Mega-Thread: Impeachment Proceedings & Inquiry of Trump

[Bakis]

Look on the bright side even though it's sad.
US and UK gives the rest of us so many laughs nowadays that we can forget our own miserable problems.

Not even Italian politics also known as kindergarten nor French strikes with farmers dumping dung on highways could keep us joyful this long.

[Edge-]

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-in-fox-...153629130.html

Trump is still chasing nonsense, debunked theories of DNC servers in Ukraine.

Seriously, someone put racist grandpa who forwards chain emails with all caps subject lines to bed.

[cubby]

A) it’s not a felony for the President to engage with a foreign power in a tit for tat manner, that’s called diplomacy

It's entirely a felony. Bribery is a felony. Extortion is a felony. If you're unsure about those charges just ask. But this isn't some playground exchange of shooter marbles. Trump withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for assistance with his election efforts. That is 100% illegal in the United States.

B) motive is about as clear as mud and motive is important here because it’s literally the difference between something potentially impeachable and something much more benign

Motive is as clear as a mountain spring. Dirt on Biden, who is Trump's political rival and a candidate for the Presidency. Trump's actions were and are illegal. If you need clarification on any of the above points, just ask.

[Edge-]

https://www.businessinsider.com/watc...chment-2019-11

And again, Trump just...admit's it in public. He held up the aide to Ukraine because he bought into the debunked Crowdstrike theory and apparently didn't want to believe the Pentagon, who certified that Ukraine was making sufficient progress with their anti-corruption efforts to release the funding.

"We're looking for corruption, there's tremendous corruption, and why should we be giving hundreds of millions of dollars to countries where there's this kind of corruption?"

Then why didn't he mention this corruption on either of his "perfect" calls with Zelensky?

Why is Trump sill pushing debunked theories promoted by Russian propaganda?

[omerome]

https://www.businessinsider.com/watc...chment-2019-11

And again, Trump just...admit's it in public. He held up the aide to Ukraine because he bought into the debunked Crowdstrike theory and apparently didn't want to believe the Pentagon, who certified that Ukraine was making sufficient progress with their anti-corruption efforts to release the funding.



Then why didn't he mention this corruption on either of his "perfect" calls with Zelensky?

Why is Trump sill pushing debunked theories promoted by Russian propaganda?

But hey, as long as he didn't SAY he bribed them, he did nothing wrong. AMIRITE? SMH.

Why the people who say these hearings did not change their mind, nor will anything change their mind boggles my mind. I guess they are a-okay with corruption.

[Cthulhu 2020]

How can the hardcore GOP Trump supporters still even be in his corner with a straight face? Their only defenses left are completely insane Infowars-level nonsense conspiracy theories that Hillary Clinton or George Soros somehow planned for Trump to extort Ukraine to get info on his political rival. It's past Flat Earth level wackiness, even with the more mainstream conservative biased media like Glenn Beck, Hannity, and Laura Ingraham. You can't have a normal adult reasonable rational conversation with the people in that mindset. They've got a playbook to deflect and spin, but the worse things Trump has done the more ridiculous the defenses have had to get until we've reached the surreal situation we're in now where Trump could murder someone and Lindsey Graham would say Hillary Clinton organized it. Or they'd blame someone in their own administration and turn on them calling them a Never Trumper.

In a way it's kind of the old story of the more a person lies the harder it is to keep the lies straight from reality. And Trump supporters have gone so far down that rabbit hole to support the most criminal US President in American history that they are completely in an Alice in Wonderland alternate universe.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” -Joseph Goebbels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

Also known as the Big Lie. While definitely used long before his time, it was something notably coined by Hitler to keep dissent at bay. Creating lies so big and repeated enough times that enough people would believe it.

I've pointed it out ever since the 2016 campaign. Not saying Trump IS Hitler, but I've shown that he's basically using all of the propaganda tactics straight out of the playbook in the 2016 campaign and throughout his presidency. Even in his own impeachment trial.

[Endus]

https://www.businessinsider.com/watc...chment-2019-11

And again, Trump just...admit's it in public. He held up the aide to Ukraine because he bought into the debunked Crowdstrike theory and apparently didn't want to believe the Pentagon, who certified that Ukraine was making sufficient progress with their anti-corruption efforts to release the funding.

Just pre-emptively, regarding the bold; it does not fucking matter what the President believes to be true, in legal terms with regards to the charges of bribery and extortion and whatnot.

What matters is if a reasonable person would believe it to be true.

And no, no reasonable person is going to believe bullshit conspiracy theorists and con men over the full debriefings available from the American intelligence agencies, which all came to the same conclusions on these issues, contradicting the President's stated views.

If Trump legitimately believes this shit, that's not a defense or justification for his actions. It just means he's guilty of bribery/extortion/etc because he's a gullible, irrational moron. It's the difference between a guy stabbing his wife to death because it's "cheaper than divorce", or doing so because "she's secretly plotting with the Lizardmen from Mars and I wanted to see what was under her skinsuit". You're still a murdering psycho, either way.

[Edge-]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/o...fox-news-.html

Interesting piece from a former Fox News host looking at the maligning of Vindman on the network. Interesting tidbit that will be no surprise from this -

What do the ratings tell the producers are the most engaging meta-narratives for the over 80 million Fox News viewers on all digital platforms?

Conspiracy theories.

- - - Updated - - -

Trump has a new problem with former Ambassador Yavanovitch, she wouldn't hang his picture in the embassy.

No, seriously.

Problem is, she did. It was the White House that was slow to send out official photo's of Trump.

Except, according to Yovanovitch’s legal team, the whole story is false. Photos of Trump and his staff were mounted at the Kiev embassy “as soon as they arrived from Washington, DC,” a person connected to the team told NBC News. Indeed, if there was any delay, it appears not to have been on Yovanovitch’s end, but on the White House’s; according to Lewis Lukens, who ran the U.S. embassy in London for much of Trump’s first year in office, it took the Trump administration almost 15 months to send official photos to U.S. embassies—and instructed them not to print substitutes.

[Netherspark]

Trump has a new problem with former Ambassador Yavanovitch, she wouldn't hang his picture in the embassy.

No, seriously.

Problem is, she did. It was the White House that was slow to send out official photo's of Trump.

Oh shit, even his lies are lies.

[D Luniz]

Oh shit, even his lies are lies.

And caused by his "best people"

[Edge-]

More news on the debunked Crowdstrike theory: US intelligence officials just briefed Senators on how Russia has spent years pushing that narrative to point the finger at them.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-...ction-meddling

So Trump is literally spreading Russian propaganda with this.

[Kaleredar]

More news on the debunked Crowdstrike theory: US intelligence officials just briefed Senators on how Russia has spent years pushing that narrative to point the finger at them.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-...ction-meddling

So Trump is literally spreading Russian propaganda with this.

It’s all part of his ploy to brand Ukraine as being untrustworthy, implicating Biden in the process while deflecting away from himself by lessening the “suspicion” levied at Russia.

Just like with Hillary, it doesn’t matter if any of it holds merit. His intent is just to sow doubt and obfuscate his own guilt. The republicans are staking their party on it working.

[Skroe]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/u...erference.html

Friendly reminder we're in year 7 of Shalcker repeating Russian intelligence propaganda on our forum as fact without permanent consequences.

Top story in today's NYT.

Charges of Ukrainian Meddling? A Russian Operation, U.S. Intelligence Says
Moscow has run a yearslong operation to blame Ukraine for its own 2016 election interference. Republicans have used similar talking points to defend President Trump in impeachment proceedings.

WASHINGTON — Republicans have sought for weeks amid the impeachment inquiry to shift attention to President Trump’s demands that Ukraine investigate any 2016 election meddling, defending it as a legitimate concern while Democrats accuse Mr. Trump of pursuing fringe theories for his benefit.


The Republican defense of Mr. Trump became central to the impeachment proceedings when Fiona Hill, a respected Russia scholar and former senior White House official, added a harsh critique during testimony on Thursday. She told some of Mr. Trump’s fiercest defenders in Congress that they were repeating “a fictional narrative.” She said that it likely came from a disinformation campaign by Russian security services, which also propagated it.

In a briefing that closely aligned with Dr. Hill’s testimony, American intelligence officials informed senators and their aides in recent weeks that Russia had engaged in a yearslong campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow’s own hacking of the 2016 election, according to three American officials. The briefing came as Republicans stepped up their defenses of Mr. Trump in the Ukraine affair.

The revelations demonstrate Russia’s persistence in trying to sow discord among its adversaries — and show that the Kremlin apparently succeeded, as unfounded claims about Ukrainian interference seeped into Republican talking points. American intelligence agencies believe Moscow is likely to redouble its efforts as the 2020 presidential campaign intensifies. The classified briefing for senators also focused on Russia’s evolving influence tactics, including its growing ability to better disguise operations.

Russia has engaged in a “long pattern of deflection” to pin blame for its malevolent acts on other countries, Dr. Hill said, not least Ukraine, a former Soviet republic. Since Ukraine won independence in 1991, Russia has tried to reassert influence there, meddling in its politics, maligning pro-Western leaders and accusing Ukrainian critics of Moscow of fascist leanings.

“The Russians have a particular vested interest in putting Ukraine, Ukrainian leaders in a very bad light,” she told lawmakers.

But the campaign by Russian intelligence in recent years has been even more complex as Moscow tries not only to undermine the government in Kyiv but also to use a disinformation campaign there to influence the American political debate.

The accusations of a Ukrainian influence campaign center on actions by a handful of Ukrainians who openly criticized or sought to damage Mr. Trump’s candidacy in 2016. They were scattershot efforts that were far from a replica of Moscow’s interference, when President Vladimir V. Putin ordered military and intelligence operatives to mount a broad campaign to sabotage the American election. The Russians in 2016 conducted covert operations to hack Democratic computers and to use social media to exploit divisions among Americans.

This time, Russian intelligence operatives deployed a network of agents to blame Ukraine for its 2016 interference. Starting at least in 2017, the operatives peddled a mixture of now-debunked conspiracy theories along with established facts to leave an impression that the government in Kyiv, not Moscow, was responsible for the hackings of Democrats and its other interference efforts in 2016, senior intelligence officials said.

The Russian intelligence officers conveyed the information to prominent Russians and Ukrainians who then used a range of intermediaries, like oligarchs, businessmen and their associates, to pass the material to American political figures and even some journalists, who were likely unaware of its origin, the officials said.

That muddy brew worked its way into American information ecosystems, sloshing around until parts of it reached Mr. Trump, who has also spoken with Mr. Putin about allegations of Ukrainian interference. Mr. Trump also brought up the assertions of Ukrainian meddling in his July 25 call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, which is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry into whether he abused his power by asking for a public commitment to investigations he stood to gain from personally.

Mr. Trump referred elliptically to allegations that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election and brought up a related conspiracy theory. Asking Mr. Zelensky to “do us a favor,” Mr. Trump added, “I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine.”

Russia’s operation to blame Ukraine has become more relevant as Republicans have tried to focus public debate during the impeachment inquiry on any Ukrainian role in the 2016 campaign, American officials said.

Republicans have denounced any suggestion that their concerns about Ukrainian meddling are without merit or that they are ignoring Russia’s broader interference. “Not a single Republican member of this committee said Russia did not meddle in the 2016 elections,” Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, said Thursday.

Indeed, Ms. Stefanik and her Republican colleagues on the Democratic-led House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting the impeachment hearing, have also steered clear of the fringe notion that Mr. Trump mentioned to Mr. Zelensky, which is pushed by Russian intelligence: the so-called CrowdStrike server conspiracy theory, which falsely suggests Ukraine, not Russia, was behind the breach of Democratic operatives’ servers.

Mr. Trump repeated the baseless claim on Friday in an interview with “Fox & Friends,” laying out the narrative and doubling down after a host gently pressed him on whether he was sure of one aspect of the debunked theory, that the F.B.I. gave a Democratic server to what Mr. Trump had inaccurately described as a Ukrainian-owned company.

“That is what the word is,” Mr. Trump replied.

Some Republicans have also focused on Hunter Biden, raising questions about whether his hiring by the Ukrainian energy company Burisma was corrupt. Burisma hired Mr. Biden while his father, former Vice President Joseph Biden Jr., a potential rival of Mr. Trump’s in the 2020 election, was leading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy. On the July 25 call, Mr. Trump also demanded Mr. Zelensky investigate Burisma and Hunter Biden.

Moscow has long used its intelligence agencies and propaganda machine to muddy the waters of public debate, casting doubts over established facts. In her testimony, Dr. Hill noted Russia’s pattern of trying to blame other countries for its own actions, like the attempted poisoning last year of a former Russian intelligence officer or the downing of a passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014. Moscow’s goal is to cast doubt on established facts, said current and former officials.

“The strategy is simply to create the impression that it is not really possible to know who was really behind it,” said Laura Rosenberger, the director of the Alliance for Defending Democracy, which tracks Russian disinformation efforts.

Although American intelligence agencies have made no formal classified assessment about the Russian disinformation campaign against Ukraine, officials at several of the agencies have broadly agreed for some time that Russian intelligence services have embraced tactics to shift responsibility for the 2016 interference campaign away from themselves, officials said.

Russia has relentlessly tried to deflect attention since the allegations of its interference campaign in the 2016 election first surfaced, one official said.

Mr. Putin began publicly pushing false theories of Ukrainian interference in the early months of 2017 to deflect responsibility from Russia, said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who declined to answer questions about the briefing.

“These people are pros at this,” said Mr. King, who caucuses with the Democrats. “The Soviet Union used disinformation for 70 years. This is nothing new. Vladimir Putin is a former K.G.B. agent. He is trained in deception. This is his stock and trade and he is doing it well.”

During a news conference in February 2017, Mr. Putin accused the Ukrainian government of supporting Hillary Clinton during the previous American election and funding her candidacy with friendly oligarchs.

It is not clear when American intelligence agencies learned about Moscow’s campaign or when precisely it began.

Russian intelligence officers aimed part of their operation at prompting the Ukrainian authorities to investigate the allegations that people in Ukraine tried to tamper with the 2016 American election and to shut down inquiries into corruption by pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, according to a former official.

One target was the leak of a secret ledger disclosed by a Ukrainian law enforcement agency that appeared to show that Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s onetime campaign chairman, had taken illicit payments from Ukrainian politicians who were close to Moscow. He was forced to step down from the Trump campaign after the ledger became public in August 2016, and the Russians have since been eager to cast doubt on its authenticity, the former official said.

Intelligence officials believe that one of the people the Kremlin relied on to spread disinformation about Ukrainian interference was Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who had ties to Mr. Manafort. After his ouster from the campaign, Mr. Manafort told his former deputy later in 2016 that Ukrainians, not Russians, stole Democratic emails. Mr. Deripaska has broadly denied any role in election meddling.

“There is a long history of Russians putting out fake information,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior C.I.A. official. “Now they are trying to put out theories that they think are damaging to the United States.”

So remember when he tries that "Everything is possible, nothing is certain" nonsense act, you tell him two things:

(1) US intelligence says you're full of shit and sharing Russian propaganda.

(2) America's revenge on Russia in the post-Trump era is going to be brutal, so have your fun, but make no mistake how this ends.

[Edge-]

Desperate for literally anything, Republicans are asking the Treasury Department if they have any reports of suspicious transactions relating to Hunter Biden.

You'd figure if this was such a pressing matter after the 2016 elections that it wouldn't have taken them 3 years to start looking into it.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...source=twitter

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/lind...-back-veteran/

Lindsey Graham has a new way to protect himself from opinions he doesn't like, turning his back and immediately walking away from a combat veteran voicing concerns.

Veterans are great to use as props for Republicans, but inconvenient when they start actually having opinions they disagree.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Desperate for literally anything, Republicans are asking the Treasury Department if they have any reports of suspicious transactions relating to Hunter Biden.

You'd figure if this was such a pressing matter after the 2016 elections that it wouldn't have taken them 3 years to start looking into it.

Translation: Our attempts to deflect to the Bidens in the impeachment hearings are failing hard, so we're looking for ANYTHING that we can point to, since we currently have nothing.

[Breccia]

Desperate for literally anything, Republicans are asking the Treasury Department if they have any reports of suspicious transactions relating to Hunter Biden.

"Do you have anything?"
"Well, we have Trump abusing his power by forcing an audit of his taxes to -- "
"No no, something important. Like, someone who was never an elected official, and years ago."
"Well, Trump wasn't elected when he inflated values of his properties so --"
"No no, not Trump. Someone else."
"Well, DeVos has been pushing for information on student loan holders, so she can collect even from fraudulent loans."
"No no, something else."
"Um, the number of Trump appointees who owe back taxes?"
"No no, something else. Someone Trump didn't appoint."
"Um...Manafort and Cohen were convicted of --"
"Dammit, you're not getting the hint here."
"The hint that, everyone in Team Trump seems to be cheating on their taxes?"

[cubby]

Unfortunately, believing in conspiracy theories and incompetence aren’t grounds for impeachment under the US constitution, though you may argue a fitness for office under the 25th amendment.

If Trump wanted dirt on Biden, bad. If Trump wanted to protect the integrity of US elections, totally allowable. Remember that the irregularities in the 2016 election cycle happened under an Obama administration that did nothing about them even though provided information. Certainly seems reasonable to want to prevent a repeat even if you think the effort was misguided.

No, I’m sorry but none of the transcript or testimonies amount to anything but a guess as to intent thus far.

Then you haven't been watching the testimonies or reading the transcripts or documents. Trump traded military aid to Ukraine for dirt on a political rival. Pure and simple bribery/extortion. If these same documents and testimonies were in a court of law, Trump would be begging for a plea deal. He's as guilty as it gets.

And what's your answer to the fact that Trump admitted to the crime? Confessed on live television no less.

[Beefhammer]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/u...erference.html

Friendly reminder we're in year 7 of Shalcker repeating Russian intelligence propaganda on our forum as fact without permanent consequences.

Top story in today's NYT.



So remember when he tries that "Everything is possible, nothing is certain" nonsense act, you tell him two things:

(1) US intelligence says you're full of shit and sharing Russian propaganda.

(2) America's revenge on Russia in the post-Trump era is going to be brutal, so have your fun, but make no mistake how this ends.

At this point you could consider the mods complicit in spreading lies and propaganda for refusing to deal with this.

[Paranoid Android]

More news on the debunked Crowdstrike theory: US intelligence officials just briefed Senators on how Russia has spent years pushing that narrative to point the finger at them.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-...ction-meddling

So Trump is literally spreading Russian propaganda with this.

Stated the same in the other thread.

Intelligence Agencies state this while doing the wink, wink, nudge, nudge that our POTUS was one of these people.

I can't believe where we actually are today. We have a Russian puppet in the White House and the Republicans don't care.

[Shadowferal]

Why don't republicans care?