by Jack
Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has long been hesitant to initiate a formal inquiry for the impeachment of President Trump. However, today all that changed. It was due to the hearsay statement of a whistleblower allegedly close to President Trump and because of mounting pressure from her democrat colleagues, Pelosi has initiated the first step in the impeachment process. Impeachment is on for real and if they don’t produce the goods this will derail the party and halt any possibilities of controlling the White House in the coming election.
Pelosi spoke of the alleged incident as fact when she said, “The actions of the Trump presidency have revealed the dishonorable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections,” Pelosi said in a brief statement before a backdrop of American flags, repeatedly invoking the nation’s founders. “Therefore, today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry.” For a complete transcript of her press release, click here.
Pelosi further stated, “On Thursday, the Inspector General testified before the House Intelligence Committee, stating that the acting director of national intelligence blocked him from disclosing the whistleblower complaint. This is a violation of law. The law is unequivocal. It says the DNI, Director of National Intelligence, shall provide Congress the full whistleblower complaint.”
At issue are Trump’s actions with Ukraine. In a summer phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, he is said to have asked for help investigating former Vice President Biden and his son Hunter. In the days before the call, Trump ordered advisers to freeze $400 million in military aid for Ukraine – prompting speculation that he was holding out the money as leverage for information on the Bidens. Trump has denied that charge, but acknowledged he blocked the funds, later released.
Biden said Tuesday, before Pelosi’s announcement, that if Trump doesn’t cooperate with lawmakers’ demands for documents and testimony in its investigations the president “will leave Congress … with no choice but to initiate impeachment.” He said that would be a tragedy of Trump’s “own making.”
The Trump-Ukraine phone call is part of the whistleblower’s complaint, though the administration has blocked Congress from getting other details of the report, citing presidential privilege. Trump has authorized the release of a transcript of the call, which is to be made public Wednesday.
Trump has characterized the Ukraine phone call as totally appropriate and cordial. He said he will release a full transcript Wed. He called the democrats conduct a witch hunt that he has endured before he even took office.
What do you think? Has President Trump really violated his oath of office or has he been the victim of a political conspiracy to remove him from office by any means, legal or otherwise? Or is there a 3rd option? Has Trump just played the democrats and set them up for a scandal that could destroy their party? The coming days and weeks are going to be extremely interesting. In addition to the Trump allegations, I’m especially looking forward to hearing more about Hunter Biden and how he landed a $50k a month job in the Ukraine for which he apparently has no qualifications?
Nothing has changed, except Nancy stood there and announced the democrats were going to continue doing what they’ve been doing for the last two years. The House committees lead by Nadler, Waters, etc. will use precious time to cover up what father and son Biden did to line their pockets with billions from China and Ukraine. We’ve been down this identical path before with Russia, Russia, Russia. Democrats accuse republicans of crimes and wrongdoings they themselves have committed.
This is showing how desperate they are. They know they can’t beat Trump at the ballot box and are willing to lose the House and force Nancy out as speaker to have him constationaly removed. Oh, that’s right. What Nancy did wasn’t even constitutional. She wouldn’t even wait a day for the phone call’s transcript and all other related information to be released. A whole day. Really?! Trump’s approval rating reached 52% and expected to rise even more.
The 2020 election is only a year away, while the 2016 is three years past. Important bills like immigration and trade have not been worked on and passed nor will they, because House reps are wasting our time for their professional gains.
Nothing has changed, except Nancy stood there and announced the democrats were going to continue doing what they’ve been doing for the last two years.
Initiating an impeachment investigation for the first time is just “doing what they’ve been doing for the last two years?” How does that make any sense?
The House committees lead by Nadler, Waters, etc. will use precious time to cover up what father and son Biden did to line their pockets with billions from China and Ukraine.
What exactly did they do? Be specific.
We’ve been down this identical path before with Russia, Russia, Russia.
Yes, and as the Mueller report confirmed–and as everyone paying attention already knew–Russia did intervene in the election, Trump did deny this while constantly praising Putin, and his campaign was happy to benefit from the intervention they knew was happening. These are not crimes. They are, however, massive national security risks. Risks that you and most Republicans don’t care about, because “national security” to you just means there is a Republican in office, and nothing else.
This is showing how desperate they are. They know they can’t beat Trump at the ballot box
More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than for Trump in 2016, and that was under extremely strange circumstances. Trump’s popularity has only waned further since.
Oh, that’s right. What Nancy did wasn’t even constitutional.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Cite the exact part of the constitution she violated. You can’t.
Trump’s approval rating reached 52% and expected to rise even more.
No. The only polling agency that claims that is Rasmussen, which is notoriously biased and not taken seriously by statisticians. Reliable polls have him a full ten percent lower than that, and have never shown more than 50% approval the entire time he has been in office. You believe in fake news because you want to, and have neither the desire nor the ability to determine what accurate methodology looks like.
PS ask’s “What do you think? ”
Well how do you answer a question like that:
Me, I am taking a wait and see attitude……..
If your Trump hater, then sure as he!! he is guilty of something, anything, most things, political hyperbole and including excessive tweeting. but nothing we liberals would ever do or consider ourselves, hmmmm, oops forget the hyperbole reference.
If your a Trump fan, Then let the games begin!
Yes, Biden’s drug using son (kicked out of the military for it) got an appointment to the board of a corrupt oil and gas company despite knowing NOTHING about the oil and gas industry!
And Ukraine’s prosecutor undertook investigations of the company but Sleepy, Creepy Uncle Joe told the government to fire the prosecutor or else they wouldn’t get $1 billion in loan guarantees from Uncle Sugar. And you tax suckers will be on the hook for that when Ukraine defaults.
Just the usual corruption.
And Ukraine’s prosecutor undertook investigations of the company but Sleepy, Creepy Uncle Joe told the government to fire the prosecutor or else they wouldn’t get $1 billion in loan guarantees from Uncle Sugar.
Is it your assertion that Joe Biden had the authority to do this all on his own? Is it your assertion that, contrary to every bit of legitimate news reporting on this issue, the prosecutor was not corrupt and did not deserve to be fired?
Hey Ding Dong and Fececrat partisan, how about some proof of that prosecutor’s corruption?
And you have no problem with Biden’s corruption? He pressures the government to fire the prosecutor investigating the corruption of the oligarch and company Biden’s son is getting big bucks from even though Biden knows nothing about the gas and oil industry or Ukraine?
The question is not whether Biden could do it on his own. He did it and he had an enormous conflict of interest which amounted to CORRUPTION! DO YOU F’INK DENY THAT, PUNK FECECRAT?
I won’t be addressing you until you can be civil to me, Joe. That will require an apology for your juvenile name-calling first, and a promise to do better.
Let me know when you’re ready.
When Hell freezes over.
Everything Pie ever said about you is right.
Chris, have you not seen this video of Biden bragging he got the Ukraine prosecutor fired?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/09/27/flashback_2018_joe_biden_brags_at_cfr_meeting_about_withholding_aid_to_ukraine_to_force_firing_of_prosecutor.html
Yes, I have. And as I have explained now here a dozen times, he was acting in our national and international interests when he did so, as a cursory look at the timeline unambiguously confirms. He was not acting out of self-interest for himself or his son, which would have been impossible for him to do given the policy was obviously not set by him personally, and the fact that the prosecutor was not investigating Burisma at the time; in fact, the entire problem the world had with the prosecutor was that he was refusing to investigate corruption, so if anything, removing him may have actually been bad for the business Hunter Biden was working for.
All of this could be confirmed by you in about thirty seconds.
“…….Has Trump just played the democrats and set them up for a scandal that could destroy their party? …”
I want to believe there are enough sentient voters out there watching the hysterical democrats ignore their duties to focus all their energy on destroying Trump. Lewandowski got it right. They hate Trump more than they love their country. That has to be obvious to anyone by now.
But then Barnum once said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” One look at California proves Barnum was right.
I recently read that Iceland is one of the best places on earth for retirees
Jack, you’re a law enforcement man. Do you follow this guy? If not you might want to check him out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5LEiv5euoQ
“You bring one character in after another to loot the treasury and do it all over again.”
Dang, ain’t that the truth in D.C., the District of Criminals.
Joe, maybe I can watch it later, but this is a long video and the guy is rambling so much, its not always clear to me what he is talking about.
(That’s because he’s insane)
And it’s already starting to unravel for the Demwits. They initiated a “scandal” based on a “whistleblower” complaint that turned out to be a artisan someone who complained based on a rumor, which smells a lot like the Russia Russia Russia hysteria. And they didn’t even wait to see the transcript of the phone call!
Substitute “coup” for “impeachment” and there you have it!
Fair-minded folks will smell the stench of Demwit skullduggry and will see multiple cases of Terminal TDS. And even Peloosi admits that the only reason they’re going down the impeachment trail is to prevent TheDonald from being elected! That’s NOT what the Founding Fathers wanted for the impeachment process.
Looking more and more like there’s gonna be a big red wave sweeping out many Demwits and RINOs come 2020.
How about the fake scandal that Trump made up about Joe Biden? You know, the guy who was acting under the orders of the Obama administration and at the behest of the international community in order to get rid of a corrupt prosecutor? The idea that Biden did all of that on his own just to punish someone who had once investigated his son is ludicrous. Biden was not the president and couldn’t have done that. Should Obama have chosen a different point person? Yes. But Biden did not and couldn’t have done anything regarding the Ukrainian prosecutor that the president didn’t ask him to do. So Trump’s call to Ukraine clearly was not about uncovering legitimate corruption or serving our national interest. It was ONLY about going after a political rival, which, unlike what Biden did, is an actual abuse of power.
“How about the fake scandal that Trump made up about Joe Biden? ”
Biden’s son gets millions from a Ukraine oligarch and Chinese firms because his dad is VP, yet to you that’s a fake scandal.
Show’s just what a brainwashed, partisan FECECRAT you are.
“Hearsay allegations?” Trump admitted to them. Rudy admitted to them. Sure, they have also denied them, sometimes in the very same sentences that they admitted them, but is that any reason not to trust them? When you want so desperately to trust them?
Hunter Biden got the job through nepotism, of course, but that isn’t illegal or even unusual, and Joe Biden was acting on behalf of the Obama administration and the international community by pressuring the corrupt prosecutor–who was already done investigating Hunter at the time–to be fired. Trump, on the other hand, sent his personal attorney to handle this matter and was acting entirely out of self-interest by calling for an investigation into a political rival based on nothing. There is no comparison.
The transcripts released today aren’t clear evidence of anything. No prosecutor I know would go to court with this, it’s way too thin and then you have the Ukrainian President who said nobody pressured him! The dems better have a whole lot more evidence than this or they are just spinning their wheels on ice. The dems are going to be judged for their actions like never before. Will the people see it as obsessive persecution or just normal prosecution?
A constitutional law expert who has actually been a prosecutor disagrees with you.
If, in a case, I had to prove to a jury this was quid pro quo, based on these words, I would not be the least concerned about doing it.
I would not advise a client to go to trial on the defense “this was not quid pro quo.”
https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1176921728242483200?s=20
As does David French:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-trump-ukraine-transcript-contains-evidence-of-a-quid-pro-quo/
Damn, that David French piece is good:
I haven’t been a litigator since 2015. I haven’t conducted a proper cross-examination since 2014. But if I couldn’t walk a witness, judge, and jury through the transcript of Donald Trump’s call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and demonstrate that a quid pro quo was more likely than not, then I should just hang up my suit and retire in disgrace. Far from being “scattershot” — as my esteemed colleague Kyle Smith declares — the actual sequence is extremely tight, and the asks are very clear…
…I highlight the quid pro quo aspect of the transcript because the other published report — that Trump asked that Ukraine work with Giuliani to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden — is clearly and unequivocally established. The transcript provides proof that Trump made a completely improper request that the president of Ukraine work with Trump’s personal counsel to investigate a political rival. It provides strong evidence that this took place in the context of a quid pro quo for desperately needed military aid.
Trump’s comments to Zelensky should not be considered an offhand remark or word salad that’s merely “Trump being Trump.” Recall that Giuliani has been working on his Ukraine project for months. He has bragged that his efforts should be “very, very helpful to my client.” Trump has wanted to push Biden’s Ukrainian conflicts of interest into the center of the national debate.
230
More investigation is necessary. Congress needs to understand the full context of Trump’s decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine, it needs to hear the whistleblower’s complaint (though it appears that the whistleblower may have been mainly complaining about the call that we’ve now read), and it needs to determine what, if anything, Ukraine did in response to Trump’s requests. It also needs a full accounting of Giuliani’s odd actions on behalf of his client.
I’m honestly puzzled that Trump’s defenders online are claiming any kind of vindication over the contents of this transcript. It admits one profound abuse of power, and it implies another, even worse, violation of the public trust.
Chris I could cite even more experts that disagree with you. But, that gets us nowhere does it? Enjoy your opinion and I will enjoy mine until something changes it.
No, please. Cite the experts.
I’m waiting. I thought you said you had more constitutional law experts who disagreed that there was a clear quid pro quo here? It can’t be hard; you’d only need to find more than two. (And no, Happy Endings Dershowitz doesn’t count.)
To the King of Denial, they wouldn’t be.
Oh Happy, Happy, Happy Day!
Finally, Ms Nancy has decided to eschew politics for the rule of law. The whole thing may yet bite her on the butt, politically, but it’s the right thing to do.
Libby, I know the impeachment hearing must have you thrilled beyond measure, but I caution, do not get too far out in front of the facts. It’s early in the game and what we have seen so far is Trump being Trump, but not being a traitor and not colluding with the enemy. Do I like the way he does things? No, I don’t, but if you think that quid pro quo deals don’t happen daily in this world, then you don’t know much about politics. It’s safe to say that 90% of politics is based on some sort of quid pro quo. In the past every president we’ve had has been paid for by special interests and he was beholding to them from the first day he took office. Look at the big money donations to the Clinton fund and the favors that followed, look the bribery money Biden’s kid got for a figure head position or almost any big campaign donation to almost any politician! Nothing happens in beltway politics without somebody getting something for doing a favor. Trump plays hardball and he wanted the dirt on Biden and he wasn’t above reminding the Ukrainian president, he owed us bigtime. I don’t approve of this, but this is not unusual and it’s not enough to remove Trump from office, IMO.
How you do blather on. The U.S. Senate being what it is, there was never going to be any removing Trump from office. All we are … finally … doing is calling a crook … a crook. This is important. And we can wait for justice. It will come.
It’s early in the game and what we have seen so far is Trump being Trump, but not being a traitor and not colluding with the enemy
Only the furthest on the left are using these terms to describe what happened in this case. No one in Congress is saying it. Ukraine is of course not an “enemy.” But this just goes to show how far Trump has lowered your standards. The issue here is the president trading a personal favor with a foreign government in order to help his election chances. That is wrong and dangerous. It means he is putting his personal desires above legitimate government interests. This is what he has always done. The Biden thing is just not comparable, as the policy of going after the corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor was crafted by the Obama administration and the international community as a whole, thus it could not have been motivated by Biden’s personal animus. Trump’s phone call and his larger Ukraine policy was, which is why he sent Crazy Rudy rather than a government official.
It strikes me as very odd that the dems would announce a formal impeachment hearing before they had reviewed the transcript that is supposed to have all this damming evidence.
The evidence is in the words of Rudy Giuliani and Trump himself, who have both admitted that they asked Ukraine to investigate Biden, which was an abuse of power in and of itself. And let’s not pretend this is his only impeachable offense; he forged a weather map three weeks ago for Christ’s sake. Last week there was a major story about the government recalling a spy in Russia because they were afraid Trump would tell the Russians something that would compromise his identity, and that story has already been pushed out of the news because of this. The man creates so much chaos that you literally can’t remember one Trump scandal once the next one starts, and he uses that to his advantage. He is unfit, a danger to national security, and needs to go. How can anyone dispute that at this point?
“…announce a formal impeachment hearing before they had reviewed the transcript…”
Because they had already written the “whistle blower” complaint.
Pelosi is making up her own process instead of following the formal impeachment process outline in the constitution. She must bring the recommendation of the committee to the floor for a full vote. She can’t just proclaim it on her own.
She needs to bring it to the floor, but we know why she won’t. Can’t have a record for voters to know with the upcoming election.
Here’s the process.
https://www.ajc.com/news/national/how-does-impeachment-work-here-the-step-step-process/5wUTeEdEgheqohUL1WA0IJ/
As Harold has said… “let the games begin”
Two questions.
1. “Would someone please identify any intelligence activity, or any classified information, or any function of any intelligence department whatsoever, that was discussed between President Trump and President Zelensky? If there were none, as appears to be the case from the transcript of their conversation, surely the “complaint” from the as-yet-unidentified whistleblower does not concern an actionable offense, and does not fall under the protection of the laws mentioned above? If there was no criminal act, no “high crime or misdemeanor”, how can impeachment be justified?”
Read the rest here. Read the comments too–
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2019/09/two-questions.html
If there was no criminal act, no “high crime or misdemeanor”,
Conflating these two things is really historically ignorant. A “high crime or misdemeanor” does not mean a “criminal act.” One need only look at previous articles of impeachment to see that many of them had nothing to do with any technical legal offense. A high crime or misdemeanor is whatever Congress wants it to be.
Good question. Since the president can classify or declassify any material, how can he/she be charged with a violation of a intelligence act?
Clinton was found guilty of seven, I believe, felonies by judges in courts, impeached by the House, but not removed from office by the senate. Nixon was not charged or found guilty of any felonies. He resigned on Aug. 8, 1974.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/watergate-nixon-impeached/
Clinton was found guilty of seven, I believe, felonies by judges in courts,
LOL no. That did not happen. Where are you even getting this from?
Jack,
Great video on this topic.
Of course, it will send a certain snowflake postal. Anyway, it documents the corruption of the Biden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2hxywnF3Mw
Good link Joe, thanks. FYI… I’m signed up to recall Ory and Stone.