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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"He had to announce the investigations. He didn't actually have to do them, as I understood it."
Brutal
Link to tweet
RAB910
(3,445 posts)it wasn't an actual crime (as there was none), but the investigation that hurt Hillary
flor-de-jasmim
(2,124 posts)I wish someone would make that point during the hearings!
Johnny2X2X
(18,742 posts)Describes intent clearly as not the intention to investigate corruption, but rather to simply give the appearance that Biden did something wrong.
Trump's fallback defense through part of this is that he wanted Ukraine to investigate all corruption, this shows he didn't want an investigation at all, just a statement for political effect.
Baitball Blogger
(46,573 posts)mud-slinging social network needs to begin their muck-racking.
They do the same thing for every election.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)And it makes sense: everybody was telling the Occupant that this was all bull, conspiracies, untrue. That is never a deterrent to DT. He didn't care if there were investigations: the presence of a conspiracy theory was enough to make him want to use it for effect (just as he did for years with the birther claims on BO).
The minute I heard the testimony that the requirement was that Zelensky make a public statement, on TV, I felt assured that that was all he cared about: put it out there, evidence or validity be damned. It's his MO.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Remember the endless Benghazi hearings and investigations and so forth? Every time the House went ahead trying to run that story to the ground and make some kind of nefarious connection to Obama administration fecklessness, it came a cropper. The only thing they've ever gotten out of all their effort is that in the earliest hours after the attack was launched, some people pondered whether the attack might have been ignited by that dipshit Florida "pastor" and his spurious video about Mohammed. The theory was quickly discarded as more facts came to light, and it was apparent that the attack was long planned. But when that's all they had, Republicans repeated it ad infinitum as if it were true.
Their utter inability to generate an actual scandal taught them a valuable lesson: When you're ginning up a nontroversy, don't spoil it with an actual investigation. So in regard to the Ukraine mess, all they wanted was for Zelensky (safely away from any inconvenient oversight by the House) to announce he was investigating Hunter Biden. The Republicans would do the rest through innuendo, implication, and explosive allegations ungrounded in reality, but tethered to Zelensky's announcement. The less reality intruded on the spurious allegation, the better for Republicans.
JHB
(37,128 posts)How many "Clinton scandals" did they churn up? How many of them turned out to be puffed-up horseshit? (hint: just about all of them.)
Hell, why does FOX constantly "make a mistake" and put a D next to the name of an R under investigation or being indicted?
It's all about having a constant stream of images and headlines about Democratic corruption so that it becomes the take-away for millions of people who don't pay close attention. Bush did the same thing by shuffling talk of 911 and Saddam together (though scrupulously never explicitly linking them -- that part was left to pundits and other outside the administration).
Continued during the Obama admin: Solyndra! Fast & Furious! Golf! Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi!
Leghorn21
(13,520 posts)He had to announce the investigations. He didn't actually have to do them, as I understood it." - Sondland.
This is key. It was never about corruption. It was about tarring a domestic political opponent.
Wounded Bear
(58,437 posts)after all, remember the last 10 days in 2016.
"Oh, new evidence has been found on a laptop. We'll have to re-open the investigations of Hillary."
8 days later.
"Oops, nothing there. Sorry about that."
The more things change, the more they stay the same. As long as there is "legitimate" indication that an investigation is going on, the RW echo chamber will blare it from the rooftops.
PSPS
(13,512 posts)The RW Wurlitzer would take it from there.
oswaldactedalone
(3,489 posts)Glad it was made. Please drop the find dirt on Biden or manufacture dirt on Biden memes and call it what it is. More lying and cheating by the Retrumplicans.
tblue37
(64,979 posts)we're not of interest to him.
Oh, and also he needed ammo to claim Russia didn't interfere in 2016.