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SEA ISLAND, Georgia — John Kelly warned President Trump that hiring a “yes man” to succeed him as White House chief of staff would lead to impeachment and, in hindsight, regrets his decision to resign. House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump less than a year after Kelly departed the administration. The retired, four-star Marine general suggested the blame lies squarely with acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and other advisers who are unable, or unwilling, to keep the president out of trouble.

Top Republican senators dismissed leaked details from former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s upcoming book, saying the allegations were not new.“There’s nothing new here. It does seem to be an effort to sell books,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, told reporters in Washington on Monday.“The basic dynamic of the obligation of the House to take the time they have to put a case together doesn’t change. I don’t think it changes any fundamental information, nor does it change the basic case that the House has to put the case together,” added Sen. Roy...

A lawyer for White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney pushed back against reports that he was involved in discussions about holding hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations.“John Bolton never informed Mick Mulvaney of any concerns surrounding Bolton’s purported August conversation with the president,” his lawyer, Bob Driscoll, said in a statement (pdf) on Monday. “Nor did Mr. Mulvaney ever have a conversation with the president or anyone else indicating that Ukrainian military aid was withheld in exchange for a Ukrainian investigation of Burisma, the Bidens, or the 2016 election.”The statement remarked...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats are fighting to force impeachment witnesses who defied congressional subpoenas related to Ukraine to testify, but so far, no court cases against the four key figures exist. Pelosi made the misleading claim in an ABC interview Sunday in response to comments about Republican critics saying House Democrats could’ve done more to exhaust their alternatives when Trump officials refused to show up to testify at the behest of the president, including bringing those cases to court and played a clip by Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine saying that “the House chose not to...

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) seized on newly released emails surrounding President Trump's decision to delay aid to Ukraine, arguing they underscored the need for witnesses and documents as part of an impeachment trial. “The newly-revealed unredacted emails are a devastating blow to Senator McConnell’s push to have a trial without the documents and witnesses we’ve requested," Schumer said in a statement. "These emails further expose the serious concerns raised by Trump administration officials about the propriety and legality of the president’s decision to cut off aid to Ukraine to benefit himself," he added. Schumer's comments come after Just...

Senators from both sides of the aisle appeared optimistic Sunday a deal would be reached by party leaders to hold an impeachment trial in the Senate once lawmakers return after the holidays. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer failed to reach a negotiation last week over the rules and procedures for the likely trial, with Democrats demanding the chamber call witnesses. Mr. McConnell, though, is insisting President Trump have the same impeachment process afforded to President Clinton where the Senate agreed to hear from the House managers presenting their argument supporting the articles of impeachment...

Schumer did that again today with his demand for a “fair” trial, meaning to Schumer that Democrats get to reopen the investigation of Trump during the trial, including calling witnesses who did not testify, and doing the job the House Democrats failed to do. A do-over. That’s not usually the way trials work — the pleading of claims and discovery takes place before the trial. House Democrats chose not to do that for key witnesses they wanted — including John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney — because forcing them to testify in the House would have meant court litigation. Democrats were...

https://apnews.com/17c13b4aa38228aeaba137ef4aeec939 Click to copy RELATED TOPICS Ukraine AP Top News John Bolton Trials General News Mick Mulvaney Politics Joe Biden Impeachments Trump impeachment Mitch McConnell Donald Trump Democrats seek Bolton, Mulvaney for impeachment trial By LISA MASCARO and JONATHAN LEMIRE an hour ago Youtube video thumbnail WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats are proposing a weekslong Senate impeachment trial seeking testimony from four new witnesses including John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney over President Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine, according to a detailed outlined released Sunday. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York proposed the structure for a “fair and honest’’ trial...

On Sunday night, Chuck Schumer made his opening bid to Mitch McConnell in the two leaders' negotiations over the Senate impeachment trial. Driving the news: Schumer has sent a letter to McConnell in which he asks the Republican leader to call four witnesses who refused to testify before the House impeachment committees. - The witnesses Schumer has asked for all have direct knowledge of Trump administration decisions concerning the holdup of aid to Ukraine and the requests for investigations of the Bidens and of the origins of the Russia investigation. - They are: Mick Mulvaney, acting White House chief of...

An embattled Mississippi judge's nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans faces opposition from civil rights groups that claim he has a poor record on issues involving race and sexual assault—and from conservatives who claim he is not conservative enough. For the fifth time, the U.S. Senate committee in charge of advancing federal court nominees cancelled plans to hold a vote on Judge Halil Suleyman "Sul" Ozerden last month, and has not rescheduled plans to hold a vote. In an October letter, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights President Vanita Gupta wrote to...

A federal judge ruled Monday that former White House counsel Don McGahn must comply with a subpoena from House Judiciary Committee Democrats. Justice Department said it would appeal the ruling, setting up a possible Supreme Court clash. Now the judge says she will pause her own order while the appeals process has a chance to play out. Trump claimed he is 'fighting for future Presidents and the Office of the President' 'Other than that, I would actually like people to testify'. Said he would 'love' to have Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and many others testify

A power struggle within the White House has defenders of acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney accusing White House counsel Pat Cipollone's office of causing the impeachment crisis threatening President Trump. Cipollone must explain when he learned of concerns about Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine's president and explain why he did not take action to mitigate them, Mulvaney allies told the Washington Examiner. Two White House officials said they believe incompetence by Cipollone may have allowed concerns about the call to mount while most other White House staff were in the dark about the problem until September.

Mick Mulvaney’s presser, a closer look I want to take another look at Mick Mulvaney’s presser — the one that Democrats and the mainstream media claim nails down the existence of a quid pro quo arrangement between President Trump and Ukraine (or offer thereof) involving U.S. military aid. My previous post focused on the fact that if Mulvaney was talking about a quid pro quo, it wasn’t military aid in exchange for conducting an investigation of the Bidens. Rather it was military aid for cooperating with an investigation of Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election campaign.I argued that even if...

Mick Mulvaney's stumble on impeachment messaging has his supporters turning fire on White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, who sources say is viewed within the White House as having a "shelter-in-place bunker mentality" that undermines effective pushback against Democrats. "There's an open feud between Pat and those who want to fight and defend the president in White House, and Mick is the face of it," a White House official told the Washington Examiner, defending the acting chief of staff. Cipollone "is not the person you want to lead a political fight. He's a civil attorney without a political bone in his...

In numerous recent conversations with colleagues, including last week's senior staff meeting, White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has said he thinks President Trump could win 45 states in 2020 after the impeachment process — a magnitude of landslide that few if any independent pollsters would dare predict. Between the lines: People who've heard Mulvaney make this remark say he wasn't joking or even exaggerating. He appears to genuinely believe that impeachment will have a profoundly positive effect on Trump's political fortunes, according to 3 sources who have heard Mulvaney make the 45-state prediction. Mulvaney also believes that...

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Friday defended acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney amid backlash over his remarks suggesting that Ukraine aid was connected to the president’s call for the country to launch a probe into Democrats. McCarthy noted during a press conference that Mulvaney sought to walk back his remarks later in the day on Thursday, arguing the White House official "clarified his statement" and that he "takes Mick Mulvaney at his word for his clarification." “I think Mick was very clear in cleaning up the statement, that there was no quid pro quo. Everybody...

CNN claimed Thursday that the White House “admits to quid pro quo with Ukraine.” That appeared to be the opposite, in fact, of what happened during a press conference with acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Mulvaney told reporters that there had been no quid pro quo, as described by those pursuing his impeachment — that President Donald Trump had not withheld aid from Ukraine until it agreed to investigate his potential 2020 presidential rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged that he held up $390 million in security aide for Ukraine in order to pressure the country into pursuing a 2016 election probe being demanded by President Trump. Trump and top administration officials have vigorously denied any 'quid pro quo' with Ukraine following a whistleblower's report that the White House was demanding a probe of the Bidens as well as Trump's conspiracy theory that the DNC server might be in Ukraine's possession. In a rare White House briefing, Mulvaney denied any knowledge of a company linked to Hunter Biden – but...

Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat on the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, reacted to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney's remarks that aid to Ukraine was in fact tied to President Trump’s wish for an investigation into the 2016 election. "He co-signed the President's confession, I guess," he told reporters as he left the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility at Capitol Hill. Swalwell reiterated that Trump still deserves a fair process even though he believes the President has confessed. "We have a confession from the President," Swalwell said. "When a suspect confesses you can reduce the number of witnesses you...

FULL TITLE: Bolton wanted White House lawyers alerted to Ukrainian efforts, called it 'drug deal,' witness tells Congress ============================================ Former national security adviser John Bolton was so disturbed by the efforts to get the Ukrainians to investigate President Donald Trump’s political opponents that he called it a “drug deal,” former White House official Fiona Hill reportedly told Congress on Monday. Hill, the former top Europe expert in Trump’s White House, testified that Bolton told her he wanted no part of the effort that involved acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, a person in the room for Hill’s testimony...