Joe Biden and Ukraine is “Hillary’s Emails” all over again
The more the media and Democrats attack Trump while trying to protect Biden from scrutiny of his family dealings abroad, the more the media focuses attention on Biden and raises the same sort of questions that turned Hillary Clinton’s campaign into a campaign about her emails.
We are in the middle of a media feeding frenzy over a supposed intelligence community whistleblower complaint on Trump’s conversation last summer with the Ukrainian president.
We know almost nothing about the complaint or the conversation, but that has not stopped a full-blown “we’ve got him now!” type joyfulness throughout the mainstream media and Never-Trump-land.
Lack of actual facts has not stopped Democrat candidates and various pundits from declaring that this is further ground for impeachment.
The initial claim was that Trump threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine if it didn’t investigate the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, while Joe was Vice President. Then the story changed, and maybe there wasn’t a quid pro quo, and maybe the whistleblower never actually heard the conversation. And so on and so on, a classic case of how the media tries and convicts Trump based on anonymous, shifting, and usually misinformed leaks.
The foreign minister of Ukraine is now on record that there was no pressure put on the Ukrainian president in the conversation.
We’ve been here, done that, dozens of times. Is this time different? Will they “get” Trump on this? As with the Russia Collusion claims, I’ll take it seriously when there is actual evidence. Until then, it’s just politically driven mischief masquerading as news.
As an aside, there is a pernicious effect to leaking conversations a U.S. president has with the leaders of foreign countries, something that has plagued Trump since the start of his administration. But that’s a post for another time.
There is an important story here that may take down a candidate. That candidate isn’t Donald Trump, it’s Joe Biden.
The Ukraine reports of possible influence peddling, along with a similar report regarding the Bidens’ dealings in China, have been reported in the past. It’s not new, but it never took hold in any media narrative because it’s not helpful in bringing down Trump, which is the measure of news value in the mainstream media these days.
But it has potential value to the media because of the claim of Trump misconduct in seeking a Ukrainian investigation of Hunter Biden’s business dealings. So it’s all out media coverage.
That is a problem for Joe Biden, because most of the country is hearing about this for the first time, and the narrative quickly shifted — over media protests — from Trump allegedly improperly demanding an investigation to Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly engaging in conduct that should be investigated.
The narrative shift is almost entirely the result of Trump taking to Twitter to defend himself, including with this devastating video compilation:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1175392716110401543
Chris Hayes from MSNBC is frustrated at the narrative change:
I am watching this somehow turn into a story about Biden and am going to pass out.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 20, 2019
As is Brian Beutler of lefty Crooked Media, who calls it the “email-servering of Joe Biden” – a reference to how Hillary’s email server controversy consumed her campaign:
The email-servering of Joe Biden has begun, and abetted by members of his own party who won't draw a line for him. https://t.co/lYKh6QD7Vr
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) September 21, 2019
That comparison to Hillary’s email problem is one I made in May 2019 with regard to the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine and China, Dem fear: Hillary is to emails, as Biden is to (Ukraine? China?):
I haven’t followed closely the saga of Joe Biden’s alleged family conflicts in Ukraine and China when he was Vice President, but I’m aware that claims and counterclaims have been percolating through the mainstream and non-mainstream media and in the Democrat primary field.
Being in the position of just hearing about it and seeing reactions, I’m a typical news consumer. And what I’m sensing, and have sensed for some time, is that Ukraine may be to Biden’s campaign what emails were to Hillary’s campaign. And China could get there too….
Conservatives and Republicans are “pouncing” and “seizing” on Biden’s potential Ukraine and China conflicts because … well … look at how Hillary’s email scandal sapped the strength from her and her campaign. As panicked as Democrats and the media are, conservatives and Republicans sense a problem that may not go away….
Biden's conflicts in Ukraine are going to be the 2020 version of Hillary's emails, and there's nothing Democrats can do to stop it (other than denying Biden the nomination). https://t.co/y2A49OeRWt pic.twitter.com/QmvOH9YDrT
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) May 3, 2019
That is turning out to be one of my more prescient posts, as was this tweet at the time predicting that the Democrat defense would be that seeking an investigation of the Bidens’ conduct abroad would be claimed to be “seeking foreign assistance.”
Investigating Biden possible dirty dealings abroad by getting information abroad all of the sudden is "seeking foreign assistance" — Media is going to try to bury Biden's conflict https://t.co/Nyakajwlfn
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) May 11, 2019
It will not work.
Trump was subjected to a two-year investigation by Mueller’s army of prosecutors and investigators over flimsy Russia collusion allegations. Why should Biden, a leading Democrat presidential candidate, be immune from scrutiny?
The more the media and Democrats attack Trump while trying to protect Biden from scrutiny of his family dealings abroad, the more the media focuses attention on Biden and raises the same sort of questions that turned Hillary Clinton’s campaign into a campaign about her emails.
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Comments
the po’ MFM… they can’t figure out who they want to get to run against Trump…
and they can’t get to Trump, no matter how hard they try.
pass the popcorn!
Don’t you mean pass the Corn Pops?
Ukraine is just the tip of the iceberg.
https://nypost.com/2019/05/11/the-troubling-reason-why-biden-is-so-soft-on-china/
Every time Hunter Biden flew with daddy on Air Force 2, it seems, he left with a fat contract if not in hand (that might look too brazen) then in the mail, so to speak. He got a $1B contract with the Bank of China ten days after their trip ended, which later rose to $1.5B. Just like in Ukraine, where Hunter Biden supposedly advises Burisma on regulatory compliance when he has no experience or expertise in the natural gas industry or in regulatory compliance, the ChiCom government is not paying Joe Biden’s son for his financial know-how.
Gee, I wonder what the ChiComs are actually paying Hunter Biden for? Perhaps the fact that NBC admitted they weren’t paying $600k/yr to the wooden, personality-challenged Chelsea Clinton for her charming on-air persona but for access to her parents might be considered a clue.
Interesting story pointing out thay Ukrain was trying to bring information to the FBI and the State department asked Rudy to go meet with them in Spain to check them out…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/09/21/despite-warnings-media-steps-on-a-rake-with-whistleblower-story-ukraine-government-initiated-contact-giuliani-engagement-was-requested-by-state-dept-officials/
It would appear that with a video confession from Biden about the blackmail he pulled on Ukraine that the DoJ is going to have to really come up with a new storyline. hillary had the e-mails that were destroyed storyline that they were all about Chelsea’s wedding, yoga, and her mom’s funeral. 30,000 plus! Divide 30,000 plus by 4 and you get 7500 e-mails per year or 620 plus e-mails per month or 21 e-mails per day.That’s what she confessed to. What will Biden confess to about the video confession?
And then there’s Biden’s other son, Beau . . . who, as Attorney General in Delaware years ago, incarcerated Larry Sinclair on a bogus charge to keep him from publicizing Barack Obama’s drugs and sexual proclivities.
Joe was rewarded with the VPship.
Not much anyone can do about Beau in this life. But he can’t escape justice in the next. As the military commandant/prison warden used to say right before executing the death warrant on the condemned man, may God have mercy on his soul.
Even if it were so (and I don’t believe that it is), what would it say about the state of our cognizant gov’t agencies (deep state) that the president would have to turn to a foreign government for help investigating a corrupt US official?
Seeing how Ukraine is the only entity that can investigate the Biden’s corruption and they are our allies it makes sense for Ukraine to investigate.
The Ukrainians definitely have primary jurisdiction. But the US can also investigate since it appears that Hunter Biden was receiving illegal payments. The payments were definitely wired to US accounts.
This isn’t some made up crime supported only by a fraudulent dossier sourced from a former MI-6 desk officer (Steele was NOT a spy). An illegally paid foreign source whose former agency has expressed doubts about his truthfulness.
There’s an electronic trail of the money transfers. The Ukrainians (and now us) have the account numbers. So even if the felonies occurred in Ukraine the terminus for the completion of the criminal act is here in the US.
It makes sense for us to conduct a joint investigation with the Ukrainians. The good news is that the proper agency to investigate is not the FBI but the Treasury Dept. Specifically, their Financial Crimes Unit. But even though they haven’t been involved in any identifiable deep state sabotage against the Trump administration yet I am still suspicious.
Regardless, the US can’t investigate any possible crimes without getting information from Ukrainian investigators. There is nothing unusual about this, the USG cooperates and coordinates with foreign law enforcement entities on a regular, routine basis. The Democrats will scream like stuck pigs and shout “Treason!” and “Think about the children!” (yes, the latter is completely non-sensical but that hasn’t stopped them yet; like monkeys in the zoo they’ll fling all the poo at the wall and see what sticks). But unlike their loyal base, we’re not all stupid enough to fall for it.
Now they say the Whistleblower didn’t have direct access to communications…
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/09/21/report-white-house-whistleblower-didnt-have-direct-knowledge-of-trump-communications/
The narrative shift is almost entirely the result of Trump taking to Twitter to defend himself,
So maybe those goofy tweets do something useful after all, huh?
The ‘media frenzy’ is a democrat propganda frenzy.
No one hears it but readers of garbage like the ny times.
This Ukraine kerfuffle is a DNC twofer; Trump is smeared and Biden loses his lead in the 2020 elections.
Quickly, we need an FBI
investigationmatter to allow our two tier justice system to absolve the Bidens.joe biden did not wander over to the Ukraine, drop a demand out of the blue and get his way (firing of the prosecutor investigating hunter biden in exchange for $1 billion in loan guarantees). This was a planned, coordinated strategy. joe was not going to blindside obama with this strategy if the Ukrainian president told joe to go pound sand. There are emails, texts, communications regarding all of this corruption. Now you know one more reason why Secretary of State hillary clinton ran her own illegal server, and why she had to have it acid washed with bleach bit. Also why team obama/clinton/biden had to have laptops, cell phones and sim cards destroyed. She wasn’t supposed to lose!
“As an aside, there is a pernicious effect to leaking conversations a U.S. president has with the leaders of foreign countries, something that has plagued Trump since the start of his administration. But that’s a post for another time.”
Now busy crafting a poem.
All I’ve got so far is that “pernicious” rhymes with “treasonous.”
brb…
“As an aside, there is a pernicious effect to leaking conversations a U.S. president has with the leaders of foreign countries…”
Yes, this fraudulant “whistleblower” should hang.
In a way, comparing this to Hillary’s email scandal is accurate. Both happened because the politician in question was both corrupt and arrogant.
Unfortunately, it is probably also similar in that there will be no indictment, no trial, no justice.
Yes, many similarities. But many important differences.
Barack Obama is no longer President. Hillary Clinton was his declared successor which is why he publicly put his thumb on the scale and declared her innocent of intent to harm national security and that he believed she hadn’t harmed national security during an interview on national TV (that’s the smoking gun; there are plenty of ways for presidents to send messages to his subordinates and like his hero JFK Obama often did it in a public forum). Even if Obama endorses Biden he’s in no position to protect him.
Loretta Lynch who told Comey that no matter what the FBI came up with the DoJ wouldn’t prosecute her is no longer the AG. Doubt AG Barr is going to meet Jill Biden on the tarmac in Phoenix to discuss grandkids and golf therefore issuing a non-recusal recusal and pretending to toss the whole decision to FBI director Wray who damned well better know better than to play fast and loose with the truth and stick to his lane in the Road.
Speaking of Wray, Comey is no longer FBI director. So there’s no one at the FBI to rewrite the statutes for the Bidens like he did for Clinton (he rewrote the statute pretending he had to prove intent because his very public direction from Obama was that Clinton was innocent because he believed she lacked the required intent).
I don’t doubt Wray is as crooked as Comey but while he may try to protect his fellow swamp creatures I doubt he’ll stick his head out for the Bidens. Other important differences are Strozk, Paige, and other members of the Trump “resistance” have been fired or forced to resign.
I’m a realist. I don’t expect Barr to indict Biden for what he did; maybe he’ll say ala Comey that while he broke the law he doesn’t expect a jury to convict him. But he no doubt won’t as he he has more character and integrity in a single fingernail than Comey has developed throughout his entire life. Barr sure as hell won’t interfere in a Ukrainian corruption probe into their national natural gas company Burisma Holdings. And according to Shokin, the prosecutor Biden got fired, as part of that corruption probe he planned on questioning Hunter Biden about some shady, very large payments he had received which have every appearance of being payola.
Plus US law doesn’t give American citizens carte blanche to engage in corruption abroad. Participating in certain corrupt financial dealings abroad is also against US law.
Previously recorded statements from Joe Biden and Hunter Biden prove the corruption of their financial dealings. Joe Biden is neither as good a liar nor as politically domineering as Hillary Clinton and will lose the nomination let alone election.
It’s one thing for Joe to drop out voluntarily due to “ill health”. Quite another to be forced out due to discovered corruption.
Now that this is out in the open, the NYT says they were covering it all the time, and would have done a better job if Trump hadn’t barged in.
Right.
I certainly hope that people in this country have their eyes wide open about the depths to which the left and their propaganda wing will go to keep the coup attempt alive.
The whistle blower who brought this phony charges should be facing serious charges. But they won’t. After all, it was with the “good intentions” of bringing down Trump that this was done, so just like Comey, Brennan, McCabe, Herr Mueller, and the swarms of others who worked on this coup attempt thus far, nothing has happened to them, and likely nothing will.
The attempt to re-direct this scandal onto Trump seems like an obvious move by the Warren camp to goad Trump into taking down Biden, who’s her main rival now that the commie wing is coalescing around her as she pulls away for Bernie. If so, then it’s a shrewd move.
Sundance, over at the conservativetreehouse, remarked that the way Biden so casually discussed his tactics indicated that the strongarm approach was the norm during the Ovbammunist’s years.
The Chicago way. “Nice place ya have here. Too bad if something were to happen to it”
Biden
Clinton
So much corruption
Did Obama get his cut?
After I posted, I realized that was almost poetic. So I hope I remember how to Haiku:
Clintons and Biden
Obama did get his cut
Corrupt Democrats
Sunday Fun
Supposing this story to be 100% true and reliable (which is already proving to be not quite the case), and putting the worst possible construction on it, Trump has done something seriously improper — almost as bad as what Biden did. Again assuming this to be true, he used the same improper tactic Biden used, to reverse Biden’s act. We know that Biden threatened the Ukranians to make them stop the investigation, now we (maybe) know that Trump used the exact same threat to make them start it up again. Both improper, though by definition Trump’s effort to fix things has to be less serious than Biden’s effort to break them.
But here’s the thing. What Trump (maybe) did could easily be seen as making him unfit for the presidency, and thus impeachable. But if so, then a fortiori it makes Biden unfit for the presidency too. Any Democrat who calls for Trump to be impeached over this must, must, must denounce Biden and announce that he will never support his candidacy, even if he gets the nomination. How many Dems are willing to do that?
Hmmm…. These D’Rats have no scruples at all…they’ll go blue on blue if they think it will be a gain for them personally, so maybe Fauxcahontas or the old commie who combs his hair with a balloon will pick up on that. With Biden injured, they may see that as an opportunity to bash both Trump and the Gaffemeister.
Biden’s rivals can certainly make hay with this, but the Congressional Democrats can’t, because they’d have to renounce Biden while he’s still the frontrunner for the nomination. Worse, they’d pretty much have to pledge that they won’t support him even if he gets the nomination. Even worse, any attempt to impeach Trump over this would necessarily drag out past the end of the D nomination process, when Biden may well emerge as the presumptive nominee, and anyone trying to impeach Trump for this would have to say Biden isn’t fit for the office either. So they’ll have little choice but to drop it.
“But here’s the thing.”
You remain a Trump hater and continue to pray for evidence of malfeasance. In spite of the fact that Trump has been the complete opposite of your predictions, has moved our Israeli embassy which YOU said he would never do, has appointed judges that are anathema to the progs, has revitalized our economy in spite of your completely wrong predictions.
The tariffs have not hurt our economy, the consumer is paying no more than before, it is the Chinese that are getting hurt, all of this in spite of your dire predictions otherwise.
So spare us the pathetic anti-Trump virtue signaling. This is nothing more than made up democrat hooey. It’s not a whistleblower, it’s a leaker. And apparently a leaker who isn’t even first hand.
Only the Trump haters fall for this stuff. It’s almost as though they are praying for something.
“…almost as bad as what Biden did.”
What a pathetic commie tool you are. To equate the bribery of a foreign government as the Obama/Biden administration did to the suggestion that a foreign government investigate wrong doing requires being either a democrat operative, stupidity, or both.
Well, we know that Biden engaged in a bit of extortion to help his son, threatening the Ukrainian government with holding up the $1 Billion loan guarantees unless and until the Ukrainian government fired the prosecutor who was, at the time, conducting a corruption investigation into the Ukrainian corporation which was then paying Hunter Biden somewhere between $50,000.00 and $80,000.00 USD each month. We know of the threat because Crazy Uncle Joe told us publicly and his proud assertion was caught on tape.
We also know that there is no “whistleblower” because it apparently has been definitively determined that whomever is “reporting” the illegal activity had no personal knowledge of the issue but is reporting what others were saying. It is unknown whether those “others” had any personal knowledge of the phone call. This does not qualify the person for “whistleblower” protection under the law as he can not be an actual witness in need of protection, but is a rumor monger who may also be the person who leaked the allegation to the press.
Did the President request the Ukrainian government look into the allegation that the former Prosecutor was fired, and the investigation ended, due to the threat from Biden? If that is what the President did there is nothing untoward, much less illegal, in the President asking for the Ukrainian government’s assistance in determining whether the former VP did extort/blackmail the former Ukrainian government, a felony violation of US and Ukrainian law.
IF, as you seem to raise the issue, the President threatened the Ukrainian government with deprivation of some promised benefit if that government does not investigate the issue, THAT would be somewhat similar to that which Biden has stated he did. albeit without the cash benefit to a member of his family which is alleged to have been paid to Hunter Biden.
Yes, that is the worst case for Trump. At worst he did the same thing as Biden, but for the purpose of fixing something Biden broke.
But your point about Trump not doing it for cash isn’t valid, because (supposing he did do it) it would have been for political benefit, which would be just as bad.
But that is the worst case. There isn’t any way to spin this that makes Trump’s offense (assuming he committed one) worse than, or even completely equal to, Biden’s. And there’s no “supposed” or “alleged” about Biden. We have the tape.
You call them “media” and “the press” but they are neither. Use of such terminology in conjunction with the activities of these people & organizations destroys the meaning of the terms.
How are they not? They publish the news. Therefore they are the news media. They use printers, so they are “the press”. Of course that doesn’t make them special.
The only way it’s like Clinton is your both claim you dint nothing wrong when in fact you both violated USCs
“Sleepy Joe, The Money Man” sounds like the title of a ballad. (“He’s gonna get it – Yes he can!”). Now we just need a catchy tune….
President Trump is going about this all wrong. The proper way to investigate Biden’s son is to contract with Fusion GPS and have them make arrangements with a retired British Secret Agent to put together a dossier in order that a FISA request can be made to officially spy on him, his father, and all his acquaintances. Later, if God forbid, his father should ever become president, all of this can be very useful to hire a special prosecutor to bring him down. This is a tried and true method for which a precedent already exists.
I think there’s something else afoot here. The Dems have been doing anything they can to throw a wrench into the gears of this administration. Anything to obstruct. I don’t think they believe for one second they can succeed in impeachment. They’re worried about the next Supreme Court vacancy and are pulling out all the stops. We all saw what happened with the last pick. After the Kavanaugh debacle i wouldn’t put anything past them. They have decided this is the hill to die on. So be it.