Aaron Rupar
@atrupar

Clarification: apparently 60 Minutes got this wrong and the whistleblower is currently seeking federal protection, citing the president’s statements, but is not currently under federal protection

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1178480078906445824

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called “Whistleblower,” represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way. Then Schiff made up what I actually said by lying to Congress......

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1178442759499370496

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.....

6:53 PM · Sep 29, 2019·Twitter for iPhone

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1178442762284404736

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

....In addition, I want to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND & THIRD HAND INFORMATION, but also the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect, to the “Whistleblower.” Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!

6:53 PM · Sep 29, 2019·Twitter for iPhone

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1178442765736333313

https://twitter.com/cspan/lists/presidential-candidates/members

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/09/c-span-adds-mike-pence-to-list-of-2020-candidates/

The Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN) put Mike Pence on its Twitter list of 2020 presidential candidates, NBC News reporter Ben Pu noticed.

While things haven’t been looking good for President Donald Trump, he likely doesn’t think that he’ll be removed from the presidency and prevented from running next November. Still, C-SPAN seems to see Pence as an option.

Giuliani says he’d only help impeachment probe with Trump OK

https://www.apnews.com/1041b44f79854c55bf075537ed2dfe69

WASHINGTON (AP) — Under fire for peddling a debunked conspiracy theory, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Sunday he would cooperate with the House’s impeachment inquiry only if Trump gave him permission.

“If he decides that he wants me to testify, of course I’ll testify,” Giuliani said during a series of television appearances where impeachment dominated the discussions.

But it’s not clear whether Rep. Adam Schiff, whose House Intelligence Committee is taking the lead on the impeachment investigation, wants to hear sworn testimony from Giuliani.

Central to the Democratic-led inquiry is Giuliani’s effort to have Ukraine conduct a corruption probe into 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s dealings with a Ukrainian energy company. Trump echoed that request in a July call with Ukraine’s president that has now led to the impeachment drive examining whether Trump linked U.S. aid to Ukraine in exchange for that probe. There has been no evidence of wrongdoing by either Biden.

Mrs. Betty Bowers
@BettyBowers

House Republican Whip: Pelosi was wrong to say Trump is guilty before any investigation.

Also House Republican Whip: So I'm saying Trump is innocent before any investigation.

https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/1178387162699636737

https://twitter.com/SteveScalise/status/1178381466906107904

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/nancy-pelosi-an-extremely-stable-genius

Before we begin to grapple with the gravity of the impeachment inquiry that is now upon us, can we acknowledge yet again the extreme weirdness of our times? If, through the distorting mists of time, the heroes and antiheroes of the Watergate saga seem positively Shakespearean in their stature—Nixon raging on the heath, his cunning satraps devising their poisoned betrayals—what to make of today’s dramatis personae of Kiev and Washington, Presidents Zelensky and Trump, one a comic actor turned fledgling statesman, the other a real-estate grifter turned . . . political grifter? Scholars of the Volodymyr Zelensky filmography will recall his appearances in “Love in the Big City 2” and “Rzhevsky Versus Napoleon.” And they will credit his work in the television show “Servant of the People,” in which he played the President of Ukraine, a role that set him on the path to being the actual President of Ukraine. Zelensky is an expressive comic artist. And so it is not hard to imagine his mask of terrorized bewilderment as he held a telephone to his ear in July and listened to the ex-star of “The Apprentice” deliver an implicit threat to deprive his country of military aid and diplomatic standing if he failed to interfere in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election on Trump’s behalf. This is our reality.

From the start, Pelosi has confronted Trump with a wry fearlessness. When, in a moment of rare self-aggrandizement, Trump referred to himself as an “extremely stable genius,” she replied, “When the ‘extremely stable genius’ starts acting more Presidential, I’ll be happy to work with him on infrastructure, trade, and other issues.” In an Oval Office confrontation last year, she brooked no disrespect from Trump and asked that he please not underestimate “the strength that I bring to this meeting as the leader of the House Democrats.” When, on another occasion, Trump referred to Pelosi as a “mess,” the Speaker thoughtfully suggested that the President might benefit from an “intervention for the good of the country.”

For months, however, Pelosi avoided the ultimate intervention. She frustrated many members of the Democratic caucus who believed—for myriad reasons, some contained in the Mueller report, some not—that they should pursue an impeachment inquiry against the President. Pelosi was reluctant, worried that there was not enough evidence to prevent a backfire scenario, in which Trump would emerge from impeachment still safely in office, emboldened, unchallenged by his own party, a martyr with an enhanced prospect at reëlection.

*****

Could impeachment still backfire? I asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We handled this with such care. It isn’t like we ran into this. He has taken us to this place. He has given us no choice. Politics has nothing to do with impeachment, in my view.”

Joyce Alene
@JoyceWhiteVance

AG Barr was so outraged & angry when he learned Trump lumped him in with Rudy Giuliani on the Ukraine call that he turned around and booked a $30,000 party at Trump’s DC hotel. Timeline: Barr learns about the call mid-August, books the party late August.

https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1178304530502553601

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/09/rattled-lindsey-graham-hits-fainting-couch-on-cbs-news-salem-witch-trials-have-more-due-process-than-this/

Graham appeared shaken over a whistleblower report which exposed Trump’s Ukraine call.

“Every American deserves to confront their accuser so this is a sham, as far as I am concerned!” he charged. “I want to know who told the whistleblower about the phone call.”

“The complaint sounds like a legal document,” Graham insisted. “Who helped this guy write it or this girl write it. We are not going to try the president of the United States based on hearsay. Every American has the right to confront their accuser.”

He added: “Who are these people and what are they up to? You know, Mueller wasn’t a witch hunt but this is. Salem witch trials have more due process than this! How do you know she’s a witch? Somebody told me she’s a witch. How do you know she’s a witch? I read articles thinking she might be a witch.”

“You keep on throwing out the charges,” the ABC host said. “Will you cooperate with the House Intelligence Committee?”

“I wouldn’t cooperate with Adam Schiff,” Giuliani ranted as Schiff was waiting off camera. “I think he should be removed. If they remove Adam Schiff and put a neutral person in, a Democrat who hasn’t expressed an opinion — if I had a judge in the case and announced he was going to impeach, wouldn’t I move to recuse that judge.”

“You’re not going to cooperate?” Stephanopoulos pressed.

“I didn’t say that,” Giuliani wrongly insisted. “I said I would consider it.”

“You said you’re not going to do it,” the ABC host pointed out.

“I have to be guided by my client,” Giuliani explained. “If he wants me to testify, I’ll testify. even though I think Adam Schiff is illegitimate.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/09/giuliani-goes-bonkers-on-abc-and-contradicts-himself-over-whether-he-will-cooperate-with-impeachment/