In Case You Haven't Heard, We're Impeaching The Motherf*cker
Last night, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler gave everybody what they've been asking for, telling CNN's Erin Burnett that actually we are already in the formal impeachment process. Have we not been saying?
NADLER: This IS formal impeachment proceedings. We are investigating all the evidence, we're gathering the evidence, and we will at the conclusion of this, hopefully by the end of the year, vote articles of impeachment to the House floor, or we won't. That's a decision that we'll have to make. But that's exactly the process we're in right now.
And the people cheered, except some of the people were like "what?" and some of the other people were like "IN-PEACH! WHY WON'T YOU IN-PEACH!" and then some other people were still yelling at Nancy Pelosi ... the point is all the people in the crowd didn't chant the same exact thing, but that's OK.
Upon hearing this, we imagine Donald Trump threw a mighty fit and threatened to send Jerry Nadler back to his country, just kidding, Jerry Nadler is a white man, Trump didn't say that. But Nadler is Jewish, so we're sure President Bennetton Ad will come up with something offensive to say.
We've been noting that the House Judiciary Committee has been making serious and precise moves ever since the Robert Mueller testimony, filing to get the redacted 6(e) grand jury information from the Mueller Report, and this week, filing to enforce the subpoena on former White House counsel Don McGahn. In both filings, the word "impeach" has appeared no fewer than 80 bajillion times, so it's not like they're being subtle. On the Rachel Maddow program last night, Nadler confirmed the reason for getting a court to order McGahn's testimony, which is that a ruling compelling it will by extension open the floodgates for the committee to get every single other damning testimony it needs to fully flesh out its case against Trump, live and on TV.
But as Maddow noted last night, there are a couple other things happening right now that also will probably end up contributing to the ongoing formal impeachment proceedings underway:
SHOW US THE (FRAUD CRIME NOT AS RICH AS HE SAYS HE IS) MONEY!
As we all know, all kinds of entities (several congressional committees, New York state, etc.) have been trying to get their hands on Trump's financial records and his taxes and his McDonald's receipts and everything else, and Trump and his team of idiot lawyers have been suing ERRBODY to try to keep that from happening, with some of the dumbest legal arguments you have ever heard. But as the Wall Street Journalreported on Thursday, certain banks are already sharing a lot of that information:
Major Wall Street banks have given congressional committees investigating President Trump thousands of pages of documents related to Russians who may have had dealings with Mr. Trump, his family or his business, people familiar with the congressional probes said. Some banks are also giving documents related to Mr. Trump's business, the Trump Organization, to New York state investigators, people familiar with the New York investigation said.
OH DAMN, DONALD. Didn't think of that, did you? When you're trying to get the dirt on an obvious Russian asset whose kids havebragged that most of their money comes from the Russians, so much that they don't need no fuckin' American investors, you might be able to bypass demanding information from Trump and just demand information on all the dirty Russians who've been propping up Trump's tiny-handed empire. Womp womp!
The Wall Street Journal lists a metric fuckload of banks, including ones Trump has sued: Bank of America, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan & Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. Further:
More information will likely be handed over in coming weeks as the banks continue to respond to subpoenas sent in April, the people said.
And on top of that, Deutsche Bank is reportedly giving New York state Attorney General Letitia James all kinds of fun stuff on the Trump Organization, and oh shit, Donald Trump, the walls are closing in!
If you're confused about who's getting what documents and what's currently blocked and being fought out in court (direct subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capital One on Trump's financial records, plus a subpoena to Mazars, Trump's accounting firm), the Wall Street Journal made you a handy little graphic to print out and put on your windshield or the mirror above your bed, so click over there to lookit.
The point is that the House Intelligence Committee and the House Financial Services Committee (or as you know them, Adam Schiff and Auntie Maxine) already are getting their hands on A LOT. And at some point, they're going to win some of those lawsuits to get their hands on the rest of what they want, if the reaction from judges so far has been any indication.
Will stuff from those investigations end up in articles of impeachment? Bet your ass we reckon probably!
The Deep State Lovers Will See You In Court Now, Mr. Trump.
Maddow also noted last night (yeah, we borrowed some of the format for this post from her "A" block, what are you gonna do about it?) that two very similar lawsuits were filed this week against the Trump administration, by highly qualified former FBI officials who were inappropriately smeared, hounded and ultimately fired for failing to pledge fealty to King ShitMouth Von BigMac.
Peter Strzok was the former FBI super-agent who hunted Russian spies (his first sin in Trump's eyes, probably) and led the FBI investigations into both Hillary Clinton's AOL account and the Russian attack on the 2016 election and the Trump campaign's ties with it. If you read Trump's Twitter, you probably know him better as the FBI sexter lover who sent his former girlfriend Lisa Page text messages about how Trump sucks and how they were going to do LITERAL INSURANCE POLICIES against Trump getting elected. Anyway, Strzok ultimately got fired, and Trump tweeted about it and took credit for it, and now he's one of the lawsuits. As Wonkette's Five Dollar Feminist explained this week, if his case gets to the discovery phase, the shit is going to hit the fan for Trump.
The other lawsuit was filed by former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, and we will have an explainer on that one today, too! Trump hounded and abused McCabe and claimed he was "conflicted" because his wife ran for political office as a Democrat; Trump also made up stories about how Hillary Clinton had literally given McCabe and his wife millions of ameros for her campaign, which meant McCabe's oversight of the Russia investigation was WITCH HUNT! And of course, McCabe was firedthe night before his retirement benefits were scheduled to kick in, in what seemed to be pretty obvious retaliation from then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump.
We have read about half of that lawsuit so far, because that's what we do for "pleasure reading," and let us tell you, it is FIRE.
The point is, the allegations in both of these lawsuits are incredibly damning. And all of this is going to be playing out in court alongside the House's formal impeachment inquiry into Trump. Will details from these lawsuits ultimately end up in articles of impeachment against Trump? That's what Rachel Maddow was #JustAsking last night, and we are also too wondering it.
In Summary And In Conclusion!
This fall is going to suuuuuuuuuuck for Donald Trump. And just like Rep. Rashida Tlaib said, we're impeaching the motherfucker. Stay tuned!
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