If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, denies it’s a duck, demands you prove it’s a duck, accuses you of being a duck, says your dog is a duck AND that both ‘ducks’ are Russophobic ducks before saying it’s your fault that it has no choice but to be duck, it’s a Kremlin duck.” via Darth Putin on Twitter
So what is all of the fuss about Ukraine and the whistleblowergate story? Donald Trump called Ukraine the day after Mueller spoke to the nation and told us that Russia was in the process of interfering with the 2020 election, like they did in 2016. Trump’s “perfect beautiful conversation” was one in which he told the Ukraine former comedian leader that he would withhold military aid until the foreign leader provided dirt on his political opponent Joe Biden and Biden’s son. In other words, he coerced the leader to make up stuff about Biden for his own personal interest.””
Putin helps Trump become POTUS in 2016. As POTUS, Trump in turn helps Putin kill his Ukrainian rivals by withholding $250M in congressionally authorized military aid from Ukraine — but hints Ukraine will get its aid if and when it goes after his rival Biden’s son.
Trump ordered hold on $400 military aid for Ukraine days before phone call pressuring President Zelensky to investigate Biden’s son.
In-depth coverage of this scandal (including the Manafort connection)
“It is well known in Washington that Trump has held a residual animus toward Ukraine dating back to the 2016 campaign, when the publication of a so-called black ledger of illegal payments, made under the former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, helped bring about criminal charges against Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort. (In March, Manafort was found guilty of failing to pay taxes on payments that he had received for his work as a consultant in Ukraine.)”
There is “no evidence” Biden did anything wrong, according to The New York Times.
“One of these guys was pressuring the Ukraine to help him out in an election. The other was pressuring the Ukraine to end corruption. They are not the same.”
Now, Rudy Guiliani and Donald Trump call the News Media Fake News and Enemy of the People.
Stalin called anyone who didn’t agree with him the “Enemy of the People” just like Hitler, Goebbels, Mao did. This led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
And the news media has been complicit in repeating lies, conspiracy theories and giving voice to “both sides” when one side reports proven facts and the other side makes up “alternative facts” and/or uses the Russian KGB technique of Firehose of Falsehoods. This is to confuse and muddy the waters.
Trump learned a lot from his mentor Roy Cohn too. “Cohn gave him an early lesson in political pugilism, teaching him to never back down or admit wrongdoing, to manipulate the media without shame and to lie, deny and counter-attack with relentless ferocity.”
Donald Trump Versus the United States of America
He has pressured a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 American presidential election.
He urged a foreign country to intervene in the 2016 presidential election.
He divulged classified information to foreign officials.
He publicly undermined American intelligence agents while standing next to a hostile foreign autocrat.
He hired a national security adviser whom he knew had secretlyworked as a foreign lobbyist.
He encourages foreign leaders to enrich him and his family by staying at his hotels.
According to @CNN “This time it’s not Russian hackers, it’s not a bot army waging info warfare on Facebook. The person leading the current disinformation campaign is President Trump.” They are smearing the whistleblower and Joe Biden.
Photo by Caleb Perez on Unsplash
Trump invited a foreign nation to influence the 2020 election on the heels of a nearly three-year investigation that proved Russia had influenced the last presidential election. He called Ukraine the day after Mueller spoke to the nation. “
“What is abhorrent about the alleged conduct here is not that Trump is pushing a foreign government to do something, but rather that he might have used his presidential power to get a foreign government to help him win the next election. This is self-serving and corrupt.”
“What Trump is alleged to have done is not a garden variety crime; it’s worse. It involved misusing $250 million in aid appropriated by Congress for his benefit — the kind of gross misconduct that easily clears the bar of high crimes and misdemeanors set by the Constitution when impeaching a president. Which means the best way to hold Trump accountable for that misconduct isn’t a criminal trial; it’s for Congress to impeach him.”
“The Wall Street Journal and The Times were reporting that the secret whistle-blower complaint involved this: President Trump repeatedly pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine — about eight times, The Journal said — to work with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s loony personal lawyer, to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden.”
Trump held up a $400 million allocation for Ukrainian weapons systems, maritime defense, and coordination with NATO, and then took steps hide what he was doing by getting his underlings to lie about it. There’s pretty strong circumstantial evidence that he intended to use the money as leverage to get the Ukrainian government to gin up a bogus case against Joe Biden. A bipartisan group of four Democratic and two Republican senators wrote to Mulvaney at the OMB on September 3 saying, “This funding is crucial to the long term stability of Ukraine and has the continued backing and approval of the U.S. Congress which appropriated these funds.” And still Donald Trump continued to sit on the allocation. The Senate finally managed to shake it loose on September 11, when Democratic Senator Dick Durbin attached a mandate to release the Ukraine funding to must-pass spending legislation, after which the White House had a sudden change of heart. via @Wonkette
via Lawrence Tribe on Twitter
“If Trump was pressing Ukraine to go after Biden’s family at the same time that Trump was withholding aid from Ukraine to defend itself from Russian aggression, that’s enough. No explicit quid pro quo is needed to make this a betrayal of his oath and a “high Crime and Misdemeanor”
“[impeachment] may be the only remedy that is coequal to the evil that conduct represents,” according to Representative Adam Schiff.
Want Congress To Impeach Trump? CALL CONGRESS NOW TODAY…Call (202) 224–3121 OR VISIT YOUR REPS OFFICE ASAP…
“The History of Collusion From 2016 to 2019: — No Collusion! — Maybe collusion, but definitely not a crime! — Who doesn’t collude? You’d be stupid not to collude! — I’m open to potential collusion! — I colluded, so what?” Wajahat Ali on Twitter
“The Trump Administration is knowingly and willfully breaking the law, to wit the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act. This requires DNI to turn over to Congress any whistleblower report deemed by IG to be urgent.”
1. Hunter Biden was never under investigation. Ever. 2. The investigations pertained to actions from pre-2013 by a man who owned a company. 3. That Ukraine investigation was shelved in ‘14- ’15. 4. HB joined that company’s board in April 2015.” via Kurt Eichenwald on Twitter
Ivanka, Jared, Eric and Don Jr. need to be investigated. Whatever Trump is accusing Joe Biden’s son of doing, which is a debunked conspiracy theory, his own children have probably actually done.
“Ukraine attempted — took knowing steps toward — bribing Trump by offering him valuable political research and aid in exchange for a change in U.S. foreign policy. Trump induced and solicited the bribe and other parties, like Rudy Giuliani, conspired in it.” Seth Abramson, author of Proof of Conspiracy
“Support for Ukraine to form a bulwark against Russia has been a major US priority for years. “If the stories are true, the president cavalierly thrust the national interests aside in favor of his personal political interests.”
told Washington Post
Julia Davis: “Trump repeatedly pressed Zelenskyy to investigate Biden’s son, then dispatched Pence to “talk about the progress that he’s making” and “carry back to President Trump the progress that he and his administration in Ukraine are making on dealing with corruption in their country.”
Leschenko is a witness to the whistleblower who brought this phone call to the attention of the media (New York Times reporters).
