By Robert Romano

House Democrats have voted to impeach President Donald Trump under the unproven premise that he leveraged $391 million of U.S. military and security assistance to Ukraine in exchange for investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and the corrupt natural gas firm Burisma his son worked for after Biden said he had the prosecutor who says he was investigating Burisma fired.

None of the witnesses the House called to testify were able to cite President Trump either ordering or communicating to Ukraine that the military assistance was tied to such investigations, although one witness said he “presumed” that was the case when he communicated to a Ukrainian presidential aide, but that when he spoke directly with Trump he was told there was no quid pro quo.

But even if Trump had suspended the aid pending an evaluation of corruption in Ukraine or seeing if the newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be a reliable national security partner, those are not crimes. In fact, they are all things the President has the power to do under Article II of the Constitution in the conduct of his foreign affairs powers to determine whether military assistance there is in U.S. national security interests or if Ukraine is just too corrupt to receive it.

Impeachment is supposed to be for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. The allegations in the Articles of Impeachment the Democrats are relying on are none of the above, and cite no criminal violations of the U.S. Code.

But why are we even sending military assistance to Ukraine and getting involved in the civil war there in the first place? And why would pausing it — again, not a crime — be of such critical importance to become House Democrats’ centerpiece on impeachment?

For all that, we should thank former British spy Christopher Steele. Steele, who was hired by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS and the law firm Perkins Coie, falsely alleged in a series of reports in 2016 that President Trump and his campaign were bought and paid for Russian agents, that then-campaign manager Paul Manafort and foreign policy advisor Carter Page had coordinated with Russia in hacking the DNC emails and putting them on Wikileaks in July 2016.

Additionally, Steele had alleged that the 2016 Republican National Convention party platform was altered at the behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, via Carter Page, to water down a provision calling for military assistance to Ukraine.

The U.S. supported the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, leading directly to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and eastern Ukrainian provinces that year.

But because Ukraine is a potential hotspot for the U.S. and Russia to get involved in a wider regional war, we never sent military aid through the remainder of the Obama administration.

And the U.S. would not do so until Christopher Steele alleged in 2016 that Russia wanted us not to send such assistance, and Russia had allegedly recruited Trump to run for President specifically to block the military aid, and then Trump won the election.

Only then did Congress finally approve the military assistance and the Trump administration committed to providing the aid it in 2017 and 2018. The legislative history of the military assistance itself suggests it designed specifically as a countermeasure to Russia’s supposed operation with Trump. The chief proponent for military assistance was Sen. John McCain beginning in Feb. 2017, who had personally received the Steele dossier and was a true believer in its allegations.

Fast forward to 2019. In July, Trump did have the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) briefly pause military assistance to Ukraine under OMB’s apportioning powers while considering requesting a potential rescission of the funds, pending reviews by the Departments of State and Defense, which were completed, and the aid was released on Sept. 11.

To the President’s opponents, the pause of military assistance raised a red flag, since it impacted directly on Steele’s initial allegations about Russia wanting to get Trump elected specifically to stop U.S. military assistance to Ukraine.

And now it has led to the wrongful impeachment of Trump.

This allegation was also used by the Justice Department in all four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications against Page to get spying warrants on the Trump campaign, stating, “[A]ccording to [the sub-Source], Candidate #1's [Trump's] team, which the FBI assesses includes at least Page, agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue and to raise U.S./NATO defense commitments in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deflect attention away from Ukraine.”

But ultimately the allegation about the change to the Republican platform was widely debunked in reports from both Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz this year.

On the change to the platform, Mueller found “the investigation did not establish that one Campaign official's efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing assistance to Ukraine were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia.”

As for Horowitz, he found that Page had communicated the opposite to an FBI confidential human source: “With regard to the platform committee during the Republican National Convention, Page said that he "stayed clear of that-there was a lot of conspiracy theories that I was one of them ... [but] totally off the record ... members of our team were working on that, and ... in retrospect it's way better off that I...remained at arms length."

And, that this exculpatory information was kept away from senior leadership at the Justice Department making decisions about the FISA warrants. Per Horowitz: “the FBI did not advise [the Office of Intelligence] that Carter Page denied having been involved with the Republican Platform Committee. Page's statements to the FBI CHS, if true, would have been inconsistent with the FBI's assessment in the FISA application that Page helped influence the Republican Party to change its platform to be more sympathetic to Russia's interests by eliminating language in the Republican platform about providing weapons to Ukraine. The FBI's assessment was based in part on Report 95's allegation that Page and possibly others agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue in exchange for Russia's disclosure of hacked DNC emails to Wikileaks. The assessment also drew upon news articles in July and August 2016 reporting that the Trump campaign influenced the Republican Party to change its platform to not call for giving Ukraine weapons to fight Russian and rebel forces.”

Additionally, Horowitz found the information was similarly kept away from the FISA court, and did not alter the FBI’s assessment of Page: “We found that, other than this information from Report 95, the FBI's investigation did not reveal any information to demonstrate that Carter Page had any involvement with the Republican Platform Committee. We further found that, even after the FBI identified the individuals who were involved with influencing the Republican Platform change on Ukraine (which did not include Page), the FBI never altered their assessment. The FBI also did not include in any subsequent Carter Page FISA applications information that contradicted the assertion that Carter Page was involved with the Republican Platform Committee's provision on Ukraine, nor did OI provide such information at any time to the FISC.”

And so, the allegation that the Republican Party platform was altered at the behest of Russia was a lie. But it was a powerful lie.

As a refresher, the Steele dossier, big lie that it was, paid for by the Clinton campaign in 2016 has overall led to: 1) Justice Department and intelligence agency spying on the Trump campaign; 2) four FISA warrants against the Trump campaign and then administration allowing electronic surveillance of the campaign and administration’s phone calls, emails, text message and other documents; 3) former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal; 4) the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller; 5) U.S. escalation of the civil war in Ukraine by providing military assistance; and finally, 6) President Trump being impeached when he reconsidered whether that assistance was prudent and advanced U.S. national security objectives.

So, the Steele dossier, from a discredited former British spy, has been used to investigate and prosecute political opponents, turn this country upside down for three years and to set U.S. national security objectives. Think of that. Three years is more than 1 percent of this country’s history.

In the meantime, it is unclear how important the military assistance even is to Ukraine’s defense. Not a single FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missile has been deployed along the eastern front of Ukraine’s civil war. They have been sitting unused in a secure facility in western Ukraine away from the fighting for almost two years now. It is hardly the cornerstone of Ukrainian national security, let alone U.S. national security.

But House Democrats would have the American people believe that President Trump briefly suspending that assistance, and inquiring about Ukraine’s corruption and potential role in 2016 election interference, is a high crime, worthy of President Trump’s removal from office. You fight the wars they want, or else. It is because they still believe in a now-debunked wild-eyed conspiracy theory that the President was a Manchurian candidate. It’s mass hysteria. That is their legacy.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

Video: Dems want the Senate to do what the House failed to do and make the case to impeach President Trump

 

To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m63MtYOh7XI

---

Senators are not jurors

Dec. 18, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement recalling that in 1999 then-Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist ruled that in an impeachment trial, “the Senate is not simply a jury, it is a court in this case”:

“The latest big lie being told by the Democrats is that Senators are jurors, they are not.  In the Clinton impeachment in 1999, Chief Justice Rehnquist ruled that Senators are not jurors, stating, ‘the Senate is not simply a jury, it is a court in this case.’  Senators are Constitutional officers sworn to uphold the Constitution and that is their duty. Senators ask questions and are actively engaged in the process on the Senate floor. Their duty is to be active rather than passive listeners and Republican Senators should not be cowed into silence by the false narrative that they are jurors, it is a lie.”

To view online: https://getliberty.org/2019/12/senators-are-not-jurors/

---

ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured oped from Fox News by Newt Gingrich, the half of Congress focused on impeachment must live in an alternate reality:

Newt Gingrich: Trump impeachment vote – America, it's the anti-Trump universe vs. the pro-Trump universe

By Newt Gingrich

Watching recent developments in the House Democratic Party, it is clear that the effort to impeach President Trump has nothing to do with facts or a normal process of investigation and evidence-based prosecution.

We are living through a process defined by a pro-Trump universe and an anti-Trump universe. The great economy, record-low unemployment, the conservative judges, the achievements in renewing the Space program, and a host of other positive things are occurring in the pro-Trump universe.

However, the willful avoidance of facts and evidence by left-wing media and left-wing Democrats is a sign that there is an alternative anti-Trump universe.

The report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz was devastating in its indictment of senior FBI officials – and even more in its repudiation of the lies being told by Democrat House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who is the public face of the impeachment effort. Again and again, Horowitz vindicated the former chairman, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, and rejected Schiff’s assertions.

On Sunday, Chris Wallace made vividly clear in interviews for "Fox News Sunday" with both former FBI Director James Comey and Chairman Schiff that they simply were not telling the truth. Every American should watch the Wallace interview.

Further, Schiff is not the only Democratic congressman with a big credibility gap. As Paul Sperry reported for RealClearInvestigations, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler has some real explaining to do.

Sperry wrote that in February 2018, Nadler circulated a ‘Dear Democratic Colleague’ letter – later leaked to the press – that trashed a House Intelligence Committee report detailing FBI spying abuses involving former Trump campaign staffer Carter Page.

But Horowitz last week found the FBI did in fact abuse its authority.

Sperry also notes that “Nadler also insisted in his four-page letter … that a discredited Clinton campaign-funded [Christopher Steele] dossier did not play a substantial role in supporting warrants to spy on Page.”

Inspector General Horowitz found the opposite.

In his letter, Nadler implied that Nunes, was lying about what he had read in classified documents.

But the Horowitz report concurred with Nunes’s findings. In fact, one Republican committee staffer told Sperry that Nadler “has no credibility left.”

The failure of the secret Schiff kangaroo court hearings, combined with the growing repudiation by official inquiries, has convinced many Americans that the whole impeachment process is simply a scheme by Democrats, partisans, and fake news media members who hate President Trump.

In fact, the Horowitz report and other investigations make increasingly clear that The Washington Post, and The New York Times should return the Pulitzers their reporters received for the fake news they were being fed by the deep state opponents of President Trump.

As Lee Smith makes clear in his book "The Plot Against the President," the systemic dishonesty of the deep state-fake media-Democratic Party system is deeper and more dishonest than anyone could have imagined a decade ago.

The Democrats’ problems aren’t just with their chairmen. Consider this new report by Chrissy Clark for in The Federalist:

“Robert Powell, the husband of Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., reportedly took $700,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch named Igor Kolomoisky. Mucarsel-Powell sits on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee that drafted two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump for his alleged abuse of power with regards to Ukraine.”

Of course, in the Democrats’ alternative universe, having Hunter Biden accept millions from a Ukrainian company, or a Judiciary Committee member’s husband accepting $700,000 in Ukrainian oligarch funding, or an FBI senior manager’s wife getting nearly $700,000 in campaign funds from Clinton-aligned Democrats are simply business as usual. In the Democrats’ left-wing world, all bad things are Republican and conservative and no wrongdoing can be alleged against the deep state-fake news-Democrat alliance against President Trump.

The growing understanding of how sick the system is has turned more and more Americans against the Democratic Party’s impeachment campaign. In a remarkable turn of events, people actually believe the process may strengthen President Trump. This is literally making fake news analysts’ heads hurt.

The growing understanding of how sick the system is has turned more and more Americans against the Democratic Party’s impeachment campaign. In a remarkable turn of events, people actually believe the process may strengthen President Trump. This is literally making fake news analysts’ heads hurt.

Steve Krakauer in the Fourth Watch media newsletter wrote that a recent CNN poll found that only 25 percent of Americans think the impeachment circus will hurt President Trump’s re-election campaign. Meanwhile, 37 percent think it will have no effect and 32 percent believe it will help him get re-elected.

According to Krakauer: “When David Chalian reported this to Anderson Cooper tonight on AC360, Cooper was stunned. ‘This poll hurts my head,’ said Cooper. ‘I mean, David, do you believe these polls?’

With the current impeachment process having lost ground with the American people – and with the Republican Senate certain to sustain the President and reject the dishonest hypocrisy of the House Democrats – what can we expect in this world of an alternative, anti-Trump universe?

The answer is apparently a permanent impeachment process – no matter what the American people want or what the evidence or lack of evidence indicates.

Consider this report from Politico:

“In a filing to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, House General Counsel Douglas Letter argued that the House’s demands for grand jury materials connected to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were still urgent because such evidence might become relevant to the Senate’s expected impeachment trial next month.

“But Letter went further to note that even apart from the Senate trial, the House Judiciary Committee intends to continue its impeachment investigation arising from the Mueller probe on its own merit.

"'The committee has continued and will continue [its impeachment] investigations consistent with its own prior statements respecting their importance and purposes,’ Letter wrote in a filing Monday as part of the House’s bid to obtain Mueller’s grand jury evidence.”

In other words, the Democrats are already laying the ground for yet another impeachment effort once this one fails.

The 2020 campaign is going to be a tale of two vividly different universes.

Which one the American people decide is better for themselves and their country will do a great deal to define the next century of American progress – or decay.

Permalink here.

 

---