Melania Trump visits Capitol Hill to discuss opioid crisis, SUPPORT Act

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 3:05 PM PT — Wednesday, October 23, 2019

First Lady Melania Trump made a solo visit to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to mark the one year anniversary of the Support for Patients and Communities Act. She spoke at a roundtable event and thanked Congress for passing the bill, which promotes treatment for infants and mothers addicted to drugs.
The first lady stated the SUPPORT Act is just one of many strides the government has made to alleviate the nation’s opioid crisis.
“Because of the SUPPORT Act, we are able to look at ways to reduce opioid use during pregnancy and recognize early childhood issues related to substance abuse,” she said. “This bill also establishes better ways to dispose of unused drugs.”
She added that this Saturday is National Drug Take Back Day and encouraged everyone to return or properly dispose of any unused opioids in their households. The first lady also took to Twitter on Wednesday to promote the upcoming Red Ribbon Week, which encourages drug free school and home environments.
 The visit marks Melania Trump’s first solo visit to Capitol Hill.

https://www.oann.com/melania-trump-visits-capitol-hill-to-discuss-opioid-crisis-support-act/

President Trump’s Remarks About Northern Syria [VIDEO]

Earlier today President Trump delivered remarks about the ongoing issues with Turkey and Northern Syria from the White House. 

 [Video and Link to Transcript] https://publicpool.kinja.com/subject-remarks-by-president-trump-on-the-situation-in-1839298423

7 in 10 say US ‘on the edge of civil war’

Partisan political division and the resulting incivility has reached a low in America, with 67% believing that the nation is nearing civil war, according to a new national survey.

“The majority of Americans believe that we are two-thirds of the way to being on the edge of civil war. That to me is a very pessimistic place,” said Mo Elleithee, the executive director of Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service.

And worse, he said in announcing the results of the Institute’s Battleground Poll civility survey, the political division is likely to make the upcoming 2020 presidential race the nastiest in modern history.

(Screenshot)

Highlighting findings that show voters angered with compromise and growing unfavorable ratings of President Trump and most 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, he said the poll “paints a scenario, a picture of a highly negative campaign that will continue to exacerbate the incivility in our public discourse."

He added, “It will be a sort of race to the bottom, or has the potential to be a race to the bottom.”

The Civility Poll is an offshoot of the famous bipartisan Battleground Poll conducted by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners and Ed Goeas of the Tarrance Group.

While it found that 87% are frustrated with the rudeness in politics today, it also revealed that the public really isn’t interested in traditional compromise. For example, a nearly equal 84% said that they are “tired of leaders compromising my values and ideals.”

Elleithee explained, “It seems to me what they’re saying is, ‘I believe in common ground, it’s just that common ground is where I’m standing. As soon you move over to where I am, we’ll be on common ground.’”

(Screenshot)

Goeas pointed to the poor favorable ratings of presidential candidates and said that 2020 may be a rare race between candidates that less than half the country likes.

“There is going to be a large body of voters who dislike both of them, and that’s going to be the swing vote in the election, which means it dictates the kind of campaign that’s run,” he said.

Lake agreed that the national division is widening. “There is relative consensus that divisions in this country are getting worse,” she said in her memo accompanying the survey released Tuesday.

Both pollsters noted that the public blames social media, the news media, and President Trump for the growing division.

But Goeas, not a fan of the president’s, said he believes that Trump didn’t start the rudeness in today’s politics. “He is a symptom of where we are, not ‘the’ disease,” he said, adding, “One of the things that I have focused on as we have gone into this death spiral of incivility in the country, that we had to be at a certain point for Trump to become acceptable.”

The poll backs that up. It found that 84% believe that “behavior that used to be seen as unacceptable is now accepted as normal behavior.”

Peter Navarro Discusses Speaker Pelosi Intentionally Holding Back Ratification of USMCA –

White House manufacturing policy advisor Peter Navarro discusses the lack of action from Speaker Pelosi on ratification of the USMCA.

As CTH has outlined since the July 2019 alliance meeting between Pelosi and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the strongest likelihood is the House will table the ratification vote until after the 2020 election. It is a strategic political decision. 

Here’s what is going on.

Nancy Pelosi and her far-left ideologues entered an agreement with their Canadian liberal allies and Justin Trudeau to stall the USMCA passage.

Trudeau’s government ideologues agreed not to call the USMCA up for a vote in the Canadian parliament.

Speaker Pelosi was waiting to see if Trudeau could would win re-election.  With Canada re-electing Trudeau last night it paves the way for Pelosi to announce the labor provisions are not strong enough within the USMCA deal; discussions with the Trump administration are not resolving the issues; the U.S. workers are not protected enough, and she is tabling any vote.

Speaker Pelosi will then wait until after the 2020 election.  The purpose is political.

Ratification of the USMCA would be a boost for the U.S, and North American, economy.  More growth in the economy is politically adverse to her interests.  Part of the 2020 Democrat strategy is to stall the U.S. economy, stoke a recession narrative, and hopefully weaken President Trump’s re-election bid.  That’s the plan.

For Canada’s part of the scheme, Justin Trudeau will announce that Canada is waiting for the U.S to work out the USMCA labor disagreements.  This is the quid-pro-quo between leftists in the democrat party and leftists in Canada.

Something might change in this dynamic, but it will take an ‘as-yet’ unknown action by President Trump to change the direction…

Mitt Romney is...

The Week

Mitt Romney is 

the leader the #Resistance deserves

Matthew Walther

What are the odds that Michelle Obama is a fan of Juicy Fruit, I wonder? Obviously there is a strong Chicago connection with Wrigley, but it seems to me there is a non-zero chance that she prefers something in the Dentyne Ice line of sugar-free chewing gums. Is our current president likely to have that sort of thing on hand, or is he strictly a Bubblicious Choco Choco Chip man?

These questions are relevant but not urgent. We probably won't know the answer to them for another six years or so, when Teen Vogue and Buzzfeed report on the 19 cutest things about the time that Donald Trump gave Queen Michelle a stick of some at present indeterminable variety of flavored non-swallowable candy at the funeral of Jimmy Carter. By then this sort of aww-shucks media friendship will be an unremarkable part of Trump's rehabilitation, along with his passive-aggressive comments about the leadership qualities of President Josh Hawley after he bans hardcore pornography by executive order.

Those of us who (barely) remember the heady days when George W. Bush was Hitler but dumber are moderately amused by what a lovable teddy bear he has become in his post-presidency. Bush was always a charming guy — that was exactly the problem, as far as his opponents were concerned. Which is why the transformation of Willard Romney, him of the "binders full of women" and the infamous 47 percent remarks, into #Resistance hero is even more entertaining. When Mitt says that he would theoretically consider voting to remove Trump from office, we are not only supposed to be shocked at his courage, the almost indescribable sacrifice to his own political fortunes this selfless patriot is making at the altar of principle. We are also supposed to forget that only a few years ago he was roundly considered just as vile as Trump — and for mostly the same reasons.

How did this hippie-baiting schoolyard bully whose decision to place a dog crate atop the family car showed indisputable evidence of his character defects, this out-of-touch reactionary who stole his Russia-baiting foreign policy from the far right at the height of the Cold War, this divisive purveyor of fake news often criticized by members of his own party for his mean-spiritedness, become a media darling? By not being the current leader of the Republican Party, or of what remains of the so-called conservative movement. Romney represents every bit as much as George W. Bush a consensus that has been abandoned, an ideology with no adherents — or at least no adherents who don't write a column for one of our few remaining national newspapers. He is about as threatening to the mainstream liberal establishment as the Duke of Edinburgh. He is relevant precisely because he is irrelevant. The former Bain Capital exec (who even has his own erstwhile secret Twitter account for moaning at conservative pundits) is the hero the #Resistance crowd deserves.

This is why we are now expected to swoon at Romney's kindergarten teacher-in-chief routine ("Berating another person, or calling them names, or demeaning a class of people, not telling the truth — those are not private things") in Atlantic profiles and exclusive sitdowns with that website that does articles in the form of PowerPoints. The actual content of what he says — a lot of gas about "character" — does not matter, nor does the fact that his actual views on a wide range of relevant questions are either the same as Trump's (e.g., lowering taxes for the rich, Bret Kavanaugh's suitability for the Supreme Court) or much scarier (the absolute moral necessity of fighting multiple unwinnable wars indefinitely in the Middle East). Since he has been in the Senate, Romney has voted in favor of Trump's legislative agenda roughly 80 percent of the time, 11 percent more frequently than Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has enthusiastically defended Trump against critics both within and outside the GOP. F.H. Bradley once defined metaphysics as the finding of bad reasons for things we believe upon instinct. Being a Republican opponent of Trump generally means finding principled-sounding reasons for criticizing things someone does without, in many cases, actually disagreeing with them in order to win praise from people who called you a monster less than a decade ago.

Trump won in 2016 in large part because he recognized that he had nothing to gain and everything to lose by becoming either the media-approved GOP standard-bearer (there is always one in every debate cycle) or the favorite of the party's own establishment (who tends to be the same person as the former). Don't think this means he won't change his mind once it is the only way for him to get attention years from now. One day Trump could be a welcome reminder of a time when there was civility in American politics.

Dangerous Sports

Have a wackily wonderful Wednesday afternoon. 

CIA Analysts 'Rattled' and Getting Lawyers

Townhall

CIA Analysts 'Rattled' and Getting Lawyers As the DOJ Probes Into Russia Investigation Origins

Julio Rosas

Those in the Central Intelligence Agency involved with the investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 election are reportedly uneasy and "rattled" with the Department of Justice's probe into the investigation's beginnings.

NBC News reporter Ken Dilanian told "Morning Joe" on Monday since the CIA analysts do not know if the investigation, headed by U.S. Attorney John Durham, is a criminal investigation, they have gotten lawyers, even though they say they did nothing wrong.

"Although [Durham] says he wants to talk to former CIA Director John Brennen, he hasn’t interviewed [James] Comey, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein. So it’s really not clear where he’s going with this, but a lot of people are very rattled," Dilanian said. "Those CIA analysts I mentioned had to hire their own lawyers because no one is even sure if this a criminal investigation or not. And if it is a criminal investigation, what is the allegation of wrongdoing? No one I talked to can answer that."

"There’s a lot of unease at the CIA and disquiet about the notion of federal prosecutors going over and rooting in their files," he explained. "Not because they think they did anything wrong, but because these are sources and methods — some of the most highly classified documents and secrets in our government. And they are kept to a small set of people for a reason. It’s a need-to-know situation."

Durham is reporting to Attorney General William Barr in the inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said the DOJ's inquiry is "akin to Barr conducting an investigation about Neil Armstrong’s walk on the Moon, that it wasn’t on the Moon, instead it was on a back lot in Burbank."

AG Barr Approved Expansion of Probe

Townhall

NBC News: 

AG Barr Approved Expansion of Durham Probe to Include Scrutiny of Brennan, Clapper

Guy Benson

Thanks to Fox News' reporting, we already knew that the footprint of the Durham probe into the origins and conduct of the Trump/Russia investigation had been expanded.  NBC News has added more details into the mix, including the development that Durham's work is poised to expand in order to scrutinize key Obama-era intelligence figures, such as former CIA Director John Brennan and ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper:

A review launched by Attorney General William Barr into the origins of the Russia investigation has expanded significantly amid concerns about whether the probe has any legal or factual basis, multiple current and former officials told NBC News. The prosecutor conducting the review, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, has expressed his intent to interview a number of current and former intelligence officials involved in examining Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, Brennan told NBC News.

Brennan and Clapper, each of whom has serious issues with the truth, have been active partisan combatants in the Trump era, as have several of their law enforcement counterparts -- including the former FBI director, who was reprimanded for misconduct on leaks, and his top deputy, who was fired for repeatedly lying under oath.  Brennan went so far as to describe some of President Trump's (admittedly weak and embarrassing) conduct as "treasonous."  The extent to which Brennan and Clapper et al were involved in any potential wrongdoing or envelope-pushing is an interesting and valid subject for exploration.  And as Ed Morrissey points out, NBC's revelation that some intelligence officials are reportedly obtaining legal counsel amid Durham's inquiry is intriguing:

Barr almost certainly approved this expansion and direction because of what Durham has already found. And what Durham has already found, NBC notes, has intelligence operatives lawyering up...The DoJ made sure to note at the beginning that Durham was conducting an internal review, not a criminal investigation, although there was nothing to prevent it from developing into one. The DoJ does not comment on the existence of criminal investigations until they either close one or get an indictment — with a couple of notable James Comey-related exceptions — and they’re not talking now, either. These developments, however, make it look like Durham has turned the corner from review to full-blown criminal investigation. At least that’s the impression that some of the people involved must have.

There's no timeline on when Durham's Barr-backed investigation will wrap up, or when the public may get access to its findings.  The fact that Brennan and Clapper are apparently slated to be interviewed does not necessarily mean that they're in any legal or ethical peril themselves, but it does suggest that Durham's (fully justified and appropriate) review is going to be comprehensive.  More from Ed:

...the interest in Clapper and Brennan seems pretty noteworthy. Durham will need to have his ducks in a row before deposing both men, who have been pretty slippery in public comments on a wide range of issues. Both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are still angry over Clapper’s flat-out lies in testimony about domestic surveillance, which cost Clapper absolutely nothing in that instance. If either of the two men think Durham will let them get away with that in their “interviews,” however, maybe they’d better lawyer up too.

Meanwhile, less comprehensive -- but still highly anticipated -- is the Justice Department Inspector General's report on possible FISA or other investigative abuses over the course of the Trump/Russia probe.  There were rumors that IG Michael Horowitz's determinations were going to drop late last week, but the redaction process is still reportedly underway.  The more recent buzz is that the redacted document will emerge around the end of October:  

Horowitz announced the completion of his inquiry approximately five weeks ago. 

Tick tock.

Weekly Feature: Midweek Jam Session

Our Second Installment of:

The Midweek Jam Session

It's just a little something to break up the seriousness of the news and give everyone a chance to hang out for a minute. We can all listen to some tunes, chat, and then get back to more serious stuff ... or not. Since everyone knows what's up, let's get to it.

It's time to be silly for a minute.

Major Obama/Clinton Fundraiser and Donor Pleads Guilty as Foreign Agent and Contributing Illegal Campaign Contributions

Boy howdy, this DOJ announcement is alarming on many levels.  Imaad Zuberi, a 49-year-old resident of Arcadia, California, has agreed to plead guilty to a variety of illegal activities surrounding campaign contributions, political influence, and unregistered lobbying on behalf of foreign clients.  Mr. Zuberi was under DOJ, FBI and IRS investigation since 2015 (<= important aspect on the alarming part).

(Via DOJ) Federal prosecutors today filed a criminal case charging Imaad Shah Zuberi, a Southern California campaign fundraiser, with falsifying records to conceal his work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level U.S. government officials. The criminal charges allege that Zuberi engaged in lobbying efforts that earned him millions of dollars, most of which was pilfered from his clients, and Zuberi has agreed to plead guilty to those charges at a later date, pursuant to a plea agreement.

[…] In addition to violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), Zuberi is charged in a criminal information with tax evasion and making almost $1 million in illegal campaign contributions that included funneling money from foreign entities and individuals to influence U.S. elections.

[…] Zuberi, who operated a venture capital firm called Avenue Ventures, solicited foreign nationals and representatives of foreign governments with claims he could use his influence in Washington, D.C. to change United States foreign policy and create business opportunities for his clients and himself.

According to court documents, clients gave Zuberi money for consulting fees, to make investments, or to fund campaign contributions. As part of his efforts to influence public policy, Zuberi hired lobbyists, retained public relations professionals and made campaign contributions – which gave him access to high-level U.S. officials, some of whom took action in support of his clients. As evidence of his access and influence, Zuberi distributed to his clients photographs of himself discussing policy with elected officials.

While some U.S. officials were willing to take action on issues Zuberi put forward, most of Zuberi’s business efforts were unsuccessful and his clients suffered significant losses. Many of the lobbyists, public relations consultants, and other subcontractors also suffered losses when Zuberi refused to pay them, according to the information. Zuberi, on the other hand, became wealthy, primarily as the result of fraudulent representations about his background, influence, and the use of client funds, much of which constituted an “outright conversion of client money for defendant Zuberi’s own personal benefit,” the information states.

The information details dozens of illegal campaign contributions – including those paid by Zuberi using the names of other people, “conduit contributions” made by others that Zuberi reimbursed, and contributions to U.S. political campaigns that were financed by foreign entities and individuals.

The information further states that Zuberi accepted money from two foreign companies with promises that the funds would be used to contribute to political campaigns, but Zuberi took the vast majority of the money – more than $1.1 million – for his own personal use.  (read more)

Here’s an additional alarming part.  The DOJ and FBI were investigating Mr. Zuberi since 2014 and 2015, but for some reason the Obama administration never brought charges.  One could argue Zuberi was just participating in a financial process that was business as usual for politicians in the swamp.

However, while the lack of charges against Zuberi, perhaps related to the contributions the Obama and Clinton teams were gaining, allowed Zuberi to continue his malicious effort; after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, Mr. Zuberi turned his influence efforts toward the incoming Trump administration:

What are the odds the lack of DOJ/FBI prosecution was part of an intentional design to let sketchy characters interact with incoming administration officials?

Durham Looking At Brennan – A Reminder of “The Crown Material” Conflict

The Christopher Steele dossier was called “Crown Material” by FBI agents within the small group during their 2016 political surveillance operation. The “Crown” description reflects the unofficial British intelligence aspect to the dossier as provided by Steele.

In May 2019 former House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy stated there are emails from former FBI Director James Comey that outline instructions from CIA Director John Brennan to include the “Crown Material” within the highly political Intelligence Community Assessment.

Specifically outlined by Gowdy, the wording of the Comey email is reported to say:

…”Brennan is insisting the Crown Material be included in the intel assessment.”

However, on May 23rd, 2017, in testimony -under oath- to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) John Brennan stated [@01:54:28]:

GOWDY: Director Brennan, do you know who commissioned the Steele dossier?

BRENNAN: I don’t.

GOWDY: Do you know if the bureau [FBI] ever relied on the Steele dossier as part of any court filing, applications?

BRENNAN: I have no awareness.

GOWDY: Did the CIA rely on it?

BRENNAN: No.

GOWDY: Why not?

BRENNAN: Because we didn’t. It wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had. It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment that was done. Uh … it was not.

.

Video of the exchange [prompted 01:54:28 just hit play]

.

As Victor Davis Hanson wrote at the time:

[…] James Clapper, John Brennan, and James Comey are now all accusing one another of being culpable for inserting the unverified dossier, the font of the effort to destroy Trump, into a presidential intelligence assessment—as if suddenly and mysteriously the prior seeding of the Steele dossier is now seen as a bad thing. And how did the dossier transmogrify from being passed around the Obama Administration as a supposedly top-secret and devastating condemnation of candidate and then president-elect Trump to a rank embarrassment of ridiculous stories and fibs?

Given the narratives of the last three years, and the protestations that the dossier was accurate or at least was not proven to be unproven, why are these former officials arguing at all? Did not implanting the dossier into the presidential briefing give it the necessary imprimatur that allowed the serial leaks to the press at least to be passed on to the public and thereby apprise the people of the existential danger that they faced? (read more)

Fox News Maria Bartiromo has more knowledge of the details within the 2016 political surveillance scandal than any other MSM host. Bartiromo has followed the events very closely and now she is the go-to person for those who are trying to bring the truth behind the scandal to light.

On the morning of May 20th, 2019, on her Fox Business Network show Ms. Bartiromo outlined the current issues between Comey and Brennan. WATCH:

.

It certainly looks like former CIA Director John Brennan has exposed himself to perjury. However, beyond that and even more disturbing, what does this say about the political intents of a weaponized intelligence apparatus?

CTH has previously outlined how the December 29th, 2016, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russia Cyber Activity was a quickly compiled bunch of nonsense about Russian hacking.

The JAR was followed a week later by the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment. The ICA took the ridiculous construct of the JAR and then overlaid a political narrative that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump.

The ICA was the brain-trust of John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey. While the majority of content was from the CIA, some of the content within the ICA was written by FBI Agent Peter Strzok who held a unique “insurance policy” interest in how the report could be utilized in 2017.  NSA Director Mike Rogers would not sign up to the “high confidence” claims, likely because he saw through the political motives of the report.

(JUNE 2019 – New York Times) […] Mr. Barr wants to know more about the C.I.A. sources who helped inform its understanding of the details of the Russian interference campaign, an official has said. He also wants to better understand the intelligence that flowed from the C.I.A. to the F.B.I. in the summer of 2016.

During the final weeks of the Obama administration, the intelligence community released a declassified assessment that concluded that Mr. Putin ordered an influence campaign that “aspired to help” Mr. Trump’s electoral chances by damaging Mrs. Clinton’s. The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. reported they had high confidence in the conclusion. The National Security Agency, which conducts electronic surveillance, had a moderate degree of confidence. (read more)

Questioning the construct of the ICA is a smart direction to take for a review or investigation. By looking at the intelligence community work-product, it’s likely Durham will cut through a lot of the chatter and get to the heart of the intelligence motives.

Apparently John Durham is looking into just this aspect: Was the ICA document a politically engineered report stemming from within a corrupt intelligence network?

The importance of that question is rather large. All of the downstream claims about Russian activity, including the Russian indictments promoted by Rosenstein and the Mueller team, are centered around origination claims of illicit Russian activity outlined in the ICA.

If the ICA is a false political document…. then guess what?

Yep, the entire narrative from the JAR and ICA is part of a big fraud. [Which it is]

(Read ICA via pdf)

BREAKING: US officials say US attorney John Durham has requested an interview from John Brennan, and plans to request James Clapper also sit down with him as part of his review of the 2016 Russia collusion investigation – OANN

— BNL NEWS (@BreakingNLive) October 22, 2019

Kangaroo court, jackrabbit impeachment

 Article by Monica Showalter in "The American Thinker":

Peggy Noonan's piece on the impeachment needle moving against President Trump is still drawing a lot of criticism for her claim that "of course" Trump will be impeached and public sentiment is turning against him.

I was a bit less angry about it than most, because, as I noted here, her forecast is highly conditional, premised on a very big 'if' that the plan will only work if Democrats conduct impeachment in a fair manner, with open and honest proceedings.

They aren't. Thus far, fairness is a nonstarter, and as word of the sneaky and rigged one-party impeachment by leaks process gets out, some polls show the negative public sentiment toward Trump is actually starting to dissipate. The needle is starting to move the other way, actually. 

Democrats don't have a case againt Trump, and never did, any more than they had a magic bullet against Trump with the Mueller investigation.

One thing leaps out, rabbity-like: The speed with which their impeachment hearing is being conducted. They don't have any real 'crime' here yet they're desperate to prove one anyway. 

Axios yesterday an excellent chart showing how quickly the impeachment process is moving against Trump compared to other presidents. I didn't have time to ask them for permission to use the chart, so click on to their site to see how stunning the timelines are. They report:

For Richard Nixon, it was 599 days for the inquiry.
For Bill Clinton, it was 260 days.
For Trump, well, Trump got 11 days.

Which firstly shows that embittered Democrats still fuming about 2016 have been like dry tinder, rushing to judgment in their quest to overturn the 2016 election.

But it's not just their rage fueling this micro-timeline unconcerned with getting all the facts, either. 

The Federalist had an excellent report out by David Marcus pointing out that they were proceding at breakneck speed because of political concerns - they're terrified a delayed impeachment trial will interfere with their Iowa caucus prospects. Take a look:

According to multiple news outlets on Monday, House Democrats have conceded that they are very unlikely to conclude their impeachment inquiry and vote on articles by Thanksgiving, their original preferred timeline. They cited scheduling difficulties and new evidence of potential wrong doing by the White House as main reasons for the delay.

Democrats now say that they hope to be ready for a vote by Christmas, but waiting that long to resolve the matter in the House and send it over to the Senate is rife with problems, which was why Democrats wanted it to be wrapped up by Thanksgiving in the first place. If articles of impeachment were passed near Christmas, the Senate would be unable to begin a trial until inside of one month before the Iowa caucus on Feb, 3rd.

With 5 of the top Democratic contenders serving currently in the Senate, an impeachment trial could badly gum up the works in the Democratic primary.
According to the New York Times, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries addressed the delay by saying, “Just the facts, baby. If we tell that story with simplicity and repetition, the American people will understand why the president must be held accountable. If we don’t then there is great uncertainty, and in that vacuum Donald Trump may find himself escaping accountability again.”

So this explains the breakneck speed of the impeachment operation, which isn't bothering with niceties such as getting facts straight. They're holding the inquiry in secret, Soviet-style, and they're their getting "narrative" out by leaks and repetition, shutting off all fact-finding in favor of the demented but politically useful "narrative."

Is this a fair impeachment? Not one factor here suggests it is.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/kangaroo_court_jackrabbit_impeachment.html 

Laws against seditious conspiracy

American Thinker

Laws against seditious conspiracy have real legal teeth

News flash for all Deep State conspirators: we have a lawfully elected President who is at the top of the Executive Branch of US Government.  As such, President Trump represents one third of our constitutionally empowered leadership and is “the US Government.”

That reality has proven to be an issue for a lot of Deep State players inside the US Government, who from day one of his election or even earlier could not accept the will of their fellow citizens. Sadly, rather than focusing on changing administrations in our four-year cycle of peaceful revolution at the ballot box, many have engaged in violating the law through a conspiracy to remove President Trump. They have been using all their power for ill as US Government employees at the Department of Justice and FBI, and aided and abetted by senior members of the Intelligence Community and State and Defense.

Fortunately for America and most unfortunately for some conspirators, some not yet charged, and all bad actors who thought they are getting away with criminal behavior, there is a statute in the US Code that allows reach-back to undo corrupt “plea bargains” or the previous “waking” of individuals with minor offensives who did commit a crime but for whatever flimsy reason were not fully prosecuted.

It is called Seditious Conspiracy and found in US Code 2384:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

In a very practical sense, if proven corrupt, leaders of DOJ and FBI conspired to use the subterfuge of a legal maneuver to mitigate down significant corrupt behavior by others in their conspiracy prosecutors may use Seditious conspiracy to allow the “plea bargains” of some or  “taking  a pass” for others to be readdressed.

With the coming AG Barr- and US Attorney Durham-initiated legal tsunami ready to wash in against all that were part of this historic silent coup, it would now be possible to bring additional charges against those bad actors that previously thought they were beyond real criminal penalties because the fix was in.

It is about to get very interesting, and as an original member of Trump Nation, it will be interesting to see how many very cleaver but morally and legally blind individuals who betrayed their oath of office are brought to justice.

In one very specific case of an unexplained “plea bargain” captures how it all worked by conspirators shielding conspirators.  Having James Clapper, a man who lied to Congress, asking a federal judge to go easy on a person apparently leaking and lying that he worked directly with throughout his career, is a heaping helping of irony.

Three current or former leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee are urging that one of the panel’s former aides escape prison time for lying amid an investigation into leaks related to the ongoing probe of the Trump campaign and possible collusion with Russia.

Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) and former Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) are encouraging a federal judge not to put the committee’s former security director, James Wolfe, behind bars for a series of false statements he admitted giving to the FBI during the leak investigation.

In addition to the message from the senators, Wolfe received letters of support from other high-profile individuals who interacted with him during his decades at the intelligence panel, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough.

In a handwritten letter to the judge, Clapper praised Wolfe and recommended he face “minimal confinement.”

Wolfe “was very conscientious about protecting classified information and the physical security of the [intelligence committee] hearing rooms and environs. I found him to be honest, forthright, ethical and helpful,” the former DNI wrote.