Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Trump’s Crime? Asking Zelensky to Reopen Investigation Ukraine was Forced to Close After Biden’s Thuggish Threat

 Article written by Elizabeth Vaughn in "RedState":

The dictionary defines psychosis as a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality. The person with this condition usually isn’t aware of his or her behavior. Democrats appear to be afflicted with this condition.

Devastated by Trump’s victory nearly three years ago and unable to accept it to this day, they are convinced of the alternate reality they have created. Instead of moving through the typical stages of grief and ultimately reaching acceptance, they remain stuck in denial. Their group malady has caused enormous damage to the country and it’s time for some shock therapy.

The reality which they are currently rejecting is that the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office was engaged in an investigation of Burisma Holdings in 2016. Their examination turned up a series of odd payments being made to a company owned by then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and his business partner. Naturally, it was difficult for them to comprehend why Hunter, who had no previous business experience in the energy industry, had earned $3 million from Burisma between 2014 and 2015. Knowing that Joe Biden had been appointed by the Obama administration in early 2014 as their “point man” for Ukraine, investigators obviously suspected this arrangement might be corrupt and required further scrutiny.

In December 2015, the New York Times published a story that Burisma was under investigation. Joe Biden then learned that his son was about to be questioned by the prosecutor general’s office and the pressure from Biden (and the Obama administration) to prevent this from happening began.

In January 2016, the White House invited Ukrainian prosecutors to Washington to meet their US counterparts to discuss ways to fight corruption.

The Hill’s John Solomon described this meeting in a recent article:
The meeting, promised as training, turned out to be more of a pretext for the Obama administration to pressure Ukraine’s prosecutors to drop an investigation into the Burisma Holdings gas company that employed Hunter Biden and to look for new evidence in a then-dormant criminal case against eventual Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a GOP lobbyist.
U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, the former political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington who organized and attended the meetings.
Solomon spoke to Nazar Kholodnytsky, Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, who had attended the meeting, shortly afterward. Kholodnytsky told him he saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election.
Still, the investigation into Burisma continued. In March 2016, Joe Biden took matters into his own hands and threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid unless the prosecutor who was about to question his son was fired. The Ukrainian government, close to bankruptcy, was forced to comply and Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.

The Vice President of the United States was ready to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine to prevent legal problems for his son. This was an egregious abuse of power.

All of this, of course, is well documented. Biden himself boasted about it. (Why would he ever do that?)

Fast forward to July 25, 2019.

President Trump asks new Ukrainian President Volodymyr to reopen the investigation which Joe Biden improperly forced the former President to end in March 2016, threatening to withhold aid.

Trump was asking for Biden’s corrupt action to be reversed. 
A whistleblower who is said to be highly partisan and who did not hear the conversation between President Trump and President Zelensky files a complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General. I won’t take you through the sequence of events of the last week because we are all too familiar with them.

A media uproar ensues.

On Tuesday, President Trump announces he will release a transcript of the call on Wednesday.
Democrats, who have been demanding the transcript for days say that’s not good enough.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes worries about the trustworthiness of the transcript.



Given what we know about how Trump pressures and manipulates civil servants to tow his line, I'm not *quite* sure we can trust the transcript itself as being accurate/comprehensive.

Before even reading the transcript which will be released hours from now, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. Democrats have seen no evidence yet. Neither the whistleblower nor the Director of National Intelligence have testified before Congress, but that didn’t stop Pelosi from holding a press conference. Lawmakers in the House have not even taken a vote on this measure.

Recall the definition of psychosis above. Pelosi’s press conference showed that her “thoughts and emotions were so impaired that contact was lost with external reality.” It appeared that she wasn’t “aware of her behavior.” She was convinced of the alternate reality she (and the Democrats) have created. And she remains stuck in denial.

 https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2019/09/25/trumps-crime-asking-zelensky-reopen-investigation-ukraine-forced-close-biden%e2%80%99s-thuggish-threat/