The lawyers representing President Trump and lawyers representing the Office of the Presidency collectively file a response briefing, a trial memorandum, to the Senate (full pdf below).  The 170-page rebuttal to the House articles is HERE and embedded below:
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Sunday evening President Donald Trump delivered a key-note speech during the American Farm Bureau National Convention.  [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, I want to thank you very much. And thank you to our great Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue. Thank you, Sonny, very much. You’ve done a fantastic job. (Applause.) Sit down, everybody. Let’s stay for a while. Come on.
We did it. We did it. Remember? (Applause.)
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Ohio congressman Jim Jordan appears with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the full background of the FBI surveillance impetus and how the bigger picture brings all of the government activity forward to the actions behind an impeachment trial.
In the full picture, the totality of government effort, the arc of all swamp action, has been to remove a president who is everything these administrative state officials oppose.  It is the independence of a Peoples’ President that represents the threat to the system…

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Texas Senator Ted Cruz appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo for a lengthy discussion of the upcoming senate impeachment trial.  Senator Cruz does not currently support subpoenas for witnesses; however, if the full senate votes to call prosecution witnesses Cruz would support reciprocal witnesses for President Trump.
Senator Cruz walks through the anticipated process including the “scheduling order” or senate rules within the impeachment process.  Twelve hours of prosecution, twelve hours of defense, sixteen hours of senator questioning, and then possibly a vote.

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Updating a story we shared last night; and the latest information only makes the situation seem much worse.   To say this story is infuriating would be an understatement.
As an individual with some personal knowledge of how the recovery process works, the actions by these government officials in Puerto Rico are beyond tragic.  There are people in desperate need, and these stupid claims by officials do nothing to ameliorate ongoing suffering.  This is disgusting and heartbreaking at the same time.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Gov. Wanda Vázquez fired the heads of Puerto Rico’s housing and family departments Sunday in the latest fallout over the discovery of a warehouse filled with emergency supplies dating from Hurricane Maria.

The removal of Housing Secretary Fernando Gil and Department of Family Secretary Glorimar Andújar came a day after the governor fired the director of Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency.

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Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz is a member of the white house legal team from the perspective of constitutional law.  In this interview George Stephanopoulos was in his old familiar role as a political narrative engineer, trying to get Dershowitz to say he did not agree with the President.  The engineering objective was “Trump Lawyer says President Guilty”.

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In advance of the formal answer to the Senate summons, the White House counsel held a background press briefing with media.  Here’s the transcript as released:
MR. GIDLEY: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking the time to join this background call regarding impeachment.
The ground rules are as follows: Information on this call is on background, and can attributable to “sources close to the President’s legal team.”
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks, Hogan. I’m going to start, and then I’m sure my colleague is going to want to jump in.
So, from a procedural standpoint, we’re going to be filing in the next — probably next hour or two — our answer to the summons. [pdf Answer Here] This was the summons, which is part of the process that the Senate sent over to us with the articles of impeachment. We are issuing a very detailed response. This is not to be confused with our brief; our brief is not due until Monday.
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Folks, this is alarming.  An explosive video from Puerto Rico shows a massive warehouse of emergency hurricane relief supplies discovered highlighting emergency supplies delivered in the aftermath of hurricane Maria that were never distributed.

The warehouse was discovered after the recent earthquake, and the building suffering damage. After CTH initially saw the report, I had to go find the raw video to see just how much 2017 aid was being hidden in this warehouse; and the full video is simply stunning.  First, the report:

(VIA CBS) Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced fired the island’s emergency management director on Saturday, after a video showing aid sitting unused in a warehouse went viral on social media. Some of the aid has allegedly been sitting in the warehouse since Hurricane Maria struck in 2017.
“There are thousands of people who have made sacrifices to help those in the south, and it is unforgivable that resources were kept in the warehouse,” Vázquez said in a statement.

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A response to the formal summons from the Senate, notifying the Executive Office of the President of impeachment proceedings, was due at 6:00pm ET today.   The White House has responded [WH pdf link – and embed below] with a seven-page position answer.

[Via White House] THE HONORABLE DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, HEREBY RESPONDS:
The Articles of Impeachment submitted by House Democrats are a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their President. This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election—now just months away. The highly partisan and reckless obsession with impeaching the President began the day he was inaugurated and continues to this day.

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It has always been a curious question about who released the controversial text messages between FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI Supervisory Agent Peter Strzok.  In a DOJ court brief (full pdf below) in support of a motion to dismiss the lawsuit of Peter Strzok, former Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein explains how and why he authorized the release:
It would have been a little more interesting if Rosenstein could have narrowed down the timing of OIG notification from “in the summer of 2017”, as it would outline specifically when Rosenstein became aware of the controversial issue.  Before or after he joined the crew in authorizing -and signing- a false FISA application?….
Obviously, at least in my opinion, the lack of specificity here is evidence of Rosenstein’s CYA motive.  If Rosenstein was aware of the texts from inside the key participants of the Crossfire Hurricane team, prior to authorizing the third FISA renewal… he was either a complete doofus, or complicit and willfully blind.   I digress.
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