Thread by @DavidPepper

THREAD ON PORTMAN RECUSAL

Today, @NBCPolitics focused on the blatant ethical breach Portman is about to commit. Portman is less than a day from casting a vote (perhaps the decisive vote) that will go down in history as deeply unethical and corrupt.

nbcnews.com/politics/trump…

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Please read and share and get the word out.

Following is a tweetstorm explaining why Rob Portman has an ethical obligation to recuse himself from all impeachment proceedings.

This is not a close call.

cincinnati.com/story/opinion/…

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Founding Fathers mandated that senators take an oath to “do impartial justice."

A key principle of impartiality: “No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.” (Fdrlist 10)

Black letter law applies this principle not just to parties, but to anyone who has a direct interest in a case.

Portman has such an interest.

Here's why...

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Like others, he made initial statements suggesting he had already made up his mind on key facts. That’s a problem, but for Portman, it’s just the beginning.

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times-gazette.com/news/20191206/…

Unlike others, Portman’s involvement runs far deeper than that. Until several months ago, Portman proudly touted that he founded and chairs the Senate’s Ukraine Caucus.

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The senator has been an active participant in Ukraine policy for years—calling for the same anti-corruption steps as VP Biden did in a 2016 letter, pressing for aid, and meeting with all the key players in 2019, including Zelensky and former Ambassadors Yonavovich & Volker

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And we learned only last week that in August 2019, his office even requested to know why Ukraine aid had been held up.

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dispatch.com/news/20200122/…

We also learned this week that he was in on the meeting that included Perry, Zelensky, Volker, Sondland and Ron Johnson. Everyone else in that meeting would later know intimate details about what was happening. Portman still claims he did not.

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In short, he had a front row seat as developments unfolded there. But then his entanglement gets even more direct, placing him center stage at a pivotal moment of the factual sequence that led to impeachment.

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On 9/12, Portman tweeted that he had called Trump the evening before to ask that the aid be released, and that he appreciated the President doing so. He said Trump had said European countries had not been providing sufficient help, a position Portman “strongly support[ed]"

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Weeks later, on the same day that the call summary with Ukraine’s president was making news, Portman proactively elaborated on this story through a blitz of interviews on Fox News (warning: this video makes him look terrible)

video.foxnews.com/v/608953978900…

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and Fox Business News (this one does too)...

video.foxbusiness.com/v/608913369400…

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Trump later amplified Portman’s account, claiming publicly that “I gave the money because Rob Portman and others called me and asked”. He also cited the lack of European “support" as his excuse for the hold up.

dispatch.com/news/20191002/…

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Trump explicitly touted Portman’s statements to boost this narrative—“Rob Portman backed me up…and there’s nobody more honorable than Rob Portman of Ohio.”

dispatch.com/news/20191002/…

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The Portman intervention became an important part of the Trump factual narrative, referenced in the White House Impeachment Brief. In that account, Chief of Staff Mulvaney and Vice President Pence were also part of Portman’s conversation.

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But here’s the problem: the account appears to have been a cover story hiding the real reason the money was held up—Trump’s shakedown of Ukraine to get his desired political investigations—and later released.

cincinnati.com/story/opinion/…

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Documents and House testimony now make clear that the lack of European support was not only NOT the reason for the hold-up, but Trump’s statements about European support were false. Europe has supported Ukraine generously, far more than the US.

factcheck.org/2019/09/trump-…

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But even more importantly, the claim that the call from Portman is what pried the money loose is also highly misleading.

The tale was far messier than that.

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A flood of released documents has revealed the tense back & forth between US officials in Ukraine, OMB, the State Dept, the Dept of Defense, and other administration officials about the illegality of withholding aid authorized by Congress.

vanityfair.com/news/2019/11/w…

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On September 11, Congress was notified early in the day that the aid was being released.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

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This all sheds damning light on the coordinated narrative that, despite urgent calls from so many others, it was a uniquely persuasive phone call from Senator Portman on the evening of September 11 that convinced Trump to release the funds.

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To put it bluntly, we now know that was a highly misleading cover story—debunked by the documents that have come out since, and inconsistent with the actual sequence of events (the call occurred after notification to Congress).

cincinnati.com/story/opinion/…

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At the time, with little other information yet public, Portman’s narrative conveniently masked all the chaos and illegality with a tidy cover story: concern over Europe had led to the freeze, but Portman’s advocacy ended it. Simple. Innocent. And Portman "backed" Trump up.

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But to use the President’s favorite word, that narrative was a hoax, hiding from sight the White House’s illegal shakedown and the chaos that followed.

cincinnati.com/story/opinion/…

END FOR NOW