Last Call For The Reach To Impeach, Con't

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In newly disclosed text messages shared with Congress, the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine at the time writes to a group of other American diplomats that "I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

The exchange, provided by former U.S Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker as part of his closed-door deposition before multiple House committees Thursday, shows what appears to be encrypted text messages he exchanged with two other American diplomats in September regarding aid money President Donald Trump ordered to be held back from Ukraine.

In the exchange, obtained by ABC News, the concerns are expressed by Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine. Gordon Sondland, the United States Ambassador to the European Union, responds to Taylor, saying that charge is "incorrect," insisting the president has been “crystal clear no quid pro quo of any kind”.

Sondland then suggests to the group take the conversations off line, typing “I suggest we stop the back and forth by text.” It’s unclear if the conversation continues, based on the material obtained by ABC News.

Sondland, a hotelier and Republican megadonor, contributed over $1 million to the president’s inaugural committee before eventually being nominated and confirmed to the top role as the United States representative to the European Union. .

Taylor is a career foreign service officer who has served as the top diplomat in Kyiv since May, when Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was recalled by the administration. Yovanovitch had been smeared by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani for months as blocking Ukrainian investigations into corruption -- an allegation the State Department at the time called an "outright fabrication" that "does not correspond to reality."

But Trump referred to Yovanovitch as "bad news" in his controversial July 25 call with Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy.

The texts came just days before the White House released the military assistance to Ukraine -- almost $400 million from the State Department and Pentagon meant to boost the U.S. partner against Russian aggression.

The US diplomat to Ukraine certainly thought there was quid pro quo going on.  The guy who donated a million bucks to Trump to buy himself the ambassadorship to the European Union said "No it's not, also let's stop texting about this."

These idiots are so bad at this it's funny.

Orange Implosion, Con't

So we've reached the point in the Ukraine/Biden cycle in Trump's behavior where he simply does whatever Democrats are accusing him of doing in order to 1) normalize it for future repetition and the "so what if he does it?" defense from the GOP and 2) dare Democrats to actually do anything about it, which so far they have done absolutely nothing that seems to be discouraging him.

President Donald Trump urged another foreign government to probe Joe Biden and his son Thursday, saying the Chinese government should investigate the former vice president and son Hunter Biden over the latter's involvement with an investment fund that raised money in the country.

"China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine," Trump told reporters outside the White House.

While Trump said he hasn't requested Chinese President Xi Jinping investigate the Bidens, the public call mirrors the private behavior on which Democrats are partially basing their impeachment inquiry — using the office of the presidency to press a foreign leader to investigate a political rival.

It is "certainly something we can start thinking about, because I’m sure that President Xi does not like being on that kind of scrutiny, where billions of dollars is taken out of his country by a guy that just got kicked out of the Navy," Trump said Thursday of asking China to probe the Bidens. "He got kicked out of the Navy, all of the sudden he’s getting billions of dollars. You know what they call that? They call that a payoff."

The remarks come amid a tense trade war with China. The president, discussing progress on negotiations with Beijing on a possible trade agreement just moments prior to his remarks about the Bidens, told reporters that "if they don't do what we want, we have tremendous power.”

Chinese officials will be in Washington next week in another attempt to revive talks, Trump said.

So for almost two weeks now Trump defenders have been able to say "You can't prove he actually requested Biden be investigated, it's hearsay, it's not admissible in a court of law, Trump deserves full due process" even though all of that is 100% garbage.

And here Trump is on an idle Thursday not only saying Ukraine should investigate Joe Biden, but that China should too and hey, trade talks are coming up, that would definitely help.

No wonder then the call for impeachment is growing.  The best Democratic inquiry is to shut up and let Trump impeach himself on national TV.

Americans by a 45%-38% plurality now support a vote by the House of Representatives to impeach President Donald Trump, a USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds, as allegations continue to swirl around an embattled White House.

By a similar margin, 44%-35%, those surveyed say the Senate, which would then be charged with holding a trial of the president, should convict Trump and remove him from office.

The survey of 1,006 adults, taken Tuesday and Wednesday, underscores the perilous situation the president finds himself in as House committees subpoena documents and prepare to hear testimony into accusations that he pressured the leader of Ukraine to investigate a political rival, then tried to hide the account of their phone conversation.

This was before today's massive public admission of a criminal act by Trump.

He's this close to the dam breaking and the impeachment and removal happening, and it's about to catch Mitch McConnell in a vise if he tries to ignore the impeachment vote and refuses to hold a Senate trial.

It won't work.

Trump is damning himself.

The Orange Implosion continues.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

It seems every day there's new damning information coming out about the Trump regime, Ukraine, and the effort to create dirt on Joe Biden out of shadows and tweets, plus the effort to discredit and even prosecute the Mueller probe investigators.  

Former Trump campaign chairman and now convicted fraudster felon Paul Manafort represents the perfect merging of the Ukraine storyline and the Mueller probe, as Manafort was campaign runner for pro-Russian Ukrainian presidential candidate (and Putin stooge) Viktor Yanukovich. Wouldn't you know it, Trump "legal eagle" Rudy Giuliani apparently thought it would be a good idea to tap Manafort's "expertise" on Ukraine while he was behind bars.

In his quest to rewrite the history of the 2016 election, President Trump’s personal attorney has turned to an unusual source of information: Trump’s imprisoned former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Rudolph W. Giuliani in recent months has consulted several times with Manafort through the federal prisoner’s lawyer in pursuit of information about a disputed ledger that would bolster his theory that the real story of 2016 is not Russian interference to elect Trump, but Ukrainian efforts to support Hillary Clinton.

The alliance, which Giuliani acknowledged in an interview this week with The Washington Post, stems from a shared interest in a narrative that undermines the rationale for the special counsel investigation. That inquiry led to Manafort’s imprisonment on tax and financial fraud allegations related to his work in Kiev for the political party of former president Viktor Yanukovych.

Giuliani’s effort is gaining traction on Capitol Hill. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, have announced their renewal of an inquiry into any coordination between Ukraine and Democratic Party officials.

Manafort, who is serving a 7½ -year term in a federal prison in Pennsylvania, has continued to express support for Trump, and Trump has never ruled out giving him a pardon.

Trump’s push on a July 25 call to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the matter, and also probe former vice president Joe Biden, triggered an impeachment inquiry in the House. Many of the accusations Giuliani has been making about Ukraine recycle those that Manafort’s team first promulgated.
Giuliani joined Trump’s legal team in April 2018 to help defend the president against special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe, and the former mayor said he launched his own investigation into Ukraine late last year, which led him to consult with Manafort. He said he has not spoken directly to Manafort in two years.

“It was that I believed there was a lot of evidence that the [Democratic National Committee] and the Clinton campaign had a close connection to Ukrainian officials,” Giuliani said, noting that he was never advocating for a pardon of Manafort. “It was all about Trump. I don’t think I could exonerate Manafort.”

Manafort’s lawyer, Kevin Downing, did not respond to a request for comment.

This is the grand 2020 plan, to exonerate Trump now by blaming all the Ukraine stuff on Hillary, and to try to destroy Joe Biden so he can't win in 2020 and Trump gets a second term.

It won't work unless we let it.

StupidiNews!

• The former Dallas police officer who was convicted of the murder of Botham Jean, an unarmed black man in his own apartment, was sentenced to ten years for the murder, eligible for parole in five.
• The World Trade Organization has ruled $7.5 billion in new Trump tariffs on EU imports, including on Irish whiskey, over the EU's illegal support of Airbus.
• A vintage WW II B-17 bomber crashed at a Connecticut airport killing seven and closing Bradley International Airport for several hours as fire crews responded to the resulting blaze.
• Indonesian President Jokowi says nationwide protest will "not deter" his reform agenda as students clashed with police armed with teargas in Jakarta.
• Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Mark Warner are behind a bipartisan effort to warn tech giants they need to stop "deepfake" videos spread on social media ahead of the 2020 elections.