If you somehow missed the transcript that is apparently going to lead to an impeachment inquiry, read it here.
For my money, the important thing is that every single reference to any sort of investigation he asks to be run through the Attorney General. Initial reports that he tried to have 'his private lawyer' handling the investigation from the US side were wrong; actually, a lot of the early reports were wrong as usual. Rudy is mentioned because he's brought up by the Ukrainian side. Trump says some nice things about him, but then brings it back around to the need to work also with the Attorney General. He's not asking for assistance with his campaign, but for law enforcement cooperation on some scandals involving highly placed American public officials. He's not going to run it out of the White House, but is passing it off to the appropriate authorities.
Other people clearly read it differently.
12 comments:
Just as damning, I think, is the ICIG's letter transmitting the "complaint" to Acting DNI Maguire (that letter can be read here, along with the complaint).
Atkinson didn't bother to get the telecon's transcript, excusing himself by saying it was too hard, so don't bother. He may well have not been able to get the transcript before his own reporting deadline, but he could have tried.
More than that, though, there's no indication in his transmittal letter that he tried to talk to any of the alleged multiple US government officials to ascertain whether they existed and, if so, whether they agreed or disagreed with the whistleblower's characterizations of what they said.
It appears as though Atkinson just sat on the complaint for a time, and then forwarded it unlooked at.
No USAF IG with which I'm familiar (a few of which investigations I've conducted) ever would have been that...disinterested.
Apart from that, it's interesting that the entire complaint was shown to be erroneous by the release of the actual transcript before the release of this complaint.
Eric Hines
Beyond that, the favor Trump asks for is nothing to do with Biden but for the Ukrainian authorities to cooperate with the DOJ and IG reviews of Crossfire Hurricane and Midyear Exam, specifically to see if Ukrainian-based CrowdStrike still has physical possession of the DNC servers or other media. CNN, WaPo, NYT, et al have to excise something over 500 words in the memorandum of the call Trump released to order come up with false conclusion that Trump was asking for an investigation into Biden as the primary topic of the call.
Eric - From Stephen Green @ Instapundit
Sean Davis thinks Schiff might have orchestrated the complaint from the start, using Fusion GPS to construct news articles that the complaint then used as proof.
Sean's twitter stream on this
I think they never expected Trump to release the phone call record unredacted which would have left them free to continue to spin the contents the same way they spun the contents of the Steele Dossier.
jk
"Rudy is mentioned because he's brought up by the Ukrainian side. Trump says some nice things about him, but then brings it back around to the need to work also with the Attorney General."
No. Rudy, himself, has spent the last few days going on TV and telling anyone who would listen that the Trump Admin and the State Dept. had him extensively and purposely involved. That was intentional and not brought up by the Ukraine.
"No. Rudy, himself, has spent the last few days..."
This call happened a while ago, not in the last few days. But I was talking about the call transcript. Trump doesn't say, as reports suggested, 'work with Rudy.' The Ukrainian side says they're already working with Rudy. Trump responds, 'Great, he's wonderful, work with him... and the Attorney General.'
If Rudy is engaged with State Department oversight, that's not particularly problematic either. A President has a lot of power to choose his team. What's problematic is if he's compartmentalizing stuff in his campaign, rather than running it through official channels with regular procedures and oversight. As we can see, there's plenty of oversight and transparency here.
This was an exercise of a specifically authorized treaty power, via the Attorney General. It's not illegal to investigate alleged crimes, even if the alleged criminal is running for your own office, nor even if a foreign government is involved but the process is governed by a ratified treaty.
By the way, house rules on anonymous comments are these: you're welcome to post anonymously, but you need to pick a consistent way to sign your anonymous posts. Otherwise, we don't know which anonymous person we're talking with. You don't have to sign in or provide a real name, but you do need to give us a marker so we can keep track of who said what.
Just put it at the bottom if you want. Like so:
-Grim
"What's problematic is if he's compartmentalizing stuff in his campaign, rather than running it through official channels with regular procedures and oversight."
What do you do if the internal channels are themselves corrupt and stacked against you?
The newly revealed fact that the requirements for expedited treatment of whistle blower reports that they had to be first hand having been changed *after* the report was submitted to allow hearsay reports. Highly suspicious.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/24/full-trump-ukraine-timeline-now/
If you read through this timeline, you will see that Giuliani has been involved in this over the course of many months and years. Giuliani is not employed by the government. He is not answerable to any govt. agency, has not been background checked and vetted, does not have to report or track his activities in the way a government employee does, and does not have to disclose any conflict of interest or financial disclosures.
This wouldn't be allowable in many city govt. positions, let alone at the highest level of government.
Regardless of what you think about Ukraine and Trump, It is completely inappropriate in the same way that Trump allowing Mar-a-Lago members to define policy for the VA is.
douglas:
The argument you are making is a dangerous one. It's one that any criminal seeking to avoid accountability could use. It's also the same argument that Edward Snowden uses to justify what he did.
-G.
That timeline makes a pretty compelling case that Biden and the IMF both believed they could do what Trump is accused by the author of thinking he could do, ie, withhold funds in order to compel investigations into corruption in Ukraine. They both literally did do that.
Giuliani’s role is arguably worth investigating. It occurs to me that he could legally do what he’s doing as an ordinary American; or as a journalist trying to root out corruption; or as an activist. Private citizens enjoy substantial constitutional protections.
That said, insofar as he’s bringing stuff back from
Ukraine as recommendations for the USG, he could be subject to a FARA requirement. Of course, if so that’s a crime by Rudy, not by Trump. Insofar as Trump has carefully directed and redirected efforts to pass through the AG, he’s obeying the treaty. Rudy may be more exposed, should information emerge that suggests he was an agent for Ukraine rather than purely for his American client.
There are some reports that Giuliani was asked by State to do some of the stuff he was doing--and to do it as a private citizen. It wouldn't be the first time State has asked a private citizen to go into a foreign nation and do something and to do it as a private citizen. That certainly exposes the citizen in a number of ways but it's not, of necessity, illegal. Giuliani is just louder about it than most of those other private go-betweens.
As to the lack of security clearance, depending on what he's asked to do and what might be expected to run across, he wouldn't need one.
His vetting likely is incomplete, but it's not absent. He's been in and around government at various levels and so been looked into. And if State did, in fact, ask him to do some stuff in Ukraine, those folks likely looked him over again before sending him along.
As Grim suggested, that much would be worth looking into, but I'm not spring-loaded to say he misbehaved.
Eric Hines
Related is the question of Trump, et al. encouraging investigations into then-VP Biden's extortion of Ukraine, strongly (apparently) in favor of his son, and into then-VP Biden's and son's behavior in the PRC.
Most of the NLMSM (including, surprisingly, Ed Henry on last night's Fox News The Story questioning his guest about the push for a Biden investigation) is taking this tack: "Doesn't it bother you that you're pushing for an investigation into a political rival?"
No one is asking anyone in the NLMSM, "Doesn't it bother you that you seem to be excusing the apparent misbehavior of someone--questioning the existence of a request for an investigation--simply because he's a political rival? Does that status make him immune to investigation?" That's just a Get Out Of Jail Free card for any thief and murderer: "You can't investigate me; I'm a candidate for office. I'm somebody's political rival."
But this is Biden in a Presidential campaign, some might say. Especially then, though, since there are no alternative authorities capable of investigating such a one.
Eric Hines
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