Yes. Trump’s greatest danger lies in the dozens—possibly hundreds—of workers in government at all levels who have witnessed him saying or doing things that could get him expelled from office.
What Trump needs is what Putin has: a population that knows, deeply and with no ambiguity, that choosing to criticize the President is a choice to die by violence.
Space Jam wasn’t that bad.
Yeah, the attempt to find the whistleblower seems pretty hard to defend in the same organization that has created all of the laws in the land to protect the identities of whistleblowers so as to prevent retaliation and intimidation tactics from being used against them.
This ^ this ^ this.
As someone else noted, republicans are already saying they are completely fine with Trump’s strong arming Ukraine for personal profit. This may be the last best chance to air Trump’s long history of corruption before pardons make it all moot.
Trump is stating that the testimony will be doctored, and that Republicans need to release their own version of the interviews. Man, those interviews must be pretty damning.
What a twit. Does he not realize that when they give open testimony, they will repeat the same things that Twitler says were doctored? Does he think that if what is released does not match what they said that they won’t say anything? This administration is like a Don Knotts movie.
Unless, of course, the testimony was doctored.
Speaking of the whistleblower, wasn’t there a report a few weeks ago that a second whistleblower had stepped forward? I haven’t heard anything about that since the initial news reports back then…
With Trump’s treasons and crimes obvious, this thread is focusing on the mentality of Trumpists and other Republicans who condone the crimes. Apropos of this, a comment by “Common Dream” may help describe and prescribe:
And in the 100 trillion to 1 chance that it was doctored? It comes out in the open testimony. “Witness X, you said in your deposition that Individual 1 promised aid for Ukraine on the condition that it come up with dirt on Joe Biden. Is that true?”
“No, I said no such thing. Individual 1 is the bestest and innocentest person to ever walk the planet, including Jesus Christ. Individual 1 said that he would be happy to aid Ukraine with no conditions whatsoever.” If that happens, we’ll say it was doctored. If on the other hand, the witness says “Yes, he brought up investigating the Bidens six more times in that call” then that blows that theory.
Well, he’s still railing against a whistle blower for false testimony that has already proven true, which has worked with his base, so why wouldn’t he believe this would work?
Seriously, my in-laws are Trump supporters in rural Ohio. It is working with them. They’re lining up behind every changing defense and narrative spun by Trump and the GOP. The whistleblower is lying. It doesn’t matter that the WH’s own transcript proves he is not lying. It does not matter that additional witnesses/testimony corroborates the whistleblower’s claim - they’re all a part fo the same liberal conspiracy to un-do the election.
These people are immune to logic and facts. They will not EVER move from their position, until Trump changes the position, and then they’ll line back up behind him in the new spot and pretend they never stood in another line.
Then you have my in-laws, who accept the possibility that there is a grain of truth in the silo full of facts, but don’t care because the alternative to Trump is a commie liberal Democrat. “So what if he’s a liar, so what if he did any of the things he’s accused of, at least he’s not a liberal. They’re the ones who will ruin America.” I think if there was any alternative Republican they’d eventually admit that Trump is a bad idea, but the RNC isn’t holding any primaries.
I wonder if they will or even can reverse course on that…
The Yovanovich deposition transcript has been released. I can’t open it on my phone because the file is too large, as I suspect it would be with 10 hours of testimony.
ETA NPR has the testimony transcript in a scrolling reader box on their site.
An interesting phrasing I stumbled across while looking something else up in the Constitution:
Like everything else about impeachment, it’s a bit vague. I’m not a legal or Constitutional scholar, and it probably just means that the pardon power isn’t a get-out-of-impeachment-free option, but it could be fun to argue that the pardon power cannot be used in relation to any crime for which an official has been impeached.
That sounds to me like the President can’t issue a pardon if someone else gets impeached. I doubt if it has anything to do with the President getting impeached.
No doubt a Constitution scholar will show up in a minute and explain. @RealObama, where are you?
What, are you a mind-reader? How on earth did you nail my thought process so accurately?! Please take that in the absolutely kidding manner that it is intended. But isn’t that a bit strange of a question to just throw out at someone you don’t even know? But as I said, I think most people are reasonably intelligent, and to add to that, can be convinced of the truth of something if they are willing to listen. Some are not willing to do so, so you can never convince them, but that is more stubborness than stupidity. The rest are the truly stupid ones. The ones who do listen to logical arguments and still don’t get it.
Interesting gossip about the other Whistleblowers from the American branch of the British “The Spectator”:
https://spectator.us/seven-whistleblowers-jared-kushner-bin-salman/
I recall that there was at least one other such article from this journal before. I will have to try and find it to see whether it proved true…
And I think that the Golden Number theory of beauty is a crock. That doesn’t answer the question which I asked.
Cockburn’s sources don’t look too reliable:
Ah well.