A new Hill-HarrisX survey on Friday found support for impeachment proceedings against President Trump has risen 12 points compared to a similar poll conducted three months ago.
The survey was conducted on Sept. 26-27, just days after House Democrats started a formal impeachment inquiry over a whistleblower complaint involving Trump’s communications with Ukraine.
The poll showed 47 percent of respondents support that decision, up 12 points from a similar survey in June, which asked whether Democrats should begin impeachment proceedings.
Meanwhile, opposition to impeachment dipped 3 points to 42 percent, while 11 percent of those polled in the new survey said they weren't sure or didn't know.
Support for impeachment grew among Democratic, Republican and independent voters alike. Democratic support jumped from 59 percent to 78 percent, a 19-point increase. The number of Republicans backing impeachment jumped 5 points to 18 percent.
The number of independents back impeachment doubled to 41 percent.
You beat me to it, busy afternoon at the office. I didnt see this poll until now.
The +12 overall and independents doubling to 41% is telling.
There are stark differences between Mueller and Ukraine. Dems can say look at Trumps own summary of the call. He is guilty of extortion and circumventing taxpayer money.
With Mueller involved they had to be very careful not to step on the toes of the special counsel.
Now without one, they can control the investigation and speak very aggressively negative about trump. Like if another shoe drops with more evidence, start publicly pressuring him to resign. Unless the evidence is exculpatory
Yeah independents doubling is huge.
No way will evidence be exculpatory. He acts guilty because he is.
Watching coverage now. What a despicable man but im being redundant.
Kurt Volker resigned today after being named in whistleblower report.
And the classified information he shared with the Russians after he fired Comey was ISIS information from Israel. .
It seems like the levee is breaking, esp. with the amount of stuff that was hidden on the secret server. Putin, Saudis, oval office Russian meetings, what else?
And Trump is strangely quiet, no tweets, wonder why.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I couldn't read that because I hit my limit but I did hear that they were reclassifying emails and retroactively making them Classified. How is it possible they could do that and then make it seem as if the aides had done something wrong??? How screwed up is that? They have nothing to run on but Hillary hate...so sad.
I couldn't read that because I hit my limit but I did hear that they were reclassifying emails and retroactively making them Classified. How is it possible they could do that and then make it seem as if the aides had done something wrong??? How screwed up is that? They have nothing to run on but Hillary hate...so sad.
They are manipulative pigs the whole administration it’s disgusting!
I couldn't read that because I hit my limit but I did hear that they were reclassifying emails and retroactively making them Classified. How is it possible they could do that and then make it seem as if the aides had done something wrong??? How screwed up is that? They have nothing to run on but Hillary hate...so sad.
when I get on my laptop I will copy/paste the article. with attribution....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The Trump administration is investigating the email
records of dozens of current and former senior State Department
officials who sent messages to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s
private email, reviving a politically toxic matter that overshadowed
the 2016 election, current and former officials said.
As
many as 130 officials have been contacted in recent weeks by State
Department investigators — a list that includes senior officials who
reported directly to Clinton as well as others in lower-level jobs whose
emails were at some point relayed to her inbox, said current and former
State Department officials. Those targeted were notified that emails
they sent years ago have been retroactively classified and now
constitute potential security violations, according to letters reviewed
by The Washington Post.
In virtually all of the
cases, potentially sensitive information, now recategorized as
“classified,” was sent to Clinton’s unsecure inbox.
State
Department investigators began contacting the former officials about 18
months ago, after President Trump’s election, and then seemed to drop
the effort before picking it up in August, officials said.
Senior
State Department officials said that they are following standard
protocol in an investigation that began during the latter days of the
Obama administration and is nearing completion.
“This
has nothing to do with who is in the White House,” said a senior State
Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing probe. “This
is about the time it took to go through millions of emails, which is
about 3½ years.”
Trump speaks about Clinton's emails during meeting with Ukraine's president
In a Sept. 25 meeting with Ukraine's president, President Trump was
asked a question about a 2016 probe into former secretary of state
Hillary Clinton's emails. (The Washington Post)
To many of those under
scrutiny, including some of the Democratic Party’s top foreign policy
experts, the recent flurry of activity surrounding the Clinton email
case represents a new front on which the Trump administration could be
accused of employing the powers of the executive branch against
perceived political adversaries.
The existence
of the probe follows revelations that the president used multiple levers
of his office to pressure the leader of Ukraine to pursue
investigations that Trump hoped would produce damaging information about
Democrats, including potential presidential rival Joe Biden.
State
Department officials vigorously denied there was any political
motivation behind their actions, and said that the reviews of
retroactively classified emails were conducted by career bureaucrats who
did not know the names of the subjects being investigated.
“The
process is set up in a manner to completely avoid any appearance of
political bias,” said a second senior State Department official, who was
speaking on condition of anonymity to describe the mechanics of an
internal probe.
Clinton’s use of a private
email server during her term as secretary triggered multiple
investigations by the State Department, the FBI and Congress. The bureau
did not accuse her of breaking the law, but she blamed the FBI’s
unusual public handling of the matter as a major factor in her loss in
the 2016 election.
“I’d like to think that this
is just routine, but something strange is going on,” said Jeffrey
Feltman, a former assistant secretary for Near East Affairs. In early
2018 Feltman received a letter informing him that a half dozen of his
messages included classified information. Then a few weeks ago he was
found culpable for more than 50 emails that contained classified
information.
“A couple of the emails cited by
State as problems were sent after my May 2012 retirement, when I was
already working for the United Nations,” he said.
A
former senior U.S. official familiar with the email investigation
described it as a way for Republicans “to keep the Clinton email issue
alive.” The former official said the probe was “a way to tarnish a whole
bunch of Democratic foreign policy people” and discourage if not
prevent them from returning to government service.
The
probe is being carried out by investigators from the State Department’s
Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Republican lawmakers, led by Sen.
Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), have been pressing Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo to complete the review of classified information sent to
Clinton’s private emails and report back to Congress.
State Department officials said they were bound by law to adjudicate any violations.
Former
Obama administration officials, however, described the probe as a
remarkably aggressive crackdown by an administration with its own
troubled record of handling classified material. Trump has improperly
disclosed classified information to foreign officials and used phones
that national security officials warned were vulnerable to foreign
surveillance, according to current and former officials.
At
the same time, Trump overrode the concerns of his former White House
chief of staff and U.S. intelligence officials to give his son-in-law
and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner access to highly classified
materials, officials said.
The list of State
officials being questioned includes prominent ambassadors and assistant
secretaries of state responsible for U.S. policy in the Middle East,
Europe and Central Asia. But it also includes dozens of current and
former career bureaucrats who served as conduits for outside officials
trying to get important messages to Clinton.
In
most cases the bureaucrats and political appointees didn’t send the
emails directly to Clinton, but passed them to William Burns, who served
as deputy secretary of state, or Jake Sullivan, the former director of
policy planning at the State Department. Burns and Sullivan then
forwarded the messages to Clinton’s private email.
Burns
and Sullivan declined to comment. Other officials spoke on the
condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter and concern
for retaliation.
Those targeted began
receiving letters in August, saying, “You have been identified as
possibly bearing some culpability” in supposedly newly uncovered
“security incidents,” according to a copy of one letter obtained by The
Washington Post.
In many cases, the incidents
appear to center on the sending of information attributed to foreign
officials, including summaries of phone conversations with foreign
diplomats — a routine occurrence among State Department employees.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
There
is no indication in any of the materials reviewed by The Post that the
emails under scrutiny contained sensitive information about classified
U.S. initiatives or programs. In one case, a former official was asked
to explain dozens of messages dating back to 2009 that contained
messages that foreign officials wanted relayed rapidly to Washington at a
time when U.S. Foreign Service officers were equipped with BlackBerrys
and other devices that were not capable of sending classified
transmissions. The messages came in through “regular email” and then
were forwarded through official — though unclassified — State Department
channels.
In other instances officials were
relaying email summaries of time-sensitive conversations with foreign
leaders conducted over unclassified cellphones.
Those
communications are now being “upclassified” or “reclassified,”
according to several officials involved in the investigation, meaning
that they have been retroactively assessed to contain material so
sensitive that they should have been sent only on State Department
classified systems.
Many of those who have been
targeted by the probe and found “not culpable,” described it as an
effort to harass diplomats for the routine conduct of their job.
“It
is such an obscene abuse of power and time involving so many people for
so many years,” one former U.S. official said of the inquiry. “This has
just sucked up people’s lives for years and years.”
Several
of those who have been questioned said that the State Department Bureau
of Diplomatic Security investigators made it clear that they were
pursuing the matter reluctantly, and under external pressure.
One official said the investigators were apologetic: “They realize how absurd it is.”
Those
targeted do not appear to be in jeopardy of criminal prosecution — the
FBI investigation of the Clinton email case has been closed since before
the 2016 election. But many fear the results of the probe will damage
their reputations and complicate their ability to maintain security
clearances.
Several said they have received
follow-on letters saying that investigators “determined that the
[security] incident is valid,” but that they did not “bear any
individual culpability” — an ambiguous designation that could pose
complications in future background checks and confirmation hearings.
“It gives them a way to hassle pretty much anyone,” a former senior U.S. official said.
In many instances, the officials said that it had
been so long since they had been questioned that they assumed the email
case had been resolved, even though Trump routinely rails about the
Clinton email issue.
Trump raised the issue as recently as Wednesday, calling it “one of the great crimes committed” by his 2016 opponent.
Trump
faces impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives in the
wake of a whistleblower report by a CIA officer exposing Trump’s efforts
on a July 25 call to pressure the leader of Ukraine to pursue
investigations that Trump hoped would generate embarrassing material
about Biden.
Trump’s request for that “favor”
came as his administration was withholding hundreds of millions of
dollars in aid from Kiev and dangling a potential White House visit for
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The
FBI began examining Clinton’s use of a private email server in July
2015, based on a referral from the intelligence community inspector
general. Their investigation sought to determine whether anyone —
especially the former secretary of state — had broken federal law in
discussing classified information on unclassified systems.
Investigators
reviewed 30,000 emails that Clinton turned back over to the State
Department after leaving others, and took other steps, including
tracking down computers and other devices Clinton had used, to find
thousands more. Their investigation included examinations of the
archived government accounts of people who had been in government at the
same time as Clinton and who might have naturally exchanged messages
with her.
Although Clinton was considered the
biggest player in the investigation, she was never formally labeled a
subject or target, and investigators also considered the conduct of her
top aides and colleagues.
About a year later,
in July 2016, then-FBI Director James B. Comey announced he was
recommending the case be closed with no charges. He said Clinton’s and
her aides’ handling of classified information was “extremely careless,”
but not such that it warranted criminal charges. He suggested those who
did wrong could face job-related consequences, and took a broad swipe at
the State Department, saying its employees’ use of unclassified email
systems was “generally lacking in the kind of care for classified
information found elsewhere in the government,” according to his
prepared remarks.
A few months later, the
bureau resumed the inquiry after discovering more of Clinton’s
correspondence with a top aide on a device investigators were examining
in a separate investigation of the aide’s husband. But they found
nothing to change their conclusion and closed the case again just before
the 2016 election.
Paul Sonne, Shane Harris, Matt Zapotosky and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
49-51 support the inquiry. Huge jump from just a week ago. Most importantly, 22% think it's too early to say, meaning that strong evidence and a good media strategy can create the wave necessary.
49-51 support the inquiry. Huge jump from just a week ago. Most importantly, 22% think it's too early to say, meaning that strong evidence and a good media strategy can create the wave necessary.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Comments
All aboard the Impeachment Train. It was always just a matter of time. Hop on!
No way will evidence be exculpatory. He acts guilty because he is.
Trump told Russian officials in 2017 he wasn’t concerned about Moscow’s interference in election
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-told-russian-officials-in-2017-he-wasnt-concerned-about-moscows-interference-in-us-election/2019/09/27/b20a8bc8-e159-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html
Dont sweat it Russia, we do it too...
Watching coverage now. What a despicable man but im being redundant.
Kurt Volker resigned today after being named in whistleblower report.
And the classified information he shared with the Russians after he fired Comey was ISIS information from Israel. .
It seems like the levee is breaking, esp. with the amount of stuff that was hidden on the secret server. Putin, Saudis, oval office Russian meetings, what else?
And Trump is strangely quiet, no tweets, wonder why.
#2019
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/09/27/geraldo-rivera-fox-news-rotten-snitch-whistleblower-sot-vpx-crn.cnn
I mean come on bro. #wrongsideofhistory
The President goes to Trump National Golf Club with Lindsey Graham in Potomac Falls, VA (9:54 AM - )
Target Center, 7:00 pm CT
This may be the greatest article ever written...Town & Country indeed.
That Time Donald Trump Jr. Threatened to Kill Rossano Rubicondi, His Mother’s Husband, at Their Wedding
It followed a lavish ceremony at Mar-a-Lago—and a visit from the Palm Beach PD.
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a28326058/donald-trump-jr-threatened-to-kill-stepfatehr-rossano-rubicondi-at-wedding-to-ivana-trump/
Thank god they didn't call it a PROBE.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
They are manipulative pigs the whole administration it’s disgusting!
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The Trump administration is investigating the email records of dozens of current and former senior State Department officials who sent messages to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email, reviving a politically toxic matter that overshadowed the 2016 election, current and former officials said.
As many as 130 officials have been contacted in recent weeks by State Department investigators — a list that includes senior officials who reported directly to Clinton as well as others in lower-level jobs whose emails were at some point relayed to her inbox, said current and former State Department officials. Those targeted were notified that emails they sent years ago have been retroactively classified and now constitute potential security violations, according to letters reviewed by The Washington Post.
In virtually all of the cases, potentially sensitive information, now recategorized as “classified,” was sent to Clinton’s unsecure inbox.
State Department investigators began contacting the former officials about 18 months ago, after President Trump’s election, and then seemed to drop the effort before picking it up in August, officials said.
Senior State Department officials said that they are following standard protocol in an investigation that began during the latter days of the Obama administration and is nearing completion.
“This has nothing to do with who is in the White House,” said a senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing probe. “This is about the time it took to go through millions of emails, which is about 3½ years.”
To many of those under scrutiny, including some of the Democratic Party’s top foreign policy experts, the recent flurry of activity surrounding the Clinton email case represents a new front on which the Trump administration could be accused of employing the powers of the executive branch against perceived political adversaries.
The existence of the probe follows revelations that the president used multiple levers of his office to pressure the leader of Ukraine to pursue investigations that Trump hoped would produce damaging information about Democrats, including potential presidential rival Joe Biden.
[Trump offered Ukrainian president Justice Dept. help on Biden, memo shows]
State Department officials vigorously denied there was any political motivation behind their actions, and said that the reviews of retroactively classified emails were conducted by career bureaucrats who did not know the names of the subjects being investigated.
“The process is set up in a manner to completely avoid any appearance of political bias,” said a second senior State Department official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity to describe the mechanics of an internal probe.
Clinton’s use of a private email server during her term as secretary triggered multiple investigations by the State Department, the FBI and Congress. The bureau did not accuse her of breaking the law, but she blamed the FBI’s unusual public handling of the matter as a major factor in her loss in the 2016 election.
“I’d like to think that this is just routine, but something strange is going on,” said Jeffrey Feltman, a former assistant secretary for Near East Affairs. In early 2018 Feltman received a letter informing him that a half dozen of his messages included classified information. Then a few weeks ago he was found culpable for more than 50 emails that contained classified information.
“A couple of the emails cited by State as problems were sent after my May 2012 retirement, when I was already working for the United Nations,” he said.
A former senior U.S. official familiar with the email investigation described it as a way for Republicans “to keep the Clinton email issue alive.” The former official said the probe was “a way to tarnish a whole bunch of Democratic foreign policy people” and discourage if not prevent them from returning to government service.
The probe is being carried out by investigators from the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Republican lawmakers, led by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), have been pressing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to complete the review of classified information sent to Clinton’s private emails and report back to Congress.
State Department officials said they were bound by law to adjudicate any violations.
Former Obama administration officials, however, described the probe as a remarkably aggressive crackdown by an administration with its own troubled record of handling classified material. Trump has improperly disclosed classified information to foreign officials and used phones that national security officials warned were vulnerable to foreign surveillance, according to current and former officials.
At the same time, Trump overrode the concerns of his former White House chief of staff and U.S. intelligence officials to give his son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner access to highly classified materials, officials said.
The list of State officials being questioned includes prominent ambassadors and assistant secretaries of state responsible for U.S. policy in the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia. But it also includes dozens of current and former career bureaucrats who served as conduits for outside officials trying to get important messages to Clinton.
In most cases the bureaucrats and political appointees didn’t send the emails directly to Clinton, but passed them to William Burns, who served as deputy secretary of state, or Jake Sullivan, the former director of policy planning at the State Department. Burns and Sullivan then forwarded the messages to Clinton’s private email.
Burns and Sullivan declined to comment. Other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter and concern for retaliation.
Those targeted began receiving letters in August, saying, “You have been identified as possibly bearing some culpability” in supposedly newly uncovered “security incidents,” according to a copy of one letter obtained by The Washington Post.
In many cases, the incidents appear to center on the sending of information attributed to foreign officials, including summaries of phone conversations with foreign diplomats — a routine occurrence among State Department employees.
T
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
In other instances officials were relaying email summaries of time-sensitive conversations with foreign leaders conducted over unclassified cellphones.
Those communications are now being “upclassified” or “reclassified,” according to several officials involved in the investigation, meaning that they have been retroactively assessed to contain material so sensitive that they should have been sent only on State Department classified systems.
Many of those who have been targeted by the probe and found “not culpable,” described it as an effort to harass diplomats for the routine conduct of their job.
“It is such an obscene abuse of power and time involving so many people for so many years,” one former U.S. official said of the inquiry. “This has just sucked up people’s lives for years and years.”
Several of those who have been questioned said that the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security investigators made it clear that they were pursuing the matter reluctantly, and under external pressure.
One official said the investigators were apologetic: “They realize how absurd it is.”
Those targeted do not appear to be in jeopardy of criminal prosecution — the FBI investigation of the Clinton email case has been closed since before the 2016 election. But many fear the results of the probe will damage their reputations and complicate their ability to maintain security clearances.
Several said they have received follow-on letters saying that investigators “determined that the [security] incident is valid,” but that they did not “bear any individual culpability” — an ambiguous designation that could pose complications in future background checks and confirmation hearings.
“It gives them a way to hassle pretty much anyone,” a former senior U.S. official said.
In many instances, the officials said that it had been so long since they had been questioned that they assumed the email case had been resolved, even though Trump routinely rails about the Clinton email issue.
Trump raised the issue as recently as Wednesday, calling it “one of the great crimes committed” by his 2016 opponent.
Trump faces impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives in the wake of a whistleblower report by a CIA officer exposing Trump’s efforts on a July 25 call to pressure the leader of Ukraine to pursue investigations that Trump hoped would generate embarrassing material about Biden.
Trump’s request for that “favor” came as his administration was withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from Kiev and dangling a potential White House visit for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The FBI began examining Clinton’s use of a private email server in July 2015, based on a referral from the intelligence community inspector general. Their investigation sought to determine whether anyone — especially the former secretary of state — had broken federal law in discussing classified information on unclassified systems.
Investigators reviewed 30,000 emails that Clinton turned back over to the State Department after leaving others, and took other steps, including tracking down computers and other devices Clinton had used, to find thousands more. Their investigation included examinations of the archived government accounts of people who had been in government at the same time as Clinton and who might have naturally exchanged messages with her.
Although Clinton was considered the biggest player in the investigation, she was never formally labeled a subject or target, and investigators also considered the conduct of her top aides and colleagues.
About a year later, in July 2016, then-FBI Director James B. Comey announced he was recommending the case be closed with no charges. He said Clinton’s and her aides’ handling of classified information was “extremely careless,” but not such that it warranted criminal charges. He suggested those who did wrong could face job-related consequences, and took a broad swipe at the State Department, saying its employees’ use of unclassified email systems was “generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government,” according to his prepared remarks.
A few months later, the bureau resumed the inquiry after discovering more of Clinton’s correspondence with a top aide on a device investigators were examining in a separate investigation of the aide’s husband. But they found nothing to change their conclusion and closed the case again just before the 2016 election.
Paul Sonne, Shane Harris, Matt Zapotosky and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-impeachment-inquiry-poll-cbs-news-poll-finds-majority-of-americans-and-democrats-approve/
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14