Is anyone going to watch the Lev Parnas interview with Rachel Maddow tonight?

[camille70]

I watched the second part tonight and am still trying to gather my thoughts. I thought his stating that he was giving public interviews to get the truth out because he doesn't trust the US Justice Dept. under AG Barr interesting, though I'm really not sure what to think about it. A part of me wonders if his view of "Justice" is colored by his growing up under Soviet "justice," or if they really are attempting to make him a scapegoat to protect those more "valuable" to the President.

To be fair, I am taking things Mr. Parnas states with a grain of salt -- though I do tend to trust what he states when he has the documents to back him up. To give one example, that ties into the above, I found it questionable that AG Barr is heavily involved in the Ukraine situation, as Mr. Parnas alleged last night. While I do think AG Barr works frequently as Pres. Trump's "lawyer" (such as whitewashing the "summary" of the Mueller Report), beyond being the AG, at the same time I think he does attempt to curb Trump's worse impulses and stop things Trump might want to do that are illegal/immoral. So I'm skeptical of Barr's being involved with Giuliani's activities in Ukraine.

His talking about Pres. Trump trying to fire Ms. Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine is another one I have issues with. From what I've seen, if Pres. Trump really wanted her fired, he would have Tweeted that she was fired and that would have done it. At the same time, I can't completely discount that he did want her fired, told Sec. Pompeo to fire her, and Pompeo explained that he couldn't do it for whatever reason -- it feels like there may be more story there.

In the end, I think there is plenty there that is quite damning and makes the case that the President abused his power in trying to get Ukraine to announce an investigation into the Bidens. It does leave a lot of questions though, ones that will require Bolton, Pompeo, Giuliani, Perry, and others to testify about if we are going to get to the bottom of things (Perry especially, give the allegations against him when he resigned and Mr. Parnas' allegations tonight).

I did find it interesting that Mr. Parnas stated he believes VP Biden is completely innocent of wrongdoing in Ukraine. I tend to believe him here, both because he seems to have more reason to claim Biden is guilty than innocent as well as how he seems to have evidence, that fits what we know, that both former Prosecutors (AGs) Shokin and Lutsenko were corrupt and were willing to change their stories about the Biden's guilt for the right "price."

I am hoping the Senate will hold a legitimate trial, particularly since they have the Parnas documents, and will attempt to get to the truth of Mr. Parnas' allegations.

My gripe, voiced yesterday, was that the interview was interrupted. I hope they release an unedited version. He seemed a bit tired in part two. Yesterday I couldn't hear his accent, but tonight and when listening audio only, it is very slight. I wonder if it becomes more pronounced if he gets either tired, or comfortable in a situation. I'd like to see the full transition, body language etc. It's hard to get a sense of that when there are constant interruptions. His demeanor was not at all what I was expecting. I expected some who was bumbling, but he seems intelligent and poised. I do believe he is afraid of Barr/the DOJ.

Regarding Barr, the in the transcript (call summary) Trump keeps telling everyone to read, he told the Ukraine president he'd like to have both the AG and Rudy call him.

I don't know why that in and of itself isn't a problem, Rudy was supposed to be representing his personal interests, and Barr the interests of the United States, yet Trump was asking the Ukraine pres to speak with Rudy on what was supposed to be an official call. IMO that shows that Trump was definitely, if not using the govt for personal benefit, mixing both personal and national interests. If we assume what Trump says is true that he was withholding funds to fight corruption (I don't believe that but still) why was Rudy involved? If he didn't know what Rudy was going over there, as he has claimed, why is he instructing the Ukraine to speak with him?

I didn't like how Parnas fidgeted twhen talking about Biden. I don't think Biden did anything wrong, but with certain things he lost eye contact when discussing, which makes me think there is more to the story.

The fact that Lev didn't over reach and say Perry knew about the aid being withheld, that he would only state he knew Perry was to get agreement on announcing an investigation, seemed credible.

Perry also did his own dealing over there on behalf of some of his donors.

Perry backers secured lucrative Ukraine gas deal after his meeting with new president: report

 

[camille70]

American Oversight is supposed to get Perry docs Jan 28 from the energy dept.

Joint Status Report: American Oversight v. DOE - Perry and Brouillette’s Ukraine Records and Communications - American Oversight

 

[whatbogsends]

I watched the second part tonight and am still trying to gather my thoughts. I thought his stating that he was giving public interviews to get the truth out because he doesn't trust the US Justice Dept. under AG Barr interesting, though I'm really not sure what to think about it. A part of me wonders if his view of "Justice" is colored by his growing up under Soviet "justice," or if they really are attempting to make him a scapegoat to protect those more "valuable" to the President.

To be fair, I am taking things Mr. Parnas states with a grain of salt -- though I do tend to trust what he states when he has the documents to back him up. To give one example, that ties into the above, I found it questionable that AG Barr is heavily involved in the Ukraine situation, as Mr. Parnas alleged last night. While I do think AG Barr works frequently as Pres. Trump's "lawyer" (such as whitewashing the "summary" of the Mueller Report), beyond being the AG, at the same time I think he does attempt to curb Trump's worse impulses and stop things Trump might want to do that are illegal/immoral. So I'm skeptical of Barr's being involved with Giuliani's activities in Ukraine.

His talking about Pres. Trump trying to fire Ms. Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine is another one I have issues with. From what I've seen, if Pres. Trump really wanted her fired, he would have Tweeted that she was fired and that would have done it. At the same time, I can't completely discount that he did want her fired, told Sec. Pompeo to fire her, and Pompeo explained that he couldn't do it for whatever reason -- it feels like there may be more story there.

In the end, I think there is plenty there that is quite damning and makes the case that the President abused his power in trying to get Ukraine to announce an investigation into the Bidens. It does leave a lot of questions though, ones that will require Bolton, Pompeo, Giuliani, Perry, and others to testify about if we are going to get to the bottom of things (Perry especially, give the allegations against him when he resigned and Mr. Parnas' allegations tonight).

I did find it interesting that Mr. Parnas stated he believes VP Biden is completely innocent of wrongdoing in Ukraine. I tend to believe him here, both because he seems to have more reason to claim Biden is guilty than innocent as well as how he seems to have evidence, that fits what we know, that both former Prosecutors (AGs) Shokin and Lutsenko were corrupt and were willing to change their stories about the Biden's guilt for the right "price."

I am hoping the Senate will hold a legitimate trial, particularly since they have the Parnas documents, and will attempt to get to the truth of Mr. Parnas' allegations.

I agree with much of what you've written.

The one thing I take issue with what you've written is that I think you give AG Barr too much credit. He was stating under oath that he believed that Trump was improperly "spied on" without having an iota of evidence. He's adopted the language of Trump in how he speaks about every facet of the investigations. He was extremely dishonest during his testimony in regards to his knowledge of Mueller's concerns over his summary statement. He denied knowing that there were concerns despite Mueller having written him a letter with his objections the same day he made his statement (and prior to Barr's testimony).

That doesn't necessarily mean that Barr was or wasn't involved in the Ukraine stuff, but I don't see him attempting to curb Trump's worst impulses - I see him as an active enabler of Trump.

 

[JM]

lol who watches Maddow!?! She's the Alex Jones of CNN.

 

[DavidPT]

I am hoping the Senate will hold a legitimate trial, particularly since they have the Parnas documents, and will attempt to get to the truth of Mr. Parnas' allegations.

It's not the Senate's job to expand the trial. If they want all these new revelations entered into the record, then the Democrats need to impeach Trump again, then send that to the House for a vote, then we can start this whole process over yet again. It's not like the Democrats are going to stop altogether anyway, going after Trump if he is acquitted in the Senate. This new alleged evidence belongs with a future time, not with the present time. The House already voted on the articles of impeachment a month ago. None of those articles contain any of these new revelations. Can't blame that on the Republican Senators. It's not their fault, nor their problem, if House Democrats failed to take more time gathering evidence before voting on any articles of impeachment they were going to send to the Senate for trial.

 

[camille70]

lol who watches Maddow!?! She's the Alex Jones of CNN.

A couple of people may have tuned in.

Wednesday's ratings;
Rachel Maddow Scores Record-Breaking Ratings With Lev Parnas Interview

 

[DavidPT]

A couple of people may have tuned in.

Wednesday's ratings;
Rachel Maddow Scores Record-Breaking Ratings With Lev Parnas Interview

The question is though, will these same record number of viewers continue to tune into her show in the future from now on, on a regular basis? I'm guessing probably not.

 

[camille70]

It's not the Senate's job to expand the trial. If they want all these new revelations entered into the record, then the Democrats need to impeach Trump again, then send that to the House for a vote, then we can start this whole process over yet again. It's not like the Democrats are going to stop altogether anyway, going after Trump if he is acquitted in the Senate. This new alleged evidence belongs with a future time, not with the present time. The House already voted on the articles of impeachment a month ago. None of those articles contain any of these new revelations. Can't blame that on the Republican Senators. It's not their fault, nor their problem, if House Democrats failed to take more time gathering evidence before voting on any articles of impeachment they were going to send to the Senate for trial.

The WH has blocked witnesses and documents and are telling the public this needs to go through the courts. Once they are in court, the WH is arguing it's none of the courts business, and if the dems want witnesses and documents they need to impeach the president to get them, or block appointments and appropriations. Now that he's been impeached, they still aren't giving the information, claiming privilege, but if the info was actually privileged, none of the citizen groups would be able to get them via FOIA requests. The WH is feeding us lies, and for some reason few of his supporters have been able to discern this.

They are not acting in good faith. They are simply obstructing and stalling to cover up. You can bet your last dollar, if ANY of those folks had information beneficial to Trump, he'd be tweeting their quotes day and night.


Trump administration urges courts to stay out of impeachment fight in McGahn dispute

An eye on impeachment, judges weigh House-Trump disputes

 

[camille70]

The question is though, will these same record number of viewers continue to tune into her show in the future from now on, on a regular basis? I'm guessing probably not.

Maddow does ok.

 

[DavidPT]

The WH has blocked witnesses and documents and are telling the public this needs to go through the courts.

Can't the WH do the same in the Senate trial? And if they can and did, what would the Senate naturally do? They would postpone the trial until the Courts decided this matter. Or they would just drop the matter altogether, yet they wouldn't be using this as a valid reason to remove Trump from office like the House Democrats are using it. That would be my guess anyway.

 

[whatbogsends]

lol who watches Maddow!?! She's the Alex Jones of CNN.

She's not on CNN...

 

[SimplyMe]

I agree with much of what you've written.

The one thing I take issue with what you've written is that I think you give AG Barr too much credit. He was stating under oath that he believed that Trump was improperly "spied on" without having an iota of evidence. He's adopted the language of Trump in how he speaks about every facet of the investigations. He was extremely dishonest during his testimony in regards to his knowledge of Mueller's concerns over his summary statement. He denied knowing that there were concerns despite Mueller having written him a letter with his objections the same day he made his statement (and prior to Barr's testimony).

That doesn't necessarily mean that Barr was or wasn't involved in the Ukraine stuff, but I don't see him attempting to curb Trump's worst impulses - I see him as an active enabler of Trump.

I pointed out that he has a tendency to act as if he's Trump's personal lawyer. So, yes, he makes allegations like "Trump was spied on," uses Trump's language, and defends the President at most every step -- just as defense lawyers tend to do for their clients.

At the same time, apparently Trump has pressured his AGs to "go after" and even arrest his political opponents and it appears that Barr has not done that. I can't say there is no US investigation into the Bidens but there has been no public announcement of one, which I'd assume Trump has pushed Barr to do now.

What I suspect is that Barr will do whatever he legally can to aid Trump, he is not willing to clearly break the law for the President. Granted, I could be wrong and it will be interesting to see what comes out.

 

[SimplyMe]

It's not the Senate's job to expand the trial. If they want all these new revelations entered into the record, then the Democrats need to impeach Trump again, then send that to the House for a vote, then we can start this whole process over yet again.

Seriously? Where do you get that idea?

As has been gone over previously: the common analogy used is that Impeachment by the House is similar to a Grand Jury -- to see if there is a reason to believe the President may have committed impeachable offenses. They then "indict" the President, present charges based on what the President may have done.

A grand jury does not hear all the witnesses or all the evidence. They hear enough to get them to indict -- and many more witnesses tend to testify at trial. To get the "indictment" prosecutors typically only call enough witnesses to provide "probable cause," in the trial they use witnesses to prove it "beyond reasonable doubt." So, it only makes sense there would be far more witnesses called in a Senate trial.

Beyond that, I assume you must have missed that the Parnas records were sent as part of the impeachment documents to the Senate? As such, these "new revelations" are already a part of Impeachment.

It's not like the Democrats are going to stop altogether anyway, going after Trump if he is acquitted in the Senate. This new alleged evidence belongs with a future time, not with the present time. The House already voted on the articles of impeachment a month ago. None of those articles contain any of these new revelations. Can't blame that on the Republican Senators. It's not their fault, nor their problem, if House Democrats failed to take more time gathering evidence before voting on any articles of impeachment they were going to send to the Senate for trial.

Why do they need to. Even ignoring what I stated above, and that the Parnas documents are included in the impeachment "package," the fact is that the things alleged are covered under the "Abuse of Power" charge -- it makes no sense (and I'm sure Republicans would even claim Double Jeopardy)if Democrats created new charges that cover the same acts by Trump in Ukraine.

 

[SimplyMe]

lol who watches Maddow!?! She's the Alex Jones of CNN.

If you want to compare her to anyone, the closest is likely more that she's the Hannity of MSNBC. She's not a conspiracy theorist, or a troll, which leaves her out of Alex Jones territory.

 

[DavidPT]

Seriously? Where do you get that idea?

For one, I seem to recall hearing it straight from a Senator's lips just yesterday, or maybe the day before. I would think a Senator would know more about those things than the average person might.

 

[camille70]

If you want to compare her to anyone, the closest is likely more that she's the Hannity of MSNBC. She's not a conspiracy theorist, or a troll, which leaves her out of Alex Jones territory.

I think Lawrence is the Hannity of MSNBC. He blows everything Trump does out of proportion. Joe Scarborough would be a close second. Rachel is normally very even handed, fact based and detail oriented. She's great with interviews and gets good ones because she's fair, yet tough and challenging, without being obnoxious or belittling her guests. She has a calm demeanor that I like after an overload of claims that the sky is falling elsewhere. If she is alarmed, there is good reason to be.

I love how she has reporters on from other media to discuss their breaking stories and praises their work and reporting. Within the past year or so, she is editorializing a bit more, but usually she keeps her personal opinions out of her broadcasts and doesn't ask leading questions. I like Lawrence, but his distaste for Trump makes him hard to watch sometimes. I don't like Trump, but I want facts and logic, not Trump hit pieces and bashing Trump for the sake of bashing Trump.

Rachel rarely reports on Trump tweets, or every single thing he says for attention, unless it's really relevant. She reports on what he actually does, and the effects. I like Joy Reid also for the subjects she covers and guests she has, but she asks leading questions more than I like and can be a bit short with her guests when they don't answer the way she likes to support whatever narrative she trying to spin

MSNBC has a lot of good anchors. After Maddow, Ali Velshi, Stephanie Ruhle, Nicolle Wallace and Ari Melber are my favorites in no particular order.

 

[DavidPT]

I think Lawrence is the Hannity of MSNBC. He blows everything Trump does out of proportion. Joe Scarborough would be a close second. Rachel is normally very even handed, fact based and detail oriented. She's great with interviews and gets good ones because she's fair, yet tough and challenging, without being obnoxious or belittling her guests. She has a calm demeanor that I like after an overload of claims that the sky is falling elsewhere. If she is alarmed, there is good reason to be.

I love how she has reporters on from other media to discuss their breaking stories and praises their work and reporting. Within the past year or so, she is editorializing a bit more, but usually she keeps her personal opinions out of her broadcasts and doesn't ask leading questions. I like Lawrence, but his distaste for Trump makes him hard to watch sometimes. I don't like Trump, but I want facts and logic, not Trump hit pieces and bashing Trump for the sake of bashing Trump.

Rachel rarely reports on Trump tweets, or every single thing he says for attention, unless it's really relevant. She reports on what he actually does, and the effects. I like Joy Reid also for the subjects she covers and guests she has, but she asks leading questions more than I like and can be a bit short with her guests when they don't answer the way she likes to support whatever narrative she trying to spin

MSNBC has a lot of good anchors. After Maddow, Ali Velshi, Stephanie Ruhle, Nicolle Wallace and Ari Melber are my favorites in no particular order.

I like your over all assessment. Maybe some of us haven't given Maddow a fair chance based on obviously biased persons, such as Joe Scarborough being on that same network. I for sure can't stand watching that dude, period.

 

[camille70]

I like your over all assessment. Maybe some of us haven't given Maddow a fair chance based on obviously biased persons, such as Joe Scarborough being on that same network. I for sure can't stand watching that dude, period.

I used to hate tweet Morning Joe every morning before my hours changed...lol... He sucked up to Trump every day before the election, and now he's trashing him every morning. The only bright spot is that his show along with Andrea Mitchel and Chuck Todd, is one of the few shows republicans are willing to come on on a regular basis. Andrea gets a lot of respect because of her foreign policy expertise and longevity in the business. Like Maddow, she has serious guests who are experts and tend to be unbiased. Andrea has a lot of political relationships formed before things became so partisan and is known to be fair also. Joe & Mika also cover book releases outside of politics and have guests with diverse backgrounds.

I can't stand Chuck Todd. He's smug, let's people lie without challenging them, yet will belabor minor, unimportant points. He also asks leading and loaded questions. His questions are formed based on his biases vs trying to get information or facts, imo. I forgot to switch to cspan for the articles of impeachment coverage and also I was an hour behind live event, so I couldn't tune in live. He had just had a handoff from Nicolle Wallace about how serious and somber an event was taking place, and he was just as flippant as he could be. No respect for what was taking place.

 

[SimplyMe]

For one, I seem to recall hearing it straight from a Senator's lips just yesterday, or maybe the day before. I would think a Senator would know more about those things than the average person might.

The Senator may, or may not, know more than I do but I trust little right now coming out of a Senator's mouths (of either side). What I said, though, is the common thinking about impeachment. Honestly -- aside from the "traditional" rules in both chambers in Congress (which they can change with a simple majority vote) -- the Constitution says little about impeachment other than authorizing the House to impeach and the Senate to then remove from office (convict).

The issue right now is most of the Senators talking to the media are repeating political talking points, not what they actually believe or feel. The best evidence of that -- go look at what the various senior Senators and Congresspeople (those that have been around since Pres. Clinton) said about Clinton's impeachment and compare it to what they say today about Trump's impeachment.

 

[wing2000]

For one, I seem to recall hearing it straight from a Senator's lips just yesterday, or maybe the day before. I would think a Senator would know more about those things than the average person might.

I've heard quite a few GOP Senators stating this verbatim (i.e. McConnell's talking points)