As Trump’s impeachment trial approaches, Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, continues his draconian measures to prohibit any new evidence from being including in the Senate proceedings.
Unlike past impeachment trials, which have allowed additional witnesses to be called (in fact, during the Clinton impeachment Republicans insisted they be allowed to call new witnesses), McConnell is refusing to permit additional witnesses to testify before Congress.
He has good reason to fear for his president, but his actions only contribute further to his reputation as the most corrupt Republican majority leader in recent history.
John Bolton (former National Security Adviser who referred to Trump’s Ukrainian quid pro quo scheme a “drug deal” he wanted nothing to do with) and Lev Parnas (Rudy Guliani’s business associate who operated as Rudy’s “fixer” in coercing Ukrainian government officials to yield to Trump’s demands) have both said they are willing to testify if asked.
Furthermore, a boatload of new documents have also been handed over to House investigators which not only confirm the previous House testimony against Trump, but adds new information as well.
For instance, copies of whatsapp messages reveal that one Robert F. Hyde, a Republican congressional candidate from
Connecticut, had the US ambassador Marie Yovanovitch “under physical, and possibly electronic, surveillance.”
At one point, Hyde suggested that he could increase the pressure on Yovanovitch (who was working to end political corruption in the country) but it would require enlisting Ukrainian security forces — an obvious threat against the ambassador’s personal safety.
Here is an excerpt from an article in The Guardian explaining this section of the texts:
“In March 2019, Hyde wrote to Parnas, ‘Wow. Can’t believe Trumo [sic] hasn’t fired this bitch. I’ll get right in [sic] that.’
“The two men then exchanged a string of messages about the ambassador’s whereabouts.
“’She under heavy protection outside Kiev,’ Hyde wrote to Parnas, adding two days later: ‘They are moving her tomorrow.’
“’The guys over there asked me what I would like to do and what is in it for them,’ wrote Hyde, who has posted pictures of himself with Trump and Giuliani on social media. ‘She’s talked to three people. Her phone is off. Computer is off. She’s next to the embassy. Not in the embassy.’
“’They are willing to help if you/we would like a price,’ said Hyde.
“’Guess you can do anything in Ukraine with money … what I was told,’ Hyde wrote in another text, to which, Parnas responded: ‘LOL.’”
The State Department finally removed Yovanovitch from Ukraine because, she was told, they had information indicating her safety was at risk.
Hmmmmmm. I wonder who was threatening her safety?
Remember the reconstruction of Trump’s Oval Office call with the Ukrainian president? Remember when he told President Zelensky that Yovanovitch “was going to go through some things”?
What a coincidence…
Lev Parnas has obviously struck a deal since his recent arrest and is talking freely with reporters. Watch this interview by Anderson Cooper where Parnas not only implicates Trump but states that Trump was in regular communication with him and Giuliani being updated on everything the two were doing in Ukraine.
Parnas confirms what honest observers have always known: Donald Trump is a liar. More than that, he is a pathological liar, and he lied when he said he didn’t know Lev Parnas.
But, never mind, because Mitch McConnell is working overtime to prevent any of these documents and witnesses and from contributing to Trump’s impeachment trial.
Why muddy the waters with more evidence of the truth?
And this explains why I find myself surprisingly “nostalgic” for men like 
Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater (I can’t believe I just wrote this sentence).
On the eve of Nixon’s impeachment proceedings in 1974, Senator Barry Goldwater (a fire-breathing conservative if there ever was one) led a delegation of his fellow Republicans to meet with Nixon in the Oval Office.
These three Congressmen told Nixon that he had lost all Congressional support. There was no way he could survive an impeachment process. His presidency was over, one way or the other. The meeting came to be called the “Goldwater moment.”
President Nixon announced his resignation the next day.
Senator Goldwater, whose politics I abhorred, represents a very different
period in the evolution of the US Congress. His was an era where party loyalties were not always allowed to eclipse the evidence of White House criminality.
Goldwater reminds us that highly conservative, Republican politicians can maintain their personal integrity in times of political crisis. Politics need not always blind its players to the facts.
Sadly, these are qualities of personal character are sorely lacking in today’s players. Mitch McConnell, Rep. Jim Jordan and their partisan ilk are political
barbarians — clever and crafty, no doubt; but bloody barbarians, nonetheless — when compared even to a Manichean madman like Barry Goldwater.
And what about Nixon?
Nixon’s decision to resign his presidency revealed that even “Tricky Dick” had some semblance of shame. He knew when to quit, when it was time to stop lying.
Tragically, today’s White House occupant has no sense of shame whatsoever. He is a malignant narcissist hard-wired to lie. Lying is Donald Trump’s raison d’être.
And the nation’s Congressional barbarians have grown corpulent feasting at the White House trough.
Even Nixon and Goldwater are rolling over in their graves.
