Well, what do you know — it seems that some GOP Senators actually do believe that water is wet.
A growing number of Senate Republicans are ready to acknowledge that President Trump used U.S. military aid as leverage to force Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his family as the president repeatedly denies a quid pro quo.
In this shift in strategy to defend Trump, these Republicans are insisting that the president’s action was not illegal and does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense as the Democratic-led House moves forward with the open phase of its probe.
But the shift among Senate Republicans could complicate the message coming from Trump as he furiously fights the claim that he had withheld U.S. aid from Ukraine to pressure it to dig up dirt on a political rival, even as an increasing number of Republicans wonder how long they can continue to argue that no quid pro quo was at play in the matter.
So they are finally moving to the fall-back position that Trump really did implement a Quid Pro Quo (This for That) deal with Ukraine between the $400 Million in Military aid and a promise to implement investigations of Hunter Biden and Crowdstrike. Asking for concessions and conditions is perfectly normal in these types of deals, as long as what you asking isn't done with "corrupt intent.""
The pivot was the main topic during a private Senate GOP lunch on Wednesday, according to multiple people familiar with the session who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the meeting. Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) argued that there may have been a quid pro quo but said that the U.S. government often attaches conditions to foreign aid and that nothing was amiss in Trump’s doing so in the case of aid to Ukraine, these individuals said.
Inside the lunch, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who ran against Trump in 2016, said a quid pro quo is not illegal unless there is “corrupt intent” and echoed Kennedy’s argument that such conditions are a tool of foreign policy.
“To me, this entire issue is gonna come down to, why did the president ask for an investigation,” Kennedy, who worked as a lawyer, said in an interview. “To me, it all turns on intent, motive. ... Did the president have a culpable state of mind? … Based on the evidence that I see, that I’ve been allowed to see, the president does not have a culpable state of mind.”
Yeah, so there were at least three different people who complained about what Trump told Zelensky on the call to NSC lawyer John Eisenberg, who then told them not to tell anyone else about it and then place the call information on a classified server where it couldn't be seen by anyone else, but no sure — he didn't have a consciousness of guilt or a culpable state of mind. No, not at all.
As I noted last week, the reasons to investigate Crowdstrike were simply put; bonkers.
The "Server" is not actually a server, the DNC email system was a cloud-based system and basically used about 140 different servers. The "Ukrainian owned" company isn't owned by a Ukrainian, but one of their co-founders and CTO was born in Moscow, Russia — not Ukraine.
Hunter Biden was not a member of Burisma board when the investigation of it's CEO started, so he had nothing to do with that. That investigation had been ended for over a year before Joe Biden began bringing up issues about the prosecutor who had a habit of not pursuing corruption cases. Also the Trump White House had repeatedly cut funding for Ukrainian anti-corruption efforts in the past.
According to the Post, the Trump administration “has sought repeatedly to cut foreign aid programs 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 sent $30 million to Ukraine that helped fund the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
Another key program aimed at fighting corruption, the Economic Support and Development Fund, allocated $250 million to Ukraine in 2018 — but the White House requested that funding be cut to just $145 million in 2020.
If Trump truly and honestly cared about "corruption in Ukraine" completely separate from the being able to make arguments in the 2020 Election against Joe Biden and to claim, yet again, that the 2016 investigation was only a "witch hunt" that had been ginned up by the Democrats and Ukraine then why was he cutting this funding?
There is no pathway from X to Y.
There is no legitimate rationale for these investigations other than Trump implementing them for his own personal electoral gain. Period.
If multiple Senators are willing to entertain the fact that Trump has been openly lying about "No Quid Pro Quo" and are able to admit that what he did here was extortion and bribery, then it's actually possible that they might consider the truth; Trump is guilty.
The House has now voted 232-196 to implement public Impeachment hearings and if the GOP jurors are at this point already, they're going to be in even bigger doo doo by the end of the month when the House is ready to vote on Impeachment. That has to be balanced against Trump's attempts to bribe the Senate with campaign cash.
President Donald Trump latest defense against impeachment has been to shower Republican senators with campaign cash.
Rick Hansen, a law professor at UC Irvine and expert in campaign finance law, said the transaction could be charged as bribery.
”Offering a thing of value (campaign money) in exchange for an official act (a Senator voting for or against impeachment) could be bribery,” Hansen noted.
Well, he figured he could bribe Zelensky, why shouldn't he think he can bribe the Senate?
Meanwhile the House is continue to play "Hey, don't look at the evidence LOOK OVER HERE" games by storming the deposition chamber, ordering pizza, then wandering off and not bothering not to even listen to the witness that they interrupted.
They complained and complained that the Impeachment Inquiry process was illegitimate and invalid because they didn't have any rules allowing for equal time and due process, and now that Dems have implemented those rules each and every single Republican voted against them.
Now they've decided to file ethnics complaints against Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, because, well, of course they did.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who has been practically jumping up and down for President Donald Trump’s attention lately, filed an ethics complaint on Wednesday against Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA).
Among his accusations are that Schiff “distorted” Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and that the chairman won’t allow Gaetz to bust into any impeachment inquiry hearings he pleases.
Gaetz led a legion of House Republicans to storm the SCIF in which a hearing was taking place last week, furious that he was being kept from it. He seemed unswayed by the fact that dozens of his Republican peers sit on the committees overseeing the inquiry and are themselves more than welcome in the committee rooms.
Yeah, that's gonna go somewhere productive. Or not.
Rachel Maddow pointed out the Trump may have extorted Ukraine previously by having them block support for Robert Mueller investigation into Paul Manafort which was headed by Giuliani.
“A standard theme in detective thrillers is that the perpetrator feels compelled to return to the scene of the crime. It’s an irrational urge, and readers of such potboilers are often left wondering whether the protagonist secretly wants to get caught,” Ignatius wrote. “Perhaps we’re living a real-life version of this fictional plot in President Trump’s alleged solicitation of political help from Ukraine, which this week spawned a full-blown impeachment probe.”=
Ignatius broke down how it appears Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko appears to have received a coveted White House meeting with Trump in 2017 after shelving an investigation into former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. The timeline suggests Giuliani may have brokered the deal during a visit to Kyiv.
And Chris Hayes delivered a series of 9 body blows to Lindsey Graham's challenge to show Quid Pro Quo evidence against Trump outside the phone call with Zelensky.
“If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing,” Graham said.
1) "I would like you to do us a favor, though." from the original call.
2) Bill Taylor to Sondland "Are we saying that security assistance is conditioned on investigations?"
3) Taylor testified that Sondland told him "everything was dependent on investigations" including a public announcement of them.
4) Sondland described to Sen. Ron Johnson there was a Quid Pro Quo on Ukraine. He then called Trump who denied it. Trump then called Sondland and he them repeateded those denials back to Taylor via text.
5) Sondland's lawyer stated after his testimony to the House that "he believed there was a Quid Pro Quo."
6) NSC Advisor Fiona Hill testified that Sondland made a blatant request for investigations to Ukrainian officials causing John Bolton to terminate theie July 10th meeting and say he didn't want to be involved in that "Drug Deal" they had cooked up.
7) Lt. Col Vindman complained to NSC Lawyer John Eisenberg that there was a "quid pro quo"after the July 10th meeting with Sondland and Ukraine.
8) Fiona Hill's replacement Tim Morrison confirmed Bill Taylor's testimony about Sondland's Quid Pro Quo.
9) And Mick Mulvaney admitted it on live camera when trying to explain why they held up the aid money.
Here are the rest of the details for this week;
October 26th —
October 27th —
October 28th —
October 29th —
October 30th —
October 31st —
November 1st —