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***Official Donald J. Trump Impeachment (Whistleblower) Thread*** (4 Viewers)

One thing that is still bothering me - what is the proper spelling for the Ukrainian President?

All major media has it: Zelensky

Most Government reports (including Taylor's remarks) seem to have it as: Zelenskyy

This needs to be cleared up.  I suspect the government has it correct - but that then begs the question about why the Media continues to drop the second "y"

 
One thing that is still bothering me - what is the proper spelling for the Ukrainian President?

All major media has it: Zelensky

Most Government reports (including Taylor's remarks) seem to have it as: Zelenskyy

This needs to be cleared up.  I suspect the government has it correct - but that then begs the question about why the Media continues to drop the second "y"
I think this is like Kiev vs Kyiv. 

 
One thing that is still bothering me - what is the proper spelling for the Ukrainian President?

All major media has it: Zelensky

Most Government reports (including Taylor's remarks) seem to have it as: Zelenskyy

This needs to be cleared up.  I suspect the government has it correct - but that then begs the question about why the Media continues to drop the second "y"
The former, now deceased dictator of Libya made news for 40 years or so and nobody ever agreed on how to spell his name. 

 
One of the more interesting parts of that opening statement is when they discussed Trump operating as a businessman and that he was owed something. It goes a long way into understanding his thinking. He always claims credit, like how he gave people tax breaks, he has created the best economy ever, he has the best stock market. He might really not see this as quid pro quo but more as part of the deal if he is going to fork over the aid. He doesn't want to give something for nothing in his opinion. It's business. Someone should ask him what he thinks quid pro quo means.
He also thought releasing the ‘transcript’ would help him. I think he believes the way that he asked for ‘a favor’ was so clever that it wouldn’t be viewed as a quid pro quo.

 
I put this in the Trump tweets thread but it probably belongs here:

This latest defense (that Ukraine didn’t know) only works if you ignore the Trump/Zelensky call summary and the various text chains. Diplomats on both sides were working together to get Ukraine to say and do the right things to satisfy Trump, so that they could move forward with the phone call, White House visit, anddefense aid. Ukraine was well aware of what they had to do. 

 
One thing that is still bothering me - what is the proper spelling for the Ukrainian President?

All major media has it: Zelensky

Most Government reports (including Taylor's remarks) seem to have it as: Zelenskyy

This needs to be cleared up.  I suspect the government has it correct - but that then begs the question about why the Media continues to drop the second "y"
Correct spelling is:  Володи́мир Олекса́ндрович Зеле́нський

 
His opening statement alone is pretty damning unfortunately very few people will read it and too many people will dismiss it.
From a CNN article:

The testimony sets up a credibility test between Sondland, a wealthy hotelier and Republican donor with no diplomatic experience, and Taylor, who has 50 years of government service and is a methodical, professional diplomat and Vietnam War infantry veteran.

 
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From a CNN article:

The testimony sets up a credibility test between Sondland, a wealthy hotelier and Republican donor with no diplomatic experience, and Taylor, who has 50 years of government service and is a methodical, professional diplomat and Vietnam War infantry veteran.
Republicans have already painted Taylor as a radical unelected bureaucrat trying to run a smear campaign against the President.   Nothing else matters

 
Yeah - not really.

What we need to hear has to come from Trump, Mulvaney, Pompeo, maybe Giuliani, and people at the OMB office - those are the people with direct knowledge of the decision to withhold aid, and the subsequent decision to release aid.

Tie them down to a single story as to why the aid was withheld - Trump has floated several, investigators need to get them committed to one version.

Obtain the paper trail the purportedly supports that reason.

Follow the paper trail to see when and why the aid was released - and how does that corollate to the stated reason for withholding aid - i.e. what changed? 
I think they will have better luck with getting info from the career officials charged with executing their orders.  Best to wait to until they have as much information as possible before talking to Mulvaney et al.  I wonder if we'll start seeing some more leads for Congress to go in that direction today.  Pentagon official Laura Cooper (involved in overseeing aid to Ukraine) appearing today.  

ETA: Also Michael Duffey from OMB.  Unclear how much we will cooperate though.

 
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I think they will have better luck with getting info from the career officials charged with executing their orders.  Best to wait to until they have as much information as possible before talking to Mulvaney et al.  I wonder if we'll start seeing some more leads for Congress to go in that direction today.  Pentagon official Laura Cooper (involved in overseeing aid to Ukraine) appearing today.  

ETA: Also Michael Duffey from OMB.  Unclear how much we will cooperate though.
Duffey is a former Republican party leader from Wisconsin who was inserted into OMB to circumvent rules. I doubt he testifies, because reports suggest it will be pretty damning for him. I'd expect those who called out policy deviations which led to his insertion to testify, which will be just as helpful, perhaps moreso if the goal is understanding what should have happened vs what did happen.

 
Even the Russians want us to impeach Trump:

The America I Knew as Russia’s Foreign Minister Is Gone

Russia likes seeing President Trump in the White House in part because it provides the Kremlin a chance to point to the ugly side of American politics — to say, just as they did with Mr. Nixon, look how sordid, how hypocritical.

But I believe that if Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, act to remove this president, a new powerful message would be sent to governments and people around the globe, just like the one that went out in 1974: Moral principles still matter in American politics and policy. And the future still belongs to moral truth and to those who embrace it.

 
New Quinnipiac poll is, uh, not good for Trump....

Greg Sargent
@ThePlumLineGS

New Quinnipiac poll:

55 percent of voters approve of the impeachment inquiry, the highest yet.

By 48-46, voters say Trump should be impeached *and removed,* the first time removal is in positive territory in Quinnipiac polling.

Josh Dorner
@JoshDorner
🚨 for Trump in the @QuinnipiacPoll:

-Indys approve of the inquiry by a 21-point margin. Last week, they were only +5. 

-Indys now back removal by 8 points. Last week, they opposed it by 6, a 14-point swing.

These are big moves in a week.

 
Something else I was just thinking about in regard to the probable fact that this likely won’t hit the Senate until January or afterwards: could a Senate vote on impeachment occur too late for the Trump base to primary Senators with elections coming up? If so that might affect some of their votes, make them less scared of repercussions, etc, 

 
Something else I was just thinking about in regard to the probable fact that this likely won’t hit the Senate until January or afterwards: could a Senate vote on impeachment occur too late for the Trump base to primary Senators with elections coming up? If so that might affect some of their votes, make them less scared of repercussions, etc, 
I have a follow up question to this - didn't some states cancel their Republican primaries? I was always a bit confused about this because the President isn't the only one on the ticket during the primaries. Or did they just decide to remove the President option from the ballot which would be egregious?

 
I am relieved to know that it appears I was correct again.  Taylor was a nothing burger witness and could not verify that Ukraine knew military aid was being withheld thus no quid pro quo.  This destroys the whole impeachment argument and Trump is in the clear.

Trump makes me laugh, he tweeted the The do nothing Dems case is DEAD!  So true.  

 
NEWS: Source tells me that after House Republicans tried flooding the SCIF with non-committee members, “many brought their cell phones too into the classified area.”

“Stand off in progress,” source adds

 
I am relieved to know that it appears I was correct again.  Taylor was a nothing burger witness and could not verify that Ukraine knew military aid was being withheld thus no quid pro quo.  This destroys the whole impeachment argument and Trump is in the clear.

Trump makes me laugh, he tweeted the The do nothing Dems case is DEAD!  So true.  
so you watched hannity....nice

 
I am relieved to know that it appears I was correct again.  Taylor was a nothing burger witness and could not verify that Ukraine knew military aid was being withheld thus no quid pro quo.  This destroys the whole impeachment argument and Trump is in the clear.

Trump makes me laugh, he tweeted the The do nothing Dems case is DEAD!  So true.  
Once again...do you actually believe this stuff?  I mean seriously...you believe this?

also...love the moving goalposts...we know now the QPQ was offered and the argument changed to Ukraine didn't know.  Totally laughable.

 
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Have the sergeant at arms arrest these dolts. This isn't red rover, you idiots.
Exactly...boot them...arrest them.  Then go get any of the fools refusing subpoenas and bring them in too.  Expose those who continue to thumb their noses at the actual laws.

 
I am relieved to know that it appears I was correct again.  Taylor was a nothing burger witness and could not verify that Ukraine knew military aid was being withheld thus no quid pro quo.  This destroys the whole impeachment argument and Trump is in the clear.

Trump makes me laugh, he tweeted the The do nothing Dems case is DEAD!  So true.  
What if I told you that Ukraine did know....

Contradicting Trump, Ukraine Knew of Aid Freeze Before It Became Public
 

Top officials were told in early August about the delay of $391 million in security assistance, undercutting a chief argument President Trump has used to deny any quid pro quo.

KIEV, Ukraine — To Democrats who say that President Trump’s decision to freeze a $391 million military aid package to Ukraine was intended to bully Ukraine’s leader into carrying out investigations for Mr. Trump’s political benefit, the president and his allies have had a simple response: There could not have been any quid pro quo because the Ukrainians did not know the assistance had been blocked.

Following testimony by William B. Taylor Jr., the top United States diplomat in Ukraine, to House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that the freezing of the aid was directly linked to Mr. Trump’s demand for the investigations, the president took to Twitter on Wednesday morning to approvingly quote a Republican member of Congress saying neither Mr. Taylor nor any other witness had “provided testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld.”

But in fact, word of the aid freeze had gotten to high-level Ukrainian officials by the first week in August, according to interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times.

The problem was not a bureaucratic glitch, the Ukrainians were told then. To address it, they were advised, they should reach out to Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, according to the interviews and records.

The timing of the communications about the issue, which have not previously been reported, shows that Ukraine was aware the White House was holding up the funds weeks earlier than United States and Ukrainian officials had acknowledged. And it means that the Ukrainian government was aware of the freeze during most of the period in August when Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and two American diplomats were pressing President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to make a public commitment to the investigations being sought by Mr. Trump.

The communications did not explicitly link the assistance freeze to the push by Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani for the investigations. But in the communications, officials from the United States and Ukraine discuss the need to bring in the same senior aide to Mr. Zelensky who had been dealing with Mr. Giuliani about Mr. Trump’s demands for the investigations, signaling a possible link between the matters.

Word of the aid freeze got to the Ukrainians at a moment when Mr. Zelensky, who had taken office a little more than two months earlier after a campaign in which he promised to root out corruption and stand up to Russia, was off balance and uncertain how to stabilize his country’s relationship with the United States.

Days earlier, he had listened to Mr. Trump implore him on a half-hour call to pursue investigations touching on former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and a debunked conspiracy theory about Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Zelensky’s efforts to secure a visit to the White House — a symbolic affirmation of support he considered vital at a time when Russia continued to menace Ukraine’s eastern border — seemed to be stalled. American policy toward Ukraine was being guided not by career professionals but by Mr. Giuliani.

Mr. Taylor told the impeachment investigators that it was only on the sidelines of a Sept. 1 meeting in Warsaw between Mr. Zelensky and Vice President Mike Pence that the Ukrainians were directly told the aid would be dependent on Mr. Zelensky giving Mr. Trump something he wanted: an investigation into Burisma, the company that had employed Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son.

American and Ukrainian officials have asserted that Ukraine learned that the aid had been held up only around the time it became public through a news story at the end of August.

The aid freeze is getting additional scrutiny from the impeachment investigators on Wednesday as they question Laura K. Cooper, a deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. This month, Democrats subpoenaed both the Defense Department and the White House Office of Management and Budget for records related to the assistance freeze.

As Mr. Taylor’s testimony suggests, the Ukrainians did not confront the Trump administration about the freeze until they were told in September that it was linked to the demand for the investigations. The Ukrainians appear to have initially been hopeful that the problem could be resolved quietly and were reluctant to risk a public clash at a delicate time in relations between the two nations....

In conversations over several days in early August, a Pentagon official discussed the assistance freeze directly with a Ukrainian government official, according to records and interviews. The Pentagon official suggested that Mr. Mulvaney had been pushing for the assistance to be withheld, and urged the Ukrainians to reach out to him.

The Pentagon official described Mr. Mulvaney’s motivations only in broad terms but made clear that the same Ukrainian official, Andriy Yermak, who had been negotiating with Mr. Giuliani over the investigations and a White House visit being sought by Mr. Zelensky should also reach out to Mr. Mulvaney over the hold on military aid....

 
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The current testimony is delayed because 16 Republican congressmen who are not in the committee are staging a sit-in; they arrived this morning in the secure room and are refusing to leave, demanding an “open hearing.”(Republicans that are on the committee are already allowed in.) 

 
I am relieved to know that it appears I was correct again.  Taylor was a nothing burger witness and could not verify that Ukraine knew military aid was being withheld thus no quid pro quo.  This destroys the whole impeachment argument and Trump is in the clear.

Trump makes me laugh, he tweeted the The do nothing Dems case is DEAD!  So true.  
Hopefully you have learned the danger by now of repeating White House talking points. But I doubt it. 

 
But in fact, word of the aid freeze had gotten to high-level Ukrainian officials by the first week in August, according to interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times.
Of course they were :censored: told.

Even in the Trump Brain construction, if they were really hypothetically supposedly interested in corruption per se, how the hell was that kind of leverage going to work unless the Ukrainians knew about it?

Not only that they're in the middle of a war where - a Taylor pointed out - people were dying. Are we really supposed to turn off our cognition to the point that we think people fighting and dying wouldn't notice their aid was late?

And are we supposed to think that Giuliani wouldn't constantly blab and push this very point himself?

 
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so as I understand it, the republican defense is:

  1. there must be quid pro quo in order to impeach.
  2. QPQ is defined as both parties must be fully aware of QPQ.  Trump demanding QPQ isn't enough.
According to Ratcliffe,

neither he (Taylor)  nor any other witness has provided testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld...You can’t have a quid pro quo with no quo.”
seems a high hurdle the Republicans have set, but let's play along.  I think Ratcliffe is playing word games here.  I assume he asked Taylor if he personally made Ukraine aware of trumps QPQ demands; Taylor would have said no.  Anything beyond that is hearsay.  So...who would have made these demands?

Sondland would have - Taylor testified  that "he was told U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland informed top Ukrainian aide Andriy Yermak weeks later that “security assistance money would not come until President Zelensky committed to pursue the Burisma investigation.”  So, obviously, sondland would have not copped to that in his previous testimony, which gives Ratcliffe some wiggle room here.  Again - Taylor only knew of this from National Security Council aide Tim Morrison, so it's really third person info.

Guliani also would have.  We haven't heard his testimony yet.

Mulvaney would also have known, as would Bolton and Pompeo.

Mike Pence would have known, Per @Don Quixote post above.

I don't believe this Ukraine-must-know-or-no-quid-pro-quo defense is as solid as Republicans are projecting.  The House investigation still has some important people to talk to.

ETA: my source for quotes: Fox News

 
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Dems looking foolish yet again.  I'm afraid they will never learn.  Instead of trying to put up a quality candidate in 2020 and vote Trump out they know their best shot is to try and impeach him in hopes the public sours on Trump and lets an inferior Dem opponent win in 2020.  Not a horrible strategy as it appears by polls it may be working but just own it.  Once public hears the true details momentum will swing back to Trump and he will once again steamroll the Dem candidate in 2020.

 
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I am relieved to know that it appears I was correct again.  Taylor was a nothing burger witness and could not verify that Ukraine knew military aid was being withheld thus no quid pro quo.  This destroys the whole impeachment argument and Trump is in the clear.

Trump makes me laugh, he tweeted the The do nothing Dems case is DEAD!  So true.  
Did you read Taylor's opening statement?

 

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