US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1880

On November 09 2019 05:27 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Do we really want to discuss the semantics of to know someone and whether Trump can truthfully say he doesn't know Sondland?

On November 09 2019 05:31 NewSunshine wrote:

In normal, human terms, normal humans know he can't say it, because it's not true. However, he is a rampant narcissist, so normal human terms don't apply. Narcissists, whether they are aware of it or not, literally only see other people as objects and convenient accessories. They are not people with nuance that you have relationships with. So for Trump to suddenly have no idea who all his closest associates are makes only too much sense through that lens, even if it's compete bollocks to everyone else.

On November 08 2019 19:49 Liquid`Drone wrote:
daunt got banned and danglars stopped posting (in this thread) when daunt got banned.

On November 10 2019 04:54 iamthedave wrote:


What'd Daunt do this time?

On November 10 2019 04:54 iamthedave wrote:


What'd Daunt do this time?

To the main topic of the moment... this is going pretty much as I expected. I said a few different times, I can't see how the Republican party comes back from this. How could they possibly wash their hands of Trump after going in THIS hard to protect him?

On November 10 2019 03:05 Ben... wrote:
The Republicans have submitted a list of people they want to question at the public impeachment hearings. As expected, they are acting in bad faith. They want to question Hunter Biden (who is most definitely not part of the Trump administration and had nothing to do with the events that happened within the government, and thus is completely unrelated to this impeachment inquiry), people related to Fusion GPS (yes they are still going on about that stupid conspiracy. Again, these people aren't in the administration so they are not relevant to the hearings), and they want to publicly question the whistleblower and others whose identities are being protected by the whistleblower laws as well, which is not only against the law, but isn't going to happen since others that have testified as witnesses like Fiona Hill have reported being sent death threats. This is all of course designed to set up a fake narrative that the Democrats are not following the rules, even though they are and it is in fact Tim Meadows and other Republican leadership members who are trying to force the Democrats to not do so.

Trump has stated that there should not be public impeachment hearings. This is after Republicans demanded for the last month that there be public hearings, and that not having them showed that Schiff was not being transparent. It's almost like the Republicans realized that if these hearings go as scheduled, it could be quite bad for them. The best analogy I saw for this was a dog that was chasing a car actually catching it and realizing that they shouldn't have actually been chasing the car in the first place.

As always, don't let the Republicans distract and control the narrative. This hearing is not about Fusion GPS or other 2016 election conspiracies. This hearing is not about the dealings of Hunter Biden. This hearing is about the conduct of Trump and those around him. That's it. Everything else is just noise meant to distract.

I have a feeling this next week is going to be a complete shitshow.

Alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella was Biden guest at State Department banquet

by Daniel Chaitin

& Jerry Dunleavy

| November 07, 2019 12:53 PM



Eric Ciaramella, the alleged Ukraine whistleblower, was a guest of Vice President Joe Biden at a glitzy lunch in October 2016 to honor the prime minister of Italy.

Biden co-hosted the banquet with former Secretary of State John Kerry for then-Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Ciaramella, who is of Italian heritage, was among the U.S. officials who accepted an invitation. This week, the Washington Examiner reported that Ciaramella is now a deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia on the National Intelligence Council, reporting to the director of national intelligence.

Ciaramella, a career CIA analyst, was Ukraine director on the National Security Council during the end of the Obama administration and remained there during the early months of the Trump administration, when he was briefly acting senior director for European and Russian affairs. He is now accused of being the official who filed a complaint about a July 25 phone call in which President Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into a conspiracy theory regarding CrowdStrike and investigate Biden, a Democratic candidate for president in 2020, in relation to his son Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine.

The complaint sparked concerns about potential abuse of power and led to impeachment proceedings in the Democrat-controlled House in which witnesses have said they believe Trump held out on meeting with Zelensky and congressionally-approved military aid in exchange for political favors.

Ciaramella, 33, is listed among dozens of other people who were invited to the October 2016 event hosted by Biden under the category "WH EOVP," or the White House Executive Office of the Vice President, in an unclassified State Department document released through the Freedom of Information Act. An "A" appears next to his name, indicating he accepted the invitation.

On Oct. 6, the Washington Examiner reported the whistleblower worked with Biden during the Obama administration and is a career CIA analyst with deep expertise in Ukraine policy.

Out of over 400 possible guests for the State Department event, 115 people were listed as having accepted invitations, although key Trump-Russia investigation figures such as former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch all declined their invitations, according to the guest list. Other notable figures such as then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, former House Speaker Paul Ryan, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, John and Tony Podesta, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice received invitations too.

Besides inviting Ciaramella, Biden’s office, as opposed to the State Department or another entity, sent invitations to more than thirty other people, including Obama press secretary Josh Earnest, Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, Obama Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco, Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes, and Obama national security adviser Susan Rice.

RealClearInvestigations named Ciaramella as the whistleblower last week. The report cites U.S. officials who said the invite to Ciaramella, "a relatively low-level GS-13 federal employee, was unusual and signaled he was politically connected inside the Obama White House."

While Trump and his allies have called for the whistleblower to be identified, the whistleblower's lawyers and Democrats argue that the person's identity no longer matters. Still, Ciaramella's name has been invoked by GOP investigators as they question impeachment witnesses, getting his name on record.

Both Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, claim Biden improperly used his role as vice president to pressure Ukraine to fire former top prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was widely seen as corrupt, in 2016 to protect his son from an investigation into Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company at which the younger Biden held a $50,000-per-month position on the board. This stems from a 2018 video showing the elder Biden bragging about threatening to hold back $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if Ukraine did not terminate Shokin from his post.

But the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and other allies had the same objective, and Biden was repeating U.S. policy that had been set out by Washington’s ambassador to Kyiv in the preceding months and was briefed by White House staff just ahead of the trip. Biden has accused Giuliani of spreading “false, debunked conspiracy theories” about him as he seeks the presidency.

Having taken a leading role in the Obama administration's dealings with Ukraine, Biden made six trips to the Eastern European country in eight years, including 2009, 2014, and late 2015. The last trip took place in January 2017. At the time, White House officials said the trip was to reinforce U.S. backing for Ukraine while the world prepared for the inauguration of Trump, who was expected to bring a pro-Russia stance to office days later.

Andrew Bakaj and Mark Zaid, lawyers for the whistleblower, refuse to confirm the identity of their client even as such high-profile figures as Donald Trump Jr. have named Ciaramella as the whistleblower.

"Identifying any suspected name for the whistleblower will place their family at risk of serious harm. We will not confirm or deny any name that is published or promoted by supporters of the president. Disclosure of any name undermines the integrity of the whistleblower system and will deter any future whistleblowers," they said in a statement Wednesday. "We will note, however, that publication or promotion of a name shows the desperation to deflect from the substance of the whistleblower complaint. It will not relieve the president of the need to address the substantive allegation, all of which have been substantially proven to be true."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has faced criticism after it was revealed the whistleblower met with an intelligence panel aide seeking guidance before filing a complaint about Trump's Ukraine communications with the Intelligence Community inspector general, and Schiff knew about it but did not immediately inform his Republican colleagues on his panel.

The Washington Examiner has reported that two ex-NSC staffers are now employed by Schiff. Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018, was hired in February, while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted his complaint.

On November 10 2019 07:13 Introvert wrote:


Hunter Biden matters for several reasons. Senators who say there was a quid pro quo will (quite fairly) argue that being the VP's son doesn't exclude you from investigation. Also, that there's enough smoke in HB's strange ability to make dough from questionable foreign entities that it would not be an impeachable offense for the president to ask a foreign leader about to get all sorts of aid to look into it. Was Trump primarily motivated by a concern for corruption in and of itself? Almost certainly not. But does that matter? And I don't know how it related to whatever antics Rudy was up to, as his rationale for his actions do not mesh neatly with what I just said above, to put it simply.

That being said, I think the Senate is more likely to hear from Hunter than the House.

Your prediction is true, I'm sure.

On November 10 2019 08:53 redlightdistrict wrote:
Facebook is apparently deleting posts about the CIA fake whistleblower who worked in the Obama admin with Biden.

On November 10 2019 09:40 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:

Yes because spreading an unconfirmed name of a person who will face serious death threats is fucking stupid you idiot

On November 10 2019 09:26 Ben... wrote:

But the Hunter Biden stuff is separate investigation, and his conduct is entirely unrelated to the conduct of the Trump administration, which is why questioning Hunter Biden in this context makes no sense. The impeachment inquiry is about the conduct of Trump, and whether or not he used or intended to leverage government aid for purposes politically advantageous to his coming presidential campaign. If Trump wanted to go through official channels with an investigation into Hunter Biden, he could have used the resources available to him. He did in other cases like with Barr's investigation into the investigation into Russian interference, and in that Barr did ask other countries for help or evidence where he saw necessary. They could have done something similar for the Hunter Biden allegations. But they didn't. Instead, hundreds of millions of dollars of aid that was voted through by congress, and signed off on by Trump, was mysteriously held up until Trump's demands to Zelensky were met. Well, they were in the process of being met but the aid suddenly went through the day before the whistleblower allegations came out.

Questioning Hunter Biden in this context accomplishes nothing. It would be different if there was a completed investigation where conclusions could be drawn from or something, but there isn't. Questioning him in this impeachment is not an investigation in any way, so they couldn't actually make any conclusions about what Biden did. There would be no due process for Biden, and because of the format these hearings typically take, Biden would have little if any way of pushing back against claims made by those questioning him. It would be entirely unfair to him, and it is abundantly clear that the intent in questioning Biden is purely meant to be a distraction from the actual impeachment investigation.

edit: To the dude above. Don't. Just don't. The reason social media companies are deleting posts about these people that are being pointed at as the whistleblower is because those people have been receiving death threats the last day or two and the companies don't want any names to get falsely spread around since it is actively dangerous to the people being named. It's not some stupid conspiracy. The companies don't want to be responsible for someone getting hurt or killed because Youtube talking heads named them as the whistleblower without a shred of actual evidence.

On November 10 2019 11:45 Ben... wrote:
Ok, then let me ask you this: what will bringing in Hunter Biden for questioning accomplish? He's a private citizen who has not been charged with any crimes, and in questioning him during the trial, that status will not change. Whether he did or didn't do something unseemly is entirely beside the point in this context because unless the Republicans somehow have proof smoking gun proof Biden did something wrong, everything that would be discussed with him would be based on unproven allegations. A similar thing happened with the Benghazi hearings and Hillary Clinton. She came in and testified for 8 hours and it accomplished nothing because there was no concrete proof of what the Republicans were insinuating she did in her handling of the issue.

The only thing I can see Biden's testifying accomplishing is allowing the Republicans to distract from the actual matter at hand. These hearings are about witness and expert testimony, and Hunter Biden is neither a witness to the alleged events that happened with Trump regarding the alleged quid pro quo, nor an expert on any of the topics relating to this impeachment proceeding.

But this is all beside the point because the Republicans know full well that their list of people submitted is going to get rejected. They purposely filled it with people who are unlikely to actually be forced to show up so that when the majority leaders of the committees don't follow through, the Republicans can claim that those running the hearing aren't being fair. That's why I initially said they were acting in bad faith. Their intent is not to get Hunter Biden, the Fusion GPS people, or the whistleblower to testify. Their intent is to try and make the narrative be that the trial is unfair, rather than the actual narrative that the trial has been handled correctly, and that the witnesses are credible and have testified to things that are quite damaging to Trump. The Republicans know that if the hearings are carried out in an uneventful and non-distracting way, things will likely look quite bad for Trump to the public. That's why they're doing all of this stuff to distract.

Trump will get his due process at the senate trial. The impeachment investigation is not at the trial phase yet. They are still in the hearing/investigation phase, as was done in past impeachment investigations. Normally the investigation would have been done by the Justice Department, but they refused this time around so instead it was done by the bipartisan committees.