I had a snappy retort all loaded up, but I see Euphonius Polemic beat me to it.
I kinda wish all Trump supporters were shop owners in the Bronx during the 1950s (when Donnie was growing up there) and after the third or fourth times their windows had been broken, and a couple of Molotov cocktails were thrown in, they could all tell the cops, “The goons kept asking me if I could do them a ‘favor.’ No one ever said it was a quid pro quo!”
I suspect you’ll not get any closer to acknowledging the reality that the previous reporting on this subject was plain wrong.
If Trump did literally say that, you may get a few responses:
And I see the pivot is happening here now:
“Biden is bad. His family should be the ones investigated!”
People should be embarrassed to do this.
Requoted from Lance Turbo’s post #341:
As an aside, this is such classic Trump: “I hear all kinds of stuff but for some reason I am completely incapable of determining whether what I’m hearing is accurate or not.”
As much of a bullshit tell as the old “All these world leaders were coming up to me and saying ‘Sir, no president has ever been treated as badly as you’”, which is another classic he apparently trotted out today.
AFAICT, the idea that Viktor Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings and Hunter Biden is a conspiracy theory by John Solomon, and Shokin was actually corrupt as fuck. Please tell me you understand at least that much.
No, you won’t get me to change the subject. Sorry.
I read it. It doesn’t show where President Trump made a “promise” either. It’s perfectly clear in the transcript that he wanted the Ukranians to look into the Crowdstrike server and Hunter Biden’s corruption. What’s not clear is what Ukraine was going to get as a result of doing that. The “promise” from President Trump isn’t there. He doesn’t say something like " do X, Y, and Z and you’ll get your Javelins" or “once you’ve done that, I’ll make sure you get the aid money you’ve been waiting for”. I understand some of you think that’s implied, but it’s not stated, can we agree on at least that basic fact?
So your argument is that, because he was previously reported to have done 8 illegal things, he should get a pass as it was only actually 1 illegal thing (ignoring the fact that this is one of many phone calls in the whistleblowers report)?
That’s an unusual understanding of how the law works.
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And that’s in ONE call.
What about other calls?
What about Trump sending his personal lawyer* Guliani to talk to Ukraine officials about finding dirt on Biden?
*co-conspirator
Also it should be pointed out that pretty much every request that any president makes to a foreign leader implicitly has quid pro quo attached to it. This is how Diplomacy works. Other countries do what the president requests because they think that doing so will improve their relationship with the United States, and failing to do so would hurt this relationship. It doesn’t matter if the specific advantages of acceding to the request, or the consequences of failing to accede are explicitly spelled out. The pressure is there.
Trump had personally withheld the money that Congress had assigned to the Ukraine for defense shortly before this call. The “reasons” for this coming out of the White House were wildly contradictory. Congressional leaders were not happy with this.
You have to be willfully obtuse not to see the obvious connection.
‘The Washington Post reported that the whistleblower complaint had been triggered by a “promise” by Trump. He denies there was any sort of promise or quid pro quo.’
That is not a claim that there is a promise in the transcript of the call. The whistleblower complaint is about more than just one phone call.
Thanks for the additional detail. Doesn’t really change anything regarding Trump’s apparent shakedown of the Ukrainian President, as far as I can see.
‘Senator Sasse (R-NE) after reading the whistleblower complaint: “…Republicans ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons to say there’s no there there when there’s obviously lots that’s very troubling there…”.’
You aren’t familiar with Ditka, are you? The response will be “Well, that’s one opinion. Every law enforcement agency in the Western world believes that Shokin was corrupt as fuck, and some guy on Breitbart feels otherwise. Only a partisan extremist would jump to conclusions about which is more likely to be correct!”
Yes. Yes, you certainly do.