Robert's refuses to read Paul's question

[Pauls' Revere]

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/01/30/Impeachment-Justice-Roberts-refuses-to-read-Sen-Pauls-question/6641580382888/

Jan. 30 (UPI) -- Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday refused to read aloud a question from Sen. Rand Paul that named the alleged whistle-blower whose complaint launched the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
Robert, who's presiding over the impeachment trial in the Senate, is responsible for reading senators' individual questions to Trump's legal team and Democratic House managers. The Senate began the question phase of the trial Wednesday and was expected to finish Thursday.

"The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted," Roberts said when he looked at Rand's handwritten question.
Paul has repeatedly called for the identity of the whistle-blower to be made public. The whistle-blower, a member of the U.S. intelligence community, filed a complaint last year with the office of the director of national intelligence about the July phone conversation in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden.

"My question was not about a 'whistle-blower' as I have no independent information on his identity. My question is about the actions of known Obama partisans within the [National Security Council] and house staff and how they are reported to have conspired before impeachment proceedings had even begun," he wrote.

[Swordsmyth]

VIDEO: Rand Paul holds press conference on "the question" (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?543409-VIDEO-Rand-Paul-holds-press-conference-on-quot-the-question-quot)
Rand Paul names whistleblower on twitter! (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?543405-Rand-Paul-names-whistleblower-on-twitter!)

[TheTexan]

I guess we may never know the identity of this whistleblower. Forever it shall remain a complete mystery I suppose.

[Pauls' Revere]

VIDEO: Rand Paul holds press conference on "the question" (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?543409-VIDEO-Rand-Paul-holds-press-conference-on-quot-the-question-quot)
Rand Paul names whistleblower on twitter! (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?543405-Rand-Paul-names-whistleblower-on-twitter!)

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Swordsmyth again.




proceedings.

Senator Rand Paul
✔
@RandPaul

My exact question was:

Are you aware that House intelligence committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at the National Security Council together 1/2

[Brian4Liberty]

I guess we may never know the identity of this whistleblower. Forever it shall remain a complete mystery I suppose.

Tis a shame. We’ll never be able to properly arrest and torture the whistleblower if we don’t know who they are.

[jkr]

WHO
RUNS
BART
ERTO
WN?

[Mach]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Swordsmyth again.




proceedings.

Senator Rand Paul
✔
@RandPaul

My exact question was:

Are you aware that House intelligence committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at the National Security Council together 1/2


https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/01/22/whistleblower_was_overheard_in_17_discussing_with_ ally_how_to_remove_trump_121701.html


Sources told RealClearInvestigations the staffer with whom Ciaramella was speaking was Sean Misko. Both were Obama administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on foreign policy and national security issues. And both expressed anger over Trump’s new “America First” foreign policy, a sea change from President Obama’s approach to international affairs.

“Just days after he was sworn in they were already talking about trying to get rid of him,” said a White House colleague who overheard their conversation.

“They weren’t just bent on subverting his agenda,” the former official added. “They were plotting to actually have him removed from office.”

Misko left the White House last summer to join House impeachment manager Adam Schiff’s committee, where sources say he offered “guidance” to the whistleblower, who has been officially identified only as an intelligence officer in a complaint against Trump filed under whistleblower laws. Misko then helped run the impeachment inquiry based on that complaint as a top investigator for congressional Democrats.

[Mach]

Time for Senators to demand a Schiff Investigation.

[KEEF]

I have a question, if the Senate ends up voting to have witnesses for this trial, then why don’t they supoena these people in Paul’s question?

[nobody's_hero]

I woke up this morning to realize I'm actually genuinely concerned for Rand's safety at this point. Even when he was attacked by a rabid liberal neighbor I figured he'd still be okay. But he's waaaaay off in deep state territory now.

[ThePaleoLibertarian]

This is a fucking farce.

[Anti Globalist]

I woke up this morning to realize I'm actually genuinely concerned for Rand's safety at this point. Even when he was attacked by a rabid liberal neighbor I figured he'd still be okay. But he's waaaaay off in deep state territory now.
He better double up on his security now. I don't want to wake up one day knowing Rands been killed.

[nobody's_hero]

He better double up on his security now. I don't want to wake up one day knowing Rands been killed.

As long as he doesn't have any money in his wallet he should be fine. Muggers in D.C. only rob and kill people with money in their wallet, which they will then leave behind. RIP Seth Rich.

[Aratus]

booooo hiss

rand had a point.

biden done got debriefings?

the guy/gal did 'em?

okay .... gang

[kpitcher]

Previous the entire argument to vote against the impeachment was trump did no wrong. Now the argument is trump most likely did do what the whistleblower and others said, but it's not an impeachable offense so we don't even need to bother with witnesses who can further corraborate. What's up with naming a whistleblower?

[Aratus]

Previous the entire argument to vote against the impeachment was trump did no wrong. Now the argument is trump most likely did do what the whistleblower and others said, but it's not an impeachable offense so we don't even need to bother with witnesses who can further corraborate. What's up with naming a whistleblower?

if they are named in public, and if they had been CIA or NSA, and given to field work, they have 10 to 15 blewn spytrade covers.
think of the hepcat hipster slick 1960s tv series I SPY or even the more recent BURN NOTICE. the career is almost totally over...

[Grandmastersexsay]

Previous the entire argument to vote against the impeachment was trump did no wrong. Now the argument is trump most likely did do what the whistleblower and others said, but it's not an impeachable offense so we don't even need to bother with witnesses who can further corraborate. What's up with naming a whistleblower?

No wrong = Not an impeachable offense

[Valli6]

Previous the entire argument to vote against the impeachment was trump did no wrong. Now the argument is trump most likely did do what the whistleblower and others said, but it's not an impeachable offense so we don't even need to bother with witnesses who can further corraborate. What's up with naming a whistleblower?

trump did no wrong = it's not an impeachable offense

... and nobody named “the whistleblower”.


“My exact question was: Are you aware that House intelligence committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at the National Security Council together and are you aware and how do you respond to reports that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked together to plot impeaching the President before there were formal house impeachment proceedings.”

“My question today is about whether or not individuals who were holdovers from the Obama National Security Council and Democrat partisans conspired with Schiff staffers to plot impeaching the President before there were formal House impeachment proceedings. My question is not about a ‘whistleblower’ as I have no independent information on his identity.”

[Swordsmyth]

Previous the entire argument to vote against the impeachment was trump did no wrong. Now the argument is trump most likely did do what the whistleblower and others said, but it's not an impeachable offense so we don't even need to bother with witnesses who can further corraborate. What's up with naming a whistleblower?
The argument is both.
Trump did not wrong and even if he did it wasn't impeachable.

[Swordsmyth]

trump did no wrong = it's not an impeachable offense

... and nobody named “the whistleblower”.
Whistleblowers don't have a right not to be named, that's a new idiotic idea the left is trying to impose.

[Swordsmyth]

An interesting twitter thread that claims the real reason Ciaramella’s name is not to be spoken is because Brennan had him hire a bunch of Snipers in Ukraine to commit a massacre for the CIA, to trigger an uprising, and (((They))) are afraid that might come out. (https://twitter.com/GregRubini/status/1223001808827797516) Says John Roberts was compromised by the CIA, which is why he would not say Ciaramella’s name in Rand Paul’s question, even though the question wasn’t about the whistleblower, and simply asked about a news item that had appeared about Ciaramella having been heard plotting against Trump while he worked at the NSC. It might be what this tweet was talking about:

From a documentary by Oliver Stone, it would seem Joe Biden's corruption goes far deeper than a payoff for his kid. It seems there was the forming of a coup d'état against the Ukrainian government being ran out of the U.S Embassy, directed by Joe Biden & aided by John McCain. pic.twitter.com/X3eqeZV3An (https://t.co/X3eqeZV3An)
— Tetraites, The Regulator of Babylon. (@1776AmericaUSA) January 30, 2020 (https://twitter.com/1776AmericaUSA/status/1222728094924050432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

[Swordsmyth]

https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1222976873958924294

1222976873958924294

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1222961981692338176

1222961981692338176

Don Jr./Rand 2024?

[shakey1]

Rand making a point perhaps, but could possibly wind up in deep state dodo.

[Pauls' Revere]

Time for Senators to demand a Schiff Investigation.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Mach again.

[Swordsmyth]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Mach again.

Covered.

[Pauls' Revere]

Time for Senators to demand a Schiff Investigation.
realDonaldTrump
The Senate needs to investigate Schiff & Pelosi. We know who the whistleblower is.

[Brian4Liberty]

And both expressed anger over Trump’s new “America First” foreign policy, a sea change from President Obama’s approach to international affairs.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/01/22/whistleblower_was_overheard_in_17_discussing_with_ ally_how_to_remove_trump_121701.html

As I’ve said many times, the root of this entire never-Trump outrage is globalism vs. nationalism. “America first” is intolerable to globalists of all kinds.

[Swordsmyth]

As I’ve said many times, the root of this entire never-Trump outrage is globalism vs. nationalism. “America first” is intolerable to globalists of all kinds.
Exactly.

And it's why globalibertarians hate him too.

And it's why he is the least of all possible goods rather than the lesser of two evils.

[Swordsmyth]

Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University who testified as an expert in the House impeachment hearings, said Justice Roberts had no legal reason to quash Sen. Paul's question since it did not violate federal whistleblower laws:https://t.co/2ZKv6GezeD
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) January 31, 2020 (https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1223318784053739520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

[Mach]

Happy Groundhog Day! :D


https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/612ad02c3af1a24df4aa717ce2e499251fe6cb3fe1b1ba37f3 af084ae5089cc0.jpg

[timosman]

https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1225175536584052736

1225175536584052736

[Brian4Liberty]

...

Impeachment ‘Whistleblower’ Was in the Loop of Biden-Ukraine Affairs That Trump Wanted Probed (https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/04/17/impeachment_whistleblower_was_in_the_loop_of_biden-ukraine_affairs_that_trump_wanted_probed_1024937.h tml)
By Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations
April 17, 2024


The ‘whistleblower’ who sparked Donald Trump’s first impeachment was deeply involved in the political maneuverings behind Biden-family business schemes in Ukraine that Trump wanted probed, newly obtained emails from former Vice President Joe Biden’s office reveal.

In 2019, then-National Intelligence Council analyst Eric Ciaramella touched off a political firestorm when he anonymously accused Trump of linking military aid for Ukraine to a demand for an investigation into alleged Biden corruption in that country.

But four years earlier, while working as a national security analyst attached to then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office, Ciaramella was a close adviser when Biden threatened to cut off U.S. aid to Ukraine unless it fired its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Ukraine-based Burisma Holdings. At the time, the corruption-riddled energy giant was paying Biden’s son Hunter millions of dollars.

Those payments – along with other evidence tying Joe Biden to his family’s business dealings – received little attention in 2019 as Ciaramella accused Trump of a corrupt quid pro quo. Neither did subsequent evidence indicating that Hunter Biden’s associates had identified Shokin as a “key target.” These matters are now part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

“It now seems there was material evidence that would have been used at the impeachment trial [to exonerate Trump],” said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who has testified as an expert witness in the ongoing Biden impeachment inquiry. “Trump was alleging there was a conflict of interest with the Bidens, and the evidence could have challenged Biden’s account and established his son’s interest in the Shokin firing.”

Ciaramella’s role – including high-level discussions with top Biden aides and Ukrainian prosecutors – is only now coming to light thanks to the recent release of White House emails and photos from the National Archives.

The emails show Ciaramella expressed shock – “Yikes” is what he wrote – at Biden’s move to withhold the $1 billion in aid from Kyiv, which represented a sudden shift in U.S. policy. They also show he was drawn into White House communications over how to control adverse publicity from Hunter taking a lucrative seat on Burisma’s board.

Yet there is no evidence Ciaramella raised alarms about the questionable Biden business activities he witnessed firsthand, which is in sharp contrast to 2019. In that instance, he was galvanized into action after being told by White House colleague Alexander Vindman of an “improper” phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During the call, Trump solicited Zelensky’s help in investigating Burisma and Hunter Biden’s role in the company.

Some former congressional investigators say Ciaramella effectively helped cover up a scandal far worse than what Trump was impeached over. What’s more, he failed to disclose that he had a potential conflict of interest stemming from his connection to the matter Trump asked Zelensky to probe when he lodged his complaint against Trump. RealClearInvestigations was the first to identify the then-33-year-old Ciaramella as the anonymous impeachment “whistleblower,” something major media continue to keep under tight wraps.

Ciaramella worked under CIA Director John Brennan when President Obama made Biden his point man on Ukraine in 2014, the same year Burisma hired Hunter. The next year, the CIA detailed Ciaramella, a longtime advocate for aid to Ukraine, to the White House, where he worked closely with Biden and his staff as a top adviser on key Ukrainian policies. After Biden left office, he stayed on at the GOP White House until mid-2017 even though he’s a Democrat, working as a Ukrainian and Russian analyst on Trump’s National Security Council. Co-workers there accused him of trying to sabotage Trump, including allegedly leaking sensitive information to the press.
...
Former Obama-Biden administration officials have confirmed in recent closed-door congressional testimony that Ciaramella was a key part of Biden’s process for making policy in Ukraine. In 2016, for instance, a White House photo shows him taking notes at a White House meeting Biden held with then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to discuss Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms and other issues.

Ciaramella also worked directly with top Obama and Biden administration diplomats on Ukraine, including senior State Department official Victoria Nuland. “Eric was regularly the clearing authority to get me into the White House for interagency meetings on Ukraine,” Nuland revealed in a 2020 Senate deposition. Asked if she ever discussed Ukraine policy and Shokin with Ciaramella, Nuland testified: “Of course, I did. He was part of the interagency process. He was also on my negotiating team for the six, seven rounds of negotiations I did with the Russians on [the disputed Ukraine region] Donbas.”

Ciaramella was directly involved in talks concerning the massive U.S. aid package to Ukraine that Biden conditioned on the removal of Shokin, who at the time had seized the assets of the corrupt Burisma oligarch employing Hunter Biden. He also arranged and participated in White House talks with Ukrainian prosecutors visiting from Shokin’s office.

White House visitor logs confirm Ciaramella escorted Shokin’s deputy prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze, into the White House for a January 2016 meeting. A White House agenda for the meeting lists Ciaramella as “point of contact” for the Ukrainian delegation. He also checked in Andriy Telizhenko, the Ukrainian Embassy official who says they discussed Burisma and Hunter Biden during the meeting and struggled to understand why his U.S. counterparts were suddenly hostile to Shokin after praising him in earlier talks.

Emails from the time show Ciaramella appeared surprised to hear about the linkage between the $1 billion loan to Ukraine and the dismissal of Shokin. Though Biden maintains he insisted Kyiv oust Shokin because he was too soft on weeding out fraud in entities that included Burisma, Ciaramella suggested he didn’t share the view that Shokin was corrupt. “We were super impressed with the group,” Ciaramella added, “and we had a two-hour discussion of their priorities and the obstacles they face.”
...
If what Ciaramella expressed in his email (which he knew would be part of archived White House records) was a genuine reaction, it appears that Vice President Biden went against the recommendation of one of his top NSC advisers on Ukraine. If Ciaramella were genuinely alarmed, he might have blown the whistle on his boss like he did on Trump, but he stayed mum. If, on the other hand, Ciaramella were a party to the quid-pro-quo discussions, as Pyatt suggests, then he had “a direct conflict,” noted Derek Harvey, the former congressional investigator involved in the first impeachment. Either way, Ciaramella clearly found himself in the middle of a major controversy.

Just weeks prior, White House photos indicate that Ciaramella traveled with Biden on the same December 2015 Air Force Two flight the vice president took to Kyiv to threaten Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to ax Shokin. Republicans have accused Biden of pushing Shokin’s ouster to block scrutiny of his son’s actions.
...
Much more: https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/04/17/impeachment_whistleblower_was_in_the_loop_of_biden-ukraine_affairs_that_trump_wanted_probed_1024937.h tml