I have NOTHING against conservatism, or conservatives, but if you are supporting Trump - you are willingly supporting corruption - and are a traitor to this country. PERIOD! DD
hearsay https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/19/politics/intel-inspector-general-not-sharing-details/index.html
Well, if it helps decent people take heart: I really think only about 20% of the country will actively disbelieve reality and/or actively justify such terrible behavior. Another 20% really just look away or shrug but will pull any lever marked 'R.' Then there's 60% of this country that are shaking their heads, or are furious, or are just totally tuned out from politics. The hardest part for me has been watching people I used to consider true "conservatives" just set their principles on fire for the con man in chief. It's just... really hard to watch. I know humans hitch themselves to other humans much more than they ever hitch themselves to ideas, no matter how much they might say otherwise. But even then, to this guy? WTF. I can't even.
And yet, trump appointed inspector general approved the report. But since you seem to be saying trump didn't do anything. So if its proven he did, would you agree he should be removed from office?
Except that Trump has basically admitted it's all true. Trump himself said he mentioned Biden and they discussed corruption as dealing with it in order to receive the money.
You left out this part: A source close to the whistleblower's legal team pushed back strongly against the assertion that the intelligence Community's Inspector General would accept "third-hand disclosures" and that what the official "outlined about lack of personal knowledge and not within their course of work seems like the beginning of a smear by those trying to discredit the whistleblower." You also left out the part that Trump has already admitted to critical aspect of it. I don't think it's completely irrelevant, as we don' t know what's ALL in the report. Reports indicate multiple things, not just this.... this itself is bad enough, but all the other things still need to come to light, get to congress and have congress act upon it. House Intelligence Committee Thursday that the controversial whistleblower complaint, which is at the center of a dispute between the director of national intelligence and Congress, raised concerns about multiple actions but would not say if those instances involved President Donald Trump, sources familiar with the closed-door briefing told CNN. The whistleblower's complaint deals at least in part with Ukraine, The New York Times and Washington Post reported Thursday night.
So Trump needs to be impeached for asking a foreign official to look into a scandal committed by the Biden family receiving billions from foreign governments. Makes sense, you guys are ridiculous.
You are right families should not profit because they are in the White House. Trump should be impeached for his children and self receiving billions from foreign governments. Wait. You meant Biden? There are two major issues. 1) this complaint should have been investigated privately as it was supposed to and the facts come out afterwards and 2) Trump is reported to have threatened to withhold aid if the Ukrainian government did not cooperate with an investigation of Biden’s son. Point 2 uses is reported because the White House both admitted to this and denied it. (1984esqe). 2 also would not be an issue if a formal report or investigation through Congress happened before the whistleblower felt compelled to turn to the media because of the stonewalling. The story is now being spun by conservatives to protect against the fact Trump did something that would put him in prison for a long time if he held any other office and instead to make it look like Biden is really the bad guy! If Trump committed an act against the Constitution, he should be impeached and removed from office. If you disagree, then maybe you should come out and let the world know you stand for Trump and not the US and the rule of law.
If you don't like the law or prefer to live in a two-bit dictatorship, you can write to your congressman or move to Venezuela. In the United States we try to stick with the rule of law.
Federal law prohibits a foreign national from directly or indirectly making a “contribution or donation of money or other thing of value” in connection with a U.S. election, and prohibits a person from soliciting, accepting or receiving such a contribution or donation from a foreign national. Federal law defines “contribution” to include “any gift … of money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.” And the FEC by regulation defines “solicit” to mean “to ask, request, or recommend, explicitly or implicitly, that another person make a contribution, donation, transfer of funds, or otherwise provide anything of value.” And that’s all the law requires. Whether or not Ukraine came through, whether or not the communications involved a quid pro quo, the solicitation of a thing of value from the Ukraine President in connection with a U.S. election could be a federal crime. https://www.justsecurity.org/66277/the-quid-is-a-crime-no-need-to-prove-pro-quo-in-ukrainegate/
See this is what I’m talking about you are going off the assumption that Trump was extorting when there was no evidence he did. We not only have evidence of corruption by the Bidens but Joe admits on camera he extorted the Ukranian government for a billion dollars if they don’t fire a prosecutor that was fixing to interview his son. You can’t be so partisan that you’re this blind.
“If you want to understand what counts as impeachable, read the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution’s impeachment provisions were written against the background set by the Declaration. Read against that background, one thing becomes blindingly obvious: If the president has clearly committed an impeachable offense, the House of Representatives is not entitled to look the other way. Impeachment is the mechanism by which “We the People” are supposed to be protected against such abuses as treason, bribery or systematic violation of civil liberties. In the face of such abuses, the House is not permitted to decide that because of political considerations, it will stay its hand. It is not yet clear what happened during a July 25 telephone conversation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. It has been reported that Trump repeatedly pressed Zelenskiy to work with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on an investigation into largely discredited allegations of misconduct by former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. It has also been suggested that Trump reviewed and reassessed foreign aid to Ukraine with the specific goal of pressuring Zelenskiy to undertake that investigation. Viewed in the light of the founding period, these are grave matters. At a critical moment during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Virginia’s George Mason drew a direct link between the impeachment provision and presidential selection: No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above Justice? Above all shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice? ... Shall the man who has practiced corruption & by that means procured his appoint in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment, by repeating his guilt? An effort to press a foreign government to investigate a political adversary and his son is a uniquely horrific constitutional wrong. It is a violation of civil liberties as well as democratic processes. In Massachusetts, where the American Revolution began, defenders of the proposed Constitution saw a clear connection between the impeachment power and protection of freedom: “Thus we see that no office, however exalted, can protect the miscreant, who dares invade the liberties of his country,” wrote a pseudonymous author (probably James Sullivan, under the name “Cassius”) in the Massachusetts Gazette on Dec. 21, 1787. If Trump did use foreign aid as a mechanism for pressuring Ukraine to investigate a political adversary, the constitutional answer is clear: He committed an impeachable offense. If he did not use foreign aid for that purpose, but merely (merely?) pressed the nation’s president to work with his personal lawyer to investigate Biden and his son, the answer is almost equally clear. It’s an egregious abuse of authority for the president — who has a lot of leverage over economically dependent allies, including Ukraine — to ask foreign leaders to initiate an inquiry into alleged misconduct by a potential political opponent. It’s important to note that reports about conversations between Trump and Zelenskiy are merely that. Because of their seriousness, the House is right to investigate them — and to do so in a way that respects the office of the presidency and the millions of Americans who voted for Trump.” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/congress-t-ignore-clearly-impeachable-163422345.html
If only complex political and law commentaries could be simplified into cartoon form would some of you start to get this.
Washington Post with the late addition (posted 20 minutes ago) https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...93a6ca-de38-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html “President Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which Trump is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden, according to three senior administration officials.”
From Reddit: Here's what Trump and Trump supporters aren't telling you when they say "Biden threatened the President Poroshenko that he would withhold aid unless the Attorney General was fired". in 2015 Biden was tasked with handling US anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine. The US was opening up sizable financial aid post revolution and wanted these reforms. The new President Poroshenko made Viktor Shokin Ukraine's Attorney General (that's the guy Biden pushed Poroshenko to fire). Initially there was hope that Shokin would do the right things and he had support, but that quickly changed: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/05/reforming-ukraine-after-maidan By last fall, public dissatisfaction with Poroshenko had crystallized around his choice for General Prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, a veteran politician who had known Poroshenko for years. At first, Shokin advanced several corruption cases against former associates of Yanukovych. But when parliament lifted the immunity of Serhiy Klyuyev, a lawmaker and former close associate of Yanukovych who was charged with corruption, the General Prosecutor’s office stalled on issuing an arrest warrant, giving Klyuyev time to slip out of the country. Shokin also hindered the investigation of two men known as the “diamond prosecutors,” high-ranking state prosecutors who were arrested on suspicion of corruption; raids on their homes turned up a Kalashnikov, four hundred thousand dollars, and sixty-five diamonds. Even more discouraging, not a single person suspected of killing protesters on Maidan was brought to trial. The corruption in Shokin's department, including accusations against Shokin himself, was so bad it had Ukrainians protesting for his firing. https://www.kyivpost.com/multimedia/photo/anticorruption-meeting-410708 About 150 protesters demonstrated on March 25 against distrusted and discredited Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. They protested against Shokin’s decision to fire subordinates of reformist Deputy Prosecutor General Davit Sakvarelidze working on corruption cases against prosecutors. Sakvarelidze has told the Kyiv Post that Shokin and his first deputy Yury Sevruk had been sabotaging efforts to prosecute Korniyets and Shapakin and cleanse the prosecutor’s office of corrupt and incompetent officials. Shokin and Sevruk deny the accusations. The demonstrators called for re-instating Sakvarelidze’s prosecutors, firing Shokin and choosing a new prosecutor general in an open and transparent process. They also demanded preventing the appointment of old prosecutorial cadres and Shokin loyalists like his deputies Yury Sevruk and Yury Stolyarchuk, as well as proteges of President Petro Poroshenko. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-protest-prosecutor-shokin-dismissal/27639981.html Scores of protesters have rallied in the Ukrainian capital, demanding the resignation of the country’s top prosecutor, who has been repeatedly criticized as an impediment to badly needed anticorruption reforms. Shokin’s deputy, Vitaliy Kasko, resigned last month, accusing Shokin and his office of being a "hotbed of corruption."Shokin's office dismissed the claim as a publicity stunt. U.S. and European diplomats have publicly called for Shokin's dismissal, and a top U.S. State Department official whose area of responsibility includes Ukraine earlier this month publicly called for him to go. The EU also ran into issues with Shokin: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/why-poroshenko-s-support-for-shokin-is-dangerous/ In a recent Brussels meeting with the President of the European Commission, Poroshenko received a promise that in exchange for implementing graft-fighting measures, the European Union would eliminate visa requirements for Ukraine’s 46 million citizens. In return, Ukraine would implement a series of anti-corruption reforms. At the top of the list is the nomination of a new independent prosecutor tasked with bringing down corrupt government officials. An eleven member selection panel—seven nominated by the Verkhovna Rada and four by Shokin—are to choose the best candidate for the post. Shokin’s nominees are closely associated with the old system. At the Prosecutor General’s Office, Yury Hryshchenko managed Volodymyr Shapakin, the so-called “diamond prosecutor” who was arrested earlier this year in a sting operation for bribery with $400,000 dollars of cash in his office and $100,000 of diamonds in his home. First Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Sevruk has stymied reforms in the Prosecutor General’s Office. Reformers believe that making anti-reform individuals like Hryshchenko and Sevruk directly responsible for selecting the most important anti-corruption figure makes the process a mockery. But it gets even worse. After Jan Tombinski, the European Union’s Ambassador to Ukraine, criticized Shokin’s appointments, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the National Council on Reform urging Shokin to replace his appointees to the selection panel with qualified candidates. Shokin doubled down, dismissing outside criticism and asserting his right to put whomever he wants on the panel. Shokin followed this up by allegedly threatening to prosecute Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry “for criminal acts intended at undermining the authority of state institutions” in a letter that Ukrainiska Pravda obtained and published. It seems Shokin prefers to use his prosecutorial discretion to threaten the very people seeking to free Ukraine from its endemic graft. This culminated in countries viewing Shokin's removal as a necessary step for anti-corruption reform. Biden was the one spearheading that because he was officially in charge of US anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-deba...bad-a-nigerian-prince-would-be-embarrassed-2/ United States Vice President Joe Biden has never been one to hold his tongue. He certainly didn’t in his recent trip to Kiev. In a speech before Ukraine’s Parliament, Biden told legislators that corruption was eating Ukraine “like a cancer,” and warned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that Ukraine had “one more chance” to confront corruption before the United States cuts off aid. Biden’s language was undiplomatic, but he’s right: Ukraine needs radical reforms to root out graft. After 18 months in power, Poroshenko still refuses to decisively confront corruption. It’s time for Poroshenko to either step up his fight against corruption — or step down if he won’t. When it comes to Ukrainian corruption, the numbers speak for themselves. Over $12 billion per year disappears from the Ukrainian budget, according to an adviser to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau. And in its most recent review of global graft, anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International ranked Ukraine 142 out of 174 countries on its Corruption Perceptions Index — below countries such as Uganda, Nicaragua and Nigeria. Ordinary Ukrainians also endure paying petty bribes in all areas of life. From vehicle registration, to getting their children into kindergarten, to obtaining needed medicine, everything connected to government has a price. Powerful politicians and businessmen in Ukraine can also count on Ukrainian officials to protect them from European prosecutors. After a two-year investigation, Swiss prosecutors recently opened a criminal case against Mykola Martynenko — a close Parliamentary ally of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arsenyi Yatsenyuk — for allegedly accepting a $30 million bribe through a Czech company and attempting to launder the money through Switzerland. However, despite repeated requests from the Swiss for assistance, Ukrainian officials are protecting Martynenko, according to a report in the Kyiv Post, and Ukraine’s prosecutor general publicly refuses to pursue the case. To contain rising populist sentiment and preserve Western support, Poroshenko should take the following steps: First, Poroshenko needs to immediately fire current Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. The United States’ Ambassador to Ukraine recently called out Shokin’s office for “openly and aggressively undermining reform,” and leading reformers in Ukraine’s parliament and civil society continue to demand Shokin’s ouster. Despite this pressure, though, Shokin remains in place. Since he is a close ally of Poroshenko, it’s not hard to see why. Poroshenko is himself a wealthy oligarch, and in a system where prosecutors are used as weapons against opponents in business or politics, Poroshenko remains determined to maintain control over this critical lever of power. However, while Poroshenko’s seeming motivations for protecting Shokin are understandable, it’s time for the Ukrainian president to place his country’s interests above his own. Biden's speech in the Ukrainian parliament. edit: And it's worth pointing out - Shokin was tasked with investigating Zlochevsky (the Oligarch that owns Burisma, the company Hunter worked for) in 2014. He didn't - and the Obama administration encouraged this investigation, they didn't try to stop it. https://theintercept.com/2019/05/10...ndal-ukraine-absolute-nonsense-reformer-says/ New reporting from Bloomberg News this week revealed that the 2014 case against Zlochevsky “was assigned to Shokin, then a deputy prosecutor. But Shokin and others weren’t pursuing it, according to the internal reports from the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office reviewed by Bloomberg.” In December 2014, U.S. officials threatened Ukrainian prosecutors that there would be consequences if they failed to assist the British investigation, according to the documents obtained by Bloomberg. Instead, the Ukrainian prosecutors provided a letter to Zlochevsky’s lawyer stating that they knew of no evidence that the former minister had been involved in embezzlement.
