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First off, who in the world believes Donald Trump, the King of Gluttony, actually “wants nothing”?
The guy buys a thousand “Hamberders” to feed a single football team — so he obviously wants something — like the left-overs.
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So it was with the Trump Ukraine scheme — Trump wanted something.
As Sondland explained in his Opening Statement, here is some of what Trump wanted:
First, Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States.
[...]
Fourth, as I testified previously, Mr. Giuliani’s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky. Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing investigations of the 2016 election/DNC server and Burisma. Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the President.
So what about Sondland’s other testimony about another call he had with Trump, when Trump’s urgently claimed: “I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo.”
Well, here’s the thing: Trump made those desperate denials AFTER he was caught — not before, according to Sondland recollection:
by Elie Honig, CNN — Nov 26, 2019
[...]
In one corner, President Donald Trump and his supporters point to his September 9 conversation with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, during which (according to Sondland) Trump said, "I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo."
[...]
The "I want nothing" defense -- no matter how many times or how loudly
Trump shouts it --
is a cheap distraction and should not divert attention from the actual evidence of his corrupt intent.
The timing of
Trump's "I want nothing" comments is crucial to this point. Trump's September 9 conversation with Sondland happened
nearly a month after the whistleblower filed a complaint,
several days after the White House learned about the complaint, and
on the same day Congress received notice of the complaint. As House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff put it, "
he got caught."
The jig was up, and Trump was in cover-up mode.
When the bank robber gets caught in a stalled get-away car, he can deny all he wants
that: “I want nothing. I want nothing. I did not pass the teller a note demanding cash Investigations. That was ALL my lawyer’s idea … Rudy wrote the note, talk to him!”
When the witnesses and the surveillance cameras all tell a different story — that the robber wanted everything — then all those desperation denials don’t amount to a hill of beans.
Retro-active extortion retraction is not really a thing — except in the minds of career criminals who are used to working the system in any way possible, to cover-up their tracks. To distort the mountain of evidence that is towering against them. To taint the Jury in any way possible.
All those retro-active denials — are simply MORE crimes. Not absolution — for the crimes that they’ve already attempted, before being caught red-handed in their clearly illegal plots.
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Or as Adam Schiff summarized Trump’s “I want nothing” denials:
"Trump got caught." The jig was up, and Trump was in cover-up mode.
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In one of his closing statements, during the Impeachment Hearings, Schiff also described Trump’s crime-vanishing “magic words” like this:
Schiff likened Trump's insistence that there was "no quid pro quo" to Nixon's infamous proclamation of "I'm not a crook."
[W]hat we’ve seen here is far more serious than a third-rate burglary of the Democratic headquarters," Schiff said, invoking Watergate. "What we're talking about here is the withholding of recognition in that White House meeting. The withholding of military aid to an ally at war. That is beyond anything Nixon did."
thehill.com — Nov 21, 2019
Who knew, that in addition to everything else, Trump was also a Magician?
Simply wave his hands, and repeat the magic words (I want nothing. I want nothing) — and he could make 30% of America actually believe it, just like that:
“The Donald is not a Crook either — just like Dick Nixon!”
Abra-ca-dabra, America. One of these days, everyone will realize, we’ve all been had …
by the Oligarch’s Apprentice, pulling off the cheapest of stunts.
...
Just probably not soon enough.
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