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Home » Impeachment isn’t going so well for the Democrats so far

Impeachment isn’t going so well for the Democrats so far

The New Neo Posted on by

Mollie Hemingway writes:

…[T]he witnesses thus far cannot point to a single crime, much less a high crime, for which to impeach the president. Instead, the witnesses either broadly support the president’s handling of foreign policy or are livid with rage over his disagreement with their foreign policy views.

While the losing faction in 2016 has great trouble with Trump’s less interventionist foreign policy, it is not actually grounds for impeachment. Even if one were to take issue with that foreign policy, nobody has been able to point to a single crime that took place in any interaction with Ukraine, much less one committed by the president, which is a serious barrier for an impeachment inquiry.

Also, unlike the Russia collusion hoax, Republican politicians aren’t falling for it at all.

The GOP is presenting an unusually united front of Trump support, with just a few exceptions that really don’t matter (Mitt Romney, who has squandered whatever influence he may once have had). The polls, however, are all over the place, probably because polls have become more and more untrustworthy in recent years. What does the American voter really think? I do not know, although to me the entire inquiry has been obviously biased as well as dangerously secret and partisan.

But I don’t necessarily represent the views of the majority of the American public:

Polls that were working very hard to show growing support for impeachment have seen decreased support as Americans learn more about the probe, settling into a proxy for questions of Trump’s approval or favorability. National Review editor Rich Lowry noted in that “Meet the Press” panel that even in a poll that showed a slight majority of Americans favoring impeachment, a larger majority opposed removal in favor of waiting to see election results in 2020.

Polls also show that impeachment is disfavored in critical battleground states. And according to the latest Fox News poll, only 38 percent of independents favored impeachment.

And this entire business of a quid pro quo that the left and the MSM keep harping on is a red herring for a number of reasons, but the main one is that unless Trump had clearly made aid contingent on a unwarranted and corrupt investigation of Biden himself, there would be nothing especially suspicious even in a quid pro quo. As Alex Breusewitz writes

The President has taken a firm position that he did not hold out foreign aid to Ukraine as a condition for investigating Hunter Biden’s activities there. But, even if he did, bargaining isn’t corruption—it’s policymaking…

To be sure, some folks may disagree with the President’s foreign policy, but elections matter in a representative democracy, and President Trump was duly elected. Whether or not you agree with his politics, he has been elected to do a job: govern.

So let’s suppose—strictly for the sake of argument—that the President did withhold foreign aid to Ukraine in exchange for a commitment to investigate allegations of corruption. This is, quite literally, the exchange of one policy for another—horse-trading in every sense. Does the United States have no policy interest in making sure that the countries with which it interacts—and to which it sends aid money—do not engage in corrupt practices? Of course, it does. The case for “corruption” would require that President Trump withdraw aid in exchange for personal profit—not policy gains that are ultimately good for American foreign policy.

At its core, the case for impeachment is more than a sham: it’s a misinformation campaign in which Democrats and their media are willfully ignoring the way our policy process works to prevent our President from governing.

A sign that Schiff and company may sense the hearings aren’t going so well in the present format is that that format is about to change:

“We’re glad to see that Chairman Schiff has decided to move his impeachment proceedings out of his top-secret bunker and into the public eye,” a GOP aide told Fox News Wednesday. “We’re confident that the American people will see that there was no quid pro quo and no pressure on the Ukrainian government — for anything.”

The GOP aide added: “Unlike Chairman Schiff, we have never had anything to hide and look forward to the opportunity to present the facts of the case.”

If this report is correct, Republican counsel will be allowed to ask questions. Fancy that.

Comments

Impeachment isn’t going so well for the Democrats so far — 50 Comments

  1. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/11/in_politics_everything_is_quid_pro_quo.html

    So, what did Trump do? He asked the Ukrainian President to investigate corruption, specifically foreign interference in a U.S. election. Biden was an afterthought in the conversation, but his pay to play corruption is fair game, whether or not he is running for president. Until he secures the Democratic party nomination, he is not Trump’s political opponent. What if Bernie or Pocahontas win the nomination?

    Trump has a constitutional duty as president to investigate corruption. The U.S. and Ukraine share a treaty ratified in 1999 for “Mutual assistance in criminal matters.”

    There is also “The United Nations Convention against Corruption” of 2003, signed by both Ukraine and the U.S. And then finally is President Trump’s Executive Order signed in December 2017, “Blocking the property of persons involved in serious human rights abuse or corruption.” Note that last word.

    Trump is doing his job as president, yet the Democrats and media howl in outrage over a supposed quid pro quo. But something for something is standard operating procedure in Washington, D.C., even to the point of corruption as Joe Biden illustrated in Ukraine, China, and possibly Romania.

    In re the bolded sentence: as many people pointed out at the beginning, this claim by the Democrats could be exploited by any corrupt politician by simply running for President, regardless of any possible credibility as a contender.
    As I noted last night on another thread, the Dems are signaling that they expected Biden to win the nomination — and maybe they had some insider knowledge that would be the case. * hint hint — Hilary vs Sanders 2016 * *

  3. Ukraine is closely related to the Russia probe.
    The Russia probe is closely related to the Flynn prosecution.
    The Flynn prosecution is about to unravel.

    Sydney Powell for SCOTUS!

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/11/06/unbelievable-flynn-prosecutor-now-claims-authorship-of-302-interview-notes-misidentified/

    The only serious response to this utterly bizarre disclosure is “I can’t even.”

    Most readers are familiar with the basic facts of the Michael Flynn case. The salient facts in this instance relate to the interview done with him by FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka on 24 January 2017. That interview became the basis for the single count of giving a false statement to which Flynn eventually pleaded in December 2017.

    There has been widespread, justifiable criticism of the apparent methods and motives of the FBI in handling this interview. It’s obvious in hindsight that what the agents did was ambush Flynn, under the pretext of discussing counterintelligence security with him, and ask him a lot of questions to which the two agents already had institutional answers. They had background investigations and monitored phone calls to rely on; their evident purpose was not to obtain information from Flynn, but to lay a perjury trap for him, by tripping him up on the details of previous events his memory might have been faulty on.

    Their record of the interview indicated afterward that they saw no sign of deceptive intent in Flynn’s responses. But differences between his recollections in the interview and the information Strzok and Pientka already had from other sources became the basis for holding a perjury charge over Flynn, and eventually threatening to bankrupt his son with a wirebrush “investigation” as well.
    …
    But Powell is also looking for the original FD-302 records of interview for the 24 January 2017 encounter. The reason for that request alone is a remarkable one: what’s been disclosed already from the interview materials showed significant discrepancies; appears to have at least one major piece of content in the formal 302 that is not supported by anything in the hand-written notes; and actually fails to support the false statement charge ultimately written up in the charging document.

    That by itself is one heck of brief against the 302 material. But as Powell laid out in filings in the last several weeks, it’s clear that there are yet-undisclosed original materials to which the defense is entitled because of these problems with the documents disclosed already.
    …
    One of the big discrepancies called out by Powell is the incongruity of the hand-written notes by Strzok and Pientka, in light of the roles the Justice Department has stated they played in the interview. It has been the prosecution’s claim that Strzok did the questioning and Pientka the note-taking, and that Pientka was primarily responsible for writing the interview summary up.

    That claim was made to the court more than 18 months ago. What Powell pointed out in her 4 November 2019 filing is that the notes attributed to Strzok simply don’t look like something hand-written during the interview by the agent whose main attention was on speaking with the subject. Pientka’s notes, by contrast, do look like those of a primary interviewer.
    …
    But incredibly, in the response filed by prosecutor Brandon Van Grack, the claim is that the authorship of the hand-written notes was mixed up in the original court filing, and had never been caught until Sidney Powell filed a persuasive brief about it on 4 November 2019.

    I don’t know how many times the two agents have testified on the extraordinarily high-profile Flynn matter since then. Peter Strzok, of course, has testified to Congress (e.g., here and here). Pientka never went before Congress; he was on Mueller’s special counsel team. Congress has requested the 302 and supporting documents; some of the material has been released to the public. Meanwhile, the court has been relying on 302 interview material the agents and their chain of command certified, but yet the prosecutor is now claiming it was filed with the court incorrectly – and apparently certified by the agents and their superiors although it was labeled incorrectly – from the outset.
    …
    So this is not something that will reconstitute itself easily. Strzok and Pientka can’t just be swapped out as hand-written note-takers without throwing the entire basis of the case in doubt. (This relates, to some extent, to the point that content in the formalized 302 is not supported by anything in the hand-written notes. Who was adding what to the formal 302, during the process of finalizing it and entering it into evidence, is very much at issue.)

    It seems Flynn and his counsel must unquestionably be due every single scrap of memorial material from the 24 January 2017 interview. On the other hand, if I were Judge Emmett Sullivan, I’d be looking seriously at throwing this case out, and reprimanding the prosecution severely for putting the defendant, the court, and the taxpayers through this utter travesty of a proceeding. Looking into prosecutorial misconduct wouldn’t seem to be out of line.

    You can find the whole miserable story (and Powell’s brilliant responses to the court) at the links in Dyer’s post, which collects most of the breaking information.

    I can’t even.

  5. Adam Schiff is, indeed, a material witness to the proceeding, since he himself colluded with the “whistleblower.”

  6. AesopFan: So the interesting thing (aside from rank incompetence, if one takes the non-conspiratorial view) is that Strzok was primarily responsible for the 302 and attempted to conceal his role?

  7. On spec, the next Republican witness after Schiff should be his staffer who coordinated with Eric Ciaramella, followed by Eric Ciaramella himself. Then work whatever has been dislodged.

  8. While no one believes he is quite honest…
    it is giving him such a boost in tactical position aginst such dishonest people
    how dishonest are they?

    Another Kavanaugh accuser admits to fabricating rape story
    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/3/another-kavanaugh-accuser-admits-fabricating-rape-/

    One of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s accusers admitted this week that she made up her lurid tale of a backseat car rape, saying it “was a tactic” to try to derail the judge’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

    Sen. Charles E. Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee revealed the fraud in a letter to the FBI and Justice Department Friday, asking them to prosecute Judy Munro-Leighton for lying to and obstructing Congress.

    Mr. Grassley said Ms. Munro-Leighton is a left-wing activist who hijacked another “Jane Doe” anonymous report about a backseat rape and claimed it as her own story, calling it a “vicious assault.”

    “I am Jane Doe from Oceanside CA — Kavanaugh raped me,” Ms. Munro-Leighton wrote in an Oct. 3 email claiming to have been a victim of the judge.

    I wonder if feminist Ms. Munro-Leighton realizes that if the USA lasts, she will forever be remembered for that act and little to nothing else?

    but then again… it perfectly fits the definition from the revolutionary catechism…
    that the revolutionary was already a doomed person, so she had nothing to lose.

  9. where the true power of the president lies in compelling…

    Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the regulations codified to 32 C.F.R. 2001. It lays out the system of classification, declassification, and handling of national security information generated by the U.S. government and its employees and contractors, as well as information received from other governments.

    The United States does not have a British-style Official Secrets Act; instead, several laws protect classified information, including the Espionage Act of 1917, the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.

    Declassification is the process of removing the classification of a document and opening it for public inspection.

    Experts agreed that the president, as commander-in-chief, is ultimately responsible for classification and declassification. When someone lower in the chain of command handles classification and declassification duties — which is usually how it’s done — it’s because they have been delegated to do so by the president directly, or by an appointee chosen by the president.

    The official documents governing classification and declassification stem from executive orders. But even these executive orders aren’t necessarily binding on the president. Indeed, the controlling executive order has been rewritten by multiple presidents. The current version of the order was issued by President Barack Obama in 2009.

    A president, using powers granted by the Constitution, is able to declassify essentially anything. – Risch

    And while the liberal press and others want this to be invalidated in terms of “payback”, it cant be…
    because such a thing cant be used in anticipation, but only AFTER the fact… and so, there is no way to prevent such action

    Beware acting too far on a president, for in his hands is the power to open up many many books inconvenient for any reason, including payback

    It is important to remember that power over classification and declassification rests fully with the president, and the president can delegate declassification authority among his senior intelligence advisors—a group that includes the attorney general—as he wishes.

    HE holds the power to say screw it, and lets open up the books, names and all, and reveal anything he wants…

    Executive Order 12356 — Information originated by a President, the White House Staff, by committees, commissions, or boards appointed by the President, or others specifically providing advice and counsel to a President or acting on behalf of a President is exempted from the provisions of Section 3.4(a).

    and so Section 3.5(a) is contained in Sec. 1.6 Limitations on Classification. – which makes for an interesting read when applied to things going on:

    (a) In no case shall information be classified in order to conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; to prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency; to restrain competition; or to prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of national security.

    Now remember… all this is controlled by Executive Orders, and a sitting president can change them at whim…

    You want to know what happened with Kennedy? fine… he can release it
    Want to know all the details of Benghazi… he can do that too
    in fact.. there is not a thing or piece of information that he can be compelled to keep secret if he feels he shouldnt

    you really want to put the fear into the democrats and the congress..
    just open the books on large scale events that people want to know, and havent been able to know

    oh… and his powers remain till he is completely out of office…
    let them scream, let them howl, but at the end of the day, he can pull a huge nuclear move.

    he can sit in a fireside chat and say under executive order xxx i will release YYY, zzz, and ZBAZZ
    Call it the Covfefe order to inform the public of political shenanigans..

    While more junior people and those who are not voted into office may not realize to what degree this power goes
    i am sure that Nancy Pelosi and a hell of a lot of others are very aware, and aware that if Trump was as unhinged as they say
    bombing another state which he would have a problem doing, is nothing like the bomb of opening up the books for a look see

  10. Republican counsel will be allowed to ask questions.
    Yes, fancy that.
    But I am not sure they will be allowed by Schiff to call witnesses.

  11. My wife and I like to have dinner out on weekends, usually at one of the local gastro-pubs. I have never overheard a single conversation about impeachment, even here in one of the bluest cities in the bluest of states. The Globe hates the President and publishes all the worst agitprop spewed by the NYT plus its own columnists are equally hateful toward him. Nada. It must be completely off the radar in more sane places.

  12. Remember all the attention given to militia movements when Bill Clinton was President? That took place when the vast majority of conservatives still had reflexive faith in our system of government and things like the integrity of U.S. law enforcement and the patriotism of the U.S. intelligence community.

    I can’t wait to see what happens when a Democrat finally makes it back to the White House.

    Mike

  14. I see lots of letters to the editor of my local rag about climate change, saving the Orcas, salmon recovery, and other such “crises”, but not one letter with an opinion about impeachment. It seems not to be on anyone’s radar. I think most LIVs are tuned out because the Mueller investigation came up a dry hole and this is just more of the same.

    One thing that could put a quick end to it would be for large numbers of citizens to start writing and calling our Congress persons and expressing outrage at the lack of substance in the impeachment drama and their complete indifference to solving real problems like controlling the border, cutting drug prices, infrastructure repair, ratifying the USMCA, and other such things that would improve life for we citizens. I’ve done it and will continue to do it until this whole sham is concluded.

  17. Sundance at Conservative Treehouse says that the coup against President Trump was planned starting back a couple of years ago, and offers as one piece of evidence a couple of 2017 emails from Mark S. Zaid, the attorney for Schiff’s “whistle blower” Erik Ciaramella:

    One dated July 1, 2017 says:

    “Its very scary. We will get rid of him, and this country is strong enough to survive even him, and his supporters. We have to.”

    Another, even more pointed one, dated January 30, 2017, and reacting to the announcement of President Trump appointing Dana Boente as Acting Attorney General, says

    “#coup has started. As one falls, two more will take their place. #rebellion. #impeachment.”

    Read the full analysis at https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/11/06/eric-ciaramella-attorney-january-2017-coup-has-started-july-2017-we-will-remove-him/

    And here is link to Sundance’s longer analysis from the day before, which places the above analysis of this specific information in the larger picture at: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/11/05/volker-and-sondland-testimony-released-and-elise-stefanik-once-again-on-the-right-trail/

  18. I should correct the above to say that, a lot of different Internet sources point to various pieces of information that lead them to believe that Ciaramella is likely to be the “whistle blower.”

  19. Polls can only reflect what people know, or think they know, about what’s going on.
    As of a day or two ago, all anyone knew was limited to selective & inflammatory headlines, excerpted bits of text from written statements, and unverified leaks of testimony.
    So far as I’m aware, there are no known FACTS, only unchallenged assertions of displeasure with Trump foreign policy, and allusions to “concerns” about the phone conversation.
    Whoopdedoo.
    The polling is garbage in, garbage out.

  20. one of the reasons they are switching to early election is that they can get votes while people are peeved and they cant change them if they find out they were pissed at the wrong thing or a lie

    on another note

    HUGE: House Intel Committee Members Call on Schiff to Answer Questions Under Oath

  22. Eric Ciaramella Attorney, January 2017: “Coup Has Started” – July 2017: “We Will Remove Him”…

    [snip]
    The current HPSCI legislative impeachment process, and every little aspect within it, is the execution of a plan, just like the DOJ/FBI plan was before it in 2016, 2017 & 2018.
    [snip]
    When Bill Taylor is texting Gordon Sondland about a quid-pro-quo, and Sondland is reacting with ‘wtf are you talking about’, Taylor was texting by design. He was manufacturing evidence for the narrative. This was all a set-up. All planned.

    When Marie Yovanovitch shows up to give her HPSCI deposition to Daniel Goldman with three high-priced DC lawyers: Lawrence Robbins, Laurie Rubenstein and Rachel Li Wai Suen, having just sent her statements to the Washington Post for deployment immediately prior to her appearance, Yovanovitch is doing so by design. All planned.
    [snip]

    yada yada yada

    History repeats like a bad cucumber makes one fart…

  23. No Apostle has ever doubted the future of his faith, and the socialists are persuaded of the approaching triumph of theirs. To the disciples of the new dogmas nothing appears more simple. — Gustave Le Bon

    The socialists must conquer or die under the banner of impeachment. As their narrative evolves, Trump becomes a traitor by definition.

    As their narrative evolves, all who oppose socialism will also be listed as traitors.

    If Russian missiles must destroy their targets in America, and Chinese troops must then appear in California, so be it. Such is the socialist faith.

    The world will then belong to Moscow and Beijing.

    J Nyquist…

  24. huxley on November 6, 2019 at 5:32 pm said:
    AesopFan: So the interesting thing (aside from rank incompetence, if one takes the non-conspiratorial view) is that Strzok was primarily responsible for the 302 and attempted to conceal his role?
    * * *
    That’s the way I understand the revelations.
    Not only was Strzok lying, but so was all of his chain of command, some of whom ought to be at least passingly familiar with the handwriting of people making handwritten (!!) interview notes. At the very least, Pientka has known for 2 years that Strzok was lying about who did what.
    Point of interest: both sets of notes were unsigned and undated – who even does that in an official, legal, mileu??
    Another thing that got a lot of play at Treehouse was that Flynn was apparently unapprised by courts or prosecutors that his first set of attorneys had an unwaivable conflict of interest in advising him on the plea deal, as they were the ones who created the FARA filing documents that were being use to threaten him with prosecution over that if he didn’t take the deal. Details are mind-boggling to anyone with even a layman’s knowledge; lawyers are appalled.

  25. Artfldgr on November 6, 2019 at 5:39 pm said:

    Now remember… all this is controlled by Executive Orders, and a sitting president can change them at whim…

    You want to know what happened with Kennedy? fine… he can release it
    Want to know all the details of Benghazi… he can do that too
    in fact.. there is not a thing or piece of information that he can be compelled to keep secret if he feels he shouldnt

    you really want to put the fear into the democrats and the congress..
    just open the books on large scale events that people want to know, and havent been able to know

    oh… and his powers remain till he is completely out of office…
    let them scream, let them howl, but at the end of the day, he can pull a huge nuclear move.

    he can sit in a fireside chat and say under executive order xxx i will release YYY, zzz, and ZBAZZ
    Call it the Covfefe order to inform the public of political shenanigans..

    That cracked me up!
    So did this one!

    Artfldgr on November 6, 2019 at 9:49 pm said:
    Ciaramella is the snowblower..

    PS thanks for the link on the Kavanaugh accuser’s recantation.
    Now, who was it complaining about Trump’s tweet calling some people “human scum”… oh yeah..

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/trumps-tweet-makes-me-proud-be-human-scum/600685/

    In November 2018, I helped found a group called Checks and Balances that has called for conservative lawyers to defend the rule of law against presidential assault; I’ve signed a letter with more than 1,000 other former prosecutors arguing that Trump has committed criminal obstruction of justice; and I’ve publicly called for his impeachment and removal. Though I am sure that Trump does not know me from Adam, I am confident that when he speaks of Never Trumper Republicans who are human scum, he means me.

    What makes me human scum? Evidently, a belief in enduring American ideals, like the rule of law and the value of a free press. A belief in a system of governance that enshrines the principle of checks and balances in our Constitution—a system in which Congress and the judiciary serve as limits on authoritarian executive overreach.

    What makes them “scummy” is not the beliefs themselves, but the implication that, if it just weren’t for Trump, the Democrats really believe in them too.
    He must have been asleep from 2008-2016.

    In fact, he goes on to decry everything he thinks Trump is doing — which includes many things Obama actually DID — and ends with this cri de coeur:

    “No president who does these things can claim the mantle of conservatism or the leadership of our great nation. Quite to the contrary, this form of radical populism is the very antithesis of conservative legal thought and American values.”

    But the equivalent radical socialism — and corruption — is the heart of leftist legal thought and values, so I guess that’s just A-OK by him.

  26. Unfortunately, none of this matters. If the Dems can keep a semblance of unity on display, and the media keep parroting what they say (which is the easy part, since that’s the norm), it may just be enough to turn enough undecideds and “independents” away from Trump next year. That’s the aim, because they know they don’t have anything that’ll get him impeached.

    Yesterday’s losses in key 50/50 states may reflect that. I’m hoping I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am.

  27. https://trendingpolitics.com/video/judicial-watch-president-doj-discovers-lost-ohr-strzok-texts-and-emails-5519.html

    “Posted October 31, 2019 in Politics , Source: youtu

    The Department of Justice handed over 13 pages of “missing” text and emails between former FBI official Peter Strzok and Justice Department officials Bruce Ohr and Lisa Page. The department previously said those documents didn’t exist. ”

    I didn’t listen to the video, which presumably reveals who they handed them over to, and what they said.

  29. Unfortunately, none of this matters. If the Dems can keep a semblance of unity on display, and the media keep parroting what they say (which is the easy part, since that’s the norm), it may just be enough to turn enough undecideds and “independents” away from Trump next year.

    I Callahan: You’re not wrong. It certainly could go that way. I’m sure that’s the basic Democrat plan (in addition to distracting from the Barr/Durham reports should they finally arrive).

    OTOH, as neo notes, there are countervailing indications — GOP unity, still weak or nonexistent charges against Trump, the format changes of the “impeachment” — which signal the Democrats’ hand is weaker than they had hoped.

    It’s also possible that in time voters will see the current impeachment effort as dishonest, hyper-partisan flailing and be repulsed.

    Democrats have good reasons to worry. Not just Republicans.

  30. I tend to optimism, so there’s that. Nonetheless, it’s not hard to see the glass half-full here.

    I don’t think Democrats deep-down are truly crazy, stupid or evil. I think at some level they know what they are doing ain’t right, but they are desperate and, let us say, morally flexible, so these are desperate times and they are taking desperate measures.

    Including, for instance, that crazy, hateful rant against Sean Spicer as a “dishonest dancer” discussed in the other topic.

    Desperation is not what people portray when they are dealing from a position of strength.

    I imagine Democrats tell themselves that after Trump they can be “fair” again, but not until.

  32. Aside from the House, y’all may want to keep an eye on what’s going on at DOJ. There’s a lot to cover, but the most important case is the extradition of Dmitry Firtash.

    Who is Dmitry Firtash? He’s a Putin-backed oligarch-mobster fighting extradition to the US. He is the source of much of the material Trump was using to withhold aid meant to stave off…well Putin.

    So, stop right there. You can see why patriots got alarmed. It gets worse.

    Remember those papers Giuliani waved around on FoxNews, the sworn-statement from ex-Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin that proves that Biden was corrupt?

    They came from Firtash.

    So you can see why Trump’s own State Dept told him that his material was not reliable. They were trying to save him from being a Useful Idiot…yet again.

  33. “The polls, however, are all over the place, probably because polls have become more and more untrustworthy in recent years. ”

    This, from Pew, is why:

    “It has become increasingly difficult to contact potential respondents and to persuade them to participate. The percentage of households in a sample that are successfully interviewed – the response rate – has fallen dramatically. At Pew Research, the response rate of a typical telephone survey was 36% in 1997 and is just 9% today.”

    https://www.people-press.org/2012/05/15/assessing-the-representativeness-of-public-opinion-surveys/

  34. Wait…Manju isn’t still trying to imply some Trump/Russia collusion, is he/she/xe?

    Mike

  35. Interesting article Manju. Please explain why Biden bragging on camera that he shut down the Ukraine corruption investigation by threatening to withhold one billion in foreign aid isn’t clear evidence of corruption on his part. Less sophisticated and subtle minds would like to know.

  36. On more than one occasion during my Foreign Service career I was instructed by the U.S. State Department to tell a foreign minister that our foreign assistance was contingent on certain actions on their part. There is nothing unusual about that, although it is only invoked in limited circumstances. You don’t tell the German Foreign Minister that his country has to stop speaking German or you won’t sell them fighter jets. But you do tell the FM of a small African country that their votes in the UN will be watched closely and our support for building an important bridge will reflect our satisfaction with that. Quid pro quo? Yes. Illegal? Not at all.

    But did Trump do something wrong? Yes — he got more votes in the Electoral College than Hillary. That is called lèse majesté in some circles.

  37. F,

    Exactly accurate. Now, had the quid pro quo been something to benefit him personally (say, approval for a Trump Tower in Kiev) that would be a different story. But all he wanted was that corruption be attacked. Everyone knows that corruption in the Ukraine Government is rampant and that this corruption is even impacting the U.S. I read the transcript. It was a mutual recognition of the problem and a commitment on the part of the new president of Ukraine to combat it.

  39. “Quid pro quo” is NOT illegal. If this sham impeachment sort-of makes it sort-of illegal, it’s been a big success for the Dems at making Trump’s diplomacy much much harder.

    But it makes most independents, when they look at the news about Trump vs. the video of Biden bragging about his own billion dollar quid pro quo action, most independents will lean Rep. So this makes Trump’s re-election more likely.

    On the Flynn case, the DOJ and the FBI lawyers have been perjuring themselves and the agents involved.

    So many DOJ crimes, by so many top DOJ deep state criminals — and who brings justice to those who are supposed to bring justice?

    When will Barr / Durham, somebody, start the indictments?

  41. So suppose a fella nicknamed Vlodya says to the world out of the blue “I plan to clean up this messy yard”.

    Suppose further you have wanted someone to clean up that messy yard for years. You know — have seen — many people have said they were going to clean up that yard, yet not only were blowing smoke about it but you’d watched them toss trash into the same yard themselves.

    Now comes another: Vlodya.

    Is he actually willing (from within himself) to do this thing, this yard cleaning, and will therefore be more likely to stick with it, keeping it clean once done? Or is he too blowing smoke?

    Suppose you had just come into the power, the wherewithal to twist Vlodya’s arm to induce him to clean the yard? But you know that if you do this you will not have an answer to your question whether Vlodya wills the act from himself.

    You must wait to see if he acts on his own (thus have your question answered) and only failing that to begin to twist his arm, with the further expectation he will not follow up. He can’t be depended on to keep the yard clean. He’ll need further inducements.

    Pres. Trump tells Amb. Sondland “I want no quid pro quo“.

    Now, why would Trump say that?

  42. manju is, as usual , plugged into DNC talking points.

    It sounds, however manju, that the Horowitz report is finally coming and it will be a disappointment to the DNC. And maybe a few Obama peeps.

  43. Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney

    BREAKING: SCHIFF details questions that witnesses must speak to in order to be considered relevant to impeachment hearings.

    This is meant to guide which GOP witnesses they’re willing to call. The questions:

    1. Did the President request that a foreign leader and government initiate investigations to benefit the President’s personal political interests in the United States, including an investigation related to the President’s political rival and potential opponent in the 2020 presidential election?

    2. Did the President — directly or through agents — seek to use the power of the Office of the President and other instruments of the federal government in other ways to apply pressure on the head of state and government of Ukraine to advance the President’s personal political interests, including by leveraging an Oval Office meeting desired by the President of Ukraine or by withholding U.S. military assistance to Ukraine?

    3. Did the President and his administration seek to obstruct, suppress or cover up information to conceal from the Congress and the American people evidence about the President’s actions and conduct?

  45. Barry Meislin on November 7, 2019 at 12:35 pm said:

    The always welcome humorous interlude of the week:
    Looks like Zuck’s the latest to become a nefarious Russian agent….

    On this one i might agree with her..
    Yuri Milner
    Milner is an investor in Facebook, Zynga, Twitter, Flipkart, Spotify, Zocdoc, Groupon, JD.com, Xiaomi, OlaCabs, Alibaba, Airbnb, WhatsApp, Nubank, Wish and many others.

    In 2005, NCH shifted its focus from Russian Internet projects and Milner founded the investment fund Digital Sky Technologies (DST), becoming its chairman in 2006. A meeting through mutual friends resulted in Alisher Usmanov becoming a shareholder of Mail.ru Group in 2008.

    Milner is Russia’s most influential tech investor

  46. Please explain why Biden bragging on camera that he shut down the Ukraine corruption investigation by threatening to withhold one billion in foreign aid isn’t clear evidence of corruption on his part.

    Paul…Biden bragged about a quid pro quo. But you got it a little backwards with “shut down the Ukraine corruption investigation”.

    The actual quid pro quo was: No $1 billion unless they fire corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin…who was refusing to investigate corrupt companies, including, ironically enough, Burisma.

    This is not evidence of corruption on Biden’s part because Shokin was, besides refusing to investigate Hunter’s company, almost universally considered corrupt by the West…by the State Dept, by the IMF, EU, etc.

    In contrast, Trump’s source for Biden’s corruption was well, Shokin, the well-known corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor. Worse still, Shokin’s signed affidavit comes via Dmytro Firtash, a Putin-backed mobster fighting extradition to the US…who happens to have one of Trump’s goons (Lev Parnas) on his team.

  47. sdferr on November 7, 2019 at 3:12 pm said:
    Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney
    * * *
    I don’t know who this Cheney guy is, but his commenters were almost uniformly leftist, including one of Manju’s colleagues.

    Jake ???
    @Jake_McQ
    ·
    11h
    Replying to
    @kyledcheney
    Parnas and Fruman are indicted so the Burisma investigation by Giuliani will come back to haunt Trump.

    Burisma ??Shokin affidavit??Firtash??Giuliani??Trump

  48. “I don’t know who this Cheney guy is, but his commenters were almost uniformly leftist . . .”

    Correct. I don’t know the guy either, but see he identifies as Politico’s “congressional reporter”. I didn’t bother reading comments there, as the substance of Schiff’s “rules” was all that interested me.

  49. “I didn’t bother reading comments there” – sdferr

    I find the interplay of comments on some posts to be the most interesting part of my “studies,” as you can no doubt deduce from some of my own comments here!

    They sometimes give a better clue to the poster’s location on the left-right continuum (or other political axis) than the body of the post itself, especially for unfamiliar names.

    I sometimes read comments at PowerLine and other reputable conservative blogs just to check my own understanding and reactions. I also pick up leads to other stories I would otherwise miss as well, and occasionally an interesting graphic.
    Some sites have a good (informed and insightful observations) commentariat, and some are really pitiful.

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