The following, from the AARP website


James Madison warned us that somebody as reckless as Donald Trump might come along.

10-01-2019 01:00 AM
link

James Madison warned us that Trump is dangerously un-American

Twice in recent days, Trump has called for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) to be hauled in for treason, which is punishable by death. Schiff’s crime? At a hearing last week, the Intelligence Committee chairman read a parody of Trump’s now-infamous telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The humor, unsurprisingly, was lost on someone with an exaggerated sense of victimhood and an ego made of eggshells. AND A POSTER POSTING HERE AS WELL.....SHOCKING!!! 

 Trump rage-tweeted Sunday that Schiff’s “lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason..... .” On Monday morning, Trump upped that outrageous demand by suggesting that Schiff actually be arrested for treason.

It has become so easy to dismiss such comments as hyperbole and bluster — just Trump being Trump — that we risk losing sight of how dangerous, how fundamentally un-American they are.

The framers of the Constitution took great care in spelling out what acts could be regarded as treason, which was the only crime they explicitly defined. Article III, Section 3 states that “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

”Why did the framers believe treason, alone among offenses, merited such clarity in the nation’s founding document? Their recent history had given them reason to fear authoritarians who would loosely throw around accusations of treason. The parameters of the crime under British law were broad and vague, and could be stretched to include counterfeiting or sleeping with a member of the royal family, says Jason Opal, a professor of American history at McGill University. The royal governors of the 13 colonies invoked treason as a handy means of crushing dissent and executing those who objected to the crown’s rule.

When the framers set out to devise a legal system for the new nation, they borrowed much from British law and traditions. But they felt strongly that “treason” should have a precise, fixed and uniquely American meaning. Madison wrote in Federalist No. 43: “As new-fangled and artificial treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the convention have, with great judgment, opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger, by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime.

”The president, as he is showing us, is the “alternate malignity” that Madison feared. Trump took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. He should start by learning what is in it

James Madison warned us that Trump is dangerously un-American

AARP?

Tell me, just how many times have the left called Trump a traitor? Ever hear the glass houses parable?

Trump acts like a dictator. he thinks everything in government is owned by him, including thinking the DoJ is suppose to be his personal lawyer and do his bidding.

the GOP needs to grow a backbone, seeing as replace all the things trump has said and done with the name obama or hillary, and the gop and conservatives wouldve already had them lynched in public.

A couple tidbits on NPR coming home last night. Every Trump phone call since John Kelly left gas been like the Ukraine call. Kelly was the adult in the room and he is gone.

Privately, some repubs think that the way this is going, their own re elections would be easier if the president is gone. Watch the polls: if public sentiment keeps going against the president, Republicans may be more vocal. Privately, they say he was wrong and this is hurting the country. Publicly, not so much yet

And I want transcripts of every call obummer made. Especially after the, "tell Vladimir I'll have more flexibility after the election" hot mike episode.

You do realize that Trump is 1/10 of a point higher in polls than obummer was at the same time in his presidency, and obummer had favorable, fawning press?

Trump is an idiot.. but anybody who thinks that an intelligence committee hearing regarding impeaching the president of the United States is a good time to roll out a humorous SNL style parody skit regarding the facts of the case is also... a F'ING IDIOT!!!!

i agree.

unfortunately your conservative president likes starting beefs with SNL on twitter so....

I want a president who has read the constitution. Swearing on a bible to protect the constitution was his first lie. How can you protect something you havent taken the time to understand?

WHOA WHOA WHOA, now you care about polls? what happened to "the same polls that said hillary would be elected?" nonsense you MAGA hatters keep stating?

lol, shifty Erik at it again.

McConnell just came out saying the Senate would have no choice but to take up impeachment if the House votes it through due to senate rules that would take 67 votes to change. However, the length of time taken would be another conversation altogether.

I couldn't care less about the polls, but isn't it yuge that Trump is ahead of obummer, in the same poll at the same time.

You mean like the last one, and his "bill of negative rights"? What about those in Congress that have no idea what's in the Constitution?

Pompeo balks at Dems' subpoena

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday indicated that five current and former State Department officials would not show up for depositions scheduled by House Democrats in connection with their impeachment inquiry.

Pompeo said that the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s demand for testimony on the burgeoning Ukraine scandal from five current and former State Department officials beginning this week raised “significant legal and procedural concerns” and questioned the panel’s authority to compel an appearance by officials for a deposition by the letters sent last week.

The secretary of State also claimed that there is “no legal basis” for the committee’s threat that the failure of the officials to meet their timeline for documents and testimony would constitute obstruction of the impeachment inquiry. And he raised concerns that House Democrats are seeking to “intimidate” State Department officials with a slew of requests.

“I’m concerned with aspects of your request that can be understood only as an attempt to intimidate, bully, & treat improperly the distinguished professionals of the Department of State, including several career Foreign Service Officers,” Pompeo wrote in a letter to Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday.

“Let me be clear: I will not tolerate such tactics, and I will use all means at my disposal to prevent and expose any attempts to intimidate the dedicated professionals whom I am proud to lead and serve alongside at the Department of State,” Pompeo wrote.

He said the committee had not sent subpoenas for their appearances or noticed the deposition to the department in accordance with House rules. Pompeo also said the committee provided a “woefully inadequate opportunity for the Department and the requested witnesses to prepare.”

The depositions requested by the committee last week had been scheduled for Oct. 2, 3, 7, 8 and 10.

Pompeo also accused the committee of trying to prevent State Department counsel from participating in the depositions, something he said amounted to an effort to “circumvent” the constitutional interests of the executive branch. He refused to allow the officials to appear for the depositions in the absence of department counsel.

“This amounts to an attempt to circumvent the Executive Branch’s unquestionably legitimate constitutional interest in protecting potentially privileged information related to the conduct of diplomatic relations,” Pompeo wrote.

“Therefore, the five officials subject to your letter may not attend any interview or deposition without counsel from the Executive Branch present to ensure that the Executive Branch’s constitutional authority to control the disclosure of confidential information, including deliberative matters and diplomatic communications, is not impaired,” he continued.

Pompeo also said the committee’s requests sent to the same officials for documents appeared to “duplicate” a previous request sent to the State Department and argued that the documents are the property of the State Department. He asserted that the committee in doing so was engaging in an “act of intimidation” and inviting the officials to violate federal records laws.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administrat...ouse-efforts-to

He is in this up to his neck and going to go down with Trump. The same old delay and distract tactics they used during the Mueller investigation. Dems can NOT let them do that with this investigation, period.

I dont like republicans either. I was talking about our president I dont think he has ever read the constitution let alone understands it. That is sad.

The first two words of a response that indicates points have just been scored or made.

Your posts contain a lot of this.
Not the strongest position to take on the debate stage, my Dawg.

Only in your mind. You want to say you're for the rule of law, but readily ignore lawbreaking of your favorite politicians.

Even though this response of yours was a total non-sequitur and is completely unrelated to the subject of your rampant whataboutisms, I'll bite by saying: "Receipts, please."

Every single one of my posts from my arrival to today are in the archives. Find an example or keep your vacuous accusations to yourself. You know- in your own mind.


pffft.

Seeing as I said "ignore", I guess I'll go this route. Joe Biden had claimed he never spike to his son about his business dealings. His son said they did. This article shows a pic of biden, his son, his son's partner, and the pres of Barissma (the Ukrainian company in question) all playing golf. I'd love to know your thoughts.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...utive-2014.html

Even though the libs will say it doesn't count because of the source, here's the beginning of the end.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/...ne-gas-company/

A spokesman for Rep. Adam Schiff’s House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence denied any impropriety related to a trip taken by a staffer to Ukraine last month sponsored and organized by the Atlantic Council think tank.
The Atlantic Council is funded by and works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

The Schiff staff member, Thomas Eager, is also currently a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Congressional Fellowship. Burisma in January 2017 signed a “cooperative agreement” with the Council to sponsor the organization’s Eurasia Center.

A follow up to ocds post on Trump pressuring Australia. Trump publicly said he directed Barr to contact Australia, the UK, and Ukraine to get to the bottom of the Russia collusion hoax, on May 24th. The nyt reported this as a bombshell, and tried to make it look like proof. Please note where Australia says they volunteered, and were not pressured.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/barr-trump-durham-probe-new-york-times-reporting-justice-department

I don't know what you are trying to say.

Are you saying it's okay for Trump to pressure a foreign govt to investigate someone so that he can potentially influence a future election or undermine a political opponent?

Are you saying because Hunter was an executive with a company in Ukraine it's okay for Trump to withhold funds/support to coerce that govt?

Are you saying it's okay for Trump to cover up his conversations and attempts to influence other govts investigations into his opponents?

And it's okay because? Because Hunter Biden was an executive with a gas company in the Ukraine? So nothing else matters?

Are you saying a former veep is absolved of crimes because he's running for office?

No ... I didn't say anything about Joe Biden.

I asked about Trump. Trump was the subject of the conversation.

What I get from your response is basically - "but whatabout" ... weak.

On the subject of Joe Biden - I don't think he has committed a crime, or at least regarding Ukraine and all the mud flung by Trump - I don't think he's committed a crime. However if he did/has - well I hope he gets caught.

Meanwhile back to POTUS - trying to coerce Ukraine into helping him politically .... seems you are fine with that.

Maybe your need to read what Zalensky said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/world/europe/zelensky-trump.html

I should also point out that Biden bragged that he got the prosecutor fired while he was in the Ukraine, while threatening he would withold $1billion. The US has no jurisdiction to investigate within the Ukraine, so he has to ask for their help.

Biden is on tape bragging about holding money from Ukraine if they didn't fire a prosecutor within 6 hours.

You know, the prosecutor that was investigating Hunter Biden.


Pay attention at about 1:18 to 1:39 or so.

oh look, another person who didnt pay attention to the timeline.

once again, that SAME prosecutor said biden's son committed no crime. the SAME prosecutor also said when they were investigating the company, biden's son wasn't even working there yet.

but keep posting already debunked conspiracies.

Dear Arch and Dear Eric....

Biden "Bragged about" getting a prosecutor fired ... and it had NOTHING to do with Hunter or the company that Hunter worked for. You are both being played for fools and simply regurgitating spin from Trump / the GOP. The prosecutor who the USA and most of Europe was trying to remove was corrupt and not prosecuting corruption .... which is the exact reverse of what you are trying to suggest.

Meanwhile ... whether Hunter and Joe are the devil incarnate or the ring leaders of Pizza Gate .... the topic is TRUMP.

And you refuse to address TRUMP, what he did and his actions to cover up what he did ... to say nothing of Trump calling anyone and everyone who is acting within the law to hold him accountable a traitor...

So the bottom line is you really really really do only have "what about" as an answer ... and you steadfastly do not care what Trump does, he could literally shoot someone on 5th Avenue.

And in a poll I saw tonight-29% of republicans say that trump never even mentions the name Biden in the phone call

State Department inspector general requests 'urgent' Capitol Hill briefing

But you’ll vote for him again.

Looks like this urgent meeting requested by the DoS IG is a really big deal. Apparently asking numerous committees in the House and Senate to have staff return to DC for an urgent meeting tomorrow. The IG will be bringing documents to brief congressional committees.

Don't you frigging know that RT stands for Russian Television.

OMG.. It's the Russians behind the Ukraine mess. They are trying to leverage Trump for both 2016 (Crowdstrike) and 2020 (Biden) to get out of the sanctions.

Yes the prior government in Ukraine was corrupt, and the world not just Biden wanted the Prosecutor out.

Senior GOP senator rebukes Trump, says whistleblower 'ought to be heard out'

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/01/politics/grassley-whistleblower-statement/index.html

So, what you are saying is the words that came out of Biden's mouth don't matter, since the video is from RT?

I suppose they dubbed the words?

Try this one:

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/463307-solomon-these-once-secret-memos-cast-doubt-on-joe-bidens-ukraine-story%3famp

Former Vice President Joe Biden, now a 2020 Democratic presidential contender, has locked into a specific story about the controversy in Ukraine.

He insists that, in spring 2016, he strong-armed Ukraine to fire its chief prosecutor solely because Biden believed that official was corrupt and inept, not because the Ukrainian was investigating a natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, that hired Biden's son, Hunter, into a lucrative job.

There's just one problem.

Hundreds of pages of never-released memos and documents - many from inside the American team helping Burisma to stave off its legal troubles - conflict with Biden's narrative.

I love how a thread about Trump becomes a giant "WHATABOUT!"

How often do I have to tell you all that "WHATABOUT!" is a known soviet propaganda technique? Aren't you all better than totalitarian states?

If you wish to discuss some silly Joe Biden conspiracy proven factually wrong, start a new topic.

I've created an image to help you discuss your concerns, and to help stop spreading faulty arguments which go against rhetorical standards.

Below is the picture to help you see where you can start a new topic to stop polluting this thread with "WHATABOUTS!"

How do you know that he voted for him? I’m under the impression he didn’t vote for him.

Either Dad or son is lying or 'misremembering.' Even so, the disinformation campaign being mounted by Team Blotus suggests that Biden is equally guilty of some crime of leverage and pressure. Official accounts from our State Dept, Members of the EU and Ukraine's own higher-ups say outright that the opposite is true- that Joe Biden got the prosecutor fired because he was promoting corruption as he was being charged with the responsibility of rooting out corruption. This Daily Mail piece is yet another water-muddier that isn't working on me. It's a distraction from the action that is Trump's newest headache.

In other words... yet another in an endless stream of 'whataboutisms.' It's Trump's go-to move because he knows how awful he looks. His best bet is to try to throw feces on those around him so they look no better than he. Example: "You may not like me, but you gotta vote for me-" what a ringing self-endorsement, indeed.

Now, as for the golf thing, and Biden's son occupying a 50K/month admin job in a company he was unqualified to have: bad look. A really bad look to workaday guys like us. To quote a comic who stays on top of politics: "Why can't these politicians make their kids get real f'ing jobs?"

That being said, there was nothing illegal about the job placement. Sketchy? Yep. Worthy of raised eyebrows? You bet. I don't like seeing privilege flaunted like this. My Family and I worked too hard to get where we are to think that this is somehow just peachy. Spoiled rich brats in offices they didn't earn chafes my sensibilities. As long as no laws were broken and no conflicts of interest exist, there's precious little that you or I can do about it.

[At this point, a 'whatabout' game move by Clem would bring up the fact the POTUS45 actually appointed his unqualified son-in law (who didn't even pass basic vetting standards) to broker peace between Israel and the Arab world! But that is a subject that deserves its own thread, don't you think?]

All this is secondary to the main issue regarding Ukraine: Dolt45 skirted consequences of 2016's interference, and decided to blatantly and openly solicit another foreign government to aid him in gaining advantage over a domestic political rival.

Dude- that is clearly and plainly illegal. And the difference between this run-up to 2020 and what happened in 2016 is precisely why there were no impeachment proceedings after the Mueller report, but there are now. This breach of ethics, morals and legality is officially on record.

He deserves to be placed under a scanning electron microscope and scrutinized to the nearest angstrom. If he's clean, he has no worries. Are you convinced he's clean? If so, then you have nothing to be concerned about, either.

Time to put his amorphous, amoebic ass on a slide and fire up the peepers. It's dissection time, bro.


Now you know.

There was no impeachment after the Mueller report because there was nothing to impeach. No collusion, remember?

Trump has done nothing wrong. This is all hype put out by the media to attempt to bring down poll numbers, to get his followers to give up, or to get weak Republicans to run and hide or be turncoats like romney.

Of course not. I just find it amazing that the "strong on defense" "hawkish" "neo-conservative" Republicans have lost their stinking minds over defending Trump.

I really think that Trump has some strings attached to his vital body parts, and Putin is the puppet master.

All of this is tied to Russia and Ukraine. Russia wants the sanctions lifted that were tied to the Crimea invasion, ongoing war Ukraine, and 2016 election.

Russia was behind the Pro-Russia government in Ukraine that was associated with the Ukraine that Biden and the got the prosecutor tossed. And Manifort was working for them for millions of dollars.

Now there is talk of Russia coming to some sort of truce with Ukraine, something that Trump has been advocating.... why... to get rid of the sanctions.

No wonder Bolton bailed.

Trump says he's becoming victim of a 'coup'

President Trump on Tuesday escalated his criticism of the Democrats' impeachment inquiry, claiming the process resembled a "coup."

"As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP," Trump tweeted.

The president wrote that the investigation into his alleged abuse of power is "intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!"




House Democrats last week formally launched an impeachment inquiry against Trump, spurred largely by his conduct on a call with the Ukrainian president in which Trump urged the foreign leader to "look into" Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The White House last week released a rough transcript of the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which showed Trump urging Zelensky to get in touch with his personal attorney and the attorney general to investigate possible wrongdoing by Biden.

A whistleblower complaint made public last Thursday shed further light on how the White House sought to conceal the contents of the call by limiting those who had access to the transcript.

Trump's tweet on Tuesday mirrored the rhetoric he deployed during former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The president regularly decried the probe as a "witch hunt" and referred to it earlier this year as "a coup," likening it to something that would happen in "a third world country."

But Mueller's report did not establish that Trump conspired with Russia, and it failed to deliver a verdict on whether he obstructed justice.

The Ukraine controversy represents a more urgent threat to Trump's presidency, as Democrats have indicated they are prepared to move quickly toward impeachment. In response, Trump's attacks on his critics have become increasingly hostile.

The president on Monday suggested House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who has been at the forefront of the impeachment inquiry, should be arrested for treason for his exaggerated description of Trump's call with Zelensky.

Trump has also been fiercely critical of the whistleblower, deriding them as partisan and questioning whether they are loyal to the country.

The president said Monday that the White House is trying to find out who the whistleblower is, and he has claimed that he has the right to interview the individual, despite protections in place to keep the person's identity anonymous.

Democrats and some Republicans have pushed back against Trump's attacks on the whistleblower, saying the individual followed the proper protocols in filing their complaint.

"No one should be making judgments or pronouncements without hearing from the whistleblower first and carefully following up on the facts," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement on Tuesday. "Uninformed speculation wielded by politicians or media commentators as a partisan weapon is counterproductive and doesn’t serve the country."

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/463943-trump-likens-impeachment-inquiry-to-a-coup

I would enjoy some freedom from the Trump saga these days.

No adult supervision leads to terrible results.

This quote right here tells me almost everything I need to know about your world view... and exemplifies why you and I can't ever really talk about stuff like this. You have just stated with total candor what you actually believe- and it bears no resemblance to what I see when I view the world around me. Fascinating.

I want to thank you, Erik from the Great Dismal Swamp. I've been taking a deep dive into the Mueller Report, and have been waiting for an opportunity to start a new thread that might actually lead somewhere. It will be interesting to see who on this board will actually make the commitment.

New post coming soon...

I can tell by his support for trump. And I’m not under that impression at all.

AG Barr made an unusual call to Trump to give him political advice about how Rudy Giuliani should handle the Russia probe

https://www.businessinsider.com/barr-unusual-call-trump-give-advice-giuliani-russia-2019-10

Odd. Last time I checked, the AG wasn’t a president’s personal lawyer.

Pompeo confirms he was on Trump call with Ukraine president

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that he was on a phone call between President Trump and Ukraine's president that contributed to the launch of a House impeachment inquiry.

"I was on the phone call," he said at a press conference in Rome. "I know precisely what the American policy is with respect to Ukraine. It's been remarkably consistent and we will continue to try to drive those set of outcomes."



A whistleblower complaint released last week accused Trump of asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son for Trump's personal gain.

"Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me," Trump said on the July 25 call, according to a memo released by the White House.

House Democrats looking into the incident have called for five current and former State Department officials to testify, but Pompeo said Tuesday that they would not show up.

On Wednesday, he said the demands "deeply violate fundamental principles of separation of powers."

"They contacted State Department employees directly, told them not to contact legal counsel at the State Department," he said. "They said that the State Department wouldn't be able to be present."

https://thehill.com/policy/international...raine-president

Putin says 'nothing compromising' in Trump call to Ukraine leader

https://news.yahoo.com/putin-says-nothing-compromising-trump-call-ukraine-leader-130954230.html

see, putin says there's nothing to see here!

- MAGA hatters

j/c:

Somewhere, Rosie O'Donnell is flipping out.

also, Pompeo is now saying he was on the phone call, but nothing was wrong with it.

so why did he lie and said he knew nothing about it initially? lol

j/c:

I found this interesting:

i dont.

Looking at the one tweet... it could be said that trump IS performing “to the best of his ability”. Sadly he’s got the same ability to execute the job as many of the dementia riddled folks I care for.

Remember, trumps tweets are official White House statements, so all I did was post an official WH statement

It would be extremely difficult for me to vote for him again.

Time travel? I can make it happen for the low.

thought it was established history that you didn’t vote for trump.

Mueller agrees lies by Trump officials impeded his investigation

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/45451...s-investigation

How many times does this need to be seen by you until you figure out you can't get to the truth when the witnesses you call are lying?

Well we all know FOX News viewers are pretty evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. That's about as credible as posting a survey from an MSNBC host.

C'mon. You can do better than this. Yes, Donna Brazile, a lifelong Democratic political strategist, past chair of the Democratic National Committee, analyst, and who managed Gore's campaign just decided to open up a twitter account when she left CNN and joined Fox News as a contributor-- and all/most of her followers are Republicans.

Good one!

That aside, my posting this had very little to do with Repubs/Democrats and simply views on the presidential seat overall. Now, the Rosie O'Donnell tweet. No that was to take a shot at O'Donnell. She sucks.

What percentage of Democrats do you think follow anyone on FOX News? Are you even trying to be serious here?

I'm pretty sure you don't know who Donna Brazile is.

I'm fully aware of who she is. I'm also fully aware that when she went to work for FOX News she lost a lot of followers and gained a lot of new ones. In case you missed it, the political divide in our country is very strong.

It shouldn't matter what any polling says. You don't prosecute or choose not to according to polling. What is a democracy? Rule of law over and above the rule individuals. Did he break the law? That's the only debate. Not if we should look the other way or not. Or if other people have done similar things.

Care to quantify her twitter follower detraction or is this some anecodatal attempt to save face?

All of her posts are Democratic-leaning and she has countless followers on her feed re-tweeting, postively commenting on, and supporting her stances/agenda. Did she gain new followers that watch FOX? Of course. But to make the claim that so many stopped following her and THAT is the reason for the results is pretty funny. Thanks for the laugh.

I encourage you to take a look at her twitter. Nothing has changed from her time and CNN and her time at FOX.

Side Note: I give her credit for going to FOX. So many people stay in their eco-chamber ** cough, cough** and tend to only listen to and engage with people who share the same beliefs. To challenge those ideas with a different audience takes a lot of balls.

Oh, so now you're accusing a woman of having the anatomy of a man. There's no depths you won't stoop to.

Right.... Great rebuttal.

In all candor, the questions posed weren't complicated or even inaccurate. Under the electoral college system, there's no doubt that the election of Trump was legitimate. A lot of people are getting sick of the fact their vote is worth less than others but that's a topic for anther time.

When it comes to impeachment, this poll is actually only about 5% off from the polls I've seen elsewhere. Polls can easily vary by that much.

I think a lot of the problem is that most people are more likely to believe what they're told on both sides of the aisle far more than they're willing to look into the laws and the facts.

Trump has now accused almost every Democrat of treason, seems to be ignoring whistle blower laws by saying he/she should be exposed and basically living one huge rant. He obviously was engaging in what the GOP has been bragging about couldn't be proven by Mueller, collusion. Working to interfere in our elections by having a foreign government investigate a political opponent. And he even went back to the Hillary well in that phone call. He just can't get over that Hillary beat him in the popular vote. Mentioned that if he's impeached it would be like the civil war.

I'm not sure how much more a president would have to do until people figure out he's unhinged and dangerous.

Speaking of polls and my comment about people being more likely to believe what they're told, or not told as the case may be......

Poll: Only 4 in 10 Republicans think Trump mentioned Biden on Ukraine call even though he acknowledged doing so

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli...ans/3829338002/

Edit:

Nvm, good job. At least it's related to the topic.

I have made it a point to stay away from political discussions for many reasons.

At this stage those who continue to support trump are beyond trying to get too.

If they have gotten through all the stink that has come off his actions, his behavior, his mouth, his display of incompetence. What else can be said to them?

They would enroll in that prestigious institute of knowledge trump university tomorrow if it had not been shut down for fraud.

Cool aid for those who thirst for lies and hypocrisy.

All the "best people" he said he would surround himself with? Most now in jail his lawyer, campaign manager, national security adviser. And those who resigned who got to the point that they could not tolerate his ignorance and lack of preparation.

He is not only unfit for the position but is a danger to the country.

His time is coming and soon. The cool aid drinkers are beyond help. However, those independents (like myself), and those who could not vote for Clinton will not repeat their mistake.

erik and those like him nothing can help them.

History:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/02/opinions/...suri/index.html

Impeachment Bombshell That Wasn’t: Mysterious Packet Sends Rumor Mill Into Overdrive

WASHINGTON — The cryptically worded request marked urgent from the State Department’s independent watchdog set Congress on edge.

The message, according to Steven A. Linick, the department’s inspector general, was that he needed to meet — and right away — with senior congressional staff members to give them copies of documents related to the State Department and Ukraine. He signaled that they could be relevant to the House investigation into whether President Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden.

Some Democrats prepared for an explosive revelation that might show top administration officials had tried to obstruct their work. Speaker Nancy Pelosi told lawmakers on a caucus conference call that news reports were confirming that the heart of the briefing was about the White House retaliating against State Department staff who complied with the investigation. Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called Mr. Linick’s request “significant” and told lawmakers to “stay tuned.”

So what congressional aides received — a roughly 40-page packet of documents sheathed in a manila envelope decorated with cursive script and manipulated to look aged, with a return address portraying that it had come from the White House — may have been a bit of a letdown.

The packet included documents laying out a record of contacts between Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, and Ukrainian prosecutors, as well as accounts of Ukrainian law enforcement proceedings. Some of it was established fact and some was unsubstantiated speculation that cast the Bidens in a bad light.

“We thought this was about something else that the press had widely reported on,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, told reporters as he emerged from the chamber reserved for classified briefings. “Instead, we got this.”

Mr. Raskin, apparently the lone member of Congress to attend the briefing — its original audience was intended to be aides — promptly assumed the role of narrator and myth-debunker, brandishing the dossier in disgust for good measure.

“A series of hallucinatory propagandist suggestions,” he said.

There were more questions remaining than answers on Wednesday. The packet contained a mysteriously curated collection of conspiratorial memos, news clippings and pages photocopied so poorly they were barely legible, according to a review of the dossier. The papers, contained in folders that appeared to be from a Trump hotel, were delivered to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s office in May — care of his secretary — by an unknown sender. The inspector general also included a series of emails between State Department officials that were not in the original file.

The memos referred to names that have played prominently in recent weeks, including Marie L. Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine; Yuriy Lutsenko, the prosecutor general of Ukraine; Hunter Biden; and George Soros, a frequent target of conspiracies.

Perhaps most interestingly, a number of the memos listed a New York address — the Park Avenue office belonging to Mr. Giuliani.

Mr. Giuliani confirmed on Wednesday that the documents summarizing his interviews with the Ukrainian prosecutors were produced by a “professional investigator who works for my company.” Previously, Mr. Giuliani had recounted the interviews in a manner similar to that reflected in the documents. And he had previously described how his team had produced interview summaries modeled after those used by F.B.I. agents.

By the end of the day, some lawmakers, like Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, were calling for further action.

“We also need to understand Secretary Pompeo’s role, given that it appears that he discussed these documents with at least one of his top aides and that the documents were distributed at the highest levels of the State Department,” Mr. Menendez said.

But others, like Mr. Raskin, had reached a somewhat more cynical conclusion.

This, he told reporters, was an “irrelevant distraction.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/us/politics/impeachment-packet-ukraine.html

Look at your choices though! Got to love it!

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/...ence-committee/

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) did not notify Republicans on the committee of an intelligence official who came to one of his aides with concerns about President Trump before filing an official whistleblower complaint, according to the top Republican on the committee.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said in a statement:

We learn from the press today that Chm Schiff had prior knowledge and involvement in the [whistleblower] complaint. He withheld this info from the American people and even from the Intel Cmte. In light of this news, it’s hard to view impeachment as anything aside from an orchestrated farce.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY), another Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, confirmed Schiff kept the information from Republicans and called upon him to step down. She tweeted:


Re-upping my tweet from last week given the breaking news today that Adam Schiff had early access to the whistleblower & DID NOT share it with his own committee – instead he manipulated this information & played partisan political games. He should immediately step down as Chair.

He did, and he’ll do it again. Even if trump went out in the street and shot someone they’d still support and vote for this pos.

Coming from your own Nazi fake news rag. Shoot the messenger. dumb trump did nothing wrong here.

Are you talking about Nunes? The Trump Stooge that was on the checks and balances committees investigating Trump, but back dooring all the information and coordinating with Trump throughout the entire time? Nunes who is a lying sack of human excrement? That guy?

Personally I am more interested in Trump actually coercing foreign governments to undermine his political opponents and withholding funds/support than i am about whether Schiff new about the report and kept it from Nunes ... because, based on the history of Nunes running straight to Trump with inside info - I have zero doubt that Nunes would have passed on the information to Trump. I know you don't actually care to keep POTUS in check and accountable - but thankfully a slim majority do.

DEBUNKED. Schiff knew there was somebody trying to come forward and that they were directed to get an attorney to assist them in filing the complaint through proper channels. STILL does not change the fact that TRUMP BROKE THE LAW AGAIN.

Facts don't matter.
Trump's actions don't matter.
The Trump supporters care only about one thing - Trump. They care about Trump more than anything including truth & country.

Former Ukraine president: Biden never asked to close cases

https://thehill.com/policy/international...-to-close-cases

Facts don't matter.
Trump supporters only care about Trump - above everything including truth and country.

j/c

Impeachment pressure: Trump says China should investigate Joe Biden, family

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is seeking to shift the nation's attention to health care Thursday, but likely gave critics a new target to attack him by calling on China to investigate Joe Biden.

Trump faced a litany of questions about the ongoing probe into whether he pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden. Trump blasted the former vice president and current Democratic presidential frontrunner, and suggested that China should also look into his son's business dealings.

"China should start an investigation into the Bidens," Trump said.

Asked if he had requested President Xi Jinping of China to help investigate the Biden family, Trump said: “I haven’t but clearly it’s something we should start thinking about."

“I think Biden is going down,” Trump said.

At the heart of Congress' probe into the president's actions is his claim that Biden strong-armed the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor in order to thwart an investigation into a company tied to his son, Hunter Biden. But sources ranging from former Obama administration officials to an anti-corruption advocate in Ukraine say the official, Viktor Shokin, was ousted for the opposite reason Trump and his allies claim.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli...ily/3850191002/

He just keeps making this easier.....

Hardly ... His support troop don't care. Every day is a new low low for the country under Trump - new lows and new norms in low, debase standards are set. Standards that if it was Clinton or Obama - there would have been a riot out of the GOP/Right ... but with Trump and his supporters he has every chance of still winning the next election. Thinking otherwise is to deceive oneself.

The Truth doesn't matter, facts don't matter - Trump supporters support Trump above truth or country.

I just love this. Think about it libs, how many times did schiff claim he had documented proof that Trump colluded with Russia? Proof he never produced. How many times will you listen to the boy cry wolf?

Said as you drink the liar in chief’s koolaide daily.
Laughable.

This time Trump is providing the truth with his own words. And Guliani is doing the same thing. All the proof you need is on video this time.

That's what is making it so easy.

You do know that schiffs staff had contact with the "whistleblower" before the report was filed? Look it up in the nyt. Schiffs has said several times he had no contact.

So you're saying it was someone on his staff that had contact and not him.

That sounds like what he said.

So Trump said out loud what he wanted from Ukraine was an investigation into the Bidens, then added that he also wanted China to investigate the Bidens after talking about having great leverage in the trade negotiations with China... WOW! Oops, he did it again!

I got a little secret for you. There was no vote taken for an impeachment inquiry. That means this is not official house business. If it's not official house business, they have no subpoena power.

They must not really want this, other than for a political stunt.

They want to show the nation what he did without removing him from office. He's the perfect poster child for why everyone should vote him out of office.

He lies, rants, calls everyone names and is pretty much nothing more than a petulant child. (my apologies to any petulant child I may have offended)

Funny, they've all called for impeachment. Let's ignore all the polls but the real one. Trump is outraising all dem candidates combined. His fundraising had gone up since this "inquiry".

Oh yes, the liberal media is also lying to all of you about Pompeo ignoring a subpoena.

So you are trying to make a point that the party of the rich and big business is raising more money? What a surprise!

Trump has told several lies just today. I wish just a few of you would hold him to the same standard you try to hold everyone else to.

And you are obviously having a problem comprehending something....

in·quir·y
/ˈinkwərē,inˈkwī(ə)rē/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: inquiry; plural noun: inquiries; noun: enquiry; plural noun: enquiries

an act of asking for information.
"a reporter from New York makes inquiries"
h
Similar:
question
query
investigation
examination
exploration
probe
search
scrutiny
scrutinization
study
inspection
inquest
hearing
an official investigation.
"he was one of the State's star witnesses in the murder inquiry"

It's a process of gathering information to determine whether to move forward with impeachment.

Who did you say was lying again?

I could type it slower for you I'd that would help.

The liberal media.

As announced in Wilkinson v. United States,[7] a Congressional committee must meet three requirements for its subpoenas to be "legally sufficient." First, the committee's investigation of the broad subject area must be authorized by its chamber;

No vote, not authorized. No subpoena power.

Pelosi said they didn't need a vote to make it formal. I can't find anything that says otherwise. Link?

“Official impeachment inquiries are initiated by the adoption of a House resolution empowering or creating a committee or task force to undertake such activities,” McCaul continued. “In both the Nixon and Clinton cases, the Judiciary Committee debated and reported a resolution authorizing the Judiciary Committee to investigate whether there were sufficient grounds to impeach the President, which was then debated and voted on by the full House of Representatives. There have been no such debates or votes in this Congress.”

That's what they are doing now. First stage.

lol Erik reminds me of stephen miller, trying so hard but not making anything better.

It's sort of telling .... there isn't anything about how Trump DIDN'T try to coerce a foreign government and withhold support in order for them to dig dirt on a political opponent. . . . it's all claims about how the Whistle blower is biased, or heard all this (from 5 sources) second hand, or how the whistle blower contacted Schiff, or how the impeachment inquiry wasn't correct procedure ....

What a joke the Trump faithful are. Never mind the facts, never mind the new Low that Trump has taken the country to.... support their man, more important than the truth or Country.

Meanwhile Manafort - a schister who ripped off the USA with his double dealings and tax evasion .... and gets Trump's full backing as a great guy.

like i said bro, replace the name trump with obama, and we all know how Erik and the rest of them would react. replace the name trump with hillary, and we know how the GOP and fox news will react.

... but it sounds (to me) like they don't have subpoena power until a vote is taken.

FEC chairwoman reiterates illegality of soliciting campaign help from foreign governments

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/46...paign-help-from

Any republican/MAGA hatter trying to claim it wasnt to get dirt on a political rival for the upcoming election is a bold face liar.

like it was stated previously, Trump could've went to the FBI, CIA, pentagon, etc to investigate this, but he DIDN'T. he got his personal lawyer to dig up dirt, and then put the communication records into a top secret classified server for the sole intention of no one finding out about the call.

that isn't for corruption purposes. that IS corruption. Trump is a crook, and way worse than Nixon.

and then there's this:

Republicans Signed Letter Supporting The Ukraine Reforms Biden Was Pushing

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/joe-biden-republican-support-letter-ukraine-175523001.html

lol

hope he's better looking.




"Trump henchman and sociopathic hard-boiled egg Stephen Miller..."
-SColbert

Pelosi rebuts GOP call to end Trump impeachment inquiry

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) shot down House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) call for Democrats to suspend the impeachment inquiry, noting in a written response that President Trump hours earlier had publicly asked China to investigate one of his political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“As you know, our Founders were specifically intent on ensuring that foreign entities did not undermine the integrity of our elections," Pelosi wrote to McCarthy.

"I received your letter this morning shortly after the world witnessed President Trump on national television asking yet another foreign power to interfere in the upcoming 2020 elections,” she continued. “We hope you and other Republicans share our commitment to following the facts, upholding the Constitution, protecting our national security, and defending the integrity of our elections at such a serious moment in our nation’s history.”

Pelosi also wrote in her letter that there is not a requirement under the Constitution or House rules, or under House precedent, that the House hold a vote before proceeding with an impeachment inquiry.

McCarthy earlier on Thursday had argued the inquiry should not move forward without members establishing “equitable rules and procedures.”

“I should hope that if such an extraordinary step were to be contemplated a fourth time it would be conducted with an eye towards fairness, objectivity, and impartiality. Unfortunately, you have given no clear indication as to how your impeachment inquiry will proceed — including whether key historical precedents or basic standards of due process will be observed,” he wrote.

The exchange comes a week after Pelosi announced her support for a formal impeachment inquiry to look into allegations from a whistleblower who submitted a complaint on Trump’s interactions with Ukraine.

The report accused Trump of pressuring Ukraine's president to investigate Biden, something underscored by a reconstructed transcript of the phone conversation released by the White House. It also alleged that administration officials sought to cover up the call.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/464276-pelosi-rebuts-gop-call-to-end-trump-impeachment-inquiry

Well that puts the 'no subpoena power' line to bed.

Trump mentioned Biden, Warren in June call with Chinese president: report

President Trump mentioned Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on a June call with China's president Xi Jinping, CNN reported Thursday, citing two people familiar.

Trump reportedly told Xi during the conversation that he would stay quiet about protests in Hong Kong while the U.S. and China pursued trade negotiations.

The record of the call was stored in a secure electronic system where his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was also kept, CNN reported.

Trump on Thursday publicly encouraged China to look into Biden.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administrat...inese-president

j/c

You know, I get it, Trump just doesn't know any better. Dude is a sleaze ball wanna be mob boss, all he knows how to do is fight dirty. It's not his fault that doing these things as POTUS are unethical, morally bankrupt and grounds for impeachment. If you aren't trying to cheat you aren't trying to win.

Former U.S. diplomat says he warned Giuliani about peddling Biden conspiracy theory

https://news.yahoo.com/giuliani-given-ba...-222831277.html

lord.....Giuliani and Trump are the epitome of a self-fulfilling prophecy. despite multiple people, most on their own team, telling them that their belief on biden is BS, they pursued it to the point that they themselves became the conspirators.

how poetic. cant wait to find out whats in those servers.

I respect how much time and effort you've put into this endless back & forth with multiple posters. It's pretty admirable. This latest post of yours is yet another great addition to a series of tangential rabbit holes, but it ultimately doesn't address the corrupt orange elephant in the room.

Lemme do this in the simplest of terms... not because I'm trying to insult your intelligence, but because it's the most direct way to get to the core of the story for all of us.

1. Donald Trump asked a foreign country to help him in his re-election efforts.
2. That is against the law.
3. Donald Trump admitted that his did this illegal thing.


Slam. Effing. Dunk.


Everything that happens after that phone call will happen because he did this illegal thing. Period.
The outcome of the proceedings are yet to be seen, but we already know he did this thing. Because he said he did it. He even produced documents that backed it up.

Have fun with all this tangential stuff all day long. It's your time/life to spend as you please. Just know that at day's end, Your Boy was accused of, and openly admitted to soliciting help from a foreign government to damage a domestic political rival in a national election.

Jesus, dude- this is the only story.
A sitting President actually did this. Right in front of us all. And then he said (in front of us all): "Yeah- I did it."

The second-worse Presidential Offender to ever face threat of impeachment merely spied on/stole from his political rival. That one kept his crimes within our shores, and resigned his post as President of the United States of America, rather than have the depths of his transgressions exposed. It took 2 decades for America to get the full story. He was America's worst, to date. His infamy is now immortalized with the scandal-implied suffix "-gate."

As corrupt and reprehensible as Richard Milhous Nixon was, he never solicited help from foreign countries to aid his election bid. Dolt45 has now done this with THREE foreign countries, to date- and counting. All of these communiques are on the record. Officially.

It really doesn't matter where these Palus Politicus threads lead. The standing POTUS leveraged a smaller, weaker country to engage in illegal activities to help him win election. He propositioned two other 1st world nations to help him achieve that same end.

These are facts.
Facts still matter to most of us.

American History will remember this man as worse than Nixon. Because daily facts are being recorded into the public record. You will be on record as actively supporting a man who placed our entire nation at risk for his own personal gain.

I'm OK with being on the public record where this man is concerned.
I'm also OK with how you will be remembered.

#criminalminds

"Lemme do this in the simplest of terms... not because I'm trying to insult your intelligence, but because it's the most direct way to get to the core of the story for all of us.

1. Donald Trump asked a foreign country to help him in his re-election efforts.
2. That is against the law.
3. Donald Trump admitted that his did this illegal thing."

Same as you said, but didn't want to quote the whole thing.

1. Trump asked an ally to assist in the criminal investigation of a US citizen who committed a crime in that country.
2. That person happened to be a duly elected executive officer of this country in the 2nd most senior position of the administration.
3. It appears this executive officer was involved in a bribery or pay to play type of crime, securing a large payout of money for his son, so the bribe did not go to the officer directly.
4. There is a pattern of this crime happening more than once in different countries.
5. One of those countries got a deal that greatly benefited them.
6. That officer appeared to threaten one of those countries with witholding promised funds unless they fire the prosecutor investigating that officer's son.
7. The formerly fired prosecutor has testified under oath under penalty of perjury in a European court that he was told by his superiors that he was fired due to that threat.
8. That officer is currently running for the top executive position in the country.
9. The US does not have jurisdiction to conduct investigations in these foreign countries, but does have a mutual cooperation treaty on judicial matters with one of them.
10. The former executive officer bragged willingly on tape that he got that prosecutor fired.
11. The prosecutor's coworkers have given sworn afidavids that the fired prosecutor was not corrupt.

Should we let Biden run and investigate later?

According to the Ukraine, Biden nor his son committed a crime.

According to the former Ukrainian government. According to the new one, they assisted Hitlery in manufacturing dirt on Trump to help the dems. The new government has apologized to the Trump administration for the treatment of Trump under the former government.

fake news. And your boy just asked China to investigate Biden live on the tube. Sounds like he wants to be impeached because he can’t handle the heat for the stupid deplorable crap he says and does.

Yeah, ok.

We write to follow up on Senator Grassley’s July 20, 2017 letter, which highlighted brazen efforts by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign to use the government of Ukraine for the express purpose of finding negative information on then candidate Trump in order to undermine his campaign. That letter also highlighted news reports that, during the 2016 presidential election, “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump” and did so by “disseminat[ing] documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggest[ing] they were investigating the matter[.]” Ukrainian officials also reportedly “helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers.”
The senators aren’t relying on reports from conservative bloggers. The quotations come from a 2017 story in Politico, hardly a pro-Trump outfit. “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire,” read the headline on the article by Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern. “Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton,” said the subhead of the article, which was published shortly before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

The authors reported that Ukrainian government officials “helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers” with the goal of “advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clinton-and-ukraine-11569881729

Texts show diplomats pressed Ukraine on Biden before Trump meeting

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/46433...cussing-ukraine

House Democrats late Thursday released text message exchanges between several Trump administration officials that they argued underscored the administration's efforts to pressure Ukraine to pursue investigations into President Trump's political rivals.

The text message exchanges show administration officials indicating that a meeting between the Ukrainian president and Trump was contingent on investigations requested by the U.S., and in one case raising concerns about the delay of military aid for Ukraine.

The exchanges broadly highlight the extent to which the Trump administration pushed for Ukraine to take up investigations related to the 2016 election and former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential contender. The issue is at the heart of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry against Trump.


"These text messages reflect serious concerns raised by a State Department official about the detrimental effects of withholding critical military assistance from Ukraine, and the importance of setting up a meeting between President Trump and the Ukrainian President without further delay," the Democratic chairs of three House panels wrote in a letter to colleagues.

“He also directly expressed concerns that this critical military assistance and the meeting between the two presidents were being withheld in order to place additional pressure on Ukraine to deliver on the President’s demand for Ukraine to launch politically motivated investigations,” they added.

House Intelligence Committee Chairmen Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) released the dozen text messages as part of their impeachment probe.

The messages were provided by Kurt Volker, who served as the special envoy to Ukraine until his resignation last Friday, and they were released after lawmakers conducted a joint deposition with Volker for nearly ten hours behind closed doors on Thursday.

The text exchanges involve Volker, top Ukrainian embassy official Bill Taylor, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and Ukrainian official Andriy Yermak.

A few of the exchanges show that Trump officials indicated to the Ukrainians that a meeting with Trump would be contingent on whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to look into matters related to the 2016 election and Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company that employed Joe Biden's son, Hunter.

“Heard from White House—assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / ‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington,” Volker wrote to Yermak on the morning of July 25, just before Trump’s call with Zelensky.

On Aug. 9, Volker and Sondland discussed a possible White House visit and having Yermak draft a statement showing what Ukraine planned to cover, an apparent reference to the investigations Trump sought.

The next day, Yermak told Volker that he wanted confirmation of a date to visit the White House before making such a statement.

In another text message exchange on Sept. 9, Taylor and Sondland discussed the administration’s delay of military aid for Ukraine. Taylor warned that the move had “shaken [the Ukrainians’] faith in us.”

“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” Taylor added.

Sondland replied that he believed Taylor was "incorrect about President Trump's intentions," saying he felt Trump had no intention of a "quid pro quo" and that he was merely trying to see if Zelensky would adopt the reforms he campaigned on.

The text messages highlight efforts across the U.S. government to get Ukraine to conduct investigations desired by Trump, efforts that involved multiple State Department officials and wrapping in the president’s personal attorney.

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has admitted he was on Trump's July 25 call with the Ukrainian president, and a rough White House transcript showed Trump brought up Attorney General William Barr during the conversation with Zelensky.

The July call was the subject of a whistleblower complaint released last week. The call and the complaint spurred the launch of the formal impeachment inquiry in the House.

Democrats have seized on Trump’s public acknowledgement that he wanted foreign governments to investigate one of his chief political rivals ahead of the 2020 election, arguing it is evidence the president has abused his office for personal gain.

Trump on Thursday morning told reporters that he felt Ukraine should launch a “major” investigation into the Bidens, and suggested China should also probe the former vice president.

Trump and his allies have defended the president’s conduct, arguing that he was merely interested in rooting out corruption and suggesting it was fair to investigate any impropriety involving the Bidens.

Biden as vice president had pushed for Ukraine to oust its then-prosecutor general for failing to properly investigate corruption in the country. The prosecutor general had at one time looked into the founder of Burisma, the gas company where Hunter Biden worked on the board.

There is no evidence either Biden committed any wrongdoing.

The chairmen of the three House committees leading the impeachment probe said they wanted to publicly release the text messages Thursday "in order to help correct the public record."

Schiff, Engel and Cummings said they hope to make public "the full body of the materials" after further review to remove any personally identifiable information.

Volker testified in a closed setting with House lawmakers for hours on Thursday, with the reception split along party lines.

Democrats felt the testimony from Trump's former Ukraine envoy underscored the need to press on with their impeachment inquiry, while Republicans dismissed the testimony as theatrics.

Earlier Thursday, Republicans who attended the deposition argued that the messages did not show that Trump was dangling military aid to pressure Ukraine.

“There are text messages that make it absolutely, crystal clear — without any shadow of a doubt — that there was no quid pro quo whatsoever, and it was known as a policy of the United States government,” said Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.).

Volker is the first of several witness depositions with current and former State Department officials that Democrats are seeking. They're currently scheduled to depose Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, next Friday.

They are also seeking depositions with Sondland, Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent and State Department counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl. But those interviews are in flux after Pompeo warned the committee chairmen earlier this week that they would not appear for the depositions due to insufficient time to prepare.

In the meantime, the House Intelligence Committee is scheduled to receive a briefing on Friday from the intelligence community inspector general about the preliminary review of a whistleblower complaint about Trump's efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden.

"Based on the first production of materials, it has become immediately apparent why Secretary Pompeo tried to block these officials from providing information," Schiff, Engel and Cummings wrote Thursday.

I’ll reply on Erik’s behalf... Whatabout Biden’s son’s Hillary email server Obama first?

Russia, Ukraine, and Jina....if you’re listening?

don't worry, i'm sure we'll get a link to some rush limbaugh book that tells us whats REALLY going on.

Email Leak Exposes Trump Tower Russian’s Dirty Lobbying Operations

https://news.yahoo.com/email-leak-exposes-trump-tower-100130290.html

hey guys, good read here. interesting stuff.

Talk about corruption...lol




LONDON—The identity of the U.S. government’s star witness in a high-profile trial—who subsequently fell out of a fifth-story Moscow window—was compromised in the course of a pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign run by Natalia Veselnitskaya, according to leaked emails.

The Russian lawyer who took part in the infamous Trump Tower meeting with senior Trump campaign officials was part of a secretive campaign on American soil that—according to the emails—may also have involved contempt of court and the violation of lobbying laws. She already has been indicted by the Southern District of New York on obstruction of justice charges.

A cache of emails obtained by the Dossier Center, which is a Russian opposition organization based in London, exposes the depth of foreign asset entanglement in Trump’s America at the precise moment that the president’s dealings with Ukrainian officials threaten to pull the Department of Justice and State Department into an unseemly impeachment fight.

The leaked emails offer an unprecedented look into the cynical world of Russia’s remorseless influence campaign within the U.S. Veselnitskaya was representing a company called Prevezon, which was facing an American trial over a $230 million fraud that began in Russia and implicated the Russian authorities.

An American law firm that had been working for Prevezon at the direction of Veselnitskaya was barred from the case by an extremely rare writ of mandamus handed down by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals because of conflict of interest with a former client. Emails suggest BakerHostetler, a major U.S. law firm that has also worked for The Daily Beast and its parent company IAC, continued to operate as a kind of shadow counsel in what would have been a clear breach of the court order.

Other emails suggest another court order was violated when the testimony given by a Russian witness leaked, endangering his life before he was due to return to New York to give evidence at the trial.

It was later reported in the Russian media that the witness—Nikolai Gorokhov—had fallen five floors from an apartment building in Moscow. He survived with a fractured skull. He said his fall was no accident, but could not remember exactly what happened.

Cristy Phillips, a former U.S. government prosecutor with the Southern District of New York (SDNY) who worked on the case, said she fears that the emails shared with The Daily Beast indicate deep corruption hidden within the American legal system.

“The integrity of our judicial system depends on lawyers upholding their obligations as officers of the court. Most fundamentally, if a court issues an order, lawyers have to follow it and make sure that others on their side follow it. There were numerous senior lawyers on these emails and they all clearly violated a Second Circuit court order. And these were not inexperienced lawyers, several of them are former Department of Justice attorneys,” she told The Daily Beast.

“We're talking about a case where witnesses had died and other witnesses' lives and safety had been threatened. These were not low-stakes decisions.”

A WITNESS AT RISK

The cache of emails that detail Veselnitskaya’s legal campaign and lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., were shared with The Daily Beast by the Dossier Center, which is funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of Putin’s most prominent exiled critics.

The emails cannot be independently verified by The Daily Beast via a digital signature but elements contained within them including cell phone numbers, bank details, planning, email addresses, and hearing dates can be confirmed by cross-checking with subsequent court papers, lobbyist filings and other reporting.

Emails from the same leak led to an indictment against Veselnitskaya, who has known Kremlin links, that was filed by prosecutors from the SDNY earlier this year. U.S. government officials obtained the emails—first published by the Dossier Center and NBC—which suggest that Veselnitskaya conspired directly with Russian officials to mislead an American court.

Line Between Trump Tower Meet Lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya and Moscow Gets Even Blurrier

When Veselnitskaya was confronted with some of the Dossier Center emails on camera by NBC, she confirmed that she recognized some of the documents. She later told Russia’s Interfax news agency that her emails had been hacked.

New emails from the same cache, which includes messages from and to Veselnitskya and her aide and translator Murat Glashev, shed light on Veselnitskaya’s lobbying and legal campaign against the Magnitsky Act and appear to suggest that it may have been carried out in breach of another U.S. law and court orders.

Some of the emails suggest the breaking of an order put in place by a New York court to protect the identity of Gorokhov, a Russian witness who testified in a sealed deposition. His evidence was hidden amid fears of reprisals back home.

According to the Dossier Center leak, Veselnitskaya’s lawyer, Mark Cymrot, wrote a series of emails concerned that his Russian client may have allowed details of Gorokhov’s testimony to be passed on after she was granted access to the testimony under U.S. discovery laws—but only under tight restrictions.

The emails suggest Gorokhov’s secret deposition was leaked to Andrei Nekrasov, a Russian filmmaker who was making a pro-Kremlin movie against the Magnitsky Act at the time.

According to an email dated April 17, 2016, Cymrot says to Veselnitskaya: “[Nekrasov] was using part of Gorokhov’s deposition and separately he said we showed him non-public information … we are under court order to keep [Gorokhov’s] deposition and name confidential.”

Nekrasov told The Daily Beast that he does not have this material in his possession. “Neither Mark nor myself have done anything illegal, or just wrong, professionally or morally,” he said. “I do not recall anyone sharing any confidential material from that case with me.”

Cymrot did not answer detailed questions put to him by The Daily Beast.

Preet Bharara, who was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York at the time, was so concerned about Gorokhov’s safety that he submitted a letter to the judge under seal in October 2015 requesting additional measures to protect him. Bharara informed the court that “Mr. Gorokhov and his family are temporarily staying in the United States due to well founded concerns that they could be endangered by individuals in Russia seeking to prevent Mr. Gorokhov from testifying.”

“It's totally unacceptable that that information got out,” Phillips said. “It is on the record that the government took extraordinary measures to protect him. But at the end of the day, we could only protect him insofar as the defense respected the court order that said the information was highly confidential and should be shared with no one.” It is not suggested that any leaked information from the case led to Gorokhov's fall.

The civil forfeiture case in question concerned allegations of money laundering by a company called Prevezon accused by American prosecutors of disposing of some of the proceeds of a $230 million dollar fraud in Russia. The defendant, Prevezon, eventually settled the case, paying $5.9 million.

The alleged fraud took on major geopolitical significance after the lawyer who uncovered it, Sergei Magnitsky, died in Russian custody amid allegations that the Russian state and its criminal accomplices had tried to cover it up. The Magnitsky Act, which sanctioned the individuals involved, was named in his honor after former client and fraud victim Bill Browder, a U.S.-born hedge-fund CEO, launched a global campaign for justice.

“THE ADOPTION ISSUE”

The emails also reveal new details about Veselnitskaya’s efforts to have America’s Magnitsky sanctions overturned on behalf of Moscow. The sanctions in question were targeted against corrupt Russian officials by the Magnitsky Act, which had infuriated President Vladimir Putin.

In retaliation for the Magnitsky Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2012, Putin banned American adoptions of Russian babies. It was supposedly to discuss the so-called “adoption issue” Veselnitskaya met in Trump Tower with Jared Kushner, Don Jr. and Paul Manafort, who was chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign at the time.

Overturning the Magnitsky Act was one of Putin’s top foreign policy goals at the time, and spawned an extensive lobbying and public relations effort.

Leaked emails between Veselnitskaya and her American lawyers raise a number of potential legal issues in their campaign.

BakerHostetler, a major firm that represents Major League Baseball and was briefly hired by House Republicans to sue President Barack Obama, never registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to cover the work for Veselnitskaya and Prevezon. FARA registration is required to operate on behalf of foreign principals and a leading lobbying expert said the emails appeared to show that Baker did provide strategic and communications advice to Veselnitskaya and her employer, Denis Katsyv, who owns Prevezon.

Russian Official Linked to Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Trump Tower Lawyer, Is Dead

On May 30, 2016, an email suggests Cymrot wrote to Veselnitskaya to prepare for an upcoming congressional hearing at which she would give evidence. “Do you want us to prepare your written statement or at least the first draft? We also should prepare you for the questions.”

After the hearing, which took place in June 2016 during the trip to the United States when Veselnitskaya went to Trump Tower, Cymrot reached out again according to a leaked email to say that one of his colleagues had written a draft of Veselnitskaya’s supplementary evidence to the committee. According to a leaked email dated July 27, he followed up to say that he had made some edits personally, and could deliver the document to Congress on her behalf.

“Here you have multiple pieces of evidence that would seem to trigger registration under FARA,” said Brendan Fischer, the director of federal reforms at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit that scrutinizes campaign finance and ethics. “These emails and documents certainly raise serious questions about whether Cymrot and BakerHostetler violated FARA by failing to register.”

BakerHostetler declined to comment.

Another part of the lobbying effort included an attempt to recruit Sen. Jeff Sessions, according to the leaked emails. Sessions had become the first senior Republican to formally endorse Trump in the presidential race in February. He would go on to be named U.S. Attorney General once Trump was elected.

Rinat Ahkmetshin, a former Soviet counterintelligence officer and Washington lobbyist, boasted that he had recruited the Alabama senator to launch an investigation into U.S. sanctions against Russia, according to a leaked email from Cymrot.

Akhmetshin reportedly was hired by Prevezon before he started to get paid by an ostensible human rights NGO, which BakerHostetler and Akhmetshin helped to set up.

THE JEFF SESSIONS CLAIM

The leaked emails suggest Cymrot wrote to Veselnitskaya on April 17, 2016 to outline their progress: “Rinat has told us that Senator Jeff Sessions is willing to start an investigation into how the Magnitsky Law came about.”

After denying any 2016 contact with Russian officials during his attorney general confirmation hearing, Sessions admitted that he had failed to disclose meetings with the Russian ambassador. His story about whether he discussed the election with Sergei Kislyak changed over the months but even by October 2017—when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and confirmed his meetings with Kislyak—he was still adamant that he had not discussed the sanctions with anyone. “I don't believe I've ever had any discussion at any time about the Magnitsky Act,” he said, under oath.

Sessions, who was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, never did publicly call for an investigation into the Magnitsky Act.

Sessions’ lawyer Charles Cooper told The Daily Beast that Sessions "has no recollection of the matters discussed in the emails that you referenced. Nor do any of the people who were the relevant members of his Senate staff in 2016. Neither he nor his Senate staff recall meeting any of the people referenced in the email you sent. And he certainly did not pursue any kind of hearings or other inquiry into the Magnitsky Act, which he cosponsored in 2011.”

Another arm of the pro-Kremlin lobbying effort was orchestrated by an ostensible NGO called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation (HRAGIF).

At the end of April 2016, emails suggest a BakerHostetler invoice addressed to HRAGIF described professional services worth $111,387.45 which included issues relating to the Magnitsky list, which named the sanctioned individuals, “review and markup materials regarding issues with Magnitsky Act,” and “materials for Congressional committee.” It also included numerous line items on time spent discussing “lobbying registration requirements” and “review of … FARA requirements,” as well as drafting the “certificate of incorporation” to set up HRAGIF in the first place.

According to a leaked email dated July 14, 2016, Cymrot wrote to Veselnitskya to explain the invoices. “Natalia: I am attaching the HRAGIF and Prevezon matter,” the email says. “It now contains 5 months of Baker time, which is largely support for the public relations effort.”

“It seems that the purpose in creating this nonprofit was to avoid registration under FARA, and they would not be the first law firm to try and use that tactic to avoid registration,” Fischer, from the Campaign Legal Center, told The Daily Beast. “That's what Manafort did on behalf of the Ukrainian political party and it's also what helped lead to the charges against him because the evidence showed—and he knew—that the beneficiary of his activities was actually the Ukrainian political party not this innocuously named sham non-profit.”

Paul Manafort was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on a raft of charges that stemmed from the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in U.S. politics.

BROWDER, FOR AND AGAINST

Before working with Veselnitskaya for Prevezon, BakerHostetler previously had been engaged by Browder, a major target of Veselnitskaya and the Kremlin. BakerHostetler’s John Moscow had signed up in September 2008 to help Browder bring a U.S. prosecution over the $230 million fraud even before Magnitsky was arrested in Russia. He met with the U.S. Department of Justice in December of that year to lay out the entire criminal enterprise.

Five years later, by the time the DOJ finally acted against the Russian fraud when the Southern District of New York (SDNY) filed a forfeiture and money laundering claim against Prevezon in September 2013, BakerHostetler was about to effectively switch sides.

In October 2013, John Moscow appeared in court on behalf of Prevezon, having previously advised Browder’s Hermitage, the alleged victim of the fraud implicating Prevezon. Crossing over to fight for the other side in a legal battle is not allowed under U.S. law. Browder’s lawyers filed a complaint, which would ricochet through the courts for the next three years until the Second Circuit Court of Appeals eventually disqualified BakerHostetler from serving as counsel to Prevezon in October 2016.

When handing down the disqualification, the judge explained why BakerHostetler must not be allowed to represent Prevezon after working so closely with Browder, who was now being accused of wrongdoing. “The danger here is not limited to BakerHostetler overtly using confidences in the litigation. There is a risk that BakerHostetler, while not explicitly using confidences, may use such confidences to guide its defense of Prevezon in other ways.”

Emails apparently sent to and from lawyers at BakerHostetler, however, suggest that the law firm continued to serve Prevezon as a kind of shadow counsel even after the disqualification.

Once that ruling had been handed down, leaked emails indicate that in November 2016 Cymrot at BakerHostetler suggested an alternative lawyer who could be hired by Veselnitskaya to work for Prevezon. In an email sent five months later, Cymrot said BakerHostetler had still discussed the case “on a regular basis” and would continue to hold “team” meetings with the new counsel.

Despite being disqualified from taking part in the case, the emails suggest BakerHostetler helped draft the settlement with the U.S. government in May 2017 and even acted as a go-between passing on messages and an invoice from the new lawyer, Mike Hess. Hess did not respond to questions from The Daily Beast. BakerHostetler was asked about this and other allegations, but did not respond.

A second new lawyer also joined the team. At the time, Faith Gay was working for Quinn Emanuel, the U.S. law firm that also replaced BakerHostetler in the Republican case against Obama when staff at Baker raised fears that the case was too heavily partisan.

Emails indicate that she also continued to work with the disqualified BakerHostetler firm. According to a leaked email dated May 1, 2017 she wrote to Veselnitskaya and her colleague Glashev, reassuring them that she was still working closely with BakerHostetler. “The judge removed Baker from the case. We have been trying to talk with them informally as much as possible.”

Gay declined to comment.

When faced with possible disclosure of emails later that year, one of Gay’s associates emailed Veselnitskaya on August 16, 2017 raising concerns that, “Disclosure could also result in a question being raised about Baker representing Prevezon’s interests well beyond the district court’s disqualification of them as Prevezon’s counsel.”

The issue could be particularly sensitive because Prevezon’s defense effectively accused Browder of committing the fraud.

Former prosecutor Phillips said: “They violated the very essence of the order.”

Two questions. No links. Just answer.

Do you believe in the rule of law and the Constitution?


Do you that any president is above the law?

I don't, I believe Obama and Holder should be held accountable for the deaths caused by 'Fast and Furious'!

Senator says he was blocked by Trump from telling Ukraine foreign aid was coming

https://news.yahoo.com/senator-says-blocked-trump-telling-210341363.html

Anybody else notice what republicans are starting to do? Little by little, they give small criticisms of the president, but just enough to pull back if the impeachment inquiry turns another direction. However, more and more republicans are now showing cracks in that big red wall of theirs.

A Trump appointee at the CIA urged the Justice Department to investigate Trump on Ukraine

https://www.vox.com/world/2019/10/4/20899398/trump-ukraine-cia-doj-whistleblower

The CIA’s top lawyer sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department based on the now-famous whistleblower’s complaint about President Donald Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine. And no, that lawyer isn’t some deep-state conspiracist out to thwart the president: She’s a Trump appointee.

According to NBC News on Friday, CIA general counsel Courtney Simmons Elwood and another top official called the Justice Department on August 14 to make a criminal referral — weeks before the whistleblower complaint had become public.

“On that call, Elwood and John Eisenberg, the top legal adviser to the White House National Security Council, told the top Justice Department national security lawyer, John Demers, that the allegations merited examination by the DOJ, officials said,” NBC News reports.

The DOJ, however, reportedly didn’t consider that to be an official referral because it came in a call, not in writing. (This is important, as you’ll see in just a minute.) As such, the DOJ didn’t look any further into the allegations that Elwood was so concerned about.

In other words, they dropped it.

The Justice Department would eventually look into the allegations made in the whistleblower complaint a bit later after receiving a different criminal referral, this one from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (and apparently in writing, luckily).

That referral was “based solely on the whistleblower’s official written complaint.” This is a really important point, because, as NBC News explains, “Justice Department officials have said they only investigated the president’s Ukraine call for violations of campaign finance law because it was the only statute mentioned in the whistleblower’s complaint.”

So DOJ looked into this whistleblower complaint and determined in September that there is no need for a full-blown criminal probe into Trump’s actions because that specific law — campaign finance — wasn’t broken, thus effectively closing the inquiry.

Now here’s the kicker: The CIA’s criminal referral wasn’t about campaign finance law, according to NBC News.

This means DOJ essentially ignored the CIA criminal referral — which apparently included concerns that other laws besides campaign finance law may have been broken — all because it was made over the phone.

The episode calls into serious question just how thorough the Justice Department was when determining whether to start a formal investigation into the president’s actions on Ukraine.

____________

Is AG Barr’s constant interference to defend trump his sole reason for existing? The evidence says yes.

Now trump is calling for mitt Romney’s impeachment

You can't fix stupid.

Bro he woke up and started tweeting some absolutely insane nonsense.

Trump told House Republicans that he made Ukraine call because of Perry: Report

https://thehill.com/homenews/administrat...call-because-of

Lol, always someone else’s fault.

Deny, deflect, distract.

Did Fox News Just End Trump's Presidency?

I got this....yes and no.

But when it comes to trump it’s no and yes. Then the sudden whatabout Obama reply is compulsory. Proving the whole trump presidency is a white backlash on the majority voters in the USA.

White House ordered to preserve evidence about Trump's dealings with foreign leaders

A federal judge has ordered the White House to preserve records of President Trump's "meetings, phone calls, and other communications with foreign leaders," a move that comes as the president faces a formal impeachment inquiry over his interactions with Ukraine.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an appointee of former President Obama, issued the directive on Thursday.

The order — which stemmed from a lawsuit filed in May by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, as well as the National Security Archive and the Society for the History of American Foreign Relations — also called on the Trump administration to preserve “all records of efforts by White House or other executive branch officials to return, ‘claw back,’ ’lock down’ or recall White House records."

Politico first reported the judge's decision late Saturday.

The suit was filed months before Trump's interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky became the subject of a whistleblower complaint within the intelligence community.

The civil suit, filed against Trump and the Executive Office of the President, accused the White House of failing to follow the Presidential Records Act, a law that governs the official records of the president.

Politico noted that lawyers pressed Jackson to issue a temporary restraining order in light of reports that the White House placed some of Trump's phone calls with foreign leaders onto a computer system not typically meant for those conversations.

Jackson denied the request on Wednesday, after the Justice Department made assurances that it would secure records of communications between Trump and foreign leaders. Justice Department lawyer Kathryn L. Wyer said in a two-page filing that the administration would “voluntarily agree . . . to preserve the material at issue," The Washington Post reported.

Just a day later, Jackson issued the directive ordering the White House to preserve a host of communications between Trump and foreign leaders.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

Trump is facing intensifying scrutiny over revelations about his efforts to encourage Ukraine into investigating 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son. A whistleblower complaint accusing Trump of a broad effort to enlist the foreign nation's help in his 2020 reelection campaign contributed to a formal impeachment inquiry in the House.

The complaint focuses in part on allegations about the White House's actions with regards to Trump's conversation with foreign leaders. Among other things, the complaint alleges that senior White House officials intervened to “lock down” records of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky. It also claims that White House officials were told by White House lawyers to move the electronic transcript onto a separate computer system “that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/administrat...s-dealings-with

Lawyer for Ukraine whistleblower says he represents second whistleblower on Trump's actions

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/06/politics/second-whistleblower-trump-ukraine/index.html


(CNN)The lawyer for the first intelligence whistleblower who came forward with accusations concerning President Donald Trump and his interactions with Ukraine said Sunday he is representing a second whistleblower regarding the President's actions.

Attorney Mark Zaid confirmed to CNN that he and other lawyers on his team are now representing the second person. Zaid told CNN that the second whistleblower is from the intelligence community and has spoken to the intelligence community's inspector general, but has not filed their own complaint and doesn't need to as anyone who speaks to inspector watchdog is considered to have made a protected disclosure and is a whistleblower under law.
Attorney Andrew Bakaj, also representing the whistleblowers, tweeted Sunday, "I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistleblowers in connection to the underlying August 12, 2019, disclosure to the Intelligence Community Inspector General. No further comment at this time."
Bakaj would not provide further details about how many people he and his colleagues are representing regarding the matter. Bakaj said right now there is just one complaint filed with the inspector general and that is including information from both persons.
ABC first reported Zaid's representation of the second person.
Reports of a second whistleblower comes as House Democrats ratchet up their impeachment inquiry centered on Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by issuing a subpoena to the White House and a documents request to Vice President Mike Pence.
The initial whistleblower's complaint alleged the President abused his official powers "to solicit interference" from Ukraine in the upcoming 2020 election, and that the White House took steps to cover it up. Trump has denied doing anything improper.
A White House-released transcript of a July call revealed Trump asked Ukraine's President to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden -- Trump's potential 2020 Democratic rival -- and his son, Hunter. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Biden.
The New York Times reported Friday that a second intelligence official with concerns and more direct knowledge regarding Trump's dealings with Ukraine was considering filing a whistleblower complaint. Zaid told CNN he didn't know if the second whistleblower he is representing is the same person referenced in the Times report.

this dude really hates Mitt Romney

Dudes picture is in the dictionary under hate.

Second whistleblower comes forward in Trump-Ukraine scandal

The latest whistleblower "has first-hand knowledge" of the events in question, the person’s attorney said.

A second whistleblower has come forward with information about President Donald Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine, according to attorneys representing that whistleblower and the intelligence official whose earlier complaint set off a series of events culminating in an impeachment inquiry.

The second whistleblower "has first-hand knowledge" of the events, according to attorney Mark Zaid.

The first complaint, filed in August with the intelligence community's inspector general, centered on a July 25 phone call during which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to look into why Ukraine's top prosecutor had apparently ended an investigation into a Ukrainian gas company that once employed former Vice President Joe Biden's son as a board member. House Democrats launched a formal impeachment inquiry last month as details of the conversation were made public.

Trump has publicly maintained that the call was "absolutely perfect" and "totally appropriate."

Text messages given to Congress Thursday and released by House Democrats suggest the call was part of a broader effort from Trump and his administration to pressure Ukraine.

The texts show U.S. ambassadors working to persuade Ukraine to publicly commit to investigating Trump’s political opponents and explicitly linking the inquiry to whether Ukraine’s president would be granted an official White House visit.

The messages offer the fullest picture to date of how top diplomats and Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani sought to advance Trump’s goal of getting the Ukrainians to investigate both meddling in the 2016 election and Hunter Biden.

The new details on how Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine unfolded came as the president publicly called for another foreign country — China — to probe one of his top political opponents.

Trump lashed out at the second whistleblower on Saturday amid a day-long effort at defending himself on Twitter.

"The first so-called second hand information 'Whistleblower' got my phone conversation almost completely wrong, so now word is they are going to the bench and another 'Whistleblower' is coming in from the Deep State, also with second hand info," Trump tweeted. "Meet with Shifty. Keep them coming!"

Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani responded to news of another whistleblower on Twitter Sunday morning, saying the "Swamp Media will corruptly fail to point out it means nothing, now that conversation is public."

And speaking with "Fox News Sunday," Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, said the latest whistleblower "does not matter."

"This person is going to come forward and say, yep the president had this phone call," Stewart, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said. "And yep, that's the transcript. Why should I care at all what his opinion and judgment of this transcript is? You and I can read it."

A White House summary of the July phone conversation, released last month, does not contradict the whistleblower complaint. The summary showed that Trump and Zelenskiy discussed military aid the U.S. provides Ukraine before Trump asked his counterpart for "a favor." The president then asked Zelesnkiy to investigate theories regarding Ukraine's involvement in the 2016 election and the Biden family.

In a formal complaint, the first whistleblower detailed how White House officials were so concerned about what the president said in that call that they intervened to "lock down" the record of the conversation. The whistleblower filed the complaint, which relied on the accounts of White House and other U.S. officials, out of a belief Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 election.

Trump has referred to the first whistleblower as "fake," adding that the complaint was "not holding up," though it was deemed credible by a Trump-appointed intelligence community inspector general, and was authored by someone who the Trump-appointed acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire told Congress last month had acted in "good faith."

The president and his top allies have zeroed in on Biden's 2016 call, backed by much of the international community, to remove Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor. Shokin, who had been widely accused of not doing enough to crack down on corruption, had been investigating Burisma, the scandal-plagued energy company affiliated with Biden's son Hunter. But earlier this year, Bloomberg News, citing documents and an interview with a former Ukrainian official, reported the Burisma investigation had been dormant for more than a year by the time Shokin was fired. In addition, former Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko has told news outlets he found no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden and his son.

Speaking with NBC's "Meet the Press," Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Republicans were going to "wild lengths" to avoid criticism from Trump.

"They shouldn’t be fearful of this president," he said. "If they vote to get rid of him, there’s nothing he can do to hurt them."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-i...candal-n1062961

j/c

I'm curious as to EXACTLY what is the impeachment-but-not-really-impeachment charge or crime going to be. Should be fun.

Yes, President Trump Violated Campaign Finance Law by Asking Ukraine for a “Favor”

https://campaignlegal.org/update/yes-pre...g-ukraine-favor

Former Reagan official rips Republicans for backing Trump: 'It's like the invasion of the body snatchers'

A former Reagan administration official railed against Republicans over the weekend for continuing to back President Trump as House Democrats pursue an impeachment inquiry.

During a segment on CNN’s "State of the Union," Linda Chavez, who previously served as the White House director of public liaison, said Republicans were “absolutely abrogating their duty” as tensions escalate over the impeachment inquiry.

"It's like the invasion of the body snatchers," Chavez said. "I don't know who these people are. I mean, they have so changed their tune. This is really serious," she said.

Chavez, who noted during the segment that she had previously identified as a Democrat before serving under former President Reagan, said she used to believe that “the Republican Party was devoted to the truth, that we believed in ideals."

"We were devoted to the Constitution," Chavez said. "And what I see happening now is people who are absolutely abrogating their duty.”

“They are putting politics first and they're scared. They're scared of Donald Trump,” she continued.

Her remarks echo similar sentiments from former CIA chief John Brennan, who said during a segment on NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday that Republican senators are "running scared" of Trump as talk of impeachment continues.

Brennan also called out Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) over his earlier appearance on the same program. Johnson and host Chuck Todd got into a heated back-and-forth during which Todd accused the senator of not answering his questions to "make Donald Trump feel better here that you're not criticizing him."

"Clearly Sen. Johnson is running scared of Donald Trump, as are the other Republican senators, because if they say anything against him, he comes after them with a vengeance," Brennan said later.

Brennan also said that Trump transformed into a "typical bully," adding that "it's clear that the Republicans in the Senate are just going along."

"I've had many issues with the Democrats over the years," Brennan also said. "But I have never seen anything like the Republicans right now, as far as just misrepresentations of the truth because of what Donald Trump has done."

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-...cking-trump-its

It's what a lot of us are seeing. I mean I have my differences with some Republican policies. I also have my differences with some Democratic policies. But when it came to both parties it was far more about the issues than the person. Presidents of both parties never acted like this. None of them were so brazen and nasty. None seemed to thumb their nose at the rule of law this way. Now they back the most disgusting human being anyone has ever seen as our president like they just don't care about all of the things they have claimed to stand for, for what has been decades now.

Could all these shenanigans, and all the BS ultimately lead to a more unified America when all is said and done.

When his replacement comes into office, and the people breathe a sign of relief. Could the country be better for it in the future?

All this stuff reads like a bad TV drama, I have to think it's all part of a bigger plan, whether it is to show us how bad things could be, and that they can get better, or to build up the angst now, so that later we have our guards down.

I don't honestly believe it will get better.

Trump is just bringing out the actual feelings of many people. He's the epitome of how so many people actually believe. He just brought it from under the woodwork to the forefront. I mean he's the same guy who tried to accuse Obama of being a Muslim born in Kenya. So anybody listening knew what they were getting. Yet they chose him out of a large field of qualified candidates. They preferred the one who called others names and screamed the loudest.

They sit there and blame Democrats for the Mueller investigation when it was a Republican who was appointed by Trump himself to his job that began the actual investigation by appointing Mueller as the special prosecutor and Mueller too is a Republican.

I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime.

So no, I just expect more name calling, more people spreading lies and saying things like, "the press is the enemy of the United states" and talking about anyone who stands up against him is a traitor or spy.

The animosity was bad before, but now it's at an all time high and I don't see that changing.

It's seriously time people like yourself and DC take your party back.

Glimmers of hope seeing some on the right waking up to what they've done.

Giuliani associates won't comply with House impeachment inquiry, attorney says

A pair of Soviet-born South Florida businessmen with ties to President Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, will not comply with congressional requests for documents and depositions as part of the House's formal impeachment inquiry into the president.

John Dowd, a former Trump attorney representing Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, told the Miami Herald that the two would not respond to a documents request by the Monday deadline. He added that neither of the individuals would appear for depositions scheduled for later this week.

Parnas and Fruman are facing scrutiny from multiple House committees as part of their investigation into revelations from a whistleblower that Trump sought to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.

As part of the inquiry, the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs committees subpoenaed Giuliani for documents related to the Trump administration's dealings with Ukraine. They also scheduled depositions with three of Giuliani's business associates, including Parnas and Fruman.

Giuliani has not said whether he will comply with the House's request. The committee gave him an Oct. 15 deadline to hand over documents.

The office of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Parnas's and Fruman's failure to comply.

Parnas and Fruman reportedly helped introduce Giuliani to officials within Ukraine's political circles. Parnas told the Miami Herald that he had information about alleged impropriety from Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, and that he used Giuliani as a vehicle to disclose the details.
“I got certain information and I thought it was my duty to hand it over,” he told the Herald on Sept. 26.

Parnas and Fruman are among the several individuals who have received documents and deposition requests as part of the House's impeachment inquiry.

A day before Dowd's comment, The Associated Press reported that the two were at the center of a push to persuade Ukraine to instal new management at the top of the country's state gas company.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administrat...achment-inquiry

smh

This is so obviously corrupt that of course none of these guys will want to comply with the inquiry. Lock them all up.

It is as simple as the House holding a vote to make this impeachment investigation legit.

Then BOTH sides can present their evidence, witnesses, and issue subpoenas.

It is called Due Process. That is American Justice.

As it is, one side has its hands tied, trying to make their case to a Press that won't listen while the other side has it their own way, with the Press supporting them.

That is called a Lynching. Dems are good at Lynchings and have done it for a century.

No low 2 low. Nothing wrong with what is going on except the tears from Trumpians. A vote won't change the fact that Trump commited this crime.

You gots you a crime???

Then you should urge your congressman to vote for impeachment!
Or at least vote for an official investigation.

We need to get to the bottom of this here!

They are still searching for a crime. 3 years in the term and still searching for a crime. It is a joke.

They're not looking for a crime, they're looking for votes.

They are trying to create a crime. It doesn't matter what it is as long as there is a perception of a crime. After that, they need a couple wimp republican house members and maybe a couple senators to vote with them on their bogus impeachment. Then they can scream to the heavens they had a bipartisan effort to remove Trump, and those horrible republicans wouldn't let them.

This is nothing more than political theater to get votes.

Just how badly did Trump screw-up his decision to let the Kurds be slaughtered by the Turks?

Just listen to a Trump ally...

Well there you go! Trump's losing the mandate of heaven. How will that help the Kurds?

Majority in new poll supports impeachment inquiry; almost half back Trump's removal from office

https://thehill.com/homenews/administrat...lmost-half-back

Support for impeachment has risen to 58% and 49% support Trumps removal via impeachment.

This poll was taken before Trump decided to pull troops out of Syria...such an unpopular decision on Trumps part that Republican Senators are joining with the Dems in criticizing Trump.

so basically trump's people were trying to make a crap ton of money and influence in ukraine, then tried to cover their tracks by making it about Biden.

you conservatives really found a way to make Bush seem like a great republican president. congrats, in all the worse ways imaginable.


AP's key findings about Ukraine gas deal Trump allies sought

https://news.yahoo.com/aps-key-findings-ukraine-gas-174439391.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press reported Monday that a circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted their connections to President Donald Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani as they sought to install new management at the top of Ukraine's state-owned gas company last spring. The intervention was happening while Giuliani was pressuring Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. But in this case, the aims were profit, not politics. Their plan hit a snag after the election of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but then U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry took up the effort to install a friendlier management team at the company, Naftogaz. Perry has denied any wrongdoing.

Among the AP's findings:

THE FLORIDA MEN: Two Soviet-born Florida businessmen who worked with Giuliani, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, leveraged political contacts made through hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to Republicans, including $325,000 to a Trump-allied PAC, to help pursue a business deal involving Naftogaz. With the men at a dinner In Houston was Florida GOP mega-donor and oil magnate Harry Sargeant III. According to two AP sources, their sales pitch was to force out the chief executive at the Ukrainian gas giant and replace him with a team that would carry out exclusive deals. The winners would be corporate entities controlled by Trump allies to profit from exporting U.S. liquefied natural gas into the war-torn former Soviet republic. A lawyer for Sargeant denies he was involved in any business dealings in Ukraine.

THE PRESIDENT'S LAWYER: During the same time period, Parnas and Fruman also served as fixers for Giuliani. They helped him set up meetings with key Ukrainian officials where President Trump's personal attorney pressed the country's government to open an investigation into Joe Biden. Trump himself later asked Zelenskiy in a July phone call to investigate the former Democratic vice president and his son. That request is now the focus of the impeachment inquiry by House Democrats.

THE TRUMP HOTEL MEETING: A couple weeks after the dinner in Houston, Parnas accompanied Giuliani to a meeting at the Trump International Hotel in Washington where the pursuit of energy deals in the former Soviet bloc was discussed, according to an AP source with knowledge of the conversation. Giuliani told the AP on Friday that the proposed deal involved Uzbekistan, not Ukraine.

THE AMBASSADOR: At both the Houston and Washington meetings, Parnas said Trump planned to remove U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and replace her with someone more open to aiding their business interests, according to three AP sources. She was recalled to Washington two months later. Giuliani confirmed to the AP he "did play a role" in replacing Yovanovitch.

THE PRESIDENT'S EX-LAWYER: John Dowd, a former Trump attorney who now represents Parnas and Fruman, told the AP in an interview Friday it was actually the Naftogaz executives who approached his clients about making a deal. Dowd says the group then presented the proposal to Perry to get the Energy Department on board. Perry confirms he spoke with Giuliani by phone, but a spokeswoman for the energy secretary declined to say when that call was or whether the two discussed Naftogaz.

THE KYIV MEETING: In a face-to-face meeting with Zelenskiy in May, Perry pressed the Ukrainian president to replace a key Naftogaz supervisory board that is supposed to help root out corruption, according to an AP source who was in the room. Perry then provided a list of suggested replacements that included Michael Bleyzer, a Ukrainian-American businessman who gave $20,000 to support the former Texas governor's 2010 reelection campaign.

THE ENERGY SECRETARY: Perry said Monday the Ukrainian government asked for a list of recommended advisers on energy issues, though he said he could not recall whether his political donor's name was on the list. The day before, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department confirmed Bleyzer was on the list.

THE PRESIDENT BLAMES PERRY: On Friday, Trump told a group of Republican lawmakers that it was Perry who had prompted the July phone call in which Trump asked Zelenskiy for a "favor" regarding Biden, according to an AP source familiar with the president's remarks. Trump said Perry had asked Trump to make the call to discuss "something about an LNG (liquefied natural gas) plant."

Let me explain how hypocritical this is.

When it came to Trump releasing his taxes, you all claimed, "There is no rule or law that requires this".

It was pointed out to all of you that every president for the last 50 years had released their taxes and that it was now the standard. But you didn't care because other presidents, longer than 50 years ago did not.

And now?

There have been three impeachment inquiries. Clinton, Nixon and Andrew Johnson. A vote was taken in the examples of both Clinton and Nixon. No vote was taken on Andrew Johnson.

There is no rule or law that states you must take a vote to proceed with a presidential impeachment inquiry. It's just an excuse for a cover up.

LOL...grow a back bone? We have a solid backbone. You are the ones with a wishbone.

President Trump is exactly what this country needed.

For the longest time people on both sides have said vote all of them out. Now we have a President thumbing his nose at them and telling them to go to hell and people are up in arms.

It really funny to watch.

The President isn't going to be removed from office, he is going to roll in the next election, and many, many Dems are the one's going to be "impeached" as they don't get re-elected.

That is the fury to try to remove the President from office. They know they don't have an electable candidate.

Who cares if he talked to the Ukraine President. I don't. It's no different then when Biden talked to the Ukraine President to get his son off the hook. That's politics.

Well, I'll give you points for honesty and owning your role. Other than that I think you are delusional.

Hey, we all have opinions my friend.

All's good. We agree.

First on CNN: Trump told Perry and State Department officials as early as May to talk to Giuliani about Ukraine

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/politics/trump-perry-giuliani-state-department/index.html

(CNN)President Donald Trump directed Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and two top State Department officials to deal with his private attorney Rudy Giuliani when the Ukrainian President sought to meet Trump, in a clear circumvention of official channels, according to two sources familiar with the conversation.

Trump believed Ukraine was still rampantly corrupt and said that if President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to meet with him, Giuliani would have to be convinced first, one source said.
"If they can satisfy Rudy, they can satisfy the President," a person familiar with the meeting said.
Trump's push to have Giuliani as gatekeeper is more direct than what was previously disclosed by one of the meeting's participants in his statement to the House last week. It also further demonstrates how significant Giuliani was in brokering access to the President regarding Ukraine policy and in passing messages to other administration officials.
A key accusation in the whistleblower's complaint that has prompted the impeachment probe into the President's dealings with Ukraine is that Giuliani, a private citizen, had been presenting to Ukraine a US policy different than that from US diplomats.
At the May 23 meeting, Perry, US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, then the State Department's special representative to Ukraine, were reporting back to Trump after they returned from Zelensky's inauguration.
Their goal was to tell Trump that they had a favorable impression of Zelensky and his government, and that he was a reformer who Trump should trust and engage with, according to three sources familiar with the meeting.
They were hoping to set up a meeting between Trump and Zelensky, the sources said. They believed Ukraine under Zelensky was a more trusted ally than previous Ukrainian regimes, and that a visit between Trump and Zelensky could demonstrate to the Russian government that the US embraced a free Ukraine, according to two of the sources.
Notably, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Washington on May 23 but he did not attend the meeting with Trump.
Perry had led the delegation who attended Zelensky's inauguration, and was a central figure in the May meeting with Trump.
It became clear to the Trump administration officials, the sources said, that they would have to deal with Giuliani.
Volker hinted last week in speaking to the House how central Giuliani was in the President's foreign policy approach to Ukraine.
"The President was very skeptical," Volker said to the House committees, describing what had happened when he, Sondland and Perry spoke to Trump. "In the course of that conversation, he referenced conversations with Mayor Giuliani."
"He was clearly receiving other information from other sources, including Mayor Giuliani, that was more negative, causing him to retain this negative view" of a corrupt Ukraine, Volker added.
The US officials then set out to correct the information feed coming into the President while realizing they would need to work with --and around -- Giuliani, according to the sources.
Two months later, during an interagency meeting, the Office of Management and Budget announced it would review whether Ukraine should receive $400 million in assistance from the US that had been set aside by Congress. The question on aid that arose later eventually became a major topic of conversation among Sondland, Volker and others.
Perry acknowledged speaking to Giuliani, according to an Energy Department spokesperson. The spokesperson didn't comment on the meeting itself or the substance of the conversations with Giuliani.
When asked if he had ever spoken to Perry about Ukraine, Giuliani responded by dismissing the question.
"Did Henry Kissinger ever call me about Ukraine," Giuliani wrote to CNN on Tuesday. "What about Colin Powell."
He then said that any information about his possible discussions with Perry would be privileged. He did not explain why.

They also made up the Biden rule. This is how a dictatorship works. Make up the rules as you go.

McConnell is using Biden’s own words from 1992, when George H.W. Bush was president and Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to explain why he intends to block President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court pick in an election year.

"The Senate will continue to observe the Biden Rule so that the American people have a voice in this momentous decision" on who to name to the court, McConnell said in a March 16 speech on the floor of the Senate.

McConnell went on to quote some words from then-Judiciary Chairman Biden to show why the Senate’s disagreement with Obama is "about a principle, not a person."

Yet it isn't an actual rule or law.

So you are saying Cotton Eyed Joe was embellishing another story when he said what he said?

So what does that have to do with Trump asking foreign governments to investigate his political rivals? Not only did he ask them to investigate Biden, but also to look into some wild conspiracy about Hillary's server.

You guys talk about TDS and you've all had HDS for going on a decade now.

Bait and switch is a very old con game used by carnival barkers like Trump forever and you just follow suit.

So let me get this straight. Trump wants to fight corruption but the only corruption he's fighting is what he claims comes from Biden and Hillary?

Mmmm hmmmmm....

It has "deflection" in common.... that's literally all they have

The President is the head of the Executive Branch of Government.
He has the FBI and Justice Departments answering to him.
It is his responsibility to have crimes investigated, no matter who the criminal is.

I suppose you would expect Trump to turn a blind eye if he spotted Liz Warren robbing a bank?

The Bidden investigation in Ukraine had already begun long before Trumps conversation with Ukraine's President.

Facts make you free.

It had actually already been finished and concluded before Trump had his conversation with the president of Ukraine.

Former Ukraine prosecutor says he saw no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-09-29/former-ukraine-prosecutor-says-no-wrongdoing-biden

There's no evidence for Trump's Biden-Ukraine accusations. What really happened?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-el...s-what-n1057851

So you can quit pretending Trump had anything other than political motivation in mind.

Honest question: When Biden, as VP, told Ukraine "I'll be with holding the Billion dollars in aid if you don't fire the prosecutor within 6 hours".....the prosecutor looking into his son's all of a sudden wonderful job.........what did he mean?

how many different ways must it be explained to you? the SAME prosecutor already said the investigation into the gas company started BEFORE biden's son was working for them. Hunter had nothing to do with that investigation.

Biden AND the EU wanted that prosecutor gone. and then republicans in the senate - some STILL in senate - signed a bipartisan letter supporting anti-corruption efforts in ukraine before trump was president.

learn to freaking read.

but once again, Arch will come back in a few days still parroting debunked nonsense.

Yeah, it was finished the day Biden had the Chief Prosecutor fired.

Context is everything. Many nations were trying to get that prosecutor removed. The United states and many other Western European officials were trying to get him removed for allowing corruption to flourish in Ukraine.

This wasn't an effort to get dirt on a political opponent. Intent is crucial here.

No, no actually it wasn't. But you've never been one to let facts get in your way so I won't bother with it.

Well at least you didn't try to say Biden didn't have the Chief Prosecutor fired.

You are getting there.

He and a lot of our lies were trying hard to get it done. And Joe came through!

So, many nations were trying to get that prosecutor removed due to corruption in other nations eyes. Do I have that right?

And all of a sudden, Biden decides to with hold a Billion dollars as the prosecutor was investigating Biden's son?

Ironic.


Hell, I wish my dad could set me up with a $50,000 a month job of which I had no clue about how to do the job.

Well some people comprehend that many nations who were our allies were trying to accomplish the e3xact same goal and some people want to twist it into something else.

Just like some believe Trump cares about corruption by only targeting his political opponents and nobody else.

I mean if you wish to bring up irony....

So, with holding the aid due to the prosecutors intention of looking into biden and his son is fine.

Got it. Colors? Shown.

lets not forget about paul manafort's connections to ukraine. man, Trump seems to know a bunch of people with ties there.

Trump-Ukraine scandal puts spotlight on Rudy Giuliani's business ties. Is he a 'foreign agent'?

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-ukraine-scandal-puts-spotlight-181623601.html

WASHINGTON — Rudolph Giuliani’s ties to Ukraine stretch back to at least 2008, when he announced that his firm was advising a former boxing champion who was running to be mayor of the capital city of Kiev.

Then, in 2017, about a year before President Donald Trump hired him to be his personal attorney, Giuliani Safety & Security began working for the city of Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine. Press releases described the firm as a consultant on Kharkiv's emergency response and security issues.

Giuliani’s emergence as a central figure in an effort to push Ukraine to investigate Trump’s potential presidential rival – a scandal that has led to an impeachment inquiry – has raised fresh questions about the former New York City mayor’s business ties and public appearances in Ukraine and other countries. One possible line of inquiry – and one that Senate Democrats have been pushing – is whether Giuliani's activities violate a federal law that requires Americans who work on behalf of foreign governments to register with the Justice Department.

This comes as the Justice Department has stepped up its use of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, an 80-year-old law that Democrats say Giuliani may be violating. Once toothless and antiquated, the statute found its way into the public consciousness in the last two years at the height of the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election and has been used to prosecute several people, including two men who once were close Trump advisers.

The ramped-up enforcement has dramatically changed the landscape not only for lobbyists for foreign governments, but also for others with foreign clients: international law firms, consultants and public relations specialists who, for years, have ignored FARA, experts say.

Some don't register because of the administrative burden and the stigma of being labeled a “foreign agent,” experts say. Parties also avoid registering in order to keep relationships with foreign governments and officials secret.

Paul Manafort sentenced: Former Trump adviser gets 7.5 years in prison

Michael Flynn: Prosecutors leave open possibility of prison for Trump's former adviser

Giuliani, who did not respond to requests for comment and has hired a former Watergate prosecutor to represent him, told the Washington Post that his work for foreign governments doesn't require him to register because it doesn’t involve lobbying the U.S., and he dismissed questions about his foreign clients as "diversions by Democrats."

But legal experts say Giuliani's comments represent a misunderstanding of how broad the FARA statute is, and the Justice Department's renewed focus on enforcing it should put him on notice.

"I think at the very least, the Department of Justice would be justified in taking a very close look at the arrangements that (Giuliani) has with these foreign principals. ... Given the backdrop, given the new changes in enforcement priorities, this would seem to be a case that would be ripe for the DOJ to at least ask questions," said Josh Rosenstein, a Washington, D.C. lawyer who advises clients on FARA.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Rudy Giuliani: From 'America's mayor' to Trump's pit bull: he emerges as central figure in Ukraine firestorm

Ukraine ties under scrutiny
Giuliani’s business ties in Ukraine spilled into public view in September, following a whistleblower’s allegations that he was a “central figure” in an effort to pressure the country’s newly elected president into investigating former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

House Democrats have subpoenaed records, including contracts that Giuliani and his security consulting firm had with his Ukrainian clientele. The long list of documents that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has demanded suggests a broad inquiry into possible FARA violations.

Among the documents requested pertain to “engagements, consulting, advising, or lobbying work” done by Giuliani or his firm on behalf of Ukrainian officials.

One of the Ukrainian clients that House investigators are focusing on is Pavel Fuks, a wealthy Ukrainian-Russian developer, who hired Giuliani’s firm to help improve Kharkiv's emergency services and international image. Fuks previously described Giuliani as a “lobbyist” for the city and for Ukraine.

“It is very important for me that such person as Giuliani tells people that we are a good country, that people can do business with us. That’s what we would like to bring to America’s leaders,” Fuks told the New York Times in June.

Experts say this comment should catch the attention of the Justice Department.

Lawyering up: Giuliani hires Watergate prosecutor to represent him in impeachment inquiry

“That’s precisely the type of activity that is within FARA’s scope,” said Matthew Sanderson, another Washington lawyer who advises clients on FARA. “FARA covers lobbying, but it also covers much more than that, including any effort to burnish the reputation of a foreign entity” among members of the American public.

David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who oversaw the enforcement of FARA, was more cautious, saying that if Giuliani were representing a foreign country to influence an “official action” by the United States, his actions “could come within the scope” of FARA.

Other Ukrainian officials named in the subpoena are Gennady Kernes, mayor of Kharkiv, and Vitaly Klitschko, mayor of Kiev. Giuliani advised Klitschko during Klitschko's 2008 mayoral bid. The Kiev mayor and former boxing champion visited Giuliani last July.


Rudy Giuliani
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Mayor Vitaly Klitchko was a great heavyweight champion and is a real patriot of Ukraine. The city of Kiev has never been better. He is a bright light shining in relative darkness.

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Giuliani's business ventures involving Eastern Europe have been guided in part by a company that boasted of doing image consulting to companies and clients with Kremlin ties. TriGlobal Strategic Ventures, a consulting firm whose website lists locations in Moscow, Kiev, New York, London, Zurich and Vienna, has a longstanding business relationship with Giuliani. Among TriGlobal's clients, according to older versions of the firm's website, was Transneft, Russia's state-owned oil pipeline giant that's subject to U.S. economic sanctions.

Simply having business ties in the form of consulting work with foreign governments is not enough to require registration under FARA, experts say. But little is publicly known about Giuliani's contracts with foreign governments. His firm, for example, had not disclosed how much it was paid for his consulting work, or what the terms of its contracts are.

“DOJ may very well want to ask questions … to get to the bottom of what the facts really are,” Rosenstein said.

Giuliani’s proximity to the president also could raise questions about whether foreign officials with whom he is connected are using the relationship to get information about U.S. policy, experts say.

“That’s arguably registrable under FARA, so you can very quickly get into troubled waters,” Sanderson said.

Trump-Ukraine affair: Follow a visual timeline of the text messages from diplomats

Are speaking engagements covered by FARA?
Giuliani kept another side gig even after he became Trump’s personal attorney.

In October 2018, he attended a conference in Armenia, where he met with the country's acting defense minister. Two months later, he met with the king of Bahrain. In both meetings, relations with the United States were discussed, according to the two countries.

Former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, delivers a speech about Iran in Warsaw, Poland, on Feb. 13, 2019.
Former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, delivers a speech about Iran in Warsaw, Poland, on Feb. 13, 2019.
In February, he traveled to Poland, where he spoke in front of hundreds of supporters of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, a controversial Iranian dissident group, and called for a regime change in Iran. Months later, he was in Albania, speaking for the same group, which the United States once labeled a terrorist organization.

These public appearances were among the several activities that merit an investigation, Senate Democrats wrote in a letter urging the Justice Department’s FARA unit to begin an inquiry.

But Laufman, who left the Justice Department in early 2018, said the types of activities the senators cited do not, on their face, violate the statute. Merely giving paid speeches to foreign groups, whether in the United States or in other countries, does not require registration – unless the speech was part of an effort to influence foreign policy and public opinion in the U.S, he said.

"There would have to be a full exploration of facts to determine whether a speech as described in and of itself would trigger an obligation to register," Laufman said.

Rosenstein said Giuliani’s ties to MEK should set off alarm bells.

Giuliani overseas: Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani's side project: Bashing Iran, in Poland

Giuliani has acknowledged that MEK has been his client for more than a decade, and he has spoken on behalf of the group during events held in Washington – which then raises questions, Rosenstein said, about whether the speech was intended to influence the American public.

Giuliani also has not said whether he was paid for the speeches, but high-profile speakers at MEK rallies routinely get paid tens of thousands of dollars.

For 50 years, the Justice Department used the FARA statute in only seven criminal cases. Laufman said that changed in 2015, when the department began a more aggressive enforcement of the law.

The number of FARA cases has more than doubled in the last two years, largely because of the prosecutions from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Among those who have been prosecuted are two men who were in Trump's inner circle: former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has yet to be sentenced, and former 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is in prison. Greg Craig, Barack Obama’s former White House counsel, was also charged; he was later acquitted.

“FARA itself and its enforcement really should no longer be viewed as sort of this sleepy old legal regime,” Rosenstein said. “And instead, you’ve seen a real awakening of the regulators.”

In Giuliani’s case, there’s a “real and present danger” that he would end up violating the law, Sanderson said.

“One contact (with a foreign government) or one act can trigger registration, so he certainly should be careful, particularly when he’s throwing stones at others,” Sanderson added.

And targeting no other people than your political opponents for no other possible reason seems to be fine with you.

Pot meet kettle.

I don't know why you feel the need to keep running down these rabbit holes. You try it every once in a while only to run away with your tail tucked between your legs. Then after a while, you pop up here again. It's frickin' hilarious.

Where was the hysteria when Slick Willy and even Bush did the same thing? Its funny how some things really bother you and some things don't.

I guess we'll find out, right?

???

did social media exist then as it does today? no.

also, can you provide a link from a credible source detailing how bush and clinton sent their personal lawyer to go dig up dirt on one of their political rivals for an upcoming election?

thanks a bunch.

I would take the time to look it up but you would just call it whataboutism.

Most of us already understand the story. But you are right in the aspect it will take others longer to figure it out.

translation: you dont know jack crap.

AKA- Making an excuse not to take the time to provide any sources that can back up my false allegations.

And if it doesn't pan out like you think it will, I will laugh my ass off. (please note: I didn't say to you what ocd said to me.)

in other words, I have nothing.

Clinton and Bush were never falsely accused of colluding with the Russians to get elected so there was no need for their lawyers to do international investigations.

Facts will make you free.

That’s another name for Dawg duty. Lol

Think about that for a second. Collision is not a crime.

Well if Trump is impeached I won't laugh my ass off. I think it's a shame if anyone of power in our political system is found guilty of corruption. You may take great joy in it, but that in itself speaks volumes.

Collision is a crime if it’s a hit and run.

Putin is behind all of this. He’s twisting this world in two and he has trump in his back pocket. Friggin sheep are blind.

They’re popping champagne

That made me laugh.

Support for impeachment reaches highest level in Fox News poll


A record of respondents in a Fox News Poll said they wanted President Trump impeached and removed from office.

The poll released Wednesday found 51 percent of respondents supported Trump's impeachment and removal from office. Four percent of participants said the president should be impeached but not removed, and 40 percent are completely against impeachment.

Support for impeachment and removal has risen 9 points since July, increasing 11 points among Democrats, 5 points among Republicans and 3 points among independents.

Voters in swing counties, defined as where Hillary Clinton and Trump were within 10 points in the 2016 election, supported impeachment at a rate of 52 percent, 10 points above a comparable population in July.

Some demographics that typically back the president also had increased support for impeachment, with a 5 point increase among white evangelical Christians, an 8 point increase among white men without a college degree and a 10 point increase among rural whites.

Among the 40 percent against impeachment, respondents cited as reasons: 21 percent thought Trump did nothing wrong, 20 percent said the inquiry is politically motivated and 15 percent didn't believe the allegations.

A total of 66 percent of respondents said it was not appropriate for Trump to ask foreign leaders to investigate political rivals, compared to a quarter who said it is appropriate. While 43 percent say the Ukraine call was impeachable, 27 percent say it was inappropriate but not impeachable.

The House has opened an impeachment inquiry on the president after a whistleblower report revealed Trump asked the Ukrainian president to look into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

Polls have been showing growing support in public opinion for impeachment.

The Fox News poll surveyed 1,003 registered voters between Oct. 6 and 8 and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/46...n-fox-news-poll

He voted for trump. He’ll vote for the idiot again. Just like the rest of the sheep who think trump is an idiot but won’t vote for a real functioning adult.

JC...

Prominent Conservatives Call for Swift Impeachment
October 10, 2019 at 7:07 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 44 Comments
link

“More than a dozen prominent conservative lawyers, including George Conway, offered their legal reasoning for an ‘expeditious’ impeachment probe into President Trump, creating a document they hope will be read by Republicans who continue to stand by the president,” the Washington Post reports.

“The 16 attorneys, many of whom worked in Republican administrations, wrote in a joint statement to be released Thursday morning that Trump’s now infamous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the text messages between diplomats and Trump’s public call for China to investigate a political opponent are ‘undisputed’ events that amount to Trump violating his oath of office.”




link

New Statement from Checks and Balances on President Trump’s Abuse of Office
October 10, 2019
Statement from co-founders and additional members of Checks & Balances:

In the past several weeks, it has become clear to any observer of current events that the president is abusing the office of the presidency for personal political objectives. Although new facts are being revealed on a daily basis, the following are undisputed, to date:

1) In a July 25, 2019, telephone call with the president of Ukraine – a summary of which has been released by the White House – the president requested “a favor” in the context of a discussion of Ukrainian security matters. Specifically, immediately after President Zelensky thanked the president “in the area of defense” and indicated a readiness to buy additional armaments consistent with a U.S. defense proposal, President Trump asked for “a favor.” The favor was to investigate a baseless theory relating to the 2016 investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. election. The U.S. president further requested that the Ukrainian president coordinate the requested investigation with both his personal attorney and the Attorney General of the United States, presenting both a blurring of lines between personal legal representation and official U.S. government business, and, the appearance of inappropriate politicization of the Office of the Attorney General. He then requested, additionally, that the Ukrainian government look into allegations relating to his Democratic presidential opponent, Joe Biden, saying “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.”

2) Between July and September 2019, the Acting Ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, the (former) State Department Special Envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, and the Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, exchanged a series of telephone calls and text messages revealing that U.S. diplomats were involved in negotiating an exchange involving a White House meeting and foreign aid on one hand, and a Ukrainian investigation into a meritless allegation involving former Vice President Joe Biden, on the other hand. The text messages reveal that U.S. diplomats were seeking from President Zelensky an assurance that “he will help [the] investigation” while concurrently negotiating a “visit to Washington” and “security assistance.” These circumstances led career Ambassador Taylor to communicate that in his judgment it was “crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” These facts are derived from text messages provided to the House of Representatives in connection with the deposition of former Special Envoy Volker and have been released publicly.

3) On October 3, 2019, the president stood in front of U.S. press cameras outside the White House and said, “China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.” The president’s statement was broadcast widely.

A president takes the following oath of office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

We believe the acts revealed publicly over the past several weeks are fundamentally incompatible with the president’s oath of office, his duties as commander in chief, and his constitutional obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” These acts, based on what has been revealed to date, are a legitimate basis for an expeditious impeachment investigation, vote in the House of Representatives and potential trial in the Senate. Additional evidence that was detailed in the Special Counsel’s Report, related matters of foreign emoluments, and persistent obstructive activities should also inform these proceedings. In addition, given that some of the critical facts under consideration by the Congress have been facilitated by a complaint presented to the Inspector General of the U.S. Intelligence Community, any efforts by U.S. government personnel to inappropriately pressure, intimidate or expose the whistleblower or future whistleblowers who follow the procedures provided by law are contrary to the norms of a society that adheres to the rule of law.

As we said in an April 2019 statement, “free and fair elections, without foreign interference, are at the heart of a healthy democracy.” The Special Counsel’s report revealed, among other things, that the Trump 2016 campaign was open to and enthusiastic about receiving Russian government-facilitated assistance to gain an advantage in the previous election. The report was not only an exposition, it was a warning. The present circumstances are materially worse: we have not just a political candidate open to receiving foreign assistance to better his chances at winning an election, but a current president openly and privately calling on foreign governments to actively interfere in the most sacred of U.S. democratic processes, our elections. These activities, which are factually undisputed, undermine the integrity of our elections, endanger global U.S. security and defense partnerships, and threaten our democracy.

Jonathan H. Adler
Donald B. Ayer
George T. Conway III
Carrie F. Cordero
Charles Fried
Stuart M. Gerson
Peter D. Keisler
Orin S. Kerr
Marisa C. Maleck
Trevor Potter
Alan Charles Raul
Jonathan C. Rose
Paul Rosenzweig
Andrew Sagor
Jaime D. Sneider
J.W. Verret

Each of us speaks and acts solely in our individual capacities, and our views should not be attributed to any organization with which we may be affiliated.

imma post this from Fox news that way the MAGA hatters cant claim fake news:

Two Giuliani associates linked to Ukraine investigations indicted on campaign finance charges

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/giuliani-associates-indicted-on-campaign-finance-charges

also, they got a big ole fat picture of Don Jr hanging out at dinner with these two clowns.

hey, home come Trump is demanding an investigation into Giuliani and his associates over corruption?

he said its his duty to investigate corruption, right?

Only possible corruption of political opponents.

Rudy Giuliani's associates were headed to Frankfurt and had one-way tickets

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/impeachment-inquiry-10-10-2019/index.html

aye they were trying to bolt lolololol

Republicans are fine with this?

Former Texas Rep. Pete Sessions was pushed by Giuliani associates to back effort to eject Ukraine ambassador

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/10/politics/pete-sessions-indictment-giuliani-associates/index.html

Okay. So hear me out. What if? I know this is going to sound crazy... But what if?... are you ready???

What if trump ACTUALLY completes one of his campaign promises by...

...draining the swamp.
How you say?
He’s invited every corrupt sleazy scumbag to work at his side. One by one they go down. My hope is more and more fall. Handcuffs in backorder amounts. The swamp monsters he’s kept at his side get hauled off and imprisoned... finally one day him too.

Swamp drained.
Mission complete.
We, the rest of sane America, can go on.

it makes sense he is the deep state, after all.

McMaster: 'It's absolutely not' appropriate to solicit foreign help in US elections

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/46524...eign-help-in-us


McMaster practicing some CYA. He had to see Trump acting nuts on more than one occasion and said nothing.

Rudy had just had lunch with them at trump tower before they went to the airport

I just saw a video that’s on twitter from Minneapolis tonight at the rally. Lots of protesters chanting lock him up and the sounds of whistles were everywhere.
You know what they say about karma

Wow. Again folks, read the article. The more we learn about this, the worse it gets for trump.

Pentagon officials deemed withholding of aid to Ukraine was illegal

https://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-official...-090046566.html

Boy oh boy. Like I said, read the article.

Rudy Giuliani was reportedly retained for 'hundreds of thousands of dollars' by an associate's firm Fraud Guarantee

https://news.yahoo.com/rudy-giuliani-reportedly-retained-hundreds-065604964.html

Giuliani, the gift that just keeps on giving.

Trump and Giuliani are SO in bed with Putin, it's obvious as hell. I have nothing for anyone who supports this crap and Trump. Traitors one and all IMHO.

You already called us traitors and such over your fake news on Collusion.

This time Trump is doing it in broad daylight.

And while you call it fake, Mueller made it clear he would never know the truth about it because the witnesses were lying.

Even your media has given up on the false song of collusion as the FBI heads were fired over their lying and debauchery.

Yet you hold on, like Don Quixote, fighting that windmill to the last.

So sad.

I gave you the facts. From the very person who questioned the witnesses. But you never were one to consider facts.

Nobody gave up on that, there are charges waiting for Trump to be ousted by vote or impeachment.

2nd time in a month... lmao

White House accidentally sends Ukraine talking points to Democrats again

The White House accidentally sent Democrats a list of talking points related to ex-Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s Friday House deposition, two sources with knowledge of the email told The Hill, the second time in a month the administration has sent its Ukraine talking points to Democrats.

The email included guidance for Republicans seeking to defend the president from potentially damaging witness testimony from an ambassador who was removed from her post in May under controversial circumstances.

In copies of the guidance shared with The Hill, the White House encouraged Republicans to adopt a series of messages designed to turn the tables back on Democrats, including attacks on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) handling of the investigation.

Yovanovitch told House lawmakers that she was removed after “a concerted campaign" against her from President Trump and his allies.

She also said in her opening statement that the State Department had "been under pressure from the president to remove me since the summer of 2018."

Yovanovitch’s ouster came two months before Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president — now at the center of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry — in which Trump asked Kiev to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading 2020 presidential candidate.

“We are not concerned with any information Yovanovitch might share, because the President did nothing wrong,” the White House email meant for Republicans said. “But we are concerned that Schiff is putting her a precarious position by having her testify in secret without State Department lawyers be present.”

"It raises serious questions about why Schiff is willing to put career officials in such risky situations while bullying them with legally unfounded threats of obstruction charges," the email continued.

It added that Schiff "is willing to ride roughshod over fair process and to use career officials to further a baseless political objective."

The email marks the second time the White House has unintentionally sent talking points to Democrats in recent weeks, after an administration official inadvertently emailed them suggested rhetoric defending the July 25 phone call.

The White House did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/46545...democrats-again

An article in the NY times also revisits how Ukrane refused to cooperate with Mueller ... in exchange for, or at the same time as needing missles from Trump ! LOL. You cant make up this schtick.

Some of the sharper congressional Dems are on this stuff like pitbulls on a steak. I like Adam Schiff for exactly that reason. He's like the honey badger, he don't give a damn. Trump and his allies can call him whatever they want, he just keeps going.

He a liar and a fraud. For over 2 years he said he had definitive proof of Trump colluding with russia. He never produced any evidence. Now he got up in front of congress, and told a complete fabrication about Trump's call with Ukraine. It was so full of crap that he had to come back and say it was a parody. He then claimed he knew nothing of the whistle-blower, but then it come out he had his staff working with the whistle-blower. Now the whistleblower will not even testify behind closed doors, but will only give a written statement. He's trying to do a closed door impeachment.

If he's got actual evidence, he should bring it out. Otherwise, he should use his "info" for campaign slogans and lies.

Yeah we have Manafort in a fake jail cell also

Trump's admin stonewalled the Mueller investigation, lied in interviews, and LIED LIED LIED to his supporters with the aid of Fox News. There is ample evidence that Trump and company worked with Russia to win the election in 2016. There is ample evidence that Russia interfered in that same election. What did NOT happen is the right bringing his corruption to justice. What did NOT happen is any sort of exoneration. AND Mueller's report was covered up by Barr, so that none of us know the whole TRUTH that was uncovered. But you go ahead and crawl back into the mucky state of delusion about how great Trump is... it's traitorous.

Being reported this morning that Rudy is now under criminal investigation.

If there is so much evidence, start writing your dem house representative to bring it forward. They keep saying they have it, but they never produce it. Hell, I'd even call die Trump's impeachment if they actually had it, but they don't. We've already had a 2+ year investigation, and they couldn't prove anything, because there's nothing to prove. Call your congressman and demand their evidence is brought out. Call shiff and demand his evidence is brought out. Start your petitions and chants for your congressmen that keep ytelling you they have evidence, because you're wasting all your time and effort trying to convince those of us who already know this is nothing more than a political game from the dems.

Please.

If he shot someone on 5th Ave, you'd not only vote for his re-election, you'd hide him out in your attic and lie to the cops.

#inthetank100&

I think that it would be beneficial if the questioning was more neutral in content.

The facts are sufficient.

The facts associated with this impeachment investigation are far simpler to comprehend.

First, Trump is directly associated with the effort.
Second, Congressionally approved aid was involved.
Third, This story involves both governmental (State Department) and Personal (Rudy) people. One or the other could possibly be understood. Both make it clear that this is more likely campaign related, and the President was using the State Department for his re-election.

It's great to see you have finally realized this about Trump.

Then get off your butt, call your congressman, and let's get that trial going.

Don't take my words out of context. The Democrat media does enough of that already.

Let's get all of his co-conspirators along with him first. Rudy is already under criminal investigation now. Soon Pompeo and others will be joining him.

It's the only way to make any sense out of your comments.

If he murdered someone, no. If he shot them in self defense, hell yes.

There's no criminal investigation. This is nothing more than trial by media.

Did you fail at another attempt at humor? Poor thing.

I understand you don't follow actual news. But Guliani is under investigation for a criminal offense.

NYT: Rudy Giuliani under federal investigation for Ukraine deals

https://www.axios.com/rudy-giuliani-fede...99a47c8bd8.html

Try to keep up. Those investigating these clowns are.

Actually it's serious. You never address the actual questions that surround all of this. You never actually address what's IN the phone call. How Trump asked Ukraine to "Do me a favor though" to investigate the Hillary e-mail server, (which is nothing more than some far fetched conspiracy theory that it has anything to do with Ukraine.) And he also asked for Ukraine to investigate Biden while holding military aid over their heads. Military aid to fight AGAINST RUSSIA! He went after political rivals ONLY while using United States money as leverage. Money that wasn't his and had been approved to be given to Ukraine by congress.

Your entire viewpoint ignores the obvious facts by using nothing but excuses and throwing shade on those bringing these facts to the table.

It almost sounds like you're trying to get on the Republican ticket to run for senator. Even some of them are left speechless while you carry on....

GOP lawmakers are reluctant to defend Trump on Ukraine because he's so erratic

https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-lawmakers-reluctant-to-defend-trump-on-ukraine-wapo-2019-10

And you guys completely miss the obvious. It doesn't matter who is running, that doesn't absolve them of a crime or remove them from investigation. You think presidents haven't asked favors in the past? You think they they haven't threatened or withheld funds in the past?

The only link to the campaign is the conjecture of the media.

As I said, bring forth the evidence, and actually hold the impeachment proceedings publicly. Right now it's all behind closed doors and in the media, because they got nothing. The dems know their case will wither in the sunlight of the public, which is why they won't.

The evidence is in the phone call transcripts. It's obvious.

I mean people have robbed banks before too. That doesn't make it proper or legal.

The difference is I suppose, if presidents of the past have done the same thing, they weren't stupid enough to hand the evidence of their wrongdoing over to their accusers.

That's why I've seen some on the media call it, "Stupid Watergate".

Here is the skinny limb you keep climbing out on.....

So it's your opinion that the only corruption, the worse corruption out there that needs to be investigated, is Hillary and Biden? That the fact these have been, and are currently the biggest thorns in the side of Trump aren't what was then front runner in the Democratic primaries and Hillary winning the popular vote?

Trump hasn't backed off of Hillary's panties since he was elected. It's easy to see and trying to deny it makes no difference.

The House collects the evidence during these hearings. The analogy is a Grand Jury proceeding.

The senate conducts the trial.

Trump will have time to argue his case and defend his actions during the senate trial, if and when it occurs.

He will also be able to call his own witnesses and present his evidence.

The White House position that they have a right to be present or cross examine at this point in time is totally inappropriate. Witnesses may offer different accounts and should not know what others have said.

It will never happen. The dems know they got nothing. There is no crime. There's just a bunch of crybaby dems that can't get over their election loss. Call your congressman.

They don't understand how any of this works and are taking are continuing to take the word of those surrounding a man who has been proven to lie thousands of times just since he's been elected.

They have all they need. You're just blind to it.

They are just tying it all together in a neat bow.

Good luck. You need it.

Erik just keeps repeating the same nonsense over and over again.

Trump already tried distancing himself from Rudy yesterday. Giuliani’s henchmen just got arrested with one way tickets out the country, with Rudy trying to follow.

Now Rudy himself is under criminal investigation.

But sure, there’s obviously nothing there. Lol, y’all wasting your time with this dude.

Yeah, that why they (and you) have to constantly give interpretations on what Trump said. What he actually said doesn't give them a crime. That's why the "whistle-blower" is not going to testify. That's why none of the new "whistle-blowers" matter. You have interpretations and conjecture, we have a transcript.

Read the transcript of the phone call with an open mind and consider the circumstances. The American people are seeing it. At least those who have clear vision.

You realize you said the same thing during your obsession with the Mueller investigation right?

No I didn't. You have me confused with others. I knew that it had been dragged out for too long. I knew that unless you had the words coming from Trump's own mouth you could never get the American people to read and comprehend the report. Even when Mueller plainly stated he couldn't get to the truth because the witnesses were lying people wouldn't care. Even when ten points of possible obstruction of Justice was pointed out nobody seemed o care.

This time it did come directly from a transcript that was provided by the White House. This time Trump stated in public he expected Ukraine to investigate Biden and he wanted China to investigate it as well. Asking foreign governments to get involved.

This time it won't be tied up for years and is far simpler.

Open mind? Is that what you did when you gave your translation? As I said, there is nothing in the transcript, which is why we keep getting interpretations. I'd suggest you reread it without the liberal slant that's seems to have addled your brain to it's ruin.

As for your 'clear vision', it is quite clear you've already have a vision you want to make come true, which is why you have to give interpretations.

And the dems are recycling the Russian collusion hoax. Same hoax.

Known fact. Trump delayed hundreds of millions of dollars from Ukraine which was scheduled to be handed over much sooner. They needed military weapons to combat Russia. These are not in dispute from anyone.

President Zelenskyy: We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost. ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

The President: I would like you to do us a favor though

I'm not sure what you're missing here.

Trump: “China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” “if they don’t do what we want, we have tremendous power.”

yeah, right......

Another thing that does not get a lot of mentions was that Zelinsky wanted a meeting in the White House. There appears to have been a requirement for a public announcement by Ukraine that it had opened an investigation on the gas company that H. Biden was on the Board.

A public statement would feed right into the Trump narrative on the Biden's.

SEE They are being investigated!

If that is not furthering the political agenda of the Trum re-election campaign, I don't know what is.

Wow. You're right. He will definitely get the death penalty now.

We can only hope.

This is a good point IMO. I’m not one to defend Trump’s character ... but I also don’t think that James Madison or the framers would use political cartoons back in their day during a formal hearing

Political cartoons started back in 1754 here in the United States. The first cartoon appeared in Ben Franklin's newspaper The Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754. It appeared as part of an editorial by Franklin commenting on 'the present disunited state of the British Colonies.

And one of those being arrested Lev Parnas is a friend of Trumps, used to sell condos for Fred Trump and is in pics at events with Donald Trump going back a ways

The entire trump clan throughout their history have surrounded themselves with with worst of the worst.

It should be no surprise to anyone that it continued well into trumps first term.

Boom!

Bolton Objected to Ukraine Pressure Campaign, Calling Giuliani ‘a Hand Grenade’

WASHINGTON — The effort to pressure Ukraine for political help provoked a heated confrontation inside the White House last summer that so alarmed John R. Bolton, then the national security adviser, that he told an aide to alert White House lawyers, House investigators were told on Monday.

Mr. Bolton got into a sharp exchange on July 10 with Gordon D. Sondland, the Trump donor turned ambassador to the European Union, who was working with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats, according to testimony provided to the investigators.

Mr. Bolton instructed Fiona Hill, the senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs, to notify the chief lawyer for the National Security Council that Mr. Giuliani was working with Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, on a rogue operation with legal implications, Ms. Hill told the investigators, according to two people familiar with her closed-door testimony.

“I am not part of whatever drug deal Rudy and Mulvaney are cooking up,” Mr. Bolton, a Yale-trained lawyer, told Ms. Hill to tell White House lawyers, according to the testimony.

It was not the first time Mr. Bolton expressed grave concerns to Ms. Hill about Mr. Giuliani. “Giuliani’s a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up,” Ms. Hill quoted Mr. Bolton saying during an earlier conversation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/us/politics/bolton-giuliani-fiona-hill-testimony.html

Fiona Hill testified for 10 hours Monday, imagine what else she testified about. Later one rep said she was the most professional witness he had ever seen in a congressional hearing. Others said similar things about her.

Each of the four remaining weekdays this week has another insider testimony scheduled as the Trump team has failed in it's mob-like attempts to prevent all witness testimonies. One of these is Ambassador Gordon Sondland who is now saying he's not sure if Trump told him the truth when Sondland tweeted relaying that there was no quid pro quo with Ukraine.

Go back a few pages, and I speculated that this was an underlying reason behind the Bolton departure.

Now for Coats...

So war moneferinf Bolton was so disturbed, he told homegirl to contact the lawyers.

Good lord, you know you’re corrupt when Bolton starts snitching.

Not much doubt about Bolton's perception of what the Trump team was up to...referring to it as a "drug deal".

Referring to Giuliani as a "hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up,"...

it is kind of nice to hear from someone who isn't a graduate from the school of "double talk and BS".

And now Rudy is refusing to comply with the impeachment request

Would you if you were him? He's screwed and somebody must have dumbed it down enough for him to finally understand that.

I'm not sure why they have so much trouble figuring out what obstruction means.

You can say a lot of things about Rudy.. but he's not stupid.

Having seen the things he has said in his recent interviews, I'm not so sure about that.

I call him the gift that keeps on giving.

He may not be stupid, but somewhere along the way his cheese slipped off his cracker and he lost touch with reality. Therefore, things need to be dumbed down for him to grasp.

Personally, I hope he is perfectly competent so he does all the time he has coming.

No idea if he is senile or acting in the belief that POTUS will pardon him or protect no matter what .... but Rudy has said and done plenty of really, really, supremely dumb stuff in the last 12-18 months.

Oh boy

Ex-Rep. Sessions subpoenaed in Giuliani grand jury probe

https://news.yahoo.com/ex-rep-sessions-subpoenaed-giuliani-230540160.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal grand jury has subpoenaed former Republican Rep. Pete Sessions for information about his interactions with Rudy Giuliani and several associates who were indicted last week.

The former lawmaker from Texas is cooperating with investigators and will turn over documents in the coming weeks, said Matt Mackowiak, a spokesman for Sessions.

Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, is the personal attorney to President Donald Trump.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the subpoena seeks documents about Giuliani's business dealings in Ukraine and his efforts to oust the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv, as well as information about interactions between Sessions, Giuliani and the four men who were indicted in the Southern District of New York.

Those men include two Florida businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who are associates of Giuliani and tied to the Ukraine impeachment investigation . They were charged last Thursday with federal campaign finance violations in connection with a $325,000 donation to a group supporting Trump's reelection.

The federal investigation comes as House Democrats pursue an impeachment inquiry into Trump's dealings with Ukraine, including a summertime phone call in which he pressed Ukraine's president to investigate baseless corruption allegations against Democrat Joe Biden. Giuliani had also been asking Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on Biden and also pushed for the ouster of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.

Prosecutors allege that Parnas urged a congressman to promote efforts to push out Yovanovitch around the same time that Parnas and Fruman committed to raising more than $20,000 for the politician.

The congressman wasn't identified in court papers, but the donations match campaign finance reports for Sessions, who lost his reelection bid in November. In May 2018, Parnas posted a photo of himself and his business partner David Correia — who was also named in the indictment — with Sessions in his Capitol Hill office, with the caption "Hard at work!!"

Sessions spent 22 years in Congress becoming a powerful Republican voice and the muscle behind the GOP's House takeover of 2010.

Earlier this month, Sessions announced an attempted comeback in his boyhood hometown of Waco, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Dallas, running for a seat being vacated by Rep. Bill Flores, one of six Texas GOP congressmen retiring next year.

the swamp’s elf on a shelf. He won’t give up anything to hurt his Santa Claus.

Pete Sessions, not Jeff Sessions bro.

lol ... Oops

I have done everything I set out to do as President. America is great again. We have record low unemployment, the market is doing amazing, we have exited endless foreign wars, and I’ve stopped other countries like China from taking advantage of us in trade deals. We passed massive tax cuts and drug prices are down for the first time ever. I’m not one of these lifetime politicians. I’m ready to return to my business and spend more time with my family. This harassment of me by Democrats has really hurt Melania and my kids.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/17/would-trump-quit-wall-street-analyst-looks-at-the-ramifications.html

Pipe dreams.

Ambassador breaks with Trump, testifying the President directed diplomats to work with Giuliani on Ukraine

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/17/politics/sondland-deposition-impeachment-inquiry/index.html

It just keeps getting worse and worse for trump and Giuliani.

Another Obama appointed Never-Trumper spills her half truths.

Enjoy.

Oops, thought this was about Maria Vonovich. sorry.

Cool. He should retire and go out on top.

WRONG.

Trump donor that Trump rewarded with an ambassador posting. He was sticking up for Trump as late as a few weeks ago. smh. But don't let any facts get in there with all your truth hate. TDS - truth denial syndrome.

Yes, I was wrong.

I was talking about ousted Ambassador Maria Vonovich.

It's a good thing you never tire of being incorrect. Just like I never tire of pointing it out.
#symbiosis

This dude bought himself an ambassadorship by donating megabux to Dolt45's campaign. This is what quid pro quo looks like.

Looks like the smart rats are getting wet on a daily basis.

Please continue to post baseless drivel without doing even 4 seconds of research. The entertainment value is off the charts.

Never heard of her.
Is she someone who is only known by FOX news viewers?

WRONG AGAIN.

I can do this all day, Sparky.

Marie Louise Yovanovitch (born 1958) is a member of the senior ranks of the United States Foreign Service who served as the 9th United States Ambassador to Ukraine.

I was indeed wrong about the spelling of her name.

It's sad how patriots have become your enemy.

Well if you are speaking of Marie Yovanovitch, she is currently under investigation for illegalities while in office.

And I wonder who is leading that?

Got it. Thanks for clearing that up. But although she may have been appointed to that position by Obama, she is actually a life long apolitical public servant.

"Yovanovitch joined the U.S. foreign service in 1986."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Yovanovitch

Hmmm. Drummed up to get her out of the way? Only on Fox News? I googled to fact check this assertion and could find nothing to support it.


https://lmgtfy.com/?q=Marie+Yovanovitch+under+investigation

She, I knew about.
Hence, my poke at you.

You're catching up, a little at a time.

From NY Times Twitter

Breaking News: Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, said the U.S. froze aid partly to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrats. He undercut President Trump's denials of a quid pro quo

So it was partly quid pro quo?

he admitted it and then told reporters to get over it.

I think you mean "trumped up."


You're welcome.
I'm here for the people.

Who would have ever thought that a nation less than the size of Texas with a population just above that of California and a GDP about the size of Maryland would be the focal point of so much political strife... weird.

Until two weeks ago, Trump thought quid pro quo was the president of Viet Nam.

Oh I heard it. The stupidity of this group of people seems endless.

WOW... I think Mulvaney thinks this is ok.

Mulvaney says push for DNC server investigation was one reason for Ukraine aid freeze

https://www.axios.com/mick-mulvaney-ukra...dc9cdc55f8.html

It's almost head-scratching, until you think about how it even popped up in the news cycle.

All roads lead to and from.... Russia.

And yet, Biden is on video bragging about withholding funds unless a prosecutor gets fired with in 6 hours.

You just don't get that that was done openly with the concerted efforts of a multinational coalition for the pure purposes of removing a corrupt prosecutor. The tin foil conspiracy that Trump is clinging to has been debunked. Please let that settle in because you and others keep bringing it up with the same result.

And you just don't get that Trump has every right and it is his duty to find out how the Deep State started with its attempted Coup over the false and illegal accusations of Collusion.

The list of fired FBI and Justice Department heads is the result of investigations to date.

Trump never understood the difference between the public sector and private sector.

And his Achilles heel is a conspiracy theory.

I will speculate that Putin fed him the line about Biden and Ukraine, and he took it hook, line and sinker. He might as well told him that Obama’s birth certificate was in Ukraine as well.

The Art of the Deal may have a messy conclusion.

His only hope was that he could build a stone wall in the Senate. But that became a bigger problem when he bailed in Syria. Leaving troops in the middle of that mess was not a smart thing to do.

I don't like Biden soooo... I don't care. Go after him too if you want.

Oh. So, it was okay to withhold aid in order to get his son off the hook?

It wasn't done to get Hunter off the hook.

It had nothing to do with Hunter.

If that's what you actually believe - then, sorry, you are incorrect and that's been proven. I get that Trump is still lying and deflecting on this subject, but it's 100% - 1000% not accurate.

So, why did Biden threaten to withhold the money if the prosecutor wasn't fired?

Do some research. It's not hard.

If you aren't that worried about doing some research to find out what happened - I'm happy for you to remain ignorant on the subject. If you want to ton continue to parrot the Trump deflection and lies, well, that's your call too.

I find going to multiple sources is beneficial - and foreign sources are sometimes less biased.

https://www.politico.eu/article/david-cameron-defends-biden-ukraine-scenario/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...basis-quicktake

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/14/hunter-b...he-problem.html

https://www.axios.com/joe-hunter-biden-u...551759063c.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...idered-corrupt/

And, I'm happy for you to remain ignorant.

Why would little Biden say, in hindsight, his dealings were a bad look? Why would he cancel some of them?

God bless You Arch.

Just out of curiosity - what does Biden have to do with Trump ordering the withholding of approved funds (what was it - $390 million?) unless a foreign government dug dirt on Trump's political opponent? .... in a alternate universe where Biden was guilty of heinous crimes - it sounds like you are cool with Trump pulling that sort of thing to undermine a political opponent. Most think it's unAmerican ... but I understand if you want to buy into Trump's lies and care more about keeping Trump in office than you care about the Truth or the USA.

Oh - and item 3 of the list of links I provided answered the question that you just asked.

I realize that I'm not going to get an a straight answer from you, or a meaningful conversation. Have a goodnight.

The trumpster is being investigated on, as you stated, $390 million.


Biden, despite bragging about how he got a foreign countries prosecuter fired over a 1 Billion dollar aid deal, involving a prosecutor looking into his inept sons arrangement, gets no press, or gets ignored.

Happy ignorance.

No problem here.

I love the automatic dismissal of an opinion, and fact, that you just did right there.

Carry on. I'll answer. But, sadly for you, I'll answer with fact.

The lib's on this place STILL can't get over the fact that trump won, fair and square.

Seriously..............not a single President in our history has withstood more investigations than YOUR president. And still nothing.

Honestly, for the sake of some posters on here, I've wished the dem's would come up with something that sticks...........but come on..........over 3 years of investigations and hard feelings, and nothing?

I mean, how many times do you need to strike out before you realize you're out?

Shoot, even the media is on your side.

And nothing. The current impeachment process is..............going exactly like the collusion process, the Mueller report (remember when you all were just waiting for the Mueller report to come out?)

As I've been saying for 3 years: I guess we'll find out. So far, nothing burger, without cheese.

And trust me, the dem's are going way out of their way to find something, anything. If they do, great. I'll admit it. If they don't? Will you?

Ok.

Speaker Pelosi isn't refusing to hold a vote on impeachment. She is refusing to hold a FOURTH vote on impeachment. There have already been three votes. They all failed. Miserably.

HELP!

By Bill Maher

Trump asked Russia for help on TV during the 2016 campaign: “Russia, if you’re listening…” By the way, it’s in the Mueller Report that Russia tried for the first time to hack Hillary’s emails later that day. More recently, Trump asked Ukraine for help. Earlier this month he asked China for help, again, on TV.

This is Trump's feral political genius. His original quid-pro-quo to the Ukrainian President was made during a private Oval Office call, with the transcript immediately stored in a secure server. It took a whistleblower to expose it. Rudy Giuliani's "befuddled crime boss" act and the revelation of a second whistleblower intensified the sense of impropriety. So how does Trump respond? By repeating it in broad daylight. And just like that – at least in the public's mind – an impeachable abuse of presidential power doesn't feel so naughty. After all, if something's done so openly, it can't be that bad.

Here’s my question for Republicans: why does Trump need so much help? Republicans keep saying Democrats need to impeach Trump because they can’t beat him at the polls. But really, it’s Trump who can’t beat the Democrats fairly. He needed foreign help to eke out a win last time, and clearly he needs it again.

Trump also keeps saying Democrats have a “collusion delusion.” If you can’t see the collusion here – with multiple countries, on TV – you’re the deluded one. Moreover, the Russia collusion and the Ukraine collusion are the same story. He’s trying to get Ukraine to admit it meddled in our election in a crazed attempt to cover up the well-established fact that Russia did. I still don’t think people quite get that.

http://www.real-time-with-bill-maher-blog.com/index/2019/10/17/help

Honestly, anyone that took trumps "russia, if you're listening" statement as anything but a joke, is, a joke themselves.

Yes, what more do you need?

Vote to begin impeachment immediately!

Mulvaney brashly admits quid pro quo over Ukraine aid as key details emerge -- and then denies doing so

Washington (CNN)White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney made a stunning admission Thursday by confirming that President Donald Trump froze nearly $400 million in US security aid to Ukraine in part to pressure that country into investigating Democrats.

Hours later, Mulvaney then denied ever saying those words.

The dramatic admission came during an afternoon news conference where Mulvaney insisted that he knew only of a US request to investigate the handling of a Democratic National Committee server hacked in the 2016 election, but text messages between US diplomats show efforts to get Ukraine to commit to an investigation into Burisma, the company on whose board former Vice President Joe Biden's son sat. There is no evidence of wrongdoing in Ukraine by either Biden.

"That's why we held up the money," Mulvaney said after listing the 2016-related investigation and Trump's broader concerns about corruption in Ukraine.

After weeks during which Trump denied the existence of any political quid pro quo in his withholding of security aid to Ukraine, Mulvaney confirmed the existence of a quid pro quo and offered this retort: "Get over it."

"We do that all the time with foreign policy," Mulvaney said of the influence of politics in the Trump administration.

Then on Thursday evening, Mulvaney attempted to claim that he did not admit to the quid pro quo despite clearly being asked if the Trump administration withheld funding for Ukraine for an investigation into the DNC server and answering affirmatively.

"The only reasons we were holding the money was because of concern about lack of support from other nations and concerns over corruption," Mulvaney said in a written statement, adding, "There never was any condition on the flow of the aid related to the matter of the DNC server."

In an unusual statement expressing public distance from the White House, a senior Justice Department official responded: "If the White House was withholding aid in regards to the cooperation of any investigation at the Department of Justice, that is news to us."

Trump's attorney Jay Sekulow told CNN's Jim Acosta: "The legal team was not involved in the acting chief of staff's press briefing."

Mulvaney's admission came after current and former Trump administration officials revealed in congressional testimony that a White House meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was also being conditioned on Ukraine launching politically charged investigations.

Mulvaney said he does not recall any "serious" conversations about setting up a White House meeting, but a senior White House official told CNN that Mulvaney was likely aware that the meeting was being conditioned on investigating matters related to the 2016 election, although not about the Bidens.

Efforts by Trump administration officials to pressure Ukraine into carrying out investigations into 2016 and the Bidens alarmed diplomatic and national security officials across the government.

For then-national security adviser John Bolton and Fiona Hill, Trump's top foreign adviser on Europe and Russia, July 10 brought the clearest sign yet that politics was troublingly being injected into US foreign policy toward Ukraine.

Meeting with Ukrainian officials that day, Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union and a top Trump donor, made clear that the Ukrainian President could secure a White House visit if his government opened investigations -- including one into Burisma, the energy company on whose board Biden's son Hunter once sat -- that would be a political boon for Trump

The apparent quid pro quo so alarmed Bolton that he described the interaction at the time as "a drug deal" and urged Hill, who attended the meeting, to report their concerns to White House lawyers.

It would be just one of several instances where National Security Council and intelligence officials raised concerns with attorneys inside the Trump administration, believing they were witnessing a hijacking of Ukraine policy by the President's political allies for his political gain.

The ultimate inflection point -- which prompted an intelligence officials to file a whistleblower complaint that triggered the current House impeachment inquiry -- came during a phone call between Trump and Zelensky on July 25, in which Trump urged Zelensky to investigate 2016 election matters and Biden, the former vice president and the leading Democratic candidate for President at the time.

Concerns raised early

Much of the attention surrounding Democrats' current impeachment efforts has focused on that call and its aftermath. But the efforts by some officials to pressure Ukraine into investigating matters that would be politically beneficial to Trump and the concerns raised by other officials in the weeks before the call have become a focal point as lawmakers assess whether to impeach the President.

Mulvaney's role in the lead-up to that call is swelling.

Mulvaney was not only aware of the linkage between the withheld security aid to Ukraine and the political investigations Trump was seeking, but he was the official who carried out Trump's directive to freeze nearly $400 million in congressionally approved security aid to Ukraine.

He also led a meeting putting key officials -- including Sondland -- in charge of US policy toward Ukraine, according to testimony by current and former officials.

During the May meeting, Mulvaney put Energy Secretary Rick Perry, US special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker and Sondland at the helm of US policy toward Ukraine, according to private testimony by George Kent, the State Department's deputy assistant secretary responsible for Ukraine matters. Mulvaney said Thursday he has never talked to Kent.

The news came as a surprise to US officials with more subject matter expertise on Ukraine, including those at the embassy.

"They revealed that decision at a meeting with Zelensky in Kiev, I believe on June 2," said Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat who heard Kent's testimony. "And for some Americans from the embassy that was news to them."

Text messages between Sondland, Volker and the top US diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, would later reveal Sondland and Volker's coordination with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, and their efforts to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into 2016 matters and Burisma, the company on whose board Hunter Biden sat. Taylor raised concerns that a quid pro quo was afoot: withholding a White House visit for the Ukrainian president and security aid until Ukraine committed to carrying out investigations.

At key junctures, officials elevated their concerns about the situation to their superiors and to lawyers in the White House counsel's office. That includes Hill, the top Russia adviser at the White House, acting at the direction of her boss, Bolton.

It's not clear where -- if anywhere -- those lawyers took the matter from there. As evidenced by the transcript of Trump's July 25 phone call, there was no reversing the influence that Giuliani and Sondland were having on the administration's Ukraine policy, despite the serious concerns being raised by senior officials.

After Trump's phone call, those same lawyers fielded additional complaints about the conversation itself, and took the unusual step of placing a transcript of the conversation in a highly secured server.

But those steps amounted to a culmination of long-simmering concerns, not the start of them. Even before the visit from the Ukrainians on July 10, Hill and other top officials were alarmed by the removal two months earlier of Marie Yovanovitch, the 33-year veteran of foreign service who'd been recalled from her ambassador post in Ukraine. Yovanovitch told lawmakers last week she'd been told Trump had lost faith in her even though she'd done nothing wrong.

Confirming existing fears

The early-July meeting at the White House -- designed to introduce members of the new Ukrainian administration to Washington -- only confirmed the existing fears that politics was running roughshod over professional diplomacy in Ukraine.

It was what happened after those talks that unnerved aides like Hill, according to testimony she delivered behind closed doors on Capitol Hill this week. During a session in a White House dining room after the official meeting ended, she said she recalled Sondland discussing investigations — a subject that was interpreted as a reference to the President's call for investigations into the Bidens.

She also recalled hearing Sondland mention Burisma -- the energy firm on whose board Hunter Biden served.

"She saw wrongdoing related to the Ukraine policy and reported it," one source familiar with her testimony said.

But even as Bolton and Hill sought to call attention to potential impropriety, Bolton drew up a scheduling request for a call between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart.

The request was dated July 10, according to a senior White House official, the same day of that White House meeting that sparked concerns.

Trump's call with Zelensky would not take place until two weeks later -- on July 25 -- an unusual lag time between Bolton's scheduling request and the call, according to current and former White House officials.

The call was tentatively scheduled for July 20, but a senior White House official said it was delayed because Trump had a call scheduled with the Swedish prime minister to discuss the imprisonment of rapper A$AP Rocky, a top priority for Trump at the time.

As Trump was preparing to speak with Zelensky by phone in mid-July, officials throughout the government were warning of the dangers posed by his attempts to circumvent American diplomacy.

Some officials -- including Hill -- were skeptical of a phone call, believing it could be used to advance the political agenda pressed by Giuliani, but Perry and Sondland made the case for the call by focusing on the importance of Ukraine's energy independence from Russia and the prospects for increasing Ukraine's import of US natural gas, officials said.

But an official who reviewed Trump's briefing materials for his call with Zelensky said the materials focused on the new Ukrainian leaders' anti-corruption platform, not energy matters.

The call sheet Bolton generated to recommend scheduling the call focused "on Zelensky's potential to eliminate corruption in particular," one official said, and briefing materials talked up Zelensky's anti-corruption campaign platform.

In addition to scheduling issues with Trump's call to Sweden's prime minister on July 20, the call was pushed back five days to occur after parliamentary elections in Ukraine. One official said Bolton was also concerned that a call before the elections could signal that the US was attempting to improperly boost Zelensky's party, something Trump has not been afraid of doing with other countries' domestic politics.

The delay allowed Taylor, the US chargé d'affaires in Ukraine, to register his concerns about injecting politics into US-Ukraine ties.

"President Zelenskyy is sensitive about Ukraine being taken seriously, not merely as an instrument in Washington domestic, reelection politics," Taylor wrote in text messages.

Three hours later, Sondland replied to reassure him.

"Absolutely, but we need to get the conversation started and the relationship built, irrespective of the pretext," he wrote. "I am worried about the alternative."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/17/politics/...-aid/index.html

There you go, a confession!

What more do you guys need?

Vote to begin impeachment already!

I kind of like the way things are going without the vote. I mean keeping Trump's minions out of the hearings until the facts are gathered so they cannot interfere with nonsense or report back to the White House is kind of brilliant on Pelosi and Schiff's part.

But don't worry lil' buddy, looks like we're getting there.

Yes, I know you approve.
Here in the South, we call that a Lynching.
You certainly don't want to hear his side of the story or have him call his own witnesses.
Just keep on holding closed door secret meetings and leaking whatever supports your side.

See you get it when you have the time to absorb information.

All I have to do is watch 5 minutes of Tucker or Hannity clips to see which angle the GOPers are chasing now. Sad that they ignore facts and do almost anything to protect this traitor. But hey, hemp is legal again so there will be plenty of rope when the bill finally comes due.

In DC, it's called due process.
You see, The Speaker is under no obligation to hold a vote until the inquiry is satisfied. No obligation whatsoever. It makes no sense at all to hold a vote until all the facts are in.

As for 'his side of the story'... that is why we have the Senate to execute the trial. Not before. It is the House's responsibility to hold the inquiry, amass the evidence against, prepare a case, THEN hold a vote. Once the vote is held, and if the vote confirms, the case goes to the Senate for prosecution. THAT is his opportunity to plead his case, line up witnesses to support his cause, etc. That's how all this works according to the actual rules- not some bullpucky that extrudes from the hole at the bottom of Hannity's face.

Civics is my friend. Apparently, you and Civics are still strangers. It's my pleasure to introduce the two of you.

You can thank me later.
Or not.
Either works for me, as I make this #40factcheck thing look easy.

Sadly no matter the facts the Republican party as it is now won't vote to impeach... They are more outraged by the withdrawal in Syria than Trump acting like a mob boss and withholding appropriated funds to coerce allies to invent fake investigations into political opponents. They'd prefer to offer fake outrage over Trump talking points than address Trump undermining due process. They'll claim DEEP STATE rather than actually look n talk about what Trump has done and is doing.

If there is something to impeach him on, have at it. But, the dems won't have at it. Just talk.

They are really impeaching him for winning the 2016 election. That is why every few weeks their hair catches fire for one thing or another. Everything is impeachable for the Dems. They will keep throwing things out their until they feel they have something that will stick. The problem is they have not found anything that to bring the Republicans in and make it by partisan. Until they can do that they will just continue to drive a wedge in Country unity.

Democrats hate the country!!! They hate when people who work hard and play by the rules prosper. Democrats want to be the ruling class and make all of us peasants. President Trumps policies have led to the best economy since before man walked on the moon. How can they run against that. They know it! That is why they are attempting a partisan Coup. It is beyond laughable.

Lol I love waking up in the morning, kissing my wife, helping the kids get ready for school, and reading conservative rants like this.

daydawg...just what part of "all roads lead to Russia" do you not understand?

Is that the same type of lynchings ya all have down south?

I could care less about impeachment at this point - I wasn't even looking for impeachment from the Mueller report. The next election is coming faster than we are likely to get the GOP to cooperate on the Due Process that is needed to investigate Trump. Add to that the spineless - sold their souls GOP won't remove Trump no matter what is proven. Trump is good at playing the victim ... look at how much he wails and whines about the media ... while in comparison Obama faced the same from the Right and he didn't.

The investigations - federal and state level - are good for exposing the truth. Some will accept that truth and want to ask hard questions - some will listen to the Trump spin and lies and instead of talking about what Trump did they will start asking questions about fake issues like Hunter Biden.

I like how the trumpians were silent for almost the first two weeks after the Ukraine news broke and now they are active in off hours like cockroaches when the lights go out.

And these posts have become 'must read' for two reasons IMHO.

First they show the ever evolving reaction to Ukraine-gate where they seem to be stuck between daily breaking allegations of new criminal activity and White House admissions of guilt while trying new applications of the Pee Wee Herman defense "I know you are but what am I?".

The second thing is much more fascinating IMHO. Anyone who can read or listen just has to understand that fully 90% of the statements coming from the right are currently projections of their own ineptitude, fears, and hate onto dems, investigators, and witnesses. They literally have nothing to defend these things.

They think “it’s a witch-hunt” is the defense.

ikr

j/c

The Mueller investigation was ordered by a Republican that was appointed by Trump. Rosenstein. He appointed a special prosecutor who was a Republican. Mueller.

And they are so confused and looking to blame people other than Republicans for it, they still blame the Democrats for it.

A year and a half of the time they continue to blame the Democrats for investigations into Trump are owned by Republicans, not Democrats. But facts haven't been their strong suit since they started backing Trump no matter what he does.

The House is not working with a report from Muller or Archibald Cox at this time. So in this case they are acting as the investigator.

That is why they are taking depositions in private. You don't want witnesses having the benefit of hearing the stories of others and adjusting their verbiage to match.

Once the depositions are taken, they will probably be made public and there may be additional questioning in public. May, but not a requirement.

Once the depositions become public, Trump will have a chance to present his own evidence in the Senate trial.

Trump is going nowhere and ALL you Demos can do nothing but...

Wrong.

This is an impeachment investigation, not a Grand Jury.
It is political in nature, not criminal.

What Grand Jury excludes Republicans from being Jurors and hearing testimony?
What Grand Jury leaks portions of the testimony to the Press on a daily basis? It is illegal to talk about Grand Jury testimony.

This is nothing but an unauthorized and underhanded campaign to undermine the President and try him in the court of public opinion with a daily drip drip drip of the Democrat side of the story.

Cheating the American People by playing these political games is obvious to every American.

There is zero testimony at this point that military aide was something the Ukrainians felt was being withheld to influence their decision.

This is a farce from the beginning.

This is an investigation, nothing more. It's an inquiry to gather evidence. Nobody would allow witnesses to hear other witnesses before they testify. It's a fact finding mission.

Your diatribe changes nothing.

Please cite and rule or law that requires a vote or others outside of congress to be present during this process.

You can't.

This isn't the first impeachment investigation in our history.

There are previous examples, precedence and procedures.

None of which are being followed in this laughable campaign debacle.

There was a precedent that Presidents release their tax returns as well.

Sounds like your own logic has come back to bite you in the butt.

Your claim was there is no law that requires a president to release his tax returns. Suddenly you want to rest on precedent?

OMG - Trump But, you are a day late and a dollar short.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zyXtCPntl8

Cry me a river, 40anne.



This is a wheel of Camembert. It's a nutty, mild cheese from the north of France. It pairs beautifully with that case of whine you're becoming famous for.

Try not to soil your skirt while this plays out.
Your boy's been hip-deep in shadiness since the transition so now, he's getting the microscope treatment, as is only proper. If he's as guilt-free as he claims, the probe (and yes, I used that word on purpose) will come out clean.

Best thing you and he can do is relax your sphincter and wait for it to be over.

Here's a Kleenex.
In the words of Mick Mulvaney: get over it, missy.

No no no ... quick someone explain this to Kasich: It's just a drip drip drip of dem talking points in the media. There's nothing wrong at all with what Trump has done and is doing.

Someone should also go release Manafort too - let him know that it was all just a witch hunt with an inquiry in search of a crime.... no harm no foul, he can be watch the game this Sunday from the comfort of his home!

I am not surprised that some republicans are taking issue with his actions.

Anyone who has held political office understands that there are certain things that you cannot do..

Trump just never took the time to learn and appreciate what it means to be an elected representative...

He is like "I am the President, I can do whatever I want"

His own ego led to this fiasco.

Probably his biggest blunder was to involve Rudy and the State Department. If he used one or the other, the case against him would have been less obvious, but by using both he painted himself into a corner. It's pretty obvious that those in the State department were dismayed and confused as to why Rudy was involved.

And Rudy is up to his neck with conflicts, I await his testimony.

All this said, impeachment is not assured. It is a political process involving a republican senate, and it is reasonably assured that any crime would not be investigated by Barr or the DOJ.

Exactly this.
At the start of his tenure, I assessed him as 'intellectually incurious.'

He has tried to run 1600 like he's always run his companies. In the private sector, you can get away with tactics like that. He's never embraced the concept that there exists a different set of rules for service in the public sector.

It's why I was convinced from the start that he'd find himself in hot water sooner or later. I had no idea how it would manifest, but was certain he'd step in it one way or another.

LMAO He couldn't even believe that he won! That was never his goal. He wanted to position himself for alt-right political broadcasting. They said Melania cried when he won and not tears of joy.

Fox's Wallace says 'well-connected' Republican told him there's a 20 percent chance GOP will vote for impeachment

Fox's Chris Wallace said a "well-connected" Washington Republican told him that there's a 20 percent chance enough Republicans will vote to remove President Trump from office in an impeachment trial in the Senate.

Wallace mentioned his source's comments during an interview with acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on "Fox News Sunday."

Wallace cited an overwhelming House vote criticizing the president's policies in Syria and an op-ed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) slamming Trump's decision to withdraw troops from that country.

He then said he had "talked to a very well-connected Republican in Washington, someone whose name you would know well, who says that if the House votes to impeach and it gets to a trial in the Senate, there's now a 20 percent chance enough Republicans would vote with Democrats to impeach the president."

The Fox anchor then asked Mulvaney if he was concerned about the president losing GOP support.

"That’s just absurd," Mulvaney said. "The comment about the 20 percent is just a person who clearly doesn't know what they're talking about."

The acting chief of staff added that Trump knew his decision to withdraw troops from Syria would be controversial and wouldn't be "politically popular."

"The president is extraordinarily popular at home," Mulvaney said, emphasizing his likability in swing states.

When Wallace said he was referring to GOP lawmakers distancing themselves from the president, Mulvaney responded, "They have to go home eventually as well."



Trump decided earlier this month to remove troops from Syria, which led to a Turkish invasion of northern Syria.

The decision sparked bipartisan backlash, with Republicans saying it had stabbed Kurdish allies now fighting with Turkey in the back while giving new leverage to ISIS, Russia and the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Polls have indicated support for impeachment has grown since Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced an inquiry last month, with multiple polls over the past two weeks showing that a majority of respondents supported the impeachment of Trump.

But it's still considered highly unlikely that many Republicans would back Trump's impeachment.

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk...-percent-chance

Here's the funny part in all of this.

People like 40 kept parroting Trump....."“Bring our troops back home…. It’s time to bring them home."

Only the truth is he's sending the soldiers from Syria to Iraq in order to fight ISIS there. And to add to that, he deployed almost two thousand more troops to Saudi Arabia.

I guess some people's idea of bringing the troops home is actually the opposite of what it really means.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws " he would make a Trump.

What's really funny is the same fools who spent years chasing around the fake Russian Collusion story and now the fake impeachment story have the gall to call Trump stupid.

This individual was created by real-life Human Beings.
That makes him more chilling than any fictional creation by Mary Shelley.

Just in time for Hallowe'en.

You still can't grasp that Mueller said he couldn't get to the bottom of the collusion issue because the witnesses lied. But all you've done in the past three years is support the biggest liar that has ever lived in the White House so it's understandable how that concept confuses you.

Are those witnesses in jail, have they been prosecuted for lying under oath?

He's not confused. He knows Trump is deplorable, a traitor, a crook... He just doesn't care because justifying his vote in 2016 means more to him than anything else.

Trump called the impeachment hearings a "lynching" today... so there was that. smh

Are you saying the Republican who was appointed special prosecutor, Mueller, by another republican, Rosenstein is lying?

Just for grins though arch, since you depend on everyone else to do your homework for you......

Trump confidant Roger Stone: Charged with lying to Congress

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn: Pleaded guilty to lying to investigators

Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates: Pleaded guilty to lying to investigators

Former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen: Pleaded guilty to tax and bank charges, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress

Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos: Served 12 days in prison for lying to investigators

Alex van der Zwaan: Served 30 days in prison for lying to investigators

https://time.com/5556331/mueller-investigation-indictments-guilty-pleas/

You're welcome.

Did I SAY that?

I'm asking which of the witnesses that lied under oath were prosecuted for lying under oath.

I listed those but it was probably while you were responding.

Yet we both know that people often times lie and it's nothing you can prove. I'm sure you've had that happen to you many times. You know someone is lying because their answers simply don't make sense and or don't add up. You know what they did but having the actual evidence to make it something you can prove in court are two different things.

My take is Mueller knew this happened several times and didn't find the actual proof needed to convict.

I also think that a lot of these cases of lying witnesses are still open and under investigation or part of ongoing prosecutions. So not all will get away with it.

Diplomat says Ukraine aid was tied to political investigations

https://thehill.com/policy/national-secu...-aid-to-ukraine


A top diplomat to Ukraine on Tuesday told House investigators that he believed the Trump administration withheld aid to Ukraine in an effort to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch politically motivated investigations, according to multiple sources familiar with his testimony.

One source told The Hill that William Taylor said the U.S ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, told him that security aid to Ukraine could have been held up in part because of a push for Ukraine to publicly announce probes into the 2016 presidential election as well as one of his top 2020 political opponents, former Vice President Joe Biden.


“It’s clear he thought there was” a quid pro quo, another source echoed.

Most Democrats emerging Tuesday from Taylor’s closed-door testimony in the Capitol basement were tight-lipped on details but effusive on a central point: the ambassador, they said, was delivering the most damning testimony yet in the Democrats' impeachment investigation into President Trump.

"Without question the most powerful testimony we've heard," said Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), who sits on the Oversight Committee.

"This testimony is a sea change. I think it could accelerate matters," Lynch continued. "This will, I think, answer more questions than it raises."

Taylor, the U.S. chargé d'affaires of Ukraine, was among the State Department veterans who had raised red flags about the White House campaign, led by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to pressure Zelensky for political favors. The Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is now focused squarely on that episode, fueled by allegations from a government whistleblower that Trump had dangled almost $400 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine if Zelensky failed to open the investigations Trump sought.

In text message conversations with several other diplomats, including Sondland, Taylor last month had warned against the “crazy” strategy of withholding U.S. aid “for help with a political campaign." At one point he threatened to quit the State Department in protest.

Sondland, a wealthy hotel magnate and Trump donor with no previous diplomatic experience, pushed back, saying Taylor was "incorrect" in surmising Trump's intentions.

"The president has been crystal clear no quid pro quos of any kind," Sondland wrote.

Sondland had testified last week before the three House committees leading the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry: Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs. But based on Taylor’s testimony Tuesday, some Democrats are already suggesting Sondland will be called back to explain apparent discrepancies.

“I walk away with the impression Mr. Sondland will have some explaining to do,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), a member of the Intelligence Committee.

Lynch described Taylor as a "meticulous" note-taker who had kept detailed records of his involvement in the months-long effort by Trump and some of his closest allies to pressure Ukrainian leaders to find dirt on Trump's political rivals.

"He indicated that he kept extensive notes on all of this," Lynch said.

Rep. Tom Malinowski (D.N.J.), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, also suggested Taylor's testimony was supportive of the central allegations facing Trump on his dealings with Ukraine.

"I would say it certainly filled in many of the remaining gaps in the narrative," Malinowski said. "I would say he remembered some things that previous witnesses have not been able to remember."

Democrats participating in the deposition said Taylor has also stood by his earlier statement that it would be “crazy” to leverage the U.S. financial assistance — which aimed to combat Russian aggression in Ukraine — to win a commitment from Zelensky to open such investigations.

“His testimony was withering with respect to some earlier testimony,” said Lynch.

They'll be working hard to attack everyone who has uncovered and testified to their quid pro quo scheme.

Hmmmm - it's worked every other time for them.

Step 1: go to the post that contains this quote.
Step 2:



one space.

this time they might not be able to dodge this one, though.

i mean....bro the whistleblower complaint pretty much nailed everything.

if this isn't an impeachable offense, but lying about an affair is, then we have officially sank to the lowest level ever in our history.

and for all to understand, here is another way to look at what trump did:

He held up our taxpayer money designated for military aid as a bargaining chip in order to get the ukrainian president to open an investigation into his 2020 political rival.

good lord, you MAGA hatters elected someone worse than nixon.

The weight of the evidence will be the key as dems will now inevitably vote to impeach Trump. If the evidence is undeniable, Senate Republicans will have to weigh their patriotism against their party allegiance OR more specifically their allegiance to Trump. Impeachment is going to happen, removal is up to the Senate.

Dems should spend some time getting the full story out as soon as they finish collecting the facts. BUT they should not let this inquiry drag on into 2020 the primaries time.

Step 1: Check out the times of the posts.
Step 2:

I hear this all of the time about Bill Clinton. But it's not quite that simple. Bill Clinton committed perjury for lying under oath.

But let's be real here. Both Bill and Hillary did testify under oath. Something Trump refuses to do. Even he realizes he can't tell the truth long enough to dodge the perjury bullet.

But you did get your answer, correct?

I'd like to add that Pence, Mnuchin, Giuliani, Pompeo, Barr and others are involved as well and they are all impeachable. Will Pence also be impeached?

This article discusses it:

https://time.com/5692947/mike-pence-impeachment/

Yes.

And the snarky, smarmy reply by someone.

BREAKING NEWS: Anonymous Trump insider who rocked White House with 'resistance' op-ed will tell EVERYTHING in behind-the-scenes book

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...-tell-book.html

The hits just keep coming for Trump and company. I'd feel for the guy if he wasn't such a traitorous crooked scumbag.

I guess my only point would be that you could answer your own question with a 30 second Google search. Not trying to start a fight, but it seems that some people just don't care enough about what's going on with all of this to even bother to look for themselves.

This is far different than anything I've seen in my lifetime. And it just seems as if some people don't even care enough to find out what's going on.

Let me give you yet another example.

He's talking yet once again about banning certain media outlets from the White House. This time it's the Wall Street Journal and the New York times.

He tried this same thing a couple of years ago with CNN. CNN sued and a judge ruled against Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/business/media/cnn-acosta-trump.html

Let's face it, just because a newspaper or TV channel says things you don't like is no actual reason to prohibit them access. This is no more than censorship and punishment to the free press for saying things and expressing views you don't like.

Things like this go on all the time. Too much to post or even keep up with. It's a sad time in our country.

im convinced Arch gets his news from this board.

i dont have any other explanation as to why he seems to be oblivious to the news out there.

Need a much more reliable source than the Daily Mail which is a pretty crappy paper.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/books/anonymous-op-ed-trump-book.html

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/22/politics/anonymous-trump-official-book/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/...b5ce_story.html

my guy in the resistance strikes again.

Nah, I come here to read. I get 'news' here, and elsewhere. I don't believe much 'news'.

as i said before, trump and his loser zealots have becoming the conspirators in their quest to hunt a completely debunked conspiracy, in the quest of advancing their own political interest.

the right have basically elected Alex jones to the oval office. and it shouldnt be surprising, seeing as its the same people who believe in:

obama being a foreign born muslim

the deep state (which hilariously ended up being Trump himself)

pizzagate

uranium one

jade helm (still my favorite)

and a bunch of other mind boggling nonsense...


Anatomy of a conspiracy theory: The 'server' Trump keeps looking for will never be found, because it doesn't exist

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-dnc-server-conspiracy-ukraine-crowdstrike-hannity-duffy-201008650.html

It’s the conspiracy theory that could bring down a presidency: the idea that an old Democratic National Committee email server is hidden somewhere in Ukraine and could rewrite the history of the 2016 election.

If it does lead to President Trump’s impeachment, it will be because he believed it.

“There was a server, the DNC server, that had never went to the FBI — the FBI didn’t take it,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. “It was taken by somebody, I guess it’s CrowdStrike, that’s what I have heard.”

Trump pushed the same line last week in the Oval Office, stating, “For instance, I still ask the FBI, ‘Where is the server?’ How come the FBI never got the server from the DNC? Where is the server? I want to see the server.”

There is no DNC server. CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity firm that investigated the 2016 hack into DNC emails and turned its findings over to the FBI. Trump brought up CrowdStrike and the server in a July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In the memo about the call released by the White House, Trump said, “I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike,” followed by an ellipsis, followed by “The server, they say Ukraine has it.”

Trump and his fellow conspiracy theorists on the right believe that the server would contain evidence proving that Russia wasn’t responsible for the hack. (CrowdStrike found that Russia was responsible, as did special counsel Robert Mueller.) The impeachment inquiry was sparked by a whistleblower complaint about the president’s attempt to pressure Ukraine into pursuing his theory about the server and investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

President Trump searches for a computer server. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP, Getty Images)
President Trump searches for a computer server. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP, Getty Images)
Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, acknowledged last week that military aid to Ukraine was put on hold by the White House as part of the pressure campaign. The administration subsumes the server myth and Biden’s dealings with the Ukrainian government in 2016 under the rubric of “corruption.”

“Did [Trump] also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the DNC server?” said Mulvaney in a press briefing last week about his conversations with Ukrainian officials. “Absolutely. No question about that.”

“But to be clear, what you just described is a quid pro quo,” asked a reporter, seeking clarification that Mulvaney had just admitted to the basis of the House’s impeachment inquiry. “It is: Funding will not flow unless the investigation into the Democratic server happens as well.”

“We do that all the time with foreign policy,” said Mulvaney.

Neither CrowdStrike nor Ukraine has the server because the investigation was done through forensic replicas of the DNC hard drives called “imaging,” not looking at a physical server. CrowdStrike is not a Ukrainian-based company — it was co-founded by an American citizen who emigrated from Russia — and people associated with the firm are baffled and infuriated by Trump’s insinuations. Robert Johnston, a former CrowdStrike investigator who worked on the probe into the hacking of the DNC, told the Washington Post that Trump’s comments were “insane.”

“This is absolute babbling to the president of Ukraine,” said Johnston. “It’s hard to finger exactly which conspiracy theory he’s subscribing to. But none of them have any grounding in reality.”

“As we’ve repeatedly stated, we stand by the findings and analysis of our investigation, and, as detailed in our company statement, we’ve provided all forensic evidence and analysis to the FBI as requested,” said CrowdStrike in a statement. “Additionally, our findings have been supported by the U.S. intelligence community and other cybersecurity companies.”

Trump wasn’t the only one pushing the theory on cable news this week. Former Rep. Sean Duffy began his job as a political commentator on CNN by advancing the same story. Duffy, a Republican, previously represented a district in Wisconsin but resigned last month, citing family health issues.

“Democrats and the media were all about what happened in the 2016 election,” Duffy said on the network Sunday. “What Mick Mulvaney said was Donald Trump said let’s look and say let’s get this server, this is the DNC server.”

“This is a disputed, absurd conspiracy theory that you’re talking about right now,” said Amanda Carpenter, a conservative panelist.

“What you are stating is completely inaccurate and factually wrong,” said Jen Psaki, a former Obama White House staffer. “It is a conspiracy theory on the right wing.”

Former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy (Photo: Mary F. Calvert/Reuters)
Former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy (Photo: Mary F. Calvert/Reuters)
Duffy, undeterred, tried the same line on Monday when asked by host Alisyn Camerota about Mulvaney admitting to a quid pro quo between the U.S. and Ukraine.

“We spent two years talking about Russia collusion, Russia influence in our 2016 election,” said Duffy. “What Mick Mulvaney was talking about was actually trying to find the server that was the DNC’s server at the heart of the Russia investigation.”

“That’s a conspiracy theory,” said Camerota.

They continued going back and forth before an exasperated Camerota said, “Ukraine doesn’t have the server, Sean.”

“They might not,” said Duffy. “They might be wrong on that. They might be wrong on whether Ukraine has the server.”

CNN didn’t respond to a question about whether it was concerned that its new hire had pushed a conspiracy theory on his first two days on the job. The network has previously faced criticism over its 2016 hiring of Trump staffer Corey Lewandowski after he left the campaign following allegations he had assaulted a female reporter, although charges were later dropped. In congressional testimony last month, Lewandowski admitted he often lied to the media.

On Tuesday, one of Duffy’s former colleagues raised the issue in a House hearing on election security.

“It has been reported that the FBI never obtained the original servers from the Democratic National Committee that had allegedly been hacked by Russia, instead relying on imaged copies,” said Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz. “Is that correct?”

One of the witnesses, Adam Hickey, a deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division, confirmed CrowdStrike’s account.

“We got the information that we required for our investigation, and it’s pretty common for us to work with a security vendor in connection with an investigation of a computer intrusion,” said Hickey.