Instead of "alternate view" can you just say "view that is in bad faith" because I'm assuming the author has basic enough credentials and education to understand what I'm about to type and is just ignoring it to push propaganda. This is a copy pasta of what I've stated earlier on the matter that is relevant to the author's points: I hope you understand why presidents don't micromanage and tell our federal law enforcement arms whom to investigate. We aren't a banana republic. The FBI and DOJ have big boys and big girls. If there was "there there" with Biden, they would independently go through the proper channels such as requesting warrants through FISA courts. No need for the president to direct them. Remember, members of Trump's campaign were being investigated due to probable cause (an idiot publicly stating about DNC emails being hacked before it was common knowledge) They requested warrants through proper channels for surveillance. At no point was Obama personally directing them to investigate Trump's campaign because again we are not a banana republic and our president doesn't get to use his powers to investigate political opponents for his own benefit. There are multiple pieces of evidence that Trump's desire to investigate Biden and extort Ukraine with military aid was for personal political gain. 1. He sent his personal lawyer and 2 other Fox News tv lawyers who were not a part of the administration to Ukraine. 2. He froze military aid to Ukraine which had bipartisan support without informing allies or relevant members of Congress or his own staff. So it was obvious that it was his personal decision for personal reasons. 3. His own staff tried to convince him that the Biden/Ukraine conspiracy was just that... A conspiracy. 4. He learned about said conspiracy not from intelligence briefings or FBI investigators but from a segment on Sean Hannity's show. Again, this is not me telling you that we shouldn't investigate politicians who do corrupt things. I'm telling you we shouldn't do investigations of politicians led by rival politicians because again we are not a Banana Republic. Not only is it an abuse of power, citizens lose trust in the Justice system for politicians when they are being lead by rival politicians. Do you understand this? Now specifically with the article, it is obviously in bad faith because the author is trying to portray the previous administration not sending military aid to Ukraine as a defense to Trump freezing it. The difference here which I'm going to assume the author already understands and is ignoring it, is the Obama administration made a decision based on what they perceived to be best for US foreign policy. You can disagree with the policy but the policy wasn't developed based on personal political benefits. It was based on them genuinely believing military aid at the moment was not useful to US foreign policy. That is a massive difference between that and Trump freezing aid that had bipartisan support to extort the president of Ukraine to publicly admit to investigating Biden. The Trump administration is trying to paint this as Trump fighting "corruption" but coincidentally he only cares about alleged corruption involving a political rival of his. Do you think Trump has any understanding of any actual corruption in Ukraine beyond the scope of his political rival? IN summary, the bad part isn't "not sending aid to Ukraine". The bad part is extorting a foreign country as the president for your own personal political ambitions.
I read your article this time, and was disappointed that my resentment was not addressed at all. Then I was doubly disappointed to see it was the same weaksauce fig leaf of an argument we get from Trump's lawyers. This is the wringer I'm talking about. Millions will trade on their own reputations to rationalize his criminality and he's going to leave them high and dry in the end.
I'll save you some time and admit right here and now I stopped reading at "bad faith" . . . how could you possibly know that?
The bolded part explicitly explains why I think it is in bad faith and the part above it is added context. You should of just read my post if you wanted an explanation of why I think it is in bad faith. I'll copy and paste my previous post that I explain why I think it is in bad faith: I hope you understand why presidents don't micromanage and tell our federal law enforcement arms whom to investigate. We aren't a banana republic. The FBI and DOJ have big boys and big girls. If there was "there there" with Biden, they would independently go through the proper channels such as requesting warrants through FISA courts. No need for the president to direct them. Remember, members of Trump's campaign were being investigated due to probable cause (an idiot publicly stating about DNC emails being hacked before it was common knowledge) They requested warrants through proper channels for surveillance. At no point was Obama personally directing them to investigate Trump's campaign because again we are not a banana republic and our president doesn't get to use his powers to investigate political opponents for his own benefit. There are multiple pieces of evidence that Trump's desire to investigate Biden and extort Ukraine with military aid was for personal political gain. 1. He sent his personal lawyer and 2 other Fox News tv lawyers who were not a part of the administration to Ukraine. 2. He froze military aid to Ukraine which had bipartisan support without informing allies or relevant members of Congress or his own staff. So it was obvious that it was his personal decision for personal reasons. 3. His own staff tried to convince him that the Biden/Ukraine conspiracy was just that... A conspiracy. 4. He learned about said conspiracy not from intelligence briefings or FBI investigators but from a segment on Sean Hannity's show. Again, this is not me telling you that we shouldn't investigate politicians who do corrupt things. I'm telling you we shouldn't do investigations of politicians led by rival politicians because again we are not a Banana Republic. Not only is it an abuse of power, citizens lose trust in the Justice system for politicians when they are being lead by rival politicians. Do you understand this? Now specifically with the article, it is obviously in bad faith because the author is trying to portray the previous administration not sending military aid to Ukraine as a defense to Trump freezing it. The difference here which I'm going to assume the author already understands and is ignoring it, is the Obama administration made a decision based on what they perceived to be best for US foreign policy. You can disagree with the policy but the policy wasn't developed based on personal political benefits. It was based on them genuinely believing military aid at the moment was not useful to US foreign policy. That is a massive difference between that and Trump freezing aid that had bipartisan support to extort the president of Ukraine to publicly admit to investigating Biden. The Trump administration is trying to paint this as Trump fighting "corruption" but coincidentally he only cares about alleged corruption involving a political rival of his. Do you think Trump has any understanding of any actual corruption in Ukraine beyond the scope of his political rival? IN summary, the bad part isn't "not sending aid to Ukraine". The bad part is extorting a foreign country as the president for your own personal political ambitions.
Yes, the opinion that asking foreign states to investigate our elections/politicians should become a norm, is indeed a peril of ignorance ... and there should be no significant difference of opinion with our voters on whether that's a good precedence to set for the future, or not. zealous impeachers should not ignore that argument
the "difference" is also one of interpretation, hence "was Ukraine’s undertaking to investigate the apparent $3 million bribe paid by the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma to the Biden family" from the Hinderaker piece. Reasonable people of good faith may disagree in their interpretations. that's all I'm suggesting, no more, no less
Ukraine and the US already have treaties in place for cooperation between law enforcement agencies that does not require the president's direction or engagement. The president doesn't dictate specific individuals to investigate especially political rivals. That is the job for career non political prosecutors and investigators. His source of Hunter Biden to start caring about the issue didn't come from his own cabinet, intelligence briefings etc. It came from a Sean Hannity segment. Following that, he didn't send federal government representatives but his personal lawyer to Ukraine to have him cooperate with the Ukrainian government. All those signs point to personal political reasons to investigate Biden, not official US policy. This would be equivalent of Obama directing Bill Maher to a foreign country to persuade the government to investigate Mitt Romney because he heard of some rumors of Romney doing bad things from a Huff Po article and then threatening said country with removal of needed military aid and he did it during the year before the election knowing that Mitt Romney was going to be his primary challenger. That is pretty much what Trump did. Again, this is not me telling you that we shouldn't investigate politicians who do corrupt things. I'm telling you we shouldn't do investigations of politicians led by rival politicians because again we are not a Banana Republic. Not only is it an abuse of power, citizens lose trust in the Justice system for politicians when they are being lead by rival politicians. If there was "there there" with Biden, the FBI and the Justice department can file the proper warrants for investigation with the courts to start a legitimate investigation.
and my point about "zealous impeachers" is more directed at impeachers who don't seem to realize how politically weak their arguments for impeachment are. Look, Democrats right now are handing Trump an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons, because for the next 12 months the only thing people are going to be hearing about (beside Trump himself) is Biden and his "three million dollar bribe." Well, Democrats in the House may just well be willing to throw Biden under the bus, they never liked him much anyway--but notice what happens in the vacuum. Elizabeth/Bernie/whoever (Hillary!! ) fills the candidacy void, and voila! we now have even odds of Trump being re-elected. Maybe even skewing towards re-election. All of which gets ignored by "zealous impeachers" riding their white horses and righteous indignation, but you know what? that righteous indignation is probably going to lose them the election if they don't watch out.
So now you just have shifted goal posts ignoring all my points with platitudes with no evidence of "zealous impeachers". Sit down, this is going to sound crazy to you: Presidents can commit abuses of power that warrant impeachment which is necessary as stated in the US Constitution in order to keep check on the executive branch of the federal government. Any weak political arguments you infer has more to do with all the bad faith articles trying to bootlick for the president that you constantly post and I explicitly show how they are in bad faith. If they genuinely believed that what Trump did was "legally cool", they wouldn't resort to these type of bad faith arguments such as trying to label the wrongdoing part to just withholding aid without any of the context behind it. "Obama didn't give Ukraine aid" is a bad faith argument and I explicitly showed you why. Desiring an investigation into Biden is also a bad faith argument when you include context such as I have. If you can't address those arguments and resort to platitudes about "zealous impeachers" I can tell you have no legs to stand on and are swinging at air. Extorting a foreign country to force them to publicly state they are investigating your political rival is a gross abuse of presidential power that is well within reason for impeachment and removal from office and should be enforced if we are a nation of law and order as Trump loves to eloquently state time and time again during his 2016 campaign.
Hinderaker is *not* making a difference of interpretation wrt to his 2nd paragraph. He, instead, is confronting *any* interpretation of wrongdoing by saying he wants Ukraine to investigate us ... the "so what?" defense. That can, and should, be attacked by all voters ... with "no significant difference of option." It's like how most all voters hate the Nuclear Option of the Senate. But yes, the rest of the piece is about the defense that we can't read Trump's mind and goals ... which is the talking point passed to Senator Zeldon in his questioning of Taylor. That's the defense that even if everyone says it was quid pro quo, it's not enough. We have to find Trump saying it ... and establish clear Motive that is distasteful to voters. And yes, I know that Trump and Giuliani have already attached themselves to the Quo (hence, the "so what?" defense above), the "it's not enough" defense is asking where's the connection to the Quid in Trump's words. Even Nixon had enough backing all the way up to the Smoking Gun.
Testimony under oath is considered evidence especially when the testimony comes from a Trump appointee who was specifically chosen to be the ambassador to the European Union solely based on his monetary contributions to Trump's inaugural committee of 1 million dollars and corroborates every aspect of the alleged abuse of power all under oath. Also, Trump technically has admitted to the crime by explicitly stating that the reason that he withheld aid was because of "corruption" when the only "corruption" he can explain is regarding his political rival along with him receiving information of said alleged corruption from a Sean Hannity segment instead of official channels such as the FBI or the DOJ and then proceeding to get his private TV lawyer to go to Ukraine and collaborate with the Ukraine government over said alleged corruption of his political rival. What more evidence do you require exactly?
He wants a tape of Trump peeing on a girl, singing Quid Pro Quo, holding 2 forms of government ID, while a police officer is there, 4-5 of his buddies and Neal taking notes, and Trump's grandma confirming his ID.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/linds...land-is-in-cahoots-with-democratic-operatives Lol now Graham is claiming that Sondland is a Democrat operative and his "evidence" is that Sondland changed his testimony. He then claims his lawyer credentials makes him suspicious when someone changes their testimony. If Graham was arguing in good faith he would understand that a court of law or a congressional hearing will have leeway in giving someone under oath a "get out of jail free card" if they see conflicting testimony. They will then call up the the individual and ask them to clarify their statements. It's the clarification testimony that leads to crime of pergury if the individual is still lying. Sondland probably went in assuming that he would get away with lying once and hoping no one would contradict his statements. He knew he had no point of return if he lied under oath on the clarification testimony. Usually lying under oath is charged when the individual lying still lies on their clarification interview. Basically: "This is your last chance to clarify on your statements.". Sondland was banking on a long shot that his initial testimony wouldn't be contradicted.
