The emerging story seems to be that Trump told the President of Ukraine, “nice little country you have there, too bad if something happened to it. Be a good boy and give me dirt on Biden and I will give you $250,000,000 in military aid you can use to fend off the Russians.” That sounds just like the mobster President so it is pretty easy to believe he did it.
If true the story is so fucking wrong on so many levels I can’t begin to understand how William Barr or anybody in the Administration can cover up for Trump. As a side note Dan Coats and his deputy seem to have left the government about the same time, probably because of this horror story.
Guiliani’s behavior is not unintentional, and follows the script of his previous appearances to get in front of a breaking scandal.
He goes on there amped up on whatever narcotics he prefers, wildly denies the bad thing happened, then does a total 180 and admits the bad thing happened while enthusiastically claiming that doing the bad thing was actually right and good.
Everybody laughs at how senile Guiliani seems, and how stupid his answer was … and then they get away with it.
“If a president cannot trust his own spies, and thinks they are working against him and not the country’s enemies, then America’s national security will be harmed.”
You know when he was blasting the various intelligence and feds during the campaign (and since), I always wondered how he thought that would work out well for him. Those folks know how to play hardball.
That was really something, that performance. Doesn’t tend to suggest they’re as innocent as lambs. I have to say it would be entirely within character or the lack thereof for Donald Trump to use his ability to give or withhold military aid in order to strongarm a head of state into looking for dirt on an electoral rival. And pretty consequential, it would be. We could get thrown out of the G7 ourselves for this.
The missing piece in that is the consistent use of the word “promise” since the story broke. The withholding $250 million in arms sales is blackmail.
Fortunately, there’s an easy way to figure out what the promise may have been…
Zelensky’s patron is the oligarch Kolomoisky, who had his $5.5 Billion Privatbank taken from him by Ukraine and nationalized. He himself has been in exile in Israel. Now that Zelensky’s in office, the patron is calling in chits, wants to come home and get his bank back. But the IMF has been standing in the way.
That “promise” is likely as simple as that-- a $5.5 Billion gift to Kolomoisky in the form of leaning on the IMF to support him taking back Privatbank.
Barr covered up worse for Reagan. His soul is so atrophied at this point this won’t cause him a second thought.
This is all easier to understand when we accept that these people are fascists and don’t believe in democracy. They believe that taking and using power is the only virtue.
If there is true, legitimate dirt out there on Biden’s son, what is wrong with Trump and Giuliani’s actions? Is it simply that the actions should have been taken by law enforcement, rather than the president potentially threatening to withhold aid?
I am not convinced that is the case, tbh. There seems to be a lot of moving parts and timelines, some of which may be involved, some of which may not be involved…and there are likely things that the press, Schiff, and llikely even the whistle blower, don’t see yet.
For example, I am kind of caught up in the removal of Coates AND the rather unusual way he went about telling Sue Gordon to resign…and she did…on the same day.
And that’s just one of the “coincidences” going on.
Are you asking why the president of the United States shouldn’t send his personal representative to extort foreign governments to dig up dirt on his political opponents?
I believe they both left the government so they’d be free to leak some of the details of this huge scandal to the press, not under the thumb of Barr or Trump. If so, I gotta give them kudos.
I don’t think this is JUST about trying to force Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden by withholding arms sales to them. That is a common political tactic with foreign governments (although the GOAL is not.)
That, while terrible, is purely POLITICAL and just does not rise to the level of an “Urgent” National Security issue dangerous enough for a career NI professional to file an official “Whistle Blower” complaint.
There is something much MUCH deeper and MORE DANGEROUS to the Security of the USA going on here.
I think what happened here is that the President of the United States directly coordinated with Putin to threaten Ukraine that he would ALLOW THE RUSSIANS TO ANNEX UKRAINE and not oppose it in the UN if they did not dig up dirt on Joe Biden for Trump.
Using US Foreign Policy and tax payer money to coerce/blackmail a foreign country into digging up dirt for his own personal gain?
There is a whole lot wrong with that.
Also understand, that this aid has already been approved and appropriated by Congress. The budget is not some giant slush fund that Trump just gets to spend willy nilly however he likes…declarations of emergencies on the southern border be damned. He has to spend the money in the manner in which Congress approves it. So if Congress says, “give $250 million to the Ukraine”, he doesn’t get to withhold it unless they help him personally.
The President and his minion don’t use the power of the United States of America to advance the President’s political prospects. I mean that is sort of like promising arms to Iran if they hold embassy hostages until after the election. Oh, that’s right, Reagan did that and received a GOP sainthood.
That’s clearly just part of the timeline. The whistleblower jumped when he/she saw the slaughter there, as the last chance to push something through, so reported it on August 12th, just before their departures.
Now that we’ve had like the third article referencing two “former” intelligence people with knowledge… I know two former employees who would have had knowledge of the report…
What’s wrong is that you don’t base geopolitical questions on what works for you electorally. You’re supposed to put the politics aside and consider what’s in the interest of national fucking security.
