Cleaning up the Impeachment Narrative (UPDATED)

waiguoren said:
How? To me that just indicates that Trump wanted these matters investigated. It seems you're leaping from facts to motives too easily.

As far as I can tell, "hatch" is the wrong word here. That word suggests these were new investigations, while in reality Trump was asking for 1) Ukrainian assistance in the ongoing DOJ investigation of the origins of the FBI surveillance into the Trump 2016 campaign 2) a re-opening of closed Ukrainian investigations into Burisma/Zlochevsky, with particular emphasis on the Biden connection.

Also, the administration has not accepted your premise that disbursement of aid was conditioned upon 1) and 2) above. We have some administration officials saying that was their understanding (e.g., Taylor), but others (e.g., Sondland) disputing it.



I am not "upset" about anything. I do not feel in that way. Also, my goal is not to defend Donald Trump. I think you are misunderstanding, and I will attempt to explain.

Growing up, my family subscribed to the New York Times and the Washington Post. I mostly watched CNN for TV news. These days, out of habit, these are the sources I turn to first for my news, and part of my mind tends to assume that these sources are setting the overall "media narrative" that most of the population is exposed to.

From what I can tell, those sources have been dedicating a very small percentage of overall Trump impeachment coverage to the Burisma/Biden aspect of the story. It has taken significant work on my part just to discover the existence of and to collect critical documents such as the Shokin affidavit. If my "media diet" were not so diverse, I think I'd probably be completely unaware that there is another interpretation of the Shokin firing and associated events that CNN/NYT/WaPo are mostly ignoring.
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I disagree that I am leaping from facts to motives too quickly. The whole months-long campaign is threaded with elements that suggest to varying degrees of clarity that Trump wanted to use the investigations politically. It's an easy case to make.

We can agree to disagree. I appreciate your effort to give details and a thorough response.
 
We're getting down to the wire now, the public inquiry the Republicans want, but they don't, are going to be so much fun!

Let them all take the oath and testify.
They won't, because they have things to hide, but by golly, they sure would love to testify, but the Deep State is controlling everything from their secret moon base
 
HomeCheese said:
[QUOTE="Overtures, post: 156482821, member: 299895"

5. Investigations into the 2016 election and Hunter Biden are part of normal National Interests.

  • This is a gross representation of what happened. The back channel government and Trump's wishes to publicize these two very specific investigations that would benefit him both politically by fitting into his narratives show that Trump usurped existing Foreign Policy for his own personal gain.
Elect a clown as president, and the White House becomes a circus.
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One item I have wanted to ask, if the Trump administration thought Biden Jr. did something wrong why did the US investigate?[/QUOTE]

What do you mean?

They could have investigated. That would have been way more ethical than passing on the investigation to a vulnerable country while holding up assistance. It's kind of insane that we don't recognize how careless and problematic this is on its own.
 
HomeCheese said:
One item I have wanted to ask, if the Trump administration thought Biden Jr. did something wrong why did the US investigate?
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There's no suggestion that either Biden directly did anything wrong. The company that Hunter Biden was on the board of may have done something, but that would involve executives rather than board (which is supposed to provide some oversight, though). The whole thing barely touches Hunter Biden, much less Joe. But, again, Trump wasn't looking for a real investigation to actually find out anything; he was looking for PR help. That's why he was trying to get a public statement crafted by his team to be released to the media rather than just asking for a quiet investigation.
 
Overtures said:
I disagree that I am leaping from facts to motives too quickly. The whole months-long campaign is threaded with elements that suggest to varying degrees of clarity that Trump wanted to use the investigations politically. It's an easy case to make.

We can agree to disagree. I appreciate your effort to give details and a thorough response.
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To be clearer, I was making a narrow point. I (like you) believe that politics was the main purpose for Trump's mentioning of Biden/Burisma in the Zelensky phone call. That seems pretty obvious to me based on life experience, multi-year observation of Trump, and common sense. However, the standard of attribution of motive described above is not applicable in a legal proceeding, and that's why I mentioned the "leap". In general, I think it's important to keep a clear delineation between that which seems obvious and that which is provable in a legal proceeding. I think I have often failed to make that distinction clear in my writing and it's something I am working on.

I even think there is a significant chance that Trump set this up on purpose---knowing the backlash that would occur---under the (in my view, reasonable) belief that impeachment would lead to extra support/turnout among his voting base in 2020. Many of Trump's previous attempts to manipulate the media and/or the Democrats have taken the form of walking right up to the limit of propriety in a seeming attempt to draw the spotlight on a particular issue (in this case, Biden/Burisma) and/or to bait the opposition into overplaying their hand (in this case, impeachment).
 
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waiguoren said:
To be clearer, I was making a narrow point. I (like you) believe that politics was the main purpose for Trump's mentioning of Biden/Burisma in the Zelensky phone call. That seems pretty obvious to me based on life experience, multi-year observation of Trump, and common sense. However, the standard of attribution of motive described above is not applicable in a legal proceeding, and that's why I mentioned the "leap". In general, I think it's important to keep a clear delineation between that which is seems obvious and that which is provable in a legal proceeding. I think I have often failed to make that distinction clear in my writing and it's something I am working on.

I even think there is a significant chance that Trump set this up on purpose---knowing the backlash that would occur---under the (in my view, reasonable) belief that impeachment would lead to extra support/turnout among his voting base in 2020. Many of Trump's previous attempts to manipulate the media and/or the Democrats have taken the form of walking right up to the limit of propriety in a seeming attempt to draw the spotlight on a particular issue (in this case, Biden/Burisma) and/or to bait the opposition into overplaying their hand (in this case, impeachment).
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Yes, that is a good point that I lean on - we have a multi-year experience of Trump that demonstrates he's bent on political vengeance.

The impeachment inquiry and debate has morphed in the last week and now is focused on motive. Some members of the GOP are now claiming that what Trump did was wrong but that removing him from office depends on intent. And Nikki Haley recently echoed this convergence of opinions by saying in an interview that what Trump did was problematic but not impeachable.

Leave it at this, I think if the facts are put out in the open and Trump doesn't dominate the narrative with boogeymen, there's a real chance that some GOP senators support impeachment. The likelihood is narrow for that to happen though. And the likelihood that he is removed from office is even more narrow.

I've got the popcorn ready.
 
Jack V Savage said:
There's no suggestion that either Biden directly did anything wrong. The company that Hunter Biden was on the board of may have done something, but that would involve executives rather than board (which is supposed to provide some oversight, though). The whole thing barely touches Hunter Biden, much less Joe. But, again, Trump wasn't looking for a real investigation to actually find out anything; he was looking for PR help. That's why he was trying to get a public statement crafted by his team to be released to the media rather than just asking for a quiet investigation.
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Yes, this is my thinking as well. If it didn't merit an investigation by the US then it shows how corrupt an action it is to ask a foreign country to do it.
 
Overtures said:
One item I have wanted to ask, if the Trump administration thought Biden Jr. did something wrong why did the US investigate?
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What do you mean?

They could have investigated. That would have been way more ethical than passing on the investigation to a vulnerable country while holding up assistance. It's kind of insane that we don't recognize how careless and problematic this is on its own.[/QUOTE]


Yes this is exactly the point. If they didn't think it warranted and investigation then it shows what a scam it is to ask a foreign country to do it.
 
HomeCheese said:
What do you mean?

They could have investigated. That would have been way more ethical than passing on the investigation to a vulnerable country while holding up assistance. It's kind of insane that we don't recognize how careless and problematic this is on its own.
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Yes this is exactly the point. If they didn't think it warranted and investigation then it shows what a scam it is to ask a foreign country to do it.[/QUOTE]

That's a good point.
 
HomeCheese said:
Yes this is exactly the point. If they didn't think it warranted and investigation then it shows what a scam it is to ask a foreign country to do it.
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He could always just have Barr start some frivolous investigation, though (note that previous presidents would never do such a thing, but the norms there are gone). Wouldn't mean much. What I think is striking is that he wanted a public announcement of an investigation crafted by his own people. If he were genuinely concerned, he'd make a quiet ask and only publicize it if they actually found something. That's normally how such a thing would happen.
 
Jack V Savage said:
He could always just have Barr start some frivolous investigation, though (note that previous presidents would never do such a thing, but the norms there are gone). Wouldn't mean much. What I think is striking is that he wanted a public announcement of an investigation crafted by his own people. If he were genuinely concerned, he'd make a quiet ask and only publicize it if they actually found something. That's normally how such a thing would happen.
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Do you have a reference to the bolded, portion?

Also, aren't you a wealth management professional?
 
Overtures said:
Mulvaney was told by Trump to hold up the aid. If that isn't on record, that's how it would work. And Mulvaney said on record that part of the reason the aid was held up was to push the investigations. Bolton could probably throw Mulvaney under the bus if he can testify.
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Source?
 
sabretruth said:
Source?
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Here is the direct quote: "Did he also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about that. But that's it, and that's why we held up the money," Mulvaney said during the conference."

He is saying that the money was held up to push for investigations into corruption including the 2016 election issue regarding CrowdStrike.
 
Overtures said:
Here is the direct quote: "Did he also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about that. But that's it, and that's why we held up the money," Mulvaney said during the conference."

He is saying that the money was held up to push for investigations into corruption including the 2016 election issue regarding CrowdStrike.
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And that's a crazy CT, too.
 
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