Interesting, thanks good explanation.
This is what I don't get though, everyone just jumping on the bandwangon, trying really hard to dig some dirt on him and hate him. People like rxodium above ... Worthless post, probably just posting what he sees on his Google news feed which has been adapted to what he wants to see.
Doesn't even seem like it's really bad. I'm reading this Biden guy done the same thing. Hilary may have done too?
Influencing foreign powers to dig up dirt on the opposition is just about as “bad as it can get”. It’s directly undermining the heart of the US constitution - that of democracy itself.
All the evidence and witnesses testimonies so far point towards the fact that Trump, several of his associates and several other high level government officials were trying to coerce the Ukrainian Government (using the threat of stopping US government aid) into making a public statement about an investigation into the son of the the current front runner in the Democratic primaries (I.e. Trumps likely opponent in 2020).
Contrary to what the Republicans claim, the Ukranian government have not said this is false, they’re said they don’t want to get involved in US politics.
Also contrary to what the Republicans keep claiming, and counter to what Trump himself said yesterday, Trump has had plenty of opportunities to testify in the impeachment inquiry. The Democrats would love him to yet Trump has refused multiple times, along with refusing to testify under oath in the Mueller investigation. He’s also made sure that several senior aids and government workers do not testify either - one of he reasons for the second impeachment article (obstructing Congress). Unlike a criminal investigation Congress seem powerless to force them to testify.
It’s worth remembering at this point that Clinton’s impeachment was for lying to Congress about getting a blowjob... The reality of the situation is, if Trump took the stand, he would lie so much that that in itself would be another article of impeachment.
The other issue here is that this solicitation of foreign influence in US elections seems to be a recurring theme of his presidency. The Mueller investigation was looking into this, and came to the conclusion that there was not enough evidence to prosecute (or more precisely Mueller said it wasn’t his job to decide - it’s Barr’s job, who was put in place by Trump after he fired the previous AG during an investigation into Trump, along with the head of the FBI, also during an investigation into Trump) NOT, as Republicans like to claim, that there was no evidence.
Instead they also like to claim the Mueller investigation was “crooked”, and set about proving it by setting up an investigation into the investigators, which recently found it wasn’t (but there were some procedural issues).
Back to Biden - there is no evidence either he, or his son did anything wrong. Along with Hillary. The republicans like to claim there were Ukranian servers and other such things, all rebutted by US investigatory institutions. Yet, even while they are demonstratively false claims, the Republicans still bring them up - hence the comment about them using literal conspiracy theories to try and muddy the water and move the eye away from Russian interference.
Trump needs to hold on to power as long as possible because he knows, once he and his associates don’t have complete control of the judiciary and investigatory branches of the US state, that there will be criminal investigations into these issues and Trump and his associates will have to testify. Many of his associates have already been convicted, and it’s likely that possibly he pay be too after his presidential “immunity” runs out.
This is the man that currently has three Supreme Court cases due to his refusal to release his tax returns (which he has said he will do from the start of his presidential campaign). Those cases are heavily associated with fraud claims. While lawsuits can be relatively common amongst businesses, Trump has a disproportionate number against him.