The Impeachment Inquiry

[Hashi Lebwohl]

No one should rest a case on Sondland

You might want to tell left-leaning news organizations that, then, because they are all still running with the "Sondland says they were all in the loop" story, which Sondland himself disproved.

[Gaius Octavius]

I have no idea what to make of Sondland's testimony yesterday. It was just plain weird. It was like there were two different Sondlands.

First there was the Sondland who started off testifying fairly categorically (much to Schiff's seriously inappropriate delight and literally uncontainable glee - geez, isn't this guy in his role as heading up the enquiry at least meant to make an effort to fake the semblance of dispassionate propriety?)...

And then there was the Sondland who spent the entire second half of his testimony rowing back on what he'd said during the first half?

As I said, very odd.

To support the existence of inconsistencies in Sondland's testimony, I STRONGLY recommend that people should check out the Enquiry video linked to below, where Mike Turner (Rep) hones in on Sondland's contradictory statements, blocks him off from any wiggle room and so draws a simple admission from Sondland that his entire earlier testimony was based on nothing more than "my own presumption". This is precisely what Hashi is referring to above and it is absolutely cogent to any evaluation of the value of Sondland's testimony as a whole.

Sondland is forced to clarify.

It's only 5 minutes long and is literally compulsory viewing for those who have not seen it but who still want to comment on Sondland's testimony

Frankly it is simply not worth anyone passing comment on any potential significance within the first half of Sondland's testimony until that has been seen and evaluated in the light of the material within this video of his cross-examination and responses from later in the day.

Schitt makes me physically ill when I see his ugly face on television. I have said before that Rep. Cohen (D-TN) looks like a pedophile. Schitt looks like a serial killer with his sociopathic behavior and "crazy eyes."

[Skyweir]

Oh we are going to judge on looks now???

lol well Trump looks like a retarded beach whale, Nunes looks to a moronic try hard ... and god McConnell has the face of a hamster

Honestly can you see such judgements are not only utterly subjective but also in enlightening.

[Skyweir]

No one should rest a case on Sondland

You might want to tell left-leaning news organizations that, then, because they are all still running with the "Sondland says they were all in the loop" story, which Sondland himself disproved.

Sound bytes.

Honestly Sondland isnt a credible witness ... he has done a good job of rendering himself unreliable.

Yes he said they were in the loop cuz they were, hes butt covering and butt sideling up to play both sides.

Dr Fiona Hill was brilliant today. Blowing fictional narratives out of the water. Holmes, first hand witness was solid also.

[Zarathustra]

Fox News has cherry picked a number of statements, some of which Zelensky made IN Trumps presence. What would you expect him to say with the POTUS and man who can provide military aid you need ... right there, next to you?

Cherry picking is when there is a variety of conflicting evidence and you choose only the evidence that supports one side. Do you have evidence that this is what Fox did with Zelenski quotes? Has the Ukranian government been saying the opposite, too? If not, then these weren't cherry picked. You can't just apply this label to evidence you don't like.

As for your other points, are you accusing the Zelenski administration of collectively lying?

[Gaius Octavius]

Terms like "logical fallacy," "strawman argument" and "cherrypicking" are commonly thrown about like a monkey flinging its shit with people not knowing what the terms even mean. They think they sound smart when they do it. lol

[Skyweir]

Its more commonly known as diplomacy .. they're being diplomatic.

Cherry picking is a term that means being selective and selecting only those things that serve oneself, including ones perspective, agenda or point.

cherry-picking
/_t_erIpIkIn/
noun
the action or practice of choosing and taking only the most beneficial or profitable items, opportunities, etc., from what is available.

Example ... "it is an exaggeration based on the cherry-picking of facts"

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Honestly Sondland isnt a credible witness

Adam Schiff thought he was credible enough to excuse himself from the hearing, run outside, and blab about it to CNN. They thought he was credible enough to take Schiff's word for it and run to print, not bothering to wait around for the rest of the testimony.

Curiously, the lawyer for the whistleblower--you know, Eric Ciaramella--said that his client was receiving death threats. I thought no one knew his identity? I thought no one knew who this person was? Is the whistleblower's lawyer stating that, in fact, everyone knows who he is? If everyone knows who he is, why won't anyone say his name in front of a camera?

It's a good thing he blew the whistle on Trump, though. If he had blown the whistle on Hillary he would already have been "killed by a random mugger in a park" somewhere or "the brakes on the car failed".

[Skyweir]

Do you have any regard for whistleblower legislation and protections. Curious because you take every opportunity to declare his identity.

Schiff is no doubt battling pushback and hearing Sondland declare that yes quid pro quo, express that they were following Presidential orders and list off all those who were involved must have been a great salve to him.

But nevertheless Sondland is not an ideal or even credible witness. He fessed up some things and butt covered others. Its clear from his overall testimony that he is self serving.

Justice is not his motivation, nor truth, nor facts. He got caught out holding back and now knows he aint going down for Trump yet he clearly wants Trump to see him as being onside despite concurrently throwing him and the others under the bus.

What seems to be coming together is Bolton did not like Giuliani and tried to warn Trump of his liability. Trump was all in with Giulianis conspiracy initiatives that he disagreed with Bolton. The two clashed and Bolton bolted.

Btw Dr Fiona Hill dispelled the ridiculous fabrications Giuliani and Trump have pursued ... re Ukraine servers.

She made it clear that buying into that narrative is pure and simply allying with Russian intel talking points.

So who do you serve? US intelligence or Russian intelligence?

[TheFallen]

I don't disagree for a second that relying in any way on the advice or opinions of a loose cannon like Giuliani is crushingly dumb. However, deciding to rely on a putz is not an impeachable offence.

The Ukraine servers issue is a red herring - Trump's allowed to believe that Ukraine was involved in attempted 2016 vote rigging if he wishes. Sure, it sounds mistaken to me based on what evidence has been made public, but again, deciding to believe that attempted election rigging came out of Kiev, not Moscow, is not an impeachable offence.

I also continue to maintain that pressuring to get an investigation into Burisma restarted can be entirely viably presented as being in US national interests ("So... what happened to our American citizens' hard-earned tax dollars, then?" being a perfectly reasonable question) - and therefore cannot definitively be seen in and of itself as an impeachable offence.

I further don't see any possible way that any re-opened Burisma investigation could realistically avoid looking into the Bidens' roles (whether innocuous or not) in that tangled web - at least in part.

As several of the less swivel-eyed and more objective here have said, what would need to be proven here are Trump's motives for his actions - good luck with that one.

I say "would need", because the Impeachment Enquiry isn't about proving anything - it's about 2020 electioneering and gaining maximum column inches and airtime for mudslinging.

First, as Hashi's said 100 times, the HoR needs no proof to move forward on impeachment. But why pass up on the chance to dominate media coverage for as long as possible with anti-Trump material?

Second, the Dems simply don't want to put this to the Senate, knowing the inevitable result of doing that in advance.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

I say "would need", because the Impeachment Enquiry isn't about proving anything - it's about 2020 electioneering and gaining maximum column inches and airtime for mudslinging.

This is something that the Democrats learned from 2016. Trump garnered all sorts of free airtime with his bluster. The Dems have their own way of doing this. The difference being that Trump got media attention because he was the spectacle; the Democrats have no spectacle, so they're making it about Trump......Which gives him more free airtime, meaning he'll win again.





And on a side note, I shed a tear due to a pejorative like, "retarded" to be accepted in this forum. Good thing Av banned the person who was reducing the quality of debate and using too many harsh insults...

[TheFallen]

I should add to the list of things that aren't impeachable offences in my previous post.

Trump says envoy Marie Yovanovitch refused to hang his photo

President Donald Trump has pilloried an envoy who testified in the impeachment inquiry, claiming she refused to hang his photo in the US embassy in Ukraine.

Mr Trump told Fox News' morning show former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch "didn't want to hang my picture in the embassy" in Ukraine.

The president did not offer further details about the matter.

In a phone call to Fox and Friends on Friday morning, Mr Trump referred to Ms Yovanovitch as "the woman" and said he had heard "bad things about her".

"This ambassador, who everybody says was so wonderful," Mr Trump said, "she wouldn't hang my picture in the embassy.

"She's in charge of the embassy, it took, like, a year and a half, two years."

He added that his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, "didn't say good things" about her.

Mr Giuliani has come up repeatedly in the impeachment hearings as witnesses say he pursued an irregular channel of US-Ukraine relations.

"She said bad things about me, she wouldn't defend me, and I have the right to change the ambassador," Mr Trump added.

"The standard is you put the president of the United States' picture in the embassy," he continued. "This was not an angel, this woman, OK?"

Okay sure, Trump is no doubt unwittingly coming across as immature and massively egotistical (like that's any news)... and again as someone who's clearly prepared to totally bank on advice from Giuliani (really not a smart move, IMV).

HOWEVER...

...the part of Trump's statement as highlighted by me in red above is absolutely and without a doubt true. Ambassadors serve at the whim of the POTUS, regardless of how crass that POTUS may be. The POTUS absolutely does have unilateral hire and fire rights. So...

...being a childish narcissist is also not an impeachable offence.

[Zarathustra]

The ambassador refusing to hang the President's picture is the childish part. Realizing that your own ambassador holds you in such childish, petty scorn and thus deserves to be removed isn't childish or narcissistic. If the ambassador is willing to undermine her boss and our country in such blatant, visible ways, then just imagine how she was undermining the President in less visible ways. You can't represent the foreign policy of a man you refuse to even acknowledge as the President.

[wayfriend]

If the only evidence of this is Trump's word on the matter, when he is so highly motivated to discredit her and to provide plausible alternate facts about her dismissal, then, well, sound reasoning and history suggest that this story isn't worth jack.

[Zarathustra]

WF, you don't think "she wouldn't hang my picture" sounds like something Trump would say? Everyone accuses him of being petty and narcissistic. I would have thought "sound reasoning and history" would lead one to believe the story.

I don't really care either way. Firing employees is a nonissue. The guy had a reality TV show based on the premise, for chrissake. Perhaps the true pettiness is finding something nefarious in every goddamn thing he does.

[Savor Dam]

The portrait hanging is another questionable assertion from Trump, as the delay was largely due to other factors, rather than any alleged reluctance on the part of the ambassador.

According to a statement from Yovanovitch's legal team, "The Embassy in Kyiv‎ hung the official photographs of the president, vice president, and secretary of state as soon as they arrived from Washington, D.C."

The White House announced Tuesday that it's releasing official portraits of President Trump and Vice President Pence to be hung in thousands of government offices nationwide - nine months after they were sworn in.

The portraits had been conspicuously missing from the lobbies of federal building and office walls, which have been graced by empty picture frames and hooks that until Jan. 20 held the portraits of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

The changeover is usually a rite of Washington passage from one administration to the next that began after the Civil War. In recent administrations, the change has been relatively prompt: Obama's portrait was hung by the third month he was in office in 2009 and Bill Clinton's by June 1993. But for reasons that are not clear, the Trump White House took this long to take photographs of the new president and vice president and send them to the Government Publishing Office, the printer of official portraits.

Link

[TheFallen]

The ambassador refusing to hang the President's picture is the childish part. Realizing that your own ambassador holds you in such childish, petty scorn and thus deserves to be removed isn't childish or narcissistic.

I can't believe that "Portraitgate" is even showing the slightest sign of becoming a thing - this is a new low in pantomime politics.

Zee, I don't agree with you here as it happens - but it's hardly important. The minor point is that Trump continues to have a complete inability to understand how he might be coming across - or he'd choose his words more carefully. Either that or he literally doesn't give a crap.

Either way, Trump even mentioning the lack of a portrait was never going to reflect on him well - as one would have hoped he might have understood in advance, but so what?

Coming across really badly when speaking in public is not an impeachable offence.

And the core fact remains that it's absolutely within any POTUS's remit to fire anyone he likes, whenever he likes and for whatever reason he likes. In the light of that undeniable truth, I don't know why former Ambassador Yoyanovitch's dismissal even begins to be a talking point of any significance whatsoever.

[Savor Dam]

The President certainly has the right to hire make these sort of Executive branch personnel decisions. While this is nominally at his sole discretion, do your think it entirely irrelevant for the public to consider any patterns in the justification of such changes?

Additionally, is it relevant to consider the manner in which these staffing moves are communicated? I confess to having misgivings about personnel decisions that are not personally handled; firing someone by email has always been declasse (sorry, the Watch won't allow the proper accents), but the more recent practice of firing-by-tweet is even more so. While face-to-face is the gold standard for such interactions, at least email is not so cruel as being terminated by an impersonal public message.

Compounding this is the vitriol contained in the tweets about these fired folk, whether prior to, part of, or subsequent to their separation. Entirely without class or gentility...but par for the course.

I remember when character used to matter, but I am a relic from a different age.
Could be. Ooo eee!

[Brinn]

This thread as well as the President Trump thread is rife with comments to the effect that we can't ascribe nefarious motives to Trump's actions because; the Dem's have ulterior motives, because the testimony is only presumptions, and (most curiously), because Trump said he did nothing wrong (i.e. I want nothing, no quid pro quo). Given these sentiments, shouldn't we be giving former ambassador Yovanovitch the same benefit? I mean, couldn't we just ask her if she hung Trumps portrait or not? Did she ever tell Trump directly that she didn't hang his portrait? If not, all we have is specious, 2nd hand claims! Right?!?!

[Zarathustra]

I remember when character used to matter, but I am a relic from a different age.
Could be. Ooo eee!

So just because some of us think that the evidence doesn't back up the charges, or rises to the level of impeachment, we don't think that character matters? Of course it matters. I just think it should be decided at the ballot box/voting machines, not by Schiff and Pelosi. If you don't like his character, don't vote him. But to undermine the votes of millions who elected him because you don't like his tweets or firing style is ridiculous.

This thread as well as the President Trump thread is rife with comments to the effect that we can't ascribe nefarious motives to Trump's actions because; the Dem's have ulterior motives, because the testimony is only presumptions, and (most curiously), because Trump said he did nothing wrong (i.e. I want nothing, no quid pro quo). Given these sentiments, shouldn't we be giving former ambassador Yovanovitch the same benefit? I mean, couldn't we just ask her if she hung Trumps portrait or not? Did she ever tell Trump directly that she didn't hang his portrait? If not, all we have is specious, 2nd hand claims! Right?!?!

I don't really care either way.

My only point is that it's not necessarily childish to fire an ambassador who is herself childish (if it's true; I don't know/don't care).

Ascribe whatever nefarious motives to Trump that you want. It's your prerogative. Don't vote for him, if you don't want. All we've argued is that the Dems haven't proven their claims.