The Intelligence Committee's report is a triumph
Some observers of the impeachment hearings conducted under the auspices of the House Intelligence Committee bizarrely concluded that the proceedings lacked pizzazz. While that is a ridiculous metric for evaluating an inquiry into gross misconduct by the president, no one will find the report on those hearings and on other evidence boring. Its got pizzazz to spare.
First, the nuts and bolts from the executive summary:
President Trumps scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign. The President demanded that the newly-elected Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly announce investigations into a political rival that he apparently feared the most, former Vice President Joe Biden, and into a discredited theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election. To compel the Ukrainian President to do his political bidding, President Trump conditioned two official acts on the public announcement of the investigations: a coveted White House visit and critical U.S. military assistance Ukraine needed to fight its Russian adversary.
Those facts have yet to be contradicted. We have Trumps own words on the July 25 rough transcript (do us a favor though), diplomat David Holmess account of the president pressing Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland about investigations," the hold on nearly $400 million in aid, Trumps public statements inviting China and Ukraine to weigh into the election and the testimony of multiple career civil services that Trump outsourced his scheme primarily to Rudolph W. Giuliani, who publicly bragged that he was talking about Biden with Ukrainians.
What is new are the call records showing ongoing communications between Giuliani and the Office of Management and Budget (which ordered the hold on aid) and, stunningly, between the ranking Republican member of the Intelligence Committee (and conspiracy monger) Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.) and indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas. Nunes therefore becomes a fact witness, and his efforts to disrupt the hearings and toss out one red herring after another begin to reek of self-interested obstruction of the committees work.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/03/an-intelligence-committee-report-with-pizzazz/
Autumn
(45,075 posts)Pachamama
(16,887 posts)Autumn
(45,075 posts)I loved it.
Pachamama
(16,887 posts)The cows are coming home for Devin Nunes and the GOP - and most certainly Trump
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)I'll bet his Mom isn't too happy either!
dem4decades
(11,288 posts)RussBLib
(9,008 posts)I'm going to call John Cornyn's office again tomorrow and let him have it. These guys are propping up a tyrant wannabe madman, pledging fealty to Trump instead of the Constitution. It has to stop.