Impeachment

Sunday, September 22: President Trump responds to reports that he had asked the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden with the following characterization of his phone call with the Ukrainian leader:

“The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, with largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place and largely the fact that we don’t want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,”

I have yet to read an analysis of those words - even from the most ardent supporter of the president's - that didn't interpret them as effectively an admission of asking the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens.

This morning, of course, the White House has released its summary of the Trump-Zalensky phone call, a document that shows definitively that president asked the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden. Here's one line from the transcript:

"The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me." [NOTE: The ellipsis in that quotation is in the actual transcript. Curious that the transcript is missing content from a sentence that begins "If you could look into to it" and is followed by "It sounds horrible to me."]

Crimes? Recall that impeachment is not a criminal process; it's a political one. Criminally convictable crimes are not required to impeach. It would be permissible - I say necessary - to impeach a president who seeks foreign investigations into his or her domestic political rivals. If the president was concerned about the legality of the Bidens' conduct, he should have contacted the FBI.

That said, off the top of my head I can think of campaign finance laws and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The concern that I and many other people have is that there is "harm" inherent in a president's or any other American political office holder's outreach to leaders or political office holders of other nations in search of help against their political rivals. Had Barack Obama sought the French president's help in uncovering political dirt against either John McCain or Mitt Romney, congressional supporters of those candidates - and I hope all Americans - would have protested loudly. Can an American president ask the leader of a foreign nation to get tough on crime? Yes. To crack down on corruption in his her country? Sure. But an American president can't ask that leader to investigate a person who might be a opponent in an upcoming election. At absolute minimum, there's an obvious appearance of conflict of interest there. More broadly, we can't invite/permit foreign governments - "Russia, if you're listening...." to participate in our elections.

Not "obviously false" at all.

1) The president didn't threaten to withhold the aid in the summary released by the White House on Wednesday, yes. We don't know what other communications the Ukranian president received from the Trump administration.

2) Then there's the matter of the flow of the conversation reported in the White House's summary:

• After pleasantries, President Trump says the U.S. does a lot for Ukraine - more than European nations do - that the U.S. has been "very good to Ukraine," but that it has not been "reciprocal" because of the "not good" things that have happened, presumably on Ukraine's end of the relation. It turns out the "not good" things have to do with Mr Trump's political campaigns.
• President Zelenskyy agrees with President Trump about the lack of European support, and then says his nation is about ready to buy more javelins (an anti-tank missile).
• Trump IMMEDIATELY then says "I would like you to do us a favor," and the "favor" has nothing to so with national security or the interests of the United States writ large. Instead it is to find out about Crowdstrike, a reference to a conspiracy theory that the Clinton email server might be in Ukraine. His "favor" is for help with his obsession with Hillary Clinton and the 2016 campaign.
• Zelenskyy promises "[open] and [candid]" investigations from his administration.
• Trump then IMMEDIATELY raises the "very good" prosecutor who was "unfair[ly]" "shut down," a clear reference to the Biden case. He then draws direct attention to the Biden case by saying "whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great," and asking him to "look into" that case because it "sounds horrible to me." The ONLY concerns Trump raises have to do with his own elections - one past, one upcoming.
• Another Trump reference to the prosecutor follows.

What's important to notice is that Trump asks for a "favor" IMMEDIATELY after Zelenskyy raises the forthcoming anti-tank weapon request, and not long after telling Zelenskyy that the U.S. does "a lot" for his nation. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to tie together the hold on the Ukrainian foreign aid money Trump had ordered the week before the call, the "favor" requests that arise in the conversation, and the "we do a lot for you" meme to the future of aid and anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. If you were Zelenskyy and you heard the American president say "do us a favor" IMMEDIATELY after you said your country might soon want to buy more weapons, wouldn't YOU think there might be a connection?

It's not crystal clear what you're referring to, but I assume it's the infamous Steele Dossier and the Clinton campaign's payments to him for his work in looking for dirt on Trump. Some important facts:

1. Fusion GPS, which ultimately hired Christopher Steele, was FIRST hired by the conservative "Washington Free Beacon" in the GOP primary season to dig up dirt on Trump.
2. Hiring Steele and paying him at the market rate, as the Democrats did, made that case fundamentally different from what's alleged about Trump, either in 2016 or now. As the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee reported in 2018, "Under current federal election law, foreigners are prohibited from making contributions or donations in connection with any campaign in the United States. However, it is not illegal to contract with a foreign person or foreign entity for services, including conducting opposition research on a U.S. campaign, so long as the service was paid for at the market rate.” Translation: It wasn't illegal to do what the Democrats did. But Donald Trump was NOT asking to hire Zelenskyy or his government at the market rate.

We disagree. In my view, presidents CANNOT be allowed to invite foreign government assistance in American domestic politics. Trump has now done it twice. Once as a candidate. Once as president. This time he's doing it in the open.

The president would contact the FBI because the FBI is the United States' chief investigative body, and the premier investigative body in the world. It is the body that investigates alleged criminal conduct on the part of American citizens.

The reason Trump didn't ask the FBI was that he didn't want to risk career people at the Bureau's seeing through his desperate political intentions.

And if he was "directing the AG to work with Ukraine on this," why does the Justice Department say the president made no such request? If it was so much "better than the FBI" to have the AG + Ukraine, why didn't he follow through?

There is ZERO evidence to support your claim. There was NO Biden wrongdoing found by either of TWO Ukrainian prosecutors. Joe Biden was NOT seeking the firing of the Ukranian prosecutor for anything to do with his son's case, which had been closed for some time. He was seeking the prosecutor's firing because he was implementing American government policy. And the US was just one among MANY nations that sought the prosecutor's dismissal. Your claim is false and baseless, the product of partisan politics, not objective truth.

According to the Mueller report, Russian hackers launched their efforts to invade the DNC email server ON THE SAME DAY and just hours after candidate Trump asked Russia to find Clinton's emails. Apparently, the Russians didn't "know a joke if it slapped them in the face" either.

The transcript reports the president's declaring his intention to direct the AG. The Justice Department says the AG never received a contact from the president on the matter. Are you saying the Justice Department is wrong? Or are you saying it's enough that the president intended to contact the AG, even if he didn't actually do it?

I encourage you to re-visit the process and requirements of the FISA warrant process. When you do, you'll no doubt find that the demands those requirements place on the FBI to receive a first FISA warrant are significant, and that each renewal of a warrant requires a NEW showing of CURRENT need. Your review of the FISA system will also show that the FISA court is wholly independent of, and hence cannot be "weaponized" by, either political party any president. Your claim here is baseless and false, another instance of a declaration rooted in partisan politics, not objective truth. [If you disagree, provide links to objective factual evidence that supports your claim.]

I know of no evidence that any information in the Steele Dossier was falsified in the way you're using the word here. Some of its intelligence was not corroborated (though much was) but that's not the same as someone falsifying - i.e. altering - it. What's more, as has been made clear in public media for months, even years, the FBI did NOT rely solely, or even for a majority of the application, on the dossier, AND it was NOT the dossier that started the investigation - it was the activity of George Papadopoulos.

The information about the Russian hacking is contained in volume one of the Mueller report. Have you not read enough of or about the report to know that basic fact?

Trump supporters have no option other than to label the timing of the Russian hacking activity as a coincidence. All things considered - say President Putin's publicly stated preference for Trump to have won the 2016 election, and the proven Russian government involvement in the email hacking - the coincidence argument is a tough, tough sell. But when it's all you have....

I can't believe you believe that if you've read the whistleblower's declassified report. Have you read it or reviewed any comprehensive reporting about its contents? It's explosive, credible, corroborated, and damning. I now predict with confidence that the House WILL impeach President Trump, probably with some GOP votes. In the Senate, if McConnell has the integrity to hold the hearing, some but not enough GOP members will vote to convict.

This is BAD, BAD stuff, far easier to digest than the Mueller stuff (though I hope they vote on an obstruction of justice article of impeachment; the evidence to support one is overwhelming). This is MUCH, MUCH, MUCH worse than Bill Clinton's lies to a grand jury.

Since you've read the whistleblower's report, you know that in his letter, dated August 12, he described from his sources the content of the now-infamous phone call between President Trump and President Zelenskyy almost perfectly. Every detail he provided about the call - SIX WEEKS BEFORE ITS PUBLIC RELEASE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE - is correct. A coincidence? No. The whistleblower was in a position to know what was happening in the White House, accurately reported what he learned, and as a result must be considered a credible source of information.

If you read his or her report, you also know that...

• People in the White House undertook an intentional effort to "lock down" documentation about the Trump-Zelenskyy phone call, including moving said documentation off the server on which such documents normally reside to a server set aside for "codeword" i.e. highest-classified material. They did so, according to the report, to protect "politically sensitive—rather than national security sensitive—information," both in this instance and others, according to the report.
• White House staffers believed the president had abused his authority in pressing the Ukranian president to investigate the Bidens.
• The president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, met in Madrid, Spain, with Ukrainian government representatives in the form of a “'direct follow-up' to the President’s call with Mr. Zelenskyy about the 'cases' they had discussed," and also reached out to "a variety of other Zelenskyy advisers, including Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov."

In other words...

• The president pressed a foreign leader for his government's assistance in developing dirt on one of his domestic political rivals so much that others in the White House believed the president abused his authority.
• White House employees thought the content of the president's call with Zelenskyy so troubling that they secreted it (and documentation related to other presidential calls) on a server the security level of which requires the highest-possible security clearance.
• And the president's personal attorney - NOT a government employee, and someone who could NOT have represented the country in any official capacity - met with foreign government officials in efforts to secure their assistance in developing dirt on one of the president's domestic political rivals.

If all that doesn't bother you - if to you it truly is an "absolute joke," and "nothing" - then you are a Trumpster of rare purity, a supporter whose resistance to objective truth the president prays will descend upon all Americans... at least those Americans authorized to investigate his amoral, illegal, dangerous, and unethical conduct.

What's "interesting" is the extremely tertiary review the DOJ gave to the whistleblower's report.... That might be interesting, but it's not surprising. The DOJ is led by an attorney general who reported to the nation a summary of the Mueller report so thoroughly misleading that the Mueller team sent him two letters of protest. In my view, there is NO reason to trust ANYTHING that's within the Bill Barr's reach... which this matter surely is.

You are a Trumpster of Don's dreams.

In his time, newspapers were actually reporting news ..... nowadays, the TV news channels you mentioned provide propaganda rather than a somewhat objective journalism with news reports

Trump's Impeachment -- 5, 4, 3, 2... CM

It will all come out Thursday.CM

The Mueller investigation revealed scores of contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians. BY COINCIDENCE - and NOBODY could POSSIBLY draw a connection between the Trump campaign and this activity - IT JUST SO HAPPENED that the Russians were AT THE SAME TIME interfering in our 2016 general election with the intention of harming Hillary Clinton and electing Donald Trump.

One of the GREAT AND PUREST coincidences in American political history! Why, EVERY general election presidential campaign dating back to the Russian revolution of 1917 has had dozens, scores, even hundreds of contacts with Russians! How could the Trump campaign have known that the Russians in 2016 were trying to help Trump win? (Well, there was the Trump campaign's sharing of polling data, BUT OTHER THAN THAT!... And there was the Russians' hacking of the DNC server (THAT BY THEN HAD BEEN SHIPPED TO UKRAINE!!!!!!!!!!) just hours after Donald Trump said "Russia, if you're listening...." But THAT was only the second greatest and purest coincidence in American political history! NOBODY could have drawn a connection between the candidate's request and the Russians' hacking!)

And the Mueller investigation also revealed ten instances of possible obstruction of justice, actions whose nefariousness the Mueller report made clear when it 1) explicitly said the investigation did NOT exonerate the president on the matter of obstruction; 2) reminded us of the DOJ's policy of not indicting a sitting president; 3) made obvious reference to the constitutional provision for impeachment and removal from office as the proper mechanism to handle those ten instances of possible obstruction.

And then there's the letter in which nearly a thousand former prosecutors said they would with great confidence of eventual conviction charge obstruction against anyone else who perpetrated any of several of the ten actions cited by the Mueller report.

Yeah. You're right, reformed. There was nothing there.

I believed Dr. Ford. You believed Brett Kavanaugh. If doing the right thing for the right reason is part of things "work(ing) really well," then I suppose we each think our respective judgments worked really well for us.

As for other evidence of impeachment, I have a simple request of you: Provide a link to a news story about a witness who has testified under oath that the president did NOT connect Ukrainian president Zelenskyy's much sought after visit to the White House with Ukraine's investigation of Mr Trump's domestic political rivals, that our president did NOT hold up the Ukrainian military aid (without telling the State of Defense departments) in hopes of adding pressure to his request for said investigations.

Give us links to accounts of the under-oath testimony of witnesses who have contradicted the testimony that the NSC Ukraine expert and decorated combat veteran Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman will give under oath today: That HE WAS ON THE INFAMOUS TRUMP-ZELENSKYY CALL (say god-bye to your "hearsay" defense) and was so concerned about what he heard that he reported his concerns to his superiors at least twice; that he directly heard Ambassador Gordon Sondland connect a White House visit to the two investigations, told Sondland his comments were inappropriate [from Vindman's opening statement: "the request to investigate Biden and his son had nothing to do with national security, and that such investigations were not something the N.S.C. was going to get involved in or push”] AS DID FIONA HILL, one of the Lt Colonel's superiors.

And if as Trumpsters have claimed, President Trump was only pursuing his passion against corruption in the governments the U.S. supports, give us links to news stories about the president's many contacts with all the global leaders he's spoken to and held up aid to because of the corruption in their countries.

And when you can't do ANY of what I just asked, you'll have your evidence of impeachable offenses.

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear in my last post: Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, the decorated combat veteran and the NSC's lead expert on Ukraine who is testifying before Congress today, WAS ON THE CALL. In his opening statement, he says he was so concerned by the president's comments to the Ukrainian president that he twice reported his concerns up his chain of command, and confronted Ambassador Gordon Sondland directly about the tie Sondland had made between Ukrainian investigations of the Bidens and the Crowdstrike conspiracy theory and a White House meeting for Ukrainian president Zelenskky.

Surely you know that on Thursday of this week the House will vote on impeachment inquiry rules and procedures that will include public hearings and the release of the transcripts of the closed door testimony. It's a sure bet that the Democratic-controlled House will approve the measure. What "narrative" will you allege Schiff is trying to control after the transcripts are released and many of those same witnesses (and others) begin testifying in public?

You don't seem to trust ANY news - "fake" or not - that disputes your version of reality. Then again, for you and most Trumpsters, "fake news" IS any news that disputes your version of reality.

You and your most high leader love to call out "fake news," but you never prove that any of that "fake" news is actually fake. That's much in line with your claims in our exchanges about the Washington Post's false and misleading statement count for President Trump. On several occasions you've CLAIMED the list was "fake news!" but NOT ONCE - despite my repeated requests that you do so - have you demonstrated that ANY of the Post's entries is fake.

I think you folks never back up your claims because most everything you call "fake" news is actually true.