Top State official to senators: No vidence of Ukraine interference in 2016 election

David Hale, the third-ranking State Department official who testified recently as part of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry, told senators on Tuesday that he has not seen any evidence to support GOP claims that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.

Hale, the under secretary of State for political affairs, also told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he did not have any reason to disagree with Fiona Hill, a former top White House Russia expert who told House lawmakers last month that Russian security services were propagating a "fictional narrative" of Ukraine interference.

[...]

Shortly after Hill testified, U.S. intelligence officials reportedly briefed senators and their aides that Russia was behind a years-long campaign in which they sought to cast blame on Kyiv for interfering in the 2016 election, in an apparent effort to divert scrutiny for carrying out an influence campaign and hacking during the presidential race.

An intelligence community assessment — as well as the House and Senate Intelligence panels — concluded that Russia was behind the 2016 meddling.

Politico also reported this week that, in 2017, the Senate Intelligence Committee found no evidence that Ukraine carried out a systematic effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

[...]

Trump has also pushed a debunked conspiracy theory about CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that led the investigation into the DNC server following the Russian-led hacking.

And while most of the president's allies have distanced themselves from the CrowdStrike claim, the president has continued to assert that the DNC turned over its server to a “Ukrainian company,” which he suggests framed Russia for the attack when it should've been conducting forensics of the cyber intrusion. But the company was co-founded by a Russian, and experts have dismissed such claims.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Devin Nunes is an embarrassing waste of space and a dick

Nunes, in his closing statement of tonight's impeachment hearings, compared the process to the Inquisition!

Yes, he did.

In a scornful closing statement, Nunes compared the inquiry to a game of “three card monte” and the hearings to an “inquisition” — although he noted that he felt victims of inquisitions had “more rights” than the witnesses testifying at the hearings. He then took aim at what he said were the tactics of some House Democrats, suggesting they must have learned them in law schools that taught, “If the facts and the law are against you, simply rig the game and hope your audience is too stupid to catch your duplicity.”

  NBC

Project much?

When I come up with video, I'll post it. It was quite a show. Theater of the absurd.

Schiff, smiling, replied, “I thank the gentleman, as always, for his remarks,” prompting laughter from the audience.

In his own closing remarks, Schiff delivered an almost professorial lecture on what he said was the difference between “corruption and anti-corruption,” explaining that Republicans have mixed up their definitions of each when it comes to how they’ve assessed Trump’s calls for Ukraine to launch investigations into the Bidens and a “conspiracy theory” into the 2016 election.

In all the hearings to date, the hearing room audience has broken out into applause for Marie Yovanovitch, Lt. Col. Vindman, and Adam Schiff. They've laughed - rightfully - at the Republicans.

But I guess the Republicans are only concerned with an audience of one, so they'll keep on.

Nunes also has filed two lawsuits against people who have been running parody Twitter accounts that insult him.  Every state should have strong anti-SLAPP laws to prevent this kind of abuse.  People in high places - that is people with oodles of money - can ruin others who dare to poke fun of them without those laws.  The man is a disgusting prick.

Does anybody remember how he ran the Intel Committee hearings on whether Russia interfered with the election?  I do.  The Democrats were not permitted to call witnesses who might provide important counter testimony to those Nunes and his henchmen called.  Turned tables hurt.

He was wearing his mobster suit today.  Fits him.

UPDATE: Here you go...

Schiff was almost laughing at that point.  The audience did.

Schiff's close:

Drain the swamp and put in a lunatic assylum (spelling intentional)

I've lost track of who David Hale is.  But here's his testimony transcript.  Apparently he's an ambassador, or a high-ranking official in the State Department or the under secretary of state for political affairs, depending on which article you pull up.  Maybe he's all three of those things.

Diving deeper

The State Department’s third-ranking official is expected to tell House impeachment investigators Wednesday that political considerations were behind the agency’s refusal to deliver a robust defense of the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

People familiar with the matter say the highest-ranking career diplomat in the foreign service, David Hale, plans to say that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior officials determined that defending Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch would hurt the effort to free up U.S. military assistance to Ukraine.

  APNews

Sure, that's the reason.

Hale, who arrived Wednesday morning to testify behind closed doors, will also say that the State Department worried about the reaction from President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, also one of the strongest advocates for removing the ambassador.

More like it.

Two other witnesses who were scheduled for Wednesday — Russ Vought, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and Rick Perry, the Energy secretary — are not expected to show up.

[...]

According to the people familiar with the matter, he will say he tried to distance himself and the department from the matter by removing himself from email chains about Yovanovitch.

So brave.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.