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".
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.
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.
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
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