Paid, Solicited and False

It's amusing to watch the faux-outrage over Donald Trump's latest comments on foreign influence in the electoral process. Ed Rogers writes:

President Donald Trump said the wrong thing again Wednesday, and of course some in the media – and practically all the Democratic presidential candidates – are spun up about it. Specifically, he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he might listen to a foreign government offering opposition research on his political opponents at home and not tell the FBI. His exact words when asked whether his campaign would accept damaging information on his opponents from foreign governments – such as China or Russia – or hand it over to the FBI were, “I think maybe you do both. I think you might want to listen, there isn’t anything wrong with listening.” That was the wrong thing to say. No campaign should accept compromising information from a foreign government.

That said, the media’s tunnel vision and failure to pursue the natural line of questioning about foreign influence in the 2016 campaign are surreal. Think for a moment if Hillary Clinton had to answer a similar question truthfully. If she were honest, she would have to answer something like, “Why, yes, my campaign would, through the general counsel’s law firm, employ a foreign national to contact sources in the Russian government and try to develop opposition research to use against my opponent, and then take it to the FBI and the media in order to disrupt my opponent’s campaign.” Is there something about this I am missing?

Yeah, Trump should have acted like a typical politician and lied through his teeth, saying that he NEVER even listen to oppo research, NEVER!!!! I sure that's what every Democrat candiate would say—after all, they would NEVER use oppo research, would they? Past Dem candidates for President have NEVER done that, have they?

The question, posed by the Dems' trained hamster, George Stepanopoulos, asked whether an unsolicited, unpaid offer of oppo research from a foreign entity should be immediately reported. The operative phrase in all of this is unsolicited, unpaid. Stephanopoulos never suggested that the oppo research was solicited or paid for, did he?

Interesting that all of the Dems along with the usual collection of establishment elites who are clutching their pearls over Trump's less-than-measured response, seem generally unconcerned about Hillary Clinton's use of paid, solicited and false oppo research from the Russians. BTW, that's not conjecture, its hard fact, supported by reams of written evidence and investigative testimony. Well, at least Hillary had the results of her paid, solicited and false oppo research (a phony dossier) turned over the the FBI in an effort to submarine Trump's candidacy.

I wonder, where was Stepanopoulus after that story broke? Why hasn't the media asked Hillary for detailed comment? Why aren't there calls for an indictment?

In the fantasy world of the Dems, let's assume for a moment that Hillary won the election and is now a sitting president. Let's further assume that the truth of the phony dossier came to light (yeah, I know that's VERY unlikely, but work with me here). Would the Dems and their trained hamsters be calling for her impeachment on the same grounds that they're using to condemn Trump for a simple opinion?

UPDATE:
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Over and over and over again, Donald Trump becomes a mirror of psychological projection on the part of Democrats. In fits of near hysteria, they repeatedly accuse Trump of sins that they themselves or their leadesr have committed (with not a single peep of concern from them or their trained hamsters in the media). As noted in the body of this post, the Dems now suggest that Trump would work with foreign sources to dig dirt on his political enemies—one headline trumpets, "Trump Claims No Collusion but He is Pro-Collusion." Of course, Hillary Clinton did more than simply state she was pro-collusion, she actually coordinated and paid for collusion with the Russians. Psychological projection, anyone? But there's more ...

John Solomon recalls another 2016 case with a Democrat president:

In July 2016, the Obama administration accepted unsolicited information from Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat who just happened to have helped arrange a $25 million government donation to the Clinton Foundation years before. Downer said that he had witnessed a Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, bragging about some dirt that the Russians supposedly had on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Though Downer’s claim was reported two-plus months after the alleged event, and was only hearsay gathered at a London tavern, the Obama administration gave it to the FBI which, in turn, thought it was weighty enough to justify opening a counterintelligence case against the lawfully elected Republican nominee for president.

In other words, the Democratic administration accepted dirt from a foreign friendly and used it to justify investigating its GOP rival.

Solomon suggests that Trump isn't guilty any impeachable offense, but he is guilty of "plagiarizing the [2016] playbook" of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Actually ... no. Trump may have talked about dirt recently, but he never paid for dirt, he never initiated spying on his opponent, HRC, and he never (as far as Robert Mueller could tell) colluded with foe or friend to defeat Hillary.

As I've stated dozens of times in this blog, there are two set of rules and two sets of outrage—one for Trump and by extension, the GOP, and another for the Democrats. That won't change, but it is worth continually pointing out the breathtaking hypocrisy in the Dems' narrative on all of this.