Trump lost moving on with new year go Biden
- Thread starter Allforthewifey
- Start date
guess not....the cult hangs by their leader
“Facts” - whatever media Dem bullshite propaganda you can dig up to support your talking points.
Shouldn’t you be worried about where you’ll find your next 10 pages of Dem drivel.
If anyone thinks that the Democratic party has ever been truly for doing right with the people of this country, they are seriously lacking the gift of discernment. I hate name calling because it achieves nothing positive, other then obvious blind ignorance by somewhat intelligent people, must Democrats are from the most uneducated, unintelligent majority of this country. Oh ya the democratic party is the people party, never was and never will be. The republican party is as corrupt as the democratic party, only as a whole the people that follow in the party line are of the culture that understands capitalism, are well educated, and instead of depending on the government to supply them with free programs, that successful capitalism provides for them. A true republican will make an honest attempt to live the American Dream. The problem is and has been the politicians seeking wealth and glory from corruption instead of hard work and determination to rightly do the jobs we the people expect of them. Donald John Trump is not a politician ( thank God for that ) he is a man of business that has witnessed the corrupt useless way our government has been headed over the course of his lifetime. President Donald John Trump as a man is a sinner, as are every human being that has lived since Adam and Eve except Jesus Christ himself. God works through sinners because there is no one righteous on the earth today, no not one. How come the corrupt politicians, in over three years time, have not been able to destroy the presidency of Donald J. Trump, an outsider to the established corrupt practices of both sides of the aisle ? Because God needed a certain man exactly for this time, a sinful corrupt business man that can understand the mentality of the whole corrupt governmental system and outsmart those leading this country down a path of destruction.
the facts on trump are all over.....just type in any subject on trump.....you will finds pages and pages of ******* he has pulled....and all from different sources so it's not like they all conspired against Adolph...…......everything from his taxes to being on a pee tape in Russia...it's all there......….so it's not like I have to really look....matter of fact when you cult members make all these false statements and I have to look them up....is when I find so much more than I was even looking for....everything from crook to pervert.....
DITTO..…..and then some....god needed?...did god need hitler or jim jones or any of them....get a grip man....you are losing it...…... you are so brainwashed by the right....you can't even make rational statements...let alone anything factual
Prolay just repeating trumps statements back at him.....same statement reads a different way every time he says it....he is his own worst enemy!…...and the cult can't see it....must be short memory span
I dare say there is a strong correlation between the percentage of negative coverage of Trump and negative things Trump does.
Not worth the breath it takes to try and tell democrats anything. Lost causes really.
Yep...we have a Russian in the white house...and americans supporting that!
Trump tells aides not to talk publicly about Russia policy ...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-tells-aides-not-talk-publicly...
Mar 29, 2018 · Trump asked aides not to publicly tout a deal to send U.S. missiles to Ukraine because he didn't want to irk Putin. But Trump, irked by Putin's nuclear buildup, told him last week: "If you want
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's national security advisers spent months trying to convince him to sign off on a plan to supply new U.S. weapons to Ukraine to aid in the country's fight against Russian-backed separatists, according to multiple senior administration officials.
Yet when the president finally authorized the major policy shift, he told his aides not to publicly tout his decision, officials said. Doing so, Trump argued, might agitate Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the officials.
"He doesn't want us to bring it up," one White House official said. "It is not something he wants to talk about."
The White House declined to comment.
Officials said the increasingly puzzling divide between Trump's policy decisions and public posture on Russia stems from his continued hope for warmer relations with Putin and stubborn refusal to be seen as appeasing the media or critics who question his silence or kind words for the Russian leader.
Critics have suggested that Trump's soft approach to Putin has nefarious roots that are somehow entwined with Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the federal investigation into whether the president's campaign colluded in that effort, something the president has repeatedly denied.
Behind the scenes, however, Trump has recently taken a sharper tone on Putin, administration officials said, but the shift seems more a reaction to the Russian leader challenging the president's strength than a new belief that he's an adversary. Putin's claim earlier this month that Russia has new nuclear-capable weapons that could hit the U.S., a threat he underscored with video simulating an attack, "really got under the president's skin," one official said.
So much so that after hearing Putin’s speech, Trump called the leaders of France, Germany and the U.K. to say the Russian leader sounded dangerous, so the four of them needed to stick together, according to a White House official familiar with the calls.
Two officials said Trump told Putin during a phone call last week after Putin's re-election: "If you want to have an arms race we can do that, but I'll win." Trump added that he hoped that Putin’s comments were just election rhetoric and bragged that he’d just secured a $700 billion defense budget, the largest the U.S. has ever had, he said, according to one of the officials.
Afterward the president gave no hint of tensions when he told reporters that the two leaders had "a very good call" and that he plans to meet with Putin soon to discuss curtailing an arms race.
Within days, the split between Trump's Russia policy and public rhetoric was again on display.
The White House announced Monday that the U.S. would expel 60 Russian diplomats — the largest number since the Cold War — in response to Moscow's alleged nerve-agent attack in the U.K. on a former spy. It was the brashest U.S. brushback of Russia since Trump took office, yet the president didn't comment on it. And he insisted the White House's message include the idea that he "still wants to work with Russia."
Trump was similarly silent Thursday after Russia announced it would expel U.S. diplomats and close the American consulate in St. Petersburg in response to U.S. moves earlier this week.
A now familiar back-and-forth also played out behind the scenes over Trump's decision two weeks ago to levy new sanctions against Russia in response to Moscow's 2016 election meddling and costly worldwide cyberattack last year.
One official involved in the discussions said Trump pushed back on the sanctions proposals by saying Russia's meddling didn't affect the election, but began to relent after Putin's boast about nuclear weapons.
Since approving the sanctions, officials said Trump has given White House officials conflicting messages on whether they should showcase the move publicly. In some instances Trump says he's fine with it, while at other times he's directed aides not to talk about it, they said.
The president's aides have begun to choose their battles or shape their advice to his approach. While the phrase "DO NOT CONGRATULATE" was written on Trump's briefing materials for his call with Putin last week — as first reported by The Washington Post — the president's senior advisers also chose not to orally brief him on the talking point because they didn't think it would make a difference, officials said.
"He'd say what he wants anyway," one official said.
Trump did congratulate Putin, to the dismay — though not surprise — of some of his top national security advisers. Aides said it's unclear if a meeting with Putin will happen because Trump suggests a meeting during nearly all of his calls with foreign leaders as a routine pleasantry.
An argument the president's national security advisers have found to be successful in trying to persuade Trump to adopt aggressive Russia policies is that Putin responds to strength and the way to achieve better relations is to be tougher on him, officials said.
One official described it as a way to "motivate" Trump on Russia.
"He digs in his heels," the official said. "He thinks a better relationship with Russia is good for the U.S., and he really believes he can deliver it."
Moreover, the official said, Trump wants a better U.S. relationship with Russia to prove he can accomplish it.
One official said Trump believes a stable U.S. relationship with Russia is important if the U.S. is going to find resolutions to other crisis, such as the conflict in Syria.
Rex Tillerson, Trump's outgoing secretary of state, led the effort to convince Trump to approve the new arms for Ukraine, officials said. The plan, which Russia opposed, included the sale of U.S.-made Javelin anti-tank missiles that Kiev has for years requested from Washington. President Barack Obama had repeatedly refused to approve Ukraine's request out of concern it would escalate U.S. tensions with Russia.
Tillerson scheduled a meeting with the president to discuss the plan shortly after the national security team approved it last summer, and he raised the issue with Trump in their regular meetings over the next few months, officials said.
As the policy sat on his desk awaiting his signature, the president expressed concern that it would escalate tensions with Russia and lead to a broader conflict, officials said. They said he also saw Ukraine as a problem for Europe and questioned why he should have to do something about it. And he insisted Ukraine purchase the arms from the U.S., not receive them for free, officials said, before signing off on the policy in December.
"Tillerson just wore him down," a White House official said.
But Trump's ambivalence didn't end, officials said. In one instance afterward, Trump complained to his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, that his decision could really escalate the situation in Ukraine to a war. McMaster, who was recently ousted, responded by telling the president there already is a war there, to which Trump shot back that the U.S. is not in it, an official said.
Last week, as the president's national security team finalized options for a response to the Russian nerve agent attack in the U.K., Trump voiced a now-familiar complaint. He said he wasn't going to take dramatic steps against Russia unless they were met with equal responses from America's European allies, aides said. His edict helped corral a response that included expulsions of more than 100 Russian diplomats in more than two dozen countries.
Trump was presented with three options last Friday during a meeting with his national security team, officials said. He chose the middle option, persuaded most by the idea that if Russia changed its behavior he wouldn't have needed the most strident measures and if it doesn't he has additional actions he can take, officials said.
The Trump-Putin Axis of Evil - Falls Church News-Press Online
fcnp.com
trump-putin-axis-of-evil
Trump was withholding almost $400 million in military aid to Ukraine for months until it became public. That was a gift to Putin. To say it was done as leverage to ******* the Ukraine president to cough up a contrived false report about the Bidens diverts attention from the fact that the military aid …
Trump did Putin's bidding and sold out Ukraine for "a ...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/10/1/1889383/-Trump-did-Putin-s-bidding-and-sold...
Oct 01, 2019 · Trump did Putin's bidding and sold out Ukraine for "a favor, though" annieli for Dirt farming in the South by South West Wing of the White House Community (This content is not …
Trump tells aides not to talk publicly about Russia policy ...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-tells-aides-not-talk-publicly...
Mar 29, 2018 · Trump asked aides not to publicly tout a deal to send U.S. missiles to Ukraine because he didn't want to irk Putin. But Trump, irked by Putin's nuclear buildup, told him last week: "If you want
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's national security advisers spent months trying to convince him to sign off on a plan to supply new U.S. weapons to Ukraine to aid in the country's fight against Russian-backed separatists, according to multiple senior administration officials.
Yet when the president finally authorized the major policy shift, he told his aides not to publicly tout his decision, officials said. Doing so, Trump argued, might agitate Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the officials.
"He doesn't want us to bring it up," one White House official said. "It is not something he wants to talk about."
The White House declined to comment.
Officials said the increasingly puzzling divide between Trump's policy decisions and public posture on Russia stems from his continued hope for warmer relations with Putin and stubborn refusal to be seen as appeasing the media or critics who question his silence or kind words for the Russian leader.
Critics have suggested that Trump's soft approach to Putin has nefarious roots that are somehow entwined with Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the federal investigation into whether the president's campaign colluded in that effort, something the president has repeatedly denied.
Behind the scenes, however, Trump has recently taken a sharper tone on Putin, administration officials said, but the shift seems more a reaction to the Russian leader challenging the president's strength than a new belief that he's an adversary. Putin's claim earlier this month that Russia has new nuclear-capable weapons that could hit the U.S., a threat he underscored with video simulating an attack, "really got under the president's skin," one official said.
So much so that after hearing Putin’s speech, Trump called the leaders of France, Germany and the U.K. to say the Russian leader sounded dangerous, so the four of them needed to stick together, according to a White House official familiar with the calls.
Two officials said Trump told Putin during a phone call last week after Putin's re-election: "If you want to have an arms race we can do that, but I'll win." Trump added that he hoped that Putin’s comments were just election rhetoric and bragged that he’d just secured a $700 billion defense budget, the largest the U.S. has ever had, he said, according to one of the officials.
Afterward the president gave no hint of tensions when he told reporters that the two leaders had "a very good call" and that he plans to meet with Putin soon to discuss curtailing an arms race.
Within days, the split between Trump's Russia policy and public rhetoric was again on display.
The White House announced Monday that the U.S. would expel 60 Russian diplomats — the largest number since the Cold War — in response to Moscow's alleged nerve-agent attack in the U.K. on a former spy. It was the brashest U.S. brushback of Russia since Trump took office, yet the president didn't comment on it. And he insisted the White House's message include the idea that he "still wants to work with Russia."
Trump was similarly silent Thursday after Russia announced it would expel U.S. diplomats and close the American consulate in St. Petersburg in response to U.S. moves earlier this week.
A now familiar back-and-forth also played out behind the scenes over Trump's decision two weeks ago to levy new sanctions against Russia in response to Moscow's 2016 election meddling and costly worldwide cyberattack last year.
One official involved in the discussions said Trump pushed back on the sanctions proposals by saying Russia's meddling didn't affect the election, but began to relent after Putin's boast about nuclear weapons.
Since approving the sanctions, officials said Trump has given White House officials conflicting messages on whether they should showcase the move publicly. In some instances Trump says he's fine with it, while at other times he's directed aides not to talk about it, they said.
The president's aides have begun to choose their battles or shape their advice to his approach. While the phrase "DO NOT CONGRATULATE" was written on Trump's briefing materials for his call with Putin last week — as first reported by The Washington Post — the president's senior advisers also chose not to orally brief him on the talking point because they didn't think it would make a difference, officials said.
"He'd say what he wants anyway," one official said.
Trump did congratulate Putin, to the dismay — though not surprise — of some of his top national security advisers. Aides said it's unclear if a meeting with Putin will happen because Trump suggests a meeting during nearly all of his calls with foreign leaders as a routine pleasantry.
An argument the president's national security advisers have found to be successful in trying to persuade Trump to adopt aggressive Russia policies is that Putin responds to strength and the way to achieve better relations is to be tougher on him, officials said.
One official described it as a way to "motivate" Trump on Russia.
"He digs in his heels," the official said. "He thinks a better relationship with Russia is good for the U.S., and he really believes he can deliver it."
Moreover, the official said, Trump wants a better U.S. relationship with Russia to prove he can accomplish it.
One official said Trump believes a stable U.S. relationship with Russia is important if the U.S. is going to find resolutions to other crisis, such as the conflict in Syria.
Rex Tillerson, Trump's outgoing secretary of state, led the effort to convince Trump to approve the new arms for Ukraine, officials said. The plan, which Russia opposed, included the sale of U.S.-made Javelin anti-tank missiles that Kiev has for years requested from Washington. President Barack Obama had repeatedly refused to approve Ukraine's request out of concern it would escalate U.S. tensions with Russia.
Tillerson scheduled a meeting with the president to discuss the plan shortly after the national security team approved it last summer, and he raised the issue with Trump in their regular meetings over the next few months, officials said.
As the policy sat on his desk awaiting his signature, the president expressed concern that it would escalate tensions with Russia and lead to a broader conflict, officials said. They said he also saw Ukraine as a problem for Europe and questioned why he should have to do something about it. And he insisted Ukraine purchase the arms from the U.S., not receive them for free, officials said, before signing off on the policy in December.
"Tillerson just wore him down," a White House official said.
But Trump's ambivalence didn't end, officials said. In one instance afterward, Trump complained to his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, that his decision could really escalate the situation in Ukraine to a war. McMaster, who was recently ousted, responded by telling the president there already is a war there, to which Trump shot back that the U.S. is not in it, an official said.
Last week, as the president's national security team finalized options for a response to the Russian nerve agent attack in the U.K., Trump voiced a now-familiar complaint. He said he wasn't going to take dramatic steps against Russia unless they were met with equal responses from America's European allies, aides said. His edict helped corral a response that included expulsions of more than 100 Russian diplomats in more than two dozen countries.
Trump was presented with three options last Friday during a meeting with his national security team, officials said. He chose the middle option, persuaded most by the idea that if Russia changed its behavior he wouldn't have needed the most strident measures and if it doesn't he has additional actions he can take, officials said.
The Trump-Putin Axis of Evil - Falls Church News-Press Online
The Trump-Putin Axis of Evil - Falls Church News-Press Online
Some Democratic politicians are beginning to figure this out. The media are the slowest to get it.
fcnp.com
Trump was withholding almost $400 million in military aid to Ukraine for months until it became public. That was a gift to Putin. To say it was done as leverage to ******* the Ukraine president to cough up a contrived false report about the Bidens diverts attention from the fact that the military aid …
Trump did Putin's bidding and sold out Ukraine for "a ...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/10/1/1889383/-Trump-did-Putin-s-bidding-and-sold...
Oct 01, 2019 · Trump did Putin's bidding and sold out Ukraine for "a favor, though" annieli for Dirt farming in the South by South West Wing of the White House Community (This content is not …
this is the guy advising trump on immigration...……………………..but I'm sure the trump cult overlooks all this
Leaked Emails Show Stephen Miller Is Exactly Who You Think ...
stephen-miller-white-nationalism-xenophobia-leaked...
19 hours ago · Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller in a series of leaked emails pushed white nationalism, bemoaned opposition to Confederate symbols following a mass shooting at a Black church in South Carolina and embraced immigration policies once lauded by Adolf Hitler.
Leaked Emails Show Stephen Miller’s Unfiltered Anti ...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/leaked-emails-show-stephen-millers...
19 hours ago · On Tuesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center published excerpts of emails Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s assaults on immigrants, sent to the right-wing outlet Breitbart. Miller’s …
Stephen Miller emails suggest White House immmigration ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/12/leaked-stephen-miller-emails...
Leaked Stephen Miller emails shows Trump’s point man on immigration promoted white nationalism, SPLC reports Stephen Miller listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in August 2018....
Leaked Emails Show Stephen Miller Is Exactly Who You Think ...
stephen-miller-white-nationalism-xenophobia-leaked...
19 hours ago · Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller in a series of leaked emails pushed white nationalism, bemoaned opposition to Confederate symbols following a mass shooting at a Black church in South Carolina and embraced immigration policies once lauded by Adolf Hitler.
Leaked Emails Show Stephen Miller’s Unfiltered Anti ...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/leaked-emails-show-stephen-millers...
19 hours ago · On Tuesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center published excerpts of emails Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s assaults on immigrants, sent to the right-wing outlet Breitbart. Miller’s …
Stephen Miller emails suggest White House immmigration ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/12/leaked-stephen-miller-emails...
Leaked Stephen Miller emails shows Trump’s point man on immigration promoted white nationalism, SPLC reports Stephen Miller listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in August 2018....
that's pretty low for all the ******* he has/is doing and done....that 4% would be the cult members?
although most of the negative coverage is just trump changing from one lie to another....americans getting tired of it....the man has no idea just what the truth is
Impeachment Hearings Open With Revelation on Trump’s Ukraine Pressure
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives opened historic impeachment hearings on Wednesday and took startling new testimony from a senior American diplomat that further implicated President Trump in a campaign to pressure Ukraine to publicly commit to investigating former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
In a nationally televised hearing from a stately committee room across from the Capitol, William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, brought to life Democrats’ allegations that Mr. Trump had abused his office by trying to enlist a foreign power to help him in an election.
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives opened historic impeachment hearings on Wednesday and took startling new testimony from a senior American diplomat that further implicated President Trump in a campaign to pressure Ukraine to publicly commit to investigating former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
In a nationally televised hearing from a stately committee room across from the Capitol, William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, brought to life Democrats’ allegations that Mr. Trump had abused his office by trying to enlist a foreign power to help him in an election.
MSN
www.msn.com
The GOP Ukraine defense asks us to believe Trump cared deeply about things he rarely discussed
Over the course of the first day of public testimony in the House impeachment inquiry, Republicans outlined a somewhat sketchy defense of President Trump. At its heart were two lines of argument: that Trump’s interest in a strong Ukraine was well established (neutralizing, they hoped, the halt Trump placed on providing aid to that country) and that his efforts to get Ukraine to launch new investigations were rooted in his obvious opposition to corruption.
“As we’ll learn in these hearings,” the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking Republican, Devin Nunes (Calif.), said on Wednesday, “after expressing skepticism of foreign aid and concern about foreign corruption on the campaign trail, President Trump outraged the bureaucracy by acting skeptically about foreign aid and expressing concerns about foreign corruption.”
The problem with that argument in particular is that it’s directly at odds with all other available evidence. It is not only not the case that Trump has not focused on corruption to any significant degree as president and it is not only the case that Trump has basically not focused on corruption in Ukraine atall, but it isn’t even the case that Trump focused on corruption in Ukraine in the call he had with
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. For all of Trump’s regular insistences that America “read the transcript” — that is, the rough transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call — House Republicans on Wednesday essentially asked that Americans not to read the transcript, lest they learn just how little of a focus Trump put on the subject.
We all understand that Trump is not someone who keeps his passions bottled up inside. A review of Trump’s public comments compiled by Factba.se shows that he has, in fact, talked about corrupt entities and corruption regularly, particularly in the last year.
But his mentions of corruption as president have almost exclusively been pejorative: his labeling of political opponents, the D.C. “swamp” or the media as corrupt. His mentions of corruption in the context of governments beyond the U.S. federal government make up about 1 in 6 of his uses of the term before September of this year, when the Ukraine scandal broke.
He talked about corruption in the context of Ukraine only once before September. By contrast, he’d talked about corruption in Iran a number of times. He’s talked about purported corruption by social media companies more than corruption in Ukraine. He’s talked far more about corruption in Puerto Rico than in Kyiv.
Even corruption in Romania came up more often than corruption in Ukraine. Trump talked about corruption in that country during press availabilities after meetings with Romanian leaders. When Trump twice met with former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, on neither occasion did he mention corruption.
He did not mention it in his call with Zelensky, either.
At no point before September did Trump mention any of the specific allegations that his attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani mentions in an opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, allegations that Giuliani claims spurred Trump’s requests for investigations in the Zelensky call. Trump never mentioned, for example, the release of documents in August 2016 exposing under-the-table payments to his then-campaign manager Paul Manafort. That document release was cited by Giuliani as a rationale for Trump asking Zelensky to probe “Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
That’s not what Trump requested of Zelensky, of course, but we’ll come back to that.
Overall, Trump has talked about Ukraine less frequently than he has corruption.
There were times that Trump mentioned allegations that Ukraine had some role in interfering in the 2016 election. He lifted up a Sean Hannity report in July 2017, for example, that was based on sketchy Politico article from earlier that year. In March, he highlighted a similar claim made by writer John Solomon (which had come to his attention via Hannity). In neither case did he get into any of the specifics mentioned by Giuliani or House Republicans. At no point, for example, did he mention the DNC contractor who sits at the center of the allegation, a woman named by both Giuliani and Nunes.
Particularly in the months leading up to September, Trump’s mentions of Ukraine often centered specifically on the allegations that were included in Trump’s requests of Zelensky: the debunked claim that former vice president Joe Biden had acted corruptly in regard to Ukraine and a claim that Ukraine had somehow been involved in misleading the world about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016.
His claims about Ukraine having some role in the DNC hacking extend back to an April 2017 interview with the Associated Press. The peak of his accusations against Biden came in May of this year, correlating to a report in the New York Times articulating the Biden charges.
That May mention of corruption in the context of Ukraine? It was a retweet of the Times reporter who’d lifted up the spurious Biden allegations — the same reporter, incidentally, who wrote the 2017 Politico article.
Trump has talked far more often about very specific requests he made to Zelensky than the more general concerns Republicans and Giuliani insist motivated his requests. What Trump asked Zelensky to look at was what Biden and his ******* had done in Ukraine and whether Ukraine had a DNC server or a link to the DNC hacking. Those are both things he talked about publicly in the spring and summer of this year.
When Trump talked about corruption generally before the emergence of the Ukraine scandal, he was mostly using the term to disparage a news media that insists on accurately describing what he’s done.
in other words...….trump has no defense...….and the right isn't doing much to help with his lack of defense
Over the course of the first day of public testimony in the House impeachment inquiry, Republicans outlined a somewhat sketchy defense of President Trump. At its heart were two lines of argument: that Trump’s interest in a strong Ukraine was well established (neutralizing, they hoped, the halt Trump placed on providing aid to that country) and that his efforts to get Ukraine to launch new investigations were rooted in his obvious opposition to corruption.
“As we’ll learn in these hearings,” the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking Republican, Devin Nunes (Calif.), said on Wednesday, “after expressing skepticism of foreign aid and concern about foreign corruption on the campaign trail, President Trump outraged the bureaucracy by acting skeptically about foreign aid and expressing concerns about foreign corruption.”
The problem with that argument in particular is that it’s directly at odds with all other available evidence. It is not only not the case that Trump has not focused on corruption to any significant degree as president and it is not only the case that Trump has basically not focused on corruption in Ukraine atall, but it isn’t even the case that Trump focused on corruption in Ukraine in the call he had with
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. For all of Trump’s regular insistences that America “read the transcript” — that is, the rough transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call — House Republicans on Wednesday essentially asked that Americans not to read the transcript, lest they learn just how little of a focus Trump put on the subject.
We all understand that Trump is not someone who keeps his passions bottled up inside. A review of Trump’s public comments compiled by Factba.se shows that he has, in fact, talked about corrupt entities and corruption regularly, particularly in the last year.
But his mentions of corruption as president have almost exclusively been pejorative: his labeling of political opponents, the D.C. “swamp” or the media as corrupt. His mentions of corruption in the context of governments beyond the U.S. federal government make up about 1 in 6 of his uses of the term before September of this year, when the Ukraine scandal broke.
He talked about corruption in the context of Ukraine only once before September. By contrast, he’d talked about corruption in Iran a number of times. He’s talked about purported corruption by social media companies more than corruption in Ukraine. He’s talked far more about corruption in Puerto Rico than in Kyiv.
Even corruption in Romania came up more often than corruption in Ukraine. Trump talked about corruption in that country during press availabilities after meetings with Romanian leaders. When Trump twice met with former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, on neither occasion did he mention corruption.
He did not mention it in his call with Zelensky, either.
At no point before September did Trump mention any of the specific allegations that his attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani mentions in an opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, allegations that Giuliani claims spurred Trump’s requests for investigations in the Zelensky call. Trump never mentioned, for example, the release of documents in August 2016 exposing under-the-table payments to his then-campaign manager Paul Manafort. That document release was cited by Giuliani as a rationale for Trump asking Zelensky to probe “Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
That’s not what Trump requested of Zelensky, of course, but we’ll come back to that.
Overall, Trump has talked about Ukraine less frequently than he has corruption.
There were times that Trump mentioned allegations that Ukraine had some role in interfering in the 2016 election. He lifted up a Sean Hannity report in July 2017, for example, that was based on sketchy Politico article from earlier that year. In March, he highlighted a similar claim made by writer John Solomon (which had come to his attention via Hannity). In neither case did he get into any of the specifics mentioned by Giuliani or House Republicans. At no point, for example, did he mention the DNC contractor who sits at the center of the allegation, a woman named by both Giuliani and Nunes.
Particularly in the months leading up to September, Trump’s mentions of Ukraine often centered specifically on the allegations that were included in Trump’s requests of Zelensky: the debunked claim that former vice president Joe Biden had acted corruptly in regard to Ukraine and a claim that Ukraine had somehow been involved in misleading the world about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016.
His claims about Ukraine having some role in the DNC hacking extend back to an April 2017 interview with the Associated Press. The peak of his accusations against Biden came in May of this year, correlating to a report in the New York Times articulating the Biden charges.
That May mention of corruption in the context of Ukraine? It was a retweet of the Times reporter who’d lifted up the spurious Biden allegations — the same reporter, incidentally, who wrote the 2017 Politico article.
Trump has talked far more often about very specific requests he made to Zelensky than the more general concerns Republicans and Giuliani insist motivated his requests. What Trump asked Zelensky to look at was what Biden and his ******* had done in Ukraine and whether Ukraine had a DNC server or a link to the DNC hacking. Those are both things he talked about publicly in the spring and summer of this year.
When Trump talked about corruption generally before the emergence of the Ukraine scandal, he was mostly using the term to disparage a news media that insists on accurately describing what he’s done.
MSN
www.msn.com
in other words...….trump has no defense...….and the right isn't doing much to help with his lack of defense
Go Trump 2020
don't think so....his world is falling apart...…………..I think the right is going to have to do a quid pro quo....and trade trump for pence....although I think Nikki haley is wanting a piece of that pie
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keep dreaming 4 more years
