Impeachment
Fox Media Critic Slams Network Over Discredited Impeachment Witness

Howard Kurtz

Neil Cavuto, left, and Howard Kurtz on Fox News Channel

Fox News host Howard Kurtz suggested his network had not provided enough coverage after an impeachment witness, former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, was found to be lying about President Joe Biden.

On his Sunday Media Buzz program, Kurtz noted that Smirnov had been charged with making false statements about Biden and his son, Hunter.

"This is a star witness for Jim Comer, often cited by Fox and other outlets," Kurtz said. "And I think the story deserves even more coverage."

Washington Examiner editor Sarah Bedford agreed.

"Some of the allegations against the Biden family were built on lies," Bedford explained. "I don't think, though, that the impeachment inquiry here is necessarily completely undermined by this one fact, because so much additional evidence has been gathered. But certainly this is the blow to the credibility of the allegations against the Biden family."

Kurtz asked White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich if the indictment was a "big problem" for Republicans.

"Huge problem," Heinrich observed. "I think [Rep. James Comer (R-KY)] is going to have to lay out all of the evidence outside of this claim that makes the impeachment inquiry still valid."

"I mean, they threatened to hold the FBI director in contempt to get a hold of this 1023 form in which this witness makes his allegation," she continued. "So with this guy now having his credibility shot, a lot of onus on House Republicans to say that the impeachment inquiry is still warranted."

Watch the video below from Fox News or at the link.

Fox News host slams network over impeachment witness

via Fox News

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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Mike Johnson

Speaker Mike Johnson

House Speaker Mike Johnson has plenty of excuses for not taking up the Ukraine aid package the Senate passed early this week, saying that he’s just got too many serious issues on his plate to help in the fight for democracy against Russian totalitarianism. He told reporters Wednesday morning that “we have to address this seriously, to actually solve the problems and not just take political posturing as has happened in some of these other corners.”

Yes, he seriously accused Ukraine aid proponents of “political posturing” just hours after he led House Republicans in their second—barely successful—sham impeachment vote of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. By the way, that reporter’s question was spot on. Johnson effectively killed the original Senate bill that included a border security package by saying it would be dead on arrival in the House. Now he complains that the aid bill “has not one word about the border.”

Johnson also insists that he’s too busy figuring out how to avoid a government shutdown on March 1 and that it will take time for his team to “process” the Senate’s package. Guess what’s not on the House schedule this week? That’s right: Any appropriations bills to fund the government ahead of the looming deadline. Again, he was able to carve out more time to impeach Mayorkas and to force the Senate to deal with that just days before the government funding deadline.

The Senate is out until Feb. 26 and is going to have to deal with the Mayorkas impeachment as soon as they return. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer outlined the process in a statement, indicating that the House impeachment managers will “present the articles of impeachment to the Senate” as soon as they’re back in, and “[s]enators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the next day.”

Which means two days of valuable Senate time will be wasted on this because the Senate will never vote to convict Mayorkas, but they have to deal with it anyway. They’ll dispense with it as quickly as the Senate can do anything, but they need every hour for the long process of passing the bills to keep the government from shutting down.

That process between the House and Senate is going nowhere fast because of all the poison-pill riders about abortion, contraception, and trans issues the House Republicans crammed into their spending bills.

On top of all that, Johnson—who just spent an embarrassing week and a half of floor time impeaching one of Biden’s cabinet members—is now demanding that Biden take him seriously and have a face-to-face meeting with him on the Ukraine bill. A White House spokesperson told NBC that Johnson “needed to wrap the negotiations he has having with himself and stop delaying national security needs in the name of politics.” Biden is not included to help Johnson out of this one.

“That body language says: ‘I know I’m in a tough spot. Please bail me out,’” one Democrat involved with the supplemental aid package told NBC.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.