Exactly.
You don't matter in the democratic election. You were never voting that way anyway.
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The official "let's impeach Trump" thread
- Thread starter colton
- Start date
You don't matter in the democratic election. You were never voting that way anyway.
Sent from my SM-G973U using JazzFanz mobile app
If Ukraine's gas company was paying Joe Biden's son Hunter $50k per month in order to gain influence with Biden during the Obama administration, and if Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion from Ukraine unless they fired a state prosecutor who was supposed to investigate corruption (something he admitted at the CFR), then what.....you're okay with this? Because this actually is abuse of power, the very thing that Dems are accusing Trump of doing. The difference is that Biden is on tape admitting it and bragging about it to the Council on Foreign Relations.
But if Trump calls on Ukraine to investigate corruption, that's tantamount to trying to get a foreign power to dig up dirt on a political opponent?
What's likely to happen is that the "dirt" on Biden is going to get exposed, and it's going to take Biden out of the race for the 2020 nomination.
Here's a worthwhile NPR article --
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Yeah, I wouldn't call Goldberg a conservative. Or if he somehow is, he's an anti-Trump conservative. And thank goodness, I can click that quote to enlarge it some more.
Zombie
Well-Known Member
I knew I'd be needing this post by @sirkickyass by the end of the day-
Important background information:
Victor Yanukovych was the Russian backed president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He's an important figure in the US/Ukrainian relationship for a couple reasons.
1. Paul Manafort worked on Yanukovich's political campaigns, funded largely with the help of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, including his 2010 Presidential campaign. He did so even though the US government opposed Yanukovich's candidacy - effectively working AGAINST stated US interests in the region. Manafort later was Trump's campaign manager during the critical primary and convention period. (Source: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/politics/mueller-search-warrants-manafort/index.html). Manafort was ultimately convicted of crimes related to this work.
2. Yanukoych's work as President of Ukraine ultimately led to a revolution in the country in the 2014. I've posted pictures of the Maidan before where the revolution happened. The country largely revolted over Yanukovych corruptly turning his back on further integration with the West through a cooperation agreement with the European Union. Yanukovych did so because he was personally profiting by stronger relationships with Europe. He committed treason against his country as president by putting his own financial interests ahead of Ukraine's. Yanukovych has been in exile in Southern Russia for more than five years and was convicted, in absentia, of treason. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych )
These dates, and names are important because Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a large oil and gas extraction company in Ukraine, approximately two months after the Euromaidan revolution. Further, Burisma was founded by Mykola Zlochevsky, who was a Yanukovich political ally, to the extent that he served as the minister of ecology and natural resources during the early portions of the Yanukovich administration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykola_Zlochevsky
The investigation into Burisma holdings was tied to Zlochevsky's position as the minister of ecology and natural resources. This is a position that he held from 2010 -2012. Zlochevksy later had a position on the national security council in Ukraine from 2012, until the government collapsed in February 2014. The allegation (probably true) was that Zlochevksy used his position in the government to grant his own companies, including Burisma, licenses that it would not have otherwise gotten. In effect, self-dealing. (Source: https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/trump-whistleblower-scandal-explained-from-ukraine.html) . No one has EVER alleged that any of those activities occurred after Hunter Biden was named to the board of Burisma - a few months after Zlochevsky and Yanukovich fled the country. As a result, it is completely and utterly incorrect to suggest that any prosecutor in Ukraine was ever looking into Hunter Biden personally. The conduct that Burisma was investigated for happened entirely before he was ever involved with the company.
The Prosecutor:
Viktor Shokin is the former general prosecutor of Ukraine, and was appointed in 2015 - some three years after the investigation into Zlovhevsky's activities had been initiated. After the 2014 revolution, the position of general prosecutor turned over several times. Shokin was the third general prosecutor appointed to the position in twelve months. Several allies of the Yanukovych administration remained in various governmental positions and were frustrating investigations into the previous administration by stonewalling and hiding information. Prosecutors had been sabotaging investigations into Zlochevsky's activities since at least 2014, more than a year before Shokin came into office. (Source (Russian language): https://gordonua.com/news/politics/...r_cju1d0zj90sut8gci7ucvnbxaeb9jqfeas8woba4f30 )
Shokin was prosecutor for barely a year and was INTENSELY unpopular in Ukraine, public protests were held demanding his resignation approximately six months before Joe Biden pushed for his firing. (Source: https://www.unian.info/society/1170...nce-demanding-shokins-resignation-photos.html). The irony here is that the complaint was that Shokin was not doing ENOUGH to prosecute old corruption cases. Shokin was not a anti corruption crusader who was looking into the wrong people. In fact, under Shokin's watch, the Ukrainian government agreed to unfreeze $23.5 million worth of property claimed by Zlochevsky. Shokin was a non-functioning officer in a country with deep seated corruption problems who was not actively prosecuting these cases.
There is also no indication that Shokin took any particular interest in the Burisma case until there was an opportunity for reprisal against Joe Biden. The best English language Kyiv newspaper was unable to find any public statements by Shokin about Burisma or Hunter Biden while in office. ( https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/trump-whistleblower-scandal-explained-from-ukraine.html ). As a result, there's literally no reason for anyone to believe that either Joe or Hunter Biden perceived Shokin as a personal threat. For there to be a conflict of interest, they would have to know that Shokin was actually potentially a detriment to their personal fortunes. There is no evidence that this was true.
Feel free to share with all your conservative friends. And I'm willing to answer follow up questions. Reading the GOP story about this whole thing is beyond frustrating if you follow the local news there.
Zombie
Well-Known Member
Lol, yeah man. Jonah Goldberg, Sr Editor for the National Review for two decades, author of the book titled "Liberal Fascism" isn't a conservative.
K.
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D
Deleted member 365
Guest
Rudy must really hate Pompeo
Wait does Rudy admit at 0:35 that he’s read the classified transcript??? That’s legal?
Wait does Rudy admit at 0:35 that he’s read the classified transcript??? That’s legal?
D
Deleted member 365
Guest
I love how radical right wingers are eating each other. I’m guessing Pompeo and Rudy are going to be ratting each other out by the weekend. Mick “is going to have his turn in the barrel.”
Anyone else remember that one from Steve Bannon?
Zombie
Well-Known Member
My read on today's reporting and Giuliani's appearances on Fox News is that they are all rushing to throw each other under the bus as quickly as they can.
Okay, interesting. Thanks for sharing...
The article below was just posted by Washington Post, which is clearly a much more 'liberal' and anti-Trump publication. It's a story like this that makes me think the Dems know full well that they're throwing Biden under the bus.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...tigation-might-do-more-hurt-biden-than-trump/
Democrats’ double standard on Ukraine
By Marc A. Thiessen
We don’t yet know whether President Trump delayed some military aid to Ukraine as leverage to get Ukraine’s president to reopen an investigation into Hunter Biden. But if we are concerned about U.S. officials inappropriately threatening aid to Ukraine, then there are others who have some explaining to do.
It got almost no attention, but in May, CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as “strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine,” the Democratic senators declared, “We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump,” before demanding Lutsenko “reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.”
So, it’s okay for Democratic senators to encourage Ukraine to investigate Trump, but it’s not okay for the president to allegedly encourage Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden?
Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) says President Trump's alleged misuse of his office has raised a new level of concern. (Joshua Carroll/The Washington Post)
This weekend, Biden told reporters, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” That is flatly untrue. Hunter admitted in an interview with the New Yorker that his father expressed concern about the Burisma post at least once: “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’” Moreover, the New Yorker reports that, “In December, 2015, as Joe Biden prepared to return to Ukraine, his aides braced for renewed scrutiny of Hunter’s relationship with Burisma. Amos Hochstein, the Obama Administration’s special envoy for energy policy, raised the matter with Biden.” That same month, the New York Times published an article about how Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine undermined the vice president’s anti-corruption message, which quoted a Biden spokesman saying it had no impact.
So, Biden was fully aware of his son’s involvement with Burisma when he pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor in 2016. He should have known that his using U.S. aid as leverage to force the prosecutor’s dismissal would create, at a bare minimum, the appearance of a conflict of interest. Federal ethics regulations require “all employees to recuse themselves from participating in an official matter if their impartiality would be questioned.” Biden violated these rules. Imagine if Trump pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who was investigating a company that employed Donald Trump Jr. as a board member. No one would be giving Trump a pass.
On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that Congress will initiate a formal impeachment inquiry over the Ukraine episode, a move Joe Biden endorsed in a speech, declaring, “It’s time for the Congress to fully investigate the conduct of this president.” Such an investigation will be far more damaging for Biden than the president. It will keep the story of Biden’s conflict of interest in the news through the 2020 election. Millions of Americans will learn the word “Burisma.” Senate Republicans can demand that Hunter Biden testify, and subpoena Obama White House aides such as Hochstein to explain under oath what the vice president knew and when he knew it.
Put aside the prosecutor’s firing. Hunter took the position with a Ukrainian natural gas company just a few weeks after his father visited Ukraine in 2014 to urge its government to increase its natural gas production. Hunter Biden had no expertise in Ukraine or natural gas. It will not just be Republicans calling this suspicious; nonpartisan experts in ethics law will testify that this a major conflict of interest.
And the focus will not just be on Ukraine but also how, as The Post reported, “for more than two decades, [Hunter’s] professional work often tracked with his father’s life in politics, from Washington to Ukraine to China.” Trump will use an investigation to paint Joe Biden as a creature of the Washington swamp who used his official position to enrich his son. While Senate Republicans will not remove Trump from office, Democratic primary voters might decide that Biden and his troubles are a distraction they do not need. The irony is the Democrats’ investigation might do more to deny Biden the presidency than Trump.
Zombie
Well-Known Member
Honestly. If John Bolton turns out to be the whistle blower, he'll be branded a leftist Trump hater within an hour.