jedrider wrote:
Biden may be a creep, but we're dealing with a much bigger creep. .
It's only a month away from Halloween!
jedrider wrote:
Biden may be a creep, but we're dealing with a much bigger creep. .
jedrider wrote:If Trump was being above board about rooting out corruption, then why did he 1. specifically mention Biden? and 2. try to hide these conversations/negotiations from the public?
Biden may be a creep, but we're dealing with a much bigger creep. You can't impeach for being a creep, but you can impeach for using one's office to elicit aid for strictly political gain from a foreign government. Is that a crime? Well, it doesn't appear to ever have been done before. Trump is in a class all by himself. If the Congress saids it's an impeachable offence, then it obviously is, as Congress makes the laws, IMO.
Pops wrote:Outcast_Searcher wrote:But meanwhile, as a moderate,
LOL, just for grins I searched your posts and find you've used the word "moderate" 352 times. That's just the one word, not every other possible disclaimer. Seems like if you were actually moderate you wouldn't need to stipulate as much as your opening argument before every statement.
careinke wrote:So would I be considered a Moderate?
Pops wrote:S trump & Rs will gaslight the public just like with russia....
Ukraine: thanks for the guns
trump: I need a favor tho
Doesn't get more cut and dry.
rockdoc123 wrote:Please show us all where it says that in the phone call notes.
- notes from the phone call that show no "quid pro quo" and merely demonstrate a President doing his job (seeking out help investigating potential crimes committed by US citizens overseas).
President Zelenskyy: ...We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost. ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.
[then immediately]
The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.
[then a few sentences later]
[trump]Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. 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.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/eu ... story.htmlKIEV, Ukraine — A former top Ukrainian prosecutor, whose allegations were at the heart of the dirt-digging effort by Rudolph W. Giuliani, said Thursday he believed that Hunter Biden did not run afoul of any laws in Ukraine.
“From the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, he did not violate anything,” former Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuri Lutsenko told The Washington Post in his first interview since the disclosure of a whistleblower complaint alleging pressure by President Trump on Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelensky.
Lutsenko’s comments about Hunter Biden — which echo what he told Bloomberg News in May — were significant, because Trump and his personal attorney Giuliani have sought to stir up suspicions about both Hunter and former vice president Joe Biden’s conduct in Ukraine in recent weeks.
Sociopaths may or may not be criminals, but they are often difficult to identify until one is very familiar with their behavior. Sociopaths are often manipulative, lie frequently, lack empathy, and have a weak conscience that allows them to act recklessly or aggressively, even when they know their behavior is wrong.
But since you asked:
Now I've never spoken with someone about to give me $400m (or whatever it is) but I'm pretty sure a reasonable person would understand the implicit threat by the most powerful man in the world holding up your money and asking a favor.
trump used his position to extort a foreign government for something of personal value, dirt on his political opponent.
Abuse of power couldn't be more clear.
Federalist No. 65 “The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”
"repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposes of these agencies"
Impeachable conduct does not appear to be limited to criminal behavior.
Congress has identified three general types of conduct that constitute grounds for
impeachment, although these categories should not be understood as exhaustive:
(1) improperly exceeding or abusing the powers of the office; (2) behavior
incompatible with the function and purpose of the office; and (3) misusing the
office for an improper purpose or for personal gain.
30 years ago, when pressing the case against Clinton, Graham dismissed that little technicality of actually finding that a crime was committed.
“You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role.”
And here’s what Graham said in 1999, explaining the lack of a smoking gun against Clinton.
“He doesn’t have to say ‘go lie for me.’ He doesn’t have to say ‘let’s obstruct justice’ for it to be a crime. You judge people on their conduct, not magic phrases.”
rockdoc123 wrote:If he wanted something in return for what the US had done he would have said...hey we did this for you and will continue to sell you stuff but only if you do this.
“Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election.”
Federal law prohibits a foreign national from directly or indirectly making a “contribution or donation of money or other thing of value” in connection with a U.S. election, and prohibits a person from soliciting, accepting or receiving such a contribution or donation from a foreign national. Federal law defines “contribution” to include “any gift … of money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.” And the FEC by regulation defines “solicit” to mean “to ask, request, or recommend, explicitly or implicitly, that another person make a contribution, donation, transfer of funds, or otherwise provide anything of value.”
52 U.S. Code § 30121.Contributions and donations by foreign nationals
U.S. Code
(a)Prohibition
It shall be unlawful for—
(1)a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make—
(A)a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election;
(B)a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or
(C)an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 30104(f)(3) of this title); or
(2)a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national.
(b)“Foreign national”
defined As used in this section, the term “foreign national” means—
(1)a foreign principal, as such term is defined by section 611(b) of title 22, except that the term “foreign national” shall not include any individual who is a citizen of the United States; or
(2)an individual who is not a citizen of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 1101(a)(22) of titleand who is not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, as defined by section 1101(a)(20) of title 8.
(Pub. L. 92–225, title III, § 319, formerly § 324, as added Pub. L. 94–283, title I, § 112(2), May 11, 1976, 90 Stat. 493; renumbered § 319, Pub. L. 96–187, title I, § 105(5), Jan. 8, 1980, 93 Stat. 1354; amended Pub. L. 107–155, title III, §§ 303, 317, Mar. 27, 2002, 116 Stat. 96, 109.)
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