Even as dozens of government officials dished publicly on President Trump’s campaign to extort Ukraine, impeachment investigators could not penetrate one key inner circle: people who were there when Trump ordered that $391 million in military aid be frozen.
This is, by itself a impeachable offense.
" … nobody who bore direct witness to Trump ordering the freeze itself obeyed congressional demands for testimony or documents about the hold, …"
Well, that’s because it was so reasonable, proper, and legit, you know. Had there really been anything wrong with it, all of those people would have been free to speak up and produce relevant documents.
Obstruction, anyone? We can only hope someone will break as the noose gets tighter.
Have any stumbled out high-rise windows or been underneath falling pianos yet?
Nothing wrong here.
Mob soldiers are often uncooperative. At first.
It doesn’t matter. The aid didn’t freeze itself. The evidence that Trump authorized the freezing of the aid is very clear.
that is hard to argue, given that the House didn’t try taking any of these recalcitrant witnesses to court – and withdrew a subpoena of the one witness who asked the court to determine whether to obey the subpoena.
personally, if you want to go with obstruction, I’d go with his efforts to intimidate those witnesses who did appear.
hardly. they knew the main goal of the obstruction was to delay the proceedings until past the election or to give them more time to stonewall. the delay itself is obstruction, and the house didn’t want to fall into the trap of waiting for ongoing court cases to move forward.
Trump admitted on 9/23 he froze Ukraine aid.
The call notes of 7/25 say Trump wanted Zelenskyy to ‘do us a favor, though’ when the Ukraine leader brought up the subject of military aid.
What firewall?
Hello Hello! Obstruction of Justice is calling!
This may be a rhetorical question here, but, is this entire Ukraine situation heading towards a criminal conspiracy with Trump, Rudy, Lev, Igor, Mulvaney, etc., all criminally involved?
So what? Even if they have audio of trump ordering the funds withheld what are you gonna do about it? The impeachment trial is in the Senate. What are the chances that 17 to 18 republican senators do the right thing?
Perhaps, when the inner circle is called again as witnesses in the Senate trial, perhaps, just maybe, Justice Roberts will compel them to show. And if he does, they will all take the fifth. Do you think that spectacle will convince enough republican Senators to behave ethically? I don’t.
I’m afraid we’re gonna be struck with trump for the duration.
Inquiry should not have to penetrate anything. If Obstruction is not one of the articles, then the Dems have seriously screwed up.
tRump admits to withholding aid.
Mulvany admits tRump withheld the aid.
The summary which tRump offered implies he was withholding the aid.
Witnesses testified that the WH was withholding aid and letting tRump’s fixer run our country’s diplomacy to get dirt.
We don’t know why the actual call transcript was placed on a secret server.
We don’t know what was exactly said on the call because that transcript has never been released.
we don’t know exactly how tRump ordered the aid withheld because the people closest to him have been ordered not to testify or release documents.
tRump has orchestrated a cover-up and is actively obstructing Congress from carrying out it’s oversight responsibilities. If nothing else is clear (and plenty is) the idea of POTUS obstructing an investigation is clear to everyone, and Dems should be talking about that 24/7.
A request that was followed by “I will ask [Giuliani] to call you along with the Attorney General. . . 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 …”
But but but…they are INNOCENT! Why on Earth should they testify…they TOLD us they are innocent and that it was a ‘perfect’ call even though the transcript that THEY provided showed it was a little less than ‘perfect’.
This is, by itself a impeachable offense.
I disagree with the reply by paul_lukasiak that the Congress needs to go to court to pursue evidence that the administration is obligated to provide. The administration works for the people, not their own benefit or political expediency, and they have no excuse whatsoever not to come forward with documents and 100% truthful testimony, when subpoenaed by Congress or not, and whether compelled by a court order or not.
But beyond failure to allow testimony or produce documents is itself an impeachable offense, it also allows – in fact requires – a presumption that such testimony and documents would prove malfeasance as any alternative would be in the party’s interest to comply. There’s no right against self-incrimination for impeachment. If one takes the 5th in Congressional testimony, then one has no claim to the office of public trust they hold.
Trump and the others are attempting to avoid that with specious claims of a “hoax” or “witch hunt” or self-proclaimed immunity or privilege, but the onus is on them to prove that claim as legal, not for Congress to go through a lengthy, multi-stage legal process, just to have Trump and his cronies launch some other theory on why they don’t have to comply.
They are guilty because a) the evidence is that they are guilty and b) they are acting guilty. And that’s guilty of violation of the public trust.
I always like a good snark, the more absurd, the better.