Trump whistleblower complaint

[_Ceeboo]

Ceeboo, what did you think when you read these other parts below?

"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."

... and ...

"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."

We’re those comments about the 2016 election?

No.

[_Ceeboo]

No, he's a verified liar because I quoted him calling EAllusion a bozo, and he said that wasn't him, even though I literally quoted him saying it.

Yeah - that's kind of the point. When I saw that you "literally quoted me saying it" I assumed you made a mistake in formatting your post in the thread - because it never crossed my mind that you would have went back 2 years and posted a quote of mine in the middle of a thread - and I didn't remember calling EA a bozo. (Sorry EA)

Now that I know that you were searching through my high school yearbooks, I will be much more cautious when you quote me in the future.

Kinda creepy though.

[_Some Schmo]

Ceeboo was in high school two years ago?

That actually explains quite a bit.

[_Some Schmo]

Some folks quickly put together an audiobook version of the whistle-blower complaint in case you don't feel like reading it.

[_Icarus]

Real profiles in courage right here.

You should listen to the half dozen Senators on FOX News insist this is all a huge nothing-burger.

[_Jersey Girl]

What? He's a verified liar because he forgot he called someone a bozo a couple of years ago?

I've disagreed with Ceeboo from time to time, mostly over politics. But I have apparently have a higher opinion of him than you do.

No, he's a verified liar because I quoted him calling EA a bozo, and he said that wasn't him, even though I literally quoted him saying it. And then when I linked the url to the statement he gets all swoony because it was from a year and a half ago, which is besides the point I was making. The point is that Ceeboo was bitching about the political tone on this board, but he himself wasn't above engaging in name calling and lashing out.

- Doc

Why on earth are you pushing this so far, Cam? You literally quoted him with no link for him or anyone else to examine. He mistook it for an alleged post on this thread. You posted the link after the fact, he didn't recall it until he looked at it apparently and turns out it was from quite a while ago.

He's one of the most civil guys on this forum and you're dinging him for an old post calling someone a clown?

What. the. heck.

Yeah, politics IS rancid. The language on this thread IS offensive. I've called folks on this forum far worse than clowns in the past. I've probably called you far worse than that. So what?

How about try staying in the discussion we're in before Chap has a hissy.

Pants on fire,
Jersey

[_Icarus]

The Quid Pro Quo allegations appears to be corroborated:

“Multiple U.S. officials told me that the Ukrainian leadership was led to believe that a meeting or phone call between the President and President Zelensky would depend on whether Zelensky showed willingness to ‘play ball’ on the issues that had been publicly aired by Mr. Lutsenko and Mr. Giuliani,” the complaint states. "According to these officials, it was also ‘made clear’ to them that the President did not want to meet with Mr. Zelensky until he saw how Zelensky ‘chose to act’ in office.”

Ukrainians understood Biden probe was condition for Trump-Zelenskiy talks, says former Ukrainian adviser

"Ukrainian officials were asking for a meeting with Trump for along time. As I remember, it was a clear fact that Trump wants to meet only if Biden case will be included,” said Serhiy Leshchenko, an anti-corruption advocate and former member of Ukraine's Parliament, who had been a former adviser to Zelenskiy but has recently been distanced from the administration. "This issue was raised many times. I know that Ukrainian officials understood."

Max Kennerly has a great Twitter feed that details the lawlessness that's been going on over this one scandal.

https://Twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/ ... 3ZrNjq7wo0

As Trump enablers try to muddy the waters on Ukraine, let's reflect on the Trump admin's sustained lawlessness on just this issue.

On February 14, 2019, Congress overwhelmingly (House 300-128, Senate 83-16) passed Public Law 116-6. Trump signed it the next day.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFLNVrjXoAE ... name=large

Ukraine aid was thus the law as of February 15, 2019. More than two-thirds of the House and Senate voted for it. Trump signed it himself.

But Trump ignored the law. As of August 28—more than six months later—the money still hadn't been released.

Thus, Trump was breaking the law—a law overwhelmingly passed by Congress, a law which Trump himself signed—before we even get to the phone calls or the whistleblower complaint.

So what's going on while Trump is withholding the assistance to Ukraine? Here's a timeline.



Trump was thus illegally withholding aid to Ukraine and urging their President to speak with Giuliani, who has no role in gov't (to illegally avoid oversight and recordkeeping), so they could solicit Ukraine to bribe Trump with an unfounded prosecution of Hunter Biden.



The whistleblower complaint was to be provided to Congress by September 2. This isn't optional: 50 USC §3033(k)(5)(C) says it "shall" be provided within 7 days.

Instead, the Trump admin broke the law, and instructed the Inspector General to do the same.



Every part of this was lawless: Trump withholding the aid, Trump repeatedly using the withheld aid to solicit a bribe from Ukraine, Giuliani being involved at all in diplomacy, and the DNI withholding the whistleblower complaint.

[_moksha]

My guess, about 70% of rational and reasonable American citizens could "actually be that gawddamned stupid."

Could we add the caveat of this same 70% also believing that an alien bigfooted creature runs a sex ring out of a pizza cart on the corner of Vermont and Maple? Rational and Reasonable. They fully understand the relationship between raccoons, whales, and Alex Jones.

[_Icarus]

Here are my impressions of the testimony of DNI Joseph McGuire.

First and foremost is that he came across as genuine. I didn't think he was a tool for the President and I believe he was truly under the belief that what he did was right and lawful.

According to the DNI, he wasn't intending to withhold the whistle blower complaint from Congress, but rather he was waiting for it to clear the process of executive privilege. In many ways today's testimony was superfluous because Congress got the document they were asking for. But we did learn some other details that are interesting. The DNI said he wasn't sure if Rudy Giuliani had security clearance, but he knew he was conducting State business on behalf of the US government anyway.

His argument for withholding the whistle blower's complaint from Congress is two fold.

First he said the complaint didn't meet the legal criteria of "urgent concern," therefore he wasn't legally obligated to share this with Congress. This argument fails because the law states very clearly that the Inspector General is the one who gets to decide whether the complaint meets that criteria, not the OLC. The DNI's only job is to present it to Congress and the law clearly states that he "shall" do this. When pressed on this point McGuire said that he was bound by the instructions Office of Legal Counsel, who got involved only because he involved them. Several Congressmen shot back at him, pointing out how ridiculous it is for him to take a complaint deemed "credible" that clearly implicates the White House and the Attorney General, by presenting it to the White House and the Justice Dept first. GOP figures attacked Democrats for questioning his impeccable character but Dems responded by saying they were only questioning his judgment, and rightly so in my opinion.

The second argument was about executive privilege, which, as two congressmen pointed out, the White House never asserted. The DNI just took it upon himself to assume there would be issues of executive privilege and so he wanted the White House to sift through it and make a decision on that before he would comply with the law.

McGuire made it clear he was "new on the job" and referenced the fact that he is using Garmon to get to his office. I got the sense that this was his way of apologizing for being too Green. He even said there were other people more qualified than him to take this position and that he didn't ask for it.

Professor Steve Vladeck of the University of Texas School of Law explains why the OLC's excuse for breaking the law was weak...

NatSec Legal Expert: OLC Reasoning for Withholding Whistleblower Complaint Was ‘Remarkably Thin’

[_Res Ipsa]

I think that's a good assessment of McGuire. I'm tempted to feel bad for him, but he had to have known who he was going to work for.