Republicans Barely Questioned the Witnesses. They Went for Delay Tactics, Half-Truths, and Utter Bullshit.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...vin-nunes/
The case is simple. The president* abused his power in pursuit of his latest scam.
"Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?"
By Charles P. Pierce
Nov 13, 2019
WASHINGTON—Portent hung from the chandeliers in the elegant chambers of the House Ways and Means Committee. The first days of public hearings into the impeachment of El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago made the air in the room heavy and thick. Gravitas has been in short supply since 2016, when the country decided to lose its mind and, out of a strain of inexplicable dark humor, to be governed by a vulgar talking yam. Sooner or later, the laughter stops and the freaks run wild and hijack the whole show, and turn a show with freaks into a freak show.
Make no mistake. If the hearings on Tuesday were a criminal trial, the jury wouldn’t have been out long enough to order lunch. The President* of the United States ran a cheap-assed, third-rate shakedown of the new president of an embattled ally for the purpose of enlisting the new president of the embattled ally in the ratfcking of the 2020 election. Both of those are crimes. Putting them together is a third crime.
The Republican defense was aimed at defending Fox News talking points, or giving your drunk uncle arguments to raise over the cranberry salad in a couple of weeks, or defending the right of the president* to make policy based on whatever conspiracy theory most recently got snagged on the stalagmites of his mind.
It certainly wasn’t based on defending the president*’s actions as regards the transaction he tried to force on poor Volodymyr Zelensky. Because, as was obvious from every second of the minority’s participation in Tuesday’s hearings, there simply is no defense for what the president* did.
George Kent and Bill Taylor were exemplary witnesses. (Taylor, in particular, could develop a lucrative side gig consulting for law firms as to how prepare people to testify.) They never strayed beyond their obvious mandates, which was to tell the story of the shakedown from the point of view of career diplomats who suddenly found themselves submarined by a cabal led by the president*’s half-mad personal lawyer. And Taylor dropped the morning’s only real bombshell: an account from his staff about how some of them had overheard the president* refer to “the investigations” in a phone call to Ambassador Gordon Sondland on the day after the now-infamous July 25 shakedown phone call. And Kent was firm in his testimony that neither Joe Biden nor his son, Hunter, had done anything untoward as regards the removal of a corrupt state prosecutor. But the real show was the Republicans, who had nothing, but who delivered it with a kind of frantic verve that occasionally brushed up against semi-coherence.
There was Minority Counsel Robert Castor, who sounded as though he’d taken the gig three minutes before the hearing began, and who did a very impressive imitation of Rick Moranis’s courtroom performance in the second Ghostbusters film. At one point, Castor asked Kent and Taylor if they could “guess” how many times Giuliani met with various figures in the scandal. But, to be fair to Castor, Clarence Darrow couldn’t have created a case out of that with which Castor had to work.
The real performance art came from the Republicans on the committee, who also had nothing, but who dressed up their nothing in neon and perfume, and took it for a walk on the television, and at top volume. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I may have bought some fresh fish from Jim Jordan, purely by accident. Lord, what a fishmonger that guy is. If he’d yelled that loudly when that doctor at Ohio State was molesting athletes, he could’ve saved people a lot of trouble and woe.
In the main, the Republicans declined to ask questions, choosing instead to spool out their fathomless catechism of delay tactics, half-truths and utter bullshit. The hearing wasn’t two minutes old before Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, piped up with a useless point of parliamentary inquiry.
A few seconds later, committee chairman Adam Schiff found it necessary to slap Jordan down for lying about the committee’s closed sessions. The pattern of speechifying over examination began unsurprisingly with ranking Republican Devin Nunes, the famous White House lawn ornament. Here’s how Nunes kicked off, because this pretty much sums up the entire Republican case.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...vin-nunes/
There is killing the clock, and there is killing the clock, taking it apart, and scattering the pieces in the Sargasso Sea. But, again, this wasn’t aimed at most of the country. It was aimed at those folks who already know that Alexandra Chalupa is a Deep State Ukrainian who has been working to undermine the president* for decades. (I think she personally sabotaged Trump Air.) They know this because their favorite TV stars and radio hosts have told them so.
Nunes, because he is no different than your drunk uncle, except that your drunk uncle probably isn’t suing an Internet cow, believes all of this stuff, too.
But, as for the actual case for the defense, nothing Nunes says changes the facts of the matter. This case is absurdly simple. Compared to Iran-Contra, it’s a game of ColorForms. As has been his wont for his entire life, the president* found a vulnerable victim to fleece.
In this case, the victim happened to be an ally being bullied and attacked by a regime for which the president* still maintains a mysterious sweet tooth. In pursuit of this latest scam, the president* abused the powers of the office for which he otherwise doesn’t have any more respect than a dog has for a fire hydrant.
As George Kent said at one point on Wednesday:
As I mentioned in my testimony, you can't promote principled anti-corruption action without pissing off corrupt people.
A truth universal, that .
All of this filibustering was aimed at the 33 percent of the American public that recent history has shown will believe anything.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...vin-nunes/
The case is simple. The president* abused his power in pursuit of his latest scam.
Quote:I’m not entirely sure, but I think I may have bought some fresh fish from Jim Jordan, purely by accident. Lord, what a fishmonger that guy is. If he’d yelled that loudly when that doctor at Ohio State was molesting athletes, he could’ve saved people a lot of trouble and woe.
"Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?"
By Charles P. Pierce
Nov 13, 2019
WASHINGTON—Portent hung from the chandeliers in the elegant chambers of the House Ways and Means Committee. The first days of public hearings into the impeachment of El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago made the air in the room heavy and thick. Gravitas has been in short supply since 2016, when the country decided to lose its mind and, out of a strain of inexplicable dark humor, to be governed by a vulgar talking yam. Sooner or later, the laughter stops and the freaks run wild and hijack the whole show, and turn a show with freaks into a freak show.
Make no mistake. If the hearings on Tuesday were a criminal trial, the jury wouldn’t have been out long enough to order lunch. The President* of the United States ran a cheap-assed, third-rate shakedown of the new president of an embattled ally for the purpose of enlisting the new president of the embattled ally in the ratfcking of the 2020 election. Both of those are crimes. Putting them together is a third crime.
The Republican defense was aimed at defending Fox News talking points, or giving your drunk uncle arguments to raise over the cranberry salad in a couple of weeks, or defending the right of the president* to make policy based on whatever conspiracy theory most recently got snagged on the stalagmites of his mind.
It certainly wasn’t based on defending the president*’s actions as regards the transaction he tried to force on poor Volodymyr Zelensky. Because, as was obvious from every second of the minority’s participation in Tuesday’s hearings, there simply is no defense for what the president* did.
George Kent and Bill Taylor were exemplary witnesses. (Taylor, in particular, could develop a lucrative side gig consulting for law firms as to how prepare people to testify.) They never strayed beyond their obvious mandates, which was to tell the story of the shakedown from the point of view of career diplomats who suddenly found themselves submarined by a cabal led by the president*’s half-mad personal lawyer. And Taylor dropped the morning’s only real bombshell: an account from his staff about how some of them had overheard the president* refer to “the investigations” in a phone call to Ambassador Gordon Sondland on the day after the now-infamous July 25 shakedown phone call. And Kent was firm in his testimony that neither Joe Biden nor his son, Hunter, had done anything untoward as regards the removal of a corrupt state prosecutor. But the real show was the Republicans, who had nothing, but who delivered it with a kind of frantic verve that occasionally brushed up against semi-coherence.
There was Minority Counsel Robert Castor, who sounded as though he’d taken the gig three minutes before the hearing began, and who did a very impressive imitation of Rick Moranis’s courtroom performance in the second Ghostbusters film. At one point, Castor asked Kent and Taylor if they could “guess” how many times Giuliani met with various figures in the scandal. But, to be fair to Castor, Clarence Darrow couldn’t have created a case out of that with which Castor had to work.
The real performance art came from the Republicans on the committee, who also had nothing, but who dressed up their nothing in neon and perfume, and took it for a walk on the television, and at top volume. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I may have bought some fresh fish from Jim Jordan, purely by accident. Lord, what a fishmonger that guy is. If he’d yelled that loudly when that doctor at Ohio State was molesting athletes, he could’ve saved people a lot of trouble and woe.
In the main, the Republicans declined to ask questions, choosing instead to spool out their fathomless catechism of delay tactics, half-truths and utter bullshit. The hearing wasn’t two minutes old before Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, piped up with a useless point of parliamentary inquiry.
A few seconds later, committee chairman Adam Schiff found it necessary to slap Jordan down for lying about the committee’s closed sessions. The pattern of speechifying over examination began unsurprisingly with ranking Republican Devin Nunes, the famous White House lawn ornament. Here’s how Nunes kicked off, because this pretty much sums up the entire Republican case.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...vin-nunes/
There is killing the clock, and there is killing the clock, taking it apart, and scattering the pieces in the Sargasso Sea. But, again, this wasn’t aimed at most of the country. It was aimed at those folks who already know that Alexandra Chalupa is a Deep State Ukrainian who has been working to undermine the president* for decades. (I think she personally sabotaged Trump Air.) They know this because their favorite TV stars and radio hosts have told them so.
Nunes, because he is no different than your drunk uncle, except that your drunk uncle probably isn’t suing an Internet cow, believes all of this stuff, too.
But, as for the actual case for the defense, nothing Nunes says changes the facts of the matter. This case is absurdly simple. Compared to Iran-Contra, it’s a game of ColorForms. As has been his wont for his entire life, the president* found a vulnerable victim to fleece.
In this case, the victim happened to be an ally being bullied and attacked by a regime for which the president* still maintains a mysterious sweet tooth. In pursuit of this latest scam, the president* abused the powers of the office for which he otherwise doesn’t have any more respect than a dog has for a fire hydrant.
As George Kent said at one point on Wednesday:
As I mentioned in my testimony, you can't promote principled anti-corruption action without pissing off corrupt people.
A truth universal, that .
All of this filibustering was aimed at the 33 percent of the American public that recent history has shown will believe anything.
