When assessing Trump’s guilt or innocence...

I doubt the NSA has jurisdiction, and I'm not aware of the CIA ever having had LE powers. The DOJ and the SD are both in the executive branch of the govt, which makes POTUS the top of their chain of command. They act with the authority of the President. I doubt they could undertake such an investigation without his approval.

 

And Fake News reports!

Everyone knows that the act of writing down rumors from the rumor mill into a notebook magically transform those into substantiated fact.

Even though he never spoke with Trump and was never instructed to demand a quid pro quo from anyone, his thoughts and feelings are dispositive!

 

I would be shocked if it required his approval.

 

Sorry, missed this part of your post so I will address it now. I agree that democrats have a vested interest in investigating Trump which is why I think the impeachment has some fatal flaws and should be restructured or scraped altogether and adopt a more fair and logical process. With that said the republicans are part of the problem as the outcome of the Senate vote was determined the day the democrats began the impeachment process.The republicans knew the impeachment process has serious flaws and had the first two years of the Trump administration to fix it. If they were too blind to see the inevitable impeachment of Trump then that is on them and they should have fixed it when they had the chance.

 

See, now we're getting into whether it was ok or not ok for Trump to ask them to investigate. Like I said, that is debatable. But it is a different argument from your original argument of Trump being "play a part in said investigation" (your words). Those are two different things.

As far as being "a part of the process"...it is no more being a part of the process as my afore mentioned analogy of wife/husband. That being getting an investigation started. And there's nothing wrong with that. And there actually is a requirement for Trump to get involved as it is his Constitutional duty to make sure laws are upheld, that's one of the main mandates for the Executive Branch.

As for it being ethical or not? That depends...what was Trumps intentions? There are two main possible intentions. 1: Wanted to smear Biden for political gain. 2: Wanted to make sure there was no corruption. One would be unethical, the other would not be. We can speculate as to which of those two reasons is more accurate. But that is all that we can do. We have no evidence either way in that regard. Any speculation that either you or I could bring forth would no doubt be colored by our own biases.

I agree that simply for the sake of appearances Trump probably should not have been the one to ask. But its not all that uncommon that someone does something for entirely acceptable reasons yet the appearance makes a scandal. Perfect example of that is Biden, Biden Jr., investigation of Burisma. Biden Sr probably should not have been the one to demand that investigator be fired due to appearances. Yet he did, and Dems find it perfectly acceptable at this point in time. Which brings us back to what you said earlier:

 

Actually since it involved talking to a foreign government about a former vice-president it might require his approval.

 

Yeah, I see where you're coming from. But Trump isn't just some private citizen here. It's a bit more analogous to the mayor asking the police to investigate his likely opponent in the next election (for whatever reason). If the mayor also controls the funding the police department gets, it creates a similar conflict of interest for the police department itself. Dare they risk the ire of the the incumbent by refusing?

In the worst case, I fear candidates being arrested at the behest of investigations launched or pushed for by incumbents - in much the same way totalitarian rulers are "elected". But that is getting into the territory of speculation. We really aren't so far down the road that is a realistic possibility in the immediate future. At least I should hope not.

 

Blind? Or Trusting? Perhaps they trusted the Dems too much and didn't think they'd make it the sham that it is?

As for the Senate vote outcome...It's no different than the Dems starting the impeachment inquiry based solely on the WB's say so without even having seen the WB's report or the transcript of the call. Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry on Sept 24. The WB report was released to Congress on Sept 25. At least Mitch waited until after those before he made his statement.

 

You're claiming that Trump withheld aid until Zelensky did him a favor? So tell us what the favor was, when Zelensky performed and when the aid was released. Then, prove that if Trump used aid as a lever to reward friends, he was the first ever. Then, tell us what Joe Biden was referring to when he boasted that he withheld aid to Ukraine until the prosecutor who was investigating corruption at Burisma was fired and how Joe was investigated for obstruction of Justice.

 

A couple of problems with your scenario.

1: In your scenario the police already knows that the Mayor controls the funding, meaning they know the pressure is being applied. It wasn't until August 29th that anyone in Ukraine knew that the aid was being with held. Over a month past the time that Trump asked for his favor. So your scenario wouldn't really apply here because the Ukrainians didn't know of any pressure.

2: In your scenario the police could simply inform the public about what was happening. That the Mayor was asking for an investigation into a political rival and had direct control over their funds. To apply it to Ukraine...This did not happen. In fact the opposite happened. President Zelensky said that there was no QPQ. That he was not pressured. Instead the only ones claiming that there was QPQ are Americans. No one in Ukraine has come out saying that there was pressure.

So really your analogy doesn't really work.

 

I hope so too.

 

I agree. I guess the next person asked to serve on the supreme court is gonna have a crappy life.

 

Not a tribe. It's a cult:

From a Limbaugh documented montage ----

GLENN KIRSCHNER: Take the term quid pro quo, ball it up and throw it in the trash, and let’s call this what it is, it’s bribery.

WOLF BLITZER: Does this amount to extortion?

ERIC SWALWELL: The president was leading an extortion scheme.

LEON PANETTA: The clear definition of bribery.

EUGENE ROBINSON: They know extortion when they see it.

ARI MELBER: There was a bribery plot.

JILL WINE-BANKS: There was definitely extortion.

DANA BASH: Whether or not there really was a bribery.

ALI VELSHI: It’s bribery.

GERRY CONNOLLY: It’s pretty clear that there was an explicit extortion.

JOHN GARAMENDI: We keep using the word quid pro quo, but the accurate word here is bribery and extortion.

and our very own cultists: robini123, Golem and the rest who ape whatever their fellow cultists tell them to broadcast.

 

Nice- IF Trump is a sinking ship, then America is a sinking ship- because today's democrats lack the ability to successfully operate and navigate the ship. Zero- non-existent. They will be the cause of the loss.
It's not Trump that is causing this circus, regardless of his actions. It's the dismissal of morality and the willingness to do anything to get their way that puts the situation in crisis.

These people are simply not able to grasp what is happening. Our democratic society today has trouble figuring out was sex their children are. They are embracing the idea that nobody's feeling should be hurt- that is unless it's to their benefit, then they don't give a damn and act like thugs. They tell us to be ashamed of who we are, where we come from and promote weakness and dependency- and want to give away everything. Yet, they haven't a clue as to where that takes us. They think like small spoiled children think.

You are asking republicans what they would do if the situation were reversed, as if democrats were innocent victims of republican policies. The idea of an equal standard is fine- but your version of it seems extremely lop-sided, not equal at all. If you can perceive repubs "running around with their heads cut off" and you can't see anything wrong to trigger that, any reason for repubs to be greatly concerned with what the democrats are doing to America-
Then I'm afraid you are one who has lost touch with reality.

 

Biden bragged on TV about extortion in order to obstruct justice to protect Burisma and the pay day he set up for his son. It is perfectly fine to protect the interests of US taxpayers. Would you want USAID money to go directly to Baron Trump after 2020?

You are aping unproven talking points. Schiff For Brains' star witness got all his facts from the NY Times after Schiff for Brains leaked his distortions to ,,,, guess who ,,,, the NY Times.

The only fact we know of aside from the transcript of the call is this:


They have done a great job of brainwashing you guys. On the other hand, it may not have taken much effort.

 

I know I know... and Seth Rich, and JFK's assassination, and ... what really happened at Roswell... and NASA for faking the moon landing.

 

-"Could I have a piece of cake?"
-"I would like you to do me a favor, though..."

It is a "figure of speech". It means "you scratch my balls, or you don't get a piece of the cake that you desperately need if you hope to fend off a Russian invasion"

Happens all the time....

 

You could add a few more..

Fake Trump Russia collusion to subvert the election of 2016

Fake rape of Cristine Blase Ford by Brett Kavanaugh

Now it's highly likely that this Ukraine thing is fake.

 

I have read many Democrats on this forum who are objective. Maybe most... I'm not sure. And I have had discussions with a handful of objective Republicans. Most of those discussions early on when I joined. Most of them have disappeared from the forum, or only come back sporadically. I think that, being objective as they are, they have lost interest after they saw what Trump turned out to be.

Interestingly, I may have seen fewer self-proclaimed "independents" who are actually objective than I have seen of either party. I haven't actually been counting, but it's possible.

 

I am totally objective.. i find most ofvthe Democrats here to be anything but objective.

 

Hmm, America Centric, I like that but I am a registered Independent.

 

Now you have gone and hurt my feelings.

 

Not "me". Taylor, Sondland, Yovanovitch, McKinley, Vindman.... Trump's own Chief of staff Mulvaney... oh... and Trump himself!

I say again: if you guys believe that Trump deserves a proper defense, you need to start informing yourselves about the facts. The same facts that the American People will be watching all day starting next Wednesday. And it's not "me" they'll be watching.

 

I think I'm not objective. No one on this forum is objective, as we all have basic, already formed opinions about everything. Having said that, I try to look at the facts (the transcript of the call), without reading anything into it, without second guessing what I THINK someone was thinking. I hope I would do this if it were a Democrat too. Judging from the facts of the phone call, I think there was no quid pro quo. If another transcript comes to light of another exchange, perhaps there was one, but until that day comes...and I think there is no law saying a president can't even mention the name of someone who may or may not run against him at a later date. Perhaps I'm wrong about that, but if that were the case, a load of Dems would be currently in jail, right? So, no crime, end of story.

 

If you look at the actual transcript, the favor was Trump's request to look into trying to get to the Crowdstrike server.
And only the Ukraine can actually investigate the Shokin firing.

The Ukraine did nothing before the rest of the funding was released. They didn't even know about any delay until well after the call was made.

Meanwhile, both the Ukraine and the DOJ already had active investigations going on at the time of the phone call regarding the 2016 US election interference AND money laundering related to the Bidens.

This is all backfiring on the Dems and Trump is starting to use the farce as yet another example of Democrat malfeasance:




Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump


The Radical Left Dems and LameStream Media are just trying to make it hard for Republicans and me to win in 2020. The new Impeachment Hoax is already turning against them!