Tag Archives: Ukraine

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Trump or Taylor: Who do we believe?

Well now. The impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump’s presidency has taken yet another decisive turn and it doesn’t look good for the president.

William Taylor, a career diplomat, a West Point grad, an infantry officer with combat experience in Vietnam, someone with 50 years of public service under his belt has testified that Donald Trump did seek a political favor from a foreign government.

On the other side is Trump, a president, a man with zero public service experience, no national security experience, a serial liar, a novice who doesn’t the first or second thing about diplomacy denying the existence of a “quid pro quo” with Ukraine.

Who should we believe? I am going to go with the first fellow, Ambassador Taylor.

Taylor is a top U.S. envoy to Ukraine. He has been at or near the center of what has gotten Trump into so much political trouble. He reportedly told a congressional committee that Trump did indeed seek a political favor from Ukraine. He said Trump did seek to withhold military assistance until Ukraine provided dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter; oh yeah, Biden might run against Trump for president in 2020.

My head is spinning.

If there can be a more decisive moment in this impeachment inquiry to date, I am hard-pressed to identify it.

William Taylor is credible. Donald Trump is not.

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How about some more chaos and confusion at White House?

Do you want some more chaos and confusion emanating from the Donald Trump administration? Let’s try this out.

The president asserts repeatedly that he did nothing wrong when he talked with the president of Ukraine about “corruption” in Ukraine, even when he asked for a “favor, though” regarding the shipment of military hardware for Ukrainian forces fighting Russia-backed rebels. The “favor” involved some dirt that Trump wanted on Joe Biden, who might be a 2020 opponent in the presidential election. Ukraine would get the equipment if it delivered the goods to Trump’s re-election team.

Then we hear from the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who declares that, yes, the president withheld the arms for political purposes. Then he tells the nation, while standing in the White House press room, to “Get over it.”

What? You mean the chief of staff of the White House has admitted that Donald Trump broke the law? That he violated his presidential oath? That he has committed an offense for which he can be impeached by the House of Representatives?

Reporters gave Mulvaney several chances to take it back. He didn’t. He insisted that was the essence of the phone call Trump had with the Ukrainian president, Volodormyr Zellenskiy.

Oops!

Now he has sought to walk it back. He said his remarks were “misconstrued.” Mulvaney has actually sought to take back what the entire nation heard him say. It’s as if he is saying we all need hearing aids. You didn’t really hear him say what he said.

The White House team is scrambling. They were stunned, bumfuzzled by what the chief of staff said. They couldn’t believe it either in real time, which makes Mulvaney’s effort to erase the record as ridiculous as it looks.

He said it. As it is declared on occasion: You cannot unhonk the horn.

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Sen. Cruz is breaking his silence on Trump and election interference

What do you know about this?

Ted Cruz, who I dislike intensely in his role as the junior U.S. senator from Texas, is speaking out — finally! — on this matter of election interference from foreign governments.

Cruz, the Republican firebrand who nearly lost his seat in 2018, now says that foreign governments have no place in our nation’s electoral system. None, man! He has been critical of Donald Trump’s asking for electoral help from China and Ukraine.

According to the Texas Tribune: During an appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation, Cruz said no foreign government should be involved in American elections.

“That’s true for all of them,” he told moderator Margaret Brennan. “It should be the American people deciding elections.”

OK, so he hasn’t yet declared that Donald Trump needs to get booted out of office because of his solicitation of help from foreign governments. However, his statement — in my view — marks an important turning point in GOP reticence regarding the president’s current difficulties.

Trump is facing increasingly probable impeachment by the House of Representatives over issues relating to foreign interference in our elections. Cruz isn’t likely to join his Democratic colleagues in calling for Trump’s impeachment, conviction and ouster. However, at least The Cruz Missile is standing on an important principle that has been lost on the president.

What’s more, Cruz told Face the Nation that Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, needs to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in connection with reports that the former New York City mayor met with Ukrainian officials about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, regarding Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine.

Is the senator signaling a turn against a president — who he once called a “sniveling coward” and an “amoral” narcissist who is unfit for the presidency?

I won’t bet the mortgage on it. Then again … stranger events have occurred.

national news

No ‘need’ to know whistleblower’s ID

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan is one of Donald Trump’s most ardent defenders on Capitol Hill. The Ohio Republican, though, has difficulty answering direct questions, such as whether it was appropriate for Trump to ask China to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

Jordan, an Ohio Republican, had the chance this past weekend to answer that question on national TV. He dodged it many times.

Oh, but now he says we need to know the identity of the whistleblower who has, um, blown the whistle on what he or she believes has happened in the White House.

Jordan said this: “Frankly I think the American people have a right to know who this whistleblower is. If we’re talking about the impeachment of the President of the United States, I think that’s important.”

No, it’s not critical, congressman, for us to know the ID of the individual who has put his or her career on the line.

All the public needs to know is whether this individual’s allegations are credible, that they can be proven, that he or she has told the truth to what he or she understands.

Federal law protects the identity of these folks who step forward to tell the nation when the witness wrongdoing or corruption within our government. Revealing these people’s identity strips away the intent of the law and deters others in a position to reveal wrongdoing from doing the right thing.

If Jim Jordan is going to “defend” the president against charges that he has violated his oath of office and put our national security at risk by inviting foreign interference in our elections, then let him make the case on its merits.

That is, if he can find any merits on which to base his defense.

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Yes, it’s time to impeach the president of the United States

You may now count me as an American who has changed his mind on whether to impeach the president of the United States, Donald Trump.

I had been in the camp of those who said impeachment was a potential political loser. I had joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in digging in against impeaching Trump. Why not wait until the 2020 presidential election? Why allow the Democratically controlled House to impeach Trump, only to allow the Republican-controlled Senate to acquit him?

That’s all changed. In my view, the president has delivered impeachable offenses to the House and to the Senate.

We had that memo taken from the transcript of the phone call Trump had on July 25 with Ukrainian President Volodyrmyr Zellenskiy, when Trump asked Zellenskiy for help in getting him re-elected. Oh, and then he asked for that “favor, though,” when he indicated he would withhold shipment of arms to Ukraine until after Zellenskiy did as Trump had asked.

The president is not allowed to seek foreign government assistance in that manner. It’s in the law. It is implied in the Constitution. Trump has broken the law and broken faith with the oath he took to defend the Constitution.

The House must not wait any longer than it needs to wait.

As for the Senate, I remain skeptical about that body’s collective courage, doubting senators will be able to muster the two-thirds majority it needs to convict the president and, thus, boot his sorry backside out of office.

Trump won’t cooperate with the House committees seeking information about what the president said and when and to whom he said it. He keeps insisting that he did nothing wrong, that his phone conversation with Zellenskiy was “perfect.” OK, then, why does he dig in and resist at every turn? Why does Trump insist that he didn’t ask Zellenskiy for dirt on a political foe, Joe Biden, when the memo already published suggests that he did that very thing?

He blasts the media, Democrats and even the few Republicans who’ve shown the guts to criticize the president. Trump says the impeachment drive is “illegitimate” and calls it an attempted “coup” to reverse the results of the 2016 presidential election.

Come on! The House is pursuing a legal attempt to hold the president accountable for his own acknowledged actions.

And then we have the whistleblower, acting under the protection of a law that aims to protect these individuals who reveal corruption in our government. One of them has filed a report with credible evidence that Trump has sought to use the power of his office for personal political gain. He or she has “indirect” knowledge. Then we hear about a second individual with “direct” knowledge of what already has been alleged.

Trump wants to reveal the identity of this individual, or both individuals. He is threatening them with the same punishment we hand out to those convicted of espionage.

If that isn’t witness tampering, or obstruction of justice or abuse of power then there is no standard that fits any of those misbehaviors.

Donald Trump needs to be impeached. The House needs to act with deliberate speed.

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Can a POTUS defy a congressional subpoena?

I am believing we are about to find out in short order whether Congress has the stones to enforce a subpoena it would issue to the president of the United States.

Donald Trump has ordered a State Department official, Gordon Sondland — the U.S. ambassador to the European Union — to ignore a congressional summons to testify about what he knows regarding the, um, Ukraine Matter. Sondland took part in a conversation with other officials regarding the phone call Trump had with the Ukrainian president, the one that has gotten Trump into so much trouble; it’s the call in which he asked for a political favor in exchange for his releasing money to help the Ukrainians fight Russian-backed rebels with whom they are at war.

There appears to be a subpoena on the horizon, don’t you think?

So, what then? Does Congress issue the subpoena and then let the White House run roughshod over its constitutional authority? Hmm. I doubt it.

We now might have a case of the president piling yet another impeachable offense on those that already are building. You know, something about “no one being ‘above the law.'” If Donald Trump believes he is “above the law,” then it well might fall on the House to throw that count onto an article of impeachment resolution.

It’s getting weird.

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Trump ‘jokes’ about asking China to ‘investigate’? Uh huh, sure

Donald “Knee Slapper in Chief” Trump just keeps cracking me up.

He strolls out onto the White House lawn and after revealing that he asked Ukraine for help in investigating former VP Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, he calls on China to do the same thing.

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see him winking or smirking when he said it. Gosh, he seemed quite serious about it. Didn’t he seem that way to you as well?

He’s in some scalding water at the moment because of his solicitation of foreign governments to help him get re-elected and do destroy the candidacy of someone who might run against him in 2020. House Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry and are going to impeach the president, maybe quite soon.

Oh, but now Trump’s GOP allies in Congress say he was just kidding. He didn’t really mean for China to investigate anyone, especially the former vice president of the United States.

  • U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan refused to answer a direct question Sunday morning about whether he thought it was appropriate for Trump to solicit help from China.
  • U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio said Trump merely is trying to get the media riled up.
  • Sen. Roy Blunt said the president was kidding; he was making a joke.

Man, the president has to improve on his comedic timing.

Oh, but he wasn’t kidding. Any dunderhead observer who saw him make that statement didn’t presume Donald Trump was merely making a bad gag.

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Plot thickens rapidly with 2nd whistleblower

Well now. It appears that the “second-hand” account of one whistleblower is about to take a back seat to a “first-hand” account of a second individual reportedly with more direct knowledge of what went down in that infamous Phone Call involving Donald J. Trump.

What might the president’s defenders say to the second person who might come forward with information on what Trump said to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zellenskiy?

The plot is getting thicker than a vat of gravy.

As National Public Radio reports: Lawyer Mark Zaid, who is part of a team of attorneys representing the initial whistleblower, tells NPR that the new whistleblower has talked to the inspector general of the intelligence community but has not filed a complaint, which Zaid says is not necessary in order for the individual’s account to be protected.

“By law, when a witness is interviewed by the IG, that constitutes a protected disclosure, provides them legal protection from retaliation,” Zaid tells NPR.

The second whistleblower reportedly is an individual with direct knowledge of what the two heads of state said to each other on July 25. What intrigues me is that the Whistleblower No. 2 lawyer’s willingness to announce what might be in store is that No. 2 well might corroborate what No. 1 said in that memo released to the public a couple of weeks ago.

What did No. 1 say? He or she said Trump pressured Zellenskiy into helping with Trump’s re-election; he asked for dirt on Joe Biden, a possible 2020 campaign opponent; he held up the deployment of military equipment that the United States had promised Ukraine in its fight against Russia-backed rebels; and that the White House is working to cover it up.

All of that came after the White House released a memo of the phone call that revealed it all in the first place!

So, we have the president’s words released by the White House. We have a whistleblower, believed to be an individual in the intelligence community, revealing some serious wrongdoing. Now we might have a second whistleblower with more direct, first-hand, ringside knowledge of what went down.

Are the walls closing in on the president?

I believe they are.

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Perry to quit Trump Cabinet, ending a quiet tenure at Energy

Rick Perry reportedly is set to quit his job as secretary of energy, returning to the private sector, perhaps in Texas, where he served as the state’s longest-tenured governor before joining the Donald Trump administration.

Some in the media are making a bit of noise about Perry’s pending departure, linking him to the growing scandal involving Trump’s relationship with Ukraine and his solicitation of the Ukrainian president to assist in Trump’s bid for re-election.

Actually, Perry has been reported ready to leave D.C. for several weeks.

How has he done as energy secretary? I wish he would have devoted as much, um, energy to alternative power sources as he did when he served as Texas governor from 2000 to 2014. Indeed, Texas emerged as a leader in wind-power technology during Perry’s stint as governor.

He ran for the Republican nomination for president twice, in 2012 and 2016. Perry once called Donald Trump a “cancer on conservatism,” then swallowed his criticism when the president nominated him to become energy secretary.

Perhaps most ironic is that Perry — during a presidential candidate joint appearance in 2012 — became the source of the infamous “oops” quote when he couldn’t name the third agency he would eliminate were he elected president; that agency was the Department of Energy.

Whatever … Perry became an advocate for fossil fuels when he took the Cabinet post. Yes, he also pitched alternative energy development, but with hardly any of the verve he did while in Austin.

I haven’t a clue whether the Ukraine scandal is going to swallow Perry along with Trump and possibly others within the administration. The president reportedly told a GOP audience that Perry asked him to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zellenskiy, which has produced much of the evidence that Trump has violated his oath of office by soliciting the Ukrainian for re-election help along with dirt on former VP Joe Biden.

That part of the saga will play out in due course.

As for Secretary Perry’s record at the Department of Energy?

Eh …

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Never saw scandal topping Watergate, but this one has done it!

I’ll admit it right up front.

I always thought Watergate was as bad as it could get, short of a president of the United States actually spying for an enemy nation. Then the nation in 2016 elected Donald John Trump as its 45th president.

Now he is embroiled in a scandal that looks for all the world as if it’s going to surpass Watergate in its gravity.

I’m old enough to remember what happened on June 17, 1972 when some burglars got caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex in Washington. The media treated it initially as a police story. They buried the initial reporting inside the papers. Then it got worse … in a hurry!

We found out that President Nixon’s re-election team was involved. Then we learned that the president told the CIA to head off an FBI probe into what occurred. Then we learned of tape recordings of President Nixon saying precisely that. Then came congressional hearings and all hell broke loose. Then the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to turn the tapes over. Then the president learned his goose was cooked in the Senate if the House impeached him.

Then the president resigned.

Why is this worse? Because the president of the United States has dragged foreign nations into the act of working for his re-election, just as Russia did in helping elect him in 2016. Donald Trump also has used those solicitations for help as bargaining chips in delivering aid to an ally fighting a hostile power; Ukraine asked for military aid, Congress appropriated the funds, but the president held them up until Ukraine delivered on Trump’s request for aid in digging up dirt on Joe Biden, a potential 2020 political opponent.

Donald Trump, with that act, put our national security at risk. It emboldened that hostile power and has sown the seeds of mistrust among our other allies around the world into whether the United States can be trusted to keep its word.

I never thought I would see a day when a presidential scandal could eclipse Watergate. I believe, ladies and gents, that we have reached that stage.

The absolute absence of any public service experience in the president’s background is coming starkly into full view. He has built his entire professional career on self-service, self-enrichment and self-worth. He brought zero understanding of the U.S. Constitution into the Oval Office when he became president. He has made not only a mockery of the office he occupies, he has turned in a frightening display of the consequences of electing someone whose entire professional life has been build on demands that others act according to his whims.

That isn’t how good governance works.

We now are set to pay a painful price for the president’s astonishing ignorance and arrogance.