Conspriacy theories: plausibility, ignorance,and debunking

Revised and updated 12/10/19
A version of this was published in the Winter Park Times, Dec. 13, 2019
https://winterparktimes.com/opinion/columnists/conspiracy-theories-debunked/

Two conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump, CloudStrke and "deep state" got debunked lately, but if you listened to him or his Congressional supporters, and only supportive media, you may have missed it. Conspiracy theories can only take root if a number of people think something sounds plausible and it supports their preconceived notions or it serves their political agenda. Usually, if conspiracy theories are challenged and investigated, and the theory falls apart, people who once believed it, move on.  It is different from Donald Trump's s loyal followers. They declare evidence they do not like as fake news, simply disagree with conclusions without reason or presenting countering evidence,  or dismiss the findings as tainted because the accusers and investigators are motivated by some hatred or organized resistance. 

Announcing an investigation into CloudStrike" is one of those "favors" Trump asked of  Ukraine President Zelensky in the infamous July 25  telephone calls that did kick off the impeachment process. The CloudStrike theory is that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US elections on behalf of Hillary Clinton instead of, or just like, Russia did. Ukraine persons may have expressed publicly their preference, but they did not conduct activities in the US like Russia’s. Trump and followers continued to tout the theory even after it was debunked by US intelligence and an NSC expert, Fiona Hill,  called a talking point Putin, a lie,   advanced to deflect Russian blame for active measures in 2016 to  Ukraine. FBI Director Christopher Wray was quick to verify they found no evidence Ukraine interfered in 2016. Trump and his supporters ignore the evidence and still promote the legitimacy of the theory as a way to justify the favor he asked of Ukraine.

 The investigation into Russian interference as detailed in the Mueller Report is still haunting Trump. While he was exonerated of collusion with the Russians because of a lack of evidence, he was not cleared of obstructing justice, regardless of how AG Bill Barr twisted the report. Mueller declined to indict him because of department rules. Trump and his advisors concocted another conspiracy theory to explain it away.  His response is that the "deep state" conspired to "get" him because they were politically motivated. Therefore, his logic follows, their claim of any evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing was suspect and tainted.

The Department of Justice's Inspector General released a report this month that shot holes into the"deep state" conspiracy theory. A two-year investigation found the FBI had not acted to start the Russian connection investigation because of political bias. In fact, there were those in the FBI who were very supportive of Donald Trump, thought Hillary Clinton was a crook, and also those who had opposite views. However, none had acted on their political beliefs. The IG reported the FBI  did not bug Trump's phones, did not launch the Russian investigation in 2016 without good cause, did not "spy" on the campaign, and the investigation was authorized in compliance with Department rules.  They opened up the investigation because of DNC being hacked, intelligence reporting frequent staff contacts with Russians, and the tip-off by an Australian diplomat.

The investigation began two months before the FISA warrant flap over Carter Page, who was never charged, and months before the Steele Dossier, neither of which affected the investigation. If there was no "deep state", the FBI was no angel, either, but what they did wrong was not politically motivated nor did it affect the final FBI findings on the Russian connection. That a lower level FBI agent had indeed misbehaved was not the reason the FBI opened the Russian investigation. However, department rules and the FISA warrant process were flawed. Trump's loyal Attorney General, Bill Barr, said he disagreed with the IG's conclusions (no specific reason was given). and he was quick to distort some results. and cherry-picked others. 

(added 12/11/19) I am listening to the Senate Judiciary Committee and Lindsey Graham try to hit back on the Department of Justice Inspector General report that knocked holes into GOP conspiracy theories: This is the same FBI staff in place when the FBI's publicly announced on again and off again criminal investigations into Hillary's scuttled Hillary Clinton's campaign while keeping the investigation about Trump's et al, contacts with Russians. The GOP had no problem with the FBI then...but when the same FBI finds negative stuff on Trump, we have Lindsey Graham banging the table trying to taint any negative evidence that hurt Donald Trump. What this is is a smokescreen to divert attention from the substance of the part of the IG's findings that hurt Trump. The smoke the FBI found fire justified opening the investigation. Their investigations resulted in Trump's associates landing in jail or pleading guilty and indictments of 12 Russians and identifying ten instances of Trump's obstruction of the FBI's ability to investigate the Russian meddling. .. However, IG found that the department had poor regulations and fault in the FISA process and a low threshold for opening investigations. That needs pursuing, but it should not drown out the findings that Trump did not like, which is what Graham is trying to accomplish.

That the Western leading Ukraine regime would want Hillary  Clinton to win in 2016 is understandable. That does make Cloud Strike sound plausible. Russia had grabbed their Crimea and invaded an eastern province in 2014. Russia was the enemy of the western leaning Ukraine government. In 2016 Donald Trump's campaign chair Paul Manafort was a close advisor of the ousted pro-Russian Ukraine president and his close business associate, Konstantin Kilimnik was suspected of being a Russian intelligence trained agent. Trump's foreign policy had taken a sharpened pro-Russian issue focus soon after Manafort joined Trump's campaign in the spring of 2016, including lifting promoting sanctions against Russia for invading and grabbing eastern Ukraine and weakening NATO, the main barrier to further Russian aggression,  calling it obsolete.   Fiona Hill, the NSC Russian expert testified in the inquiry hearings that the theory Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections was a “fictional narrative” fueled by Russian intelligence because Putin wanted to get the heat on election interference transferred to another country, hoping to get sanctions levied against them for the meddling lifted.  Further ignorance upon which the supporters of the theory-based their belief was that the IT security company involved, Cloud Strike, was owned by a US-based Ukrainian, except the owner, was a Russian immigrant and not from Ukraine.

The attack on Joe Biden by Trump supporters hinges on their report that Biden got a prosecutor fired in Ukraine in order to protect his son Hunter. That makes no sense since Biden and the entire European Community and the Obama administration withheld an IMF loan because the prosecutor did not pursue corruption, not because he was not prosecuting Hunter.  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/03/what-really-happened-when-biden-forced-out-ukraines-top-prosecutor/378562


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/read-full-text-doj-ig-michael-horowitz-s-report-origins-n1098431

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/us/politics/barr-durham-ig-report-russia-investigation.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/09/fbi-director-wray-says-no-indication-ukraine-interference-2016-election/4380050002/

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/12/impeachment-republican-party-russia/603088/?fbclid=IwAR2A7S1tYYqBAn65vUkG9SxIIjPKbSXlw3UbdAOkLk9t5hzClIS2qY0tuUE

 https://theweek.com/speedreads/882443/doj-inspector-general-horowitz-reportedly-shot-down-another-gop-theory-about-russia-probe

https://www.axios.com/impeachment-hearing-fiona-hill-trump-ukraine-testimony-49fbce41-bf1c-4b02-964c-701196d30d5c.html

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/sondland-trump-only-wanted-ukraine-to-announce-investigation-into-biden-not-a-real-inquiry

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/trump-followers-believe-lies-wall.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-thinks-his-supporters-are-the-most-gullible-people-on-earth-are-they-really/2019/03/07/1e79a4c4-41
 Cloudstrike:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/02/not-enough-pinocchios-trumps-crowdstrike-obsession

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-turn-gaslighting-response-justice-dept-report?cid=sm_fb_maddow&fbclid=IwAR3I509xX3alDX30zcXZ0Ce0LK8diBRYMs6RyvwpNCFpvF6rjFCdchhXi9E

Mike Pence and Trump's pro Russian policies have a history: Background

There is beginning to be rumors of differences between Donald Trump and his vice president,Mike Pence on Ukraine. The first time I spotted differences was in the 2016 Vice President debates and I have followed that as part of my fascination with US policy toward Russia, eastern Europe, and post World War II.  It has some personal interests since I had studied in pre wall Berlin in the late 1950's, married a refugee from Yugoslavia, and worried forever for the well being of my family by marriage in eastern Europe.  Here is a blog posting dating to 2017 on the  Pence differences with those in the Trump administration regarding Russian policy.

From a May 2017posting.

The question is why has Mike Pence been seemingly out of the White House loop on the Russian connection controversies?  Perhaps it goes back to the 2016 campaign when Pence parted ways with Trump on Russian policy.  Going back to two prior postings on this blog, this has a history, including the Mike Flynn/Pence flap re: Pence saying Flynn lied to him.  In these blogs are also references to the Russian connections in the 2016 campaign and possible financial entanglements  with  Russia in  the Trump administration.  Whether Pence took himself out of being involved in the Russian connection issue or if Trump did, is unknown. However, it may be Pence himself removing himself and the matter flared up when he accused Flynn of lying about the nature of his conversations with the Russian ambassador, that forced Trump to fire Flynn.

Pence also departed from Trump on Russia in his first trip abroad with a hard line approach: : http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/18/politics/pence-munich-russia-foreign-policy/,

Blog Posting Oct. 5  2016
 "One event in the Vice Presidential debate, October 4, was the position of GOP candidate Mike Pence regarding Russia.  The comments on Russia got lost in Pence's  absolute denial that Donal Trump ever said Russian President Vladimir Putin was a better leader than Pres. Obama. The quibble could be whether the correct term was "stronger". In any case, there is plenty of video available on Trump's comments which makes Pence look like a liar, albeit a smooth one delivered with conviction.

 What should also be the story is that Pence took a hard line on Russia saying we should stand up to them..  This deserves some closer scrutiny and looks like there is a division on foreign policy between the two running mates.  Take a look at the debate as can be accessed via You Tube regarding Pence's views of Russia incursions into the Crimea, Ukraine and Georgia...a great contrast from Trump's prior statements.
What does count in 2016 ,however, is Trump's position, though Pence might use his own quotes in his own future campaigns.

It stands in sharp contrast with the GOP presidential candidate himself, Donald Trump, who has been advocating a foreign policy that strangely runs parallel to the same as Russia's, from declaring NATO obsolete, not objecting to the Russian threats and incursions into Eastern Ukraine, and recognizing Russia's grab of the Crimea.  In fact, the mutual comments between Trump and Putin have been so complimentary that it has been timed a "bromance" of mutual admiration.

Not only is this a major issue in foreign policy, but in calls into question whether Trump can even negotiate with Putin in America's and our alliies' security interests without giving away the store to Russia.  Negotiation means give and take and the question remains what Trump would give away to make a deal.

http://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2016/09/trumps-foreign-policy-make-russia-great.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/vice-presidential-debate-putin-mike-pence-donald-trump-229147

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/28/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-quotes/ "
___________________________________________________________________________

Blog posting Feb, 14, 2017
"General Michael Flynn's departure from the White House may have much deeper roots than just his lie to both Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence about conversations with the Russian ambassador.  The conflict between the two goes back to the days of the campaign post-GOP conventions.  I noted that in a column at that time. In the Vice Presidential debate, Pence parted ways on Russia from candidate Donald Trump's line.
From my blog posting 10/5/16: (repeated above)
and continues:

"Some background:
 For some time, the question has been why has Donald Trump been so cozy with Russia? There has been a great deal of speculation ranging from Trump's debts to Russia oligarchs to blackmail, the connection with the Russian Alfa Bank, with embarrassing pictures (a victim of a honey trap).  Fingers have been pointed to influencing Trump's views of Russia was his campaign manager, who departed the campaign mid-year, Paul Manafort, who was an advisor to the ousted president of the Ukraine who sought refuge in Moscow after a coup.  Congressional investigations into Russian influence and hacking in the US elections are just getting underway.  Ukraine is involved. The Russians have conducted a stealth takeover of the eastern parts of that country and the West punished Russia with economic sanctions.  The Flynn issue involves lies about his pre- January conversations with the Russian ambassador over lifting those sanctions. The question arises was this a thank you for the role Russia played in helping Trump win by planting false news stories and by hacking and revealing damaging information regarding Hillary Clinton.

That there are many concerned about why Donald Trump only ever has kind words for Russia and their president Vladimir Putin while being critical of even our closest allies and even calling NATO, our mutual defense treaty with Europe, obsolete.  It has set our Eastern Europe members of NATO on edge and one of President Obama's departing actions was to announce the placement of US troops in Poland as a signal to Russia not to mess with our Baltic members.  Trump and others, including libertarians, had already expressed concern about going to war to support the small trio of Baltic nations in spite of their NATO membership. Russians have always seen the Baltics, with their ports to the sea, as part of theirs since there is a large number of Russians living in those areas left over from the old Soviet military occupation days when the Baltics were their satellites.  Russia has a modus operandi of using "saving discrimination against Russian minorities" as an excuse to grab territory and the Baltics are ripe targets.  Their membership in NATO has made Russia think twice. Ukraine, Crimea, and Georgia, recent targets of Russian grabs, are not part of NATO and are not under NATO's protection.  Flynn was Donald Trump's closest campaign advisor on foreign affairs throughout the campaign."

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

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kurt-volker-transcript-read-full-text-testimony-trump-impeachment-inquiry-live-updates-2019-11-05/

https://www.axios.com/kurt-volker-closed-door-interview-giuliani-fc9b670b-0b05-4e5c-932c-a39f03fad356.html

• Taylor was also worried that Trump might be willing to trade away Ukraine's interests as part of a grand bargain with Russia, Volker told lawmakers.
• Taylor is expected to appear before members of Congress next week.

Details: Volker told members of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees earlier this month that he recommended Taylor for the job after the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was removed from her position.

• Volker said Taylor was initially “reluctant” to accept the role because “he was not sure if we would maintain as robust a support for Ukraine as we had had for the past 2 years."
• Taylor also told Volker that he was worried about Giuliani's efforts to investigate the Bidens. "He was just worried [Ukraine] was going to get undermined at some point,” Volker added.
• “Hanging over everyone’s head in the expert community is, is there some grand bargain with Russia where we throw Ukraine under the bus?”
• Volker said he tried to assure Taylor that the U.S. actually has strengthened its support for Ukraine by increasing sanctions and lifting arms embargo.
• Volker told Taylor, "Look Giuliani does not represent the U.S. government. Don’t worry about that."
• Taylor decided to take the job but only after speaking with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for reassurance that Pompeo remained solidly in support of Ukraine.

Concerns about Giuliani's role in facilitating a relationship with the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, started to raise alarms.

• Volker told committee members that he, Taylor, and acting assistant secretary of state Phil Reeker discussed their concerns about Giuliani, stating that they "were just very uncomfortable with him being active.”
• They thought Rudy was creating “a problem,” and the problem “was that he was amplifying a negative narrative about Ukraine that was impeding our ability to advance the bilateral relationship the way we wanted.”
• Volker said he relayed these concerns to Pompeo, and told him he was trying to "correct that impression" the president had. Pompeo said, "I'm glad you're doing it."
• Volker said Burisma was known for years to be a corrupt company, but that didn't transfer to the Bidens. “Saying investigating Vice President Biden or his son, that is not fine. And that was never part of the conversation.”
• Taylor specifically warned the Ukrainians not to do anything that would be seen as interfering in U.S. elections.

Volker, Taylor and the committees did not respond to a request for comment.

The Democrat's case for impeachment in simple terms: The case for impeachment in simple terms: Pres. Trump tried to shake down the Ukranian president to force him to find dirt on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden , his perceived political rival in 2020, by withholding military aid authorized by bipartisan Congress to prevent further Russian military incursion into Ukraine...and then hid the text in a separate server reserved for very  secret classified code word national security matters, not for political matters to protect the president. .

Some background: The military aid to Ukraine was supported by both Congressional Democrats and Republicans as a way to prohibit further Russian expansion into former USSR satellites..both those under mutual NATO defense and not under a mutual defense treaty like Ukraine. There is an active war in Easter Ukraine with Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Donbas region.within the national boundaries of Ukraine, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass There is a de facto annexation by Russia and the area is occupied, Russian stealth troops. The Western world including the US had reacted with imposing economic sanctions against Putin's best friends and Russia...which became the subject described in the Mueller report. The appropriation legislation was a bipartisan agreement that it was in the US's national security interest to counter Russian threats to take control of the rest of Ukraine. It was this allocation that Donald Trump halted in spite of the legislation that allocated the aid, then asked "a favor" of the new Ukraine president to look into the business dealings of Hunter Trump as a way to hurt the strongest rival to his re-election, Joe Biden. It was not until the whistleblower's allegations surfaced that the Trump administration released the military aid. The military aid was both physical support of the western leaning Ukrainian government as well as verifying Trump's "tough" stand against Putin which was in contrast to Trump's constant bootlicking of Putin. However, instead, Trump used this aid appropriated for the sake of US national security as a bargaining chip to get Ukraine to re-open the investigation into Hunter Biden instead of caring about the national security interests of the US. In the telephone conversation at question, the Ukraine president brought up the military aid for the Javelin anti-tank weaponry and then immediately Trump asked the Ukranian president "though" for a "favor", including re-opening the investigation into Hunter Biden. The "though" is a conditional indication."..will do a favor, though, ..here are my conditions" : The next question is if the White House released "text" of the conversation had been sanitized or hidden by Trump to bury the "bargain" as a quotable and directly obvious quid pro quo. The urgency is that the aid allocation to Ukraine was scheduled to expire Sept. 30.

Was this a "shakedown" and "cover-up" as the House Intel committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff charges.? The actual recording of the conversation and the verbatim transcript has been "locked down" by the administration that has been moved per the Whistleblower complaint. However, what was "locked down" may not have anything to do with national security interests, but the political interests of the President, contrary to the usual use of that stand-alone system reserved for codeword intelligence.records. The outrage: The DNI referred the whistleblower complaint to the attorney general.Bill Barr.who was named as the president's envoy (as well as Guiliani) to follow up on president"s favor he asked: to rei-investigate the Hunter Biden and any connection with Joe Biden...as well as during that time the President had held military aid to Ukraine and joined the two issues in his telephone conversation. This was overt conflict of interest to ask Bill Barr for an opinion whether the Whistleblower complaint should be sent to Congress that includes him in the complaint.  Of course, the Whistleblower complaint text eventually was sent on the day of the hearings on the Sept 26.

 The Inspector-General interviewed witnesses that confirmed the Whistleblower complaint that there was a quid pro quo. We need to hear about what the IG found in his investigation that made the Whistleblower's allegations credible. What must also be done is to spring loose to the public the tape of the actual conversation that it was locked down after other eyes saw it.   Some of those other eyes seem to have been interviewed by the IG to come to the conclusion that the Whistleblower's complaint was credible. Following up on the IG investigation becomes even more important as a way to justify the 'locked down" should be brought into the public domain.  This a Nixon Tapes redux.  Post-hearing, Schiff affirms plans to pursue this and to see if there are any other incidences like this. 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pentagon-officials-deemed-withholding-of-aid-to-ukraine-was-illegal-090046566.html https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/read-full-text-whistleblower-complaint-n1058971

Trump and Russia on military aid to Ukraine..a history

Paul Manafort's role and the change in the RNC platform, plus Trump's long-standing opposition to military aid to Ukraine. How CloudStrike became part of the July 25 Trump conversation with the Ukraine president. This is a long history. Will more whistleblowers come forth with conversations of Trump with Putin over this policy. With or without promises to Putin, Trump's history is opposing military aid to Ukraine. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mueller-asked-trump-2016-rnc-platform-change-ukraine/story?id=59476035
The Mueller report, however, exonerated Trump. The Ukraine RNC plank was not changed at the behest of Trump or Russia https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/robert-mueller-report-public/h_d3e1046ae9758f70a8cf219f25bae5eb

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/world/europe/ukraine-zelensky-trump.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/24/full-trump-ukraine-timeline-now/

 "Since at least May 2019, Giuliani has been pushing for Volodymyr Zelensky, the newly elected president of Ukraine, to investigate Burisma, as well as to check if there were any irregularities in the Ukrainian investigation of Paul Manafort. He said such investigations would be beneficial to his client, Trump, and that his efforts had Trump's full support.^[12]Giuliani's efforts began as an attempt to provide cover for Trump to pardon Manafort, who had been convicted of eight felony counts in August 2018.^[41] On May 10 Giuliani canceled a scheduled trip to Ukraine where he had intended to urge president-elect Zelensky to pursue inquiries into Hunter Biden, as well as whether Democrats colluded with Ukrainians to release information about Manafort.^[42][43] Giuliani claimed he has sworn statements from five Ukrainians stating they were brought into the Obama White House in January 2016 and told to "go dig up dirt on Trump and Manafort", although he has not produced evidence for the claim.^[44] Giuliani asserted he canceled the trip because he had been "set up" by Ukrainians who objected to his efforts and blamed Democrats for trying to "spin" the trip. Giuliani met with Ukrainian officials to press the case for an investigation in June 2019 and August 2019.^{[45]  "}. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Ukraine_controversy

Trump has a history of catering to Russia on Ukraine Russian foreign policy goals..  He has proposed lifting sanctions for Russia's grab of Crimea and the stealth grab of eastern Ukraine. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/world/europe/theresa-may-britain-trump.html  and he has proposed removing the mutual defense portions of NATO, the main barrier to Russian incursions into the USSR's former satellites. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-defense/2018/07/12/trump-meets-with-afghanistan-war-partners-277146. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-president-trump.html .  All of this fits neatly into making Russia great, but not in the interest of the US and our allies.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-raids-funds-meant-to-deter-russia-to-pay-for-his-wall

VOX.COM

Why Ukraine is at the center of the latest Trump scandal

The country has always been at the center of Trump’s scandals.

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/04/568310790/2016-rnc-delegate-trump-directed-change-to-party-platform-on-ukraine-support

The Whistleblower/ Ukraine matter and an epic political miscalculation

Update Oct. 9, 2019
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/09/trumps-very-inaccurate-claim-whistleblower-is-very-inaccurate/?fbclid=IwAR2SFfbw0EdQtnDY-h0rM1f2DokONywWvDi5AU6Kxe0eaI8IQcY7gHDrlHs

Update: Oct. 1, 2019: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) on Morning Joe this AM stated the reason the President should be impeached in one sentence; President Trump compromised national security by seeking dirt from on a political rival for his own benefit from a foreign country.'s leader.

Update: October 4, 2019 Amb. Kurt Volker who resigned recently as an envoy to Ukraine provided the House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry with emails that show before the July 25 phone call and after, military aid and the Bidens were subjects on the table in an attempt to get the President of Ukraine to commit in writing he would look into the Bidens as a condition of even meeting with Trump and the military aid was linked. https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/politics/chairs-on-volker/index.html

Update: Oct 2, 2019:  Pompeo lies to press.  timeline and his denial he even read the whistleblower complaint and finally admits he was listening to the July 25 conversatio. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/03/pompeos-four-pinocchio-spin-trump-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR0dJpvFXyY3_6qdBb_8C2jP7DTJKch9MW1PgWDtKumA4pmkrOD_PUjZyy4

Update Oct.3, 2019:  https://www.apnews.com/560b20b139d943969e17c82eda77ca8d  for a discussion on whether just asking a foreign government to provide something of value to help the asker in a political campaign breaks the law. So now Trump is asking China to investigate the Bidens...in short, he is defying the law again after he asked Ukraine. . The major difference between Mueller and this regarding collusion, Mueller could find no evidence that Trump and friends actually and intentionally beyond reasonable doubt collaborated with Russia to interfere in the election. In this case, just initiating the ask puts Trump in violation, especially when he did it 8 times. Quid pro quo is not needed to make this a violation of the law...just doing it in private or in public t is enough to break the law. That dirt on an opponent is not a thing of value is a losing argument, but expect the GOP to offer that as a defense anyway. The real court of public opinion and impeachment do not depend on a guilty finding or a criminal prosecution. It can be what the House defines it. Is there a requirement in impeachment that the same standards for charging a crime..proof beyond a reasonable doubt of intent... Nope. The task of those seeking impeachment is providing convincing proof..or the accused's admission of doing it , as in this case.,.that the impeachment is justified and that the proof will stand up in a trial..or the Senate, in this case. Public sentiment is important, but not necessary. or a requirement. It is good political sense, though, to provide credible evidence and to get the public sentiment behind them to avoid a backlash in the next election

No excuse. Here is the whistleblower complaint you can read yourself. Whistleblowers do not need to have first hand information, but document their sources, which he/she did. They can operate on the "hear something, say something" principle...but they should also present their evidence, which both the IG and the DNI found credible and urgent. The text of the 25th telephone conversation was the same that Trump verified...to the point he asked was this whistleblower a spy he had it so right?

NYTIMES.COM

Document: Read the Whistle-Blower Complaint

The complaint filed by an intelligence officer about President Trump’s interactions with the leader of Ukraine.

On September 24 the Senate on a  bipartisan 100-0 vote urged the President to release the Whistleblower complaint text. On September 25 the President also released a report of his July 25 conversation with the Ukrainian president and on September 26 the White House released the text of the Whistleblower complaint. Trump must have been thinking this would put the matter to rest since the magic phrase smoking gun: "I'll release the military aid if you dig up dirt on the Biden family". .did not appear in the telephone conversation narrative readout. It may have been the largest political miscalculation in the history of US politics.  Trump had dodged the Mueller bullet, but something was different this time, and the President did not see it.

The GOP answer to the whistleblower is that it was just hearsay. Unfortunately for them, Trump and Guilliani have publicly stated they did ask Ukraine to re-open the investigation into Hunter Biden Unfortunately for them, the released transcript of the July 25 did condition release of military aid on a favor, to open the investigation into Hunter Biden. "I have a favor to ask, though". In addition, Trump et al are amazed the whistleblower got the telephone call transcript right and theorize he was a spy (against Trump, we note, not the United States) No hearsay, GOP. Your leader himself verified the whistleblower complaint.https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-admits-asking-ukraine-to-investigate-bidens-son?fbclid=IwAR18tgLFkorqTqEv9EgE5k8DV21VRKkkNdomcyK3NZF5hMn4JRhOpJFQeDk and so did his personal attorney, Rudy Guilliani:https://www.politico.com/…/giuliani-biden-ukraine-trump-150…

That Hunter Biden should be investigated for being on the board of a Ukraine energy company and Joe Biden tried to get the  Ukraine prosecutor fired to protect his son has some fatal flaws:
1. Hunter Biden was not on the board of directors of that company then at the beginning of the 2012 Ukraine investigations into corruption and the company Hunter later jointed was not an object of those investigations. .Hunter did not join until two years later.
2. Biden's urging the firing of the prosecutor was to find a more active prosecutor.  His intervention would have hurt Hunter, not help him.Biden and the entire western world asked the prosecutor to be fired because he was a pro Russian holdover himself being charged of corruption. In fact, the whole western world, every international loan agency and the EU demanded that he be fired and, including Biden, urged more vigorous prosecution of corruption, not less.  Biden's "invervention " would have hurt Hunter Biden

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-ukraine-buris/ukraine-agency-says-allegations-against-burisma-cover-period-before-biden-joined-idUSKBN1WC1LV


If the public confessions of Trump and Guilliani are not enough to verify "the hearsay" as they did, and we can expect the witnesses the whistleblower named refused to come forward...and stonewall the subpoenas,,the most important public witness should be the Inspector General who did interview the witnesses and verified the whistleblower was credible...and what he alleged was urgent. A bit of dates: if the military aid to Ukraine was not given to them by Sept 30, the aid was "dead". A few days before the July 25 conversation, Trump froze the aid. On Sept 13, he released the aid...about the time the whistleblower became known. The date we do not know is when the tape or actual transcript of the Jul 25 telephone call was put in the ultra-secret server reserved for national security matters...not political ones.

I have some theories of why the reason the GOP and White House thought the releases would not hurt the President that much. Their experience with the Mueller investigation confirmed a belief that the bulk of the American electorate would give them a pass since Americans really did not care if foreign powers interfered in US elections since either it helped Trump, their candidate, get elected,  or they were not sure it made a difference in the election outcome. It was just dirty politics as usual even if it involved a foreign adversary. The Mueller Report ended in a political fizzle in spite of the overwhelming evidence that the Russians conducted effectively targeted social media and advertising measures on behalf of Trump.  The only ones who thought the Mueller Report provided a reason for impeachment were some members of the opposition party. Even the majority of Democrats did not think it was worth the pain of impeachment and they feared a voter backlash in swing districts.  That the Mueller Report provided plenty of evidence the White House obstructed the investigation into the Russian interference in the 2016 elections, Mueller also gave the President a pass because of a Department of Justice policy not to indict a sitting president.  Public opinion polls backed up Democrats' fears that the public was not with them in impeachment. The President thought he could get away with any similar action in the future since he got away with the issue of foreign interference revealed in the Mueller Report.  Overnight with the release of the report of the telephone conversation between Trump and the Ukraine president and the Whistleblower complaint text, public opinion in favor of an impeachment inquiry increased by 13 points, though public opinion was still split 50-50 and hearings and testimony bringing the issue to more public attention and verification just begun.

What was different this time? Why did this complaint and telephone call did not have the same anemic impact that followed the Mueller report? Unlike the Mueller report which dwelt on the 2016 campaign, the sitting president himself is the active perpetrator now, not just a passive and arms-length beneficiary of foreign election interference. The smoking gun implicating the President 's collusion was never found by Mueller. This time the gun revealed in the released documents had enough smoke to implicate the president. To force an unwilling foreign country to interfere in an upcoming election on behalf of his political interest, Trump applied a strong-arm tactic using a  bargaining chip of a policy that ran counter to US national security interests.   While the exact magic words of a quid pro quo did not appear in the ill-fated telephone conversation notes,  the report readout did show the sequence and the condition attached.  It was  "though, we ask a favor "that immediately followed the Ukraine president asking to release military aid the president had held up. That was evidence enough of Trump's actions and intent to indicate that needed military aid would be released if Ukraine "played ball" by providing dirt on the Biden family.  Earlier the Wall Street Journal documented eight attempts by Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Guilliani and even a public TV admission by Guiliani that indicated that the request to find dirt on the Bidens was the issue between Ukraine's newly elected president and Trump.  This ill-fated telephone call further left no doubt of Trump's motivation. The conditional withholding of military aid to force Ukraine to re-investigate the Bidens was the new public element in the saga. Perhaps Trump thought he could divert attention from his actions by making noise about Biden's son's wrongdoings as if two wrongs made Trump's wrong a right.  Perhaps he could blame a partisan Deep State again. It worked for him in the Mueller investigation.

What was also different was that US policy toward Russia, to arm Ukraine to stop Russian attempts to take back USSR's former satellites, had strong bipartisan support in the Senate which had appropriated the military aid to the western leaning Ukrainian government. GOP sentiment toward Russia had hardened while Trump continued licking Putin's boots with his public pronouncements. Even Republican  Senators believed it was in US security interests to stop Russian aggressive designs on  Eastern Europe.  Both Senate Republicans and Democrats agreed in voting 100 to 0  for military aid to Ukraine. Using the big stick of withholding military aid to Ukraine for Trumps's personal political advantage is no small matter.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/26/tech/what-is-crowdstrike/index.html

Robert Mueller sets off alarms for 2020 with his truth telling

The July 24, 2019 House hearings featuring Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his report gave Democrats a chance to push back against the Administrations' twisted spins. 1) Trump was not exonerated of obstruction;  2) Per Mueller , the investigation into Russian active measures in 2016 was no witch hunt or a hoax; it was sweeping and systematic; 3) The Russians could do it again in 2020; 4) there were many examples of Trump and his cohorts lies about contacts with Russians, evidence and facts  that went unchallenged by the GOP ; 5) Russians interfered on behalf of electing Trump; 6) Examples of Trump's attempts to obstruct justice  and the facts and evidence were not challenged by the GOP, but  Trump was never indicted due to a rule against indicting a sitting president.
Update: immediately after the hearings, the Senate GOP blocked bills protecting us from Russians and other foreign actors from hacking and sabotaging election results.  The message to Russia et al? Bring it on in 2020. The door is open.  https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/454742-mcconnell-blocks-two-election-security-bills?

Some wag called Mueller's afternoon testimony before the House Intelligence Committee as his "red bull moment" and he seemed to have a bit more passion and was quicker to understand and respond to questions than in the morning House Judiciary committee which focused on "obstruction". The headline phrase is that the Russian interference in 2016 was no hoax and no witch hunt. It was sweeping and systematic, causing long term damage to the US that must be addressed. and "they are doing it in the next campaign". He agreed with a questioner that he feared other candidates would work with foreign hostile forces to get help in a campaign and this could be "the new normal" Rep. Adam Schiff , Intelligence Committee chair, concluded the session with "accepting foreign help (in a campaign) is unethical, disloyal..and a crime." A point made was that it opens up the candidate to blackmail,..
. While Mueller claimed he did not investigate the term "collusion" because it was not a term in criminal law., as was "conspiracy", he affirmed numerous contacts and coordination with Russians by other Trump associates.
The most damning to the Trump administration was Mueller's confirmation with his findings that Russia intervened to help Trump (not Clinton), and that Wikileaks was indicted as a hostile foreign intelligence operation. Mueller verified findings that Trump and Don Jr welcomed the leaks and boosted Wiilileaks's dumping stolen hacks of the DNC. He called Trump and Don Jr.'s actions on this "problematic...an understatement". The GOP's main defense was regarding the Steele Dossier as an origin of the Russian investigation.. This was not a refutation of Mueller's findings, but an attempt to try to divert attention to the Steele Dossier as the reason for the investigation into Russian active measures., which Mueller refused to "speak to the Steele Dossier" because other agencies are looking into it. Another point made in the afternoon intelligence committee session by Trump was that Trump was seeking a lucrative deal in building Trump Tower. even as Trump was the party nominee in June and that numerous lies were made by Michael Cohen, Trump's personal attorney.. Mike Flynn and others in Trump's orbit also discussed sanctions relief with Russians, Mueller confirmed. Trump's party line had been he had nothing to do with Russia. .What was instructive was Mueller's affirming his report of the numerous contacts of Trump's associates with Russians: Manfort sharing polling data with  a suspected Russian agent, the Trump Tower meeting to get dirt on Clinton, various emails by Don Trump Jr. with Wikileaks and Trump's strategy to make use of Wikileaks dump of DNC emails, and mysterious meetings with Russian oligarchs in the Seychelles..Also, Mueller revealed that the FBI counter-intelligence investigations are on-going, including money laundering and blackmail and more.

Initial reaction to Muelle.r's testimony in the morning on obstruction issues was really sad: Democrats did get Mueller to state  Trump was not exonerated from the charge of obstruction. He either refused to answer questions or appeared to either have a hearing problem or was stalling to make sure he understood the question. If he had read his own report, it was not clear because evaded so many questions and appeared to fumble page references in spite of being told page and volume cited by the Democrats. His most frequent response was to refer to the report, while not reading the words of his own report aloud. What the Democrats did establish was that the President was not exonerated of obstruction of justice, a violation of law which included attempts to fire and influence witnesses, even if they were not executed. In the afternoon session, the GOP tried to claim Mueller did not have the power to exonerate anyone because exoneration was not included in the DOJ rules or legal interpretations or was a legal term. Trump was not charged because of a legal opinion and Department of Justice policy that a sitting president cannot be charged. However, Mueller clarified later that the investigation did not even determine if a crime had been committed because of that rule. The facts and evidence in the Mueller report of attempted obstruction were not attacked in any substance or with counter-evidence or counter-arguments by the GOP but they based their attack that the DOJ was full of anti-Trumpsters and Democrats so the findings were tainted.. The GOP failed to dent the evidence that Trump did indeed attempt to obstruct justice with corrupt attempt, regardless of whether he carried out his orders. If the few basic exchanges between Democrats and Mueller on these key points are highlighted, Democrats can make lemonade of this lemon.
The reason Mueller never interviewed the President was addressed by Mueller in the afternoon session when he insisted it would take too much time to fight his subpoenas so the investigation could not be brought to a quick close.

So what's so wrong with colluding with the Russians?

A version was published in the Sky Hi News, June 17, 2019
https://www.skyhinews.com/opinion/opinion-muftic-so-whats-so-wrong-with-colluding-with-the-russians/

So what's wrong with collusion? President Trump just spent two and a half years afraid he would be accused of colluding with the Russians to help him get elected. Trump must have assumed " to collude "was against the law earlier, but after crowing he was cleared of collusion by special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump threw his gears in reverse to claim there was nothing wrong with collusion and he would do it again in 2020. In effect, he laid out the welcome mat for foreign interference from any foreign adversary in future American elections. If he tries to do what he did in 2016 inviting Russian interference and receiving dirt on opponents, he could be accused of a crime, whether or not he conspired or colluded.

Also for the past two and a half years. Donald Trump has been endeavoring to subvert the investigation by firing and attempting to fire the investigators and impugning the integrity of the FBI as some deep state out to get him. Per the Mueller report, there were a dozen incidents of obstructing the investigation, including recruiting subordinates and supporters to fire Mueller, and Mueller could not find evidence to clear him of obstruction. Because of the Department of Justice rules, he also could not indict a sitting president for the crime of obstruction of justice. Trump has continued with his oft-repeated line:" no collusion, no obstruction" and his supporters believe him.

The collusion reference defends on a definition or by whom or by what law defines it. He was pointedly not cleared (exonerated) of obstruction by Robert Mueller.
"Collusion" was not investigated by Special Counsel Mueller. Collusion is a broad, popular term. However, "conspiracy", the actual criminal act named in the criminal code Mueller did investigate. Here is how Mueller defined it in his report: "In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of collusion...Collusion is not a specific offense ..found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law..taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other's actions or interests" in election interference. Mueller then cleared Trump of violating his (Mueller's) narrow definition of the "conspiracy" statutes for lack of evidence.

Trump's then tried narrowing the definition of legal collusion was just receiving dirt, opposition research, from anyone (foreign or not) on an opponent. and that was OK. It is not and there was much more contained in the definition of such activities. Oops, President Trump. “It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election.” per the Federal election laws. Now you know, Mr. President, so if you intend to accept dirt from Russia or anything else of value in 2020, you are committing a crime.

 Certainly, dirt about a political opponent is of value to a candidate. In fact, if it is intentional, it can be referred to the FBI for criminal prosecution. If it is by accident or unaware of the law, the penalty can be fines.

When Donald Trump on the stump at a campaign rally famously called on the Russians to find Clinton's missing emails, "Russians, are you listening if you can find Hillary's emails", he was soliciting Russia to get him something of value. If he would have accepted the missing emails, which did not happen, he would have also broken the law by receiving something of value from the Russians, but being a political novice, his ignorance of the law could be excused. After this flap last week, he is no longer ignorant of the law.

Why object to foreigners influencing American elections? Foreign interference in elections harms the sovereignty of the nation, shaping American citizens' opinion and hacking and controlling election results so that citizens are discouraged from voting or being registered or actually changing the votes. in 2016, Russians demonstrated they could hack election tallies in a few counties though there was no evidence they changed voters votes. In 2016 those Russian measures were geared to electing a president who had better and kinder views of their foreign government's policies than Hillary Clinton, even though Trump's policies might be contrary to American national interests. In the case of Russia, candidate Trump favored lifting sanctions, called NATO's mutual defense clauses obsolete, and generally admired Putin so ardently, his relationship with Putin was termed a "bromance". Russia's use of social media was targeted to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, per Mueller. How and who did it was also laid out in detail in Vol 1 of the Mueller report. In fact, twenty-five Russian spies, hackers, and GRU military intelligence operatives, and two Russian companies were indicted by the Grand Jury and the vivid details of how they did it were laid out in the Mueller report and in earlier court filings of indictments. In short, Americans who fell for the bots, ads, and social media postings that intensified mistrust and hatred of Clinton while extolling the virtues of Bernie Sanders, and the Green Party, stayed home or voted Green with an "I don't like either Trump or Clinton" rationale. Post-2016 studies by PEW concluded that the non-voters in the key industrial states actually were decided by potential Clinton voters who did not vote.

In retrospect, many marveled of how sophisticated the Russians were in targeting their social media to suppress the particular potential Clinton voters. In the Mueller report, we learned that campaign manager Paul Manafort had been sharing Trump internal campaign polling data with a business associate in Ukraine, Konstantin Kilimnik, who had training by Russian intelligence and had close connections with Oleg Deripaska,. an oligarch and friend of Putin, one of many oligarchs the Obama administration had sanctioned in 2014 for Russian incursions into eastern Ukraine.

Trump and the FBI got into a quarrel last week about whether in a political campaign, any foreign national attempting to influence an election had contacts with a campaign had to be reported to the FBI. Mueller in over 100 pages of his report had documented over 272 contacts by Trump or his campaign associates with Russians during the campaign. To clarify the requirement, Sen.Mark Warner (D-Va) immediately introduced a bill requiring such reporting which was immediately blocked by the GOP in the Senate.

_______________________________________________________________________

Mueller came to the conclusion that Donald Trump Jr was unaware of the law so he did not intend to break it when he was lured to the Trump Tower to meet with some Russians who, in a chain of emails with him, hinted they had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Trump from Air Force One lied when asked about it, saying he thought the meeting was about Russian adoptions.

This is what set off this recent firestorm.

"Asked by ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in the Oval Office on Wednesday whether his campaign would accept such information from foreigners -- such as China or Russia -- or hand it over the FBI, Trump said, "I think maybe you do both." "I think you might want to listen, there isn't anything wrong with listening," Trump continued. "If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent' -- oh, I think I'd want to hear it."  FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that a candidate should offer that kind of information to the agency, but Trump responded: “The FBI director is wrong.”https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/id-exclusive-interview-trump-listen-foreigners-offered-dirt/story?id=63669304

https://www.hstoday.us/federal-pages/doj/from-concept-of-collusion-to-obstruction-questions-highlights-from-the-mueller-report/ https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-04-19/mueller-report-did-trump-commit-conspiracy-no-collusion-maybe

https://app.getpocket.com/read/2626633751

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/14/18677631/trump-campaign-finance-law-fec-illegal-fbi

. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/id-exclusive-interview-trump-listen-foreigners-offered-dirt/story?id=63669304

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/paul-manafort-shared-2016-polling-data-with-russian-employee-according-to-court-filing/2019/01/08/3f562ad8-12b0-11e9-803c-4ef28312c8b9_story.html?utm_term=.3b6e2a102999

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/paul-manafort-shared-2016-polling-data-with-russian-employee-according-to-court-filing/2019/01/08/3f562ad8-12b0-11e9-803c-4ef28312c8b9_story.html?utm_term=.3b6e2a102999

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/trump-declines-to-affirm-natos-article-5/528129/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2019/01/31/the-strange-places-trump-gets-his-intelligence-from/#ee93b17312a9


https://www.npr.org/2017/07/11/536670194/donald-trump-jr-s-emails-about-meeting-with-russian-lawyer-annotated

Trump at Helsinki: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812