Think of it like if you average how “gray” something is by picking black balls out of barrel A and white balls from barrel B. If you decide to take more from A then your average will be more black, if you take more from B then it will be more white.
Fundamentally, your graph isn’t actually a graph about the color of the balls - those are set and unchanging - it’s just a graph of which barrel you’re pulling from more often.
A good point I read on Twitter. Schiff basically let Nunes and Jordan, et al. flap their gums for the last week and a half, rarely addressing their ridiculous conspiracy theories and outright lies, always just … “thank the gentleman,” … and move on. Letting them sit in their own bathwater. Then at the end of the hearing, when he’s got all time he wants to take and the Republicans will not be able to rebut a damn thing, he rolls it all up into one giant shit-ball to set on fire to bring the proceedings home.
Masterful strategy. Too subtle for a Republican to think of.
I think you’re right. In the opening statements this morning by Schiff and Nunes, Schiff basically reiterated all the under-oath testimony pointing to the corrupt activities of Trump and his minions. Nunes’ statements had no connection to reality.
What I learned from Nunes’ closing statement today outlining the chronology of the Democrats’ calls for impeachment: Apparently, it is the Democrats fault that the very next day after Mueller had testified before Congress, Trump called Zelensky and put into motion the chain of events that would lead to these impeachment hearings.
I mean WTF?!?! Does anybody not try to explain to him the lack of logic in this?
Anecdotal evidence supporting the “hearing fatigue” theory: my wife. She and I both despise Trump and will be thrilled the day he leaves the White House, but the other day she said she just wasn’t sure anymore that the charges were serious enough to impeach and remove.
(Neither of us follows the hearings closely. I get most of my info here, and she catches up on NPR driving to and from work.)
Apparently some of the GOP excuses were filtering through to her-- even on NPR: that the process was partisan, that the offense wasn’t big enough to merit impeachment, etc etc. I tried to rebut them all one-by-one over dinner, but eventually she just said it was all too much to process and maybe Congress has better things to do.
Now if an intelligent, informed, fiercely Trump-hating Democrat can feel that way, I can only imagine how less informed, less passionate people might feel. Never mind Republicans.
Well, as I recall, at least a couple of Dopers blamed Mueller for the Zelensky call by saying that the report’s weak sauce gave DJT implicit permission to do whatever the fuck he wanted to,. (I can find the cites if someone wants them.)
Bonus tidbit that Politico noticed is that Pam Bondi worked at Ballard Partners and quit to work on impeachment, for Trump.
For any who don’t remember, Bondi was suspected as having been bought off from charging Trump for Trump U in Florida, during the campaign.
More importantly, for the impeachment question, one might suspect that she left Ballard Partners to deal with impeachment because she might be complicit in the activities of Giuliani, Parnas, and Fruman and needs to ensure that they all retain the “Presidential Pardon” backstop.
But also remember that the polling lags by a few days to a week. So we shouldn’t expect the effect of the Sundland testimony to show up in the polls until sometime next week.
I too wish more focus was put on this side-story. The whole asking another country to investigate a rival’s son who sits on the board of some shady company is much more difficult for the American public to grasp than old-fashioned bribery, “you fire this lady, we pay you money”.
There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of information about what the FBI would want to talk to him about. I’m not sure what more information he would have about any investigation that they would be a part of that he would be able to help them with beyond what has already been covered in the impeachment inquiry. The cynical side of me thinks that maybe they are being pushed from above to claim they need to talk to him so they can pass his identity on up. But that seems a little ham handed even for them.
I think the FBI is clean. They arrested Nader and Parnas in recent times so even the DOJ itself isn’t completely broken.
In general, I would suspect one of the two goals:
Investigating possible criminal bribery and extortion by Sondland, Giuliani, and others (excluding the President, obviously).
Investigating an allegation like that the whistleblower leaked information to the press.
I would lean towards the second since the WB only knows things second hand. There’s no real reason to ask him questions about Giuliani and company except maybe out of completeness.
My guess would be that he’ll answer through writing through his lawyer, end of story.