by Renee Parsons<\/p>\n
There were two especially notable testimonies made during the recent House impeachment inquiry that should have been \u2018nothing to see here folks, let\u2019s move on<\/i>\u2019 except that The Grand Poobah of the Intel Committee Chair Adam Schiff, haughty in his own insecurity and full of his usual self-regard, bugging his eyes in anticipation, continues to act as if he is living in a reality where facts and evidence are non-existent.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In a series of mental meanderings, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s statement that two career diplomats had provided \u201ccorroborated evidence of bribery<\/i>\u201d<\/a> was little more than off-hand ramblings<\/a> with no evidence of exactly what was corroborated.\u00a0 <\/span>Upon questioning, Pelosi defined \u2018bribery<\/i>\u2019 as the President\u2019s alleged withholding of military aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into the Biden\u2019s financial bonanza.<\/p>\n In contrast to Pelosi\u2019s allegation, neither of the career diplomats aforementioned presented any \u201ccorroborated evidence of bribery<\/i>\u201d nor has any testimony confirmed that bribery occurred.<\/p>\n As Lord High Justice of the Misguided Society of Wild Goose Chases, the myopic Schiff Show moves on this week to the House Judiciary Committee with more disgruntled witnesses on Wednesday who have, as of the 2016 election, lost any objectivity or claim to legal scholarship.\u00a0 <\/span>In a recent WSJ op ed<\/a>, GW University law professor Jonathon Turley referred to the impeachment inquiry as the \u201cshortest investigation producing the thinnest record of wrongdoing for the narrowest impeachment in history<\/i><\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\n On the first day of the Intel Committee hearings, Rep. Jim Jordan questioned \u2018star\u2019 witness\u00a0 <\/span>former Ambassador Bill Taylor who was expected to drop a \u201cbombshell.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Instead, channeling his best Clarence Darrow,<\/a> Jordan caught Taylor in the admission<\/a> that after Ukraine aid was held up until September 11, Taylor had three meetings with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky\u00a0 <\/span>(July 26, August 27 and September 5); during which, Taylor agreed, that the subject of US financial assistance as a Quid Pro Quo for a Ukraine investigation into the Bidens or Burisma was never discussed<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span>Up against the wall with no place to go, Taylor identified former US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland as the source of his \u2018clear<\/i>\u2019 understanding which turned out to be third or fourth hand hearsay and would be inadmissible in court.<\/p>\n Two days later, Jordan took his turn with another \u2018star\u2019 witness when Sondland testified<\/a> that, contrary to his earlier statement that the White House required a QPQ with a public statement from Zelinsky for an investigation to occur, Sondland confessed there was no such agreement <\/a>or public announcement by Zelensky.<\/p>\n As the only witness who had direct personal contact with President Trump on the subject of Ukrainegate, Jordan related Sondland\u2019s earlier statement to Republican staff counsel that\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe President never told you that the announcement had to happen to get anythin<\/i>g\u201d<\/p>\n and then Sondland\u2019s personal verbatim conversation with Trump:<\/p>\n Sondland:\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cWhat do you want from Ukraine, Mr. President.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n <\/i>Trump: \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI want nothing, I want no QPQ.\u00a0 <\/span>I want Zelensky to do the right<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>thing.\u00a0 <\/span>I want him to do what he ran on.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n When Jordan asked why his conversation with the President of the United States had not been included in Sondland\u2019s prepared 23 page statement, Sondland replied<\/p>\n \u201cit wasn\u2019t purposeful, trust me<\/i><\/span>.<\/i>\u201d \u00a0 <\/span>By then, Sondland looked ready for a cold brewski.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As the entire witness script played out during the last two weeks before the Intel Committee, one common theme of almost all the witnesses was that they are (or were)\u00a0 <\/span>long-standing (albeit unelected) veteran State Department bureaucrats.\u00a0 <\/span>Given their decades of experience and seniority, it became clear during their testimony that they are convinced of their own infallibility as better informed with a divine right to make foreign policy decisions more than a duly elected President of the US; especially Donald Trump.<\/p>\n How exactly do unelected, uninspiring State Department bureaucrats (or any Federal bureaucrats) become so deeply entrenched and so powerful to assume that their view on foreign policy is beyond reproach and matters more than a hill of beans?\u00a0 <\/span>Therein lies a Separation of Powers conundrum of historic proportions for our teetering constitutional democracy to address.<\/p>\n James Madison had a considerable amount of concern about the potential for abuse of the Separation clause as articulated in five essays he contributed to The Federalist Papers (#47, #48, #49, #50, #51).<\/p>\n