Speaking of hearsay, this is what I've heard from Joe Biden:
WATCH: Joe Biden Brags About Rigging The Ukranian Political System
Posted on 09/30/2019 10:36:02 AM PDT by robowombat
GOP senators attack whistleblower's credibility
GOP senators attack whistleblower's credibility BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 09/30/19 06:00 AM EDT 13,753
Republican senators scrambling to protect President Trump from a formal impeachment inquiry are attacking the credibility of the whistleblower who filed a complaint.
GOP lawmakers are asserting the whistleblower did not have firsthand knowledge of the actions detailed in the complaint and question whether the person had a political agenda.
“It doesn’t come from a person with personal knowledge. It’s like I heard these people say this, and now I’m reporting it. I think that is pretty bizarre,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
“Secondly, after a certain point, it doesn’t just allege facts, it really is kind of a dossier or political diatribe, so I think there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Having said that, we are in the process of talking to the director of national intelligence and the inspector general.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who has had a reputation for protecting whistleblowers, said the one at the center of the Trump impeachment inquiry didn’t necessarily deserve protections.
“If they are not really a whistleblower, they don’t get the protection,” he said.
The remarks from Grassley, Cornyn and other senators echo arguments coming from Trump, but stand in stark contrast to the testimony last week from acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who said the whistleblower acted in good faith.
“I think the whistleblower did the right thing,” Maguire told the House Intelligence Committee.
But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said reading the whistleblower’s complaint “makes me more suspicious about how all this happened.”
“I want to know who was the person that went to the whistleblower,” he said.
Graham said that whistleblowers typically report witnessing basic facts and firsthand evidence and raised concern about what some Republicans see as a not-so-subtle attempt to draw up a criminal indictment of Trump.
“This was a fairly sophisticated effort to write a narrative rather than blow a whistle,” he said.
A Senate Republican aide predicted that the whistleblower’s name will likely become public either because that person will agree to testify publicly or the name will leak to the press.
The attacks on the whistleblower come with high stakes, as GOP leaders see their political fate as closely tied to Trump’s in next year’s elections.
Several Republican lawmakers publicly and privately acknowledged over the past week that the content of the transcript of a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump urged Ukrainian officials to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, was damaging.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called the transcript “troubling in the extreme” while Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who recently secured Trump’s endorsement for reelection, warned “there’s obviously lots that’s very troubling here.”
A handful of Republicans have expressed shock that Trump released the transcript of the president’s conversation with Zelensky and an unredacted version of the whistleblower complaint, fearing it gave Democrats ammunition.
A GOP senator who requested anonymity to discuss party strategy said that White House officials and GOP leaders decided the damaging information was likely to become public anyway and thought the best strategy was to get it out early so Republicans could then have a chance to wage a counteroffensive.
“This was all going to become public. The thought was the sooner it does, the better. Get it all out quickly,” the lawmaker said.
And other Republicans offered other surprise defenses of Trump.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) compared Trump’s conduct to a police officer who beats up a suspect while arresting them.
“This is the way I analyze this ... I look at this like a guy robs a bank and on the way to jail the cops beat the bejesus out of him.” Kennedy said. “Should cops beat the bejesus out of suspects? No. Should it be investigated? Yes. But you can’t ignore the alleged bank robbery either."
As part of that counteroffensive strategy, Republican lawmakers have sought to shift the public focus off of Trump and onto Biden.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters Thursday that it was perfectly acceptable for Trump to ask Zelensky to participate in a Department of Justice investigation of what role Biden and his son Hunter Biden, a paid board member to a Ukrainian gas company, might have had in quashing a Ukrainian corruption investigation.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Trump has a responsibility “as the head law enforcement official of the nation” to delve into efforts by U.S. officials to interfere in foreign corruption investigations and to probe efforts from abroad to interfere in U.S. elections.
One of the controversial subjects Trump alluded to in his conversation with Zelensky was an allegation that a Russia-orchestrated hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 was conducted in Ukraine. There has been little evidence to substantiate that claim.
Johnson sees Trump’s interest in Biden’s Ukraine connections and Ukraine’s alleged role in meddling in the 2016 election as legitimate law enforcement interests.
GOP leaders have sought to tamp down criticism of Trump from their ranks, mindful that that unity among rank-and-file members is crucial to maintaining their political strength, a point that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) frequently makes to colleagues.
Graham, one of Trump’s staunchest allies, told reporters on Wednesday that Romney was the only senator to voice concerns about Trump’s conduct at a private lunch meeting of the Senate Republican Steering Committee.
And Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), another Trump ally, sought to portray Romney as a disgruntled outlier. “Mitt Romney doesn’t like the president and he’s going to say a lot of things I don’t agree with,” he said.
The White House in recent days has worked closely to coordinate its defense with allies on Capitol Hill.
A White House aide accidentally sent a copy of its talking point for Republican lawmakers to Democratic offices on Wednesday.
The document argued that Trump made no quid-pro-quo request to Zelensky and discussed Biden only after Zelensky initiated the conversation about corruption-related issues.
The talking points also shifted scrutiny to the whistleblower by arguing the “real scandal” was that Trump’s confidential conversation with a foreign leader was leaked to the press.
The document reflected Johnson’s argument that it was proper for Trump to ask a foreign leader to investigate any connection between his country and attempted interference in the 2016 election.
Republicans strategists acknowledge their prospects in the 2020 election, when control of the Senate as well as the White House and House will be up for grabs, are closely tied to Trump’s.
A Republican strategist working on a congressional campaign in Iowa said that, for example, while Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who is up for reelection, has a strong independent brand and could outperform Trump by a few points, she would likely lose if Trump lost her state by 5 points or more.
Ernst has said the investigation of the whistleblower’s complaint should be handled on a bipartisan basis by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Another GOP tactic has been to portray the Democrats as dead-set on impeachment regardless of what any investigation of the whistleblower’s complaint turns up.
This line of argument has been spearheaded by McConnell.
“We know that House Democrats have been indulging in their impeachment obsession for nearly three years now, a never-ending impeachment parade in search of a rationale,” he said on the Senate floor the morning after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the launch of a formal impeachment inquiry.
McConnell pointed out that on the day of Trump’s inauguration, The Washington Post ran a headline stating, “The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.”
How does a WH aide mistakenly send talking points to democrats. Fire them!!!!
6 weeks in job. Where does trump find these people.???
As part of that counteroffensive strategy, Republican lawmakers have sought to shift the public focus off of Trump and onto Biden... Another GOP tactic has been to portray the Democrats as dead-set on impeachment regardless of what any investigation of the whistleblower’s complaint turns up.
Partisan Media Shills update.
Good one
Speaking of hearsay, this is what I've heard from Joe Biden:
WATCH: Joe Biden Brags About Rigging The Ukranian Political System
Trump should take visiting world leaders to AIRFORCE ONE to talk in person, if he can. No spying there.
True, but DJT has rather deflated the ‘whistleblower’s’ 15 minutes of fame by releasing the text of the phone call.
I received it from my cousin via email earlier today. He lives in Charleston, S.C.
Campaign to oust Trump began before his inauguration.
There was Pelosi’s daughter trying to convince electors to cast their votes in ways other than the voters voted, cast them against Trump.
Before that there was Obama’s spying on Trump, foreign powers enlisted by Obama spying on Trump through Five Eyes, and the use of domestic and foreign operatives to try to frame Trump and his people.
[[[Calling this political operative a whistleblower is a travesty.]]]
Exactly. A political operative/deep state actor under the cover of the whistleblower statute. Notice too how the regs were changed to facilitate this line of attack.
This is so blatant its incredible.
This one is for all the marbles.
Like 0bama’s “girlfriend”. A composite character.
Please stop with this hoax. It’s embarrassing.
When he said that my impression is that he recognized it as a trap and side stepped it. He did that with a lot of things. The definition of “credible” for instance. Also “urgent action”. He dropped plenty of hints the entire thing was bogus and he had thought so from the beginning.
Yes. I am hesitant to stamp a guy with his credentials with a tag I would have applied to intelligence people like Brennan or Clapper.
The intelligence community has been tarred with a broad brush, and deservingly so in some cases, but I keep people like Admiral Rogers forefront in my mind.
He worked for Obama, but...I have never thought for a second that he was on board with all this, and his inquiry into inappropriate access by contractors who exceeded their mandate to access the NSA database indicates to me that the Obama team knew better than to draw him in. They probably saw he was a straight arrow and could not be trusted.
If not for the actions of Adm. Rogers, the scummy traitors behind this might well have succeeded in bringing down a duly elected President. As it was, his actions likely forced the cabal to abandon their mining of the NSA database (Nellie Ohr, anyone?) to provide them with data, and had to resort to getting a FISA warrant which caused them to have to widen things and leave a popcorn trail of activity.
And that same kind of distrust they had for Adm. that was probably somewhat the root of their animus against Gen. Michael Flynn that resulted in him being so aggressively framed. Besides is open, vocal, and strident opposition to the Iran deal, I think they suspected he knew more than they wanted him to about various intelligence and surveillance abuses and didn’t trust him either...hence the framing to shut him up.
Not so with Clapper, Brennan, et al. They were all in. It is my true wish to see them hang. They won’t, but they should.
I don’t want to go that far yet. He has a decent record, I think his hands maty=, but I admit I don’t know much about him, so I want to reserve judgement.
Also, this IS The Hill. They have a vested interest in disheartening conservatives by slanting the story. We should keep that in mind.
I really do believe Barr’s window of opportunity to influence events is closing. If he can’t bring Horowitz or Durham to start arresting coup conspirators that is a very bad sign for things to come.
I think there is some truth in what you wrote, but...rather than use an impeachment proceeding to get the word out, I would prefer that the actual legal instruments created to handle this kind of governmental malfeasance actually be used to attack the cabal.
Standing up an innocent man (who should actually be running the country, not defending himself and getting nothing done) and using him as scaffolding to pile on our evidence of the illegal behavior of those trying to destroy him instead of using the dusty tools of legality that DO exist to pile their own illegal behaviors and lies on top of them seems like a backwards way to do it, in my mind.
I would only approve of allowing the impeachment proceedings to use as a tool to get at his tormenters as a very last resort.
We as a country need to squash this impeachment crap from top to bottom. It needs to exist for real crimes, but to be used selectively by political parties for pure political purposes because they don’t like the way a duly elected president does business will simply destroy our Republic in the end.
I do believe we need to keep our eye on him, but...his outright language when he was made Attorney General can be credited with bringing the Mueller Report fiasco to a final close.
When Barr made the statements he did, there was zero doubt on the part of Mueller and his team that the writing was on the wall. When they heard Barr and saw how he treated the report, they KNEW there would be no support for the report, no obstruction crap that they wanted to use the report to justify...and Barr said publicly, using very specific legal words in a highly public way (words that are dog-whistles to litigators ears) that...it wasn’t going to be supported by the DOJ, and wasn’t going to happen.
I give him credit for that, and it bought him (from me, at least) a little more rope. But you are correct, we need to watch him carefully for signs of conservative unorthodoxy, and there are a few.
At the time I posted that it seemed to me Barr was brought in as an attempt to compromise both sides to end the circus. Our side got an end to the Mueller investigation and their side got immunity for the coup conspirators. IMHO what Barr is doing now is evaluating whether this Impeachment over fiction invalidates the bargain.
Heck, I didn’t see it as giving the cabal immunity...I sure hope not! But I may have missed that undercurrent, I admit.
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