House Impeachment Inquiry

[CapelDodger]

It would also make him look weak to publicly announce that he was beholden to the whims of a foreign head of state. It wouldn't be a good way to remain president.

Tangentially on-topic, that's a line Corbyn is using against Johnson (to what effect, we shall see). Patriotic Ukrainians are well aware of Trump's fondness for Putin and hate him for it : standing up to his pressure is a vote-winner.

As for what Trumpists see in the hearings, they see what Trump tells them to see, directly or through his lickspittle mouthpieces, such as Nunes. What's important is what normal people see.

 

[alfaniner]

Wow! I had not heard that. If true, it's disgusting and Jordan is even more of a POS than I already thought.

Now I know why I keep seeing him referred to in Tweets as "Gym" Jordan.

 

[Paul2]

I'd be a little kinder than that plague311

Of course he is gong to say that. Like every other intelligent person on the planet, he has seen how petty and vindictive Trump is when people disagree with him. He wants to make sure nothing gets in the way of the desperately needed aid and military support Ukraine needs.

In the near or distant future, as well.

 

[Dr. Keith]

W.D. Clinger, thank you for that lengthy and very informative post.

Agreed.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No, you've got it wrong. Its not that at all.

The Nunes/Trump/Manafort CT claims that Ukraine tried to interfere in support of Hillary Clintion.

The conspiracy theory claims that CrowdStrike, the company that investigated the hack of the DNC server, planted false evidence on the server to make it LOOK like Russia did the hacking, and that if this (non-existent) DNC server is ever found it would prove that.

This whole, bat-**** crazy CT has been repeatedly and thoroughly debunked.

That's one version, there are many.

For example there's the idiocy that the DNC server is somewhere in Ukraine.

And I'm pretty sure Trump also claims Russia wanted to help Clinton, He can't keep his CTs straight.

It wasn't Russia but if it was, they wanted to help Clinton. He frequently claims the DNC leaked its own emails, then changes the subject when anyone asks him what the logic in that was.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The ing part of the investigating with a case which is open but without any evidence of activity can include everything from a backlog they're going through first, to waiting for new evidence to come in, to being in the process of closing a case. ....

Give up, the statement you said twice that Shokin was investigating Hunter or Burisma was outright wrong. All this hoop jumping is a fail.

Case was technically open. Leave it at that.

Shokin was not investigating Burisma or Hunter. Don't help the lie by repeating it.

But if throwing Biden under the bus helps convince Trumpers to listen to other facts, go for it.

 

[CapelDodger]

U.S. envoy Sondland did not link Biden probe to aid: Ukraine minister

******* Putin!!!

You're relying on a Ukrainian politician's statement to defend Trump. Doesn't that statement constitute Ukrainian interference in US politics? I thought you people were against that.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think Jim Jordan was off his game yesterday, and got waylaid from his primary mission. He needs to practice more....

“Ambassador, getting back to the Bidens, whattabout Hunter Biden? Joe Biden? Burisma? Biden corruption? Hunter corruption? Joe corruption? Burisma corruption? Whattabout the dossier? HEARSAY! Burisma Hunter Joe Biden corruption? Where’s the server? Where’s the whistleblower? SQUIRREL! I see my time has expired.”

Actually that’s kinda what the R’s sounded like yesterday, right?

 

[CapelDodger]

From the link in Bogative's Hail Mary post :

“Ambassador Sondland did not tell us, and certainly did not tell me, about a connection between the assistance and the investigations. You should ask him,” Prystaiko said about Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union.

Oh, they are so going to.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Since then, Mulvaney has changed his mind and will not join the lawsuit, just defy the subpoena. Probably because a judge might not rule the way he wants.

Or he thinks because the Committee pulled out of the lawsuit maybe he should wait to see how things develop as well.

Who knows. Bottom line though, this will end up in the courts unless Schiff decides to use their refusal to testify as obstruction of justice evidence.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Now I know why I keep seeing him referred to in Tweets as "Gym" Jordan.

Ooouuu, I'm going to use that.

 

[kellyb]

Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee heard public testimony from George Kent (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State) and William Taylor (charges d'affaires in Kyiv, Ukraine).

I watched the entire five and a half hours.

Thanks for watching the whole thing so intently.

The democrats might have run into a major problem seeing as how all the stuff like this:

Goldman: And to your knowledge, is there any factual basis to support the allegation that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election?

Kent: To my knowledge, there is no factual basis. No.

Goldman: And in fact, who did interfere in the 2016 election?

Kent: I think it's amply clear that Russian interference was at the heart of the interference in the 2016 election cycle.

Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it, it sounds horrible.
Goldman's questioning:
Quote:Goldman: And to your knowledge, is there any factual basis to support those allegations?

Kent: None whatsoever.


---------------------
After almost five minutes of that, his questioning began as follows:

Quote:Nunes: Ambassador Kent, you didn't seem to be too concerned about it in the last round of questioning, so I'll just skip you because we know that wasn't a concern. But Ambassador Taylor, you testified to this committee that you only recently became aware of reports of this cooperation between Ukrainian embassy officials and Chalupa to undermine the Trump campaign from your last deposition. Is that correct?

Taylor: Mister Nunes, it is correct that I had not known about this before.

Nunes: Yes. I'm just going over your last deposition.

Taylor: Exactly right.

Nunes: Ambassador.

Taylor: Yeah.

Nunes: The Politico article cites three unnamed Ukrainian officials [....] Ambassador Taylor, you testified that you were unfamiliar with that statement. Is that correct?

Taylor: That is correct.

Nunes: You also said you were unaware that [....] Is that correct?

Taylor: That is correct.

Nunes: You said you did not know [....] Is that still correct?

Taylor: That is still correct, sir.

Nunes: Thank you, Mister Taylor.
In short, Nunes did a very good job of getting Ambassador Taylor to admit he didn't know as much about Fox News talking points as Nunes does.
------------------------------Castor: Ambassador Taylor, Mister Kent, President Trump's concerns about Ukraine's role in the 2016 election. You believe he genuinely believed they were working against him, right? [lengthy pause] Ambassador Taylor?

Taylor: Mister Castor, I don't know what President or candidate Trump was thinking about the Ukrainians.

Castor: Didn't he in this Oval Office meeting on May twenty-third after the Zelensky inauguration, didn't he lament that the Ukrainians were out to get him?

Taylor: I heard that his response to the suggestion that Mister Zelensky visit President Trump in the Oval Office was not well received and that he had concerns about the Ukrainians, yes.
Castor then asked an even sillier question that began with a long windup and ended by saying "You certainly can appreciate that President Trump was very concerned that some elements of the Ukrainian establishment were not in favor of him, did not support him, and were out to get him."

...Implies that some of the congressional democrats are either misinformed, or lying about what people in Ukraine were trying to do in 2016.

I blame Schiff for (presumably, hopefully) erring by not making sure every democrat there had read the FP article months ago about the 2016 Ukrainian meddling.

If he chose a "just lie" strategy on purpose, shame on him.

eta: well...scratch that...maybe I'm misreading it, and I need to watch some of it on the c span video link before rendering judgment.
Huh.

 

[kellyb]

Just watched some of it:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?466134-1/impeachment-hearing-william-taylor-george-kent&start=7970
2:14:09 minutes and seconds in...

Goldman: And to your knowledge, is there any factual basis to support the allegation that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election?

Kent: To my knowledge, there is no factual basis. No.

Kent's lying. No way has he not been made aware of this stuff.

Or the FP article is BS (that would be bizarre... it's the IC's magazine...) or there's some other explanation I've not thought of, which I truly hope is the case.

 

[kellyb]

Perhaps I am misunderstanding something here.

Are you saying that I am undertaking "a huge leap of wild speculation with no even shoddy evidence" in saying that this is what the CT claims, or are you agreeing with me that the the CT is a "a huge leap of wild speculation with no even shoddy evidence"?

Sorry for the confusion. I meant the latter. I was saying it (the CT, if one can even call it that) comes across more like the babbling of someone with severe mental health problems than a "normal" CT. Most CT's which are well known are very "coherent" compared to whatever that is.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Kent's lying. No way has he not been made aware of this stuff.

George Kent is an anti-corruption specialist. He was certainly aware of Ukrainian efforts to expose Paul Manafort's shenanigans, et cetera, but regards that as routine anti-corruption efforts that official US policy encourages, not as interference in the 2016 election.

But I haven't read your links, so I may not understand your point. If so, please repeat your explanation or link to your previous explanations. (I do not read everything that is written in this thread, especially when it looks to me as though the discussion has degenerated into some kind of quarrel over whether someone's characterization of the facts comports with someone else's characterization of the facts.)

 

[smartcooky]

You're relying on a Ukrainian politician's statement to defend Trump. Doesn't that statement constitute Ukrainian interference in US politics? I thought you people were against that.

 

[kellyb]

George Kent is an anti-corruption specialist. He was certainly aware of Ukrainian efforts to expose Paul Manafort's shenanigans, et cetera, but regards that as routine anti-corruption efforts that official US policy encourages, not as interference in the 2016 election.

But I haven't read your links, so I may not understand your point. If so, please repeat your explanation or link to your previous explanations. (I do not read everything that is written in this thread, especially when it looks to me as though the discussion has degenerated into some kind of quarrel over whether someone's characterization of the facts comports with someone else's characterization of the facts.)

This is the way it was perceived at the time, apparently:
https://www.ft.com/content/c98078d0-6ae7-11e6-a0b1-d87a9fea034f

The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine’s arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country’s biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev’s wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a US election.

“Ukraine’s anti-corruption activists have probably saved the Western world,” Anton Shekhovtsov, a western-based academic specialising in Russia and Ukraine, tweeted after Mr Manafort resigned

They used the word "intervene" instead of "interfere", but come on.

If that's the sort of semantic trick that makes Kent "not lying", he's lying.

What I have no idea about is WHY he's lying.

More of the article quoted here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12891834&postcount=1727

 

[W.D.Clinger]

This is the way it was perceived at the time, apparently:
https://www.ft.com/content/c98078d0-6ae7-11e6-a0b1-d87a9fea034f

The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine’s arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country’s biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev’s wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a US election.

“Ukraine’s anti-corruption activists have probably saved the Western world,” Anton Shekhovtsov, a western-based academic specialising in Russia and Ukraine, tweeted after Mr Manafort resigned

They used the word "intervene" instead of "interfere", but come on.

If that's the sort of semantic trick that makes Kent "not lying", he's lying.

What I have no idea about is WHY he's lying.

More of the article quoted here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12891834&postcount=1727

Thank you for clarifying.

George Kent is aware of those facts but does not subscribe to the spin you describe.

 

[PhantomWolf]

This is the way it was perceived at the time, apparently:
https://www.ft.com/content/c98078d0-6ae7-11e6-a0b1-d87a9fea034f




They used the word "intervene" instead of "interfere", but come on.

If that's the sort of semantic trick that makes Kent "not lying", he's lying.

What I have no idea about is WHY he's lying.

More of the article quoted here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12891834&postcount=1727

You are discounting one possibility, that a few comments and blog posts don't rise to the level of interference, especially compared to a major concerted effort of thousands of bots and fake accounts, along with directed messaging using the Republican polling data and Cambridge Analytics to select and target people on both sides with fake news stories designed to directly influence people's voting.

 

[smartcooky]

Thank you for clarifying.

George Kent is aware of those facts but does not subscribe to the spin you describe.

Absolutely 100%. Kent is not lying at all with his answer....

Goldman: And to your knowledge, is there any factual basis to support the allegation that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election?

Kent: To my knowledge, there is no factual basis. No.​

He is absolutely telling the truth here. There IS no known factual basis of any kind that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. The whole idea that they did was made up from whole cloth by Konstantin Kilimnik (Russian/Ukrainian political consultant with ties to Russian intelligence) and Paul Manafort (tax-dodging criminal and general, all around scumbag) both of whom wanted to draw attention away from the Russian interference and what they were up to.

FACT: The Russian Government hacked the DNC server and passed the information they stole to Wikileaks.

FACT: The Russian Government interfered in the 2016 US election in support of Donald Trump.

FACT: This was all confirmed by the Special Counsel, who indicted 13 Russians (including Kilimnik) for various offences including conspiracy to obstruct justice, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.

FACT: This was also confirmed by the bipartisan, Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee.

FACT: The Ukrainian government had nothing whatsoever to do with the hacking of the DNC server, nor did they interfere in the 2016 US election at all.