By Timothy Meads | Townhall
Source: AP Photo/Alex Brando
If you have not learned by now,
virtually every Conservative "scandal" in recent memory has been
nothing more than leftists projecting their own personal problems onto their
political opponents.
Sexism and abuse against women?
Meet Bill Clinton and Harvey Weinstein.
Racism? Meet the blackface
donning Gov. Ralph Northam and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trump pressuring Ukraine to
interfere in the 2020 election? Meet the Democrats in May 2018. Yes, the very
same Democrats who are now supposedly aghast that President Trump asked the
president of Ukraine to look into Joe Biden's family corruption, actually sent
Ukraine a letter saying "U.S. assistance" was at stake unless the
Ukrainian government complied with the bogus special counsel Robert Mueller investigation and conducted
their own investigation into the president and his former aid Paul Manafort.
Marc Theissen of the Washington Post brought this up, and after
seeing what the president actually said to his call to the
newly elected president Volodymyr Zelensky, it looks like the Democrats have
nothing but egg on their face.
Here's what Theissen reported:
It got almost no attention, but in May, CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard
J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy
Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said
were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that their
support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as
“strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine,” the
Democratic senators declared, “We have supported [the] capacity-building
process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these
[democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump,” before demanding
Lutsenko “reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this
important investigation.”
So, it’s okay for Democratic senators to encourage
Ukraine to investigate Trump, but it’s not okay for the president to allegedly
encourage Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden?
The senators in question are
defending their actions. Sen. Leahy tweeted:
"So, so wrong. Again. Our
letter was about concern **EVEN IN 2018** about WH pressure on Ukraine, to
benefit you personally. And unlike you, we have strongly and consistently
supported assistance to Ukraine as it struggles with Russian aggression.”
But that seems like a flimsy
excuse. The letter clearly shows they were threatening to withhold assistance
unless the Ukrainian government did as they demanded. Between this uncovered
letter and former Vice President Joe Biden bragging about intimidating the
Ukrainian prosecutor, this whole thing is boomeranging on the Dems. Here comes
Trump 2020, folks, steamrolling into the White House (again).
----
FLASHBACK to
2018 when Joe Biden bragged about bribing Ukraine with $1 BILLION to fire the
prosecutor who was investigating his son, Hunter Biden's company.
________________
RELATED
ARTICLES
Whistleblower Requirements Recently Amended
to Allow Hearsay
BY STEPHEN KRUISER
P J Media
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of
N.Y. holds up a copy of a White House released rough transcript of a phone call
between President Donald Trump and the President of Ukraine as Schumer speaks
to the media about an impeachment inquiry on President Trump, Wednesday Sept.
25, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Those who have been receiving the news about the
whistleblower allegations against President Trump with skepticism rather than
glee have mostly focused on the rather tenuous second-hand knowledge nature of
the claims. It appears that, until recently, those claims wouldn't have been
allowed in a whistleblower complaint:
---
BREAKING: The
intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblower
complaints contain only direct, first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing allegations.
A new version of the complaint form allowing hearsay was secretly revised last month.
A new version of the complaint form allowing hearsay was secretly revised last month.
----
This may actually be a bigger bombshell than the report
itself.
Between
May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a
requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged
wrongdoings. This raises questions about the intelligence community’s behavior
regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald
Trump. The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers
who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct,
first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.
The
brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made
public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress
were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows
employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct
knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about [wrongdoing] from
others.”
This none-too-subtle morphing of actual whistleblowing
into rumor spreading has "slippery slope" written all over it. It's
another one of those political daggers that seems like a good idea as long as
it is being used against one's opponents. Little thought is given by those
first employing the tactic about the day when it may be used against them.
Political journalism in the Trump era has been defined by
weak, anonymous sourcing and "reporting" that requires a
thesaurus-full of qualifying words. That's dangerous enough in the hands of the
press, and is even creepier if used as in-house political attack tools.
This none-too-subtle morphing of actual whistleblowing
into rumor spreading has "slippery slope" written all over it. It's
another one of those political daggers that seems like a good idea as long as
it is being used against one's opponents. Little thought is given by those
first employing the tactic about the day when it may be used against them.
Political journalism in the Trump era has been defined by
weak, anonymous sourcing and "reporting" that requires a
thesaurus-full of qualifying words. That's dangerous enough in the hands of the
press, and is even creepier if used as in-house political attack tools.
Here are some examples of what I'm talking about from a
recent article about the complaint in The Hill.
The article purports to examine the "most serious
charges" from the complaint. Here is how The Hill presents
what is considered to be the most serious of the bunch:
The
big revelation in the whistleblower’s complaint is the suggestion that the
White House sought to hide the word-for-word transcript of the call.
This
move was allegedly motivated, at least in part, because those with knowledge of
the call realized “they had witnessed the President abuse his office for
personal gain.”
We have a "suggestion" of something that may or
may not have happened, along with the assertion of what the people who were not
the official whistleblowers were "allegedly motivated" by. All from
someone who admits having zero direct knowledge of any of it.
Whether any of it turns out to be true -- my skepticism
is even stronger now -- the problem that whistleblowing and rumor-mongering
have been officially conflated remains.
Despite Trump being labeled an existential threat to
everything by Democrats, the only ones who can make that claim are career
federal bureaucrats. To them, he's an interloper who, to their horror, isn't
solely focused on bloating and maintaining federal government's vampiric
leeching off the American taxpayers.
I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but the Deep State
thing is growing on me lately. Ten years ago I probably wouldn't have believed
that a substantial number of people in the federal behemoth would want to unravel
a presidency via a catty rumor mill, but here we are.
I will never be so comfortable with a president that I
don't think he or she should be held accountable for wrongdoing. Political
lynching via hearsay is a bit Soviet for my tastes, however.
___
PJ Media Associate Editor Stephen Kruiser is
the author of “Don’t
Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight
Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which
address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ
Media’s “Morning Briefing.”
_________________
Impeachment Depravity: 'Inquiry' Proves
Democrats Know They Can't Win
BY MARK ELLIS | P
J Media
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
speaks to reporters after a news conference in San Francisco on Aug. 21, 2018.
(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Depravity: the state of being morally bad, or an
action that is morally bad.
Impeachment depravity: a campaign by Democrat
politicos intended to excite the extremist Democrat base and simulate
impeachment without the requirement of any grounds for impeachment nor any
substantive steps that might trigger real impeachment proceedings.
That’s where we stand in the wake of the fake
whistleblower scandal and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s empty impeachment
inquiry threat, although new developments break minute by minute.
The day Pelosi leveled her toothless threat, Mike
Huckabee, guesting on The Story with Martha MacCallum, spoke
for millions of loyal Trump supporters when he challenged Democrats to get real
and put impeachment to a floor vote.
“Pull the rope, let’s get this engine started,” said the
former Arkansas governor.
They won’t pull the rope, because they haven’t got the
goods, never have had, and they know it.
Instead, what is about to take place is an extended
impeachment depravity reel which will illustrate the obscene depths the
Democrat Party will sink to in their attempts to undermine the success and
rising popularity of President Donald Trump—now enjoying higher poll ratings than
Barack Obama had at this point in his presidency.
The impeachment “enactment” will be a perversion of the
Constitution and an abomination before the American people. Scores of elected
Democrat officials, their operatives, and the leftist media’s stable of
bias-infected hosts and analysts will lay down like Stormy Daniels for the
production.
Speaker Pelosi didn’t want this. Her ideology may be
anathema to conservatism, but she’s politically savvy. Before “whistle-gate”
broke she wisely dissuaded her party from green-lighting what will go down in
history as a monument to political prurience.
Front and center for this titillation-fest will be
co-directors Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler, enabled by a production crew
comprised of veterans of previous productions: Collusion! Racism! Recession!
The stars of the show will be newcomers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has
stridently proclaimed that expedited impeachment (the real thing, not a flaccid
inquiry) is exactly what her district is clamoring for.
Good luck taking this depraved impeachment fantasy into
the heartland.
While rank and file Trump supporters will recoil, yell at
their television sets, flood comment sections and, in outlier cases, vow armed
insurrection if Trump is removed from office, it is the pro-Trump legal and
pundit class that will provide the quasi-psychological analysis as this display
of Democrat hate-lust plays out. Professionals close to the drama, like Jay
Sekulow, Joe diGenova, Victoria Toensing, Mollie Hemingway, Charles Hurt, and many
others will provide reality checks when the unhinged passions of the angry left
erupt and sully the electoral run-up to 2020.
But there is one core truth that the legions in Trump
Country, including 90%+ of Republicans, will not need the print, radio, and
broadcast seers to figure out.
The Democrats know they can’t beat Trump. The premiere of
Impeachment Depravity proves it.
One theory is that whistle-gate is a covert Democrat
operation aimed at mortally wounding Joe Biden’s campaign. If true, that means
they don’t think he can win. More conventionally, even if this is not an
orchestrated Dem design, polling data suggests that Biden, the real Ukrainian
malefactor, is on the way out. Because they don’t think he can win.
Which sets the stage for Elizabeth Warren, about whom
Republican spokesperson Reince Preibus recently opined “has no chance of
winning in [blue-collar] Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.”
No other Democrat currently in the race, including Bernie
Sanders, has a ghost of a chance.
They can’t win, and they know it.
A justified impeachment, for real high crimes and
misdemeanors, would be an organic governmental response that arose out of a
real threat to the republic. That’s not what’s going on here.
Instead of a crafted alternative message to counter the
winning message President Trump has fought hard for and in many cases followed
through on, we get from the Democrat Party a sad and sordid traverse through
the muck and mire of leftist fantasyland, a sojourn into political depravity
performed by a shameless troupe that despairs of returning to power in the near
future.
Mark Ellis is the author of A Death on the
Horizon, a novel of political upheaval and cultural
intrigue. He came aboard at PJ Media in 2015. His literary hangout is Liberty
Island. Follow Mark on Twitter.
___________________
BUSINESS
AS USUAL
Democrats and the media are making a huge deal out of the
supposed notion that the Trump admin did something unusual by storing
transcripts on a secure server.
Well, it turns out the Obama admin did the exact same
thing.
Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice admitted to
it!
From releasing the transcript for the whole world to read
to employing the same practice of storing calls with foreign leaders as the
Obama administration did, this further solidifies the fact that the Democrats’
and media narrative alleging a cover-up is patently ridiculous.
Stop the madness. This double standard the media and
Democrats are employing between President Obama and President Trump is
inexcusable.
---------------
Susan Rice: Obama Put Call Transcripts On Top
Secret Server, Too
By David Marcus
Former national security adviser Susan Rice acknowledged
last night that the Obama administration moved transcripts of conversations
with foreign leaders onto the same top-secret server where the Trump
administration stored his recent phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky.
Appearing at the Texas Tribune Festival, Rice was asked
how often this practice was engaged in during the Obama administration, but did
not answer that question, saying instead, “We never moved them over unless they
were legitimately, in the contents classified.” Rice did not explain what
standard the Obama administration used to determine what was legitimately
classified. She said it is rare, although not impossible, that a presidential
conversation could be classified to that highest level.
The revelation from Rice comes amid media reports and
comments from political leaders that have painted the use of this top secret
server as proof that Trump was trying to cover up the contents of his
conversation with the Ukrainian leader, a full transcript of which the
administration has now released to the public.
While Rice admitted that the Obama administration also
used this server to protect sensitive presidential phone calls, she left open
the question of whether the Trump administration used the server in this
particular case to save the president from damaging, perhaps even impeachable,
comments he made to Zelensky regarding investigations into political rival Joe
Biden.
But reporting from ABC News shows that this practice of
securing presidential phone transcripts has been in use in the White House
since early 2017, after sensitive conversations with foreign leaders were
leaked to the press.
From ABC News: “The two calls in early 2017, with leaders
from Australia and from Mexico, leaked early
in Trump’s administration, and sources said the procedure to store them
quickly changed — many calls between the president and world leaders instead
were stored in a secure server to avoid leaks. The sources who talked to ABC
News did caution that it’s unclear if the calls being stored were done so for
national security or for political concerns.”
One source cited by ABC News described the practice as
“basically standard operating procedure.”
So from Rice we now know the decision to store the
conversation on the top-secret server was not unprecedented, but a decision
that Obama’s administration made multiple times as well, using its own discretion,
just as the Trump administration has. And from ABC News’ reporting we know that
this has been a long-standing practice in the Trump White House to protect
against a high level of leaks.
Both of these revelations undermine the theory that in this
specific case, some unique and bizarre method was used to hide the transcript
and engage in a cover up. Rather, the Trump administration appears to have been
engaging in business as usual.
