information designed to damage the Trump administration.  Ciaramella's allies are gaslighting us by falsely claiming that Ciaramella is owed "anonymity" for his perfidy.  This is simply a lie in all aspects.  The only person, according to law or regulation who can't release Ciaramella's name is the Intelligence Community IG.  Whistleblower status merely gives him immunity from retribution based on this action, it does not cover public shaming or disciplinary actions not related to the complaint.

Report: GOP Lawmakers Plan to Call Hunter Biden as Witness in Public Impeachment Hearings.  Republican lawmakers are planning to call Hunter Biden as a witness in the upcoming public impeachment hearings, according to a report from Fox News.  The outlet obtained a list of witnesses selected by Republican lawmakers — a list which includes Hunter Biden and the so-called "whistleblower."

White House Visitor Logs Detail Meetings of Eric Ciaramella.  Judicial Watch announced today analysis of Obama-era White House visitor logs that detail meetings of controversial CIA employee Eric Ciaramella, who had been assigned to the White House.  Ciaramella reportedly was detailed to the Obama White House in 2015 and returned to the CIA during the Trump administration in 2017. The logs also reveal Alexandra Chalupa, a contractor hired by the DNC during the 2016 election who coordinated with Ukrainians to investigate President Trump and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, visited the White House 27 times.

Adam Schiff Announces CIA "Whistleblower" Will Not Be Called to Testify During Impeachment Effort Initiated by the "Whistleblower".  HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff responds to the republican witness request list.  In the final paragraph of the letter, Schiff announces the "whistleblower", the person Chairman Schiff coordinated with to initiate the impeachment, will never be called to deliver testimony.

Schiff signals he will reject GOP 'sham' witness requests.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff rejected the GOP's request that the panel summon Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, to testify at public impeachment hearings next week.  The California Democrat also signaled he will not agree to some of the other witnesses Republicans requested Saturday [11/9/2019], including Alexandra Chalupa, a former Democratic National Committee staffer who Republicans said worked with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C., "to try to get political dirt on then-candidate Trump's campaign."  Schiff, who will head public impeachment hearings beginning Wednesday, said in a Saturday statement that he will consider a list of witness requests provided by the GOP.

Schiff's Dishonesty Is Certain to Morph Again.  If Adam Schiff were a prosecutor, his November 5 contribution to USA Today would violate rule 3.8(f) when he claimed (again) that he had secret evidence of a secret crime committed by the president.  Our system of due process (as codified by this rule) recognizes that it's unfair for an accuser to use newspapers to claim access to secret evidence of a target's criminal conduct.  This isn't something that was allowed to happen in past impeachment efforts and Americans should be skeptical of Schiff's case when he's not giving the president's team equal access to the evidence of the supposed "crime."  What crime?  Schiff doesn't name the crime anywhere in his 940-word vanity piece.  Instead, he aggrandizes himself and these hearings that give witch hunts a bad name.

Adam Schiff's Outhouse Politics.  Representative Adam B. Schiff's (D-Calif.) impeachment inquiry is a real danger to every Democrat associated with it.  Less than two years ago, Schiff's libertine idea of truth showed itself.  Jay Whig called him out then for misrepresenting the nature and purposes of the independence of the FBI.  Schiff went on to claim that, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he had seen evidence that Trump had colluded with the Russians, with the implication that the Mueller report would expose this.  Schiff was caught in this lie, spectacularly, when Special Counsel Robert Mueller revealed precisely the opposite of what Schiff had said he knew for a fact.  There was never any evidence of coordination between the president or his campaign and Russia.

The 'Whistleblower' and Rep. Adam Schiff should be first to testify in Trump Impeachment Theater.  The first witness should be the so-called "whistleblower," the government employee who brought the complaint to Schiff about that phone call to Ukraine.  There is no way, really, around this.  To do otherwise is to admit that all this is about, really, is overturning Trump's 2016 election, which caused the bipartisan Washington establishment to break out into hives and TV news anchors to cry on air. [...] The worry for Democrats is that if it is just a partisan exercise, Trump Impeachment Theater will be seen as a lame addendum to the Mueller Russia Collusion investigation, which failed to find evidence that Trump or anyone else colluded with Russia over the 2016 election.  It was the "whistleblower" who brought the complaint to Schiff and his committee staff, alleging that Trump had committed an outrage during that phone call to the president of Ukraine.

Nunes Formally Calls On Adam Schiff To Testify As Part Of Impeachment 'Show Trial'.  Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes on Friday [11/8/2019] formally called on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff to testify about his or his aides' contacts with the Trump whistleblower as part of what he's calling the impeachment "show trial" against President Donald Trump.  "Prior to the start of your public show trial next week, at least one additional closed-door deposition must take place," Nunes wrote to Schiff on Friday.  "Specifically, I request that you sit for a closed-door deposition before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight Committees," he continued, referring to the three congressional committees taking part in the impeachment inquiry.

The Radicalizing of Eric Ciaramella.  While the lawyers representing Eric Ciaramella, the alleged "whistleblower" in the Trump impeachment fiasco, describe him as having spent his entire career in "apolitical civil servant positions," the truth is that Eric Ciaramella has been involved in radical political behavior throughout his life — including his years at Yale.  In fact, long before he was digging up dirt with the DNC's Alexandra Chalupa about President Trump's mythical collusion with Russia, Ciaramella was involved in leading a protest over what he believed was the poor treatment of Bassam Frangieh, a radical professor of Arabic Studies at Yale.

New Docs Shed Light on Ukraine Scandal.  We have conducted an in-depth analysis of Obama-era White House visitor logs, and we have learned a good deal about the people who controversial CIA employee Eric Ciaramella met with while assigned to the White House.  Ciaramella reportedly was detailed to the Obama White House in 2015 and returned to the CIA during the Trump administration in 2017.  Real Clear Investigations named Ciaramella as possibly being the whistleblower whose complaint sparked impeachment proceedings against President Trump.  As reported by the Examiner, Fox News' legal analyst Gregg Jarrett indicated that a key takeaway was the "reported direct relationship" Ciaramella had with former President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan and national security adviser Susan Rice, as well as the "Democratic National Committee operative who dug up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election."

Did the whistleblower scrub his social media footprint before filing his complaint?  RealClearInvestigations writer Paul Sperry, who exposed the anti-Trump impeachment whistleblower as one Eric Ciaramella, has found something else interesting about the man. [...] He did a pre-scrub of his social media footprint, quite possibly anticipating that he might just get famous.  Sperry points out that it roughly parallels what was seen in the social media presence of anti-Judge Brett Kavanaugh accuser, Christine Blasey Ford. [...] One wonders if Congress is ever going to get a chance to ask young Eric why those social media posts disappeared and who told him to do it.  One suspects that the answer would be interesting.  One also notes that suddenly, Ciaramella doesn't want to testify to Congress.

Schiff tightens grip on impeachment probe, slaps 'absurd restrictions' on GOP witnesses.  With Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., set to move his partisan impeachment inquisition from the basement of the U.S. Capitol into the light of day, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is determined to maintain tight-fisted control over the public proceedings.  In going public with the "impeachment sham," as Republicans refer to the effort to take out President Donald Trump, Schiff issued a list of guidelines that will be used to maintain a tight grip on proceedings and attempt to limit who Republicans can call to testify.

Vindman transcript highlights Schiff efforts to block GOP questioning about whistleblower.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff took steps to block Republicans from questioning Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman about leaks damaging to President Trump during his closed-door testimony.  The California Democrat blocked GOP lawmakers from questioning Vindman about his conversations with other members of the intelligence community following a July 10 meeting with Ukraine government officials and after Vindman listened in on a July 25 call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Schiff Goes Full Stalin.  As Rep. Adam Schiff's "sentence first, trial later" show trial of President Donald J. Trump reaches a so-called public hearing phase, we find the weaver of fables dictating what witnesses the GOP will be permitted to call based on a set of three qualifying question they must answer in advance.  These questions ask, essentially, if the witnesses believe President Trump is guilty of pressuring Ukraine to dig up dirt on the Bidens in exchange for military aid.  The GOP, it seems, will not be allowed to call witnesses who have testimony or evidence to the contrary, that there was no pressure and no quid pro quo.  Nor will the GOP be allowed to present witnesses or evidence that confirms that the "dirt" is accurate, that the crime of threatening to withhold aid for a personal and political favor, a crime Biden has already confessed to, was committed by Biden, not Trump, on behalf of Biden's son Hunter.  Nor will the GOP be allowed to make the case that any Trump inquiry of the Ukrainians was mandated by a treaty signed by President Bill Clinton.

Democracy Dies in Darkness — Speak the Whistleblower's Name.  [Scroll down]  Rush Limbaugh, the most listened-to voice on the radio airwaves, similarly mentioned Ciaramella.  "There have been all kinds of publications that have mentioned the whistleblower's name," he explained earlier this week.  "He has been outed by any number of conservative publications.  His picture has been published.  He's known.  Everybody knows his name!  But look, everybody's still talking like the guy hasn't been outed, like the guy hasn't been identified.  He has been.  But where?  See, until the mainstream media does it, it hasn't happened!  See how this works?"  Atop feigning that the president's namesake revealed Ciaramella as the leaker, the narrative maintains that naming a whistleblower violates not only law but also morality.  Whistleblower statutes protect government workers from repercussions.  They do not command journalists, or even most members of the government, to provide them anonymity.

Memo to the Left:  It is not a crime to 'out' the 'whistleblower'.  In a heated exchange with Donald Trump Jr., who had named the Trump-Ukraine whistleblower in a tweet, The View co-host Sunny Hosting on Thursday [11/7/2019] claimed that "it is a federal crime to out a whistleblower. ... My law degree says it is."  Hostin said to former Fox News contributor Kimberly Guilfoyle, who also appeared on the Thursday broadcast, "You're a lawyer, we know each other, you worked for a prosecutor.  I mean, did you advise your boyfriend that it is a federal crime to out a whistleblower?"  "Well it's not a federal crime.  It's only a federal crime for the IG to do it, that's in the statute," Trump Jr. said.

Devin Nunes Formally Requests Testimony from Adam Schiff.  HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes has sent a letter to HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff formally requesting his testimony prior to the public impeachment hearings next week.  On its face this might seem like a stunt; and it might indeed be dismissed by Adam Schiff; however, at the heart of the issue is something quite serious and quite factual.  There is mounting evidence the entirety of the Pelosi, Lawfare-Schiff proceeding is a collaborative event that includes the coordination with a CIA 'whistleblower'.  Specifically because the issues in/around the originating 'whistleblower' have become a risk to the effort, and in a complete reversal from the original premise, Adam Schiff is now refusing to present testimony from the originating whistleblower.

Report: Impeachment Witness Marie Yovanovitch Caught in Apparent Falsehood Under Oath.  Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was fired by President Donald Trump in May, misled lawmakers in her testimony she gave as part of House Democrats' impeachment probe, according to a report.  Yovanovitch testified behind closed doors on October 11 that in mid-August, a Democrat House Foreign Affairs Committee staffer had reached out to her on her personal email with a request to come and talk to the committee about the circumstances of her departure.

Devin Nunes Requests Adam Schiff Testify in the Impeachment Inquiry.  House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) on Friday sent a letter to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) requesting that the House Intelligence Committee chairman testify as part of the impeachment inquiry.  In the letter, Nunes argued that Schiff should testify in lieu of the "whistleblower," since the "whistleblower" went to Schiff's staff before filing his complaint and since Schiff will not let the whistleblower testify.

Sondland revises testimony on quid pro quo.  Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the EU and a key player in the dispute over what the Trump administration said or didn't say to Ukraine about military aid, has revised his testimony to the House impeachment probers.  He says the revision is the result of having his memory refreshed by the testimony of Bill Taylor, the acting ambassador to Ukraine. [...] Any competent journalist would follow up this paragraph by immediately describing the nature of "the public anti-corruption statement that [Sondland and the Ukrainian official] had been discussing for many weeks."  If that statement was a general pledge to combat corruption, for example, then there was nothing wrong with withholding aid until the statement was made.  If that statement included a promise to investigate Joe Biden, then the administration's position would be problematic.

Rep. Lee Zeldin blows William Taylor's Ukraine 'quid pro quo' testimony sky high with release of transcript that DEFINES 'hearsay evidence'.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has been running his secret squirrel impeachment inquiry the way the Soviets used to run their investigations:  In the dark, behind closed doors, releasing only propaganda to state-run media outlets to carefully craft a pre-determined narrative.  And while American mainstream media outlets aren't 'state-run,' they may as well be, since they serve as the propaganda division of the Garbage Party.

Impeachment witness cites NYT as source for his understanding of Trump's Ukraine motive.  Along with the announcement that the first public impeachment probe hearings would start next week, on Wednesday, House Democrats released the deposition transcript of one of their star witnesses in the probe:  Top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine Bill Taylor. [...] But while impeachment boosters may hail Taylor's testimony as damaging to the president, they might need to take a second look at it.  Indeed, it appears that many of Taylor's opinions about the Ukraine matter were, as the Federalist's Sean Davis put it, "formed largely from conversations with anti-Trump staffers within the diplomatic bureaucracy." [...] He even admitted at one point that his main source for his understanding of why the president wanted the investigations was the New York Times.  When asked whether or not he did any due diligence to find out what the concerns about Burisma or the 2016 election were before he took his post earlier this year, he responded "no."

Tucker Has Evidence Key Player in Dems Impeachment Probe May Have Perjured Herself, and That's Not All.  Tucker Carlson broke some important news on his program tonight [11/7/2019].  It pertains to a key player in the Democrats' impeachment probe, the former Ambassador to Ukraine, Maria Yovanovitch, who was appointed by Barack Obama and recalled by President Donald Trump earlier this year when serious questions were raised about her political bias.

The Anonymous Coup.  But after the White House released a transcript of the phone call between Trump and Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the credibility of the "whistleblower" began to shred.  News reports revealed that a Schiff staffer met with the unnamed accuser before he filed the official complaint in mid-August; contact Schiff initially denied.  Trump and congressional Republicans started raising more questions about the author of the complaint and the suspect timeline of events.  Suddenly, the "whistleblower's" testimony became unnecessary.  Insisting that the call's transcript proved that the "whistleblower" accusations were accurate, Schiff lost interest.  Further, Schiff warned, the president and his supporters had placed the "whistleblower's" life in danger.  The media quickly took its cue and now refuses to name the "whistleblower," even though journalist Paul Sperry last week confirmed his identity as Eric Ciaramella, a partisan operative with ties to former CIA Director John Brennan and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Romney: Whistleblowers 'Should Be Allowed to Remain Confidential'.  While speaking to reporters on Tuesday [11/5/2019], Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) reacted to calls to reveal the whistleblower's identity by stating that whistleblowers, especially those speaking about government action, "should be allowed to remain confidential."  Romney said, "My own view is that whistleblowers, particularly those that are blowing whistles on action within the government, should be allowed to remain confidential."

The Editor says...
That may be true, but only if [#1] the whistleblower has credible evidence of an actual crime, [#2] the whistleblower has no political axe to grind, book to write, or TV "analyst" job in the works, and [#3] the whistleblower's claims can be verified.  And what if the so-called whistleblower is spreading lies, while hiding behing this relatively new legal protection?  Is there no penalty for false whistleblowing?  Is such conduct completely risk-free?

The Difference Between Schiff and Shinola.  Before Russiagate collapsed, [Adam] Schiff claimed to have seen "ample evidence of collusion in plain sight."  That assertion turned out to be a cynical lie, of course.  Then, when an anonymous bureaucrat filed a complaint concerning President Trump's conduct during a July call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Schiff emphatically stated that neither he nor his committee had prior contact with the "whistleblower."  This misrepresentation was too much even for the Washington Post, which awarded him four "Pinocchios."  Worst of all, he fabricated part of the Trump-Zelensky transcript as he opened a hearing to investigate the matter.  It's hardly a surprise, then, that Schiff's impeachment inquiry has not exactly been a model of transparency.  Closed-door hearings, selective release of transcripts, and leaks of deceptively edited testimony have exacerbated public uncertainty about Schiff's honesty.

Former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch 'used her personal email account to message Democrat staffer over a 'delicate issue'.  The former US ambassador to Ukraine used her personal email account to message a Democratic staffer over a 'delicate issue' a month before the whistleblower complaint was made public, according to Fox News.  Marie Yovanovitch testified under oath she had not replied to Democratic congressional staffer Laura Carey. [...] Carey's emails and Yovanovitch's reported replies will raise questions of who knew about the whistleblower complaint before it was made public and which Democrats were warned of its contents.  It will also lead to question on whether Yovanovitch committed perjury.

Alleged 'Whistleblower' Eric Ciaramella Worked Closely with Anti-Trump Dossier Hoaxer.  Eric Ciaramella, whom Real Clear Investigations suggests is the likely so-called whistleblower, was part of an Obama administration email chain celebrating the eventual signing of a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee to Ukraine.  That and other emails show Ciaramella interfaced about Ukraine with individuals who played key roles in facilitating the infamous anti-Trump dossier produced by Fusion GPS and reportedly financed by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Levin: The Constitution trumps federal whistleblower law.  "The Constitution trumps any statute, including a whistleblower statute," Levin explained [11/5/2019].  "The idea that the American people are just observers and not participants in this process is an abomination.  It's unconscionable."  "This is about a constitutional system," Levin stated, rebutting arguments about keeping the federal employee's identity secret.  "This is about an effort to use the whistleblower statute to remove a president of the United States over nothing."  The host went onto explain that if a duly elected president of the United States is to be impeached, there are several questions that the American people deserve to have answered about the person whose complaint started the effort to do it.

Uh Oh!  Schiff's Staff Forgot To Redact Ciaramella's Name From Bill Taylor's Transcript.  Either Adam Schiff 's staff overlooked the name of alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella in the transcript of acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor before releasing it or Eric Ciaramella isn't the whistleblower.  Turning Point USA's Benny Johnson reported that on page 236 of Taylor's transcript, Taylor is asked if the name "Eric Ciaramella" rings a bell for him.  This question is asked by the Oversight Committee Republicans' chief investigative counsel, Steve Castor.

Adam Schiff Calls His First Public Witnesses And It Tells Us Everything.  Public hearings are finally about to begin in Adam Schiff's "impeachment inquiry" and he's called his first three witnesses.  Who he's choosing to march out first tells you everything about the game the Democrats are trying to play. [...] Not a single one of these "witnesses" had any direct line to Donald Trump at all.  None of them received any order from the President to do anything, by their own admission.  Further, nothing in their previous testimony pointed to them having any secondary knowledge of an improper quid pro quo involving Joe Biden.

Adam Schiff Makes Up New Rules for Impeachment Inquiry.  House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) issued a set of restrictions on Thursday morning limiting Republicans to calling witnesses that can respond to three questions, all of which reflect Democrats' views.

Whistleblower's Lawyer Reverses Course — Refuses to Let Client Eric Ciaramella Speak to Senate Intel Committee.  Senate Intel Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) told reporters on Thursday [11/7/2019] that attorneys for the anti-Trump CIA leaker Eric Ciaramella have suddenly done a "reversal" after their initial contact with the committee.  Ciaramella's lawyers sent the Senate Intel Committee a letter stating they were anxious and eager to come in and speak to congressional investigators — and now they are backing out.

Alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella was Biden guest at State Department banquet.  Eric Ciaramella, the alleged Ukraine whistleblower, was a guest of Vice President Joe Biden at a glitzy lunch in October 2016 to honor the prime minister of Italy.  Biden co-hosted the banquet with former Secretary of State John Kerry for then-Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.  Ciaramella, who is of Italian heritage, was among the U.S. officials who accepted an invitation.  This week, the Washington Examiner reported that Ciaramella is now a deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia on the National Intelligence Council, reporting to the director of national intelligence.

Jim Jordan:  Republicans Will Subpoena 'Whistleblower' for Public Testimony.  Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said Thursday Republican lawmakers plan to subpoena the so-called "whistleblower" to testify publicly as part of the House Democrats' partisan impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump, according to The Hill.  Jordan's remarks come as lawmakers on Capitol Hill are battling over whether to identify the so-called "whistleblower," who RealClearInvestigations suggests is likely to be CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella.

The plot to impeach Trump already is falling apart.  We already knew that the so-called whistleblower is an entrenched anti-Trump activist, carefully coached by Schiff and his staff to bring about the current Ukraine nonsense.  Mr. Ciaramella was a willing plant with allegiance to John Brennan.  He's been in on the plot to unseat Trump from day one.  Remember that group picture of the Obama loyalists taken on the day of Trump's inauguration?  He is there amongst the catastrophically disappointed, in the back row on the far right.  [Photo]  And now we know that Ciaramella's lawyer, Mark Zaid, tweeted in July 2017 that the "coup has started," not the only tweet that reveals the plan.  So, the number of people known to be involved in the attempted coup is growing.  Zaid's proud admission should put an end to the entire impeachment scam.  Schiff's latest folly is just another maneuver in the coup plotters' game plan.  It all needs to end with Schiff's Joe McCarthy-like self-immolation for his lies and for his crimes.

The Editor says...
How many others in this group worked for the CIA?

Bill Taylor:  Ukraine Unaware of U.S. Hold on Aid During July 25 Call, Quid Pro Quo Impossible.  U.S. diplomat Bill Taylor told impeachment investigators last month that Ukraine did not know the U.S. had temporarily frozen aid at the time of the July 25 phone call, making quid pro quo impossible, transcripts released Wednesday revealed.  Taylor's October 22 depostion behind closed doors suggests Trump did not threaten to withhold aid during the infamous July 25 call between him and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that ultimately triggered the impeachment inquiry.

Rand Paul blocks Senate push to protect Trump whistleblower.  Sen. Rand Paul, R.-Ky., on Wednesday [11/6/2019] blocked a resolution to reaffirm whistleblower protections, accusing Democrats of "selective outrage."  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D.-N.Y., and Sen. Mazie Hirono, D.-Hawaii, made a unanimous consent request, meaning all 100 senators must agree with no objections, to adopt a resolution underscoring the importance of protecting whistleblowers.  "I support whistleblowers, and I do think they have a role to play in keeping government accountable ... but what we have seen over the last few years is that we have a system that we should continue to refine," said Paul, as The Hill reported.

Killing America in anonymity.  The media tells us there is a "heroic" whistle blower who claims President Donald John Trump broke a law — never specified — in a phone call to the newly elected president of Ukraine.  President Trump released the transcript of the call, which shows nothing of the sort.  Nevertheless, the media is pushing for an impeachment to boost cable news ratings, and to divert attention from the best economy in 50 years, Disney's ABC covering up Clinton's involvement with pedophile Jeff Epstein, and peace breaking out in Syria after 8 years of war.  But the media is deliberately refusing to name Eric Ciaramella as the Obamanaut who spied on the Trump administration from within, just as Obama ordered the FBI to wiretap the Trump campaign.

Testimony Transcript Shows William Taylor Never Talked To Trump, Wasn't Even On July 25 Phone Call.  A key Democratic witness against Trump admitted in congressional testimony last month that he was not part of the July 25 phone call between the U.S. and Ukrainian presidents, that he didn't see a transcript or readout of it until late September when it was declassified and released, and that he has never even spoken to President Donald Trump.  William Taylor, the charge d'affairs of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, told lawmakers in secret testimony two weeks ago that his opinions about an alleged quid pro quo demanded by Trump were formed largely from conversations with anti-Trump staffers within the diplomatic bureaucracy.

Rand Paul just murdered the entire fake news and the hoax whistleblower in less than 60 seconds.  [Video clip]

Trump, the phone call, and consciousness of guilt.  [Scroll down]  But importantly, the president, and others as well, have also pointed to the circumstances of the Trump-Zelensky conversation as evidence that Trump had no intent to commit any sort of offense, and certainly not one that the House would later deem impeachable.  "It's common sense," the president said last Thursday in an expansive Oval Office conversation after the House vote.  "I've got 20-25 people on the phone call.  I've got stenographers and all of these people on the telephone.  Am I going to make a statement that's illegal or bad?  I'm an intelligent person.  Who would do a thing like that?"

Mark Meadows:  Gordon Sondland's Testimony Does NOT Confirm Quid Pro Quo.  Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) tweeted on Tuesday [11/5/2019] that despite what many media headlines are reporting with regards to Ambassador Gordon Sondland's testimony, he did not confirm there was a case of quid pro quo between President Trump and Ukraine.  "Seeing many overblown (and outright false) reports about Ambassador Sondland's testimony.  Here's what he actually said.  [#1] I did not (and still don't) know why aid was held up  [#2] I 'PRESUMED' it was because of corruption  [#3] I told Yermak my assumption," said Meadows, who sits on the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Trump Teases Evidence That Alexander Vindman Is A 'Never Trumper'.  President Donald Trump teased the release of information Sunday he says will show that a National Security Council official who provided damning testimony in the Democratic impeachment push is a so-called "Never Trumper."  In a press gaggle with reporters, Trump criticized Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the director for European affairs on the National Security Council.  Vindman told lawmakers on Oct. 29 that he raised concerns with White House lawyers following Trump's phone call on July 25 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that is at the center of a Democratic-led impeachment inquiry.

The Cowardly 'Whistleblower' and 'Anonymous' Must Go Public.  As Lee Smith details extremely well in his new book The Plot Against the President, since the election of Donald Trump, the American public has been subject to a non-stop barrage of leaked news, almost all of it completely inaccurate or so far out of context that it might as well be.  In the years leading up to the Mueller report, we were told by a myriad of media outlets and supposedly well-informed politicians that evidence of Trump-Russia collusion was imminent.  It never appeared, although journalists from the Washington Post and the New York Times won Pulitzers for proclaiming that very thing based on sources that were — what else — anonymous.  These journalists were not reporters, as we know the word, but conduits for leakers in our intelligence agencies and FBI with rusty axes to grind.  It was these leakers, Smith points out, who actually deserved the Pulitzer prizes, such as they were.  The journalists were just their secretaries.

Transcripts: Volker Says Whistleblower 'Got Some Facts Wrong'.  Former U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, during his impeachment inquiry deposition last month, highlighted some inaccuracies in the "whistleblower's" complaint that sparked the probe, according to transcripts released Tuesday.  The complaint mentions Volker five times.  Asked for his reaction to those references, Volker told House impeachment investigators, "I thought that it was a fairly accurate characterization.  He got some facts wrong."

Retired Army Officer Remembers Lt. Col. Vindman as Partisan Democrat Who Ridiculed America.  A retired Army officer who worked with Democrat "star witness" Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman in Grafenwoher, Germany, claims Vindman "really talked up" President Barack Obama and ridiculed America and Americans in front of Russian military officers.  In an eye-opening thread on Twitter last week, retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Jim Hickman said that he "verbally reprimanded" Vindman after he heard some of his derisive remarks for himself.  "Do not let the uniform fool you," Hickman wrote.  "He is a political activist in uniform."

Mark Levin:  Barr and Durham should investigate trio of former National Security Council staffers.  Conservative commentator Mark Levin says the Justice Department should investigate three former National Security Council staffers.  One former staffer filed a complaint that spurred House impeachment proceedings and two others were recruited by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.  Levin, who was Attorney General Edwin Meese's chief of staff during the Reagan administration, appeared on Fox News host Sean Hannity's show last week and discussed how the National Security Council has been exposed as a "rat's nest" in President Trump's White House.  He said Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is conducting a criminal inquiry into the genesis of the Russia investigation, should also open up a related investigation into the origins of what is now the Democrats' impeachment proceedings.

Schiff's CIA "Whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella May Be Implicated in Upcoming FISA Report.  CIA snitch Eric Ciaramella filed a whistleblower complaint on August 12 over President Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky where the two discussed ferreting out corruption.  This included talk on investigating the Biden crime family.  The so-called "whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella is a Democrat who had a "professional" tie to a 2020 Democrat.

Brit Hume exposes 'huge fallacy' in Alexander Vindman's testimony to House impeachment panel.  That fallacy, Hume went on to explain, is that Trump cannot "subvert" U.S. foreign policy precisely because he is the "constitutional author of foreign policy."  "Actually, it's the fact that the president is the constitutional author of foreign policy, so the idea he is 'subverting' it is illogical," Hume explained.  Indeed, as the Constitutional Rights Foundation explains, the executive branch has the most significant role in crafting U.S. foreign policy, and because the president is the head of the executive branch, the president essentially determines the direction of U.S. foreign policy while in office.

Where Are the 'High Crimes'?  According to his accusers in this city, his crime is as follows:  The president imperiled our "national security" by delaying, for his own reasons, a transfer of lethal aid and Javelin missiles to Ukraine — the very weapons President Barack Obama refused to send to Ukraine, lest they widen and lengthen the war in the Donbass.  Now, if Trump imperiled national security by delaying the transfer of the weapons, was not Obama guilty of a greater crime against our national security by denying the weapons to Ukraine altogether?  The essence of Trump's crime, it is said, was that he demanded a quid pro quo.  He passed word to incoming President Volodymyr Zelensky that if he did not hold a press conference to announce an investigation of Joe Biden and son Hunter, he, Zelensky, would not get the arms we had promised, nor the Oval Office meeting that Zelensky requested.  Again, where is the body of the crime?

Gregg Jarrett:  So-called whistleblower is actually an 'undercover informant and Dem operative'.  Gregg Jarrett, Fox News political analyst, didn't hold back Saturday when claiming that the so-called whistleblower is no such thing and as such is not entitled to have his identity protected — even though his lawyers seem to have given up the game by issuing a statement threatening publications as soon as they started publicizing his suspected name.  A lot of people have referred to the whistleblower as a spy, and Jarrett seems to agree.

Why Schiff.  The assignment of the impeachment to Adam Schiff and not the House Judiciary Committee shows what the real aim is.  Democrats assigned the House Intelligence chairman this task to protect the intelligence agencies who tried to overthrow President Donald John Trump.  America's spies and the FBI tried to frame him.  They made false accusations of treasonous collusion with foreigners to rig the election.  3 days before the inauguration, Chuck Schumer bragged that the intelligence agencies can get you six ways to Sunday.  That's possible.  After all, Watergate was a coup run by Mark Felt after Nixon passed him over for FBI director after J. Edgar Hoover died.  Adam Schiff is a tool of those politicized intelligence agencies that Schumer bragged about.  Schiff is their spokesman.

'Do your job!': Rand Paul demands media reveal whistleblower and Congress defend Trump.  Sen. Rand Paul claimed the name of the Ukraine whisteblower is known but said the media is refusing to publish it.  "President Trump has great courage," the Kentucky Republican said at a Monday [11/4/2019] campaign rally for the president.  "He faces down the fake media every day.  But Congress needs to step up and have equal courage to defend the president."  "We also now know the name of the whistleblower," Paul continued.  "The whistleblower needs to come before Congress as a material witness because he worked with Joe Biden at the same time Hunter Biden was getting money from corrupt oligarchs.  I say tonight to the media, 'Do your job and print his name!'  And I say this to my fellow colleagues in Congress, to every Republican in Washington, 'Step up and subpoena Hunter Biden and subpoena the whistleblower!'"

America needs to know what Adam Schiff is hiding.  It doesn't matter which side of the impeachment debacle you're on.  If you're being honest about its origins and you're knowledgeable about what has transpired to date with the impeachment inquiry, you'll certainly want to know what Representative Adam Schiff is hiding.  He has been involved with every facet of the inquiry from well before the alleged Ukraine whistleblower Eric Ciaramella filed his report.  Schiff's credibility isn't aided by the fact that he blatantly lied about his involvement from the start and only revealed how deeply entrenched he was in it when it was leaked the whistleblower contacted his office before contacting the DNI.  Then, his secret hearings in the basement of Capitol Hill proved to be a bad enough look for the Democrats they were forced to bring it out into the open, at least partially, going forward.

"Further Build".  Adam Schiff had a little Freudian slip on Twitter today [11/3/2019] as he outlined how his impeachment team views President Trump defending himself against baseless accusations.

Schiff's Impeachment Train to Nowhere.  [This week's] vote was not to impeach, nor even to begin a formal impeachment inquiry.  It was to set the procedures for any impeachment hearing in the house.  And what a lulu it is.  Under these rules Adam Schiff can block testimony from witnesses called by Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee he chairs.  It does not require the previous secret proceedings of the committee, held without even a semblance of due process, be disclosed.  (For those of you muttering angrily about the selective, clearly partisan leaks to compliant press and demanding that Republicans release the transcripts, bear in mind they don't have them.  Schiff has withheld them.)  Schiff and the Democrats can subpoena whoever they want; Congressman Devin Nunes and the Republicans must make a showing of relevance in writing to Schiff's satisfaction."  The president and his counsel will have no opportunity to participate until after the Schiff inquiry is done and a report filed with the Judiciary Committee of the House.

Donald Trump Versus 'The Interagency Consensus'.  [Scroll down]  What are the "consensus views of the interagency" in this context?  Trump is accused of withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine investigating the (quite obviously shady) business dealings of a political opponent's son.  However, the aid in question was military aid to the Ukraine, including weapons, to help combat Russia.  Trump's predecessor, Obama, was unwilling to give the Ukraine lethal military aid.  In 2015, Sen. John McCain, not exactly a charter member of the Trump fan club, chastised the Obama administration for this.  "The Ukrainians are being slaughtered and we're sending them blankets and meals.  Blankets don't do well against Russian tanks," he said.  Were federal officials in 2015 sounding the alarm about Obama defying the "interagency consensus"?

Could the Ukraine phone call 'whistleblower' be facing indictment?  The so-called "whistleblower" (who dd not follow the protocol necessary to qualify for whistleblower protections) could well be facing serious legal jeopardy. [...] If he first went to politicians, and concealed that behavior when applying for whistleblower status, he is not entitled to such protection.  And the notion that publications would be responsible for the acts of others who learned a name is absurd.  Journalists could not report the names of criminals under such a doctrine, since they might be subjected to retaliation.

Report: Lt. Col. Alex Vindman Advised Ukrainian President Not to Get 'Entangled' in U.S. Domestic Politics.  Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, director of European Affairs on the National Security Council, reportedly told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky not to get entangled in U.S. domestic politics after Ukraine officials asked him about how to handle Rudy Giuliani, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Rep. John Ratcliffe:  Adam Schiff's Problem Isn't That He's Biased, It's That He's Running A Corrupt Process.  A former federal prosecutor who sits on the committee tasked by Democrats with removing President Donald Trump from office blasted Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., as being unfit to oversee the process.  Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Tex., told The Federalist on Friday [11/1/2019] that Schiff's problem isn't mere partisan political bias, it's that Schiff has a conflict of interest given his secret interactions with the anti-Trump whistleblower before his false complaint against Trump was even submitted.  "It's more than just bias — it's an actual legal conflict of interest," Ratcliffe told The Federalist.  "Schiff is using his authority as a Chairman presiding over an impeachment inquiry to prevent the investigation and discovery of facts about his own actions or the actions of his staff."

Suddenly, Coincidences Involving The Whistleblower Abound.  Here's what we know about Eric Ciaramella (EC):
    He submitted a whistleblower complaint on August 12th.
    He is a registered Democrat.
    He is a CIA analyst who specializes in Russia and Ukraine.  He ran the Ukraine desk at the National Security Council (NSC) in 2016.
    He was detailed over to the NSC in the summer of 2015 and worked for then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
    He worked for former Vice President Joe Biden when he served as the Obama administration's "point man" for Ukraine.  He may have flown over to Ukraine with Biden on Air Force Two.
    He worked for former CIA Director John Brennan and appeared to have been a highly valued employee.
    In June 2017, then-National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster appointed EC to be his personal aide.
    EC did not have direct knowledge of the July 25th conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  It is very possible he learned about the call from NSC Director for European Affairs Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified last week before Adam Schiff's House Intelligence Committee.

Republicans question why Schiff is running impeachment.  Under normal circumstances, the House Intelligence Committee would not have jurisdiction over the string of witnesses who have filed into the impeachment proceedings in the Capitol basement or the subject matter they are talking about.  None of the material is classified, and those who have appeared before the panel are mostly diplomats whose testimony about a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would more suitably be scrutinized by the House Foreign Affairs Committee or the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.  Both the Foreign Affairs and Oversight panels have been invited to participate in the closed-door meetings, but it is Schiff and the Intelligence Committee staff Democrats who run the proceedings and who will write the final report that will determine whether the House votes on articles of impeachment.

Talks halt between whistleblower lawyers and Schiff staff amid expectation he won't testify.  The whistleblower whose complaint launched impeachment proceedings against President Trump is unlikely to testify to Congress, as talks have ceased between his legal team and committee leaders.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who has overseen depositions in Democrats' impeachment proceeding, was initially eager for the whistleblower to testify before citing concern about the person being identified.  Republicans accuse Schiff, a California Democrat, of changing course to prevent inquiries into his staff's dealings with the whistleblower before he filed his Aug. 12 complaint to the Intelligence Community inspector general.

Pelosi: Impeachment Meetings in Schiff's Secret Lair Will Continue as Long as They Remain 'Productive'.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told Bloomberg reporters during a roundtable discussion on Friday that she "would assume" that public impeachment hearings will take place this month but added that depositions — held in House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff's (D-CA) secret impeachment chamber — will continue as long as they remain "productive."  Pelosi's admission follows reports of additional secret meetings scheduled over the next several days, despite the Democrats' claim that their partisan resolution addressed Republican demands for transparency.

Mark Levin on Alleged 'Whistleblower': National Security Council Was Exposed as 'A Rat's Nest'.  [Quoting Mark Levin:] ["]We have found the rat's nest.  It's in the National Security Council.  The whistleblower, according to a number of reports, comes off the National Security Council.  An Obama holdover.  A Democrat.  Somebody who worked with Biden.  Somebody who worked with Brennan.  An Obama holdover who didn't like Trump, who met with one of the active figures in the Ukraine effort to undermine the president of the United States in 2016.  We have two others, who now were hired by Schiff, Obama holdovers who worked in the Trump National Security Council.  Now they work for Schiff.  How much do you want to bet that he colluded with?  And of course, Schiff doesn't know anything about it.["]

Ho Hum.  The Democrats have been talking about impeaching Trump since before he was inaugurated, and it was a foregone conclusion, when they took over the House last November, that he would be impeached.  The brief pause in providing arms to Ukraine (which the Obama administration never did) and Trump's entirely proper telephone conversation with President Zelensky are absurdly weak pretexts for the Democrats' impeachment effort, and I doubt whether anyone takes them seriously.  Today's vote sets out procedures for the ongoing inquiry, which will proceed in multiple House committees.  Republicans rightly objected to the procedures as unfair, in fact "Soviet-style."  That is a fair characterization: among other things, Republicans can only call witnesses if they are approved by the ridiculous Adam Schiff.  Schiff will also retain the power to release redacted transcripts of testimony at his discretion, as he has been doing.  The only difference is that until now, they have been leaks.

The Stupidest Impeachment Ever.  The latest high crime and misdemeanor that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants the U. S. Senate to make into a federal case is this:  In a phone call with his counterpart in Ukraine, President Trump conditioned the provision of foreign aid on rooting out that nation's admitted corruption on behalf of the Obama Administration.  Trump denies that there was any kind of quid pro quo.  Let's assume that during weeks of secret depositions in the basement of the Capitol, U.S. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) can produce at least one 20-second soundbite that sounds like, yes, there was some kind of reciprocal intent.  Then Trump was engaging in foreign policy on something Congress should celebrate, not prosecute.  Here are the indisputable facts.  A Ukraine court has ruled that country illegally meddled against Trump in the 2016 election.  That's kind of big, isn't it?

If Ciaramella is the Whistleblower, Democrats Have Made a Major Blunder and Their Credibility Will Evaporate.  If Washington, D.C. is a swamp, then Eric Ciaramella is a viper who slithers among them.  Most Washington insiders agree that once you've lived and worked there for a while, it actually becomes very small.  Residents seem to have at least some degree of familiarity with most everyone around them.  Considered one of the intelligence community's rising stars, 33-year-old Eric Ciaramella was well-integrated into the Washington establishment.  When the American people fully understand that Ciaramella submitted his complaint for the sole purpose of triggering an impeachment inquiry, and learn about his activities and close associations in D.C., the limited credibility the Democratic Party still retains will evaporate.  Especially if the Durham investigation turns up criminal or merely unethical behavior on the part of Obama Administration officials.

The 'Whistle-Blower' Runs Away Screaming From Testifying With the Help of Adam Schiff.  The Trump-Ukraine "whistle-blower" likely won't testify, according to a new report from the Washington Examiner.  This comes on the heels of his legal team threatening news outlets from speculating or reporting on the identity of the person who kicked off the latest round of impeachment fever. [...] While some are spinning this as "talks breaking down," the obvious indication here is that Adam Schiff, being the underhanded actor he is, has decided it does not benefit him to have the whistle-blower appear before Congress in any forum.

Hmmm: Whistleblower's attorneys break off negotiations with House — and threaten the media.  Looks like we won't have the Ukraine-Gate whistleblower to kick around in the impeachment follies after all.  Despite his touching off the latest scandal for Democrats' use in their years-long effort to remove Donald Trump from the presidency, attorneys representing the career CIA analyst have broken off negotiations for his appearance in both the House and the Senate.  That may not end up being the last word if this goes to a trial, however.

Quid pro faux:  Trump impeachment legally fails.  Impeaching President Donald Trump is legally flawed.  The chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America requested that Ukraine assist our attorney general in investigating possible criminal activity in 2014 through 2016.  Ukraine entered into the "Treaty Between the United States of America and Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters," negotiated by President William Clinton and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 2000 while Clinton was still president.  So what Trump asked newly elected Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to do, Ukraine was already compelled to do by its reciprocal treaty with the United States.

Judge Jeanine:  Ukraine whistleblower is connected to John Brennan and 'liar' Susan Rice.  After a former CIA chief expressed his gratitude for the "deep state's" role in triggering the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, Judge Jeanine Pirro said on Friday that the former intelligence head "is not joking" when it comes to holdovers from the Obama administration.  "We know [the whistleblower] is connected to [John] Brennan and the liar Susan Rice and the whole lot of them. [He's an] Obama holdover, worked with [Vice President Joe] Biden," the host of "Justice With Judge Jeanine" said on "Fox & Friends."  "The bottom line is you've got somebody connected to the CIA who is in there, intentionally put in there.  He's an Obama holdover and his job is to create some complaint so that they can start an impeachment inquiry," Pirro said.

Schiff: I'm Concerned Republicans Will Propose Witnesses to 'Smear' Trump's Opponents.  During an interview broadcast on Thursday's [10/31/2019] edition of "CBS Evening News," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) responded to a question on whether he can assure Republicans that Democrats won't block witnesses by stating that he wants to hear which witnesses Republicans want to call and that he is concerned that Republicans will "propose a bunch of witnesses that have no bearing, that they can use merely to smear the president's opponents or for other improper purposes."

Vindman's identical twin may be called to testify in impeachment probe.  The identical twin brother of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council who testified this week before House lawmakers in the Trump impeachment probe, may also be called to testify, according to a report.  Yevgeny Vindman, also an Army lieutenant colonel, works in the White House in an office next to his brother as an NSC lawyer handling ethics issues.  Alexander Vindman allegedly told investigators that his sibling had witnessed the decision to move the transcript of President Trump's July 25 phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to a top secret server, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Alex Vindman's Impeachment Testimony Completely Rested On His Personal Opinions.  A lot of rhetoric is being thrown around, both in print media and on TV, about Lt. Col. Alex Vindman's testimony before the House Intelligence Committee about President Trump's phone call with the president of Ukraine.  He has been lauded by Democrats and the press (excuse the redundancy), and most of the commentary and reporting ignores any analysis of his allegations about the call.  In Vindman's testimony, I see more appeals to emotion than to analysis and reason.

Trump-Ukraine Whistleblower Hid Contacts With Schiff From Inspector General.  He's an Obama holdover, a registered Democrat, a CIA agent, and worked with a Democratic National Committee operative, Alexandra Chalupa, to get dirt on Trump in 2016. [...] Prior to [Eric] Ciaramella being named as the possible whistleblower, there were reports that this person had contacted Adam Schiff's staff prior to filing the report.  Schiff knew of its contents beforehand.  Remember that this report is based on second-hand information, Ciaramella, or whoever the whistleblower is, never listened in on the July call, where there has been an allegation that Trump shook down the Ukraine political leadership into opening a corruption probe into Hunter Biden or risk having aid withheld.  It's shoddy.  The impeachment process has up until recently been in the dark, where Schiff has been controlling the flow of information, even towards GOP members on the House Intelligence Committee, who are given a one-page summary of the interviews that can only be read in the presence of a Democratic staffer.

Limbaugh: Whistleblower's Identity Revealed, Now We Know Why Dems Wanted To Hide It.  On Thursday, the House Democrats made their impeachment inquiry into President Trump official, pushing through their resolution by a largely party line vote of 232 to 194.  Though Democrats have been pushing to impeach Trump since even before his inauguration, the trigger that finally resulted in an official inquiry was a complaint by an unidentified whistleblower who heard second-hand about Trump's much-analyzed July 25 call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asking him to "look into" the allegations of corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.  Though Democrats have been working hard to keep the identity of the whistleblower under wraps, reports this week published his alleged identity — and conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh says that now that more details are out, it's painfully clear why Trump's political enemies wouldn't want the whistleblower identified.

Enough "Quid Pro Quo" Gaslighting.  Horse trading is the oxygen of politics; it is how politicians are persuaded to care about things that otherwise would not make their radar.  Not only does it happen all the time, but it is a core feature of our political system; representative government relies on this kind of political trading to ensure a plurality of interests and needs are satisfied. [...] It is not corruption.  It's the warp and woof of a democratic political system.  But in routinely branding President Trump's dealings with Ukraine as potential "corruption," and pointing to the exchange of unrelated asks as proof of that corruption, our friends in the fourth estate are acting in willful ignorance and bad faith.  The President has taken a firm position that he did not hold out foreign aid to Ukraine as a condition for investigating Hunter Biden's activities there.  But, even if he did, bargaining isn't corruption — it's policymaking.

Dems' impeachment vote puts them in big trouble.  Since his surprise election in November 2016, Washington insiders have tried to drive the duly elected president out of office.  First, it was based on a connection with Trump business interests and Russia.  We endured nearly two years of lawyers amassing testimony and hearing from various witnesses.  Americans footed a $40-million tab.  There were no charges, and the process turned out to be [futile].  Then Democrats in Congress moved to the president's business interests.  Reveal your tax returns.  Give us your financial data, has been the cry by partisans.  That issue is being resolved in the courts and may not be settled until after the next presidential election.  No tab has been placed on this inquiry.  Now we are on to the famous Ukraine phone call.

'This Ain't Over': Doug Collins Calls on Schiff to Testify About His Relationship With the Whistleblower.  Republican Congressman Doug Collins is calling on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff to testify as a witness after Democrats moved forward with their impeachment resolution Thursday morning [10/31/2019].  "Come to the Judiciary Committee and take every question asked of you [Schiff].  Be the first witness and take every question asked of you, starting with your own involvement with the whistleblower.  Folks, this ain't over.  Get ready.  The cloud that is dropping will be dropping on their heads because process matters and substance will always win out in the end and this president has nothing to worry about on substance," Collins said.

Impeachment: Sifting the serious from the silly.  There are people for whom the very fact that President Trump breathes in oxygen and breathes out carbon dioxide constitutes an impeachable offense.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who is running the impeachment inquiry that got approved by the House Thursday [10/31/2019], is one of these people.  Is he going to run a fair inquiry?  What are you, crazy?  As the "impeach-him-for- breathing" crowd would reply, where in the Constitution does it say Schiff has to be fair?

Gohmert on Impeachment:  Dems 'Coup' Will 'Push This Country to a Civil War'.  On the House floor Thursday [10/31/2019], Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said the way House Democrats were running the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump was "about to push this country to a civil war."  Gohmert said, "Never in the history of this country have we had such gross unfairness that one party would put armed guards [...] to prevent the duly authorized people from being able to hear the witnesses and see them for themselves.  And then, oh, we hear from this resolution today, we're going to send you the depositions after we get through doctoring and looking at and editing the transcripts, we'll send you those, so you have the evidence you need.  That's not the kind of evidence that a coup should be based on.  If we're going to have what they're trying to legalize as a coup, we ought to have a right to see each of those witnesses."

White House Official Testifies He Was 'Not Concerned That Anything Illegal Was Discussed' On Ukraine Call.  The White House's top official for European affairs told Congress on Thursday that he was not concerned that "anything illegal" was discussed during the July 25 phone call between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart that is at the center of Democrats' impeachment inquiry.  "I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed," the official, Timothy Morrison, said in an opening statement reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

This 'Impeachment' Is a Cover-Up.  [Scroll down]  Eric Ciaramella, the son of a bank executive and a 2008 Yale graduate, was evidently handpicked by Brennan in 2015 for the National Security Council as an expert on Ukraine policy.  At the White House, Ciaramella worked closely with Susan Rice, Obama's national security adviser, and also with Obama's Vice President Joe Biden.  Perhaps the most troubling revelation in Sperry's article was that Ciaramella also worked closely with Alexandra Chalupa, a Democratic National Committee operative who, in 2016, left her DNC job to pursue her own "investigation" of the Trump campaign. [...] Why was Ciaramella's identity known to everyone in the media?  Perhaps because, according to Sperry, Brennan's hand-picked CIA agent inside the White House had been a source of leaks to reporters during the first six months of Trump's presidency.  It was conservative journalist Mike Cernovich who, in June 2017, blew the whistle on Ciaramella's sabotage operation.

Whistleblower Eric Ciaramella:  Is this the best they've got?  The whistleblower is now pretty well outed by investigative journalist Paul Sperry, and it's underwhelming.  He's been identified as one Eric Ciaramella, 33, prep school grad, Yalie, Obama backwash, political operative, and fanatic Trump-hater.  Hardly the Mister Probity concerned about national security that's been painted. [...] Ciaramella's name should be out there because it's relevant whether all the hearsay in his legally couched charge was actually made in good faith or was just another leftist smear job under cover of government mechanisms, same as the Steele dossier.

Blowing the Whistle on the Whistleblower.  Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations wrote the name Eric Ciaramella on Wednesday [10/30/2019]. [...] America merely lacked a name.  We knew the type.  Ciaramella graduated from a high school that costs $30,000 a year to attend, received his undergraduate degree from Yale, and obtained a master's from Harvard.  A few years after graduation from that tony private high school, the youngster estimated to its alumni magazine of trips to 28 different countries (he admits he lost count).  When others provide you with the best education and pricey junkets to obscure parts of the globe, not getting the president you asked for might come as a terrible blow.  So Ciaramella sought to rectify this injustice by anonymously peddling secondhand gossip — false in large part — designed to instigate another round of impeachment discussions.  He did so by first going to Congressman Adam Schiff.  When you seek to report a federal crime, go to the FBI.  When you seek to gin up political trouble, go to Adam Schiff.

Suspected 'Whistleblower' Ciaramella May Be CIA Spy Planted in Trump White House Identified as "Charlie" in Strzok and Page Texts!  No wonder Lying Adam Schiff and his Democrat cohorts don't want their suspected whistleblower Eric Ciaramella outed to the public.  This is because they all know that Ciaramella was in President Trump's White House and his purpose was specifically to spy on the Trump Administration.

Rush Limbaugh Mocks Alleged Whistleblower, 'Leaker' Eric Ciaramella: 'Pajama Boy in the Obama Ad'.  Thursday [10/31/2019] on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh mocked Eric Ciaramella, whom Real Clear Investigations suggests is likely the so-called Trump-Ukraine "whistleblower," calling the CIA analyst a "leaker" who resembles the "pajama boy" featured in a 2013 ad promoting Obamacare enrollment.

He's a One-Man Ukrainian Lobby!  [Scroll down]  None of that happened.  But if it had, I would be exactly like Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman.  He was born in Ukraine and raised there until age 3½, when he was invited to our country.  As you've no doubt heard, he served in our military.  Thank you for your service, Colonel!  Now he is the top Ukrainian adviser on the National Security Council.  Of all the people who could look out for the U.S.'s interests vis-a-vis Ukraine, we got someone who was born there.  As such, Vindman was permitted to listen to a phone call the president of the United States made to the president of Ukraine — a completely unnecessary, pro forma task.  So, naturally, when he had a policy disagreement with President Trump pertaining to the country he was born in, he thought he had a responsibility to agitate for removal proceedings against the duly elected U.S. president, [...]

Now We Know Why The Media Won't Expose Trump's 'Whistleblower'.  It turns out that the person who wrote the second-hand, factually inaccurate account of President Donald Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky isn't just some careerist, non-partisan CIA official, or even, as Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson put it, a person with "some indicia of an arguable political bias."  Eric Ciaramella is, as Sperry reveals, "a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House, previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia 'collusion' investigation of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election."

Report: Anti-Trump Complainant Eric Ciaramella Worked With Brennan, Biden, and DNC Operative Chalupa.  The anti-Trump "whistleblower," whose complaint against President Trump spurred the Democrats' impeachment inquisition, is a 33-year-old registered Democrat who worked under Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, RealClearInvestigation's Paul Sperry reported Wednesday afternoon [10/30/2019].  Eric Ciaramella, the anti-Trump operative, also worked with Alexandra Chalupa, a Democratic National Committee opposition researcher who led the effort to link the Trump campaign to Russia during the 2016 election.

CIA Gossiper Eric Ciaramella:  Democrat, Former NSC Staff, Worked with Joe Biden and John Brennan.  Paul Sperry from RealClearInvestigations has outlined the CIA "whistle-blower" who originated the hearsay complaint against President Trump as Eric Ciaramella.  According to the researched outline, Ciaramella worked closely with Democrat operative, Alexandra Chalupa in 2016 to advance the anti-Trump effort; and this year Ciaramella worked closely with HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff's staff to continue his efforts.

Report: 'Whistleblower' Who Complained About Trump's Call to Ukrainian President Zelensky Revealed.  Everything Trump's defenders feared about the whistleblower is true!  According to a report from RealClear Investigations, the whistleblower is 33-year-old Eric Ciaramella.  Ciaramella is a holdover from the Obama administration and a registered Democrat.  He's been accused of leaking like crazy.  He worked with Joe Biden, he's a vocal critic of President Trump, and he invited a DNC operative inside the White House to attend meetings.  He also helped instigate the investigation into Russia collusion.  So, of course, Democrats believe his second-hand complaint about President Trump's phone conversation with Ukranian President Zelensky over the actual transcript of the call itself.

How [the] 'Whistleblower' May Be Outed:  Ties to Biden, Brennan, Schiff's Staff, Etc..  For a town that leaks like a sieve, Washington has done an astonishingly effective job keeping from the American public the name of the anonymous "whistleblower" who triggered impeachment proceedings against President Trump — even though his identity is an open secret inside the Beltway.  More than two months after the official filed his complaint, pretty much all that's known publicly about him is that he is a CIA analyst who at one point was detailed to the White House and is now back working at the CIA.

Adam Schiff's drive to impeach Trump based on opinions, deception and illusions — Not facts.  Rep. Adam Schiff is a poor man's Harry Houdini.  He is a cheap illusionist performing amateurish parlor tricks of deception in his quest to convince his audience that he possesses damning evidence of an impeachable offense committed by President Trump.  Schiff, D-Calif., has no such evidence, of course.  But like most illusionists, Schiff employs misdirection and confusion.  He attempts to convince you that opinions are evidence, while facts are not.  This is the stuff of rank political magic where perceptions are distorted through clever manipulation of the process.

Impeachment is a power grab by Washington's establishment and it has nothing to do with Trump's character or the Constitution.  If Trump were accused of picking any Democrat at random and asking that a foreign government make up a lie implicating them in some crime or corruption, then impeachment might be a moral imperative.  But that's not what he did, and that's why this cooked up controversy over his call with Ukraine has been impossible to understand from the beginning.  It doesn't make it easier to wrap your mind around it when the media refuse to talk about the most important issues.  Ukraine is rife with corruption; the country's government interfered in the 2016 election for the explicit purpose of hurting Trump's campaign; former Vice President Joe Biden knew there was something wrong with his son's strangely lucrative business dealings with Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

Anti-Trump 'Whistleblower' Worked With DNC Operative Who Sought Dirt On Trump From Ukrainian Officials.  A new report from RealClearInvestigations reveals that the anti-Trump "whistleblower" who prompted the current impeachment proceedings against President Trump is a registered Democrat who worked with a Democratic National Committee opposition researcher who dug up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.  Federal documents reveal that the whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, previously worked in the Obama administration with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan.  RealClear reports that Ciaramella remained there into the Trump administration, and headed the Ukraine desk at the National Security Council, eventually transitioning into the West Wing, until June 2017.

Vindman: Another impeachment witness who's not exactly unimpeachable.  The Democrats have trotted out for the cameras another supposedly unimpeachable impeachment hearing witness, building him up as the Ultimate Trump Slayer, the trump-Trump trump card, the reason it's now all over for President Trump.  We've seen this show before, first, during the Mueller special counsel affair.  Then with NSC aide Fiona Hill.  Then with U.S. Ambassador Bill Taylor.  The cold hard facts show something different.

Dem Star Impeachment Witness Vindman Confirms Trump Did Nothing Wrong.  The only news that matters coming out of Alexander Vindman's Tuesday [10/29/2019] impeachment testimony is that he once again proved President Trump has done absolutely nothing impeachable, or even close to it. [...] All Vindman could come up with, all Adam Schiff's star impeachment witness could do, was complain about petty and meaningless things the transcript might have missed, and because that was the best Vindman could come up with — a guy who hates Trump and who heard the original call — we now know the transcript of the call released by the White House correctly informed the public of what was said.  Which means Trump did nothing impeachable.  Which means Nancy Pelosi's impeachment jihad continues to get dumber by the day.

Attorneys decline to confirm CIA officer Eric Ciaramella is whistleblower.  Attorneys for the whistleblower who submitted a complaint about President Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine's president, prompting the impeachment process to begin, declined to confirm or deny that their client was Eric Ciaramella, a career CIA officer.  RealClearInvestigations reported Wednesday that Ciaramella was the whistleblower.  The Washington Examiner has established, however, that there was at least one significant factual inaccuracy in the report, which was written by Paul Sperry, a partisan pro-Trump figure who had released Ciaramella's name via Twitter earlier this month and whom critics accuse of trading in disinformation and conspiracy theories.  Asked whether their client was Ciaramella, 33, attorneys Mark Zaid and Andrew Bakaj told the Washington Examiner in a statement:  "We neither confirm nor deny the identity of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower."

Seditious Conspiracy / Sketchy Witness — Schiff Blocks Questioning of NSC Staffer Alexander Vindman to Protect Him from Legal Exposure.  [Indeed], this Alexander Vindman witness is very sketchy.  Generally suspected of being "whistle-blower #2", records show Vindman had numerous contacts with registered foreign agents, while a member of the National Security Council.  Additionally, it is highly likely Vindman leaked the content of presidential phone calls illegally while he was a member of the National Security Council; which explains why Adam Schiff would not permit Vindman to answer questions about who he talked to.

Secret Impeachment:  Matt Gaetz Files Ethics Complaint Against Adam Schiff.  Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Wednesday filed an ethics complaint against House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) over his handling of closed-door impeachment proceedings targeting President Donald Trump.  Gaetz, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, accused Schiff of distorting President Donald Trump's July 25th telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and barring congressional lawmakers from attending impeachment depositions.

No longer an impeachment.  Now, it's a railroading.  Under pressure to make their Soviet-style impeachment to overturn the results of the 2016 election "fairer," Trump-maddened Democrats have put on an "impeachment resolution" public relations show in a bid to legitimize their secret basement hearings. [...] The shammy resolution, expected to be rammed through Thursday in that desperate Democrat bid to get this whole thing over before the end of the year, does keep the House Intelligence Committee under Rep. Schiff in the catbird seat, leading the impeachment as he has so far in his basement, but now it effectively shuts Republicans out of the process.

Mitch McConnell:  Impeachment Resolution 'Falls Way Short,' Makes Schiff 'De Facto Special Prosecutor'.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Wednesday [10/30/2019] slammed the House Democrats' impeachment proceedings resolution, stating it "falls way short" and effectively elevates House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) to a "de facto special prosecutor."

Why Is Vindman a War Hero but Flynn a Traitor?  [Scroll down]  The phone call was in July.  It's hard to have a quid pro quo when the party being extorted is not told about the alleged quo.  So just what was Vindman's problem with the call?  In his opening statement, Vindman says he came forward because he "did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen."  Yet when pressed to explain where in the phone call transcript any demand was made, he lapsed into psychobabble about Ukrainian President Zelensky inferring a demand because of Trump's more powerful position in the world. [...] So why did Zelensky say he felt no pressure?

Republicans blocked in what Democrats charge is effort to uncover whistleblower.  House Republicans are complaining that House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff has blocked efforts to uncover whom Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman spoke with about concerns that President Trump abused his power in dealings with Ukraine, efforts Democrats charge were designed to discover the identity of the whistleblower.  Democrats who heard at least some portion of the testimony Tuesday [10/29/2019] by Vindman said the Republicans were pressuring him to reveal the identity of the whistleblower, whose complaint first surfaced the allegations that sparked the impeachment process.

Adam Schiff Accused of Witness Tampering in 'Soviet-Style' Impeachment Inquiry.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff is reportedly telling witnesses testifying in the impeachment inquiry not to answer questions by certain Republicans.  While speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise slammed the secretive process, pointing out that Schiff gets to choose all the witnesses, but that he's also "directing witnesses not to answer questions that he doesn't want the witness to answer if they're asked by Republicans."  If true, this is, by definition, witness tampering.

Schiff Directing Witnesses Not To Answer GOP Questions.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who is overseeing the ongoing illegitimate impeachment inquiry set in motion by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is reportedly telling witnesses testifying not to answer questions asked by Republican lawmakers.  Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., slammed the hidden process claiming Schiff was instructing witnesses testifying behind the closed doors of the SCIF not to answer questions asked by Republican members.

Dan Crenshaw challenges entire premise of Ukraine impeachment efforts.  Finally!  A political figure, rising star Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, has challenged the false premise that there was anything wrong with President Trump asking for Ukrainian help in an investigation of corruption in the 2016 election undertaken by Joe Biden.  Just because it would potentially help discredit a potential political opponent is no reason to override the public benefit from investigating corruption.  For some reason, no other national politician has bothered making this point. [...] I prefer to look through the other end of the telescope and express the question this way:  Does becoming a potential political opponent of the sitting president shield a politician from investigation of his or her political corruption, exposure of which could harm his/her electoral prospects?

Cracks in the impeachment wall.  Is the solid Democratic front in favor impeachment beginning to crumble?  It's probably more correct to say that it never existed at all. [...] This is simply further evidence, if any was needed, that the impeachment effort is an empty scam, a massive PR stunt, with no substance to speak of behind it.  It is a Potemkin campaign jimmied up between Pelosi, Schiff, and the anti-Trump media.

NSC Official Alex Vindman Testifies in Full Military Uniform, Despite Not Wearing One to Work Every Day.  National Security Council (NSC) official Alexander Vindman showed up to testify Tuesday as part of the Democrats' closed-door impeachment inquiry into President Trump in full military uniform.  This is despite not wearing one to work every day at the NSC, according to several sources.  Although Vindman is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, he is serving an assignment at the NSC as the director for European Affairs.  According to sources at the NSC, Vindman does not wear his uniform to work at the NSC, where the standard dress is business wear.

White House official says transcript of Ukraine call omitted key phrases: report.  A White House official who testified in front of the House on Tuesday [10/29/2019] as part of its impeachment investigation reportedly said the White House's rough transcript of a July phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky left out key words and phrases.  Three people familiar with the situation told The New York Times that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified to congressional investigators that among the omissions were Trump's assertions that there were recordings of former Vice President Joe Biden discussing Ukrainian corruption and a reference by Zelensky to Burisma Holdings, the energy company on whose board Biden's son sat.

Impeachment Witness Bill Taylor Led Ukraine Delegation for Group Advised by Hunter Biden.  Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, who provided key testimony to the Democrats' controversial impeachment inquiry last week, led an election observation delegation in Ukraine earlier this year for a George Soros-funded organization that at the time boasted Hunter Biden on its small chairman's council.  Two months before he came out of retirement to serve as the highest ranking U.S. official in Ukraine, Taylor led an election observer delegation to Ukraine's April 21, 2019 second round presidential election for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) organization.

Schiff "whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella' ties to Susan Rice and Joe Biden.  The worst kept secret in Washington is that former NSC staffer and CIA employee Eric Ciaramella is Adam Schiff's secret "whistleblower" in the ongoing Nancy Pelosi impeachment farce.  More importantly, Ciaramella has a long history with Obama NSC advisor Susan Rice and former Vice President Joe Biden.  Add that to the list of "witnesses" before Schiff 's Stassi East German secret police-style lack of intelligence committee.  You have a succession of partisan Trump-haters with long pedigrees of either being Democrat operatives.  Deep ties to Burisma holdings.  Or active participants in the George Soros Open Societies Foundations.  It is a remarkable parade.  Eric Ciaramella.  Ambassador Marie Yovanovich.  Ambassador William Taylor.  Schiff staffers and former NSC employees Abigail Grace and Sean Misko both joining the staff of his committee in August 2019.  Just in time for the "whistleblower" report to be coordinated.  Both worked with Ciaramella on the NSC in the Obama White House.

'You have no evidence': ABC host challenges Adam Schiff on calling Durham investigation 'tainted'.  A journalist admonished House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff for having no evidence to support his claim that the Justice Department's criminal inquiry into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation has been "tainted" by President Trump's political agenda.  Last week, it was revealed that U.S. Attorney John Durham's administrative review, examining the behavior of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials during the 2016 election, had transitioned from an administrative review to a criminal investigation.  "This is tainted because of the motivation, which is a political one, to serve the president's political interests," Schiff said in an interview Sunday.

Same Media that Silenced Me Now Glorifying Fake Whistleblowers.  Those behind this effort of destruction know full well the non-impeachment impeachment inquiry will fail.  It has been a farce from beginning to end, with not one vote cast for it to even go forward as required by that annoying little thing called the Constitution.  A minor detail, as it appears.  Knowing this, the "Resistance" marches forward, aware that the repetitive and constant use of the word "impeachment" alone, particularly from the hallowed halls of Congress, will eventually color the minds of some.  Just the way the "Russian Collusion" onslaught did before.

Was it an authentic subpoena?  Really?
'Surprised' and 'disappointed': DHS leader Kevin McAleenan rejects Democrats' House subpoena.  Kevin McAleenan, the outgoing leader of the Department of Homeland Security, is rejecting a subpoena by House Democrats to testify before a congressional committee a day before he vacates his position.  Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan's last official day in office is Oct. 31.  However, that did not stop Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, from ordering him to be a witness before his committee Oct. 30 to discuss terrorist threats facing the U.S.  In a sharp response, the outgoing secretary said he would not be attending, and instead focus on an "effective transition" for the next DHS leader.

Kevin McCarthy on Dems ditching Nadler: 'They gave it to Schiff because he's more willing to lie'.  On Friday [10/25/2019], GOP House leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy provided his unvarnished opinion about what Democrats are up to in their impeachment efforts, blasting Reps.  Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff in the process, but especially battering Schiff.  "They took it away from Nadler because they think Nadler's inept," McCarthy told attendees at the Washington Examiner Political Summit.  "They gave it to Schiff because he's more willing to lie, and they put it in Intel so he can hide what's going on."

Everyone knows who the whistleblower is except the American people.  Democrats have decided the whistleblower no longer needs to testify.  We will all be deprived of hearing this "brave" whistleblower's testimony.  How convenient.  The 'courageous' partisan is a coward who doesn't want to show his face and throws bombs from a hiding place.  The reason seems clear to us.  We believe it is because the whistleblower's only purpose was to start another probe.  Hiding the whistleblower and then making him disappear is more of a corrupt process.  The whistleblower has no first-hand knowledge and is, in reality, a leaker.  The second whistleblower has wholly disappeared.

Ex-Trump aide drops bomb on Cuomo:  Whistleblower name no DC secret, says Trump, CNN know.  Former Trump national security aide Fred Fleitz questioned the protections afforded to the CIA whistleblower whose name he claimed is known by Washington elites, including the president.  Fleitz, who served as a Deputy Assistant to President Donald Trump in 2018, argued with CNN's Chris Cuomo about the whistleblower whose complaint about the president's call with the leader of Ukraine sparked the Democrats' impeachment inquiry.  [Video clip]

Three GOP Senators Have Yet to Back Movement to Condemn Democrat Practices.  Three Republican senators have yet to back a resolution to condemn House Democrats' secret, closed-door impeachment inquiry practices.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Judiciary Committee Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced a resolution Thursday night to condemn House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) secretive impeachment inquiry proceedings.  Graham announced Friday [10/25/2019] that the resolution had gained 50 cosponsors across the Senate Republican conference; three senators have yet to cosponsor the resolution sign on.

GOP Has A Choice:  Fight Anti-Trump Coup Effort Or Surrender Government To Democrats.  Corporate media is trying to spin the Ukraine story as if it is something other than what it is.  As if it were legitimate and quickly moving.  Mike Allen of Axios opined of impeachment that "It's remarkable how fast it has gotten off the ground.  You can see how quickly the Ukraine phone call came out of nowhere to become the all-consuming impeachment topic — way faster than the impeachment inquiries into Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton."  Yes, this is a really good talking point if you ignore literally everything that has happened since November 8, 2016. [...] Just as in 2000, the media screeching over Rep. Matt Gaetz and his colleagues fighting the secret efforts — which are literally being led by a man who lied to the public for years, falsely claiming he held evidence of Trump's treasonous collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election — is not an objection to what Gaetz and his colleagues did but anger that some Republicans have the audacity to fight back against what Democrats and the corporate media are doing.

Scalise Asks Media: 'Why Aren't You... Allowed to Go Into an Unclassified Hearing?'.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff says his impeachment inquiry hearing is not classified, so why won't he allow the media to see what's going on in it, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) asked reporters after he attempted to enter Schiff's secretive, closed-door proceeding on Wednesday [10/23/2019].  Both they and members of Congress should be allowed into the hearing, Scalise told reporters:  "As soon as we went into the room, Adam Schiff hadn't even started the hearing — which, by the way, Schiff pointed out himself was not a classified hearing.  So, again, it begs the question: why aren't members of Congress allowed to come into an unclassified hearing dealing with impeachment of the president?  Why aren't you, as the press, allowed to go into an unclassified hearing to find out what's really going on?"

Rep. Gaetz: 'We're Fighting Against an Angry Pack of Rabid Hyenas' to Expose Schiff's Kangaroo Court.  Republicans must get tougher in their push for fairness in Rep. Adam Schiff's (D-Calif.) impeachment inquiry, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said Wednesday [10/23/2019]. [...] Gaetz and other Republicans are demanding transparency and due process — such as allowing the president's counsel to attend and permitting Republicans to call witnesses — in Schiff's impeachment hearing.

A kangaroo court, conducted in secret, requires no testimony at all.
Report: Democrats Say 'Whistleblower's' Testimony No Longer Needed.  House Democrats believe there is sufficient evidence to advance their closed-door impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump without seeking testimony from the so-called "whistleblower," whose complaint initially prompted the probe, according to a Thursday evening [10/24/2019] report.

Fake News Echo Chamber:  New York Times Prints Lies by Adam Schiff Witness Made in Secret Testimony.  The New York Times on Wednesday [10/23/2019] published what would have been a major story on White House National Security Council (NSC) aide Kash Patel — if only it had been true.  The story, which relies on leaks from Democrats conducting the "impeachment inquiry" into President Donald Trump of testimony by one witness who had no firsthand knowledge of the allegations she was making, claims Patel had provided President Trump with documents on Ukraine and met with the president about them.

Steve Scalise: '75% of the Entire Congress' Not Allowed to Enter Schiff's Secret Impeachment Chamber.  [Quoting House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA)]: Our members are really angry about this and want to highlight what's going on.  They want to stop this Soviet-style process.  If they are going to impeach the president, do it in clear view.  Everybody ought to be held accountable.  Don't hide behind one guy, Adam Schiff, and all these other members who want to have a justification for impeaching the president because they don't like results of the 2016 election, are going to fall back on that in secret.  We're all elected members of Congress.  We get held accountable every two years for what we do.  The things we do are done in public, not in secret.  That's got to stop, and we need to continue to highlight it.  People back home know, too.  One of the good things yesterday is that the press actually paid attention for the first time to how bad a hijacked Soviet-style process this is.

Trump Effect:  GOP learns to stand on its hind legs against the left.  After Democrats' breakneck-speed impeachment of President Trump, conducted in secrecy in some dank Capitol basement with only selective leaks intended to shape public opinion, Republicans finally called the gig up and stormed the barricades.  Led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, they startled and surprised the Democrats with a very un-Republican storming of the secret hearings, busting their way in to be allowed in and calling for transparency, not just for themselves, but in the name of the voters.  What were Democrats going to do — holler about decorum? [...] Republicans knew nobody was going to get arrested if they just charged in because Congress is already a law unto itself.  Impeachment is being conducted the sneaky way Democrats like, with no courts to appeal to, and that's emboldened them to make up rules as they go along, ignoring transparency, respect for the voters, and precedent.

Fox News Chump Howard Kurtz Buys Adam Schiff's Selective Leaks.  Fox News' Howard Kurtz not only advertises himself as a newsman, he advertises himself as a newsman's newsman — as a gatekeeper and watcher of newsmen, as an imperious referee whose oh-so-vital job it is to guide the news and its newsmen to a more enlightened place.  But he's really just another hack. [...] Good grief, this is not supposed to be hard.  Schiff is a proven liar and partisan, William Taylor is a proven Never Trumper, there are three [...] years of the Russia Collusion Hoax as precedent, and you have only heard one side of the story — and even that side has come via a selective leak!  On top of that, you have three Republican congressmen claiming Taylor's (third-hand hearsay) testimony completely collapsed when challenged, and Kurtz is falling for it, in public, AGAIN!

As President Trump says, 'where's the whistleblower?'.  It has been nearly a month since legislators released the whistleblower complaint that prompted multiple congressional committees' probes into President Donald Trump and the administration's actions in Ukraine.  In the time since that complaint came to light, it's been rapid-fire witnesses on Capitol Hill — but the whistleblower has remained largely out of the picture.  "Where's the Whistleblower?" Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning [10/23/2019].  Last week, Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence committee, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that they want to make sure to identify other evidence pertinent to the investigation and that, "it may not be necessary to take steps that might reveal the whistleblower's identity to do that."

Why the secrecy, Rep. Schiff?  House Minority Whip Steve Scalise asks an excellent question:  "What is Adam Schiff trying to hide?"  Schiff — the point man for impeachment — could at least try to explain why he's holding all his hearings behind closed doors, with the public getting only leaked, and likely biased, accounts of the testimony.  To dramatize the problem Wednesday [10/23/2019], 30 House Republicans stormed into the room that was to host Schiff's next secret hearing.  The chairman responded by leaving, postponing the testimony of Defense Department official Laura Cooper.  Schiff notes that GOP members of the three committees handling the inquiry are free to attend the hearings, and ask questions.  But he has yet to offer any good reason why they can't also call witnesses, or why nothing is happening in public.

Gordon Sondland Says William Taylor's Most Damning Testimony Never Happened.  U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland disputes the most damning portions of Acting Ukraine Ambassador William Taylor's impeachment testimony.  And here we go again.  Welcome to Russia Collusion 2: The Star Chamber, where Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) holds secret basement impeachment hearings hoping to overturn a presidential election using selective leaks, and our corrupt media play right along.

Jim Jordan defends GOP lawmakers who stormed impeachment inquiry room.  House Freedom Caucus Member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, defended Republican lawmakers who stormed the sensitive compartmented information facility room where Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., was about to hold a Trump impeachment inquiry hearing.  Jordan claimed Wednesday [10/23/2019] on "The Ingraham Angle" that Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has not been transparent as he leads the impeachment inquiry.  "Here's the fundamental question — There's one person who started this whole thing — the whistleblower — in the whistleblower's complaint, bullet point number one, he says over the past four months more than half a dozen U.S. officials gave me the basis for this complaint," Jordan said.

"Explosive" Testimony by Bill Taylor Was 100% GOSSIP.  On Tuesday [10/22/2019], William Taylor gave his 'stunning' testimony that they expect will lead to President Trump's final reckoning.  At least that's what the media suggests.  The testimony was devastating, brutal, damning, explosive, and it was the smoking gun, according to the MSM.  Bill Taylor, the top American diplomat to Ukraine, testified about an alleged quid pro quo involving Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Schiff witness Taylor has ties to Burisma think tank, Soros, McCain leaker.  The star witness in the Schiff Pelosi impeachment farce, Ambassador William Taylor, has long-standing ties and a financial relationship to a Burisma funded think tank, according to Breitbart News investigative reporter Aaron Klein.  Klein also reports that Taylor has a long-standing relationship with David Kramer, the advisor to Senator John McCain who leaked the Steele Dossier to Buzzfeed.  More ominously a Schiff staffer on a Burisma funded trip to Ukraine in August met with Ambassador Taylor to discuss the "whistleblower" complaint.  The Atlantic Society, funded by Burisma, also receives funding from the George Soros Open Society Foundations.  It is a trifecta of corruption undercutting Taylors testimony.

Impeachment Misfire:  William Taylor's Smokeless Gun.  [Scroll down]  William Taylor is, for the time being at least, the acting United States envoy to Ukraine.  The 15-page opening statement he read aloud before taking questions from committee members reveals more about Taylor's role in the metastasizing administrative state than any offense committed by President Trump.  It contains, for example, a considerable amount of kvetching about the way Trump's administration was managing its relationship with the new Zelensky government:  "I found a confusing and unusual arrangement for making U.S. policy towards Ukraine."  Anyone with experience in large bureaucracies will recognize this standard complaint of all such functionaries when faced with change.

Adam Schiff's Intelligence Committee chairmanship is Pelosi's big mistake.  Adam Schiff is just the most recent autocratic bully to grace our national politics in apparent ignorance and disavowal of the law, due process and the Constitution.  He has assembled a star chamber in a pathetic effort to find something, anything, with which to impeach President Trump.  That his own party is supporting him in this wretched endeavor is a sad commentary on the state of the Democrat party; they stick together like fleas on a dog no matter how sick the dog. [...] The mystery is why Republicans have put up with Schiff's nonsense until now.  He's an obvious egomaniac intent upon destroying the President by any means that might work.  His obsession is a blight upon the House, his party and his district.

House Republicans request first impeachment witness:  The whistleblower.  House Republicans, who have been denied the authority to request witnesses in the ongoing impeachment inquiry of President Trump, asked Democrats to summon the anonymous whistleblower to testify publicly.  Republicans leading the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees on Wednesday [10/23/2019] sent a letter to Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff requesting the whistleblower testify in an open session as well as "all individuals he or she relied upon in formulating the complaint."  Republicans wrote to the California Democrat that the whistleblower's accusations have been contradicted by information the three panels have since gathered in closed-door impeachment testimony from several witnesses this month.

House GOPers Cross Schiff's Star Chamber Borders.  Dozens of angry Republicans breached the border of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff's (D-Calif.) secret tribunal on Wednesday.  Schiff who is taking pretend security steps to conceal his pretend impeachment inquiry from public scrutiny has prohibited Republicans from attending his publicity stunt hearing. [...] The witness, senior Pentagon official working on Ukraine Laura Cooper, was the Schiff's blue plate special but the Pelosi junta blocked members of the committee of jurisdiction, the House Armed Service Committee, from attending.

Adam Schiff [is] Desperate to Hide William Taylor Testimony that Would Kill Ukraine Hoax.  The Big Fake News today [10/23/2019] is that Ukraine's top diplomat, William Taylor, delivered a smoking gun to Rep. Adam Schiff's (D-CA) secret impeachment hearings.  That is not hyperbole, those are the headlines — "smoking gun."  So here we are again with Russian Collusion 2 in full swing, with the WALLS CLOSING IN ON TRUMP, and all of it backed by a coordinated news cycle about how President Trump is toast, done, over and out, corrupt and kaput fer realzies this time.

Sorry, Democrats, impeachment doesn't mean you'll carry the White House in 2020.  The New York Times reported recently that Democrats have "resigned themselves to the likelihood that the impeachment proceedings against President Trump will extend into the Christmas season..."  The reason for the extended timetable, we read, is that Democrats want to make the "simplest and most devastating case" possible against the president.  What rot.  Despite the numerous witnesses that have been questioned, the numerous closed-door interviews and purposeful leaks, it is quite clear that Democrats have discovered little beyond the original phone call between President Trump and President Zelensky of Ukraine with which to make their case.

The real 'constitutional crisis' is all on Democrats.  The Constitution requires "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." This means that the "high crimes and misdemeanors" should be on the same level as treason or bribery.  If the Democrats had any real, credible evidence of "high crimes and misdemeanors," they would not be requesting that President Trump assist the House Democrats, nor would they be holding secret hearings.  They would be having open, televised hearings.  There is no reason for President Trump to cooperate with Pelosi's kangaroo court, especially since the supposed basis for the impeachment is President Trump's phone call to Ukraine's President Zelensky.  President Trump released the transcript of the call.  If the call is the basis, then Pelosi and Schiff have the transcript.  The transcript speaks for itself.  If this is an impeachable offense, then Pelosi should hold the vote now to send it to the Senate.  The Dems and media have focused on President Trump, and they are obsessed with finding a crime, which means they have to manufacture a crime because no crime exists.

House Republican:  Schiff 'should not be leading this whole inquiry'.  Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) on Tuesday [10/22/2019] doubled down on his calls for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to be censured and removed from the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry against President Trump.  "Adam Schiff is someone who not only ought to be censured but is someone who certainly should not be leading this whole inquiry," Hice, who is a member on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, told Hill.TV during an appearance on "Rising."  "He lies to the American people, putting words in the mouth of the president of the United States as though these are words that the president said — they were not whatsoever," he added.  Hice's comments come after the Democratic-led House rejected a resolution to censure Schiff in a 218-185 vote.

Leftist heroes of the Week?  Hillary, Schiff, and Mitt.  [Scroll down]  Then there is Adam Schiff, the inept congressman from California whom Pelosi, in a moment of extraordinarily poor judgment, appointed to be head of the House Intelligence Committee.  That powerful position went to his head, already addled by his hatred for Trump.  What he lacks in intellect, honor, and judgment, he makes up for with chutzpah.  There is nothing more ridiculous than a morally and mentally deficient person who believes that others see him as brilliant and powerful.  Schiff and Hillary share this sad trait. [...] Like Hillary, Schiff has become a man who invites mockery.  The Republicans were right to try to censure him.  The Democrats stuck together and voted against censure but surely know he is a terrible liability.

Pelosi Star Chamber impeachment farce blows up in Adam Schiff's face.  The faux Star Chamber impeachment farce against Donald Trump proceeds this week with another flurry of secret hearings, chaired by the man who brought you the Russia Hoax, and now Ukraine, Adam Schiff.  Leaking out of these secret hearings and resulting depositions, despite Schiff's best efforts to conceal it, is an unmistakable truth.  Both State Department officials and political appointees alike are putting the lie to the Democrat narrative.  They are directly contradicting the assertions of Schiff and crazed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi have put aside antiquated constitutional notions of due process.  Namely, the defendant's right to call witnesses, cross-examine testimony, have legal counsel, and be treated with simple fairness.  They are conducting these proceedings in a manner that would make the Stassi East German secret police proud.

Media Attempt to School Republicans Is a Disingenuous Fraud.  [Scroll down]  The president did not "privately" press Ukraine about anything.  He acted in his capacity as president of the United States to ask the Ukrainian president to help investigate Ukraine's role in the effort, undertaken by assets in the U.S. intelligence community and the Clinton campaign, to destroy first candidate Trump and then President Trump.  It's not "conspiracy theory," let alone a "long-debunked" one, it is a fact.  The focus was, and is, on interference in the 2016 election, the concerted effort by deep-state actors to intervene in the peaceful transfer of power and scuttle the election of someone duly elected in a free open and democratic election.

They Aren't Whistleblowers.  They're Double Agents.  The law does not define or even use the term "whistleblower" except in the title, but it does clearly identify the people it's designed to protect.  To be covered by the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, a would-be whistleblower must (1) be an employee of the intelligence community or of an intelligence community contractor, (2) who intends to report to Congress a complaint or information, (3) with respect to an urgent concern, and (4) who follows the disclosure procedures set forth in the act.  The act defines "urgent concern" as a problem, abuse, or deficiency relating to "an intelligence activity within the responsibility of the Director of National Intelligence."  That's the most concrete way we have of defining a "whistleblower."  Those criteria show that this second person is not a whistleblower at all.  For one thing, we have no evidence corroborating the lawyer's assertion that his client is an intelligence official.  For another, there is no indication that he or she intends to submit a complaint to Congress.

Trump might expose whistleblower, Schumer tells Intel officials.  President Donald Trump continued his attacks on the Ukraine whistleblower on Monday, Chuck Schumer is asking the intelligence community what is being done to protect the source from harm.  The Senate Minority leader asked both the acting director of national intelligence and the inspector general on Monday afternoon [10/21/2019] to outline what "specific steps" they are taking to protect the whistleblower.  Schumer said his understanding is the unidentified individual is receiving some security but said that he fears "safety risks may intensify in the event that the whistleblower's identity is disclosed."

Trump might expose whistleblower, Schumer tells Intel officials.  President Donald Trump continued his attacks on the Ukraine whistleblower on Monday, Chuck Schumer is asking the intelligence community what is being done to protect the source from harm.  The Senate Minority leader asked both the acting director of national intelligence and the inspector general on Monday afternoon to outline what "specific steps" they are taking to protect the whistleblower.  Schumer said his understanding is the unidentified individual is receiving some security but said that he fears "safety risks may intensify in the event that the whistleblower's identity is disclosed."

The Editor says...
The so-called whistleblower, if he or she actually exists, is in no physical danger from conservative Republicans.  Political violence in this country comes from the left.  From what I've seen so far, the whistleblower is apparently either a composite of two or more people, or a fictitious character fabricated by the Democrats.

House rejects GOP measure censuring Schiff.  Democrats in the House turned aside a GOP-led privileged resolution to censure House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Monday [10/21/2019]in a straight party-line 218-185 vote.  Republicans and President Trump have increasingly targeted Schiff, a public face of the impeachment effort.  They have taken issue with Schiff's exaggerated account of the details of President Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a hearing in September.  Schiff has defended his remarks as being an intentional parody of Trump's comments.

What Trump asked Ukraine to investigate.  In his phone call with Ukraine's President Zelensky, President Trump asked for a favor.  The favor was not, as was widely reported at the time, to investigate Joe Biden.  Rather, the favor was for Zelensky's government to investigate Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election: [...] There is a certain irony here:  for three years, we have been told that investigating foreign interference in the 2016 election is of paramount importance.  Now, it apparently is an impeachable offense.

Report: Adam Schiff Pressured Witness To Change Story And Attack President Trump.  Hook or crook, that seems to be the operating procedure of the House Democrats' absurd (and illegal) fake impeachment inquiry against President Trump.  Even when it comes to trying to force witnesses to alter and/or make up testimony that they then hope to attack the president with.  This entire affair is a sad and dangerously divisive sham being carried out by radical partisans who care far more about holding onto power than they do about what's best for the American people.

Adam Schiff Pressured Witness to Change His Story and Accuse Trump of Pressuring Ukraine.  Color me shocked, just shocked, that Rep. Adam Schiff, one of the most underhanded, dishonest Congressional members in modern history, would stoop to such levels.  This relates to Kurt Volker's testimony, which turned out to be a major dud for Schiff and his gang.  While Volker, being a former John McCain staffer, was expected to come in and fillet Trump, it turned out that he didn't have much to add to the impeachment fury.  Trump, for whatever problems one might have with him talking about Biden in the first place, simply didn't engage in a quid pro quo, threaten aid, or pressure the Ukrainians.  As I wrote at the time, it was reported that Schiff got so frustrated with how things were going that he sidelined his MSNBC lawyer to question Volker himself.  Now, we know why he did that and we've got the transcript to illustrate what happened.

Seeing Some Trees in the Forest of Babble.  [Scroll down]  Adam Schiff's impeachment fun house continues with no apparent evidence of Trump wrongdoing.  Having found nothing on collusion, he appears to be contending that failing to cooperate with this nonsense is "obstruction" with his secret star chamber proceedings.  With candidates whose platform is socialism, unrestricted abortion, higher taxes, nationalized medicine, open borders, ridiculous restrictions on energy production and use and such, it's questionable how this sideshow will serve them at all in 2020.

Schiff Inquiry is a Kangaroo Court.  The Constitution gives the power of impeachment to the House of Representatives as a body and not just to the House Intelligence Committee of Adam Schiff, who has colluded with an alleged Ukraine whistleblower.  Also in violation of House precedent is the fact that the House Judiciary Committee, which should have jurisdiction, has been written out of the process.  Schiff's record of manipulation and deceit in this impeachment discussion and its purely political motivation has been well documented.  And at least in the cases of Nixon and Clinton, we had real crimes as a predicate:  the Watergate break-in and cover-up and Clinton's lying under oath in a legal proceedings.

Impeachment Witness and Schiff Staffer Meeting in Ukraine Organized by Burisma-Funded Think Tank.  A staffer for House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) attended a meeting in Ukraine last August with the acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine that was organized by a Burisma-funded think tank linked to the Steele dossier, investigative journalist Aaron Klein reported at Breitbart on Thursday [10/17/2019].  The Atlantic Council is a Washington D.C.-based think tank that works in partnership with, and is partially financed by Burisma Holdings, the notoriously corrupt global energy firm connected to Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.  The lucrative partnership is worth as much as $250,000 a year and has paid for "lavish conferences in Monaco," Consortium News reported.

Schiff staffer Tom Eager & Impeachment witness Bill Taylor colluded?  Adam Schiff's staffer Thomas Eager flew to Ukraine on a mission to gain information which may very well have been to dig up impeachment dirt.  The trip was paid for by Burisma, Hunter Biden's recently former company.  During the trip, Eager met with a witness in the impeachment inquiry Ambassador Bill Taylor.  It was Eager's first meeting upon arrival.  That's not suspicious at all. [...] Besides funding from Burisma, the Atlantic Council is also financed by Google Capital, billionaire activist George Soros's Open Society Foundations as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc. and the U.S. State Department.  John McCain's buddy, the man behind the dossier who runs the McCain Institute, David Kramer, also went.

Adam Schiff Flip-Flopped On Whistleblower Testimony After Reports Of Coordination.  House Democrats' top impeachment inquisitor abruptly changed from repeatedly insisting on the testimony of a whistleblower against President Donald Trump to working to prevent it.  The change occurred as soon as it was revealed the complainant had secretly worked with Rep. Adam Schiff's Democratic staff prior to filing his formal complaint on Aug. 12.  At first, Schiff insisted an anti-Trump bureaucrat sharing allegations against the president must share his story with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  But after news broke that Schiff's staff had secretly worked with the whistleblower prior to the complaint being lodged, discussions that the whistleblower failed to mention when specifically asked about them as part of the official whistleblower process, Schiff moved to prevent the testimony.

Calling All Rosa Parks Americans.  The insanity going on before our very eyes regarding the Democrats' and fake news medias' latest campaign to impeach Trump over nonsense is infuriating millions of Americans.  It is the equivalent of Adam Schiff flooding the airwaves with the lie that Trump stole his car and must be impeached for it.  Meanwhile, Schiff's car is parked untouched in his driveway for all the world to see.  Ignoring the truth that Schiff's car was not stolen, the Democrats and fake news media cart out a dozen witnesses (whistleblowers) who claim they saw Trump commit the crime.  This is exactly what is going on with Schiff's outrageous claim that Trump committed impeachable crimes during his phone call with the Ukraine president.

Adam Schiff's Impeachment Witness Tampering.  House Republicans on Monday [10/21/2019] will attempt to force a vote to censure Representative Adam Schiff (D.-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.  The resolution, authored by Rep. Andy Biggs (R.-Ariz.), has 170 Republican co-sponsors.  (It's unclear why the remaining 27 GOP congressmen have not signed on.)  The motion condemns Schiff for actions that "misled the American people, bring disrepute upon the House of Representatives, and make a mockery of the impeachment process, one of this chamber's most solemn constitutional duties."

Democrats now holding 'Soviet-style' impeachment hearings.  Secrecy has always been a pretty effective incubator for corruption, and House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff's sneaky, secretive "hearings" on impeaching the president, literally held in a dank Capitol basement outside public scrutiny, are producing it in abundance.  Schiff's secrecy act thus far not only shuts out the public, but excludes relevant opposition members of Congress from so much as listening to this Schiff show.  Congressmen from the "wrong" party, such as Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, an interested party with a right to be there as a member of the House Judiciary Committee if anyone does, have just about literally been kicked out.

Schiff caught tampering with another witness.  Adam Schiff is at it again, tampering with witnesses.  Yesterday [10/17/2019], he got caught trying to shove words into a witness's mouth, to make him say things he didn't want to say.  I wrote about that [elsew]here.  Today, he's doing something just as bad, getting together with other witnesses and working out a pre-coordinated story for the coming show trial.

Dr. Strangeschiff, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Impeachment.  Who could have guessed that the words of Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria to Joseph Stalin, "Show me the man, and I will show you the crime," would be strangely embodied in American politics and jurisprudence in the 21st century? [...] Bravo, comrade Strangeschiff!  Please, continue the Orange Man trial behind closed doors.  After all, the American people are ecstatic about closed hearings without access by journalists or lawyers.  They are also especially fond of the removal of the president based on an anonymous gossip-monger, or two, or three.

WSJ Columnist Wrecks The Democrats' Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Claims.  The Democrats allege there was quid pro quo, wherein Trump threatened to delay military aid if Zelensky didn't open a corruption probe into Hunter Biden's arrangement with Burisma, an energy company.  Hunter Biden is the son of Joe Biden and has zero experience in the energy sector.  The Trump White House released the call and refuted all of the juicy claims made in this whistleblower report from a reported CIA agent who is a registered Democrat and had worked with a 2020 Democratic candidate.  Oh, and the staff of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, was in contact with this person and knew about the contents of the complaint before it was even filed.  It's another orchestrated hit from the ashes of the Russian collusion myth.  You don't need to be an investigative reporter to see that the Democrats have nothing here.  That's why this entire inquiry is being done in secret.

One person is missing in the Democrats' impeachment inquiry: the whistleblower.  Democratic lawmakers leading an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump have heard days of testimony from a parade of senior government officials.  But they have yet to hear from the whistleblower who sparked the probe.  And it may stay that way.

Nothing Constitutional About An Impeachment Process With Secret Evidence And Secret Witnesses.  The forceful and thorough rebuke that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone delivered to the "impeachment inquiry" will go down in history as the definitive document defeating an attempted coup.  Over the course of eight scathing pages in a letter last week, Cipollone thoroughly deconstructed the absurd "Ukrainegate" narrative that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (Calif.) has tried to construct.

Adam Schiff:  House 'May Not' Vote on Impeachment Inquiry.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) said on Monday that the House "may not" vote to authorize the ongoing impeachment inquiry.  Schiff argued that voting on the investigation would not stop Republican criticism of the process.  His comments came during an interview at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, moderated by New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof.

Democrats using impeachment to consolidate power.  The Democrats are clearly planning something with the illegitimate and ever changing impeachment operation.  While they may think they're clever and strategic, their modus operandi has never been more obvious.  The impeachment inquiry has never been about shady White House leakers or fabricated whistleblowers.  It is entirely about a Legislative Branch under the control and used at the discretion of the Democratic Party.  The end goal is to abolish the separation of powers, or checks and balances, as outlined in the Constitution.

Schiff's Monday 'Witness' Fiona Hill was NOT at WH at Time of July Call — And Worked for George Soros for Six Years!  Former White House adviser Fiona Hill testified before Democrat investigators Monday [10/14/2019] as part of their closed door impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.  The liberal media pushed the line all day that she was a very important Russia adviser — they really propped her up.  This can only mean that they know she is an anti-Trump hack.  Intel expert Tony Shaffer has no idea who she is which says a lot about the Democratic party witness.

Democrats meet to debate (again). Here are five questions that need to be asked.  [#5] Fifth, do the presidential candidates agree that House Democrats should continue to ignore the fair, open process used in the Nixon and Clinton impeachments?  Do they agree that it was OK for Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to totally falsify President Trump's words in his opening statement at a committee hearing, or do they believe it was unacceptably misleading in something as serious as an impeachment investigation?

What are the Democrats hiding about impeachment inquiry?  President Trump and other Republicans have been complaining about Schiff's decision to hold most hearings behind closed doors, yet the Intelligence Committee chief opted for even greater secrecy in last Friday's questioning of Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine — conducting it as a deposition, which makes it a criminal offense for either side to discuss her answers.  That keeps even the rest of the House in the dark about everything except the opening statement Yovanovitch made public.  Schiff is going to even greater lengths when it comes to the whistleblower whose complaint launched this whole... adventure.  He might not even have the guy testify — which would remove any chance for anyone to probe his motives and biases.

The Strategies of Targeting Trump.  Sane observers see impeachment as a travesty without either moral or legal grounds to justify removing an elected president 13 months before the 2020 election.  But sanity means nothing these days, given the hatred of Trump, the volatility of the electorate, and the furious bias of the media.  After all, we are planning to impeach a president on the basis of a "whistleblower" who will not come forward, who is a Democratic partisan, who worked for a current Democratic presidential candidate, who contrary to the whistleblower statutes went first to the Democratic Chairman of what is now the impeachment inquiry committee, Adam Schiff, also chair of the Intelligence Committee, and whose formal complaint was prepped by Democrat-affiliated lawyers.  The whistleblower claims second-hand knowledge from leaking White House Staffers who heard a confidential Trump conversation — a conversation whose transcript was immediately released and was at odds in key places with the whistleblower's second- and third-hand versions.  We are headed for a train wreck.

Anonymous Accusations and Their Dangerous Purveyors.  Anonymous accusations have been regarded with suspicion by honorable leaders for at least two millennia.  Even the Romans rejected the use of such allegations against Christians.  Indeed, the Emperor Trajan explicitly admonished one of his provincial governors against doing so:  "Anonymously posted accusations ought to have no place in any prosecution.  For this is both a dangerous kind of precedent and out of keeping with the spirit of our age."  The Democrats of our era aren't troubled by such scruples, it would seem.  In fact, they have used just such an accusation as the pretext for their "impeachment inquiry," and it is indeed dangerous.  The Democrats don't call it an anonymous accusation, of course.  They have attempted to wrap it in a veneer of legitimacy by calling it a "whistleblower complaint," but this collection of secondhand allegations was obviously produced by some anti-Trump partisan.

Schiff Is Getting Nervous.  House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, stands at the center of the impeachment of the president scam.  And as word gets out about his real game and how he got it — through a spying operation aimed at the White House that he directed, he's starting to get weirdly wobbly.  Two instances just from the weekend are starting to stand out.  First, in stark contrast to the big hullabaloo he made about hearing from the so-called "whistleblower" in Congress ahead of the planned Trump execution, Schiff suddenly doesn't think the whistleblower is so very, very necessary to testify at his hearings at all:  "We don't need the whistleblower who wasn't on the call to tell us what took place during the call," he claimed.

GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz ejected from closed-door impeachment meeting.  A Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee was ejected from a closed-door impeachment hearing.  Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida tried to enter a hearing Monday in which lawmakers from three different committees are interviewing President Trump's former top aide on Russia, Fiona Hill.  Gaetz said he believed he should be allowed to attend the hearing because impeachment inquiries traditionally are handled by the House Judiciary Committee, and he serves on that panel.  But the House parliamentarian told Gaetz he is not allowed to attend the hearing because he does not sit on either the Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, or Oversight panels, which are the official committees conducting the impeachment inquiry.

The Whistleblower and the "Schiff-Biden Dossier".  The Russian collusion fantasy was designed to frame Trump while diverting attention from Hilary Clinton's real collusion with Russia in Uranium One and using the Clinton Foundation as a pay-for- play cash cow as secretary of state. [...] Schiff and Biden are both trying to hide their corruption with another anti-Trump diversion.  Schiff sent a House intel staffer on a trip to Ukraine during August 24-31, just 12 days after receiving the whistleblower complaint.  To do what?  To dig up what?  It is reported the staffer met with the previous president of the Ukraine, a friend of President Obama.

Goalpost Shift:  Schiff Now Says There Doesn't Need To Be A Quid Pro Quo.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said on Sunday that there need not have been a desire for a quid pro quo agreement between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for their phone discussion to lead to the president's impeachment.  Democrats claim Trump was withholding millions in U.S. aid, which he wanted to exchange for Ukranian help investigating the business dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter, who made upwards of a million dollars from a gas company in the country.  Now, Schiff says no quid pro quo is necessary.

Republican Sen. Cramer: 'The New Precedent for Impeachment' Is Dislike of the President.  "There was no quid pro quo" in President Donald Trump's July 25 phone call with the Ukraine president, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday [10/13/2019].  Host Jake Tapper, annoyed, repeatedly pressed Cramer to say that Trump's mention of the Bidens in that phone call was "inappropriate."  Cramer told Tapper that President Trump is "very clear" in expressing his opinions, and Cramer said he doesn't get the sense that Trump was "pushing" the Ukrainians to do something.

Democracy Dies In Darkness:  Adam Schiff Just Banned A GOP Lawmaker From Attending Key Ukrainegate Deposition.  Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., just banned a key Republican lawmaker from the deposition of a former anti-Trump national security official believed to be at the center of ongoing Ukraine proceedings, sources tell The Federalist.  Schiff tossed Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., out of the deposition.  Although the U.S. House of Representatives has not approved a resolution authorizing a formal impeachment investigation, House Democrats have nonetheless insisted that they have full authority to subpoena all documents and testimony they desire, even if specific committees lack the jurisdiction to demand particular information.  Schiff, whom Pelosi tapped to lead her party's anti-Trump impeachment efforts, chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), which only has jurisdiction over the federal government's intelligence agencies and related components.

Schiff: I 'should've been much more clear' about whistleblower contact.  Rep. Adam Schiff Sunday [10/13/2019] conceded he should have "been much more clear" in explaining the whistleblower's contact with his House Intelligence Committee.  The leader of the impeachment probe expressed regret for claiming last month his committee hadn't spoken to the whistleblower who raised concerns about a conversation between President Trump and his counterpart in the Ukraine — when in fact the anonymous official had approached an aide to Schiff for guidance on reporting wrongdoing before filing a complaint.  "I should have been much more clear and I said so the minute it was brought to my attention," Schiff told CBS's "Face the Nation."

Adam Schiff No Longer Requires CIA Gossip for Impeachment Testimony.  First the impeachment strategy needed the anonymous CIA gossiper to testify.  Then it leaked about how HPSCI Chairman Adam Shiff and his Lawfare staff actually created the "gossiper's" silly third-hand complaint to an inspector general; who then changed 'gossip' rules to allow second and third-hand hearsay.  It was all becoming more brutally sketchy, and the impeachment jenga blocks were tenuous at best.  As a result, republicans were going to inquire about how the CIA gossiper constructed his complaint; and then the complaint attorney's started saying the gossiper would not appear in person, but rather write more complaint letters instead of testifying.  The shift from sketchy testimony to "Dear Sir" letters was ridiculous in the extreme.  So what happens next?  Well, this is predictable.  Chairman Adam Schiff now says there will likely be no gossiper testimony because now he doesn't need it.

Did Adam Schiff Just Admit There Was No Quid Pro Quo?  Appearing on CBS's Face The Nation Sunday morning [10/13/2019], House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff essentially conceded that there was no quid pro quo between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by saying "there doesn't need to be a quid pro quo." [...] For weeks now, we've been told that the transcript was evidence of a quid pro quo, and now Adam Schiff is saying "there doesn't need to be a quid pro quo."  Does anyone see this as a huge concession on Schiff's part?

Secret Anti-Trump Tribunals to Continue as Congress Returns.  If the Democrats have such a solid case against the president, why do they have to keep it hidden?  Sure they can cloak themselves in the need to keep the whistle blower anonymous (everyone knows who it is anyway) but these other characters don't need to be kept secret, none of this is classified.  The reason has to be that they don't have the receipts for impeachment and must control the media narrative with selective leaks to curry public support.

Report: Trump's Former Russia Aide Who Will Testify in Impeachment Probe [is] Linked to Christopher Steele.  U.S. President Donald Trump's former top aide on Russia and Europe, Fiona Hill, is expected to appear Monday [10/14/2019] for a private deposition in the House Democrats' impeachment probe.  Hill officially left her post in the National Security Council (NSC) in August after serving about two and a half years.  Hill, however, handed over her responsibilities a week before U.S. President Donald Trump made the call to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25.  She may not know much about the conversation.

Schiff Says Congress May Not Need To Interview Whistleblower After All.  Rep. Adam Schiff said Sunday that the House Intelligence Committee might not need to interview the CIA analyst who filed a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump, a reversal for the Democrat, who has come under fire for failing to disclose the whistleblower's contacts with his office.  Schiff acknowledged he initially supported the whistleblower testifying about the Aug. 12 complaint, which centered on a July 25 phone call Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump, Ukraine, and Justice.  Even if we assume the worst, Trump did nothing wrong in Ukraine, and nothing more than his duty.  Applying pressure on Ukraine to investigate whether a past vice president of the United States engaged in a corrupt bargain that that would potentially have been an impeachable offense is the constitutional duty of anyone who has sworn to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States.  The United States Constitution works on the energy of "ambition made to counter ambition" as James Madison succinctly put it in the Federalist Papers.  This is how freedom works. [...] But beyond any charges of ambition, Trump has a solemn duty as articulated in the oath of office written into the Constitution to: "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."  Clearly, such duty not violated by actions that could potentially protect the people from choosing a corrupt future president.  Indeed, one might argue that it requires such actions.

Producers of the Flailing Impeachment Inquiry.  The leaker, incorrectly tagged a "whistleblower," now doesn't want to testify.  Instead he wants to give his testimony "by letter," presumably from an undisclosed location where no one can test his "testimony."  Ostensibly this is because he fears for his safety.  He is anonymous, so any claim of "death threats" seems unlikely, although as we show below, we do have a rather good idea of his identity.  In any event the very notion is preposterous. [...] The real reason for this backoff, I think, is that once his identity is confirmed, it will be clear this was a stupid setup by amateurs in Congress who wanted to cover their tracks. [...] Hoping to inject life into a dead horse, Democrats announced two witnesses this week, both of which are disgruntled former Trump officials and neither of whom had firsthand knowledge of the phone call that prompted this nonsense.

The case for identifying the whistleblower.  Here are three reasons the whistleblower should be publicly identified:  [#1] The public has a right to know.  There is no higher public concern than a debate that could lead to the president's removal.  Simply put, everything should be public, because the public should be aware of everything that figures into the process.  The whistle has not been blown on a mid-level bureaucrat using a government credit card for personal expenses.  The whistleblower has accused the president of serious wrongdoing, and in doing so, has set off a proceeding of the highest public concern on Capitol Hill. [...] [#2] The whistleblower set the terms of the debate.  In his Aug. 12 complaint, he laid out the accusation that Democrats would later wholly adopt in the effort to remove the president.

Inside the media's relentless crusade to destroy President Trump.  Last week The Washington Post revealed the alarming news that House Democrats were considering having their anonymous "whistleblower" testify from a remote location, and in disguise.  Just as shocking as the details of this plan was the justification the Post ladled on this Democratic effort to hide impeachment information from the public.  It explained, high up in the story, that the cloak-and-dagger approach was merely Democrats expressing "distrust of their GOP colleagues, whom they see as fully invested in defending a president who has attacked the whistleblower's credibility and demanded absolute loyalty from Republicans."

The incredible shrinking whistleblower.  House Democrats are now demanding that the "whistleblower" be allowed to testify by letter.  This marks another step forward in the impeachment narrative.  Yesterday it was from behind a curtain with the voice artificially distorted.  Today it's by letter.  Tomorrow it will be from Elon Musk's Mars colony.  The excuse for this is the evergreen "death threats," but this is even less likely the case than in other instances.  A CIA operative is frightened by anonymous death threats?  Are you sure? [...] Beyond that, there's the fact that this is totally new legal ground — never has something as grave as a presidential impeachment been based on a reed as flimsy as a single whistleblower.  One wrong step and the witness will be spending the rest of his days in one court or another, if not worse.

Convicted ex-CIA official says Ukraine intelligence official was no whistleblower.  A former CIA official who exposed waterboarding practices on war on terror detainees isn't a fan of the anonymous whistleblower in the Ukraine case undergirding the impeachment inquiry of President Trump.  "I don't think he's a whistleblower.  I think he's an anonymous source and there's a big difference," said John Kiriakou, who served two years in prison over the revelations from the Bush administration, becoming the first CIA officer to be convicted of disclosing classified information to a reporter.  "If this whistleblower were truly a whistleblower, he would be happy to testify in open session before the [House] Intelligence Committee or whatever other committee wanted his testimony," Kiriakou told the Washington Examiner.  "He is not an undercover officer.  Therefore there is no reason to hide his identity from the White House or further from the American people."

Washington Examiner:  Two Adam Schiff Staffers Worked with 'Whistleblower' at White House.  Two former National Security Council staffers that worked with the so-called whistleblower in the Obama and Trump administrations now work for House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), according to a report.

Adam Schiff has 2 aides who worked with whistleblower at White House.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff recruited two former National Security Council aides who worked alongside the CIA whistleblower at the NSC during the Obama and Trump administrations, the Washington Examiner has learned.  Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018, was hired in February, while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted his complaint.  The whistleblower was an NSC official who worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and who has expertise in Ukraine, the Washington Examiner has reported.

'Whistleblower' Attorney Was Informant who Scuttled Trump's Nominee for CIA Watchdog.  Andrew Bakaj, the attorney representing the so-called whistleblower at the center of the impeachment movement targeting President Donald Trump, previously was a whistleblower witness whose public allegations scuttled the confirmation of the Trump administration's nominee for CIA inspector general.  Bakaj's original complaint against Trump's nominee was filed with the office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Intelligence Community.  The IG at the time was Chuck McCullough, who is currently working at Bakaj's three attorney law firm representing the so-called whistleblower.

Fake Whistleblower Lawyers Now Retreat From Testimonial Appearance.  A report from the Wall Street Journal outlines a request by lawyers for the fake CIA 'whistleblower' that ultimately spells doom for the entire phony construct of the impeachment construction by anonymous complaint.  The Wall Street Journal is reporting the anonymous gossipers' lawyers are now requesting official impeachment testimony by letters not an in-person appearance.  If this is accurate such a request speaks directly to the abject stupidity of the claim: [...]

Biden Bombshell: 'All of This Is Calling into Question, Was There Coordination' with House Dems?  The news that the so-called whistleblower who objected to the substance of President Donald Trump's July 25 phone call with the Ukraine president has ties to former Vice President Joe Biden elicited sharp reaction on Thursday night [10/10/2019].  Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), appearing on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle," told guest host Jason Chaffetz that this news now is "calling into question" whether or not the whistleblower engaged in "coordination" with House Democrats prior to speaking out about concerns.  Should this person have to testify in person — or not?  "The reason why there's a statue is when they [whistleblowers] become public, they don't get retaliated against," said Meadows.  "To have an anonymous ... it's just not what our government is set up to do," he added.

Who's Afraid Of Whom?  Despite the lack of scrutiny, both from the DOJ and the media, we do know that Hunter Biden was paid $50,000 a month by Ukrainian energy company Burisma for not knowing anything about gas, oil or Ukraine.  And we know from a Ukrainian MP that Joe Biden himself was paid $900,000 by Burisma.  Those are not unproven allegations, as almost every outlet calls them.  And they sure [...] ain't unfounded.  Plus, Trump has every right to ask questions about this, whether in the US or elsewhere.  Where he won't be able to ask questions, if Pelosi and Schiff have their way, is in the fake impeachment inquiry.  There he may not even be able to bring a lawyer.  Who's afraid of whom exactly, and of what?

Is the Whistleblower Tied to Biden?  [Scroll down]  So by the whistleblower's two lawyers own words we learn that their client — their client identified by the New York Times as a CIA official — "has spent their entire government career in apolitical, civil servant positions in the Executive Branch" serving "elected officials."  There are only two elected officials in the "Executive Branch."  That would be, of course, the president and vice president of the United States.  The charge now is that the whistleblower has ties to a current candidate in the 2020 race — and quite obviously there is only one current Democrat candidate who has been one of the two elected officials in the executive branch of government:  former Vice President Joe Biden.

Sen. Tom Cotton Unloads On Intel Community Inspector General: 'Evasive,' 'Insolent,' And 'Obstructive'.  Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., unloaded on the inspector general at the center of the anti-Trump whistleblower kerfuffle, calling him "insolent" and "obstructive" in a scathing letter released on Wednesday afternoon [10/9/2019].  Michael Atkinson, the Intelligence Community Inspector General, or ICIG, is under fire for secretly eliminating a requirement that whistleblowers provide first-hand information to support allegations of wrongdoing.  The ICIG admitted that it secretly changed its rules and forms in response to an error-ridden complaint filed against President Donald Trump that consisted entirely of gossip, rumor, and second-hand information.

How Unreasoned Impeachment Dysfunction Is Trashing Democrats.  [Scroll down]  Their claim that Trump committed an impeachable offense in his conversation with the Ukrainian president when the resident discussed Joe Biden and his son's payoff to enormous personal benefit is not a Trump problem.  It is a Biden problem that Biden must deal with.  Neither the Ukrainian phone call transcript which the White House released, nor the whistleblowers' version, suggest that the president sought a "payoff" for himself or anyone in his administration.  The conversation just involved pursuit of Biden's actions for a big Ukrainian "payoff" for his son, which is the actual violation of law.  The Ukrainian president had just won in a landslide on an anti-corruption platform, the U.S. has an anti-corruption treaty with Ukraine, and Trump is the top law enforcement officer in the United States.  So the phone conversation was more than justified.

Report: Whistleblower Worked with Joe Biden at Obama White House.  Democrat presidential hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden had a "professional" tie to the CIA Whistleblower, according to a report from the Washington Examiner, which includes statements from intelligence officers and former White House officials.  After two separate reports from the New York Times, the Washington Examiner has established the whistleblower "is a career CIA analyst who was detailed to the National Security Council at the White House and has since left."

The Biden Boomerang.  The American people deserve to know not only for whom the whistleblower worked and traveled (the [Washington] Examiner quotes some speculation that the whistleblower might have accompanied Mr. Biden on Air Force Two on one of the veep's six trips to Ukraine).  Americans also deserve to know just who the whistleblower is, so they can make up their own minds about his entanglements.  Of all the scandalous elements bubbling out of Ukraine, the most shocking is the idea that an American president, duly elected and sworn, might be impeached on testimony of an individual whose name is being kept secret — from the President, the Congress, and the American voter.  The Wall Street Journal, in an important editorial issued Wednesday [10/9/2019], calls it "impeachment in secret."

House Democrats subpoena Rick Perry in impeachment inquiry.  House Democrats have subpoenaed Energy Secretary Rick Perry to produce documents related to their impeachment inquiry of President Trump's discussions with Ukraine.  "Recently, public reports have raised questions about any role you may have played in conveying or reinforcing the President's stark message to the Ukrainian President," wrote the three Democratic House committee chairmen leading the impeachment inquiry.  Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, and Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings sent the subpoena to Perry on Thursday [10/10/2019].

Ukraine's president says there was no blackmail in Trump call.  Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday there was no blackmail involved during a telephone call with President Donald Trump that has since set in motion an impeachment inquiry.  Zelensky has come under pressure to shed light on a phone call with Trump in July in which the U.S. president appeared to ask Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential Democratic rival in the 2020 presidential race, and his son Hunter Biden who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company Burisma.  Trump repeatedly tells Zelensky that the U.S. has been "very, very good" to Ukraine, a non-verbatim transcript of the call showed.  Zelensky told him that Ukraine, a country that relies on international financial and defense aid and is vulnerable compared to its powerful Russian neighbor, would work on the investigation.

Joe Biden worked with whistleblower when he was vice president, officials reveal.  The 2020 Democratic candidate with whom the CIA whistleblower had a "professional" tie is Joe Biden, according to intelligence officers and former White House officials.  Lawyers for the whistleblower said he had worked only "in the executive branch."  The Washington Examiner has established that he is a career CIA analyst who was detailed to the National Security Council at the White House and has since left.

Who Does the Whistleblower Know?  This already adds up to a suspicious sum:  second-hand information, factual errors, backdated changes in guidance, questionable sourcing, and a suspiciously back-door — and potentially illegal — contact with the HSPCI majority before the complaint was filed, violating House rules.  Trump's declassification put WB1 in a bad light:  the actual call transcript doesn't appear to fit the WB1 narrative, and the complaint itself appeared to have a lot of political input.  The Democrats' process has some really questionable aspects as well.  First of all, the irregular contacts with WB1 before the complaint was filed, and the violation of House rules by not notifying the Republican minority.  Then secondly, hearing testimony from the ICIG and from former Ambassador Kurt Volker, with the Democrats leaking selected parts of the testimony but refusing to make the testimony public.

Tom Cotton says intelligence watchdog shared extra details about Ukraine whistleblower with House Democrats.  An Intelligence Community watchdog gave preferential treatment to House Democrats conducting an impeachment inquiry into President Trump while rebuffing Senate Republican questions, according to Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.  "I'm dissatisfied, to put it mildly, with your refusal to answer my questions, while more fully briefing the three-ring circus that the House Intelligence Committee has become," Cotton, who sits on the Senate panel overseeing the Intelligence Community, wrote to Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

Whistleblower lawyer acknowledges client had 'contact' with presidential candidates.  Mark Zaid and Andrew Bakaj, the attorneys representing the whistleblower at the center of Democrats' impeachment inquiry, acknowledged in a statement on Wednesday that their client "has come into contact with presidential candidates from both parties" — but insisted that the contact involved the politicians' roles as "elected officials — not as candidates."  The lawyers' abrupt disclosure came shortly after The Washington Examiner reported that Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson told lawmakers the whistleblower worked "or had some type of professional relationship" with one of the Democratic presidential candidates, citing three sources familiar with Atkinson's interview with lawmakers on Friday.

NYT: 'Whistleblower' Redacted Third Fact Suggesting Potential Bias Against Trump.  The New York Times reported that, along with the intelligence officer "whistleblower" being a registered Democrat and having a "professional relationship" with a 2020 Democrat, there remains a third redacted reason critics could accuse him of "potential bias" when submitting his complaint to the Intelligence Community inspector general.  The Washington Examiner's Byron York reported Tuesday [10/8/2019] that the intelligence officer "whistleblower" had a "professional relationship" with a 2020 Democrat presidential candidate and was a registered Democrat, which critics could use to accuse the "whistleblower" of bias against President Donald Trump and his administration.

Fired Anti-Trump Ukrainian Ambassador Was Monitoring Communications of John Solomon and US Journalists Prying into Ukraine!  Last week House Democrats called in fired US Ambassador Marie Yovanovich to testify in their sham impeachment proceedings.  Ambassador Yovanovich is a noted Trump-hater who blocked Ukrainian officials from traveling to the United States to hand over evidence of Obama misconduct during the 2016 election to President Trump.  Yovanovich was US ambassador to Ukraine during the 2016 election when the Ukrainian government was colluding with the DNC and Hillary Campaign to undermine the US presidential election.  Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenkoko told journalists in March that Yovanovitch gave him a "do not prosecute" list during their first meeting.  The president ordered her removal from her post in Ukraine in May 2019.  She was openly anti-Trump.

Sen. Graham Threatens to Call Volker to Testify If House Dems Fail to Release Deposition's Transcripts.  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Wednesday [10/9/2019] demanded that House Democrat leaders release the full transcript of the testimony provided by the impeachment inquiry's first witness, former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker.  Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, threatened to call Volker to testify before his panel if Democrats did not meet his demand.

Solomon Reports:  Ukraine Investigation into Burisma/Biden Was Re-Opened in February 2019.  Journalist John Solomon appeared on Fox News with Sean Hannity last night to drop a considerably important revelation.  According to Solomon's reporting the White House has open-sourced evidence that Ukraine re-opened their investigation into Burisma Holdings and Hunter Biden in February 2019; several months before President Trump spoke to President Zelenskyy.

Anti-Trump Whistleblower Wrote 'Dramatic' Memo After Ukraine Call; Has Ties to 2020 Dem Candidate.  The anti-Trump "whistleblower" is a registered Democrat who reportedly has a significant tie to one of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.  Also, according to Fox News, he wrote a "dramatic" but inaccurate two-page memo on July 26, the day after the Trump-Zelensky phone call.  Immediately following his chat with an unidentified White House official about President Trump's telephone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky," the so-called IC whistleblower wrote what Fox News described as a "dramatic personal memo," alleging that the White House official characterized the call as "crazy" and "frightening."

Try, Try Again!  The #Resistance and Impeachment.  We are now into the second collusion story and (at least) the second attempt at impeachment, now featuring a second "whistleblower" and counting.  If the #Resistance had a motto it would have to be "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."  The Washington establishment and their cheering section wearing pajamas in mom's basements across America have been trying to remove President Trump from office since the moment he was elected.  First they went for a recount in Michigan.  That didn't change the outcome, though it did uncover an inconvenient truth — the number of votes counted in Detroit exceeded the number of registered voters.  Oops.  Losing on the recount front, they tried to bribe, cajole, and threaten presidential electors to ignore the will of the people.

Whistleblower had 'professional' tie to 2020 Democratic candidate.  In an Aug. 26 letter, the Intelligence Community's inspector general, Michael Atkinson, wrote that the anonymous whistleblower who set off the Trump-Ukraine impeachment fight showed "some indicia of an arguable political bias ... in favor of a rival political candidate."  A few weeks later, news reports said the whistleblower's possible bias was that he is a registered Democrat.  That was all. [...] Now, however, there is word of more evidence of possible bias on the whistleblower's part.  Under questioning from Republicans during last Friday's impeachment inquiry interview with Atkinson, the inspector general revealed that the whistleblower's possible bias was not that he was simply a registered Democrat.  It was that he had a significant tie to one of the Democratic presidential candidates currently vying to challenge President Trump in next year's election.

Anti-Trump Whistleblower Attorney Worked Directly For James Clapper.  One of the attorneys representing the anonymous "whistleblowers" accusing President Donald Trump of conspiring with foreign leaders to interfere in the next U.S. presidential election used to report directly to former director of national intelligence James Clapper.  Charles McCullough, an attorney now representing the whistleblowers with Andrew Bakaj, a former staffer for Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, was previously the inspector general of the intelligence community (ICIG) at the height of the Clinton email scandal.

Whistleblower Had 'Professional' Tie to a 2020 Democratic Candidate.  As the impeachment battle continues, a huge bombshell was revealed Tuesday afternoon when Byron York reported at the Washington Examiner that the whistleblower whose complaint resulted in the current impeachment inquiry isn't just a registered Democrat, but had a professional relationship with one of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

Graham: If House Impeaches Trump, 'Here Is What I'm Going to Insist Upon...'  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has subpoena power.  So will he subpoena the whistleblower who complained, based on second-hand information, about President Trump's July 25 phone call with the Ukraine's newly elected president?  "Well, here is what's going to happen," Graham told "Sunday Morning Futures" with Maria Bartiromo:  [Video clip]  ["]If the whistleblower's allegations are turned into an impeachment article, it's imperative that the whistleblower be interviewed in public, under oath and cross-examined.  Nobody in America goes to jail or has anything done to them without confronting their accuser.  So here is what I'm going to insist upon, that the whistleblower, one or two, whatever, they come forward, under oath, testify, so the public can judge their credibility.  If that doesn't happen in the House, I will make sure it happens in the Senate.["]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Rules for Impeachment — 116th Congress.  Sometimes dates are just data-points.  However, sometimes data-points help structure information timelines showing a connection between two seemingly disparate events.  When this happens, dates start to tell a story.  The CIA operative "whistle-blower" letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, and Senate Intel Chair Richard Burr, was on August 12th.  Now here's Speaker Pelosi's modified House rules for impeachment [116th Congress].

Pelosi Democrats Changed House Rules on Impeachment on Day 'Whistleblower' Complaint Filed.  [Scroll down]  We now have the exact changes that were made from the previous version.  The most obvious change is that Pelosi moved the responsibility and control from the entire House of Representatives to the House Judiciary Committee.

Rick Perry says he 'absolutely' asked Trump to call Zelensky — just not about the Bidens.  US Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Monday that he "absolutely" asked President Donald Trump "multiple times" to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but about energy — not the Bidens — and said he is not leaving his role in the administration.  Speaking at a press conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, Perry said that he told Trump that it was in the best interest of the two nations to have discussions regarding energy issues.  His response comes on the heels of reports that Trump told lawmakers Perry urged him to make the July 25 call that has become a key focus of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry into the President.

87 House Republicans Move to Censure Adam Schiff.  Eighty-seven House Republicans have joined the movement to rebuke Rep. Schiff by cosponsoring House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs' (R-AZ) H. Res. 604, according to a list obtained by Breitbart News.  H. Res. 604 would condemn Schiff for retelling a fabricated conversation between Zelensky and Trump.

Trump's exaggerations stand in stark contrast to Democrats' actual lies.  The most brazen falsehoods come from the House Intelligence Committee Chair, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). Schiff promised evidence of Trump colluding with the Russians in 2016 and failed to produce any.  Then in the "official" impeachment inquiry hearings, Schiff opened the "show" with a fabricated account of the discussion between Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.  Worse still, Schiff failed to admit that the "whistleblower" had contact with his staff prior his formal complaint — he actually lied about it.  Schiff has since promised that the CIA agent-cum-whistleblower would testify, and so far, hasn't produced that, either.

More Freshly Manufactured Whistleblowers, Blowing Smoke.  All the distractions manufactured since his election should plainly show everyone that these traitors had a machine in place that they had been fine-tuning for a mobster like Hillary.  But the people got to the polls and ruined that for them.  We elected a man who had made all of his fortune before he got to the Oval Office.  We have yet to hear any explanations from the criminals who have made all of their fortunes since they were given power.

IG could not explain 18-day window between Ukraine call and whistleblower complaint: sources.  Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, in testimony to House lawmakers about the whistleblower complaint on President Trump's controversial phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart, could not explain what accounted for the 18-day window between the July 25 call and the Aug. 12 complaint filing — or when exactly the whistleblower contacted a key Democrat's staff, sources familiar with the testimony told Fox News.  The whistleblower's contact with Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff's staff before filing the complaint in mid-August has prompted renewed scrutiny of Schiff.  The top Democrat previously said "we have not spoken directly to the whistleblower," but his office later revised the claim, saying that Schiff himself "does not know the identity of the whistleblower, and has not met with or spoken with the whistleblower or their counsel" for any reason.

ICIG Atkinson Refuses to Tell Congress Why Whistleblower Rule Changes Were Backdated.  Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG), reportedly refused to answer a key question during testimony before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) on Friday [10/4/2019].  Atkinson met with members of the committee in a closed meeting to to answer questions related to the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.  When asked to explain why his office made changes to its whistleblower forms in September and backdated those changes to August when the anti-Trump "whistleblower" complaint was filed, Atkinson had no answer, Sean Davis reported at the Federalist on Monday.  He also reportedly admitted to lawmakers that the anti-Trump complainant had improperly concealed his previous secret interactions with House Democratic staff prior to submitting the complaint.

Trump administration blocks ambassador from testifying in House impeachment deposition.  The Trump administration ordered the U.S. ambassador to the European Union not to appear at a scheduled Tuesday [10/8/2019] deposition on the Ukraine controversy, triggering a fiery new clash with House Democrats amid their impeachment inquiry.  President Trump dismissed the deposition as a "kangaroo court" as he defended the decision to block Gordon Sondland from appearing at the closed-door session on Capitol Hill.  But the move, first reported by the New York Times, prompted new warnings from Democrats that such acts will be seen as an obstruction of their investigation into the controversy surrounding Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Impeachment is Built on a Trap That Obama Created for Romney.  A whistleblower exposes structural waste, mismanagement and abuse within the civil service, among government contractors and in varied ways within the private sector.  This is meant to protect employees who blow the whistle on misbehavior, not to serve as cover for assorted political agendas.  In the Trump era, whistleblowing and partisan leaks to the media have been conflated by the media.  Partisan government workers, some openly aligning with the "resistance" and participating in partisan groups within government agencies, have sought to undermine administration policies through leaks.  These leaks were in turn meant to generate congressional investigations of cabinet officials.  The impeachment effort against President Trump takes that ongoing tactic to the ultimate extreme.

IC Inspector General Atkinson's Coup.  If there is no requirement for actually having witnessed the actions a "whistleblower" is complaining about, complaints can include anything because the protections afforded a whistleblower provides him not only anonymity but also immunity from any repercussions for making claims that aren't true — absent provable malice, of course.  Schiff recently justified keeping testimony to his sham "impeachment inquiry" secret by saying that according to the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, "The whistleblower has the right in the statute to remain anonymous."  The ability to remain anonymous, coupled with a presumption of purity and innocence, and no firsthand knowledge requirement, means there is zero risk for the scurrilous among the administrative state in propagating outright lies.

Report: House Democrats Weigh Concealing Whistleblower's Identity from Republicans.  House Democrats are considering masking the identity of a partisan CIA officer behind a so-called "whistleblower" complaint regarding President Donald Trump's telephone call with Ukraine from Republicans on Capitol Hill, according to a report.  The Washington Post, citing three officials familiar with the matter, said Monday that Democrats are concerned Republicans will leak the so-called "whistleblower's" identify upon testimony before House and Senate investigators.

House Democrats consider masking identity of whistleblower from Trump's GOP allies in Congress.  House Democrats are weighing extraordinary steps to secure testimony from a whistleblower whose complaint prompted their impeachment inquiry, masking his identity to prevent President Trump's congressional allies from exposing the individual, according to three officials familiar with the deliberations.  The steps under consideration include having the whistleblower testify from a remote location and obscuring the individual's appearance and voice, these officials said.

Report: Dems Consider Hiding Identity of Whistleblower From GOP Lawmakers by Holding Testimony in Remote Location — Changing His Appearance, Voice.  House Democrats are considering hiding the Deep State CIA officer's identity by holding his testimony in a remote location.  The Washington Post reported on Monday [10/7/2019], citing three people familiar with the discussions, that Democrats are going to go to great lengths to conceal the 'whistleblower's' identity by holding his testimony in a remote location and even changing his physical appearance and voice.  The Democrats also want to bar GOP lawmakers from questioning the whistleblower and only allow staffers to question him outside of the Capitol.

Activity and Background of Sketchy IC IG Michael Atkinson Now Under Investigative Spotlight.  Last week the Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, testified behind closed doors to congress.  Atkinson testified about his role in bringing the 'whistle-blower' complaint forward.  The details of that testimony are now starting to surface and thankfully congress is taking a closer look at the sketchy background of Michael Atkinson.

Intel Community IG Stonewalling Congress On Backdated Whistleblower Rule Changes.  In tense testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) on Friday [10/4/2019], the inspector general for federal spy agencies refused to disclose why his office backdated secret changes to key whistleblower forms and rules in the wake of an anti-Trump whistleblower complaint filed in August, sources told The Federalist.  As The Federalist reported and the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) confirmed, the spy watchdog secretly changed its whistleblower forms and internal rules in September to eliminate a requirement that whistleblowers provide first-hand evidence to support any allegations of wrongdoing.  In a press release last week, the ICIG confessed that it changed its rules in response to an anti-Trump complaint filed on August 12.  That complaint, which was declassified and released by President Donald Trump in September, was based entirely on second-hand information, much of which was shown to be false following the declassification and release of a telephone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Anti-Trump Psychodrama 10.0?  [Scroll down]  The complaint file itself hardly seemed the work of a whistleblower.  Instead, in the style of the Steele dossier and the Mueller investigation, it footnoted liberal media sources as verification, cited past legal rulings and cases, and seemed the work of progressive attorneys.  Oddly, whistleblower forms had been mysteriously changed retroactively to legitimize the complainant's charges on the basis of hearsay without the need for a single firsthand example of direct knowledge of wrongdoing.  Adam Schiff, to heighten the drama of the caper, opened a congressional hearing by reading from the transcript of the Trump call to the Ukrainian president.  Only he didn't.  Instead he ad-libbed and recited a fantasy version that contradicted the actual transcript in several places — much as the whistleblower complaint also erred in key ways.  When caught, he pled that he was offering a "parody" for effect.  Schiff's staff, it may well turn out, hand-in-glove coached the "whistleblower" well before he went public.

Anti-Trump Fraternity and NeverTrump Sorority Collude in Impeachment Scam.  The fabricated, make-believe scandal of Donald Trump's telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky began unravelling before the ink was dry on the newspapers reporting it. [...] "The official," intoned our fishwrap of record, "has more direct information about the events than the first whistle-blower, whose complaint that Mr. Trump was using his power to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals touched off an impeachment inquiry."  And just in case the anti-Trump bias of that was not sufficiently patent, the [New York] Times helpfully provided this caption to a photo of the President:  "President Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during a phone call."  Oh really?  In addition to assuming our stupidity and presuming on our patience, the Times apparently believes that we cannot read.  That call in July between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian President was about efforts to influence the 2016 election, not the 2020 election.  How do we know?  President Trump said so in his call.

[The] First Ukraine Whistleblower [is] falling apart, so [the] media [is] inventing a Second Whistleblower.  The New York Times is continuing the tradition of the Russia collusion media frenzy, where every few days a new media "bombshell" was launched, only to be revealed as a dud.  By the time the bombshell was debunked, a new media bombshell was launched, hence a new news cycle. [...] The case for the First "Whistleblower" is falling apart, with the revelation of previously undisclosed pre-complaint communications with Adam Schiff's office, damaging testimony from the recently resigned special envoy to Ukraine, and above all, the release of the complaint itself which demonstrated it was a professionally prepared legal brief and closing argument not a true whistleblower revelation.  Now the media is in search of a new whistleblower, and the NY Times has found one to create another news cycle.  Except this Second Whistleblower has not filed a whistleblower complaint, but is only thinking about it according the the Times' sources.

Trump says Schiff 'helped write' whistleblower complaint, after House panel admits advance knowledge.  A spokesman for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday [10/2/2019] that the whistleblower alleging misconduct in the White House had reached out to Schiff's panel before filing a complaint — prompting President Trump, in an extraordinary afternoon news conference at the White House, to accuse Schiff directly of helping write the document.  Schiff had previously claimed in a televised interview that "we have not spoken directly with the whistleblower."  A Schiff spokesperson seemingly narrowed that claim late Wednesday, telling Fox News that Schiff himself "does not know the identity of the whistleblower, and has not met with or spoken with the whistleblower or their counsel" for any reason.

Whistleblower lawyers are picking off Republicans to remove the President.  The lawyers for the now-multiple whistleblowers actively campaigned for whistleblowers.  Mark Zaid, an activist attorney representing the two or more so-called anonymous whistleblowers, co-founded Whistleblower Aid after President Trump was elected.  The organization is a small nonprofit that advertised all around D.C. actively seeking whistleblowers during the Trump administration.  So, in addition to John Brennan calling his minions to blow the whistle, the whistleblowers have lawyers who actively sought whistleblowers to damage the President.

Ukraine's President: 'I Was Never Pressured' by Trump, 'No Conditions' Were Imposed.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday [10/5/2019] again denied having been put under any pressure by President Trump, during a July phone conversation, to investigate Joe Biden or his son's business dealings in Ukraine — an allegation at the center of the Democratic impeachment inquiry.  In what was billed as his first major interview by non-Ukrainian media since the row erupted, Zelensky was quoted as telling Japan's Kyodo News agency that neither his invitation to the White House nor the sale of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine were made conditional on his willingness to cooperate in the Biden matter.

Hunter Biden's Wild Ukrainian Ride.  Democrats threw the country into turmoil this week announcing their intention to proceed with the impeachment of President Donald Trump.  They just have a few problems.  Chief among them, their narratives keep collapsing.  First, there was the "coverup" both of the call with the President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, and of the whistleblower's report.  Then the White House, in an unprecedented step, released the transcript of the call with the Ukrainian president, and the entirety of the whistleblower's report.

Attorney for Impeachment 'Whistleblowers' Actively Sought Trump Admin Informants.  Mark Zaid, the activist attorney representing the so-called whistleblower at the center of the impeachment movement targeting President Donald Trump, says he is representing a second so-called whistleblower who spoke to the Intelligence Community's inspector general about Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian president.  Missing from the avalanche of news media coverage about Zaid's two anonymous clients rocking the nation's capital is that at the beginning of Trump's presidency Zaid co-founded Whistleblower Aid, a small nonprofit that blasted advertisements around D.C. actively seeking whistleblowers during the Trump administration.

The Madness of Progressive Projection.  In truth, the "whistleblower" is no such thing.  He or she is a disgruntled and partisan intelligence bureaucrat, who violated the whistleblower statutes by first going to Rep. Adam Schiff's (D.-Calif.) staff on the House Intelligence Committee to get help in translating his narrative into Mueller/Steele dossier legalese, and in strategizing the timing of his accusations.  Expect a series of John Brennan-surrogate intelligence agency whistleblowers to follow once it is established that now hearsay is admissible and there is no downside to violating the statutes by first conferring with Adam Schiff's staff.

The Democrats' Modus Operandi.  It turns out that the House Intelligence Committee chairman knew about the whistleblower before any whistle was blown — and he sat on it.  That is starting to look like the Democrats' modus operandi.  The idea would be to more effectively set up the President.  We gained a classic glimpse of the m.o. during the confirmation hearing of Justice Kavanaugh.  That's when Senator Dianne Feinstein sat on a letter from Christine Blasey Ford alleging the future justice had behaved inappropriately at a party two generations earlier.  The letter reached the Coast Democrat on July 30, 2018.  She sat on it, claiming she wanted to respect the accuser's confidentiality.

If hearsay is the new standard, the whistleblowers will be coming out of the woodwork.
Deep State Attorney linked to Schumer and Hillary Confirms he Is Now Representing "Multiple" Whistleblowers in Connection to July 25 Trump Call.  As was reported in September[,] the Deep State "whistleblower" who spoke out on President Trump's call to the Ukrainian President in July, but who was not on the call, hired a former Schumer and Hillary Clinton staffer, Andrew Bakaj to represent him/her.  Andrew Bakaj has deep ties with DC Democrats.  He donated to Joe Biden's presidential campaign.  His first "whistleblower" client went to Adam Schiff's office to plot strategy before he filed his complaint.  The first "whistleblower" is a partisan CIA operative who was spying on President Trump in the White House.  His complaints fell apart after President Trump released his phone transcript with the Ukrainian president and after former envoy Kurt Volker's testimony on Thursday [10/3/2019].

Trump Knows Ukraine Owns the Democrats.  [Scroll down]  The Democrats claim that Trump attempted to garner a bribe from Ukraine; that he explicitly wanted damaging information on Joe Biden heading into the 2020 presidential campaign in exchange for giving the $400 million (plus the lethal aid) to Ukraine.  This does not appear to be the case at all.  What's more, the recently released encrypted text messages between Kurt Volker, Bill Taylor, and Gordon Sondland indicate that the president and his team were less interested in damaging Joe Biden's presidential campaign than they were in getting to the bottom of potential Ukrainian malfeasance (while using U.S. foreign aid as leverage to get Ukraine to shape up its behavior). And, it should be noted here, the pursuit of corruption is a legitimate function of the U.S. government — and since Donald Trump is the chief executive, he is well within his rights to inquire about potential corruption in foreign countries with the leaders of those countries.

Kevin McCarthy:  Pelosi Must Sideline Schiff Over Lies, Consider Him 'Fact Witness.  House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should formally sideline House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) from the Democrats' "impeachment inquiry" of President Donald Trump.  McCarthy explained Schiff should now be considered a "fact witness" in the broader investigation of these matters given his and his staff's role in coordinating with the whistleblower over the summer.

New Testimony Shows Schiff's First Impeachment Witness 'Put a Dagger' in His Lies, Narrative on Ukraine.  Yesterday [10/3/2019], former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker testified behind closed doors and in front of the House Intelligence Committee for over nine hours.  As reported, his testimony did not turn out to be what Democrats were looking for in terms of pushing their "impeachment inquiry" narrative forward.  According to Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin, Volker's testimony "drove a dagger" in the argument that President Trump engaged in a quid pro quo with Ukraine by threatening to withhold military aid unless former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, were investigated.

'Nonpartisan' Group Aiding Lawyers for 'Whistleblower' Tied to Democrats, Far-Left Organizations.  One of the co-founders of Whistleblower Aid previously worked at several liberal activist organizations financed by billionaire activist and Democratic Party megadonor George Soros.  The other co-founder currently leads a separate organization that boasts on its four-person advisory board John Podesta, who led Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, served as Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton and founded the Soros-funded Center for American Progress pushing a progressive agenda.  Working with the so-called DC whistleblower's lawyers, Whistleblower Aid set up a GoFundMe page seeking to raise funds for the purported whistleblower's defense.

Trey Gowdy:  Adam Schiff now a 'fact witness,' and GOP should call on him to testify about whistleblower.  Former Rep. Trey Gowdy said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has made himself a "fact witness" for how he dealt with a whistleblower whose complaint raised concerns about whether President Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate a political rival.  The California Democrat is facing criticism for making misleading statements about what he knew of the whistleblower after it was revealed he learned details about the unnamed CIA official's complaint before it was formally filed and is creating doubt about whether he was the right choice to lead the Democrats' impeachment inquiry.

Challenging Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu.  At a September 26 hearing, Schiff, knowing Americans were watching on TV, read out an invented summary of a transcript of a July 25 telephone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an attempt to portray the U.S. president as a ruthless mafia don.  In reality, Trump made no threats during the call.  He told Zelensky that he "heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair."  He said former federal prosecutor and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr would call him.  Barr, it so happens, is conducting an investigation that deals with the 2016 U.S. election and Ukraine's connection to it.

Impeachment #2 May Have Jumped the Shark.  Two stories today [10/2/2019] undermine the rush to impeach President Trump on the Ukraine matter.  The first concerns a difficult-to-understand detail in one of the early stories on the matter by Kenneth Vogel of the New York Times.  Vogel reported that the Ukrainians were unaware of the suspension of U.S. military aid when Presidents Trump and Zelensky had their phone call on July 25.  That detail has now been confirmed by Christopher Miller, an expert reporter in Kyiv, in a Buzzfeed dispatch:  "The Ukrainian government didn't know it was being held up in Washington by Trump, according to the two Ukrainian officials.  Nearly a month after the call — which Zelensky has since described as 'good' and Trump has called 'perfect' — the Ukrainian government was left stumped when they received word that the aid had in fact been suspended."  Obviously, if Zelensky did not know about the aid suspension, then the entire notion that the call was drenched in Trumpian mob-boss menace is wrong.

Sorry, Dems:  It's OK to ask for foreign help in a criminal justice investigation.  President Trump's critics are now complaining that he asked the Australian prime minister to cooperate with the Justice Department's investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe and that Attorney General William Barr has traveled overseas to ask foreign intelligence officials to cooperate with that investigation.  The New York Times called it another example of "the president using high-level diplomacy to advance his personal political interests."  No, it's not.  The president's critics are conflating two different things:  the investigation by Trump's private lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, into Hunter Biden's business dealings, and the inquiry by US Attorney John Durham into the counterintelligence investigation directed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.  The former is opposition research activity; the latter is a criminal justice matter.

IRS Whistleblower: Is This The Next Front In The Democrats' War on Trump?  Is this the next front in the Left's impeachment push against Trump?  Right now, the president is under siege by Democrats because he had a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July.  The juicy story is that Trump, like a mob boss, threatened to withhold military aid unless Zelensky opened a probe into possible corruption committed by Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of an energy company.  Hunter has zero experience in the energy sector.  The allegation, and it's not far-fetched, is that he was there selling access — all of this occurred under the Obama presidency.  The Trump White House released the transcripts and debunked the quid pro quo claims, but Democrats decided to launch an impeachment inquiry anyway without reading the whistleblower complaint reportedly from a CIA agent, which started this whole circus.

Vince Foster, Klaus Eberwein, Shawn Lucas, Victor Thorn, and Jeffrey Epstein are unavailable for comment.
Nancy Pelosi: 'I'm Very Worried About the Security of the Whistleblower'.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Thursday that she is "very worried" about the security of the so-called "whistleblower."  The speaker, who caved to the far-left flank of her caucus and announced an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, said on Thursday that she is "very worried" about the security of the "whistleblower," whose second-hand claims sparked the partisan impeachment effort.

Sketchy Inspector General Michael Atkinson Admits 'Whistle-blower' Never Informed Him of Contact With Schiff Committee.  The inspector general for the Intelligence Community is Michael Atkinson.  He is very sketchy.  Atkinson was previously legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD during the 'stop-Trump' tenure of John Carlin and Mary McCord.  As a result, Atkinson was a participant in the weaponizing of the DOJ-NSD via FISA abuse, along with NSA database exploitation and tenuous FARA legal theories used to target political opposition.  In short, Atkinson seems dirty.  At the very least he hangs around dirty characters.

Report: 'Whistleblower' Never Disclosed Contact with House Intel Panel to Inspector General.  The partisan CIA officer behind a so-called "whistleblower" complaint about President Donald Trump's telephone call with the leader of Ukraine reportedly did not disclose his communications with a House Intelligence Committee staffer to the Intelligence Community inspector general.  According to Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge, inspector general Michael Atkinson told lawmakers that he had "no knowledge" of the officer's contacts with the House Intel panel aide.  This week, a New York Times report revealed that the officer and staff member first discussed the allegations against the president before the inspector general received the complaint.

Adam Schiff gets 4 'Pinocchios' from Wa-Po for lie about whistleblower.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff was awarded four "Pinocchios" by The Washington Post for his comments about contact with the whistleblower.  The California Democrat claimed in an interview last month that the members of his panel "have not spoken directly" with the person who filed the complaint about President Trump's call with the leader of Ukraine which has now led to an impeachment inquiry by Democrats.  The Washington Post fact-checker declared Schiff's statement was "flat-out false."  "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower.  We would like to," Schiff said on MSNBC last month when asked about any interaction with the anonymous person.

'Whistleblower' Losing its Meaning Due to Impeachment Madness.  I reflect on my own experience as a White House whistleblower.  I vividly recall the enormous feeling of helplessness coupled with something far more powerful.  It was the sense of physically being compelled to act, that the element of choice had been stripped away.  It was enough to put everything on the line.  And it is something all bona fide whistleblowers have in common.  It's a lonely place to be, a frightening place, too.  Yet today's White House whistleblower has had a different experience from all the rest.  Allies appear to have been lined up to assist, the skids were greased to move forward, the premise for blowing the whistle at all a concocted and rather flimsy one.  It strains credulity already and the story has not yet been fully told.

Testimony From Ukraine Envoy Kurt Volker Directly Contradicts Democrats' Impeachment Narrative.  Congressional testimony from the former top American envoy to Ukraine directly contradicts the impeachment narrative offered by congressional Democrats and their media allies.  Ambassador Kurt Volker, who served for two years as the top U.S. diplomatic envoy to Ukraine, testified on Thursday [10/3/2019] that he was never aware of and never took part in any effort to push the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden or his son Hunter.  He also stressed that the interactions between Giuliani and Ukrainian officials were facilitated not to find dirt on Biden, but to assuage concerns that the incoming Ukrainian government would not be able to get a handle on corruption within the country.

IC IG Michael Atkinson Reveals Whistleblower Never Told Inspector General He Contacted Schiff's Committee.  Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson appeared on Capitol Hill Friday for his second closed-door meeting with members of the House Intelligence Committee.  Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge reported that Mr. Atkinson revealed to lawmakers Friday that the 'whistleblower' never told him that he met with Adam Schiff's committee staffers.  Via Fox News Congress reporter Chad Pergram:  Colleague Catherine Herridge rpts ICIG Atkinson told lawmakers the whistleblower did not disclose to the ICI that he contacted Schiff's committee.  Atkinson said the whistleblower volunteered he was a registered Democrat[.]

John Ratcliffe:  Adam Schiff and HPSCI Committee Majority Must be Disqualified from Investigation.  House Judiciary Rep. John Ratcliffe rightly calls-out the unprecedented sketchy nature of a unilateral impeachment process.  The CIA 'whistle-blower' is a material witness in the intelligence committee investigation.  The witness had undisclosed contact with the House intelligence committee prior to filing a complaint.  The Intelligence Community Inspector General did not know about the whistle-blower contact with the committee.  This sketchy assembly of activity makes the HPSCI a fact-witness to their impeachment investigation; a constructed conflict that cannot be allowed.

When the Story Is Written, the Whistleblower Will Just Be an Afterthought.  Either the whistleblower's claims are accurate, or they aren't.  Impeachment will hinge upon whether President Trump's actions strike lawmakers as an effort to effectively blackmail Ukraine into finding dirt on Joe Biden, or whether it's just Trump being Trump, wanting the facts on Biden strong-arming a foreign government to fire a prosecutor who might have been investigating a company that employed his son.  The vast majority of lawmakers' conclusions on this will just happen to align with their partisan affiliations.  The whistleblower might be a really partisan individual, or the whistleblower might have no strong political views and simply saw the president as crossing an ethical line in a way too egregious to remain silent.  The motive of the accuser doesn't make the accusation any more or less true or false.

Schiff Collusion With Whistleblower [is] the Last Straw.  Perhaps House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), would like to produce a transcript of his secret meeting with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson at the Aspen Security Forum in July 2018. [...] Like Schiff's Russian collusion delusion, Ukrainegate, to coin a phrase, is a made up scandal involving a questionable document with unverifiable or incorrect statements and allegations, chock-full of made up stuff and hearsay.  Like the Steele dossier produced through Fusion GPS, the Ukraine "whistleblower's" letter to the inspector general is largely unverifiable hearsay or outright fiction.  Written by a CIA mole assigned to the White House who was not in the room or on the call, it is designed for one purpose: to bring down a sitting and duly elected president.  Now we find that Adam Schiff and committee staff had a copy of the letters before it was submitted to the I.G. On Wednesday, the New York Times published a report that Schiff "learned about the outlines of a C.I.A. officer's concerns that President Trump had abused his power days before the officer filed a whistle-blower complaint."

45 Republicans Have Signed On to Condemn Adam Schiff.  The movement to condemn House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff for making up a phone conversation President Trump never had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just got stronger, as 45 Republicans have signed on.

GOP Lawmakers Slam Democrats After Ukraine Envoy Kurt Volker's Testimony to Congress Is A Bust.  Former Ukrainian envoy Kurt Volker testified Thursday morning [10/3/2019] before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees.  Volker resigned from his post last week.  Kurt Volker's name appeared in a partisan CIA "whistleblower's" complaint against President Donald Trump's dealings with the Ukraine. [...] On Thursday during a break several Republicans told reporters that Ambassdor Volker has said nothing that coincides with the Democrat Party's latest impeachment accusations.

GOP House Intel Committee members speak out against chairman Adam Schiff.  The Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee are not holding back after it was revealed chairman Adam Schiff may have gone over their heads with the whistleblower complaint.  Congressman Devin Nunes, who serves as the ranking member, vented his frustrations Wednesday.  He said, "in light of this news, its hard to view impeachment as anything aside from an orchestrated farce."

President Trump Is Absolutely Right To Assume Federal Agencies Are Against Him.  The real scandal of the Ukrainian debacle that continues to lead every cable broadcast is that, once again, the actions of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats have deeply affected an election in United States.  In recent days, it has come out not only that the intelligence community inspector general changed policy about secondhand information to fit this particular whistleblower complaint, but also that the whistleblower him- or herself was working with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and House Democrats before filing the complaint.

Jim Jordan — Volker Hearing:  "Nothing Supported Adam Schiff and Impeachment Narrative".  Judiciary member and ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Jim Jordan, outlined the House Intelligence Committee testimony today from Kurt Volker, the former State Department Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations.  "Nothing said today supported Adam Schiff and the democrats' impeachment narrative.  Nothing"

'Possible political bias' of whistleblower mentioned by inspector general was that he is a registered Democrat.  The mention of "possible political bias" in the intelligence community inspector general report was included because the whistleblower is a registered Democrat.  The fact that the whistleblower is registered as such did not undermine the credibility of his complaint, according to Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

Adam Schiff to Kevin McCarthy on Sept. 23: 'I Don't Know What's in the Whistleblower Report'.  "I don't know what's in the whistleblower report.  But, I intend to find out," House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on September 23, 2019.  But, a New York Times story published this week reports that Schiff had, indeed, been briefed on the general content of the whistleblower's complaint before that time.

Whistle-blower is a registered Democrat, new leak reveals.  CNN reported Thursday [10/3/2019] on the unnamed CIA officer's voter registration record.  'A source familiar with the whistle-blower investigation tells me that the political bias referred to by the Intelligence Community Inspector General is that the whistleblower is a registered Democrat,' CNNs Jake Tapper said on the air.  'That is the bias.'  He also said the inspector general concluded that the whistle-blower's political offiliation didn't change the facts in his complaint.

The Anesthetic Effect of Ukrainegate.  Wary political commentators on the Right have noted that the ginned up outrage over President Trump's call with the Ukranian president serves two political purposes:  One, to supply the impeachment goods that Special Counsel Robert Mueller could not deliver and two, to obfuscate the ongoing investigations led by Attorney General William Barr into how the Obama White House unleashed the country's most powerful government agencies against the Trump presidential campaign in 2016.  There is, however, a third motive behind the nonstop cacophony over Trump's call and subsequent "whistleblower" report:  To anesthetize the American public when the verdicts of Barr's inquiries, currently underway by multiple authorities at the Justice Department, are rendered.

The Walls Really are Closing In On the Elite.  A two-year investigation by Robert Mueller and his massive staff could not induce Pelosi to move on impeachment, but the whistleblower report could and did?  The report itself is nothing more than a motley collection of hearsay and publicly available media reports.  In short order we learned that the intelligence community had secretly altered its whistleblower rules to allow for complaints based on hearsay only days before this report was submitted.

The Whistleblower, Impeachment, and New York's Orwellian Speech Policy.  New York City is banning the term "illegal alien" — and what's more, it says it'll fine you up to a quarter-million dollars if you say it.  Today, we'll discuss that situation with Heritage Foundation legal expert Hans von Spakovsky.  [Podcast]

Corrupt Congressional Dems Ask Trump State Dept for Ukrainian Docs — Get Crooked Hillary and Biden Docs Instead!.  Yesterday [10/1/2019], Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced he would refuse to allow State Department officials to testify before the Congressional committees on impeachment. [...] Today the State Department sent over the documents and announced they would brief Congress on their findings.  But the documents weren't what the Democrats were expecting!  The Trump administration sent over documents on Hillary Clinton's collusion with Ukraine in the 2016 election and the Biden Family's massive pay-for-play with the Ukrainian regime!

Whistleblower did not follow normal protocol; may have been illegal.  Precedent for filing a whistleblower complaint requires that the complainant is a first-hand witness to the alleged offense or suspected wrongdoing.  Criteria that were changed in an amended policy procedure, giving the whistleblower the option of being either a firsthand or secondhand (or more) witness.  In normal legalize, testimony from someone who was not a firsthand witness is known as hearsay.  The so-called whistleblower complaint filed against the Trump administration gives the appearance of impropriety on many fronts.

Schiff's Deep State Collusion.  Leftist conspiracy-monger Adam Schiff was aware of select details of the Ukraine-Biden allegations against President Donald Trump before a lying CIA snitch reportedly involved in the case filed a complaint under a whistleblower law, according to the intermittently reliable New York Times.  It has been widely reported that the CIA official's complaint was based on a July 25 telephone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the said stoolie somehow learned about.  Rep. Schiff is the California Democrat, now the laughably unqualified chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, a Trump-hater who spent the last three years smearing anyone who doubts the existence of his Trump-Russia electoral collusion conspiracy theory as traitors and agents of the Russian government while apparently leaking secret details of congressional investigations to his friends at CNN and elsewhere in the media at every opportunity.

Impeachment nonsense:  Pelosi and Schiff are madly wagging the dog.  Robert Mueller's $40M "investigation" into Trump's supposed Russian collusion was in the end a cover-up operation that came up with nothing with which to charge Trump, let alone impeach him.  Rep. Jerry Nadler's committee opened an inquiry to see if the president had committed any impeachable crimes, which was ultimately a fishing expedition.  Then the oleaginous Rep. Adam Schiff came up with a new plan of attack.  Over the span of a few weeks, he crafted a complaint behind the scenes with a partisan CIA spy and leaker who has an obvious axe to grind.  They called this spy a "whistleblower," then changed the rules that previously required a whistleblower to have firsthand knowledge about the nature of his complaint before releasing his statement of charges to Congress.  This person, "not a direct witness," had no such knowledge of President Trump's phone calls, and his complaint is mostly hearsay and rumor.

Schiff Now Says He Should Have Been Much More Clear About Whistleblower Contacting Democrat Staffer.  "Have you heard from the whistleblower?" MSNBC contributor Sam Stein asked House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on September 17, nine days before the complaint was released to the public.  "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower," Schiff responded at the time, never mentioning that one of his committee staffers had directly spoken to the whistleblower — and that the staffer "shared some of what the [whistleblower] conveyed" with Schiff, according to the New York Times.  The New York Times says the staffer referred the whistleblower to a (Democrat-connected) attorney to help him file a formal complaint with the intelligence community inspector general.

Rudy Giuliani Rips Chairman Schiff and Committee Staff for Manufacturing Impeachment Evidence.  President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani appears for a discussion with Lou Dobbs to outline how Adam Schiff was working in concert with left-wing political allies to create the CIA whistle-blower complaint as evidence for their impeachment agenda:  [Video clip]

Lawmakers Erupt After Report Reveals Schiff Knew of Whistleblower Complaint Before Filing.  Republican congressional leaders accused Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Democrats of rigging the impeachment scheme after news broke that Schiff was in contact with the whistleblower before the complaint against President Donald Trump was filed.  The report from the New York Times claimed that Schiff received an "early account by the future whistleblower" days before the person filed the complaint accusing Trump of presidential misconduct.

Intelligence chiefs altered more than just the rules about firsthand knowledge to file a whistleblower report.  We already know that the Intelligence Community's inspector general (ICIG) office mysteriously changed its rules for anyone filing a whistleblower complaint to not needing to have one's information firsthand just before the famed whistleblower filed his report sometime around August.  Now it comes to light that this same intelligence committee inspector general's office changed its rules after the whistleblower complaint was filed, not before.  And they changed the rules to accommodate the embittered anti-Trump intelligence official, Davis reported.

The Conspiracies are Broad and Deep.  [Scroll down]  Beyond the risibility of Pelosi's concern for the Constitution, I refused to accept their premise that Trump was acting solely to benefit his 2020 election chances.  He was, instead, I argued, on a mission to discover the origins of the now-debunked Russiagate Operation as well as rooting out the Obama Administration's corrupt past involvement in Ukrainian affairs.  And this really goes to the heart of the American divide on Operation Ukraine.  For those on the Political Left, who view Trump as a self-seeking traitor, this latest effort is merely the continuation of Operation Russiagate.  For Trump supporters, however, the transcript of Trump's phone call revealed a seemingly earnest effort to fulfill his 2016 campaign promises of draining the swamp and making America great again.  The American rift is, indeed, very real and the breach is growing wider.

There's Evidence Obama Colluded With Ukraine.  On Monday night [9/30/2019] with Sean Hannity, [Rudy] Giuliana [sic] said there's significant evidence the Obama White House ordered Democrats to go in cahoots with Ukraine in order to get dirt on then-candidate Trump:  "The reason why the President of the United States had an obligation to ask the president of Ukraine to follow up on these allegations because there is substantial — I don't want to exaggerate it but pretty close to overwhelming evidence, including a finding by a Ukrainian court that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats cooperated with Ukrainians with the order coming directly from the White Hous [sic] ...to dig up dirt on her political opponent, and they did."  So it's a Ukrainian extravaganza.  One person who surely isn't enjoying the festivities:  Joe Biden.  The Dems' obsession is cookin' his goose.

Media Admit Adam Schiff Lied, But You Are A Hack If You Care.  If Donald Trump does nothing else from this point forward, his exposing of the legacy media will have still been worth it all.  The latest evidence of that comes courtesy the news that Rep. Adam Schiff lied about having prior contact with the whistle-blower in the Trump-Ukraine matter.  Originally, Schiff claimed "we" (i.e.  Congress and his staff) had no contact.  That never added up because Schiff tweeted out some of the contents of the complaint weeks before he was supposed to know about.  Now we know why.  The whistle-blower went to a Congressional aide first, who told Schiff of the issue.  That led to legal advice being passed back down the chain.  Whether there was further coordination in actually formulating the complaint, we don't know yet (you can bet that happened though).  What we do know is that Schiff lied and that he did have advanced knowledge to help him strategically roll all this nonsense out.

The case of the so-called Ukraine whistleblower scandal.  Make no mistake, part of the goal of the Democrats ever since Donald Trump was elected by your votes to become president of the United States has been to exhaust and punish you.  The president has always been just a proxy for you, the actual focus of the Democrats' rage and contempt.  It's not surprising the Democrats now have resorted to what appears to be another hoax, designed with the same template as their "Russia dossier" debacle.  In the case of the so-called Ukraine whistleblower scandal, it appears they have fabricated a web of complaints and accusations attempting to turn the normal duties of the president into crimes so they can remove him from office.  In other words, the soft coup continues.

The Party of 'Impeach!'  The Democrats' purported outrage about President Donald Trump's phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky might be taken seriously by the Republicans were it not for the Democrats' drive to oust Trump from the moment he won the presidency.  CNN's Van Jones, with zero proof, attributed Trump's victory to "whitelash." Trump received 57% of the white vote, actually a lower percentage of the white vote than the 59% received by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate in 2012.  In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama received a greater percentage of the white vote than John Kerry did four years earlier.  Obama also received 95% of the black vote.  None dared call it "blacklash."

Schiff's lies about no advance knowledge of Whistleblower complaint make the impeachment efforts look like a conspiracy.  When wrongdoing by Democrats is discussed, the media like to call charges against them "conspiracy theories," implying that crazed partisans are imagining phony connections where none in fact exist.  But when people with no visible connection with each other work together in secret to accomplish some goal and then lie about their collaboration, the dreaded word "conspiracy" becomes completely appropriate.  And that's what the charges that Nancy Pelosi tasked Adam Schiff's House Intelligence Committee (and 5 other House committees) with investigating, with an eye toward impeaching President Trump, now look like.  A conspiracy including one or more Deep State operatives within the White House who acted as spies on a confidential conversation between two heads of state, and a separate intelligence officer who composed a "whistleblower" complaint with the help of Schiff's staffers and a lawyer or lawyers unknown.

So the whistleblower went to Adam Schiff first, not the designated intelligence authorities?  Remember when the same was said of then-Private Bradley Manning, who leaked troves of military secrets to Wikileaks before being packed off to Leavenworth?  He should have gone through channels...  The idea, of course, is that these people shouldn't have been addressing the issues they claimed to have motivated them to do their dirty betrayals the way they did, there were plenty of internal procedures to work with and they didn't bother.  Turns out we got another one, according to a report from Sean Davis the Federalist, citing reporting at the New York Times -- the impeachment 'whistleblower' -- who seems to have gone to congressional Democrats first, not the intelligence inspector general (IGIC), or for that matter two other agencies which dismissed his or her secondhand complaints out of hand.

Fresh trouble for Democrats' Trump-Ukraine case.  News that Washington didn't tell Ukraine it was delaying aid until a month after President Trump's phone call to its leader punches a gaping hole in Democrats' impeachment case.  On Wednesday [10/2/2019], BuzzFeed reported that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky believed $391 million in military funding was already headed to Kiev when he chatted with Trump in August.  Dems charge the prez held up the money to pressure Zelensky to probe Joe Biden and his son.  Hard to see how that works when Zelensky didn't know about the aid holdup.  This follows the awkward fact that several of the whistleblower's other claims about that call aren't borne out by the transcript.

Adam Schiff Hid CIA Whistleblower Concerns from Republicans on Intelligence Committee.  Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said in a statement:  ["]We learn from the press today that Chm Schiff had prior knowledge and involvement in the [whistleblower] complaint.  He withheld this info from the American people and even from the Intel Cmte.  In light of this news, it's hard to view impeachment as anything aside from an orchestrated farce.["]  Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY), another Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, confirmed Schiff kept the information from Republicans and called upon him to step down.

Whither Impeachment?  More information is coming out about the "whistleblower" — read, Democratic Party activist — who triggered impeachment mania, and it does not put the Democrats in a positive light.  The New York Times reports that the "whistleblower" has long been working with Congressional Democrats: [...] So a great deal has been going on behind the scenes.  The complaint was filed in August, so Schiff had known about it for a month and a half before it became public.  This means that the leaders of the Democratic Party had lots of time to coordinate the rollout of the impeachment drama.  Which, in turn, explains my observation that within hours after Nancy Pelosi announced the launching of an impeachment inquiry, I was getting emails from Democratic politicians with coordinated talking points, demanding that the president be impeached.

House Intelligence Committee Was Contacted By CIA 'Whistle-blower' Prior to Complaint Construction.  More evidence is surfacing showing how the CIA 'whistle-blower' complaint was a purposefully constructed political hit-job. [...] The New York Times reports today the CIA operative approached the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) prior to filling out a 'whistle-blower' complaint form.  The CIA gossiper contacted staff of HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff.

Trump: 'This Is a Fraudulent Crime on the American People'.  The impeachment inquiry regarding President Donald Trump's phone call with Ukraine is "a hoax," the president said Wednesday [10/2/2019] during a joint press conference with Finland President Sauli Niinistö.  When asked whether the president is planning to cooperate with the three House Intelligence Committees looking into the impeachment inquiry that are planning to send a subpoena to the White House for documents and other materials, Trump said, "I always cooperate."

Schiff Panics After Bombshell Reveal He Got Early Account of CIA Spy's Accusations — Claims He Has Never Spoken to Whistleblower.  House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff is in damage control mode after the New York Times reported that he learned about the Deep State CIA spy's accusations against President Trump several days before the officer filed a whistleblower complaint.  The Deep State spook filed a complaint on August 12 based on second-hand knowledge and hearsay of Trump's July 25 phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, so Schiff had knowledge of the accusations and worked discreetly for up to two weeks.  Schiff is now claiming he has never met with or spoken to the whistleblower — in fact, Schiff is claiming he doesn't even know the identity of the whistleblower!

Anti-Trump Whistleblower Colluded With House Democrats Before Filing Complaint.  An anti-Trump whistleblower at the center of ongoing Democratic efforts to impeach President Donald Trump coordinated with Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and his Democratic staff prior to filing his whistleblower complaint, The New York Times reported on Wednesday afternoon.  The bombshell report that the whistleblower and his Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) colleagues actively worked exclusively with congressional Democrats before filing the complaint raises serious questions about whether the complainant followed federal laws providing whistleblower protections for employees within the U.S. intelligence community.  "Before going to Congress, the C.I.A. officer had a colleague convey his accusations to the agency's top lawyer," The New York Times reported.  "Concerned about how that avenue for airing his allegations was unfolding, the officer then approached a House Intelligence Committee aide, alerting him to the accusation against Mr. Trump."

NYT: Adam Schiff Knew About Whistleblower Complaint Before It Was Filed.  Well, this whole impeachment circus just got shadier. [...] House Democrats decided to execute their impeachment plan, which has been in the works since 2016, over Trump's alleged shakedown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  According to the liberal media, Trump threatened to withhold military aid unless the Ukrainians opened a corruption probe into Hunter Biden's position on the board of an energy company, which many see as a move to sell access to his father, Joe Biden, who was vice president at the time.  Zelensky never felt pressured.  There was no mentioning of aid.  There was no quid, so the quid pro quo is another belly flop by the anti-Trump media establishment.  Still, do we have Democrat-Intelligence Community collusion here?

Intel Community Admission Of Whistleblower Changes Raises Explosive New Questions.  On Monday [9/30/2019], the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) admitted that it did alter its forms and policies governing whistleblower complaints, and that it did so in response to the anti-Trump complaint filed on Aug. 12, 2019. [...] The ICIG also disclosed for the first time that the anti-Trump complainant filed his complaint using the previously authorized form, the guidance for which explicitly stated the ICIG's previous requirement for firsthand evidence for credible complaints.  The Federalist reported last week that it was not known which form, if any, the complainant used, as the complaint that was declassified and released to the public last week was written as a letter to the two chairmen of the congressional intelligence committees.

Americans Have Every Reason To Be Suspicious Of The Whistleblower Complaint.  We're supposed to accept that this is what happened, that what the anti-Trump whistleblower complaint describes is confirmed by the unredacted and publicly released transcript of Trump's July 25 phone call with Zelensky.  We're not supposed to question the veracity of the whistleblower's complaint or the purity of the whistleblower's motives.  And we're definitely not supposed to question why the standards for submitting whistleblower complaints were changed just last month to allow complaints based on secondhand information to be deemed credible.  In other words, we're not supposed to question whether this whole thing has been a political hit job from the start.  Well, forgive us if we pause.  Just like the Clinton campaign-funded Steele dossier that launched the Russia probe, the Ukraine complaint is based entirely on hearsay and contains blatant falsehoods and misstatements of fact.

Clapper: Whistleblower Fueling the 'Conspiratorial Fire' of the 'Deep State' Trying to Overthrow Trump.  Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that there isn't a "deep state" effort to undermine President Donald Trump but the whistleblower complaint about his call with the Ukraine president from someone in the intelligence community "fuels that conspiratorial fire."  "Well, I never heard of the term deep state, maybe I was, you know, ignorant or bliss or something, but I never heard of that until the campaign and afterwards.  Allegedly this is a conspiracy of career government public servants who somehow organize themselves into a conspiracy to undermine or overthrow the president, which on its face is ridiculous," Clapper said during the Washington Post's Cybersecurity Summit on Wednesday [10/2/2019].

Inspector General Identifies DC U.S. Attorney Leaking Grand Jury Evidence.  The Department of Justice Inspector General has released a notification stating that a former U.S. Attorney within the DC Circuit was caught leaking grand jury information to an "unauthorized individual[.]"

Bill Barr and John Durham Listened to Mifsud Audio-Tape Deposition in Italy.  When reports first surfaced that AG Bill Barr had traveled to Italy recently, we surmised the trip was likely related to Joseph Mifsud; specifically related to an audio-taped deposition that Mifsud gave to Italian police about being a western intelligence asset who was enlisted by the CIA (Brennan) to run a covert intelligence operation against the Donald Trump campaign in 2016.  If accurate, well, there's the motive for the latest "CIA whistle-blower" approach.

Barr Went to Rome to Hear a Secret Tape From Joseph Mifsud, the Professor Who Helped Ignite the Russia Probe.  When Attorney General William Barr showed up at the U.S. embassy's Palazzo Margherita here on tony Via Veneto last week, he had two primary requests.  He needed a conference room to meet high-level Italian security agents where he could be sure no one was listening in.  And he needed an extra chair for U.S. Attorney John Durham of Connecticut, who would be sitting in as his right-hand man.  Barr was in Rome on an under-the-radar mission that was only planned a few days in advance.  An official with the embassy confirmed to The Daily Beast that they had to scramble to accommodate Barr's sudden arrival.  He had been in Italy before, but not with such a clear motive.

Pelosi's Impeachment by Innuendo Continues.  Both Trump-Russia (obstruction) and Trump-Ukraine (corruption) have similar footprints because they both held the same end-goal purpose, impeachment.  Trump was framed for stealing a horse; Trump was subsequently accused of trying too hard to avoid hanging for it.  Mueller eventually conceded that Trump didn't steal the horse; however, by then the focus was on his efforts to avoid hanging.  Eventually Mueller testified; it surfaced there was never a horse to begin with.  Impeachment was stalled.

Newt Gingrich says:  "It's a Coup d'Etat, not an impeachment inquiry.".  On Fox & Friends (10/01/2019) Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich tells America's Newsroom host Sandra Smith that the Democrats are not conducting an impeachment investigation as much as attempting a coup d' etat of the Trump Presidency.  Something CommDigiNews writers have been writing for months.  Coup d'état is a sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force.  The South Carolina Senator is absolutely correct because of how Pelosi is proceeding in this manner.

Releasing More Call Transcripts Will Cripple Future Presidents.  The content of the Ukraine phone call, as unseemly as it may be for President Donald Trump, will not be the basis of impeachment, the way Bill Clinton's "perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury" was.  Which is why House Democrats are utilizing it as pretext to fish the whole expanse of the vast waters of presidential diplomatic communications with foreign leaders.

Make them pay for impeachment.  Democrats believe they can impeach President Donald John Trump with impunity.  They figure it will be like Clinton's one-day trial and acquittal, which would allow them to scream injustice from now until forever.  President Trump should extract the full price for their farce.  Whilst the attorney general and inspector general continue investigating Hillarygate and Muellergate, President Trump should have fun with this by forcing Democrats to make their case to the American people.  Just like they did with Clarence Thomas.  Just like they did with Brett Kavanaugh.  That means putting the whistle blower on the stand.  The Constitution requires the accuser to face the accused.

Adam Schiff's Office Denies Conflict of Interest for Staffer on Think Tank Backed by Ukraine Gas Company.  A spokesman for Rep. Adam Schiff's House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence denied any impropriety related to a trip taken by a staffer to Ukraine last month sponsored and organized by the Atlantic Council think tank.  The Atlantic Council is funded by and works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.  The Schiff staff member, Thomas Eager, is also currently a fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Congressional Fellowship.  Burisma in January 2017 signed a "cooperative agreement" with the Council to sponsor the organization's Eurasia Center.

How Trump wins.  So it's time to play another card.  Only this one wasn't quite ready.  It wasn't supposed to be necessary because the Mueller card was supposed to finish Trump off, but this one was put together hastily after Mueller's testimony to Congress failed so miserably.  Some of the bit players had their parts and knew their lines, but not all of them, which is why the initial news differed so much from the reality.  When the pseudo-transcript of the call was released, everything hadn't been fully synchronized.  It was clear that the stars of the show, Pelosi, Nadler, and Schiff, hadn't seen the transcript yet but were familiar with the complaint.  They had to make stuff up off the cuff, and it didn't jibe with the facts.  But lack of facts never stopped a Democrat, so they pressed onward, making sure they built some time in, to clean things up.  The two-week recess, while they say they'll still be working, is when they'll try to close up their exposed rears.

Hunter Biden's Perfectly Legal, Socially Acceptable Corruption.  How did this get to be standard practice?  The whistle-blower scandal that has prompted the fourth presidential impeachment process in American history has put a spectacle from earlier this decade back on display:  the jaw-smacking feast of scavengers who circled around Ukraine as Viktor Yanukovych, a Moscow-linked kleptocrat, was driven from power.  Ukraine's crisis was the latest to energize a club whose culture has come to be treated as normal — a culture in which top-tier lawyers, former U.S. public officials, and policy experts (and their progeny) cash in by trading on their connections and their access to insider policy information — usually by providing services to kleptocrats like Yanukovych.  The renewed focus on Ukraine raises jangling questions:  How did dealing in influence to burnish the fortunes of repugnant world leaders for large payoffs become a business model?  How could America's leading lights convince themselves — and us — that this is acceptable?

Left Tries To Wave Away IG Changes Allowing Whistleblowers To Weaponize Hearsay.  After Federalist reporting unearthed the Intelligence Community Inspector General's (ICIG's) material changes to its whistleblower complaint intake procedures, a battle has ensued over whether the changes matter.  This discovery continues to captivate elected representatives, Capitol insiders, and political talking heads across the nation. [...] The detractors are right about one thing:  the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) statute doesn't actually prohibit a purported whistleblower from initiating a complaint based on hearsay.  But the clear language of the previous IC IG guidance never stated that it did.

Grassley: It's Time to Follow Up on My July 2017 Letter About the DNC and Ukraine.  While Democrats move forward on their impeachment inquiry against President Trump, Republicans charge that the president is actually the victim here.  In a letter intended for Attorney General William Barr, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-TX) ask for a renewed investigation into the "brazen efforts by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign to use the government of Ukraine for the express purpose of finding negative information on Trump."  As Grassley and Johnson recall, the DNC reportedly hired a Ukrainian-American operative named Alexandra Chalupa to investigate the Trump campaign's ties to Ukraine.  They first asked the DOJ to investigate back in July 2017, including allegations that Chalupa was looking into Paul Manafort's relationship to Ukrainian officials.  On Friday, they sent AG Barr a friendly reminder.

Inspector General's Ties Suggest Ukraine 'Scandal' is Just More Collusion Hoax.  Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community's inspector general at the center of the so-called "whistleblower" report, is earning Robert Mueller-level adoration by the press.  Atkinson, we are told, is a truth-seeker with no partisan agenda or political grudge.  "The intelligence community's chief watchdog, Michael Atkinson, is known to his peers and colleagues as a highly cautious 'straight shooter' who tends to keep his head down," cooed Politico reporter Natasha Bertrand on September 23.

ICIG Michael Atkinson Attempts Four-Page Justification for Changing "Urgent Concern" Whistle-blower Guidelines.  Prior to the current "whistle-blower complaint" the Intelligence Community Inspector General did not accept Urgent Concern whistle-blower claims without first hand knowledge.  However, the ICIG revised the protocol in August 2019 to accept a CIA complaint against President Donald Trump.  Today [9/30/2019] the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, Michael Atkinson, presented a four-page justification explaining why the IC changed the Urgent Concern rules to allow the CIA to target President Trump with anonymous complaints based on hearsay: [...]

Sean Davis:  Democrats Have Committed, Are Committing Every Crime They Accuse Trump Of.  'The Federalist' co-founder Sean Davis said we are now "through the looking glass" with Democratic party outrage at Attorney General Bill Barr trying to get to the bottom of 2016 election meddling.  In an interview with FOX Business Network host Lou Dobbs, Davis said the whistleblower complaint against the president is full of errors and false statements.  [Video clip]

Clinton and Russia didn't take down Trump, so Democrats try Ukraine and impeachment.  The impeachment nightmare that House Democrats are so eagerly plunging the country into now is merely another outbreak of that party's inability to accept the voters' verdict of 2016.  Donald Trump's unlikely victory was so shocking for Hillary Clinton and her lazy, overconfident campaign team and supporters that she was emotionally unable to compose herself for a concession speech until the next day.  Which suggests to many that voters made the correct choice for commander in chief, even if they have real doubts about Trump.

John Durham's Ukrainian Leads.  Americans often boast that we are a nation of laws, but for the moment laws appear to play a decidedly secondary role in the drama we are living in and — hopefully — through.  We have some guidance from our foundational law, the Constitution, which tells us how to proceed:  the House of Representatives has "the sole power of impeachment," the Senate has "the sole power to try all impeachments," and must do so "on oath or affirmation.  The Senate cannot convict "without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present."

Pelosi — Schiff Democrats operation destroy America Chapter 3: Impeachment.  In Nancy Pelosi's own words, as read by Rep. Devin Nunes at last weeks hearing, this is not about truth, facts or even crimes.  It is about the Democrat and liberal media "operation" to destroy the presidency of Donald Trump and nullify the rights of the American's who did dare to vote for him.  First, the claim was that President Trump somehow stole the election.  That he was not duly elected.  Then it was the Russia Hoax.  Now it's the Whistleblower fiasco.  Democrats quest to impeach the President has nothing to do with facts.

Donald Trump threatens to arrest Adam Schiff 'for treason' for reading parody version of notorious call at start of committee hearing without explaining it wasn't real.  Donald Trump on Monday [9/30/2019] upped the ante against House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff on Monday [9/30/2019], saying he should be arrested for 'treason' because the congressman read a parody version of the phone call between the president and his Ukrainian counterpart.  'Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people.  It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call.  Arrest for Treason?,' the president wrote on Twitter.

Civil War On.  Someone in Impeachmentville is not paying attention. [...] For instance, the matter of CrowdStrike.  The cybersecurity firm was co-founded by Russian ex-pat Dmitri Alperovitch, who also happens to be a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, an anti-Russian think tank funded by Ukrainian billionaire, Viktor Pinchuk, who donated at least $25 million to the Clinton Foundation before the 2016 election.  Crowdstrike was the company that "examined" the supposedly hacked DNC servers, while somebody in the Obama administration prevented the FBI from ever seeing them.  Does this sound a little like part of the origin story of RussiaGate?  Is that not exactly the potential criminal matter that the current attorney general, Mr. Barr, is officially investigating?  Perhaps, under the year 2000 treaty, Mr. Trump was within his rights to ask the new President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, for assistance on that.

A Seinfeld Impeachment (It's About Nothing).  In the week since I last wrote about the accusations made against President Trump as a result of his July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a lot has happened.  Both the rough transcript of the call and the "whistleblower complaint" that supposedly resulted from it have been released, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has formally commenced impeachment proceedings against the president.  Both the transcript and the complaint are now required reading for anyone claiming to be politically informed.  They raise a number of questions about the conversation and the unidentified "whistleblower," but they manifestly do not demonstrate that Trump should be impeached.

Complaint From So-Called 'Whistleblower' Is Riddled With Gossip, Blatant Falsehoods.  The formal complaint from an anti-Trump "whistleblower" alleging various crimes by President Donald Trump is riddled with third-hand gossip and outright falsehoods.  The document was declassified by Trump Wednesday evening and released to the public Thursday morning.  The complaint, which was delivered to the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, follows the same template used in the infamous and debunked Clinton campaign-funded Steele dossier.  Rather than provide direct evidence that was witnessed or obtained firsthand by the complainant, the document instead combines gossip from various anonymous individuals, public media reports, and blatant misstatements of fact and law in service of a narrative that is directly contradicted by underlying facts.  A footnote in the document even boasts about its use of "ample open-source information."

Why Nancy Pelosi Now Supports Impeachment Even Though It's Insane.  The latest Ukraine-related non-scandal is almost irrelevant for its lack of substance.  This is not about substance.  This is about Pelosi losing control of her caucus should she continue to resist impeachment, and Pelosi sensing a looming electoral disaster of monumental proportions should impeachment be launched outside the parameters she defines.  Having read the transcript of Trump's phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, I can say there is literally nothing there.  There is no mention of military aid to Ukraine, of freezing or un-freezing of any aid, of any quid pro quo, or of any pressure on Zelensky to do anything.  I would argue that, given the nexus of the Biden family corruption to Ukraine, it is entirely proper for Trump to ask Zelensky for help investigating the precise circumstances of the Biden family enrichment.

GOP Rep. Brooks: 'Under the Sixth Amendment' the Whistleblower's Identity Should Be Revealed.  Some are warning of the worst should the identity of the so-called whistleblower behind a report alleging President Donald Trump committed wrongdoing in a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky be revealed.  However, according to Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), who has served as both a prosecutor and defense attorney prior to serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, two of the key aspects of these allegations fail to meet standards for impeachment — the transcript of the call, which he said showed nothing impeachable and the whistleblower report, which he said lacked "probative" value.

Lindsey Graham:  "Why Did They Change The Rules" Allowing Whistleblowers To Cite Hearsay?  Senator Lindsey Graham joined CBS's "Face The Nation" host Margaret Brennan to talk about the impeachment inquiry launched into President Trump this week.  "This seems to me like a political setup," Graham said about the whistleblower report that led Democrats to launch the inquiry.  "It's all hearsay.  You can't get a parking ticket conviction based on hearsay.  The whistle-blower didn't hear the phone call."  "Every American deserves to confront their accuser.  So this is a sham, as far as I'm concerned.  I want to know who told the whistle-blower about the phone call.  I want to know why they changed the rules about whistle-blowers not — the hearsay rule was changed just a short period of time before the complaint was filed," Graham wondered.

'Potential criminality': Top Republicans push watchdog on timing of changes to whistleblower complaint form.  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top GOP lawmaker on the House Oversight Committee, wrote to Inspector General Michael K. Atkinson to demand information related to the decision to loosen whistleblower reporting requirements so that non-firsthand accounts would be accepted.  The change to the reporting requirement was made in August, the same month a whistleblower reported Trump's July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  The whistleblower did not hear or see the call first hand and his complaint was leaked to the news media.  Democrats who first heard about the call through leaks to the media announced they have launched a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump's behavior.

Top Lawmakers Tell Intel Community Inspector General:  Come Clean On Secret Changes To Whistleblower Rules.  Republican lawmakers in both the Senate and House on Monday demanded answers from the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) about secret revisions to the office's guidance on "urgent concern" whistleblower complaints.  The Federalist first reported last week that between May 2018 and August 2019, the ICIG secretly eliminated its requirement that potential whistleblowers provide only first-hand evidence of alleged wrongdoing.  In their letter to Michael Atkinson, the ICIG, Reps.  Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) noted that the anti-Trump complainant offered no direct, first-hand evidence of alleged wrongdoing against President Donald Trump.  Instead, the complaint is littered with gossip, hearsay, and rumor.  The lawmakers specifically asked the ICIG to explain when the whistleblower guidance was revised, by whom, and for what reason.

Maybe he's in a cell in that place in New York, where the guards are asleep and the cameras don't work.
Report: Anti-Trump Whistleblower Under Federal Protection Over Safety Fears.  CBS News' 60 Minutes reported Sunday night the anti-Trump whistleblower whose complaint sparked the impeachment probe against Trump is under federal protection, according to a reading of a letter sent by one of the whistleblower's attorneys, Andrew Bakaj.  The Intelligence Community Inspector General who received the complaint determined the whistleblower is biased against Trump, finding "some indica of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate."

Same Schiff, Different Day.  While peddling the Russia hoax, Schiff claimed repeatedly there was "evidence of collusion" but as the Mueller Report made clear, no collusion was found.  Schiff also said the Russia hoax was "of a size and scope probably beyond Watergate."  Reminder for Schiff, there was no collusion and no obstruction.  Now Schiff has found a new tale to slander President Trump with after lying to the country for over two and a half years about Russia without any consequences.  And like clockwork, Schiff started pushing his Ukraine smear by lying right out of the gate by fabricating what was said on the call between President Trump and the Ukrainian president.

On Fox, Mark Levin Slams Press Lies, Impeachment by Anonymous Source.  Fox & Friends invited author and national talk-show host Mark Levin on Sunday [9/29/2019] to discuss the budding effort by House Democrats to impeach President Trump.  Levin ripped the media repeatedly, and protested the idea that the Democrats are going to try and remove the president from office by using an anonymous "whistleblower" who didn't even have first-hand access to the events that are allegedly impeachable.  Levin told Ed Henry, "You know, Ed, I've been watching you and a lot of reporters, and you haven't once asked for the identity of the so-called whistleblower.  Why is that?" Henry said "I want to know the identity."

Hugh Hewitt:  Adam Schiff Has 'Destroyed His Credibility' in Impeachment Inquiry.  Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt had some intriguing comments on Sunday [9/29/2019] during a Meet the Press discussion about the renewed efforts by House Democrats to impeach President Donald Trump.  As the panel discussed the public support for an inquiry of Trump in light of the Ukraine scandal, Hewitt went after House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, who spoke to Chuck Todd earlier in the show about whether Rudy Giuliani will be asked to testify before Congress.  Hewitt took a negative view on how that discussion went, saying Schiff "went full Alice in Wonderland Queen of Hearts:  Verdict first, trial later."

Why I Think Trump Did Nothing Wrong in His Phone Call with Zelensky.  I had a great discussion on The Editors Thursday about my view that President Trump did nothing wrong in his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.  My view seems to be the minority position, so it makes sense to lay it out as clearly as possible.  Much of the confusion around this case stems from the entanglement of two groups specializing in bamboozlement: lawyers and spies.  Espionage and the law have specialized argots that hide fabrication and skulduggery.  Nonetheless, critical analysis reveals that the call was in bounds and that objections to it reduce to absurdity.

Stephen Miller:  Whistleblower 'a Deep State Operative,' Has 'Contempt for the President'.  On this weekend's broadcast of "Fox News Sunday," White House advisor Stephen Miller said the "whistleblower" complaint about President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's dealings "drips with condemnation, condescension and contempt for the president."  Miller said, "I think it's unfortunate the media continued to describe this individual as a whistleblower and honorific that this individual most certainly does not deserve.  A partisan hit job does not make you a whistleblower just because you go through the Whistleblower Protection Act."

The CIA's hearsay move to impeach Trump is to protect Democrats.  A so-called CIA "whistleblower" claims to have information concerning President Trump's "pressuring" of Ukrainian officials to provide dirt on Vice President Biden to — and this is rich — influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. [...] This sounds a lot like the ridiculous hearsay campaign waged against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his chaotic Senate confirmation hearings.  In fact, Democrats running for president recently called for Kavanaugh's impeachment based on recent secondhand sexual accusations advanced by Bill Clinton's impeachment lawyer Max Steir, as reported in The New York Times.

Donald Trump now has to battle CIA spies in Dems' war against him.  The walls, including in the White House, have ears.  That was demonstrated in spades last week, most dramatically by the allegations from a CIA officer that Trump used a phone call with the president of Ukraine to solicit foreign help in the 2020 campaign.  That allegation and others led to a fiery congressional hearing and spurred Democrats to quicken their pace toward impeachment.  A second instance of snooping made the "loose lips" point less sensationally but was still disturbing.  Before he left the United Nations Thursday, Trump attended a private event to thank the new American ambassador, Kelly Craft, and her staff for their work during the General Assembly session.  Some privacy.  The president said, "I want to know who's the person, who's the person who gave the whistleblower the information?  Because that's close to a spy."  We know he said that and more because someone at the event, maybe more than one person, secretly recorded his remarks, both audio and video, and promptly leaked them to the media.

Watters presents Bill Clinton-signed treaty allowing Trump to request assistance from Ukraine on Biden.  A 1999 treaty with Ukraine, signed by Bill Clinton, provides a rock-solid basis for President Trump's request for Ukrainian President Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden for alleged corruption.  The Bidens are in up to their armpits with regard to a potential renewed Burisma Holdings natural gas probe[,] an overdue investigation that was in fact initially stopped by VP Biden while he was in office[,] a fact that he subsequently bragged about.

The "Whistleblower Complaint" isn't a whistleblower complaint, it's a closing argument.  When the so-called Whistleblower Complaint was released this morning, my first impression was that this was a very professionally-done document, likely crafted by a lawyer.  It looks like a lawyer letter.  It's very legalistic in many parts, cites to statutes and executive orders, and is heavily footnoted.  It attempts to bring together evidence from disparate sources, including public news reports.  It is, in every sense, a closing argument or brief in support of a position by someone who did not actually participate in the events about which he or she is writing.  The document does not at all read like we would expect a whistleblower complaint to read — alerting the appropriate authority to facts the whistleblower has learned and leaving the legal conclusions to those authorities.

The Marxists Running the Democrat Party Today Lust for Absolute Power.  Tucker Carlson opened his show on Friday night with the latest updates on the Democrat-media coup against Donald Trump.  In his open he played a clip of Speaker Nancy Pelosi now accusing Russia of being involved in the Democrats' latest made-up Trump scandal.  Of course, Pelosi and Democrats have absolutely zero evidence to push forward this theory or this impeachment scandal.  And, they certainly have no evidence that Russia is involved in anyway.  But as Tucker noted, Democrats no longer deal in facts.  They deal in emotions and a blood-lust for power.

How about a Bipartisan Treaty against the Criminalization of Elections?  [Scroll down]  I mention all this because it is a commonplace for the government to seek assistance from foreign counterparts for ongoing federal investigations.  Indeed, as Marc Thiessen pointed out this week in an important Washington Post column, Democratic senators pressured Ukraine to cooperate with the Mueller probe — notwithstanding the obvious potential electoral ramifications and the specter of "foreign interference in our democracy."  These requests for assistance often occur at the head-of-state level.  When I was a federal prosecutor in the mid-nineties, for example, the FBI and Justice Department asked President Clinton to intervene with Saudi authorities to assist the investigation of Iranian complicity in the Khobar Towers bombing.  There is nothing wrong with our government's requesting the assistance of foreign governments that have access to witnesses and evidence relevant to an ongoing Justice Department investigation.  The president is the democratically elected, constitutionally empowered chief executive:  There is nothing his subordinates may properly do that he may not do himself (it is his power that they exercise).

Rep. Andy Biggs Introduces Motion to Censure Adam Schiff.  Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) on Friday [9/27/2019] introduced a motion to condemn and censure House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) for performing a fabricated conversation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his opening statement at a panel hearing Thursday morning.

Will this go down as 'the mother of all traps'?  Let's hope that President Trump starts tweeting and calling on Democrats to start the impeachment process.  It all starts with a floor vote, and no such thing is in the horizon.  The Democrats jumped the gun a bit here.  Speaker Pelosi should have have waited for the evidence.

Intel Community Secretly Gutted Requirement Of First-Hand Whistleblower Knowledge.  Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. [...] The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump's July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only "heard about [wrongdoing] from others."

Key Whistleblower Requirement Was Removed, Allowing IC Complaints Based on Hearsay.  A key requirement for whistleblowers to lodge a "Disclosure of Urgent Concern" complaint was secretly eliminated at some point in the past year to allow submissions of second-hand material, it has been revealed.  This allowed the August submission of an error-ridden whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump to proceed, as the whistleblower — who is believed to be a member of the intelligence committee assigned to the National Security Counsel — has admitted to having no direct knowledge of wrongdoing on the part of the president.  A previous version of the form only allowed first-hand whistleblower complaints — not hearsay, rumor, or gossip about presidential diplomacy with a foreign leader.

The Deep State Whistleblower hoax is this weeks Christine Blasey Ford.  The Whistleblower hoax engulfing Washington is yet another Deep State episode of the rolling coup d'etat Democrats are mounting against Donald Trump.  Since the day of his election.  If not before.  And like the Russia Hoax and Christine Blasey Ford's testimony, the ongoing smear campaign of lies and character assassination is yet another attempt to destroy Trump's presidency by partisan operatives in the intelligence community.

ICIG Whistleblower Form Recently Modified to Permit Complaint "Heard From Others".  Folks, this "Ukraine Whistleblower" event was a pre-planned event.  As we begin to understand the general outline of how the Schiff Dossier was assembled, we are now starting to get into the specifics.  First discovered by researcher Stephen McIntyre, there is now evidence surfacing showing the ICIG recently created an entirely new 'whistleblower complaint form' that specifically allowed for the filing of complaints "heard from others".

Trump impeachment crisis deepens as US envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker resigns after whistleblower names him.  An American diplomat at the center of the U.S.-Ukraine controversy has resigned — a potentially significant blow for President Trump as he faces impeachment proceedings in the Democratic-led House of Representatives.  Kurt Volker met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday [9/27/2019] and announced he would be resigning from his post as U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, according to Arizona State University's State Press.  A former career diplomat and one-time CIA analyst, Volker, 54, rose to prominence during the George W. Bush administration — rising to U.S. ambassador to NATO, and joined the private sector after the election of President Barack Obama.

I Want to See Obama's Transcripts.  It's clear Pelosi and the Democrats just committed mass political suicide.  Radical Democrats suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome persuaded Pelosi to jump off a cliff ... and the entire Democratic Congress followed like sheep. [...] Democrats haven't just overreached.  They've walked into a big trap.  No normal person cares that Trump had a phone call with a world leader and asked him to look into massive alleged corruption by an American politician on foreign soil.  Most normal Americans are saying, "It's about time."

Harris Asked Nadler to Open Kavanaugh Impeachment Inquiry.  Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) asked Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.) in a Sept. 17 letter to open a formal impeachment inquiry into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh following the New York Times's publication of new accusations that omitted exculpatory evidence.  Harris argued the sexual misconduct allegations made against Kavanaugh in a Sept. 14 New York Times book excerpt raised the possibility that he may have lied to the Senate during his confirmation hearing.  She added that the FBI investigation into the original claims made against Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford was insufficient.  Harris reiterated her beliefs in an op-ed published in Elle magazine on Friday [9/27/2019].

It Looks Like A NYT Reporter Accidentally Gutted The Democrats' Impeachment Narrative.  The report from Robert Mueller totally debunked the unverified and politically biased Steele dossier, aka Trump dossier, which was used by the FBI to secure spy warrants on Trump officials.  There was no evidence for their biggest case for impeaching this president solely for the reason that he won the 2016 election.  So, they had to wait.  Alas, the Trump-Ukraine call this summer.  The president allegedly coerced the Ukrainian leadership into opening a corruption probe into Hunter Biden and threatened to withhold military aid.  Gasp!  Some anonymous whistleblower who is reportedly a CIA agent came forward with this complaint.  He didn't listen in on the call but got it from second and third-hand accounts.  So, when the Trump White House released the transcript, it shouldn't shock us that all of the major allegations were debunked.  There was no quid pro quo.  There couldn't have been since the Ukrainians weren't even aware that aid was being reviewed until a month after the call.

"Gossip-blower" is Male CIA Operative Formerly Part of White House NSC.  Details are beginning to emerge about the deep state political operative within the intelligence apparatus who wrote a 'whistleblower' complaint based on second-hand information he heard on the intelligence grapevine about President Trump.  According to the New York Times the complaint derives from a male who was a former CIA operative on assignment within National Security Council (NSC), who left the White House and returned to the CIA.

Limbaugh: Turns Out Ukraine 'Whistleblower' Was 'Deep State Plant From The CIA'.  On his radio show Thursday, Rush Limbaugh addressed the revelations from The New York Times about the identity of the "whistleblower" who sparked the controversy of President Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president that has given the Democrats a rationale to move forward on their impeachment campaign.  According to the Times, the whistleblower is "a CIA officer detailed to the White House," and, according to Paul Sperry, former D.C. bureau chief for Investor's Business Daily, rumors are "swirling" that the whistleblower was one of former CIA Director and current NBC analyst John Brennan's "old CIA humps detailed over to — planted inside — the White House to spy on Trump and help thwart the investigation of #Spygate which also involves Obama DOS/FBI/CIA skullduggery in Ukraine."

Did You Know There's a Treaty Between the USA & Ukraine Regarding Cooperation For Prosecuting Crimes?  It was passed when Joe Biden was a member of the U.S. Senate and then signed by then-President Bill Clinton.  A comprehensive treaty agreement that allows cooperation between both the United States and Ukraine in the investigation and prosecution of crimes.

Dossier 2.0: 'Whistleblower' Complaint Relies on Soros-Funded 'Investigative Reporting' Group that Partnered with BuzzFeed.  Sections of a so-called whistleblower's complaint alleging President Donald Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential race relies upon a self-described investigative journalism organization bankrolled massively by billionaire activist George Soros.

The Congressman Who Cried Wolf.  When Geraldo Rivera found neither a treasure chest nor skeletal remains in Al Capone's vault, he did not dare tease an encore special promising to surface the Titanic or interview D. B. Cooper.  Adam Schiff possesses none of Rivera's humility.  After failing to substantiate loud claims of "direct," "significant," "clear," and "ample" evidence of Donald Trump colluding with Russians to steal the presidency, Schiff follows up by accusing the president of forcing a foreign government to "manufacture dirt" on a political opponent. [...] Why make up a story when a transcript, or at least notes that read as a transcript despite the disclaimers, exists?

Adam Schiff, 'artist of evil'.  After watching Adam Schiff's reprehensible performance in his committee hearing Thursday morning, it is clear we are benighted by yet another sinister, scheming member of the House who, like Shakespeare's Iago[i], is adept at (and enjoys) ruining lives.  He set out to ruin President Trump's and has been working at it diligently for three years.  Since the moment President Trump was elected, it has been Schiff, more than any other member of Congress, who has been the public face of the attempted coup designed to get Trump out of the White House.  He has lied and leaked relentlessly for nearly three years, promising that Mueller had the goods.  He did not.  Each successive ploy the Left rolled out has failed, so Schiff and company invented a new accusation, one that has obviously been carefully crafted by a group of Iagos like those who devised the Russia-collusion hoax and managed Blasey-Ford's phony allegations.

The Trump-Ukraine whistleblower complaint looks just like 'Steele Dossier 2.0'.  [Scroll down]  In his dossier, Steele levied shocking accusations of corruption and impropriety by Trump and his team, going so far as to claim that Trump was bought and paid for by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, who allegedly had compromising information on Trump that all but forced Trump to do the Kremlin's bidding.  Steele hadn't gathered or witnessed any of this evidence first-hand.  Rather, he relied on anonymous sources, many of them third-hand. [...] Compare that to the text of the author of the anti-Trump complaint about Ukraine.  "I was not a direct witness to most of the events described," the whistleblower wrote.  Just like Steele's dossier, the complaint is riddled with third-hand rumors, gossip and hearsay gathered from similarly anonymous officials.

Trump demands Schiff resign over account of Ukraine call.  President Trump on Friday [9/27/2019] demanded House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) "immediately" resign from Congress for reading what the congressman described as a parody of the president's phone call with Ukraine's leader that is at the center of a whistleblower complaint.  In a series of tweets early Friday [9/27/2019], Trump accused Schiff of lying to Congress and "fraudulently" reciting a version of the call that made it "sound horrible" and made the president appear "guilty."

The Editor says...
I agree, the country would be better off if Congressman Schiff resigned.  The country would be better off without CNN.  The country would much better off if Nancy Pelosi resigned.  The country also be a better place without any of several dozen other lying, baby-killing socialists in the House of Representatives.  But they are in Washington to stay, for as long as they want.

House to Take Two-Week 'Recess' Vacation After Beginning 'Impeachment Inquiry'.  The House of Representatives is set to take a two-week "recess" vacation after announcing its so-called "impeachment inquiry" against President Donald Trump in response to him having a routine conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Whistleblower is a CIA Officer 'Detailed to Work at White House,' and Has Since Returned to the CIA.  The Deep State whistleblower is a CIA officer who was detailed to work at the White House, according to a new report by the New York Times.

Former CIA official on whistleblower: 'How could this be an intelligence matter?'  I am troubled by the complaint and wonder how an intelligence officer could file it over something a president said to a foreign leader.  How could this be an intelligence matter?  It appears likely to me that this so-called whistleblower was pursuing a political agenda.  I am very familiar with transcripts of presidential phone calls since I edited and processed dozens of them when I worked for the NSC.  I also know a lot about intelligence whistleblowers from my time with the CIA.  My suspicions grew this morning when I saw the declassified whistleblowing complaint.  It appears to be written by a law professor and includes legal references and detailed footnotes.  It also has an unusual legalistic reference on how this complaint should be classified.

Why the Impeachment Frenzy May Only Strengthen Trump.  Contrary to suggestions by some, most Trump supporters are not automatons or blind supporters.  What bothers them, and should bother others, about the latest Ukraine hysterias is the familiar monotony of this latest scripted psychodrama.  The whistleblower admits to hearsay ("I was not a direct witness to most of the events described").  His term-paper report is laden with anonymously sourced rumors, e.g., "According to multiple White House officials I spoke with," "I was told by White House officials," "Based on my understanding," "I learned from multiple officials," "I do not know whether similar measures were taken," "I do not know whether those officials spoke with or met with ..."  Between references to Internet news accounts and "I heard from" and "I learned from" and "I do not know" anonymous officials, there is nothing here to launch an impeachment of any president.

Don't like the facts?  Just Schiff the narrative.  First we were told the phone call was, as The Washington Post breathlessly wrote, "so troubling that it prompted an official in the US intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint."  Then we actually got the transcript, and it was nothing, so we were informed by CNN that we had "to read between the lines."  In other words, as the crooked FBI agent said of the Russian collusion hoax, there is no there there.  So it was time for the Democrats to ... just plain make it up.  Thus, on Thursday morning [9/26/2019], live on most TV channels, Rep. Adam Schiff, the Framingham-born hack Congressman from California, read into the record an utterly fabricated statement from President Trump to the president of Ukraine: [...]

The whistleblower complaint doesn't do Democrats any favors.  The whistleblower's complaint that launched the current impeachment controversy has now been released.  It offers little new information not already in the public domain.  Furthermore, if it continues to be relied upon as evidence justifying impeachment, Democrats will have to make some hard choices about how to proceed.  The complaint is broken into four parts.  The first describes the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  The second alleges that White House officials improperly placed records of the call in an "electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature." [...] Aside from the second allegation, there is nothing new we have learned from the complaint.

Republicans want whistleblower's sources, as inconsistencies in complaint emerge.  Top Republicans on Thursday pushed to identify the White House officials who told a whistleblower of alleged misconduct by the Trump administration, as Democrats ramped up their impeachment inquiry — and several apparent inconsistencies emerged in the whistleblower's complaint.  Republicans specifically questioned why the whistleblower's sources in the White House didn't file a complaint themselves — especially given that relevant whistleblower procedures do not protect second-hand complaints.  (The New York Times reported that the whistleblower is a CIA officer detailed to the White House.  Fox News has not confirmed The Times' report.)

Schiff called out for fabricating Ukraine call transcript in opening remarks.  Rep. Adam Schiff acknowledged on Thursday that he made up parts of the Ukraine phone call transcript when he delivered his opening statement at a much-watched TV hearing with the U.S. top intelligence officer.  Mr. Schiff, California Democrat and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said his reading was "part in parody" — but made the admission only after Rep. Mike Turner, Ohio Republican, called him out.

Wherever Joe Biden went, son Hunter cashed in.  In a now notorious July 25 conversation, President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to "look into" Ukraine's role in efforts to interfere in the 2016 election as well as the dealings of Joe Biden and his son Hunter with the notoriously corrupt country.  Whether or not Trump's ham-fisted conversation with Zelensky rises to an impeachable offense, the American people have legitimate reasons to be curious about both issues — and especially the Biden family's blatant conflicts of interest abroad as Joe Biden seeks the presidency.

In Ukraine scandal, Democrats refuse to wait for actual facts.  Democrats needn't bother to probe an allegation that President Trump "pressured" Ukraine's president to dig up "dirt" on Joe Biden; they already know he did.  In grilling acting intel chief Joseph Maguire Thursday, Intelligence Committee Dems repeatedly asserted — as fact — that Trump urged Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky to "interfere" in the 2020 election by pushing him to investigate Joe Biden, and that the White House then tried to "cover up" the president's "crime."  Case closed.  "Do you agree the definition of a coverup is the attempt to prevent people from discovering a crime?" asked Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), as if evidence has already established illegality and efforts to hide it.  Trouble is, the Dems base their conclusions on allegations from an anonymous whistleblower recounting gossip, plus their reading of the Trump-Zelensky transcript.

Democrats Freak Out After Transcript Reveals POTUS Trump Is on Crowdstrike Trail — He's Going After Origins of Russia Hoax!  On Wednesday [9/25/2019] the Trump Administration released the White House transcript of President Trump's call with President Zelensky of Ukraine.  In the transcript released today President Zelensky brought up Rudy Giuliani and his investigations with President Trump.  It was Zelensky who brought up the Biden investigation and NOT PRESIDENT TRUMP!

Rep. Devin Nunes torches vaunted 'whistleblower' report.  With the Thursday morning release of a declassified version of the famed 'whistleblower' report, the left and its media arm are having a field day. [...] After all, the report itself serves as the latest basis for initiating impeachment against President Trump, something the left has been champing at the bit to do ever since before President Trump took office.  They've tried several times before, most notably with the failed Russia-Russia-Russia gambit and now see this whistleblower report as their last-ditch chance.

The MSM-DNC's Worst Week Ever.  What a crushing feeling it must be to be a Democrat, an infotainment industry newsreader, or a NeverTrumper today.  The week started off so full of hope, with impeachment in the air as the autumn colors turned.  That was Monday [9/23/2019].  By Thursday morning it was all over but the shouting.  Oh, and the lies.  Lots and lots of lies.  Over the weekend, news broke that a whistleblower had the goods on Trump, who had supposedly twisted the arm of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky into a quid pro quo deal to investigate Joe Biden, Trump's potential president rival.  The swamp fever pitch reached such heights over the next two days, that on Tuesday afternoon House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally succumbed to her party's Kamikaze Wing and announced an "official" impeachment "inquiry."  It seemed to the overly eager beavers in the MSN-DNC that with one phone call, POTUS had finally put the impeachment football into play.

Joe Biden:  Trump's Ukraine Phone Call An 'Impeachable Offense'.  Former Vice President Joe Biden now says that Trump committed an "impeachable offense" in his much-ballyhooed July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  In an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," Biden said that Trump could be impeached based on the provided transcript of his July phone call with Zelensky.  A plain reading of the transcript, however, gave no indication of a quid pro quo wherein Ukraine would investigate the former vice president using his influence to have a prosecutor fired for investigating his son's business dealings.

Sen. Chris Murphy Changes His Story on Zelensky Meeting.  Senator Chris Murphy (D., Conn.), who traveled to Ukraine in early September, told reporters this week that he had heard "directly" from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky that Zelensky felt pressured by Trump to investigate Hunter Biden's involvement with Ukrainian gas giant Burisma.  But according to a tape of a briefing Murphy gave two weeks ago about his meeting with Zelensky, Murphy made no mention at all of such an allegation.  It was only 13 days after his initial briefing that Murphy emerged to say Zelensky had expressed concerns to him that the Trump administration was withholding U.S. aid to compel an investigation.

The Schiff Dossier:  Which is a Better Description of This Error-Filled "Whistleblower" Report.  [Scroll down]  But never mind the fact that John Solomon has copiously documented the fact that Biden bragged about getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired — not for "corruption", as internal documents make clear, but — for investigating the money-laundering machine that enriched his son and, coincidentally (*cough*) John Kerry's stepson.  Nothing to see here, folks, just move along.

Donald Trump Triumphant as He Ridicules Adam Schiff's Impeachment 'Fantasy'.  President Donald Trump ridiculed Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Thursday after the House Intelligence Committee chairman employed a fantasy narrative during a congressional hearing with the acting director of national intelligence.  "Adam Schiff has zero credibility," he wrote on Twitter.  "Another fantasy to hurt the Republican Party!"

Adam Schiff Did One of the Most Insane, Disgusting Things Ever Done In a Congressional Hearing.  There is no member of Congress more disgusting than Adam Schiff, and there are a lot of disgusting members of Congress.  He spent the last two years claiming to have super-secret proof of Trump colluding with Russia, being given a permeant spot the Sunday shows to constantly lie about what he actually knew.  When it all came crashing down, he paid no price at all, still insisting the evidence was "in plain sight."  Now, he's found a new hobby horse.  Namely, this Trump-Ukraine nonsense and that meant having a hearing today [9/26/2019] with the Intel Chief about the "whistle-blower" complaint.

Schiff opens hearing ad-libbing Trump's Ukraine call with improvised fake dialogue.  Democrats are desperately trying to nail Trump and begin the impeachment process over a conversation Trump had with Zelensky.  Trump has been accused of strongarming Zelensky with a quid quo pro in order to get dirt on Dem rival Joe Biden.  Only the newly released transcript of the phone call doesn't show Trump strongarming Ukraine at all.  That pesky fact must have prompted "little Adam Schiff" to make up his own facts when he spoke during a House Intelligence hearing Thursday morning [9/26/2019].

Sen. Ron Johnson Is Considering Opening An Investigation Into Biden And Ukraine:  Report.  Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is considering an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden's role in Ukraine when he was still serving in the White House, The Washington Post reported Wednesday [9/25/2019], citing unnamed sources.  The Wisconsin lawmaker told colleagues that he would consider a probe against the former vice president who is now running for president, three people familiar with the conversations told WaPo.  The report suggested other Republicans in the Senate are being more circumspect about how to approach the matter.

Mark Levin:  Today's Hearing on Trump-Ukraine Is Another Spectacle, Another Drama for the Media.  In a post on his Facebook page on Thursday at 9:53 AM, nationally syndicated radio talk show host, TV host, author and American lawyer Mark Levin blasted today's hearing on the whistleblower complaint about President Donald J. Trump's comments to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "just another spectacle, another drama for the media, another sham."  "We will learn nothing," wrote Mark Levin on social media.  "This is just another spectacle, another drama for the media, another sham."

House Intelligence Committee Releases Partisan Federal Employee's Complaint.  The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released a redacted version of the partisan federal employee's whistleblower complaint regarding President Donald Trump's telephone conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.  In the nine-page document, the so-called "whistleblower" claims that the president was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election."  While characterizing the Trump-Zelensky call based on hearsay, it accuses the White House of attempting to conceal records related to their conversation.

Dishonest Media Leaving Out What Trump's 'Favor' From Ukraine President Actually Was.  Major media outlets had already decided on the narrative of the whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump regarding his conversation with the Ukraine president.  Now that the White House's transcript has been released, these same outlets are cutting out important context in order to give a different, more negative, impression of the call.  The New York Times and The Washington Post each put sections of the transcript on their front pages on Thursday.  Each paper cut out what Trump said after asking Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky for a "favor" and skipped ahead to a portion of the call when Trump brought up former Vice President Joe Biden's son's involvement in a company that was investigated by Ukraine.

Kim Strassel:  "Media got this all so wrong".  Wall Street Journal columnist and editorial board member Kim Strassel posted a 10-part thread on Twitter yesterday [9/25/2019] to comment on White House transcript of the Trump/Zelensky phone call.

Ukraine Scandal Is About Biden.  Release of the transcript of President Trump's call with Ukraine's new president makes one thing clear — the Democrats are focusing on the wrong guy.  They're trying to use this episode to impeach Mr. Trump.  What the conversation shows, though, is that Mr. Trump was enlisting help to do exactly what he had promised to do, drain the swamp.  The culprit on whom to focus is Vice President Biden.  The transcript certainly confirms that Mr. Biden was mentioned by Mr. Trump in his call with Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelensky.  And that Mr. Biden's son, Hunter, was also mentioned.  This shows up on the fourth page of the five-page transcript, after the two presidents were talking about how America gives more support to Ukraine than do the Europeans.

State of Delusion:  Democrats Privately Panic Following Transcript, Impeachment Fallout.  The far-left flank of the Democrat caucus forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to concede and announce a formal impeachment inquiry against the president on Tuesday.  She made the announcement prior to the release of the transcript, which detailed the phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  As Republican lawmakers explicitly noted, the conversation contained "zero" grounds for a legitimate impeachment inquiry.

Democrat demolition derby continues with Ukraine Zelensky transcript.  Since taking control of the House last year, watching the Democrats is not unlike watching a demolition derby.  Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Green, and the Squad, to name a few, all driving tired, beaten up, divisive narratives, as fresh as a demolition derby car.  The question is what is driving the Democrats demolition derby of hysteria over a conversation between Presidents Trump and Zelensky?  A conversation they both know is being listened to, recorded.  It is simple.  Ukraine knows exactly what went transpired between the Obama administration — Obama, Biden and Clinton and the oligarchy of Ukraine.  Hunter and Joe Biden, while actions are questionable, are nothing more than a way to distract away from the very real crimes that hurt America.  The collusion of Obama and Clinton, et al., in the creation of the Russian hoax dossier.

Impeach Joe Biden.  [Scroll down]  When the transcript of the call came out, however, the story fell apart.  There was no discussion of aid.  Trump did not cajole or pressure Zelensky.  Of course, since the impeachment train had already left the station, Democrats couldn't suddenly shrug their shoulders and say "never mind."  So the mere fact that Trump brought up the topic of the Biden investigation is now grounds for impeachment.  But if that's all there is to it, why isn't Biden under the impeachment cloud?  After all, no one disputes the fact that he pressured the Ukrainian government to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin by telling officials there, in no uncertain terms, that if they didn't, they'd lose out on $1 billion in aid.  Biden himself has bragged about it last year.

Ukraine-Gate' Is About the Russian Hack That Wasn't.  One of the animating chapters in the Trump-Russian collusion saga was the claim that Russia infiltrated the Democratic National Committee's email server in the spring of 2016.  That hack, according to collusion truthers, and the subsequent release of damaging emails exchanged between top Democratic Party officials was central to Vladimir Putin's scheme to sway the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump.  But the evidence to support this widely accepted claim is sketchy at best and appears to be under appropriate scrutiny by prosecutors now examining the origins of the FBI's pre-election investigation into the Trump campaign for "colluding" with Russia.

When Hillary Clinton Colluded with Ukraine.  So now we have a whistleblower who isn't because he cannot be, either from his circumstance or from the law.  He or she had no firsthand knowledge, weren't on the call or in the room, and in any case cannot blow the whistle on a unitary executive, namely President Trump.  You can only be a whistleblower for an agency you are a member of.  We have a quid without a quo and a phone conversation in which President Trump did not pressure a Ukrainian leader into a crime Joe Biden has previously confessed to, namely threatening to withhold a loan guarantee unless the Ukrainian government fires a prosecutor looking into a company that was paying Hunter Biden, a man with no special knowledge of Ukraine or the business, $600,0000 a year.  As Trump lawyer and former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani points out, the phone transcript makes Trump the whistleblower and Biden the criminal in a Ukrainian collusion saga that leads to Hillary Clinton and not Donald Trump.

Ukraine is another Sharpiegate.  [Scroll down]  Now we cannot impeach Biden [or] Obama no matter how much they and their secretaries of state raked in actual emoluments from Ukraine, Red China, Russia and elsewhere.  Hillary used a Fake Charity.  Biden and Kerry used a hedge fund run by their families.  Obama likely did it through post-presidential book deals and that Netflix contract.  But we can stop the uneducated mob from destroying our president.  We do that by standing by our man just as we did 3 years ago when that Billy Bush tape came out.  We stood by Donald Trump then not knowing if he was just another carnival barker or the real deal.

Justice Department clears Trump of wrongdoing on Ukraine call.  The Justice Department's Criminal Division has already investigated President Trump's conversation with the Ukrainian president about Joseph R. Biden and concluded Mr. Trump did not violate campaign finance laws, officials announced Wednesday [9/25/2019].  And a separate division of the department has also ruled that the administration did not break the law by failing to quickly share a whistleblower's complaint with Congress, saying the matter didn't meet the definition of "urgent" that would trigger the law.

Transcript Shows No Wrongdoing by President Trump.  The just-released transcript of President Trump's July 25 conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky confirms the president's statement that he did nothing blameworthy with regard to the Biden investigation.  The conversation was friendly and wide-ranging.

The Editor says...
I can almost hear the voice of Maxwell Smart:  "Listen, I hope I wasn't out of line with that crack about impeachment."

Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee Blasts Dems Over More 'Baseless Accusations' Against Trump.  Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, blasted Democrats Wednesday for jumping to conclusions about President Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before knowing the facts.  "The transcript between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky reveals that Democrats have again leapt to conclusions before looking at the facts," he said in a statement.  "There was no quid pro quo and nothing to justify the clamor House Democrats caused yesterday.  The real danger here is that Democrats keep using baseless accusations in hopes of crippling a successful presidency."

President Trump's Ukraine Call Transcript Has Been Released and Blows Up the Latest Impeachment Narrative.  The Department of Justice has released an unredacted transcript of a phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  The text was taken down by note takers.  The call took place in July from the White House Situation Room.  It shows no effort by President Trump to pressure Zelensky into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, in exchange for military aid.  This action was falsely alleged by a whistleblower and pushed Democrats on Capitol Hill into an impeachment inquiry.

Transcript of Trump's Ukrainian call reveals no quid pro quo.  The Justice Department's Criminal Division has already investigated President Trump's conversation with the Ukrainian president about Joseph R. Biden and concluded Mr. Trump did not violate campaign finance laws, officials announced Wednesday [9/25/2019].  And a separate division of the department has also ruled that the administration did not break the law by failing to quickly share a whistleblower's complaint with Congress, saying the matter didn't meet the definition of "urgent" that would trigger the law.

Trump thrives as impeachment circus ringmaster.  As cable news channels breathlessly waited Tuesday [9/24/2019] for Democratic presidential hopeful Joseph R. Biden to declare his support for impeachment, President Trump stole the spotlight.  Mr. Trump announced in a tweet that he was going to do exactly what Mr. Biden planned to demand:  release the transcript of his much-discussed phone call with the Ukrainian president.

Pelosi announces formal impeachment inquiry.  After meeting with her Democratic caucus, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday [9/24/2019] the launch of a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump's alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate the business dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden.  Pelosi said "the president must be held accountable" for a "betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and the betrayal of the integrity of our elections."

Pelosi Formally Announces Trump Impeachment Inquiry.  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is formally signing off on an impeachment inquiry into President Donald J. Trump after he spoke to the Ukrainians, reportedly trying to coerce the political leadership there to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden on corruption charges.  This was dredged up after a whistleblower came forward to the intelligence community inspector general, though it's based on anonymous second-hand sources.  The whistleblower didn't even listen in on the calls, and it's not the intelligence community's job to snitch on the president.  The president can say whatever he wants to another foreign leader.  Period.  And now, before anyone has read the transcript of the call, the House Democrats are launching a full-blown impeachment push.  It's not shocking.  This was going to happen eventually.

The Latest Impeachment Frenzy Is About #Resistance, Not High Crimes And Misdemeanors.  Despite the breathless commentary about Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian president and a whistleblower report based on second-hand accounts of uncertain credibility, we know little about what transpired, much less whether it rises to the level of an impeachable offense.  Democrats could have gone through the normal procedures to get the information from the White House rather than jump immediately to talk of impeachment.  But the Democrats' impeachment frenzy didn't result from this news.  It's been in full flower since before Trump was even elected.

Impeachment Would Be Really Stupid, But Democrats Probably Will Do It Anyway.  House Democrats' most edge towards impeachment proceedings reveals that their fanatical hatred of President Trump, which has driven much of their agenda over the past two and a half years, has not abated in the slightest.  On Tuesday [9/24/2019], House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the House will move forward with an "impeachment inquiry" into President Trump due to allegations that he pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate corruption charges against 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.  However, the latest calls for impeachment may end up hurting Democrats' chances of recapturing the White House in 2020.

The Editor says...
The Democrats have no chance of winning the presidential election of 2020, without massive voter fraud, hanging chads, and various schemes to undermine the Electoral College.  Thus they have nothing to lose by putting on this chest-thumping impeachment charade.

Network Morning Shows Hype Trump Impeachment 17 Times [in One Day].  On Monday [9/23/2019], the network morning shows managed to feature some variant of the word "impeachment" a total of 17 times while reporting on President Trump's phone call with the President of Ukraine about corruption allegations against Joe Biden's son Hunter.  In addition, ABC, NBC and CBS eagerly touted a letter from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accusing Trump of "lawlessness."

Trump's GOP primary challenger floats 'death penalty' for president.  Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, running as a Republican challenger to incumbent President Donald Trump, suggested Monday that the president had committed treason — and mentioned the death penalty as the "only penalty" for that crime.  Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Weld discussed Trump's controversial phone call with the president of Ukraine, a call that may be moving House Democrats closer to impeachment.

Bill Weld suggests Trump could face execution over Ukraine phone call.  Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who is challenging President Trump in the Republican primaries, proclaimed Monday [9/23/2019] that the president committed treason through his controversial phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — adding that the punishment for treason is death.  The statement drew a swift rebuke from the Trump campaign.

'Morning Joe' Refuses to Disagree with Weld's Claim Trump Should Be Killed Due to Treason.  MSNBC's Morning Joe stooped to a new low on Monday morning [9/23/2019] when the assembled panel refused to condemn 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld's insistence that President Donald Trump should be put to death because, in his mind, he's committed treason for his conversations with the Ukrainian president.  Not only that, but Weld twice made this case while panelists Mike Barnicle, Mika Brzezinski, Elise Jordan Joe Scarborugh, and Michael Steele refused to push back along with fellow Trump challengers Mark Sanford and Joe Walsh.  In Jordan's case, she even inquired about how this would happen.

Watch MSNBC Discuss Trump's Coming Execution.  As I wrote this past weekend, that Trump-Ukraine scandal exploded into a million pieces after about twelve hours of hysteria.  In the end, there was no threat, no quid pro quo, and no real meat to the story.  The issue for many in the media and on the left, though, is that they had invested everything into this.  They truly felt this was finally it and that Trump would be taken down for using foreign aid money to force an investigation of Joe Biden.  That didn't happen and they were again left chasing the wind, suckers of fake news once more.  The problem with being so emotionally invested in all this is that it's hard to let go.  And instead of just admitting their mistake, we end up with lunacy like this from MSNBC: [...]

Ukraine 'Bombshell' Will Explode in Democratic Faces.  Julián Castro, another unemployed Obama administration official pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination, tweeted the following:  "Donald Trump is a criminal.  He must be impeached immediately."  Saturday [9/21/2019], Castro began a speech with another demand that the House take immediate action to remove the president:  "Let me begin with a message for our House Democratic friends — it is time for you to do your job and impeach Donald Trump."  This was a big applause line for his audience, but it contained no constitutional justification for such action by the House.

Adam Schiff, the Lady Macbeth of the House.  [Scroll down]  But at the moment, the most senseless member of Congress is the odious and sanctimonious Adam Schiff of California.  Like Lady Macbeth, he lacks humanity, and he burns with ambition.  In the span of just under three years, he has become Trump-deranged, incoherent, a man grasping at any thread with which to bring the president down, no matter how slender the filament.  This week, it is his fake "whistleblower" scenario. [...] Since the moment Trump was elected, Schiff has been on the mythical Trump-colluded-with-Russia train.  He appeared on cable news programs hundreds of times, where he guaranteed, promised that he had proof of the Trump campaign's illicit dealings with Russians.  He did not.