Nancy Pelosi
This is a good thing. Trump’s done more than one thing that was illegal and impeachment-worthy.
It is interesting and amusing that what finally got her to do something was to attack Biden–someone she knows well–rather than all the crimes against people she doesn’t care about, but if that’s what it takes, so be it.
Impeachment, done properly, is about using the power of the House to control the narrative and build the case. It was not popular when it started against Nixon; it was the impeachment hearings themselves that made the case.
One hopes that Pelosi and her team will take this into account, and showcase Trump’s various misdeeds properly. One also hopes they will stop playing patty-cake with Trump officials and use Congress’s powers of inherent contempt on those who refuse to testify, or who lie.
Of course, Trump will not be convicted. But he can easily be damaged, and his ability to enact his policies can be crippled. Clinton’s impeachment attempt was followed by two Republican presidential terms.
It will be interesting to see if Pelosi has any ability to follow blood in the water.
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Hugh
Pelosi is a cynical autocrat who wouldn’t know leadership if it kicked her in the ass. On the one hand, she has spent her career backstabbing her base. On the other, she has tried to do as little as possible for as long as possible. Today Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry, but there was no formal vote. Nadler had already used this language, and nothing much changed. The modus operandi has been to litigate and this would continue to be the case. I do not see anyone using inherent contempt because that would be like actually doing something.
scarn
Never start a fight you know that you will lose. Trump can’t be convicted. Republicans in the Senate have subpoena power and can hold hearings too, and there is as much graft, corruption and swamp gas on the Dem side as on the hardcore right. If anything, Trump has taken the Clinton playbook of “anything legal goes” and perfected it. Technocratic, rules-based hearings aren’t going to help the Dem narrative. Plus, the Dems in control have proven themselves to be weaklings. It’s Trump’s briar patch and they are hugging the tar baby. This is probably the stupidest move in US politics that I have ever witnessed, and that’s saying something.
edmondo
Sorry Ian. This whole inquiry is a joke and it will come off looking political, This is Scott Walker redux. They tried to recall him and ended up fucking that up and he ended up being re-elected because of it.
Trump is odious. He was headed for defeat and – true to form – the Democrats will blow it again and make this POS look sympathetic. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
StewartM
Maybe Trump will survive. Or maybe not–I am left wondering if the Repugs, after having gotten their tax cuts and judges, are ready to cut their losses and ditch Trump–especially if the cost of taking a bath in the 2020 elections will be electing a Clintonista/Obamacrat like Biden, who a) will not pursue any agenda not ‘bipartisan’ with the likes of McConnell and b) after a mere two years of betraying the Democratic base will hand Congress back to the Republicans. Not a bad deal for them when viewed with those optics.
bruce wilder
Trump’s done more than one thing that was illegal and impeachment worthy.
So, name three and let’s judge openly, with full play given to “whataboutism”.
Impeachment is an end-run around the usual stalemate over policy substance. You need as central accusation some violation of law and ethics that even those who would otherwise be supporters find themselves unable to excuse.
It seems to me that U.S. politics is mired in a major legitimacy crisis, and the center-left Party in particular is suffering an extreme case of generational constipation. Biden and Sanders are older than Bill Clinton! Pelosi and Hoyer are in the same superannuated league. But, more important is the lack of consensus in the population at large about what constitutes political evil
Biden would not be leading the primary polls if there were not a lot of self-identified Democrats who see nothing wrong with a corrupt, cruel increasingly senile old white man aspiring to the Presidency. There are not a lot of principles that would allow an honest person of good will to reject Trump and endorse Biden. The horror of Saudi’s paying rack rate is not going to excite many people.
I tend to think impeachment will continue to be a distraction from discussing problems that might actually be usefully addressed. And like the blowup over Biden, Trump and Ukraine, any effective criticism of Trump’s behavior will tend to call into question Biden’s. For the very good reason that the whole system is in advanced state of decay. Just as the Karl Rove Republicans under Bush II once hit upon the tactic of attacking the Dems on the very points they themselves were most vulnerable, the modern Dems, in a fit of arrogance and hubris will impeach Trump for crimes that ought to get them tossed from office as well.
Ten Bears
This ought to be a lively one …
Boiled down to ones and zeros, balls on a brass monkey, more of the same. Nothing will fundamentally change. Pontificate till the cows come, righteously indignant in the error of hubris and arrogant assumption of exceptionalism, pecking away at little hand-held devices as the air goes out of the room … and we choke on own flatulence. No need for jack-boots, just the ambien, prozac, viagra and crotch-shots on the televised “news” kool-aid.
We have to stop doing what we’re doing. It isn’t working.
The Children Are Coming
Z
If Trump withheld aid from Ukraine to pressure them into giving him dirt on a political opponent, then he ought to be impeached.
That said, I suspect that the game that the Clintons’ were running between their “foundation” and Hillary’s SOS office was worse and I still say that Trump has been our best, read: least worse, of our last four presidents in that he has done the least damage. He’s also much more deserving of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize than the Head PR Man for the One Percent himself is and I have to laugh at the democrats’ sudden concern for whistle blowers when they sat by and let the Obaminable Administration attack them non-stop for 8 years.
Like StewartM, I don’t put it past the Republicans ultimately turning their back on Trump. A fair amount of their sponsors will be pushing in that direction. Trump’s only value to them is preventing a Sanders presidency, and is he even capable of pulling that off? I think Sanders would slaughter him in a presidential election. I believe our rulers regard a Warren presidency as manageable.
Z
Hugh
I couldn’t resist. So an incomplete list of possible impeachment articles,
1. Multiple counts of obstruction of justice
2. Abuse of office (The Ukraine call being only the most recent example)
3. Failure to discharge office
4. Abuse of the pardoning power
5. Failure to render needed assistance to Puerto Rico following hurricane Maria resulting in the deaths of thousands of Americans
6. Multiple violations of the domestic emoluments clause (Art. II, Sec. 1. Clause 7)
7. Multiple violations of the foreign emoluments clause (Art. I, Sec. 9. Clause 8)
8. Violations of campaign finance law (the hush money payments)
9. Violation of asylum treaty and laws, including massive child abuse
10. Misuse of national security clearances with regard to family members and White House staff
11. Endangering US security
If you want to get into Trump’s past, and yes, past criminality is disqualifying
12. Money laundering
13. Tax fraud
14. Bank fraud
15. Insurance fraud
16. Real estate fraud
17. Wire fraud
18. Financial ties to Russian oligarchs (who do you think co-signed his bank loans from Deutsche bank, the only bank that would loan him money?)
Z
Trump would be preferable to our rulers over Warren too, I suppose, but I don’t think he’s got much of a chance of beating her either. Hillary Clinton is extremely polarizing, Warren is not, and Trump’s accomplishments as president don’t amount to much in the end. He hasn’t kept many of his promises and the energy towards his campaign in 2016 was largely derived from Hillary Clinton’s extreme unpopularity among so many people and against our ruling class in general. Warren doesn’t carry those negatives.
I think Trump gets crushed by almost any democratic candidate except potentially Biden, who I think our rulers are basically just standing up in this race to prevent Sanders getting enough delegates. Then they’ll nominate Warren through a closed door, backroom deal and tell the electorate that wink-wink, Joe and Bernie are a little old for the job at this point and they’ll do the best thing for the country and give a woman another shot to take down Trump. Then if Warren wins we’ll hear “why are you guys picking on a woman for 8 years?” while she doesn’t do nearly enough to change the dynamics of our vicious economic system.
Z
Ché Pasa
I tend to agree Nancy’s sudden turn about wrt impeachment (inquiry) is probably a distraction from the Dems continued fecklessness in the face of massive governmental dysfunction. The problem list is huge and growing, and Dem leadership plays blind, deaf, and dumb to nearly all of it –and they’ve been doing that for a generation or more. So why not “officially” look into impeachment for a while? Take the heat off, so to speak, and amuse the rubes and media.
As for the continued R fascination with the corruption of the Dems — particularly the Clintons and Bidens — while ostentatiously ignoring the corruption and lawlessness in plain sight on their own side, it’s all just a game with them. They aren’t interested in anything but power and holding on to it whatever it takes, and that means it’s going to get uglier. We may see a preview of how ugly in London today as BoJo gets keelhauled in Parliament — and gives as good as he gets.
The Brits are more sophisticated at these games. But there’s no guarantee that the good will prevail.
None.
I suspect it’s possible that Greta’s full-throated condemnation at the UN of the misleadership class in general served as something of a spur to get Nancy off her perch, but I don’t expect much to come of it in the end. The whole point of government these days is to avoid any action on behalf of the public, no? I wouldn’t say Trump does anything on behalf of the public, but because he takes any action at all with a nod to the rabble — wrong though much of it is — he’s violated norms, and that cannot be allowed to stand. Oh, he’ll be made to pay one day. But I expect he’ll get nothing more than a polite wrist-slap and a comfy retirement… Norms, you know?
Z
The primary reason that our rulers will nudge republicans to turn on Trump are his trade wars with China.
Z
Hugh
“Never start a fight you know that you will lose.”
Representatives should impeach Trump because it is their goddamn duty to do so. They can’t control what the Senate will do, but they can control what they can and should do. Democrats always seem able to find an excuse not to fight. They never leave their blood on the floor, and yet they are still surprised at the lack of enthusiasm they inspire. A President has never been convicted by the Senate, but Nixon sure as hell was by the American people. And we are the real audience, and jury.
Z
Our rulers see a Warren presidency as potentially useful in that it provides the pageantry of progress and change for their subjects and her gender will serve as a shield against criticism of her ultimate failings to effectuate much change to our economic system which will have further value as a divisor of the rubes.
Z
Hugh
I agree with Z that Biden was an Establishment placeholder meant to keep Sanders out of the top spot until a suitable Establishment candidate (Buttigeig, Harris, finally Warren) could be used to permanently displace him (Sanders).
ptb
ugh. they think that with a full court press in the media they can keep it going for a little over a year (hint, it won’t get out of the House for a long time). in my opinion, more likely a Newt Gingrich than a Nixon… i.e. another shoot-your-party-in-the-foot move. anyway prepare for another year of all other news topics being drowned out on TV.
bruce wilder
thanks for the list, Hugh
I do not have the patience to go thru them all and you and others presumably already know the counters.
“obstruction of justice” in relationship to the prolonged investigation of the non-existent collusion with Russia is no charge at all. few things better illustrate for me the nature of the on-going legitimacy crisis than the inability of partisans to acknowledge the lack of moral force in this charge.
Mueller’s focus on the payments to the porn star showed a similar moral tone-deafness; too-clever and frankly abusive legal theory in the thicket of campaign finance statutes that are routinely circumvented without prosecution. (Which campaign was caught by Wikileaks systematically circumventing campaign finance limits while undermining the integrity of their own Party and there was never a hint of possible prosecution?)
on the other hand, i fully credit the notion that Trump is a sleaze from way back. he is a grifter and attracts grifters like rotting meat breeds maggots. so, why the apparent reticence to go after him on what seems like it would prove to be solid ground? why the absurd pee tape rumour while the tax returns remain forever “being sought” (giving rise to so much lurid anticipation on MSNBC)?
i am struck again and again by how often a charge being pressed against Trump could be made with equal or greater force against some prominent Democrat and this glaring symmetry goes unacknowledged. the Ukraine call is the latest and a nearly perfect example: Biden did exactly the same thing! the whole incident arose because Trump knew of Biden’s misbehavior and surmised that Biden was protecting his sleazeball son (which honestly is a perfectly reasonable guess).
such whataboutism goes right to the core of what impeachment ideally ought to be about: impeachment is a process, as Ian wrote, that is about partisans building a non-partisan case that some behavior should be rejected by a super-majority representing the whole body politic. it is a reset on the shared consensus about what is right and wrong.
and, yet, over and over again the attacks on Trump seem to gravitate precisely toward the charge that will most obviously be refuted not by Trump’s denials, but by the guilt of every swamp creature in Washington. the day Manafort was first indicted, Tony Podesta resigned! Clinton’s campaign paid a British spy to get uncorroborated dirt on Trump from the Russians and used it to unscrupulously press a pseudo-scandal thru 2+years while pretending to be shocked at the Trump Tower meeting that yielded nothing.
and over and over the charges against Trump are garnished with stories that prove to be nothing but speculative innuendo or simply false in their entirety. tying Trump to Epstein was always a stretch but it was done gleefully. the remote Scottish airport with crew staying at a Trump golf course was a story much touted recently on cable news though there is no evidence Trump ever had a hand in the arrangements that benefit him thru his businesses. but hey it is a theme! my point is not that Trump is innocent — my point is that his enemies are remarkably careless in accusing him of things. Which is remarkable in two respects. First, credibility is no longer a value for establishment media institutions. Second, when your target is a corrupt and corrupting grifter, why not focus on the things he is actually (and more or less uniquely) guilty?
Say what you will about Nixon’s downfall, the obstruction of justice charge had moral force, because none of the Congress critters had suborned a criminal break-in in their lives.
purplemonkeydishwasher
Wrong Ian. This is an obvious trap laid by Trump. He won\’t be removed, it will only bolster his base, and Biden, who will likely be the nominee due to the stupidity of Democrat voters, will be shellacked with his graft and corruption. He is on tape bragging about how he extorted the Ukrainian government to remove the prosecutor that was looking into Biden\’s moronic ding dong son\’s corrupt dealings. Whatever, America is irredeemable so whatever happens, who cares, as long as Americans get their just desserts, which they will.
bruce wilder
Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy — and its apparent rise to parity with Sanders’ — would seem to be off-topic for this thread but obviously isn’t, insofar as the “real” topic is how the Democrats are struggling to handle the splits in the Party — impeachment of Trump being less a part of a genuine attempt to vindicate constitutional norms than a cynical ploy to rally partisans without having to change policy and to buy time while suppressing the populist revolt. Pelosi cares less about Trump than she does about preventing M4A, but she does not want to be seen to pushing her corrupt and unpopular policy agenda.
Pelosi, give her credit for having some sense, cannot be enthusiastic about the Impeachment strategy — too many hazards for the legitimacy of the whole political process — but just as those pursuing Russia,Russia,Russia could scarcely care about, say, relations with a nuclear power or genuine election security (paper ballots, hand-counts), so consequences be damned!
Elizabeth Warren seems confident that she has threaded the needle between Sanders and plutocracy in a way that will satisfy the Party establishment and the electoral base preferred by the Party establishment — suburban Republican women and urban professionals alongside minorities with no alternative.
I would worry less about this Trump than about the one who comes next, the Trump2.0, the failure of a Warren Presidency would produce.
Duder
I predict this impeachment proceeding will backfire on the democrats, much like the Russiagate investigation, of which this “Ukrainegate” is simply an extension. Trump’s actions are reprimand, but he will manage to demonstrate that Biden’s son was in fact engaged in international corruption. This will vindicate his authoritarian politics among his base and others, continuing his narrative of “draining the swamp” rhetoric against he Clinton cabal- which gave him the White House in the first place.
Pelosi and the democratic establishment will not investigate Trump many other impeachable offenses. They will not for a simple reason. This impeachment proceeding is meant to boost Biden in the primary, to create an us-vs-them mentality. It continues the narrative that Trump is a Manchurian candidate, foreign internal enemy, traitor to the nation. That Biden is the real enemy of Trump and hence who the electorate should support. The media will use this impeachment investigation to drown out debate about socialism and healthcare in the primary, which they already realize, due to poor performance in the debate, that they will lose.
This is a disaster for democracy.
Dan Lynch
Ian said Trump will not be convicted. But he can easily be damaged and his ability to enact his policies can be crippled. Impeaching Clinton was followed by two Republican presidential terms.
The last Democrat president that did anything to help me was Lyndon Johnson, so why should I be concerned with partisan politics?
To the extent that Ukraine-gate matters, it pushes foreign policy further right by framing the issue as “how dare the president withhold support from the neo-Nazis?” And one wonders if John Bolton had something to do with the leak?
There are legitimate reasons to impeach Trump (and every other president in my lifetime) but Ukraine-gate is not one of them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking a foreign government to investigate the illegal activity of an American citizen. For example, would it have been wrong to ask a foreign government to investigate Jeffery Epstein? Democrats certainly have no objection to asking foreign governments to investigate Julian Assange. So let’s get real — Pelosi’s impeachment is straight up partisan politics with a dash of neocon foreign policy. It will not benefit me and it will not benefit the country.
Don’t like Trump? Then run a better candidate next time.
Dale
The children are coming. They are the ones being gunned down in their schools. We old farts will die of old age. They see themselves dying because of the 6th mass extinction event that we’ve created and refuse to do anything about. They don’t give a damn about your political parties and these BS topics. They want their lives back. All the rest is fluff and attempts to distract us all from the reality of climate change. Wake up!
purplemonkeydishwasher
And I\’m saying that not only will he not be impeached, he will use this as a trap for Biden in the general, because Biden is corrupt as hell. It\’s pretty much over now. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/wsj-journo-shreds-attempt-take-out-president-after-transcript-release
Ten Bears
There is no legal requirement for the House to send impeachment to the Senate, which will not remove Trump from office. Should just let it sit there like a loaded gun without a Senate trial or vote. Spend the next year laying it all out in public. Keep it at the forefront. Ending the process in the House would have the virtue of denying the drumpf uck a victory lap.
A1
Ian – transcript is out. Are you going to review your column and eat it? Nothing there. Now I do not believe this was a trap by Trump. He is just a shoot from the hip bullshitter and sooner or later he will trip up but this is not it. This episode also shows how incompetent the opposition is.
I wonder if this level of ineptitude on both sides is because the 30 something Ivy League educated political analysts never played any competitive sports like football. The things you learn from playing a sport like football are things like “the other guy gets to play too” and “while it is fun to hit you will also get hit so you have to accept it.”
Also please mention Trumps line of “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it, It sounds horrible to me”
Looks like Biden is done.
Effem
The Trump trap to remove Biden worked. Zero chance Warren wins the rust belt on a message of losing all the health plans unions have fought hard for over the years. Just politics, again.
Herman
Even if you think Trump can legitimately be impeached it is still a bad move politically. This will galvanize Trump’s base which is already much more likely to come out and vote than the Democratic base. The Democrats probably think that this move will galvanize their base but the truth is that outside of hardcore partisans the Democratic base is not really brought out by this sort of thing. I would be willing to bet that poor people, people of color and young people see this as just more political theatre. It is actually a big turn off to ordinary people who see it as elite class bickering.
NR
I just have to laugh at all the people here who think Trump was somehow laying a clever trap for the Democrats through a strategy of “commit obvious and oafish crimes, get caught, and then have his addled ghoul of a lawyer confess to them on national television.”
bruce wilder
Effem: Zero chance Warren wins the rust belt on a message of losing all the health plans unions have fought hard for over the years.
Warren is signalling that she is willing to see M4A jettisoned. Just so you know.
NR
A1: Well thank you for bringing us the Fox News spin, but there most certainly was not “nothing there” in the transcript.
President Zelenskyy: I’m very grateful to you for that because the United States is doing quite a lot for Ukraine. Much more than the European Union…would also I’d to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps
The President: I would like you to do us a favor though….
And then he goes into talking about them investigating Biden. And this the *edited* version of the transcript!
bruce wilder
@ NR
I do not think Trump is all that clever nor do I imagine he is laying traps. I think he’s probably as surprised as anyone that Democrats are so hubristically arrogant as not to see that Trump has been following precedents set by Democrats.
I would really like to hear someone try to explain how Biden threatening to withhold aid if Ukraine doesn’t fire a prosecutor threatening to investigate an oligarch with ties to his son is A-OK, but Trump asking the current Ukrainian President to look into the episode is not. (Ten minutes ago the current Ukrainian President was supposed to be a relative ‘good guy’ but I guess now he’s a fascist or something.)
OK, so Jonathan Chait has “explained” it: apparently Biden is an angel sent from heaven with pure intentions who was fronting for global establishment institutions everywhere in rooting out corruption, but Trump is just the opposite. Good to know.
Herman
@StewartM,
I don’t think the Republicans will ever abandon Trump. Trump is too popular with the base. If Republicans ever tried to turn on Trump they would face the fury of his hardcore supporters which probably means guys in MAGA hats showing up to offices and rallies with guns. The GOP is understandably afraid of certain elements of their base and will never publicly abandon Trump even if some of them might secretly hope he loses the next election just to be rid of him.
So much of politics is irrational so you can provide a laundry list of Trump crimes that should result in impeachment but it is still bad politics. As I said above, impeaching Trump will galvanize the Trump base. It is like poking a hornet’s nest. The Democrats seem incapable of just trying to beat Trump in an election by fielding a strong presidential candidate. You get the sense that the Democrats don’t believe that any of their potential candidates can win which speaks to a crisis of confidence on their part.
NR
Bruce Wilder: I am no fan of Biden, but anything he may have done is not relevant to what Trump did. If whataboutism is the only defense of Trump you have, that’s extremely damning for Trump.
But let’s have a full investigation, and if it turns out Biden broke the law, I am more than okay with him going to jail alongside Trump. Maybe they can share a cell.
Mike Barry
This just in as of about 1 hr ago:
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/09/trump-floors-cnn-host-by-declaring-pelosi-is-no-longer-speaker-i-have-no-idea-what-hes-referencing/
bruce wilder
I am no fan of Biden, but anything he may have done is not relevant to what Trump did.
That is just ridiculous. Biden is the context!! Trump sought an investigation of Biden’s son.
This is no ordinary whataboutism, no “ok, ok enough about Venus, what about Mars?” off-the-wall non-sequiter.
Unless Biden brags about intimidating the Ukrainians, Trump has no reason to act as he did. This accusation is a package deal, Biden and Trump are in it together. And, if you are going to claim this gravely wrong on Trump’s part, you have to explain where were you when Biden was showing off. Or, when Victoria Nuland was overthrowing the elected Ukrainian government for that matter.
Impeachment only works as a constitutional procedure if you can convince your partisan opponents that the core issue transcends partisanship, that a norm that all respect has been intolerably broken, and its violation must be punished to restore constitutional functions. If your core thesis is, “when my guy does it it is with the best intentions and A-OK, but the Other Guy is Hitler so share the outrage! Or be damned!” . . . . that simply does not work. It is just tribalism, propaganda. A constitutional republic requires respect for principle, rules that are facially neutral. That is barely related to this.
The politically aware among Americans are being actively herded by a Media given over to propaganda designed to “polarize” popular opinion. You are being asked to give up your independent judgment and relation to many of your fellow citizens for the ephemeral “thrill” of some political drama resonant of a half-remembered political drama that actually mattered in policy terms. The yahoos driving this nonsense are remarkably careless of the future. Rachel Maddow gets $8 million a year to do her schtick. What do you get for frying your brain with the opinions of teevee talking heads?
Mike Barry
Sorry for botching up your comments. Hopefully the closed block quote fixed it.
different clue
@ bruce wilder,
Sanders’s age does not bother me. I like the New Deal Restoration parts of his agenda and sensibility, and he is still highly cognifunctional.
And Biden was already nasty decades ago, when he was still young. I hope Biden stays in the Primary Race to the very stumble-bumble end and drinks every last drop of the public humiliation he deserves for what he has done based on who he is and always was.
different clue
@purplemonkeydishwasher,
If you are one of my Fellow Americans, I hope you get your fair share of the just desserts.
If you are one of our foreign friends, I hope you live long enough to see if you like the coming Chinese hegemony better than you liked the passing American hegemony.
metamars
Here is a link to the transcript:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/25/us/politics/trump-ukraine-transcript.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
IMNSHO, impeachment over this is laughable.
Fortunately for the Democrats, Trump lacks a killer instinct. He’s really an incompetent politician, who managed to win because he was running against (another of the) most unpopular Presidential candidates in history.
If I were him, I’d give a speech every week where he quotes Biden bragging about intimidating the Ukrainians, and then either quotes his transcript, or else invites EVERYBODY to read it, and read it, again. At my rallies, I’d play the video. And I wouldn’t pull any punches, I’d call Biden an unindicted and unconvicted criminal, each and every time I spoke of Biden in the context of Ukraine. Which, I’d be doing a lot of.
I’d also invite Bill Barr to a public sitdown, cameras rolling, and ask him if he’s hunky dory with me (as Trump) doing what Biden did, with respect to the Ukrainians and his son. I’d put him on the spot, and demand that he answer the question, and not say “I’ll get back to you on this, Mr. President”. Barr will have to admit that what Biden did is completely illegal. (It’s probably too risky to then give the obvious followup question of “so when are you going to investigate Biden?” But, at least history will know that it is on Barr that Biden was not investigated/prosecuted*, just like Jeff Sessions couldn’t be bothered investigating/prosecuting Hillary Clinton.)
In short, I’d terminate Biden’s political career, and grind him into dust. Nothing personal – just political business! And if any prominent Democrats wanted to be taken down defending the indefensible, so much the better. Especially if that “prominent Democrat” is Elizabeth Warren, who might well defeat Trump on her own merits, absent the alienating, low-life garbage that the Democrats have been indulging in.
Ah, but Trump caved on the Presidential Commission on Climate Change (after wasting his first two years in office, on this issue), and could easily lose in 2020 due a morally motivated Greta Thunberg vote. His political incompetence is astounding. If he wins, it’ll have more to do with the Democrats self-destructing, than with Trump destroying them.
* Barr came out of the CIA, and his father gave Epstein a job. He may be tamping down on the lopsided harassment of Trump by the Deep State-Democrat axis-of-collusion, but, like Mueller, I believe his loyalty is the the Deep State, first and foremost.
NR
bruce wilder:
Again, the fact that Trump’s fans can’t defend him here without saying “Well what about Biden?!?!?!????” is extremely telling.
And I’ll just note that the fact that Trump’s defenders are so desperate to make this about Biden, or anything at all except what Trump did, puts the lie to the idea that this is “no big deal” like some here are claiming.
Ten Bears
The Biden supporters here are few and far between, if any at all.
Far as I’m concerned if the dems run Biden they re-“elect” Trump.
And they can kiss my rosy red ass.
Hugh
To read this thread, Trump is a strategic stable genius, and pretty much anything the Democrats do is going to blow up in their faces. So obviously, they should do nothing., which is sort of what they have been doing for the last 20 years. Oh, maybe they can talk about healthcare, and we are supposed to believe they will fight for it, when the plan is apparently for them to actually do nothing, as usual. Boy, that will energize the base and bring in oodles of independents.
Hugh
From above, the counter to the idea of dismissing obstruction of justice by Trump is called the US Code, and not one but 4 violations described in it:
18 U.S. Code § 1505. Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committees:
Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress—
Shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years
18 U.S. Code § 1510. Obstruction of criminal investigations:
(a)Whoever willfully endeavors by means of bribery to obstruct, delay, or prevent the communication of information relating to a violation of any criminal statute of the United States by any person to a criminal investigator shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
18 U.S. Code § 1512. Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant:
(b) Whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to—
(1) influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding;
(2) cause or induce any person to—
(A) withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding
(3) hinder, delay, or prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
18 U.S. Code § 1513. Retaliating against a witness, victim, or an informant:
(b) Whoever knowingly engages in any conduct and thereby causes bodily injury to another person or damages the tangible property of another person, or threatens to do so, with intent to retaliate against any person for—
(2) any information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
Again obstruction of justice does not require that a crime have been committed. Not every investigation or proceeding ends in a prosecution. It is rather that efforts were made to thwart that investigation or proceeding. As was said of Watergate and since, it is not the crime but the cover up.
NR
What’s particularly funny about this is that the transcript reads like Trump wrote it himself–“Congrats on winning!” “Thank you sir, I learned how from you, the ultimate winner!” “I agree.”–and yet it still contains references to obvious blatant crimes. Par for the course with this administration I suppose.
metamars
Hmm. Looks like I shot off my mouth/keyboard too quickly.
From The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2019/09/25/i-wrote-about-the-bidens-and-ukraine-years-ago-then-the-right-wing-spin-machine-turned-the-story-upside-down/
“Still, when Joe Biden went to Ukraine, he was not trying to protect his son — quite the reverse.
The then-vice president issued his demands for greater anti-corruption measures by the Ukrainian government despite the possibility that those demands would actually increase – not lessen — the chances that Hunter Biden and Burisma would face legal trouble in Ukraine.”
More info @ https://theintercept.com/2019/05/10/rumors-joe-biden-scandal-ukraine-absolute-nonsense-reformer-says/
Biden lying about not discussing business deals with his son just muddies the waters even more. It’s certainly logically possible that Biden was well intentioned in his Ukrainian threat, but still ‘helped’ his son score big payoffs inappropriately from other countries; or else simply failed to distance himself from his son’s exploitation of their relationship.
From https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/biden-ukraine-trump.html:
The new prosecutor was somebody named Lutsenko, but he did not survive the new government.
So what became of Lutsenko’s investigation? How many people did it involve? If more than one, then we can inquire of the surviving member or members how it’s going. Why was Lutsenko replaced?
The NY Times says nothing about this. I find such a lack of curiosity disconcerting. Does the NY Times also expect us not to be curious, either? Their article simply ends with
“Ukraine’s new government replaced Mr. Lutsenko last month.”
bruce wilder
If anyone thinks I am “defending” Trump, they have seriously misread the intent of my comments here.
marku52
It’s just soft corruption VS hard core in-your -face corruption. Anyone who believes that Hunter Biden was on the board of that energy company due to his exceptional knowledge of Eastern Europe energy issues, Rejoice! I have a listing for a bridge for you up at Realtors.Com.
Else it’s just Trump doing shit right in your face VS that which our “elites” do over cocktails at Davos.
I hope it sinks Biden, worthless piece of corporate sh*t that he is.
Collateral damage, you know.
Ché Pasa
Oddly for Trump’s defenders, there is nothing (so far) that indicates Biden or Biden fils did anything illegal or corrupt wrt Ukraine. Sleazy? Sure. Morally questionable? You bet. But Biden Sr. was acting in his official capacity on behalf of the US government; Biden Jr. was taking full advantage of his position as the Vice President’s son, but apparently did nothing illegal or chargeable.
On the other hand, Trump is trying to spin his own actions as “normal”. He seems to have a vague awareness that it wasn’t illegal in the strictest sense, but it was arguably a violation of public trust. Using the power of his office for personal/political ends by conditioning releasing of military aid on Ukrainian investigation of a political rival crosses too many lines for even Nancy (I guess) to tolerate.
We can leave aside for the time being the advisability of the Ukrainian adventure in the first place. That is not at issue in the present instance.
I heard on some news program that Nancy is short one vote in the House to impeach outright. As what actually happened in the Ukrainian Thing is examined, along with all the other corruption and illegality of the Trump regime, it’s possible that at least some Rs in the House will vote to impeach, but there may also be a break-out group of R Senators who would go along.
Impeachment may never get to the Senate, however. If the Dems have a strategy (ha!) it looks more like they are pushing for a complete Trump melt-down (almost happened today) and resignation or 25th amendment removal close to the election. Under those circumstances, Pence would be no threat, and the Rs couldn’t come up with an alternate candidate. Dem candidate would win by default. Who it will be is anybody’s guess, but the ideal would likely be a “strong, male unity candidate with a military background.” The only one currently in the running is Mayor Pete, no? But he’s not likely to be the choice. It would have to be an officer of higher rank. Recent retirement from active duty. Rock stable. Agreeable to all sides and ultimately responsible for preventing a civil war.
There are several other scenarios, and I expect all of them have been gamed out by the people who matter.
S Brennan
C’mon children, grow up;
This is just another scam by Pelosi to dump Biden on the street…all the while pretending to tend to his self inflicted wounds.
Honestly…Pelosi defending a political friend who’s going down? Hah..ha..ha..tee.hee…sometimes the gullibility of “liberals” is too much!
Hugh
Backing for impeachment has now reached the magic number of 218.
Like Ché Pasa, I do not think Joe Biden did anything wrong with regard to Ukraine. I do think he was corrupt because he was bought and paid for by the banks and credit card companies. But even this corruption was legal. And this brings up the point that there is a whole vast swath of legal corruption that permeates government and available to everyone evenly remotely associated with it. The Clintons were always irritatingly obvious in their corruption but it was always legal, or at least unprovable. They simply did more of it and did it better than most. But, like I said, it is everywhere and almost everyone is involved. And yet even in this swamp, Trump sets himself apart by getting it wrong and not so much crossing the line but blowing by it.
As for Hunter Biden or even Donald Trump, they are examples of how elitism works in our country. Hunter got his Ukraine gig because of who is father was, period. It is exactly how the Donald got his via his father Fred or how Don Jr. gets his. I can watch an episode of Morning Joe on MSNBC and virtually every person at the table got there because of who one of their parents was. Does some of this stray into the illegal? yes, but only if the parent(or child) is really stupid or lazy or arrogant.
bruce wilder
It is absolutely outrageous how unprofessional a crook Trump is!
Hugh
When the crooks write the laws, they make crime legal. Trump doesn’t even bother with laws.
Hugh
“Do-Nothing” Nancy Pelosi strikes again. The impeachment probe will now only involve the Ukrainian call and the whistleblower complaint.
Z
I like Trump’s way better. He doesn’t have the meticulousness and patience to codify his crimes and give them the veneer of being an unfortunate part of a system that just organically sprouted up out of the ground like a cluster of dandelions you can never quite eradicate from your lawn, so why bother putting in the effort of pulling them out?
Nope, like Caitlin Johnstone points out, Trump’s gift to us all is that he ultimately sloppily leaves it all hanging out from underneath his untucked shirt, its pale white belly practically glowing in the face of the public for those who dare to look, who wish to see. Not only that, he ultimately does it in bombastic fashion, rubbing that fat, ugly belly right in front of us therefore revealing the hideousness hiding beneath the polite table manners of our glutinous rulers’ feast upon us, the working class.
Trump’s greatest sins to our rulers are not in what he does, though they’re mighty pissed that he’s inconvenienced them by going after China on trade, it’s that he’s not a suave, well-dressed Head PR Man for the One Percent like Obama and Clinton.
Z
Z
Hillary in a Hand Basket basically did the same as Trump when she got dirt on him before the 2016 elections: use her position (partly prospective, in her case, as in being the future president) and her power as leverage to encourage cooperation in her endeavor to get elected.
She just did it in a much more sophisticated, “cultured” manner.
And she wipes her mouth after a big juicy bite of the working class. It’s unseemly to let its blood roll down your chin. It might leave an ugly red stain on your shirt.
Z
metamars
According to Rudy Guiliani, during an interview by Laura Ingraham of Fox News:
“Rudy dropped this bomb on the Biden Crime Family, “I have the records of $3 million payments laundered to Biden’s son. I have the records. I have the dates. It went from Ukraine, to Latvia to Cyprus, Cyprus to him. That’s called evidence of guilty knowledge… He got $1.5 billion from China! $1.5 Billion!… They bought the Vice President of the United States!”
Rudy then went on to explain his role in the Ukrainian investigation. They’re not going to intimidate me! I never realized the depth of the corruption! I never knew the depth of this corruption. It’s massive, it’s shocking. And if I played a role in getting that out I did a service to my country and I’m proud of it. And everything I did was legal and defensible.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPsiSM4H8ZY
So a few obvious questions that come to mind are
“So where is this evidence? How did you obtain it? What are you going to do with this evidence? Give it to a legal authority (who, specifically?) or just mysteriously crow about it on national TV?”
Laura Ingraham apparently wasn’t curious enough to ask any of these obvious questions. This is similar to the NY Times lack of obvious follow up, that I mention, above. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPsiSM4H8ZY
(In fairness to Ingraham, she says they’ve already gone over this. Maybe she asked, in previous segments, about the status of the evidence. However, with impeachment now on the table, such questions have renewed urgency.)
In a “The Duran” program, these, ah, revelations, are taken very seriously, and the theory is floated that the Democrats got wind of a real investigation being in the works, and were looking to get in front of the story, and project it onto the Republicans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxk9Pnw4tbM
As Rudy Guiliani isn’t completely crazy, and isn’t known as a pathological liar, my guess is that he has access to info via private investigators that Trump personally hired, since Trump (understandably) doesn’t trust the FBI. However, in such a case, what does the end game look like? Once such evidence is handed to a corrupt FBI, they will doubtless sit on it.* The only way around this, that I can imagine, is that they release such evidence, publicly, and then invite the FBI to, ya know, actually do their job, counting on public pressure to force the issue.
So, now, pursuing this idea further, why haven’t they released it, already? Were they hoping the Democrats would nominate Biden, and then take Biden out?
I don’t know, and Laura Ingraham (apparently) doesn’t know, the answer to any of these questions. Unlike me, though, she had the opportunity to ask, but failed to do so.
* Larry Klayman would agree with this. He expresses his dim view of Barr in a recent Crowdsource the Truth interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvZEQ2eg7_8
Mandos
I remember when people jumped down my throat when I suggested that Neera Tanden was a voice of a form of grassroots politics (among other forms, of course). And yet, Biden is still the frontrunner!
ponderer
I only ready half the comments. You are all wrong up to that point except Bruce who is missing part of the picture. I’ve said many times that the Democrats using the intelligence agencies to spy on Trump for political reasons is blatantly illegal and a threat to us all. The DNC and various borg in the deep state have been fighting a soft coup since before Trump was elected. They tried to entrap him in a crime for which the punishment is death by hanging. Nearly everyone left of center has ignored that because they have fallen for the gross tribalism the Democrats have been pushing for decades.
Before I said that the counter investigation if followed through by Barr will shower the Democrats apparatiks with prison time and will potentially go all the way up to Obama. I expected this to be timed shortly before the 2020 election. It’s the Democrats fault for dragging it out. Russiagate was a farse, with no evidence except against the IC. They were kind enough to document their felonies right out in the open. Of course in any sane State the AG would be investigating such a gross miscarriage of justice and a threat to Democracy. The Ukraine was a source for much of the Russiagate material, that’s been known for years. That the “Russians” were actually Ukrainians has been discusses many times. So Crowdstrike is a legitimate concern that all of you would be frothing at the mouth about if the parties where switched. The transcripts with Zelunski (sp) prove this. Biden’s own *public* statements condemn him.
Nancy just fell for the bait that Trump laid out for her yet again. The side effect of all this is that the left is going to get shoved to the back for the next few decades once again due to corruption in the Democratic party. Bernie and other progressives are being set up to lose, you guys just haven’t noticed yet.
Mallam
Oh I see the “Russia gate” skeptics are out in full force, even though this situation is literally the same conduct, just change it to Trump being in control of the executive branch rather than private citizen as candidate, and Giuliani for Manafort.
However, all this Ukraine stuff is Russia gate stuff! It’s the same story! Giulani’s Ukrainian trips were designed to put pressure on the Ukrainian government to not only help with elections, but to get rid of people who were responsible for going after Manafort.
From Murray Waas:
Will
President Zelenskyy: I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I can assure you.
President Trump: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. 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.
END QUOTE
Ten Bears asked if Z was on drugs. I think it is fair to ask that of anyone who thinks that the exchange quoted above will end up with Trump thrown out of office.
It would be one thing if he just called some foreign leader up out of the blue and started trying to dig up dirt… but my god, to ask about something that stinks to the levels that this does? You think he is going to be thrown out for that?
You dream….
Hugh
Will is quoting from a presser after all the Ukraine stuff was out there. It is typical Trump CYA. Does anyone past the age of six actually think that Zelensky who continues to need US aid is going to out Trump?
different clue
Trump is the Martin Shkreli of American politics.
https://www.ianwelsh.net/martin-shkreli-proves-that-your-life-is-meaningless-to-elites/
Maybe he will end up like Martin Shkreli. Maybe. But I wouldn’t predict it.
Meanwhile, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson and others have been guest-writing for a long time now about the concocted nature of “Russiagate” and the Clintobama Intelligence Community members conspiracy to engineer the fabricated appearance of “Russiagate” into existence. If they are correct ( and I find their narrative of Russiagate-gate to be very plausible), then I hope that Barr and the others have a long-range successful plan to arrest, charge, try, convict and delete the guilty members of the Clintobama-IC conspiracy against the 2016 election.
It could be a first step towards chemotheraping and radiationing the Clintonoma cancer cells and the Yersiniobama pestis plague germs out of the Democratic Party . . . or exterminate the Party itself if it can’t be decontaminated and remediated.
Will
High do you mean to tell me that you’ve been blabbing about this stuff all along this thread and you don’t even recognize the actual verbage from the released memorandum?
You have GOT to be kidding me.
My god man, go to CNN and read the damned thing. Christ almighty, has this entire nation lost its mind?
I beginning to believe that Tulsi Gabbard is the only person running for president with a lick of sense. Republican or Democrat.
Will
different clue
Here is something from ” the Hill” about Biden’s various links, ties and operations in Ukraine. I am at a library computer so can’t hear the audio, but the whole thing might be interesting.
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/463307-solomon-these-once-secret-memos-cast-doubt-on-joe-bidens-ukraine-story#.XY02ewYDEV8.twitter
Hugh
Will you are right. My bad. It is from the memo. So let’s look at it. Why is Trump trying to get dirt on Biden? Out of all of our interests in Ukraine, why is Trump focusing on a potential political opponent? Why did Trump withhold the military assistance that Congress had legislated for Ukraine? Why did he push Zelensky to work with his personal attorney, and Trump toadie, Giuliani, a private citizen, on this?
There is apparently an electronic recording of the conversation. It was transferred at the direction of White House lawyers from the usual server which stores these kinds of conversations to a special one for highly classified material although there is nothing which indicates that anything discussed was of a classified nature. This is a clear indication that, unlike you, these lawyers did realize the implications of what Trump had done. And as the whistleblower complaint said this was not the first time that such a CYA transfer to the more secure server was made.
Mark Pontin
Lots of overexcited, distracted folks here, there, and everywhere. Everybody should recall that impeachment is a formal process requiring on the record votes — articles of impeachment.
Putting aside the media hullabaloo, therefore, at this stage the only thing Pelosi has done is call for a “formal impeachment inquiry,” and thereby rebranded the existing investigations. That’s it.
This is classic Theater of Distraction. Pelosi manages to:
(a) Feed a sop to the vast mass of Democrat supporters who’ve been fed a steady diet of Russkiegate-Orange Man Bad by the mainstream Dem establishment for the last three years till they’re howling for blood, asking why Pelosi and co. aren’t actually doing anything;
(b) Continue to play the ‘you have to vote Dem because we’re better than Trump’ narrative and provide a distraction so establishment Democrats can avoid pushing for real policies, like Medicare For All, which would benefit the vast mass of the American people and hurt Dem donors.
That’s all this is so far. And if it even gets as far as the Senate it’ll be closed down. It’ll be good for Dem campaign coffers, though.
Z
Ten Bears,
Nope, no drugs. One hundred percent intoxicated on sleep deprivation. Woke up at 2:30 AM and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Said to hell with it at 4:30 and got up. Had to work today.
I have written about amphetamine use on this site, and other sites, and how I think it is a fuel behind a lot of idiocy and selfishness in our society. Not that I think that everybody who takes it is an idiot or a jerk, but that I’ve seen some awful behavior from some that do.
I’ve also noticed that often times following my posts that are critical about the rampant amphetamine use in our society, that on some of my later posts, on entirely different subjects, some posters, who I have had no gripes with in the past, will take swipes at me when the content of the post they are replying to isn’t particularly confrontational.
Anyway, was there anything that I wrote that teed you off?
Z
Hugh
For my part, I liked your Trump “rubbing that fat, ugly belly right in front of us” comment. Trump seeks to normalize the grotesque, the criminal, the wrong. And what we need to keep reminding ourselves is that none of this is normal. And while Trump is by far the worst of the lot, he is still just the smirking clown face of a system that is rotten to its core. We are not going to get where we would like to go, and with things like climate change, need to go, by trying to justify, give benefits of the doubt to, or normalize any of this parade of evil grotesques.
Ten Bears
Now that you’ve clarified the sleep deprivation, I see why you’re all over the place.
I don’t believe I’ve had the opportunity to see one of your rants about amphetamines, no doubt I would agree. Having been in and around the “recovery” business over thirty years now, I have seen a lot of damage done, none quite so as meth-amphetamines. Some, perhaps most, get clean but they never get over it. And yet there are those who, like alcohol, claim as it is a naturally occuring ‘process’ there’s no harm, no damage, that this is all perfectly normal.
The more time I put into avoiding putting foreign ‘stuff’ – antibiotics, chemicals, drugs – into my body the more I realize just how difficult it is to avoid them. They’re everywhere. The best analogy I can find is the hysteria over radio waves, wi-fi and cell signals in the atmosphere. It’s everywhere, there’s no getting away from it.
One of the few great pleasures left me is an early morning cup of green tea 🐻
Will
Hugh: So you would consider it a legal impropriety to turn the forces of a nation’s intelligence community turned loose to dig up dirt on one’s political adversaries?
That’s odd…. when did that become the fashion? Last week? :p
Will
Ché Pasa
I stopped watching the Intelligence Committee hearing with McGuire after a few minutes because it was obvious it was going nowhere. Part of the problem was that the committee members did not receive the whistle blower complaint in time for staff to read it and come up with questions based on it. Instead there was much flailing over ‘process’ — what McGuire allegedly did wrong in withholding the complaint until it was vetted by the White House and OLC. He explained as well as he could why he did it that way, pointing out all the time that he didn’t think there was anything else he could do under the unprecedented circumstances, and ultimately, the committee and Congress got the complaint, shrug.
Indeed.
But because they got it so late, the committee made essentially no headway with the material provided by the whistleblower.
As for the substance of the complaint: what Trump did in “encouraging” Zelensky to get with the program and dig dirt on the Bidens and the server and whatever else he wanted Zelensky to do in return for Trump’s favor seems odd but it’s not unheard of for governments to demand all kinds of favors in exchange for providing equipment, protection, whatever. Governments tend to act like gangsters with one another. Trump is a gangster con-man, isn’t he? Shouldn’t be a big surprise. But there are ways of doing the things that governments do that make it seem… OK. Trump does not know those ways and doesn’t care.
I’d venture to say that Trump’s ways of doing things inevitably get him into trouble. He’s done it this way all his life, and he’s always been able to wriggle his way out of whatever trouble he gets into and often enough manages to come out on top. It’s not so much a skill as blind luck combined with the inability of whomever he’s dealing with to comprehend and counter what he’s doing. They don’t believe somebody can be as grotesquely irrational, wrong-headed, downright bizarre as Trump is and still be taken seriously. And yet here we are.
The “cover up” or attempt to is supposedly the “crime” involved. Maybe so, maybe not. Trying to impeach on this basis is going nowhere. But that’s the plan,no?
Magical thinking all around.
Stirling S Newberry
What this is about is the 2020 elections… Putting a couple of R’s on the hot seat – though it could happen. No one expects Trump to be impeached, though it might happen in the same sense that a person might get stuck by lightning several times.
But a D senate is far more likely, and when combined with a D president while led to many possibilities. Keep your eyes on the prize.
Remember the cardinal principle: only that which is actually in the Constitution requires a Constitutional Amendment.
ponderer
The “Whistleblower” had no first hand knowledge of anything discussed in the phone call. The IG was out of line with bringing it to the DOJ and was properly smacked down for it as an obvious political gimmick. The AG is investigating multiple crimes. It doesn’t matter if political opponents are the targets of that any more than it mattered when the target was Trump. This is not the first time that a perpetrator of a crime has charged an innocent with the same thing in order to misdirect an audience.
The hypocrisy and lack of foresight on this topic is mind boggling. When every thing is unveiled to the public the progressives are going down the with Democrats. If they had any sense at all they would try to get out ahead of this long before now. Unfortunately, they bought into the identity politics so people wouldn’t think they were mean. All the anger from the public that the Democrats used against Trump will be turn against Democrats (not just the ones you don’t like) several times over when it becomes known that the fraud was initiated by the Democrats. The collusion with foreign powers and dark money came not from Trump, but from the Clintons and Obamas.
The establishment is pushing this BS story on the Ukraine not because of 2020 or any other political reason. It’s because Barr is investigating serious crimes and if their only hope is to slow that process down till after 2020, where they hope to defraud and disenfranchise the entire country and its People to save their sorry butts just like they tried in 2016. It’s not going to work, it has the same chances as Hillary winning in 2016. This is what happens when you start a race to the bottom with your conscience. Ian has spoken multiple times about “imitating the Right”, endorsing violence as a mean to an end, trivializing the concept of Rule of Law, and seems convinced it’s the only way to “win”. It seems many here think the same to the point of being “willfully misinformed” about the issues and speaking mistruths.
Hugh:
There was no request for “dirt”. Joe Bidden stated in public they he threatened to withhold a billion of dollars of aid that they had slotted for the Ukraine until the prosecutor investigating his son was fired. This was money that was already agreed to by Obama with the President of Ukraine. Interfering in the distribution of aid (US National Interests) for personal enrichment is a serious charge and should be investigated. That is actually a high crime and misdemeanor.
Please present evidence that Trump withheld military assistance. We know Joe Biden did that as quid pro quo but I see no evidence that Trump did.
Trump was accused of Treason. Why wouldn’t he ask the head of Ukraine to cooperate with an investigation into outside interference into the 2016 election which the Democrats label as a crime when done by outsiders? He said in the transcripts that there was evidence that Ukraine under a previous President participated in such an accusation against him. If that were the case would we not apply the sanctions against Ukraine that we misapplied to Russia? Both the US and Ukraine have a vested interest in resolving this matter.
As it risked Nuclear War with Russia I’m not sure any American Citizen should be arguing that we need to side with the Democrats over the country when flagrant corruption has been exposed. I don’t think independent voters are going to see it your way either.
metamars
Serhiy Leshchenko, a Ukrainian journalist, was interviewed by Lee Stranahan and his liberal sidekick, on rt. No time to get into it, but worth reading. Bottom line is that (according to Leshchenko, who strikes me as extremely credible) Guiliani has been snookered with some disinformation. If Guiliani’s source for his claim of bank transfers of over a billion dollars from China to Biden, came from the same Ukrainian disinfo source, his career as a public figure, and Trump’s lawyer, will soon be over….
”
https://thepopulist.us/serhiy-leshchenko-interview-and-transcript/
Serhiy L. : And Mr. Poroshenko, the president was backing Mr. Shokin. So, in Ukraine at the time it was being[inaudible 00:13:21] of let’s say desire of changes. Including the resignation of Mr. Shokin.
Lee Stranahan:Now the way John Solomon at The Hill’s pointed out, when you put up Lutsenko though, he was trying to make it appear … And. I’m a … I’m not a fan of Joe Biden,but he was trying to make it appear as though Joe Biden had gotten Shokin out in order to stop an investigation into Joe Biden.
Lee Stranahan: But, is it true that in fact the person who shut down the investigation was Lutsenko, John Solomon’s source? The person who shut down the investigation,who closed it, on Joe Biden’s son and Burisma, that person, that was actually Lutsenko, correct?
Serhiy L.:Correct, correct. Yes. This is a part of misleading campaign which were constructed by our current prosecutor general, Mr. Lutsenko. Because, Mr.Lutsenko doesn’t want to lose his position after presidential elections, and to keep this position he decided to construct this conspiracy theory. Maybe some facts can be correct, but a lot of rogue facts”
Meanwhile, Guiliani was again interviewed by Laura Ingraham, last night; but she still didn’t ask for the evidence; or even Guiliani’s plans for the evidence.
I’ve seen about as much evidence from Guiliani about his most sensational claims as I have of Russia, Russia, Russia collusion claims against Trump.
ponderer
A D Senate is only likely if the corruption in the Parties and the Deep State can be covered up before 2020. If that doesn’t happen and charges are filed and the upper reaches of the D party are implicated or outright charged with basically Treason, a D Senate will be a thing your grandchildren won’t even be able to dream of. A D House is also going to be in jeopardy, if the party manages to survive somehow. The “centrists” weasels will find a way to survive but progressive politics will be set back decades at the times we will need it most.
Hitching your future to the Borg is never a good idea.
NR
ponderer:
The irony of a Trump supporter complaining about Democratic “corruption” is hilarious. Hey, how’s that swamp draining project going?
ponderer
NR
Just because someone doesn’t fall to your irrational tribalism when it comes to defending the scum of the earth does not make them a Trump supporter. There’s no need to put the quotes around corruption, the democrats are corrupt and have been. Possibly more corrupt than Republicans which is saying a lot. Hillary stole the primary from Bernie as obvious as daylight and tarring as Bernie Bro’s or what ever other silly strategy the apparatchiks come up with won’t change that. Nor will her murder of thousands of human beings. The Russians didn’t give us Trump, they didn’t give us Regan, nor a Republican House and Senate the last time it happened. The Democrats did that. They had it sowed up and lost it, just like they are going to lose 2020. I’m not sure why you are so determined to repeat the past. I can see why you want to lose a few elections, as long as the donors are happy it pays the same. Why you want to destroy the party though and what little foundation for stability we have left is beyond me. I can’t believe anyone thinks with modern weaponry a Civil War will play out like last time or end with anything other than pure horror.
Ten Bears
The “Whistleblower” had no first hand knowledge of anything discussed …
I saw that elsewhere earlier. Give me a minute… today? No, yesterday… wait, wait, it’s coming to me: the talking points memo broadcast to congressional e-mails, R and D alike. All of it. Verbatim.
I’m totally down with imitating the right, step off the curb …
ponderer
I got it from Sic Semper Tyrannis. Like Hillary’s emails, I don’t see why it matters where it comes from as long as it is true. There’s plenty of logical fallacies. The “attack the messenger” seems like the laziest to me.
Is that a complete sentence that makes sense somewhere? I assume its some kind of colloquialism that means something to some group of people I’m not familiar with. In any case I’m not sure why you want to be like the Right or whatever it is, but I guess that’s your business. I never would have pegged you for a racist but some of your statements did seem aggressive in a bravado sort of way. Most of the “Left” I’ve talked to are pseudo Fascists just like their Neocon doppelgangers so that makes sense. I don’t think it will work out for you how you think in the long run, but I support your right to copy others in lieu of thinking for yourself.
Ben
I\’m going to echo Mark Pontin above. As of right now there is no impeachment anything going on. Impeachment is a formal Congressional process, one that hasn\’t been initiated thus far. This \’impeachment inquiry\’ is something Pelosi simply made up. In practice nothing new has been started; things are exactly like they were before her announcement, just with a lot of breathless talk added.
It\’s kind of disappointing that Welsh has fallen for this.
Mark Pontin
Theater of Distraction.
‘Pelosi: No timetable on impeachment’
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/463359-pelosi-no-timetable-on-impeachment
‘Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday would not commit to a timetable for impeachment proceedings, telling reporters that the members of the House Judiciary Committee would decide for themselves when its investigation into President Trump would be completed…..’
At this point, the only interesting question is what sort of debate took place in Dem inner circles regarding the decision — which is effectively what it amounts to — to throw Biden down the toilet.
Hugh
I was talking with someone yesterday, and they said this is all about PR. And Trump, the creature of PR, is losing. Seeing the noise machine of conspiracy theories at work here and just how utterly lame they are, all I can say if this is the best that Trump and his minions have he is at long last in real trouble.
Ché Pasa
No doubt whatever comes of this package will be “bad for Biden” — at least among those inclined to dislike him anyway. Biden comes into the fray with so much baggage as it is, even if he was an Angel of Light wrt the Ukraine Thing, he would be tainted. But he’s no angel. His supporters know that. Just as Trump’s supporters know he’s no angel. And they like him because of it.
I doubt that the impeachment package is going to budge partisans on either side. The stuff that’s already out there is likely to move things more, and one of the issues is that they’re a couple of gramps crabbing at each other.
It’s easy to get sick of them both, right?
metamars
From https://www.zerohedge.com/political/intel-community-quietly-scrapped-requirement-first-hand-knowledge-cia-rumorblower-relied
“In the months leading up to a CIA whistleblower’s hearsay complaint about President Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the US intelligence community quietly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers must provide first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings, according to The Federalist’s Sean Davis. ”
I was already leaning towards the notion that this mess is basically an intelligence operation against Trump. The reason being that a) Rudy Giuliani was apparently snookered with bad info about Shokin shutting down the investigation by Lutsenko (when it was actually Lutsenko) and b) Leshchenko’s theory that this is because Lutsenko wanted to curry favor with the Trump Administration doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because when the truth comes out, Trump will rightly be furious at being misled. At best, this would only buy Lutsenko a smallish window of job security. And, in fact, he is already gone.
If Trump was a smarter guy than he appears to be, he would pursue this particular conspiracy theory by finding out:
1) who in the White House staff decided to put his conversation with Ukraine PM on a highly classified server, and why (which makes it look like Trump has something to hide; I’m assuming that Trump was not in this loop, which would be consistent with the fact that he knows a number of people will have access to his call, so he’d be inhibited from attempting something illegal with real time monitoring going on)
2) who the whistle-blower is, and his/her connections, including any to Ukrainians
3) who made the changes in the IC whistleblower process, noted in zerohedge (after confirming that this particular claim is accurate)
4) who fired Lutsenko, and why
5) who are Lutsenko’s contacts and sponsors; and what is his present position
6) did anybody in the State Department, who supposedly asked Giuliani to investigate Ukrainian goings-on, direct Giuliani to talk to Lutsenko about the Burisma investigation? If so, who was this person, and what is his/her circle like? Were they in a position to know that it was Lutsenko who ended the investigation?
If Trump was a smarter politician than he appears to be, he would also
1) publicly and often challenge the Democrats to help track down this information
2) publicly and often note which Democrats (at least prominent ones) appear less than enthusiastic about getting the above information
3) publicly and often note which Republicans (at least prominent ones) appear less than enthusiastic about getting the above information
I think Trump did the right thing in declassifying the transcript, and I find it interesting that Mike Pence didn’t want him to declassify it.
I find it disappointing that Tulsi Gabbard would speak out against impeachment based on the Zelensky conversation, and then flip. I know that she is now to be included in the 4th Democratic debate. I wonder what the exact timeline is, but don’t want to go searching for it. Anybody?
(If the timeline is:
Tulsi against impeachment THEN Tulsi in Democratic debate THEN Tulsi for impeachment
OR
Tulsi against impeachment THEN Tulsi for impeachment THEN Tulsi in Democratic debate
, then she has some ‘splainin to do.
However, if the timeline is:
Tulsi in Democratic debate THEN Tulsi against impeachment THEN Tulsi for impeachment
then there is no quid pro quo, so while still disappointing, there is no hint of corruption. )
different clue
If Gabbard was extorted by the Dems to \”support ImpeachleMania\” as the price of being allowed into the debate, then she ( and I too) can live with that as being the price of being allowed into the debate.
Paris is worth a Mass, and being allowed onto a debate with your moral and intellectual inferiors is worth a cardboard replica of support for Impeachlement.
BlizzardOfOzzz
Look at Hugh still banging away about Orange Man Bad. Say, didn’t you at one point have higher aspirations than D-list shill? Well, Trump’s superpower is making people reveal themselves …
Mike Barry
Aww…a Drumpf snowflake has a sad. (Sad!)
NR
“Well, Trump’s superpower is making people reveal themselves …”
This is 100% true, just not in the way you think it is.
ponderer
As soon as Pelosi announced they would be looking into Impeachment, it started. It’s always been a political process so all they have to do is say they are looking into it. The public rightly thinks the Democrats plan to send something to the Senate if they have the votes to get it there and can come up with enough evidence, or heresay in this case, to get it through the House. History will remember it as the IC Impeachment that never left the House most likely (at best).
Tulsi just became her own worst enemy. In the miracle case that she gets the Dem nomination, she’ll have to own that flip flop. The public, well the Independents that matter, will assume she was part of the D insiders and that she had something to do with the plot to subvert our Democracy. The support she might have otherwise had will evaporate.
@metamars
I read somewhere that there were investigations into White House “leaks”. That’s why the information is being stored in a place that can be tracked. Someone in the Administration seems to be in the #Resistance which in this case means leaking government secrets to damage National Interests so long as there is something in there that might be uncomfortable to Trump in some way at some later date.