What with Ukraine is up Trump's sleeve? Dirty tricks. or treason?

Update 9 22 19 and 9 23 19   9 25 2019 9/26/19

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/us/politics/ukraine-transcript-trump.html

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/09/25/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-us-aid-package-to-ukraine-that-trump-delayed/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-anticorruption-effort-in-ukraine-overlapped-with-sons-work-in-country-11569189782?fbclid=IwAR3owMjRnSUY2ipHy-ntdeK7rdmeYk3HHXghsmaHMksyfhWQGLdfTbrkTo0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/26/trumps-false-claims-about-hunter-bidens-china-dealings/?fbclid=IwAR3pr9uam66Td56asMe8mZX-MEO8steMpdWC59XyQE0M9bAkKQoAX38FvcsBut Hunter Biden did not raise money for the fund; instead, he was on a board that advised potential investors. He did not obtain an equity stake until after his father was no longer vice president — and that investment of less than half a million dollars has not yet yielded a payoff for Hunter Biden, according to his attorney.

Trump earns Four Pinocchios

In May this year, Rudi Guiliani had announced a trip to Ukraine to the purposes of "investigating" Biden's son, Hunter, for having a relationship with an oil and gas company and an oligarch.  The purpose of this, if successful, could be used against Biden or as a way to blunt criticism of Trump for either his son or himself or his campaign associates could be accused of having business dealings with suspicious foreign entities.   It is his usual pot calling the kettle black campaign strategy, even if equivalencies are false. The uproar over this was so loud, Guillani announced he would not go on the "fact-finding" trip because the Ukranian government was full of anti-Trump sentiment and it was a "set-up". 

The difference between the acts of possible collusion explored in the Mueller Report and the Ukranian matter as outlined in the WSJ report that Trump asked Ukraine to reopen an investigation into Hunter Biden is that Trump in the Russian  2016 interference situation was more passive and the invitation was also  public while in this Ukrainian attempt to convince the country to interfere  in 2020 was Trump's initiative and he was pro-active.  If he actually threatened to withhold foreign aid if Ukraine did not do Trump's bidding, it is extortion, bribery, abuse of power,  and other impeachable high crimes. The link is already there by the circumstance of Trump's and Guiliani's admission by both they did make the request of the Ukrainian government which would hurt Joe Biden's challenge in 2020.  The smoking gun of extortion and bribery may lie in the whistleblower's complaint.  This may explain why Trump and Barr are willing to violate the whistleblower statute requiring the complaint to be turned over to Congress because the complaint could contain that smoking gun.

Per the Wall Street Journal, Joe Biden and the entire Western community and the International Monetary Fund had threatened to withhold a large loan to Ukraine as a way to get a prosecutor fired for not going after companies, hard enough, for corruption, including the company with which Hunter Biden had a relationship. It was NOT because the prosecutor was too soft.  That the exact opposite what Guiliani is claiming.  Biden as VP was part of the Western governments' actions to force stronger prosecution of corruption, including the gas company, as well as the then government of Ukraine's turn to Russia, at the time.  https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/23/politics/fact-check-trump-ukraine-hunter-biden-joe-biden/index.html  The Wall Street Journal also reported that Trump had tried 8 times to force Ukraine to reverse their earlier decision while Guiliani was trying to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden that Hunter Biden was exonerated of wrongdoing. This is vintage Trump...white is black...and his arrogance that he is above the law when colluding with foreign leaders to influence our democracy on Trump's behalf.  If threatening to withhold foreign aid to force Ukraine to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden is not just colluding, it is an attempt at extortion of Ukraine to benefit his (Trump's) reelection in 2020.  This way beyond "Russia if you are listening; find Hillary's emails" and looking the other way as Russia did interfere with the 2016 election to help Trump.  This action is not just colluding, either.  It is using his powers to force another government to interfere in the elections to help him   So what's wrong with that he asks? numerous times saying if a foreign government had dirt on an opponent, of course, he would welcome it?   How about out and out conspiracy to force a foreign government to help him win an election?  This makes denial and passive encouragement and ignoring  Russian interference as investigated by the Mueller report look like a pattern of behavior. Now that Guiliani and Trump attempt to put the screws on the foreign government has gone beyond abuse of power to, as GOP opponents to his re-election, call treason.  If the House inquiry does not pursue this, they have made a mockery of their Constitutional duties and have indeed rolled over and contributed to aiding  Trump's claim he is above the law.   So far as Trump's foreign policy to Make Russia Great Again by doing whatever Putin would hope also fits into Trump's scheme of things.  The last thing Russia wants is Wester military aid to make the current Western-leaning government, recently elected, stronger to resist Russia's further attempts to annex more of Eastern Ukraine, post their grabbing Crimea and launching a stealth operation in Ukraine's eastern region.

What is missing is the smoking gun:  did Trump's request to the Ukrainian president and his eight conversations include a threat to withhold military aid if Ukraine did not re-open its investigation into Hunter Biden.  That whistleblower's complaint which the Trump administration is refusing to turn over to Congress in defiance of the law may contain the smoking gun.

Update: 9 20 19;

 the Ukrainians government to investigate Joe Biden's son Hunter regarding business dealings there. After that, the President held back over $200 million in military aid for Ukraine in a July 25 conversation and the questions did the president use the aid as a bargaining chip to force Ukraine for administrative reasons or to force Ukraine to undertake the investigation of Hunter Biden that Sir Rudi tried to get them to do. Very recently, the aid was released to Ukraine. Here is the problem: was the pressure on Ukraine done to benefit the campaign of Donald Trump in 2020 to tarnish the family of his most likely opponent Joe Biden or was there a legitimate public policy issue.. In the memory of any old hand intelligence, there never had happened that such an urgent whistleblower complaint ever been kept from Congress. ..and the identity of the whistleblower is not known, much less the details of the conversation. If the purpose of Trump's withholding military aid from Ukraine in order to benefit his 2020 campaign, that would be criminal behavior and would feed the impeachment inquiry. Short of years of litigation, there is no way to force the DOJ to forward the Inspector General's report to Congress even though the stonewalling action violates the law. What is left to reach the truth is leaks to Congress or the press. True to form, Trump calls this fake news and an attack from a partisan. even though he does not know who the whistleblower is..It appears to be a career service professional on loan to the National Security Council in the White House with access to the conversation at the question. If indeed that Trump was using military aid to extort Ukraine to force them to benefit his campaign for president, that would be the ultimate abuse of power and the readout of the July 25 conversation itself may not be the smoking gun to see if there was an illegal quid pro quo. Without the DOJ releasing the Inspector General's report to either the public or to Congress, we cannot know for sure. The Whistleblower complaint was filed in mid-August; Trump restored military aid to Ukraine per a September 12  as Congress applied pressure on him to do so, but also as the whistleblower complaint was referred to the DOJ per requirements by law. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/09/12/white-house-releases-250-million-in-ukraine-military-aid/  The sequence of events adds to suspicions that the whistleblower complaint had something to do with this restoration of aid to Ukraine.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-asked-ukraine-president-to-probe-hunter-biden-eight-times-in-one-call-wsj

https://www.apnews.com/d7440cffba4940f5b85cd3dfa3500fb2

 Stay tuned. Deep throat may be at work again.

POLITICO.COM

‘Of course I did’: Giuliani acknowledges asking Ukraine to investigate Biden

“So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?” CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked Giuliani.

Rachel Maddow has noted that the money diverted from the US military budget to build Trump's treasured wall at the border included funds for defense against Russian further grabs of their country.  Parallel to this, Trump holds up $250 million in military aid to Ukraine.  This Trump kick in the pants to the western leaning Ukrainian government has two connections. One, the stall on Ukranian aid and diverting aid from NATO allies in jeopardy from Russian encroachment suits  Putin's foreign policy goals to weaken NATO and their defense against Russian designs on former USSR satellites. The other is to develop dirt against the candidate Trump fears the most as his 2020 opponent, Joe Biden.

In May this year, Rudi Guiliani had announced a trip to Ukraine to the purposes of "investigating" Biden's son, Hunter, for having a relationship with an oil and gas company and an oligarch.  The purpose of this, if successful, could be used against Biden or as a way to blunt criticism of Trump for either his son or himself or his campaign associates could be accused of having business dealings with suspicious foreign entities.   It is his usual pot calling the kettle black campaign strategy, even if equivalencies are false. The uproar over this was so loud, Guillani announced he would not go on the "fact-finding" trip because the Ukranian government was full of anti-Trump sentiment and it was a "set-up".  However, at the end of August, it was reported by media he had tried again to discuss with Ukraine the hope that the Ukrainian government would launch an investigation against Hunter Trump and his business dealings.  With Trump's Wall raid on military funds to build the wall, hidden in that was the removal of military improvements to counter Russia's aggressive behavior toward NATO countries. While Ukraine is not a member of NATO, also the Trump administration was stalling on promised military aid to Ukraine. The purpose of the aide to Ukraine approved by Congress was to bolster their forces against Russia's grab of eastern Ukraine.   The stall may be a permanent punishment of Ukraine by the Trump administration since the agreement dies for lack of action on September 30.  Could it be that the Ukrainian government refused to play along with Guiliani's dirty tricks initiatives?? Naaahhh.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/21/politics/giuliani-ukraine-lawyer-meeting/index.html

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/09/05/trump-drains-us-spending-in-europe-to-pay-for-wall-with-mexico/

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/28/trump-ukraine-military-aid-russia-1689531

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/rudy-giuliani-cancels-ukraine-trip

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/wapo-trump-leveraging-ukraine-military-aid-for-dirt-on-biden-68407365909

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/may/07/viral-image/fact-checking-joe-biden-hunter-biden-and-ukraine/

https://popular.info/p/massive-i-love-america-facebook-page?fbclid=IwAR3w2fQ0nVbran5mcdoubpyKOCNnY7XRZVWxo64ELsGPKNTGXoXs3qAmA

https://www.vox.com/2019/3/13/18264011/paul-manafort-mueller-sentence-amy-berman-jackson

Impeachment inquiry: is it worth it?

The case for an impeachment inquiry and why House focus on Stormy Daniels is stupid.

Most impeachments happened in the second term. If Trump is re-elected and the Senate flips blue, history could repeat itself. There is no time to go through the impeachment process before November 2020 presidential elections and so long as Moscow Mitch controls the Senate, any impeachment referred to the Senate for trial would be dead on arrival. So why bother? By beginning the process now and getting testimony on the record, along with the Mueller report already being read into the Congressional Record, the groundwork is laid if Trump is re-elected. What is exposed in hearings however could make the Senate trial moot because the hearings so close to the election could contribute to the defeat of Trump in November by reminding voters of substantive reasons to vote against him at the time when it counts..nearer November 2020. This would be particularly true if those impeachment inquiry hearings uncover more evidence of the President's wrongdoing. Financial crimes or evidence of blackmail were not explored by the Mueller Special Counsel investigation or included in his report. There may be no there there, but there are many unknowns that could still become known during Congressional hearings.

Reports are House Democrats plan to spend this fall, a year before the elections, in developing a technically legal case for impeachment based upon exposing Trump as having a direct role in paying off porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet during his campaign for president about a one night stand happening years before. This is a stupid strategy. It will divert attention from the truly "high crimes" he has committed. All the pursuit of the Stormy Daniels' saga will accomplish is to provide a sensational, lurid diversion from making the case for high crimes that indeed affect the course of public policy that could be considered treason or through holding hearings that could provide even more convincing evidence presented by Mueller of intentional obstruction of justice and abuse of power.

Trump may have been person #1 as a co-conspirator in the Michael Cohen case. I am one of those who believes the reason the Senate did not vote for removing Bill Clinton from office was that his dalliance with an intern with a blue dress and his lying about it did not rise to a high crime either. Lying about it may be a crime, but a "low" one does not have an impact on the well-being and security of citizens. If the only hook for Democrats to claim Trump committed a crime is Stormy Daniels' pay off, the Democrats are in trouble. They should be bringing attention instead to the true high crimes of obstruction of justice and any proof Trump's policies of making Russia great again in his bromance with Putin was not the result of "kompromat" or blackmail.

 There are far more impactful transgressions committed by the Trump administration to remind swing voters about reasons they should not vote for Trump in 2020. There are transgressions that affect human lives and matters of upholding the rule of law as in the obstruction of justice and abuse of power, and violations of human rights with cruelty to children, not to mention playing footsie with the Russians and tax policies that failed to trickle down. Above all, his stated goal of repealing affordable insurance coverage of pre-existing health conditions contributed to the House turning blue in 2018 and should not be buried by other more sensational and less consequential legal arguments in 2020. 

That the president is a scofflaw, a liar, an immoral sexual predator, a white nationalist, a misogynist, a science denier, a wannabe dictator, greedy to make a dime, who uses unethical methods to achieve his goals are hardly accusations or news to swing voters. These characteristics are already baked into the minds of voters. These are traits tolerated, denied,  or ignored by his dedicated and loyal base so long as the economy holds and he keeps stacking the courts with the like-minded. Disgust with his personal behavior is already reflected in the 2018 election and with suburban women impacting polls in 2019. Focus on pay-offs to a porn star or boasting on Access Hollywood tapes about grabbing women are no longer shocking game-changers. 

For an alternative view of this, watch
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3xHzVe3MY4&feature=push-fr&attr_tag=_9vHeqe7ELfwWEO7%3A6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors

For the record, my political philosophical views in support of moderation

These thoughts were expressed in a series of dialogues with those from the opposite side of the political spectrum than mine on a local Facebook forum.  Such dialogues are healthy because it forces those participating seriously to sharpen their thoughts and arguments.  Unfortunately, sometimes those dialogues are presented in competing memes and shouts of "fake news"  instead of reasoned arguments and evidence and data or an attempt to kill the media messenger by calling it slanted...without telling why they think it is so.  I am challenging them also to  give serious examination and support
 of their views as well, not just to parrot memes and slogans and slurs as if that is a legitimate response.  I am not trying to change views of those dedicated to Donald Trump as much as to provide argumentation to bolster those who support mine who are following the dialogue on the Facebook platform.


I am constantly told to go back to Venezuela since my views support socialism.  Those uttering those views are the most extreme proponents of laissez-faire capitalism I have ever encountered.  My answer to one of those extremists is the following:

• .let the poor, the kids, the sick, and the disabled eat cake. Socialism and populist revolution were born as an extreme reaction to extremely self-centered people like you.who ran governments that saw no need to look after the well-being of their citizens so long as they themselves were comfortable. That is true since the French Revolution and industrialization Extreme attitudes breed extreme reactions. There is a blend, a midway, a balance, but to extremists, there is none on either end of the spectrum. My views; my take on history; my belief that moderation is the key to a country's stability.

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Ignoring Russian interference in our elections: the opposite of putting America first

In an online discussion forum, a comment by one who did not believe Russia interfered in the 2016 election to attack our elections systems, was simply dismissed as ""fake news.  It was her response to the news reports that Sen. Mitch McConnell is blocking any proposed legislation designed to protect our state elections systems in the face of evidence that Russians did attack election systems in all 50 states.   https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mitch-mcconnell-blocks-election-security-bill/ "One bill McConnell objected to would have both required the use of paper ballots and provided funding for the Election Assistance Commission. He also objected to legislation that would have required campaigns and candidates to report offers of election-related aid from foreign governments. "  McConnell called the bills "partisan".                                                    Here is my response to her:

"The challenge for those calling bad news fake is to present evidence to the contrary. Otherwise, the facts and evidence stand. The Mueller investigation and the bi-partisan Senate committee spent months examining the evidence of Russian interference in our elections. Did you do that, you the caller of all bad news fake? It is a silly, intellectually dishonest way to dispute news you do not like. It is also very dangerous to our democracy to ignore these attacks on our election systems and not take steps to stop it. The credibility and integrity of our election system, the trust we put into it, are essential to a democracy's function, to express the will of the American people, not the preference of some foreign government. Ignoring or dismissing overwhelming evidence of Russian interference and their future intent to do so is based upon those politicians and their followers benefiting from Russians helping Trump win by whatever means. It is one of self-interest, but not one of national interest. We have left the door open to Russians to do it again in 2020, and our willingness or not caring about a foreign government trying to pick a US candidate they want is the very opposite of putting America first."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/politics/russian-hacking-elections.html