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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / The Whistleblower Plays Hardball

The Whistleblower Plays Hardball

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The law firm representing the whistleblower has put up a website. That website now contains

September 24, 2019 statement from the intelligence community whistleblower legal team

September 24, 2019, Letter from Andrew P. Bakaj, Attorney for Intelligence Community Whistleblower to Acting Director of National Intelligence

September 24, 2019, Letter from DNI OGC to Andrew P. Bakaj, Attorney for Intelligence Community Whistleblower

Presumably they will update as more documents are generated.

The story in these three documents:

We support the bi-partisan, unanimous resolution passed by the Senate regarding our client’s lawful whistleblower complaint and call upon the Acting Director of National Intelligence to transmit the complete disclosure to the two Intelligence Oversight Committees.

The letter to the DNI states that the whistleblower intends to contact the Congressional committees directly and asks for the guidance prescribed by law from the DNI.

The DNI’s letter, signed by the Office’s General Counsel, leans on the previously-stated fact that the complaint includes potentially privileged communications with people outside the Intelligence Community to delay thing. They are consulting with other government agencies.

And this just came across my Twitter feed.

To be continued.

Open thread. [Regrets to Watergirl – I have added a new category.]

 

Reader Interactions

186Comments

  1. 1.

    Adam L Silverman

    And we have an interesting development in the Senate that I’m not really sure how to interpret other than Senator McConnell knows that the President, the White House Counsel, and the Attorney General won’t comply, so this is simply to make it look like he’s doing something appropriate.

  2. 2.

    dr. bloor

    BJ would appear to need a “No More Fucks to Give” tag.

    Whoever s/he might be has decided that the long game role model is John Dean.

  6. 6.

    chopper

    The White House is preparing to release the whistleblower complaint + IG report to Congress by the end of the week

    as others have pointed out, these shitbirds modified a hurricane map with a sharpie so let’s try as hard as we can to make sure the shit they drop is legit here.

  8. 8.

    dr. bloor

    @chopper: Whistleblower seems ready and willing to serve as the Quality Control Inspector re: the validity of whatever they foist off on Congress.

  9. 9.

    Mary G

    I’m guessing that the geniuses in the administration have been furiously doing oppo research on the whistleblower, and come up with some nonsense like “he donated $97 to Killary in 2008” and think they can discredit him or her.

  12. 12.

    smintheus

    @Adam L Silverman: Maybe McConnell thinks that the White House has decided to release the documents only to Intelligence Committee members, hence preventing anybody with knowledge of them from discussing them in detail.

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dr. bloor: @smintheus: That will also be the role of the IC IG Michael Atkinson. If the report is released to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, then Atkinson and the whistleblower will both be made available to testify. That will most likely take place in closed session because the information is classified.

    As for the transcript of the call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, it is a red herring. We do not actually even know if the whistleblower complaint was primarily about the President’s and Giuliani’s demands of the Ukrainians, is part of it, is tangential to it, or has nothing to do with it. The leaks that moved that call front and center were from anonymous sources, not the former senior Intelligence officials that had been providing context without attribution on the whistleblower complaint. It is highly likely that the source of the leak about the phone call was from within the President’s orbit and it was clearly intended to derail the whistleblower coverage while furthering the President’s and Giuliani’s preferred narrative of debunked bullshit that VP Biden and his son did something wrong in Ukraine. And since the President can release whatever he wants and call it “the transcript” of the call, while the whistleblower’s complaint will remain classified even if it is forwarded to Congress, the trap has been set. The question is whether recognizing that this bait and switch trap exists can be avoided or if it winds up tying the Democrats into knots and derailing them. Because the transcript, no matter how accurate or inaccurate will be officially published by the government as a sign of transparency and the whistleblower’s complaint, the IC IG Atkinson’s testimony about it, and the whistleblower’s testimony about it will all remain classified and therefore the transcript based Ukraine narrative about the Biden’s will be competing against: “I can’t comment, it’s classified”.

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    I sure hope that the admins of that website have the password under lock and key along with multi-step authentication, because every hacker in Russia, Macedonia, North Korea, and China is pounding on it right now to try and get in.

  18. 18.

    Baud

    The White House is preparing to release to Congress by the end of the week both the whistleblower complaint and the Inspector General report that are at the center of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, according to a senior administration official, reversing its position after withholding the documents from lawmakers.

    ……

    The administration official stressed the decision and timing could change over the next few days, but as of Tuesday evening the White House was planning to hand over the documents to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The president has agreed to this move, the official added.

    https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/24/white-house-whistleblower-complaint-release-1510341

  19. 19.

    StringOnAStick

    @Adam L Silverman: I knew it was a trap the very first I heard of it, so I’m hoping the D team is smarter than a middle aged political junkie with too much time on her hands!

  21. 21.

    cain

    I think whatever is going to happen with McConnell is going to happen with the whistleblower showing up to the Senate intelligence committee. That is likely where an attack could happen against the whistleblower.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @smintheus: I also think that McConnell knows because it is a non-binding resolution and no one in the White House or DOJ or DNI is bound by it, he can have his cake and eat it too. He can now point to this to say he did the right thing, even though what he did was pointless and useless.

  23. 23.

    germy

    Trump must have been pissed off to hear this:

    Greta Thunberg, the founder of the Youth Strike for Climate movement, has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize.

  25. 25.

    germy

    And look what Greta Thunberg changed her twitter profile to:

    A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.

    https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg

    She’s using his sarcastic quote (that he thought was so witty) as a badge of honor. Good for her.

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    As I was saying to G last night: Trump is harping on the Ukraine call because he thinks it’s the LEAST bad thing he’s done.

    Ponder that for a minute, if you dare.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    @JPL: Todd really has a soft spot for Biden and Kennedy’s bullshit really upset him. It allowed him to temporarily act as if he has a spine.

  35. 35.

    Chyron HR

    @Adam L Silverman:

    T: “Here’s the deal, let me be president for life and in return I’ll order my followers to murder all of you.”
    P: “And what are we supposed to get out of that?”
    T: “Huh?”

  38. 38.

    Roger Moore

    @Chyron HR:
    They would select a victim and then threaten to beat him up if he paid the so-called protection money. Four months later they started another operation which the called ‘The Other Operation’. In this racket they selected another victim and threatened not to beat him up if he didn’t pay them. One month later they hit upon ‘The Other Other Operation’. In this the victim was threatened that if he didn’t pay them, they would beat him up. This for the Piranha brothers was the turning point.

  40. 40.

    dmsilev

    @Baud: She was live-blogging a broken wrist. Impressive devotion to duty; if it were me, I’d be seeking medical attention _before_ trying to type anything.

  43. 43.

    Sam

    I think many republican electeds would throw DJT under the bus in a second if they had some political cover. We will see, but if the revelations are damaging enough, there will be a lot of defections. Most of them probably hate him, but they are afraid of him politically.

  44. 44.

    Frankensteinbeck

    “by the end of the week”

    The check is in the mail.
    @Adam L Silverman:

    Senator McConnell knows that the President, the White House Counsel, and the Attorney General won’t comply, so this is simply to make it look like he’s doing something appropriate.

    That’s how I see it. Still, McConnell even going that far is unusual. He must think this has legs in a way previous scandals haven’t. I wonder what it is they see on Capitol Hill? There’s clearly a groupthink going on, whether or not everyone likes it.

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    To my mind, Trump calling Nancy is big. Huge. He hates women. He hates Nancy Pelosi, and he hates that she has dominated him in the past. He has done everything he can to never negotiate with her directly. Going begging to her is a much greater sign of emotional turmoil than public bitching, defensiveness, or stonewalling.

  45. 45.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Cheryl Rofer: Can Trump use executive privilege or some loophole in the classification system to release a report, claim it is the entire report and prevent the whistle-blower and Atkinson from testifying even in secret? Including a secret OLC memo that allows revising complaints without acknowledging such?

  50. 50.

    Gin & Tonic

    @dmsilev: I chose to wait until later in the evening, after I had gotten home and eaten some opi oids, before writing about my broken wrist. Sounds like she is far more dedicated than I was, and now I’m feeling like a slacker.

  51. 51.

    dr. bloor

    Schiff on Hayes right now. I’m not too concerned about the Dems getting played by WH misdirection through whatever they decide to release/bury.

  61. 61.

    Eric

    The WH has seen the complaint and not one person has even suggested that it was inaccurate or wrong in any way.

  64. 64.

    japa21

    @SiubhanDuinne: If it’s a closed reduction, ask for morphine. Mrs. Japa broke her wrist last year and they had to do that. Of course, that was basically done to ease pain and avoid too much nerve damage. Had surgery 3 days later.

    ETA: Wishing you the best.

  65. 65.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    “The President actually said to Nancy Pelosi, ‘Hey, can we do something about this whistleblower complaint, can we work something out.’ And she said ‘Yes, you can tell your people to obey the law.’

    Rut Roe–this plus the WH announced it’s gonna release the Whistleblower complaint pretty quickly. That would be his people obeying the law, right? So now he can say he did what she told him to do and now she’s being mean by impeaching him?

  66. 66.

    Roger Moore

    @Anonymous At Work:

    Can Trump use executive privilege or some loophole in the classification system to release a report, claim it is the entire report and prevent the whistle-blower and Atkinson from testifying even in secret?

    He can try, but I think he would have a hard time in practice. If this were his first time lying to Congress, they might not suspect anything, but they’re going to be skeptical as hell about anything they get from Trump and Company. Anyone with a lick of common sense- which definitely includes Adam Schiff- will correctly see an attempt to keep them from speaking to the IG and the whistleblower as evidence that the complaint has been tampered with, and that will just make them more determined to speak with them. In practice, I think he would have a hard time preventing them from testifying if they really want to. And tampering with the report would certainly be seen as an impeachable offense.

  67. 67.

    japa21

    Just a reminder, in line with Adam’s comment above, the whistleblower complaint is probably much more serious that the phone call everybody has been focused on.

  70. 70.

    Keith P.

    @dr. bloor: Tell me about. I’m in that group that is still skeptical that the transcript is even what the whistleblower was complaining about. I mean, we hear about the whistleblower report, and then the next day, the *WSJ* has details on this call with the implication that this is what the whistleblower reported but that there was also no quid pro quo in the call. I won’t believe the WSJ shit until the whistleblower verifies it in front of Congress.

  72. 72.

    Jeffro

    @Mnemosyne: trumpov is supposedly coughing up everything because he knows we have him dead to rights on this. AND, as many have suggested above, that it’s potentially the least bad thing we’ve got him on.

    PRESS HARD, DEMS. No negotiating, no nothing. Testimony directly from the whistleblower about not just this one call but also the ‘pattern’ that has been alluded to here. I have no doubt that there is more than one instance of extortion and bribery here.

  74. 74.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Cheryl Rofer: It’ll take longer than popcorn can last to see this through. Order 5 million and 2 pizzas. 2 for you, 5 million to be delivered to Mitch McConnell’s place at 3 am, payment due.

  78. 78.

    Mnemosyne

    @dr. bloor:

    For anyone who doesn’t know, Schiff made his bones as a prosecutor by going after the Russian mob and winning here in LA.

    It would be difficult for Trump to have a worse opponent.

  80. 80.

    japa21

    If the complaint is as bad as we think it is (and we better hope it is) expect the WH and Trump particularly, to do everything they can to discredit the whistleblower. Of course, then they would also have to go after the IG because he found the complaint to be extremely credible and urgent.

  85. 85.

    VOR

    @germy: That’s awesome. I loved how Trump was complaining about not getting the Nobel while he was at the UN. Do you suppose he knows the Nobel committees have nothing to do with the UN? That’s like going to France and complaining they didn’t award him the Congressional Medal of Honor.

  90. 90.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Adam L Silverman: @Cheryl Rofer:

    I’m wondering, based on how the Senate unanimous consent thing went down without McConnell making a peep, the very ostensibly respectful, supportive letter from the ODNI GC followed by the White House saying it’ll allow the release of the WBC, if part of why things have been moving this fast is that this Whistleblower’s reputation and character may be–excuse the pun–“unimpeachable”. Someone people down the road from the White House know is in no way a “partisan disgruntled Democrat” they’re gonna be able to get away with slandering?

    @Mnemosyne:

    As I was saying to G last night: Trump is harping on the Ukraine call because he thinks it’s the LEAST bad thing he’s done.

    Plus there’s the guaranteed added benefit that low info G-Maw and Pop-Pop in Pennsylvania will get all confused and think it’s the actual WBC and will be all “See, it was a completely beautiful innocent call! Fake News!” to all their friends in church this Sunday.

  91. 91.

    WaterGirl

    @Gin & Tonic: Unless her wrist takes forever to heal like yours did, I think you’ve got her beat.

    I am really sorry to hear about her wrist though, ugh.

  94. 94.

    JPL

    So the Washington Post has a new article up about Giuliani’s involvement. I have not idea if they are throwing him under the bus or not because it is all to confusing. link

    Giuliani pursued shadow Ukraine agenda as key foreign policy officials were sidelined

  96. 96.

    Aleta

    darth™@darth
    THAT ONE SHELTER PUP JUST WANTED TO BE CARRIED

    @ellievan65
    What an awesome idea

    Members of a cross-country team in California invited more than a dozen lonely shelter dogs to accompany them on their morning runs

  100. 100.

    jl

    @JPL: I think attempts to accurately report Giuliani’s frantic mission(s) will necessarily be confusing. He was juggling getting Ukraine to produce smears on Bidens, getting Ukraine to find a way to fabricate a story that Manfort was framed, and was doing some murky work on undermining Iranian regime.

    “key foreign policy officials were sidelined”
    But Giuliani said that the very top of Dept. of State sent him on a secret mission.

  101. 101.

    frosty

    @SiubhanDuinne: I broke my right wrist just before finals week in college*. No surgery, nothing like what G&T went through, just a split cast. And yes, it hurt like hell after the shock wore off. Here’s hoping yours is no worse than that.

    * Good times during exams, answering essay questions left-handed. I got quite ambidextrous after 6 weeks. Even shifted the twist grip and clutch/brake levers on my motorcycle so I could keep riding it.

  102. 102.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    That last letter on the website (from DNI OGC) says “we don’t think it meets the definition of an urgent matter so the statute ordering release doesn’t apply”.

    That doesn’t sound like intent to release to me. But IANAL.

  103. 103.

    Jeffro

    Three quick lines for use when talking with RWNJs about trumpov’s impeachment and removal:

    “Don’t get too wound up – it’s basically like rolling all eight Benghazi hearings into one, plus actual facts. Right?”

    “Don’t you think Pence will do an equally good job rallying the GOP and surging to victory in 2020?”

    “I’m sure that when all the facts come out, we’ll find that the guy who admitted on live TV that he withheld hundreds of millions from Ukraine until they investigated one of his major political rivals will be found innocent of what he admitted he did.”

  104. 104.

    Mary G

    @JPL: I liked this tidbit about the WH in your link:

    One official — speaking, like others, on the condition of anonymity — described the climate as verging on “bloodletting.”

  105. 105.

    Jeffro

    Btw Fox/Hannity is featuring the REAL villain of trumpov’s imminent impeachment and removal: AOC

    Also did you know that because unemployment is low and we are (supposedly) energy independent…the president* is not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors? I did not know that.

  107. 107.

    Jeffro

    Also – no way! – the whistleblower is guilty of “political bias” against trumpov!! Who would have guessed?
    Fox said so.

    Ed Henry saying “in the transcript, absolutely no smoking gun but there will be a ‘few words’ that raise eyebrows. But no smoking gun here, Sean”

    No one preps the battlefield quite like Fox News…

  108. 108.

    Mary G

    Knowing Nancy SMASH, the higher numbers are more likely correct (Democratic reps in favor of impeachment):

    The official count:
    NPR: 157 as of 6:20pm
    Washington Post: 178 as of 7:43pm
    NY Times: 196 as of 8:00pm
    Politico: 202 as of ~8pm
    — Charles Gaba (@charles_gaba) September 25, 2019

  112. 112.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    My daily trip to redstate showed me rwnj angle already. The whistleblower’s lawyer is connected to Chuck Schumer and Hillary. Oh noes!

  113. 113.

    Keith P.

    Trump is harping on the Ukraine call because he thinks it’s the LEAST bad thing he’s done.

    This is great news…for Eric Trump!

  114. 114.

    Gin & Tonic

    @jl: I’d love to find out who’s bankrolling all those Ukrainian trips of Rudy’s. And who his fixers are in-country.

  117. 117.

    Jeffro

    Kevin McCarthy: “I don’t know why Democrats are so excited. They just made America weaker”

    Also: “If you want to know what Pelosi will do tomorrow, see what AOC tweets tonight”

    And they’re still trying to spin it as “who – WHO – was listening in on the president*s phone calls?”

  121. 121.

    Mary G

    @JPL: Looks like Mayor 9/11 is scheduled to go under the bus:

    “Rudy — he did all of this,” one U.S. official said. “This s—show that we’re in — it’s him injecting himself into the process.”

    and

    The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, became a primary Giuliani target.

    Yovanovitch, a longtime State Department Foreign Service officer, arrived in Ukraine as ambassador at the end of the Obama administration, more than two years after an uprising centered on Kiev’s Independence Square ousted the Russian-leaning government.

    Though she was widely respected in the national security community for her efforts to prod Ukraine to take on corruption, Giuliani targeted Yovanovitch with wild accusations including that she played a secret role in exposing Manafort and was part of a conspiracy orchestrated by the liberal financier George Soros.

    Relying on a guy who practically foams at the mouth on CNN may have been a bad idea?

  125. 125.

    schrodingers_cat

    @JPL: Nope doesn’t make sense, it is off brand for him to appear at a rally of immigrants not from his preferred Nordic countries. Indian-Americans are too few in number to matter in most states. They vote overwhelmingly for D presidents (84% to 14% in the last election). They are present in highest numbers in 3 blue states CA, NY, NJ. T won Texas by 9%. He is not depending on potential Indian American votes to win Texas.
    I also wonder how many of the people attending the rally were citizens.
    I am wondering whether there was some quid pro quo involved. New T Tower in Delhi?

  126. 126.

    joel hanes

    @Jeffro:

    the guy who admitted on live TV that he withheld hundreds of millions from Ukraine until they investigated one of his major political rivals

    Not “until they investigated”.
    Ukraine had already investigated the role of the Bidens, and found them innocuous.
    (Unlike Manafort)

    Trump withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to extort the Ukrainian government into fabricating the appearance of corruption. Into lying for Trump.

  127. 127.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jeffro:

    Kevin McCarthy: “I don’t know why Democrats are so excited. They just made America weaker”

    This is, unfortunately, a common attitude among elites. They think that if we all just pretend that our current system isn’t rotten at the core, they can keep it going by sheer force of will.

    But that’s going to work about as well as it works to insist that there are no termites in your walls, and that creaking sound isn’t the walls collapsing.

  128. 128.

    TS (the original)

    @Baud: I’m confused – why is the White House involved in handing over the whistle blower report? They seem to think it is their decision. What am I missing – other than the law doesn’t apply to republicans?

  131. 131.

    Jeffro

    @joel hanes: shhhh, you’re interrupting my listening to Hannity’s rant and alternative universe conspiracy theory.

    It’s a whole new Uranium One. I had no idea Hillary Clinton was a bit player in the vast Biden Criminal Enterprise.

    Why does Hannity keep calling Biden “Joe 30330”? What zip code is that?

  135. 135.

    Ruckus

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Going begging to her is a much greater sign of emotional turmoil than public bitching, defensiveness, or stonewalling.

    It’s dick in the wringer time. Sooner or later he was going to do something absolutely wrong, that no one could overlook, simply because he’s an idiot who thinks he’s perfect. All the crap up till now, that we know of, has been 2nd and 3rd tier bad. Building a prospectus as it were. This is 1st tier bad. Maybe not far over the top bad but for the stuff we know about, this is 1st tier bad. The impeachment hearings will uncover more, and show how who else is involved.

  136. 136.

    zhena gogolia

    @Jeffro:

    I think maybe it was the mistake he made at one of the debates where he gave a texting number instead of his website.

    But damn, I watched Biden’s statement. He was speaking without notes or a teleprompter, and he was forceful, articulate, and not at all doddering. Drumpf could never have done that in a million years. Biden is not my preferred candidate, but he’s a god compared to drumpf

  138. 138.

    Jeffro

    Lindsey Graham: “this is Russia x 2 x 10”

    Hannity: “I would like to know every one of Joe Biden’s and Barack Obama’s conversations with every world leader, ever”

    Graham: “who told the whistleblower – who might not have direct knowledge of the call – what they said? Also, what if it was okay to withhold aid? Trying to get other countries to do the same thing?”

    Chaff chaff chaff

  140. 140.

    Dan B

    @schrodingers_cat: Simple explanation: Modi got Muslims massacred. Must love Modi?

    My Indian friends despise Modi. Not sure about Satya Nadella. Seems to be creepier (Exxon) every day.

  142. 142.

    Jeffro

    @zhena gogolia: So much Bubble-Speak on Fox, it’s wild.

    Hannity going on a rant again – I did not know that the Green New Deal was going to cost $94 trillion-with-a-T

    Graham now talking about, get this “two standards of justice in this country”. WHUT?

  149. 149.

    MomSense

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I thought they had a big trump tower/building project in India. A couple of the investors were in DC for/around the inauguration. There was a bit of investigating the relationship and then it went quiet but I don’t think the deal died.

  152. 152.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Jeffro:

    “I’m sure that when all the facts come out, we’ll find that the guy who admitted on live TV that he withheld hundreds of millions from Ukraine until they investigated one of his major political rivals will be found innocent of what he admitted he did.”

    Seth Meyers hears you.

  154. 154.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    Good luck with everything.
    I’ve had both hands/wrists in casts, so I know how that goes. But mine wasn’t the wrist broken so I’ve actually got nothing. And other than the fella I know who had both wrists broken at the same time. He said you don’t realize how dependent you are on someone to do things you’d never think you’d have to ask to have done. Just a bit of silver lining there.

    BTW 3 weeks ago I spent most of 2 days in two different hospitals in the ER. Not nearly as fun as it sounds and the next week was back at the VA hospital, two days in a row. Back to mostly OK now.

  155. 155.

    Jeffro

    Lots of grave concern for Biden and the Dems tonight on Fox…they can’t decide if it’s going to blow up in their faces or they’ll have egg on their faces. Maybe blown-up egg on their faces?

    Whatever, the overarching message is clear: this whistleblower – somehow, this is KNOWN – is a partisan Dem. But of course!

  158. 158.

    Jeffro

    Oh good, here comes Karl Rove and Sarah Sanders…I’m sure they have unusual insight into this matter.

  161. 161.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ruckus: When I was in for the night after my surgery, they brought a guy into my room sometime in the middle of the night who’d fallen off a ladder and broken both wrists. That’s gotta suck pretty bad. I wasn’t much for conversation, though.

  162. 162.

    Zinsky

    I heard that Mike Pence might be up to his holier-than-thou white eyebrows in this Ukraine mess. He apparently also applied pressure to the Ukranian president to investigate Hunter Biden although it is not clear if he threatened to read him his favorite Bible verses until his head exploded or what…

    Anyway, let’s all hope for an Impeachment Two-fer! Nancy for President!

  163. 163.

    frosty

    @Ruckus:

    He said you don’t realize how dependent you are on someone to do things you’d never think you’d have to ask to have done.

    … or to learn to do them left (off) handed LOL.

  165. 165.

    Mary G

    My ex broke both wrists skateboarding down a steep street, and was he a pain to take care of.

    Glad to hear you’re not hanging out in hospitals now.

  168. 168.

    Jeffro

    @Zinsky: That won’t happen – as soon as trumpov resigns or is removed via impeachment, Pence assumes the office.

    Oh look – Geraldo is here for the “Hunter Biden = slimeball” angle

    Looks like the GOP is just gonna fire back and accuse Biden and the Dems of everything they’re accused of, and count on the media to “both-sides” everything.

  169. 169.

    Geoduck

    A datapoint- on another sorta left-leaning site I hang out on, everybody is saying it’s all a trap set up by McConnell and the GOP, the transcript and/or the whistleblower report will turn out to be nothing, and the Democrats will have launched impeachment over said nothing,

  172. 172.

    Jeffro

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s been a few months, I was due. Jordan Seuklow (Jay’s son?) is running it all together “partisandeepstatehackwhistleblower” etc

    Hannity: “Dems introducing cancer into the system”?!?!?

    Some nameless Hannity guest: “trumpov STILL being spied upon, even after the election! How long are Dems going to circle the wagons to protect Joe Biden?”

    Where.
    Is.
    My Bat.

  176. 176.

    Jeffro

    Geraldo really emoting now: “who can Donald trumpov trust? With people around him stabbing him in the back like this?”

    Now switching to Laura Ingraham, clearly turned on and praising Geraldo – BLECH!

  178. 178.

    Spanky

    Just a reminder that the whistleblower is only a conduit – the data s/he blew the whistle on is still out there, somewhere in the IC. The intel committees will know where to go for the source evidence.

    … aaaand the thread is hereby officially dead, killed by the new post.

  179. 179.

    japa21

    @Mary G: @Mary G: Not exactly a great front page. “A Fighter in Defense of His Title” is how they describe Trump. That is actually saying something positive about him.

    BTW, I think the Dems already know what was in the whistleblower complaint.

    And they know it is a nail in the coffin for Trump. It is the type of thing even the Republicans would have to vote to convict over (at least enough of them).

  180. 180.

    Ken

    @Spanky: Nonsense 1: Threads often continue for hours after the next post goes up.

    Nonsense 2: The whistleblower is not a “conduit” from the IC. The whistleblower is a paid Democratic operative directed by Biden, Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and Obama to smear the greatest President this country has ever had and steal the election for the Democrat Party. Haven’t you been reading Jeffro’s summaries of the Fox News lineup – the only honest reporting to be found in a sea of Fake News?

  181. 181.

    Jay

    It's not about one phone call. Or one whistleblower. It's about a months-long struggle between Trump loyalists and career foreign staff that cost one ambassador her post, among other casualties. This means a long paper trail and many witnesses. https://t.co/7csawSIBQ1— Nelson W. Cunningham (@therealNWC) September 25, 2019

  183. 183.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jeffro:

    “I’m sure that when all the facts come out, we’ll find that the guy who admitted on live TV that he withheld hundreds of millions from Ukraine until they investigated one of his major political rivals will be found innocent of what he admitted he did.”

    I am so swiping this one.

    @Mary G: Ooh, that one’s gotta hurt.

  184. 184.

    Mnemosyne

    @japa21:

    BTW, I think the Dems already know what was in the whistleblower complaint.

    A good lawyer never asks a question in court that s/he doesn’t already know the answer to. And we have a LOT of good lawyers on our side (Schiff, Lieu, etc).

  186. 186.

    Chris Johnson

    @Geoduck:

    A datapoint- on another sorta left-leaning site I hang out on, everybody is saying it’s all a trap set up by McConnell and the GOP, the transcript and/or the whistleblower report will turn out to be nothing, and the Democrats will have launched impeachment over said nothing.

    I’ve seen a bunch of sites like that and some of them are absolutely mobbed with Russian trollskis tellin’ them what to think.

    Hope it’s not Reddit you mean. Might as well be 4chan ;)

    As for McConnell: the thing to watch for here is, “do the other criminals have a plausible way to throw Trump and possibly Pence and the executive branch crew under the bus without themselves being tried for treason, of which they are equally guilty?”

    They can’t pull an Epstein and be sent to jail and risk telling everything. The thing to watch is, how many of these people (such as McConnell) are going to be LET GO and left with all their power intact, thus remaining, in effect, foreign agents working against the USA. THOSE ones, if they can do that, don’t risk assassination by their masters. If they are well and truly busted they face literal death, so there’s not a lot of ways to pressure them: they are real certain Putin is more powerful than anything Democrats could ever do to them.

    If they seem to be cooperating it’s toward that end. It’s because they’re still getting away with something very serious. I think Putin’s been ready to throw Trump under the bus for some time now.

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