I received a comment that sets out the full GOP/Trump defense. I examine it
1. Your error in logic is this: Because X occurs AFTER fact Y, does not mean it occurred because of fact Y. After Trump’s phone call with the New Ukrainian President (read the TRANSCRIPT) aid continued to be withheld for several weeks. (Late July to early September.) A better explanation is that Trump temporarily withheld aid until he was assured the New President would spend it well and was sincere about addressing corruption.
Reply: We haven’t seen the full transcript, it has been hidden in a secret place. Trump’s phone call mentioned nothing about corruption. The aid was resumed after the whistleblower came out with the complaint and the news became public. Nothing changed in Ukraine to assure the president of anything other than Russia continuing its aggression.
2. You write that all countries have corruption. Yes, to lesser or greater extents, but I’ve read that Ukraine leads the list (is “one of the top three most corrupt receiving U.S. aid”). Trump ran on a promise not to waste US dollars on corrupt governments.
Reply: The corruption in Ukraine is a post Soviet happening. It still is in full force in Russia. Trump never addressed it with Putin or the leader of any other country. The US people in Ukraine believed that Ukraine was making steps in the right direction. Trump never told anyone that he was withholding aid while it was being withheld that it was because of corruption. The OMB and the people in American embassy had no idea why he withheld it. It was a big mystery. If Trump withheld it for corruption he would have stared it.
3. Why single out Ukraine. Well, in fact Trump has held up aid to at least two other countries that had nothing to do with Biden. The better question is why did Joe Biden single out the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating the gas company Burisma that was paying his son $80,000 a month? Did Joe ask any other prosecutor in the world to be fired? And didn’t Joe attach a $1 billion conditional aid, to a promise to clean up corruption (or as some see it, to a promise not to investigate his son’s company.) I guess it’s OK for the Obama Administration to be concerned about corruption but not the Trump Administration?
Reply: name the other countries and the reasons. I can’t locate them. Biden acting against corruption and with the assent of other European nations wanted a corrupt prosecutor removed. That prosecutor was not investigating Burisma. He had shut that investigation down. But we are talking about Trump not Biden. If Biden was a crook that does not mean it is OK for Trump to be a crook.
4. What is wrong with a President asking the new president of a foreign country to investigate corruption?
Reply: There is nothing wrong with asking another president to investigate corruption. There is no evidence Trump asked Zelensky to do that. Aside from that it is a criminal act to ask such president to do it to help the president in his campaign, The action is aggravated when money appropriated by Congress is withheld to force it to be done.
5. The Transcript simply indicates Trump asked the new president to look into potential Ukrainian corruption (interference in our 2016 election) . . . you and all the Democrats have been wailing for three years we should “investigate” Russia’s interference in our 2016 election. Why not investigate potential Ukrainian interference?
Reply: We haven’t seen the full transcript but only the version Trump provided. There is no evidence Ukraine interfered in US election. The unanimous opinion of the Senate investigation, Mueller report and all intelligence agencies is Russia interfered and some have been indicted. Trump didn’t want an invest, he wanted a public announcement that Zelensky was doing one. No Democrats are wailing for Russia to be investigated, that has been done and is proven.
6. At the end of the Transcript, the Bidens name is mentioned . . . .Trump does not ask to dig up dirt on the Bidens . . . .he only says that situation stinks (paraphrasing) (as we all know it stinks) . . .and Trump infers that should be looked at too. What’s wrong with taking another look at that?
Reply: Answered above. The purpose was to just announce it so that Trump could use it against Biden. A State Department witness testified that Sondland stated after he heard Trump say he wanted investigations that Trump doesn’t care about Ukraine – he only cares about the big stuff – that is Biden and getting elected.
7. Because Biden is running for president, is he immune from being investigated? Is this a new rule the DEMs have invented? Like the FEDs inventing the crime of “not hiring the most qualified.”?re
Reply: Biden is not the issue. Trump’s extortion of Ukraine is.
8. Finally, your analogy with Pat Nee, would bettter fit if the two other guys sitting in Pat’s Nee’s car said they had no intention of robbing the bank, they had never discussed robbing the bank, and the FBI knew this, therefore the FBI would not be arresting them . . .they may be arresting Pat for his intent to rob the bank . . . .The facts show the New President of Ukraine and his underlings have stated that not only did they not know they were being “extorted or bribed” that is they did not know the aid was being held up, they were never asked by Trump to dig up dirt on anyone as a condition of doing anything.
Reply: This is a laughable defense. It’s like saying the prisoner in an enemy prison camp admitted something or other or saying a guy like Fleming looking for a deal is telling the Truth. Give people some benefit of intelligence. Everyone should recognize the Ukrainian government dependent on American aid to remain free from a Russian takeover will agree with whatever Trump says. As Sondland said, Zelensky will do whatever Trump wants.
9. So, your willingness to prosecute someone for extortion when the alleged extorted person denies being extorted falls flat. Imagine going to a jury on an extortion charge, and you bring in the witness who has been allegedly extorted, and the witness says, “Joe never extorted me, he never bribed me, he never offered me anything to do anything; he never forced me, he never coerced. ”
Reply: It is common that a person being extorted denies the extortion. He is extorted because he is in a subservient position and his life depends on denying the extortion. Usually extortions are prosecuted using electronic surveillance or when the danger no longer exists. The extorted depends on the person denying the extortion. In Whitey’s case people being extorted when approached by FBI denied the extortion. With Trump there are independent pieces of evidence that support it. No one expected Zelensky to admit it although he came close to it when he told Soneland he had to do three things for Trump.
Conclusion: (1) Why did Trump temporarily hold up the money? Because he wanted to assure it was not going to be wasted, it was going to be well spent, it was going to a New Ukrainian President who was intent on rooting out corruption, unlike past Ukrainian Presidents.
The evidence clearly shows corruption had nothing to do with it. If it were the case Trump could easily have given that as a reason. The evidence clearly shows he wanted a Biden and 2016 investigation announcement. The aid was withheld over the objections of the OMB that sought to learn why but got no answer. Nothing changed in Ukraine to give reason for its resumption. All that did change was the extortion scheme in America was exposed.
(2) Did Trump bribe or extort the Ukrainian President? The Ukrainian President says he did not. CASE OVER.
Reply – You’d be much better off stating you will accept and justify whatever Trump does. Like he said his people will blindly follow him justifying his every act,
P.S. As far as the two bureaucrats (Taylor et Kent) who testified yesterday, their beef seemed to be that Trump’s policies differed from theirs; that Trump used “channels” outside their channels, the established channels. They forgot who sets Foreign Policy. The president, not the bureaucrats in the State Department. They forgot that other Presidents used independent channels (like FDR.) The forgot that Trump ran on a promise to set new foreign policy priorities and to put America first, and not to continue the Cold War policies and wasteful foreign spending and wasteful foreign entanglements of the past. The President sets Foreign Policy, not Taylor and Kent.
Reply: You didn’t listen to their testimony. They are long term State Department officials who implement whatever policy the US president decides, They work for Dems and Republicans. They come from stellar American backgrounds. For you to call them liars when they say they have no foreign policy of their own is plainly wrong.
As for Trump’s alternative channel it consisted of Rudy Giuliani, a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor thrown out by American’s push against corruption, two individuals so corrupt they are now indicted, and other corrupt people who were “pissed off” because Americans in the embassy were working against them. No other American president sought to instill a corrupt group into power for personal reasons.
That might be okay with you.
Bonespurs-AKA Supersleuth-Was going to find corruption if he had to create it through his own extortion. DOD cleared the 400mil, OMB wanted to know what was up with the withholding, -but Trump knew these guys were amateurs. He’s show them.
Matt, you wrote: “for you to call them liars”. If you read again what I wrote you’ll see I didn’t call Taylor and Kent “liars.” Please re-read what I wrote.
First of all I’ll repeat and emphasize this elemental fact: The fact that Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton is running for office does not “immunize” them from investigation. We know Trump was “investigated” while he was running for Office, and Hillary’s team employed British Agent Steele who in turn used Russians to prepare the phony Dossier. We know Hillary was investigated while she was running by the FBI over her mishandling of emails. Why not investigate Joe and his son Hunter? Get it over and done with before the election. You say its for “personal” “political” reasons; I say its simply to help Ukraine clean up its own swamp. Since Joe and Hunter Biden may have committed some crime or at least an ethics violation (extorting a million from Burisma) and that occurred in the Ukraine in 2016, the only place to begin the investigation is in the Ukraine. You can’t begin it in Chicago. So, of course we ask the NEW Ukrainian government to take a NEW look at that. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Now, I can’t answer all your attacks, because we’ve been going over this stuff for more than three years. Since Trump got elected you’ve been comparing him to Hitler and Stalin, and so you see matters from that perspective. You do forget, it seems, Muellar acquitted Trump of any involvement with the Russians.
Let me address a few of your mistakes of fact and logic. First of all, I know nothing about a “secret transcript” or who is keeping it secret or where it is kept. Perhaps its like Hillary’s acid-bleached 35,000 emails in that the Secret Transcript will never be found.
(1) Matt, you wrote: “Trump’s phone call mentioned nothing about corruption.” Here’s the second thing the Ukrainian President Zelenssky said: “Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government. You are a great teacher for us and in that.”
Is “draining the swamp” mentioning corruption?
(2) Matt, if I start studying for an exam in September and take the exam in December and get an A+ and the only thing that changed in my life between September and December was that I bought a pair of new shoes in November, is the fact I bought the pair of shoes the reason I got the A+. You’d argue it was. You forget I was studying for three months. You forget Trump’s team was studying for months. Trump appointed a team, including Bolton, to study/review the Ukraine Aid and at sometime obviously the team finished its study/review to Trump’s satisfaction so that he Approved the Aid. He had to make the decision by the end of September anyway, or else the Congressional Aid would expire.
(3) Matt, you write: “Trump never told anyone that he was withholding aid while it was being withheld that it was because of corruption.” Everyone was concerned about corruption in Ukraine. Even Joe Biden. Trump told the world during his campaign and throughout his tenure in office he was concerned about “wasting U.S. dollars.” Trump appointed a Team to Study closely the Authorization of Aid. This is elemental stuff.
(4) Matt, you write, “Name the other countries Trump has held up or stopped aid to. I did name three yesterday: Pakistan, Central American Countries and Burma. I also quoted the Atlantic Monthly which stated that holding up Aid and disputes over Aid happen far more often than the public realizes. I quoted Politico that said Trump held up hundreds of millions in aid to Central America.
(5) Matt, you write “there is no evidence” Trump ask Zelinsky to investigate corruption. Well, here is President Trump asking President Zelinsky to investigate the Crowdstrike situation and President Trump expressing his concern that President Zelinsky is “surrounding himself with the same type of (corrupt) people.) “I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.”
You say there was no mention of corruption. The first thing the Ukrainian President mentioned in his phone call was that he was cleaning out “the swamp” and he told Trump he was emulating him in that respect.
To conclude: This little matter about Trump asking the New Ukrainian Ambassador to take a look at potential corruption in 2016 regarding Crowdstrike and the Bidens is A TEMPEST IN A TEA POT. What’s wrong with taking a new look?
Matt, as for your conviction that Trump committed some high crime, please note others disagree. The following is from The Federalist:
“Another one of the House Democrats’ star witnesses testified before the House Intelligence Committee Friday in day two of the public portion of the partisan impeachment proceedings.
Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, admitted to lawmakers that President Donald Trump did not engage in any kind of criminal activity related to Ukraine.
“Do you have any information regarding the President of the United States accepting any bribes?” Republican Congressman Chris Stewart of Utah asked point blank.
“No,” Yovanovitch said.
“Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the President of the United States has been involved with at all?”
“No.”
Matt, you happen to see a crime where many others do not. I guess that’s what makes America Great . . . differences of opinion, different viewpoints. In Salem, Massachusetts, some swore they saw spectral visions appearing above the shoulders of the accused.