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Trump’s Ukraine Call Was Necessary and Right: Change My Mind
I don’t think there is any doubt about the following (I’ve highlighted things that I would like to have better details for):
1. Ukraine has had a long-term problem with corruption, including with its politicians.
2. We knew #1 and they knew #1.
3. We have a treaty with Ukraine to support each other in anti-corruption investigations. This predates the Trump administration.
4. Burisma is one Ukrainian company with a history of corruption.
5. Joe Biden’s son Hunter was given an amazingly lucrative position on the board of Burisma, given his experience.
6. Joe Biden claimed (in public and recorded) that he forced the removal of the prosecutor who happened to be investigating Burisma by threatening to withhold $1 billion in aid. (There is some confusion that the prosecutor had other corruption issues, but when he was replaced by a “solid guy,” the investigation into Burisma was stopped.)
7. Before the time period of interest, both the US and Ukraine had elections. Zelenskyy ran on a platform of getting rid of corruption and Trump on a platform that included being careful about how our foreign aid is sent to countries that are either corrupt or act against US interests. Trump was also interested in getting more buy-in from allies more local to the issues than the US.
8. Trump held up the aid to Ukraine until he was reassured by a bipartisan senatorial group that the new president of Ukraine was “the real deal.” (The media says this was because Trump heard about the whistleblower. I think both were very close in time, but I don’t think Trump would worry much about the whistleblower.)
So, from the US standpoint, I think Trump’s motivation was to reassure himself on points #7 and #8. From my perspective, that seems like not only a legitimate goal, but a required one.
What I haven’t seen mentioned is what Zelenskyy needed to get out of the call. This is speculation on my part, but makes sense to me.
1. He knows of the corruption issues – and ran on them.
2. He knows that there is a joint treaty on fighting corruption.
3. In spite of #2, he knows that the Vice President’s son (of the previous administration) was involved in one of his corrupt companies and that the Vice President had interfered with the prosecution of that company.
4. So, he must be thinking that #2 is sort of a “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” agreement to go after corruption except where it involved members of the US administration.
5. Trump needed to let him know that there was a new sheriff in town and he supported a full-blown investigation, no matter where it went.
Now, maybe Trump should have said something like, “I know you ran on fighting corruption and want you to know that my administration will back you up even if some from my country are involved,” but I think his mentioning of both “CrowdStrike” and the Bidens would be hard to misinterpret.
So as far as I am concerned, the call was necessary if not “perfect.”
Where am I wrong?
EDIT: @rgbact in comment 10, added more doubt to the confusion I had in #6 above about potential corruption of the prosecutor Biden pressured to be fired. I am grateful for that, since if #6 is significantly wrong, I think my sequence starts falling apart. I am looking into it, but haven’t had much time today. If anyone has more information about the prior prosecutor and the timing of the Burisma investigation, I would love to see it either as a comment or new post.
Published in Foreign Policy
That is part of the confusion for me. One of the groups saying he was corrupt was a Ukrainian anti-corruption group (sounds good) which is supported by Soros (sounds bad to me)
Unfortunately, there are very few media reports that I trust, so sorting things takes a while if its possible at all.
Yep.
No problem with the call.
It doesn’t really matter if he was corrupt or not…..as long as Biden was acting on sources telling him he was corrupt (and not his personal crusade to save Hunter) then Biden is in the clear. Trump otoh was clearly acting only to help himself.His only “source” was Rudy, who was his personal henchman.
Apologies if this has been brought up, but I’m at lunch and have limited time to read all of them. I just read somewhere yesterday that Ukraine has fired the current prosecutor and transferred all cases to some national corruption committee controlled by Soros. Was I mistaken? Does this mean Zelensky is getting sidelined/blindsided, or is Trump & his group, or both? If Ukraine has done this, I suspect the timing. I wish the much-anticipated report would drop TODAY, instead of Monday. There seems to be many machinations being aired in preparation for what is in that report, and this might shake some trees. Thoughts?
Your comment suggests that you see no illegitimate efforts to hinder the 2016 Trump presidential campaign so no merit to Rudy’s investigation. Do you also not see that Clinton’s campaign was aided by no prosecution of her carelessness in handling classified material?
If the above is the case, it at least explains why responses are pro forma on your tedious observations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JRLCBb7qK8
I went to the Hill, read the article (from 11/18/2019, so probably not the latest, but close enough for government work), then clicked the link to the Ipsos site to see the breakouts of the sample population. (In my experience, most polls commissioned by ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN greatly oversample Democrats relative to Republicans.) I couldn’t find this breakout. Ipsos is happy to tell us the categories they weighted by, but not the actual details.
So unless I missed a link on the Ipsos site, I’m going to take the “70%” with a shaker of salt.
Re: your point on the OP’s point 6; might one ask where you got your info on Shokin’s SOP, i.e., holding up investigations, instead of advancing them? Also, the Ukrainian populace was livid about this? Are they now livid about firing the most recent prosecutor & everything being turned over to a SOROS controlled group?
Unorthodox, no question, but given that you can’t swing a cat by the tail in Foggy Bottom without catching a member of “the Resistance” in the back of the head, hardly ill-advised. Who among the stripe-trousered cookie-pushers could Trump trust to do an honest job?
Hillary is so running again. Hillary may pull a Harold Stassen and never be not running again.
Of course a thinking person has to wonder just who all their tampering is really helping? Seems like the longer the impeachment farce continues, the worse things are for Dems:
I think it is significant that Congressman Gaetz, I think it was, who asked out loud of the assembled pro-Dem witnesses that would they please raise their hands if they had seen or heard anything at all with regards to Trump and Ukaranian official bribery, and not a hand was raised.
Here is a full timeline of American big wigs and their involvement in the Ukraine, up to and including the present day:
https://johnsolomonreports.com/the-ukraine-scandal-timeline-democrats-and-their-media-allies-dont-want-america-to-see/?fbclid=IwAR0-vab3b1NDCT1AoxyYo_f15aCct7EOWHiuUwj1LS3TaVEFMHgkG49ZHw0
The Ukraine scandal timeline Democrats and their media allies don’t want America to see. The article is at link above.
This is a detailed examination of the activities – much of them questionable as far as legality – relating to Burisma, any and all Ukranian investigations being withheld in
with regards to Burisma, from 2014 up to current day 2019 occurrences.
There’s no question that there is a legitimate national purpose in finding out whether the Democratic front runner was involved in shady, illegal dealings in a foreign country. All else, such as whether Trump benefited from it politically, is irrelevant.
Exactly. I’ve directly asked certain people here if an investigation into Joe and Hunter would be okay if Joe were just a private citizen (my answer: of course!). I’ve yet to receive a straight-forward answer; hell, I don’t I’ve ever received an answer!
I don’t think it is relevant that Biden may have been the front runner for 2020 (and as I said in the OP, I think Trump would preferred him as an opponent). I think it is an investigation that could lead to the prior administration.
Besides, if it is somehow illegal to investigate someone who may be a front runner, then what about Senators Sander’s, Warren, et al voting for Trump’s impeachment. Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest?
“Of course” is the correct answer. Private citizens can be investigated by either media (FOX) or law enforcement (FBI) or by Congress or by private investigators.. Like right now, Rudy Guliani is under federal investigation for campaign finance violations.
So, thats the options for investigating Biden…..and instead, Trump decided to bribe Ukraine to do a phony investigation press release on CNN.
And where did you get this?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-15/giuliani-faces-u-s-probe-on-campaign-finance-lobbying-breaches
Do you have a source that’s not among the President’s political rivals?
This seems like a blatant contradiction. Biden is OK, because someone told him and Trump is *not* OK, despite someone telling him. Biden is probably not in legal jeopardy unless there is some paper trail explicitly linking his actions to helping Hunter. However, Hunter has legal jeopardy and that is a political problem for Joe. The entire DNC has a political problem, because they (via Chalupa) conspired to commit election fraud. But, laws are for the deplorables and not the ruling elites.
Quite right.
However, the Dems’ new mantra is that any activity that is undertaken for any purpose is morally wrong and impeachable, if the activity is undertaken by a Republican.
If the same activity is undertaken by a Democrat, it is worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.