There it is: Trump asking a foreign government to open an investigation on his political rival:
"Going through Mr. Giuliani says it all. If Mr. Trump had a shred of evidence against Mr. Biden or any legitimate governmental objective in view, he would have directed the Justice Department or State Department to work directly with Ukraine."
"Multiple reports say that President Trump used his office to press Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden and provide damaging information about him, though there is no evidence of wrongdoing on Mr. Biden’s part. This was a bid to affect the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, just as the Democratic National Committee headquarters break-in at the Watergate complex aimed to affect the 1972 presidential election.
Mr. Trump’s reported actions would amount to a Nixonian misuse of presidential power that threatens our democracy and constitutes high crime and misdemeanor.
The Constitution is clear: A president who uses presidential powers for purely personal and political reasons, as Mr. Trump appears to have done, commits an impeachable offense. Mr. Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani have already acknowledged much of what has been reported about the Ukraine affair."
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"Mr. Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani have already acknowledged much of what has been reported about the Ukraine affair. On July 25, Mr. Trump spoke by phone with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and is said to have mentioned Mr. Biden eight times. It was not casual name dropping. Mr. Giuliani also spoke with Ukrainian officials at Mr. Trump’s direction starting last May, urging them to investigate Mr. Biden."
29 comments:
IMPEACH THE S.O.B.!!!!!
You never should’ve become president. You lacked the intelligence, experience, temperament, vision, patriotism, ethics & moral decency to be Leader of the Free World & Commander-in-Chief. You’re corrupt. A traitor. Incompetent, illegit & chaotic. It’s over. Resign now TRUMP!
Well Shaw, are you enjoying your nothingburger?
Hey Anon! That "nothingburger" got the Dems to open up an IMPEACHMENT inquiry. We've seen one small piece (that was edited by the president's lackeys) of the evidence. There's a lot more out there, including the whistleblower him/herself.
This is turning out to be an Impeachmentburger. And it's about time for this corrupt, lying liar.
Hey Anon... are you channeling Sen Graham? Isn't he the one who called it a nothing burger? Isn't he the same Graham who said “You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role. Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”
Was it that Lindsey Graham?
You see, simply asking Ukraine to look into a political rival here in the US, is impeachable.
Not following the law that Pres Trump swore to uphold and protect is impeachable, which he did when he refused to allow the House to get the whistle blower report.
What joe Biden did or did not do is not germane to Pres Trump's behavior.
Whether Trump is removed or not, no one right now knows. But we do know this... the SCOTUS has ruled in the past that once the House opens impeachment proceedings, the Executive Branch cannot defy subpoenas for documents of records. And it is that reality that finally ended the Nixon presidency.
We shall see how Pres Trump responds to congressional oversight now.
Shaw... I'll take my nothing burger with fries and a chocolate malt!
Please...
Seems you folks fail to understand it matters not what the dem controlled house does pertaining to impeachment, the Republican controlled Senate has the final word and impeachment is DOA there
Uh, Anon Sept25, 2019? It got really clear, this time, but not if you're listening to
Faux News, and if you are, here's a story that you'll really believe:
You see, Donald Trump is not responsible for his actions. What appears as hair
to us is really Apoxx59/79, a Brain-Bat species that came to Earth and affixed
itself to the brainstem of what was Donald Trump, and now controls all his thinking
and emotions.
Observing Fox News, and the behavior of a certain political party, the alien
found that these humans were easiest to manipulate and use. But, having no real knowledge
of customs, laws, and other important things, Apoxx59/79 made a number of critical errors,
and now, as the inevitable approaches, Apoxx59/79 will beat a hasty retreat back to his homeworld,
leaving a dazed and confused man, once known as Donald Trump, in a jail cell,
babbling to himself, and wondering just what the heck happened....
Impeachment is the appropriate action at this time. My hope is that Trump is run out of Washington on a Rail when the complete unvarshished truth unfolds.
Trump is as guilty as guilty can be. Of MORE than just this. America should be kissing the whistleblowers behind.
"Anonymous said...
Seems you folks fail to understand it matters not what the dem controlled house does pertaining to impeachment, the Republican controlled Senate has the final word and impeachment is DOA there."
Right now, with limited evidence having been released, we know for a fact that Trump asked the leader of a foreign country to investigate his political rival in order to influence the upcoming American elections -- again. We don't need a "quid pro quo" we don't need much else. That alone is an impeachable offense. As more comes out, we additionally learn more of Barr's involvement in trying to cover this complaint up.
All you think about is that the Senate will not convict. We really don't worry about that. What HAS to happen is the subpoena of all documents (the WH cannot, as Dave pointed out, defy that.) pertaining to Trump's high crimes and misdemeanor by the man you admire.
It's time to make this awful man responsible for breaking the laws.
Anon @ 3:35.
You are 100% correct in that it will take the Republican Senators to remove Pres Trump.
But ponder this for a few moments... the GOP has a number of Senators in swing districts up for reelection in 2020. The facts here are not in question. President Trump has admitted publicly to asking Ukraine to involve itself in a way that would influence the US elections.
That in itself is a crime.
Do you think those Senators will want to answer questions as to why an admitted criminal was not impeached?
In the end, the Senators will cave to save their reelection.
I agree Shaw. The House really had no other choice but to start the impeachment process. It was their constitutional duty. trump has been flaunting his lawlessness for everyone to see. We can all agree that the Senate is full of republican pansies, so who cares what they do. What matters is the subpoena of the documents to finally let the sunshine in...
Possumlady
Well, if you give an idiot enough rope he'll hang himself. Trump did this to himself thinking he was untouchable, that he could commit crimes while in office and no one would do a damn thing about it.
Finally our laws and lawmakers are catching up to the bastard.
Dream on Dave Miller, McConnell and Graham will never allow that to happen and McCain is thankfully in the ground
What I’d like to know is, after almost 3 years of false accusations, why are we even giving them an audience? Who cares what they want or feel? No proof? No punishment. PERIOD!
I believe its way past time they get sued for slander and false accusations.
Possumlady and R.D.,
I've been reading opinions by Democrats who are "afraid" about this impeachment inquiry -- it IS just an inquiry at this point with no "articles of impeachment. If people are afraid of conducting an impeachment inquiry of a president who is clearly in violation our the law, than what is the point of this Republic?
What is the point of *any* of us obeying laws or paying taxes?
You cannot use the potential outcome of the 2020 election as a reason to look the other way.
At some point, you have to trust the system and its citizens to make the right choice for this country's future. If, as a result of this impeachment process, Donald Trump is reelected, this country has ALOT more problems than any one election can solve.
Donald Trump deserves to be impeached and he should be impeached.
To "Trump Supporter"
What we've seen as EVIDENCE so far is Trump asking a foreign government to get involved in our upcoming election by finding "dirt" on Trump's political rival.
That's against the law. But I'm not surprised that a Trump supporter wouldn't care about a lawless president, since he himself bragged that he could shoot someone in the middle of the street and that people like you would still support him.
Impeachment is the only option. After all the president made a call and asked about a VP using his influence to get his son off the hook and asking that to be looked at is just wrong.
Now we have a whistleblower who heard a rumor that some other people told him of a rumor they heard.
Maybe the dems can get the impeachment done and do something other than investigate the president. Nine months of having the majority and have done nothing except investigate the president.
Maybe impeaching all of congress would serve the American people better
Anonymous: "After all the president made a call and asked about a VP using his influence to get his son off the hook and asking that to be looked at is just wrong."
Leave it to a Trumper to obfuscate.
Donald Trump asked a foreign country to dig up dirt on his political rival. Period. No other president, as far as we know, has ever done such a thing. It is against the Constitution and Trump's oath of office.
That Trumpers refuse to address this main point shows that they don't want to face what Trump is: A criminal.
For context on the issue of investigating rivals: In April 2018 White House counsel Don McGahn wrote a memo to Trump warning him that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including impeachment.
The president asked Ukraine to “do us a favor” and look into claims it was really Ukraine that did the 2016 email hacks, as Giuliani has claimed, and then asked them to get with Barr to probe the Bidens.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/us/politics/ukraine-transcript-trump.amp.html#click=https://t.co/Je8sXOAvii …
Yes, Mike. What "Anonymous @9:03 AM" doesn't understand is that if Trump was really concerned about wrongdoing by the Bidens, he would have turned his concerns over to the FBI and the DoJ, which, under Trump, have been seeded with his people. But Anonymous doesn't understand how our Constitution works and believes presidents can ask foreign governments to help them get re-elected.
I wonder if "Anonymous @9:03" would be as generous if a Democratic president went to, say, China and asked that government to dig up dirt on his or her rival.
We know the answer, of course. But Anon @9:03 AM hasn't thought that far ahead. His or her only allegiance is to Trump and the current GOP, not the rule of law.
Attorney General William P. Barr and the president’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani were central to the effort to get Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election, the complaint said.
In addition, the whistle-blower, an unidentified intelligence officer, learned from multiple American officials that “senior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced as is customary by the White House Situation Room,” the complaint said. “This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.”
Anonymous @ 9:03
You are an obvious trump supporter as you don’t have a clue. You said the House has done nothing but investigate trump. Well, no, they have actually passed a number of pieces of legislation. It’s the scared Republicans in the Senate who refuse to act on any of the legislation.
Possumlady
Possumlady, good point. The House has passed over 100 bills and they've been held up by the Republican Senate, headed by Moscow Mitch. Trumpers don't deal in facts.
PL, I don't support trumps way of acting but I do like his support of America. Instead of traveling the world apologizing for US prosperity trump is proud of it.
On the bills held up in the senate as one elected elite put it on November 21, 2014 "Elections have consequences" and if you recall nothing could get out of the Reid controlled senate.
Skud you really believe trump supports America? Seriously? How is the president believing foreign dictators over America’s intelligence community supporting America? How is imposing tariffs on farm products that is destroying small family farms (since the subsidies the government handed out went mostly to the big corporate farms) supporting America? How is getting rid of decades worth of environmental protection and opening up our sacred national parks to drilling or to the highest bidder supporting America? Will acid rain make a comeback?
As someone commented in the Post today: We have been so saturated with Mr. Trump’s dishonesty, vulgarity, volatility, chauvinism and bigotry that it’s difficult to distinguish the truly corrupt and criminal from the merely amoral and irresponsible.
Possumlady
Possumlady quoted: "We have been so saturated with Mr. Trump’s dishonesty, vulgarity, volatility, chauvinism and bigotry that it’s difficult to distinguish the truly corrupt and criminal from the merely amoral and irresponsible."
Our friend skudrunner criticizes Trump in the mildest of terms and then pivots over to President Obama and all the horrible things he did as president, including NOT embarrassing America on the world stage and NOT having anyone in his administration indicted for any crimes.
Skud and his far right wing blogging pals refuse to see Donald Trump for the immoral and law-breaking scoundrel that he is.
The dam has broken and more and more of his high crimes and misdemeanors will be uncovered. I'm looking forward to reading how skud will excuse or ignore them and tell us what a horrible president Mr. Obama was.
PS. It's more than comical the way skud talks about Mr. Obama's well-received speech in Egypt that rightfully recognized that America doesn't always live up to her ideals, but skud ignors the fact that Trump called the White House a "dump," and his inaugural speech was about "American Carnage," pointing out how horrible a country America is. It is interesting to see how he's always ignored how Trump crapped all over America while he was campaiging. But cultists never see anything wrong with their cult leader.
Let's not forget, not one single right wing commenter, or anyone for that matter has uncovered language from Pres Obama saying the US apologizes for anything. He did acknowledge that we'd done some pretty bad things in the Middle East, like overthrowing democratically elected governments, etc. but he/we never apologized.
But typically that kind of nuanced understanding of language and diplomacy is lost on the mostly binary zero sum game thinkers on the right.
If you want an American apology, the right should look to Pres Reagan, who apologized on behalf of America for imprisoning US citizens of Japanese descent during WW II, right here in the US. I wonder why they never had a problem with that actual apology?
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