The impeachment focus cannot be solely on this one Ukraine factor

Posted On Nov 28, 2019 By admin With Comments Off

The House continues to move step-by-step toward the impeachment of Donald Trump with the procedural voted in support of public hearings this week. Much of the elements of the case against him have already been well laid out and heavily debated. The core allegations against him are well understood and will continue to be analyzed for the next month and beyond. During a July 10 National Security meeting between John Bolton and his opposite number from Ukraine, U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland supported a quid pro quo requirement for Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into the 2016 election and Hunter Biden in exchange for a one-on-one meeting between Ukrainian President Zelensky and Trump. On July 25 Zelensky and Trump spoke on the phone and Trump reiterated the request for investigations while responding to Zelensky mentioning Javelin rockets with “we need you to do us a regard, though.”

This was an abuse of power. This was a solicitation for an illegal foreign campaign contribution. This was extortion and likewise bribery to the tune of $400 million in military aid which Trump was holding back in reserve until he got his predicted advertisement of investigations. It was a crime. A high crime and misdemeanor.

The question before us now is: is it sufficient to remove a sitting White House resident from part? Different people may candidly answer that question in different ways. There are those who may be outraged by this behavior, but not find it sufficient for removal. They may find it repugnant, they may even find this behavior criminal, but will they find it to be enough?

There are, of course, additional issues, such as the lies and obstruction that the White House has engaged in. Trump continues to proclaim the entitle was “perfect” while trying to block evidences from certifying. They claimed the rough record was “word for word” and terminated while we learned from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman that elements of the conversation were missing.

I believe that in order to ensure not only impeachment but likewise removal that Democrats need to broaden the focus of the investigation and the charges. If the question comes down to this one event to lobby investigations from Ukraine, the ultimate result in the Senate is doubtful. There are even those in the Senate who refuse to admit that what has been alleged was even improper. They cant’t even admit that it was wrong , not to mention criminal and a betrayal of American importances for personal gain.

The corner mow, the lack of empathy, and the basic callous inhumanity of this administration is a key boast of it , not a flaw. It’s not a shortcoming in this administration, it is the center of it.

We recently passed the one year anniversary of the assassination of reporter Jamal Khashoggi and he Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh and there was absolutely no action , no remark from the White House. None.

That happened because Trump doesn’t care about those events. He’s more into establishing military contracts with Saudi Arabia than he is worried about corruption and murder by their regime. Allegations are that Crown Prince Muhammed Bin Salman staged a murderou takeover with challengers in his own country, jailing them within a Ritz Carlton and torturing them until they promised to support his rule and coughed up billions specifically after he was given a heads up to Jared Kushner using informed about his contenders which came from a presidential daily brief .

Sources have told DailyMail.com that the lord- known by his initials MBS- has been boasting about his close relationship with the president’s son-in-law and elderly adviser, and the intelligence which he has told his circle Kushner guided to him.

The crackdown on ‘corruption’ in the Saudi kingdom was led by MBS and started in november, daylights after he had met Kushner for talks in Riyadh.

But it pictured allegations of torture as hundreds were rounded up, including princes from antagonist parts of the Saudi royal family and some of the country’s wealthiest businessmen.

DailyMail.com uncovered a photograph showing the detainees sleep on the storey of a ballroom at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton, and disclosed that some had been tortured.

The New York Times last-minute reported that one of the detainees had died from his injuries.

Most are said to have reached ‘settlements’ with the Saudi government, and MBS himself boasted in a 60 Minutes interviewthat the government had regained at least $ 100 billion from them.

Kushner claims this exchange didn’t happen. Sure it didn’t.

Trump has claimed that he was only concerned with “corruption, ” well that situation right there was pretty corrupt. Additionally, the Saudis and the UAE were involved in a scheme to implement a siege of Qatar in order to magnetism them into providing funds for the Kushner firms. First they began a siege based on false evidence which was provided by Russian intruders alleging Qatar was allied with ISIS .

In a statement to NBC News, the Qatari government said it had been was well received by a “well-coordinated smear campaign designed to damage the portrait and stature of Qatar. And the smear campaign, in turn, set the stage for the blockade and the ultimatum that followed in June.”

At the center of the dispute between Qatar and other Gulf territories, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are reports that that the Qatari emir had praised Hamas and called Iran “an Islamic power, ” and that Qatar had paid nearly a billion dollars in ransom to al Qaeda for the handout of a Qatari hunting party.

Both storeys are false and apparently embed, say senior U.S. officials.

In the most recent case, a U.S. intellect official said that the paraphrases attributed to Qatar’s ruler were phony and part of a campaign to hurt Qatar. Several officials showed the report in the Washington Post that someone working for the United Arab Emirates government spoofed into Qatari news places and social media on May 24 to plant the inaccurate notes attributed to Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani.

Even though U.S. knowledge generators include an indication that spoofed information and claims were false, Trump supported the blockade. Everything is followed after the Kushner companionships had reached out to the Qatari Investment Fund looking for a donation and were turned down .

THE REAL ESTATE firm restrained to the family of presidential son-in-law and transcend White House consultant Jared Kushner made a direct move to Qatar’s minister of finance in April 2017 in an attempt to secure investment in a critically distressed asset in the company’s portfolio, according to two informants. At the previously unreported gather, Jared Kushner’s father Charles, who runs Kushner Fellowship, and Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi discussed the funds for the Kushners’ signature 666 Fifth Avenue property in New York City.

The 30 -minute meeting, according to two roots in the financial industry who invited not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the potential transaction, included aides to both parties, and was held at a suite at the St. Regis Hotel in New York.

A follow-up meeting was held the next day in a glass-walled conference room at the Kushner property itself, though Al Emadi did not attend the second gathering in person.

The failure to broker the consider would be followed simply a month last-minute by a Middle Eastern diplomatic row in which Jared Kushner required critical support to Qatar’s neighbors. Led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a group of Middle Eastern countries, with Kushner’s backing, contributed a diplomatic assault that culminated in a blockade of Qatar. Kushner, according to reports at the time, subsequently undercutefforts by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to bring an end to the standoff.

Again, Kushner now purposely undermined the goals of Secretary of State Tillerson with Trump’s backing to have this bogus obstruction against Qatar implemented, and eventually these strong-arm tricks did manage to push the QIA into investing in Kushner properties.

Last August, an fiscal miracle existed. Eleven times after a young Jared Kushner purchased an aging skyscraper that would become an albatross around his family’s neck, and six months before the Kushners would have to cough up the $1.4 billion that was due on the mortgage for 666 Fifth Avenue, a Canadian asset-management company swooped in and agreed to take a 99 -year lease on the building, compensating a near-century’s worth of tariff upfront. The bailout was surprising for a few reasonableness, honcho among other issues being statements by the Kushners’ previous marriage that 666 Fifth “would be worth a lot more if it was just dirt, ” plus the facts of the case that the family had invested two years trying to get brand-new partners or financing to no avail. Also, there was the matter of the Qatar Investment Authority being a major investor in the company, Brookfield Asset Management, and Kushner’s support of a Saudi- and U.A.E.-led siege of Qatar. To some, it sure sounded like a foreign government was trying to influence program by greasing the president’s son-in-law’s motors! At the time, Brookfield told reporters that the Qataris “had no knowledge of the administer before its public announcement”–apparently they don’t predicted The New York Times–and now that the spate has officially gone through, Doha is double-dealing down, claiming, somewhat curiously, that the government had absolutely nothing to do with the 666 debacle.

After pulling off a spate like this, why exactly would Trump be shy about trying to strong-arm Ukraine apply the military aid money in exchange for helping him in to 2020 election? This type of below the belt shakes are how they frisk the game. It’s how they do business. It’s how Trump does business.

We can see this same behavior happening on our border, where Trump frequently announces UN conventions that we ratified 50 years ago with the Convention on the Treatment of Refugees as nothing more than “loopholes” that can be easily changed, or ignored. Merely like with Khashoggi, like with MBS, like with his pullout of our armies protecting the Kurds to protecting the oil in Syria, he doesn’t care about the human cost of his policies. He doesn’t care about the collateral shatter, he is very concerned about the niceties and the details, he’s just about getting to the bottom line, he’s about coming the desired result.

The fact is that it is legal, under U.S. Rule, for a refugee to cross the border at any point in order to apply for asylum doesn’t matter to him.

Any alien who is physically represented in the United Commonwealth or who arrived at the the United Government( whether the government has at a designated port of entrance and including an alienwho is brought to the United Nation after having been interdicted in international or United District irrigates ), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section or, where relevant, section 1225( b) of this claim.

And hitherto, Trump has been arresting and warehousing asylum seekers by the thousands at the border and then exercising strong-arm measures to force our neighboring countries to restrict the flow of immigrants just as Trump’s chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted last week when he confirmed the quid pro quo arrangement with Ukraine .

Mulvaney: What I found out was that zero or near zero dollars for Ukraine in dangerous aid: we give them tanks, and they give them pillows. As vocal as the Europeans are about supporting Ukraine, they are really, truly avariciou when it comes to lethal aid, and they weren’t helping Ukraine, to this day they still are now, and the president did not like that. I know this is a long answer to your question but I’m still becoming. Those were the driving parts. Did he also mention to me in passing the fraud related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about that. But that’s it, and that’s why we held up the money. […]

Karl: “But to be clear, whatever it is you time described is a quid-pro-quo: the funding will not flow unless you’re getting an investigation into the Democratic server happened as well.”

Mulvaney: “We do that all the time with foreign policy. We were holding up money at the same time to the Northern Triangle countries so they would change their policies on in-migration.

The basic criminal barbarism of these police doesn’t register with Trump. We were holding up money for Northern Triangle countries to stir them deepen migration policy, so why wouldn’t we hold up money to Ukraine to get them to change their investigation plans?

What’s the difference? It’s not like we don’t all want less bribery. It’s not like Trump has been blocking other anti-corruption funding for Ukraine .

According to the Post, the Trump administration “has sought frequently to cut foreign aid curricula tasked with combating corruption in Ukraine and elsewhere overseas” even though the White House has insisted that it is laser-focused on promoting good governance in the country.

Among other things, the White House tried to cut a program called International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement that send $30 million to Ukraine that helped fund the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

Another key curriculum aimed at fighting corruption, the Economic Support and Development Fund, earmarked $250 million to Ukraine in 2018 — but the White House solicited that fund be trimmed to just $145 million in 2020.

So corruption is clearly not on the radar of Donald Trump. It’s not a real concern. Blocking investigations here by Democrat while fostering investigation overseas is his concern. Getting reelected is his concern.

This theme is something that was heavily explored during Season One of Star Trek: Discovery. The display started with Star Trek’s mark confidence and positivity, but after a fateful come into conflict with the Klingons that confidence quickly began to fade to cynicism and hard-nosed pragmatism. The niceties didn’t matter anymore, merely the goal. It didn’t matter what areas you trimmed, it didn’t matter if you played fairly–you simply must be given to earn at all costs. Eventually the ship made a trip to the Mirror Universe where that form of Starfleet had never had any optimism, never had any positivity or hope. Instead they were ruled by fear and authoritarianism, much like the Klingons.

After experiencing this and realizing that their officer had been from the Mirror Universe all along, the gang ultimately stood up and accepted a zero-sum plan to end the struggle by destroy the Klingon home world. They rejected the win-at-all-costs scenario. They reclaimed their prices, their principles and their someones and found another way that didn’t involve holocaust. They’d had a front-row seat explain where their current path was headed and having seen that horror they rightly scorned that direction.

We more have now seen where we are headed with this ideology, and we very need to soundly reject it.

We can see that Trump fiscal patrols are empty. Growth is now exclusively 1.9% — hardly any different from the average during the Obama administration. Where exactly is the promised 4-6% growth we were told would happen after he implemented his excise chips? Meanwhile, the deficit has yet again grown to over$ 1 trillion. Unemployment is low, but then unemployment was already on a road to become quite low before Trump arrived in office and if something, it’s dramatically slow-paced its rate of progress during his term then it was previously. His promises are lies, as we teeter on the edge of falling back into slump and he flounders, screaming at the Fed for no true purpose. What amplifications there have been in the economy, have certainly not gone to the “common man.”

In a recent somber study of the American economy, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman find that between 1980 and today, almost none of the incomes from economic growing accrued to the bottom half of the population. They write, “Looking firstly at income before taxes and transports, income stagnated for bottom 50% earners: for this group, median pre-tax income was $16,000 in 1980 — expressed during 2014 dollars, use the national income deflator — and still is $ 16,200 in 2014. ”1 Piketty, Saez, and Zucman also pointed out that incomes of the top 1% tripled over the same time period.

New York Times columnist David Leonhardt, reacting to this work, concluded “the highly affluent, and only the particularly affluent, have received substantial raises in recent decades.”

Last month, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz wrote in the New York Times 😛 TAGEND

Some 90 percent have assured their incomes stagnate or decline in the past 30 years.

Claims like these are not new. Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman wrote in 2014 that “Wages for everyday workers have in fact been stagnant since the 1970 s.”2 Jared Bernstein wrote in 2014 in the New York Times, “for middle-income households earnings have declined in real terms 7 percent from 1979 to 2010. Writing in Vanity Fair in 2011, Stiglitz wrote: “All the growth in recent decades — and more — has gone to those at the top.”

Trump told us that the problem was immigrants. He told us that our problems come from overseas market. He have not been able to solved those problems; both of them are worse. Some enterprises may be back, but wages are not. We still have creators like Harley-Davidson under severe transaction pressing, and rather than trying to help, Trump criticizes and assaults them .

Harley-Davidson today affixed a hefty 27% decline in earnings, specifically quoting European tariffs that have been imposed against the iconic American company’s motorcycles including the european union in retaliation for tariffs imposed on European goods by Donald Trump’s White House.

In a conference call on Tuesday, Harley chief executive Matt Levatich justified the company’s performance had been touched by tariffs, both in terms of imported raw materials and on European auctions. Tariffs on Harley’s motorcycles have pranced from 6% to 31% and are scheduled to rise again to 56% in June 2021.

“The big impact for us is European Union excises, ” Levatich said. He added that Harley could not afford its growth potential in Europe to be “hamstrung by incremental tariffs” and described the situation as “unfortunate”.

We can see from the Mueller expressed the view that Trump doesn’t care about playing by the rules. He repeatedly told Jeff Sessions to “unrecuse” himself when it was clear he couldn’t reasonably supervise its further consideration of the Trump campaign when he was a member of the Trump campaign. He tried to get then White House Counsel Don McGahn to tell Sessions to “Get rid to Mueller” without just cause. When McGahn refused to do it and refused to lie about it to the press Trump asked Corey Lewandowski to pass a memorandum to Hearings asking him to change the Mueller investigation to focus on the future 2020 referendum rather than 2016, which performed no sense at all. Lewandowski stalled on it, and tried to pawn the memo off to Rick Dearborn who refused to give it to Sessions.

All of that was obstruction of right. Telling White House personnel not to testify before Congress without having a legitimate cause for executive privilege is impedimentum of Congress. Using Lewandowski to work outside the system when those inside wouldn’t “play ball, ” just like he employed Rudy Giuliani to circumvent the system, is a pattern. Strong-arming foreign authorities for his own personal amplification is a habit. Ignoring the good sense and recommendations of career officials and staff on Qatar, on Russia, and on Ukraine is not an accident.

Trump has made all of these moves before. He will perfectly try to fix them again. This all has to be placed in context, and it needs to be shown incontrovertibly that Ukraine is not an isolated incident. It’s all part of a light, harrowing, selfish project. And that’s why he needs to be impeached and removed from office.