If you were trying add a wink to that post, it didn’t come through.
He is asking for evidence which does not exist.
The quid pro quo was announced by the White House.
Please, do try to keep up!
Certainly his request was made to the FBI. Right?
As noted, the geography of the Southern District of NY gives it its cache; this is because it includes Wall Street. As such, it’s an office that gets the biggest and most complex financial crimes. Ergo, they tend to recruit “the best and the brightest”, or at least have that reputation of seeking out the smartest prosecutors.
That, in my opinion, is where their reputation comes from. It also leads to a certain arrogance from the SDNY, perhaps based on thinking that they are able to infiltrate and undermine criminal organizations that others cannot, which can translate into a “get out of our way; we know what we are doing and you do not” attitude, even vis a vis other federal agencies.
That’s not to say that the AG doesn’t have authority over this part of the justice department, just as with all others. But there are lots of people in Manhattan who are used to being given deference, and who have no compunction about pushing back against any impediments. It’s not that the SDNY couldn’t be shut down by Barr, rather it’s that they’d make a ton of noise in the process.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Yesterday you said it was in the phone call, now you’ve changed your story and say it’s in an announcement by the White House. Could you provide a link to the White House announcement so that I can can view the relocated goalposts?
Your talking point is out of date.
Sondland has testified that Trump himself TOLD HIM to say that there was “no quid pro quo”.
There was. We can all see it directly in the transcript provided by the Whitehouse. It’s obvious. Just repeating Trump’s line that it does not exist does not make it not exist.
There was no quid pro quo because Ukraine didn’t conduct an investigation into a baseless rumor, so Trump withheld military aid until the scheme was exposed!
It was in the phone call, with the transcript/memorandum of understanding released by the white house.
Don’t act like this is all new to you, Ditka. This is all documented, and you are perfectly aware of this. Thank you.
Then why not quote the relevant portion(s)? Show, don’t tell.
First off, your claim about “manufacturing evidence” isn’t “documented”. It’s not even true.
This is not Trumpland, where you must say the magic words “I am demanding a quid pro quo from you now.”
I never said the words “quid pro quo” needed to appear. I asked you to cite the portion(s) of the call you believe represent a quid pro quo. Earlier in this thread I said this:
I’m on the fence about the “manufacturer dirt” part. Maybe Trump expected it, maybe not. So far all of the testimony leaks I’ve read about seem to point to his desire for Ukraine to publicly announce an investigation, something Trump could point to and shout, “Ah ha! See! He’s being investigated!” He could have wanted any evidence, regardless of the truth of that evidence. Probably did. But I don’t think it’s quite a given yet. There’s plenty of evidence about the quid pro quo, though, and lots of other shady stuff.
LOL, the guy literally asked China, on TV, to look into Hunter Biden’s Ukranian activities. If that’s not “manufacturing dirt”, I literally have no idea what is.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Extortion often relies on context. Mob enforcers don’t come into a store saying “pay me money or I will burn down your store.” That’s not how it works.
They let you know using cues and context what they expect.
You know this. You’re not stupid.
That being said, here is some context about the call between Trump and President Zelenskyy: Trump had recently withheld military aid to the Ukraine. Aid that was desperately needed to help Ukraine fend of Russian troops who had attacked them. Aid that was approved by the CONGRESS OF THE UNITES STATES. And Trump himself - Trump… had put a hold on this.
Then he called President Zelenskyy.
During the call, Zelenskyy said:
"I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. **We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps **specifically we are almost. ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.
(Remember that Trump himself had recently put a hold on this military aid)
Immediately, Trump then said “I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.” He then went on to talk about a nutty conspiracy theory with no basis in fact. A theory that was manufactured to be politically damaging to Trump’s opponents - the nutty “Crowdstrike” conspiracy theory.
To summarize:
Zelenskyy: We are interested in getting that military aid that Congress promised and you personally are holding up
Trump: Let’s talk first about favors to me. Investigate my political opponents.
Trump went on then, to say: "**The other thing, **There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.
So there are TWO THINGS that Trump wants. TWO FAVORS. FAVORS that Trump brought up DIRECTLY AFTER Zelenskyy said he’d like the military aid that Congress voted on, and that TRUMP HIMSELF was holding up.
It is so fucking obvious what is going on here, I am confident that you will agree that Trump was telling Zelenskyy that he would release the military aid that Congress approved, after Zelenskyy did him these two FAVORS. Both favors involved Ukraine launching investigations into Trump’s political opponents, based on no evidence, and conspiracy theories.
I was too slow in typing this and someone else gave an excellent summary first.
Translation- we do a lot of stuff for you. Nobody else does. And I don’t think we’re getting very much in return.
Translation- Yes, the US has been very kind. We need more weapons to fight off the Russians.
Translation- Yeah sure. You need weapons. And I need a favor. In other words, do something for me, and I’ll do something for you. In other words, quid pro quo.
I agree that Trump did not blatantly ask for evidence to be manufactured, however defense funds were held up, and importantly, the Ukrainians knew funds were being held up. It is not a huge leap of logic to assume that the Ukrainians may have deduced (rightly or wrongly) that Trump wasn’t particularly interested in a fair and impartial investigation leading to a complete exoneration of the Bidens, and may have been much more inclined to tell him what he wanted to hear - namely every little piece of dirt that they managed to dig up, even from questionable sourcing methods.
As I’ve said previously, the best argument that you can make is that a quid pro quo was not overt. Given the context of the withheld funds, and the call mentioning a “not reciprocal” relationship between the US and the Ukraine, and the request for favors, its easy to make a case for an heavily-implied quid pro quo, and arguing otherwise is about as ridiculous as claiming that the mob-boss asking his subordinate to ensure that the local District Attorney “sleeps with the fishes” was really meant as a request to give him a nice aquarium as a gift.
That’s not quite as bad a misrepresentation as Schiff’s ‘parody’, but it’s pretty close. For starters, Zelensky is asking about buying Javelins. That would be a transaction where they give us money and we give them Javelins. He said nothing about the aid money that we were going to give them. There are reports that he wasn’t even aware it was being withheld. Earlier I said this: