Senate investigation into the coup attempt is not impressive

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) concluded her questioning with a request for information about potential violence on March 4 — the Constitution’s original inauguration day — which authorities have warned could feature another attempted attack by those who refuse to accept the election results. What, she asked, was being done by authorities in Washington to prepare?

But as law enforcement officials started to respond, Rosen’s time expired. Klobuchar ushered the hearing to the next scheduled senator, Mark Warner, leaving Rosen’s question unanswered.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) used part of his time during Tuesday's hearing to read a discredited conspiracy theory into the record. Quoting generously from a conservative commentary piece that attributed the Jan. 6 insurrection to overaggressive police and a band of provocateurs posing as Trump supporters, Johnson showed that he’s on an island among his Senate colleagues pushing that notion.

[...]

And all four witnesses were clear that they considered the Jan. 6 event to be an insurrection aided by white supremacists.

[...]

Almost immediately after the joint oversight hearing began, senators were calling for testimony from senior officials at the Pentagon, FBI and Department of Homeland Security, some of whom were directly implicated by the four witnesses: former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, former House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, former Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger and acting D.C. police chief Robert Contee.

[...]

Sund and Contee described a conference call during which top Pentagon leaders said they worried about the “optics” of sending armed troops to the Capitol, even as the police chiefs said their respective forces were desperate for backup.

Sund said it took at least two hours for their request to be run up the chain of command at the Pentagon. Contee told senators he was “literally stunned” at the response from the Defense Department.

[...]

Sund claimed he spoke to Irving at 1:09 p.m on Jan. 6 and requested National Guard help, while Irving insisted he was on the House floor at the time and received no call — from Sund or anyone else.

Irving appears to be at least partially correct: C-SPAN video shows he was on the floor at the precise moment the clock struck 1:09 p.m. But senators never raised that fact, and they were often so rushed to squeeze in multiple strains of questions that they left essential information unaddressed.

[...]

Trump came up when Sund emphasized that only the ex-president, who controlled D.C.’s National Guard forces, had the ultimate authority to deploy those troops when the Capitol was in danger. But there was little effort to probe the former president’s actions, and no witness indicated they had any knowledge of whether the president himself was weighing in on security issues as they pleaded for assistance.

[...]

In addition, not a single member asked some of the most burning questions of the entire inquiry:

— What was the cause of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick’s death?
— What is the status of any review of lawmakers’ relationships to some of the rioters, including allegations that some may have been given tours of the building on Jan. 5?
— What is the basis for the Capitol Police’s ongoing investigations of 35 officers for their conduct on Jan. 6?

  Politico

Let's hope future sessions produce better results.

Censure Ron Johnson

Then boot his ass out of the Senate.

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

When the criminals investigate the crime

[V]eterans of the commission's investigation into the 2001 terror attacks worry that it will be challenging to keep politics out of an inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack that led to President Donald Trump's unprecedented second impeachment, on charges he incited the riot.

[...]

[Former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, Lee Hamilton, the former Indiana congressman who served as co-chair, and Tim Roemer, another former Democratic congressman] said they told Pelosi a successful commission would require appointing members who can avoid the partisan fray, supplying them with adequate resources and providing enough time to investigate on their own timetable, rather than one laid out by Congress or the White House.

  MSN

So much for members who can avoid the partisan fray.

"You cannot have people on the commission whose job is to defend the president or defend the speaker," said Kean, a Republican, and chair of the 9/11 Commission. "You've got to have people who follow the facts."

So...another worthless investigation.

Pelosi said the new panel would have "nothing to do with President Trump" but would focus on Capitol security, along with white supremacy and anti-Semitism.

Everything about the insurrection has to do with Trump.

A U.S. Senate Committee where Ohio’s Rob Portman is the top Republican will hold a hearing [today] to examine security failures that allowed thousands of rioters to breach the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as Congress attempted to tally electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.

[...]

Witnesses invited to testify include Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert Contee, former Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger, former House Sergeant at Arms Paul D. Irving, and former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund. The hearing will be conducted jointly by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where Portman is the top Republican, and the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.

  MSN

CNN live hearing updates.
Video coverage at Crooks and Liars

UPDATE:

House GOP would like to waste more time and money

Republicans have quietly and unceremoniously ended their congressional investigation of whether the FBI and Justice Department were biased in their handling of inquiries into Hillary Clinton’s emails and Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.

House judiciary chairman Robert Goodlatte and oversight chairman Trey Gowdy, who are retiring next week, sent a letter rather than a full report to the Justice Department and the Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. It wraps up an inquiry that was conducted mostly behind closed doors.

[...]

Goodlatte and Gowdy say in their letter that they reviewed thousands of documents and conducted interviews that “revealed troubling facts which exacerbated our initial questions and concerns”. They call on the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate further. A separate report issued this year by the Justice Department’s own internal watchdog found there was no evidence that the then FBI chief James Comey or the department were motivated by political bias toward either candidate.

Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, and Elijah Cummings, top Democrat on the oversight panel, are expected to formally end the investigation when they take power in January. Nadler has called it “nonsense”.

  Guardian

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

Impeach the bastard

Trump is the biggest threat to the United States that exists. And that is not hyperbole.

The White House is preventing the CIA director, Gina Haspel, or any other intelligence official from briefing the Senate on the murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi.

The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the defence secretary, James Mattis, are due to give a briefing on US relations with Saudi Arabia to the entire Senate behind closed doors on Wednesday, ahead of a vote that could cut off US support for Riyadh’s military campaign in Yemen.

On a national security issue of such importance, it would be customary for a senior intelligence official to take part. On this occasion, the absence of the intelligence community is all the more glaring, as Haspel travelled to Istanbul to hear audio tapes of Khashoggi’s murder provided by Turkish intelligence, and then briefed Donald Trump.

Officials made it clear that the decision for Haspel not to appear in front of the committee came from the White House.

[...]

[T]he administration is increasingly nervous that the Senate will rebel against its policy of maintaining support for Riyadh and Prince Mohammed, asserting its powers under the War Powers Resolution.

As of Tuesday, however, the Senate was told by the administration to expect only Pompeo and Mattis at the Wednesday briefing. The White House did not respond to a query on the absence of an intelligence official.

“There is always an intel person there for a briefing like this,” a Senate staffer told the Guardian. “It is totally unprecedented and should be interpreted as nothing less than the Trump administration trying to silence the intelligence community.”

  The Guardian

And to do the bidding of Muhammed bin Salman, putting Saudi Arabia's interests above that of the US. Is there also some information that Trump and Kushner actively aided and abetted bin Salman in the murder of Khashoggi? They're certainly giving him cover.

The timing of the vote on the Saudi resolution is unclear. Senator [Bernie] Sanders has said there is support for holding it this week. The Republican majority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, can try to postpone it, but cannot put it off indefinitely, as any measure under the War Powers Resolution has privileged status and cannot be stopped from going to the Senate floor for a vote.

UPDATE 12/3: After backlash, Haspel will speak to the Senate leaders now.

In the annals of worthless investigations

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee late Saturday released a 414-page report in which the panel members say they found no supporting evidence for any of the allegations of sexual misconduct made against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh ahead of his confirmation.

"Committee investigators spoke with 45 individuals and took 25 written statements relating to the various allegations made in the course of the #SCOTUS confirmation process," the Senate Judiciary Committee tweeted Saturday.

"In neither the committee's investigation nor in the supplemental background investigation conducted by the FBI was there ANY evidence to substantiate or corroborate any of the allegations."

  The Hill

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

UPDATE 3/20/21:

Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator and former prosecutor who serves on the judiciary committee, is calling on the newly-confirmed attorney general, Merrick Garland, to help facilitate “proper oversight” by the Senate into questions about how thoroughly the FBI investigated Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

[...]

The FBI was called to investigate the allegations during the Senate confirmation process but was later accused by some Democratic senators of conducting an incomplete background check. For example, two key witnesses – Ford and Kavanaugh – were never interviewed as part of the inquiry.

Among the concerns listed in Whitehouse’s letter to Garland are allegations that some witnesses who wanted to share their accounts with the FBI could not find anyone at the bureau who would accept their testimony and that it had not assigned any individual to accept or gather evidence.

[...]

[Senator Whitehouse] that, once the FBI decided to create a “tip line”, senators were not given any information on how or whether new allegations were processed and evaluated. While senators’ brief review of the allegations gathered by the tip line showed a “stack” of information had come in, there was no further explanation on the steps that had been taken to review the information, Whitehouse said.

“This ‘tip line’ appears to have operated more like a garbage chute, with everything that came down the chute consigned without review to the figurative dumpster,” he said.

He also criticized FBI director Chris Wray, who Joe Biden has elected to remain in place, for not answering questions about the investigation.

  Guardian

Didn't realize this

So both the Senate and House Intel Committee investigations are headed by GOP Congressmen who were involved with the Trump election.

Add these to all previous worthless congressional investigations.

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

Oh, boy. We'll get two reports for the price of one

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

As completely expected

The House Intel Committee is wrapping up their worthless investigation, and Mike Conaway has announced that they found no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians and will conduct no further interviews.

The whole thing was a waste of time and money, as we knew it would be when Devin Nunes, who should have been an interviewee because of his work with the Trump campaign and not an investigator, refused to recuse and stay out of it. Adam Schiff is mad, of course. Trump is elated, of course, and screaming out on Twitter.

"In-depth". LOL.

I wonder why he didn't add:  CASE CLOSED!



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

UPDATE:  House Intel summary of draft report:



FURTHER UPDATE:

No wonder Adam Schiff is mad.  Looks like the Dems weren't notified of the conclusion/summary/draft report.







Cute, Rep. Swalwell, but not particularly helpful.



Yeah, I'd say those "witnesses" are "central to the investigation".

I bet he didn't refuse to answer Mueller's questions

Bannon spent a total of some 20 hours [over multiple days this week] in conversations with the team led by Mueller.

[...]

After a more than four-week stalemate, Bannon also returned to Capitol Hill Thursday to resume his interview with the House Intelligence Committee that was halted when he earlier refused to answer key questions in the Russia probe.

He left today after four hours, answering little more than the two dozen questions that the White House had negotiated with the House’s lead counsel.

[...]

The committee had issued a subpoena in their initial Jan. 16 interview when Bannon would not address issues that arose during his time on the Trump transition team, in the White House and after he left his top position there. The subpoena deadline was postponed three times as House lawyers negotiated with the White House over what Bannon would be willing to discuss without the White House invoking executive privilege to bar the testimony.

Lawmakers indicated Thursday that his continued non-cooperation might require the committee to take the next step and consider beginning the process of holding Bannon in contempt of Congress.

“The only questions he would answer were questions that had been scripted, literally scripted for him by the White House,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, told reporters. “Whenever we sought to probe anything beyond the four corners of the specific wording of the question, he refused to answer. That’s not how executive privilege works.”

  NBC

They're not going to hold him in contempt.

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

Bannon testifies - or does he?

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on Thursday complied with a subpoena from the House Intelligence Committee to appear before the committee Thursday and testify about Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.

Bannon faced a deadline to comply with a subpoena last week, but when he failed to show up for the closed-door interview, the Republican-led committee extended it until this week.

[...]

Last week, Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said the White House wanted Bannon to answer a set of 14 yes-or-no pre-approved questions.

  Washington Examiner

What? Why not just a set of discovery questions on legal paper then?

I don't know what's going on here.

Seems like Bannon may have been the one person in the Trump White House who understood what was happening, but I have no idea what the House Intel Committee - that most worthless of worthless investigations - wants to ask him.

The Trump presidency’s first six months were the most incompetent and least accomplished in modern history. And its very survival was clouded by the gathering storm of the special prosecutor’s probe.

When it came to Mueller’s investigation, Priebus insisted he personally had nothing to worry about. But Bannon warned that the hounds had been loosed. “You’ve got Mueller’s team, which has got 19 killers who are all experts in wire fraud, money-laundering, and tax evasion,” Bannon said. “Doesn’t sound like collusion to me. But they’ve got unlimited budgets and subpoena power. And here’s what we’ve got on our side: two guys who’ve got legal pads and Post-Its.

“It’s like [certain members of the administration think that] no one took down the Gambino family,” Bannon continued. “Mueller’s doing a roll-up just like he did with the Gambinos. [Former campaign manager Paul] Manafort’s the caporegime, right? And [Rick] Gates [Manafort’s deputy] is a made man! [George] Papadopoulos is equivalent to a wiseguy out in a social club in Brooklyn. This is like a Wagner opera. In the overture you get all the strands of the music you’re going to hear for three hours. Well, Mueller opened with a bang. He totally caught these guys by surprise. So if you’re not going to fight, you’re going to get rolled over.”

  Vanity Fair

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

UPDATE:

I've also seen a couple of accounts saying Bannon has been spending time with Mueller's team this week.

Grassley obstructing his own committee

It's not just Nunes in the House Intel Committee, it's also Grassley in the Senate Judiciary. Why did they even agree to form these committees in the first place?

Measure old Chuck for an organge jumpsuit, too.

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

Go Devin

During [a Fox & Friends] appearance, Nunes quite effectively acknowledged that a central tenet of the memo was inaccurate and that he himself appears not to understand critical aspects of the Russia investigation.

  WAPo

Apparently that's not how The Most Notable Loser saw it.

The central argument of Nunes’s memo is that the FISA warrant process was tainted by partisan politics in 2016, resulting in a warrant being obtained to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page based on information presented by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, whose work was funded by a law firm working for the campaign of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party — information withheld from the judge evaluating the warrant.

There are just a few problems with that argument. The first is that Steele had been a source for the FBI in the past, as the memo notes, and it’s not clear whether he knew who was funding his work. The second is that by the time that the warrant for Page was issued, he was no longer part of the Trump campaign.

I've also been seeing claims that only pertinent parts of the memo were used, and that, as you would expect, there were various other sources of facts in support of a warrant.

The third is that, as The Washington Post reported Friday, the court was informed of the potential for bias in the information Steele presented.

“Fox and Friends” host Brian Kilmeade asked Nunes about that.NUNES:

. . .[A] footnote saying that something might be political is a far cry from letting the American people know that the Democrats and the Hillary campaign paid for dirt that the FBI then used to get a warrant on an American citizen to spy on another campaign.

Wait a minute. The memo is complaining about information used to get a FISA warrant. FISA activity is supposed to be secret. Although the Steele dossier had already been leaked and published by Buzzfeed, nothing in those supporting documents for a FISA warrant were ever intended to be seen by the American people. And the GOP had already screamed bloody murder about the Hillary campaign paying for Steele "dirt".

It’s a very dangerous precedent that was set, and what we’re trying to do is just get the American public to understand what happened in this last election and understand we have a responsibility as the House Intelligence Committee to assure the American people that the FISA process is not being abused, and that’s what we did.

In no factual universe is that what they did.

[Nunes is saying] [t]hat this point was inaccurate in the memo is less important than the broader argument that the memo was making — an assertion undercut by the fact that the memo’s argument is dramatically softened by that inaccurate point.

(We’ll briefly note the irony of Nunes, whose committee has been criticized for not focusing on Russian meddling in the 2016 election, saying that “what we’re trying to do is just get the American public to understand what happened in this last election.”)

[...]

Nunes demonstrated a remarkable lack of understanding of one of the unintentionally vital aspects of the memo he released: its admission that New York Times reporting linked the launch of the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign to the actions of another campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos.

[...]

NUNES: Well, I would say if Papadopoulos was such a major figure, why didn’t you get a warrant on him? If Papadopoulos was such a major figure, you had nothing on him — you know, the guy lied.

As far as we can tell, Papadopoulos never even knew who Trump — never even had met with the president.

And look, getting drunk in London and talking to diplomats saying that you don’t like Hillary Clinton is, really — I think it’s kind of scary that our intelligence agencies would take that and use it against an American citizen.

Everyone, except apparently Nunes, knows that Mueller got more than a warrant on Papadopoulos. He got an arrest and an agreement to cooperate. They surely have something on him. And, everyone, with perhaps the exception of Nunes, knows that Papadopoulos famously sat in a meeting with the president, because there's photographic proof that even Trump tweeted out.

Now, did Papadopoulos merely confide in the Australian diplomat that he didn't like Hillary? Right. Everybody but Nunes knows that one, too. What an embarrassment Nunes and Fox & Friends both are.

A former Trump transition team member, [Nunes] was criticized in early 2017 after having been shown classified documents by the White House which he then used to try to publicly defend Trump’s assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped in 2016. That effort was unsuccessful, and Nunes was investigated by the House Ethics Committee for having revealed classified information. (That investigation was dropped in December.)

They need to try again. And considering his position on the transition team, it is beyond absurd that he's the chair of a committee investigating that team.

Nunes’s assertions Monday morning were not dismantled by the hosts of “Fox and Friends.”

“He’s taking the fire,” Kilmeade said approvingly after the interview ended.

He's earning the fire.

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

Republicans have completely broken Congress

This is just unreal.

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

UPDATE:

Good background on Andrew McCabe (Trump target)

Click here for the thread.

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

The worthless commission soldiers on

Lewandowski unsurprisingly followed suit on Bannon's clam-up.

Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski refused to answer some lawmaker questions during an appearance before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, frustrating Democrats and ending a rare moment of bipartisan comity on the panel.

Lewandowski told lawmakers that he was not prepared to answer questions that related to anything after he left the Trump campaign in June 2016, according to multiple sources, but said he was willing to return at a later date.

  The Hill

Return and what? Refuse to answer the same questions?

But while Schiff has urged a subpoena for Lewandowski, King said such a move would be “irresponsible.”

“Bannon said he wouldn’t answer questions, that is the whole point,” King said. “Lewandowski said, ‘I’ll answer every question you have.’ The lawyer did not think that was the scope today, but he’s coming back.”

Close this joke down. All of their witnesses are dictating the scope of the worthless investigation.

Oh, wait. Apparently one witness actually testified.

Lewandowski’s stance was in sharp contrast with another witness interviewed by the committee on Wednesday, White House deputy chief of staff [for legislative affairs] Rich Dearborn.

“He answered every question, no hesitation,” said Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), who chaired that interview.

Score one for the investigators!

Who's Dearborn?

Dearborn’s duties have included oversight of the White House’s political operation, public outreach and legislative affairs. Before that, he helped set up the campaign’s Washington office and was executive director of the presidential transition team after the election. He announced last month that he’ll be leaving the White House early this year.

His family needs him?

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

And the Dems aren't really unhappy about it, are they?

It looks like Trump just added to his counts of obstruction of justice by  putting this gag order on Bannon.  They may be hoping to take any charges to the Supreme Court where they expect to have favorable, rather than legal, results.

Now is the time to use your two-party, lesser of two evils approach to voting, and put Democrats in every Congressional race in November. At least we can get impeachment proceedings that way.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Even more unbelievable

As lawmakers probed Bannon’s time working for President Donald Trump, Bannon’s attorney Bill Burck was asking the White House counsel’s office by phone during the Tuesday session whether his client could answer the questions.

  AP News

While Bannon was testifying, his attorney was on the phone to the White House! If the committee had wanted a White House represenative to censor Bannon, I'm sure they could have asked for one.

It’s unclear who Burck was communicating with in the White House. He is also representing top White House lawyer Don McGahn in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.

I don't care who he was checking in with. This is outrageous. I can't believe the committee isn't coming down hard on the White House. Oh wait. I guess I can.

Jesus.

I really don't think Mueller should let Bannon voluntarily testify.  I thnk he should send him before the Grand Jury.  This is nuts.

Excellent question.  I think we know the answer.

Shut down the House investigation.  It's a waste of money.

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

UPDATE:

FURTHER UPDATE:

So it wasn't just Bannon and his lawyer

The committee itself "had an agreement" with Trump. What a fucking surprise. And by "the committee", I mean Devin Nunes.

The White House believed it had an agreement with the House Intelligence Committee to limit questions for Steve Bannon only to events on the presidential campaign, and not during the ousted former chief strategist's time in the Trump administration, an official told CNBC.

According to the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, staffers for the committee and the White House on Friday discussed the parameters of Bannon's testimony.

  CNBC

No fucking way. This is the most worthless, waste of time and money investigation they could possibly come up with.

The White House emerged from that conversation believing it had an agreement to limit the questioning of Bannon just to events during the campaign, and not during the transition period or his time in the White House.

[...]

[H]ours into Bannon's closed-door testimony on Tuesday, Bannon's lawyers informed the White House from Capitol Hill that the questions would extend beyond the scope of what the White House understood the agreement to be. At that point, the White House told Bannon not to answer any further.

So, obviously, there is something they don't want Bannon telling. What kind of investigation gets parameters from the person being investigated? Ridiculous.

The committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, said the White House did not inform him or his fellow party members on the panel about such an agreement. "That was never conveyed to the minority," Schiff said Tuesday night.

[...]

"And I think it came as quite a surprise to our entire committee frankly, apart from the majority staffer that was involved in that communication."

Gee, I wonder who that might have been.

At that point, House Intelligence Committee Republicans and Democrats joined forces to issue Bannon a subpoena on the spot to compel his testimony.

Which he refused to honor, on orders of the White House.

"Look, we've been completely cooperative throughout this entire process,"[Press Secretary Sarah] Sanders said. "We're going to continue to be cooperative. But we're also going to maintain some of the executive privileges here at the White House."

Look, cooperative means something other than what you think it means. It certainly doesn't mean telling the investigators what quesitons they can ask. No shit.

Unbelievable.

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

UPDATE:  It's even worse than that!

Totally agree

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