Story 1: Democrat Party Cover-up of Spy-gate — Clinton Obama Democrat Criminal Conspiracy — Continues With Passage of House Rule Resolution For Behind Closed Door Kangaroo Court — Videos —
Top GOP lawmakers speak after House passes impeachment inquiry resolution
WATCH: House Votes To Pass Rules For Impeachment Probe | MSNBC
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Nancy Pelosi sets up ultra-partisan televised impeachment probe by jamming new rules through House without Republican backing – and two of her own side vote AGAINST new stage in investigating Donald Trump
House Democrats approved an impeachment inquiry into the president in a vote almost entirely along party lines
‘What is at stake is our democracy. What are we fighting for? Defending our democracy for the people,’ Speaker Pelosi said
The vote was 232 in favor with 196 voting no; two Democrats rebelled and voted with Republicans
‘The Greatest Witch Hunt In American History!,’ Trump tweeted afterward
Trump spent morning tweeting and retweeting words from his supporters
He called on Republicans to stand together and back him
The resolution outlines how the impeachment investigation will proceed and what rights the president will have during it
Republicans complained about the lack of ‘due process’ for Trump and charged Democrats with trying to overturn the 2016 election
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said the administration is considering bringing aboard additional staff to combat the impeachment inquiry
The vote comes as Tim Morrison, who was Trump’s top adviser for Russian and European affairs, testifies behind closed doors in the impeachment inquiry
PUBLISHED: 08:57 EDT, 31 October 2019 | UPDATED: 11:21 EDT, 1 November 2019
A divided House of Representatives voted on Thursday to begin the next stage of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, taking the investigation from behind closed doors to Americans’ television screens with a series of public hearings.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers took to the House floor to engage in a bitter debate over the impeachment process before voting almost entirely along along party lines on the resolution.
Thursday’s vote was 232 in favor with 196 lawmakers voting no. There were two Democratic defections – Congressmen Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Collin Peterson of Minnesota.
Both hold swing districts that Trump carried in the 2016 election. Trump carried Peterson’s district by over 30 points. Republicans had hoped more Democrats in vulnerable seats would vote against.
Rep. Justin Amash, a Republican who became an Independent, voted in favor of the resolution.
Nancy Pelosi was left with no fig leaf of bipartisanship when no Republican backed her case; the Republicans got two Democrats voting with them but not the up to a dozen they had hoped would rebel against the Speaker.
Steve Scalise, the Republican whip boasted afterwards about keeping his side united.
The contentious debate is likely a preview of the public hearings to come.
Democrats focused on their constitutional duty; they talked about following the law and protecting national security interests.
Republicans railed against the process, echoing a White House argument there is no due process for the president and no Republican in-put into the proceedings, and accused their colleagues across the aisle of trying to overturn the 2016 election.
The Greatest Witch Hunt In American History!,’ Trump tweeted after the vote was finished, using his favorite phrase to describe any investigation into him.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi presided over the vote and gaveled it to a close, announcing the final total.
She kept her words on the matter short: ‘On this vote the yeas are 232, the nays are 196. The resolution is adopted without objection.’
Four lawmakers did not vote. Three Republicans – Jody Hice of Georgia, John Rose of Tennessee, and William Timmons of South Carolina – and one Democrat: Donald McEachin of Virginia.
Rep. Hice tweeted he missed the vote because his father died but he would have voted no on the resolution if he had been present.
Democrats launched the formal impeachment inquiry in September after a whistleblower revealed concerns that President Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe and Hunter Bidens, his political enemies, during a July 25 phone call.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and called the call ‘perfect.’
The weeks-long inquiry accumulated into Thursday’s five-minute vote. The House chamber was crowded with lawmakers as it took place. They chatted with each other on their respective sides of aisle.
After it was over, Democrats moved on to the next vote on the schedule while Republicans yelled in protest. ‘Order, order,’ they yelled, ‘we have rules.’
But Democrats, who control the chamber, moved on.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, as soon as the vote was over, charged House Democrats with an ‘obsession’ with impeaching the president.
‘The President has done nothing wrong, and the Democrats know it. Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats’ unhinged obsession with this illegitimate impeachment proceeding does not hurt President Trump; it hurts the American people,’ she said in a statement.
President Trump spent the morning before the House votes on an impeachment resolution into him tweeting and retweeting words from his supporters
Trump spent Thursday morning tweeting and retweeting words from his supporters, calling on Republicans to stand by him in the upcoming vote.
‘The Impeachment Hoax is hurting our Stock Market. The Do Nothing Democrats don’t care!,’ he wrote shortly before the House started voting on the resolution against him.
Earlier he called on Republicans to stand by him during the proceedings.
‘Now is the time for Republicans to stand together and defend the leader of their party against these smears,’ Trump tweeted, quoting conservative talk host Laura Ingraham.
Pelosi, meanwhile, gaveled the House into order on Thursday morning as lawmakers took to the floor to debate the resolution.
Democrats talked about following the law and protecting national security interests. Republicans railed against the process, echoing a White House argument there is no due process for the president and no Republican in-put into the proceedings.
‘It’s not a fair process. It’s not a transparent process. It’s not an open process. But instead it’s limited and a closed process with a pre-ordained outcome,’ argued Republican Rep. Tom Cole said on the House floor Thursday morning.
Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the Intelligence panel, compared Democrats pursuing impeachment to a ‘cult,’ and their inquiry to a ‘show trial.’
‘They have always intended to transform the Intelligence committee into the impeachment committee,’ said Nunes, a California Republican who was himself accused of politicizing the Intelligence panel during the Mueller investigation.
‘Every one of their actions from the staff they hired to the Trump conspiracy theories they investigate … indicates this has been their plan from day one,’ he said on the House floor.
He accused Democrats of harboring a ‘bizarre obsession with overturning the results of the last presidential election.’
‘What we’re seeing among Democrats on the Intelligence Committees, down in the [secure Capitol facility] right now, is like a cult. These are a group of people loyally following their leader as he bounces from one outlandish conspiracy theory to another. And the media are the cult followers, permanently stationed outside the committee spaces, pretending to take everything seriously, because they too support the goal of removing the president from office,’ Nunes said.
Pelosi, like many of her colleagues, delivered floor remarks in front of a poster of an American flag where lawmakers often place visual aids.
The Speaker, who only occasionally speaks on legislation or procedures on the floor of the House, began her remarks by reading the preamble to the Constitution.
‘What is at stake is our democracy. What are we fighting for? Defending our democracy for the people,’ she said.
‘The genius of the Constitution, a separation of powers. Three coequal branches of government to be a check and balance on each other,’ Pelosi told colleagues.
‘Sadly this is not any cause for any glee or comfort. This is something that is very solemn that is something prayerful.’ Addressing arguments that the House was authorizing something that has already begun, she said: ‘We had to gather so much information to take us to this next step.’
‘I doubt anybody in this place … comes to Congress to take the oath of office … to impeach the president of the United States, unless his actions are jeopardizing our honoring our oath of office,’ said Pelosi, who earlier this month walked out of a meeting with President Trump after it grew heated.
‘Let us honor our oath of office. Let us defend our democracy. Let us have a good vote today and have clarity, clarity as to how we proceed,’ she said.
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke on the House floor with a poster of a flag
Rep. Steve Scalise, the Number Two Republican in the House, called the proceedings ‘Soviet-style’
‘At the end of the day, this resolution isn’t about Donald Trump. It isn’t about any of us. It’s about our Constitution. It’s about our country. And so I urge my colleagues to not just think about the political pressures of the moment. These will pass. Please consider the heavy responsibility you have today, to this institution, the Constitution, and our country,’ said Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Jim McGovern on the House floor Thursday morning.
”I never wanted our country to reach this point. I do not take any pleasure in the need for this resolution. We are not here in some partisan exercise. We are here because the facts compel us to be here. There is serious evidence that President Trump may have violated the Constitution. This is about protecting our national security and safeguarding our elections,’ he added.
‘I support this resolution because it lays the groundwork for open hearings. The House and the American public must see all of the evidence for themselves,’ said Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler in his floor speech.
Nadler’s committee will hold some of those public hearings.
‘I support this resolution because I know we must overcome this difficult moment for the Nation. This resolution is necessary to ensure that our constitutional order remains intact for future generations,’ he added. ‘I support this resolution because we simply have no choice.’
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler spoke in support of the resolution; his committee will hold some of the public hearings
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House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy charged Democrats with trying to overturn the 2016 election
Republicans complained Democrats were trying to overturn the 2016 election.
House minority whip Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana tried to turn the table on Democrats, who have spent years focusing on Russian election interference and Trump campaign contacts with Russians.
He spoke next to a blow-up posture of the Kremlin, and accused the Democrats of conducting a Soviet-style inquiry.
‘If the chair chooses, at his whim, they can literally kick out the president’s legal counsel. This is unprecedented. It’s not only unprecedented, this is Soviet-style rules. Maybe in the Soviet Union, you’d do things like this, where only you make the rules, where you reject the ability of the person you are accusing to even be in the room to question what’s going on, for anybody else to call witnesses,’ said Scalise.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy blasted Democrats for ‘not working for the American people.’
‘This Congress has more subpoenas than laws,’ he said in his floor speech.
‘Democrats are trying to impeach the president because they are scared they cannot beat him at the ballot,’ McCarthy complained. ‘This impeachment is not only an attempt to undo the last election. It is an attempt to undo the last one as well.’
For both sides the vote will become a political weapon in 2020 with Republicans targeting Democrats who represent House districts that Trump won in 2016 and Democrats using it as a rallying cry for their base.
Tim Morrison, who was Trump’s top adviser for Russian and European affairs, arrives on Capitol Hill Thursday to testify
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Thursday morning the administration is considering bringing aboard additional staff to combat the impeachment inquiry.
‘Possibly and if we do it’s because our portfolios are already over flowing,’ she told reporters in the White House drive way. ‘So possibly. Stephanie Grisham is the press secretary and communications director the president and to the first lady. She’s got a pretty busy portfolio already.’
She added that any additions would be temporary and single-focused on the impeach issue, comparing it to how the administration brought on small teams of extra staff to handle other key issues, such as Supreme Court nominations.
‘So if it’s something intense, but single focused albeit temporary, there’s an argument for bringing a few extra hands and minds on to the team. So I would analogize it to Kavanaugh Part II for example,’ she said. ‘You have a short window and somebody who is single-focused on just that which is, frankly, something the rest of us can’t do.’
She was quick to add: ‘It’s not a war room. The president has made it pretty clear he doesn’t need a war room.’
The vote comes as Tim Morrison, who was Trump’s top adviser for Russian and European affairs, arrived on Capitol Hill Thursday morning to testify in the inquiry.
Morrison recently left his White House post and Democrats will seek details from him on an allegation that president linked nearly $400 million in U.S. military aid to the Ukraine to officials there undertaking an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden, along with probing an unproven theory that it was the Ukrainians who hacked the Democratic National Committee’s email server and blamed the Russians.
Trump has maintained he’s done nothing wrong.
The House resolution includes a package of rules for how the Intelligence Committee – now leading the investigation closed-door testimony from witness – would transition to public hearings.
It also details how Intelligence panel Chair Adam Schiff will have most of the power in the process – deciding who will testify in front of the cameras and for how long – before issuing a public report and handing the matter over to the House Judiciary Committee, which will compose any formal articles of impeachment against the president.
Republicans and the White House are objecting to how that process is laid out.
Under the resolution, GOP lawmakers can only issue subpoenas for witnesses if the entire panel approved them – in effect giving Democrats veto power over their requests. Democrats argue this was the same procedure Republicans used when they had the majority during Bill Clinton’s impeachment process in the 1990s.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bring a resolution to a vote that outlines how the investigation will proceed and what rights the president will have during it
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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff will play a lead role in the public hearing phase of the investigation
Additionally, there is no role for President Trump’s lawyers when the Intelligence panel holds its public hearings – a time when the cable news networks will run wall-to-wall coverage and viewership is expected to be high.
Trump’s lawyers aren’t allowed into the process into the Judiciary committee phase but what rights they will have – such as the ability to question witnesses – are not outlined in the resolution.
The White House blasted the rules as ‘an illegitimate sham’ that lacks ‘any due process’ for President Trump.
‘The White House is barred from participating at all, until after Chairman Schiff conducts two rounds of one-sided hearings to generate a biased report for the Judiciary Committee. Even then, the White House’s rights remain undefined, unclear, and uncertain – because those rules still haven’t been written,’ White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham argued in a statement earlier this week on the resolution.
By the time the president gets to participate, most of the drama will have played out on television screens across the country.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blasted the procedure as denying the president his ‘basic due process rights.’
‘It does not confer on President Trump the most basic rights of due process,’ McConnell complained in a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in the Ukraine whose closed-door testimony in the impeachment inquiry against Trump shocked Democrats with its details, is willing to testify in public when the hearings move to that stage.
No request has been made for his public testimony, CNN reports, but he is likely to be on the Democrats’ list when the time comes.
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blasted House Democrats’ impeachment resolution on the Senate floor on Wednesday
Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in the Ukraine, is wiling to testify in public
Taylor testified last week that he was told that American military aid to the Ukraine was contingent on Kiev putting out a statement they were investigating the Bidens and the 2016 election.
Democrats believe he could be a star witness.
He’s rock solid, detailed notetaker and unimpeachable,’ Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN. ‘Fifty years given to his country — it doesn’t get much more ‘Top Gun’ than that.’
Taylor testified behind closed doors last week that Trump refused to release U.S. security aid or meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky until Zelensky agreed to investigate the president’s political rivals.
Trump wanted a public commitment from the Ukraine they would investigate Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company with Hunter Biden on its board, Taylor – a Vietnam veteran and career State Department official – told Congress, and said the president wanted Ukraine ‘put in a box.’
Trump and his allies have pushed an unproven theory Joe Biden, as vice president, demanded the Ukraine remove a prosecutor to the benefit of the company.
The president also pushed an unproven conspiracy theory that an email server belonging to the Democratic National Committee was hacked by Ukrainians during the 2016 election and they made it look as it were the Russians – a story, that if true, would indicate he won the 2016 contest without Russian interference.
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Bolton was in meetings with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland on Ukraine policy
Taylor said he was told that Trump had made clear that military aid to help keep Ukraine safe from Russia would only be made available if Zelensky went public to order ‘investigations,’ otherwise there was a ‘stalemate.’
And Taylor testified that Sondland told another diplomat: ‘President Trump did insist that President Zelensky go to a microphone and say that he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference, and that President Zelensky should want to do this himself.’
The bombshell testimony rocked Washington D.C. and left the White House reeling – after Trump had started the day by calling impeachment ‘a lynching.’
As Democratic lawmakers trickled out of the hearing, they called they evidence ‘damning,’ while Republicans had little to say.
Taylor called the involvement of Rudy Giuliani in a ‘parallel’ foreign policy ‘highly irregular’; confirmed that John Bolton had called linking military aid to Ukraine to a Biden probe a ‘drug deal’; implicated Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and Mick Mulvaney in the scheme; and painted EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland as part of Giuliani’s scheme as well as an error-prone official lax on security and an unreliable witness – who one Republican conceded is likely to be recalled to the probe.
He recalled a phone call with Sondland, whom the president put in charge of Ukrainian affairs despite that country not being an EU member.
‘During that phone call, Amb. Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelensky to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election,’ Taylor said in his statement.
He added Sondland told him ‘everything’ – meaning U.S. military aid and a White House meeting – was contingent on the Ukraine publicly agreeing to the probe.
‘Amb. Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelensky was dependent on a public announcement of investigations — in fact, Amb. Sondland said, ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance,’ Taylor said.
‘He said that President Trump wanted President Zelensky ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations,” he noted.
Taylor is considered the biggest threat to Trump to come before lawmakers.
He left his retirement to take up the top U.S. post in the Ukraine after Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was fired by Trump. He has no ties to the administration and no diplomatic career to worry about given his senior statesman status. He has worked in administrations for both political parties.
White House blasts impeachment resolution as ‘illegitimate sham’ without ‘any due process’ for Donald Trump after Democrats release proposal that omits details about president’s rights when public hearings are televised
White House blasted the Democrats’ impeachment resolution
It’s ‘an illegitimate sham … without any due process for the President,’ White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement
House Democrats released their impeachment resolution on Tuesday that outlines the next stage of the investigation into Donald Trump
It includes public hearings and gives Republicans limited power to call witnesses
Power is concentrated in hands on Intel Committee Chair Adam Schiff
He will get to approve Republican witnesses and their requests for subpoena
After Intel finishes its investigation, it will write a public report
Matter then goes to Judiciary panel which writes articles of impeachment
Trump and his lawyer cannot participate in process until that final stage
House votes on resolution on Thursday, which is Halloween
PUBLISHED: 15:37 EDT, 29 October 2019 | UPDATED: 19:34 EDT, 29 October 2019
Under the resolution, power is concentrated in the hands of House Intelligence committee Chair Adam Schiff, who can authorize longer periods to question witnesses and who can approve Republican requests for witnesses to appear.
The Intelligence panel will take the lead in the next, immediate steps. Those include public hearings where Republican lawmakers and staff can question witnesses.
But there is no role for the president’s lawyer in the that stage – which is the White House’s chief complaint.
After its public hearings conclude, the Intelligence panel will submit its findings to the House Judiciary Committee, which will have the responsibility for drafting any articles of impeachment that would charge the president.
STEPHANIE GRISHAM STATEMENT ON RESOLUTION
The resolution put forward by Speaker Pelosi confirms that House Democrats’ impeachment has been an illegitimate sham from the start as it lacked any proper authorization by a House vote.
It continues this scam by allowing Chairman Schiff, who repeatedly lies to the American people, to hold a new round of hearings, still without any due process for the President.
The White House is barred from participating at all, until after Chairman Schiff conducts two rounds of one-sided hearings to generate a biased report for the Judiciary Committee. Even then, the White House’s rights remain undefined, unclear, and uncertain – because those rules still haven’t been written.
This resolution does nothing to change the fundamental fact that House Democrats refuse to provide basic due process rights to the Administration.
It’s in that stage that President Trump’s lawyers will get to be involved but what rights they will have – such as the ability to question witnesses – are not outlined in the resolution.
‘The White House is barred from participating at all, until after Chairman Schiff conducts two rounds of one-sided hearings to generate a biased report for the Judiciary Committee. Even then, the White House’s rights remain undefined, unclear, and uncertain – because those rules still haven’t been written,’ Grisham argued in her statement on the resolution.
By the time the president gets to participate, most of the drama will have played out on television screens across the country.
Republicans, meanwhile, have called foul on the restrictions Democrats have placed on them when it comes to presenting Trump’s case when the hearings move the public stage.
Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the intelligence panel, can request witnesses, documents and any subpoenas the GOP want but Schiff must sign off on those requests and the full committee, which has a majority of Democrats, must approve them by vote.
Democrats point out that it is the same practice Republicans used for the minority power during the impeachment proceedings into President Bill Clinton into 1998.
The resolution puts the power in the impeachment inquiry into House Intelligence panel Chair Adam Schiff
The resolution is slated for a vote on Thursday in the full House. Republican leadership is telling its members to vote no on what they call a ‘Soviet-style’ resolution.
Under the Democratic-written measure, the House committees are directed ‘to continue their ongoing investigations as part of the existing House of Representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its Constitutional power to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America, and for other purposes.’
Besides setting out the procedure for public hearings, the House intelligence panel is directed to write a public report – with classified information redacted – and ultimately transfer its findings to the House Judiciary Committee, which will take the lead in the final stage of the impeachment inquiry.
That panel, led by Chairman Jerry Nadler, will draw up any articles of impeachment that will end up before the full House for a vote.
The Judiciary panel can also hold public hearings as it works on drafting the articles.
For both committees, in the public hearings, each side could engage in extended questioning of witnesses in rounds of up to 90 minutes before beginning the traditional five-minute rounds extended to lawmakers on those panels under existing rules.
Both lawmakers and staff would have the ability to ask questions.
The resolution also allows for Trump to make his case before lawmakers in the Judiciary Committee stage.
‘The House authorizes the Committee on the Judiciary to conduct proceedings relating to the impeachment inquiry referenced in the first section of this resolution pursuant to the procedures submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the chair of the Committee on Rules, including such procedures as to allow for the participation of the President and his counsel,’ it reads.
A fact sheet put out by Democrats says that the president’s lawyers can will have an opportunity to present their case, attend hearings, respond to evidence, and raise an objection to testimony given.
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President Trump and Republicans have cried foul on impeachment process
Republicans and President Trump have assailed the impeachment process.
By offering a resolution on the next steps, Democrats could undercut that argument if Republicans bring it up during the public hearings.
Additionally, by putting the Intelligence and Judiciary panels in charge of the next steps, it would appear to cut out the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees, which have played a role in the closed-door hearings.
That result could see some of Trump’s most ardent defenders – Republican lawmakers Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows among them – not part of the panels that will question witnesses in the public hearings, which are sure to play out on the 24-hour cable news channels.
GOP lawmakers immediately attacked the resolution for giving Schiff approval over the witnesses they want to call.
‘Socialist Dem impeachment resolution lets Repubs call witnesses … IF Adam Schiff okays. Duh! Will Adam Schiff allow exculpatory witnesses that embarrass Socialist Dems and help public discern truth? Schiff past partisan dishonesty suggests UNLIKELY!,’ Republican Congressman Mo Brooks tweeted.
But Democrats argued the resolution outlines the path forward.
‘The House impeachment inquiry has collected extensive evidence and testimony, and soon the American people will hear from witnesses in an open setting. The resolution introduced today in the House Rules Committee will provide that pathway forward,’ Schiff and his fellow committee chairs Eliot Engel, Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler said in a statement.
‘The resolution provides rules for the format of open hearings in the House Intelligence Committee, including staff-led questioning of witnesses, and it authorizes the public release of deposition transcripts.
‘The resolution also establishes procedures for the transfer of evidence to the Judiciary Committee as it considers potential articles of impeachment, and it sets forth due process rights for the President and his Counsel in the Judiciary Committee proceedings,’ they said.
Impeachment in the United States is the process by which a legislature (usually in the form of the lower house) brings charges against a civil officer of government for crimes alleged to have been committed, analogous to the bringing of an indictment by a grand jury. At the federal level, this is at the discretion of the House of Representatives. Most impeachments have concerned alleged crimes committed while in office, though there have been a few cases in which officials have been impeached and subsequently convicted for crimes committed prior to taking office.[1] The impeached official remains in office until a trial is held. That trial, and their removal from office if convicted, is separate from the act of impeachment itself. Analogous to a trial before a judge and jury, these proceedings are (where the legislature is bicameral) conducted by the upper house of the legislature, which at the federal level is the Senate.
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
The Constitution limits grounds of impeachment to “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”.[2] The precise meaning of the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is not defined in the Constitution itself.
The notion that only criminal conduct can constitute sufficient grounds for impeachment does not comport with either the views of the founders or with historical practice.[1]Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 65, described impeachable offenses as arising from “the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”[3] Such offenses were “political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”[3] According to this reasoning, impeachable conduct could include behavior that violates an official’s duty to the country, even if such conduct is not necessarily a prosecutable offense. Indeed, in the past both houses of Congress have given the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” a broad reading, finding that impeachable offenses need not be limited to criminal conduct.[4][1]
The purposes underlying the impeachment process also indicate that non-criminal activity may constitute sufficient grounds for impeachment.[1][5] The purpose of impeachment is not to inflict personal punishment for criminal activity. Instead, impeachment is a “remedial” tool; it serves to effectively “maintain constitutional government” by removing individuals unfit for office.[6][1] Grounds for impeachment include abuse of the particular powers of government office or a violation of the “public trust”—conduct that is unlikely to be barred via statute.[6][4][1]
In drawing up articles of impeachment, the House has placed little emphasis on criminal conduct.[1] Less than one-third of the articles that the House have adopted have explicitly charged the violation of a criminal statute or used the word “criminal” or “crime” to describe the conduct alleged.[1] Officials have been impeached and removed for drunkenness, biased decision-making, or inducing parties to enter financial transactions, none of which is specifically criminal.[1] Two of the articles against President Andrew Johnson were based on rude speech that reflected badly on the office: President Johnson had made “harangues” criticizing the Congress and questioning its legislative authority, refusing to follow laws, and diverting funds allocated in an army appropriations act, each of which brought the presidency “into contempt, ridicule, and disgrace”.[7] A number of individuals have been impeached for behavior incompatible with the nature of the office they hold.[1] Some impeachments have addressed, at least in part, conduct before the individuals assumed their positions: for example, Article IV against Judge Porteous related to false statements to the FBI and Senate in connection with his nomination and confirmation to the court.[1]
On the other hand, the Constitutional Convention rejected language that would have permitted impeachment for “maladministration,” with Madison arguing that “[s]o vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate.”[8]
Congressional materials have cautioned that the grounds for impeachment “do not all fit neatly and logically into categories” because the remedy of impeachment is intended to “reach a broad variety of conduct by officers that is both serious and incompatible with the duties of the office”.[6][1] Congress has identified three general types of conduct that constitute grounds for impeachment, although these categories should not be understood as exhaustive:
(1) improperly exceeding or abusing the powers of the office;
(2) behavior incompatible with the function and purpose of the office; and
(3) misusing the office for an improper purpose or for personal gain.[6][1]
Conversely, not all criminal conduct is impeachable: in 1974, the Judiciary Committee rejected an article of impeachment against President Nixon alleging that he committed tax fraud, primarily because that “related to the President’s private conduct, not to an abuse of his authority as President.”[1]
Several commentators have suggested that Congress alone may decide for itself what constitutes a “high Crime or Misdemeanor”, especially since the Supreme Court decided in Nixon v. United States that it did not have the authority to determine whether the Senate properly “tried” a defendant.[9] In 1970, then-House Minority LeaderGerald R. Ford defined the criterion as he saw it: “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”[10]
Of the 17 impeachments voted by the House:
No official has been charged with treason. (In 1797, Senator Blount was impeached for assisting Britain in capturing Spanish territory. In 1862, Judge Humphries was impeached and convicted for siding with the Confederacy and taking a position as a Confederate judge during the Civil War.)
Three officials have been charged with bribery. Of those, two proceeded to trial and were removed (Judge Archibald and Judge Hastings); the other resigned prior to trial (Secretary Belknap).
The remaining charges against all the other officials fall under the category of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors”.
The standard of proof required for impeachment and conviction is also left to the discretion of individual Representatives and Senators, respectively. Defendants have argued that impeachment trials are in the nature of criminal proceedings, with convictions carrying grave consequences for the accused, and that therefore proof beyond a reasonable doubt should be the applicable standard. House Managers have argued that a lower standard would be appropriate to better serve the purpose of defending the community against abuse of power, since the defendant does not risk forfeiture of life, liberty, or property, for which the reasonable doubt standard was set.[11]
Officers subject to impeachment: “civil officers of the United States”
The Constitution gives Congress the authority to impeach and remove “The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States” upon a determination that such officers have engaged in treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. The Constitution does not articulate who qualifies as a “civil officer of the United States”.[12]
Federal judges are subject to impeachment. In fact, 15 of 19 officers impeached, and all eight officers removed after Senate trial, have been judges. The most recent impeachment effort against a Supreme Court justice that resulted in a House of Representatives investigation was against Justice William O. Douglas. In 1970, Representative Gerald Ford, who was then House minority leader, called for the House to impeach Douglas. However, a House investigation led by Congressman Emanuel Celler (D-NY) determined that Ford’s allegations were baseless. According to Professor Joshua E. Kastenberg at the University of New Mexico, School of Law, Ford and Nixon sought to force Douglas off the Court in order to cement the “Southern Strategy” as well as to provide cover for the invasion of Cambodia. When their efforts failed, Douglas remained on the Court.[13]
Within the executive branch, any Presidentially appointed “principal officer,” including a head of an agency such as a Secretary, Administrator, or Commissioner, is a “civil officer of the United States” subject to impeachment.[1] At the opposite end of the spectrum, lesser functionaries, such as federal civil service employees, do not exercise “significant authority”, and are not appointed by the President or an agency head. These employees do not appear to be subject to impeachment, though that may be a matter of allocation of House floor debate time by the Speaker, rather than a matter of law.
The Senate has concluded that members of Congress (Representatives and Senators) are not “civil officers” for purposes of impeachment.[14] As a practical matter, expulsion is effected by the simpler procedures of Article I, Section 5, which provides “Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members… Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” (see List of United States senators expelled or censured and List of United States Representatives expelled, censured, or reprimanded). This allows each House to expel its own members without involving the other chamber. In 1797, the House of Representatives impeached Senator William Blount of Tennessee,[15] The Senate expelled Senator Blount under Article I, Section 5, on the same day. However, the impeachment proceeding remained pending (expulsion only removes the individual from office, but conviction after impeachment may also bar the individual from holding future office, so the question of further punishment remained to be decided). After four days of debate, the Senate concluded that a Senator is not a “civil officer of the United States” for purposes of the Impeachment clause, and dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.[14][16] The House has not impeached a Member of Congress since Blount.
Procedure
At the federal level, the impeachment process is a three-step procedure.
First, the Congress investigates. This investigation typically begins in the House Judiciary Committee, but may begin elsewhere. For example, the Nixon impeachment inquiry began in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The facts that led to impeachment of Bill Clintonwere first discovered in the course of an investigation by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.
Second, the House of Representatives must pass, by a simple majority of those present and voting, articles of impeachment, which constitute the formal allegation or allegations. Upon passage, the defendant has been “impeached”.
Third, the Senate tries the accused. In the case of the impeachment of a president, the Chief Justice of the United States presides over the proceedings. For the impeachment of any other official, the Constitution is silent on who shall preside, suggesting that this role falls to the Senate’s usual presiding officer, the President of the Senate who is also the Vice President of the United States. Conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds supermajority vote of those present. The result of conviction is removal from office.
Rules
A number of rules have been adopted by the House and Senate, and are honored by tradition.
Jefferson’s Manual, which is integral to the Rules of the House of Representatives,[17] states that impeachment is set in motion by charges made on the floor, charges proffered by a memorial, a member’s resolution referred to a committee, a message from the president, or from facts developed and reported by an investigating committee of the House. It further states that a proposition to impeach is a question of high privilege in the House and at once supersedes business otherwise in order under the rules governing the order of business.
The House Practice: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and Procedures of the House[18] is a reference source for information on the rules and selected precedents governing the House procedure, prepared by the House Parliamentarian. The manual has a chapter on the House’s rules, procedures, and precedent for impeachment.
In 1974, as part of the preliminary investigation in the Nixon impeachment inquiry, the staff of the Impeachment Inquiry of the House Judiciary Committee prepared a report, Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment.[6] The primary focus of the Report is the definition of the term “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” and the relationship to criminality, which the Report traces through history from English roots, through the debates at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and the history of the impeachments before 1974.
The 1974 report has been expanded and revised on several occasions by the Congressional Research Service, and the current version Impeachment and Removal dates from October 2015.[1] While this document is only staff recommendation, as a practical matter, today it is probably the single most influential definition of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
The Senate has formal Rules and Procedures of Practice in the Senate When Sitting on Impeachment Trials.[19]
Calls for impeachment, and Congressional power to investigate
While the actual impeachment of a federal public official is a rare event, demands for impeachment, especially of presidents, are common,[20] going back to the administration of George Washington in the mid-1790s.
While almost all of them were for the most part frivolous and were buried as soon as they were introduced, several did have their intended effect. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon[21] and Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas both resigned in response to the threat of impeachment hearings, and, most famously, President Richard Nixon resigned from office after the House Judiciary Committee had already reported articles of impeachment to the floor.
In advance of the formal resolution by the full House to authorize proceedings, committee chairmen have the same power for impeachment as for any other issue within the jurisdiction of the committee: to investigate, subpoena witnesses, and prepare a preliminary report of findings. For example:
In 1970, House minority leader Gerald R. Ford attempted to initiate impeachment proceedings against Associate Justice William O. Douglas; the attempt included a 90-minute speech on the House floor.[22] The House did not vote to initiate proceedings.
In 1973, the Senate Watergate hearings (with testimony from John Dean, and the revelation of the White House tapes by Alexander Butterfield) were held in May and June 1973, and the House Judiciary Committee authorized Chairman Rodino to commence an investigation, with subpoena power, on October 30, 1973. The full House voted to initiate impeachment proceedings on February 6, 1974, that is, after nine months of formal investigations by various Congressional committees.
Targets of congressional investigations have challenged the power of Congress to investigate before a formal resolution commences impeachment proceedings. For example, President Buchanan wrote to the committee investigating his administration:
I do, therefore,… solemnly protest against these proceedings of the House of Representatives, because they are in violation of the rights of the coordinate executive branch of the Government, and subversive of its constitutional independence; because they are calculated to foster a band of interested parasites and informers, ever ready, for their own advantage, to swear before ex parte committees to pretended private conversations between the President and themselves, incapable, from their nature, of being disproved; thus furnishing material for harassing him, degrading him in the eyes of the country…[23]
He maintained that the House of Representatives possessed no general powers to investigate him, except when sitting as an impeaching body.
When the Supreme Court has considered similar issues, it held that the power to secure “needed information… has long been treated as an attribute of the power to legislate.… [The power to investigate is deeply rooted in the nation’s history:] It was so regarded in the British Parliament and in the colonial Legislatures before the American Revolution, and a like view has prevailed and been carried into effect in both houses of Congress and in most of the state Legislatures.”[24] The Supreme Court also held, “There can be no doubt as to the power of Congress, by itself or through its committees, to investigate matters and conditions relating to contemplated legislation.”[25]
The Supreme Court considered the power of the Congress to investigate, and to subpoena executive branch officials, in a pair of cases arising out of alleged corruption in the administration of President Warren G. Harding. In the first, McGrain v. Daugherty, the Court considered a subpoena issued to the brother of Attorney General Harry Daugherty for bank records relevant to the Senate’s investigation into the Department of Justice. Concluding that the subpoena was valid, the Court explained that Congress’s “power of inquiry… is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function,” as “[a] legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information respecting the conditions which the legislation is intended to affect or change.” The Supreme Court held that it was irrelevant that the Senate’s authorizing resolution lacked an “avow[al] that legislative action was had in view” because, said the Court, “the subject to be investigated was… [p]lainly [a] subject… on which legislation could be had” and such legislation “would be materially aided by the information which the investigation was calculated to elicit.” Although “[a]n express avowal” of the Senate’s legislative objective “would have been better,” the Court admonished that “the presumption should be indulged that [legislation] was the real object.”[24]
Two years later, in Sinclair v. United States,[26] the Court considered investigation of private parties involved with officials under potential investigation for public corruption. In Sinclair, Harry Sinclair, the president of an oil company, appealed his conviction for refusing to answer a Senate committee’s questions regarding his company’s allegedly fraudulent lease on federal oil reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming. The Court, acknowledging individuals’ “right to be exempt from all unauthorized, arbitrary or unreasonable inquiries and disclosures in respect of their personal and private affairs,” nonetheless explained that because “[i]t was a matter of concern to the United States,” “the transaction purporting to lease to [Sinclair’s company] the lands within the reserve cannot be said to be merely or principally… personal.” The Court also dismissed the suggestion that the Senate was impermissibly conducting a criminal investigation. “It may be conceded that Congress is without authority to compel disclosures for the purpose of aiding the prosecution of pending suits,” explained the Court, “but the authority of that body, directly or through its committees, to require pertinent disclosures in aid of its own constitutional power is not abridged because the information sought to be elicited may also be of use in such suits.”
The Supreme Court reached similar conclusions in a number of other cases. In Barenblatt v. United States,[27] the Court permitted Congress to punish contempt, when a person refused to answer questions while testifying under subpoena by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The Court explained that although “Congress may not constitutionally require an individual to disclose his … private affairs except in relation to” “a valid legislative purpose,” such a purpose was present. Congress’s “wide power to legislate in the field of Communist activity… and to conduct appropriate investigations in aid thereof[] is hardly debatable,” said the Court, and “[s]o long as Congress acts in pursuance of its constitutional power, the Judiciary lacks authority to intervene on the basis of the motives which spurred the exercise of that power.”
Presidents have often been the subjects of Congress’s legislative investigations. For example, in 1832, the House vested a select committee with subpoena power “to inquire whether an attempt was made by the late Secretary of War… [to] fraudulently [award]… a contract for supplying rations” to Native Americans and to “further… inquire whether the President… had any knowledge of such attempted fraud, and whether he disapproved or approved of the same.” In the 1990s, first the House and Senate Banking Committees and then a Senate special committee investigated President and Mrs. Clinton’s involvement in the Whitewater land deal and related matters. The Senate had an enabling resolution; the House did not.
The Supreme Court has also explained that Congress has not only the power, but the duty, to investigate so it can inform the public of the operations of government:
It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. It is meant to be the eyes and the voice, and to embody the wisdom and will of its constituents. Unless Congress have and use every means of acquainting itself with the acts and the disposition of the administrative agents of the government, the country must be helpless to learn how it is being served; and unless Congress both scrutinize these things and sift them by every form of discussion, the country must remain in embarrassing, crippling ignorance of the very affairs which it is most important that it should understand and direct. The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function.[28]
House of Representatives: Impeachment
“House Manager” redirects here. For theater operations, see House management.
Impeachment proceedings may be requested by a member of the House of Representatives on his or her own initiative, either by presenting a list of the charges under oath or by asking for referral to the appropriate committee. The impeachment process may be requested by non-members. For example, when the Judicial Conference of the United States suggests a federal judge be impeached, a charge of actions constituting grounds for impeachment may come from a special prosecutor, the President, or state or territorial legislature, grand jury, or by petition. An impeachment proceeding formally begins with a resolution adopted by the full House of Representatives, which typically includes a referral to a House committee.
The type of impeachment resolution determines the committee to which it is referred. A resolution impeaching a particular individual is typically referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. A resolution to authorize an investigation regarding impeachable conduct is referred to the House Committee on Rules, and then to the Judiciary Committee. The House Committee on the Judiciary, by majority vote, will determine whether grounds for impeachment exist (this vote is not law and is not required, US Constitution and US law). If the Committee finds grounds for impeachment, it will set forth specific allegations of misconduct in one or more articles of impeachment. The Impeachment Resolution, or Articles of Impeachment, are then reported to the full House with the committee’s recommendations.
The House debates the resolution and may at the conclusion consider the resolution as a whole or vote on each article of impeachment individually. A simple majority of those present and voting is required for each article for the resolution as a whole to pass. If the House votes to impeach, managers (typically referred to as “House managers”, with a “lead House manager”) are selected to present the case to the Senate. Recently, managers have been selected by resolution, while historically the House would occasionally elect the managers or pass a resolution allowing the appointment of managers at the discretion of the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. These managers are roughly the equivalent of the prosecution or district attorney in a standard criminal trial. Also, the House will adopt a resolution in order to notify the Senate of its action. After receiving the notice, the Senate will adopt an order notifying the House that it is ready to receive the managers. The House managers then appear before the bar of the Senate and exhibit the articles of impeachment. After the reading of the charges, the managers return and make a verbal report to the House.
The proceedings unfold in the form of a trial, with each side having the right to call witnesses and perform cross-examinations. The House members, who are given the collective title of managers during the course of the trial, present the prosecution case, and the impeached official has the right to mount a defense with his or her own attorneys as well. Senators must also take an oath or affirmation that they will perform their duties honestly and with due diligence. After hearing the charges, the Senate usually deliberates in private. The Constitution requires a two-thirds super majority to convict a person being impeached.[29] The Senate enters judgment on its decision, whether that be to convict or acquit, and a copy of the judgment is filed with the Secretary of State.[19] Upon conviction in the Senate, the official is automatically removed from office and may also be barred from holding future office. The trial is not an actual criminal proceeding and more closely resembles a civil service termination appeal in terms of the contemplated deprivation. Therefore, the removed official may still be liable to criminal prosecution under a subsequent criminal proceeding. The President may not grant a pardon in the impeachment case, but may in any resulting Federal criminal case.[30]
Beginning in the 1980s with Harry E. Claiborne, the Senate began using “Impeachment Trial Committees” pursuant to Senate Rule XI.[19] These committees presided over the evidentiary phase of the trials, hearing the evidence and supervising the examination and cross-examination of witnesses. The committees would then compile the evidentiary record and present it to the Senate; all senators would then have the opportunity to review the evidence before the chamber voted to convict or acquit. The purpose of the committees was to streamline impeachment trials, which otherwise would have taken up a great deal of the chamber’s time. Defendants challenged the use of these committees, claiming them to be a violation of their fair trial rights as this did not meet the constitutional requirement for their cases to be “tried by the Senate”. Several impeached judges, including District Court JudgeWalter Nixon, sought court intervention in their impeachment proceedings on these grounds. In Nixon v. United States (1993),[9] the Supreme Court determined that the federal judiciary could not review such proceedings, as matters related to impeachment trials are political questions and could not be resolved in the courts.[31]
To convict an accused, “the concurrence of two thirds of the [Senators] present” for at least one article is required. If there is no single charge commanding a “guilty” vote of two-thirds majority of the senators present, the defendant is acquitted and no punishment is imposed.
Result of conviction: removal, and with an additional Senate vote, disqualification
Conviction immediately removes the defendant from office. Following conviction, the Senate may vote to further punish the individual by barring him or her from holding future federal office, elected or appointed. As the threshold for disqualification is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, the Senate has taken the position that disqualification votes only require a simple majority rather than a two-thirds majority. The Senate has used disqualification sparingly, as only three individuals have been disqualified from holding future office.[32]
Conviction does not extend to further punishment, for example, loss of pension. After conviction by the Senate, “the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law” in the regular federal or state courts.
History of federal constitutional impeachment
In the United Kingdom, impeachment was a procedure whereby a member of the House of Commons could accuse someone of a crime. If the Commons voted for the impeachment, a trial would then be held in the House of Lords. Unlike a bill of attainder, a law declaring a person guilty of a crime, impeachments did not require royal assent, so they could be used to remove troublesome officers of the Crown even if the monarch was trying to protect them.
The monarch, however, was above the law and could not be impeached, or indeed judged guilty of any crime. When King Charles I was tried before the Rump Parliament of the New Model Army in 1649 he denied that they had any right to legally indict him, their king, whose power was given by God and the laws of the country, saying: “no earthly power can justly call me (who is your King) in question as a delinquent… no learned lawyer will affirm that an impeachment can lie against the King.” While the House of Commons pronounced him guilty and ordered his execution anyway, the jurisdictional issue tainted the proceedings.
With this example in mind, the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention chose to include an impeachment procedure in Article II, Section4 of the Constitution which could be applied to any government official; they explicitly mentioned the President to ensure there would be no ambiguity. Opinions differed, however, as to the reasons Congress should be able to initiate an impeachment. Initial drafts listed only treason and bribery, but George Mason favored impeachment for “maladministration” (incompetence). James Madisonargued that impeachment should only be for criminal behavior, arguing that a maladministration standard would effectively mean that the President would serve at the pleasure of the Senate.[33] Thus the delegates adopted a compromise version allowing impeachment for “treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors”.
Formal federal impeachment investigations and results
The House of Representatives has initiated impeachment proceedings 62 times since 1789.[citation needed]
The House has impeached 19 federal officers. Of these:
Of the 19 impeachments by the House, two cases did not come to trial because the individuals had left office, seven were acquitted, and eight officials were convicted, all of whom were judges.[35][36] One, former judge Alcee Hastings, was elected as a member of the United States House of Representatives after being removed from office.
Additionally, an impeachment process against Richard Nixon was commenced, but not completed, as he resigned from office before the full House voted on the articles of impeachment.[31] To date, no president has been removed from office by impeachment and conviction.
The following table lists federal officials for whom impeachment proceedings were instituted and referred to a committee of the House of Representatives. Numbered lines of the table reflect officials impeached by a majority vote of the House. Unnumbered lines are those officials for whom an impeachment proceeding was formally instituted, but ended when (a) the Committee did not vote to recommend impeachment, (b) the Committee recommended impeachment but the vote in the full House failed, or (c) the official resigned or died before the full House vote.
Conspiring to assist Britain in capturing Spanish territory
Senate refused to accept impeachment of a Senator by the House of Representatives, instead expelling him from the Senate on their own authority[37][Note 2][38]
The Covode committee was established March 5, 1860, and submitted its final report on June 16, 1860. The committee found that Buchanan had not done anything to warrant impeachment, but that his was the most corrupt administration since the adoption of the US Constitution in 1789.[42][43]
Violating the Tenure of Office Act. The Supreme Court would later state in dicta that the (by then repealed) Tenure of Office Act had been unconstitutional.[44]
Acquitted on May 26, 1868, 35–19 in favor of conviction, falling one vote short of two-thirds.[37][38]
Failure to recuse on obscenity cases while at the same time having articles published in Evergreen Review and Avant-Garde magazines; conflict of paid board positions with two non-profits
Referred to a special subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee (Apr. 21, 1970); subcommittee voted to end the investigation (Dec. 3, 1970).
proceedings aborted before impeachment vote, January to August 1974
House Judiciary Committee begins investigating and issuing subpoenas (Oct. 30, 1973); House Judiciary Report on committee investigation (Feb. 1, 1974);[47] House resolution 93-803 authorizes Judiciary Committee investigation (Feb. 6, 1974);[48] House Judiciary Committee votes three articles of impeachment to House floor (July 27–30, 1974);[49] proceedings terminated by resignation of President Nixon (August 8, 1974).
One notable impeachment attempt that never reached the point of House resolution was an attempt to impeach Associate Justice William O. Douglas by then-House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford. The Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress prepared a report as part of Ford’s vetting for confirmation as Vice President in 1973.[22]
President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the House of Representatives on articles charging perjury (specifically, lying to a federal grand jury) by a 228–206 vote and obstruction of justice by a 221–212 vote. The House rejected other articles: one was a count of perjury in a civil deposition in Paula Jones‘ sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton (by a 205–229 vote); the second accused Clinton of abuse of power (by a 148–285 vote). President Clinton was acquitted by the Senate. The votes in the Senate to remove him from office did not even reach a majority, let alone two-thirds: 45–55 on obstruction of justice and 50–50 on perjury.
Impeachment in the states
State legislatures can impeach state officials, including governors, in every State except Oregon. The court for the trial of impeachments may differ somewhat from the federal model—in New York, for instance, the Assembly (lower house) impeaches, and the State Senate tries the case, but the members of the seven-judge New York State Court of Appeals (the state’s highest, constitutional court) sit with the senators as jurors as well.[57] Impeachment and removal of governors has happened occasionally throughout the history of the United States, usually for corruption charges. A total of at least eleven U.S. state governors have faced an impeachment trial; a twelfth, GovernorLee Cruce of Oklahoma, escaped impeachment conviction by a single vote in 1912. Several others, most recently Missouri‘s Eric Greitens, have resigned rather than face impeachment, when events seemed to make it inevitable.[58] The most recent impeachment of a state governor occurred on January 14, 2009, when the Illinois House of Representatives voted 117–1 to impeach Rod Blagojevichon corruption charges;[59] he was subsequently removed from office and barred from holding future office by the Illinois Senate on January 29. He was the eighth U.S. state governor to be removed from office.
The procedure for impeachment, or removal, of local officials varies widely. For instance, in New York a mayor is removed directly by the governor “upon being heard” on charges—the law makes no further specification of what charges are necessary or what the governor must find in order to remove a mayor.
Retired on August 13, 2018.[93] Despite her retirement, the West Virginia Senate refused to dismiss the articles of impeachment and scheduled trial for October 29, 2018 although the trial is currently delayed by court order.[94]
Resigned on July 24, 2019; with effect August 2, 2019, immediately stopping impeachment proceedings
State governors
At least four state governors have been impeached and removed from office:
James E. Ferguson, Democratic Governor of Texas, was impeached for misapplication of public funds and embezzlement. In July 1917, Ferguson was convicted and removed from office.
Jack C. Walton, DemocraticGovernor of Oklahoma, was impeached for a variety of crimes including illegal collection of campaign funds, padding the public payroll, suspension of habeas corpus, excessive use of the pardon power, and general incompetence. In November 1923, Walton was convicted and removed from office.[101]
Stephen B. Presser, Essays on Article I: ImpeachmentPresser, Stephen B. “Essays on Article I: Impeachment”. The Heritage Guide to the Constitution. Heritage Foundation. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
^“Removed and disqualified” indicates that following conviction the Senate voted to disqualify the individual from holding further federal office pursuant to Article I, Section3 of the United States Constitution, which provides, in pertinent part, that “[j]udgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.”
^During the impeachment trial of Senator Blount, it was argued that the House of Representatives did not have the power to impeach members of either House of Congress; though the Senate never explicitly ruled on this argument, the House has never again impeached a member of Congress. The Constitution allows either House to expel one of its members by a two-thirds vote, which the Senate had done to Blount on the same day the House impeached him (but before the Senate heard the case).
^Judge Nixon later challenged the validity of his removal from office on procedural grounds; the challenge was ultimately rejected as nonjusticiable by the Supreme Court in Nixon v. United States.
Story 2: Big Lie Media Spinning and Lying About Tim Morrison Testimony About Trump Phone Call With Ukraine — Nothing Illegal Was Discussed and No Quid Pro Quo — Videos —
Tim Morrison, a former National Security Council official under Trump, told Rep. Adam Schiff in testimony today that he was never concerned that Trump discussed anything illegal in his July 25 phone call with the Ukrainain president.
A top National Security Council (NSC) official who listened to President Donald Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky testified to Congress today that he did not believe Trump had discussed anything illegal during the conversation.
“I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed,” former NSC Senior Director for European Affairs Tim Morrison testified today, according to a record of his remarks obtained by The Federalist.
Morrison testified that Ukrainian officials were not even aware that certain military funding had been delayed by the Trump administration until late August 2019, more than a month after the Trump-Zelensky call, casting doubt on allegations that Trump somehow conveyed an illegal quid pro quo demand during the July 25 call.
“I have no reason to believe the Ukrainians had any knowledge of the [military funding] review until August 28, 2019,” Morrison said. That is the same day that Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chief anti-Trump inquisitor in the U.S. House of Representatives, disclosed on Twitter that funding had been held up. Politico also published a story that day, sourced to anonymous leaks, that military funding had been temporarily held up.
Although Schiff claimed that neither he nor his staff ever spoke to the anti-Trump whistleblower, The New York Times reported that the complainant, whom RealClearInvestigations identified as Eric Ciaramella, coordinated with Schiff’s office before filing his complaint with the intelligence community inspector general on August 12. While Schiff initially demanded that the anti-Trump complainant be allowed to publicly testify, he quickly changed course following the reports that he and his staff had secretly colluded with the whistleblower and then lied about the interactions.
Morrison also pointed out key factual inaccuracies in testimony provided by William Taylor, a State Department official who works in the U.S. embassy in Kiev, Ukraine. Morrison said that, contrary to Taylor’s claims, Morrison never met with the Ukrainian National Security advisor in his private hotel room.
Morrison also said Taylor falsely claimed that Ambassador Gordon Sondland demanded a public statement from the Ukrainian president committing to investigate Burisma, a controversial Ukrainain energy company that paid Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter millions of dollars to sit on its board.
“My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland’s proposal to [Ukrainian National Security Advisor Andriy] Yermak was that it could be sufficient if the new Ukrainian prosecutor general — not President Zelensky — would commit to pursue the Burisma investigation,” Morrison testified.
Morrison testified that the transcript of the phone call that was declassified and released by Trump in late September “accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call,” and that he was concerned that the substance of the call would be leaked to the media. Morrison said he immediately informed a NSC lawyer about his concerns that the phone call would be leaked. Democrats have alleged that security measures taken to prevent leaks of the top secret call transcript prove that Trump should be removed from office.
He also told lawmakers that the national security process worked as designed in the case of the military funding that Congress appropriated for Ukraine.
“I am pleased our process gave the president the confidence he needed to approve the release of the security sector assistance,” he said. “I am proud of what I have been able, in some small way, to help the Trump administration accomplish.”
Democrats on Thursday morning voted to rubber-stamp Schiff’s efforts to impeach Trump with secret hearings and lopsided rules that prevent Republicans from subpoenaing witnesses or evidence without first obtaining Schiff’s permisison. A bipartisan coalition of Democrats and Republicans opposed the measure.
Tim Morrison, the former White House national security adviser who engaged in multiple crucial conversations with Ambassador William B. Taylor Jr. about the quid pro quo that withheld military aid to try to leverage Ukraine into doing President Trump’s political bidding, has been testifying in the impeachment inquiry.
In preparation for my appearance today, I reviewed the statement Ambassador Taylor provided this inquiry on October 22, 2019. I can confirm that the substance of his statement, as it relates to conversations he and I had, is accurate.
My recollections differ on two of the details, however. I have a slightly different recollection of my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador [Gordon] Sondland. On page 10 of Ambassador Taylor’s statement, he recounts a conversation I relayed to him regarding Ambassador Sondland’s conversation with Ukrainian Presidential Advisor [Andriy] Yermak. Ambassador Taylor wrote: “Ambassador Sondland told Mr. Yermak that security assistance money would not come until President [Volodymyr] Zelensky committed to pursue the Burisma investigation.”
My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland’s proposal to Mr. Yermak was that it could be sufficient if the new Ukrainian prosecutor general — not President Zelensky — would commit to pursue the Burisma investigation.
I also would like to clarify that I did not meet with the Ukrainian National Security Advisor in his hotel room, as Ambassador Taylor indicated on page 11 of his statement. Instead, an NSC aide and I met with Mr. [Oleksandr] Danyliuk in the hotel’s business center.
Pro-Trump Twitter is trying to spin the minor discrepancies between the two accounts into something big, but that’s just absurd. In one case, the difference is over where Morrison met with a Ukrainian official. In the other, the difference is over who would announce the investigation into Burisma, the company on whose board Joe Biden’s son Hunter sat, as part of the quid pro quo.
But what is not in dispute is that the quid pro quo was articulated plainly and clearly. Let me isolate out the part of Morrison’s testimony where he says this explicitly:
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Ambassador Taylor wrote: “Ambassador Sondland told Mr. Yermak that security assistance money would not come until President Zelensky committed to pursue the Burisma investigation.”
My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland’s proposal to Mr. Yermak was that it could be sufficient if the new Ukrainian prosecutor general — not President Zelensky — would commit to pursue the Burisma investigation.
Thus, Morrison is saying that Sondland — the ambassador to the European Union who was a leading agent in this whole plot — did indeed tell him that the military aid was conditional on the Ukrainians committing to the Burisma investigation.
Sondland simply proposed a version of this that might be more amenable to the Ukrainians, since it wouldn’t require Zelensky himself to announce it. Thus it is that Morrison says the “substance” of Taylor’s testimony about their conversations was “accurate.”
Importantly, this account comes from someone who discussed these matters directly with Sondland.
Morrison confirms the quid pro quo elsewhere as well:
I had no reason to believe that the release of the security sector assistance might be conditioned on a public statement reopening the Burisma investigation until my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland. Even then I hoped that Ambassador Sondland’s strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by leaders in the Administration and Congress.
After talking to Sondland, Morrison understood that the money was conditioned just that way. And in this context, it’s important to note that Morrison’s hope that this didn’t represent the views of the administration was in vain: You will recall that Sondland was taking his direction straight from the president.
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Some have pointed out that Morrison claims he didn’t see anything illegal on Trump’s July 25 call with the Ukrainian president. But so what? That’s not his decision, and the question of the conduct’s legality is not even necessarily relevant to an impeachment context. What’s more, the list of people who actually were deeply alarmed by the conduct is already very long.
They really wanted a public statement
One other point: It’s important to underscore that Trump and his lawyer Rudolph Giuliani didn’t just want an investigation of Biden. They wanted a public announcement of it, to get news organizations to start treating the allegations seriously and help them create an aura of vague corruption around Biden.
This is Trumpworld’s M.O. As Stephen K. Bannon revealed to journalist Joshua Green, the key to this is to vault such charges, no matter how spurious, out of the conservative media, in order to get them merely covered in the mainstream press, to “weaponize” them, as Bannon put it. This helps create what Green described as the “whiff of corruption.”
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As those texts show, there were extensive negotiations with the Ukrainians over what that public statement might look like, precisely because Giuliani, acting as Trump’s consigliere, cared about it so much. Thus it might be expected that Sondland and the Ukrainians would haggle over who made the statement, as Sondland tried (but ultimately failed) to get them to do it.
In this sense, Morrison has helped underscore another important part of the story here.
White House Aide Confirms He Saw Signs of a Quid Pro Quo on Ukraine
Timothy Morrison, a National Security Council aide, said a top diplomat close to President Trump suggested a military aid package for Ukraine was conditioned on investigations into his political rivals.
Timothy Morrison, a top Russia and Europe expert on the National Security Council, arriving Thursday on Capitol Hill.Credit…Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — A senior National Security Council aide on Thursday confirmed a key episode at the center of the impeachment inquiry, testifying that a top diplomat working with President Trump told him that a package of military assistance for Ukraine would not be released until the country committed to investigations the president sought.
In a closed-door deposition, the aide, Timothy Morrison, also said he had been told of a September call between Mr. Trump and the diplomat, Gordon D. Sondland. In that conversation, the president said he was not looking for a quid pro quo with Ukraine, but then went on to “insist” that the country’s president publicly announce investigations into Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son and other Democrats.
William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, spoke of his alarm about the conversations during his private testimony last week, saying that he had been briefed about them by Mr. Morrison, the senior director for Europe and Russia for the National Security Council. Mr. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, has also given investigators a more limited account of his call with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Morrison’s confirmation of the conversations could be important for House Democrats as they seek to build their impeachment case against Mr. Trump. A publicly available, reconstructed transcript already shows that Mr. Trump pressed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine during a July 25 phone call to undertake the investigations of Democrats. Investigators are trying to establish whether Mr. Trump used $391 million in security aid and a coveted White House meeting with Mr. Zelensky as leverage in a pressure campaign to secure the inquiries.
But Mr. Morrison, a Trump political appointee and a former longtime Republican congressional aide, resisted making the kind of sweeping, often damaging judgments about what was taking place that Democrats have heard from other witnesses, and Republicans emerged calling him the most favorable witness they had heard from so far.
In his opening remarks, obtained by The New York Times, he did not draw conclusions about Mr. Trump’s involvement in the pressure tactics, pointing back repeatedly to Mr. Sondland, whose involvement in Ukraine policy he said he “did not understand.” In subsequent testimony, he said he did not view the July phone call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky as illegal or improper, but he found it striking enough to ask the National Security Council’s chief lawyer, John Eisenberg, to review it, in part out of a concern that a summary might leak out.
He did so, Mr. Morrison testified, because he worried about how disclosure of what was said in the call “would play out in Washington’s polarized environment,” how it could affect bipartisan backing for Ukraine in Congress, and “how it would affect the Ukrainian perceptions of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship.”
Rather than ascribe a political motive to the pressure campaign against Ukraine, as some witnesses have, Mr. Morrison characterized the behavior he saw as bad foreign policy of the sort that could potentially squander a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” afforded by the election of Mr. Zelensky, who campaigned as a reformer who would crack down on rampant corruption.
“Ambassador Taylor and I had no reason to believe that the public release of the security sector assistance might be conditioned on a public statement reopening the Burisma investigation until my Sept. 1, 2019, conversation with Ambassador Sondland,” Mr. Morrison said. “Even then I hoped that Ambassador Sondland’s strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by the leaders of the administration and Congress, who understood the strategic importance of Ukraine to our national security.”
Mr. Morrison’s testimony came as Democrats were moving to wrap up their closed portion of their inquiry in the coming week or so. As he met with investigators, they muscled through a resolution on the floor of the House endorsing the inquiry and laying out a path to move their work into the open and begin a debate over impeachment articles in the coming weeks. Republicans uniformly opposed the measure, which they said fell short of redeeming an illegitimate, politically motivated crusade by Democrats to undo the 2016 election.
What’s New in the Impeachment Case
Updated Oct. 31, 2019
The House voted 232-196 to endorse the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry into President Trump. The resolution sets out rules for the investigation, which will soon go public with hearings and the publication of documents.
Only two Democrats broke with their party to vote against the measure, a sign of how unified the caucus is on impeachment — and how much confidence it has in the evidence of Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. “This is not any cause for any glee or comfort,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “What is at stake in all of this is nothing less than our democracy.”
Republicans, who for weeks had called for a vote, unanimously opposed the resolution, accusing it of attempting to undo the 2016 election. “Democrats are trying to impeach the president because they are scared they cannot defeat him at the ballot box,” Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, said. “Why do you not trust the people?”
In closed-door testimony today, a National Security Council aide corroborated a key fact when he confirmed that Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, said that a package of military assistance for Ukraine would not be released until the country committed to investigating the Bidens.
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Mr. Morrison appeared under subpoena despite a White House directive not to, according to an official involved in the inquiry who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. He told colleagues Wednesday on the eve of his appearance before impeachment investigators that he would leave his post.
Mr. Morrison has been weighing leaving the council for some time. He told investigators that he did “not want anyone to think there is a connection between my testimony today and my impending departure.”
He was the second White House official to testify before the inquiry this week, following Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, a Ukraine expert at the National Security Council.
Mr. Taylor testified last week that Mr. Morrison had informed him in early September of a meeting in Warsaw between Mr. Sondland and a top aide to Mr. Zelensky. Mr. Sondland told the Ukrainian aide that the United States would provide the security assistance package only if Mr. Zelensky committed to investigate allegations related to Mr. Biden and his son Hunter, who sat on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.
Mr. Sondland claimed in testimony that he failed to appreciate that Burisma was directly tied to Hunter Biden.
Mr. Morrison did depart in one respect from that account, telling investigators that he remembered Mr. Sondland’s remarks slightly differently. He thought Mr. Sondland said Ukraine’s prosecutor general, not Mr. Zelensky, needed to open the inquiry.
Mr. Taylor also testified that, a few days later, Mr. Morrison told him that he had learned of a conversation between Mr. Sondland and Mr. Trump that Mr. Morrison had said gave him a “sinking feeling.” In it, Mr. Trump had told Mr. Sondland that he was not asking for a “quid pro quo” from Ukraine, but then went on to “insist” that Mr. Zelensky publicly announce an investigation into both the Bidens and an unproven theory that Democrats had colluded with Ukraine in the 2016 elections.
Subpoenas and Requests for Evidence in the Trump Impeachment Inquiry
The status of the documents and witness testimony being collected by congressional investigators.
Mr. Morrison told investigators that he first learned that Mr. Trump and people around him might have motives beyond official United States policy when he took over as senior director for Europe and Russia on the National Security Council from his predecessor, Fiona Hill.
“Dr. Hill told me that Ambassador Sondland and President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, were trying to get President Zelensky to reopen Ukrainian investigations into Burisma,” he said. “At the time, I did not know what Burisma was or what the investigation entailed.”
He said he later worked to persuade Mr. Trump to release the security aid. Mr. Trump froze the aid in July and kept it that way until September, despite the objections of officials at the Defense and State Departments who viewed it as a crucial resource to help Ukraine in its military conflict with Russia.
“Ambassador Taylor and I were concerned that the longer the money was withheld, the more questions the Zelensky administration would ask about the U.S. commitment to Ukraine,” Mr. Morrison said.
Mr. Morrison said he did not have reason to believe Ukraine’s leaders knew the aid had been suspended until it was publicly reported at the end of August.
There’s no doubt Democrats in Washington are hell-bent on impeaching President Trump over the Ukraine matter. But after weeks of polling, it is still unclear precisely what Americans outside the Beltway think.
Much depends on how pollsters ask their questions. Some are straightforward, while others are a bit more complicated. But in the last few weeks, many have asked a variation of: “Do you support or oppose impeaching President Trump?” A new poll, however, done by Suffolk University for USA Today, gets at some of the nuance behind public opinion on the president and Ukraine.
The Suffolk pollsters gave 1,000 registered voters an opportunity to choose among three options regarding impeachment. Which did respondents personally prefer?
“A. The House of Representatives should vote to impeach President Trump.
“B. The House should continue investigating Trump, but not vote to impeach him.
“C. Congress should drop its investigations into President Trump and administration.”
Thirty-six percent of those polled said the House should vote to impeach; 22 percent said the House should continue investigation but not impeach; and 37 percent said the House should drop its investigations. The last 5 percent did not have an answer or refused to give one.
Looking inside the results, there are some major differences based on party, gender, race and more.
Seventy percent of Democrats said the House should vote to impeach, while just 8 percent of Republicans and 22 percent of independents favored an impeachment vote.
Twenty-one percent of Democrats favored more investigation but not impeachment, while 15 percent of Republicans and 34 percent of independents agreed.
And just 8 percent of Democrats favored dropping the House investigations altogether, while 71 percent of Republicans and 36 percent of independents favored the no-more-investigations option.
Forty-one percent of women supported a House vote to impeach, while just 31 percent of men did. Forty-two percent of men wanted to see the investigation dropped entirely, versus 32 percent of women.
Thirty percent of the white voters and 38 percent of Hispanic voters polled wanted a House impeachment vote, versus 73 percent of black voters. Forty-five percent of white voters wanted the matter dropped, along with 28 percent of Hispanic voters, while just 7 percent of black voters favored that result.
The overall message of the poll is that there is a range of opinions among voters that is more complex than much of the yes-impeach-no-don’t-impeach commentary in the media today. But the Suffolk questions do leave at least one issue unclear.
The opinions of those who want a House impeachment vote, as well as those who want the House to drop its investigations altogether, are pretty clear. But what about those who say the House should “continue investigating Trump, but not vote to impeach him”?
Fortunately, another question in the poll sheds some light on that. It is about the infamous phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky:
“The White House has released a transcript summary of a July 25th phone call in which President Trump encouraged the Ukrainian president to pursue investigations involving Democratic rival Joe Biden, and hacking allegations in the 2016 election. Which comes closest to your view? A. The phone conversation is an impeachable offense. B. The phone conversation was wrong, but doesn’t rise to an impeachable offense. C. There was nothing wrong with the phone conversation.”
Thirty-eight percent said the conversation is an impeachable offense. Twenty-one percent said the conversation was wrong, but not impeachable. And 31 percent said there was nothing wrong with the conversation. Ten percent were undecided.
That means, at the moment, according to Suffolk, there is a bare majority that does not believe Trump should be impeached for the phone call — which, of course, is the heart of the Democrats’ impeachment effort. The number that believes the call is an impeachable offense, 38 percent, is well below what could be called a groundswell. The 10 percent who haven’t decided are important.
The Suffolk numbers suggest many Americans hold complex views of the Trump impeachment. Some are fine with continued investigation, although large numbers don’t believe they have yet seen an impeachable offense. The numbers of people who are ready to impeach Trump now, or who believe the whole thing should be called off, are not big enough to win the day.
Just as they did after the release of the Mueller report, Democrats now hope televised hearings will convince Americans Trump must be impeached. It didn’t work out before. Now, the Suffolk poll suggests Democrats should be cautious as they try again.
York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.
A letter released Monday raises questions beyond the Bidens.
By James Freeman
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Georgetown University on Friday. PHOTO: WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES
The Biden clan still needs to explain why a vice president’s son was enjoying a $50,000-per-month gig for which his principal qualification appears to have been his last name. But Joe Biden isn’t the only pillar of the Democratic establishment who won’t enjoy the new spotlight on American relations with Ukraine. And President Donald Trump isn’t the only one who wants a fuller accounting of that country’s role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
In a letter released on Monday morning, Republican senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin ask U.S. Attorney General William Barr if he’s trying to answer the lingering questions:
We write to follow up on Senator Grassley’s July 20, 2017 letter, which highlighted brazen efforts by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign to use the government of Ukraine for the express purpose of finding negative information on then candidate Trump in order to undermine his campaign. That letter also highlighted news reports that, during the 2016 presidential election, “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump” and did so by “disseminat[ing] documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggest[ing] they were investigating the matter[.]” Ukrainian officials also reportedly “helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers.”
The senators aren’t relying on reports from conservative bloggers. The quotations come from a 2017 story in Politico, hardly a pro-Trump outfit. “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire,” read the headline on the article by Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern. “Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton,” said the subhead of the article, which was published shortly before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
The authors reported that Ukrainian government officials “helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers” with the goal of “advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia.”
With the benefit of hindsight and the results of the Mueller investigation, it’s now clear that there was no evidence of Trump campaign collusion with Russia. What is not clear and what demands further investigation is how this baseless claim managed to consume the first two years of an American presidency.
Among the questions to resolve: the Politico story featured what appear to be contradictory statements about the level of help provided to Democrats by people who worked at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington in 2016. “Politico’s investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another’s elections,” according to the report.
The reporting certainly appears solid but one should not simply accept all the particulars of the Politico story as proven fact, just as—to take an extreme example—a reasonable person would not authorize the wiretap of an opposition political campaign based on a dispatch from Yahoo News. But the Politico piece may be helpful in figuring out exactly how the surveillance tools of America’s national security apparatus were turned against the party out of power in 2016.
Story 3: Long Term China Deal Not Likely Any Time Soon With Chinese Communist Party — Short Term Deal Only — Maximum Pressure Required — Trust But Verify — Enforcement of Any Agreement Is Essential and Chinese Will Never Comply With Any Enforcement Language — Escalloping Trade War Between United States and Chinese Communist Party Leading to Total Embargo of Trade With Communist China — All Talk and More Talk — Time To Walk Out — Videos
China is more relieved than happy on US-China trade deal: Michael Pillsbury
Why these experts say a long-term China trade deal may not happen soon
It will be difficult for US and China to reach an agreement, says analyst
Are the US and China Decoupling? What are the Consequences for the Global Order?
New location for signing of partial US-China trade deal to be announced soon, says Trump
China is more relieved than happy on US-China trade deal: Michael Pillsbury
Here’s how Beijing is reacting to the ‘phase one’ US-China trade deal
President Trump holds press conference on US-China trade deal phase 1
Trump: China will probably try to delay trade deal until US election
How to Win the US China Trade War & Communist China’s Broader Stealth War On America-Robert Spalding
WE WILL NOT HAVE A TRADE DEAL WITH CHINA: ROBERT SPALDING
Is the US-China Trade War a Cold War? (w/ Kyle Bass and Gen. Robert Spalding)
Communist Party of China could ‘start by improving their human rights’
Private survey of China factory activity contradicts official data
How China’s tech sector is challenging the world – Part 1
How China’s tech sector is challenging the world – Part 2
China sees Trump as a weak president: Michael Pillsbury
China May Not Be As Strong As You Think
Deal to end bitter trade war between Washington and Beijing might not be ready in time for President Trump and China’s Xi to sign it next month as planned, US official warns
Washington and Beijing are producing a text to sign at APEC summit next month
‘If it’s not signed in Chile, that doesn’t mean that it falls apart,’ official said today
The deal hopes to bring to an end a nearly 16-month trade war with China
US stocks slumped after potential stall to negotiations was reported by Reuters
PUBLISHED: 09:05 EDT, 30 October 2019 | UPDATED: 12:22 EDT, 30 October 2019
A trade agreement between the US and China might not be completed in time for its planned signing next month at a summit in Chile, a US official warned today.
Negotiators in Washington and Beijing are working to finalize agreements for President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping to sign at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on the weekend of November 16.
Trump, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and other top US officials have all said good progress is being made on the deal after a nearly 16-month trade war, while also noting that it would be fine if it was not completed by the APEC summit.
‘If it’s not signed in Chile, that doesn’t mean that it falls apart. It just means that it’s not ready,’ the administration official said. ‘Our goal is to sign it in Chile. But sometimes texts aren’t ready. But good progress is being made and we expect to sign the agreement in Chile.’
President Donald Trump smiles at Chinese President Xi Jinping as he shakes his hand during a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka in June
Deal to end US-China trade war may not be ready for leaders’ signing
White House spokesman Judd Deere said both sides were still working to complete the interim deal.
‘As the president said several weeks ago, we have reached a phase-one agreement with the Chinese, and both sides are working to finalize the text for a signing in Chile,’ he said.
In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the two nations’ lead trade negotiators would hold another telephone call shortly while working-level consultations continued at a fast pace.
‘It is China’s hope that the two sides can find a way to resolve the economic and trade issues on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit,’ he told a daily briefing on Wednesday.
US stocks turned negative after Reuters reported the administration official’s comments, as investors bet the closely watched trade talks were further away from resolution.
The interim trade agreement announced by Trump on October 11 had buoyed markets, promising relief for companies rocked by nearly 16 months of tit-for-tat tariffs that have slowed global growth to its slowest since the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
Stocks rally, White House calls China trade talks ‘productive’
The South China Morning Post, citing a person briefed on the arrangements, said on Tuesday the leaders of the world’s two largest economies were tentatively set to sign the interim trade deal on November 17 ‘if everything goes smoothly.’
A U.S.-based source confirmed that was the target date for a meeting, but the administration official cautioned that the text might not be completed in time.
White House adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, told an investment panel in Riyadh that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Mnuchin ‘have made a fabulous deal’ with Beijing.
‘I think people understand the president, that he’s firm. They know that he’s going to make the decisions that he thinks are right, and I think ultimately that we’ve come to an understanding with China now on where we want to head.’
Lighthizer said on Friday Washington and Beijing are ‘close to finalizing’ some sections of a trade pact after a phone call between top negotiators.
President Trump and China’s Xi are joined by their respective aides at a meeting at the G20 summit in Osaka earlier this year
U.S. officials have said the deal is to cover Chinese purchases of U.S. agricultural goods, intellectual property protections, currency practices and increased access for U.S. companies to China’s financial services market.
Jude Blanchette, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the phase one deal was restoring the status quo to before the trade war began in 2017, calling into question how much progress had actually been made.
Tougher issues, such as China’s industrial policy, subsidies for state-owned enterprises and forced technology transfers had been deferred, he said.
‘The can has been kicked down to a phase two or phase three, but we’re really just wondering if we’re going to get through phase one,’ he said.
Air Force general behind 5G memo leaves White House
Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding
U.S. AIR FORCE
The author of a memo arguing for a government takeover of development of the nation’s 5G mobile network has been removed from the National Security Council staff. The memo’s unauthorized release this week caused uproar in the telecom community and created embarrassment for the White House.
A senior administration official confirmed that Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding is no longer serving as NSC senior director for strategic planning. Spalding was not fired, according to the official, who said his detail had ended and was not renewed. His last day as a White House staffer was Jan. 31. Spalding was not implicated in the leak of the memo, but officials said his advocacy for the plan had gone beyond his role, contributing to the NSC leadership’s decision to send him back to the Air Force.
Spalding was informed that his White House tenure was ending last week, the senior administration official said, before his memo and PowerPoint proposal were leaked. The Jan. 28 Axios story sparked alarm, drawing opposition from major telecom companies and catching the White House off guard.
Part of Spalding’s job had been to canvas private industry and outside groups about the plan, but in recent weeks, senior officials became concerned that he had become too aggressive in pushing the idea, getting out ahead of the administration’s still-nascent deliberations. He has not been disciplined formally and is free to seek a new job in the Defense Department.
Another senior administration official said there was considerable upheaval inside the White House this week after the 5G memo story broke. Although it is unclear whether Spalding leaked the memo, because he had shared it so widely, some officials judged him responsible.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Jan. 29 that consideration of the plan was at its “earliest stages” and the administration was nowhere near a decision. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said spending federal dollars to build a 5G network would be a “costly and counterproductive distraction” from the competitive, market-driven approach that was needed.
“There is nothing that would slam the brakes more quickly on our hard-won momentum to be the leader in the global race for 5G network deployment,” Jonathan Spalter, chief executive of the industry trade group USTelecom, said in a statement.
Spalding was known both inside and outside the administration as a China hawk. From 2014 to 2016 he led the China division at the Joint Chiefs of Staff and before joining the Trump White House he was the U.S. defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. One key argument for Spalding’s 5G plan was that only the government can properly defend technological infrastructure from Chinese interference.
There are no plans to replace Spalding, officials said. Spalding declined to comment.
Story 1: “doveryai no proveryai” (trust, but verify) — Who Do You Trust? President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, and/or Islamic Republic of Iran Led By Terrorist Mullahs? None of The Above — No Trust — Eliminate All Iranian Nuclear Weapon Facilities — Overthrow The Terrorist Mullahs with Crippling Sanctions — Support The Iranian People! — What Do The Iranian People Think? — Death To The Dictator and Mullahs — Videos
Amid nuke talks, Ayatollah says ‘death to America’
Iran Supreme Leader “Ali Khamenei” Chants “Dead to America”
funny iranian mullah lost his mind
Iranian Mullah (Haeri Shirazi): Kill the Protestersاظهارات
Iranian Mullah (Haeri Shirazi): Kill the Protesters
In a television appearance shocking in its candidness, a leading Iranian ayatollah says that it would be far better for the Islamic Republic to simply murder those protesting against the regime, rather than arrest and beat them. Meanwhile, an unknown group claiming to represent Iranian soldiers threatens to take up arms against the regime.
Killing the opposition protesters, the ayatollah insists, ‘is sanctioned by obedience to Allah.’
In a live interview broadcast on the Islamic Republic’s national television station sometime within the last two weeks, Ayatollah Mehyaddin Haeri Shirazi described a Communist protest movement from the early years of the Islamic Republic, noting how it was effectively crushed by the authorities. The government targeted opposition activists, he said, “arrested them in the afternoon and the same night announced the names of 30 people killed or executed by the government forces.”
In reaction to the arrests and killings, Shirazi continued, “nothing happened. Why? Because they killed them.”
Expanding on what he sees as the lesson from those events, the ayatollah said,”The more of them [the opposition] are killed, the more beneficial [to the people]. If the armed forces kill some of them, it is to our benefit.”
On the other hand, Shirazi continued, “When they are arrested, it is bad [for public opinion], when they are captured [it is bad for public opinion]. Do not make victims out of them.”
Killing the opposition protesters, the ayatollah insists, “is sanctioned by obedience to Allah and the prophet and is handed down to the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei]. When it is sanctioned by such a power, there is no need to go through the government powers.”
Shirazi warned the opposition forces, “Do not look upon the Supreme Leader [simply] as a person with a soft turban on his head, and that you can beat him. His support comes from the Hidden Imam Mahdi, he [Khamenei] is made of iron. It will come back down to break your own heads.”
doveryai no proveryai
“I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.”
~President Ronald Reagan
“While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan. In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.”
~Hassan Rouhani, was a lead nuclear negotiator years ago
Trust but verify
Trust but Verify: Reagan, Russia and Me
In Trust but Verify, Suzanne Massie shares her interactions with President Reagan during the days that were to transform America’s relationship with its most dangerous adversary. She was to become “Reagan’s window on the Soviet Union” at a critical time in his efforts to reduce, if not end, the threat of nuclear weapons. The President called and wrote to her often and invited her back to the White House sixteen times to help him better understand the Russian spirit that lay behind the mask of Communist power. It was she who introduced the President to the now famous Russian proverb — “doveryai no proveryai” (trust, but verify) — that became his signature phrase when addressing U.S. and Soviet Union relations.
Iranium – The Islamic Republic’s Race to Obtain Nuclear Weapons
A timely and powerful documentary presenting the danger posed to the free world by a nuclear Iran. The film exposes the radical Islamic ideology guiding Iran’s leaders, and the destruction it causes.
Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran “the greatest terrorist regime in the world”
Obama UN Speech On Iran: We Are Not Seeking Regime Change
NUCLEAR IRAN: FOREIGN POLICY EXPERT SAYS IRAN WILL DECEIVE US AGAIN
As a possible nuclear deal with Iran draws near, Dr. Behzad Tabatabaei addressed a crowded room at the Westlake Village Inn on behalf of the Thousand Oaks Republican Women Federation, where he provided a comprehensive history as to why the regime cannot be trusted.
“80% of our problems right now would be solved if there was a regime change in Iran,” said Dr. Tabatabaei. “The single most destructive regime on the planet is the clerical regime of Iran. And they have no incentive to come to a negotiated deal with the United States.”
Tabatabaei is an international business and political economist who has advised several foreign governments in strategic and intergovernmental affairs. He also was an advisor to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s foreign policy team during the last presidential election. His area of expertise is in international economic development and the state sponsorship of terrorism.
Tabatabaei noted that “the majority of people want the change. Only the people who have political power at the top want the regime to stay the same.”
He recounted how Iran’s 2009 “Green Revolution” was a missed opportunity for America to help Iranians overthrow the regime. The revolution began after reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi lost to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in what is believed to have been a rigged election.
“People were chanting, ‘Obama are you with us or are you with them?’ He chose the wrong side. He clearly chose the wrong side of history,” by not providing U.S. support to the masses.”
As for why Iran is so unstoppable, Tabatabaei said: “Because it is a learned behavior. This clerical Iranian Regime was never truly punished for its inequities and bad behavior,” he said, referring to the hostage crisis of 1979-1981.
Iran was deceitful again during the Iran-Contra affair (1985-1987) when they released three U.S. hostages in Lebanon only to kidnap three more almost directly afterwards.
But it was in 1986, he said, that the Iranians realized Reagan was a force to be reckoned with. It was on April 18 of that year when, according to the New York Times, “six American ships destroyed two Iranian oil platforms in what the Reagan Administration said was retaliation for the mining that damaged a Navy vessel” the week before.
After Reagan, however, the Iranians continued down their path of deceit, Tabatabaei said, which has enabled them to increase their power.
Tabatabaei noted to Breitbart News that Iran’s current, Hassan Rouhani, was a lead nuclear negotiator years ago, In a 2004 speech to his colleagues, which was only made public in 2013, Rouhani admitted flat-out that the regime had been lying and buying time with Europeans in order to advance its nuclear program right under their noses: “While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan. In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.”
“That’s the kind of regime you’re dealing with,” Tabatabaei told Breitbart News.
Rouhani speaks with French, British, Russian leaders as nuclear talks resume
BY JOHN IRISH AND LOUIS CHARBONNEAU
Iran’s president spoke with the leaders of France, Britain, China and Russia on Thursday in an apparent effort to break an impasse holding up a nuclear deal between Tehran and major world powers.
He also raised the Saudi-led military operation against Iranian-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen, a divisive issue. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also brought Yemen up ahead of nuclear negotiations in Switzerland with Tehran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The United States is pushing for a nuclear deal between Iran and major powers before a March 31 deadline, and officials close to the talks said some kind of preliminary agreement was possible.
Western powers fear Iran wants to build nuclear bombs, though Tehran says its atomic research is for peaceful purposes. The powers hope to persuade Iran to scale back its nuclear activity in return for the removal of sanctions.
France, Britain and Russia announced the phone calls, which were confirmed on Rouhani’s Twitter feed. Rouhani also said he spoke with his Chinese counterpart and sent a letter outlining Tehran’s position to the leaders of all six countries negotiating with Tehran — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
In the rare direct exchange between Paris and Tehran, French President Francois Hollande said Iran had a right to civilian nuclear power but insisted on a “lasting, robust and verifiable Iranian nuclear program that guarantees Iran will not get an atomic weapon”, a statement from the French presidency said.
Last week officials close to the negotiations said France was demanding more stringent conditions than its Western allies for any future agreement.
Rouhani reiterated Tehran’s principal demand — that the most crippling sanctions be lifted immediately.
“All unjust sanctions against the Iranian nation should be lifted,” he said on Twitter.
“Lifting all sanctions is the main issue that can help us reaching the final solution … This is a unique opportunity which is in the benefit of the region and the world and should be seized.”
Western powers insist that sanctions relief must come gradually, though European and U.S. measures against Iranian energy and financial sectors and some U.N. sanctions could be suspended quickly, officials close to the talks said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokeswoman told reporters after the call that the two sides agreed it was possible to conclude a framework nuclear deal by end-March.
Rouhani also spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said.
Rouhani said on his Twitter feed that he had raised military operations in Yemen launched by Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia with all four leaders.
KERRY MEETS ZARIF
Meanwhile, Kerry and Zarif met twice on Thursday in Lausanne, Switzerland after resuming negotiations aimed at clinching a nuclear deal before a March 31 deadline.
Kerry raised the Yemen crisis before those conversations began, a State Department spokesman said, though a senior U.S. official told Reuters the issue did not have any impact on the nuclear negotiations.
Washington and Tehran take opposing stands on Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen against Shi’ite Houthi rebels allied to Iran who are fighting to oust Yemen’s president.
Earlier, Iranian media quoted Zarif as condemning the Saudi-led military operation against the Shi’ite Muslim Houthi fighters in Yemen, and demanding that it stop.
By contrast, Kerry spoke to the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council members on Thursday and welcomed their decision to take action against the Houthis, a senior U.S. official said.
Iran and the six powers are seeking a political framework accord by the end of this month that would lay the foundations for a full nuclear deal by June 30.
Under a final settlement, Tehran would halt sensitive nuclear work for at least a decade and in exchange, international sanctions would be lifted.
Speaking to reporters traveling with Kerry from Washington on Wednesday, a senior State Department official said the six powers would not rush to complete a framework agreement just because there was a March 31 deadline.
But the official said the parties had made progress at last week’s inconclusive round of negotiations in Lausanne.
“We very much believe we can get this done by the 31st,” the official said. “We see a path to do that.” The official added, however, that there was no guarantee of success.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, also said a deal was possible but not certain. “It is difficult to forecast whether we can reach a result at this round of talks but we are moving toward reaching a mutual understanding in all technical issues,” he told Iranian state television.
Israel, Saudi Arabia, France and the U.S. Congress have all raised concerns that the administration of President Barack Obama might be willing to conclude a deal that would allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capability in the future.
AP EXCLUSIVE: IRAN MAY RUN CENTRIFUGES AT FORTIFIED SITE
BY GEORGE JAHN AND MATTHEW LEE
The United States is considering letting Tehran run hundreds of centrifuges at a once-secret, fortified underground bunker in exchange for limits on centrifuge work and research and development at other sites, officials have told The Associated Press.
The trade-off would allow Iran to run several hundred of the devices at its Fordo facility, although the Iranians would not be allowed to do work that could lead to an atomic bomb and the site would be subject to international inspections, according to Western officials familiar with details of negotiations now underway. In return, Iran would be required to scale back the number of centrifuges it runs at its Natanz facility and accept other restrictions on nuclear-related work.
Instead of uranium, which can be enriched to be the fissile core of a nuclear weapon, any centrifuges permitted at Fordo would be fed elements such as zinc, xenon or germanium for separating out isotopes used in medicine, industry or science, the officials said. The number of centrifuges would not be enough to produce the amount of uranium needed to produce a weapon within a year – the minimum time-frame that Washington and its negotiating partners demand.
The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the sensitive negotiations as the latest round of talks began between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif. The negotiators are racing to meet an end-of-March deadline to reach an outline of an agreement that would grant Iran relief from international sanctions in exchange for curbing its nuclear program. The deadline for a final agreement is June 30.
One senior U.S. official declined to comment on the specific proposal but said the goal since the beginning of the talks has been “to have Fordo converted so it’s not being used to enrich uranium.” That official would not say more.
The officials stressed that the potential compromise on Fordo is just one of several options on a menu of highly technical equations being discussed in the talks. All of the options are designed to keep Iran at least a year away from producing an atomic weapon for the life of the agreement, which will run for at least 10 years. U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has joined the last several rounds as the negotiations have gotten more technical.
Experts say the compromise for Fordo could still be problematic. They note it would allow Iran to keep intact technology that could be quickly repurposed for uranium enrichment at a sensitive facility that the U.S. and its allies originally wanted stripped of all such machines – centrifuges that can spin uranium gas into uses ranging from reactor fuel to weapons-grade material.
And the issue of inspector access and verification is key. Iran has resisted “snap inspections” in the past. Even as the nuclear talks have made progress, Iran has yet to satisfy questions about its past possible nuclear-related military activity. The fact that questions about such activity, known as Possible Military Dimensions, or PMDs, remain unresolved is a serious concern for the U.N. atomic watchdog.
In addition, the site at Fordo is a particular concern because it is hardened and dug deeply into a mountainside making it resistant – possibly impervious – to air attack. Such an attack is an option that neither Israel nor the U.S. has ruled out in case the talks fail.
And while too few to be used for proliferation by themselves, even a few hundred extra centrifuges at Fordo would be a concern when looked at in the context of total numbers.
As negotiations stand, the number of centrifuges would grow to more than 6,000, when the other site is included. Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the Iran nuclear file as a deputy director general of the U.N’s International Atomic Energy Agency until 2010, says even 6,000 operating centrifuges would be “a big number.”
Asked of the significance of hundreds more at Fordo, he said, “Every machine counts.”
Iran reported the site to the IAEA six years ago in what Washington says was an attempt to pre-empt President Barack Obama and the prime ministers of Britain and France going public with its existence a few days later. Tehran later used the site to enrich uranium to a level just a technical step away from weapons-grade until late 2013, when it froze its nuclear program under a temporary arrangement that remains in effect as the sides negotiate.
Twice extended, the negotiations have turned into a U.S.-Iran tug-of-war over how many of the machines Iran would be allowed to operate since the talks resumed over two years ago. Tehran denies nuclear weapons ambitions, saying it wants to enrich only for energy, scientific and medical purposes.
Washington has taken the main negotiating role with Tehran in talks that formally remain between Iran and six world powers, and officials told the AP at last week’s round that the two sides were zeroing in on a cap of 6,000 centrifuges at Natanz, Iran’s main enrichment site.
That’s fewer than the nearly 10,000 Tehran now runs at Natanz, yet substantially more than the 500 to 1,500 that Washington originally wanted as a ceiling. Only a year ago, U.S. officials floated 4,000 as a possible compromise.
One of the officials said discussions focus on an extra 480 centrifuges at Fordo. That would potentially bring the total number of machines to close to 6,500.
David Albright of Washington’s Institute for Security and International Security says a few hundred centrifuges operated by the Iranians would not be a huge threat – if they were anywhere else but the sensitive Fordo site.
Beyond its symbolic significance, “it keeps the infrastructure in place and keeps a leg up, if they want to restart (uranium) enrichment operations,” said Albright, who is a go-to person on the Iran nuclear issue for the U.S. government.
Suzanne Massie is an American author and played an important role in the relations between Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union in the final years of the Cold War.[1]
Massie is the daughter of a Swiss diplomat. She was born in New York and graduated from Vassar College, but also studied at the Sorbonne and the Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris.
In 1975, Suzanne Massie and her then-husband Robert K. Massie chronicled their experiences as the parents of a hemophiliac child, Robert Kinloch Massie IV, and the significant differences between the American and French health-care systems in their jointly-written book, Journey. She subsequently married Seymour Papert.
Reagan first became interested in Massie when he read her book Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia. She eventually visited the White House where she became an informal messenger between the President and Mikhail Gorbachev and his administration. She also asked Reagan to learn the now famous Russian phrase “doveryai, no proveryai”, which means “Trust, but verify”. Her importance in contributing to Reagan’s understanding of the Russian people, assisting in reaching a peaceful end to the Cold War, was described in detail in a number of documentary films. She applied for the job of Soviet ambassador via a letter to Reagan but was rejected, as the post had already been filled.
A fellow of the Harvard Russian Research Center (now the Davis Center) from 1985-97, Massie has also served on the Board of the International League for Human Rights. In 1991 she was appointed as the only lay member of the Permanent Episcopal-Orthodox Coordinating Committee which has involved bi-annual discussions in Russia and the United States with hierarchs of the church, including Patriarch Aleksy II.
Massie currently resides in Maine, but travels regularly to Russia and is writing a book about her experiences and her interpretation of the years of dramatic change in American-Russian relations.
Books by Suzanne Massie
Massie, Suzanne, Trust but Verify: Reagan, Russia and me, Maine Authors Publishing, 2013: Paperback and Hardcover
Massie, Suzanne, Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia, Simon & Schuster 1980: Paperback; Touchstone 1982
Massie, Suzanne, Pavlovsk: The Life of a Russian Palace, Little Brown & Co. 1990: Paperback; HeartTree Press 1999
Massie, Suzanne, The Living Mirror, Doubleday & Co. Garden City New York 1972: Paperback: Anchor 1972
Massie, Suzanne & Robert Massie, Journey, Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1975: Paperback: Warner’s 1976; Ballantine Books 1984
References
Jump up^Mann, James – The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan:a history of the end of the cold war, Penguin Group 2009, p. 67
The Pronk Pops blog is the broadcasting and mass communication of ideas about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, prosperity, truth, virtue and wisdom.
The Pronk Pops Show 435, March 26, 2015, Story 1: “doveryai no proveryai” (trust, but verify) — Who Do You Trust? President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, and/or Islamic Republic of Iran Led By Terrorist Mullahs? None of The Above — No Trust — Eliminate All Iranian Nuclear Weapon Facilities — Overthrow The Terrorist Mullahs with Crippling Sanctions — Support The Iranian People! — What Do The Iranian People Think? — Death To The Dictator and Mullahs — Videos
Posted on March 26, 2015. Filed under: American History, Blogroll, Books, Breaking News, Business, Communications, Consitutional Law, Education, European History, Foreign Policy, Government, History, Law, Media, Middle East, News, Nuclear, Nuclear Weapons, Obama, Philosophy, Photos, Politics, Radio, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Scandals, Terror, Terrorism, United States Constitution, Videos, Violence, War, Wealth, Weapons, Wisdom | Tags: 26 March 2015, America, Articles, Audio, Ayatollah, Ayatollah Mehyaddin Haeri Shirazi, Breaking News, Broadcasting, Capitalism, Cartoons, Charity, Citizenship, Clarity, Classical Liberalism, Collectivism, Commentary, Commitment, Communicate, Communication, Concise, Conservative Democrat, Convincing, Courage, Crippling Sanctions, Culture, Current Affairs, Current Events, Democrat, doveryai no proveryai, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Economics, Education, Eliminate All Iranian Nuclear Weapon Facilities, Evil, Experience, Faith, Family, First, Fiscal Policy, Free Enterprise, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Friends, Give It A Listen!, God, Good, Goodwill, Growth, Hope, Individualism, Iran, Iranian People, Iranium, Islamic Republic of Iran, Kill the Protesters, Knowledge, Liberty, Life, Love, Lovers of Liberty, Lying, Monetary Policy, MPEG3, Mullahs, News, NUCLEAR IRAN, Opinions, Peace, Photos, Podcasts, Political Philosophy, Politics, Prosperity, Radio, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Religious Sectarian Civil War, Representative Republic, Republic, Resources, Respect, Rule of Law, Rule of Men, Russia, Russia and me, Show Notes, Soviet Union, Suzanne Massie, Talk Radio, Terrorists, The Land of The Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia, The Pronk Pops Show, The Pronk Pops Show 435, Trust But Verify, Trust But Verify: Reagan, Truth, Tyranny, U.S. Constitution, United States of America, Videos, Virtue, War, Who do you trust?, Wisdom |
The Pronk Pops Show Podcasts
Pronk Pops Show 435: March 25, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 434: March 24, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 433: March 24, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 432: March 23, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 431: March 20, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 430: March 19, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 429: March 18, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 428: March 17, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 427: March 16, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 426: March 6, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 425: March 4, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 424: March 2, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 423: February 26, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 422: February 25, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 421: February 20, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 420: February 19, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 419: February 18, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 418: February 16, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 417: February 13, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 416: February 12, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 415: February 11, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 414: February 10, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 413: February 9, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 412: February 6, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 411: February 5, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 410: February 4, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 409: February 3, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 408: February 2, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 407: January 30, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 406: January 29, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 405: January 28, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 404: January 27, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 403: January 26, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 402: January 23, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 401: January 22, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 400: January 21, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 399: January 16, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 398: January 15, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 397: January 14, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 396: January 13, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 395: January 12, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 394: January 7, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 393: January 5, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 392: December 19, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 391: December 18, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 390: December 17, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 389: December 16, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 388: December 15, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 387: December 12, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 386: December 11, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 385: December 9, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 384: December 8, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 383: December 5, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 382: December 4, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 381: December 3, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 380: December 1, 2014
Story 1: “doveryai no proveryai” (trust, but verify) — Who Do You Trust? President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, and/or Islamic Republic of Iran Led By Terrorist Mullahs? None of The Above — No Trust — Eliminate All Iranian Nuclear Weapon Facilities — Overthrow The Terrorist Mullahs with Crippling Sanctions — Support The Iranian People! — What Do The Iranian People Think? — Death To The Dictator and Mullahs — Videos
Amid nuke talks, Ayatollah says ‘death to America’
Iran Supreme Leader “Ali Khamenei” Chants “Dead to America”
funny iranian mullah lost his mind
Iranian Mullah (Haeri Shirazi): Kill the Protestersاظهارات
Iranian Mullah (Haeri Shirazi): Kill the Protesters
In a television appearance shocking in its candidness, a leading Iranian ayatollah says that it would be far better for the Islamic Republic to simply murder those protesting against the regime, rather than arrest and beat them. Meanwhile, an unknown group claiming to represent Iranian soldiers threatens to take up arms against the regime.
Killing the opposition protesters, the ayatollah insists, ‘is sanctioned by obedience to Allah.’
In a live interview broadcast on the Islamic Republic’s national television station sometime within the last two weeks, Ayatollah Mehyaddin Haeri Shirazi described a Communist protest movement from the early years of the Islamic Republic, noting how it was effectively crushed by the authorities. The government targeted opposition activists, he said, “arrested them in the afternoon and the same night announced the names of 30 people killed or executed by the government forces.”
In reaction to the arrests and killings, Shirazi continued, “nothing happened. Why? Because they killed them.”
Expanding on what he sees as the lesson from those events, the ayatollah said,”The more of them [the opposition] are killed, the more beneficial [to the people]. If the armed forces kill some of them, it is to our benefit.”
On the other hand, Shirazi continued, “When they are arrested, it is bad [for public opinion], when they are captured [it is bad for public opinion]. Do not make victims out of them.”
Killing the opposition protesters, the ayatollah insists, “is sanctioned by obedience to Allah and the prophet and is handed down to the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei]. When it is sanctioned by such a power, there is no need to go through the government powers.”
Shirazi warned the opposition forces, “Do not look upon the Supreme Leader [simply] as a person with a soft turban on his head, and that you can beat him. His support comes from the Hidden Imam Mahdi, he [Khamenei] is made of iron. It will come back down to break your own heads.”
doveryai no proveryai


“I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.”
~President Ronald Reagan
“While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan. In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.”
~Hassan Rouhani, was a lead nuclear negotiator years ago
Trust but verify
Trust but Verify: Reagan, Russia and Me
In Trust but Verify, Suzanne Massie shares her interactions with President Reagan during the days that were to transform America’s relationship with its most dangerous adversary. She was to become “Reagan’s window on the Soviet Union” at a critical time in his efforts to reduce, if not end, the threat of nuclear weapons. The President called and wrote to her often and invited her back to the White House sixteen times to help him better understand the Russian spirit that lay behind the mask of Communist power. It was she who introduced the President to the now famous Russian proverb — “doveryai no proveryai” (trust, but verify) — that became his signature phrase when addressing U.S. and Soviet Union relations.
Iranium – The Islamic Republic’s Race to Obtain Nuclear Weapons
A timely and powerful documentary presenting the danger posed to the free world by a nuclear Iran. The film exposes the radical Islamic ideology guiding Iran’s leaders, and the destruction it causes.
Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran “the greatest terrorist regime in the world”
Obama UN Speech On Iran: We Are Not Seeking Regime Change
NUCLEAR IRAN: FOREIGN POLICY EXPERT SAYS IRAN WILL DECEIVE US AGAIN
As a possible nuclear deal with Iran draws near, Dr. Behzad Tabatabaei addressed a crowded room at the Westlake Village Inn on behalf of the Thousand Oaks Republican Women Federation, where he provided a comprehensive history as to why the regime cannot be trusted.
“80% of our problems right now would be solved if there was a regime change in Iran,” said Dr. Tabatabaei. “The single most destructive regime on the planet is the clerical regime of Iran. And they have no incentive to come to a negotiated deal with the United States.”
Tabatabaei is an international business and political economist who has advised several foreign governments in strategic and intergovernmental affairs. He also was an advisor to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s foreign policy team during the last presidential election. His area of expertise is in international economic development and the state sponsorship of terrorism.
Tabatabaei noted that “the majority of people want the change. Only the people who have political power at the top want the regime to stay the same.”
He recounted how Iran’s 2009 “Green Revolution” was a missed opportunity for America to help Iranians overthrow the regime. The revolution began after reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi lost to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in what is believed to have been a rigged election.
“People were chanting, ‘Obama are you with us or are you with them?’ He chose the wrong side. He clearly chose the wrong side of history,” by not providing U.S. support to the masses.”
As for why Iran is so unstoppable, Tabatabaei said: “Because it is a learned behavior. This clerical Iranian Regime was never truly punished for its inequities and bad behavior,” he said, referring to the hostage crisis of 1979-1981.
Iran was deceitful again during the Iran-Contra affair (1985-1987) when they released three U.S. hostages in Lebanon only to kidnap three more almost directly afterwards.
But it was in 1986, he said, that the Iranians realized Reagan was a force to be reckoned with. It was on April 18 of that year when, according to the New York Times, “six American ships destroyed two Iranian oil platforms in what the Reagan Administration said was retaliation for the mining that damaged a Navy vessel” the week before.
After Reagan, however, the Iranians continued down their path of deceit, Tabatabaei said, which has enabled them to increase their power.
Tabatabaei noted to Breitbart News that Iran’s current, Hassan Rouhani, was a lead nuclear negotiator years ago, In a 2004 speech to his colleagues, which was only made public in 2013, Rouhani admitted flat-out that the regime had been lying and buying time with Europeans in order to advance its nuclear program right under their noses: “While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan. In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.”
“That’s the kind of regime you’re dealing with,” Tabatabaei told Breitbart News.
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/03/22/nuclear-iran-foreign-policy-expert-says-iran-will-deceive-us-again/
Rouhani speaks with French, British, Russian leaders as nuclear talks resume
BY JOHN IRISH AND LOUIS CHARBONNEAU
Iran’s president spoke with the leaders of France, Britain, China and Russia on Thursday in an apparent effort to break an impasse holding up a nuclear deal between Tehran and major world powers.
He also raised the Saudi-led military operation against Iranian-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen, a divisive issue. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also brought Yemen up ahead of nuclear negotiations in Switzerland with Tehran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The United States is pushing for a nuclear deal between Iran and major powers before a March 31 deadline, and officials close to the talks said some kind of preliminary agreement was possible.
Western powers fear Iran wants to build nuclear bombs, though Tehran says its atomic research is for peaceful purposes. The powers hope to persuade Iran to scale back its nuclear activity in return for the removal of sanctions.
France, Britain and Russia announced the phone calls, which were confirmed on Rouhani’s Twitter feed. Rouhani also said he spoke with his Chinese counterpart and sent a letter outlining Tehran’s position to the leaders of all six countries negotiating with Tehran — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
In the rare direct exchange between Paris and Tehran, French President Francois Hollande said Iran had a right to civilian nuclear power but insisted on a “lasting, robust and verifiable Iranian nuclear program that guarantees Iran will not get an atomic weapon”, a statement from the French presidency said.
Last week officials close to the negotiations said France was demanding more stringent conditions than its Western allies for any future agreement.
Rouhani reiterated Tehran’s principal demand — that the most crippling sanctions be lifted immediately.
“All unjust sanctions against the Iranian nation should be lifted,” he said on Twitter.
“Lifting all sanctions is the main issue that can help us reaching the final solution … This is a unique opportunity which is in the benefit of the region and the world and should be seized.”
Western powers insist that sanctions relief must come gradually, though European and U.S. measures against Iranian energy and financial sectors and some U.N. sanctions could be suspended quickly, officials close to the talks said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokeswoman told reporters after the call that the two sides agreed it was possible to conclude a framework nuclear deal by end-March.
Rouhani also spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said.
Rouhani said on his Twitter feed that he had raised military operations in Yemen launched by Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia with all four leaders.
KERRY MEETS ZARIF
Meanwhile, Kerry and Zarif met twice on Thursday in Lausanne, Switzerland after resuming negotiations aimed at clinching a nuclear deal before a March 31 deadline.
Kerry raised the Yemen crisis before those conversations began, a State Department spokesman said, though a senior U.S. official told Reuters the issue did not have any impact on the nuclear negotiations.
Washington and Tehran take opposing stands on Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen against Shi’ite Houthi rebels allied to Iran who are fighting to oust Yemen’s president.
Earlier, Iranian media quoted Zarif as condemning the Saudi-led military operation against the Shi’ite Muslim Houthi fighters in Yemen, and demanding that it stop.
By contrast, Kerry spoke to the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council members on Thursday and welcomed their decision to take action against the Houthis, a senior U.S. official said.
Iran and the six powers are seeking a political framework accord by the end of this month that would lay the foundations for a full nuclear deal by June 30.
Under a final settlement, Tehran would halt sensitive nuclear work for at least a decade and in exchange, international sanctions would be lifted.
Speaking to reporters traveling with Kerry from Washington on Wednesday, a senior State Department official said the six powers would not rush to complete a framework agreement just because there was a March 31 deadline.
But the official said the parties had made progress at last week’s inconclusive round of negotiations in Lausanne.
“We very much believe we can get this done by the 31st,” the official said. “We see a path to do that.” The official added, however, that there was no guarantee of success.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, also said a deal was possible but not certain. “It is difficult to forecast whether we can reach a result at this round of talks but we are moving toward reaching a mutual understanding in all technical issues,” he told Iranian state television.
Israel, Saudi Arabia, France and the U.S. Congress have all raised concerns that the administration of President Barack Obama might be willing to conclude a deal that would allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capability in the future.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/26/us-iran-nuclear-idUSKBN0ML1Y120150326
AP EXCLUSIVE: IRAN MAY RUN CENTRIFUGES AT FORTIFIED SITE
BY GEORGE JAHN AND MATTHEW LEE
The United States is considering letting Tehran run hundreds of centrifuges at a once-secret, fortified underground bunker in exchange for limits on centrifuge work and research and development at other sites, officials have told The Associated Press.
The trade-off would allow Iran to run several hundred of the devices at its Fordo facility, although the Iranians would not be allowed to do work that could lead to an atomic bomb and the site would be subject to international inspections, according to Western officials familiar with details of negotiations now underway. In return, Iran would be required to scale back the number of centrifuges it runs at its Natanz facility and accept other restrictions on nuclear-related work.
Instead of uranium, which can be enriched to be the fissile core of a nuclear weapon, any centrifuges permitted at Fordo would be fed elements such as zinc, xenon or germanium for separating out isotopes used in medicine, industry or science, the officials said. The number of centrifuges would not be enough to produce the amount of uranium needed to produce a weapon within a year – the minimum time-frame that Washington and its negotiating partners demand.
The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the sensitive negotiations as the latest round of talks began between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif. The negotiators are racing to meet an end-of-March deadline to reach an outline of an agreement that would grant Iran relief from international sanctions in exchange for curbing its nuclear program. The deadline for a final agreement is June 30.
One senior U.S. official declined to comment on the specific proposal but said the goal since the beginning of the talks has been “to have Fordo converted so it’s not being used to enrich uranium.” That official would not say more.
The officials stressed that the potential compromise on Fordo is just one of several options on a menu of highly technical equations being discussed in the talks. All of the options are designed to keep Iran at least a year away from producing an atomic weapon for the life of the agreement, which will run for at least 10 years. U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has joined the last several rounds as the negotiations have gotten more technical.
Experts say the compromise for Fordo could still be problematic. They note it would allow Iran to keep intact technology that could be quickly repurposed for uranium enrichment at a sensitive facility that the U.S. and its allies originally wanted stripped of all such machines – centrifuges that can spin uranium gas into uses ranging from reactor fuel to weapons-grade material.
And the issue of inspector access and verification is key. Iran has resisted “snap inspections” in the past. Even as the nuclear talks have made progress, Iran has yet to satisfy questions about its past possible nuclear-related military activity. The fact that questions about such activity, known as Possible Military Dimensions, or PMDs, remain unresolved is a serious concern for the U.N. atomic watchdog.
In addition, the site at Fordo is a particular concern because it is hardened and dug deeply into a mountainside making it resistant – possibly impervious – to air attack. Such an attack is an option that neither Israel nor the U.S. has ruled out in case the talks fail.
And while too few to be used for proliferation by themselves, even a few hundred extra centrifuges at Fordo would be a concern when looked at in the context of total numbers.
As negotiations stand, the number of centrifuges would grow to more than 6,000, when the other site is included. Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the Iran nuclear file as a deputy director general of the U.N’s International Atomic Energy Agency until 2010, says even 6,000 operating centrifuges would be “a big number.”
Asked of the significance of hundreds more at Fordo, he said, “Every machine counts.”
Iran reported the site to the IAEA six years ago in what Washington says was an attempt to pre-empt President Barack Obama and the prime ministers of Britain and France going public with its existence a few days later. Tehran later used the site to enrich uranium to a level just a technical step away from weapons-grade until late 2013, when it froze its nuclear program under a temporary arrangement that remains in effect as the sides negotiate.
Twice extended, the negotiations have turned into a U.S.-Iran tug-of-war over how many of the machines Iran would be allowed to operate since the talks resumed over two years ago. Tehran denies nuclear weapons ambitions, saying it wants to enrich only for energy, scientific and medical purposes.
Washington has taken the main negotiating role with Tehran in talks that formally remain between Iran and six world powers, and officials told the AP at last week’s round that the two sides were zeroing in on a cap of 6,000 centrifuges at Natanz, Iran’s main enrichment site.
That’s fewer than the nearly 10,000 Tehran now runs at Natanz, yet substantially more than the 500 to 1,500 that Washington originally wanted as a ceiling. Only a year ago, U.S. officials floated 4,000 as a possible compromise.
One of the officials said discussions focus on an extra 480 centrifuges at Fordo. That would potentially bring the total number of machines to close to 6,500.
David Albright of Washington’s Institute for Security and International Security says a few hundred centrifuges operated by the Iranians would not be a huge threat – if they were anywhere else but the sensitive Fordo site.
Beyond its symbolic significance, “it keeps the infrastructure in place and keeps a leg up, if they want to restart (uranium) enrichment operations,” said Albright, who is a go-to person on the Iran nuclear issue for the U.S. government.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAN_NUCLEAR_TALKS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-03-26-12-09-16
Suzanne Massie
Suzanne Massie is an American author and played an important role in the relations between Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union in the final years of the Cold War.[1]
Massie is the daughter of a Swiss diplomat. She was born in New York and graduated from Vassar College, but also studied at the Sorbonne and the Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris.
In 1975, Suzanne Massie and her then-husband Robert K. Massie chronicled their experiences as the parents of a hemophiliac child, Robert Kinloch Massie IV, and the significant differences between the American and French health-care systems in their jointly-written book, Journey. She subsequently married Seymour Papert.
Reagan first became interested in Massie when he read her book Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia. She eventually visited the White House where she became an informal messenger between the President and Mikhail Gorbachev and his administration. She also asked Reagan to learn the now famous Russian phrase “doveryai, no proveryai”, which means “Trust, but verify”. Her importance in contributing to Reagan’s understanding of the Russian people, assisting in reaching a peaceful end to the Cold War, was described in detail in a number of documentary films. She applied for the job of Soviet ambassador via a letter to Reagan but was rejected, as the post had already been filled.
A fellow of the Harvard Russian Research Center (now the Davis Center) from 1985-97, Massie has also served on the Board of the International League for Human Rights. In 1991 she was appointed as the only lay member of the Permanent Episcopal-Orthodox Coordinating Committee which has involved bi-annual discussions in Russia and the United States with hierarchs of the church, including Patriarch Aleksy II.
Massie currently resides in Maine, but travels regularly to Russia and is writing a book about her experiences and her interpretation of the years of dramatic change in American-Russian relations.
Books by Suzanne Massie
References
External links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Massie
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