As to your complaint about this not being a bipartisan impeachment, that would be nice but i really don't see any chance of that happening with republicans. Lindsey Graham originally said it would be deeply troubling if the President engaged in a quidproquo. When Sondland testified under oath that there was one, Graham stated he stopped reading the transcripts. The one republican that was for impeachment [Rep. Amash of Michigan, formerly an R, now a D] was attacked for breaking ranks and is no longer a republican. Even if it somehow costs the democrats votes I think it's important to make Trump's attempts to withhold foreign aid for an investigation of his political rival an impeachable offense.
as contrasted with...
Originally Posted By: M E M
Lindsey Graham not even pretending...“I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here,”
No morals just a lap dog protecting his master.
You and your side berate Senator Lindsey Graham for partisan obedience, when you yourself acknowledge Graham was criticizing Trump less than a month ago, expressing possible dissent from Trump ("If Trump did this..."), before the full facts were disclosed.
But if Graham and others are not listening at this point, it's because nothing the Dems have offered in the last 2 months is new or persuasive evidence, just hearsay opinion calculated to smear Trump and hide the true facts:
1) That the Trump/Zelensky July 25th phone call exonerates Trump of what is alleged by the "Whistleblower"/Eric Ciaramella. There was no quid pro quo, or whatever the Democrats' focus-group-selected label is this week.
2) Zelensky in multiple televised interviews for months after the call makes clear there was no quid pro quo, no intimidation, no pressure on him by Trump.
3) That both the media and the Democrat leadership have been talking about and salivating over the possibility of impeaching Trump since the day of his inauguration, LONG before Trump's July 25th phone call. This is just the latest excuse, the latest lying narrative, to try and destroy Trump. They have literally been discussing impeachment in the media and leaping at every opportunity to do so EVERY MONTH SINCE TRUMP WAS INAUGURATED. Far from the hypocritical narrative that Democrats are oh-so-reluctantly pursuing impeachment. Or the narrative that the July 25th call is what suddenly compelled or required them to pursue impeachment. This is just the latest contrivance in an enduring 3-year effort to impeach Trump by whatever slanderous narrative they can manufacture.
And Senator Graham is not saying he is not a fair juror, he is mocking the Democrats like Pelosi and Schiff who pretend that impeachment is something they didn't want, or that they for one second are honestly weighing the evidence. As in a Soviet court, the impeachment fate of Trump was long predetermined, no matter what the evidence. And there is no evidence.
Graham said that early on and once it became clear there was a quid pro quo he went into attack mode for his master. I only give him credit for at least being clear that the oath he's taking about being impartial is a lie. While the Ukrainians were fighting for democracy Trump withheld foreign aid for political favors. That will be attached to him for history.
Graham said that early on and once it became clear there was a quid pro quo he went into attack mode for his master. I only give him credit for at least being clear that the oath he's taking about being impartial is a lie. While the Ukrainians were fighting for democracy Trump withheld foreign aid for political favors. That will be attached to him for history.
What I just pointed out above is that Sen. Graham was perfectly willing to criticize Trump, saying "If Trump did this..." then Graham was ready to condemn the alleged quid pro quo. But that turned out to be hearsay, with absolutely nothing to back it up. And Trump released the July 25th phone transcript, proving the quid pro quo allegation is a lie.
And Zelensky in multiple televised interviews in the weeks after confirming that over and over, proving the quid pro quo allegation is a lie.
And after that House Democrats had several weeks of hearings with Alexander Vindman, Fiona Hill, Gordon Sondland, Tim Morrison, Pat Cippelone, Marie Yovanovich, Michael Atkinson, Bill Taylor, George Kent, Kurt Volker, David Holmes, and so forth, almost none of whom was listening on the phone call, who just offered their opinions and speculations, NOT evidence. And some of whom, despite Democrats' best efforts to prevent any defense of Trump, offered observations that exonerated Trump.
And as I said above, the hypocrisy of you and the Democrats is incredible. For THREE YEARS of Obama's presidency after the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 by Russia, the Obama administration offered nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in military aid to Ukraine to help them defend themselves. And yet the lying Democrats front a jaw-droppingly deceitful narrative that Ukranians died because "Trump witheld foreign aid"?!? Trump withheld aid for about 48 days to verify the aid would not be used corruptly, that's all, released on Sept 11th, well before the Sept 30th deadline. So there was no interruption of aid, despite Trump doing his job in verifying the aid would not be used for corrupt purposes. So all this lying narrative on the Democrat side is completely based on false narrative and wild speculation with no facts in evidence, NONE.
To deflect from the provable corruption on the part of Joseph Biden and his son Hunter Biden, where Biden openly boasted on video that he forced then-Ukranian president Poroschenko to fire the lead prosecutor investigating Burisma and Hunter Biden, with the clear threat (on videotape!) that Biden would take away $1.5 billion in aid to Ukraine if he was not fired. Now, that's , quid pro quo !
If you would take your partisaan blinders off to see it.
Likewise then-ambassador Marie Yovanovich giving the Ukranian government a list of U.S. companies they could not investigate (all Soros-funded businesses or otherwise friendly to the Democrat party).
Seriously, M E M, how can you evade these facts and continue to front the lying talking points you keep repeating?
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) on Laura Ingraham's program last night compared what the Democrats are doing now to what is termed "target fixation", where a military pilot is so fixated to his target that he accidentally crashes his plane into a mountain. That the Democrats with this impeachment obsession are essentially crashing the country into a mountain.
Democrats have no chance of beating Trump in 2020, so they are throwing everything into this hail-mary political play, and they don't care about the chaos and division they are stoking with this move. It is a move incredibly destructive to the country, and inherently anti-American in that destruction, and the erosion of public confidence in our Constitutional rule of law. By doing so, Democrats are making clear to the nation they are unfit to hold elected office.
I guess as a Republican, I should be thanking the Democrats for this incredible over-reach, that assures Trump's re-election in Nov 2020, and assures Democrats will lose control of the House at the same time. Democrats have made clear if this attempt fails, they will just make another attempt to impeach Trump later, and another and another. They've made voters' choice easy, for how to stop this impeachment B.S. and get on with the nation's business: Vote all Democrats out of office.
Sometime today, Democrats will put forward a vote by the entire House for impeachment. They already did so Monday in the House Judiciary Committee (which the Democrats control) by a vote of 23-17 along party lines. Now it will go through a vote of all 435 members of the House, before going to the Senate for an actual trial, if it isn't voted dead on arrival.
By comparison, the House hearings of both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton took about a year for each, of thorough and bipartisan hearings to reach this stage, with preceding special investigations that found each guilty of crimes.
To date, Trump has been found guilty of nothing, NOTHING, that would warrant a House impeachment or a trial. It is a cheap Democrat stunt, intended to damage Trump's popularity, in a desperate attempt to prevent his re-election, because Democrats have no other options, other than to slander someone who is quantifiably the most successful president in at least 50 years. I shit on the integrity of the Democrats, who have lawlessly and un-Constitutionally pursued impeachment without evidence, despite the lack of evidence, just because they have a House majority, just because they could, just a Hail-Mary attempt to damage a President of the opposing party.
The only thing that makes it unintentional comedy is the incredible Democrat over-reach, that is doomed to failure, that will have such blowback that it will destroy what's left of Democrat power after the 2020 election. Score another victory for the Bolsheviks who run the Democrat party. This remarkable abuse of power only demonstrates that Democrats are infinitely unworthy of that power.
And by "officially", you mean deceitfully and hypocritically, with no legal or ethical standards.
See the Tucker Carlson link in my above post. As he puts it, Democrats don't just lie, they completely invert the truth, and pretend to be something they're not, to deceive voters. But the voters are not fooled, and the dynamite the Dems are playing with will blow up in their faces in Nov 2020. They have assured Trump's re-election and Dems' loss of the majority in the House.
After Trump took the time to write Pelosi a letter on the subject, Pelosi said on video to reporters that she didn't even read it, but portrayed the letter (which she didn't read!) as "sick".
For those of us who actually read it, it details the un-Constitutional nature of the impeachment, the lack of witnesses or specific crimes, that completely bypasses the laws and legal precedent for impeachment, that will be condemned by history 100 years from now.
And here's the letter by White House attorney Pat Cippelone to Rep. Jerry Nadler on December 1, 2019, detailing the legal reasons Trump's White House was not cooperating more with Nadler's committee, specifically because of the partisan and one-sided unfair process that did not allow Trump to defend himself against allegations, to subpoena and call witnesses, to cross examine witnesses, or to present exculpatory evidence that would prove his innocence.
And wow, look at this, what the Democrats label in false narrative as a "conspiracy theory" of the Deep State, the FISA court itself publicly says that the FBI's procedure for FISA warrant requests is not just flawed, but completely untrustworthy, to the point that they are demanding a change in procedure from the FBI before the FISA court will honor any further warrant requests:
As FISA warrants were approved at over a 99% ratio last year (over a thousand requested, only one denied) and given the very public exposure of the deliberate deceptions by Comey, McCabe, Clinesmit and others in the FBI in the four FISA warrants approved to do surveillance on Carter Page (and through him surveillance on the entire Trump campaign, elected transition team, and inaugurated administration!), how easily these deceptions were passed... it makes you wonder how many hundreds, thousands of other FISA warrants were fraudulently obtained, how many others have had their civil rights violated.
And how no one, even among the FISA court judges, didn't say Hey, this is a warrant to do surveillance on a Republican presidential campaign, maaybe this is a bad idea and an abuse of power...
But no. They did it anyway.
And even this demand by the FISA court is not enough. They should demand rescinding of those FISA warrants, and throw out all evidence obtained from them, as fruit of the poisoned tree. And demand prosecution for perjury of every person in FBI and DOJ whose signature was on those FISA warrants, saying the evidence to request them was "VERIFIED".
Anything less than that is a softpedal. Is just a bare minimum CYA by the FISA court. To request less than prosecution for this outrage for me just confirms these judges are part of the conspiracy, for FISA to let these perjured FISA warrants and the evidence obtained stand, for FISA to not demand prosecution for perjury of the FBI and DOJ officials who deliberately falsified these warrants, on a 2016 presidentiaal candidate, and an inaugurated president elect!
Again: Lisa Page and Peter Strzok in texts talked about knowing a FISA judge, Rudolf Contreras, and in a self-incriminating text said they would all be attending the same dinner party, and planned an ex parte secret meeting inside the dinner party with Contreras. Viva la resistance!
Don't expect this one to appear on CNN or MSNBC, it doesn't fit their lying narrative, and therefore has to be buried.
Note that this notification far precedes Trump's becoming the Republican presidential nominee, and involved no U.S. involvement, to be labelled a partisan interest in Hunter Biden, or then-Vice President Joe Biden. It was other governments who found Hunter Biden suspicious, regardless of who he was.
Hunter Biden was on the radar as a suspicious and corrupt player long before it came to the attention of anyone in U.S. law enforcement. Rep. Gohmert (R-TX) made the point that Joseph Biden demanding the firing of Ukraine's prosecutor Shokin (in a quid pro quo threat of denying Ukraine $1.5 billion in aid unless Shokin was fired) in those early months of 2016 may have not only been to protect VP Joe Biden's son at Burisma. But also to protect then-2016 candidate Hillary Clinton from yet another Democrat scandal, as she was already neck deep in 1) the FBI illegal server/e-mail scandal, 2) the Uranium One sale of 20% of U.S. uranium to Russia Hillary approved as Secretary of State, and 3) the hundreds of millions of "pay to play" donations to the Clinton Foundation, in exchage for giving these foreign governments access and preferred treatment in Hillary Clinton's state department.
Still waiting for the Democrats' slightest interest in those far more blatant quid pro quo scandals.
The incredible web of FBI, DOJ, CIA, DNI and FISA corruption. And most of what we know is from self-incriminating texts and e-mails by Strzok, Page, Clinesmith, Bruce and Nellie Ohr, with further mentions of details in meetings with McCabe, Comey, and even the oval office.
It's quite clear in many of these texts that these were highly opinionated Democrat partisans, who were zealous about opposing Donald Trump and electing Hillary Clinton, and perfectly willing to use their FBI leadership power to make that happen.
LISA PAGE: Trump isn't going to become president, right? RIGHT?!?
Very clear intent to use their FBI power to stop Trump from being elected, or a backup "insurance policy" to cripple Trump politically if he against their plans became president.
I don't know how I G Michael Horowitz can allege there was not clear conspiratorial intent within the FBI. "Andy's office" is the office of FBI assistant director Andrew McCabe, and that Strzok, Page and McCabe, three of the FBI's highest officials, were openly plotting to prevent Trump's election, in a high-level FBI office.
Along with their many other texts among themselves, and with other high-level FBI lawyers.
KEVIN CLINESMITH, FBI FISA Division lawyer, who fraudulently changed documents to falsely obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page, and through him the entire Trump campaign: "Viva la resistence!"
What more evidence does Michael Horowitz need to connect the dots?
A brief 5-minute clip from the House impeachment hearings, one of the more insightful moments. Gordon Sondland was a difficult witness, I think for both sides, because his testimony was so all over the place. First he seems to condemn Trump, then he seems to defend Trump, back and forth. I think Rep. Michael Turner did a great job of nailing jello to the wall. He gets Sondland to reveal his "everyone was in on it" comment was just his opinion, with no firsthand observations or supporting facts.
SONDLAND: "That is my opinion..." REP. TURNER: "Which is nothing!"
Sondland is a difficult one to figure out. He was appointed by Trump, as many wealthy people are by presidents of both parties, but is not a personal friend of President Trump. As I understand it, Sondland is the owner of a chain of luxury hotels. Because he is a Trump official, his hotels are basically under seige by leftist protestors and it is hurting his livelihood. So his testimony may have been an attempt to appease both sides and throw out some ambiguous flashy statements that both sides could interpret as a win for them, and if the Left likes his rhetoric, maybe let up the pressure on his businesses.
Wow, both Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham were having a blast with the two-faced posturing of the Democrats, and ultimately, their complete failure with impeachment.
1) The deception that Democrats were allegedly pursuing impeachment reluctantly. Whereas both Dems and the media have visibly pursued impeachment at every half-baked opportunity since election day (see just a few examples in Trump's above-linked letter to Pelosi, that she didn't even bother to read). When Pelosi announced Wednesday night on the House floor that the two Impeachment pseudo allegations had been passed 230-197-1, and 229-198-1, after she pounded her gavel and Dems began to cheer, she waved a finger in front of her lips to silence them from cheering as they began to do so. On Twitter, not one reporter, BUT AN ENTIRE TEAM of Washington Post reporters posted a photo online of them having a celebratory dinner for the occasion, terming the event "Impeach-mas". When caught, they deleted the post, but not before conservative news got a hold of it and widely rreported it. Oh, yes, so somber, so serious, so reluctant to pursue impeachment. And your neutral liberal media on the story.
2) Now that Democrats have finally successfully passed their illegitimate bill for impeachment, now Pelosi is holding onto the bill, reluctant to pass it on to the Senate for a trial. Because they know the full facts will come out in a Senate hearing, and the nose-dive Democrats have suffered in the polls over the last month with the House hearings, will plummet even further if this goes forward in a Senate hearing. Newt Gingrich predicts it will silently die on the vine and disappear over the next few weeks, buried and forgotten. More sane leaders in the Democrat party do not want to pursue this, look up Democrat majority whip Rep. James Clyburn's comments on the subject. He makes clear that impeachment is bad for the party, and he and others are desperately looking for a political way out.
3) The president that the Democrats HAD TO STOP Trump, he is too much of a threat to the nation, we cannot wait till the next election to stop him, WE HAVE TO IMPEACH HIM!! The rush to judgement over 6 weeks to impeach, as compared to the Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton impeachments that each took at least a year, and were carefully fair and bipartisan. So unlike the partisan one-sided Salem Witch Trial unleashed on Donald Trump. THE RUSH TO JUDGEMENT, THE URGENCY, WE HAVE TO DO THIS!! And then... nothin'.
Oh, never mind, says Pelosi. It can wait. Yeah....
The party of lies, demagoguery, race-baiting, and splintering America for its own partisan gain strikes again. Score another victory for the Bolshevik party. It has already blown up in their faces. And I can't wait for the full backlash in November 2020.
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
The day she was sworn in to Congress, Jan 4, 2019. Close observers might note that far from somber push to impeach far preceeds the July 25th Trump/Zelensky phone call.
And Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) leading chants to impeach not 3 months after Trump was inaugurated.
Yeah, clearly roused by Trump's July 25, 2019 phone call.
Gee, y'know, if it wasn't so clear Dems were all serious and somber about it, you might think... Democrats just used the July 25 phone call as the slightest excuse to go for an impeachment they wanted all along! Go figure...
You're taking a few most extreme examples to try to generalize the whole party in a way that you wouldn't accept as fair if it was reversed. More democrats were against impeachment up until Trump's call to Zelensky to investigate the Biden's while withholding foreign aid. That abuse of office by Trump is when a vast majority of elected democrats supported impeachment. Even ones that are definitely at risk of losing their seats voted for it. I think republicans are going to pay the price in the long run though. They have to defend that "perfect" call and their own actions in not asking Trump to provide witnesses and documents that everyone knows wouldn't have helped Trump.
You're taking a few most extreme examples to try to generalize the whole party in a way that you wouldn't accept as fair if it was reversed. More democrats were against impeachment up until Trump's call to Zelensky to investigate the Biden's while withholding foreign aid. That abuse of office by Trump is when a vast majority of elected democrats supported impeachment. Even ones that are definitely at risk of losing their seats voted for it. I think republicans are going to pay the price in the long run though. They have to defend that "perfect" call and their own actions in not asking Trump to provide witnesses and documents that everyone knows wouldn't have helped Trump.
Respectfully, M E M, you're either blinding yourself to the truth, or openly dishonest. Every corner of the Democrat party, and equally if not more so all of the liberal media, have been divisively condemning Trump as an illegitimate president since election night 2016, and salivating over every last whiff of an opportunity for impeachment, for three years.
If any in the Democrat party, such as Nancy Pelosi, showed the slightest reluctance for impeachment, it is only for reasons of political appearance, because she felt impeachment couldn't be pulled off successfully and would blow back against the Democrats, which it has. But the hatred and uncivility by even the most centrist Democrats for three years has been palpable and on full display. I've never in my 56 years seen a speaker of the house voice such insults, slander and complete contempt on a president. Even as that President tries to ignore it, and undauntedly go on negotiating legislation on behalf of ALL the American people, with a Democrat party that openly despises him!
And that vile slander, contempt, and push toward impeachment did not begin after the July 25th phone call. It has been ongoing for three years. Even before Trump was elected in 2016.
Further, there is not one of over 20 Democrat primary candidates for 2020 who doesn't speak with the same fanatical far-Left voice in unison. They all advocate open borders, amnesty for illegals, health care benefits for illegals, de-criminalizing illegal border crossings, the economy-wrecking $100 trillion "Green New Deal", reparations for blacks, on and on. When asked in debates about support of these issues, every hand went up. There is absolutely no mistake in identifying the fanaticism and Bolshevik leftism of your party.
Right back at you WB as to either being blind or dishonest. You judging Pelosi doesn't mean anything to me. She showed more than the slightest resistance to impeaching Trump over the years but that doesn't suit your propaganda. Her past actions actually don't fit your narrative. Trump's actions do mine though He's an awful corrupt man. Moscow Mitch will not call the witnesses Trump has blocked because he knows Trump is guilty. If your party goes along with it than that's on them. Trump has been able to keep a lid on most of the testimony and documents on this but as time goes by it will come out. History will know just how corrupt Trump was and what shit bags like Mitch and Lindsey were in trying to cover for him. I no longer expect them to choose country over party from them.
You're taking a few most extreme examples to try to generalize the whole party in a way that you wouldn't accept as fair if it was reversed.
I dunno. It’s hard to argue that the Democrat members of Congress breaking out in applause is simply a few outliers.
How many applauded? It didn't sound like that many. I get that the GOP will try to use it to paint the entire party for political advantage but the truth is impeachment wasn't an easy partisan decion to make for more democrats than not. Many know they are risking their seat with their vote.
I also don't see that Trump did anything wrong in his July 25 phone call with Zelensky. I've posted the transcript here multiple times.
There is no threatening tone in Trump toward Zelensky, there is no demand for Ukrainian action in exchange for release of aid. A demand doesn't begin with "if you could do me a favor, if it's not too much trouble, that would be great..." That's an unconditional request, not a demand. Much as your party tries to spin it otherwise.
Trump is the President, and like any other president before him, it is within his rights to negotiate with other nations, even forcefully. JFK with Kruschev, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, negotiating to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey, in exchange for Russia removing its missiles from Cuba. Reagan negotiating with the Soviets, at first with threats, so as to later at the end of his presidency bring about miraculous nuclear arms reduction and lessening of tensions. What did G.H.W. Bush offer to build the coalition to invade Kuwait? What did Barack Obama 'quid pro quo" in his sellout giveaway to the Iranian government, that included secret delivery of billions in cash on pallates, to the Iranian government, that Obama in interviews admitted would likely be used to wage terror and even threaten U.S. lives?
So spare me the sanctimony about Trump asking about corruption that involved the Bidens. Trump as President had every legitimate reason to ask. And as I've cited in multiple linked articles, the Ukranian government, the U.S. State Department, DOJ and FBI, the Latviaan government, the Cyprus government, had ALL flagged suspicious Biden and Burisma laundered money, going back to 2014!
Your side is engaging the Soviet propaganda tactic of repeating a lie, until it becomes so prevalent as to be perceived as truth. But it remains a lie. In the light your side presents it, Trump's request to investigate corruption gives the slightest surface appearance of abuse of power. But Trump as president was following up on investigation and reports of corruption that well preceded him under the Obama administration. And as his duties to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and to fully execute its laws, against the slanders of the Democrats looking for any excuse to bring him down, Trump was doing precisely his job.
And in accusing Trump with a slanted appearance of wrongdoing, you ignore the far more obviouss case of Biden acting criminally with "quid pro quo/bribery/coercion/abuse of power" or whatever focus-group tested term your party is using this week.
You're taking a few most extreme examples to try to generalize the whole party in a way that you wouldn't accept as fair if it was reversed.
I dunno. It’s hard to argue that the Democrat members of Congress breaking out in applause is simply a few outliers.
How many applauded? It didn't sound like that many. I get that the GOP will try to use it to paint the entire party for political advantage but the truth is impeachment wasn't an easy partisan decion to make for more democrats than not. Many know they are risking their seat with their vote.
I've seen multiple Republican congressmen interviewed about it who were there on the House floor to hear it when the impeachment vote was taken, they all say that every Democrat from a secure seat was gloating and slapping high-fives, that the only ones who weren't were the ones from districts that elected Trump in 2016, because these vulnerable Democrats know this impeachment assures their House seats will be gone in 2020.
Among those railing for impeachment of Trump are Pelosi, Schumer, Hoyer, Durbin, "Mad Maxine" Waters, AOC, Tlaib, And every 2020 candiddate. Who is this mythical "moderate" group of Democrats who openly oppose impeachment. NAME THEM!! They don't exist. Clyburn is the only one I've heard, and that was only intermittently, as he sings in chorus with the impeachment crowd.
Your party are such liars, they only time they feign to be moderate and to PRETEND to hold moderate stances is in front of media cameras, so they can lie to voters and get re-elected, and then pursue their true and radical agenda. Your Bolshevik party at work.
Political spin. Although given what we've heard every one should be for impeachment at this point. We got to impeachment because of what Trump did. Most Americans understand that he did something wrong. The plan to do a trial and not even try to call or get the documents by republicans just makes them historical accomplices to Trump's corrupt abuses if they go that route. In your mind Trump is withholding evidence that supposedly exhonerates him. That doesn't make sense does it?
Political spin. Although given what we've heard every one should be for impeachment at this point. We got to impeachment because of what Trump did. Most Americans understand that he did something wrong. The plan to do a trial and not even try to call or get the documents by republicans just makes them historical accomplices to Trump's corrupt abuses if they go that route. In your mind Trump is withholding evidence that supposedly exhonerates him. That doesn't make sense does it?
It is absolutely not "political spin" to cite the objective facts. That Democrats have been eager and fantasizing about impeaching Trump since at least inauguration day 2017. Thee Washington Post online-published and article speculating about ways to impeach Trump less than 20 minutes after his inauguration. Rep. Maxine Waters: "Impeach 45, I will not rest until he is impeached!", over a year before the July 25th phone call. Rep Rashida Tlaib: "We're gonna impeach the motherf***er!", 9 months before the phone call.
The enthuiasm of Democrats to impeach Trump by any lying pretense is not "spin" it is demonstrable and absolute fact.
Democrats also like to front the strawman false narrative that Republicans allege that it was the Ukrainians, not the Russians, who tried to interfere in the 2016 election. In point of fact, I've never spoken to one Republican who says that. What Republicans ACTUALLY say is that while Russians clearly attempted to interfere with larger resources, the previous corrupt Ukrainian government was also interfering in the 2016 U.S. election, and clearly invested in Hillary Clinton winning. (As were U.S.-embassy-employed two-faced rats like Alexander Vindman, Marie Yovanovich, Bill Taylor, George Kent, and NSC/CIA rats like Eric Ciaramella and Fiona Hill).
There are at three clear and known attacks by Ukraine to interfere in the 2016 election:
3) Alexandra Chalupa, who acted as an operative to bring information from the Ukrainian government and the DNC/Hillary Clinton campaign, again in an attempt to cripple and defeat the Trump campaign.
The linked articles show a lot of other avenues of Ukranian intereference.
Not included, the Ukranian contacts of Christopher Steele regarding the Fusion GPS funded "Russia Dossier", and how that was backdoored into the DOJ and FBI and used to fraudulently obtain FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.
Political spin. Although given what we've heard every one should be for impeachment at this point. We got to impeachment because of what Trump did. Most Americans understand that he did something wrong. The plan to do a trial and not even try to call or get the documents by republicans just makes them historical accomplices to Trump's corrupt abuses if they go that route. In your mind Trump is withholding evidence that supposedly exhonerates him. That doesn't make sense does it?
It is absolutely not "political spin" to cite the objective facts. That Democrats have been eager and fantasizing about impeaching Trump since at least inauguration day 2017. Thee Washington Post online-published and article speculating about ways to impeach Trump less than 20 minutes after his inauguration. Rep. Maxine Waters: "Impeach 45, I will not rest until he is impeached!", over a year before the July 25th phone call. Rep Rashida Tlaib: "We're gonna impeach the motherf***er!", 9 months before the phone call.
The enthuiasm of Democrats to impeach Trump by any lying pretense is not "spin" it is demonstrable and absolute fact.
I would agree that objective fact isn't political spin but what you offer isn't objective. Nor is it in anyway a legitimate rationale for Trump to continue to block testimony and documents that from his impeachment trial. You want to talk about soviet style tactics! I think the earlier pretense was that the House process was unfair but Trump will still keep blocking that evidence while Moscow Mitch coordinates strategy with him. How utterly corrupt!
I would agree that objective fact isn't political spin but what you offer isn't objective. Nor is it in anyway a legitimate rationale for Trump to continue to block testimony and documents that from his impeachment trial. You want to talk about soviet style tactics! I think the earlier pretense was that the House process was unfair but Trump will still keep blocking that evidence while Moscow Mitch coordinates strategy with him. How utterly corrupt!
What specifically that I said was not fact? I cited objective facts, and even linked and sourced them. I could speculate beyond that, but those are the objective facts, beyond any "political spin".
The Ukranians cited clearly did favor Hillary Clinton, they clearly did the things I cited to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election. Despite what Democrat partisans Yovanovich or Fiona Hill have said to the contrary. Those are the facts.
As I've said repeatedly, the Democrats in the House Judiciary and intelligence committees in their impeachment hearings CLEARLY did not follow the same unquestionaably fair and impartial standard for hearings that was set in the Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton impeachment proceedings. Trump was denied participation of his counsel, was denied by Democrats the ability to call witnesses in his defense, was denied by Democrats the ability to present exculpatory evidence that would prove his innocence, was even denied by Democrats the ability to cross-examine DEMOCRAT witnesses! If Republicans in the Judiciary committee asked questions, the Democrat majority on the committee could take a vote to shut down their line of questioning, just because they didn't like the questions! There was no reciprocal check on the Democrats' questions or witnesses. And ultimately, much of the hearings were behind closed doors in the SCIF room, and Democrats/Adam Schiff would leak out-of-context to the media portions after hearings each day what he felt smeared Trump.
Republican House members were not even allowed to sit in on the closed door hearings! And about a month later, Democrats eventually provided transcripts of the closed-door SCIF depositions, but that 1) denied Republicans the firsthand visual ability to read the witness' body language to see if they're lying, relying only on the written transcript that doesn't include that non-verbal aspect, 2) The transcripts did not allow Republicans to respond or cross-examine witnesses in weeks-old transcripts, and 3) the transcripts were provided late enough that they could not respond in a timely manner to the depositions, or even read them amidst the slam of public hearings occurring at the time the transcripts were finally released.
So... Trump not cooperating with this kangaroo court stacked against him was the only way Trump could fight back, and use the condition of more fair and bipartisan hearings (as in the previous cases of the Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton impeachments!) as the requirement before Trump would cooperate.
Trump has nothing to apologize for. It is the Democrats who have conducted an un-Constitutional Soviet-style court that denies rights to the accused.
If Democrats would give Trump fair proceedings, the same type of bipartisan proceedings as in the Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton House impeachments then Trump and his staff would cooperate. But the Democrats had their obcenely unfair proceedings for two months, and polls manifest the outrage that a majority of voters feel about that blatant unfairness. Democrats never allowed fair proceeedings, so we are now way past the opportunity to have fair and bipartisan proceedings.
Now House Democrats, who were blatantly unfair in their hearings, want to tell the Republican majority in the Senate how to conduct Senate hearings!
Please....
Democrats certainly never set a good example in the House, and it is not within their authority to tell the Senate Republican majority what to do.
You're just making excuses for something republicans would never allow if this were a democrat president. The House does have a right to see those documents and get that testimony. Trump chose to not cooperate at all. He wouldn't have done that if that evidence would have helped him. And now with a senate controlled by republicans it still looks he still isn't going to produce any of it. Instead your party is coordinating with him to actually do a sham trial with no witnesses and zero impartial judgement. Given that he held foreign aid for political favors I genuinely thought republicans in office would be better.
You're just making excuses for something republicans would never allow if this were a democrat president. The House does have a right to see those documents and get that testimony. Trump chose to not cooperate at all. He wouldn't have done that if that evidence would have helped him. And now with a senate controlled by republicans it still looks he still isn't going to produce any of it. Instead your party is coordinating with him to actually do a sham trial with no witnesses and zero impartial judgement. Given that he held foreign aid for political favors I genuinely thought republicans in office would be better.
Those are lying Democrat talking points, not a logical argument. It was up to Democrats to establish a mutually trustworthy and bipartisan standard for House impeachment hearings. They had the standard set by both the Richard Nixon impeachment in 1974, and the Bill Clinton impeachment in 1998. Under both those impeachments, with presidents of both parties there was a universally recognized standard of unquestionable fairness to both parties, where both sides had equal ability to subpoena, call witnesses and cross examine witnesses, and plenty of mutual advance warning for any witnesses or documents presented for a unquestionably equally fair prosecution and defense. That is not, ABSOLUTELY NOT the case of Democrat House impeachment of Trump, where Democrats completely stacked the rules in favor of themselves and denied Trump, his attorneys, House Republicans, and others in his administration that same ability to defend themselves.
Based on that, Democrats have absolutely no moral high ground to piss and moan about how the Republican majority conducts its Senate trial. Based on the complete lack of evidence, it should simply be dismissed in the Senate for lack of evidence, as a similar case would be in any lower court.
And now on top of everything, where the Democrats had no credibility to begin with, now House speaker Nancy Pelosi is refusing to pass over documents to the Senate to begin a trial, which just further demonstrates this entire fraudulent case for impeachment is just a partisan show. And Democrats will continue to decline in the polls on this issue, because it is so painfully obvious to everyone. Even Democrats know this, but cling to any devious attempt to remove or politically damage Trump. The Democrat case is a vicious lie. It has always been a lie, through four previous federal investigations, ending with the Mueller Report around April of this year. Then kept alive past its death in disastrously absurd hearings with Mueller, Lewandowski and others, that all backfired aabsurdly on the Democrats, and only further hurt the credibility of the Mueller investigation, and proved even more Demcorat-partisan than was initially known, that Mueller was incompetent and partisan, and that it was partisan Andrew Weissmann who was the true architect of the Mueller investigation, with Mueller as the clueless inept figurehead, who oversaw laughable one-sided Democrat-partisan selective omissions in their investigation, and didn't even know what was in the report that he allegedly wrote!
Then this July 25th phone call hit job that was unleashed in September, just the lastest attempted contrivance to illegitimately remove Donald Trump as president.
And at every stage since then, Democrats have bent the rules and scorned the rule of law to manufacture a false narrative for impeachment. I'll say this, the Democrats are skilled liars and completely lacking in ethics, and that has allowed them to keep this false narrative alive until now. And as long as they could manipluate the rules and keep the true facts in the shadows, Democrats could keep that false narrative alive. But Democrats know, once their false impeachment narrative left the Demcorat-controlled House, and entered an actual proceeding in the Senate, the true facts will be exposed. That their smoke-and-mirrors narrative for impeachment will be revealed as having no supporting facts, and it will be over.
And it is.
Pelosi is just trying to preserve the last dying fumes of that lying narrative from being completely exposed. She can delay it a few days or weeks, but it's over. Your party's deception and lies are fully exposed, and there's no stopping it.
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
It's legitimate oversight and hardly subjective to be making accusations that it's lies. If this was a democrat this is where I would know he's guilty. If those documents and testimony could have helped him you know he would have provided them instead of trying to block all of it. And the earlier excuse for not cooperating doesn't hold because republicans control the senate. There isn't a good reason for him not to produce the witnesses and documents now. Instead it looks like we truly will get a fake trial that won't actually absolve him one bit.
It's legitimate oversight and hardly subjective to be making accusations that it's lies.
No, what the Democrats are saying is quantifiably lies. I've lost track of how many times Adam Schiff's narrative has won him five Pinnochios.
Originally Posted By: M E M
If this was a democrat this is where I would know he's guilty.
Dream on. That's wishful thinking on your part. In the cases of both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, both special investigations documented evidence of actual crimes. In the Trump case, there was no case that could be made for Trump having been guilty of a crime, to warrant going forward with impeachment. PERIOD.
The Democrats know there is insufficient evidence to convict Trump in a Senate trial, and that the same evidence in any normal trial would be thrown out of court without a trial for inssufficient evidence. Thaat is why they are desperately trying to create another narrative, and prolong the handoff of impeachment to the Senate.
Originally Posted By: M E M
If those documents and testimony could have helped [Trump] you know he would have provided them instead of trying to block all of it.
No, Trump is not cooperating at this point in protest to the very process Democrats have set up for Trump being unfair. Look at the Nixon and Clinton impeachments for what a fair process looks like.
Originally Posted By: M E M
And the earlier excuse for not cooperating doesn't hold because republicans control the senate. There isn't a good reason for him not to produce the witnesses and documents now. Instead it looks like we truly will get a fake trial that won't actually absolve him one bit.
Trump has every right to not cooperate, and to exert executive privelege, or his basic rights as a U.S. citizen. Democrats have unlawfully screwed him and twisted the narrative at every step, why should Trump cooperate?
If Democrats had followed a lawful and fair process during the House impeachment hearings, THIS NEVER WOULD HAVE EVEN REACHED A HOUSE IMPEACHMENT HEARING, OR HAVE REACHED THE POINT OF MOVING TO THE SENATE. Trump was FAR more cooperative and forthcoming with documents than either Nixon or Clinton were during their previous impeachments.
And Trump unprecedentedly released transcripts of TWO phone calls with Ukrainian president Zelensky. And that alone proves Trump's innocence of what Dems allege. As does the fact that Zelensky has repeatedly said in televised interviews there was no quid pro quo, no pressure, no bribery, no intimidation, no blackmail, or whatever focus-group-selected catch-phrase lying narrative the Democrats are ussing this week.
Democrats are desperately groping at smoke. there is no case.
