Justice Department Distances Itself From Giuliani

[Roy]

- I love it -

Would you like some pristine beachfront property in Arizona?

I'd love some. Havasu Lake has some very nice beachfront property.

Or... did you mean seafront property?

[rogue06]

I'd love some. Havasu Lake has some very nice beachfront property.

Or... did you mean seafront property?

Recalling a conversation with Jorge I see.


I hope the old irascible sourpuss is doing well.

[Roy]

Recalling a conversation with Jorge I see.

I hope the old irascible sourpuss is doing well.

So do I. He still owes TWeb money.

[Juvenal]

In Ukraine, the quid pro quo may have started long before the phone call
By David Ignatius
Columnist
Oct. 31, 2019 at 8:01 p.m. EDT

Unlike a detective thriller, with a clear contract between the writer and her readers to provide everything needed to understand a crime, real life provides interested parties with no guarantees that sufficient evidence will ever be provided, or even a guarantee that behind the indicators is a crime waiting to be revealed.


By Veronika Melkozerova.
Published June 15, 2017.
Updated June 15 2017 at 9:21 pm

June 9 was two days following the Giuliani lecture:

08.06.2017
107th Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani Gave Public Lecture at the Invitation of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation

At the tail end of the article is the reference to the above indication in Ignatius' column.

Besides giving the lecture, Rudy Giuliani met with the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, the Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman, the Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin as well as young Ukrainian reformers.

Pinchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch, has an interesting history of his own.

Monopolies thrive as toothless state bows to moguls
By John Marone.
Published March 19, 2010.
Updated March 19 2010 at 1:00 am

Relevant to Pinchuk ...

Note the phrases, "the presidency of Leonid Kuchma" and "Pinchuk, Kuchma's son-in-law."


Evidence previously available to date showed Giuliani had been involved in opposition to anti-corruption work in Ukraine since early this year. It now seems likely this involvement extends back to nearly the beginning of the Trump presidency, and includes opposition to the Mueller investigation of Trump's campaign manager, Manafort, who has continued to advise Giuliani in his efforts from behind bars.

I believe the Justice Department is wise to distance itself from Giuliani, but may have begun the process far too late. Barr is linked with Giuliani's efforts by name in the transcript of the Ukraine call from July 25 of this year, a linkage that could have been, and arguably should have been, curtailed far earlier.

[Mountain Man]

So more supposition, speculation, confusing correlation with causation... and still no hard evidence indicating that President Trump or anybody in his administration is guilty of a crime.

[Juvenal]

So more supposition, speculation, confusing correlation with causation... and still no hard evidence indicating that President Trump or anybody in his administration is guilty of a crime.

There are arguments for and against the proposition that Giuliani was acting officially on behalf of the Trump administration, but from the call transcript alone there's no doubt Trump had authorized him to act for his administration in Ukraine. With the arrests of two of Giuliani's closest confederates in the Ukraine campaign, it's beyond reason to believe Giuliani will not be charged himself. Either one or both of them will turn, or their assistance will prove unnecessary.

While he should be allowed the legal presumption of innocence, he is on public record, on television in fact, admitting to asking for foreign assistance against the Bidens on behalf of his client, the president. That's a crime, and hard evidence.

This behavior in the person of Ambassador Sondland has been described variously by Bolton, Hill, and Vindman of the National Security Council as "wrong" and "inappropriate," and reported as such to Eisenberg, legal counsel to the NSC. It has been criminally referred to Barr's Justice Department. In Bolton's case, before ordering Hill to speak to "the lawyers," i.e., Eisenberg, he described it as a "drug deal" cooked up with Mulvaney, whose position as an official of the Trump administration is not up for debate.

Moreover, with further clarifications imminent, if only from opening statements of the witnesses appearing in the impeachment inquiry, it is presumptuous to assume no further hard evidence of criminality will emerge.

[Mountain Man]

...he is on public record, on television in fact, admitting to asking for foreign assistance against the Bidens on behalf of his client, the president. That's a crime, and hard evidence.

What specific law was broken?

[Tassman]

What specific law was broken?

It does not apply to a "specific law". The notion that only criminal conduct can provide sufficient grounds for impeachment does not fit with either the views of the founders or with historical practice. Alexander Hamilton described impeachable offenses as arising from "the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust". - Federalist 65. And this certainly applies to Trump's shenanigans with the president of Ukraine.

[Juvenal]

What specific law was broken?

It's in the footnote

[Juvenal]

It's in the footnote

2019-11-02_03-56-13.jpg

[Juvenal]

Following up after referencing an expert summary of the relevant section of the Mueller report ...

... and the relevant section of the Mueller report itself2019-11-02_04-44-02.jpg2019-11-02_05-09-52.jpg

includes time periods for which election contributions must be filed, hence currently applicable.

[Mountain Man]

It does not apply to a "specific law". The notion that only criminal conduct can provide sufficient grounds for impeachment does not fit with either the views of the founders or with historical practice. Alexander Hamilton described impeachable offenses as arising from "the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust". - Federalist 65. And this certainly applies to Trump's shenanigans with the president of Ukraine.

False. The Constitution explicitly defines impeachment as a remedy for "high crimes and misdemeanors" and names two crimes -- bribery and treason -- as an example of the nature and seriousness of the crimes that would warrent impeachment. This narrative that the President doesn't actually need to be guilty of a crime to be impeached is not supported by a plain reading is the Constitution.

[Mountain Man]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40620[/ATTACH]

I can't see how that law is relevant because Trump's conversation with Zelinsky had nothing to do with any upcoming political campaign, and besides that, Trump never asked for anything that had monetary value. In fact, multiple witnesses who head the call firsthand have said nothing illegal transpired, and that includes Vindman who whined about the call being "inappropriate" but was forced to concede that it wasn't a crime.

[Juvenal]

I can't see how that law is relevant because Trump's conversation with Zelinsky had nothing to do with any upcoming political campaign, and besides that, Trump never asked for anything that had monetary value. In fact, multiple witnesses who head the call firsthand have said nothing illegal transpired, and that includes Vindman who whined about the call being "inappropriate" but was forced to concede that it wasn't a crime.

'He's a patriot': Republicans defend key impeachment witness from attacks
Senior GOP lawmakers rejected the assault from conservative pundits on Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.

By BURGESS EVERETT and MELANIE ZANONA
10/29/2019 12:03 PM EDT
Updated: 10/29/2019 04:02 PM EDT

Vindman was attached to the NSC at the time; his interest, like Fiona Hill's and John Bolton's, was in national security, not legal compliance, which is why their issues were referred to Eisenberg and Ellis. The former has already been asked to provide information to the impeachment inquiry. The latter is named in a statement, and will likely also be called.

In Vindman's detailed opinion, Giuliani was promoting a false narrative that ran counter to our national security interests, and directed toward actions against the Bidens that had nothing to do with national security, in his stated opinion. The entailed inappropriateness of Sondman's actions has been publicly reinforced by both his immediate superior, Fiona Hill, and her superior, John Bolton, the National Security Advisor at the time.

That's more cover than any aide could ask for.

There's a strong argument taking shape that Trump's actions surrounding the withholding of military aid allocated for Ukraine, directly and through representatives, including Mulvaney, Giuliani, Sondman, Volker, and Perry; ran counter to our national security interests, which is itself beyond troubling, and more, was supportive of Russia's military adventurism in the Donbass region, Crimea, and the Sea of Azov.

While I am not sure if the former is sufficient, I believe the latter, even if inadvertent, is.

There is no excuse for the president of the United States to be uninformed or misinformed about the need to unambiguously oppose Russia's military expansionism in Europe, and surely not in support of fringe conspiracy theories endlessly debunked by the greatest intelligence agencies ever assembled in the history of humanity. This can't be allowed to stand. This is America. We are exceptional. If we don't stand up for freedom, no one will take our place, and Reagan's thousand points of light will be extinguished, one at a time.

[Mountain Man]

It beggars belief to suggest an investigation into the Bidens had nothing to do with the upcoming presidential election...

Whether or not you think it "beggars belief" is entirely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what the evidence shows, and to date, there is zero evidence that Trump was motivated by the upcoming election, zero evidence that Ukrainian officials had any idea that military funding had been temporarily suspended, and zero evidence that President Zelensky took any specific action to get the funding restored. Folks like Vindman can whine and pontificate about politics all they want, but that is not evidence of a crime.

The entire case against Trump is based on the presumption that he's guilty, and Democrats are simply trying to backfill the evidence to make their accusations stick. It's such a travesty of justice that all American patriots, whether they like Trump or not, should be incensed by the abuse of power being exercised by House Democrats. The real danger is that Democrats could succeed in their coup, which will set the very dangerous precedent that a president can be impeached and removed from office purely as a matter of political expediency, which will, in effect, turn the Office of the President into a puppet of Congress.