Congress, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, International, Politics

Report: Trump Froze Military Aid Shortly Before Ukrainian Phone Call Asking For An Investigation Of Joe Biden And His Son

Calls for impeachment are rising on Capitol Hill as more details emerge from a call by President Donald Trump to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he repeatedly asked for the investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Now, reports indicate that Trump froze roughly $400 million in military aid shortly before the call. The timing could reinforce arguments of an implied or express quid pro quo arrangement. Update: Trump confirmed that he ordered the withholding of funds.

According to various news outlets, Trump ordered his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back that money. Officials at the Office of Management and Budget surprised many in the Administration that the money would be held back. The Ukrainians are facing Russian insurgents and the aid is desperately needed. In addition, both Democrats and Republicans supported the aid.

Notably, former National Security Adviser John Bolton reportedly pushed Trump to release the badly needed military aid. Trump later fired him.

The call was made just after Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified in Congress. Trump may have gotten free of an impeachment for the Mueller issues only to trip a new wire with new impeachment allegations. As I have written, the allegation of self-dealing would be a viable impeachable allegation and Trump may have succeeded in forcing the hand of Nancy Pelosi who has worked hard to shutdown impeachment efforts. Even Pelosi may be unable to stop a real impeachment over this allegation of self-dealing.

300 thoughts on “Report: Trump Froze Military Aid Shortly Before Ukrainian Phone Call Asking For An Investigation Of Joe Biden And His Son”

  1. It looks unstoppable now. So here’s what I predict: 1) Trump will never NEVER testify; 2) Minions will say under oath that there were MANY who “advised” him to withhold the funds, and then to release it; 3) Unless you get Zelensky’s sworn testimony, there is NO impeachment, and that’s absolute.

    The key is Guiliani. His involvement is the clearest evidence of abuse of power. And I think he might pull it off. Trump might win for the same reason Clinton did. Because the impeachment hawks are always the most BORING people the public has to see. A buffoon like Guiliani, on the other hand, knows how to get and to hold your attention.

    One last wild thought. Trump may be pushing for impeachment intentionally. He might see his best re-election chance is slapping down his enemies first, at a failed impeachment, and cementing the image of the Dems as losers. Again!

    1. “The key is Guiliani. His involvement is the clearest evidence of abuse of power.”

      Michael, Why not tell us what evidence you have of an abuse of power? Then show the proof.

      Remember the President of the US has a lot of power when he deals with foreign countries. Tell us how in 2 cases China and Ukraine Biden didn’t abuse his power when so much money was involved and money flowed into the Biden family with some of it looking like it was laundered. While you are at it why don’t you tell us what experience or knowledge Hunter had to justify being placed on the boards of the companies involved and why as soon as Hunter was going to be investigated the prosecuter was fired.

      1. The evidence is clear, but not very strong. If (IF!) Trump told Zelensky to talk to Giuliani as a governmental official, and to bring action to hurt his opponent, it can be treason. A true abuse of his oath. But long odds on getting there.

        1. Anonymous, listening to you is very difficult because you don’t get your facts straight and you are constantly talking generalities and repositioning them. Along with that you have been known to lie. I believe this is just one more attempt to go after Trump. At least it is new for the recent attempts have been revisits to old news.

    2. Dems didn’t lose in 2016. Hillary got 3 million more votes. The Russians won. Read the Mueller Report.

      1. The Mueller Report didn’t give you what you wanted, so now you and Anon1 have retreated to let’s pretend.

        1. That’s a Hannity line. The Mueller Report spells out the facts, based on testimony of hundreds of witnesses and thousands of pages of documents. We, the American people, haven’t even seen the entire report, much less the documentary evidence, but there’s more than enough there to charge Trump criminally. There are not less than 10 instances of obstruction of justice. Read the Mueller Report.

                1. Paul, it’s not just unacceptable its ridiculous. Those are ideas that Vox doesn’t like. If Trump wears a pair of shoes they don’t like they could have 11 instances of obstruction of justice. The President has a right to exercise the powers the people gave him. That Anon doesn’t recognize that fact demonstrates Anon’s poor education.

                  As far as an earlier question regarding flood insurance I asked because it varies so much. People probably think on average Florida is the most flood prone. It isn’t and might be the lowest or among the lowest. That title goes I think to Connecticut.

                  1. Allan – we are graded above the flood plane and everything runs downhill from our house. Puts us in a good position.

                    1. Paul that puts you in a good position but your neighbors in a bad one. Supposedly Arizona has a lower than average risk to the homeowner but that doesn’t help the ones in the V zones.

                    2. Allan – the ones who really have problems are the ones who live next to irrigation canals. They get flash floods, too.

                    3. I didn’t think about irrigation canals. The only thing I was thinking of were the areas where flash flooding is expected and where people wouldn’t build.

                2. Yeah, I forgot you don’t read news.
                  For Cindy and others:

                  As of May 27

                  “:…So far this year, more than 100 bills have passed the House but have not made it through the Senate or onto the president’s desk, including a voters’ rights bill, a climate bill, and the Equality Act, sweeping legislation that protects LGBTQ people from discrimination in the workplace, housing, service and public accommodations.

                  Approximately 20 bills have passed in the Senate and have not yet made it through the House, including the recently passed bill to stop robocalls…”

                  https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/halfway-year-congress-passed-17-laws/story?id=63258594

          2. There are not less than 10 instances of obstruction of justice. Read the Mueller Report.

            Andrew Weismann wanted to state a case for indicting Trump for obstructing the obstruction investigation. Natacha and Anon1 chow down on that.

          3. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

            – Albert Einstein
            _____________

            The communists (i.e. liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats) in America are immutably; incurably insane. There was no crime. Mueller proved there was no crime. It is impossible to seek justice in the absence of a crime. It is impossible to obstruct justice in the absence of a crime. It is possible to irrationally and insanely seek vengeance and retribution for a perceived loss such as the 2016 election. Seeking that vengeance is a crime constituted by abuse of power, usurpation, nullification, insurrection and treason; a good example of which is the ongoing Obama Coup D’etat in America. The French had finally had enough and they rolled out the guillotines.

      2. I missed the part in the OSC Report that said “The Russians won” in 2016.
        Is there a another version of the report out there that has been revised and edited by or for Natacha?

  2. Typical. Turley cites no credible source aside from “various news outlets” that are probably citing each other as corroboration. But if we accept the WaPo-NYT-Democrat talking points, should Obama have been impeached for threatening to put the UK at the “back of the queue” if it left the EU? Did the Democrats demand that Trump be impeached when he threatened Mexico with tariffs if that country didn’t do something about the Central American migrants streaming through that country?

  3. NEWS OUT: President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he has authorized the release Wednesday of a complete transcript of his phone call with Ukraine’s president.

    1. Great, now provide the IC IG’s findings to Congress. That conversation was not the entire issue and the evidence was deemed credible and urgent by the Trump appointed IG.

  4. So true

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/privileged-scolds-should-lead-by-example-before-lecturing-others/

    Our Privileged Scolds

    Let them lead by example before they lecture the country on carbon emissions, gun ownership, and ‘white privilege.’

    One theme of the Democratic debates is collective furor — at whom or what is not always clear, other than at Americans who voted for Trump. Or perhaps at America itself for failing the expectations of our moral betters? Yet such rage is so deeply embedded in hypocrisy that it is not merely hard to take; it’s even harder to believe it’s serious.

    So upset are our woke progressive candidates that they insist that the rich, the privileged, the white, and the native-born must now pay ever more penance. Amid such acrimony is an inconvenient truth, though one that remains utterly unspoken: Most of those on stage who are so livid at the exploitative “system” have become wealthy and quite privileged through it — especially since they have spent so much of their adult lives gaming supposedly poorly compensated political service.

    Multimillionaire, mansion-living, ethnic-identity-stealing, and formerly house-flipping Senator Elizabeth Warren talks nonstop about corporate greed, endemic racism, and the need for executive fiats to deal with right-wing American pathologies. In Warren’s reductionist world, every sin originates with some Snidely Whiplash corporate CEO with a black top hat and handlebar moustache who trumped the success of her own past cynical efforts several hundred times over.

    Beto O’Rourke, born into privilege and wealth, and married into greater influence and riches, was so pampered and well connected as a teen that his prior burglary and drunk-driving arrests were either dismissed or white-privileged away. Otherwise, had he been treated as others — including poor working-class whites from southern Ohio or central California — he might now be an ex-felon, and certainly might not be eligible to buy or own a firearm under the regimens that he now blasts as too weak.

    Naturally, the multimillionaire Beto lectures the country on its racism, its original and permanent sins of white supremacy, and the need to confiscate some models of guns and to restrict the ownership of almost all others. As in the case of erstwhile Native American Elizabeth Warren, Beto is so concerned about the asymmetry between the haves and the have-nots that he pushed a fake ethnic identity to do something about it.

    Apparently Beto does not like what he and his family represent or how they got so far ahead. But he is not quite angry enough over his own dispensations to give any of them up — at least if his own net worth juxtaposed to his anemic record of philanthropy is any indication (in 2017, he donated 0.3 percent to charity).

    Socialist Bernie Sanders is now a newly minted multimillionaire. He owns three homes. His wife, a former president of a small college, left her campus in such financial shambles that the FBI was called in to investigate how it was that she had done so well while her college was forced to shut down owing to the insurmountable financial difficulties that had accumulated under Mrs. Sanders’s leadership. (The FBI declined to recommend charges.) Sanders flies in private jets around the country to campaign stops, preaching the virtues of socialism, the need to significantly raise taxes on both the income and the existing wealth of the affluent, and the sins of burning so much carbon. One wonders whether he stayed in a Crimean seaside dacha on his honeymoon to the Soviet Union

    Joe Biden has a long, checkered history of plagiarism, intellectual theft, allowing his offices to be leveraged by his family to profit, and occasional bizarre racialist outbursts, ranging from idiotic discourses on African-American dialects and hygiene to the ubiquitous and growing non-white customer base of Delaware doughnut shops. So naturally Biden now runs for president on the themes that we are a racist nation, that integrity such as his own is needed in the Oval Office, and that greedy wannabe-rich people like his brother or son need to be called to account. In between boasts that he’d beat Trump like a drum or that he’d like to take Trump behind the proverbial gym for a whipping, Joe lectures Americans on the loss of civility and bipartisan respect.

    Left unsaid is the case of the progressive scold emeritus and par excellence, the “you didn’t build that,” “now is the not the time for profits,” “at a certain point, you’ve made enough money” Barack Obama. The missing former progressive president now migrates between his $15 million Martha’s Vineyard estate and his $8 million Washington mansion, where he works on increasing his not-enough profits and building his own business until he reaches his own particular point of sufficient riches — somewhere beyond his present $100 million net worth, accumulated entirely in the less than three years since he left office.

    The list of such paradoxes could be expanded to include almost all the progressive candidates, most of whom are quite well-to-do and yet eager to rebuke America for its nasty selfishness, carbon addictions, and innate privilege.

    If one were a Christian, he would offer these socialist, green scolds, and hypercritics of the United States, Jesus’s famous advice at John 8:7. Facing the vigilantes who are ready to pummel an adulteress, Jesus says, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” Or if one is a secularist, then perhaps the warning from Petronius’s Satyricon would do: “You see a small louse on someone else, but not the tick on yourself” (In alio pediculum, in te ricinum non vides).

    Such hypocrisy is a theme among the Democratic field for obvious reasons. One, 21st-century America is the most opulent and leisured country in the history of civilization, and especially for millions of its most blessed citizens by either marriage, inheritance, or their own non-muscular work. In present-day America, it is far easier for the cultural elite to be rich than at any other time or place in history.

    Two, many of the political class either enter or leave office quite wealthy (or both) — and that is not supposed to be the case for progressives and equality-of-result socialists who do not believe that rich people should do better than others. Note that the Democratic party has mostly abandoned the middle class and is largely demographically a reflection of the very wealthy who fund it and the dependent poor who are taken for granted. The former seeks greater power and influence; the latter depends on redistributive social programs and identity-politics set-asides.

    Three, these spread-the-wealth progressive politicians apparently feel guilty about their singular privilege — at least all the way up until the moment when they have to dispense with any of it. As a general rule, the more that progressives harp on “too much” money, the more likely they themselves, by their own definition, have too much money. When a progressive refers to “checking your privilege,” does he mean a young Kamala Harris ingratiating herself to an older politico, the married Willie Brown, to jump-start her political career? Or Cory Booker, child of two IBM executives, who grew up in an exclusive neighborhood? At least multimillionaire techie Andy Yang does not take too seriously the idea of disowning his own privilege. Add up the number of Ivy League degrees on the debate stage, and it becomes hard to believe that these scolds know all that much about the underclasses, at least compared with the various fast lanes that their privileged degree brands opened up.

    Given these realities can we ask for a brief manifesto from our affluent scolds in Washington and Hollywood?

    How about just five simple commandments to see us through until November 2020?

    I will not lecture on the evils of gun ownership if I own a handgun or if anyone in my security details carries one. Given Joe Biden’s advice just to rely on a few random blasts of a shotgun on the front porch, perhaps his private security guards could do the same.
    I pledge not to sermonize on the unfairness of wealth distribution or carbon-emission greed if I own more than one home, and if any of my homes is larger than 2,500 square feet.
    If I continue to virtue-signal about the Green New Deal, I promise that, from this day forth, I will not fly on a private jet, not own a heated swimming pool or hot tub, not own or ride in an SUV, and not own or use air conditioning. The green future starts now, with me!
    I swear not to rail about the failure of the public schools in general, the evils of non-union and charter schools, and in particular the asymmetries in the quality of our education system — if I place my own children in private academies and prep schools or if I attended a private school myself.
    Finally, I will cease pontificating about “white privilege” and “white supremacy” if I live in a nearly all-white, non-diverse neighborhood and my children have ever attended a wealthy, predominately white school.
    If our multimillionaire scolds would just adopt these five promises, Americans might at least listen to some of the nonsense they espouse. Otherwise, their debate screeds are mostly virtue-signals intended for their own career advancement, and reflections of their own psychological insecurities about squaring the circle of their wealth and privilege — and how much they think they must feign to feel badly about both.

    1. Marie – don’t forget that Creepy Joe was going to take a length of chain to Corn Pop to teach him a lesson. Lot of violence in that man. I wonder if we should be checking his wife for signs of spousal abuse.

  5. “Report: Trump Froze Military Aid Shortly Before Ukrainian Phone Call Asking For An Investigation Of Joe Biden And His Son”

    – Professor Turley
    ______________

    President Franklin D. Roosevelt deprived Japan of oil ultimately forcing it to attack Pearl Harbor. FDR kept the knowledge of imminent attack from the local commanders allowing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to happen. Roosevelt finally, after a long struggle, speciously and spuriously obtained the necessary “justification” to fraudulently enter America into WWII – a foreign war that was not America’s, not constitutional and did not “provide for the common defence.”

    The Deep Deep State did the same thing to enter America into endless war in the Middle East (Israel) when it allowed Bin Laden to fly planes into the Twin Towers while the Deep Deep State brought the Twin Towers down through “controlled demolition” – Building 7 collapsed and was not hit by an airplane or anything else. Figure it out people, America is still in the Middle and still fighting endless foreign wars there (Israel and Mossad are extremely effective).

    Lyndon Baines Johnson set-up the “Gulf of Tonkin” incident to enter America into informal formal military activities in Viet Nam after the newly decapitated John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been arranging to pull American troops out saying, “I will splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind”?

    Professor Turley, “shhhhh….it happens,” even you will agree.

  6. Dims have a credibility problem. Imagine that.

    Pence hopefully will be our next President and then watch the Left go nucken futs
    😃

    **DRUDGE POLL** WHAT WILL CONGRESS DO TO TRUMP?

    NOTHING: 75%, 13,341 votes

    IMPEACH AND REMOVE: 5%, 824 votes

    IMPEACH: 20%, 3,572 votes

    17,737 Total Votes
    Poll posted 26 mins ago.

  8. OK, so now I am confused. The Squad says that America is an evil country, founded on slavery, and most of the Left and colleges all agree with that. Sooo, if Trump really was committing treason, wouldn’t it be against an “evil country founded on slavery???” So, wouldn’t that be a good thing as far as the Left and Democrats are concerned??? And shouldn’t that make Trump a hero to the Left???

    Color me confused.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

      1. “Yeah, Squeeky, you’re confused. Just follow the Soap Operas.”

        Yes that is Peter Hill “just follow the Soap Operas”. I think Peter is afraid of intelligent independent women.

        1. Alan, no intelligent, independent woman is supporting Donald Trump, or presenting ‘What Abouts’ on his behalf.

          1. Alan, no intelligent, independent woman is supporting Donald Trump, or presenting ‘What Abouts’ on his behalf.

            You’re not going to meet intelligent independent women trolling public restrooms in West Hollywood.

            3. Tabby, for the first several months I commented here, I thought you were a woman. Back then you kept using names that might have sounded ‘cute’ to a chick. And your language always sounded so affected. So it’s ironic that you, of all commenters, would try to smear me with homophobic taunts. You sound like an old queen if ever there was one. An old queen in some outer suburb who fancies himself as terribly educated.

              1. Tabby, for the first several months I commented here, I thought you were a woman.

                In the 14 years I’ve made participation in online forums a hobby, you are the 1st person who has ever copped to that particular confusion.

                Back then you kept using names that might have sounded ‘cute’ to a chick.

                I ordinarily use one handle on all sites, Peter. I’ve had to use alternate handles here because of the site’s technical
                dysfunctions (Darren also banned me for a period of months, not sure why). I’ve had to use an alternate set of handles on another site because the moderators permit favored posters to impersonate other posters (I have reason to believe the culprit is one of their employees). It doesn’t confuse anyone but you, Peter.

              2. Hill, ignore these middle school Ahs. There comments reflect on them, not you. Pathetic to be like them.

                1. Anon, I sense the Trumpers here know Trump is a one-termer. Trump, in fact, may not even last this whole term. So right now the deplorables are like rats backed into a corner.

                  2. l sense that Hill and the rest of the TDS crowd are as confident of Trump’s impending political defeat ( whether it’s in 2020, or as he suggests, sooner) as they were in 2016.

                    1. Kurtz, during the last election at certain times on a different site I almost tried to get a bet placed because it looked like the numbers were spread too much against Trump and one could cover their bets. I don’t think we can place bets from the US on these sites. That wide spread closed quickly. Foreigners are betting on many of the sites and I think their perspective lacks certain knowledge we have.

              2. YNOT no need to meet anyone in the public restrooms unless we are checking on how you mop the bathroom floors. Try wearing gloves when cleaning out the toilets and stay out of the ladies restrooms.

          2. Peter, you just insulted about half of the white females that voted in the last election. What happened to you? Did some woman at the beach kick sand in your face? You don’t seem to like anyone.

            1. Alan, look at polls. Trump’s support among women has collapsed. The suburbs are going completely blue. That’s why Democrats got now have The House.

              1. You have a very narrow view of what has and is happening and your predictions about Trump are far in the negative.

                Hillary was a bad candidate but now we have Biden who appears to be corrupt. Though his corruption isn’t proven any Republican with the same history as Biden would have to disappear. I look at the Democratic candidates running for President and I don’t see any presidential material. The strongest candidate right now seems to be Elizabeth Warren who changes her positions and heritage at a drop of a hat. No principles except promise everything you can to the voter. With people like you that is a good appeal but I don’t know how lasting that would be with the general population that I believe is a lot more normal than you.

      2. Peter Shill, if you Lefties were not “all over the place”, it would be easier to keep up. First, you guys holler that everybody in the world has a right to be here, then whine and carry on for two years that Trump relied on the Russians, who are among the people entitled to be here. Then you guys trash our borders, and complain about “treason”. Then, you swallow Hunter “Cokehead” Biden and his Pops without a gurgle, and then have a fit on the mere allegation that Trump said something to the Ukrainians about it. You complain about Trump and the Russians, but seem strangely still and silent about the Hillary Clinton Russian phony dossier stuff. And get mad at Trump because he allegedly is interfering with Biden, while acting like the Police Captain in Casablanca about the whole Deep State planting of spies in the Trump campaign.

        So, yes you guys are confusing. I think it arises from the fact that shills have a pretty low threshold of credibility in general.

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

    2. “…founded on slavery…”

      Slavery was founded by African tribal chiefs who sold their subjects to Arab slave traders who sold their product to British shippers who sold their product to British planters in the British colonies in the New World in the year of our Lord 1619. Less than 4% of the British subjects in the British colonies owned slaves. Many of the British subjects in the British colonies were effectively slaves as indentured servants. The American Founders realized their folly regarding slavery and the end was in sight; George Washington freed his slaves in his will. “Crazy Abe” Lincoln planned compassionate repatriation as the definitive final solution. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

  9. Judging from the half-hearted and weak comments here from the Chorus, even they know this is getting serious.

    1. he should have froze military aid to Ukraine and kept it frozen. This would be like Russians giving military aid to Mexico. It’s dangerously destabilizing in any amount.

      1. Kurtz, Trump repeatedly lambasted President Obama for not giving enough military aid to the Ukraine. Didn’t you listen to his promises and campaign?

        1. how could anybody hear every darn thing the guy says, he’s a motor mouth!

          I dont care if he said it, today or before, because, all along, I have thought its stupid to try and weaponize Ukraine. It should NOT be considered for membership in NATO.

          Nato expansion should stop cold where it’s been. Poland was a sketchy add-on, and Croatia was another poor choice.

          Stop expanding and encroaching on the Russian sphere of influence is a very simple and conservative way to avoid conflict. Obama talked a good game at “peace” and sure delivered plenty of war. So far Trumps record as a peace candidate is holding up way better than his!

        2. i wonder why all you civil rights types & liberals don’t have a problem with the US sending money and aid which went straight into the hands of Ukrainian militias like Pravyi Sektor. Sending it during Obama’s reign, no less.

          If you don’t know what that is look it up.

          Oh, and btw. Turns out NATO ally Turkey’s been running ISIS all along

          https://nypost.com/2019/09/21/why-isnt-the-media-covering-turkish-president-erdogans-ties-to-isis/

          one of those times when “conspiracy theory” became “conspiracy fact” i guess

    2. It is because us in the “chorus” have seen this little drama before. Mespo nailed it. First, there’s all the whispered allegations, and then the outrage, and then the investigations. and then it all goes KERPLOOP when the fact come out – rinse and repeat.

      But it does say something for all you shills that you get sooo excited each time! Like Charlie Brown and the football, or the butting your head into brickwall devotees. It just doesn’t take much to get you goobers going. No wonder Rachel Maddox still has an audience!

      Squeeky Fromm
      Girl Reporter

    4. Anon1…………I am not half-hearted. I am suffering from mental fatigue brought on by a daily blitz of insane
      ,hysterical accusations against a legally elected president who is being treated like a felon. Important issues are being abadoned by Congress because of this insanity.
      When did the Democrats start loathing America? It’s scary. They are the new Puritans, who live with the abiding fear that someone, somewhere, might be having a good time.

      1. Cindy, Honey, there are no longer any “allegations”. Trump admitted there was a call, he admitted that he withheld $400 million or so in aid to Ukraine that had been appropriated by Congress, by both Democrats and Republicans, to help Ukraine fight off Russia, and that he discussed getting dirt on Biden during the call. BTW: Biden’s son had been investigated and found to have committed no crime. Those are facts, not allegations. Trump is trying to spin his withholding of money as a means of leverage to try to coerce other countries to give more aid to Ukraine, but as has been explained on this blog before, Trump does not have the authority to override Congress when it comes to how our taxpayer money is spent. So, these facts prove that Trump was trying to enlist the assistance of a foreign government to help him win an election. Again. A country like Ukraine that desperately needed assistance to fight off Russia would be a patsy for coercion of this sort. And, if Trump’s plan worked, he would be subject to blackmail. Trump is a thorough crook and needs to go away. He cannot win an election without cheating.

        Democrats do not loath America–most of us despise Trump because he is unfit to occupy the office of POTUS. Most did not vote for him, most have never approved of him, and most want him gone. Most Americans are not Democrats. Trump is not America. America is better than Trump.

          1. Actually, the story is even worse when you think about it–the Bidens had already been investigated and found to have committed no wrongdoing. So, what Trump was really trying to do was coerce Ukraine to manufacture a scandal that he could use for political purposes. The goad he used was withholding of desperately-needed aid that Congress had appropriated. How anyone could not find this despicable is beyond me.

            1. Nattybooboo says: “the Biden’s have already been investigated and found to have committed no wrongdoing.”

              Riiiight. That’s if you don’t call unethically lining the pockets of adult children of sitting Obama admin officials, “wrong” !!!

              what is “wrong” with you??

              Newsflash, Trump has been investigated for three years and “found to have committed no crime and no wrongdoing” either !!

              Trump’s crime? Winning the election fair and square DESPITE all the corruption cheating and criminality committed by the Obama administration!

        2. You dont speak for “most americans Natch” — just another self appointed haughty voice elevating itself over others.

          and you are obsessed with trump

          you do not decide who is fit or not

          and you are offensively and habitually rude to cindy

          1. No, I don’t speak for most Americans–we collectively spoke in 2016 when 3 million more of us voted for Hillary Clinton. We got even louder in 2018 when there was a blue wave that took back the House. But for Republican gerrymandering, the Senate would have gone blue, too. Every time there is a presidential approval poll, we speak. Just reporting the facts.

            Read Cindy’s post below and then tell me who is rude. Cindy thinks Trump was “legally elected” No. He cheated. Read the Mueller Report. He’s trying to cheat again by coercing Ukraine to manufacture false evidence against Joe Biden, whose son was already investigated and found not to have committed any crimes. He intentionally withheld aid to Ukraine that had been approved by Congress to leverage this. She calls the latest scandal “insanity”, and believes that it is all Democrats who oppose Trump. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. But, at least I haven’t accused her of being a mental patient.

            1. “No, I don’t speak for most Americans–we collectively spoke in 2016 when 3 million more of us voted for Hillary Clinton.”

              Natacha, Yet Trump was elected President and still is. Trump concentrated on the electoral vote based on the rules of the game. If he had concentrated on the popular vote he probably would have won the popular vote, but he felt he couldn’t be assured to win both.

              Take baseball. Natacha thinks that those teams that had the most hits should win the game but the rules are the winner is the one with the most runs not the most hits so the teams concentrate on the number of runs rather than on the number of hits.

              Natacha lives in her own world. So be it, but when she creeps out into the real world she seems uncomfortable with the rules of the game.

              1. Natacha lives in her own world.

                On disability stuffing cheese-doodles into her face.

            2. Read Cindy’s post below and then tell me who is rude….Trump was “legally elected” No. He cheated.

              YOU ARE WRONG AND YES YOU ARE RUDE

              day after day of insults to a lot more than cindy. yes, you’re supremely rude. its not just about tossing insults. it’s your haughty arrogance. an insult coming from a person with a sense of humor can be fun; but an insult coming from a harridan is like nails screeching on the chalkboard

              1. Specifically state what facts I reported above constitute being “rude” to anyone or “insulting’ anyone. Facts seem to scare the hell out of you Trumpsters, but I’m listening.

                1. I decline to answer. You need education in civility., I am not the one to offer it. I try hard to be civil myself, sometimes fail. So Im not one to teach.
                  I just get tired of the same old same old from you every day so if you top it off with that ‘honey” nonsense then I’m going to call a spade a spade

            3. Nuttychacha says: “Biden’s son had been investigated and found to have committed no crime. Those are facts, not allegations.”

              No crime, per se? BUT…Biden’s son accepted a $50,000 a MONTH payola from a corrupt Ukraine natural gas company while his father was the sitting VP and point person for Ukraine policy. That’s called unethical. That’s called corrupt. That’s called seedy. That’s called conflict of interest. That’s called a lot of things, but in your book, it’s all fine and dandy so why doesn’t everyone just leave Joe and Hunter alone already?? Really? What is the matter with you??

              But wait! There’s more! Now let’s talk about what Hunter Biden did with China…

              and let’s see if there are any other countries filling the Biden family coffers? Of course there are…

              It may not be called a “crime” but it is certainly called blatent “corruption” Nuttychacha.

            4. Nattybooboo — Cindy thinks Trump was legally elected (because he was). You think he cheated to win (but he didn’t). Read the Mueller report. It’s garbage. We all know the Democrats lie and cheat like hell in EVERYTHING they do. Open your dam eyes and ears.

        3. Natacha…….It was nice of St. Elizabeth’s to let you use their laptop.
          Regrettably, I yawned through most of your statement of “facts” , which made my eyes squint. So, I was not able to enjoy full frontal Natchspeak so dear to us here at the Res Ipsa.

          2. So, I was not able to enjoy full frontal Natchspeak so dear to us here at the Res Ipsa.

            Cindy, that was very, very good! Bravo

            It appears you and others are skewering the David Brock paid trolls who are out in full force today. Don’t forget to use face masks, shields, and double glove. A drum of hydrogen peroxide might be handy

      2. Cindy, enjoy the majority and feel empathy for the TDS patients.

        http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/trump_approval_index_history

        President Donald Trump received an approval rating of 53 percent from likely voters, according to a Rasmussen poll released Tuesday.

        The latest poll reflects the highest approval rating for the president in five months, as the last time Trump got a 53 percent approval rating was in April 2019.

        2. Rasmussen’s polls are always skewed pro-Trump and are an outlier. It appears that they intentionally poll pro-Trumpsters. No one takes them seriously because they are so far beyond the norm of virtually all other polls.

          1. You keep on believin’ Nuttychacha. Come election day you will be losing your dam mind all over again. What’s left of it, that is.

            1. Natasha, like some others on the blog don’t seem to LEARN. Her points have been disputed many times and she is unable to COGENTLY RESPOND to them like some others on the blog. She keeps saying the SAME things and won’t stop. Remind you of anyone?

                1. Really? It seems just like Natasha you cannot learn. You can find some studies or reports but you cannot COMPREHEND what they are saying.

                    2. No, anonymous, you ran your mouth, lied, misquoted and did everything you could to make yourself sound right despite the fact that you sounded ignorant on the subject after the data was presented even though some of that data came from your citations. You sounded like Natasha and here you continue to sound the same. Your dog Fido (below) might provide you some transient comfort but we all know Fido should be muzzled and have a catheter inserted or a diaper to protect the grounds from her inability to control herself. In the meantime, you owe me an apology.

                    3. And another typical comment by this guy.

                      You’ve certainly attracted some characters, Jonathan.

                    4. When you lie, anonymous, about another person or what they said, eventually you have to make good on some sort of apology. Continuing to play your games where lying is a major feature takes its toll. We may not see that toll on the list but you will certainly feel it in other ways. Disparaging Jonathan’s posters doesn’t help your case. It only demonstrates further that you cannot take responsibility for your own actions.

              2. Yes…..she reminds me of Allan. A lot of the same characteristics, but Alan seems to be more bitchy of the two.
                Certainly the mouthier of the two, and I can see him gearing up for hundreds and hundreds of comments to be sure he gets in the final word.
                It is not a coincidence that this fool Alan has always been on the ” most frequent commentators
                list”, that he probably spent more time and writes more words than anyone else, that be will double down on an unsubstantiated allegation, that he likes to use words like stupid or liars when he called out on his blunders ( then is a crybaby about “as hominem attacks” on him.
                Allan is not very bright. I don’t won’t to get him unduly agitated by once again pointing out that he is a moron.
                So let’s just say that he is “special”.

                1. Anonymous at 5:37 PM,
                  His full name is Allan Jethro Blowhard. He is always right regardless of the facts, and be he gets kind of hysterical and very verbose whenever he feels he’s been wronged.
                  Which in his mind is whenever someone disagrees with him.

                2. Anonymous, I note three responses without any evidence of thought or intelligence. Quantity is not the same as quality though you think they are identical. Lies are not identical to truth and quotes having nothing to do with the subject matter are worthless like the one that uses them. You are a proven liar and that is demonstrated in all three of your replies.

                  1. the purpose of your antagonist Allan is to make you mad and thus distract you from generating positive content to fill these pages. This is called “trolling.”

                    You do not need to defend yourself against these vain provocations. You run the risk of wasting your precious time and energy in so doing.

                    1. “You do not need to defend yourself against these vain provocations. You run the risk of wasting your precious time and energy in so doing.”

                      Thank you Kurtz, but we are dealing with a very low type of human being who should be ostracized from the blog by blog members. I say that even though he says things that are agreeable to parts of my ideology. He has posted before under a different name leading to a long number of posts between him and I and is now doing the same again except this time he hides his cowardly persona under a generic anonymous which is the best reason for him to leave. At least others will maintain a single persona. He thinks he is slick and uses a bunch of tricks with his alias and picture but his lack of substance is easily noticed along with his blatant lies.

                    2. The original purpose in an exchange with Allan was to engage in rational debate based on known and accurate information.
                      You may or may not agree with this, Mr. Kurtz, but once the “replies” to my comments inaccurately describe me as ignorant, stupid, liar, etc., that is likely to change the tone of the debate going forward.
                      That is also likely to create an unfavorable impression of the one who pulls that kind of crap.

                    3. Anonymous, don’t make excuses for your actions. When you lie about another that is worse than an insult. When you play games and misquote that too is worse than an insult. Not only that but we can see your games and your lies on display with every post you make where I am concerned. Even your alias is an attempt to be slick.

                      You are what you are and it isn’t pleasant to look at.

                  2. Many of the comments springing from The Giant Brain of Allan Jethro Blowhard are a real hoot.

                    2. I see more quantity than quality again in multiple posts by anonymous that all contain the same insults and almost the same dialogue. We cannot forget the lies. When it comes to science he sits in the back of the class and when it comes to imagination, it just doesn’t exist.

      3. Cindy Bragg – I am surprised the Democrats have not selected a Witch Hunter General.

        1. The house is playing politics and spending most of its energy trying to impeach the President.

          1. They don’t have any actual policy preferences anymore beyond contrived harassment of a menu of social segments they hate, so there is no longer anything to discuss with them. A generation ago, there were cross-cutting policy disputes and liberals had more elevated aims than they do now, so even with a split legislature there were things you might (under select circumstances) accomplish. No more.

            Try to imagine for a moment someone like George McGovern or Gary Hart setting an ugly circus like the Kavanaugh imbroglio in motion. Here you have partisan Democrats arguing with a straight-face that the claims of this woman have to be taken seriously even when neither she nor any allied party can present evidence that she and the man she accused had ever met. Then there was the claim that he was an alcoholic (kind of a peculiar claim to make about a man with no peculiar medical problems and no history of odd accidents who has been gainfully employed without interruption for 28 years in positions of increasing responsibility). Then they went to a different square on the checkerboard, claiming he ‘lied’ about his adolescent drinking. They managed to find some tool living in the Bay Area who shared an apartment with him for four months (35 years ago) to issue animadversions against him. Then there was the claim that a man who had been a working appellate judge for 12 years lacked ‘judicial temperament’ because he was visibly angry at a congressional hearing where people were lying their a** off about him. And so forth.

            1. from james howard kunstler’s clusterf__k blog

              “The swamp abides. The latest news media dumpster fire over President Trump’s phone conversation with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is a three-way ruse. Ruse 1: deflect attention from the main issue, which is Joe Biden’s trolling for payoffs on his missions to foreign lands as vice-president, first Ukraine, where son Hunter was gifted a board of director’s chair and $50K-a-month salary with Ukrainian gas company Burisma, and then a $1.5 billion “private equity investment” to Hunter Biden’s wealth management fund from the state-owned Bank of China. Ruse 2: to deflect attention from the damage soon to be inflicted on the Deep State by the forthcoming DOJ Inspector General’s report on FISA court abuses. Ruse 3. To set in motion yet another obstruction of justice trap for Mr. Trump on the basis of false charges.

              This comes at the instigation of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who was formerly senior legal counsel to John Carlin head of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice, deeply implicated in the FISA court matters of 2016 under investigation by federal prosecutor John Durham. Mr. Atkinson cited a complaint by an unnamed whistleblower who claims to have heard from a source that the President offered a quid pro quo to Ukrainian President Zelensky for reopening the Burisma case. The “whistleblower” may be Mr. Atkinson himself.

              Of course, gaffe-prone Joe Biden spilled the beans on video earlier this year, when he bragged about shaking down Ukraine’s then-president Petro Poroshenko over a billion-dollar loan guarantee unless he fired the prosecutor investigating Burisma, which he did. Is there any ambiguity here?

              The coordination between the news media and the Deep State is impressively blatant in this new gambit, with former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe (dismissed for cause in 2018), in his new position as a CNN “contributor” (while awaiting prosecution) teeing up a new “Trump collusion” narrative with The New York Times, WashPost, and NBC marching in step. In this new age of disinformation, narratives are the political weapon of choice in the campaign to harass and disable the winner of the 2016 election. The big play of RussiaGate failed, the play of “racism” is failing, so UkraineGate is next up.

              It’s also obviously an effort to reenergize the impeachment operation in congress, badly botched so far by Jerold Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee. But it’s hard to imagine a better entertainment than an impeachment of Donald Trump in congress. Unless the Deep State wants to throw former President Obama under the bus, along with dozens of his associates (including Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Biden), they might be advised to call off that circus. A trial in the Senate, where the GOP runs the proceedings, would be an even better table-turner than the rousing climax of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

              I have a new theory about where the 2020 election is heading: if the Democratic Party candidate happens to lose, the party’s lawyers will unleash a blizzard of litigation in every voting district where the outcome was a couple of thousand ballots against them. It will be the 2000 “hanging chad” fracas on steroids and they will go so far as render the election inconclusive, therefore provoking the most parlous constitutional crisis since the start of the Civil War. In other words, they will dare to disable the republic.

              Something or somebody will have to put a stop to these seditious turpitudes. The machinery of the law must be turned on the “resistance” and its operatives in the Deep State. Mr. Barr has the opportunity to do that. A globe of silence has enclosed his doings for many months. Impatient observers jump to the conclusion that the silence means he is doing nothing. I am not so sure of that. Given the purposeful hysteria ginned up so dishonestly in the press — and so injuriously to the actual public interest — don’t you suppose he would want to avoid tossing dynamite into that dumpster fire? By the same token, those actively stoking the dumpster fire are revealing their utter desperation. The unexpected consequence will be the suicide of the Democratic Party. But then people don’t necessarily get what they expect, they get what they deserve.”

              HUH

            2. DSS, after Kavanaugh I had no respect left for Democrats. I used to try and separate some of them from the malignant leftists but it appears they are all that way or they are all invertabrates and won’t speak for themselves which leads to the same results. I am not happy with a lot of Republicans either for I would think there would have been more action on the Republican side when it came to Hunter Biden and other such issues. It seems too many of them don’t move unless forced to do so.

              In my eyes this makes Donald Trump that much greater and I think if he gets a second term real historians will consider him a great President.

              By the way, Justice Kavanaugh though a good jurist was not my first choice. Hopefully my first choice will appear before the committee when the next vacancy opens up. I am sure the left is already trying to destroy that individual and making things so difficult that the candidates that are good might not want to run.

          2. “….So far this year, more than 100 bills have passed the House but have not made it through the Senate or onto the president’s desk, including a voters’ rights bill, a climate bill, and the Equality Act, sweeping legislation that protects LGBTQ people from discrimination in the workplace, housing, service and public accommodations.

            Approximately 20 bills have passed in the Senate and have not yet made it through the House,…”

            https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/halfway-year-congress-passed-17-laws/story?id=63258594

            1. including a voters’ rights bill, a climate bill, and the Equality Act, sweeping legislation that protects LGBTQ people from discrimination in the workplace, housing, service and public accommodations.

              All of which can be filed under the heading, “contrived harassment of a menu of social segments they hate”.

            3. The names of the bills don’t significantly indicate what they are doing. A voter’s rights bill should include voter ID and everything one can do to protect the vote of citizens and prohibit discouragement of such a vote. But voting is a privilege that people must avail themselves of and if they want the right to vote to be energy free they shoulnd’t be voting. Experience has taught us that some of the bills that sound like they are protecting gay minorities end up hurting young women permitting men in the bathroom or permitting men to compete with them on the athletic field. These are not the types of bills that should be passed but are the types of bills Democrats love passing. So no, the Senate should not take up bills that hurt a lot of people or spend a lot of money for little benefit.

  10. Turley your constant state of outrage about POTUS is increasingly tiresome. Your first comment on this matter was based on unsourced news stories that appeared in WAPO and NYT. Many of us do not consider these media outlets as reliable as you do.

    For another POV, suggest you carefully read Andrew C. McCarthy’s nuanced National Review article of 9/21/2019, “Breaking Down the Whistleblower Frenzy.” He suggests that Section 3303 likely does not apply. He also reminds us that BHO “misled Congress and the nation” with the Iran nuclear deal and “willfully end ran the Constitution’s treaty provisions and congressional oversight.”

    1. Re: WaPo and NYT as reliable sources (giggle, snort), look who is now whining, and this from the Left which continually assaults Fox News, Breitbart, The Federalist, blocks on social media Glenn Beck, Alex Jones and on and on and on

      ——

      https://thehill.com/homenews/media/462732-ny-times-publisher-trump-complicit-in-worldwide-threat-to-journalism

      NY Times publisher: Trump complicit in worldwide threat to journalism
      New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger in a new op-ed alleges that President Trump accepts or even encourages “brutal crackdowns” on journalists worldwide.

      “The hard work of journalism has long carried risks, especially in countries without democratic safeguards. But what’s different today is that these brutal crackdowns are being passively accepted and perhaps even tacitly encouraged by the president of the United States,” Sulzberger wrote in a column in the paper published Tuesday.

      1. It’s hard not to laugh at the Sultzberger op-ed and the comment above by Peg. The title of the article was legitimate “The Growing Threat to Journalism Around the World” and something to think about, but the editorial degenerated into a TDS type of argument. He backed up what he said with one sided statements based on anonymous sources and spin without any consideration of the underlying facts.

        He is right when he said Trump called a lot of news fake news. Trump was absolutely right. Daily headlines of the Russia hoax based on spin and anonymous’s sources were almost all proven false when they pertained to criminal action by Trump who was elected President and therefore determines policy. Trump legitimately exposed the fake news from the NYTImes and the Washington Post. Both newspapers have had to make many retractions and backpeddle. The main people involved in these accusations are providing that proof. At the same time the NYTImes stayed away from discussing Biden’s role in selling the US out to China where his family came into considerable money. Same for Ukraine. All that will come out in the future but not because of the NYTimes rather because of journalists working outside of the MSM.

  12. “The evidence is so expansive as to strain the credulity of the Democrats’ current outrage at Trump’s behavior with Ukraine.

    Which raises a question: Could it be the Ukraine tale currently being weaved by Democrats and their allies in the media is nothing more than a smoke screen designed to distract us from the forthcoming Justice Department inspector general report into abuses during the Democratic-inspired Russia collusion probe?”
    —
    Let’s get real: Democrats were first to enlist Ukraine in US elections

    Earlier this month, during a bipartisan meeting in Kiev, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) delivered a pointed message to Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

    While choosing his words carefully, Murphy made clear — by his own account — that Ukraine currently enjoyed bipartisan support for its U.S. aid but that could be jeopardized if the new president acquiesced to requests by President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate past corruption allegations involving Americans, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.

    Murphy boasted after the meeting that he told the new Ukrainian leader that U.S. aid was his country’s “most important asset” and it would be viewed as election meddling and “disastrous for long-term U.S.-Ukraine relations” to bend to the wishes of Trump and Giuliani.

    “I told Zelensky that he should not insert himself or his government into American politics. I cautioned him that complying with the demands of the President’s campaign representatives to investigate a political rival of the President would gravely damage the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. There are few things that Republicans and Democrats agree on in Washington these days, and support for Ukraine is one of them,” Murphy told me today, confirming what he told Ukraine’s leader.

    The implied message did not require an interpreter for Zelensky to understand: Investigate the Ukraine dealings of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and you jeopardize Democrats’ support for future U.S. aid to Kiev.

    The Murphy anecdote is a powerful reminder that, since at least 2016, Democrats repeatedly have exerted pressure on Ukraine, a key U.S. ally for buffering Russia, to meddle in U.S. politics and elections.

    And that activity long preceded Giuliani’s discussions with Ukrainian officials and Trump’s phone call to Zelensky in July, seeking to have Ukraine formally investigate whether then-Vice President Joe Biden used a threat of canceling foreign aid to shut down an investigation into $3 million routed to the U.S. firm run by Biden’s son.

    As I have reported, the pressure began at least as early as January 2016, when the Obama White House unexpectedly invited Ukraine’s top prosecutors to Washington to discuss fighting corruption in the country.

    The meeting, promised as training, turned out to be more of a pretext for the Obama administration to pressure Ukraine’s prosecutors to drop an investigation into the Burisma Holdings gas company that employed Hunter Biden and to look for new evidence in a then-dormant criminal case against eventual Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a GOP lobbyist.

    U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, the former political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington who organized and attended the meetings.

    Nazar Kholodnytsky, Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, told me that, soon after he returned from the Washington meeting, he saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election. That’s when two top Ukrainian officials released secret evidence to the American media, smearing Manafort.

    The release of the evidence forced Manafort to step down as Trump’s top campaign adviser. A Ukrainian court concluded last December that the release of the evidence amounted to an unlawful intervention in the U.S. election by Kiev’s government, although that ruling has since been overturned on a technicality.

    Shortly after the Ukrainian prosecutors returned from their Washington meeting, a new round of Democratic pressure was exerted on Ukraine — this time via its embassy in Washington.

    Valeriy Chaly, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States at the time, confirmed to me in a statement issued by his office that, in March 2016, a contractor for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) pressed his embassy to try to find any Russian dirt on Trump and Manafort that might reside in Ukraine’s intelligence files.

    The DNC contractor also asked Chaly’s team to try to persuade Ukraine’s president at the time, Petro Poroshenko, to make a statement disparaging Manafort when the Ukrainian leader visited the United States during the 2016 election.

    Chaly said his embassy rebuffed both requests because it recognized they were improper efforts to get a foreign government to try to influence the election against Trump and for Hillary Clinton.

    The political pressure continued. Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in crucial U.S. aid to Kiev if Poroshenko did not fire the country’s chief prosecutor. Ukraine would have been bankrupted without the aid, so Poroshenko obliged on March 29, 2016, and fired Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

    At the time, Biden was aware that Shokin’s office was investigating Burisma, the firm employing Hunter Biden, after a December 2015 New York Times article.

    What wasn’t known at the time, Shokin told me recently, was that Ukrainian prosecutors were preparing a request to interview Hunter Biden about his activities and the monies he was receiving from Ukraine. If such an interview became public during the middle of the 2016 election, it could have had enormous negative implications for Democrats.

    Democrats continued to tap Ukraine for Trump dirt throughout the 2016 election, my reporting shows.

    Nellie Ohr, the wife of senior U.S. Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, worked in 2016 as a contractor for Fusion GPS, the same Hillary Clinton–funded opposition research firm that hired Christopher Steele, the British spy who wrote the now-debunked dossier linking Trump to Russia collusion.

    Nellie Ohr testified to Congress that some of the dirt she found on Trump during her 2016 election opposition research came from a Ukrainian parliament member. She also said that she eventually took the information to the FBI through her husband — another way Ukraine got inserted into the 2016 election.

    Politics. Pressure. Opposition research. All were part of the Democrats’ playbook on Ukraine long before Trump ever called Zelensky this summer. And as Sen. Murphy’s foray earlier this month shows, it hasn’t stopped.

    The evidence is so expansive as to strain the credulity of the Democrats’ current outrage at Trump’s behavior with Ukraine.

    Which raises a question: Could it be the Ukraine tale currently being weaved by Democrats and their allies in the media is nothing more than a smoke screen designed to distract us from the forthcoming Justice Department inspector general report into abuses during the Democratic-inspired Russia collusion probe?

    It’s a question worth asking.

    John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports.

  13. Oh come on, impeach already. Once this gets over to the senate, nothing will remain undiscovered and it will all be made public.

        1. Sure Paul. Biden bragged in front of the Council on Foreign Relations – hey, they wouldn’t know anything about the Ukraine! – on fixing an investigation into his son.

          But you were too smart for him and caught him red handed!

          1. I love it when there is a money trail…Ukraine to Latvia. Latvia to Cyprus. Cyprus to the US. What does that imply? Moneylaundering.

    3. U jumped on Israel spying! Crickets!
      Whistle blower who wasn’t listening ! Second party! Every trump scandal big 0 ! U should Wait a few days ! We know your never trump liberal!

    4. Biden did this with Ukraine and China where each time his son pulled in a lot of money. Biden’s son was given all sorts of appointments without him having any specialized knowledge. Biden will be out of the running in part because that corruption is too clear.

      Ukraine dealt with the Clintons and interferred in our elections. Illegal. The President has the right to act as he did and there is no accusation that Trump did this for money rather than what he considered to be in the best interests of the US.

      Further, all this talk is based on an anonymous source that was not privy to whatever conversation may have taken place. This is just another attempt to attack the President before knowing what happened.

      I am surprised at Turley. He would be better off discussing these things with the goats he sees on the trails than the collegues he seems to be talking to.

  16. I mean, this has been the trouble with so many of these things since the beginning of the Trump presidency. The hysteria and frenzy just doesn’t seem to have any factual underpinning, or at best a questionable factual underpinning.

    Even if there’s a “quid pro quo” here, so what? You still don’t have a bribe. You have an ARGUMENT that this constitutes a bribe. Another way of looking at something that is arguably criminal? It’s not criminal. Crimes have to be unambiguous.

    1. If it wasn’t a bribe it was extortion. And impeachment is a trial. Let’s finally and completely air these arguments of criminality. I’d prefer we do it in a real court but this process may be all we have.

  18. Oh my how good people are at connecting imaginary dots when it comes to Trump. Like all the other attempts, this one will flop into nothingness, too.

    I wonder how come though nobody on the Democratic side can connect REAL dots on Hunter Biden’s $50,000 per year cushy job, or his $1.5 Billion influx of Chinese funds to his fund??? Not bad for a coke head! And now, the whole $3 Billion money laundering thingy!

    I can not wait for all the, “Now let’s just take a moment and chill. All the facts about Hunter Biden are not in yet. . .”

    Yeah. Like Fat Tony the Mobster don’t put his nephews on company payrolls as part of the racket. . .

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    1. “Like all the other attempts, this one will flop into nothingness, too.”
      **********************
      Well if history is a guide,Squeeky, the algorithm it goes like this:

      Salacious anonymous claim of heinous wrongdoing is made typically by partisan hack;
      Press gets it and magnifies it onto something just short of Benedict Arnold;
      Pundits heads explode on neo-facist CNN/MSNBC;
      Facts start to be disproven or discredited;
      Witnesses don’t testify to what the press says they will;
      Dems insist our eyes are lying to us;
      Trump tweets victory tweet;
      Dems threaten impeachment;
      Trump wins!

      Wash and repeat.

      1. The Trump appointed IC IG found the whistle blower’s complaint “credible” and “urgent”. So, he’s part of the partisan Deep State?

        1. And, the IG forwarded his report to the DNI, who found, “The DNI now claims that he has refused to transmit the whistleblower report to Congress because it concerns “conduct by someone outside the Intelligence Community and because the complaint involves confidential and potentially privileged communications.”

          So, what’s wrong???

          Squeeky Fromm
          Girl Reporter

      2. Yes, Mespo, you nailed it exactly. Of course, the Resident Shills here will all be going into faux fits of outrage during the time it takes for this rumor to run its course.

        Meanwhile, they will studiously avoid, or defend, Cokehead Biden and his Pops, who was at sea. . .

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

    2. Don’t know about “Fat Tony” but I do know about fat Donny…we see his no work relatives pretending to be federal officials with legitimate power and going on taxpayer funded vacations and sight seeing trips just about everywhere.

  19. It’s a stretch to say a quid pro quo was involved. The official POTUS spoke denied anu such pressure.

  20. “You can’t have your aid money until you look into the Biden thing.” You’re saying that’s a bribe of a foreign government or foreign official? Seems like a stretch to me. The aid money, I assume, had been approved before any consideration of the Biden situation took place.

    It seems to me this is just another crass abuse of the office and the power thereof. Impeachment? Meh.

Comments are closed.