Bill Clinton Used Foreign Influence In Elections

I don't have time to explain at the moment, but the difference between this Clinton example and what President Trump did is so glaringly obvious that if Tucker Carlson HAD any capacity for shame, his face would be permanently stained red. [ANOTHER CLUE OF HOW OFF-TOPIC THIS EXAMPLE IS: No one on the right (or left) ever complained or criticized Clinton's conversation with Blair. Why not? Because there's nothing wrong with what he did, and in this conversation he did NOTHING like Trump did in his call with the Ukrainian president. My goodness. It's there on the page, in black-and-white.]

You raise yet another example of presidential conduct that is IN NO WAY analogous to either the objective or the execution of President Trump's call to the Ukrainian president.

In case it's not clear: President Trump asked a foreign leader to investigate - aka, dig up dirt on - a domestic political rival, one who might run against the president in 2020. That's NOT what President Clinton did in the instance @reformed cited, nor is it what President Obama did in the instance you cite, Wolfgang. If you want an analogous incident, provide a link to an occasion when an American president requested a foreign nation's help against a domestic political rival (and Donald Trump's "Russia, if you're listening...." from 2016 doesn't count!)

• If "NOTHING Trump did was wrong either," why did White House lawyers direct the transcript for Trump's call with Zelenskyy be placed in code word-sensitive protection? We've both read the transcript; we both know there's nothing code word classified in it. The White House didn't redact any portion of it, or so the president assured us. He told us we got the full transcript, "comma for comma, and word for word." Yet White House lawyers directed it moved into a secure location. If there was "NOTHING" wrong with what the president said, why did they want it protected?
• And if there was "NOTHING" wrong with what the president did, why did an intelligence community professional - a CIA agent who undoubtedly knew how to listen to and process information from others - file a whistleblower complaint that the Intelligence Community's Inspector General, after checking into it, found "urgent" and "credible"?
• And if there was "NOTHING" wrong with what the president did, why in an exchange of texts with the US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, did the US's chief diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, TWICE say he thought it was "crazy" to condition aid to Ukraine on their help with a political campaign? And why, when asked by Taylor whether aid was being so conditioned, did Sondland say "Call me" rather than, "Of course it isn't!"?
• And if there was "NOTHING" wrong with what the president did, why in the final text exchange on the aid conditioning issue did Sondland take more than four hours to get back to Taylor - during which time we now know Sondland spoke directly with President Trump - and when he did get back to Taylor wrote a talking point-like response to the issue, totally out of character with the language of his other texts, a text that ended with Sondland's advice that they stop texting about the Ukrainian aid?
• And if there was "NOTHING" wrong with what the president did, why did the White House direct the State Department not to allow Sondland - who had flown back to the states from Brussels to be deposed today - to be deposed today? And why did they make that change in plans just hours before the scheduled deposition, with Sondland in possession of additional relevant email and text message content the White House apparently doesn't want Congress to see?
• That is, if there was "NOTHING" wrong with what the president did, why did almost everything that people in the know did and said after the call to Zelenskyy make it look like THEY thought there was something wrong with what Trump did? If in fact there was "NOTHING" wrong with what the president did, why would any of those players have taken ANY of those actions?

I look forward to your one to three sentence evasion of these examples of obviously questionable conduct.

It's your six word reply that's the red herring here.

Why would they move quickly to secrete a conversation that clearly had NO code word classified content? You and I both know there's only ONE reason: To hide it from wider distribution or review because its content, while nothing close to code word classified, contained seriously controversial - to be kind - and highly inappropriate, if not illegal - to be more accurate - presidential conduct.

You've cited of "information that was different from the actual transcript," that the complaint says Trump "pressured" Zelenenskyy, when, you believe, Trump didn't presssure the Ukrainian president. One example... which in my and most observers' views, is clearly not an example of a whistlblower's mistake... which in my view clearly means you seem to concede the rest of the complaint is accurate. How did the whistleblower get SO MUCH of the detail correct?

• Was it just luck that he knew about the secret server and the fact that more than one transcript had been hidden on it?
• Was it mere happenstance that he knew Trump had asked Zelenskyy to take action on Biden and Crowdstrike?
• The whistleblower knew about Giuliani's and A.G. Barr's involvement. Was that a lucky guess?
• His complaint accurately reported Trump's praise of a Ukranian prosecutor. Just a fortunate roll of the dice?

If accuracy is a problem with the whistleblower's account, why is SO MUCH of what he wrote accurate, and only one word (if that) inaccurate?

How could the "full context" of the phrases "call me" and "let's stop texting about Ukraine" change what appears to be their obvious meaning?

And then there's this: If you don't think we have "the full context of those sms messages," why do you say there's "no point" in Sondland's testifying? Couldn't Sonland give at least more of "the full context of those sms messages"?

Except that you say we "do not have the full context" of Sonland's sms messages, which means you think we DON'T know everything that happened.

Personal attacks don't change facts.

They released it because the call had become public knowledge AND because, foolishly, they thought the transcript would exonerate the president. The basic "narrative" of the whistleblower's account was that the president of the United States by phone had asked a foreign leader to investigate two of the president's domestic political rivals. NOTHING about that narrative blew up when they released the transcript; in fact, the transcript confirmed it. The only thing that blew up was the White House's absurd notion that the transcript would lead to exoneration.

You've cited the whistleblower's claim that the president "pressured" Zelenskyy as one example of the complaint's "distortion." The fact that the word "pressured" in the complaint is the whistleblower's opinion of the intention and/or result of the president's words to Zelenskyy AND NOT an assertion of objective fact notwithstanding, identify ANOTHER component of the complaint that "distorted the account of what actually happened." And while you're at it, respond to the question I posed last time: If accuracy and hearsay are such problems with the whistleblower's account, why is SO MUCH of what he wrote accurate, save for, at least in your view as presented to-date, the one word "pressured"?

And so I ask you the next question from my last post that you evaded: If you don't think we have "the full context of those sms messages," why do you say there's "no point" in Sondland's testifying? Couldn't Sonland give at least more of "the full context of those sms messages"?

Among the many things "he got right" was the fact that the president of the United States asked a foreign leader to investigate domestic political rivals. Especially in the aftermath of Russia's systematic intrusion into our 2016 election, what "he got right" is a red flag factory.

Hillary Clinton. The president clings to a conspiracy theory that because the Clinton campaign asked Crowdstrike to investigate the email hacking, and as a result, the server ended up in Ukraine.

The "corruption" meme is a baseless trumpster talking point.

Revisit the transcript of the call between Trump and Zelenskyy. Quote for me all the sentences in which the president uses ANY form of the word "corruption." (HINT: There are none.) Then quote for me all the sentences in which the president makes clear that the purpose of his call is to ask Zelenskyy to investigate corruption as an endemic condition in Ukraine. (HINT: There are none.) Finally, quote for me all the sentences in which the president makes clear that the purpose of his call is simply to ask Zelenskyy to investigate the Crowdstrike conspiracy theory and Joe/Hunter Biden. (HINT: Get ready to do a lot of copying & pasting.)

Here you repeat your disagreement with the Whistleblower's opinion of the president's intentions during the phone call. You do NOT question ANY assertion of fact contained in his complaint. You're entitled to your view of the president's intentions, as is the whistleblower, as are the members of the House who will eventually vote on articles of impeachment. But your claim was "the Whistleblower distorted the account of what actually happened." Other than your dispute with his opinion of the president's intention, you have yet to show ANY distortion in the whistleblower's "account of what actually happened." Am I correct to conclude that when you claimed the whistleblower "distorted the account of what actually happened," you referred SOLELY to his opinion that the president "pressured" Zelenskyy? If so, your claim reduces to "We can't trust ANY part of the whistleblower's complaint because he disagrees with me as to whether Trump "pressured" Zelenskyy!" Not a strong case.

Of ALL the corruption running rampant in Ukraine, Trump asked Zelenskyy only about Joe Biden and the DNC's email server - both of domestic political interest. Surely a coincidence. I'm sure Biden's name came to Trump on the spur of the moment, as he was talking to Zelenskyy! Why, when he got on the phone, I bet he intended only to congratulate Zelenskyy on his election victory!

Do you suppose we could get Ukraine to investigate the Trump administration's many emoluments clause violations? After all, if there were emoluments clause violations, you'd want to know, wouldn't you?

• The domestic President asks a foreign leader to investigate his domestic political rivals.
• The domestic Department of Justice decides to appoint special prosecutor to investigate a domestic political campaign's possible involvement with a foreign nation's intrusion into our domestic elections.

Yep. No difference there!

As I have told you before, if you want others to comment on the substance of your posts, you have create posts that have substance. This one doesn't.

1. You make no comment on the scant remains of your "corruption" meme.
2. You make no comment on the fact that you've offered no substantive objection to ANY assertion of fact in the whistleblower's complaint.
3. You make no comment on the obvious difference between domestic law enforcement agencies investigating the actions of domestic persons, companies, and politicians, and foreign governments investigating our domestic persons at the request of our domestic president.

That is, there is nothing to your response here aside from some ungrammatical word salad ("there is no difference from..."???) As you would say, try again.

And you respond to a call for substance in your posts with yet another brief, insubstantial, and inconsequential word collection, one that serves the dual role of evading the facts of this case. (In that regard, I grant, your posts emulate the president's communication strategy in that he spends most of his time attacking and mocking those with whom he disagrees, and very little time addressing the facts of the matters those who disagree with him assert.)

It remains a relevant and reliable predictor of your posts in our exchanges in threads, reformed: When you can't attack the message - which is most of the time in our political discussions because, as in this thread, the facts are rarely on your side - you attack the messenger.