A day after Democrats vowed to open a formal impeachment inquiry, President Trump dropped a bombshell Sept. 25 by releasing the transcript of a conversation he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Trump’s enemies insist is the smoking gun that should drive him from office.
That the impeachment push is an attempt to placate the Democrats’ increasingly affective Antifa-loving base and probably also a tactic to direct attention away from the at least questionable dealings in Ukraine of Democrat presidential frontrunner Joe Biden and his cokehead grifter son, Hunter, have barely been mentioned in the media. The media is promoting the theory – based on an anonymous “whistleblower” complaint – that Trump tried to enlist a foreign government to help him in the 2020 election, even though Department of Justice lawyers have already issued an opinion that Trump’s conversation did not constitute a violation of U.S. campaign laws.
After months of hand-wringing, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi pulled the trigger to begin the process of impeaching Donald Trump, even before she read the transcript, dogmatically declaring that Trump “asked a foreign government to help him in his political campaign at the expense of our national security.”
The unsubstantiated claim is that Trump threatened to withhold a military aid package from Ukraine to pressure that country to investigate the Bidens.
“The actions of the Trump presidency have revealed the dishonorable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections,” the lawmaker from San Francisco, the poop-covered heart of latte liberalism, said Sept. 24. “Therefore, today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry.”
As Pelosi spoke, Trump got on Twitter, saying the inquiry was “presidential harassment,” and a “total witch hunt.” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted on the afternoon of Sept. 25 that the campaign had “blown out” fundraising, raking in $5 million in donations in the day following Pelosi’s announcement.
Not surprisingly, the trained seals of the House Democrat conference quickly lined up behind Pelosi.
According to Politico, at press time just over a majority of the 435-member House of Representatives had come out in support of an impeachment inquiry. The media outlet’s detailed tracking showed 219 Democrats and Rep. Justin Amash, the Republican-turned-Independent from Michigan, all support moving forward with the process.
It is not at all clear if the transcript, which hit the cybersphere after years of leftist scheming, whining, and temper tantrums, will actually help Democrats. It may be just the latest thing in a parade of fake scandals, hoaxes, and nothing burgers that have been used in failed attempts to dislodge the duly elected 45th president of the United States. Trump’s political obituary has been written so many times it is difficult to keep track.
The investigation by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of the Left’s bizarre Trump-Russia electoral collusion conspiracy theory. The lurid Hillary Clinton-funded Russian “pissgate” dossier is now just a historical footnote. Trump’s connection to porn star Stormy Daniels is yesterday’s news. Rachel Maddow’s hyping of Trump tax documents has been forgotten. The claim that Trump has violated the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause isn’t going anywhere. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh remains on the bench and hasn’t been the downfall of Trump. The crazed assertion that Trump committed treason by meeting with strongmen Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un of North Korea has evaporated. Trump’s labelling of shithole countries as shithole countries didn’t end his presidency. Shyster James Comey’s FBI mischief hasn’t finished Trump. The media’s loathsome push to falsely portray dead pervert Jeffrey Epstein, an old Bill Clinton pal, as Trump’s best friend didn’t work.
Even a full-fledged coup attempt by former President Barack Obama, former CIA director and Communist Party USA voter John Brennan, and the rest of the Deep State hasn’t ended the Trump era.
Trump is still standing so, naturally, something had to be done.
Rep. Al Green, (D-Texas), summed up his comrades’ fears when he told MSNBC May 4: “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.”
Trump’s enemies in Congress are now betting it all on the transcript.
But what does it actually show?
Not much.
Trump, the chief law enforcement official of the United States, told Zelensky in a July 25 telephone call that he “heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair.” He said one of his lawyers, former federal prosecutor and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr would call him. Barr, it so happens, is conducting an investigation that deals with the 2016 U.S. election and Ukraine’s connection to it.
Trump said, “The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it — it sounds horrible to me.”
According to Trump-haters, this should condemn Trump to the fiery torments of Hell for all time, but setting aside the question of whether Trump was wise to raise the subject with his Ukrainian counterpart, U.S. presidents are allowed to approach other world leaders on matters related to law enforcement. If the Bidens did something unlawful, should they be immune from prosecution just because one of them is running for president? Most reasonable people would say no, running for president shouldn’t give anybody a free pass.
Zelensky himself told reporters Sept. 25 that he didn’t feel pressured to open any investigation.
“I think you read everything. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be involved [in] democratic, open elections of USA,” Zelensky said at the United Nations in New York City. “We had, I think, good phone call … It was normal. We spoke about many things. I think you read that nobody pushed me.”
As has already been widely reported, while he served as Barack Obama’s vice president, in 2015 and 2016 Joe Biden urged the government of Ukraine to increase its anti-corruption efforts while his son, Hunter, was working for Kiev-based Burisma Holdings, which is owned by Mykola Zlochevsky. When he was a Ukrainian government official in charge of issuing natural-gas extraction licenses, many of those licenses were granted to concerns controlled by Burisma. This led to investigations in Ukraine over possible money laundering and government corruption. Zlochevsky and Burisma deny wrongdoing and have not been charged with breaking the law.
Meanwhile, the younger Biden, reportedly a substance-abusing philanderer with no obvious background in natural gas or Ukrainian affairs, earned up to $50,000 a month in his five years with Burisma, becoming a member of its board, according to the Wall Street Journal. Another American, Devon Archer, a personal friend of then-Secretary of State John Kerry, also somehow found his way onto the Burisma board.
Joe Biden was captured on video at a Council on Foreign Relations discussion on January 23, 2018, bragging about how when he was in office he strong-armed the Ukrainians during a March 2016 trip to that country during which he was scheduled to announce financial assistance to Ukraine.
“I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him. I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”
Is this revelation fatal to Biden’s presidential bid? Who knows, but it seems unlikely to help.
By the way, it was Senate Democrats who asked Ukrainian authorities to investigate President Trump on pain of losing U.S. foreign aid.
In May 2018, Sens. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, sent a letter to Ukraine’s then-Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko asking him to keep open four investigations related to the Mueller probe or risk losing a foreign aid package.
“As strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine, we believe that our cooperation should extend to such legal matters,” the lawmakers said, adding they were “disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these principles in order to avoid the ire of President Trump.”
With a few notable exceptions like RINO Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Republican lawmakers appear united against impeachment, at least for the time being.
Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Alabama) seemed to speak for his colleagues.
“I plan to stand with the Constitution in the impeachment process against President Trump. This inquiry is not about high crimes and misdemeanors, but about politics. Earlier this year, Congressman Al Green said, ‘I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.’ That should tell the American people everything they need to know about this inquiry. The Democrats are attempting to achieve in the political arena what they have been unable to achieve at the ballot box. If this inquiry progresses to articles of impeachment, I will vote no, consistent with the Constitution.”
What comes next is hard to say.
This article by Matthew Vadum appeared Sept. 26, 2019, in FrontPageMag.
Photo courtesy of Canada Free Press