# The Trump Impeachment Inquiry **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 24, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771 "2019-09-24T20:23:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 54
**Author:** ![steatopygia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steatopygia/32/3132_2.png) [@steatopygia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steatopygia)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1061 "2019-09-28T13:44:18Z")
Speaking of Biden, I just went looking for the crazy right wing take on all this. Here ya go. “So let’s get this straight, dems are attempting to impeach a president for exposing a crime and then elect the person who did the crime to the highest office in the land!” It was in all caps of course but I just couldn’t do it. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1062 "2019-09-28T14:03:06Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Heh. Wouldn’t it be cool if that were the Democratic leadership’s plan all along? > > 1. Find a potential 2020 candidate plausible enough for Trump to worry about, but it’s okay if he/she doesn’t become the nominee in the end. Biden? Perfect - the Obama association will push Trump’s buttons just right. > > 2. Convince a family member of that potential candidate to do something legal but doesn’t-look-totally-above-board-maybe-on-the-face-of-it, in a country that depends on our official assistance, not for humanitarian needs but for hard-core security ones. Hmmm…Hunter Biden…and…South Korea? Not quite…Ukraine? Yes! > > That’s all you really need for the set-up. > > Obviously I don’t think this is what happened, but it would make for a clever twist/reveal in a book or movie. > > Of course, Trump would squeal “entrapment” — don’t the perps always? — but no one was _forcing_ him to act. That’s already a right-wing conspiracy theory. Think I saw it on Twitter. Progressives are supposedly making all this up to tank Biden and Trump to get Warren elected. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1063 "2019-09-28T14:31:34Z")
> [@KidCharlemagne](#): > > That’s already a right-wing conspiracy theory. Think I saw it on Twitter. Progressives are supposedly making all this up to tank Biden and Trump to get Warren elected. Interesting — “Making all this up” isn’t what I outlined, though… just baiting a known criminal. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1064 "2019-09-28T14:37:29Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s an energy company, and his prior experience was not in that sector. Also, I am presuming that he does not possess native fluency in Ukrainian or Russian. Do you really think he got that high-paying job just based on his resume and interview and without any consideration of whose son he was? Of course not. But a lot of wastrel children of powerful people get jobs through family connections. The end goal is to use the family connections to bring in clients and investments. I’m not crazy about it, but it’s very common practice. There’s really no non-political reason to single out Hunter Biden among the droves of rich kids working jobs like this. I just saw this story which had a couple of interesting tidbits that I hadn’t seen before. > **[The Ukraine Timeline Shows Trump Is Lying](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/ukraine-timeline-shows-trump-lying.html)** > > The phone call and the whistleblower complaint are just the beginning of the evidence. Back on May 11th, Guiliani had a trip scheduled to Ukraine. That trip was cancelled. The reason he gave was that he “would be walking into a group of people that were enemies of the president”. Which may have been true in some sense, but the real reason for canceling the trip was that Zelensky refused to meet with him. Three days later, on May 14th, Trump canceled Pence’s trip. It was also around that time that Trump said he wouldn’t meet with Zelensky until he showed a willingness to “play ball”. Even though the Slate article doesn’t go there, it was also around that time that Trump recalled the Ukrainian ambassador, calling her “bad news”. Something about how she discouraged an Ukrainian prosecutor from pursuing certain cases. The article doesn’t say what the “certain cases” are, but I can take a guess. > **[During Call To Ukraine President, Trump Disparages A U.S. Ambassador](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764566252/during-call-to-ukraine-president-trump-disparages-a-u-s-ambassador)** > > When President Trump fired the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine this past spring, it was at the urging of conservative media. We reconstruct how and why she was called home. ---
**Author:** ![steatopygia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steatopygia/32/3132_2.png) [@steatopygia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steatopygia)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1065 "2019-09-28T14:43:00Z")
Giuliani just cancelled another trip. He was scheduled to meet with the Kremlin next week. Must of thought it was bad optics or something. ETA Make that at a “Kremlin backed conference” with Trump’s controller there. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1066 "2019-09-28T14:46:31Z")
> [@steatopygia](#): > > Speaking of Biden, I just went looking for the crazy right wing take on all this. Here ya go. > > “So let’s get this straight, dems are attempting to impeach a president for exposing a crime and then elect the person who did the crime to the highest office in the land!” > > It was in all caps of course but I just couldn’t do it. Even sillier was one meme that had Donald getting impeached and convicted, Pence naming him to be the new vice president, and then resigning in order to put him right back in the White House. Apparently they’re unaware that both houses of Congress must confirm a vice presidential appointment, so for this scheme to work both houses would have to deem him unfit for the presidency and then say he’s perfectly fit to be vice president. What even I as a diehard Democrat find troubling about the Biden thing- why on earth would a Ukrainian oil company put Hunter Biden on its board of directors? Exactly what is his expertise? But I digress… this past week has been nothing short of extraordinary. New things are coming to light faster than we can process them. What I wish would happen would be Schiff getting a court order to view any and all call logs from the White House to Russia, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea. I don’t hold much hope that the Republican Supreme Court would order such a thing, but it would be lovely to behold. One thing I wonder- could President Warren in her first day order all of the stuff in the super-dee-duper document server to be placed on her desk? I think that would go a long way to cool off the MAGAbots, show them what a corrupt shitstain DJT was. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1067 "2019-09-28T14:50:06Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I did like what Bill Maher said about Hunter Biden: “Get a fucking job!” Obviously it in no way justifies the way Trump has massively abused his presidential power, but it is gross nevertheless that Hunter got a job he wasn’t qualified for, paying $50,000 a month, almost certainly just because of who his daddy is. How about if Don Junior, Ivanka, (Jared,) and Eric get some fucking jobs independently of who their fucking father is? ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1068 "2019-09-28T14:51:35Z")
> [@steatopygia](#): > > “So let’s get this straight, dems are attempting to impeach a president for exposing a crime and then elect the person who did the crime to the highest office in the land!” Damn, it’s like Trump is a dainty-handed Batman or something! ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1069 "2019-09-28T14:53:59Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > What even I as a diehard Democrat find troubling about the Biden thing- why on earth would a Ukrainian oil company put Hunter Biden on its board of directors? So they could say, “Joe Biden’s son is on our board of directors.” The entirety of his duties and responsibilities was to be Joe Biden’s kid. It’s good work if you can get it. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1070 "2019-09-28T14:58:52Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > … > What even I as a diehard Democrat find troubling about the Biden thing- why on earth would a Ukrainian oil company put Hunter Biden on its board of directors? Exactly what is his expertise? > … In my 40 years of experience in the non-profit world, you don’t put someone on the board for their “expertise,” you do it for their influence and connections. The one thing you DON’T want on the board of a social services agency is a bunch of social workers, or wall-to-wall musicians on the board of the chamber music society. Painters and potters on the board of an arts organization? I don’t think so. You want influential people, the kind of people that when they call someone the person being called picks up the phone or returns the call. The kind of people that when they host an event, people show up. Surely that must be the case in the profit-making world, too, right? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1071 "2019-09-28T15:18:51Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > So they could say, “Joe Biden’s son is on our board of directors.” The entirety of his duties and responsibilities was to be Joe Biden’s kid. It’s good work if you can get it. I can’t blame him for getting it. Him using his father to get a cushy job is a lot different than him using his father to do some corrupt things for personal gain. There is [no evidence that Hunter broke any laws](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/former-ukraine-prosecutor-says-hunter-biden-did-not-violate-anything/2019/09/26/48801f66-e068-11e9-be7f-4cc85017c36f_story.html). Ongoing investigations against Burisma are focused on [before he was even hired](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-ukraine-buris/ukraine-agency-says-allegations-against-burisma-cover-period-before-biden-joined-idUSKBN1WC1LV). Joe Biden did make noise about firing Shokin but he was not alone: "…the international community came to view Shokin as too weak on corruption, despite his promises to investigate wrongdoing. The United States, the International Monetary Fund, and others pressured Ukraine to investigate corruption more thoroughly, but Shokin took no serious action. Biden threatened to withhold aid if the prosecutor wasn’t fired, and he was. Importantly, Biden was not freelancing, but was acting as a representative of President Barack Obama. There’s no evidence that Biden was helping his son. Shokin’s former deputy, who quit in frustration over his boss’s intransigence, told Bloomberg in May that the U.S. wasn’t pushing to drop probes of Burisma. “There was no pressure from anyone from the U.S. to close cases against Zlochevsky,” he said. “It was shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015.” **In effect, Biden’s pressure to install a tougher prosecutor probably made it more likely, not less, that Burisma would be in the cross hairs.**" [(The Atlantic)](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/biden-trump-corruption/598705/) Emphasis mine. Also, none of this has anything to to with Trump’s impeachment, despite what Trump and our moderator who is allowing this talk in this thread will lead you to believe. Had Trump asked the FBI to investigate, above board and for all to see, none of this would be an issue. Had Trump simply released the aid that was earmarked by Congress to the Ukraine and not held it up (or had a good reason to hold it up, which he hasn’t been able to provide) he wouldn’t be dealing with impeachment. Even if Hunter Biden and his dad were the crookedest crooks who ever crooked and Trump knew it, he still had a dozen different ways to deal with it without doing the things that caused his impeachment inquiry. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1072 "2019-09-28T15:39:11Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > In my 40 years of experience in the non-profit world, you don’t put someone on the board for their “expertise,” you do it for their influence and connections. > > The one thing you DON’T want on the board of a social services agency is a bunch of social workers, or wall-to-wall musicians on the board of the chamber music society. Painters and potters on the board of an arts organization? I don’t think so. > > You want influential people, the kind of people that when they call someone the person being called picks up the phone or returns the call. The kind of people that when they host an event, people show up. > > Surely that must be the case in the profit-making world, too, right? I’m not sure. If I was Hunter and had a shred of pride, I wouldn’t take a do-nothing job on a board just because I had an influential father. That’s neither here nor there, the issue is DJT’s behavior. If I had to guess, I’d say there were probably between 5-20 people who had access to as much or more information as the whistleblower. None of them felt strongly enough about it to come forward. I think there’ll be a bit of a “Me Too” movement among White House insiders to come forward and spill more guts here. The snowball is getting massive as it rolls down the hill. I predict in the next week we’ll have a revelation that makes the Ukraine call pale in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1073 "2019-09-28T15:40:52Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s an energy company, and his prior experience was not in that sector. Also, I am presuming that he does not possess native fluency in Ukrainian or Russian. Do you really think he got that high-paying job just based on his resume and interview and without any consideration of whose son he was? No, I don’t think so. But isn’t a bit silly for Maher to tell somebody who has been working professionally for 20 years to get a job? I could understand somebody who is just laying about spending mommy and daddy’s money, but it is a ridiculous comment. ---
**Author:** ![steatopygia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steatopygia/32/3132_2.png) [@steatopygia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steatopygia)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1074 "2019-09-28T15:45:47Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I’m not sure. If I was Hunter and had a shred of pride, I wouldn’t take a do-nothing job on a board just because I had an influential father. That’s neither here nor there, the issue is DJT’s behavior. > > If I had to guess, I’d say there were probably between 5-20 people who had access to as much or more information as the whistleblower. None of them felt strongly enough about it to come forward. I think there’ll be a bit of a “Me Too” movement among White House insiders to come forward and spill more guts here. The snowball is getting massive as it rolls down the hill. I predict in the next week we’ll have a revelation that makes the Ukraine call pale in comparison. I could be wrong about this but I thought that the whistleblower was a CIA staffer assigned to the WH. No Trump fealty. But I’m pretty sure that most of the people working there are diehard Trumpists. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1075 "2019-09-28T16:05:40Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I’m not sure. If I was Hunter and had a shred of pride, I wouldn’t take a do-nothing job on a board just because I had an influential father. You are failing to understand what a board of directors is and does. It is a do nothing job by it’s very nature for the most part. They typically meet a couple times a year, usually, but not always, at least once. It’s not so much a job as it is a position. Al Gore is on Apple’s board. Aside from inventing the internet, what’s his expertise? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1076 "2019-09-28T18:27:30Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > No, I don’t think so. But isn’t a bit silly for Maher to tell somebody who has been working professionally for 20 years to get a job? I could understand somebody who is just laying about spending mommy and daddy’s money, but it is a ridiculous comment. Maher has never let sense, logic or truth get in the way of a good line. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1077 "2019-09-28T19:27:11Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > You are failing to understand what a board of directors is and does. > > It is a do nothing job by it’s very nature for the most part. They typically meet a couple times a year, usually, but not always, at least once. It’s not so much a job as it is a position. > > Al Gore is on Apple’s board. Aside from inventing the internet, what’s his expertise? 😉 That’s definitely my nonprofit experience. I’ve served on the board of one nonprofit, where I wasn’t really an appropriate member (it’s an early literacy nonprofit, and they brought me on to have a teacher, but what they really needed were fundraisers, and I eventually quit and offered to serve as a volunteer consultant instead), and I’ve worked with nonprofits who were transitioning their boards from activists and experts to rich fuckers, since the latter was really what they needed. I don’t really see Hunter Biden as a shining paragon of humanity, from the little I know, but instead as the kind of dude who’s rich and entitled and has the way paved for him. Which, whatever, not my favorite–but hardly the sort of person that Trump gets to criticize. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1078 "2019-09-28T19:33:36Z")
If anyone feels the need to continue discussing the role of a member of a board of directors or Joe Biden’s role as a director, open a new thread. The details behind that discussion are not really relevant to the current Trump Impeachment Inquiry in the House of Representatives that is the focus of this thread… The Joe Biden discussion is closed in this thread unless it becomes a major focus of the House Inquiry, (which it currently is not). **[/Moderating]** ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1079 "2019-09-28T19:35:59Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > If anyone feels the need to continue discussing the role of a member of a board of directors or Joe Biden’s role as a director, open a new thread. The details behind that discussion are not really relevant to the current Trump Impeachment Inquiry in the House of Representatives that is the focus of this thread… > > The Joe Biden discussion is closed in this thread unless it becomes a major focus of the House Inquiry, (which it currently is not). > > **[/Moderating]** Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771/1080 "2019-09-28T19:56:59Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > If anyone feels the need to continue discussing the role of a member of a board of directors or Joe Biden’s role as a director, open a new thread. The details behind that discussion are not really relevant to the current Trump Impeachment Inquiry in the House of Representatives that is the focus of this thread… > > The Joe Biden discussion is closed in this thread unless it becomes a major focus of the House Inquiry, (which it currently is not). > > **[/Moderating]** For any takers. [https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=882803](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=882803) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771.md?page=53) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-impeachment-inquiry/840771.md?page=55)