READ: Impeachment Inquiry Releases Testimony Of Former NSC Official Fiona Hill | Talking Points Memo

The House committees leading the impeachment inquiry on Friday released a transcript of the closed-door testimony of Dr. Fiona Hill, the former senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1261123

So Matt Gaetz refusing to leave the room is the first thing that happens here. What an idiot.

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Memo to Mick Fecking Mulvaney, Mattykins Gaetz, and Lizzy Graham et al.:

You motherfuckers are gonnaā€™ need a much, much bigger boat.

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Itā€™s kinda funny that these idiots donā€™t realize the shitstorm tsunami bearing down on themā€¦

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Seeing Trumps early campaign adds here in Iowa it is obvious the Rā€™s will continue to (at least attempt to) control the tone and substance of the discussion. They will make sure the voting public hears over and over this is a witch hunt, it is lies from ā€œnever Trumpersā€, that trump has created 6million new jobs, that he is a great president, Dems can not accept that he won and now are attempting to overturn the election, etc.

Dems need to get control of messaging! They can not think it is a one time thing. It needs to be hourly by people all up and down the whole party structure.

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I think maybe this dripping out of the testimony as preface to televised hearings is a smart way to keep capturing headlines and almost drown Trump out for a few days at a time. I like it. They are definitely stealing some thunder here.

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If Rethugliklans think they have problems now just wait until the hearings are on TV every day. Theyā€™re going to lose a slew of their chronically disinformed supporters ala the old lady, a regular FAUX Snooze watcher, who was surprised to learn the Mueller report didnā€™t clear Toadglans.

And just to make it more fun, Hannity will soon be wrapped up in this whole thing for his part in the concerted disinformation campaign.

In a perfect world, this will not only destroy the Guardians Of Plutocrats but the Murdoch noise empire as well.

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Tr is the sMarteSt man in the world. TrumP iS an innocEnt victim. It is Mulvany, pomPeo and thAt guy thaT trump doesNt knoW triCked intO colluDing wiTh the DeeP stAte to cLear bideN and mAke trump looK bad. TrumP isnā€™t smArt enouGh to pULL oFF this faKe criMe.

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Hannity has been working against the United States. As more and more people will know and understand.

This ainā€™t disagreements between, say, Ike and Adlai.

This is a party so rapped up in power, the acquisition of it and the retention of it, that absolutely nothing is off the Table.

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The WH whined about executive privilege, but didnā€™t invoke it.

Your counsel has provided a letter sent to your counsel this morning from the White House stating that the information that you may be asked to testify about today could be covered by a privilege. Under the House deposition rules, as the chair, I have the authority to rule on any such objection, but no such objection will be in order or should be necessary.

As you know, only the President may assert executive privilege, and the President usually does so in writing with specificity along with an opinion from the Justice Department. The President has not communicated any such assertion to the information requested.

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What I thought was funny was Schiff telling Second Punchable that he didnā€™t have to have him forcibly ejected because he was going to leave himself. His distruption was going to be counted against the questioning time of the GOP Cocā€“Republicans on the committee. LOL

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You are right, it is almost hilarious. Since the beginning, that has been a consistent factor that keeps showing up. If you define getting away with it as in no one noticed, then they have failed completely. The only thing they have succeeded at so far is avoiding consequence. We all know what they have been doing, even their base knows. But some how, they think they are clever and under the cloak of deep cover.

It is as clueless as some of what I have seen of Juniorā€™s book.

Eventually, this is all going to fall down on their heads. In the sense of not being able to imagine well enough to see where we are today, the take down if it happens, will be without precedent. Glorious and all consuming. They will not be facing just legal consequence, but an existential one as well. I canā€™t get far enough in my head to see what this could look like.

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Hereā€™s an idea: The Dems release one withering transcript after another, from what Iā€™ll call the ā€œsolid state,ā€ patriotic men and women with integrity, intelligence, guts and first-hand knowledge to tell about trumpā€™s high crimes and misdemeanors. That will give the media a lot to munch on.
Then follow up with public hearings that blow the doors off trumpā€™s feeble denials and distractions. More media munching.
Then go on air and online wondering why, if he is perfectly innocent, trump wonā€™t roll out witnesses to refute the damning testimony.

Then Dems should try to figure out some way to ā€œcontrol the messagingā€ on this impeachment thang.

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Not sure what youā€™re talking about. Dems are doing a damn good job of keeping the news cycle focused on the impeachment testimony. They canā€™t stop Trump from making ads. They canā€™t stop him from screaming ā€˜witch hunt.ā€™ They just keep releasing testimony everyday that makes Trump sound more and more ridiculous. Public hearings start next week, and that will bring even more attention to the story and further reveal to the public how full of shit he his.

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Whole lotta rich DC attorneys about to get a whole lot richer.

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I could only one heart this. Limit of the system.

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in one simple sentence, what is the Democratic party message on impeachment?

That would be beautiful. I often say that Rupert Murdoch is the most evil of them all.

I guess this is the reason for Boltonā€™s lawyer saying that Bolton has more to sayā€¦Bolton is a central figure in trying to contain what was going on, and he comes off quite well in the testimony we have heard so far. But, itā€™s not him making the statements, itā€™s others, and heā€™s decided not to testify, and been tagged as part of the obstruction to the investigation instead. He really had a chance to be a hero of all of this, which may complicate his right wing grifting in the future but would verify that heā€™s a patriot first (which I believe he is despite disagreeing with most of his politics). Instead, heā€™ll be remembered for cooperating with Trump and avoiding testifying. The move to try to convince the Democrats to call him is a silly one to make, he should just go in and describe what happened and be done with it.

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Obligatory:

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