Trump Is Not The Only Republican Working Furiously To Undermine Democracy

 

Timberrrr by Nancy Ohanian

All this talk of a Trumpist coup can be scary, but I still think Señor Trumpanzee will be leaving office by Jan. 20, even if not like Indira Gandhi or Nicolae Ceaușescu. The coup may turn out to be more a comedy than a real threat. But the Trumpists are absolutely trying to take over the apparatus of the Republican Party.

This morning, CNN reported that Trumpanzee, Jr. and the psychotic crackpot who used to be married to Gavin Newsom and is now Junior's unofficial better half, "are making moves to expand their influence at the Republican National Committee." ROTFLMAO. I hope the assholes like McConnell, McCarthy, Cruz, Graham, Mike Pompeo, the two craven Georgia Senate asslickers and the others who have been backing up Trump's desperate pretend-coup, are enjoying this part of it. Jr. and Guilfoyle have made it clear to campaign and White House officials they are unhappy with RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who they view as not having done enough to win a close race."

For some in the GOP, as distasteful as Trump Jr. leading or having significant influence over the RNC may sound, it's seen as better than purging the outgoing first family, which could backfire with the President's base, two sources close to the White House said.

"In order for Republicans to move forward they may have to do this," one of the sources said.

If Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle do not ultimately assume formal positions at the RNC, the sources said somebody close to the Trump family, such as longtime campaign adviser David Bossie [unless he dies], could become chairman.

"They don't want the ride to end," a Trump adviser said of Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle.

I mentioned the other day that a lunatic fringe Republican, Eric Early, in my deep blue district (D+23) has been whining that the race was stolen from him and that he refuses to concede. This is the state of the race, which was called within moments of the polls closing:

Schiff, who is super-popular-- even beloved-- in the district, could shed 100,000 votes and still beat Early, who spent over $3,000,000 on the race, including over $100,000 of his own personal money. In the March 3rd jungle primary, Early barely made it into the general, Having run neck-and-neck with a transsexual activist, Maebe A. Girl, who wound up with 22,129 votes (12.0%) to Early's 23,243 votes (12.6%). But Early made it, blanketed cable TV with laughably dishonest ads and won the same 20-25% of the votes than any Republican wins in this district. Turns out Early's refusal to concede is part of a silly Trumpist "strategy," that I first noticed in Michigan, where defeated Republican Senate hopeful John James is whining he's been robbed and refuses to concede, even though Gary Peters beat him by over 87,000 votes, with the remaining ballots all mail-in votes from heavily Democratic areas, likely to put Peters' margin of victory up over 100,000.

The writing for the Daily Beast early this morning, Will Sommer reported that it isn't only Early and James. He focused on another crackpot: Kimberly Klacik [who] became a star on the right in her bid for the Baltimore-area seat once held by late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and now by Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD). Klacik spoke at the Republican convention, earned a Trump endorsement, and raised a whopping $7.4 million, boosted by her viral campaign ad decrying urban problems in Baltimore."

A star in Trumpworld, Klacik never had a shot in the D+26 district. Right now, with 82% of the vote counted, Mfume is leading her 211,841 (71.9%) to 82,896 (28.1%). She conceded on election night and congratulated Mfume, and then... "with Trump refusing to acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden’s win, Klacik has had a change of tune. Now, like Trump, she claims there’s something suspicious about mail-in ballots favoring Democrats and says her campaign has enough money to 'investigate.' Klacik quote-tweeted a Trump tweet about former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) claiming that 'big city machines are corrupt.'" She's now raving that she beat Mfume "on day of and in-person early voting, along with absentee," meaningless gibberish and absolutely untrue.

Q-Anon media clown Laura Loomer never had a chance to beat Democrat Lois Frankel in her Palm Beach County, Florida D+9 district (which Trump lost to Hillary by nearly 20 points in 2016). She ran because she's a publicity hound and a freak. With 93% of the votes counted and the race long-called for Frankel, 237,837 (59.0%) to 157,588 (39.1%), Loomer is running around shrieking that the election was stolen via absentee ballots. An infamous grifter, Loomer raised over two million dollars from hapless GOP suckers, who also contributed to 3 nutty right-wing SuperPACs that helped her, the American Liberty Fund, the New Journey PAC and a neo-Nazi outfit called the Stop Socialism Now PAC which spent money against 3 candidates: Lois Frankel, Cameron Webb (VA) and Eugene DePasquale (PA). Loomer who is generally considered a psychopath has been banned by Twitter and Facebook but posts on fascist sites where she claims there is "lots of voter fraud happening in America right now. We don’t have free & fair elections in America anymore!"

All of these candidates-- as well as looney-tunes Republican Luke Negron (better known as "The Young Wolf " in Nazi circles), who is currently losing to Democrat Michael Doyle in Pittsburgh 256,615 (69.1%) to 114,771 (30.9%)-- know they have no chance to win, hope they can continue lining their pockets with contributors' money and are all trying to advance Trump's spurious claim that absentee ballots are rigged and illegal.

Meanwhile, 6 academic political scientists released the result of a study today: Does elite rhetoric undermine democratic norms? In their introduction, they noted that "Democratic stability depends on citizens on the losing side accepting election outcomes. Can rhetoric by political leaders undermine this norm?"

As part of an experiment, they evaluated the effects of exposure to multiple statements from Trump attacking the legitimacy of the 2020 U.S. presidential election and concluded that "though exposure to these statements does not measurably affect support for political violence or belief in democracy, it erodes trust and confidence in elections and increases belief that the election is rigged among people who approve of Trump’s job performance. These results suggest that rhetoric from political elites can undermine respect for critical democratic norms among their supporters."

You Know You Can't Count On Him-- And Do Not Doubt That Every Senator Does Know That

Adam Schiff gave a really historic speech Thursday night. And he spoke without notes. He spoke with logic, passion and a compelling sense of urgency and honesty. Over on the Putin/Trump-First right, anti-American traitors like Gym Jordan, Trish Regan and Tucker Carlson did their pathetic best to denigrate Schiff's powerful and very damaging words. On the other hand, this was how Lawrence O'Donnell and his MSNBC panel-- sorry for the McCaskill interrupts... just fast forward through her bullshit-- reported it:





Just as Schiff was about to begin speaking, Arkansas far right closet case Tom Cotton started giggling and walked over to Ben Sasse (R-NE) and spoke to Sasse for the entire time Schiff spoke. Right-wing extremists Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) also ignored Schiff's speech, gossiping and giggling for the entire time he spoke. Keep in mind, a new Ipsos poll shows that 73% of Republican voters said senators should "act as impartial jurors" during the trial.

Believe it or not, Cotton, Sasse, Cramer and Johnson were outliers in the chamber. Even though it was past their bedtimes, most of the senators-- including the Republicans-- were paying close attention. Rubio was actually busily scribbling notes! I wonder if he wrote to himself: "follow the president's own words, and read the transcript."

Schiff went beyond the innocence or guilt to the removal part of the trial. "This is why he needs to be removed. Donald Trump chose Rudy Giuliani over his own intelligence agencies… when all of them were telling him this Ukraine 2016 stuff is cooky, crazy Russia propaganda, he chose not to believe them, he chose to believe Rudy Giuliani. That makes him dangerous to us, to our country." Nailed it-- and everyone in the room knew so.

The Trump regime had a little reminder for the senators Trump actually thinks he owns. Remember, he has no understanding of the American experiment and absolutely believes he is the state and disloyalty to him personally is disloyalty to America.

Midnight Mitch

This morning, on CBS This Morning, former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said of Señor Trumpanzee: "He'll either be gone by this time next year or four years from now. Then what happens to the Republican Party? My fear is people out there know that, even if this is not an impeachable offense, that the president did something wrong, and for Republicans to maintain that he didn't is just wrong, and this has long-term ramifications for the party if we act as if we are just devoted to the president no matter what, and this cult of personality that we've seen, we certainly saw it in the House... We have separation of powers, and Congress needs to stand up for its principles. Individual members do as well. It doesn't mean that they won't agree with the president. Often if you're Republican, you typically agree with a Republican president more often [than with a Democratic president]. But not all the time. Not to the extent particularly that the House Republicans did to say that the president did nothing wrong here."

Also this morning, conservative Democrat Claire McCaskill, who was kicked out of office by Missouri voters in 2018, predicted that Susan Collins would be the only senator to break with Moscow Mitch over allowing witnesses in the impeachment trial. Meanwhile, the 7 impeachment managers, led by Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, sent a letter to corrupt Trump attorney Pat Cipollone informing him that as a material fact witness in the trial he risks disqualification if he "assumes the role of both advocate and witness" blurring the line between argument and evidence. They inform him that the only way around this is for him to disclose all the evidence before the start of the trial." John Roberts will have to decide that.

Into this mix, stepped Nancy Pelosi, in many ways the ringmaster. She laid out the case this morning, against... MoscowMitch. "Leader McConnell’s plan for a dark of night impeachment trial," she wrote, "confirms what the American people have seen since Day One: the Senate GOP Leader has chosen a cover-up for the President, rather than honor his oath to the Constitution.  Below are key examples of how McConnell’s resolution deviates from the Clinton precedent in an effort to prevent the full truth about President Trump’s efforts to corrupt the 2020 election from coming to light. 

Unfairly Delays and Limits Possible Witnesses and Documentary Evidence

• Under the Clinton Rules, the Managers had received all of the documents and testimony through the Starr Report and accompanying evidence, all they did was additional depositions.  Here, President Trump has denied the House access to a dozen witnesses and has not provided a single document, so delaying the decision unfairly hampers the trial.
• The Clinton resolution guaranteed the parties 6 hours to actually make motions for subpoenas for new documentary evidence and present arguments on those motions.  In contrast, the McConnell resolution only permits the Senate to hear argument for 4 hours and vote on a very narrow question-- namely, the question of whether to consider and debate witness subpoenas.  If the Senate votes no at that point, no party or Senator will be permitted to move to subpoena any witness or documents.  If the Senate votes yes, both sides will be free to make motions to subpoena witnesses, and the Senate can debate and vote on them.  Even then the Senate will need to approve an additional resolution to provide for the actual delivery of the subpoena by the Sergeant at Arms, among other things.

Places Unreasonable Time Limits on the House Managers in an Unprecedented Rush to Cover-Up Trump’s Corruption

• The McConnell resolution places unreasonable time restrictions on critical phases of the trial.
• Pre-Trial Motions: For example, under the McConnell resolution, deadlines are dramatically compressed.  The Clinton rules gave the parties more than 72 hours to prepare motions and more than 40 hours to respond to the motions that were filed.  In contrast, under the McConnell resolution, the parties have less than 24 hours to prepare motions and just 2 hours to respond to any motions filed.
• Opening Arguments: The McConnell resolution also places an unreasonable limit of 2 session days for each side to present their case.  In contrast, the Clinton rules did not place any artificial limits on the number of session days the parties could present their opening arguments. The resolution simply placed a generalized 24 hour limit and, in practice, the parties each presented their opening arguments over the course of 3 session days. The McConnell resolution forces each side to squeeze 24 hours of presentations into 2 session days.
• Evidentiary Motions: In Clinton, the parties were given 6 hours under S.Res.16 to present arguments on 3 motions to subpoena witnesses. Under the McConnell resolution, the parties have 4 hours to present arguments on the question of “whether it shall be in order to consider and debate under the impeachment rules any motion to subpoena witnesses and documents.” And the impeachment rules would only allow a total of 2 hours for debate on any subpoena that the parties are ultimately permitted to make a motion for (under the impeachment rules).  

Excludes the Entire House Record and Paves the Way for Ceaseless Evidentiary Objections

• Under the McConnell resolution, there is no guarantee the House record will be entered into evidence at all.  And the first opportunity that it could be admitted into evidence would be after all of the following key trial events have taken place, including: 4 session days/48 hours of opening statements; 16 hours of Senator questions; and 4 hours of argument by the parties on the question of whether it is in order to consider any debate on a motion to subpoena witnesses or documents.  Under the Clinton rules, the record was immediately admitted into evidence and made available to all Senators.
• The upshot is that under the McConnell resolution, arguments that rely upon any piece of evidence in the House record may be subject to an objection by any Senator.

In a separate press release, she added that "McConnell's process is deliberately designed to hide the truth from the Senate and from the American people, because he knows that the President’s wrongdoing is indefensible and demands removal. No jury would be asked to operate on McConnell’s absurdly compressed schedule, and it is obvious that no Senator who votes for it is intending to truly weigh the damning evidence of the President’s attacks on our Constitution. The public now knows why Leader McConnell has been hiding his resolution: the Clinton comparison was a lie. Clearly and sadly, Leader McConnell has misled the American people. For weeks, he has insisted that he will adhere to the rules used during the Clinton impeachment trial and that 'fair is fair'-- but his proposal rejects the need for witnesses and documents during the trial itself. In contrast, for the Clinton trial, witnesses were deposed and the President provided more than 90,000 documents. President Trump undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections and violated the Constitution all for his own personal, political gain. He has repeatedly said that he would do so again. Duty, honor and country are at stake. Every Senator who supports this sham process must be held accountable to the American people."

UPDATE: Adam Schiff Gets The Ball Rolling

Mr. Chief Justice, Senators, and counsel for the President, the House Managers on behalf of the House of Representatives rise in opposition to Leader McConnell’s resolution.

Before I begin, Mr. Chief Justice, the House Managers will be reserving the balance of our time to respond to the argument of the counsel for the President.

Let me summarize why we oppose Leader McConnell’s resolution:

Last week, we came before you to present the Articles of Impeachment against a president of the United States for only the third time in our history. Those articles charge President Donald John Trump with Abuse of Power and with Obstruction of Congress. The misconduct set out in those articles is the most serious ever charged against a president.

The first article, Abuse of Power, charges the President with soliciting a foreign power to help him cheat in the next U.S. presidential election. Moreover, it alleges and we will prove that he sought to coerce Ukraine into helping him cheat by withholding two official acts-- a meeting the new President of Ukraine desperately sought with President Trump at the White House to show the world, and the Russians in particular, that the Ukrainian president had a good relationship with his most important patron, the President of the United States.

And even more perniciously, President Trump illegally withheld almost $400 million in taxpayer funded military assistance to Ukraine, a nation at war with our Russian adversary, to compel Ukraine to help him cheat in the election. Astonishingly, the President’s trial brief, filed yesterday, contends that even if this conduct is proved, that there is nothing the House or this Senate may do about it.It is the President’s apparent belief that under Article II he can do whatever he wants, no matter how corrupt, outfitted in gaudy legal clothing.

And yet, when the Founders wrote the impeachment clause, they had precisely this type of conduct in mind, conduct that abuses the power of office for a personal benefit, that undermines our national security, and that invites foreign interference in the democratic process of an election. It is the trifecta of constitutional misconduct justifying impeachment.

In Article II, the President is charged with other misconduct that would likewise have alarmed the Founders: the full, complete, and absolute obstruction of a co-equal branch of government-- the Congress-- during the course of its impeachment investigation into the President’s own misconduct. This is every bit as destructive of our constitutional order as the misconduct charged in the first article.

If a President can obstruct his own investigation, if he can effectively nullify a power the Constitution gives solely to the Congress — indeed the ultimate power the Constitution gives-- to prevent Presidential misconduct, then the President places himself beyond accountability and above the law. Cannot be indicted, cannot be impeached. It makes him a monarch, the very evil against which our Constitution and the balance of powers it carefully laid out, was designed to guard against.

Shortly, the trial on these charges will begin, and when it has concluded, you will be asked to make several determinations:

Did the House prove that the President abused his power by seeking to coerce a foreign nation to help him cheat in the next election?

And did he obstruct the Congress in its investigation into his own misconduct by ordering his agencies and officers to refuse to cooperate in any away, to refuse to testify, to refuse to answer subpoenas for documents, and through every other means?

And if the House has proved its case, and we believe the evidence will not be seriously contested, you will have to answer at least one other critical question: Does the commission of these high crimes and misdemeanors require the conviction and removal of the President?

We believe that it does, and that the constitution requires that it be so, or the power of impeachment must be deemed a relic, or a casualty to partisan times, and the American people left unprotected against a president who would abuse his power for the very purpose of corrupting the only other method of accountability: our elections themselves.

And so, you will vote, to find the President guilty or not guilty, to find his conduct impeachable or not impeachable.

But I would submit to you that these are not the most important decisions you will make. How can that be? How can any decision you will make, be more important than guilt or innocence, than removing the President or not removing him?

I believe the most important decision is the one you will make today. The most important question is the question you must answer today: Will the President and the American people get a fair trial? Will there be a fair trial?

I submit that this is an even more important question than how you vote on guilt or innocence because whether we have a fair trial will determine whether you have a basis to render a fair and impartial verdict. It is foundational, the structure upon which every other decision you make will rest.

If you only get to see part of the evidence, if you only allow one side or the other a chance to present their full case, your verdict will be predetermined by the bias in the proceeding. If the defendant is not allowed to introduce evidence of his innocence, it’s not a fair trial. So too for the prosecution. If the House cannot call witnesses or introduce documents and evidence, it’s not a fair trial. It’s not really a trial at all.

Americans all over the country are watching us right now. Imagine they’re on jury duty. And imagine the judge tells the jury that she’s been talking to the defendant and at the defendant’s request, the judge has agreed not to let the prosecution call any witnesses. Or introduce any documents. The judge and the defendant have agreed that the prosecutor may only read to the jury the dry transcripts of testimony before the grand jury. That’s it. Has anyone ever heard a judge describe such a proceeding and call it a fair trial-- of course not. Of course not. That is not a trial, that is a mockery of a trial.

Under the Constitution, this proceeding, the one we are in right now, is the trial. This is not the appeal from a trial. You are not appellate court judges; ok, one of you is.

And unless this trial is going to be different from every other impeachment trial-- or any other kind of trial for that matter-- you must allow the prosecution and defense, the House Managers and the President’s lawyers, to call relevant witnesses. You must subpoena documents the President has blocked, but which bear on his guilt or innocence. You must impartially do justice as your oath requires.

So what does a fair trial look like in the context of impeachment? The short answer is, it looks like every other trial.

First, the resolution should allow the House Managers to obtain the documents that have been withheld. First, not last. Because the documents will inform the decision about which witnesses are most important to call. And when witnesses are called, the documentary evidence will be and must be available to question them with. Any other order makes no sense.

Next, the resolution should allow the House Managers to call their witnesses, then the President should be allowed to do the same and any rebuttal witnesses, and when the evidentiary portion of the trial ends, the parties argue the case. You deliberate and render a verdict. If there is a dispute as to whether a particular witness is relevant or material to the charges brought, under the Senate rules, the Chief Justice would rule on the issue of materiality.

Why should this trial be different from every other trial? The short answer is, it shouldn’t. But Leader McConnell’s resolution would turn the trial process on its head. His resolution requires the House to prove its case without witnesses, without documents, and only after its done, will such questions be entertained with no guarantee that any witnesses or any documents will be allowed even then. That process makes no sense.

So what is the harm of waiting until the end of the trial, of kicking the can down the road, on the question of documents and witnesses, besides the fact it is completely backwards, trial first, then evidence, and besides the fact that the documents will help inform the decision on witnesses, and help in their questioning?

The harm is this: you will not have any of the evidence the President continues to conceal throughout most-- or all-- of the trial and although the evidence against the President is already overwhelming you may never know the full scope of the President’s misconduct or that of those around him. And neither will the American people.

The charges here involve the sacrifice of our national security at home and abroad, and a threat to the integrity of our next election. If there are additional remedial steps that need to be taken after the President’s conviction, the American people need to know about it.

But if, as a public already jaded by experience has come to suspect, this resolution is merely the first step of an effort orchestrated by the White House to rush the trial, hide the evidence, and render a fast verdict or worse, a fast dismissal, to make the President’s problems go away as quickly as possible, to cover up his misdeeds, then the American people will be deprived of a fair trial and may never learn just how deep the corruption of the Administration goes or what other risks to our security and elections remain hidden.

The harm will also endure for this body. If the Senate allows the President to get away with such extensive obstruction, it will affect the Senate’s power of subpoena and oversight just as much as the House. The Senate’s ability to conduct oversight will be beholden to the desires of this President and future presidents—whether he or she decides they want to cooperate with a Senate investigation, or even another impeachment inquiry and trial. Our system of checks and balances will be broken. Presidents will become accountable to no one.

Now, it has been reported that Leader McConnell has already got the votes to pass this resolution, the text of which we did not see until last night. And they say Leader McConnell is a very good vote counter. Nonetheless, I hope that he is wrong. And not just because I think the process this resolution contemplates is backwards and designed with a result in mind, and that result is not a fair trial. I hope that he is wrong, because whatever Senators may have said, or pledged or committed, has been superseded by an event of constitutional dimension.

You have all now sworn an oath, not to each other, not to your legislative leadership, not to the Managers or even to the Chief Justice. You have sworn an oath to impartially administer justice. That oath binds you. That oath supersedes all else.

Many of you in the Senate and many of us in the House have made statements about the President’s conduct, or this trial, or this motion, or our expectations; none of that matters now. That is all in the past. Nothing matters now but the oath. Nothing matters now, but the impartial administration of justice. And that oath requires a fair trial, fair to the President and fair to the American people.

But is that really possible? Or, as the Founders feared, has factionalism, or an excess of partisanship made that impossible? One way to find out what a fair trial should look like devoid of partisan consideration, if to ask yourself how you would structure the trial if you did not know what party you were affiliated with, or whether the President was from your party or the other? Would it make sense to you to have the trial first and only then decide on witnesses and evidence? Would that be fair to both sides? I have to think that your answer would be no.

Let me be blunt, very blunt. Right now, a great many, perhaps even most Americans do not believe there will be a fair trial. They don’t believe the Senate will be impartial. They believe the result is pre-cooked.

The President will be acquitted, not because he is innocent, he is not, but because the Senators will vote by party and he has the votes. The votes to prevent the evidence from coming out, and the votes to make sure the public never sees it.

The American people want a fair trial, they want to believe their system of government is still capable of rising to the occasion.

They want to believe we can rise above party and do what’s best for the country, but a great many Americans don’t believe that will happen. Let’s prove them wrong. Let’s prove them wrong.

How? By convicting the President? No, not by conviction alone. By convicting him if the House proves its case, and only if the House proves its case. But by letting the House prove its case. By letting the House call witnesses. By letting the House obtain documents. By letting the House decide how to present its own case, and not deciding it for us.

In sum, by agreeing to a fair trial.

Is Moscow Mitch Working To Subvert The Constitution Again?

David Brooks, one of the New York Times' in-house conservatives, yesterday: "Donald Trump is impulse-driven, ignorant, narcissistic and intellectually dishonest." Yes, he's right and most Americans know it and agree with it, but none of that is really anything that's impeachable. Ted Lieu's one minute speech on the House floor Thursday (above) should be part-- a big part-- of the Trump impeachment trial... but it won't be. If there even is a trial. As you know, Moscow Mitch and many of the Senate Republicans have signed on to a motion to dismiss the impeachment charges without a trial. Witnesses? Not while Moscow Mitch runs the show. (Worth mentioning, though, is that on Tuesday, in an MSNBC interview, Andrea Mitchell asked Adam Schiff if he would subpoena John Bolton and he said... maybe. "We haven’t taken that off the table. I think what makes the most sense, though, is for him to testify in the Senate trial… They should hear directly from one of the key witnesses, and for senators to say, no, they would rather move to dismiss the case than hear from people who have first-hand information tells you a lot about their partiality. They’re not living up to the oath they’ve taken of being impartial jurors.")

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is backing a resolution to change the Senate’s rules to allow for lawmakers to dismiss articles of impeachment against President Trump before the House sends them over.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) announced on Thursday that McConnell has signed on as a co-sponsor to the resolution, which he introduced earlier this week.

Spokesmen for McConnell didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about his support.

This is the letter Pelosi sent to the House Democrats yesterday laying out the next steps in the Trump impeachment drama:

For weeks now, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has been engaged in tactics of delay in presenting transparency, disregard for the American people’s interest for a fair trial and dismissal of the facts.

Yesterday, he showed his true colors and made his intentions to stonewall a fair trial even clearer by signing on to a resolution that would dismiss the charges. A dismissal is a cover-up and deprives the American people of the truth.  Leader McConnell’s tactics are a clear indication of the fear that he and President Trump have regarding the facts of the President’s violations for which he was impeached.

The American people have clearly expressed their view that we should have a fair trial with witnesses and documents, with more than 70 percent of the public stating that the President should allow his top aides to testify. Clearly, Leader McConnell does not want to present witnesses and documents to Senators and the American people so they can make an independent judgment about the President’s actions.

Honoring our Constitution, the House passed two articles of impeachment against the President-- abuse of power and obstruction of Congress-- to hold the President accountable for asking a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 elections for his own political and personal gain.

While the House was able to obtain compelling evidence of impeachable conduct, which is enough for removal, new information has emerged, which includes:

• On December 20, new emails showed that 91 minutes after Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, a top Office of Management and Budget (OMB) aide asked the Department of Defense to “hold off” on sending military aid to Ukraine.
• On December 29, revelations emerged about OMB Director and Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s role in the delay of aid, the effort by lawyers at the OMB, the Department of Justice and the White House to justify the delay, and the alarm that the delay caused within the Administration.
• On January 2, newly-unredacted Pentagon emails, which we had subpoenaed and the President had blocked, raised serious concerns by Trump Administration officials about the legality of the President’s hold on aid to Ukraine.
• And on January 6, just this week, former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton announced he would comply with a subpoena compelling his testimony. His lawyers have stated he has new relevant information.  

I am very proud of the courage and patriotism exhibited by our House Democratic Caucus as we support and defend the Constitution. I have asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to be prepared to bring to the Floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate. I will be consulting with you at our Tuesday House Democratic Caucus meeting on how we proceed further.

In an impeachment trial, every Senator takes an oath to “do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.” Every Senator now faces a choice: to be loyal to the President or the Constitution.

No one is above the law, not even the President.

Republicans In Congress Are Now Tearing At The Fabric Of The Constitution And Undermining Congress As An Institution Every Bit As Much As Trump

The New Yorker's Susan Glaser interviewed Adam Schiff on Thursday. She asked him if he hates Señor T. "No," he replied, "but I do hate what he is doing to the country." Glaser only had a few minutes and as Schiff was being called away she asked him what had been the most memorable testimony of the hearings, a "cancer on the presidency" moment like John Dean's Watergate testimony.

Schiff said, “sometimes it’s not the big things” but smaller, revealing comments that resonated. One was from the former special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, who, in a conversation with one of Zelensky’s advisers, in September, urged the new Ukrainian administration not to enact victor’s justice and investigate his defeated predecessor. The Zelensky adviser responded, in effect, “Oh, you mean like you want us to do with the Bidens and the Clintons?” To Schiff, it was a moment “pointing out the utter hypocrisy” of Trump’s scheme, in which America was now “urging other countries not to engage in politically motivated investigations, while asking for politically motivated investigations.”

The other conversation that Schiff cited was Sondland’s memorable encounter with David Holmes, a diplomat in the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. Holmes overheard Sondland talking on the phone with Trump, who asked if Zelensky would pursue the investigations he wanted. After the call, Holmes asked Sondland, “Does the President give a shit about Ukraine?” As Holmes testified, the answer was no, he only cares about “the big stuff.” Well, Holmes pointed out, there is big stuff happening in Ukraine, like a war with Russia, but Sondland said no, that was not what he meant. Trump only cared about matters that concerned him, like the investigations. “That says it all,” Schiff told me. “The President doesn’t give a shit about what’s good for our country, what’s good for Ukraine. It’s all about what’s in it for him personally and for his reëlection campaign.” In that small moment in an obscure diplomat’s testimony, Schiff reflected, was the impeachment case in all its brazen simplicity. “That is a perfect summary,” he said, “of this whole scheme.”

Until recently, Michigan libertarian Justin Amash was a conservative Republican. Now he's a conservative independent caucusing with their party. He told CNN yesterday that he wants to hear all the evidence before making a final decision on impeachment but, as of noe, he is ready to vote for three articles of impeachment: obstruction of Congress, obstruction of justice and abuse of power. That doesn't count as "bipartisan."

Yesterday Vox published a chat reporter Sean Illing had with former Republican Congressman David Jolly (FL) about what's happened to his party. "Republicans in Congress," Jolly said, are now "tearing at the fabric of the Constitution every bit as much as Donald Trump" and "undermining the institution of Congress every bit as much as Trump... I think we just have to recognize how culturally broken our politics is. There is real animosity between the two sides that gets reinforced due to gerrymandered districts that insulate members from accountability, and we have a media environment that funnels partisan news to target audiences."

When Illing asked him when his former colleagues still in Congress say to him in private, Jolly said "I can’t tell you how many Republican members of Congress have told me, 'I’m just trying to keep my head down and not get noticed.' They see all the excitement stirred up by people like Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes but at least half the caucus wants to stay the hell out of the media. They’re not looking to make a name through this, they’re looking to survive this. I struggle with whether some of their behaviors are an intentional decision on their part to engage in either misdirection, or to overlook the facts because they have a fealty to the president or because they want to put a stake in the ground in right-wing media or because it just works in their districts. Or are some of them just duped into it by following the leader? I honestly don’t know. It’s probably a mix of all of the above."

Asked why not even a Republican who seems normal, like Will Hurd, is willing to vote to impeach Trump, Jolly's response was what you'd expect: "It’s hard to get into someone else’s mind. I was surprised that we haven’t seen Hurd or someone like Hurd lead the narrative, 'It’s wrong, but not impeachable.' His closing comments in the hearing a couple weeks conflated the 'wrong, but not impeachable' argument with the claim that the allegations against Trump aren’t proven. That’s different. I don’t know if Hurd has future political ambitions, but his legacy is being cemented now. If you say it was wrong but not impeachable, that’s a legitimate national conversation. You can run for office in the future and that argument could stand the test of time because it at least acknowledges what most of the country knows, namely that what Trump did is obvious and wrong. But if you stay with not proven, it’s as though Republicans have decided to simply overlook the truth and look the other way and that’s where I think it will have long-term consequences for Hurd and for the party at large.

Jolly said watching Elise Stefanik, who has carefully crafted an image as a moderate but has no turned into a raving Trumpist imbecile, "has been interesting. And I think she’s doing this very intentionally. When she said to Fiona Hill, for example, or whoever it was, 'Can’t a president fire an ambassador for any reason?' And Hill says, 'Yes,' and Stefanik says, 'A-ha,' then she goes to her press guy and says, 'I’m glad we all agree the president has the authority to do it.' Well, it overlooks the fact that the corrupt conspiracy behind it could still be impeachable. And she knows that. Of course she knows that. And when Gym Jordan (R-OH) says, 'We don’t know the whistleblower’s identity,' well, it doesn’t matter because we have the testimony of everybody else and he knows that. This is where I can’ tell if this is just intentional misdirection or a case of blindly following the leader... I think this is what the party is. I don’t think we will see a reversal the day Trump leaves office. I’m curious who follows Trump because the politics aren’t going to change so dramatically. I don’t think it’s Mike Pence’s party when Trump’s gone. Anyone who wants to win in this party will have to appease the Trumpist base one way or the other. And this whole impeachment saga is showing us that it’s not just Trump and Trumpism, it’s also Congress. I mean, Republicans in Congress right now are tearing at the fabric of the Constitution every bit as much as Donald Trump’s actions, because this is now their responsibility. It’s not their responsibility to defend Trump, but that’s what they’re prioritizing. And they’re undermining the institution of Congress every bit as much as Trump... I think the Lindsey Graham we’re seeing today is the real Lindsey Graham. This is a political opportunist who will flop with the winds and do whatever it takes to serve his own self-interest. That’s who he is... Trump has exposed a lot about who we are as a country and who Republicans are as a party. But the partisanship problem is less about the people in the party and more about the structural forces driving hyper-partisan decision-making. The big three for me are gerrymandering, closed primaries, and big money. All of this puts so much pressure on people to conform or compromise. If we unrigged the system, if we had competitive districts with open primaries and public financing, you’d see people behaving very differently because there would be a completely different reward structure. Right now the only way to get reelected is to act like a hyper-partisan. As long as that’s the case, we won’t get value-driven decision-making."

So... which candidate do Democratic primary voters thing would be best to take on and rid the country of Trump? A new Ipsos poll for Reuters shows the horse-race looking like this:

• Status Quo Joe- 26%
• Bernie- 19%

• Elizabeth- 13%
• Mayo- 8%
• Bloomberg- 5%
• Yang- 3%
• Klobuchar- 2%
• Booker- 2%

But that isn't what I found most valuable in the polling. Let's look, instead, how Democratic primary voters responded when asked about which candidate who best handle the most important issues of the day:

• Immigration

• Bernie- 25%
• Status Quo Joe- 22%
• Elizabeth- 12%
• Mayo- 7%
• Booker- 5%

• Healthcare

• Bernie- 33%
• Status Quo Joe- 21%
• Elizabeth- 15%
• Mayo- 7% • Booker- 3%

• The environment

• Bernie- 25%
• Status Quo Joe- 17%
• Elizabeth- 15%
• Mayo- 10%
• Booker- 4%

• The economy and jobs

• Status Quo Joe- 25%
• Bernie- 24%
• Elizabeth- 16%
• Mayo- 8%
• Booker- 4%

Expect Trump To Be Busy Pardoning A Lot Of People In His Last Month In The White House

Josh Dawsey, Carol Leonnig and Tom Hamburger reported in the Washington Post about more trouble for Trump. They wrote that a confidential White House review of Trump’s decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine has turned up hundreds of documents that reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification for the decision and a debate over whether the delay was legal-- clearly part of a cover-up. "The research by the White House Counsel’s Office," they wrote, "which was triggered by a congressional impeachment inquiry announced in September, includes early August email exchanges between acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials seeking to provide an explanation for withholding the funds after President Trump had already ordered a hold in mid-July on the nearly $400 million in security assistance."

Meanwhile, Schiff told Jake Tapper on State of the Union that the House Intel Committee "will press ahead with its impeachment report even though key witnesses have not testified, in the latest signal that Democrats are moving swiftly in their probe of President Trump’s alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine... Schiff said the evidence against Trump is 'already overwhelming.'" Felicia Sonmez and Elise Viebeck reported that "Democrats are seeking to prove Trump leveraged military assistance and an Oval Office meeting in exchange for investigations of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden and a debunked theory concerning purported Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Several key figures, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former national security adviser John Bolton and Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, have declined to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.

A federal judge is expected to rule Monday on whether former White House counsel Donald McGahn must testify under subpoena.

Some have argued that Democrats should litigate the matter in the courts to force more witnesses to testify. But Schiff said Sunday that time is of the essence and that Democrats will continue to investigate even after they have submitted their report to the House Judiciary Committee.

“We’re going to continue our investigation… The investigation isn’t going to end,” he said, adding that “we may have other depositions and hearings to do.”

He took particular aim at Bolton, arguing that the former national security adviser will have to explain why he chose to give his account of events “in a book” rather than show the “courage” that Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council Russia adviser, did in testifying before lawmakers last week.

Schiff declined to say how long it might take impeachment investigators to finish their report, saying only that “we’ll take the time that’s necessary.”

Trump, meanwhile, continued to take aim at Democrats, saying in a tweet on Sunday that they “are not getting important legislation done” because of the impeachment inquiry.

“USMCA, National Defense Authorization Act, Gun Safety, Prescription Drug Prices, & Infrastructure are dead in the water because of the Dems!” Trump said, referring to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and other matters.

In another tweet, Trump claimed that public opinion has “turned very strongly against Impeachment, especially in swing states,” though national polls have shown that public sentiment about impeachment has remained stable.

According to an NPR-PBS-Marist poll, 49 percent of respondents supported removing Trump from office in mid-November. This is similar to the 48 percent who said the same in early October in another NPR-PBS-Marist poll.

Administration officials and other Republicans on Sunday continued to defend Trump and sought to keep the focus on Biden, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway argued that there was no quid pro quo because Ukraine eventually received its military aid and Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in late September.

Conway also dismissed the notion that last week’s testimony strengthened Democrats’ hand, claiming that she sees swing-district Democrats “wringing their hands” over what to do.

“I think defense will go on offense if there is a Senate trial, and we’ll be able to call witnesses, we’ll be able to challenge their witnesses, produce other evidence,” Conway said on CBS News’s Face the Nation.

She added, “We simply can’t impeach and remove a democratically elected president from office because they didn’t beat him in 2016, they haven’t a clue how to beat him in 2020, [and] they don’t much like him.”

Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was “pretty sure that every single one” of Conway’s assertions was “inaccurate,” noting that Ukraine received its military aid and Trump met with Zelensky in New York only after a whistleblower made the complaint that triggered the impeachment inquiry.

“I understand that the White House is all about making facts slippery,” Himes said. “When the jig was up, yes, then the aid was released, once they [Trump and his allies] were caught.”

Himes also challenged Conway’s claim that Democrats in Congress were losing faith in the allegations.

“I don’t think any Democrat in the Congress looked at what happened over the last two weeks and said, ‘Gosh, there’s nothing there,’ ” Himes said, adding: “Every single day, every single piece of testimony brought up new information.”

Calling Trump’s alleged quid pro quo with Ukraine a “red herring,” Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-LA) said it’s important for lawmakers to understand why Trump asked Zelensky for an investigation of the Bidens and what Hunter Biden did as a board member for Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.

Kennedy said it was unfair that Trump was unable to call witnesses or offer a direct rebuttal during the initial proceedings of the impeachment inquiry.

“I think Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi’s judicial philosophy from the beginning has been ‘guilty,’ ” Kennedy said on Fox News Sunday. But he said that if there is a Senate trial, he does not think the allegations will be “summarily dismissed.”

“I’m in favor of doing it in accordance with due process and [letting] everybody offer whatever they want to in terms of evidence,” Kennedy said, even if that “takes a long time.”

The Louisiana Republican said he was unsure whether Russia or Ukraine hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers during the 2016 election despite the intelligence community’s consensus that Russia was to blame. His comment drew a strong response from Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who said, “It was Russia, and as a country, we have to make sure that we absolutely acknowledge it was Russia [and] condemn Russia for it.”

“It actually plays into Russia’s hands if they [Republicans] have this equivalence with Ukraine where we’re saying, ‘Well, maybe we don’t know which one it was,’ ” Swalwell said.

In a separate interview on NBC News’s Meet the Press, Schiff said there is no longer a need for testimony from the anonymous whistleblower-- though Schiff had previously pledged that his panel would hear from the individual.

“We don’t need the whistleblower’s secondhand evidence anymore,” he said. “It would only serve to endanger this person and to gratify the president’s desire for retribution, and that is not a good enough reason to bring in the whistleblower.”

Schiff also pushed back against the argument that he himself should be called to testify in the Senate trial, noting, “I’m not a fact witness.”

“All I can relate is what the witnesses said in deposition and in the open hearings,” he said, arguing that calling him to testify would show a lack of seriousness by Senate Republicans.

On CNN, Schiff also declined to say whether he believes the House Ethics Committee should investigate Rep. Devin Nunes (CA), the top Republican on the intelligence panel, over allegations that he met with an ex-Ukranian official to obtain information about Joe Biden and his son.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) said Saturday that it was “quite likely” that Nunes would face a House inquiry. But Schiff said Sunday that he did not want to weigh in on the matter.

“I don’t want to comment on what the Ethics Committee should do, particularly vis-a-vis the ranking member of my committee,” Schiff said.

There seems to be an unending flow of impeachment-related witnesses and information the Democrats could still tap. Sunday night, for example, CNBC reported that Lev-- of Lev and Igor-- "wants to testify to Congress that aides to Rep. Devin Nunes called off a trip to Ukraine this year when they realized they would be required to notify Democratic committee chairman Adam Schiff. The purpose of the trip was to interview two Ukrainian prosecutors who claim to have evidence that could help President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, according to Parnas’ lawyer. Parnas also alleges that Nunes, a leading Trump ally, himself traveled to Vienna last year to interview a potential source of political dirt on Joe Biden.

And Schiff is already in possession of video and audio tapes and photographs from Lev that are supposedly damning to Giuliani, Nunes and possibly Trump himself. "Some of the material sought by congressional investigators is already in possession of federal investigators within the Southern District of New York and thus held up from being turned over, according to sources familiar with the matter."

This morning, Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Bernstein, reminded his readers that conservative Republicans stuck with President Richard Nixon in 1974… right up until they didn’t. In other words: it ain't over 'til it's over. "Trump’s seemingly unanimous support right now is similar to the backing that Nixon had even as his original cover-up collapsed in early 1973; as the Senate Watergate committee hearings dominated that summer; as the Saturday Night Massacre unfolded in October; and as the House judiciary committee debated and voted on specific articles of impeachment in 1974. And then: The smoking gun tape came out and it all collapsed immediately. Even Nixon’s strongest supporter on the judiciary committee, the Jim Jordan of the day, who had just vigorously defended the president during televised deliberations, flipped and said he’d vote to impeach on the House floor."

Hannity & Friends Raise The Flag by Nancy Ohanian

You don't go to prison for hackery, of which Nunes is clearly guilty, but Nunes has gone much further than that. This morning, Charlie Sykes wrote that "In the real world, Nunes’ behavior has become so openly outlandish it's drawing fire from former colleagues. Even among the antics of Jordan and Stefanik on the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes stands out. As the hearings wrapped up, former Republican congressman and current (long-shot) presidential candidate Joe Walsh tweeted: 'One takeaway for what it’s worth: @DevinNunes is a stupid, partisan hack.' Perhaps, but Walsh’s critique seems incomplete. It is true that Nunes will never be confused with Abraham Lincoln in either intellect or statesmanship. It also is worth remembering that he is the guy suing a Twitter account called “Devin Nunes' Cow,” for $250 million for (among other things) calling him a 'treasonous cowpoke,' and tweeting that: 'Devin’s boots are full of manure. He’s udder-ly worthless and its pasture time to move him to prison.'"

Walsh is also right that Nunes is, like so many of his colleagues, a political hack. But he’s more than that. Devin Nunes has redefined hackery in the age of Trump.

Old-fashioned hackery generally consisted of loyalty and a willingness to take one for the party, because hacks were concerned with self-preservation. But the thing about this form of hackery is that there were limits-- a point beyond which even the most devoted hack would not go. (See: Watergate.)

So how to explain Nunes and his colleagues?

It is one thing to defend their party’s president against his partisan foes. This is hardly unprecedented. But the innovation of Trumpian hackery is the demand that hacks set their intellect, character and political future on fire.

Nunes is the very model of this new hackery. He is not merely Trump’s defender, he has become his doppelgänger and co-conspirator, willing to peddle discredited propaganda likely cooked up by Russian military intelligence if Trump demands it.

There are two possibilities here: Nunes knows that he is cynically using Trump-friendly talking points because they play well on Fox News, or he actually believes this fetid mass of falsehoods because, as Slate’s Will Saletan told me, “he’s been using his own product.” It’s not clear which is worse, but the question goes to the essence of the new hackery.

I have a strong feeling that a judge and jury will be deciding before this is all over.

Is Adam Schiff Re-Inventing Himself-- With The Help Of Trump?

Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) hammering Trump by Nancy Ohanian

I don't want to go into-- for the 300th time-- the whole long story about how I helped my congressman first get elected in 2000 and then was mortified when he joined the Blue Dogs and started voting like a Republican. Needless to say, my support turned to anger and I never voted for any of his reelection bids-- and stopped talking to him. But, lately, things have changed. It wasn't even that he quit the Blue Dogs and started voting more like a Democrat. He still wasn't a progressive and identified with the Wall Street-owned New Dems instead. But then he took a bow on the national stage and became best-known for something else instead. But... I live in Los Feliz, part of California's 28th congressional district and, yep, my member of Congress is Adam Schiff, of late Trump's chief antagonist and someone who is handling the Republicans on the House Intel Committee as perfectly as anyone could possibly hope he would (short of setting up an impromptu firing squad). Early last week, a radio syndicate asked me if I would come on to denounce Schiff as a conservative Democrat, as I had done many times in the past. Slightly embarrassed, I begged off and suggested electorally vulnerable ConservaDems Dan Lipinski, Tom O'Halleran or Josh Gottheimer instead.

Last week, I asked award-winning illustrator Nancy Ohanian, to consider doing a caricature of Schiff. That's it up top. Nancy sent me a few autographed 12"x16" copies of it. If you'd like one, contribute any amount to any Blue America-endorsed congressional candidate on this page or by clicking on the thermometer on the right. (We will pick 3 random winners on Tuesday evening at 6pm, PT.) Unless the Democrats keep their House majority, Schiff will be replaced as chairman of the Intel Committee by Devin Nunes, the ranking member who has been acting as Trump's chief defender throughout the hearings-- and for the two-plus years previous to the hearings.

Last week, writing for L.A. Magazine, Bryan Smith penned a feature, Adam Schiff Is Ready to Rumble, that will be music to the ears of his constituents, my neighbors. In 2016 Hillary eviscerated Trump in this district, 72.1% to 22.3%, and last year Schiff was reelected with 78.4%. If I'm reading the signs correctly, Trump will do even worse next year and Schiff will do even better. In Smith's words, "The mild-mannered, vegan congressman from Burbank has become the GOP’s worst nightmare... Before the impeachment inquiry Schiff was known for eschewing fame while representing a town-- Hollywood-- built on it."

He is world-famous now. The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence can now see himself caricatured on Saturday Night Live. In Trump’s Twitterverse, he’s the limp, Ivy League-educated elitist scheming to bring down the President of the Real America. To his supporters, he is Elliot Ness chasing Al Capone, Joseph Welch facing down Joseph McCarthy. Which of these images wins out may ultimately determine nothing less than the fate of the free world.

...He may not want to play the leading man, but Schiff’s confrontation of Trump is the stuff of a Frank Capra film. The by-the-book former prosecutor, who seems every bit the embodiment of the process he champions, is poised to take down a president whose primary mission has been to blow up the system for his own gain, regardless of how many laws (or reputations) were trampled in the process.

...When the impeachment inquiry opened, and Schiff replaced Robert Mueller as the existential threat to Trump’s presidency, Trump and his GOP henchmen trained their full hyperbolic artillery on the “congessman from Hollywood.”  The attacks intensified after Schiff paraphrased the written summation of a telephone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rather than reading straight from the summation, culminating (for now) in the absurd blitz of the “secret” impeachment hearings. “He’s a liar!” Trump tweeted.  “Behold the Lord High Impeacher,” sneered a headline in the Wall Street Journal’s opinion section. Meanwhile the usual suspects at Fox News-- Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro-- spewed their daily invective. In yet another sign of the times, the evangelical preacher and best-selling author Perry Stone claimed that Schiff and other Democratic lawmakers were possessed by demons and trying to “place hexes” on Trump.

The demonization campaign also has had its darker side. “Someone called the office and said, ‘I’m going to put three bullets in the back of your head, and this is the gun I’m going to use,’ ” Schiff told me. A Major League Baseball umpire tweeted in October that he would “be buying an AR-15 tomorrow,” and there would be “another cival (sic) war” if Trump was impeached.

...He finds the “conspiracy stuff” that Trump’s attacks foster less humorous. A man named Anthony Comello attempted to make a “citizen’s arrest” of Schiff after reading an outlandish QAnon conspiracy. Not long after, Comello was charged with murder when he shot and killed a mob boss he was convinced was part of the “deep state.” Comello’s lawyer argued that his client only shot Francesco “Frank” Cali after the mobster resisted Comello’s citizen’s arrest.

Schiff makes no attempt to hide his contempt for Trump. One of my visits with him came just after the president mocked Elijah Cummings, whose home had recently been burglarized. When I asked Schiff if he thought Trump was racist, he responded bluntly.

“Yes,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any question about it. And you know it’s startling to come to the conclusion that the president of the United States is racist, but there’s no denying the facts. And we just have to make sure that his fundamental calculation that that’s a good political strategy is dead wrong. And God help us if we can’t.”

Regarding Trump’s more serious attacks, Schiff was equally direct: “Preaching hate is dangerous,” he told me. “This president gets up every day determined to find new and innovative ways to divide us. I think it’s really tearing the social fabric of the country apart. Meanwhile it has also legitimized a lot of bigotry that was there below the surface [that]people now feel free to express.”

Equanimity comes naturally to Schiff, but it’s also a part of a conscious strategy. “I do think that this is such a head-on-fire kind of a time that there’s a premium amount of people talking rationally. Along the way I’ve had people say, ‘You need to get angrier. You need to yell.’ I say, ‘Look, there are plenty of people getting angry right now. That’s just not who I am.’ And I think people in my line of work who have a problem, it’s often because they try to be something they’re not or someone they’re not. I’ve never tried to be anything other than what I am, and so I tell those who are looking for someone more incendiary there are lots of other choices.”

The other advantage, Schiff said, is that when he does show anger people pay far closer attention. “If you’re not angry all the time,” he said, “then people do notice when you are. And it tends to have more of an impact.”

In June of 2017 Schiff signed on as a co-sponsor of Pramila Jayapal's Medicare for All act. This year, he was an original co-sponsor of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's Green New Deal Resolution. He was also an original co-sponsor of Bobby Rush's Raise the Wage Act-- the $15 minimum wage bill. And when Lloyd Doggett introduced his tougher-than-Pelosi bill to lower drug prices (H.R. 1046), Schiff was one of the 108 co-sponsors on February 7, 2019-- day one. Maybe he's changing. Maybe he's getting ready for the race to win the Feinstein Senate seat when she gives it up.