US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1888

On November 15 2019 20:30 servolisk2 wrote:


It could be argued that either that Trump is not confident they can or will sufficiently investigate and/or that there is no harm in asking another possible investigator to act.

If the FBI is fully sufficient, that would imply they have done a good job in all investigations of this sort. Would you say all information on all corruption cases, and this one, is sufficiently known by them? I think this would be a big claim, but I'm not an expert.

On November 15 2019 20:29 Gorsameth wrote:
If Ukraine wanted to investigate Hunter for corruption they are allowed to do so.
If the US wants Ukraine to be tougher on corruption before they are given aid that is allowed.
The President deciding that a country does not receive aid until they investigate the son of his political opponent is not allowed.

Just because we are talking about point 3 because that forms part of the basis for the impeachment proceedings against the President doesn't mean Hunter can't be investigated or that bribery is now ok.

Whether or not calling Hunter out is in the national interest isn't relevant to Trump's abuse his office. And I'm sure you can come up with a laundry list of more important things to go after then Biden's son.

On November 15 2019 20:40 GreenHorizons wrote:


Him being a son of a political opponent doesn't suddenly make Trump's actions criminal is what I'm trying to explain.

EDIT: To put it another way:

The President deciding that a country does not receive aid until they investigate someone is allowed.

On November 15 2019 20:40 GreenHorizons wrote:


Him being a son of a political opponent doesn't suddenly make Trump's actions criminal is what I'm trying to explain.

EDIT: To put it another way:

The President deciding that a country does not receive aid until they investigate someone is allowed.

On November 15 2019 20:29 micronesia wrote:

I think it comes down to what's more likely, not what's 100% known. It's pretty hard to 100% prove anything was the case. If I have to choose between Trump making a benevolent effort to protect the country from his political rival's corruption by pressuring the Ukranian president to publicly announce an investigation in exchange for aid and White House access, or Trump simply trying to get away with whatever he can to ensure victory in his next election, I'm going with the latter. Both are theoretically possibly, but Trump has a long history of bending the rules to do whatever is good for him personally (before and after becoming president), and does not have a long history of putting the country first. Evidence from the impeachment hearings up to this point mostly supports the latter as well.

On November 15 2019 20:35 Acrofales wrote:

Nah, I don't think the FBI is infallible. I also don't think that justifies Trump's actions. Just like if the police doesn't arrest your wife's killer, you can't go and murder the guy you think did it.

The facts in the present inquiry are not seriously contested. Beginning in January of this year, the President's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, pressed Ukrainian authorities to investigate Burisma, the country's largest natural gas producer, and the Bidens, since Vice President Joe Biden was seen as a strong potential challenger to Trump.

Giuliani also promoted a debunked conspiracy that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that hacked the 2016 election. The nation's intelligence agencies have stated unequivocally that it was Russia, not Ukraine, that interfered in our election. But Giuliani believed this conspiracy theory, referred to as "Crowdstrike," shorthand for the company that discovered the Russian hack, would aid his client's reelection.

Giuliani also conducted a smear campaign against the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. On April 29, a senior State Department official told her that although she had "done nothing wrong," President Trump had "lost confidence in her." With the sidelining of Yovanovich, the stage was set for the establishment of an irregular channel in which Giuliani and later others, including Gordon Sondland -- an influential donor to the President's inauguration now serving as Ambassador to the European Union - could advance the President's personal and political interests.

Yovanovich's replacement in Kyiv, Ambassador Bill Taylor, is a West Point graduate and Vietnam Veteran. As he began to better understand the scheme through the summer of 2019, he pushed back, informing Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent and others about a plan to condition U.S. government actions and funding on the performance of political favors by the Ukrainian government, favors intended for President Trump that would undermine our security and our elections.

Several key events in this scheme took place in the month of July. On July 10th, Ambassador Sondland informed a group of U.S. and Ukrainian officials meeting at the White House that, according to Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, a White House meeting desperately sought by the Ukrainian president with Trump would happen only if Ukraine undertook an investigation into "the energy sector," which was understood to mean Burisma and, specifically, the Bidens. National Security Advisor Bolton abruptly ended the meeting and said afterwards that he would not be -- quote -- "part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up on this" -- end quote.

A week later, on July 18, a representative from OMB, the White House agency that oversees federal spending, announced on a video conference call that Mulvaney, at the direction of the President, was freezing nearly $400 million in security assistance authorized and appropriated by Congress and which the entirety of the U.S. national security establishment supported.

One week after that, Donald Trump would have the now infamous July 25th phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. During that call, Trump complained that the U.S. relationship with Ukraine had not been "reciprocal." Later, Zelensky thanks Trump for his support "in the area of defense," and says that Ukraine was ready to purchase more Javelins, an antitank weapon that was among the most important deterrents of further Russian military action. Trump's immediate response: "I would like you to do us a favor, though."

Trump then requested that Zelensky investigate the discredited 2016 "Crowdstrike" conspiracy theory, and even more ominously, look into the Bidens. Neither of these investigations were in the U.S. national interest, and neither was part of the official preparatory material for the call. Both, however, were in Donald Trump's personal interest, and in the interests of his 2020 re-election campaign. And the Ukrainian president knew about both in advance — because Sondland and others had been pressing Ukraine for weeks about investigations into the 2016 election, Burisma and the Bidens.

After the call, multiple individuals were concerned enough to report it to the National Security Council's top lawyer. The White House would then take the extraordinary step of moving the call record to a highly classified server exclusively reserved for the most sensitive intelligence matters.

In the following weeks, Ambassador Taylor learned new facts about a scheme that even Sondland would describe as becoming more insidious. Taylor texted Sondland, "Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?"

As summer turned to fall "[i]t kept getting more insidious," Mr. Sondland testified. Mr. Taylor, who took notes of his conversations, said the ambassador told him in a September 1 phone call that "everything was dependent" on the public announcement of investigations "including security assistance." President Trump wanted Mr. Zelensky "in a public box." "President Trump is a businessman," Sondland said later. "When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check."

In a sworn declaration after Taylor's testimony, Sondland would admit to telling the Ukrainians at a September 1st meeting in Warsaw "that resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks."

The President's chief of staff confirmed Trump's efforts to coerce Ukraine by withholding aid. When Mick Mulvaney was asked publicly about it, his answer was breathtaking: "We do that all the time with foreign policy . . . I have news for everybody: get over it. There's going to be political influence in foreign policy. That is going to happen." The video of that confession is plain for all to see.

On November 15 2019 20:54 servolisk2 wrote:


You could ask someone to look into it though.

On November 15 2019 20:52 servolisk2 wrote:


I think if it is so opinion based it should be a matter left to the voters instead of a partisan officials in pre-determined opposition to judge. I'd also expect using this rationale for impeachment would lead to a future congress of a different party contriving reasons to make a conflict of interest a basis for impeachment. Personally, I might be inclined to believe Trump's motive was to hurt Biden if there was a big worry about losing to Biden, but it cannot be fully separated from a legitimate interest that was being investigated along with other concerns. It's incredibly weak for impeachment grounds.

I confess I did not watch all of the hearings, but, it is mysterious evidence can be supportive of your interpretation when it was mostly not primary accounts, assuming you're referring to the public hearings that happened rather than leaks. Persuasively establishing a corrupt motive is extremely difficult to begin with, it is very hard to imagine 4th hand opinion of a witness saying someone else's opinion was Trump was doing this for his own advantage in the election is persuasive.

The transcript also did not say he wanted the Ukrainian President to make a public announcement, he said "look into it". The wanting an announcement of the investigation has been alleged but not established, correct? If true, it would make it look like Trump was taking advantage of the situation, but I think there has been no confirmed evidence that showed aid was tied to this. It has only been alleged and denied that Giuliani asked someone in Ukraine to do this, I believe...

On November 15 2019 20:50 KwarK wrote:

No it’s not lol. This is textbook abuse of power. If there was a genuine concern about illegality he would have gone through normal channels. He attempted to pay Ukraine with taxpayer money for announcing that the son of a political opponent was being investigated for corruption, along with other demands including reopening election hacking conspiracy theories.

On November 15 2019 20:59 GreenHorizons wrote:


I mean the presidency is an abuse of power a second so I don't personally disagree that it's obvious he did this for personal gain and any relation to addressing corruption is ancillary at best.

The point is, that like most of this stuff (sanctions, aid, weapons, etc...), this Ukraine thing exists in a system designed to protect the people exploiting it for profit from accountability. Liberals/Democrats/others seem unable to reconcile the
intentional impotence of that system and their desire to use it to hold Trump accountable.

On November 15 2019 21:02 KwarK wrote:

We’re discussing their ongoing impeachment inquiry of the President and you’re still hammering them for not using their constitutional powers to hold the President accountable? What would you have them do? Shoot him?

On November 15 2019 21:12 GreenHorizons wrote:


More like I'm trying to make clear the connection between how the pretending it isn't obvious Hunter Biden was getting bribed is a necessary precursor to being outraged that Trump made aid conditional on Ukraine publicly confronting it. That it's an extension of 2016's "extremely careless", Bush's "they hate our freedom", and so on.

On November 15 2019 21:16 KwarK wrote:

The two aren’t related. What Biden may have done is not relevant to whether the President is allowed to do this.

On November 15 2019 19:58 GreenHorizons wrote:
It seems to me the liberal position is predicated on the idea that there is no national interest in calling out Biden's petty corruption.

Hunter Biden was bribed and took it. Whether he delivered anything for the bribe is unknown afaik but it takes a high threshold for ones willful suspension of disbelief to imagine it wasn't a bribe.

On November 15 2019 21:12 GreenHorizons wrote:


More like I'm trying to make clear the connection between how the pretending it isn't obvious Hunter Biden was getting bribed is a necessary precursor to being outraged that Trump made aid conditional on Ukraine publicly confronting it. That it's an extension of 2016's "extremely careless", Bush's "they hate our freedom", and so on.

On November 15 2019 21:20 Gorsameth wrote:
No, you can be outraged about Hunter getting bribed while also being outraged that the President abused his office to go after the son of a political opponent.

Christ, why is everything so black and white for you. Do you seriously think the 2 positions are somehow at odds with eachother?

On November 15 2019 21:22 GreenHorizons wrote:
I haven't heard Democrats expressing outrage at the bribing of Hunter though. You can see dmcd taking the position there's not even evidence of bribery.

On November 15 2019 21:19 GreenHorizons wrote:


They certainly are. That you don't just acknowledge Hunter was obviously being bribed and Trump used it as a cover to benefit politically is a major reason why Trump admitting the quid pro quo works for him.