AP coverage - #Trump #Impeachment #Briefs

House outlines impeachment case, Trump team has fiery answer By ERIC TUCKER, ZEKE MILLER and LISA MASCARO 1/18/2020 AP

... The House’s 111-page brief pulls together the private and public testimony of a dozen witnesses -- ambassadors and national security officials at high levels of government -- who raised concerns about the president’s actions with Ukraine. Stripped of legalese and structured in plain English, the document underscored the extent to which the impeachment proceedings are a political rather than conventional legal process. The Trump team similarly offered a taste of the rhetoric expected to be deployed by the president’s defenders in the Senate.

... The Trump team, meanwhile, called the Senate’s formal impeachment summons to two articles of impeachment passed by the House last month “a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president.”

“This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election, now just months away,” the filing states. ...

TRUMP-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report - Summary 1 page - Intelligence House Committee


#AP coverage - #Trump #Impeachment #Briefs - Is Trump a human of #GoodCharacter 

Trump's Plan to win a 2nd term, get a pass on impeachment, and avoid prison.

I think Trump knows he has to run out the clock and to him that means pass-on while in office.  The whole Ukrainian affair illustrates he can think ahead a bit.  It's a simple plan right out of Roy Cohn's playbook, the infamous right-hand of Joe McCarthy.

Getting re-elected is the supreme means.  An Electoral College victory using voter suppression while motivating his base to new turnout levels.

I used to hope that Trump would lose the 2020 election. I thought the plan was in the latter case, resign just before his term ended, Pence would succeed him as President and then pardon him as in Ford and Nixon.  Trump would then continue to litigate his other improprieties and crimes until he passed-on.

I had not thought about starting a war, or at best a major crisis, as a way of wrapping himself in the flag, motivating his base, finding new pro-Trump voters and then getting re-elected.

Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian Major General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and from 1998 until his death, commander of its Quds Force, a division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations. Wikipedia

Iran vows revenge and 'harsh retaliation' after U.S. kills its top general

Jan. 3, 2020, 4:46 AM CST / Updated Jan. 3, 2020, 5:16 AM CST

By Alexander Smith

Iran vowed to seek revenge on the United States on Friday after an American airstrike killed one of the country's most powerful military and political figures.

The U.S. bombing near Baghdad airport killed Qassim Suleimani, the high-profile commander of Iran's secretive Quds Force and sometimes described as the country's second most influential person.

"The great nation of Iran will take revenge for this heinous crime," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani tweeted after the news was confirmed.

#Trump 's Plan to get re-elected in #2020 , get a pass on #impeachment, and avoid #prison. #TrumpsPlan #Potemkin #PotemkinVillage