When it comes to politics, timing is often everything.
Just ask Nancy Pelosi, who withheld the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump until just this week, after sitting on her hands prior to the holiday break. This stalling allowed former national security adviser John Bolton to publicly state that he would be willing to testify in the Senate trial, mucking up Mitch McConnell’s plans for an ultra brief adjudication.
Pelosi is set to move forward on impeachment on Wednesday of this week, but not before the Democrats provide one more surprise for the American people.
Lev Parnas, a close associate of President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has turned over a series of explosive handwritten notes, text messages and other documents, House investigators announced Tuesday, as the chamber prepares for an imminent vote on advancing articles of impeachment to the Senate.
In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., wrote Tuesday that he would transmit to Nadler two flash drives: one containing “call records with sensitive personal information” that will not be publicly released, and another with materials provided by Parnas.
Among the records Parnas produced were “handwritten notes on stationary from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Vienna, Austria,” Schiff wrote, including a note that read, “get [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] [Zelensky] to [announce] that the Biden case will Be Investigated; start commun[icating] with Zalensky [sic] without [Pinchuk or Kolomoisky].” An undated photograph of the note was included in the Democrats’ documents.
Victor Pinchuk and Ihor Kolomoisky are Ukrainian oligarchs, and Democrats have alleged that Parnas wanted Kolomoisky’s help “in facilitating a meeting” between Giuliani and Zelensky.
This is the equivalent of Democratic leaders warning their GOP colleagues not to hitch their horse too tightly to the President, because there’s likely more trouble coming for the White House.
Republicans have been largely united on the subject of impeachment, with only a small handful of conservative legislators expressing concerns over the behavior of the President.
