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Live Coverage...
A friend texted me to watch live coverage of The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol now holding its first primetime hearing.
Cheney appears to have done her homework...
More to follow.
Cheney appears to have done her homework...
More to follow.
Patriots: Mark Ponder and others...
Mark was given 63 months of prison for his actions in the January 6th insurrection on the Capitol. He's tied with Robert Scott Palmer who pleaded guilty to taking part in the siege.
What did they both have in common? Believing the election was stolen.
Article with comments:
Palmer's article with comments:
Smile Mark, you're on candid camera.
I've seen some videos of people who actually believe the event never took place!
What did they both have in common? Believing the election was stolen.
Article with comments:
Palmer's article with comments:
Smile Mark, you're on candid camera.
I've seen some videos of people who actually believe the event never took place!
News - Prosecution of Jan 6 rioters shifts to more serious
Over 300 witnesses have willingly testified before the special Jan 6 committee investigating the Capitol Riot.
With much of the less severe cases already prosecuted, there is now a upshift to the prosecution of more severe cases. For instance, 11 members of the right wing terrorists group, 'Oathkeepers' have been indicted and charged with conspiracy and sedition. A guilty finding will carry up to a 20 year prison sentence.
In addition the Jan 6 committee is now also focused on better confining the spread of lies on social media leading to to conspiracy and sedition.
Again with over 300 witnesses willingly testifying to the committee, they already have a lot of evidence, and a good understanding of most that went on. So, what will likely follow this phase will be the prosecution of those who conducted the most violence, and finally those who planned and inspired the attempt to overthrow the lawful transfer of presidential power with lies.
Yeah, for those who have been evading justice, the time left in their stall is closing in on them, including those, who have refused to testify, as part of a cover up.
Today from the Associated Press;
With much of the less severe cases already prosecuted, there is now a upshift to the prosecution of more severe cases. For instance, 11 members of the right wing terrorists group, 'Oathkeepers' have been indicted and charged with conspiracy and sedition. A guilty finding will carry up to a 20 year prison sentence.
In addition the Jan 6 committee is now also focused on better confining the spread of lies on social media leading to to conspiracy and sedition.
Again with over 300 witnesses willingly testifying to the committee, they already have a lot of evidence, and a good understanding of most that went on. So, what will likely follow this phase will be the prosecution of those who conducted the most violence, and finally those who planned and inspired the attempt to overthrow the lawful transfer of presidential power with lies.
Yeah, for those who have been evading justice, the time left in their stall is closing in on them, including those, who have refused to testify, as part of a cover up.
Today from the Associated Press;
In response to:
11 Oath Keepers charged in Jan. 6 riot
Thu, January 13, 2022, 8:49 PM
Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, and 10 other members or associates have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, authorities said Thursday. (Jan 13)
11 Oath Keepers charged in Jan. 6 riot
Thu, January 13, 2022, 8:49 PM
Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, and 10 other members or associates have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, authorities said Thursday. (Jan 13)
Wow, That’s Awesome!!!
Young man gives up first-class seat to an elderly lady after hearing her story
When 88-year-old retired nurse Violet boarded a plane following a visit to see her daughter, she was completely unaware that she was about to get one of the most magical experiences of her life.
She had hit it off with young man Jack and the two had chatted before boarding the plane, during which Violet had revealed it was her dream to travel at the front of the plane.
Unbeknown to her Jack and his family were traveling in first class and what he did when he boarded the plane has attracted the praise of people around the world.
When Violet got on the plane she was informed by the flight attendant that she was to swap seats with a passenger in first class allowing Violet to travel home in style and fulfill her dream.
“Of the hundreds of flights I’ve operated, I’ve had the pleasure of looking after footballers, supermodels, and some Hollywood movie stars but let me tell you about my two favorite passengers EVER!
“Jack and Violet. Jack and his family purchased seats In our upper-class cabin for a flight home, but when he got onboard, Jack went and found violet in the economy and swapped seats with her.
‘The kindness of his own heart
“He then sat on the row of seats directly next to the economy toilets and never made a peep or asked for anything the rest of the flight. No fuss, no attention, literally did it out of the kindness of his own heart, no one asked him to .
“Violet is 88 years old and has been a nurse. She travels to New York to see her daughter but hasn’t been able to for a while because of a knee replacement. Her dream has always been to sit at the front, and Jack made that come true.
“You should of seen her face when I tucked her in her bed after supper. She said her daughter won’t believe her and wanted a ‘selfie’ to prove it.”
Da Vinci code mystery takes new twist
Startling revelation as work of art undergoes restoration work.
New evidence against Trump emerging for the Senate Impeachment Trial
From The New York Times;
(continued in my first comment below)
In response to:
Published Jan. 14, 2020
Updated Jan. 15, 2020, 7:22 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON — New details emerged on Tuesday of President Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine, intensifying demands on Senate Republicans on the eve of a historic impeachment trial to include witness testimony and additional documents in the proceeding.
The dozens of pages of notes, text messages and other records lay out work conducted by Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, and his associate Lev Parnas on behalf of the president. They include handwritten notes scrawled on a sheet of hotel paper at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Vienna that mention getting President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son.
House Democrats released the records even as Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a Wednesday vote to name House prosecutors and send the articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump to the Senate to begin the trial. The material undergirds the accusations against Mr. Trump, and highlights how much is still to be learned about the scope of a scheme that the impeachment charges call a blatant effort to solicit foreign help in the 2020 election.
The documents, provided by Mr. Parnas, contain a series of exchanges between him and a Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, who was helping Mr. Giuliani unearth damaging information about the Bidens.
In one of the exchanges, from March 2019, Mr. Lutsenko messaged Mr. Parnas on the WhatsApp messaging service to complain that the Trump administration had not yet ousted the United States ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch. Mr. Lutsenko, who had clashed with Ms. Yovanovitch and wanted her gone, appeared to link her removal to his assistance in attacking the Bidens.
“It’s just that if you don’t make a decision about Madam — you are bringing into question all my allegations. Including about B,” he wrote to Mr. Parnas, in apparent references to Ms. Yovanovitch and Mr. Biden.
Mr. Lutsenko added: “And here you can’t even get rid of one fool,” an apparent reference to Ms. Yovanovitch. He also inserted a frowning emoji.
“She’s not a simple fool trust me,” Mr. Parnas responded. “But she’s not getting away.” The president, with Mr. Giuliani’s encouragement, recalled Ms. Yovanovitch from her post in late April.
The Parnas documents also include a May 2019 letter from Mr. Giuliani requesting a meeting with Mr. Zelensky in which he said Mr. Trump had “knowledge and consent” of his actions. It is the first document to be made public to say as much.
Mr. Parnas, who is under federal indictment, has only recently been cleared to hand over the material to Congress, and an official involved in the inquiry indicated more was likely to be made public soon.
Senior Democrats who led the House impeachment inquiry said the new records underscored the need for senators to demand additional evidence at trial. The new documents, they said in a statement, “demonstrate that there is more evidence relevant to the president’s scheme, but they have been concealed by the president himself.”
“There cannot be a full and fair trial in the Senate without the documents that President Trump is refusing to provide to Congress,” they said.
Ms. Pelosi said she would announce the names of her impeachment managers at 10 a.m. Wednesday, and a vote to formally name them and send the articles was scheduled for early afternoon. “The American people deserve the truth, and the Constitution demands a trial,” she said.
In the Senate, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, indicated that senators would be ready to receive the charges on Wednesday and take sworn oaths to render “impartial justice” in the trial shortly thereafter, if not the following day.
Published Jan. 14, 2020
Updated Jan. 15, 2020, 7:22 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON — New details emerged on Tuesday of President Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine, intensifying demands on Senate Republicans on the eve of a historic impeachment trial to include witness testimony and additional documents in the proceeding.
The dozens of pages of notes, text messages and other records lay out work conducted by Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, and his associate Lev Parnas on behalf of the president. They include handwritten notes scrawled on a sheet of hotel paper at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Vienna that mention getting President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son.
House Democrats released the records even as Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a Wednesday vote to name House prosecutors and send the articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump to the Senate to begin the trial. The material undergirds the accusations against Mr. Trump, and highlights how much is still to be learned about the scope of a scheme that the impeachment charges call a blatant effort to solicit foreign help in the 2020 election.
The documents, provided by Mr. Parnas, contain a series of exchanges between him and a Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, who was helping Mr. Giuliani unearth damaging information about the Bidens.
In one of the exchanges, from March 2019, Mr. Lutsenko messaged Mr. Parnas on the WhatsApp messaging service to complain that the Trump administration had not yet ousted the United States ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch. Mr. Lutsenko, who had clashed with Ms. Yovanovitch and wanted her gone, appeared to link her removal to his assistance in attacking the Bidens.
“It’s just that if you don’t make a decision about Madam — you are bringing into question all my allegations. Including about B,” he wrote to Mr. Parnas, in apparent references to Ms. Yovanovitch and Mr. Biden.
Mr. Lutsenko added: “And here you can’t even get rid of one fool,” an apparent reference to Ms. Yovanovitch. He also inserted a frowning emoji.
“She’s not a simple fool trust me,” Mr. Parnas responded. “But she’s not getting away.” The president, with Mr. Giuliani’s encouragement, recalled Ms. Yovanovitch from her post in late April.
The Parnas documents also include a May 2019 letter from Mr. Giuliani requesting a meeting with Mr. Zelensky in which he said Mr. Trump had “knowledge and consent” of his actions. It is the first document to be made public to say as much.
Mr. Parnas, who is under federal indictment, has only recently been cleared to hand over the material to Congress, and an official involved in the inquiry indicated more was likely to be made public soon.
Senior Democrats who led the House impeachment inquiry said the new records underscored the need for senators to demand additional evidence at trial. The new documents, they said in a statement, “demonstrate that there is more evidence relevant to the president’s scheme, but they have been concealed by the president himself.”
“There cannot be a full and fair trial in the Senate without the documents that President Trump is refusing to provide to Congress,” they said.
Ms. Pelosi said she would announce the names of her impeachment managers at 10 a.m. Wednesday, and a vote to formally name them and send the articles was scheduled for early afternoon. “The American people deserve the truth, and the Constitution demands a trial,” she said.
In the Senate, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, indicated that senators would be ready to receive the charges on Wednesday and take sworn oaths to render “impartial justice” in the trial shortly thereafter, if not the following day.
(continued in my first comment below)
President Trump Addresses The Troops After Making A Surprise Thanksgiving Visit In Afghanistan:
“There Is Nowhere That I’d Rather Celebrate”
The Commander in Chief made an unannounced surprise visit to Afghanistan on Thanksgiving Day to meet with U.S. troops to show America’s appreciation and gratitude. He arrived shortly after 8:30 p.m. local time and spent more than two-and-a-half hours on the ground. Reporters were under strict instructions to keep the trip a secret to ensure his safety.
The President flew 13 hours from Florida to Bahram Airfield in Afghanistan. This is the Commander in Chief’s second visit to a combat zone. He previously visited troops in Iraq the day after Christmas in 2018.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather celebrate this Thanksgiving than with the toughest, strongest, best and bravest warriors on the face of the earth. You are indeed that,” the Commander in Cheif expressed to the troops in Afghanistan.”
The President noted when he took office three years ago, the military was depleted but has since rebuilt and updated much-needed equipment, including planes, ships, helicopters, submarines and more. “Nobody beats our great Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Gaurd, Maries, and we think soon we’re gonna be adding a thing called space. You know about that right? Space,” he expressed to a cheering crowd of soldiers.
In his address to the troops, the President also announced renewed peace talks between the United States and the Taliban, revealing that the Taliban wants to make a deal. “We’ll see if they want to make a deal, “he said. “It’s got to be a real deal, but we’ll see. But they want to make a deal. And they only want to make a deal because you are doing a great job. That is the only reason they want to make a deal. So I want to thank you and I want to thank the Afghan soldiers for– I’ve spoken to a lot of you today and you say they are really fighting hard. I was impressed with that actually. So I want to thank you.”
The President also humbly served Thanksgiving dinner to the troops during his surprise visit to Afghanistan.
More videos in link.
The Commander in Chief made an unannounced surprise visit to Afghanistan on Thanksgiving Day to meet with U.S. troops to show America’s appreciation and gratitude. He arrived shortly after 8:30 p.m. local time and spent more than two-and-a-half hours on the ground. Reporters were under strict instructions to keep the trip a secret to ensure his safety.
The President flew 13 hours from Florida to Bahram Airfield in Afghanistan. This is the Commander in Chief’s second visit to a combat zone. He previously visited troops in Iraq the day after Christmas in 2018.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather celebrate this Thanksgiving than with the toughest, strongest, best and bravest warriors on the face of the earth. You are indeed that,” the Commander in Cheif expressed to the troops in Afghanistan.”
The President noted when he took office three years ago, the military was depleted but has since rebuilt and updated much-needed equipment, including planes, ships, helicopters, submarines and more. “Nobody beats our great Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Gaurd, Maries, and we think soon we’re gonna be adding a thing called space. You know about that right? Space,” he expressed to a cheering crowd of soldiers.
In his address to the troops, the President also announced renewed peace talks between the United States and the Taliban, revealing that the Taliban wants to make a deal. “We’ll see if they want to make a deal, “he said. “It’s got to be a real deal, but we’ll see. But they want to make a deal. And they only want to make a deal because you are doing a great job. That is the only reason they want to make a deal. So I want to thank you and I want to thank the Afghan soldiers for– I’ve spoken to a lot of you today and you say they are really fighting hard. I was impressed with that actually. So I want to thank you.”
The President also humbly served Thanksgiving dinner to the troops during his surprise visit to Afghanistan.
More videos in link.
Well, well, well. Another of Trump's attorneys DOES need his own lawyer.
Perhaps the fate of Giuliani will be similar to Michael Cohen's.
While 2 of his partners were recently arrested, so far Giuliani has not.
But, perhaps that will change soon. As part of the fallout from the riveting recent Taylor testimony
before Congress, the conversations between Giuliani and Trump are about to be reviewed.
Although Giuliani recently fired an attorney, since claiming he didn't need one, now he is rushing to find an attorney. As Colbert pointed out last night, "if Giuliani is looking for a good lawyer, he should not look in his mirror".
From Vanity Fair yesterday;
While 2 of his partners were recently arrested, so far Giuliani has not.
But, perhaps that will change soon. As part of the fallout from the riveting recent Taylor testimony
before Congress, the conversations between Giuliani and Trump are about to be reviewed.
Although Giuliani recently fired an attorney, since claiming he didn't need one, now he is rushing to find an attorney. As Colbert pointed out last night, "if Giuliani is looking for a good lawyer, he should not look in his mirror".
From Vanity Fair yesterday;
In response to:
Rudy Giuliani Is Looking for His Own Lawyer
After ditching his previous attorney, saying it was “silly to have a lawyer when I don’t need one,” Rudy is reversing course.
By Eric Lutz
October 24, 2019
Donald Trump’s lawyer needs a lawyer. Just over a week after ditching his previous attorney, suggesting it was unnecessary for him to have legal representation, Rudy Giuliani is back on the hunt for a defense team, CNN reports. The move seems to reflect the precarious legal situation for the president’s personal attorney, who is the subject of a criminal probe but continues to insist that his shady work in Ukraine was on the level and that he and his client are being unfairly targeted.
“Let me make it clear that everything I did was to discover evidence to defend my client against false charges,” Giuliani wrote in a characteristically bizarre, self-pitying tweet Wednesday evening. “Dems would be horrified by the attacks on me, if my client was a terrorist. But they don’t believe has rights.”
Giuliani has made a habit of thumbing his nose at investigators. Claiming incorrectly last week that the Trump impeachment inquiry is “not authorized,” the former New York mayor vowed not to cooperate with the “abomination” and parted ways with his attorney. It would be “silly to have a lawyer when I don’t need one,” he told the New York Daily News last week. But with the pressure mounting in the impeachment inquiry after bombshell testimony by diplomat Bill Taylor detailed Trump’s efforts to arrange a quid pro quo with Kiev, and the criminal investigation into Giuliani now reportedly including a counterintelligence probe, it appears that having a lawyer no longer seems so “silly.”
Giuliani is smack in the center of the Ukraine scandal that has engulfed Trump’s presidency. Having helped spark the president’s conspiratorial thinking about the country, he publicly solicited a Ukrainian investigation into Joe Biden this spring and, it seems, ran something of a shadow State department for Trump. The president diverted work on issues related to Ukraine to Giuliani from traditional diplomatic channels, European Union ambassador Gordon Sondland testified last week. Trump’s lawyer—working with Sondland, Rick Perry, and envoy Kurt Volker—operated on an “irregular” foreign policy track that ran “contrary to the goals of longstanding U.S. policy” and that undercut America’s relationship with Ukraine, said Taylor, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine who objected to the approach in text messages.
Such revelations have been bad for both Trump and Giuliani, and they could get worse. In spite of desperate stunts from the president’s defenders, Democrats are continuing to investigate the apparent shakedown, reportedly accelerating the pace of their inquiry after testimony from Taylor. Meanwhile, a judge Wednesday ordered the release of communications between Trump, Giuliani, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo related to Ukraine. It’s perhaps no coincidence that reports of Giuliani looking to lawyer up emerged the same day Judge Christopher Cooper’s ruling came down. “The judge zeroed in on communications with Rudy Giuliani to be most subject to public disclosure,” American Oversight Executive Director Austin Evers told reporters Wednesday.
Rudy Giuliani Is Looking for His Own Lawyer
After ditching his previous attorney, saying it was “silly to have a lawyer when I don’t need one,” Rudy is reversing course.
By Eric Lutz
October 24, 2019
Donald Trump’s lawyer needs a lawyer. Just over a week after ditching his previous attorney, suggesting it was unnecessary for him to have legal representation, Rudy Giuliani is back on the hunt for a defense team, CNN reports. The move seems to reflect the precarious legal situation for the president’s personal attorney, who is the subject of a criminal probe but continues to insist that his shady work in Ukraine was on the level and that he and his client are being unfairly targeted.
“Let me make it clear that everything I did was to discover evidence to defend my client against false charges,” Giuliani wrote in a characteristically bizarre, self-pitying tweet Wednesday evening. “Dems would be horrified by the attacks on me, if my client was a terrorist. But they don’t believe has rights.”
Giuliani has made a habit of thumbing his nose at investigators. Claiming incorrectly last week that the Trump impeachment inquiry is “not authorized,” the former New York mayor vowed not to cooperate with the “abomination” and parted ways with his attorney. It would be “silly to have a lawyer when I don’t need one,” he told the New York Daily News last week. But with the pressure mounting in the impeachment inquiry after bombshell testimony by diplomat Bill Taylor detailed Trump’s efforts to arrange a quid pro quo with Kiev, and the criminal investigation into Giuliani now reportedly including a counterintelligence probe, it appears that having a lawyer no longer seems so “silly.”
Giuliani is smack in the center of the Ukraine scandal that has engulfed Trump’s presidency. Having helped spark the president’s conspiratorial thinking about the country, he publicly solicited a Ukrainian investigation into Joe Biden this spring and, it seems, ran something of a shadow State department for Trump. The president diverted work on issues related to Ukraine to Giuliani from traditional diplomatic channels, European Union ambassador Gordon Sondland testified last week. Trump’s lawyer—working with Sondland, Rick Perry, and envoy Kurt Volker—operated on an “irregular” foreign policy track that ran “contrary to the goals of longstanding U.S. policy” and that undercut America’s relationship with Ukraine, said Taylor, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine who objected to the approach in text messages.
Such revelations have been bad for both Trump and Giuliani, and they could get worse. In spite of desperate stunts from the president’s defenders, Democrats are continuing to investigate the apparent shakedown, reportedly accelerating the pace of their inquiry after testimony from Taylor. Meanwhile, a judge Wednesday ordered the release of communications between Trump, Giuliani, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo related to Ukraine. It’s perhaps no coincidence that reports of Giuliani looking to lawyer up emerged the same day Judge Christopher Cooper’s ruling came down. “The judge zeroed in on communications with Rudy Giuliani to be most subject to public disclosure,” American Oversight Executive Director Austin Evers told reporters Wednesday.
The part they don't want you to know
In response to:
Donald Trump reached the highest job approval rating of his career in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll and runs competitively for re-election against four of five possible Democratic contenders. Yet he remains broadly unpopular across personal and professional measures, marking his vulnerabilities in the 2020 election.
Forty-four percent of Americans approve of Trump’s overall job performance, up a slight 5 percentage points from April and 2 points better than his peak early in his presidency. Still, 53% disapprove, keeping him at majority disapproval continuously for his first two and a half years in office, a record for any president in modern polling.
Donald Trump reached the highest job approval rating of his career in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll and runs competitively for re-election against four of five possible Democratic contenders. Yet he remains broadly unpopular across personal and professional measures, marking his vulnerabilities in the 2020 election.
Forty-four percent of Americans approve of Trump’s overall job performance, up a slight 5 percentage points from April and 2 points better than his peak early in his presidency. Still, 53% disapprove, keeping him at majority disapproval continuously for his first two and a half years in office, a record for any president in modern polling.
If over 50% of my students disapproved of my teaching, I certainly wouldn't be bragging about that.
Quote of the Day !
In response to:
"Mr. Barr, the American people know you are no different from Rudy Giuliani, or Kellyanne Conway, or any of the other people who sacrifice their once decent reputation for the grifter and liar who sits in the oval office. You once turned down a job offer from Donald Trump to represent him as his private attorney. At your confirmation hearing, you told Sen. Feinstein that, quote, "The job of Attorney General is not the same as representing the president."
So you know the difference but you've chosen to be the president's lawyer and side with him over the interest of the American people. To start with, you should never have been involved in supervising the Robert Mueller investigation. You wrote a 19-page unsolicited memo, which you admit was not based on any fact, attacking the premise of half of the investigation. And you also should have insisted that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recuse himself. He was not just a witness to some of the president's obstructive behavior, we now know he was in frequent personal contact of the president, a subject of the investigation. You should have left it to career officials.
Then, once the report was delivered by the special counsel, you delayed its release for more than two weeks and let the president's personal lawyers look at it before you even deigned to let the public or the Congress see it. During the time you substituted your own political judgment for the special counsel's legal conclusions in a four-page letter to Congress and now we know, thanks to a free press, that Mr. Mueller wrote you a letter objecting to your so-called summary.
When you called Mueller to discuss his letter, the reports are that he thought your summary was giving the press, Congress, and the public a misleading impression of his work. He asked you to release the report summaries to correct the misimpression you created but you refused. When you finally did decide to release the report over a congressional recess and on the eve of two major religious holidays, you called a press conference, to once again try to clear Donald Trump before anyone had a chance to read the special counsel's report and come to their own conclusions.
But when we read the report, we knew Robert Mueller's concerns were valid. And that your version of events was false. You used every advantage of your office to create the impression that the president was cleared of misconduct. You selectively quoted fragments from the special counsel's report, taking some of the most important statements out of context and ignoring the rest. You put the power and authority of the office of the attorney general and the Department of Justice, behind a public relations effort to help Donald Trump protect himself.
Finally, you lied to Congress. You told representative Charlie Crist that you didn't know what objectives Mueller's team might to the March 24 so-called summary. You told Senator Chris van Hollen that you didn't know if Bob Mueller supported your conclusions, but you knew you lied. And now, we know.
A lot of respected nonpartisan legal experts and elected officials were surprised by your efforts to protect the president. But I wasn't surprised. You did exactly what I thought you'd do, that's why I voted against your confirmation. I expected you would try to protect the president. And indeed, you did.
"Mr. Barr, the American people know you are no different from Rudy Giuliani, or Kellyanne Conway, or any of the other people who sacrifice their once decent reputation for the grifter and liar who sits in the oval office. You once turned down a job offer from Donald Trump to represent him as his private attorney. At your confirmation hearing, you told Sen. Feinstein that, quote, "The job of Attorney General is not the same as representing the president."
So you know the difference but you've chosen to be the president's lawyer and side with him over the interest of the American people. To start with, you should never have been involved in supervising the Robert Mueller investigation. You wrote a 19-page unsolicited memo, which you admit was not based on any fact, attacking the premise of half of the investigation. And you also should have insisted that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recuse himself. He was not just a witness to some of the president's obstructive behavior, we now know he was in frequent personal contact of the president, a subject of the investigation. You should have left it to career officials.
Then, once the report was delivered by the special counsel, you delayed its release for more than two weeks and let the president's personal lawyers look at it before you even deigned to let the public or the Congress see it. During the time you substituted your own political judgment for the special counsel's legal conclusions in a four-page letter to Congress and now we know, thanks to a free press, that Mr. Mueller wrote you a letter objecting to your so-called summary.
When you called Mueller to discuss his letter, the reports are that he thought your summary was giving the press, Congress, and the public a misleading impression of his work. He asked you to release the report summaries to correct the misimpression you created but you refused. When you finally did decide to release the report over a congressional recess and on the eve of two major religious holidays, you called a press conference, to once again try to clear Donald Trump before anyone had a chance to read the special counsel's report and come to their own conclusions.
But when we read the report, we knew Robert Mueller's concerns were valid. And that your version of events was false. You used every advantage of your office to create the impression that the president was cleared of misconduct. You selectively quoted fragments from the special counsel's report, taking some of the most important statements out of context and ignoring the rest. You put the power and authority of the office of the attorney general and the Department of Justice, behind a public relations effort to help Donald Trump protect himself.
Finally, you lied to Congress. You told representative Charlie Crist that you didn't know what objectives Mueller's team might to the March 24 so-called summary. You told Senator Chris van Hollen that you didn't know if Bob Mueller supported your conclusions, but you knew you lied. And now, we know.
A lot of respected nonpartisan legal experts and elected officials were surprised by your efforts to protect the president. But I wasn't surprised. You did exactly what I thought you'd do, that's why I voted against your confirmation. I expected you would try to protect the president. And indeed, you did.
~ Senator Mazie Hirono from Hawaii to Attorney General William Barr, during Senate Hearing today.
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