Cont: House Impeachment Inquiry - part 2

[Cain]

It's a sad day in the history of this country. The Founders never could have contemplated, much less anticipated this level of corruption and abuse of power. Something must be done to deter future usurpers from trying to overturn an election based on a perfect phone call.

 

[Lurch]

How does that follow from anything I said? Are you honestly this bad at reading comprehension?



That's the conclusion of the GAO. I'll assume they're correct, just like I'll assume they're correct when they concluded that the Obama administration acted illegally in its release of 5 Guantanamo Bay inmates to Qatar.

It would be nice if the government always acted according to the law, but this isn't the first time it hasn't. A sense of perspective is in order.



This is all special pleading. Why are these very specific conditions required? Why couldn't breaking the law in some other manner be similarly serious? Again, this is hardly the first time the government failed its statutory duty. And it's a safe bet that it will happen again no matter who wins in 2020.

Holding anyone to account today can't undo past crime nor prevent future crime. Clearly we just have to "get over it" and let the criming criminals crime away.

 

[Darat]

Man does Parnas ever set off my bull-****-o-meter. Everything he says seems sketchy.

Perhaps he's a plant, it is going to be revealed he an actor and made it all up!

 

[Lurch]

Man does Parnas ever set off my bull-****-o-meter. Everything he says seems sketchy.

Why, have you been hanging around *real* henchmen, and know how they *really* talk? Just kidding!

Perhaps Parnas comes across as 'sketchy' to a non criminal simply because he's just the sketchy type who Trump would find useful. And bear in mind that in broad detail certainly, Parnas's interviews are in awfully close agreement with other testimony by Gov't witness under oath.

How did you assess Michael Cohen?

 

[Lurch]

High Crimes are, generally, worse that what Meadmaker calls "real" crimes.
I wouldn't care much if a President was caught shoplifting.
I care very much about Abuse of Power.

Good point for perspective.

 

[Tero]

Man does Parnas ever set off my bull-****-o-meter. Everything he says seems sketchy.

Follow the money. The GOP will be in big trouble if they do. Rudy works for free for Trump, he says. But the money will go from
1 pro Trump people in Russia and Ukraine to
2 Parmas to
3 Giuliani and 4 GOP candidates in US

 

[Ziggurat]

Holding anyone to account today can't undo past crime nor prevent future crime. Clearly we just have to "get over it" and let the criming criminals crime away.

There was no crime, and the GAO does not allege one. Breaking the law is different than committing a crime. One of the problems with government in general is that many of it's legal obligations don't come with criminal liability for failing to keep them. Again, nothing new. If you want to change that, you need to change the law. Good luck with that.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

There was no crime, and the GAO does not allege one. Breaking the law is different than committing a crime. One of the problems with government in general is that many of it's legal obligations don't come with criminal liability for failing to keep them. Again, nothing new. If you want to change that, you need to change the law. Good luck with that.

That's why people get fired instead of incarcerated for this.
Mulvaney needs to get canned.

 

[Tero]

Thankfully the senators do not speak, repeating the made up crimes of Hunter.

They try very hard, using journalistic skills/lies. He makes up a fictional file on Hunter Biden:

But while there is a debate over whether Republicans will vote to call witnesses, there is no debate on how the Senate Democrats intend to vote -- 100% for removal of a president they fear they may not be able to defeat.

Consider Trump's alleged offense: pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Burisma Holdings and Hunter Biden.

Assume Zelenskiy, without prodding, sent to the U.S., as a friendly act to ingratiate himself with Trump, the Burisma file on Hunter Biden.
Would that have been a crime?

Why is it then a crime if Trump asked for the file?

The military aid Trump held up for 10 weeks -- lethal aid Barack Obama denied to Kyiv -- was sent. And Zelenskiy never held the press conference requested, never investigated Burisma, never sent the Biden file.

There is a reason why no crime was charged in the impeachment of Donald Trump. There was no crime committed.

https://townhall.com/columnists/pat...ous-indictment-mitch-should-toss-out-n2559651

Of course there is a file on Hunter Biden, but only the contract for his services, which were to sit at board meetings a few times a year. The board votes on Burisma matters which at this time are internal and do not need to be revealed. But board members do not devise technical things or criminal efforts. They look at finances, annual reports and such. Business! In any case, the president of Ukraine cannot get info on a board member of a company in his country.

 

[Tero]

Wow, more cool stuff appeared
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump–Ukraine_scandal
Jump to Giuliani

Responding to a motion by the liberal watchdog group American Oversight,[96] on October 23 a federal judge gave the State Department 30 days to release Ukraine-related records, including communications between Pompeo and Rudy Giuliani.[97] On November 22, the State Department released internal emails and documents that bolstered Gordon Sondland's congressional testimony that Pompeo participated in Giuliani's activities relating to Ukraine. The documents also showed the State Department had deliberately deceived Congress about the rationale for Yovanovitch's removal as ambassador.[96]

During his call with Zelensky, Trump said, "I will ask [Giuliani] to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great."[98] In November, Trump denied directing Giuliani to go to Ukraine to seek damaging information on the Bidens.[99] Giuliani had asserted in September that "everything I did was to defend my client."[100]

Naftogaz

Perry with Zelensky at Zelensky's inauguration, May 2019
Since March 2019, while Giuliani was pressing the Ukrainian administration to investigate the Bidens, a group of businessmen and Republican donors used their ties to Trump and Giuliani to try to replace the leadership of Ukrainian state-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz. The group sought to have Naftogaz contracts granted to businesses owned by allies of Trump, but this effort hit a setback when Volodymyr Zelensky won the 2019 Ukrainian Presidential Election.[101] During a state visit for President Zelensky's inauguration in May, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry reportedly pressured President Zelensky to fire members of the Naftogaz supervisory board,[101] but Perry denied this, stating in a press conference on October 7: "That was a totally dreamed-up story".[102] On October 10, Perry was issued a subpoena by the House Intelligence Committee, the House Oversight Committee, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, partially concerning his interactions with Naftogaz.[103][104][105]

Firtash is represented by Trump and Giuliani associates Joseph diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing, having hired them on Parnas's recommendation. The New York Times reported in November that Giuliani had directed Parnas to approach Firtash with the recommendation, with the proposition that Firtash could help to provide compromising information on Biden, which Parnas's attorney described was "part of any potential resolution to [Firtash's] extradition matter."[112] Shokin's statement notes that it was prepared "at the request of lawyers acting for Dmitry Firtash."[113][109] Bloomberg News reported on October 18 that during the summer of 2019 Firtash associates began attempting to dig up dirt on the Bidens in an effort to solicit Giuliani's assistance with Firtash's legal matters, as well as hiring diGenova and Toensing in July. Bloomberg News also reported that its sources told them Giuliani's high-profile publicity of the Shokin statement had greatly reduced the chances of the Justice Department dropping the charges against Firtash, as it would appear to be a political quid pro quo.[114]

Firtash made his fortune brokering Ukrainian imports of natural gas from the Russian firm Gazprom.[120] As vice president, Joe Biden had urged the Ukrainian government to eliminate middlemen such as Firtash from the country's natural gas industry, and to reduce the country's reliance on imports of Russian natural gas. Firtash denied involvement in collecting or financing damaging information on the Bidens.[112]

 

[plague311]

Why, have you been hanging around *real* henchmen, and know how they *really* talk? Just kidding!

Perhaps Parnas comes across as 'sketchy' to a non criminal simply because he's just the sketchy type who Trump would find useful. And bear in mind that in broad detail certainly, Parnas's interviews are in awfully close agreement with other testimony by Gov't witness under oath.

Well, I'm not exactly a "non criminal" but I agree with some of what you're saying. He's changed his tune a few times, but overall he lines up well with the evidence. It's hard to think he's not trying to cover his ass by lying about some of the things that have happened. I'll wait until more details emerge...I guess that would depend on if more details emerge.

How did you assess Michael Cohen?

I think Michael Cohen saw the light a bit more easily than the others given his legal past.

I think Parnas has a bit of a chip on his shoulder and he might be prone to stretch events a bit because of it. He's really upset that Trump isn't acknowledging him and that's both good and bad. It's like.. the information you get from torture. He might say what you want to hear, but you shouldn't trust it unless it's verified from other sources.

Perhaps he's a plant, it is going to be revealed he an actor and made it all up!

It wouldn't be a shock to me anymore. It's type of lame brained **** that Trump and his team would come up.

 

[Tero]

Ukraine responds "we don't know any Lev Parnas"
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/videos/worl...-foreign-minister-lev-parnas-amanpour-vpx.cnn
"We never met Giuliani."

Vadym Volodymyrovych Prystaiko (Ukrainian: Вадим Володимирович Пристайко; born on February 20, 1970) is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine since August 29, 2019.[1] He had been the Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine between 2014 and 2019.

So he in fact had been present when Rudy romanced the Ukraine officials.

 

[Minoosh]

Except the term "high crimes" DOES NOT mean criminal. And I know you know this.

If it were a criminal matter, tradition would be that Trump couldn't be indicted.

So to allege that Trump's actions are not criminal is a bit of a feint, IMO. If they *were* criminal, the only remedy would be impeachment. Which is what's happening. Andrew Napolitano gave a good argument that Trump's actions to obstruct justice could in fact be considered criminal, and he's not exactly a bleeding heart liberal. For some reason an opinion from the AG's office is widely honored. I'd like to see another article on the obstruction of justice theme. For some reason the House thought that would be the wrong tactic. But Trump was breaking more laws even as the hearings were going on - browbeating someone who is entitled to privacy, trashing a witness at the very time she was testifying. By definition he cannot be charged with a crime, but I think that's a ******* crime.

I don't know why the OLC memo is so sacrosanct. In an adversarial system, lawyers are wrong half the time almost by definition. So there are probably good reasons that it's widely honored by "both" sides. It's like a stipulation. I don't know if it covers state indictments, or only federal ones.

 

[Segnosaur]

Looks like Trump is getting what he wanted! An investigation into corrupt activities in Ukraine.

From: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/16/7969...aims-u-s-ambassador-yovanovitch-was-monitored
Ukraine's national police are investigating whether U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was under surveillance in Kyiv last spring — something implied in a series of WhatsApp messages between a little-known Republican political candidate and an associate of Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer. "Ukraine cannot ignore such illegal activities on the territory of its own state," the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine said in a statement Thursday.

 

[Darat]

Well, I'm not exactly a "non criminal" but I agree with some of what you're saying. He's changed his tune a few times, but overall he lines up well with the evidence. It's hard to think he's not trying to cover his ass by lying about some of the things that have happened. I'll wait until more details emerge...I guess that would depend on if more details emerge.







I think Michael Cohen saw the light a bit more easily than the others given his legal past.



I think Parnas has a bit of a chip on his shoulder and he might be prone to stretch events a bit because of it. He's really upset that Trump isn't acknowledging him and that's both good and bad. It's like.. the information you get from torture. He might say what you want to hear, but you shouldn't trust it unless it's verified from other sources.







It wouldn't be a shock to me anymore. It's type of lame brained **** that Trump and his team would come up.

Trump would never employ actors to help him out.....

 

[Minoosh]

Wouldn't an ambassador kind of expect to be under surveillance by someone? I guess it's not the done thing since it violates norms that are widely hailed as civilized. But I bet it happens all the time. Maybe not by gangsters who want to kill you, if that's what happened.

“She’s going to go through some things,” Trump said.

Read the ******* transcript, senators. And ask Trump to explain that. Or Pompeo, etc. If that transcript is evidence it should be thoroughly read and vetted.

I double-dog dare you.

Ukraine calls the actions illegal which is pretty darn ballsy of it, IMO.

 

[fishbob]

deleted

 

[Minoosh]

There was no crime, and the GAO does not allege one. Breaking the law is different than committing a crime.

I really, really hope the Senate uses that line of argument to defend Trump.

Oh, that's right, he's not going to offer a defense.

He has the right to remain silent - but does he have the ability?

Lindsey Graham says it won't be a fair trial unless Trump can confront the whistleblower. So he's already said the Senate must absolutely call at least one witness. If the camel's nose is in the tent, perhaps the rest of the camel might soon appear.

 

[Trebuchet]

We need a Trump Trial thread but I wasn't sure where to start one so I've made a poll over in community.

Meanwhile, Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr have been named to Trump's defense team. The former a good friend of Jeffrey Epstein and the latter the prosecutor at Clinton's trial, who more recently had to resign as president of Baylor due to systematic coverups of rapes by football players.
You can't make this stuff up.

 

[Paul2]

That's the conclusion of the GAO. I'll assume they're correct, just like I'll assume they're correct when they concluded that the Obama administration acted illegally in its release of 5 Guantanamo Bay inmates to Qatar.

It would be nice if the government always acted according to the law, but this isn't the first time it hasn't. A sense of perspective is in order.

I'm glad you bring up the issue of perspective, because it raises a point I haven't heard anyone mention.


If any other of our past Presidents (with the exception of Tricky Dick) had done exactly what Trump did in the Ukraine affair, one could argue that, while being bad, should not be impeachable. I might not agree with that argument, but I think a rational person could make it.


What makes Trump different, however, from all other Presidents, is well known, and makes all the difference. The lack of serious consequences would only serve to allow even worse activity.


The issue of fairness -that Trump isn't being treated like other Presidents for the same activity - is irrelevant because impeachment is not a legal proceeding, even though it has some legalistic trappings. It is more like a job review in which the managers understand that, without firing this employee, much, much more harm is likely because the employee has few inner controls.