Trump Continues To Be Damaged Goods, Will the GOP Keep Hanging on to Him and His "Drug Deal"?
December 4th 2019
Meeting with the President of the Unites States (NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
By annieli (of the Daily Kos community)
They’re now trial ballooning damage control measures, perhaps there will be a wrist slap by the Senate where the vulnerable 2020 GOP senators will call for a censure. The GOP media frame would then be “compromise and comity” because “no harm, no foul” (which unfortunately also assumes “no Constitution”).
intelligence.house.gov/…
300 page .pdf at assets.documentcloud.org/…
Overall, the report comes to two major conclusions.
First, President Trump solicited a foreign bribe in the form of favors for his election campaign before turning to direct an outright extortion campaign when he didn’t get what he wanted.
Second, that the president directed an overt and illegal cover-up by stonewalling the impeachment inquiry.
BUT ITS KEY FINDINGS OF FACT ARE A ROADMAP TO THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE WHICH STARTS HEARINGS TOMORROW, AND THOSE ONLY TAKE UP TWO AND A HALF PAGES.
HOWEVER, THE TRUMP-UKRAINE REPORT’S SUCCINCT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY EXPLAINS LITERALLY EVERYTHING THAT THE PRESIDENT DID WRONG IN TWO MAJOR CATEGORIES AND ONLY TWO-HUNDRED AND TWENTY WORDS:
I. The President’s Misconduct: The President Conditioned a White House Meeting and Military Aid to Ukraine on a Public Announcement of Investigations Beneficial to his Reelection Campaign The President’s Request for a Political Favor
The President Removed Anti-Corruption Champion Ambassador Yovanovitch
The President’s Hand-picked Agents Begin the Scheme
President Trump Froze Vital Military Assistance
The President Conditioned a White House Meeting on Investigations
The President’s Agents Pursued a “Drug Deal”
President Trump Pressed President Zelensky to Do a Political Favor
The President’s Representatives Ratcheted up Pressure on the Ukrainian President
Ukrainians Inquired about the President’s Hold on Security Assistance
The President’s Security Assistance Hold Became Public
The President’s Scheme Unraveled
The President’s Chief of Staff Confirmed Aid was Conditioned on Investigations
II. The President’s Obstruction of the House of Representatives’ Impeachment Inquiry: The President Obstructed the Impeachment Inquiry by Instructing Witnesses and Agencies to Ignore Subpoenas for Documents and Testimony An Unprecedented Effort to Obstruct an Impeachment Inquiry
Constitutional Authority for Congressional Oversight and Impeachment
The President’s Categorical Refusal to Comply
The President’s Refusal to Produce Any and All Subpoenaed Documents
The President’s Refusal to Allow Top Aides to Testify
The President’s Unsuccessful Attempts to Block Other Key Witnesses
The President’s Intimidation of Witnesses
1/ The first part of the Mueller Report, with its pages of redactions & “harm to ongoing matter,” paints a damning portrait of Trump & his campaign’s numerous attempts to solicit aid from Russia, which country “interfered in the 2016 election in sweeping and systemic fashion.”
2/ Part One of the Mueller Report does not exonerate Trump from working with a hostile foreign power to sabotage the election for his own benefit. It reads as a roadmap to impeachment—or, after he is out of office, indictment.
3/ The second part of the Mueller Report outlines the various ways that Trump & his minions attempted to obstruct justice, both before and during the Special Counsel’s investigation.
Part Two is even more damning than Part One.
4/ And then today we have the even more egregious, even more open-and-shut Ukraine report from the impeachment inquiry. Trump extorted a weak ally, denying US aid money until Ukraine did “a favor” for him PERSONALLY. That's bribery, impeachable per the Constitution.
5/ That’s three reports. All together they are about as long as a Russian novel. Which is apt.
Posted with permission