PDF straight from the horse's mouth: https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20190812_-_whistleblower_complaint_unclass.pdf
This to me, suggests serious disarray: Here's what they told reporters about the complaint: Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford and North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven each said they were in appropriations mark-ups and hadn’t yet read the full complaint. Indiana Sen. Mike Braun said he hadn’t read it either, adding that he didn’t know about the allegations to “lock down” information at the White House. Braun went on to say that he didn’t feel the complaint would change Republican’s views of impeachment, and said the Democrats had made a mistake starting an impeachment inquiry before knowing more about the complaint. Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander said he has not read it the complaint. “I’m waiting for the intelligence committee to finish its work." Ohio Sen. Rob Portman said he said he’s been “running around” all day and hasn't read it and would not comment. Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton said “no comment” twice and boarded a senators-only elevator when asked if he was concerned the White House was locking down information. Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said “I’ll have a better idea of how credible he is later this afternoon" when asked if he is concerned about the strong allegations from a credible whistleblower. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, told reporters he has read the whistleblower’s complaint, and says he has “more questions than answers.” There's very little chance they haven't read it yet. These are guys that don't know which position they are supposed to take. My guess is that they are rushing to decide whether or not USS Trump is going to sink.Many Senate Republicans said today that they haven’t read the whistleblower complaint yet. Others said the complaint doesn't change things and raises "more questions than answers."
You can't conspire with a foreign government for political advantage. Trump did this. Most damning, his staff so clearly realized that he did this, that they covered it up by deleting the record and moving it to a classified server. The complaint also outlines a series/pattern of behavior, which is important when establishing wrongful doing. Finally, the complaint points to numerous people that can be called under oath for their version of events.
I saw someone on Twitter pointing out that Trump's perspective has been that "the presidency" is the prize for winning "the election" and that the Republican Party has been enabling this - because he won, he gets to do whatever he wants because he's the winner. I honestly think that the career political operatives that usually surround any functional administration are crucial for maintaining a watertight legal framework for whatever skullduggery the administration uses to accomplish their political ends; Trump is hardly the first president to leverage a political relationship for personal or party gain. However, Trump has done so baldly, with massive overt involvement from cabinet-level officials, without the slightest regard for the criminal blowback he faces. There's an impression that the legality of the situation is being analyzed after the fact.
"The Democrats want to overturn the 2016 election" definitely seems to be one of the recently-circulated talking points. It's not the ideal talking point. It doesn't mean much to anyone but your base, and looks a bit desperate to everyone else. What a shitty job covering for Trump must be. His ego probably precludes asking for advice on how to navigate murky waters before diving in. On the subject, it'd be cool to have a browser extension that detected talking points, and highlighted them with info about when they were created, and links to other uses of them.
That goal is literally what made Ben Hunt at Epsilon Theory aspire to be Hari Seldon. Quid is a very expensive front end to an open-source engine, the name of which I forget but veen always remembers. I'll bet you could have fun with it in your ample spare time.On the subject, it'd be cool to have a browser extension that detected talking points, and highlighted them with info about when they were created, and links to other uses of them.
Thanks, I got the first part but didn't get the second. As I understand it, impeachment need not be predicated by criminal offenses, and does not necessarily mean Trump will be booted out. I'm curious, what odds do you give towards Trump surviving this unimpeached vs impeaced vs found guilty of wrongdoing vs losing the presidency?
Someone somewhere referred to American democracy and American parliamentarianism as basically being Amish democracy. It's permanently frozen in the past and while it has long fashioned itself to be the foremost democracy in the world, it rarely acknowledges that it's far and away the least evolved. Here's the hokey-pokey: Keep in mind that if it goes all the way to (4), this will be the second time in history we've done this. Andrew Johnson faced an impeachment trial in the late 1800s and was acquitted and Bill Clinton faced and impeachment trial in the late '90s and was acquitted. Yeah. the same people who thought banging an intern and lying about it was treason see no problem with blackmailing the Ukrainians into harassing a political competitor but whatever. Either way, as with most things in American democracy we'll pretty much see what we get when we get there. Kinda like Boris Johnson abrogating Parliament and the high court saying "nuh uh" we're in a very open probability field right now.
So I'm actually a born psychic and I foresee... Executive obstruction during the impeachment proceedings!! Congress desperately needs to grow some teeth if they're going to find a way around Trump continuing to exert executive privilege over literally every witness testimony, and he'll use lawyer-client confidentiality for Rudy. I already linked this once, sorry, but Benjamin Wittes has got some great thoughts on how Congress can arm itself, plz forward to Pelosi. I keep flip-flopping on what happens after the House votes to impeach, given that Trump hasn't resigned yet. His resignation may have been suggested to him by then. Maybe most of the Senate GOP lie to him, and don't tell him that they'll be giving him the thumbs down come voting time, so he hangs on until the very end? Could they really not vote to convict?! As the previous 8 days worth of news sinks into the public (apparently we've got a long way to go there), the democrats will investigate even further, and present everything in a single, damning summary. It's going to be an unmistakable party vs. country choice. I don't think it should take longer than six weeks for the House to vote, they'll probably try to keep at least some momentum, and there's no need to conclude or fully conclude the investigations that might be spawned by the impeachment inquiry before the impeachment vote. Remember that impeachment isn't a criminal proceeding, it is a political process, and we all need to relay to our reps that not only is this indeed a crime committed by #45, it represents a new level of brazenness after a pattern of lawlessness unbefitting of the office of the president. So galen, we get to call our lovely two asshats. Bonus points if you can work in what most Europeans told you they think of Donald Trump while you've spent time there. No one's ever actually been removed from the U.S. presidency by impeachment, they're either not convicted (twice) or they've resigned (once). Will this be the first time? Hey, if Trump resigns and is pardoned by Pence, but then Pence was involved with the coverup... Uhhh... ???. Impeachment 2?
Dear Old People: This is your legacy we're talking about. Through the long lens of history, the only thing anyone will remember about your careers is (1) Iraq War vote (2) Obamacare vote (3) Impeachment vote and (3) is going to greatly overshadow (1) and (2). You fuckers are older than the Politburo and really, you will be dead soon. Give your grandchildren something to be proud about, rather than something they hide from their friends. Sincerely, Everyone under 60
There have been other transcripts that were hidden in the past... probably in this system. Would be interesting if the White House staff was actually archiving all of his misdeeds in one convenient location for future retrieval... "... According to White House officials I spoke with, this was "not the first time" under this Administration that a Presidential transcript was placed into this codeword-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive - rather than national security sensitive - information."
Using the AG has his personal strongman to aggressively pursue his personal business interests on his behalf. I honestly think Trump has no idea that this is wrong, illegal, and actually treasonous. And, in other related news, the penalty for treason is death. "... the President named explicitly as his personal envoys on these matters, Mr. Giuliani and Attorney General Barr, to whom the President referred multiple times in tandem."
Interesting when they get hold of the copy of the call that was moved to that codeword-level server. What are the "..." replacing here?The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.
Yeah Nixon released transcripts, too. They also had glaring silences. Those silences contained oceans. And Nixon and crew are fucking Gandalf compared to this shitshow. FUN FACT: Hollywood screenwriting format is highly particular because it has been precisely calibrated such that one page, properly formatted, will equal one minute of screen time. The five-page transcript, as released, uses more generous margins than strunk & white format so it's not a five minute conversation, but it's certainly not thirty. Fukkit. I'ma run it through Final Draft. kk I still know Final Draft. Reformatted into standard Warner Brothers screenplay format, this is a seven page transcript. According to Wikipedia, Zelensky speaks fluent English but I haven't found a video of him doing it in the two minutes I was willing to dedicate to this exercise. So presume there's an interpreter on either side, and double the time. We're at fourteen minutes. Add in another five minutes for mumblings and ramblings and the like. We're at nineteen minutes. Add in another few minutes for protocol and establishing the call. We're still not at our timeframe.