Posted on 11/23/2019 5:16:01 AM PST by NorseViking
Donald Trump ought to be impeached and removed from office. This isn’t what I thought two months ago, when the impeachment inquiry began. I argued that the evidence fell short of the standards of a prosecutable criminal act. I also feared impeachment might ultimately help Trump politically, as it had helped Bill Clinton in 1998. That second worry might still prove true.
But if the congressional testimonies of Marie Yovanovitch, Bill Taylor, Gordon Sondland, Alexander Vindman and especially Fiona Hill make anything clear, it’s that the president’s highest crime isn’t what he tried to do to, or with, Ukraine.
It’s that he’s attempting to turn the United States into Ukraine. The judgment Congress has to make is whether the American people should be willing, actively or passively, to go along with it.
I’ve followed Ukrainian politics fairly closely since 1999, when I joined the staff of The Wall Street Journal Europe. It has consistent themes that should sound familiar to American ears.
The first theme is the criminalization of political differences. Years before Trump led his followers in “Lock Her Up” chants against Hillary Clinton, then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych did exactly that against his own political rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, who was sentenced to seven years in prison on a variety of byzantine charges after she had narrowly lost the 2010 election.
She spent three years in prison before her release during the 2014 Maidan Revolution. Key to Yanukovych’s efforts to discredit Tymoshenko was — who else? — Paul Manafort.
A second theme is the use of political office as a shield against criminal prosecution and as a vehicle for personal and familial enrichment. Why have so many of Ukraine’s oligarchs — including Burisma Holdings founder Mykola Zlochevsky — also served as government
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Why you, low-down, dirty, son-of-a......waaaaaaaait a minute. This is satire, right?
Okay, NYT, good one. You got me.
NYet Times sided with Soviet gulags.
FUNYT
The New York Slimes and the mAin stream media in conjunction with the DC swamp dwellers is what’s making the great USA start to look like a third world nation
And no I didn’t and wouldn’t read the filth this rag publishes.
Bret Stephens name is on THE LIST!
So, the calls for impeachment before Trump was sworn into office are not criminalizing political opponents?
Years of investigations, hearings and false stories about collusion with Russia were not due to political differences?
Suppressing political speech on university campuses is not criminalizing speech?
The rise of ANTIFA is not turning one ideology into a crime?
Years of calling Trump supporters names like racist, misogynist, homophobic, etc are not due to political differences?
Once again, the socialists allege we are doing what they have been doing for a decade.
BiteMe Biden extorts Ukraine to fire a “corrupt” “sonofabitch’ prosecutor.
President Trump requests investigations into Ukrainian corruption and he’s suddenly a “conspiracy theorist”
So where is BiteMe Biden’s evidence of corruption from the Ukranian prosecutor?
Did Ukranian corruption end with the firing of that prosecutor?
The Yellow Journalist pinko press is lying out of both sides of their mouth.
First Peggy (dingbat) Noon and now Bret (et tu Bret?) Stephens. These journalists must have watched a different impeachment in another galaxy. It was a complete bust for the Democrats. And a triumph for President Trump. Even this idiotic column adds more public support for the President. It’s unreadable rubbish.
US Embassy pressed Ukraine to drop probe of George Soros group during 2016 election
notice the guy was a lefty.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTcBgs2huRo
Years before Trump led his followers in “Lock Her Up” chants”””
That any American today could be locked up TODAY for the crimes publically listed and attributed to Hillary then dismissed by Comey doesn’t even enter this (literally) delusional persons head. Here’s the thing: The delusional HAVE to be dealt with at some point. There is no way around that.
At least the National Enquirer’s stories about John Edwards were proven to be correct.
Idiot. This whole impeachment game has shown the common folk how corrupt the elites are . The Biden’s are a prime example of how elite families enrich themselves. Donald Trump has shown how the Deep State exists.
I don’t know how anyone with half a brain still buys their narrative. Although comment sections below articles like that says there are hordes of liberal zombies.
Obviously, the author hasn’t seen the video of Biden’s crazed rant against Lindsey Graham that was just aired on Fox and Friends!
Wish someone who is tech-savvy could do a link to it. Biden totally THREATENED Graham.
According to democrats there was no corruption in Ukraine and President Trump should just funnel tons of American tax payer cash,no questions asked,to Ukraine,I’m sure that’s what millions of American tax payers want.
All the republicans should say is this,President Trump is I charge of foreign policy,period,he can tell the Ukranian president while standing on them White House Lawn,in Times Square,on every main street in America,I will help you with American aid when you clean up the corruption in your country and not before!
He has the right and AUTHORITY TO DO JUST THAT!
Stop with the banal quid pro quo crap,that is a phony argument,every time the democrats claim so and so said this,that’s a quid pro quo,say yes it is and I have the Authority of the Office of the Presidency of the United States of America to make the quid pro quo when it comes to Foreign policy,PERIOD CASE CLOSED!
According to one of the jerk dems at the last or near the last hearing, merely thinking about murdering someone is as much a crime as actually carrying out a murder. Same with every other thought such as bank robbery etc. Just because you’re not successful (?) doesn’t mean it’s not a crime.
I don’t recall who it was or the witness at the time or the exact statements but it sure made one hope that this idiot was never a DA or US Attorney..he fully believed that one is guilty until proven innocent. At the least, I wouldn’t want him on any jury with that sick thought process.
NY Times is the enemy of your free speech
These two are part of the same corrupt system. They appear to be conservative but in reality they push the Deep State propaganda. Besides who other than the elite bother to read them?
The Old Gray Lady should just give it up, and take up crochet.
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