Several witnesses in the House impeachment probe said that the campaign by President Trump and Rudy Giuliani to secure Ukrainian investigations into Trump’s domestic rivals stressed that those investigations must be announced publicly.
Well, of course – the whole point was for Americans to hear it, and from an (sorry) unimpeachable source. I’m sure Trump didn’t even care if there was an actual “investigation” as long as Ukrainians gave periodic public “updates” on how shady Biden was looking. Geez.
Trump was, at the very least, going for the “but her emails” investigation part II. If nothing else he is media savvy and knows that just the investigation would be enough for doubt and concern to be continuously cast upon Biden. I am sure the NY Times would have been happy to comply.
Why the hell any world leader even listens to a pitch from Trump, about anything, is a puzzle. It never ends well.
Their thirst to wield and retain power is so obsessive that they will resort to any tactics, however evil, American interests and their oath to the U.S. Constitution be damned.
It was clarifying for me to read David Kurtz’s post today, with the comment from reader SV.
Trump and Co. didn’t care about the investigation. They just wanted the announcement, in order to get a “Comey Moment”, re: the Hillary investigation announcement right before the 2016 election.
We still don’t know the full story/impetus/motivation behind that so so destructive move.
And in some ways, even without the announcement of a probe by the Ukraine, Trump is getting some traction with his base just around the reporting of the Biden investigation situation.
Well, Zelensky did know that his country really needed U.S. aid to fight the Russians, so I give him a small amount of sympathy there. I am more heartened by the news that the Ukrainian prosecutor pretty much definitively told Giuiliani to piss off re: starting an investigation. Interesting, too, that Rudy has not been on TV lately. Locked in his coffin?
The sheer volume of information flowing from released testimony is astonishing. Being that the House and Senate are heavily populated with lawyers pushes me toward the idea that even thicky, compromised guys like Lindsay Graham would take a second look at the cases being brought to bear.
Yup, this proves that Giuliani must testify!
Graham said he wasn’t interested in reading any of the transcripts. So I wouldn’t expect him to have any kind of valid, credible opinion on any of it.
Oh good Lord!
This descends to the creepiness of:
“I need you to prove you love me - send me nudes”
The October Surpise that Trump wanted:
The one that he got:
Me Lindsay already ran out of excuses and BS. He is with a pillow wrapped around his head, screaming that he doesn’t want to hear about it anymore, he loves Trump anyhow.
And Sondland still hasn’t told the complete truth, wonder what is still out there…it’s quite likely Trump was more open with him since he would have seen Sondland as one of “his guys”, so there may be something explosive that Sondland is trying to hold back. His public testimony is going to be something to watch, as the Democrats will really dig into him to drag everything out…I suspect they put him up last so he has to cop to all the things other witnesses say about him.
The American people should pretty easily understand this…Trump tried to extort a public pronouncement of an investigation against Biden in exchange for military funding. That pronouncement would only have hurt Biden’s campaign, as it would have tagged onto it (through a press that would have to find something bad to report about Biden) for the duration. It’s nonsense against Trump’s corruption, and his kid’s, but false equivalence is all the rage in political reporting nowadays. If this case really is as clear as it seems, and backed up and told well, I don’t see how the Republicans hold out for Trump without risking severe punishment in 2020.
Essentially, Trump’s minions were trying to do what they perceive Nixon’s minions to have done in 1972: use ‘dirty tricks’ to knock out the Democratic centrist front runner (Ed Muskie back then) and pave the way for the nominee to be an unacceptable leftist. Of course, Nixon did a lot more than that to create the 1972 landslide, and we all know how things turned out.
Hey, there’s still hope – maybe they’ll find some of Biden’s emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop.
The tough part is going to be directing the questions in such a way that this stuff becomes easily understood. The average American can’t comprehend a lot of this, with the big words and all. But put in the simplest terms, the testimony then becomes undeniable to even the hardiest believer.
That’s how it had to work with Watergate - it’s how it must work here. Fourth grade level, and no higher.
After Rump fired Comey, the FBI got nervous about laundering fabricated political interference campaigns through Republican leakers on the Hill. So Rump needed a foreign government to one-up Nixon.
OT, sort of. That little jerk needs to be locked up.