memeorandum: 'I'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here': Graham predicts Trump impeachment will ‘die quickly’ in Senate (Veronica Stracqualursi/CNN)

3:17 AM ET, December 15, 2019

Top Items:

Veronica Stracqualursi / CNN:

'I'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here': Graham predicts Trump impeachment will ‘die quickly’ in Senate — Graham: I'll do all I can to make impeachment die quickly — (CNN)Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a close ally of President Donald Trump …

Discussion: CBS News, The Daily Caller, Hullabaloo, DNyuz, HuffPost, Rolling Stone, Talking Points Memo, The Hill, Raw Story, New York Post and FOX31 Denver

New York Times:

Impeach. — The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists — whose views are informed by expertise, It is separate from the newsroom. — In the end, the story told by the two articles of impeachment approved on Friday morning by the House Judiciary Committee is short …

Discussion: Washington Post, The Daily Caller, Mother Jones, New York Daily News and Tampa Bay Times

Douglas MacKinnon / The Hill:

Is a trap being set for Trump in the Senate trial? — Can 20 U.S. Senators withstand the potentially irresistible temptation to reverse the results of the 2016 election and remove a president a number of them openly or privately dislike? — Since Donald Trump announced his intention to run …

Burgess Everett / Politico: Lindsey Graham invites Rudy Giuliani to Judiciary panel to discuss recent Ukraine visit

John Fritze / USA Today:
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani spotted at White House amid House Judiciary impeachment vote

Discussion: The Daily Beast

Colby Itkowitz / Washington Post:
Sen. Graham: ‘Not trying to pretend to be a fair juror’

Discussion: The Hill, The Daily Beast, Breitbart and Outside the Beltway

The Philadelphia Inquirer:

South Jersey Democratic Congressman Jeff Van Drew, impeachment foe, expected to become a Republican — WASHINGTON — Rep. Jeff Van Drew, the conservative South Jersey Democrat who has vocally opposed impeaching President Donald Trump, is expected to switch parties in the coming days …

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money

Ally Mutnick / Politico:

Democratic impeachment holdout Jeff Van Drew planning to switch parties — Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a moderate Democrat who is strongly opposed to impeaching President Donald Trump, is expected to switch parties and become a Republican, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.

Discussion: Big League Politics, Slate, Redstate, Associated Press, The Gateway Pundit, CBS Philly, The Daily Caller and Raw Story

Washington Post:

Trump urges Rep. Van Drew, anti-impeachment Democrat, to switch parties — President Trump on Friday personally urged a vocally anti-impeachment Democrat, Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, to switch parties — a request he is now believed to be strongly considering.

Discussion: The Hill, FOX2now.com, WTVR-TV, fox8.com, Fox News, New Jersey Globe, CNN, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, BuzzFeed News, New York Times, Talking Points Memo and Raw Story

New York Times:

Representative Jeff Van Drew, Anti-Impeachment Democrat, Plans to Switch Parties — The freshman Democrat, who represents a New Jersey district where President Trump is popular, told aides he would announce his switch next week. — WASHINGTON — Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey …

Discussion: New York Post, Raw Story, Vox, Townhall and Mediaite

Nikita Biryukov / New Jersey Globe:

Van Drew party switch imminent — Pro-Trump Democrat's staff told about the move … A party switch by Rep. Jeff Van Drew is imminent. — According to several high-level sources with ties to Van Drew who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Van Drew's chief of staff has begun notifying …

Discussion: Breitbart and NBC News

Tal Axelrod / The Hill:

Booker leads other 2020 Dems in petition urging DNC to change debate qualifications — Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) led several of his fellow 2020 contenders in sending a petition asking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to change its debate qualifications.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Caller, Townhall and NPR

Reid J. Epstein / New York Times:
Cory Booker Leads the Charge to Change Debate Rules That Excluded Him

Discussion: NBC News and Axios

Ruby Cramer / BuzzFeed News:
The Top Democratic Candidates Are Urging The DNC To Change Its Debate Rules

Discussion: Washington Examiner

Elena Schneider / Politico: DNC balks at effort to alter debate qualifications

Maggie Haberman / New York Times:

Ex-Trump Aide Is Expected to Return to White House — The aide, John McEntee, had been dismissed in 2018 on the orders of the chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly. — A close aide to President Trump who was dismissed last year by the White House chief of staff at the time is expected …

Discussion: The Hill

Jeremy Corbyn / The Guardian:

We won the argument, but I regret we didn't convert that into a majority for change — We must now ensure that the working class, in all its diversity, is the driving force within our party — We are living in highly volatile times. Two-and-a-half years ago, in the first general election …

Isaac Chotiner / New Yorker: How Boris Johnson's Brexit Won

Toby Young / Quillette:
Britain's Labour Party Got Woke—And Now It's Broke

Discussion: Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and The Guardian

Eric Levitz / New York Magazine:
What the U.K. Election Does (and Doesn't) Teach Democrats

Discussion: The Guardian, Washington Post, The Atlantic and CNN

Frank Bruni / New York Times:

Is Pete Buttigieg Just Too Young to Be President? — The Constitution says no. Democrats are still deciding. — Finland just elected the world's youngest prime minister, Sanna Marin, who's 34. Time magazine named Greta Thunberg, 16, its youngest-ever “Person of the Year.”

Discussion: LGBTQ Nation

Dan Balz / Greenwich Time: Amid adversity and missteps, Joe Biden's resilience has been one theme of 2019

David K. Li / NBC News:
Jill Biden says Trump is a bully and ‘afraid’ to run against her husband

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Twitchy and MSNBC

Devlin Barrett / Washington Post:

Ex-Trump campaign aide Carter Page notches victory after inspector general hammers FBI for surveillance missteps — Carter Page fought the law, and the law lost. — The former Trump campaign adviser was one of the first four suspects identified by the FBI in the early days of its investigation …

Jonathan Turley / The Hill:
An apology to Carter Page

Discussion: Twitchy

Otillia Steadman / BuzzFeed News:

Ivanka Trump Answered Questions From Her Own Spokesperson In An Interview In The Middle East — The announcement that Ivanka Trump would speak at the Doha Forum in Qatar prompted a wave of speculation from the foreign policy community about what the US President's daughter might be doing in the Gulf state.

Discussion: DNyuz, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Beast and Mother Jones

Seth Borenstein / Associated Press:

US finally giving boot to official foot measurement — WASHINGTON (AP) — Change is afoot for the official measuring stick used to size up big places in America. — The reason? There are actually two different definitions of the 12-inch measurement known as a foot.

Nancy Jo Sales / The Guardian:

Why is the president of the United States cyberbullying a 16-year-old girl? — What it says to girls is: no matter what you do, no matter how much you achieve, powerful men will try to cut you down — The morning after election day 2016, I got a call from a girls' school in New York where I was scheduled to speak.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Breitbart and The Daily Caller

Lydia X. Z. Brown / Washington Post:
Autistic young people deserve serious respect and attention — not dismissal as the pawns of others.

Discussion: Twitchy

NBC News:

Trump admin intends to announce withdrawal of about 4,000 troops from Afghanistan — Trump had made clear to his advisers earlier this year that he wanted to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the November 2020 election. — WASHINGTON — The Trump administration intends to announce …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Daily Kos, FOX2now.com and The Hill

Harry Reid / Salt Lake Tribune:

Democrats running for president need a plan for the Supreme Court — When I hear Democrats running for president talk about their ideas to address our country's urgent problems, I always find myself returning to the same question: What will you do to protect the Supreme Court of the United States?

Paul Kane / Washington Post:

GOP sees a political edge in talking about impeachment. Democrats want to discuss anything else. — Ahead of the House's historic impeachment vote, one party very much wants to talk about the constitutional clash and the other wants to discuss almost anything else. — And it's not who you would expect.