SCHUMER: Hunter Biden Deal ‘Off the Table’

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‘If there’s not a fair trial, if they just shut it down, any acquittal will have little value…’

Schumer Warns Intelligence Community to Protect Whistleblower In Case Trump Exposes Him
Chuck Schumer / IMAGE: Maddow Blog via Twitter

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) After more than two hours in which Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., rehashed the testimony of the House Intelligence Committee, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer fawned over the presentation and insisted that no deals with Republican Senate leaders would be considered.

That included his insistence that an agreement to allow former national security adviser John Bolton to testify in return for the testimony of Hunter Biden, whose corrupt actions—along with his father‘s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to drop an investigation—were central to the current impeachment effort.

“That trade is not on the table,” Schumer said.

Despite his unwillingness to seek compromise or negotiation, Schumer seemed to think that Schiff’s eloquence would sway his Republican counterparts.

“It was a tour de force and I think that a good number of my Republican colleagues heard the arguments for the first time powerfully, compellingly completely and succinctly,” Schumer said.

“I don’t see how any Republican could sit on the floor and hear Adam Schiff’s speech and not demand witnesses and documents,” he continued.

Following the first day of arguments, GOP senators unanimously rejected Schumer’s proposed amendments to allow additional evidence or witnesses prior to having the House impeachment managers and the president’s defense first state their cases.

The rules proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., closely mirror those established during the impeachment trial of former President Bill Clinton two decades ago.

Schumer has promised to continue dragging out the trial by forcing votes on his amendments.

He sought pre-emptively to downplay the likely outcome that the Senate will not convict Trump based on the existing evidence submitted by the House.

“If there’s not a fair trial, if they just shut it down, any acquittal will have little value,” Schumer claimed, insinuating that following the prior Clinton standard would not result in a ‘fair’ trial.

Schumer came under fire recently, however, after a letter he wrote during the Clinton trial appeared to take the exact opposite position.

Schumer refused to answer media questions as to whether Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, had alienated moderate GOP senators by insulting them during the late-night session on Tuesday.

“The chief justice chastised both sides without naming anybody for rhetoric that he thought should be toned down,” Schumer said, deflecting the question.

HIRONO: Impeachment Discovery Wasn’t Adequately Done at House Level

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‘We can be the loyal opposition to the end…’

Mazie Hirono / CNN via Mediaite

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) One of the most steadfast and partisan Democrats in the U.S. Senate broke with the party line to call her House counterparts to task for failing to do their homework prior to the ongoing impeachment trial.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, insisted that it was unfair of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to follow the impeachment standards established during Bill Clinton‘s 1999 trial since the two were incomparable.

That’s because the House Democrats failed to adequately prepare their case, she acknowledged in an interview with CNN, as reported by Mediaite.

“[I]f we’re following the Clinton precedent, there would have been all of the discovery done at the House level and that’s not what is happening at all,” she said.

Hirono claimed that it was the fault of the president for challenging House efforts to solicit testimony from top staff members, despite the fact that presidents—including Clinton—waged similar court challenges during the investigative process.

Democrats have openly acknowledged that they declined to pursue similar court challenges and ultimately withdrew subpoenas because they were in a rush to impeach prior to the 2020 election.

McConnell and others have rejected the notion that the Democrats should now get a do-over in their investigative efforts during the trial phase of the partisan impeachment.

Despite the fact that House Democrats severely limited the president’s due-process rights and the input of the opposition party during their investigation, Hirono expressed outrage that Democrats would not receive a carte blanche to do the same in the Senate.

“They want to trickle out the—and limit as much as possible anything that any witness that we want can testify to,” she claimed. “So, that is their whole modus operandi, to limit the information that is produced for our consideration and to the American public.”

But Hirono promised left-wing CNN correspondents Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper that Democrats would punish their fellow senators and viewers in the American public by continuing to introduce defeated amendments that would drag out the trial, with each requiring hours of debate before a roll-call vote.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer proposed more than 10 such amendments at the commencement of the trial on Tuesday, although they were defeated by a party-line vote, 53-47.

“[O]ur option is to continue to offer an amendment to the McConnell process,” Hirono said. “And also, during the trial, the House managers will be able to propose motions. So there will be votes. Anytime either side calls for witnesses, there will be votes. That’s what we’re going to do.”

Hirono continued that Democrats—despite having taken an oath of impartiality last week, would “be the loyal opposition to the end.”

Schiff Mischaracterized, Lied About Impeachment ‘Evidence’ AGAIN

‘Just another example of Schiff misleading the American people…’

NUNES: Schiff Producing Russia Hoax's 'Low-Rent, Ukrainian Sequel' 1
Adam Schiff / IMAGE: CSPAN via Youtube

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff may have mischaracterized new “evidence” provided by Lev Parnas, an indicted former business associate of Rudy Giuliani’s, in order to include Parnas’s testimony in the Senate’s impeachment trial of President Trump, according to a new report.

Schiff has lied throughout the impeachment process, and this is just the latest example.

In a letter obtained by Politico, Schiff wrote that Parnas “continued to try to arrange a meeting with [Ukraine] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky,” citing a text message in which Parnas had told Giuliani that he was “trying to get us mr. Z [sic].”

But in an unredacted version of the documentation obtained by Politico, the cited text message citing “Mr. Z” specifically refers to Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Ukrainian oil company Burisma — not to President Zelensky.

Schiff knew this but deliberately misconstrued Parnas’s text message to bolster his allegation that Trump abused his power by creating a secret diplomatic backchannel.

This is a pattern of behavior for Schiff. Before the White House released the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky, Schiff tried to make up the content and context of the phone call during a House Intelligence Committee hearing. And when later confronted, Schiff claimed that his version of the phone call was never meant to be anything more than a “parody.”

Schiff also concealed his office’s relationship with the anonymous Ukraine whistleblower from his congressional colleagues. Reports revealed that Schiff’s staff had advised the whistleblower before the complaint against Trump had been filed, but when asked why Schiff had not divulged this information, he lied and said he had never had contact with the whistleblower.

House Republicans even entertained the idea of compelling Schiff to testify during the House’s impeachment inquiry to learn more about the anonymous whistleblower and the whistleblower’s allegations.

“If you met with the whistleblower, if your staff met with the whistleblower, who knows what was said? Well, only you, your staff, and the whistleblower. That makes you a fact witness. Nowhere in our judicial system allows a fact witness to be the prosecutor,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had explained.

Schiff’s deception started long before the House’s impeachment inquiry. He also tried to push the debunked Russia collusion hoax, dismissing Republicans’ concerns about Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses repeatedly. However, Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report revealed that Republicans were right to be concerned: There were at least “17 significant errors and omissions” in the FBI’s FISA warrant application to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a letter to Schiff last month that given his track record riddled with “false conclusions” and wrongheaded denials, Schiff is in need of “rehabilitation.”

And Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, one of the House Republicans picked to assist Trump’s impeachment defense team, said Schiff’s latest cover-up is “just another example of Schiff misleading the American people.”

One Democratic official who spoke to Politico, however, claimed that Schiff made a mistake by misidentifying Zelensky, since “z” was a common shorthand for “Zelensky” used by Giuliani and others.

Even if this was just an oversight, a Republican official said that this kind of sloppiness should not be permitted in the impeachment process.

“The most charitable view of the situation is that [Schiff’s] staff committed the equivalent of Congressional malpractice by not looking more than an inch deep to determine the facts before foisting this erroneous information on his colleagues and the American public,” said one senior GOP aide. “But given the selective redactions and contextual clues, it seems as though Chairman Schiff sought to portray an innocuous meeting with Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky as an insidious one with the President of Ukraine simply because both of their surnames start with the letter Z.”

SEN. GRAHAM: Hunter Biden Would Be Wise to Plead 5th Amendment

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‘Yesterday was about 11 hours of them telling us how bad their case was…’

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) In a fiery press conference prior to the third official day of impeachment proceedings in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, dismantled the claims by House Democrats that they were kept from making their full case due to President Donald Trump’s invocation of executive privilege.

Graham also called partisan journalists to the carpet for their double-standard in coverage and questioned their unsubstantiated claims that former Vice President Joe Biden‘s son Hunter did everything on the “up and up.”

Much of Trump’s best defense against the partisan articles of impeachment rest on the fact that he was justified in calling on Ukrainian officials to re-open an investigation into the Bidens which had been closed under duress during the Obama administration.

“Hunter Biden— if he’s got a decent lawyer at all, he will claim the 5th Amendment,” Graham said in response to a media question.

“Because you get $50,000 a month beginning in 2014 to do what?” Graham continued. “And when your company gets investigated by the Ukrainian prosecutor, the same day, you get on the phone to the State Department and your business partner meets with John Kerry?”

Graham was referencing discoveries made by journalists including The Hill‘s John Solomon based on open-records requests from the State Department.

Joe Biden, while acting in an official capacity overseeing the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, subsequently pressured Ukrainian officials to fire the investigating prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin.

Democrats’ impeachment claims of “abuse of power” allege that Trump’s calls for the newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy to reopen the investigation were baseless. However, Graham called that narrative into question.

“This dismissal that Hunter Biden did everything on the up and up? I don’t know that he did everything on the up and up,” he said.

Joining Graham at the podium were Sens. Steve Daines of Montana and Mike Braun of Indiana.

The three senators criticized the House Democrats’ efforts to make the Senate complicit in its effort to undermine the institution of the presidency with a slapdash impeachment.

“Yesterday was about 11 hours of them telling us how bad their case was, in my view,” Graham said.

Daines said that Democrats’ request to introduce additional witnesses and alleged evidence in support of their case was like a student turning in a half-written essay.

“They have not done their complete homework,” he said.

Daines continued that the effort hearkened back to another moment when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., notoriously tried to railroad substantial legislation through the House.

“It reminded me of what Nancy Pelosi said back in 2008 of the Obamacare,” Daines said. “… They rushed this through the house, just get it over to the Senate, then we’ll find out what’s really in it, try to fix it there.”

The senators also dispelled Democrats’ efforts to normalize Trump’s impeachment by comparing it to past impeachments.

Daines pointed out that unlike the precedents involving presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, there were no crimes involved in Trump’s articles and no bipartisan support.

Graham—who was on the House Judiciary Committee during Clinton’s impeachment—noted that the use of an independent counsel then to prepare the case was similar to the previous use of special counsel Robert Mueller, which failed to yield any evidence of impeachable crimes committed by Trump.

Graham emphasized that he had supported those efforts, despite Trump’s objections.

“Working with my Democratic colleagues,  I tried to give Mueller the space to do his job, and I told the president to his face, if it’s proven you worked with the Russians… that’s it for me and you,” Graham said.

But after the failure to dig up adequate dirt through that process, Graham said he would not be part of the current effort “to legitimize a process in the House that would destroy the presidency over time.”

Maxine Waters: Dems ‘Will Not Stop’ Pushing Impeachment, Even After Trial Ends

‘Impeachment is not good enough for Trump. He needs to be imprisoned & placed in solitary confinement…’

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said Sunday that even after the Senate’s impeachment trial concludes, Democrats “will not stop” pushing for the impeachment of President Trump.

As head of the House Financial Services Committee, Waters has issued several subpoenas demanding information about Trump’s financial records, as well as information about his charity, the Trump Foundation, and its business dealings.

Waters said that once she gets hold of the requested documents, the Democrats might be able to add to their charges against Trump.

“The subpoenas that I have issued that’s gone through the lower courts are now going to be heard at the Supreme Court in March,” Waters told MSNBC.

 “We will not stop,” she continued. “Whether or not that leads to another impeachment activity, I don’t know. But I know we must continue with the work that our constituents have elected us to come to Congress to do.”

Republicans reminded Waters last year that if she were to hand over documents she obtains through subpoenas to the Democrats, she would be in violation of the Financial Service Committee’s rules, which require members to guard the privacy of those under investigation.

It is clear that Waters’s intention all along was to drag Trump’s personal information into the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, the Republicans said.

“To create the appearance that your investigation has a legislative nexus, you sought and obtained an extraordinarily broad swath of financial records from dozens of Americans,” the Republicans wrote in a letter to Waters.

“Now that the true purpose of your investigation is clear, those Americans are right to be concerned whether their records will be furnished to the Judiciary Committee and subsequently released,” said the letter.

Last October, Waters even admitted that impeachment “is not good enough for Trump.”

Bernie Apologizes to Biden After Surrogate’s ‘Corruption’ Allegation

‘I’m sorry that that op-ed appeared…’

Debating 2020 Dems Try to Out-Socialist Each Other 1
Bernie Sanders/IMAGE: NBC News via YouTube

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., apologized to Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden after one of his campaign surrogates published an op-ed accusing Biden of corruption.

The op-ed, written by Zephyr Teachout — who does not have an official role with the Sanders campaign but has endorsed and campaigned for the presidential candidate — stated that “Joe Biden has a big corruption problem.”

Teachout wrote that “Middle Class Joe” “perfected the art of taking big contributions, then representing his corporate donors at the cost of middle- and working-class Americans.”

Published in The Guardian, the op-ed accused Biden of “converting campaign contributions into legislative favors and policy positions.”

“Biden has a big corruption problem and it makes him a weak candidate,” Teachout, a law professor, continued. “I know it seems crazy, but a lot of the voters we need — independents and people who might stay home — will look at Biden and Trump and say: ‘They’re all dirty.’”

A new book by investigative reporter Peter Schweizer, released Tuesday, details how at least five members of Biden’s family benefited financially from his powerful position as Vice President.

Sanders told CBS News that he regretted Teachout’s op-ed and said that it in no way reflects his views.

“It is absolutely not my view that Joe is corrupt in any way. And I’m sorry that that op-ed appeared,” he said.

Biden responded to Sanders’s comments and said that Teachout’s attacks “have no place in this primary.”

Schweizer’s book also charges that Sanders has his own ethical challenges.

“There are various ways taxpayer money, school money other things that have flowed to the family and have made the Sanders family very very wealthy,” he told Breitbart News.

Patriotic Muslim American Seeks GOP Nomination to Challenge Ilhan Omar

‘I truly believe that Ilhan Omar is doing irreparable harm to her district, to Minnesota, and to the whole country…’

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) An Iraqi-born Muslim is running for the Republican nomination in Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s district in Minnesota, characterizing herself as a patriotic Muslim American who wants what’s best for the country, unlike Omar.

“I chose to launch this campaign after thinking, watching and researching,” said Dalia al Aqidi, according to the Washington Examiner.

“I truly believe that Ilhan Omar is doing irreparable harm to her district, to Minnesota, and to the whole country,” she continued.
“Somebody needs to stop her. She continues to spread anti-Semitism and hateful rhetoric.”

Al Aqidi came to the U.S. as a refugee just like Omar. Her family fled Saddam Hussein’s Iraq when she was in her early 20s, and she went on to become an American citizen.

Though their situations were similar, al Aqidi said that instead of showing gratitude to the country that saved her, Omar has spread “toxic” and “severe” ideas.

Omar wants to “gain attention for herself” and “position herself as a celebrity,” al Aqidi said, which is why she touts anti-Semitic and anti-American rhetoric. “She’s not fighting for us. She’s not fighting for her district. She is fighting for herself and herself only, which means she’s fighting against us,” al Aqidi said.

Before al Aqidi decided to run for Congress, she was a television journalist, and she previously worked as a White House correspondent for different Middle Eastern television networks.

As a result, al-Aqidi said that her primary concern is “national security,” especially when it comes to the “dangerous individuals, both Islamists and others,” who are “trying to harm the U.S. and are trying to harm our system and harm our democracy.”

Instead of fighting this extremism, Omar is enabling it, al Aqidi said in a statement.

“I’ve seen up close the consequences of what radical Ilhan Omar is doing,” she said. “Conflict. Division. Oppression. I escaped that world once, and I won’t let it happen here.”

REPORT: San Antonio Has Spent More Than $300K to Keep Out Chick-fil-A

‘The Constitution’s protection of religious liberty is somehow even better than Chick-fil-A’s chicken…’

College Students Fear Chick Fil A as Threat to Safety
Photo by ccPixs.com (CC)

(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The city of San Antonio has spent more than $300,000 to keep Chick-fil-A from opening a restaurant in its airport, according to KENS-TV.

The city council voted to exclude Chick-fil-A from the airport last March because of the fast food chain’s alleged “legacy of anti-LGBTQ behavior.”

Since then, the city has been hit with two lawsuits and an investigation by the state’s attorney general, and the total cost is now close to $315,000.

San Antonio has been accused of discriminating against the Christian restaurant simply because it adheres to religious principles.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill last year, known as the Save Chick-fil-A Bill, which prohibits state and local governments from discriminating against business or peoples on the basis of their affiliation with religions.

“The continued religious ban on Chick-fil-A by the San Antonio City Council has left citizens with no choice but to take this case to court,” said Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values Action, according to The Texas Tribune.

“Any other vendor that tries to replace Chick-fil-A at the airport will be doing so under a major cloud of long and costly litigation with the city.”

And at least five plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the city last year, too, asking a state court to prevent San Antonio from “taking any adverse action against Chick-fil-A or any other person or entity, which is based wholly or partly on that person or entity’s support for religious organizations that oppose homosexual behavior.”

In response, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he would investigate whether San Antonio had violated religious liberty by excluding the Christian restaurant.

“The Constitution’s protection of religious liberty is somehow even better than Chick-fil-A’s chicken,” Paxton wrote in a letter to the San Antonio city council last year. “Unfortunately, I have serious concerns that both are under assault at the San Antonio airport.”

San Antonio has denied any wrongdoing, accusing the plaintiffs and Republican-controlled state legislature of using “the court to advance their political agenda.”

GOP Sens. Block New Witnesses as Dull Impeachment Trial Drags into Wee Hours

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Tedious late-night discussion focuses on subpoena of bureaucratic documents concerning military aid to Ukraine…

Jay Sekulow / IMAGE: CSPAN

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Senators capped off the first official day of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial with a slate of procedural issues, ultimately tabling by party line an amendment by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-NY, to allow new witnesses and evidence prior to opening arguments.

Schumer followed his initial motion with an additional amendment proposal to subpoena White House officials whom Trump’s lawyers argued were protected by executive privilege laws long upheld by the courts.

Co-counsels Pat Cipillone and Jay Sekulow argued that such laws were in place to permit open and frank discussions among executive staff members.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., moved to proceed with the two hours’ arguments on the second amendment before a planned 30-minute dinner break, indicating that the dry proceedings would last well into the night.

Despite taking place in prime-time, the bean-counting discussions related to the Office of Management and Budget documents about Trump’s decision to delay military aid to Ukraine were unlikely to captivate a broad audience.

The dullness stood in stark contrast to the pomp and ceremony of President Bill Clinton‘s impeachment, as well as lacking the lurid, sensationalist drama that saw even Hustler publisher Larry Flynt become involved in the political intrigue.

The relative lack of fireworks suggested that the impeachment effort may well lose steam quickly, despite some recent suggestions that it may drag on for months.

Republicans sought a speedy resolution to the effort, widely viewed as a partisan witch hunt.

However, Democrats—in particular the four presidential candidates losing precious campaign time just two weeks before the first primaries—may also grow weary soon of the quixotic slog, which is unlikely to result in a surprise outcome.

Although McConnell acknowledged prior to the opening proceedings that he did not have the votes to move for an immediate dismissal, it seemed an auspicious signal that all 53 GOP senators supported the tabling of Schumer’s first amendment.

Speculation that centrist Republican Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Cory Gardner of Colorado and others might buckle under political pressure proved unfounded.

McConnell would need only 51 votes to dismiss the impeachment proceedings outright.

As noteworthy as the Republican votes was the votes of vulnerable blue-dog Democrats, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Doug Jones of Alabama, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Jon Tester of Montana.

A handful of Democrats sided with Republicans during the House of Representatives votes on articles of impeachment. Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey ultimately switched parties over his opposition to impeachment.

WH Counsel Cipollone: Dems’ Ulterior Goal to Keep President off Ballot

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‘Frankly it’s the kind of thing that our State Department would criticize if we see it in foreign countries…’

Schiff Whines that Impeachment 'Looks Like Every Other Trial," Despite Lacking Crime 1
Pat Cipollone / IMAGE: CSPAN

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) White House Counsel Pat Cipollone offered a fiery rebuttal on Tuesday to statements made by House impeachment manager Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in which he charged that House Democrats sought to compel the Senate to do its dirty work.

As arguments from both sides began in the US Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, Cipollone said the “wholesale trampling of constitutional rights” in Democrats’ impeachment proceedings “were not only ridiculous, they’re dangerous to this country.”

After Schiff claimed that the Senate proceedings should look ‘like any other trial,’ Cipollone and Jay Sekulow, the lead defense attorneys for President Donald Trump, charged that Schiff had done nothing of the sort in his own efforts in hearings as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

In fact, he said House Democrats had included an ulterior motive in the small print of their impeachment resolution: to keep Trump off the ballot in the November election.

“A partisan impeachment is like stealing an election, and that’s exactly what we have,’ said Cipollone.

“It’s a partisan impeachment that they’ve delivered to your doorstep in an election year,” he continued, addressing the senators. “Some of you should be in Iowa right now, but instead we’re here, and they’re not ready to go yet.”

Democrats argued in a resolution presented by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, that they should be allowed to introduce new witnesses and documents into the trial.

“They said in their briefs, ‘We have overwhelming evidence,’ and they’re not ready to go yet,” said Cipollone.

Cipollone charged that the Democrats had not even furnished Trump’s defense team with all the materials they hoped to submit.

“There’s still evidence in the skiff that we haven’t been allowed to see,” he said. “I wonder why.”

Cipollone also criticized the hypocritical way Democrats had built their case and subverted due process as un-American.

“Frankly it’s the kind of thing that our State Department would criticize if we see it in foreign countries,” he said.

But rather than to publicly make his own case during the House investigation, Schiff and his Democratic colleagues rushed the impeachment through the House to avoid facing a challenging court ruling that might have upheld President Donald Trump’s right to executive privilege.

“They’re asking you to become complicit in that evasion of the courts,” he said. “It’s ridiculous, and we should call it out for what it is.”

Cipollone said the House proceedings had violated constitutional norms in unprecedented ways, leading to what would have been the Founding Fathers’s worst nightmare.

“The reason it’s never been done is because no one ever thought that it would be a good idea for our country… to try to remove a president from a ballot—to deny the American people the right to vote based on a fraudulent investigation, conducted in secret,” he said.

“It’s long past time that we started so that we can end this ridiculous charade and go have an election,” he added.