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Trump asked a foreign country to investigate the family of his political opponent leading up to an election. This does not "look terrible for Biden." This looks terrible for Trump. Fox News' own Andrew Napolitano, the network's senior judicial analyst, said "it is a crime for the president to solicit aid for his campaign from a foreign government."

Also, the transcript is not some end all be all component that will either indict or exonerate Trump. The whistleblower report was withheld from congress. This is explicitly a crime.

Whether you're Republican or otherwise, it is worth recognizing this for what it is.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

Did you read the transcript? Ukraine brings up Giulliani first, as well as "that investigation," so I am not sure where you see this as a direct request.

Secondly, any campaign finance law violation was already investigated by the DOJ and found to not exist. Neither of these crimes are real.

To the extent Trump asked Giulliani to reach out, how could you not think that's because Ukraine said they are excited to meet him out of nowhere?

 

Illegal or not, doesn't it concern you the President of the United States has leveraged his political power to pressure a foreign power to run an investigation solely to seek personal political gain and re-election?

 

Don't forget he may have withheld military aid to Ukraine (aid meant to bolster defenses against Russia) in an attempt to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating Biden. Partisan politics is dangerous because it obfuscates rational thinking, which damages democracy and encourages demagogues. The current political climate displays why democracies around the world are so fragile, imo.

Array
 
CRE:
Trump asked a foreign country to investigate the family of his political opponent leading up to an election. This does not "look terrible for Biden." This looks terrible for Trump. Fox News' own Andrew Napolitano, the network's senior judicial analyst, said "it is a crime for the president to solicit aid for his campaign from a foreign government."

Also, the transcript is not some end all be all component that will either indict or exonerate Trump. The whistleblower report was withheld from congress. This is explicitly a crime.

Whether you're Republican or otherwise, it is worth recognizing this for what it is.

Lol. Zelensky brought up Giuliani, not Trump.

And yes, Biden demanding the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor is pretty bad, for Biden.

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 
neink:
CRE:
Trump asked a foreign country to investigate the family of his political opponent leading up to an election. This does not "look terrible for Biden." This looks terrible for Trump. Fox News' own Andrew Napolitano, the network's senior judicial analyst, said "it is a crime for the president to solicit aid for his campaign from a foreign government."

Also, the transcript is not some end all be all component that will either indict or exonerate Trump. The whistleblower report was withheld from congress. This is explicitly a crime.

Whether you're Republican or otherwise, it is worth recognizing this for what it is.

Lol. Zelensky brought up Biden, not Trump.

This can be disproven by just reading the transcript. Trump was the first person to bring up Biden.

 

This looks real bad for Trump. The President of the US just asked a foreign leader to work with his personal attorney and the U.S. Attorney General to investigate his political opponent. What absolute idiot thought it was a good idea to release this record of the call?

This also looks terrible for Barr. Barr's DOJ tried to prevent the whistleblower complaint from being released, and then it turns out Barr is implicated in the call as well.

 

I think there's a line between what Biden did and what Trump has been (reasonably credibly) accused of doing. With Biden, there's a broader public policy goal being served by his demands to have the former PG fired. That particular Prosecutor General had issues with the truth, and a pattern of going after Poroshenko's enemies. That Biden's son could have benefited is concerning, and definitely something that I would hope would have required some very careful diligence and scrutiny by the counsel's office. However, there's a fairly good argument that this was an ancillary issue, and not the general thrust (which was to clean up the rampant corruption in a government that was later brought down largely by the public's frustration with corruption in government).

Trump's call has absolutely no similar analogy. Trump's call wasn't about improving on corruption culture in Ukraine. It wasn't serving a US domestic or foreign policy interest. There was no credible rationale for doing this - beyond that it was good personally for Trump in 2020. That politicians act in ways that will give them political benefit is a given - however the important thing is to align the public's interest with getting the political benefit (e.g. fund building a major infrastructure project in an area to get support, give a tax cut to a portion of the population, refuse a permit to build a nuisance facility in an area - that's a kind of 'corruption' but it serves a public interest). This had none of that - it was naked and pure private interest.

It's also worth noting how it was done. It wasn't done by Trump saying "I'll donate $100M of my own organization money if you do this". That has its own concerns, but at least you can credibly say it's him acting privately (though that raises Logan Act concerns). But here there was money already appropriated by Congress and pledged to Ukraine, and he was withholding the public money pending the accomplishment of his private gain.

 

The white house gets to decide what gets released to the public and as a result, a rational person would be skeptical about the content of the transcript. This information would have to be paired with testimony from the whistle blower to result in a serious crime. With that said, it may be a crime to ask an official from a foreign country to investigate a political opponent.

 

Here is the ACTUAL TRANSCRIPT, NOT THE NOTES.

UNCLASSIFIED Declassified by order of the President September 24, 2019 MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION SUBJECT: Telephone Conversation with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine Participants: President Zelenskyy of Ukraine Notetakers: The White House Situation Room Date, Time July 25, 2019, 9:03-9:33 am EDT and Place: Residence

The President: Congratulations on a great victory. We all watched from the United States and you did a terrific job. The way you came from behind, somebody who wasn't given much of a chance, and you ended up winning easily. It's a fantastic achievement. Congratulations.

President Zelenskyy: You are absolutely right Mr. President. We did win big and we worked hard for this. We worked a lot but I would like to confess to you that I had an opportunity to learn from you. We used quite a few of your skills and knowledge and were able to use it as an example for our elections and yes it is true that these were unique elections. We were in a unique situation that we were able to achieve a unique success. I'm able to tell you the following; the first time you called me to congratulate me when I won my presidential election, and the second time you are now calling me when my party won the parliamentary election. I think I should run more often so you can call me more often and we can talk over the phone more often.

The President: (laughter) That's a very good idea. I think your country is very happy about that.

President Zelenskyy: Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government. You are a great teacher for us and in that.

The President: Well it is very nice of you to say that. I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are. Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk and I think it's something that you should really ask them about. When I was speaking to Angela Merkel she talks Ukraine, but she ·doesn't do anything. A lot of the European countries are the same way so I think it's something you want to look at but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.

President Zelenskyy: Yes you are absolutely right. Not only 100%, but actually 1000% and I can tell you the following; I did talk to Angela Merkel and I did meet with her I also met and talked with Macron and I told them that they are not doing quite as much as they need to be doing on the issues with the sanctions. They are not enforcing the sanctions. They are not working as much as they should work for Ukraine. It turns out that even though logically, the European Union should be our biggest partner but technically the United States is a much bigger partner than the European Union and I'm very grateful to you for that because the United States is doing quite a lot for Ukraine. Much more than the European Union especially when we are talking about sanctions against the Russian Federation. I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost. ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.

President Zelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I can assure you.

The President: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.

President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all, I understand and I'm knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.

The President: Well, she's going to go through some things. I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It's a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, their incredible people.

President Zelenskyy: I would like to tell you that I also have quite a few Ukrainian friends that live in the United States. Actually last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them again in the future. I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington DC. On the other hand, I also want to ensure you that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation. As to the economy, there is much potential for our two countries and one of the issues that is very important for Ukraine is energy independence. I believe we can be very successful and cooperating on energy independence with United States. We are already working on cooperation. We are buying American oil but I am very hopeful for a future meeting. We will have more time and more opportunities to discuss these opportunities and get to know each other better. I would like to thank you very much for your support.

The President: Good. Well, thank you very much and I appreciate that. I will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call. Thank you. Whenever you would like to come to the White House, feel free to call. Give us a date and we'll work that out. I look forward to seeing you.

President Zelenskyy: Thank you very much. I would be very happy to come and would be happy to meet with you personally and get to know you better. I am looking forward to our meeting and I also would like to invite you to visit Ukraine and come to the city of Kyiv which is a beautiful city. We have a beautiful country which would welcome you. On the other hand, I believe that on September 1 we will be in Poland and we can meet in Poland hopefully. After that, it might be a very good idea for you to travel to Ukraine. We can either take my plane and go to Ukraine or we can take your plane, which is probably much better than mine.

The President: Okay, we can work that out. I look forward to seeing you in Washington and maybe in Poland because I think we are going to be there at that time.

President Zelenskyy: Thank you very much Mr. President.

The President: Congratulations on a fantastic job you've done. The whole world was watching. I'm not sure it was so much of an upset but congratulations.

President Zelenskyy: Thank you Mr. President bye-bye.

    • End of conversation - -
Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.
 

OK so how does this look like anything other than Trump asking for a quid pro quo, with American aid being "traded" for Mr. Zelensky re-opening an investigation into Mr. Trump's political opponent? Zelensky even says that he understands that this is connected to "everything you mentioned earlier."

Moreover, this isn't a incident in isolated. Couple it with the fact that the White House actively intervened, in contravention of an existing law, to keep a (self-evidently) valid complaint from reaching Congress. Couple it with the fact that Mr. Trump has a long history of having senior officials coordinate with foreign governments for the purposes of influence domestic political campaigns.

This should absolutely be considered an impeachable offense. A sitting President asks a foreign country to investigate a political opponent. He also offers the time and help of American officials to coordinate that investigation (and in what possible scenario should the Attorney General spend a single cent of the taxpayers dime, e.g. his time, in helping a foreign gov't?). He also does all of this under the auspice of Congressional funding that hasn't been delivered. Hell, Mr Trump explicitly states that this could be considered a reciprocal arrangement.

Obviously even if it results in impeachment, the Senate won't do shit, because the GOP has long since forgotten that their oaths are not to party or President, but to the Constitution, and this is clearly an instance of a President violating the Constitution by stepping on the feet of Congress' power of the purse.

Moreover, since the obvious rebuttal is "what about Biden"... the decision to pressure Ukraine to remove their investigator was because he wasn't doing enough. I'm not sure how much more strongly I can state that. Putting aside the fact that it isn't Biden's decision to make (unlike Mr Trump who does have actual executive authority), VP Biden essentially pressured Ukraine to appoint an investigator who would do more to investigate the company for which his son was affiliated, not less. Obviously you'll never hear that on Fox, because why would you expect accurate reporting there, but it's worth mentioning. Motive matters.

 
Ozymandia:
OK so how does this look like anything other than Trump asking for a quid pro quo,

It doesn't. The fact that this isn't a 200+ post thread is already telling.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

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