Is it known that it wasn’t? I’d think recording such a call would be automatic in this high-tech era. (Of course whether the recording could be subpoened is a separate matter.)
I do know that the proceedings are run by the Chief Justice (I remember the silly gold stripes). I should have made it clear that part of the post was written with tongue planted in cheek, though I have no doubt Yertle the Majority Leader would so something like that if he thought he could get away with it.
As others have said, in the end it will be a matter not of Trump’s guilt or innocence — that’s obvious to anyone with the IQ of mayonnaise — but rather the political jeopardy to the GOP in general and McConnell in particular. If he’s too much of a liability, he’ll join the crowd under the bus in a heartbeat (to the accompaniment of much wailing and gnashing of teeth). Should that happen, I’d like to be a fly on the wall when they try to hash out which Senators can withstand a “guilty” verdict.
Now that the GOP is rallying around “Yes there was a quid pro quo, but it was not inappropriate”, exactly how do they deal with the evidence that the everything about this quid pro quo that was perfectly fine was hidden away in secure servers? Seems like an odd step to take for something that is perfectly fine?
When the impeachment trial starts will it be solely focused on the Ukraine call or can other issues be brought up, such as obstruction of congress, election interference etc.?
I think they’ll go with “Because fuck you, that’s why.”
The House Judiciary Committee will submit their indictment, broken down into separate articles of impeachment, each if which will be voted on separately.
I’d say it’s guaranteed that it will have (1) Ukraine and (2) obstruction of the Ukraine investigation. But it could potentially include obstruction of Mueller.
I, would hope that this isn’t the argument being made by the prosecution (yes, that’s probably not the technical term for this situation).
The answer will be, “Democratic operatives in the NSC began running around telling fanciful stories about the call to everyone in the government that they could. One can reasonably assume that this was going to lead to a confidential discussion between two heads of states being leaked to the outside world, minus extra layers of security. It is bad policy and undermines the abilities of the President to make the hard trades necessary to lead the nation if he cannot have confidential discussions with other heads of state.”
A much better thing to point out is that, in the President’s transcript, the word “corruption” does not exist. The argument that, somehow, this was a call about cracking down on corruption or a quid-pro-quo in the aim to fight corruption is pretty much a no-go when talking about a discussion that doesn’t mention the topic.
They will probably consider obstruction of justice, which they should. But there is a danger in piling on too much. A quid pro quo is pretty easy to understand, particularly if a host of non-partisan civil servants from within the Dept of State and DOD corroborate the testimony. But if Dems start adding charges, hoping one of them sticks, then they risk making it look like a partisan shit show. And for some, there will be no convincing them otherwise, I reckon.
That should calm down the Republicans on the (non) issue of the whistleblower. He/she has offered to answer written questions under oath from House Republicans.
I watched Kellyanne Conway this morning on two different Sunday news shows (CNN and FOX, I think)bring up the whistleblower. That one of their main talking points lately. That, and “read the transcript”. She pointedly refused to say that she thought the president had, or had not, done anything wrong on both shows.
This has been consistent among all Republicans: they don’t deny robbing the bank; they just want to know who snitched.
The “rule of law” party my ass.
One notes that if you look at the comments under the transcript published on Fox, the Republican readers generally view it as being completely acceptable and above-board, from their take. And, I would say, if you read it from a position of ignorance that may seem like a reasonable take.
Trump says that the prosecutor who was removed by Biden was a good man. Trump is the President and Trump tells the truth, ergo Biden removed a good man from the government of Ukraine. The Ukrainian President does not object to this statement nor contradict it in any way.
Trump never mentions corruption, but Zelensky does open with “drain the swamp”. I find that a little questionable - knowing that the “transcript” is a creation put together by Trump’s legal and PR team. But that does give an opening to say that Trump and Zelensky were all primed to talk about corruption. (Though, Trump leads off with Crowdstrike and, based on the ellipses, likely blathered about it for enough time as to be distracting and come across like a clear loon.)
And, of course, to the Trump voter, Trump has said that Biden is corrupt and evil and Trump is the President and an honest person. Thus, Biden is corrupt and evil, and it’s the job of the President to track down and stop evil people.
The assumption that the 40% of the population who support Trump are living in the real world and can be convinced by reasonable arguments is silly. If the Republicans in Congress all act like this is above-board and the President is saying that it is above board, then the people will buy it. There will be no stop for a sanity check in the brain between ear and voting-finger.
You need to hit Trump with everything, from Epstein, to Trump Foundation, to Trump University, to the Otaiba emails, to Mamadov, Elliott Broidy’s bribery conviction, George Nader’s pedophilia conviction, and so on. You need to make the dude look as scummy as he is or you’re not going to get anywhere - so long as you have actual, decent evidence from reputable people on those topics, FBI agents, CIA agents, ex-military, and Republicans. It should be an all-Republican witness stand. Lead with Peter Strzok and ask him who he was supporting in the 2016 primaries. Layer the Republican-ness and military background of every single person who says anything out and then use real live testimony from those people to trash the guy on every single angle that you can cram in that checks the boxes.
Anything less than that and they’ll break loose. You’re not going to win this on a single thing. Any one thing can be escaped. You need to paint the whole picture and introduce doubt in the minds of those watching before even getting to Ukraine. That should be the last 2% of the case. You need to set the scene. Whether any of Trump’s other activities are one of the official articles of impeachment or not, you need to contend with the immense wall of ignorance that surrounds Trump’s supporters and that the Republicans are desperately trying to keep in place. They will tell you that cat is spelled “d-o-g” if that’s what it takes to keep the wall up. You need to make them feel such intense disgust in themselves that they break. If they can maintain the act, the people will assume that there must be something that they’re missing, but they’ll trust their Republican representatives as knowing more than them.
If you can’t break that, it will be a constitutional crisis and you might as well set the thing on fire…but that’s already where we’re at.
In the movie Grave of the Fireflies, there is a scene where our protagonist learns that the Japanese were never going to win WWII and that the radio reports saying that everything were going wonderful and that the country was steadily getting their foes to give in and run away had all been falsehoods. He’s been suffering for years, starving, and all thinking that while hard at least it was a necessary part of the war effort that they were winning and that it would bring, eventually, great riches to the land. …And none of that was true. It was just falsehoods, knowingly spread by the government to deceive the people and keep them from rebelling.
That sort of shock is what the Democrats have to impart. It is not, “Yes, Donald Trump scribbles outside of the lines in order to win.” His voters know that and they like that. Trump is a marvelous bastard and that’s commendable. If that’s the pitch, it will not sell.
You need to go beyond that. You need the FBI history of investigations into Donald Trump and his businesses, from before he was President.
A while back in this tread, a point was brought up (I think by Kid C) about the low media profile regarding Congressional bills being passed.
Pelosi released a letter outlining all the bills being blocked by the Senate. Just thought it was worth mentioning. Completely obstructionist.
I see it more like a defendant charged with armed bank robbery claiming innocence by showing security footage of the robbery with no weapons.
It won’t.
I know, because they don’t really care. It’s just something to complain about and it echoes the president, who is constantly harping about “who is the whistleblower?!”, most recently less than an hour ago on Twitter.
It does nip in the bud the complaint that the whistleblower can’t be questioned, though.
Anyone with half a brain would have noticed that everything the whistleblower claimed has been corroborated by witnesses
on the record, so the WB is no longer important. But there aren’t a lot of brains amongst Trump and his minions.
All of this is why Democratic candidates need to start discussing openly the possibility of trading France and Germany favorable policies in exchange for investigating Trump. If it’s not wrong, do Republicans have a problem with that? Certainly they can’t.
You and many others seem to be under the impression the republicans need to put forth some sort of logical explanation or counter argument on all of this. They don’t. All they need to do is point out something, anything, that their base can latch onto, rational or not, and claim it represents an inherent unfairness. Whether it has anything to do with what happened or whether it is now moot makes no difference at all. It is simply there to give them something to rally around.
It isn’t a brilliant argument in the sense it negates all the accusations and what was done. But it is a brilliant strategy in the sense it does give the powers that be something to keep their base focused on other than the real issues.
So I agree… the minions, pretty brainless. But the ones orchestrating all this? Don’t under estimate them. They know exactly what they are doing.
The WB must be punished!
Also they figure if they can find out who the whistle blower is, they (and their base) can make his life a living hell. Which will deter others from potentially coming forward.