The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning began its public hearings to determine whether to draw up articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. Four constitutional scholars were invited to testify, three from the Democrats’ side, and one from the Republicans. Chairman Jerrold Nadler made a strong opening statement underscoring the seriousness of Trump’s conduct in the Ukraine scandal. Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman laid out the logic that the constitution’s authors followed in establishing an impeachment process and concluded that Trump committed impeachable offenses. Stanford Law Professor Pamela Karlan slammed Republican efforts to claim that there is no factual basis for impeachment directly addressing Republican Congressman Doug Collins on the Judiciary Committee. The lone witness brought by Republicans was Jonathan Turley, a professor at the George Washington University School of Law, who claimed that Trump’s impeachment would set a “dangerous precedent.”

The House Judiciary Committee’s hearings are based on evidence presented in a report released by the House Intelligence Committee, based on many hours of witness testimonies. The 300-page report lays out how Trump withheld US military aid and a White House meeting from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in exchange for a promise to investigate his political rival Joe Biden. It also explains the many ways in which the President refused to cooperate with Congress’s constitutional duty to conduct an impeachment process. Additionally it highlighted the improper role of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the phone calls he received from a mysterious number identified only as “-1.” Mr. Giuliani, who has remained relatively quiet in recent weeks, took to Twitter to defend his constant communication with the White House saying he was the president’s attorney. The report also shows how the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes of California, had numerous calls  with Giuliani as well as his associate Lev Parnas who is currently on trial for campaign finance violations. Meanwhile Mr. Nunes has also filed a $435 million lawsuit against CNN for impeachment-related reporting that he says was a “false hit piece.” 

Among the baseless claims that Trump, Giuliani, and the President’s backers made to justify their actions on Ukraine, and continue to make during the impeachment proceedings is a conspiracy theory that Ukraine’s government w...

House Republicans released their own report on the impeachment inquiry to rebut the official report from Committees that was shared with members on Monday. The 123-page report, which was obtained by media outlets claims that, “The evidence presented does not prove any of these Democrat allegations and none of the Democrats’ witnesses testified to having evidence of bribery, extortion, or any high crime or misdemeanor.” House Intelligence chair Representative Adam Schiff denounced the report as having been written for “an audience of one,” and added that it, “ignores voluminous evidence that the president used the power of his office to pressure Ukraine into investigating his political rival by withholding military aid and a White House meeting the President of Ukraine desperately sought.” Committee members voted on the official report on Tuesday after being given copies on Monday. 

President Donald Trump, who is currently in London for the annual NATO summit, took an opportunity to blast his political rivals to reporters. He dismissed an idea of censuring him as a weaker alternative to impeachment, saying, “I did nothing wrong. You don’t censure somebody when they did nothing wrong.” He also accused Democrats of being “unpatriotic.” While at the summit Trump also clashed with French President Emmanuel Macron saying he had made, “very, very nasty” comments about Trump’s role in NATO. Macron had recently claimed that Trump’s US leadership was leading to a “brain death” of NATO. Trump on Tuesday responded saying, “You just can’t go around making statements like that about NATO. It’s very disrespectful.” He may have forgotten the many times he has personally insulted NATO, including calling members of the alliance “delinquent” only a year ago. 

Despite Trump’s trip to Europe, the impeachment process here in the US will continue with the House Judiciary Committee holding hearings starting Wednesday. Committee chair Jerrold Nadler revealed the list of legal scholars that will testify, including, “Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law professor, Pamela Karlan, a law professor at Stanford, and Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina.” Republicans are calling their own witnesses, including Jonathan Turley, a Law professor at George Washington University. There are now reports that Democrats may be considering expanding the list of Trump’s impeachment offense beyond the Ukraine scandal.

The Justice Department’s Inspector General has reportedly concluded that the FBI had enough reason to launch a probe of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and collusion with Russia, but Attorney General William Barr is apparently skeptical of that conclusion. The highly anticipated report on December 9th was the culmi...

FEATURING KATHARINE TRENDACOSTA – An Appeals court has upheld parts of the controversial decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to overturn Obama-era “net neutrality” rules. But, in its ruling the court also said that the FCC cannot impose limits on states to maintain their own net neutrality rules. 

Still FCC Chair Ajit Pai, who has singularly pushed to overturn net neutrality, cast the decision as a major victory. He wrote on Twitter that the ruling was, “a big victory for consumers,” and that “The court affirmed the FCC’s decision to repeal 1930s utility-style regulation of the Internet.” 

But what did the 200-page court decision actually say and is it really a victory for Mr. Pai?

Take action by visiting www.act.eff.org.

Katharine Trendacosta, Manager of Policy and Activism at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

* This segment was originally broadcast on October 2, 2019.

FEATURING TEHAMA LOPEZ BUNYASI – It’s been more than 5 years since the rallying anti-racist cry of “Black Lives Matter” went viral. Focused initially on violent episodes of police brutality and vigilante attacks of black people, the movement broadened as a critique of systematic and institutional racism in America. Today we turn to the co-author of a new book intended as a guide for anti-racists, Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter.

Tehama Lopez Bunyasi, Assistant Professor of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University and author along with Candis Watts Smith of the new book Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter.

*This segment was originally broadcast on September 12, 2019.

FEATURING HARJEET SINGH – As this year’s United Nation’s Conference of Parties or COP 25 meeting commences in Madrid, Spain, UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres underscored the grim situation in his opening remarks. Gutteres said the planet’s atmosphere was at a “point of no return,” addressing country representatives charged with implementing the Paris Accord at the COP21 meeting four years ago. 

US lawmakers are also attending the meeting to make a point in favor of climate action despite President Donald Trump’s dismissal of the Paris Accord. But the UN meetings take place year after year with pledges for improvement and little actual progress. A report last week concluded that countries are actually continuing to increase their carbon emissions and Oxfam just published their report showing that climate-related disasters are the biggest cause of human displacement worldwide.

Harjeet Singh, Global lead on climate change, ActionAid.

FEATURING SHEHERYAR Y. KAOOSJI – The day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, traditionally kicks off the annual holiday shopping season and this year’s calendar has a shorter time period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, leading retailers to squeeze in more business in fewer days. But as online shopping dominates the market, warehouse workers and delivery workers at Amazon.com, the world’s largest retailer, are feeling the squeeze in dangerous ways. 

Amazon’s warehouses have been the subject of various studies and revelations of dangerous conditions for workers. In Europe, this past Friday workers in various locations simply went on strike to protest working conditions in Amazon warehouses. Meanwhile in the US on Cyber Monday protesters gathered outside Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s penthouse to denounce those conditions. And, a new study finds that Amazon has paid the lowest taxes of the big six tech companies. 

For more information visit https://athenaforall.org.

Sheheryar Y.  Kaoosji, Executive Director of the Warehouse Worker Resource Center.

The House Intelligence committee released its report behind closed doors on the impeachment of President Donald Trump based on the testimonies of a number of witnesses over several weeks. The report is being reviewed by committee members before they vote on sending it to the House Judiciary Committee before a critical new phase of the impeachment process begins this week. The House Judiciary committee will hold the first public hearing. According to Associated Press that hearing, “is expected to convene legal experts whose testimony, alongside the report from the Intelligence Committee, could lay the groundwork for possible articles of impeachment, which the panel is expected to soon draw up.” 

After weeks of President Trump complaining that he was not being given due process (even though the impeachment inquiry was not a legal process), House Democrats offered him the chance to be represented at the Judiciary Committee hearings and also have his lawyers participate. Judiciary committee chair Jerrold Nadler gave the President a deadline of December 6th to confirm participation but the White House has announced that it would not take part in the proceedings. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone sent a letter to Mr. Nadler accusing him of scheduling the hearings at the same time that President Trump would be in Europe for this week’s annual NATO Summit and decrying the whole process as “unfair.” State Secretary Mike Pompeo, who is also personally implicated in the Ukraine scandal that the impeachment process is centered on, has suggested the proceedings should be put on hold while Trump is abroad.

House Republican Doug Collins, who is the ranking member of the minority party on the Judiciary Committee, has announced that he will call Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff as his first witness in this week’s hearings. Mr. Schiff dismissed the idea saying that it displayed a, “fundamental lack of seriousness,” and added, “The only reason for them to go through this is to mollify the president, and that’s not a good reason to call a member of Congress.”

Meanwhile Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose phone call with Trump initially set off the impeachment scandal, gave Time Magazine an interview and said this of Trump’s withholding of US military aid: “If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us. I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo.” He also denounced Trump’s repeated name-calling of Ukraine as a “corrupt country.” Under Zelensky’s leadership Ukraine is purging more than 500 prosecutors from their positions by the end of the year. Among them are prosecutors that Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani is associated with, implying the US president might actually have been taking advantage of corruption in Ukraine. 

Former FBI Attorney Lisa Page has broken her silence after months of being the target of President Trump’s lies and ridicule.

FEATURING JOHN SIFTON – Human Rights Watch has released a major new report exposing atrocities in Afghanistan at the hands of US CIA backed forces. The report, titled, “They’ve Shot Many Like This’: Abusive Night Raids by CIA-Backed Afghan Strike Forces,” details how, “These troops include Afghan strike forces who have been responsible for extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances, indiscriminate airstrikes, attacks on medical facilities, and other violations of international humanitarian law, or the laws of war.” 

The organization said, “The US should work with the Afghan government to immediately disband and disarm all paramilitary forces that operate outside the ordinary military chain of command and cooperate with independent investigations of all allegations of war crimes and other human rights abuses.”

Read Human Rights Watch’s full report HERE.

John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch.

*This segment was originally broadcast on November 1, 2019.

FEATURING STEPHANIE JIMENEZ – Given that our show is focused on hard news and politics, we rarely interview fiction authors. But today we turn to a writer whose debut novel has earned such high acclaim for addressing issues of race, class, and gender that we felt compelled to bring on Stephanie Jimenez, author of “They Could Have Named Her Anything.” 

Cosmopolitan Magazine says, “Penned by a Latinx author, this arrestingly titled debut is told from the perspective of two girls and their fathers…Racism, class, betrayal, family, and friendship are all dissected by this fresh new voice.” 

For more information about Stephanie’s book tour at https://www.stephaniejimenezwriter.com.

Stephanie Jimenez is based in Queens, New York. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in the Guardian, O! the Oprah Magazine, Joyland Magazine, The New York Times, and more. She is a former Fulbright recipient and a graduate of Scripps College in Claremont, California. Her highly acclaimed debut novel is called “They Could Have Named Her Anything.”

*This segment was originally broadcast on October 3, 2019.

The New York Times dropped a bombshell story on Tuesday interviewing two people who confirmed that President Donald Trump was aware of the original whistleblower complaint against his decision to use military aid to Ukraine for political leverage. According to the exposé, Trump was made aware in late August, weeks before he then decided to release the aid in early September. The news sheds light on what may have prompted Trump to release the aid and suggests that he realized its seriousness. It also has implications for the President’s hysterical reaction to the news in early October that House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff knew about the whistleblower’s concerns before it became public. Trump had made wild claims that because Schiff learned about the complaint before it was public that he coordinated with the whistleblower to write it. Additionally House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry on Tuesday released the transcripts of testimonies from two more government officials, one of them Mark Sandy, deputy associate director for national security programs at the Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Sandy’s testimony included the revelation that two officials at OMB resigned over the withholding of aid to Ukraine. It is not known yet who they were. The other person whose testimony was released was Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Reeker confirmed that US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland had a “script” for his interactions with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in order to stay on message in line with Trump’s desires.

The House Judiciary Committee will now take over the impeachment process and this week announced the first of its public hearings taking place on December 4th. According to Associated Press, the hearings, “will feature legal experts who will examine questions of constitutional grounds as the panel decides whether to write articles of impeachment against Trump — and if so what those articles will be.” Judiciary Committee chair Jerrold Nadler has invited the President and his lawyers to attend the hearings and question witnesses and given the White House a deadline of this Sunday to inform them. Meanwhile the judge who ordered former White House Counsel Don McGahn to comply with House subpoenas has agreed to delay the implementation of her ruling to give McGahn time to decide whether he is going to appeal.

President Trump held a rally in Sunrise, Florida near Miami on Tuesday night where he was met with thunderous support from his backers. Trump has relocated to Florida from New York where he remains deeply unpopular. During his rally he predictably railed against the impeachment inquiry, leading his backers to repeatedly chant profanities in support. He also continued his practice of making up poll numbers...