WASHINGTON—Political corruption is so deeply embedded in all sectors of Ukraine’s government that witnesses called by Democrats in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) impeachment inquiry agreed that President Donald Trump was right to worry that U.S. aid would be wasted.
That’s according to a highly detailed, 18-page memorandum to HPSCI Republicans from their committee staff released late Nov. 11. The committee’s minority staff argued that the testimony provided behind closed doors in the past 49 days was “all unclassified, so the closed-door process is purely for information control.
“This arrangement has allowed [HPSCI Chairman Rep. Adam] Schiff—who has already publicly fabricated evidence and mislead Americans about his interactions with the anonymous whistleblower—to selectively leak cherry-picked information to help paint misleading public narratives, while at the same time, placing a gag order on the Republican members present.”
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Long time readers of this blog know my views on corruption in Ukraine. Being one who has family, friends and contacts there, and who has also lived there. To say that the place is a cesspool of corruption is an understatement. And as for these Democrat impeachment witnesses agreeing with President Trump to be leery of giving aid to such a corrupt country .... no surprises there. Now will we here this in public testimony? I doubt it.
3 comments:
CORRUPTION IN UKRAINE? sure. and in Russia? and elsewhere? that is hardly the impeachment charge and therefore why not wait to see what takes place. If the Dems are way out of line, the hearings will prove this. If not, then you are giving a verdict prior to evidence. Hardly the way things are done in a democracy. More to the point: the Dems may impeach and the Senate exhonerate. WHAT THEN? THAT IS AN AREA TO SPECULATE ABOUT. NOT BEFORE HEARINGS HAVE BEGUN. IN SUM: LEARN HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS. HOW THE LEGAL SYSTEM FUNCTIONS.
President Donald Trump and this generation of Republicans plainly are looking to the politics of the Clinton impeachment as a source of comfort.
They are deluding themselves in a profound way.
Leave aside the argument that many Americans will regard abuse of power in foreign affairs as more serious than lying under oath about extramarital affairs, the reality is that Clinton and Democrats were buoyed by impeachment only in a near-term sense.
Long term, Clinton’s ambitions for his presidency were dealt a grievous blow. And there were enormous, if often overlooked, costs for the progressive movement that are still being paid more than two decades later.
That history echoes with particular relevance today, as public hearings in a new round of impeachment hearings begin. The conventional appraisal of Trump’s prospects—the House will likely convict, the Senate will likely acquit and Trump will claim vindication—might well be true. But this glosses over a larger point: On the current trajectory, Republicans are engaging in a battle with their own long-term costs that they will be paying for the next generation.
Based on Clinton’s precedent, those costs will be paid against Trump’s agenda—things he wants to do but won’t achieve because of the distorting effects of impeachment on his political options and room for maneuver.
They will be paid by his associates—people whose reputations and ambitions will be permanently dented because of their proximity to him.
And they will be paid by conservatives who follow him—who will discover their own principles have lost credibility and power in the public mind because of their connection to Trump.
It's the behind closed doors activity that makes these situations so repellent. No need to hide. We can handle it. To think not is insulting. The bombast from some and their assumed postures of righteousness is a too thin cloak over their unacceptable behavior.
Post a Comment