Trump allegedly requests foreign election interference

[SupahEwok]

Isn't the person leading the investigation a Republican. And its dominated by Republicans...

Nope. The investigation is run by the House of Representatives where the majority is currently Democrat, so Democrats occupy the lead positions and majorities on most/all of the subcommittees. However, it's not like the Republicans are cut out of the process: they have representation on the committees and have the right to call and question witnesses.

Impeachment works that the House of Representatives do the "investigation", and then they take a vote to decide whether they think there's sufficient case to move it forwards. If a majority do, the Senate (currently a Republican majority) then run a "trial", and it's their vote that decides whether the accused is guilty or not.

Further, the specific committee in question is the House Intelligence Committee, which is headed by a Democrat and composed of 13 Democrats and 9 Republicans. I don't know if all 22 Representatives have been sitting on these hearings, but I know the Democrat head has been running it and the most senior Republican on the committee has been present to question witnesses. The Democrats are holding the ball on the proceedings, and Republicans aren't being shut out like they cry about. Republicans have just been very loud in trying to disrupt the proceedings, since rabble rousing is what Trump's base lives for and they know it.

 

[tstorm823]

And in fact, totally used by the Republicans [https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/244160-ex-clinton-aide-blumenthal-to-appear-before-benghazi-panel]. They just seem to ignore that fact all the time.

And in your link:

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the Benghazi Committee's top Democrat, has accused the GOP of tactics "straight out the partisan playbook of discredited Republican investigations".

I'm not trying to say the Republicans are all saints and Democrats are the only problem. I'm basically trying to say the same thing as Elijah Cummings. The Democrats tactics in these proceedings have been straight from the partisan playbook of discredited Democratic investigations.

 

[TrulyBritish]

And in fact, totally used by the Republicans [https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/244160-ex-clinton-aide-blumenthal-to-appear-before-benghazi-panel]. They just seem to ignore that fact all the time.

And in your link:

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the Benghazi Committee's top Democrat, has accused the GOP of tactics "straight out the partisan playbook of discredited Republican investigations".

I'm not trying to say the Republicans are all saints and Democrats are the only problem. I'm basically trying to say the same thing as Elijah Cummings. The Democrats tactics in these proceedings have been straight from the partisan playbook of discredited Democratic investigations.

Actually...

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the Benghazi Committee's top Democrat, has accused the GOP of tactics "straight out the partisan playbook of discredited Republican investigations" by leaking news of the subpoena before it was served and using two armed U.S. marshals to deliver it to Blumenthal.

Cummings wasn't disagreeing with the hearings being initially closed doors, at least according to the quote you used.

 

[TrulyBritish]

I'm not sure I follow your logic, if Rudy testifying would clear up that it was Ukraine that was pushing for an investigation into Biden and/or that the Trump admin wasn't doing anything wrong, how is Giuliani going to be taking down republicans?

Because the guys who were funneling information to both the Ukrainians and Giuliani just got arrested for pushing illegal foreign money into republican campaigns.

So Republicans don't want Giuliani to testify because he could expose dirty dealings between Republicans and a foreign nation?

 

[Silvanus]

I'm not trying to say the Republicans are all saints and Democrats are the only problem. I'm basically trying to say the same thing as Elijah Cummings. The Democrats tactics in these proceedings have been straight from the partisan playbook of discredited Democratic investigations.

Ok, to be clear, are you saying that these proceedings should all be open, and that they shouldn't seek corroborating testimony?

I can at least see the reason for the former. The latter would just be ludicrous nonsense.

 

[tstorm823]

Ok, to be clear, are you saying that these proceedings should all be open, and that they shouldn't seek corroborating testimony?

I can at least see the reason for the former. The latter would just be ludicrous nonsense.

Frankly, there's a possibility that these proceedings should never have happened. It's entirely possible that the case was built on information selectively leaked by Democratic operatives from the get-go, and that nobody would ever have gone so far as an investigation had a ridiculous caricature of the event not been thrown into the public consciousness by someone personally motivated to attack Donald Trump.

But I'll entertain Schiff's lies for a moment, and pretend he doesn't know the whistleblower, they never coordinated, neither of them leaked to the press on purpose, etc. And that everything the Democrats are doing was meant to be above board. What do I think they should have done? Had open hearings, yes. Seek corroborating testimony? Sure. But also seek new testimony. Seek the truth. Some have suggested, including the whistleblower, the Ukrainians were aware of the aid freeze well before the real evidence suggests they found out. Who's saying that? Can we look into that? Can we ask a Ukrainian? I understand you can't just demand Andrey Yermak show up in Washington the way you can with Bill Taylor, but why would anyone genuinely try to find out when Ukraine was aware of something by citing anonymous hearsay from Americans? And they should be dragging Giuliani in with every measure of force available to them.

But like, I can't entertain all that. I can't respect the possibility that a group of politicians who wanted to hold a no-Republicans-allowed hearing with the whistleblower have any intention of uncovering the honest truth. May I say something as representative of the pivotal swing state Pennsylvania? Nobody here but me cares about this crap, pretty much everyone I know would prefer they just shut up and get to more important things.

 

[SupahEwok]

But I'll entertain Schiff's lies for a moment, and pretend he doesn't know the whistleblower, they never coordinated, neither of them leaked to the press on purpose, etc. And that everything the Democrats are doing was meant to be above board. What do I think they should have done? Had open hearings, yes. Seek corroborating testimony? Sure. But also seek new testimony. Seek the truth. Some have suggested, including the whistleblower, the Ukrainians were aware of the aid freeze well before the real evidence suggests they found out. Who's saying that? Can we look into that? Can we ask a Ukrainian? I understand you can't just demand Andrey Yermak show up in Washington the way you can with Bill Taylor, but why would anyone genuinely try to find out when Ukraine was aware of something by citing anonymous hearsay from Americans?

Cuz I don't think Congress can subpoena foreigners who are not accused of a crime within the US' jurisdiction?

 

[tstorm823]

Cuz I don't think Congress can subpoena foreigners who are not accused of a crime within the US' jurisdiction?

They can try, it would just carry the weight of most other international legal actions, which is to say exceedingly little. I understand it's not the same thing. But it still stands that this is investigation of a potential criminal exchange between two parties and one of the parties hasn't even been asked for a statement, to my knowledge. It's a hell of a thing to investigate a bribery charge without talking to the person supposedly being bribed.

 

[Silvanus]

Frankly, there's a possibility that these proceedings should never have happened. It's entirely possible that the case was built on information selectively leaked by Democratic operatives from the get-go, and that nobody would ever have gone so far as an investigation had a ridiculous caricature of the event not been thrown into the public consciousness by someone personally motivated to attack Donald Trump.

But I'll entertain Schiff's lies for a moment, and pretend he doesn't know the whistleblower, they never coordinated, neither of them leaked to the press on purpose, etc. And that everything the Democrats are doing was meant to be above board.

Well, lets not pretend that the whistleblower's single narrative was the sole basis for this, because that's patently untrue.

What do I think they should have done? Had open hearings, yes. Seek corroborating testimony? Sure. But also seek new testimony. Seek the truth. Some have suggested, including the whistleblower, the Ukrainians were aware of the aid freeze well before the real evidence suggests they found out. Who's saying that? Can we look into that? Can we ask a Ukrainian? I understand you can't just demand Andrey Yermak show up in Washington the way you can with Bill Taylor, but why would anyone genuinely try to find out when Ukraine was aware of something by citing anonymous hearsay from Americans? And they should be dragging Giuliani in with every measure of force available to them.

Alright. And do you believe that whole line of enquiry is just being ignored? Why, when the depositions are closed and you're not privy to the investigations?

But like, I can't entertain all that. I can't respect the possibility that a group of politicians who wanted to hold a no-Republicans-allowed hearing with the whistleblower have any intention of uncovering the honest truth.

47 Republican congressmen are allowed into the SCIF. Those that "gatecrashed" the deposition a while ago, remember, were already allowed to be there.

It was a stunt, to create a false narrative of political exclusion.

 

[tstorm823]

Alright. And do you believe that whole line of enquiry is just being ignored? Why, when the depositions are closed and you're not privy to the investigations?

Either it's being ignored in all the hearings, or it isn't being ignored and is being excluded from the things selectively leaked to the press. Either way...

47 Republican congressmen are allowed into the SCIF. Those that "gatecrashed" the deposition a while ago, remember, were already allowed to be there.

It was a stunt, to create a false narrative of political exclusion.

That's not what I'm talking about. I forget who said it and I can't find a source anymore, so it's basically just my word here, but when Republicans were demanding Schiff call on the whistleblower to testify, one of the Democrats suggested having the hearing with no Republicans at all in the room as a counter-offer. I only saw it as like a minor note in a bigger article about negotiations on how to have the whistleblower testify anonymously.

 

[Agema]

Frankly, there's a possibility that these proceedings should never have happened. It's entirely possible that the case was built on information selectively leaked by Democratic operatives from the get-go, and that nobody would ever have gone so far as an investigation had a ridiculous caricature of the event not been thrown into the public consciousness by someone personally motivated to attack Donald Trump.

The wealth of information from governmental staff who have given testimony strongly backs up the whistleblower's report, so this not a credible possibility at all. It is not reasonable to see what Volker, Taylor, Hill, Vindman et al. have said and conclude that the whistleblower had no genuine cause for concern irrespective of political loyalties.

That's not what I'm talking about. I forget who said it and I can't find a source anymore, so it's basically just my word here, but when Republicans were demanding Schiff call on the whistleblower to testify, one of the Democrats suggested having the hearing with no Republicans at all in the room as a counter-offer. I only saw it as like a minor note in a bigger article about negotiations on how to have the whistleblower testify anonymously.

It's hard to put any particularly meaning on that. Was it an absurd counter-offer to illustrate how unreasonable an initial request was? A joke or idle speculation from one lone idiot? Does it reflect the fact the Republicans have created a gebuine concern they may maliciously and punitively leak the whistleblower's identity? Who knows.

 

[Silvanus]

That's not what I'm talking about. I forget who said it and I can't find a source anymore, so it's basically just my word here, but when Republicans were demanding Schiff call on the whistleblower to testify, one of the Democrats suggested having the hearing with no Republicans at all in the room as a counter-offer. I only saw it as like a minor note in a bigger article about negotiations on how to have the whistleblower testify anonymously.

And you consider that robust enough to state as fact and to form the basis for an argument about Democrats' lack of good faith?

...You were criticising us for confirmation bias and placing undue weight.

I'm sorry, this is just getting absurd.

 

[tstorm823]

The wealth of information from governmental staff who have given testimony strongly backs up the whistleblower's report, so this not a credible possibility at all. It is not reasonable to see what Volker, Taylor, Hill, Vindman et al. have said and conclude that the whistleblower had no genuine cause for concern irrespective of political loyalties.

You mean all those officials, with much greater first hand information, none of whom blew the whistle publicly, gave testimony that they see nothing criminal about the President's behavior and were never instructed to withhold aid until they agreed to investigate the Bidens?

Ask yourself a question: how did the Ukrainians find out there was a deliberate hold on the aid? The whistleblower complaint claimed they knew before the complaint was filed, but the other evidence we have strongly suggests otherwise, that they didn't know for weeks after until it was publicly reported. August 26th, the complaint is passed up to the Director of National Intelligence, with a due date to act on it or quash it by September 2nd, and on August 30th someone in the know leaks the hold on the aid to the press. That's when Taylor is asking about whether that is a real exchange going on and writing wires about the problem. After that's when Sondland is calling Trump asking if there's a quid pro quo. All these people are worried about the situation because of what they read in the news. Who told the news? Because that person was deliberately engineering a sense of impropriety to lend credibility to the whistleblower. That person risked the breakdown of international relations to make Trump look bad.

And you consider that robust enough to state as fact and to form the basis for an argument about Democrats' lack of good faith?

...You were criticising us for confirmation bias and placing undue weight.

I'm sorry, this is just getting absurd.

Pause a second. Stop trying to beat me and answer honestly. Do you think the Democrats are acting in good faith?

 

[Agema]

You mean all those officials, with much greater first hand information, none of whom blew the whistle publicly, gave testimony that they see nothing criminal about the President's behavior and were never instructed to withhold aid until they agreed to investigate the Bidens?

None of those people have testified that Trump did nothing criminal - that's a mendacious distortion on your part.

As I said in a previous post some way back, whistleblowing is very rare. But Taylor threatened to resign. Volker, when his role in events was exposed, did resign. Hill was concerned, and also told by John Bolton to inform NSC lawyers. Yes, these guys all knew something was wrong.

Ask yourself a question: how did the Ukrainians find out there was a deliberate hold on the aid? The whistleblower complaint claimed they knew before the complaint was filed,

The whistleblower complaint states that "some Ukrainian officials were aware that US aid may be in jeopardy". There is supporting evidence that indeed they were. However, this does not mean Ukrainian officials knew any specifics about why the aid they were supposed to have received hadn't arrived.

Pause a second. Stop trying to beat me and answer honestly. Do you think the Democrats are acting in good faith?

That is just a red herring.

 

[Silvanus]

Pause a second. Stop trying to beat me and answer honestly. Do you think the Democrats are acting in good faith?

I think the purpose of the impeachment procedure (as far as the Democrats are concerned) is not genuinely to remove the President, and that they know their chances of success in the Senate are exceedingly slim. I think that to a degree, the purpose is PR: dragging this all into the open, with an eye on the upcoming election.

I don't give a damn about "beating" some guy I've never met on the internet. You're highly unlikely to be convinced, and pretty much everyone else here has already made up their minds anyway. Hell, I don't even have a vote in the US Presidential.

But I do have some tangential interest in getting the story straight. So, if some nonsense comes up about "no-Republicans-allowed" depositions, it should be nipped in the bud before anybody pays it undue credence. The US Government at the moment relies on throwing a hundred dubious conspiracy theories around, knowing that a few will take root regardless and help to undermine the credibility of the legal process.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

But I do have some tangential interest in getting the story straight.

You see, there's your problem. You're trying to deal with a situation in a thought out manner.

The only time I've seen the Republicans answer a question as it was straight asked is when it's on Fox News and it's softball question that makes their base feel safe or happy.

When asked direct questions by other sources, The vast amount of Republicans veer off and never talk about what was asked. And when it's brought up again, they'll deflect with saying "That's not known", "That's suggested but we don't know the facts", or "I don't know about that".

... And then literally bring up topics that are just thought processes themselves. It's massively disheartening watching what happened to this party. I never agreed with most of their politics before, but I respected the hell out of them when I was growing up.

 

[tstorm823]

None of those people have testified that Trump did nothing criminal - that's a mendacious distortion on your part.

No distortion. Republicans were asking most of them point blank things like: "do you have evidence the President committed a crime", "do you believe President Trump was committing a crime?", etc. They said no. That's not subtle, I'm not reading into things. There were many reasonable concerns about things being bad policy, but bad policy isn't an impeachable offense (or there'd be no Democrats in office). Hell, when Volker was testifying about disagreeing with Trump's position on Ukraine, he was defending it at the same time, saying the history of corruption in Ukraine more than justifies skepticism and it was his responsibility to sell Trump on Zelenskyy. I'm not distorting things, I'm listening to what people actually said.

As I said in a previous post some way back, whistleblowing is very rare. But Taylor threatened to resign. Volker, when his role in events was exposed, did resign. Hill was concerned, and also told by John Bolton to inform NSC lawyers. Yes, these guys all knew something was wrong.

Taylor threatened to resign if Ukraine didn't get the aid because Taylor only agreed to the post given the premise that US support for Ukraine was stronger than ever. That's not threatening to resign because of a crime, that's threatening to resign because of policy disagreements. He made that abundantly clear numerous times in his testimony, he's only agreed to his role in Ukraine so long as the US supports Ukraine. Volker's testimony had a lot about how Ukrainians trusted him and that trust allowed him to operate well, and testified that he resigned against the desires of the State Department because he personally felt he couldn't fill that role effectively while in the middle of an impeachment inquiry. By their own description, neither of these people wanted to resign based on "something being wrong".

But I do have some tangential interest in getting the story straight. So, if some nonsense comes up about "no-Republicans-allowed" depositions, it should be nipped in the bud before anybody pays it undue credence.

You can rest assured, you didn't set the record straight. You didn't even know what I was referring to, in fact.

For the record, I found it. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-democrats-consider-masking-identity-of-whistleblower-from-trumps-gop-allies-in-congress/2019/10/07/171a4b14-e927-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html]

Democrats overseeing the logistics of the testimony for the House impeachment inquiry are leaning toward a staff-only session that would prevent lawmakers from attending and asking questions, according to officials familiar with the conversations.

Which is to say they wanted to keep the actual elected officials out of the room, for the explicit purpose of hiding the identity from Republicans. You can guess yourself whose staff is allowed in and whose questions they'd be asking. Hence, no-Republicans-allowed.

 

[tstorm823]

When asked direct questions by other sources, The vast amount of Republicans veer off and never talk about what was asked. And when it's brought up again, they'll deflect with saying "That's not known", "That's suggested but we don't know the facts", or "I don't know about that".

That's not a Republican or Democratic thing, that's just all politicians. I agree in a sense, I also hate the answer avoidance, but I'm willing to give them all a break on it, because I don't think it's malice. Public speaking is not easy in the first place, but it's very difficult to effectively speak candidly when anything you say can be cut down to a sound bite and used as clickbait. So instead, most of the statements by politicians are rehearsed, and when the press asks a question that they didn't expect they try to divert their answer over to something they've planned and practiced ahead of time. Televised debates especially are all about anticipating the questions and criticisms beforehand, because none of these people are really that good at improv, nor should they need to be.

 

[Silvanus]

You can rest assured, you didn't set the record straight. You didn't even know what I was referring to, in fact.

For the record, I found it. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-democrats-consider-masking-identity-of-whistleblower-from-trumps-gop-allies-in-congress/2019/10/07/171a4b14-e927-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html]

Democrats overseeing the logistics of the testimony for the House impeachment inquiry are leaning toward a staff-only session that would prevent lawmakers from attending and asking questions, according to officials familiar with the conversations.

Which is to say they wanted to keep the actual elected officials out of the room, for the explicit purpose of hiding the identity from Republicans. You can guess yourself whose staff is allowed in and whose questions they'd be asking. Hence, no-Republicans-allowed.

No, I'm not going to "guess myself", because I'm not going to entertain speculation. I want details.

And from that article, there's... several approaches considered (but not gone ahead with) which include one to exclude legislators altogether (so, not based on party). Jesus, that's a weak basis.

And I wonder why they've been forced to prioritise the whistleblower's anonymity from legislators to begin with...?

Of the whistleblower, Trump has said that he wants to?meet his ?accuser? and has warned of ?Big Consequences.

...hmmm. It also notes that Republicans leaked the names of those attending for interviews. So, classic intimidation and veiled threats.

 

[tstorm823]

No, I'm not going to "guess myself", because I'm not going to entertain speculation. I want details.

And from that article, there's... several approaches considered (but not gone ahead with) which include one to exclude legislators altogether (so, not based on party). Jesus, that's a weak basis.

And I wonder why they've been forced to prioritise the whistleblower's anonymity from legislators to begin with...?

...hmmm. It also notes that Republicans leaked the names of those attending for interviews. So, classic intimidation and veiled threats.

For context, the whistleblower's name has been basically public information for a very long time, people guessed it about a week before that article. That's when it changed from "whistleblower getting ready to testify" to "well, secretly testify". Shortly after that, Schiff released Bill Taylor's testimony which mentioned the name unredacted, at which point they stopped entertaining the idea of whistleblower testimony at all. Probably because said person left the White House over concerns of press leaks, and acknowledging that identity would really hurt the credibility of the information.

Republicans demanding the identity of the whistleblower are doing so because they know who it is and know it would basically torpedo the whole inquiry. Schiff denies that he knows (despite knowing before the person was even a whistleblower to begin with) because he knows it would torpedo the whole inquiry.