As discussed in my last post, democrats have jumped onto the impeachment bandwagon, based off an alleged whistleblower statement and a call transcript between Trump and the new Ukraine President Zelenskyy. Naturally, there has been the expected social media frenzy as a result, which made me wonder what a reasonable “Moderate Majority” subscriber might think of all of this. So, let’s dig into it and look at the facts, and try to avoid the rhetoric. Again, I needed to access not only the documents themselves, but also look at reporting from at least 12 outlets to get to what appears to be the intersection of facts.
First, let’s make it absolutely clear that not only did this so-called whistleblower not attend the Ukraine call, this person also did not have access to the transcript of the call. Let’s also make it perfectly clear that in the whistleblower complaint, this person listed zero named sources, but instead stated at least 21 times that “multiple officials” in both the White House and State Department told this person about their concerns. Let’s put that into a little context: If we consider this person’s use of the term “multiple” in reference to how many people talked to him or her, and that “multiple” (let’s assume) means at least 3 or more people (in some cases this person said 6 or more), have told this person of these concerns and events, that would be over 63 people that have all sought out this person, or he/she sought all of them out, to raise accusations made in this complaint. This person must therefore be extremely well-known and well-connected, right? Yet he/she has no access to the call or the transcripts?
The two statements in question, the transcript and the alleged whistleblower complaint (5 pages and 9 pages, respectfully), are linked here for you to feel free to read on your own. I have read both, multiple times, front to back. Ukraine transcript: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-transcript-read-ukraine-president-phone-call-transcript-pdf-released-today-joe-biden-crowdstrike-2019-09-25/ and the Complaint: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/26/read-the-trump-ukraine-whistleblower-complaint-002239 . Let’s examine these a bit further.
First: Adam Schiff’s Opening Statement in committee:
Please go read the transcript link above. Then watch this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6d6qLfVkUU – this is the opening statement by Adam Schiff (D-CA) this week that goes on for over 9 minutes, and it full of many holes and outright mischaracterizations and frankly, lies, when compared to not only the transcript, but also widely consistent reporting. While his accusations go beyond the president and onto AG Barr and others, I would also point to a statement 2:30 into the video, where he mentions that the US has provided aid to Ukraine for years. In fact, Obama withheld aid, especially military aid, for many years. This was also widely known, and Rep. Schiff knows that. I would also point to the biggest part of the video that would most likely outrage the reasonable viewer: 3:50 into the video he creates a “Godfather-like” parody of Trump that in absolutely no way – seriously, no way – resembles what was actually transcribed from the call. But it was carried on almost all of the media outlets, and refuted only by a small handful of those outlets when compared to the actual released transcript.
The Transcript:
The request for Zelenskyy to do “us” a favor (note the word “us” as opposed to him personally) was in relation to the origins of the Russia-Trump hoax, and the possibility that Crowdstrike may have a DNC server hidden in the Ukraine. This is a bit of a conspiracy theory, but until that server is actually located, who knows? It has been strangely missing for a while, and Crowdstrike had it last. Nowhere in the transcript – absolutely nowhere – does he refer to security aid being withheld as a condition, and absolutely nowhere does he appear to pressure Zelenskyy.
Note: It is compelling to hear Zelenskyy and his foreign minister both say, on camera, multiple times, that the call was quite good and they were not (and will not be) pressured.
It’s also really interesting that several news outlets immediately mis-reported the references to Biden in the call. The name “Biden” was, in their reporting, mentioned 8 times (in one report) and 9 (in another report). It was also reported that this help with Biden was being mentioned as a “condition” or a “shakedown” – this is absolutely false, and the statements clearly show that. In fact, Biden was mentioned 3 times, in 2 consecutive sentences, on page 4. Trump specifically said, and I quote, “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it…” The response from Zelenskyy was that he was aware of the situation and is already appointing a new prosecutor to look into the company (Burisma) because it is important to him to “restore honesty” and he then asked Trump for assistance with supplying them any information that may help the investigation.
They also talked about the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, whom Trump removed in the last few months. It was widely reported and believed that she favored the former Ukraine president, and Zelenskyy said that her attitude toward Zelenskyy was “far from the best” and he agreed with Trump 100% that she was bad.
Now let’s talk about the Complaint that was filed.
First – the use of the secure server in the White House to store the call, as opposed to the more open server that would be then used to disseminate the call information to cabinet members: This was alleged by “one White House source” the whistleblower talked to as an “abuse of that electronic system”. Was it really? That system was originally used to store especially sensitive call recordings, but what the whistleblower failed to mention was that this system is used frequently by the Trump administration for even non-sensitive call storage, after multiple leaks of calls with foreign leaders emanated out of the White House by people who gained access over the last few years, and clearly didn’t like Trump. So, what would a reasonable person do, given the same circumstances? Frankly, if I was surrounded by people who didn’t like me and possibly voted a different direction, I would lock all that correspondence down, too.
The whistleblower also named people (State Department Counselor Mr. Brechbuhl) that he was told were on the call that have now been found to not be on the call, although he was told by one of those “sources”. I’m not really sure why that was relevant, however it was false.
On top of the sources being claimed by the whistleblower, he also cites reporting and/or interviews from, among others, ABC, the NYT, Bloomberg, Politico, The Hill, Fox News, The Babel, etc., to piece together his complaint storyline. There was no reference material made available to attest to the accuracy of any of that reporting.
The whistleblower goes on to try to find impropriety with respect to the actions taken by Rudy Giuliani to investigate any potential wrong-doing by actors in the US. What is unfortunate is that this is most likely against organizations (e.g., the DNC) and rivals (Joe Biden and his son), and therefore it becomes abuse of power by the president in the eyes of his enemies. So, here’s a question to ponder: Let’s assume, just for the moment, that Joe did, in fact, have the interests of his son in mind when he threatened to withhold aid from Ukraine (which he has openly bragged about doing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6d6qLfVkUU at 52:00 into the video) unless they fired the prosecutor investigating Burisma. What would you do, if you knew about this? Would you investigate it to either find evidence to clear him or find wrong-doing? Or would you sweep it under the rug and ignore it because Joe is a rival? If Joe acted inappropriately, enough so that the Ukraine, even before the Trump call, was appointing a new prosecutor to investigate, what would you do? Again, when you watch the entire hour of the video, Joe talks like he’s doing the right thing, but then you look at his references to sanction partners, and now see that those statements were false. And all the while, Joe helped his son get appointed to the board of a very corrupt oligarch-owned gas producer (Burisma) in Ukraine (paying Hunter, Hunter’s investment firm, and the Biden family trust over $3.1M over several years)… all while Joe is trying to get corruption under control there? What would a reasonable person do with this information?
Let’s recall that Obama was told by the FBI and CIA way back in the Spring of 2016 that the Russians were meddling in the elections. He chose not to act, because it was believed that they were going after Trump, when, in fact, they were going after both Trump and Hillary. Did he make the right move to not act? This was widely reported, incidentally. What would a reasonable person have done with the FBI and CIA data?
Overall the whistleblower attempts to cobble together trips by Rudy Giuliani and a host of other activities into a scandal that equates to the abuse of power by the president. However, these trips were also associated with the activities of Bill Barr to find out how the Mueller investigation was even founded: Comey has been found by the IG to have acted significantly inappropriately, the FISA abuse report is still forthcoming (where it is alleged that judges were lied to by the highest officials in the FBI), Russia meddling was found to be largely ignored by the past administration, more IG reports are due on McCabe, Strzok, and others, etc. McCabe was earlier fired by the FBI, after a previous IG report. Would a reasonable person find Rudy’s trips to be in conflict and akin to presidential abuse? I believe they would certainly raise a reasonable person’s eyebrow a bit, but considering the tangled web that has been the Russia Mueller probe, the revelations of the Steele dossier that was the basis for all of this, how that report was funded (by the DNC, which was at the time reported to be on the verge of bankruptcy and back-funded by the Clinton campaign), etc., would the current investigative activities by the president’s officials then still be considered over the line? What would you do, given the same circumstances? That is a question we all will need to answer for ourselves… Again. Unfortunately.
