Friday, October 4, 2019

So what's wrong with soliciting dirt on an opponent from a foreign government.

10/18/19:  Nick Mulvaney said yes the US denies aid all of the time to influence foreign policy and politics are always involved, but yes aid was withheld to get Ukraine to investigate the theory that Ukraine hacked the DNC emails in 2016, not the Russians.  Oops. Use of military aid was used to force Ukraine to act to help Trump politically.  So what's wrong?" Just get over it", Mulvaney said.
( 10/12/19 revision of a form posting asking So What's wrong with getting dirt on an election opponent  from a foreign government?)
Here is your Colorado Senator Cory Gardner  (R) at work. Gardner is no profile in courage. When a Channel 9 KUSA reporter asked Cory Gardner, ' would  (it) be appropriate for a president to ask a foreign government to investigate an opponent, Gardner did not give a "yes" or "no" answer. 
'The Senate Intelligence Committee is starting an investigation, a bi-partisan investigation. Unfortunately, though, what we've seen is a very political process take over,' he said." https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/next/sen-cory-gardner-interaction-with-the-press/73-e72b2587-5057-403f-80f1-42f93f562a83?fbclid=IwAR2QUKAl-f2
When asked a  question of a matter of principle with a yes or no answer, Gardner responded with an answer that implied that the answer depended upon whether the Senate Intelligence Committee agreed or not with impeachment charges that asking foreign governments to find dirt on a political opponent.  He added a swipe that it is a partisan matter. So much for standing on principle. So what's wrong with the President soliciting help from a foreign government to help him get elected? The easiest answers: it is illegal and it endangers US political independence from foreign control of our own governance.
While the reporter's question was simple,  to answer yes would have put Gardner in hot water with a President who threatens to primary any GOP member of Congress disloyal to him. To answer no would put him in the category of a pure Trump loyalist in a state that has turned blue and bluer.  He is up for re-election in 2020 and his opponent will be very moderate former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper.
 The correct answer to the Channel 9 reporter should have been " No".  Why? 
1. It's a crime, Mr. President and Senator Gardner
Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub said after President Trump publicly stated he would accept foreign intelligence on opponents and saw no problem with that.."Let me make something 100 percent clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: 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." 
FYI: impeachment does not require proof a crime was committed to be an article of impeachment.  The definition of high crimes and misdemeanors is left up to the impeachers to define.

2. If the foreign country agrees and produces something that would help a candidate get elected, that candidate finds himself obligated to them in the future even though the foreign country, like Russia, has their own agenda that is not ours and in fact may harm national security.  The Declaration of Independence was just about that: freedom from a foreign power, the British.  Foreign interference was one of the basic fears of the writers of our Constitution, too. The early and later Federalist papers were consumed with the fear that England would try to retake their former colonies. During the Articles of Confederation period before the Constitutional Convention, they noted many attempts by foreign governments to bribe leaders in the former colonies so they laced the Constitution with provisions like the emoluments clause against bribery  and when they could not crack the Constitution and loyalty to the new republic, it took it a step farther invading in the war of 1812.

3. A foreign power getting dirt on a US candidate's opponent is both a thing of value and an element of collusion.  Trump crowed loudly Special Counsel Robert  Mueller's report exonerated him of collusion. He knew collusion was impeachable. However, now Trump himself actively demanded a foreign government to collude. As attorney Ari Melber on MSNBC commented in soliciting dirt on an election opponent from a foreign government, as Trump has done,  is "going from no collusion to pro collusion".As Special Counsel Mueller noted, “[a] foreign entity that engaged in such research and provided resulting information to a campaign could exert a greater effect on an election, and a greater tendency to ingratiate the donor to the candidate, than a gift of money or tangible things of value.” 

_______________________________________________________________________________
 This question stands alone in importance even if there was no quid pro quo of conditioning military aid to Ukraine if their president did not do Trump the favor of re-opening an investigation into Joe Biden and his son for business dealings in Ukraine and in shifting the 2016 foreign interference in the 2016 election from Russia to Ukraine.  Both of these "asks" are based on conspiracy theories with plenty of evidence to debunk them, but promoted by Trump media. Just soliciting, accepting or receiving something of value from a foreign government in an election campaign is against the law.
The president has been on media openly welcoming, from "Russia are you listening? Find Hillary's missing emails",  the July 25 telephone call, Oct. 3, urges China to dig up on the Bidens. (The Chinese declined). The Mueller report spent pains to find no collusion with Russia in 2016; now soliciting the collusion is in the open or as Ari Melber on MSNBC  put it succinctly:  "Trump has gone from no collusion to pro collusion". On June 13, 2019, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Trump was asked if he considered accepting "oppo research" from a foreign country broke election laws, he replied: "It's not an interference, they have information -- I think I'd take it," Trump said. "If I thought there was something wrong, I'd go maybe to the FBI -- if I thought there was something wrong. ..... congressman, they all do it, they always have, and that's the way it is. It's called oppo research." It was during the time of the Stephanopoulos interview that Trump's "personal lawyer" was in the midst of trying to convince the newly elected President of Ukraine to re-open the Biden investigation and play ball. It was in vain until a month later that Donald Trump froze military aid to Ukraine to help that country to  beat back a Russian territorial hot war grab followed by the infamous July 25 telephone conversation in which Ukraine's president said he was ready to buy the aid Trump had frozen Trump said he had a favor to ask "though"  and stated the asks: investigate  Bidens' corruption  and for Ukraine to  take the blame for election interference in 2016 .


https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/

More: https://campaignlegal.org/update/yes-president-trump-violated-campaign-finance-law-asking-ukraine-favor

Tweetable quote: By directly requesting or suggesting that President Zelensky use Ukraine’s resources to help his reelection efforts, Trump violated campaign finance law.
(More technically, Trump asked Ukraine to make an “expenditure” by spending resources for the purpose of influencing the 2020 election. An “expenditure” that is coordinated with a candidate is a campaign contribution; “coordinated” means made at the “request or suggestion” of a candidate. So Trump requesting that Ukraine make an expenditure means that he solicited a contribution.)

Hamilton on emoluments from the Muftic Forum Blog 6/24/17: Alexander Hamilton did not even trust the voters or elected officials to stop such attempts. Hamilton expressed his fears in his Federalist Paper 22 “.One of the weak sides of republics..., is that they afford trust too easy an inlet to foreign corruption. ...In republics, persons elevated from the mass of the community, by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, to stations of great pre-eminence and power, may find compensations for betraying their trust...”  Because of Hamilton’s reasoning  the writers of the Constitution included  the emoluments clause to head off such abuses…” no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.” Note Congress' responsibility in these matters.

https://www.apnews.com/d7440cffba4940f5b85cd3dfa3500fb2

https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/68/emoluments-clause

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/03/may-ukrainian-oligarch-said-giuliani-was-orchestrating-clear-conspiracy-against-biden/

https://www.justsecurity.org/66277/the-quid-is-a-crime-no-need-to-prove-pro-quo-in-ukrainegate/

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/464227-fec-chairwoman-reiterates-illegality-of-soliciting-campaign-help-from
https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-the-eastern-european-mystery-donors-behind-the-trump-allied-super-pac

https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-foreign-born-men-who-helped-giuliani-on-ukraine-arrested-on-campaign-finance-charges-11570714188

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

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."




  • 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


So what's wrong with Trump using military aid to shake down Ukraine?

Updated October 5, 2019 and revision.

A version of this was published in Winter Park Times as Whose side is Trump on anyway?  10/11/19
https://winterparktimes.com/opinion/columnists/whose-side-is-trump-on-anyway/

So what is wrong with withholding military aid from a foreign country to get them to do your bidding? President  Donald Trump asks. If it serves our national interests, no problem. If it does not, what then?  Late last month a whistleblower stepped forward to complain that Trump's use of withholding military aid to Ukraine was for Trump's own self-serving political benefit. The second whistleblower coming forth it appears has the first-hand knowledge of Trump's pressuring the Ukrainian government.  With the late September White House release of a memorandum of a telephone call on July 25 between Trump and the newly elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky,  it was revealed Trump tied denial and granting of military aid to promote his personal domestic political advantage in his campaign for reelection in 2020.  The week before the call Trump had frozen the military aid. President Zelensky said he was ready to get the aid needed to fight a hot war with Russia within their borders.  Donald Trump immediately replied," I have some favors to ask, though.." Those favors Trump asked included finding evidence Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in 2016 elections and for Ukraine to provide dirt on Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son's business dealings in Ukraine. Trump viewed Joe Biden as his most likely challenger for his re-election in 2020.   The result was that the House of Representatives with Democrats in the majority opened a formal impeachment inquiry to see if there was cause to impeach President Trump for compromising US  national security by seeking dirt from a foreign leader on a political rival for his own domestic political benefit. In depositions in the House committees, just resigned US envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, provided a series of emailed conversations with fellow US diplomats that verified  withholding military aid and an invitation for Zelensky to  visit the White House were used as sticks and carrots  to get  a reluctant  Zelensky to reopen a previously dead-end investigations into Hunter Biden's business dealings with a Ukraine energy company. Trump also asked Ukraine to open an investigation to blame themselves for foreign interference in the US 2016 election instead of Russia. The Senate Intelligence committee chair released their findings that it was indeed Russia, not Ukraine, that did the meddling in 2016.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-intelligence-committee-report-on-2016-russian-election-interference-offers-roadmap-for-2020-meddling/

 None of this happens in a vacuum. A reason Trump may be  did not care much if Ukraine was weakened for lack of military aid  fits into Trump's questionable  bromance with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and his seeming support of Putin's foreign policy goals  of expansion into their former  Eastern European USSR satellites,  most of whom were protected by a mutual defense treaty by virtue of their membership in NATO. One member gets attacked, and all come to its defense.  Stopping Russia in Ukraine upfront would prevent another war from spreading to the rest of Europe.  Ukraine is not a  NATO member, but its western leaning government is dependent on US aid since Russia took over Crimea and conducted hot warfare to grab  Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. 13,000  Ukrainians had already died in the conflict.  As the result of Russia's interference in the 2016 elections exposed by US intelligence agencies and a special counsel investigation, western democracies and the US  had slapped economic sanctions on Russia that hurt their economy and Putin's oligarch pals.  Rarely have both political parties been unanimous about anything, but Congress has had a full bi-partisan agreement that it is in US security interests to help Ukraine fight off the Russians and they had approved and funded military aid.   From his 2016  campaign and into his administration, Trump had tried to weaken NATO. He called NATO's mutual defense mission obsolete. He threatened to withdraw using the European lack of promised funding as an excuse. He has also tried to lift sanctions on Russia and has sought to get Russia off the hook for their active measures to help him get elected in 2016 and shift blame to Ukraine. This would provide Trump with an excuse to end Russian sanctions. This summer Trump diverted money allocated by Congress for improving NATO's defense to funds to build his wall. He froze funding to Ukraine for anti-tank weapons to use in this latest shakedown and extortion of Ukraine.  This begs the question: Whose side is Trump on, anyway.

___________________________________________________________________

Trump helps Russia be great again again. Trump gave  green light to Turkey to invade northern Syria to hit the Kurds .  The winner: Russia


https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a29365548/trump-ukraine-texts-diplomats-smoking-gun/    /Writer calls Trump's attempts John leCarre meets the Marx Brothers and the
evidence a smoking arsenal.  It puts things in perspective in a way only humor can do.



      and threatens to pull out of NATO





...the newly released emails presented by Kurt Volkertale.https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/politics/chairs-on-volker/index.html Pay attention to page 9 and 10.

History and timelines of sanctions against Russia for Ukraine incursions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis










Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Text of Whistleblower complaint link




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.