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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNeal Katyal: Lev Parnas and Rudy Giuliani have demolished Trump's claims of innocence
New documents show why the president has been trying to hide evidence from Congress.
By Neal Katyal and Joshua A. Geltzer
Jan. 15, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Americans who have been wondering why President Trump has taken the extraordinary step of trying to block every document from being released to Congress in his impeachment need wonder no longer. The new documents released Tuesday evening by the House Intelligence Committee were devastating to Trumps continuing if shifting defense of his Ukraine extortion scandal, just days before his impeachment trial is likely to begin in the Senate. These new documents demolish at least three key defenses to which Trump and his allies have been clinging: that he was really fighting corruption when he pressured Ukraine on matters related to the Biden family; that Hunter Biden should be called as a witness at the Senate impeachment trial; and that theres no need for a real, honest-to-goodness trial in the Senate.
The most basic principles of constitutional law require relevant information, including documents and executive branch witnesses, to be turned over to Congress in impeachment. Particularly because sitting presidents cannot be indicted, impeachment is the only immediate remedy we the people have against a lawless president. And for that remedy to have any teeth, relevant information has to be provided. Thats why President James Polk said that, during impeachment, Congress could penetrate into the most secret recesses of the Executive Departments command the attendance of any and every agent of the Government, and compel them to produce all papers, public or private, official or unofficial. No president, not even Nixon, thought he could just say no to impeachment. Thats why the House added Article II to Trumps impeachment: Obstruction of Congress. It was a response to an unprecedented attempt by Trump to hide the truth.
The documents released Tuesday now show what Trump has been so afraid of. For starters, they prove that Trumps already-eyebrow-raising claim to have been fighting corruption in Ukraine was bogus. Notes taken by Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas now facing federal criminal charges show what his and Giulianis mission was when they got in touch with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: get Zalensky [sic] to Announce that the Biden case will Be Investigated. Look hard at the real goal here: not to prompt an investigation of Hunter Biden, but to score an announcement of a Biden investigation. Pursuing an announcement, rather than an actual investigation, makes sense only if Trumps objective was to dirty the reputation of his leading political rival, Joe Biden. Both of us served in high-ranking Justice Department positions; weve never heard of an investigation that is kept from the Justice Department, given to a private attorney and then publicly announced investigations work best when done in secret. If Trump, as he has long claimed, was truly interested in pursuing anticorruption in the bizarrely specific form of a single investigation of a single American citizen, then he wouldve wanted an actual investigation. Instead, Trump was fixated on the public announcement of one which, if anything, would have harmed the investigation by tipping off its subject. The public announcement wouldve helped only one thing: Trumps personal political prospects.
And if Trump wasnt really pursuing corruption in Ukraine, then his demand that Hunter Biden be called as a witness at the upcoming Senate impeachment trial also crumbles. This effort by Trump and his allies to shift attention away from Trump and toward the Bidens makes no sense on its own terms after all, Trump is the one being accused of impeachable offenses, not Joe or Hunter Biden. But the effort defies logic entirely, since Parnass notes make clear that his and Giulianis marching orders from Trump were to provoke a Ukrainian announcement of a Biden investigation, rather than an investigation itself. What could Hunter Biden possibly tell the Senate about that? Trumps push had nothing to do with what Biden did or didnt do, and everything to do with whether Trump could extort and bully the Ukrainian leadership into casting aspersions on Biden regardless of what he did or didnt do. That leaves Biden with nothing of relevance to say at a Senate impeachment trial the final word on Trumps preposterous effort to refocus scrutiny on the Biden family. That was, of course, the very push that got Trump into this mess in the first place, so to allow him to succeed now through the mechanism of impeachment itself would be irony bordering on tragedy.
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underpants
(182,958 posts)Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)NCLefty
(3,678 posts)SMGDH (AGAIN).
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)But last night and last week's assassination both...blew my mind.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)the Republican party will ignore and deny. They have no morals, ethics, no care for The United States of America nor her people.
duforsure
(11,885 posts)So trump could have dirt on her to force her out , and have an excuse to do it. He's been accused of this in business dealings, and at mar lag o. Have they done this to others , Hillary , President Obama , and others who are after trump to expose him, I suspect it is. This is a clear pattern from trump, and putin.
The Blue Flower
(5,447 posts)This is what has happened to the individuals in the R(ussia) party. I've maintained from the start that they fear for their own personal safety as well as their families.
Timmygoat
(779 posts)I have always said that if anyone can impeach Trump it is Guilliani.
gademocrat7
(10,678 posts)Trump and his minions must be held accountable for their evil deeds.
usaf-vet
(6,227 posts)For those that did not live through the story here is one source to help.
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/27/george-w-bush-was-awol-but-whats-truth-got-to-do-with-it/
BUT don't just look at my source Google "Dan Rather Bush AWOL"
My short version
1. George W. Bush went AWOL during the Vietnam war.
2. Dan Rather (Investigative reporter) received documents the were "official" looking the proved Bush did go AWOL.
3. A Bush connect operative fake the looks of an actual military document then filled it with real data.
4. Within days the web was abuzz with the suggestion that something was wrong with the document.
5. The chief complaint was the type font was wrong the military never used that font.
6. It was clear to some (including me) that the Bush operative generated the document "slightly off" then called attention to it.
7. The "false form" KILLED the story and Dan Rather's career. EVEN though the data was correct.
THOSE SAME TYPE POLITICAL OPERATIVES ARE ACTIVE TODAY. Today they are working to protect Trump.
usaf-vet
(6,227 posts)This particular technique the Russians are using is called upstreaming... You release all of the material thats true or valid, but at strategic points, you insert black propaganda." - @MalcolmNance on the Burisma cyberattack
https://on.msnbc.com/36YEMty