I watched it through until Castor was, I presume, about half way through questions. Just after the "this is a really important point" comment at the point Sondland was basically reasserting the 2+2 = 4 bit. Then I had a meeting and then I had to run over here. It's hard pretending to be a lawyer.
If I'm on team Trump and I'm being honest, based only what I heard this morning, I take two things away thus far: (1) it's clear nobody's going to be able to say that Trump told them to do anything that touches upon "this for that"; and (2) we're getting some meat on the bone of what most of us have assumed/suspected/worried about for some time, which is that Rudy G. is clearly there to be Trump's buffer between orders and having to answer for them, a classic rich guy move. Tell me again why you guys hate lawyers so much.
Whatever is going on here, I don't believe that Rudy G. is ever off on a rogue frolic, nor do I believe that we should be in impeachment hearings. Seems to me the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Trump wins re-election. The DNC would be smart to just drop all this, but it's way past that point now.
Good chit. @YellowSnow and I were chatting today and this is a more nuanced version of what we sort of think. The only person who could potentially know that Trump was trying to "bribe" Ukraine is Rudy, and he can't be compelled to testify as Trumps lawyer even if it is true, so all you are left with is a bunch of people who have thoughts and opinions on what happened, and lots of speculation, but zero hard evidence. The longer this goes the worse it looks for the Dems, because Americans, while dumb, are not so dumb as to see a continual line of witnesses get up and say I think maybe something happened here but Trump never ordered me to do it somehow means Trump is guilty.
Keep it up Schiff. We love it in the cheap seats.
Me and @Swaye might start a Hardcore Husky politics pod where we solve the world's problem one pod at a time. But you've got to be an Elite 8 HH poster to be on the show. @UW_Doog_Bot and @RaceBannon in. Rest of your troglodytes probably don't have what it takes.
I'm only tuning in if GayBob and Sledog are on discussing Russian conspiracy theories.
Weird the way ABC and CBS and the BBC and Politico and The Nation have all run with this "conspiracy theory."
In the hearings so far, Republicans have tried to trace responsibility for Manafort’s ouster back to an unproven conspiracy between Ukrainian bureaucrats and Democratic Party. To do this, they’ve leaned heavily on a 2017 Politico investigation that reported that a Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa was investigating ties between Manafort and Yanukovych in 2016 and was in touch with Ukrainian officials in the process. It’s very unclear, though, how much help the Ukrainians actually gave Chalupa, who has said the Ukrainian-interference theory is a distraction promoted by the Kremlin. And there’s no evidence that the DNC used the information Chalupa found, or that there was any kind of concerted effort within the Ukrainian government was trying to help Hillary Clinton. Indeed, the fact that Republicans are continuing to lean on an article that’s almost three years old suggests that there isn’t more to the story.
Shared them yesterday in a thread where you were running that ignorant twat of a mouth IC. Obviously you were very interested.
Tim Morrison, a GOP witness yesterday and former top adviser on the NSC testified under oath that Ukraine election meddling was a hoax yet Gay Bob here still propping up 3 year old articles to prove his point. JFC.
Morrison is a swamp rat
Timothy Aaron Morrison (born c. 1978) is an American Republican political adviser. He was briefly the top U.S. adviser to President Trump on Russia and Europe on the White House National Security Council, a position he took over from his predecessor Fiona Hill in August 2019,[1] and from which he resigned on October 31, 2019.[2][3][4]
Before that, he served as senior director for countering weapons of mass destruction on the US National Security Council, a position he assumed on July 9, 2018.[5] Until then, he was policy director for the Republican staff on the House defense panel.[5] Morrison entered politics as a professional staff member to Rep. Mark Kennedy, from 2000 to 2007.[6] One day before his scheduled testimony to the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump on October 31, 2019, Morrison was reported to soon leave his post as the senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council, to be replaced by Andrew Peek, currently Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.[7][8]
So what happened with the Clinton campaign and Ukraine? It wasn't so much the Clinton campaign, per se, but a Democratic operative working with the Democratic National Committee did reach out to the Ukrainian government in an attempt to get damaging information about the Trump campaign.
That operative's name is Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American former Clinton White House aide who was tasked with ethnic outreach on behalf of the Democratic Party. As Vogel reported, she knew about Paul Manafort's extensive connections to the pro-Russian regime of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and decided to dig deeper into possible connections between Moscow and the Trump campaign. As part of that effort, she discussed Manafort with the high-ranking officials at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, D.C.
The Democratic National Committee denies that it was ever in contact with the Ukrainian government.
So when you hear @insinceredawg call this a debunked conspiracy you can just chalk it up to another pathological liar on team hondo
What does three years old have to do with anything?
When the facts are against you talk about how old the story is?
Any article written on the moon landing that's more than 3 years old obviously can't be true. Kunt logic, is there anything it can't do?
Have you thought about why there is no coverage on this supposedly HUGE story within the last couple months or even within the last year? Even your favorite news sources haven't picked it up. But since this is the only article that supports your narrative you will continue to cling to it as the sole source of truth. Bitchass partisan Kunt.
What does three years old have to do with anything?
When the facts are against you talk about how old the story is?
Any article written on the moon landing that's more than 3 years old obviously can't be true. Kunt logic, is there anything it can't do?
Have you thought about why there is no coverage on this supposedly HUGE story within the last couple months or even within the last year? Even your favorite news sources haven't picked it up. But since this is the only article that supports your narrative you will continue to cling to it as the sole source of truth. Bitchass partisan Kunt.
I just gave you coverage from last month and I've cited no less than 4 different news outlets. Keep lying Kunt.
What does three years old have to do with anything?
When the facts are against you talk about how old the story is?
Any article written on the moon landing that's more than 3 years old obviously can't be true. Kunt logic, is there anything it can't do?
Have you thought about why there is no coverage on this supposedly HUGE story within the last couple months or even within the last year? Even your favorite news sources haven't picked it up. But since this is the only article that supports your narrative you will continue to cling to it as the sole source of truth. Bitchass partisan Kunt.
President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has repeatedly called on Ukraine to investigate claims of collusion in favour of Hillary Clinton and he has been in regular contact with the prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko.
Now Mr Lutsenko has breathed new life into the story, announcing a new investigation, and citing a court ruling that Ukrainians unlawfully interfered in the 2016 election.
Mr Giuliani also wants Kiev to look into claims that former Vice-President and 2020 Democrat contender Joe Biden may have got Ukraine's then top prosecutor fired to help his son's business interests.
Was there collusion? The collusion narrative is based around the summer 2016 publication of a "black ledger" in Ukraine which showed off-the-book payments to Paul Manafort.
Manafort, 69, was jailed by a US court in March for fraud, in part for his work as an adviser for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine, before he became President Donald Trump's campaigner manager.
Ex-Trump campaign chief sentenced for fraud Manafort: Trump's former campaign chair It was the black ledger payment revelations that forced Manafort to resign from the Trump campaign.
Those arguing that there was collusion, among them Mr Giuliani, allege that the ledger might be fake and that it was maliciously leaked after contacts between Mr Trump's Democrat opponents and Ukrainian diplomats.
Ukraine's prosecutor general gave Mr Giuliani's claims a boost this week by announcing that he was investigating Ukrainian MP Sergiy Leshchenko, who has admitted to being behind the publication of some of the pages of the black ledger.
I watched it through until Castor was, I presume, about half way through questions. Just after the "this is a really important point" comment at the point Sondland was basically reasserting the 2+2 = 4 bit. Then I had a meeting and then I had to run over here. It's hard pretending to be a lawyer.
If I'm on team Trump and I'm being honest, based only what I heard this morning, I take two things away thus far: (1) it's clear nobody's going to be able to say that Trump told them to do anything that touches upon "this for that"; and (2) we're getting some meat on the bone of what most of us have assumed/suspected/worried about for some time, which is that Rudy G. is clearly there to be Trump's buffer between orders and having to answer for them, a classic rich guy move. Tell me again why you guys hate lawyers so much.
Whatever is going on here, I don't believe that Rudy G. is ever off on a rogue frolic, nor do I believe that we should be in impeachment hearings. Seems to me the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Trump wins re-election. The DNC would be smart to just drop all this, but it's way past that point now.
Good chit. @YellowSnow and I were chatting today and this is a more nuanced version of what we sort of think. The only person who could potentially know that Trump was trying to "bribe" Ukraine is Rudy, and he can't be compelled to testify as Trumps lawyer even if it is true, so all you are left with is a bunch of people who have thoughts and opinions on what happened, and lots of speculation, but zero hard evidence. The longer this goes the worse it looks for the Dems, because Americans, while dumb, are not so dumb as to see a continual line of witnesses get up and say I think maybe something happened here but Trump never ordered me to do it somehow means Trump is guilty.
Keep it up Schiff. We love it in the cheap seats.
Me and @Swaye might start a Hardcore Husky politics pod where we solve the world's problem one pod at a time. But you've got to be an Elite 8 HH poster to be on the show. @UW_Doog_Bot and @RaceBannon in. Rest of your troglodytes probably don't have what it takes.
I'm only tuning in if GayBob and Sledog are on discussing Russian conspiracy theories.
Damn I never believed believed in collusion. You're the expert.
What does three years old have to do with anything?
When the facts are against you talk about how old the story is?
Any article written on the moon landing that's more than 3 years old obviously can't be true. Kunt logic, is there anything it can't do?
Have you thought about why there is no coverage on this supposedly HUGE story within the last couple months or even within the last year? Even your favorite news sources haven't picked it up. But since this is the only article that supports your narrative you will continue to cling to it as the sole source of truth. Bitchass partisan Kunt.
President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has repeatedly called on Ukraine to investigate claims of collusion in favour of Hillary Clinton and he has been in regular contact with the prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko.
Now Mr Lutsenko has breathed new life into the story, announcing a new investigation, and citing a court ruling that Ukrainians unlawfully interfered in the 2016 election.
Mr Giuliani also wants Kiev to look into claims that former Vice-President and 2020 Democrat contender Joe Biden may have got Ukraine's then top prosecutor fired to help his son's business interests.
Was there collusion? The collusion narrative is based around the summer 2016 publication of a "black ledger" in Ukraine which showed off-the-book payments to Paul Manafort.
Manafort, 69, was jailed by a US court in March for fraud, in part for his work as an adviser for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine, before he became President Donald Trump's campaigner manager.
Ex-Trump campaign chief sentenced for fraud Manafort: Trump's former campaign chair It was the black ledger payment revelations that forced Manafort to resign from the Trump campaign.
Those arguing that there was collusion, among them Mr Giuliani, allege that the ledger might be fake and that it was maliciously leaked after contacts between Mr Trump's Democrat opponents and Ukrainian diplomats.
Ukraine's prosecutor general gave Mr Giuliani's claims a boost this week by announcing that he was investigating Ukrainian MP Sergiy Leshchenko, who has admitted to being behind the publication of some of the pages of the black ledger.
Posted that yesterday, Kunt still keeps talking about 3 years ago and a single news source.
What does three years old have to do with anything?
When the facts are against you talk about how old the story is?
Any article written on the moon landing that's more than 3 years old obviously can't be true. Kunt logic, is there anything it can't do?
Have you thought about why there is no coverage on this supposedly HUGE story within the last couple months or even within the last year? Even your favorite news sources haven't picked it up. But since this is the only article that supports your narrative you will continue to cling to it as the sole source of truth. Bitchass partisan Kunt.
I just gave you coverage from last month and I've cited no less than 4 different news outlets. Keep lying Kunt.
He'll be here next week claiming there is nothing that isn't three years old
I watched it through until Castor was, I presume, about half way through questions. Just after the "this is a really important point" comment at the point Sondland was basically reasserting the 2+2 = 4 bit. Then I had a meeting and then I had to run over here. It's hard pretending to be a lawyer.
If I'm on team Trump and I'm being honest, based only what I heard this morning, I take two things away thus far: (1) it's clear nobody's going to be able to say that Trump told them to do anything that touches upon "this for that"; and (2) we're getting some meat on the bone of what most of us have assumed/suspected/worried about for some time, which is that Rudy G. is clearly there to be Trump's buffer between orders and having to answer for them, a classic rich guy move. Tell me again why you guys hate lawyers so much.
Whatever is going on here, I don't believe that Rudy G. is ever off on a rogue frolic, nor do I believe that we should be in impeachment hearings. Seems to me the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Trump wins re-election. The DNC would be smart to just drop all this, but it's way past that point now.
Good chit. @YellowSnow and I were chatting today and this is a more nuanced version of what we sort of think. The only person who could potentially know that Trump was trying to "bribe" Ukraine is Rudy, and he can't be compelled to testify as Trumps lawyer even if it is true, so all you are left with is a bunch of people who have thoughts and opinions on what happened, and lots of speculation, but zero hard evidence. The longer this goes the worse it looks for the Dems, because Americans, while dumb, are not so dumb as to see a continual line of witnesses get up and say I think maybe something happened here but Trump never ordered me to do it somehow means Trump is guilty.
Keep it up Schiff. We love it in the cheap seats.
Agreed, especially on the damage this is doing in real time to the as of yet unnamed shit show the DNC will choose to run. That guy/gal will really hate this whole circus when the campaign starts. It's kind of like Gangs of New York: when you kill a king, you see it through and you do it where everyone can see you do it. You don't "try" to do it; you don't show up to a gun fight with a sitting US President with just your dick in your hands.
That said, if you put a gun to my head and my life depended on the accuracy of my guess at the truth here, I'd say there was something there. I'd say Trump is a crafty old rich dood who knows how to position his lawyers and other flunkies between himself and the shit he sometimes wants to do. I don't think doing this would be beneath him. I could absolutely see him making a move on something like this, finding out later it's a no no and then protecting himself. So, sure, by the time Sondland blurts out "What do you want from Ukraine?", a question if asked of me in that manner would make me wonder if I were being recorded, he probably by then had been informed it wasn't ok to offer that trade or make that implied threat. I'm just being straight here ... that scenario, IMO, is well within Trump's wheel house. But we know he's not an alter boy, so I'm not really sure I care that much.
Only thing that really matters here is that this whole circus is yet another example of the left overplaying their hand. It's such a Cuog! move to do this. They really fucked up.
It may backfire on the Dems. I'm not arguing that point. It could. Realpolitik, and all that.
But you've agreed there's probably something there. To me, abuse of the most powerful office in the world and putting personal interests ahead of national interests are not trivial. Your response amounts to "boys will be boys". Are you saying impeachment should be explored only when public opinion already favors it?
I go back to my notes on Gangs of New York. You can't pick a big fight and show up to said fight with your dick in your hands. Sondland is probably going to be the most damaging witness because you can't impeach his credibility like you could Vindman. Sondland is pretty clearly a Trump-type guy and he's basically saying "4+4", but also saying "never told me to do anything." That's not good.
And, no, I don't think we should impeach a sitting US Pres. unless we can establish it with some degree of particularity. I get this isn't a capital offense case and the burden of proof isn't as severe, but impeaching a President is not w/o its costs. The allegedly bad behavior should be serious, it should be pretty clear it was committed and the decision to impeach should be proportionate to previous such votes.
I said if someone put a gun to my head because in that case I'd have to resort to conjecture and play my hand the best I could to save my brains from being blown out of my ear hole. In that case, I'd err on the side of caution because (1) I know Trump is willing to get dirt under his nails and has a flexible moral code, (2) he impulsively does shit his people have to later fix and (3) because Rudy G. is conspicuously positioned in all this and we know Rudy does shit too. So, yeah, from a distance, even a strident, but smart, supporter of Trump would be a little skeptical. I mean, that's basically what Sondland seems to have done (recognizing I didn't hear the whole thing btw).
I'm just saying it's not enough and agreeing with Swaye that the DNC was ill-advised to push this one.
The only reason the aid was provided without Z's public statement was because the President got caught. Does anyone even doubt that?
Even if true, Not enough to remove from office.
Does anyone doubt that?
In this day and age, I’m gratified to even get agreement on the facts. So do you agree that the aid got released because the President got caught?
It’s not what you think happened, but ultimately it’s what you can prove happened to remove from office. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t released because of that. So far we have no proof. So far we have no one criticizing the Call, that was supposed to be the trigger and origin of the impeachment hearings.
So far we have a grossly inexperienced diplomat, who bought himself an ambassador role, opinion that it was qpq. He refused to state as fact when pressed though.
Trump was doing Trump Shit. But there’s not enough here. If the Dems were smart, they would pull the plug on this in favor of Censure.
What does three years old have to do with anything?
When the facts are against you talk about how old the story is?
Any article written on the moon landing that's more than 3 years old obviously can't be true. Kunt logic, is there anything it can't do?
Have you thought about why there is no coverage on this supposedly HUGE story within the last couple months or even within the last year? Even your favorite news sources haven't picked it up. But since this is the only article that supports your narrative you will continue to cling to it as the sole source of truth. Bitchass partisan Kunt.
President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has repeatedly called on Ukraine to investigate claims of collusion in favour of Hillary Clinton and he has been in regular contact with the prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko.
Now Mr Lutsenko has breathed new life into the story, announcing a new investigation, and citing a court ruling that Ukrainians unlawfully interfered in the 2016 election.
Mr Giuliani also wants Kiev to look into claims that former Vice-President and 2020 Democrat contender Joe Biden may have got Ukraine's then top prosecutor fired to help his son's business interests.
Was there collusion? The collusion narrative is based around the summer 2016 publication of a "black ledger" in Ukraine which showed off-the-book payments to Paul Manafort.
Manafort, 69, was jailed by a US court in March for fraud, in part for his work as an adviser for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine, before he became President Donald Trump's campaigner manager.
Ex-Trump campaign chief sentenced for fraud Manafort: Trump's former campaign chair It was the black ledger payment revelations that forced Manafort to resign from the Trump campaign.
Those arguing that there was collusion, among them Mr Giuliani, allege that the ledger might be fake and that it was maliciously leaked after contacts between Mr Trump's Democrat opponents and Ukrainian diplomats.
Ukraine's prosecutor general gave Mr Giuliani's claims a boost this week by announcing that he was investigating Ukrainian MP Sergiy Leshchenko, who has admitted to being behind the publication of some of the pages of the black ledger.
This article says nothing other than Giuliani is doing Trump's bidding by spreading the conspiracy around. Why hasn't there been a follow up to Politico's report from early 2017?
I don't need to explain shit, because I don't care.
Oooh a politician fired an employee! Impeach!
Get the fuck out of here
Trump makes the left so irrationally angry that they have no credibility. If they just said nothing and let people realize he's a buffoon they'd probably win in 2020.
Instead they insist on embarrassing themselves daily to a pathetic extent.
What does three years old have to do with anything?
When the facts are against you talk about how old the story is?
Any article written on the moon landing that's more than 3 years old obviously can't be true. Kunt logic, is there anything it can't do?
Have you thought about why there is no coverage on this supposedly HUGE story within the last couple months or even within the last year? Even your favorite news sources haven't picked it up. But since this is the only article that supports your narrative you will continue to cling to it as the sole source of truth. Bitchass partisan Kunt.
President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has repeatedly called on Ukraine to investigate claims of collusion in favour of Hillary Clinton and he has been in regular contact with the prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko.
Now Mr Lutsenko has breathed new life into the story, announcing a new investigation, and citing a court ruling that Ukrainians unlawfully interfered in the 2016 election.
Mr Giuliani also wants Kiev to look into claims that former Vice-President and 2020 Democrat contender Joe Biden may have got Ukraine's then top prosecutor fired to help his son's business interests.
Was there collusion? The collusion narrative is based around the summer 2016 publication of a "black ledger" in Ukraine which showed off-the-book payments to Paul Manafort.
Manafort, 69, was jailed by a US court in March for fraud, in part for his work as an adviser for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine, before he became President Donald Trump's campaigner manager.
Ex-Trump campaign chief sentenced for fraud Manafort: Trump's former campaign chair It was the black ledger payment revelations that forced Manafort to resign from the Trump campaign.
Those arguing that there was collusion, among them Mr Giuliani, allege that the ledger might be fake and that it was maliciously leaked after contacts between Mr Trump's Democrat opponents and Ukrainian diplomats.
Ukraine's prosecutor general gave Mr Giuliani's claims a boost this week by announcing that he was investigating Ukrainian MP Sergiy Leshchenko, who has admitted to being behind the publication of some of the pages of the black ledger.
This article says nothing other than Giuliani is doing Trump's bidding by spreading the conspiracy around. Why hasn't there been a follow up to Politico's report from early 2017?
I watched it through until Castor was, I presume, about half way through questions. Just after the "this is a really important point" comment at the point Sondland was basically reasserting the 2+2 = 4 bit. Then I had a meeting and then I had to run over here. It's hard pretending to be a lawyer.
If I'm on team Trump and I'm being honest, based only what I heard this morning, I take two things away thus far: (1) it's clear nobody's going to be able to say that Trump told them to do anything that touches upon "this for that"; and (2) we're getting some meat on the bone of what most of us have assumed/suspected/worried about for some time, which is that Rudy G. is clearly there to be Trump's buffer between orders and having to answer for them, a classic rich guy move. Tell me again why you guys hate lawyers so much.
Whatever is going on here, I don't believe that Rudy G. is ever off on a rogue frolic, nor do I believe that we should be in impeachment hearings. Seems to me the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Trump wins re-election. The DNC would be smart to just drop all this, but it's way past that point now.
Good chit. @YellowSnow and I were chatting today and this is a more nuanced version of what we sort of think. The only person who could potentially know that Trump was trying to "bribe" Ukraine is Rudy, and he can't be compelled to testify as Trumps lawyer even if it is true, so all you are left with is a bunch of people who have thoughts and opinions on what happened, and lots of speculation, but zero hard evidence. The longer this goes the worse it looks for the Dems, because Americans, while dumb, are not so dumb as to see a continual line of witnesses get up and say I think maybe something happened here but Trump never ordered me to do it somehow means Trump is guilty.
Keep it up Schiff. We love it in the cheap seats.
Agreed, especially on the damage this is doing in real time to the as of yet unnamed shit show the DNC will choose to run. That guy/gal will really hate this whole circus when the campaign starts. It's kind of like Gangs of New York: when you kill a king, you see it through and you do it where everyone can see you do it. You don't "try" to do it; you don't show up to a gun fight with a sitting US President with just your dick in your hands.
That said, if you put a gun to my head and my life depended on the accuracy of my guess at the truth here, I'd say there was something there. I'd say Trump is a crafty old rich dood who knows how to position his lawyers and other flunkies between himself and the shit he sometimes wants to do. I don't think doing this would be beneath him. I could absolutely see him making a move on something like this, finding out later it's a no no and then protecting himself. So, sure, by the time Sondland blurts out "What do you want from Ukraine?", a question if asked of me in that manner would make me wonder if I were being recorded, he probably by then had been informed it wasn't ok to offer that trade or make that implied threat. I'm just being straight here ... that scenario, IMO, is well within Trump's wheel house. But we know he's not an alter boy, so I'm not really sure I care that much.
Only thing that really matters here is that this whole circus is yet another example of the left overplaying their hand. It's such a Cuog! move to do this. They really fucked up.
It may backfire on the Dems. I'm not arguing that point. It could. Realpolitik, and all that.
But you've agreed there's probably something there. To me, abuse of the most powerful office in the world and putting personal interests ahead of national interests are not trivial. Your response amounts to "boys will be boys". Are you saying impeachment should be explored only when public opinion already favors it?
1) Define what abuse of power is?
2) Having a buffer between yourself and those carrying things out isn’t exclusive to this sitting President ... it’s true for likely every sitting President and occurs in most every C-Suite in Corporate America ... the whole plausible deniability thing
3) If Biden wasn’t running for President and an investigation was launched would there be any uproar? It seems pretty clear to me that there is some smoke there. Are the Biden’s untouchable because Joe is in the race right now? Nobody seemingly is talking about this.
The reality is that the Dems don’t have a strong candidate and they know it. Everything they are doing is trying to discredit Trump compared to saying why their message is better.
The timing of all of this speaks volumes. We’re inside a year of the 2020 election ... easiest way to remove Trump is to beat him next November ... if you can
All they are doing is reminding a lot of people why they voted for Trump in 2016
Ukraine's prosecutor general gave Mr Giuliani's claims a boost this week by announcing that he was investigating Ukrainian MP Sergiy Leshchenko, who has admitted to being behind the publication of some of the pages of the black ledger.
I watched it through until Castor was, I presume, about half way through questions. Just after the "this is a really important point" comment at the point Sondland was basically reasserting the 2+2 = 4 bit. Then I had a meeting and then I had to run over here. It's hard pretending to be a lawyer.
If I'm on team Trump and I'm being honest, based only what I heard this morning, I take two things away thus far: (1) it's clear nobody's going to be able to say that Trump told them to do anything that touches upon "this for that"; and (2) we're getting some meat on the bone of what most of us have assumed/suspected/worried about for some time, which is that Rudy G. is clearly there to be Trump's buffer between orders and having to answer for them, a classic rich guy move. Tell me again why you guys hate lawyers so much.
Whatever is going on here, I don't believe that Rudy G. is ever off on a rogue frolic, nor do I believe that we should be in impeachment hearings. Seems to me the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Trump wins re-election. The DNC would be smart to just drop all this, but it's way past that point now.
Good chit. @YellowSnow and I were chatting today and this is a more nuanced version of what we sort of think. The only person who could potentially know that Trump was trying to "bribe" Ukraine is Rudy, and he can't be compelled to testify as Trumps lawyer even if it is true, so all you are left with is a bunch of people who have thoughts and opinions on what happened, and lots of speculation, but zero hard evidence. The longer this goes the worse it looks for the Dems, because Americans, while dumb, are not so dumb as to see a continual line of witnesses get up and say I think maybe something happened here but Trump never ordered me to do it somehow means Trump is guilty.
Keep it up Schiff. We love it in the cheap seats.
Agreed, especially on the damage this is doing in real time to the as of yet unnamed shit show the DNC will choose to run. That guy/gal will really hate this whole circus when the campaign starts. It's kind of like Gangs of New York: when you kill a king, you see it through and you do it where everyone can see you do it. You don't "try" to do it; you don't show up to a gun fight with a sitting US President with just your dick in your hands.
That said, if you put a gun to my head and my life depended on the accuracy of my guess at the truth here, I'd say there was something there. I'd say Trump is a crafty old rich dood who knows how to position his lawyers and other flunkies between himself and the shit he sometimes wants to do. I don't think doing this would be beneath him. I could absolutely see him making a move on something like this, finding out later it's a no no and then protecting himself. So, sure, by the time Sondland blurts out "What do you want from Ukraine?", a question if asked of me in that manner would make me wonder if I were being recorded, he probably by then had been informed it wasn't ok to offer that trade or make that implied threat. I'm just being straight here ... that scenario, IMO, is well within Trump's wheel house. But we know he's not an alter boy, so I'm not really sure I care that much.
Only thing that really matters here is that this whole circus is yet another example of the left overplaying their hand. It's such a Cuog! move to do this. They really fucked up.
It may backfire on the Dems. I'm not arguing that point. It could. Realpolitik, and all that.
But you've agreed there's probably something there. To me, abuse of the most powerful office in the world and putting personal interests ahead of national interests are not trivial. Your response amounts to "boys will be boys". Are you saying impeachment should be explored only when public opinion already favors it?
1) Define what abuse of power is?
2) Having a buffer between yourself and those carrying things out isn’t exclusive to this sitting President ... it’s true for likely every sitting President and occurs in most every C-Suite in Corporate America ... the whole plausible deniability thing
3) If Biden wasn’t running for President and an investigation was launched would there be any uproar? It seems pretty clear to me that there is some smoke there. Are the Biden’s untouchable because Joe is in the race right now? Nobody seemingly is talking about this.
The reality is that the Dems don’t have a strong candidate and they know it. Everything they are doing is trying to discredit Trump compared to saying why their message is better.
The timing of all of this speaks volumes. We’re inside a year of the 2020 election ... easiest way to remove Trump is to beat him next November ... if you can
All they are doing is reminding a lot of people why they voted for Trump in 2016
A 37 year old mayor of some BFE Midwest college town is leading in the Iowa Dem Cockus polling . How fucktarded has the Democratic party these days? They are the folks that got Trump elected in the first place and are going to re-elect him again.
I watched it through until Castor was, I presume, about half way through questions. Just after the "this is a really important point" comment at the point Sondland was basically reasserting the 2+2 = 4 bit. Then I had a meeting and then I had to run over here. It's hard pretending to be a lawyer.
If I'm on team Trump and I'm being honest, based only what I heard this morning, I take two things away thus far: (1) it's clear nobody's going to be able to say that Trump told them to do anything that touches upon "this for that"; and (2) we're getting some meat on the bone of what most of us have assumed/suspected/worried about for some time, which is that Rudy G. is clearly there to be Trump's buffer between orders and having to answer for them, a classic rich guy move. Tell me again why you guys hate lawyers so much.
Whatever is going on here, I don't believe that Rudy G. is ever off on a rogue frolic, nor do I believe that we should be in impeachment hearings. Seems to me the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Trump wins re-election. The DNC would be smart to just drop all this, but it's way past that point now.
Good chit. @YellowSnow and I were chatting today and this is a more nuanced version of what we sort of think. The only person who could potentially know that Trump was trying to "bribe" Ukraine is Rudy, and he can't be compelled to testify as Trumps lawyer even if it is true, so all you are left with is a bunch of people who have thoughts and opinions on what happened, and lots of speculation, but zero hard evidence. The longer this goes the worse it looks for the Dems, because Americans, while dumb, are not so dumb as to see a continual line of witnesses get up and say I think maybe something happened here but Trump never ordered me to do it somehow means Trump is guilty.
Keep it up Schiff. We love it in the cheap seats.
Agreed, especially on the damage this is doing in real time to the as of yet unnamed shit show the DNC will choose to run. That guy/gal will really hate this whole circus when the campaign starts. It's kind of like Gangs of New York: when you kill a king, you see it through and you do it where everyone can see you do it. You don't "try" to do it; you don't show up to a gun fight with a sitting US President with just your dick in your hands.
That said, if you put a gun to my head and my life depended on the accuracy of my guess at the truth here, I'd say there was something there. I'd say Trump is a crafty old rich dood who knows how to position his lawyers and other flunkies between himself and the shit he sometimes wants to do. I don't think doing this would be beneath him. I could absolutely see him making a move on something like this, finding out later it's a no no and then protecting himself. So, sure, by the time Sondland blurts out "What do you want from Ukraine?", a question if asked of me in that manner would make me wonder if I were being recorded, he probably by then had been informed it wasn't ok to offer that trade or make that implied threat. I'm just being straight here ... that scenario, IMO, is well within Trump's wheel house. But we know he's not an alter boy, so I'm not really sure I care that much.
Only thing that really matters here is that this whole circus is yet another example of the left overplaying their hand. It's such a Cuog! move to do this. They really fucked up.
It may backfire on the Dems. I'm not arguing that point. It could. Realpolitik, and all that.
But you've agreed there's probably something there. To me, abuse of the most powerful office in the world and putting personal interests ahead of national interests are not trivial. Your response amounts to "boys will be boys". Are you saying impeachment should be explored only when public opinion already favors it?
I go back to my notes on Gangs of New York. You can't pick a big fight and show up to said fight with your dick in your hands. Sondland is probably going to be the most damaging witness because you can't impeach his credibility like you could Vindman. Sondland is pretty clearly a Trump-type guy and he's basically saying "4+4", but also saying "never told me to do anything." That's not good.
And, no, I don't think we should impeach a sitting US Pres. unless we can establish it with some degree of particularity. I get this isn't a capital offense case and the burden of proof isn't as severe, but impeaching a President is not w/o its costs. The allegedly bad behavior should be serious, it should be pretty clear it was committed and the decision to impeach should be proportionate to previous such votes.
I said if someone put a gun to my head because in that case I'd have to resort to conjecture and play my hand the best I could to save my brains from being blown out of my ear hole. In that case, I'd err on the side of caution because (1) I know Trump is willing to get dirt under his nails and has a flexible moral code, (2) he impulsively does shit his people have to later fix and (3) because Rudy G. is conspicuously positioned in all this and we know Rudy does shit too. So, yeah, from a distance, even a strident, but smart, supporter of Trump would be a little skeptical. I mean, that's basically what Sondland seems to have done (recognizing I didn't hear the whole thing btw).
I'm just saying it's not enough and agreeing with Swaye that the DNC was ill-advised to push this one.
The only reason the aid was provided without Z's public statement was because the President got caught. Does anyone even doubt that?
Even if true, Not enough to remove from office.
Does anyone doubt that?
In this day and age, I’m gratified to even get agreement on the facts. So do you agree that the aid got released because the President got caught?
It’s not what you think happened, but ultimately it’s what you can prove happened to remove from office. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t released because of that. So far we have no proof. So far we have no one criticizing the Call, that was supposed to be the trigger and origin of the impeachment hearings.
So far we have a grossly inexperienced diplomat, who bought himself an ambassador role, opinion that it was qpq. He refused to state as fact when pressed though.
Trump was doing Trump Shit. But there’s not enough here. If the Dems were smart, they would pull the plug on this in favor of Censure.
But they aren’t. So they won’t.
But to borrow from Creepy, gun to your head, did the hold get lifted on September 11 because the President got caught? You can’t seriously be saying you have no belief about that.
Comments
Timothy Aaron Morrison (born c. 1978) is an American Republican political adviser. He was briefly the top U.S. adviser to President Trump on Russia and Europe on the White House National Security Council, a position he took over from his predecessor Fiona Hill in August 2019,[1] and from which he resigned on October 31, 2019.[2][3][4]
Before that, he served as senior director for countering weapons of mass destruction on the US National Security Council, a position he assumed on July 9, 2018.[5] Until then, he was policy director for the Republican staff on the House defense panel.[5] Morrison entered politics as a professional staff member to Rep. Mark Kennedy, from 2000 to 2007.[6] One day before his scheduled testimony to the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump on October 31, 2019, Morrison was reported to soon leave his post as the senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council, to be replaced by Andrew Peek, currently Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.[7][8]
I don't see where he said any such thing
https://axios.com/trump-impeachment-hearing-kurt-volker-tim-morrison-96a3ae4b-9287-4a86-88dd-8d65f37926e4.html
Funny how these Ukraine experts were ignorant on so much about the Ukraine. Its like they were hacks or something
CBS News from two years ago
https://cbsnews.com/news/did-ukraine-try-to-interfere-in-the-2016-election/
So what happened with the Clinton campaign and Ukraine?
It wasn't so much the Clinton campaign, per se, but a Democratic operative working with the Democratic National Committee did reach out to the Ukrainian government in an attempt to get damaging information about the Trump campaign.
That operative's name is Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American former Clinton White House aide who was tasked with ethnic outreach on behalf of the Democratic Party. As Vogel reported, she knew about Paul Manafort's extensive connections to the pro-Russian regime of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and decided to dig deeper into possible connections between Moscow and the Trump campaign. As part of that effort, she discussed Manafort with the high-ranking officials at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, D.C.
The Democratic National Committee denies that it was ever in contact with the Ukrainian government.
So when you hear @insinceredawg call this a debunked conspiracy you can just chalk it up to another pathological liar on team hondo
BBC May of 2019
President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has repeatedly called on Ukraine to investigate claims of collusion in favour of Hillary Clinton and he has been in regular contact with the prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko.
Now Mr Lutsenko has breathed new life into the story, announcing a new investigation, and citing a court ruling that Ukrainians unlawfully interfered in the 2016 election.
Mr Giuliani also wants Kiev to look into claims that former Vice-President and 2020 Democrat contender Joe Biden may have got Ukraine's then top prosecutor fired to help his son's business interests.
Was there collusion?
The collusion narrative is based around the summer 2016 publication of a "black ledger" in Ukraine which showed off-the-book payments to Paul Manafort.
Manafort, 69, was jailed by a US court in March for fraud, in part for his work as an adviser for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine, before he became President Donald Trump's campaigner manager.
Ex-Trump campaign chief sentenced for fraud
Manafort: Trump's former campaign chair
It was the black ledger payment revelations that forced Manafort to resign from the Trump campaign.
Those arguing that there was collusion, among them Mr Giuliani, allege that the ledger might be fake and that it was maliciously leaked after contacts between Mr Trump's Democrat opponents and Ukrainian diplomats.
Ukraine's prosecutor general gave Mr Giuliani's claims a boost this week by announcing that he was investigating Ukrainian MP Sergiy Leshchenko, who has admitted to being behind the publication of some of the pages of the black ledger.
The demcrats think that if they don't report something it didn't happen
Simple minded idiots like @insinceredawg agree
So far we have a grossly inexperienced diplomat, who bought himself an ambassador role, opinion that it was qpq. He refused to state as fact when pressed though.
Trump was doing Trump Shit. But there’s not enough here. If the Dems were smart, they would pull the plug on this in favor of Censure.
But they aren’t. So they won’t.
Oooh a politician fired an employee! Impeach!
Get the fuck out of here
Trump makes the left so irrationally angry that they have no credibility.
If they just said nothing and let people realize he's a buffoon they'd probably win in 2020.
Instead they insist on embarrassing themselves daily to a pathetic extent.
Go fuck yourself
2) Having a buffer between yourself and those carrying things out isn’t exclusive to this sitting President ... it’s true for likely every sitting President and occurs in most every C-Suite in Corporate America ... the whole plausible deniability thing
3) If Biden wasn’t running for President and an investigation was launched would there be any uproar? It seems pretty clear to me that there is some smoke there. Are the Biden’s untouchable because Joe is in the race right now? Nobody seemingly is talking about this.
The reality is that the Dems don’t have a strong candidate and they know it. Everything they are doing is trying to discredit Trump compared to saying why their message is better.
The timing of all of this speaks volumes. We’re inside a year of the 2020 election ... easiest way to remove Trump is to beat him next November ... if you can
All they are doing is reminding a lot of people why they voted for Trump in 2016
this fucking week asshole
They keep showing up and making logical points and you keep melting down