Transcription

On numerous occasions during the last 30 months, we've seen the Democrats and their trained hamsters in the media promote a Russian collusion hoax while at the same time doing everything possible to cover-up a soft coup initiated during the Obama administration, coordinated by the FBI and CIA, and participated in by the Clinton campaign, the DNC and ... the Russians. To make matters worse, the Clinton campaign actually paid for a dossier derived from questionable Russian sources containing false information about Donald Trump. The Dems and their trained hamsters in the media were notably disinterested in any of that.

Now, however, they're crazed over a single Trump phone call with the Ukrainian president asking whether Joe Biden used influence (either direct or indirect) to channel big money to his son—a man who was hired as an energy "consultant" by a shady Ukrainian company for $50K a month (!) but who had no background or expertise in energy matters. While Vice president of the United States, Biden also had a Ukrainian prosecutor removed from an investigation that may have led to his son by threatening to withhold aid to the Ukraine — obstruction, anyone?

The trained hamsters have consistently gotten everything wrong about political influence in the 2016 general election. They have relied on innuendo, phony and/or biased sources, and a purposeful lack of context, serious omissions, and outright lies in their attempt to destroy Donald Trump. They have failed, and they're crazed by that failure.

Kimberly Strassel of The Wall Street Journal is a true journalist and has gotten just about everything right vis a vis the Russian collusion hoax. She broke major parts of the crossfire-hurricane scandal and has been fearless in her reporting. In the aftermath of the Democrat House careening toward impeachment, she tweets about the phone call transcript and the rush to impeach the president

@KimStrassel ... Most Democrats and most of the media have never accepted Mr. Trump as a legitimate President... so they have looked every day since Election Night in 2016 for some reason to expel him from office.

@KimStrassel ... 1) Having read DOJ’s Trump-Ukraine release, here’s the real story: This is another internal attempt to take out a president, on the basis of another non-smoking-gun.

@KimStrassel ... 2) As to call transcript itself: Trump’s actual “favor” is that Ukraine look backward, to what happened in the 2016 election. This is a legitimate ask, since election meddling looks to have come from both Russia and Ukraine.

@KimStrassel ... 3) (Indeed, this is a big enough issue that we find out this morning that U.S. Attorney John Durham is looking at what role the Ukraine played in the FBI investigation.)

@KimStrassel ... 4) It is actually Zelensky who brings up Rudy Giuliani—saying they can’t wait to “meet him.” And it is Zelensky who references “that investigation,” as he goes on to promise that “all investigations will be done openly and candidly.”

@KimStrassel ... 5) Trump says “good” and expresses worries that a “good” prosecutor was “shut down.” Mentions “Biden’s son” and that Biden bragged he “stopped the prosecution.” Ends that bit with “It sounds horrible to me.”

@KimStrassel ... 6) Trump's several references to Giuliani are mostly to say what a great guy he is. He says he will have Giuliani and AG Barr call. He asks Zelensky to speak/work with both.

@KimStrassel ... 7) And, never mind, because: DOJ in statement says the President has not spoken to AG about investigating Biden and has not asked the AG to contact the Ukraine. Also, Barr has not communicated with Ukraine—“on this or any subject.”

@KimStrassel ... 8) Meanwhile, the IG back in August referred this to DOJ as potential violation of campaign finance law, based on whistleblower complaint. Criminal Division evaluated and determined no violation: “All relevant components of the Department agreed with this legal conclusion.”

@KimStrassel ... 9) Whistleblower? Look at this nugget, referenced in the OLC opinion. The IG’s review found "some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate.”

@KimStrassel ... 10) Media got all this so wrong. And Democrats look all the more partisan and radical to have moved toward impeachment.

Another journalist who has also been consistently accurate in her reporting throughout the past 30 months is Mollie Hemingway. In response to the Dem's dishonest histrionics of the past two days, she writes:

Prior to the release of the transcript, media and other Democrats misrepresented the phone call as an abuse of office. It is unclear how a United States president attempting to get to the bottom of foreign interference in democratic U.S. elections constitutes an abuse of power, as many Democrats have alleged in recent days. The focus on the phone call comes ahead of the much-anticipated release of an Inspector General report on political spying abuses by the Obama administration as well as declassification of materials expected to detail efforts to spy on the Obama administration’s political opponents using false information ...

The Department of Justice confirmed today that Ukraine’s role in 2016 election meddling is being investigated and that some Ukrainians are already cooperating with the probe. “A Department of Justice team led by U.S. Attorney John Durham is separately exploring the extent to which a number of countries, including Ukraine, played a role in the counterintelligence investigation directed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 election,” DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement. “While the Attorney General has yet to contact Ukraine in connection with this investigation, certain Ukrainians who are not members of the government have volunteered information to Mr. Durham, which he is evaluating.”

Hmmm. Looks like the Dems are scrambling to re-direct their trained hamsters away from Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and toward bogus allegations that a single phone call is tantamount to election interference. Again, it does appear that Joe Biden used his influence as Vice President to enrich his son—and that's against the law, but ... whatever.

But there's more and the Dems are scrambling to make it go away. Here's conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh on "Crowdstrike," a private security firm that the Dems hired to investigate their allegation of hacking into their server in 2016. Note that the DNC did NOT allow the FBI to investigate. That in itself is intriguing.

CrowdStrike is alleged to have gotten something big wrong about Ukraine. CrowdStrike accused Russia of hacking a Ukrainian artillery app resulting in heavy losses, even though Ukraine has no incentive to help Russia, which is attacking them. Ukraine said it never happened. And yet CrowdStrike was asserting that Russia hacked a Ukrainian artillery app. How do I know this? Well, Andy McCarthy’s written about this in his book Ball of Collusion. Here’s the short little passage that’s relevant.

“CrowdStrike widely believed to have been wrong in a controversial 2016 judgment when it claimed that Russia hacked a Ukrainian artillery app resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in combat against separatists used by Moscow.” That’s a pretty big thing to be wrong about, and the only reason to point it out is, okay, if they’re wrong about that, what if the Democrat National Committee server was not hacked?

Do you realize how convenient it was for them to be able to say that Russia hacked their server and then link Trump to Russia? The FBI never assumed that because they never got to investigate it. So the presence of CrowdStrike, Trump asking the president of Ukraine to look into CrowdStrike as well as Biden and his son.

Now, just a little bit more about CrowdStrike ’cause I have paid attention, there’s not a single — I haven’t seen a single report focus on CrowdStrike in this transcript. Now, I know why the Democrats are ignoring it. The Democrats are bent out of shape that Trump even knows about CrowdStrike. They think Trump’s an idiot. With Trump specifically zeroing in on CrowdStrike the Democrats have learned today, after reading that transcript, what Trump is really doing here.

Trump is soliciting assistance from allies all over the world to help Barr prove the scam run against him. That’s what’s going on. That’s what the Democrats have learned today with that word “CrowdStrike” being in the transcript. CrowdStrike, the founder of CrowdStrike is a Russian emigre who hates Putin with a purple passion. It seems to color CrowdStrike’s security work.

If this is true (and that's a big IF), the Dems have once again allowed TDS to guide their strategy and in the end, have opened a can of worms that may yield very unpleasant information about them and their actions. We'll see.

It's also apparent that the new Democratic party has no shame. They have been consistently wrong about every important accusation leveled against Donald Trump. They have outright lied about many of his statements, lied about Russian collusion, lied about obstruction of justice and will now lie about the Ukrainian phone call. When they are proven wrong, there is never an apology, only the next outright lie along with specious allegations of wrongdoing. A significant percentage of independents already understand this. A growing number of African Americans and Latinos are street smart and understand an attempt to railroad someone who has made their economic lives much better. And a small, but growing number of moderate Dems no longer recognize their party and have decided to #Walkaway. Good.

UPDATE-1:
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I have written on numerous occasions (e.g., here) that the Dems will take impeachment off the shelf if and when the results of major investigations of the soft coup conducted against Donald Trump begin to be made public. The results of these investigations will be damning and the Dems have to give their trained hamsters in the media a reason to look away. Funny, how that seems to be happening right now. The IG report on the soft coup is due to be released within a few weeks. Hmmm.

UPDATE-2
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The editors of the Wall Street Journal are no friends of Donald Trump and have criticized him repeatedly over the past 30 months. After exposing Trump's phone call as the nothingburger it is, this is what they write:"

If Democrats want to pursue impeachment on this thin gruel, then Americans should also consider the process by which this became a national political crisis. First a whistleblower who is still unidentified brings a complaint based on what he heard about a President’s phone call. By the way, the OLC memo says in passing that the IG’s review acknowledges “some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate.”

Then the IG makes a flawed legal judgment that Congress must see the complaint. When his argument is rebutted, word leaks to the press, Congress cries coverup, and suddenly we are putting the country through another impeachment upheaval.

Is anyone else troubled that this is all it takes to impeach a President? If a bureaucrat who dislikes a President can trigger a complaint based on hearsay that forces the disclosure of presidential diplomacy, the conduct of foreign policy will be severely hampered. Democratic Presidents won’t be spared once Republicans figure out how this works.

Mr. Trump’s refusal to abide by the normal guardrails of presidential decorum is often offensive. It can also be risky—for himself and U.S. interests. We have often criticized him for it. But impeaching a President is voting to annul an election, and that should require far more evidence than we have from this Ukraine phone call.

Democrats may not be able to stop themselves now that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has joined the impeachment parade. But the voters should ask if impeachment on these terms will do far more harm to American democracy than Mr. Trump’s bad judgment.

Voters should also ask themselves something else. The Dems are now a party that is intent of using "thin gruel" as a means to negate a legitimate election. They bounce from from one manufactured partisan hoax to another as each is exposed as nonsense. Their dishonesty is exceeded only by their viciousness. Ask yourself—Do they deserve to lead? I submit that they do not.