Democrats rammed a package of ground rules for their impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump through a sharply divided House Thursday, the chamber’s first formal vote in a fight that could stretch into the 2020 election year.
The vote was 232-196, with all Republicans against the resolution and two Democratic defectors joining them.
The vote laid down the rules as lawmakers transition from weeks of closed-door interviews with witnesses to public hearings and ultimately to possible votes on whether to recommend Trump’s removal from office. . . .
Democrats spoke of lawmakers’ duty to defend the Constitution, while Republicans cast the process as a skewed attempt to railroad a president whom Democrats have detested since before he took office.
“What is at stake in all this is nothing less than our democracy,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. . . .
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Trump had done nothing impeachable and accused Democrats of trying to remove him “because they are scared they cannot defeat him at the ballot box.” Noting that elections are just a year away, he added, “Why do you not trust the people?”
No. 3 House GOP leader Steve Scalise, R-La., accused Democrats of imposing “Soviet-style rules,” speaking in front of a bright red poster depicting the Kremlin.
The investigation is focused on Trump’s efforts to push Ukraine to investigate his Democratic political opponents by withholding military aid and an Oval Office meeting craved by the country’s new president.
Democrats on the House Rules Committee rejected all 17 Republican amendments to the proposed resolution on the “impeachment inquiry” against President Donald Trump — including one that would require the other investigating committees to hand over exculpatory evidence to the House Judiciary Committee.
Our latter-day sans-culottes don’t care much for evidence. They are running this impeachment to satisfy the media wing of their party.
WOW! Demonic Pelosi Goes to House Floor AND LIES About Giving GOP Equal Rights as Democrats and Adam Schiff in Impeachment Process! (VIDEO) https://t.co/wnVxeiVZkf via @gatewaypundit
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.
But the name of a government official fitting that description — Eric Ciaramella — has been raised privately in impeachment depositions, according to officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings, as well as in at least one open hearing held by a House committee not involved in the impeachment inquiry. Fearing their anonymous witness could be exposed, Democrats this week blocked Republicans from asking more questions about him and intend to redact his name from all deposition transcripts.
RealClearInvestigations is disclosing the name because of the public’s interest in learning details of an effort to remove a sitting president from office. Further, the official’s status as a “whistleblower” is complicated by his being a hearsay reporter of accusations against the president, one who has “some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of a rival political candidate” — as the Intelligence Community Inspector General phrased it circumspectly in originally fielding his complaint.
Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old Ciaramella, 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.
Further, Ciaramella (pronounced char-a-MEL-ah) left his National Security Council posting in the White House’s West Wing in mid-2017 amid concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has since returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
“He was accused of working against Trump and leaking against Trump,” said a former NSC official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
Also, Ciaramella huddled for “guidance” with the staff of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, including former colleagues also held over from the Obama era whom Schiff’s office had recently recruited from the NSC. (Schiff is the lead prosecutor in the impeachment inquiry.)
And Ciaramella worked with a Democratic National Committee operative who dug up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, inviting her into the White House for meetings, former White House colleagues said. The operative, Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American who supported Hillary Clinton, led an effort to link the Republican campaign to the Russian government. “He knows her. He had her in the White House,” said one former co-worker, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Documents confirm the DNC opposition researcher attended at least one White House meeting with Ciaramella in November 2015. She visited the White House with a number of Ukrainian officials lobbying the Obama administration for aid for Ukraine.
With Ciaramella’s name long under wraps, interest in the intelligence analyst has become so high that a handful of former colleagues have compiled a roughly 40-page research dossier on him. A classified version of the document is circulating on Capitol Hill, and briefings have been conducted based on it.
Alexandra Chalupa is a known associate of convicted-bomber-turned-“progressive”-activist Brett Kimberlin. That the CIA would employ someone with such lax judgment is frightening. Anyone who thinks protecting Ciaramella’s identity is about national security needs to wake the hell up. The fact that someone like this, who was already suspected of illegal leaks to the media, should have been entrusted with classified information — that, my friends, is a threat to national security.
Chalupa worked with Kimberlin — this is not a secret — in the fabrication of the “Russian collusion” hoax. If a CIA employee assisted in that subversive disinformation project? Two words: DEEP STATE.
UPDATE II: When I say that my brother Kirby tipped me to this story, what I mean is this: A few weeks ago, with the generous assistance of our tip-jar hitters, my brother Kirby moved from Georgia and came to stay with our family while he is recuperating from medical treatment. Kirby is a truck driver by trade, but his health problems had resulted in his certification being suspended until he can get clearance from a physician. The stress caused by his unemployment was not good for his blood pressure, and his blood pressure was the problem that led to him losing his certification. Anyway, he’s here with us now, eating healthy and treating his problem, and he’s got an appointment Friday at the Veteran’s Administration. Meanwhile, we had to go get his new driver’s license in order to confirm his change of address, and so today we went to the state Motor Vehicle office — $144 for the new license — and afterwards, we went to Golden Corral for their dinner buffet, using our Senior Citizen’s discount. (Being old ain’t all bad, you know.)
Well, after gorging myself at the buffet — pot roast, mashed potatoes with gravy, collard greens, black-eyed peas, etc. — I had one of those tryptophan episodes, like you get after Thanksgiving dinner, everybody falling asleep on the sofa watching the Lions play the Packers. So I laid down about 6 p.m. and woke up at 10 p.m., and after I got up, Kirby told me, “There’s a story breaking about the whistleblower.” And that led me to Paul Sperry’s report at Real Clear Investigations, which is not just a bombshell, but a whole pile of bombshells like this:
“Everyone knows who he is. CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times knows. Congress knows. The White House knows. Even the president knows who he is,” said Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst and national security adviser to Trump, who has fielded dozens of calls from the media. . . .
A CIA officer specializing in Russia and Ukraine, Ciaramella was detailed over to the National Security Council from the agency in the summer of 2015, working under Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser. He also worked closely with the former vice president. . . .
Federal records show that Biden’s office invited Ciaramella to an October 2016 state luncheon the vice president hosted for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Other guests included Brennan, as well as then-FBI Director James Comey and then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper.
Several U.S. officials told RealClearInvestigations that the invitation that was extended to Ciaramella, a relatively low-level GS-13 federal employee, was unusual and signaled he was politically connected inside the Obama White House.
Former White House officials said Ciaramella worked on Ukrainian policy issues for Biden in 2015 and 2016, when the vice president was President Obama’s “point man” for Ukraine. A Yale graduate, Ciaramella is said to speak Russian and Ukrainian, as well as Arabic. He had been assigned to the NSC by Brennan.
UPDATE III: Jim Hoft reminds us that Mike Cernovich warned the Trump administration about Eric Ciaramella more than two years ago:
Meet Eric Ciaramella — H.R. McMaster Appoints Susan Rice Ally to be his Personal Aide
West Wing officials confirmed to Cernovich Media that Eric Ciaramella, who worked closely with Susan Rice while at NSC, was recently promoted to be [ National Security Advisor] H.R. McMaster’s personal aide. Ciaramella will have unfettered access to McMaster’s conversations with foreign leaders.
Ciaramella’s ascension is surprising considering pro-Trump sources within the Obama administration disclosed to me in December, 2016 that Ciaramella helped draft Susan Rice’s anti-Trump talking points before the Inauguration.
In fall of 2016 as Obama’s director for Ukraine on the NSC, Ciaramella was the main force pushing Trump-Russia conspiracy theories.
Some suspect Ciaramella was one of the original leakers who told the media about classified conversations Trump had with Russian diplomat Sergei Lavrov. While it’s unproven that Ciaramella leaked that conversation, it is now a fact of life that he will have access to every conversation Trump has with foreign officials, as part of his official duties for McMaster.
When this story first came to me, my question was, “This is a huge personnel move. Why hasn’t Politico run it?”
My sources told me other outlets passed on the story, because, “This isn’t the type of information the mainstream media wants out there.”
Staunchly pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia, Ciaramella is the media’s dream, which explains why this high-profile personnel move hasn’t been covered in any mainstream media outlets.
Astonishing! Everybody in the establishment media knew Ciaramella was the “whistleblower” because he had been a source of damaging leaks from the White House, and yet Adam Schiff wants to create the impression that his identity is a matter of top-secret national security?
This revelation will be impossible for the mainstream media to ignore, but what we can expect — what I predict — is that CNN, etc., will portray Ciaramella as a victim of “right-wing smears.”
I’ve been putting off mentioning this, because Kirby is objectively in worse shape than I am, but thanks to Social Security completely screwing up my disability claim, I’m getting evicted tomorrow or Friday. If you can afford to hit the tip jar at the bottom of the post, it would be very much appreciated.
Let me explain something that might not be as obvious to everyone else as it is to me: The Katie Hill sex scandal is not about sex. It’s not even really about Katie Hill, a dime-a-dozen liberal who just happened to get herself elected to Congress. No, what this story is actually about is the blatant partisanship of the media, who consider it their job — their professional duty — to help Democrats win elections. This is why the media have now gone all-in to demonize Red State’s Jennifer Van Laar for breaking the Katie Hill story, so that the blame is not on the congresswoman who slept with her staffers, but rather on the conservative who published evidence of this unethical behavior.
In a remarkable panel discussion Monday on CNN (and by “remarkable,” of course I mean ludicrously biased) feminist Jill Filipovic asserted that Red State’s reporting on sexual misconduct by a member of Congress — a violation of House ethics rules — “probably should be illegal.”
Nothing — not even a blatant violation of House ethics rules — can deter the “Democratic Party operatives with bylines” from their mission of pursuing their partisan objective which, in this case, requires them to pretend that the perpetrator is actually the victim, and to assert that the truth-tellers are guilty of criminal malfeasance.
America’s political class is decadent and depraved, but our media class is arguably worse. The #MeToo exposure of big-name sexual predators like former NBC Today show host Matt Lauer confirmed what conservative critics had long asserted: that the liberal media’s pretensions of moral superiority were a sham. And the role played by the journalistic establishment in disgraced Democrat Rep. Katie Hill’s scandal adds further evidence that much of the press corps has become exactly what President Trump says: “Fake news … the enemy of the people.”
If political journalists had been doing their job, Ms. Hill might never have been elected to Congress in the first place. But the media’s enthusiasm to help Democrats win a House majority in last year’s midterm election was such that reporters didn’t produce journalism about Ms. Hill; instead they produced publicity. Coverage of Ms. Hill’s 2018 congressional campaign in various national media amounted to a massive contribution-in-kind of free advertising. . . .
September 2012: Barrett Brown threatens to ‘destroy’ an FBI agent
It’s been a few months since I’ve mentioned this pathetic soul (“Is Barrett Brown Back on the Junk?” July 1), and so I must remind you that Barrett is the journalistic fame-whore who, circa 2010-2011, attempted to cash in on the notoriety of the “Anonymous” hackers. He appointed himself the de facto “spokesman” of that digital anarchist mob and managed to wangle a book deal out of it, but before he could complete the manuscript, Barrett’s craziness did him in. He got raided by the FBI and, when federal prosecutors began pressuring him to cooperate, Barrett flipped out and recorded a series of bizarre YouTube rants in which, among other things, he threatened to “destroy” one of the FBI agents involved in his raid. Well, this was foolish, and in January 2015, Barrett was sentenced to federal prison. He was released in November 2016, and has recently returned to his habit of ranting about conspiracy theories.
Last week, Barrett published a column at CounterPunch in which he mostly quoted his own press clippings, complaining about how he was portrayed by, for example, Adrien Chen in a 2013 Gawker profile. He meanders on for several paragraphs before descending into his favorite swamp, a conspiracy theory involving HBGary that Brown has been hyping since 2011-2012, and which he has never been able to explain with enough clarity to make anyone do whatever it is he imagines should be done to those he has “exposed” as nefarious schemers.
Barrett wants to be relevant — a newsworthy public figure — but his output as an “investigative journalist,” which consists mainly of recycling that 2012 stuff about HBGary, doesn’t justify such notoriety. And so he continues sparring with the shadow of his own diminished reputation.
Did I mention he got permanently banned from Twitter? Last week, Barrett also found time to send a lengthy email to Twitter, which he published under the headline, “An Open Letter To Twitter Regarding The Safe Space It’s Created for Nazis.” His chief grievance seems to be that some of those who complained about his Twitter account are “alt-right” types, and he concludes with this remarkable paragraph:
I’m asking that my account, @BarrettBrown_, be restored immediately — today, the 25th of October, as you’ve had over a month to deal with this since [DailyDot writer David] Gilmour first wrote to you asking for comment- and that I be given the verified status that others in the press have called for me to receive. I’m also asking that @PursuanceProj, which has been suspended twice without explanation, also receive this status, given how vulnerable it’s proven to people who have correctly decided there are no repercussions for making false reports about non-profits and then bragging about what they’ve done in full view of journalists (see below). Finally, I’m asking that a representative from Twitter be made available on an ongoing basis for press to contact directly about the violent threats, doxing, and other ongoing criminal activities. And just as a favor, I’d like to ask that Twitter refrain from lying to the public about having supposedly reached out to me after a previous ban was reversed, as one of your representatives claimed to the press on a recent occasion.
Well, good luck I guess. It’s been more than three years since my @rsmccain account was banned from Twitter without any real explanation, and if Barrett should somehow overturn his permanent suspension there might be hope not only for me but others on the right (“alt-” and otherwise) to also get our accounts reinstated. But I’m not holding my breath, and if Barrett got un-suspended, I’d be surprised.
Barrett Brown’s biggest failure is that he is not consistently productive. You cannot build a career in journalism if you’re not publishing regularly and, given that Barrett can’t seem to quit reliving his past “glories” (such as they were), what does he expect? Also, it should be noted, Barrett has a habit of jumping onto whatever conspiracy-theory bandwagon happens to be rolling through the “progressive” Left, trying to claim credit for other journalists’ work in “exposing” some malfeasance.
Take, for example, the tech firm Palantir. Back in the day, Palantir was part of a proposed alliance known as “Team Themis,” which HBGary’s Aaron Barr wanted to put together to deal with the problem of “Anonymous” hackers. It’s important to emphasize that “Team Themis” never actually existed; it was simply something that Barr had proposed, and because “Anonymous” was able to hack Barr’s email, this became part of a conspiratorial myth that Barrett Brown refuses to turn loose.
Well, the New York Times and others have recently reported about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) using data-collection software from Palantir to locate illegal aliens, and this has become a cause célèbre among open-borders activists. Brown has tried to claim credit for “exposing” the Palantir/ICE connection, but he had nothing to do with this, and is merely trying to attach himself to the story like a parasite. For that matter, Barrett didn’t expose “Team Themis” either; he just became obsessed with it to such an extent that some accounts now incorrectly credit him for a story that was widely reported by other journalists covering tech and security issues at the time.
A lot of people who are by no means “alt-right” have long since seen through Barrett Brown’s “investigative journalist” pretensions, and his critics include other journalists who are weary of Barrett’s self-dramatizing legend of himself as a lonely courageous truth-seeker. Barrett is lazy and undisciplined, and maybe for all we know he’s returned to his heroin addiction. Also, he seems to have blown past another book deadline, demonstrating his characteristic irresponsibility. How long before he turns up on YouTube babbling like a lunatic about the vast conspiracy against him? I only pay attention to his plight because sometimes the demented fame-whore sometimes includes me as one of the conspirators in this imaginary anti-Barrrett Brown plot.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings always have the last laugh, and those familiar with Rudyard Kipling’s poetry must have smiled at the sudden downfall of California Rep. Katie Hill.
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife) …
They probably don’t teach Kipling in public schools nowadays, and progressive Democrats like Ms. Hill would almost certainly condemn the great British poet as a racist and imperialist. Nevertheless, the common-sense verities once taught to every grammar school student remain as relevant as today’s headlines. When we forget those ancient lessons, bad things happen, and we have only ourselves to blame.
When Katie Hill ran for Congress in 2018, her open bisexuality was part of her campaign message. Indeed, so often did Ms. Hill proclaim herself to be bisexual that some of her rivals suggested she was exploiting this to gain endorsements (and money) from the LGBT organizations that exercise a powerful influence in Democratic Party politics. During the 2018 midterm campaign, when feminists and gay-rights activists were among the loudest voices of the anti-Trump mob, the Democrats nominated lesbian or bisexual women in several key races. What the New York Times celebrated as the “Rainbow Wave” didn’t actually elect that many lesbians or bisexual women — Hill was one of only three such first-time House candidates, along with Sharice Davids (KS-3) and Angie Craig (MN-2) to win seats in 2018 — but still this was a “record number” that “made history,” as every journalist in America seemed to feel compelled to write. At no point in the enthusiastic media coverage of Ms. Hill’s campaign against Republican Steve Knight in California’s 25th District, however, did any reporter ask, “Exactly what does ‘bisexual’ mean?” . . .
