Let me switch to the Ukraine stuff that’s been taking a lot of oxygen out of the room
recently.
Who’s in more trouble here, the president who had this phone call with the Ukranian
leader, or Joe Biden, who actually DID have a quid pro quo with regard to Ukraine when
he was Vice President?
Well that depends who you ask.
Well I’m asking the judge.
I think the president—I think this is the most serious charge against the president.
Far more serious than what Bob Mueller dug or dragged up against him if there was a quid
pro quo.
It does appear as though a quarter of a billion dollars in defensive weaponry was held back
for a period of time while these 8 conversations were going on between the president—
Even though there was nothing said, according to the Wall Street Journal, who was quoting
a couple of sources they have that were apparently privy to this phone conversation.
They said there was no specific quid pro quo, judge.
So if you are the president of the United States and you are making a conversation that
you know your intelligence community is listening to, of course you’re not going to articulate
a quid pro quo.
You’re just going to make the quid pro quo happen.
But if you were a Vice President of the United States and you were visiting with the president
of the Ukraine and you say, look this prosecutor is going after a number of companies and you
don’t tell him, by the way, that one of those companies has your son on it as a board
member, and then say, you gotta get rid of this prosecutor.
Less than 24 hours later, the prosecutor’s gone, the investigation of the company to
which Biden’s son is on the board, that goes away.
That sounds like a direct quid quo pro.
So this is probably the end of Joe Biden’s presidency--
Wow.
And it ought to be an end of his dream for the presidency.
But it doesn’t diminish one iota what the current president is doing which is an act
of—if true, we haven’t seen the whistleblower complaint, and under the law it has to be
revealed—if true, this is an act of corruption.
But I don’t want to bury the lede here.
You said this means the end of Joe Biden’s presidential—
I don’t see how he survives this.
This is Fox News’ senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano debunking a series of right
wing talking points with regard to Trump’s Ukraine scandal.
And despite the way the host was trying to absolve Trump of committing glaringly illegal
activities by pointing instead to Joe Biden, Napolitano not only doesn’t take the bait,
but makes HIS point crystal clear: that this is the single most serious charge ever levied
against the president.
What’s so insane is that Republicans are screeching about how disqualifying a quid
pro quo between Biden and Ukraine would be when Trump likely just engaged in one.
The guy just withheld $250 million in military funding before getting on the phone with the
Ukrainian president, demanding 8 separate times that they open an investigation into
Joe Biden, and then suddenly the funds were released—with an EXTRA $140 million that
the Ukrianian president himself said he didn’t expect.
So if a quid pro quo is enough for Trump and the entire GOP to pull their hair out, then
why aren’t any of them concerned about the one committed within the last 60 days by the
guy sitting in the Oval Office?
It’s ALMOST like they don’t really care about corruption but are just partisan hacks
looking for any excuse possible to hurt the Democrats and stay in power.
And their talking points got worse from there.
The host points to the fact that Trump didn’t EXPLICITLY say the words “I am withholding
$250 million dollars in military aid until you open your investigation into Joe Biden,”
but for Christ’s sake, is that the bar?
That until you state outright “it is my intention to commit a crime,” that no crime
has been committed?
I mean, give me a break.
If all of a sudden, a quarter of a million dollars that was set to go to you gets put
on hold and then, at the exact same time, the president of the United States starts
demanding something, the IMPLICATION is that a quid pro quo is occurring, and the reason
we’re able to tell is because we’re functioning human beings.
I mean, this Fox host is so blinded by his own partisanship that literal seconds after
Napolitano says that this is the single most serious charge against Trump, he claims he
doesn’t want to bury the lede, that the REAL story is about a presidential candidate
being ACCUSED of corruption several years ago for which there’s currently no available
evidence, rather than the current president effectively holding taxpayer funded military
aid hostage until foreign countries start interfering on his behalf in the next election.
Got it.
The fact is that while Napolitano is able to see through the president’s bs, just
about everyone else on Fox News, along with the Republican Party, chooses not to.
And so they’re content to absolve Trump of breaking the law, of basically bribing
the president of Ukraine to do his political bidding, of orchestrating a cover up of a
whistleblower complaint, all so Trump can stay in office.
When we wonder how fascist leaders came to power throughout history, when we wonder how
countries let it get to that point, this is how.
Because we have an entire political party in the United States that is silent in the
face of blatant, glaring corruption, in the systematic dismantling of our democratic institutions.
When the UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson announced plans to suspend Parliament so that
it would have less time to try to stop Britain’s exit from the EU, members of his conservative
party LEFT the party immediately, literally got up on the floor of Parliament and sat
with a different party, depriving Boris Johnson of his majority.
And suspending Parliament is a fairly common occurrence.
Yet when the president of the United States engages in REPEATED efforts to conspire with
foreign countries to interfere in our elections, to obstruct justice at every corner to protect
himself, to undermine everything this entire country stands for, not a single member of
the GOP can find their tongue, because leadership.
So the right will continue running cover for the president, but they’re doing so at their
own peril, because the vast majority of Americans can see what’s really going on here and
won’t forget when it comes time to vote in 2020.