The Morning Briefing: House Democrats Start Fake Impeachment Hearings

Good Monday morning.

Here is what’s on the president’s agenda today:

The president receives his intelligence briefing
President Trump has lunch with the vice president
The president participates in a meeting on Major League Baseball’s efforts to combat human trafficking
President Trump greets the 103rd Indianapolis 500 Champions: Team Penske

Democrats to begin fake impeachment hearings

Everybody knows that impeachment is not popular with the voters and a majority want to move on from the RUSSIAN collusion political soap opera. But what do you do when your political base is a bunch of blood-thirsty, camera-whore, anti-Trump hotheads? You hold fake impeachment hearings: all of the spectacle with none of the political damage. We’ll see how that works out, but today, Nadler will begin the fake impeachment hearings in the Judiciary Committee with Nixon-era sleazebag John Dean front and center. For what reason John Dean? Who knows. Here’s a great piece about Dean by David Harsanyi at The Federalist for some background.

Monday’s hearing inevitably sets our committee on a collision course with the longstanding Rules of the House. https://t.co/2qj13FMaTa

— Rep. Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) June 7, 2019

Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Chairman Jerry Nadler about his plans for fake impeachment.

In light of Monday’s hearing entitled, “Lessons from the Mueller Report: Presidential Obstruction and Other Crimes,” I am compelled to remind you— and request you remind the Majority Members of the Committee — the Rules of the House prohibit Members from “engag[ing] in personalities” with Members of Congress, Senators, or the President. This appears to be part of a strategy to turn the Committee’s oversight hearings into a mock-impeachment inquiry rather than a legitimate exercise in congressional oversight. Conducting such hearings inevitably sets this Committee on a collision course with the longstanding Rules of the House, which you have apparently alluded to as recently as this week.

Collins’ letter directs Nadler and his ilk to read Jefferson’s Manual on parliamentary procedure written by Thomas Jefferson, which is incorporated into the rules of the House of Representatives.

Here are some of the points Collins reminds Nadler of:

Personal abuse, innuendo, or ridicule of the President is not permitted.
It is not in order to call the President a ‘‘liar’’ or accuse such person of ‘‘lying’’.
It is not in order to cast aspersions on the ethical behavior of the President.
Accusations that the President has committed a crime, or even that the President has done something illegal, are unparliamentary.
Language impugning the patriotism or loyalty of the President is not in order
Personally disparaging the manner in which the President carries out the duties of the office can constitute a personality, such as when the remarks suggest that the President is an undemocratic leader akin to a dictator.
A Member may not read in debate extraneous material personally abusive of the President that would be improper if spoken in the Member’s own words, such as material labeling the President’s statement a lie.

Collins provides examples for each one of these things that have been ruled out of order in the past because they do not follow House rules. The manual states on impeachment:

Although wide latitude is permitted in debate on a proposition to impeach the President, Members must abstain from language personally offensive; and Members must abstain from comparisons to the personal conduct of sitting Members of the House or Senate. Furthermore, when impeachment is not the pending business on the floor, Members may not refer to evidence of alleged impeachable offenses by the President contained in a communication from an independent counsel pending before a House committee, although they may refer to the communication, itself, within the confines of proper decorum in debate, and may not otherwise suggest that the President has done something worthy of censure or impeachment.

Read the entire letter by Collins. The hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. today. Pop your popcorn.

The liberal death star New York Times profiles A.G. Barr

The campaign to discredit Attorney General Bill Barr take its latest shape in a profile by the New York Times. Why would Barr cooperate with the Times? He refused to be interviewed for the article. Smart. The media and the left are at a loss to handle Barr because he doesn’t fit their typical anti-Trump narrative: he’s not friends with Trump, he didn’t know Trump before Trump won the election, he didn’t/doesn’t hang out with Trump, he doesn’t golf with Trump (Barr plays the bagpipes, no joke), he’s already been A.G., he was making big money at a fancy law firm, so why would he take this job? Maybe he thought some real serious stuff was going down at the DoJ?

“It is shocking how much he has echoed the president’s own statements,” said Mary McCord, who led the Justice Department’s national security division at the end of the Obama administration and the start of the Trump era. “I thought he was an institutionalist who would protect the department from political influence. But it seems like everything he has done so far has counseled in the opposite direction.”

The national security division, eh? Take a guess which division was a major player in the attempted Trump coup? Remember the Obama admin exempted the NSD from IG oversight. Convenient. It’s obvious the malefactors are worried about Barr’s presence.

“The idea that these attacks are having an impact on Bill Barr?” Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School said, “These people have no idea who they are dealing with.”

The piece is worth a read, it’s probably the best we’ll ever get out of the Times.

Carter Page says FBI informant ‘intensified’ communications just prior to FISA warrant

Trump returns fire on fake news coverage of his Mexico deal

President Trump hit the New York Times for “reporting” that the tariff deal reached with Mexico last week offered nothing new and was negotiated months ago.

”Another false report in the Failing @nytimes. We have been trying to get some of these Border Actions for a long time, as have other administrations, but were not able to get them, or get them in full, until our signed agreement with Mexico,” the president wrote on Twitter.

Trump also threatened: “We can always go back to our previous, very profitable, position of Tariffs.”

”But I don’t believe that will be necessary. The Failing @nytimes, & ratings challenged @CNN, will do anything possible to see our Country fail! They are truly The Enemy of the People!,” the president wrote in the last of four postings on the matter.

Yawn. It’s always the same thing: Trump tries to do something and the #resistance machine kicks into to action tearing it apart.

Other morsels:

Ignore The Never Trump Losers Who Are OK With Liberals Winning

Jim Acosta: Trump Is ‘Crazy Like A Fox’

Whatever Happened to That Rush to War With Iran?

Iran closes hundreds of restaurants for ‘illegal music and debauchery,’ other violations of ‘Islamic principles’

Obama Era Detroit LED Street Lights That Cost $185 Million And Meant To Last A Decade Already Needing Replacement

California utility to cut power to 27,000 customers to reduce wildfire risk

Top brass exit Nature Conservancy amid sexual harassment investigation

New Mexico police investigating vandalism of rainbow crosswalk as possible hate crime

‘Right Here, Right Now’ — The Cold War We’ve Forgotten Why We Won

Michigan hotel offering free stay for women who travel to state to get abortion