Within the current claims of the Democrats there is a baseline action that needs to exist for any “bribery” or “undue influence” claim to exist. Meaning there had to be pressure by President Trump upon the government of Ukraine to initiate an investigation of Joe Biden.

The call transcript between President Trump and President Zelenskyy doesn’t show such a request.  Ukraine President Zelenskyy said there was never such a request by President Trump; and now Ukraine Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko says there was never such a request from U.S. Ambassador Sondland on behalf of President Trump:

(Via Daily Mail) The Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vadym Prystaiko told Ukrainian reporters a day after the first public impeachment hearing that Ambassador Gordon Sondland did not detail any relationship between the assistance and probe, according to Interfax, a Ukrainian news agency.

‘Ambassador Sondland did not tell us, and did not tell me exactly, about the relation between the [military] assistance and the investigations,’ Prystaiko told journalists in Kiev. ‘You should ask him. I do not recall any conversation with me as with foreign minister. It was not we, the Ukrainian officials (who were told this).’

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Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan discuss the testimony of State Dept. officials George Kent and Bill Taylor yesterday, as well as the upcoming testimony of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch scheduled for tomorrow.

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Not only was Marie Yovanovitch’s prior testimony carefully orchestrated with Chairman Schiff’s staff, but Ms. Yovanovitch brought three lawyers to help construct the needs of the committee and protect Yovanovitch’s legal interests.  [Transcript pdf available here]
During her deposition, when Yovanovitch was questioned about having released her opening statement to the Washington Post on behalf of the Democrats on the committee, her lawyers would not let her talk about it citing attny-client privilege.
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Leader Kevin McCarthy just put some specific dates to a sequence we anticipated several months ago.
During a Fox interview with Laura Ingraham (I’ll look for video) McCarthy predicts Speaker Pelosi will bring up the impeachment vote on/around December 16th; then follow-up the impeachment vote with USMCA ratification and the budget passage on/around December 20th allowing the Democrats to go home for the holidays with all three goals accomplished.
This prediction by Leader McCarthy is very likely. Earlier today Speaker Poli-Grip said passing the USMCA was “imminent“.  In essence, she’s holding the USMCA vote as an ace to highlight a bipartisan legislative accomplishment by her party.
We noted last month: Nancy Pelosi will bring the USMCA to a vote timed with the impeachment vote. This plan allows democrats to try and dilute the political nature of the impeachment scheme by referencing the Trump administration USMCA vote as an example of Democrats not being political. This is how they scheme.

…’See, we’re not politically motivated, we’re giving the same president we are impeaching a win; because this trade deal is in the best interest of America.  Just like the impeachment of this corrupt president is in the best interest of America’….

The usurping group of FBI and DOJ officials we have called “the small group” have an established set of media operatives and outlets aligned to assist their narrative.  Tonight Devlin Barrett (Lisa Page and Peter Strzok’s favorite narrative engineer) publishes a report in the Washington Post highlighting their concerns.

According to the WaPo Inspector General Michael Horowitz is not allowing the ‘small group’ to provide written rebuttals to the IG report on FISA abuse during their principal reviews.  The outline by Devlin on behalf of the group also confirms our timeline.

After the 2018 mid-terms, and in preparation for the “impeachment” strategy, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler hired Lawfare group members to become House committee staff.

In 2018 Chairman Adam Schiff hired former SDNY U.S. Attorney Daniel Goldman (link).  You probably saw Goldman doing the questioning for Schiff during the first public impeachment hearing (above).  Meanwhile Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler hired Obama Administration lawyer Norm Eisen and criminal defense attorney Barry Berke (link).
However, with a horrible start to the impeachment construct; an outcome of day-one hearings where State Department officials George Kent and Bill Taylor provided no baseline for the impeachment narrative to build upon; Pelosi and Schiff are going outside for more legal assistance.  Per Chad Pergram:

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Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) was moved to the House Intelligence Committee because the HPSCI has become the impeachment committee.  Mr. Jordan is an articulate representative with a unique skillset in his ability to boil down issues to their essential elements, and then drill home the key point.  Jordan thinks fast and can respond quickly during congressional hearings.
Yesterday, as Jordan questioned the witnesses, the value of moving him to the impeachment committee was evident.  Mr. Jordan was excellent.
Today Mr. Jordan shares his perspective of the hearing during a media interview:

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An impeachment trial in the senate would presumably be run through the Senate Judiciary Committee (presiding judge John Roberts), unless there are constitutionally permitted process rule changes.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham begins to get specific about what he will and will-not allow as part of the senate trial.   Graham notes the ‘hearsay rule’ will be applied to the House evidence within the article(s) as presented.  Additionally, Graham notes that anonymous witnesses (ie. “whistleblower”) will not be permitted.

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During the impeachment hearing today State Department officials George Kent and Bill Taylor both stated they never heard of any claims of Ukrainian political interference in the 2016 U.S. election.  Additionally, both claimed to have no knowledge of any U.S. investigation that might overlap with Ukraine.
When pressed with specifically cited reports about DNC operatives engaging with Ukraine government officials to gather opposition research against candidate Donald Trump, both Mr. Kent and Ambassador Taylor denied any knowledge of the outlined reporting.

However, what everyone in the media –and on Capitol Hill– seems to forget is a letter in July, 2017 [LINK HERE], written by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley to Dept. of Justice Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, specifically outlining 2016 election interference by Ukrainian government officials; and specifically asking for an U.S. DOJ investigation therein:
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They are called “decepticons” for a reason. McConnell is king, and Cornyn, Thune and Barasso are his praetorian guards.  {Go Deep}
Senator John Cornyn (TX), a key member of the Senate GOP leadership; and a member of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees; warns the White House that a vote to immediately dismiss articles of impeachment and avoid a trial won’t work.

“There’s some people talking about trying to stop the bill, dismiss charges basically as soon as they get over here. I think that’s not going to happen. That would require 51 votes,” Cornyn told reporters Wednesday. “I think it would be hard to find 51 votes to cut the case off before the evidence is presented.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top Senate Republican, John Cornyn, said on Wednesday that should the U.S. House of Representatives vote to impeach President Donald Trump, he doubts a motion in the Senate to immediately dismiss the charges would succeed.

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Day One of the Pelosi, Schiff and Lawfare effort to publicly construct support for the impeachment of President Trump ends.  Within the questioning of State Department officials George Kent and Bill Taylor the value of adding Jim Jordan to the hearings became clear.
Jim Jordan, Elise Stefanik and John Ratcliffe methodically deconstructed the false premise advanced by the impeachment crew.  It became clear that both Kent and Taylor held no specific and direct knowledge of the substance behind the claims made by the democrats leading the effort.  Here’s a few highlights starting with Jim Jordan:
Jordan pressed Taylor on how he came to have a “clear understanding” that the U.S. aid to Ukraine was dependent on opening an investigation into Trump’s political rivals. Jordan said there was no “linkage” and Ambassador Taylor said he came to his “clear conclusion” based on what other people said about what other people heard about conversations with other people.

Here’s the visual to help (tweet embed video):

A visual recap of the “clear understanding” of Ambassador Taylor’s knowledge of what happened. #ImpeachmentHearings
.@Jim_Jordan pic.twitter.com/5sZD2CozfL

— Mad Liberals (@mad_liberals) November 13, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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