Showing posts with label Robert Mueller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Mueller. Show all posts

Monday, August 24, 2020

Caught in Mueller's Net: Trump's Friends and Associates ; Tracked and Tried Guilty

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                               
(Reuters) - Steve Bannon: has been charged with defrauding Trump supporters in a campaign to help build the president’s signature wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, prosecutors said on Thursday.He was one of Trump's advisers.  Bannon served as a top adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and later worked as White House chief strategist before leaving the administration in August 2017.
      Trump met Bannon in 2010;  Bannon first met Trump through David Bossie, the head of conservative group Citizens United, Bannon said in a later interview with then-CBS anchor Charlie Rose.
      The count includes senior members of Trump’s campaign staff, including former campaign chair Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates – both snared on financial misdeeds in special counsel Robert Mueller investigation. Trump’s first national security adviser – Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn – pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI – though he has recently moved to retract his plea. His personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is under criminal investigation for his business relationship with two men arrested in an alleged campaign finance scheme, according to sources. Both Giuliani associates have pleaded not guilty.                                                                   

      
*Roger Jason Stone: "Trump’s longtime friend and adviser, was convicted of lying under oath to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.  an American conservative political consultant, lobbyist, and convicted felon. In November 2019, subsequent to the Mueller report and Special Counsel investigation, he was convicted on seven counts, including witness tampering and lying to investigators.   Stone first suggested Trump run for president in early 1998 while he was Trump's casino business lobbyist in Washington. The Netflix documentary film Get Me Roger Stone focuses on Stone's past and his role in Trump's presidential campaign.  Since the 1970s, Stone worked on the campaigns of Republican politicians Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump." He had a great resume!  
                                                             

*Paul Manafort: Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was found guilty of tax fraud and bank fraud in a jury trial in August 2018. A month later, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to money laundering, lobbying violations and witness tampering.  On October 27, 2017, Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates were indicted in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on multiple charges arising from his consulting work for the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine before Yanukovych's overthrow in 2014. The indictment came at the request of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation. In June 2018, additional charges were filed against Manafort for obstruction of justice and witness tampering that are alleged to have occurred while he was under house arrest, and he was ordered to jail.
                                                       

*Rick Gates:  Richard William Gates, III:  The former deputy chairman of Trump’s campaign pleaded guilty in February 2018 to conspiracy against the United States and lying to investigators.  is an American former political consultant and lobbyist who pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. He is a longtime business associate of Paul Manafort and served as deputy to Manafort when the latter was campaign manager of the Donald Trump presidential campaign in 2016, and after under Kellyanne Conway.  Gates agreed to cooperate with former Special Counsel Robert Mueller and testified as a prosecution witness against Manafort, his former business partner, and Stone. Gates was sentenced in December 2019 to 45 days in jail.
                                                        

Michael Cohen, lawyer: Cohen joined the Trump Organization in 2006. Trump hired him in part because he was already an admirer of Trump, having read Trump's Art of the Deal twice. He had purchased several Trump properties and convinced his own parents and in-laws, as well as a business partner, to buy condominiums in Trump World Tower. Cohen aided Trump in his struggle with the condominium board at the Trump World Tower, which led Trump to obtain control of the board. Cohen became a close confidant to Trump, maintaining an office near Trump at Trump Tower.Michael Dean Cohen is an American disbarred lawyer who served as an attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump from 2006–2018. Cohen was a vice-president of The Trump Organization, and the personal counsel to Trump, and was often described by media as Trump's "fixer". 
        He pleaded guilty in August 2018 to crimes including orchestrating ‘hush money’ payments before the 2016 election to women who had said they had sexual encounters with Trump.  Trump’s former personal lawyer is serving a three-year prison sentence at home due to the coronavirus pandemic. 
                                                        

Michael Flynn:  The retired Army lieutenant general served as Trump’s national security adviser for less than a month in 2017.Michael Thomas Flynn is a retired United States Army lieutenant general who was the 24th National Security Advisor for the first 22 days of the Trump administration until his forced resignation.. He pleaded guilty that year to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russia’s ambassador to the United States in the weeks before Trump took office.  
      In December 2017, Flynn formalized a deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller to plead guilty to a felony count of "willfully and knowingly" making false statements to the FBI, and agreed to cooperate with the Special Counsel's investigation.  In January 2020. Flynn moved to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming government vindictiveness and breach of the plea agreement. The United States Department of Justice announced that it intended to drop all charges against Flynn on May 7, 2020. Federal district judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled the matter to be placed on hold.  
                                                         
       

George Nader: A Lebanese-American businessman who was a key witness in special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election - a businessman who also helped broker the release of American hostages;  an informal Trump adviser on foreign policy and witness in the Mueller investigation, was sentenced in June to 10 years in prison by a federal judge in Virginia.  
       George Nader pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and to bringing a 14-year-old boy from the Czech Republic to engage in sexual activity to the United States for sex.  There was another George Nader, also of Lebanese ancestry, an actor and writer who was gay, and who died much earlier.  Nader's name appears more than 100 times in the Mueller report. It details Nader's efforts to serve as liaison between Russians and members of President Donald Trump's transition team.  
      "He  is an adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates and a consultant to Blackwater founder Erik Prince. In January 2018, special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators questioned Nader in connection to suspicions that the UAE had been involved with President Trump's 2016 campaign. 
     On August 3, 2016 Nader met with Trump Jr., Erik Prince, and Joel Zamel, an Israeli entrepreneur and specialist in social media manipulation, to offer help to the Trump team in winning the elections. There are conflicting accounts of whether the close to 2 million dollars Nader paid Zamel after Trump's victory is attributed to that or not. 
      In December 2019, Nader was charged in U.S. federal court with violating campaign finance laws by allegedly also using over three and half million dollars to reach out to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign for the U.S. Presidency, through a front." During the George H. W. Bush Administration he helped to free American hostages in Lebanon after the Iran–Contra affair.] 
      During the Clinton Administration, Nader tried unsuccessfully to broker an Israeli–Syrian peace agreement, working with Estée Lauder heir Ronald Lauder.  
     In August 2016, Nader met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower offering assistance to his father's presidential campaign. Nader served as an envoy representing Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammad bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The meeting included Erik Prince and Joel Zamel, an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation and owner of intelligence gathering firms including Wikistrat and the Psy-Group, who bragged to have received $2 million from Nader as part of the presidential campaign.
     Nader attended a December 2016 meeting in New York between the United Arab Emirates officials and president-elect Donald Trump's associates Jared Kushner, Michael Flynn, and Steve Bannon. In January 2017 he was at a meeting on the Seychelles islands between the Emiratis and Erik Prince, and was present when Prince met with officials from the UAE and Kirill Dmitriev, head of state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund.                                                     

      
George Papadopoulos:  According to court records, Papadopoulos joined Trump's foreign policy adviser team as a volunteer adviser in early March 2016. Sam Clovis, who at the time was national co-chairman of Donald Trump's campaign team, approved him as an unpaid adviser. In his campaign job interview via Skype from London on March 6, Clovis allegedly told Papadopoulos that one of the campaign's foreign policy priorities was to improve U.S.–Russia relations, though Clovis later denied saying that.  
        George Demetrios Papadopoulos is a former member of the foreign policy advisory panel to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.  Papadopoulos joined candidate Trump as well as Senator Jeff Sessions and other campaign officials for a National Security Meeting at the Trump Hotel, on March 31, 2016. Papadopoulos averred that he could facilitate a foreign policy meeting between candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
         The former Trump campaign adviser was sentenced in September 2018 to 14 days in prison after pleading guilty in October 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials and a Maltese professor who told him the Russians had “dirt” on Clinton.
      At a breakfast meeting at the Andaz London Liverpool Street hotel on April 26, 2016, Mifsud (While employed at that time with the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP), on March 12, 2016, Papadopoulos was part of an LCILP visiting delegation to the Link Campus University in Rome. There he met Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic who was at the time a teacher at the University of Stirling in Scotland.)  told Papadopoulos that he had information that the Russians have "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, "the Russians had emails of Clinton", "they have thousands of emails.  Despite his communications with members of the Trump campaign regarding Russia, the Mueller Report found no evidence that Papadopoulos ever shared information with the Trump campaign regarding Russia having "dirt" on Hilary Clinton or possessing her hacked emails.
       Between March and September 2016, Papadopoulos made at least six requests for Trump or representatives of his campaign to meet in Russia with Russian politicians. In May, campaign chairman Paul Manafort forwarded one such request to his deputy Rick Gates, saying "We need someone to communicate that [Trump] is not doing these trips. It should be someone low-level in the campaign so as not to send any signal." Gates delegated the task to the campaign's correspondence coordinator, referring to him as "the person responding to all mail of non-importance. 
                                                 

These men were investigated mostly because of Robert Swan Mueller III, an American lawyer and government official who served as the sixth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2001 to 2013.  On May 17, 2017, Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as special counsel overseeing an investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and related matters. He submitted his report to Attorney General William Barr on March 22, 2019.  On April 18, the Department of Justice released it.  On May 29, he resigned his post and the Office of the Special Counsel was closed. Mueller and William Barr—the attorney general who supervised the late stage of Mueller's special counsel investigation—have known each other since the 1980s and have been described as good friends. Mueller attended the weddings of two of Barr's daughters, and their wives attend Bible study together.
                                           


Resource; 
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-bannon-associates-factbox/factbox-here-are-eight-trump-associates-arrested-or-convicted-of-crimes-idUSKBN25G1YU
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-associates-prison-faced-criminal-charges/story?id=68358219
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/timeline-trump-bannons-turbulent-relationship/story?id=52137016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Stone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cohen_(lawyer)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-manafort-trial-testimony-rick-gates-tells-jurors-he-embezzled-hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Gates_(political_consultant)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/key-mueller-witness-george-nader-sentenced-10-years-200626170105895.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papadopoulos
https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2017/12/flynn-mueller-and-trump-investigating.html  Dec 1,2017


Thursday, January 30, 2020

TIMELINE Investigating Trump Turns Into A Witch Hunt Since 2015:With Robert Mueller, FBI and Democrats

Nadene Goldfoot                                             
President Donald Trump

"May 17, 2017: The Justice Department appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel. Mueller led the investigation of Trump into possible ties or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, as well as other matters that "may arise directly from the investigation."  Anyone who ever worked for Trump has fallen through the Mueller Investigations.  I cite just a few of them.  
                                                                     
Robert Mueller

"Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has resulted in five former Trump aides agreeing to work with Mueller’s team under plea deals. Numerous Trump associates had contacts with Russian government officials or business people during the campaign and presidential transition.  A Kremlin based Internet Research Agency, devised a strategy to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Its goal was to spread distrust toward candidates and the American political system."  It was successful as the spying on Trump doesn't seem to stop.

June 16, 2015: Donald Trump announced candidacy for president, and Russia's social media showed preference for Trump over Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton's wife.  Democrats were very strongly expecting support for Hillary.  Trump was an outsider even to the Republican Party.  He had been a Democrat.  


Oct. 28, 2015: Trump signed a letter of intent to negotiate the construction of a Trump Tower in Russia, as first reported by CNN. 
January 2016: Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer, emailed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.  Discussions about the project lasted as late as June 2016. Trump had been carrying on his duties as owner of hotels.   He was a friend of Hillary.  They ran in the same social circles.  
March 19, 2016: The chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, John Podesta, fell victim to an email phishing scam. It is believed this is how a group of Russian hackers gained access to his email account.
Early March 2016: George Papadopoulos joined the Trump campaign as an adviser.
March 24, 2016: Papadopoulos met in London with the professor who introduced him to a female Russian national who Papadopoulos believed to be a relative of Putin with links to other senior Russian officials.  Papadopoulos came to hope to arrange a meeting  between Putin and Trump.  Papadopoulos heard of thousands of e-mails of Hillary Clinton's and the dirt he would have on her.  
April 2016: Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak attended Trump’s foreign policy speech in Washington, where he met Trump’s son-in-law and campaign adviser Jared Kushner.
July 2016: The FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee later confirmed that information from Papadopoulos triggered the investigation.
July 27, 2016: During a press conference, Trump said of Clinton’s emails: "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the 33,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." This most likely was said with tongue in cheek, for attention.  It received much negative attention, as if it were the Biblical scripture.  
Oct. 21, 2016: The FBI and Justice Department obtained a warrant to monitor Carter Page based on probable cause that Page is Russian agent. Page stepped down from the Trump campaign the previous month.
It had been in early July 2016  when Trump campaign adviser Carter Page traveled to Moscow, where he met with Russia’s deputy prime minister and a high-ranking Russian oil official. Page emailed campaign staffers that the deputy prime minister had "expressed strong support for Mr. Trump," and that he had gleaned "incredible insights and outreach" in Russia.  Page later was found colluding with a female staffer with both being against Trump.  

Nov. 8, 2016: Trump was elected president. Democrats have been shocked, and impeachment talks started right away.  


Jan. 10, 2017: A dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele became public. Steele wrote the dossier on behalf of Fusion GPS, a research firm whose work had been funded in part by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The document suggested the Kremlin possesses compromising material against Trump and raises the possibility Trump is vulnerable to blackmail.
Jan. 20, 2017: Trump was inaugurated as president.

February 2017 The Impeach Trump Leadership PAC was started by California Democratic Party congressional candidate Boyd Roberts


May 9, 2017: Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
May 12, 2017 As the backlash to President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey escalates, Democratic lawmakers are increasingly raising the prospect of impeachment.
On June 7, 2017, Congressman Al Green announced that Congressman Brad Sherman would join with him in drafting articles of impeachment against President Trump.
On July 12, 2017 Congressman Sherman formally introduced in the House of Representatives an Article of Impeachment (H.Res. 438), accusing the president of obstructing and impeding the investigation of justice, regarding the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
On August 17 to November, 2017 Representative Steve Cohen announced he would introduce articles of impeachment because Trump had "failed the presidential test of moral leadership".
Oct. 5, 2017: Papadopoulos pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his efforts to put the Trump campaign in contact with Moscow. He entered a plea agreement with Mueller.
Oct. 30, 2017: Manafort and Trump campaign associate Rick Gates surrendered to the FBI after being charged with a dozen felonies each, including failing to disclose lobbying activities on behalf of foreign entities, financial crimes and making false statements. They pled not guilty to all charges.
Nov. 30, 2017:   Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and former National Security Advisor to Trump in 2017  pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his discussions with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition, and entered a plea agreement with Mueller.
On December 6,2017, a second privileged resolution on articles of impeachment, H.Res. 646, was brought on the floor by Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas. The resolution listed two articles, i.e. proposed reasons for impeachment: "Associating the Presidency with White Nationalism, Neo-Nazism and Hatred" and "Inciting Hatred and Hostility". House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, moved for the resolution to be defeated ("tabled"), which was agreed to by a 364–58 vote with four members voting present.
April 9, 2018: The FBI raided the offices of Trump’s longtime lawyer and aide Michael Cohen. The case was referred to the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York.
April 27, 2018: Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee released a final report on the committee’s Russia investigation over Democratic objections. The committee's Republican members found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow, but concluded that Russia conducted cyberattacks on U.S. political institutions during the 2016 campaign.
The committee’s top Democrat, Adam Schiff of California, criticized GOP members for closing the investigation prematurely, and called their findings superficial and politically motivated. Statements made by Michael Cohen, Trump's long-time lawyer and aide,  about Trump Tower Moscow, which Cohen later admitted were lies, go largely unchallenged in the report.  His offices had been raided by FBI on April 9th.  
May 1, 2018: Trump reacted angrily to a New York Times report containing a list of questions Mueller is said to have sent Trump as part of the special counsel investigation, calling it a "witch hunt."  He had only been president for 1 year 3 months and 11 days.  
Aug. 1, 2018: Trump called on his attorney general to end the Mueller probe, tweeting: "This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further."
November 29, 2018:  Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Sater’s comment about Cohen interested in offering a $50 million penthouse in Trump Tower Moscow to Putin because they believed , if true, shows House investigations should continue to probe "what, if any, financial leverage the Russians may hold over President Trump and the Trump Organization."


On March 11, 2019, Nancy Pelosi said, "I'm not for impeachment, Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he's just not worth it. No. I don't think he is. I mean, ethically unfit. Intellectually unfit. Curiosity wise unfit. No, I don't think he's fit to be president of the United States." She then scolded herself for "coming across too negatively".
With the Democrats in control of the House, and with a direct impeachment inquiry deemed somewhat toxic, the work of investigations into Trump's possible crimes were divided into several committees while waiting for some outside force, such as the Mueller probe or the Southern District to force the Democratic leadership's hands.

March 22, 2019: Mueller concluded his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and related matters. Mueller submitted a confidential report to Attorney General William Barr explaining his "prosecution and declination decisions." Barr told lawmakers who lead congressional judiciary committees in a letter that he would advise them the special counsel's principal conclusions, perhaps as soon as this weekend.
                                                           
Zelensky, comedian turn TV actor of a president
Becoming Ukraine's President
Ukrainian presidents are frequently asked by individual citizens for help in solving their personal problems (sometimes successfully); in 2012, (then) president Yanukovych received about 10,000 to 12,000 letters from people every month.  By-passing local governments is an ages-old practice in Ukraine.
May 20, 2019: KIEV, Ukraine — Volodymyr Zelensky, a television comedian turned populist firebrand, took office as Ukraine’s president on Monday and immediately began to battle the political establishment.

May 29, 2019: Mueller brought the investigation to a formal close in his first public statement about the Russia probe. Mueller recapped Russia’s attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and explained why he could not have brought charges against the president even if he found they were substantiated.
               
Start of formal impeachment proceedings

THE BOMBSHELL DISCLOSED 1/31/2020 This is when John Bolton's book is reported to reveal that a meeting took place with heads of his committee that Trump denies taking place.  Bolton is saying that he was asked to pressure Ukraine earlier than has been brought out.  Note that the book has not been published yet, and is said to have included information that Washington says is not passing the muster of being allowable.  


July 26, 2019:  The start of official proceedings was first revealed to the public in a court filing.
September 17, 2019: The first hearings against a president in 21 years took place , and featured the testimony of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Lewandowski exhibited a letter from President Trump stating that he was forbidden to answer questions due to executive privilege, even though he had never worked in the White House and was not entitled to it. Several Republican members of the committee attempted to use a number of procedural laws but were ignored by democrats[clarification ? ) to continue the proceedings. Lewandowski, however, did admit to doing the things he was stated as doing in the Mueller Report.

September 24, 2019: After Nancy Pelosi formally announced an impeachment inquiry into Trump,  several opinion polls reflected an increase in support for an impeachment inquiry. According to a Morning Consult poll, 43% of Americans support impeachment proceedings, a 7-point increase, tying with Americans who do not support such proceedings. Additionally, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll showed support for an impeachment inquiry into Trump at 49%, while 46% opposed.
An analysis of polls showed that through mid-December, Americans remained sharply divided on whether Trump should be removed from office. According to a CNN poll taken on December 12–15, 45% of Americans support the impeachment and removal of Trump from office, while 47% oppose impeachment.
                                                    
Patrick Philbin, Republican Defender
Questions at Senate Impeachment probe center on
Trump's motives on Ukraine probe
If Trump's motives are not pure, can the president be impeached?
It's down to the nitty gritty; motivation.    
Patrick Philbin, one of the president’s lawyers, said even if President Trump had some personal interest in asking Ukraine to investigate a political opponent, as long as there was some public reason, the impeachment case falls apart.

January 30, 2020:  We have been watching the impeachment trial during the last few days.  The question and answer period had gone on yesterday.  Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, Democrats, answered many questions which helped their side.  Patrick Philbin, Republican, answered many questions for the Republican side and certainly impressed me.  Alan Dershowitz, a criminal lawyer of great repute, as I have many of his books in my library, made surprising  comments in defense of Trump.  He was added to the group recently for this rare occasion.  

If I had to live with the tumult around me about impeachment since the day I was inaugurated, some talk of it even before taking office, I would have had a nervous breakdown.  How about you?  I have come to the opinion that the job of President is harder than any other position, and one must be a rare bird to withstand the pressure and as wise as Solomon, who certainly had his problems, even with a brilliant mind. 
                                                       

 Trump started showing the affects when he realized he was the subject of a witch hunt, and about as popular with the Democrats as the wicked witch of the West.  However, he has continued with his duties with all the zeal since he began.  
                                                         
Meeting on January 27, 2020 in Israel 
Trump's plan defines the future of Israeli settlements, how Palestinians might conditionally form a state, and America’s view of Israel’s myriad security concerns but it's being met with poor reviews.  The Palestinians rejected it
completely without hearing it out because they were not a part of it. True

to form, they've been doing this for the past 70 years.
Netanyahu is under the gun, as well with another election coming
up in March.  


"The Constitution charges the House of Representatives with the “sole power” to investigate, and if necessary, impeach a president by charging them with committing “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Once the House of Representatives votes and passes Articles of Impeachment against the president, the president is then entitled to a trial. Once impeached, the accused president is tried by the full Senate, which is presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. If convicted by a 2/3 majority, the president is then removed from office.

While the Founders ultimately agreed to invest the president with broad executive powers, they again clashed over what should constitute an impeachable offense, and how impeachment (and then removal) should be carried out. What would happen if a president purposefully violated the Constitution or otherwise was deficient in discharging their duties? How could the other branches of the federal government rein them in?

The Constitution states that presidents may be impeached for “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” They chose the words for very specific reasons. “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” is ambiguous enough for Congress to define its precise contours on a case-by-case basis, while also being rooted in British and early American history via past impeachments of public officials. " " Harvard Law Review says that  "The majority view is that a president can legally be impeached for 'intentional, evil deeds' that 'drastically subvert the Constitution and involve an unforgivable abuse of the presidency' — even if those deeds didn’t violate any criminal laws."

President Donald Trump was acquitted on Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 4:30pm EST.of the two charges of reason for impeachment.  It was the night before that he made an hour and a half State of the Union  speech before Congress.   Both his speech and his acquittal showed us that the country is quite divided and has taken either Democrat or Republican sides almost equally.   

Edited: 1/31/2020;   Resource:  https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jul/16/russia-investigation-donald-trump-timeline-updated/
https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2020/01/2017-scene-of-wanting-trump-impeached.html
https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/12/politics/kfile-democrats-impeach-trump/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_impeach_Donald_Trump
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/29/first-question-senate-impeachment-trial-focuses-tr/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/he-once-played-ukraines-president-on-tv-now-he-just-took-office-as-the-real-one/2019/05/20/594c6322-77e5-11e9-a7bf-c8a43b84ee31_story.html
https://pacificlegal.org/impeachment-explained-a-constitutional-primer-and-history/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA4NTxBRDxARIsAHyp6gD5TY1Cy_W5iB60es1uoHoud_-NHAx1S2Gk4MqjQ0dKd6HGVR1VQE4aAkHWEALw_wcB