Posted on 10/03/2019 2:04:51 PM PDT by jazusamo
Republican Indiana congressman Jim Banks could not follow NPR radio host Michel Martin's line of reasoning on Wednesday. By Martin's account, it sounded as if President Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice after his phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. In their conversation, Trump asked Zelensky about Joe Biden's relationship to Ukraine, in light of his son Hunter's having sat on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian gas company. Some critics interpreted the phone call to suggest Trump was guilty of quid pro quo, because it sounded like he was threatening to withhold military aid from Ukraine if Zelensky didn't agree to look into the Biden matter.
Once released, however, the phone transcript debunked that claim.
Or did it? NPR's Martin wasn't so sure.
MARTIN: You don't see anything problematic with the underlying facts - the fact that, according to the unclassified transcript released by the White House, immediately after the Ukrainian president talks about buying more Javelin missiles, the president is asking Zelenskiy to do him a favor, though - his words - and then he turns the conversation to investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. You have no problem with that.
BANKS: Yeah, that is not an accurate description of the transcript. I've read the transcript. I've read the whistleblower account. And in neither one of those documents is there something that appears to be high crimes and misdemeanors, which is what the Founding Fathers created the impeachment process to account for to begin with. It should only be used in extraordinary circumstances to impeach a president for high crimes and misdemeanors. I have yet to hear an account by any Democrat on Capitol Hill of where the high crimes and misdemeanors are found in the whistleblower account or the transcript.
MARTIN: OK. That would be an interpretation of those facts, though. Just let me be very clear. I'm just reading from the transcript. I have it in front of me, and my rendering of it is entirely accurate. What we're talking about here is what the interpretation should be of that and isn't that what the inquiry is for?
Banks finally asked her for some clarification.
"Well, I would love to hear you read the part of the transcript that would indict the president on high crimes and misdemeanors," he declared. "It's not there."
She moved on to ask about the role of Congress in the investigation.
Banks, like many Republicans, sees the Ukraine news cycle as a nothing burger. But Democrats are using it as the official launch of their impeachment inquiry against Trump.
Theyre obsessed, Banks suggested. Not with the truth, but with removing Trump from office. They are sniffing out every impeachment angle they can find, from the House Intelligence Committee to...the Financial Services panel?
"What in the world does the Financial Services Committee have to do with impeachment?" Banks wondered.
The House GOP just shared a new video to demonstrate how impeachment was on Democrats' minds long before Ukraine.
WATCH: For House Democrats, impeaching the President is, and always has been, about overturning the 2016 election.
Its not about the facts.
That face. The face that could sink 1000 ships and burn the topless towers of Ilium.
Biden isn’t Trump’s opponent then or now. No one is Trump’s opponent until the DNC makes a formal announcement of their ticket.
They are a fact-proof generation. Facts are whatever they feel that they want them to be.
LOL! Funny and true.
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‘Peach FoTEE Jive....
‘Peach FoTEE Jive....
Recalling my time....Recalling my time....
The Democrats’ hidden message is that they get a free pass because they belong to a different party than Trump. But Trump wasn’t asking Ukraine to manufacture phony evidence or to get information that Biden had a right to conceal; he was merely asking them to produce evidence of wrongdoing that they already have, and Biden will be able to challenge the evidence as to weight and admissibility. Governments ask each other about things like this all the time. And they aren’t always that nice about it, as when the WWII allies threatened to cut off Switzerland from rail service for withholding information about Nazi bank accounts.
Sooooo stealing that!
Get into the line of “I stole that!”.
All right. I give up. I know my reference was somewhat obscure, but yours eludes me entirely. Enlightenment please.
It was supposed to be a joke, but it was a dud.
Mad Maxine Waters is famous for those comments.
Since the day Trump was elected, she started screeming, “..’Peach Fo-TEE Jive....” (Impeach 45) and then once in a hearings, when she was getting her ass kicked, she kept shouting, “...recalling my time, recalling my time....” like a lunatic.
Well, she is a lunatic. She has difficulty speaking without the “hood” dialect.
Here’s one you hear a lot at gas stations in St. Louis, “gimme dolla woof-a-gas”
Good point. And to be frank he is dealing with Biden’s past and it appears to be a potential crime. You can’t have it both ways.
I get it now. Impeach 45! And what’s scary is that madame Maxine is probably not the lowest IQ Democrat in the house. What a miserable bunch.
No kidding - just read the moronic responses to Trumps tweets!
Does anybody know if that is the case? If so, isn't Trump just carrying out the US's end of the bargain by seeking help from Ukraine officials in investigating any possible corruption by Biden and his drug-addled son, given the high paying job Hunter had and Biden himself had bragged about getting the Ukrainian prosecutor fired?
Seems like this would be part of Trump's defense in proving he was only following the law.
Are there any Freepers here that know anything about this? Thanks.
Let me guess. The reply was, “You’re a racist.”
I’d bet she thought that but didn’t have the guts to say it so she just ignored it. :^)
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