My best guess as to their strategy: admit to this in regard to 2016. Who could argue with that, trying to get Ukraine to look into possible election fraud and the like? Get the idea ingrained in the American public that quid pro quos are by definition always good. Once that is done, a quid pro quo for the Biden investigation is all the more palatable, so they then acknowledge that that also happened, but hey, it was allfor the good of the country.
Need I stress that this is my idea of the Trump admins strategy and the above is how they are thinking…
Nope. Not O’Brien. It is Cipollone. So, to the right of Trump: Chairman Milley , Leader McConnell (face hidden), Dep. Sec. State John Sullivan, Minority Whip Steve Scalise and White House counsel Pat Cipollone (face partially hidden).
No. That would be ridiculous. You would need some reason to believe that an important motive was the personal gain. Btw, to me trying to discredit Biden fits the bill here.
I could. Anything they’d like investigated can be left in the hands of the AMERICAN investigative agencies. Period. Really. If any help is needed from other countries, that can be dealt with by the FBI, CIA etc. Not the friggin white house and their friends.
He specifically said that the investigation was in reference to an opponent: “Just to clarify… this is about investigating political opponents. Are you saying–”
Mul: “The DNC server–”
“Are you saying it’s okay to hold up aid and require a foreign gov’t to investigate an opponent?”
…
Mul: “That’s just bizarre to me that you think you can’t do that.”
Also, on edit, Mulvaney releases a statement saying that he didn’t say what he said.
Right. Because no one requested any mother fucking investigation that was to be done by the Dept. of Justice. The ONLY request for an investigation was made to Ukraine. (Tap, Tap) Is this thing on?
The whole impeachment investigation is steeped in legal language and gray area exploitation (even if it’s not technically a process of the Law). It seems to me that Ditka is taking a bit of a Devil’s Advocate position or perhaps make that “Trump’s Advocate” or maybe just “Ditka’s Advocate”. Whatever it is IMO, in this thread he’s offering up examples of the weak points (as he sees them) in the case against Trump.
IMO, Trump misused the power of his office to benefit himself. I wonder if** Ditka** would totally disagree with the spirit of my opinion (though I won’t ask him to do the SDMB equivalent of a MSNBC Dem debate “raise your hand if…” gotcha question) or, if he is mostly confining his argument here to the “letter of the law” like an attorney would do.
I think it’s fair to say there’s not yet an open-and-shut-case against Trump (vis-a-vis the “letter of the law”). At the same time anyone looking at what is publicly known to have happened might reasonably reach the opinion that POTUS acted in such a way that an inquiry into impeachment and maybe even impeachment itself is warranted.
That, of course, is the biggest source of trouble for those Trump enablers who want to pretend that this is all above board.
If a President wants to “investigate corruption” in a nation voted aid by the Congress, then he has official channels through which to launch that investigation.
Clearly, that is not what Trump’s interactions with Ukraine were about. And the efforts by some to pretend otherwise are ridiculously ineffectual.
There is a theory floating around that Mulvaney—possibly unconsciously—is trying to hurry the day when his fellow-fundamentalist Mike Pence will assume the Presidency.
Of course that would require a belief that Mulvaney knows Pence to be free and clear of all the, er, excrement. I’m not sure if I buy that; Pence does appear to be at least somewhat immersed in the, er, ordure.
There’s also the theory that White House denizens (Stephen Miller? Ivanka?) have decided that the ‘say it out in the open and that proves it’s perfectly okay’ tactic will work. (As previously mentioned in this thread.) But of course that theory has to simply ignore the complication that they’ve been lying about the wrongdoing for weeks…making the ‘we did it in the open so that means it’s fine’ claim rather dubious.
Personally I think Mulvaney’s brain just decided for him, independent of his will, enough is enough: we’re getting out of here, and admitting this will get us fired, and that will be better than spending one more day watching that idiot scream and drool.
