Bolton’s book will publish on March 17th anyway, it will all come out. Republicans who denied Bolton’s testimony will look like assholes to a public that supported testimony/witnesses by 75%.
If the White House tries to stymie Bolton from publishing, I expect more leaks will come out.
So much news has broken the past week or so that I just read the following and made a connection. And I’m wondering where I’m wrong in this.
The April 2018 meeting between Trump, Parnas, and others… the video ABC broke on Friday… Rudy wasn’t at the dinner was he?
No, he wasn’t. Nor was he involved in the Parnas scheme until, as the Wall Street Journal reports:
So, to me, the WSJ timeline suggests that the idea of all this came from Parnas (well, his backer), Rudy was subsequently tasked by Trump to do this, and that Rudy… to get paid… took Parnas on as a client, then started being all Rudy Colludy
The above sequence strongly suggests that all this was done at Trump’s behest from the very beginning, and it was done at the behest of a President who was convinced to do this by a man working for an ex-Communist plutocrat.
I think it’s a trap. I think he has the votes, but he doesn’t want to appear to be the one closing the door. This “leak” could be done with the hope that someone will demand a vote, which will then fail. Door closed.
Maybe, but I’m not sure what this would gain McConnell – the Democrats will surely demand a vote on witnesses no matter what. They’d want the vulnerable Republicans to be on record as rejecting witnesses.
the states with the senators who are saying they will allow witnesses will suddenly get promises of pork barrel projects. Roads, dams, buildings, etc. a couple billion here and there and boom ,no witnesses
Interesting to look at the sub-questions in that poll;
37% Trump did nothing wrong, should not be removed by Senate
8% Trump DID do something wrong, but should not be removed by Senate
47% Trump should be removed by Senate
You’re not missing anything. This scheme to smear Biden goes back long before Trump moved to withhold the aid from Ukraine. I know I’ve followed it to as far back as April 2018 – a full year before Trump embarked on actively withholding Ukraine aid.
There are Russian fingerprints all over what Trump was up to. It’s not hard to imagine that in at least one of Trump’s 16 private conversations with Putin (WaPo) there may have been some instruction on how to get Russia off the hook for 2016 election interference, allowing sanctions to be lifted, which has always been Putin’s primary goal.
No doubt Putin understood that the easiest way to entice Trump to carry out the crazy scheme to blame Ukraine instead of Russia for the 2016 election interference was to make sure there was something in it for Trump. That something was smearing Trump’s chief rival in the upcoming 2020 election.
And let’s not forget Dimitro Firtash (NBC) in all this, a billionaire who made his money in natural gas and who “loaned” Parnas a million bucks in September 2019 for… one wonders. Firtash is mobbed up with the Russians and a close associate of Paul Manafort.
MulderMuffin, that makes sense, thank you. I’m having more trouble than you believing there is still anyone in the NSC who would dare to leak anything that could bring down the Vindman Treatment on their heads, but I suppose it’s possible.
I think during the next election, voters will be reminded of the military projects that Trump stole the money from to build his Ego Wall that a ladder can circumvent.
It’s not going to go over well in many, many districts for many Republicans
Just from reading the news summaries, it is hard not to notice that the GOP message is:
-We can’t convict Trump because we can’t get at what motives are in his head.
-We can’t call Bolton because he is just smearing the president to sell his book.
-Also, the Dems are doing this whole illigitimate impeachment thingy because they are just trying to tilt the election. The 25,000 page set of evidence from their inquiry is a total nothingburger, and the fact that their story is consistent and backed by sworn testimony and evidence is just sophistry and not proof of shenanigans.
And that’s just scratching the surface. There’s just so much corruption around these characters.
There’s the stuff with Rick Perry, trying to get Ukraine to fire the board of Naftogaz so they could install corrupt people. There’s the stuff with businessman and energy executive Dale Perry, who was alarmed by so much brazen corruption that he wrote a letter to the State Department. So much corruption.
I think they will do as TroutMan suggests. But it’s also possible that the “goods in Ukraine” that Sage Rat mentions could include invented dirt that will be produced with a flourish and shoved into the face of Hunter or Joe (or both, if they are both called to testify).
This signed contract proves that you were part of a scheme to run a child sex ring out of the basement of a pierogi parlor in Kiev! And this one proves that you were part of a scheme to weaken American embassies! And this one proves that you were part of a scheme to devalue our currency! And this one proves that you were plotting against our glorious President!
There’s no limit to what they could come up with, really. It’s not as though anyone would be willing or able to stop them.
I’m not sure what it would gain him beyond possibly making the Democrats look like gung-ho crusaders who thought they were high and mighty… but alas, the people have spoken. And he gets what he wants (no witnesses) AND he makes the Dems look weak and confused. Win-win for McConnell and the GOP and Trump.
But look at the recent GOP track record on this kind of thing.
“Oh, there’ll be no work done today in the North Carolina legislature! Go ahead and leave!”
“Oh, sure, go ahead and nominate someone for SCOTUS!”
Etc., etc.
The GOP cannot be trusted. So stop trusting them. At all. At any time.