Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is attempting to rescue two legally and structurally deficient articles of impeachment rushed from the Lawfare community in the House of representatives.   However, in his first effort to introduce new documents and force the Trump administration to hand over new executive branch information, related to President Trump foreign policy decisions and delayed foreign aid to Ukraine, the Schumer amendment was defeated.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell moved to table the amendment, dismissing the request, and won a floor vote as all republican senators stayed united 53-47.

It is anticipated that Schumer will next move for another amendment making the same request for new State Department documents the House committees did not seek.
The primary reason Chuck Schumer has to make this ridiculous effort for more evidence, is how the House never established their ability to enforce subpoenas via “Judicial Enforcement Authority”.  The failure of a full House vote to authorize the House Judiciary Committee to pursue evidence -via enforceable subpoenas- was a defect by design of Nancy Pelosi’s decision to initiate an impeachment inquiry by her decree, not an authorizing vote.
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Wow, this is quite a contrast. The number one policy initiative that helped President Trump win election in 2016 was his promise to build a southern border wall. Several hundred miles of the new border security barrier have been completed with several hundred more in various stages of construction.
During the VICE News Brown & Black Democrat Presidential Forum today, 2020 candidate Bernie Sanders said he would “look at” tearing it all down. WATCH:

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The lawyers representing President Trump and lawyers representing the Office of the Presidency collectively file a response briefing, a trial memorandum, to the Senate (full pdf below).  The 170-page rebuttal to the House articles is HERE and embedded below:
[scribd id=443635181 key=key-aNR0dOONH5PrvmDt1r3u mode=scroll]
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Updating a story we shared last night; and the latest information only makes the situation seem much worse.   To say this story is infuriating would be an understatement.
As an individual with some personal knowledge of how the recovery process works, the actions by these government officials in Puerto Rico are beyond tragic.  There are people in desperate need, and these stupid claims by officials do nothing to ameliorate ongoing suffering.  This is disgusting and heartbreaking at the same time.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Gov. Wanda Vázquez fired the heads of Puerto Rico’s housing and family departments Sunday in the latest fallout over the discovery of a warehouse filled with emergency supplies dating from Hurricane Maria.

The removal of Housing Secretary Fernando Gil and Department of Family Secretary Glorimar Andújar came a day after the governor fired the director of Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency.

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There is a remarkable confluence of data-points surrounding a second amendment rally in Virginia this holiday weekend that bear a strong note of caution.  Something akin to an astroturf event appears in the background.  ♦ Data-points:
♦ Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is running for President.  Bloomberg has funded the majority of Virginia anti-gun legislators who are now proposing considerable restrictions on lawful gun ownership in the commonwealth.
♦ It is also worth noting in the wake of the astro-turfed Charlottesville narrative, the professional political messaging of the Democrat apparatus, via Joe Biden, proclaimed in April 2019 that Charlottesville represented “the battle for the soul of this nation.”
If there is one consistent aspect to DNC activists (Occupy Wall Street, Antifa etc.), it’s that they use the same playbook.
♦ Provoking civil unrest to achieve political objectives is a well known strategy of the Alinsky wing of the apparatus.  ie. “never let a crisis go to waste”; and they are very good at creating the appearance of an organic crisis.  It’s usually in hindsight when the astroturf originating the crisis is identified.
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Sickening.  Earlier today Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a media event signing ceremony complete with commemorative pens for dozens of her Democrat colleagues, and initiated the parade ceremony for the march across the Capitol with the articles.  Upon arrival at the upper chamber of congress, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell accepted delivery and began the process of organizing the procedure through a series of rules by unanimous consent.

[McConnell] “A few minutes ago, the Senate was notified the House of Representatives is finally ready to proceed with their articles of impeachment. So, by unanimous consent, we’ve just laid some of the groundwork that will structure the next several days.”

• We have officially invited the House managers to come to the Senate tomorrow at noon to exhibit their articles of impeachment.
• Then, later tomorrow afternoon at 2:00pm, the Chief Justice of the United States will arrive here in the Senate. He will be sworn in by the President Pro Tem, Senator Grassley.
• Then the Chief Justice will swear in all of us senators. We will pledge to rise above petty factionalism and do justice for our institutions, for our states, and for the nation.
• And then we will formally notify the White House of our pending trial and summon the President to answer the articles and send his counsel.

‘So the trial will commence in earnest on Tuesday.

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As the House debated the fiasco of their vote to submit two articles of impeachment to the Senate chamber, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy rises in opposition:

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There was a major discrepancy in the Inspector General report on FISA abuse, that appears to have been overlooked and casts a considerable cloud upon the DOJ Office of Inspector General and Michael Horowitz.
In chapter ten of the report, on page #312 you will find the following information.  The claim is that no-one in the FBI initiated any use of “Confidential Human Sources” into the campaign prior to opening the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.  Read Carefully:

(Page #312 – pdf link)

“In our review, we did not find any evidence that the FBI used CHSs or UCEs to interact with members of the Trump campaign prior to the opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”…

However, in the very next chapter (#11, page #400), in the original IG report as released on December 9th, 2019, you will find the following statement:
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Do Laura Ingraham and Mary McCord have a history together in/around Washington DC schools, law firms, clerks, social circles etc?
Because obviously Ingraham doesn’t want Devin Nunes to discuss the revelations about former DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord now working with Adam Schiff on the impeachment agenda.  WATCH [@03:30]

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Then again, it could be her typical Hannitus Interruptus style of self-important talking that destroys the opportunity for decent information. :::Sigh:::
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Yesterday’s ridiculous, albeit proactive, New York Times narrative about Russians hacking Burisma now makes sense.  Today the Lawfare team (Mary McCord et al) within Adam Schiff’s impeachment crew send additional files of evidence (pdf below) to be included in the impeachment articles constructed by HJC Chairman Jerry Nadler.

It is all coordinated. The “new evidence” relates to information turned over by Lev Parnas, an SDNY indicted former associate of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.  The Lawfare purpose is to bolster their premise that President Trump was trying to force Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s corrupt activity around the Ukrainian company Burisma.
The Lawfare crew behind Schiff waited until the last minute to push the new “evidence” because they didn’t want republicans to deconstruct it during the impeachment evidence gathering phase. Aditionally, the Lawfare crew anticipate a Trump impeachment defense surrounding actual evidence of the Biden corruption, which makes the Trump request to Zelensky valid.
So the proactive democrat strategy was/is to use the New York Times presentation of Russia hacking Burisma to negate the provenance of the evidence against the Bidens.  In essence, to cast doubt upon any documents that would show Joe and Hunter Biden participating in an actual influence and money-laundering scheme.
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