notobtuse wrote: » Pelosi and Shiff’s goal to destroy Trump by controlling the impeachment narrative is working for now with the help of their media handmaidens. But unless they can drag out the inquiry nonsense indefinitely the truth will sooner or later come out and the American voting public will see the witch-hunt for what it is, and those numbers will change big time. The general public wants a fair fight but many don’t know yet the Democrats are rigging the system, and that is the fault of a biased media who have given up journalistic integrity in favor of activism.
mcmoustache wrote: » Just to confirm what I said earlier in the thread, the public will get the transcripts of the impeachment inquiry's witness testimony. Here's a portion of a letter from Schiff to colleagues.
Matt Barrett wrote: » You lads are obsessed with Clintons. I'd say youse still give out about Jimmy Carter ffs..
mcmoustache wrote: » Unfortunately for Trump, the notes of the phonecall corroborate the whistleblower's complaint ..
Whistleblower wrote: "President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election"
Whistleblower wrote: Trump was "pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals"
Whistleblower wrote: Trump "sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader to take actions to help the President’s 2020 reelection bid"
Whistleblower wrote: "The President pressured Mr. Zelenskyy to initiate or continue an investigation into the activities of former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter Biden"
Whistleblower wrote: "Ambassadors Volker and Sondland reportedly provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to “navigate” the demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelenskyy"
Whistleblower wrote: "The New York Times reported that Mr. Giuliani planned to travel to Ukraine to press the Ukrainian government to pursue investigations that would help the President in his 2020 reelection bid."
"Mr. Giuliani’s plans create the remarkable scene of a lawyer for the president of the United States pressing a foreign government to pursue investigations that Mr. Trump’s allies hope could help him in his re-election campaign.
Whistleblower wrote: "The President also praised Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Mr. Yuriy Lutsenko, and suggested that Mr. Zelenskyy might want to keep him in his position"
"Whenever you would like to come to the White House, feel free to call. Give us a date and we'll work that out. I look forward to seeing you."
"I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly."
"Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion”
"The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind"
Schiff pushed Volker to say Ukraine felt pressure from Trump In a secret interview, Rep. Adam Schiff, leader of the House Democratic effort to impeach President Trump, pressed former United States special representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker to testify that Ukrainian officials felt pressured to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter as a result of Trump withholding U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Volker denied that was the case, noting that Ukrainian leaders did not even know the aid was being withheld and that they believed their relationship with the U.S. was moving along satisfactorily, without them having done anything Trump mentioned in his notorious July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. When Volker repeatedly declined to agree to Schiff's characterization of events, Schiff said, "Ambassador, you're making this much more complicated than it has to be." The interview took place Oct. 3 in a secure room in the U.S. Capitol. While the session covered several topics, the issue of an alleged quid pro quo — U.S. military aid in exchange for a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens and a public announcement that such an investigation was underway — was a significant part of the discussion. "[The Ukrainians] didn't want to be drawn into investigating a Democratic candidate for president, which would mean only peril for Ukraine, is that fair to say?" Schiff asked Volker. "That may be true," Volker said. "That may be true. They didn't express that to me, and, of course, I didn't know that was the context at the time." (Volker has said he did not know that Trump had mentioned the Bidens on the July 25 call with Zelensky until the rough transcript of the call was released on Sept. 25.) "Part of the other context is vital military support is being withheld from the Ukraine during this period, right?" Schiff asked. "That was not part of the context at the time," Volker said. "At least to my knowledge, they [Ukrainian leaders] were not aware of that." Schiff began to push the quid pro quo allegation. He asked Volker whether he would agree that "no president of the United States should ever ask a foreign leader to help intervene in a U.S. election." "I agree with that," said Volker. "And that would be particularly egregious if it was done in the context of withholding foreign assistance?" Schiff continued. Volker balked. "We're getting now into, you know, a conflation of these things that I didn't think was actually there." Schiff wanted Volker to agree that "if it's inappropriate for a president to seek foreign help in a U.S. election, it would be doubly so if a president was doing that at a time when the United States was withholding military support from the country." Again, Volker did not agree. "I can't really speak to that," he said. "My understanding of the security assistance issue is — " Schiff interrupted. "Why can't you speak to that, ambassador? You're a career diplomat. You can understand the enormous leverage that a president would have while withholding military support from an ally at war with Russia. You can understand just how significant that would be, correct?" Volker tried to go along without actually agreeing. "I can understand that that would be significant," he said. Schiff persisted. "And when that suspension of aid became known to that country, to Ukraine, it would be all the more weighty to consider what the president had asked of them, wouldn't it?" "So again, congressman, I don't believe — " Volker began. "It's a pretty straightforward question," Schiff said. "But I don't believe the Ukrainians were aware that the assistance was being held up — " "They became aware of it," Schiff said. "They became aware later, but I don't believe they were aware at the time, so there was no leverage implied," Volker said. The two men continued to argue about the chronology of events. By the time the Ukrainians learned about the withheld aid in late August, Volker said, all sides had dropped the idea of making a statement announcing an investigation of the Bidens and events during the 2016 election. But Schiff kept pushing the notion that once the Ukrainians did learn about the withheld aid, then they would have felt tremendous pressure from Trump. Schiff pressed Volker to agree one more time. In response, Volker tried to explain that the Ukrainians did not seem to be feeling pressure from Trump and the U.S. "Congressman, this is why I'm trying to say the context is different, because at the time they learned that, if we assume it's Aug. 29, they had just had a visit from the national security adviser, John Bolton. That's a high-level meeting already. He was recommending and working on scheduling the visit of President Zelensky to Washington. We were also working on a bilateral meeting to take place in Warsaw on the margins of a commemoration on the beginning of World War II. And in that context, I think the Ukrainians felt like things are going the right direction, and they had not done anything on — they had not done anything on an investigation, they had not done anything on a statement, and things were ramping up in terms of their engagement with the administration. So I think they were actually feeling pretty good then." At that point, Schiff gave up. Why was Volker resisting? "Ambassador, I find it remarkable as a career diplomat that you have difficulty acknowledging that when Ukraine learned that their aid had been suspended for unknown reasons, that this wouldn't add additional urgency to a request by the president of the United States. I find that remarkable." Schiff has scheduled more interviews for this week and next.
drunkmonkey wrote: » Orangre man now causing black women to be fat. https://www.zerohedge.com/health/watch-gender-studies-professor-blames-trump-black-female-obesity
Outlaw Pete wrote: » Utterly false. ...
Blueshoe wrote: » I don't see why not. Everything is his fault. Late for work last week. Boss asked me what happened. I said Donald Trump. He said no problem
Sonny noggs wrote: » A bit like your own obsession with FG?
mcmoustache wrote: » You can overly complicate this all you like but all that it demonstrates is that it takes some serious twisting of reality to vindicate Trump.
Blueshoe wrote: » Are you saying wages should have risen in line with the performance of the stock market?
mcmoustache wrote: » I can take the argument that Zelinskyy said that there was no pressure seriously. You can't expect a president who desperately needs funding to defend his country from an invasion in the east to be candid about the country providing the funding. It's a bad faith argument and highlights the motivations of anyone making it.
mad muffin wrote: » Bad faith? Like Schiff pressuring the witness’s to get them to corroborate his narrative? Talk about… “it takes some serious twisting of reality to incriminate Trump.” His own hubris got him entangled in the Democrats web of lies and deceit. He should have purged all Obama holdovers when he took office and gotten someone trusted who knew how to navigate the swamp to hire untainted staff.
mcmoustache wrote: » It would be a witch-hunt if there was nothing to investigate. Unfortunately for Trump, the notes of the phonecall corroborate the whistleblower's complaint and it wasn't helped when it came out that he asked for dirt from the Chinese and defended his action on TV. That's not a witch hunt or a difference of opinion. It's a fact. And as for rigging the system, it's no more rigging the system than a footballer making a hand-pass. Impeachment IS a part of the system.
notobtuse wrote: » Of course there is something to investigate. When you adopt the Stalinistic tactic of “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” and embark on the criminalization of politics, how can you not find something, even if you have to make it up? First it was Russia collusion (which Hillary Clinton and the DNC did participate in to formulate the bogus Steele dossier that was used to deceive the FISA court into allowing the Obama administration to spy on Trump’s campaign). Then when that fell apart it was obstruction (which Hillary Clinton is guilty of by destroying over 30,000 of her emails while Secretary of State, after receiving a congressional subpoena from the House Select Committee). There was no collusion so the House Democrats used the claim of quid pro quo as their new basis for impeachment (which Joe Biden had actually done by his own admission when he threatened to withhold taxpayer funds to Ukraine unless they fire an official). Now that Shiff has claimed there doesn’t need to be a quid pro quo to continue the impeachment inquiry the new charge against Trump is using foreign entities to take down a political opponent (which again the Democrats did using operatives from England, Australia, Italy, Russia, and Ukraine to discredit the Trump campaign and after elected POTUS to attempt to remove him from office). What charges will the House Democrats invent next month? Or the month after that? To call what is going on at the hands of the House Democrats as a witch-hunt is an insult to witches.Accuse your opponent of what you are doing, to create confusion and to inculcate voters against evidence of your own guilt Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
notobtuse wrote: » What good is a transcript when you totally control the process and run a one-sided sham of an inquiry?
mcmoustache wrote: » I understand that you don't like the idea of Trump being impeached and you're entitled to believe what you like. It doesn't actually change the reality though. Trump got himself impeached when he asked a foreign power for electoral help. It could easily have been avoided by sticking to official channels and not doing the bad thing. One can scream blue murder about Hillary Clinton, James Clapper, Robert Mueller or whoever. You can call the impeachment a witch-hunt or a dog or whatever you want but that's just an opinion that has little bearing on what's actually happening.
mcmoustache wrote: » You do realise that the Republicans get to question the witnesses too? Anyway, it's immaterial. These are the same house rules that were in use when Republicans controlled the house.
notobtuse wrote: » Under the US Constitution’s 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments, there’s a presumption of innocence. Under our laws prosecutions start with the discovery of a crime. Once it has been determined a crime was actually committed then there is an investigation to find the identity of the perpetrator. Once that has occurred then the job is to collect evidence to prove his or her guilt. The Democratic House inquiry is following the Beria model of the Stalin regime, not the US Constitution model.
notobtuse wrote: » Doesn't this happen only after a full House floor vote is taken and approved to officially initiate an impeachment inquiry/investigation?
Article 1 Section 2 Clause 5 US Constitution wrote: The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Overheal wrote: » So there are no republicans on those committees? News to me
mcmoustache wrote: » the notes of the phonecall corroborate the whistleblower's complaint .. that's not a witch hunt or a difference of opinion. It's a fact.
Outlaw Pete wrote: » lol. Overly complicate it? With what, the truth? :P Look, you made the following assertion: In response I went through each of the allegations made by the "whistleblower" in their complaint to show how, far from corroborating the serious allegations which they made, the phone call transcript actually disproves them and vindicates Trump from the accusations.The complaint is largely all the inferences others have made, to not just the phone call, but articles in the media also, and not just inferences, but second and third hand ones too.
