January 1, Democrats Rest Impeachment Hopes on Yovanovitch

This Day in History | 2001

Microsoft releases the Xbox gaming console. 

Good Morning Middle Americans. 

Another day of Impeachment hearings on Capitol Hill today. This time we’ll hear from former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.  We also have a round up on yesterday’s shooting in California. And it looks like Donald Trump is in for quite a fight when it comes to his tax returns. 

Read all about it below

– Fraser Dixon 

Former Ukraine Ambassador to Testify Today

(CNN) – Donald Trump called Marie Yovanovitch “bad news.”

In a televised impeachment hearing Friday, the US ambassador to Ukraine that the President ousted for apparently thwarting his rogue foreign policy scheme, may prove him right.

Democrats called for the foreign service veteran’s testimony to lift the lid on what they say is a black diplomatic operation set up to push Trump’s political goals rather than America’s interests and to churn up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.

And Yovanovitch may not be the only bad news for the President. In a potentially significant development on Thursday evening, a lawyer for career Office of Management and Budget official Mark Sandy said her client would appear for a deposition on Saturday if he was subpoenaed.

Sandy could provide insight into whether the budget office acted on the President’s orders in withholding military aid to Ukraine — ostensibly in order to draw political concessions from the government.

2 Dead, Several Injured in California School Shooting

(LA Times) – A student gunman opened fire Thursday at a Southern California high school, killing two students and wounding three others before shooting himself in the head, authorities said.

The attacker was hospitalized in grave condition.

The shooting occurred around 7:30 a.m. at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

Shauna Orandi, 16, said she was in her Spanish class doing homework when she heard four gunshots that she initially mistook for instruments from a band class. She said a student burst into the room saying he had seen the gunman, and her classmates were stunned into silence.

Read the latest about the Santa Clarita Shooting from the LA Times here

Trump Asks Supreme Court to Block Release of Tax Returns

(NPR) – President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to block a subpoena for his tax returns, in a test of the president’s ability to defy investigations.

The filing Thursday sets the stage for a high court showdown over the tax returns Trump has refused to release, unlike every other modern president. The justices also could weigh in more broadly on Trump’s claim that sitting presidents can’t be prosecuted or investigated for crimes.

The subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney is seeking Trump’s tax returns back to 2011 from his accounting firm as part of a criminal investigation. Trump’s lawyers say a criminal probe of the president at the state or local level is unconstitutional and unprecedented in American history.

Read more about the battle for Trump’s tax returns from NPR here