The excuse for this latest coup attempt was a July 25th phone conversation between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. It was a call of congratulations, but during the call Trump asked Zelensky for a favor or two.
Trump asked Zelensky to look into what happened in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, specifically mentioning a Ukrainian company called Crowdstrike. Crowdstrike is the outfit that analyzed Democratic National Committee email servers and assured the FBI that Russia had hacked into John Podesta's emails. The FBI never bothered to look at those servers, and neither did the CIA. In fact, only Crowdstrike examined the evidence, and Crowdsrike, it so happens, was hired by the Democratic National Committee.
It should come as no surprise that the paid-for-by-DNC conclusion — that Democrat servers were hacked by Russia — continues to be viewed with skepticism in certain circles. Julian Assange of Wikileaks, which published the DNC emails, has said all along that the emails came to Wikileaks from a leaker, not a hacker. Regardless, Crowdstrike's hacking verdict lent additional weight to a national security issue that somehow lacked urgency until Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. Only then did Russia's supposed interference in the U.S. presidential election take on a degree of importance to Democrats.
By that time the Obama administration had already put the Trump campaign under surveillance by the intelligence agencies. The hacking and the alleged contacts by Trump campaign personnel with Russians led to an FBI counterintelligence investigation which was eventually handed over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team. But after three years and $40 million, Mueller failed to make the case for Trump campaign collusion with Russia, and perhaps more importantly, failed to entrap the Trump White House in a charge of obstructing his investigation. So Trump wants to know. How did that investigation get started?
The other favor Trump asked of Zelensky was to look into Joe and Hunter Bidens' activities relative to Burisma, a corrupt Ukrainian natural gas company on whose board Hunter sat for which he was paid somewhere between $50,000 and $83,000 per month, totaling $3 million plus. Quite a sweet gig, except that Burisma came under investigation by the Ukrainian government for corruption, which turned deadly serious in February 2016 when Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin ordered a raid on the home of the company owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. It is at that point that Burisma's $3 million plus investment in Hunter Biden paid off.
Three weeks after the the raid, Burisma's American lobbyists asked the State Department for help in getting the corruption allegations against Burisma to be dropped, specifically mentioning Hunter Biden. Shortly thereafter, Vice President Joe Biden undertook a trip to Ukraine, and it was on this trip that he threatened to withhold a billion dollars in U.S. aid to Ukraine unless the Ukrainian government fired the prosecutor investigating Burisma. Ukraine obliged. Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was himself accused of corruption and fired. Joe bragged about it in a 2018 videotape.
Those two favors are the grounds for impeaching President Donald Trump. Since doddering old Joe Biden at the age of 77 is a candidate for president (realistically there's not a snowball's chance in hell that Biden will ever be president) Democrats could frame the phone call as Trump improperly engaging with a foreign power to get dirt on a domestic political opponent. Thus, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff initiated what they called an impeachment inquiry.
The initial hearings were held in secret, behind closed doors, in front of the Intelligence Committee, not the Judiciary Committee which actually has jurisdiction. I'm not the first to suggest that the Schiff's closed door hearings looked more like auditions, with Democrats leaking what they considered the more effective sound bites to friendly media outlets like the Washington Post or the New York Times. After a couple of weeks of this, Democrats were ready to go public.
A series of very tightly scripted public hearings went forward where Republicans were allowed to call only witnesses approved by Chairman Schiff, and were allowed to ask only questions approved by Chairman Schiff. Schiff acted as prosecutor, judge, and witness coach, advising witnesses when they shouldn't answer Republican questions, ostensibly to protect the identity of a "whistle blower," who most people think is a guy by the name of Eric Ciaramella,
Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House, previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia “collusion” investigation of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
But even with all of that stage management, the Democrat hearings didn't go well. There was barely any public interest. The Democrat stage play needed a rewrite. The original script leaned heavily on the phrase "quid pro quo" to characterize the accusations against Trump. His improper pressuring of Ukraine President Zelensky to investigate Burisma, amounted to "this for that," said the Democrats. When they found they weren't making their case, Democrats speculated that Americans may not be sharp enough to get it — "quid pro quo" being Latin and all. They assembled focus groups and tested other words and phrases, coming up with "bribery" and "extortion." It was still a tough sell.
A Siena College Research Institute poll released this week showed that independent voters in New York overwhelmingly oppose impeachment, 59 percent to 37 percent. Additionally, 51 percent of independents described the inquiry as a “partisan attack on President Trump,” while 43 percent said it is a “fair investigation.”
Maybe the problem wasn't in the wording but in substance. When pressed witness after witness admitted that they "presumed" or "assumed" there was a "quid quo pro." None of the budding starlets for the Democrat impeachment auditions had first hand knowledge. EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland was forced to admit that when he asked President Trump what he wanted from Ukrainian President Zelensky, (which certainly sounded as if he were sandbagging the President) Trump replied, "Nothing. I want nothing." There was no arm twisting, no pressure brought to bear. Aid to Ukraine was delivered, nothing was received from Ukraine in return.
Now contrast that with the Bidens, where money changed hands and influence was delivered in return. Burisma paid Hunter Biden $3.1 million over the years. It paid off. Joe Biden successfully terminated an investigation into the company that was paying his son by threatening to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine. Message received: Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.
In a rational world the name Biden might appear in a poll question about impeachment. But no. At no point did a poll ask, which is the more corrupt:
- Vice President Joe Biden threatening the Ukrainian government with the loss of $1 billion in aid unless it shut down a criminal investigation of the company that was paying his son $3.1 million.
- Trump asking Ukraine to look into that?
- I don't know.
- I don't care. Impeach Trump anyway.
The question could be put another way. Should Joe Biden and his son be shielded from prosecution, or even investigation, for corruption because Joe is running for president? And even when, pardon my Latin, the "quid pro quo" is staring us right in the face? It's true that there is precedent for crimes committed by Democrat presidential candidates. The DOJ and FBI spent month after month working out how Hillary Clinton's illegal storage of classified material on her private email server could be unintentional yet not grossly negligent, and thus, safely ignored.
Maybe that's why Joe threw his hat in the ring this year. When you see some of his debate performances, you have to ask, why is he running? At the age of 77? By asking for those favors, Trump looks to have opened quite a can of worms. We might be looking at just the tip of a very big iceberg.
This Wednesday, impeachment hearings will open in the House Judiciary Committee, where they are planning to call in legal scholars to discuss whether or not President Trump's alleged abuses of power rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanours." There will be no fact witnesses, and therefore little point for the White House to participate.
According to media reports, lawmakers on Dec. 4 will hear from a panel of academics on the history and constitutional basis of impeachment. Cipollone criticized the hearing for providing no transparency and no plan for fact witnesses of Trump’s allegedly impeachable actions to be given the opportunity to testify.
Top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) has requested that Nadler provide Democrats and Republicans an equal number of academic witnesses to align with the procedures used during the impeachment inquiry of former President Bill Clinton.
He told Fox News on Dec. 1 that the upcoming hearing “is a failure of the Judiciary Committee to be able to talk to fact witnesses, to be able to talk to the people that have actually been a part of this, and actually have the president viably participate in his own defense—which he’s not had the opportunity to do now.”
President Trump and the Republicans will get the chance to call his own fact witnesses and cross examine Democrat fact witnesses only at a Senate trial. Democrats have been extremely careful to limit Republican witnesses and Republican questions. They've kept the "whistle blower" under wraps, to the point of deciding his testimony is no longer necessary. President Trump and Republicans would like the chance to question the whistle blower. Representative Collins would like to call Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff as a witness. But will the Democrats allow it by voting to impeach the president?
I think it's doubtful. I think they would prefer that the "whistle blower," Adam Schiff, Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden not be forced to answer questions under oath at a Senate trial, or anywhere else for that matter. There is so much that Democrats would prefer not be made public. They would rather investigate a new round of offenses in their various House committees where they can control agendas, witnesses, and messaging. Once it goes to the Senate, they lose control of the narrative. I think Democrats will not vote to impeach.
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