The game is over folks. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, yanked scores of witnesses up onto the Hill to give bombshell testimony that President Trump made a phone call to the Ukrainians. That’s it. Okay, fine. We’ll go through this fairy tale. The story goes that in July, Trump threatened to withhold aid unless there was a corruption investigation into Hunter Biden. This became public when a reported CIA agent filed a whistleblower complaint. The agent is a registered Democrat had worked with a 2020 Democratic candidate and made contact with Schiff’s staff prior to filing the complaint. Schiff probably knows this guy and knew the contents of his report before it was filed while orchestrating this impeachment offensive against the Trump White House. Yes, that’s rather deep state-y, right?
Witness after witness detailed their disagreements with Trump on Ukraine policy, which isn’t a crime. Each tried to say they were nonpartisans, though they were willing participants in one of the most transparent partisan witch-hunts in recent memory. In all, these hearings Schiff held before Thanksgiving changed nothing. No one really watched. No one cared. Polling in battleground states showed impeachment not being popular and the voters couldn’t care less. This is a wasted exercise. I mean getting 67 senators to convict and remove Trump was already a tall order, the ultimate in political Hail Marys—and this pass attempt fell way short of the endzone. And Michael Goodwin of the NY Post also noted an ironic and craven aspect to this impeachment theater.
Yes, he mentioned that key witnesses admitted during testimony that Trump legally could withhold aid from Ukraine. Oh, and improper and inappropriate isn’t that same thing as illegal. But Goodwin hits the nail on the head when he notes that people seem to forget that Obama didn’t want to dole out military aid to the country, which was fighting a Russian invasion, because it might upset Putin. Trump’s Ukraine policy has teeth. No aid was ever withheld indefinitely—Ukraine got it all. And if Democrats are able to remove Trump, the biggest geopolitical actor to gain from that is…Russia. So, screw Ukraine because...‘orange man, bad’ (via NY Post):
….[N]one of the witnesses were actual witnesses to any relevant events, including the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
They solved that problem early Tuesday with the day’s first two witnesses, Jennifer Williams and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, both of whom listened to the call in the White House. Finally, the impeachment zealots had someone with firsthand knowledge, as opposed to the second- and third-handers last week.
They got even closer in the afternoon, with former officials Tim Morrison and Kurt Volker higher up the food chain. In contrast to all the other witnesses, both had actually met Trump!
[…]
The cumulative effect was to create a sense of doubt about the heart of impeachment. Was there really a crime, or was it just a difference of opinion? And how much of it is purely partisan?
The doubts took a leap when Vindman conceded that lawyers said it was legal for Trump to temporarily withhold more than $400 million in aid to Ukraine.
Once fair-minded Americans seriously entertain the question of whether the actions involved even amount to a crime, most will probably find it difficult to conclude Trump represents an urgent threat and must be removed immediately.
[…]
Adding to the surreal quality of the hearings is a crucial fact that gets too little attention: Trump’s policy toward Ukraine has been far stronger than President Barack Obama’s. Providing Ukraine with antitank weapons to counter Russian invasions is a direct slap at Vladimir Putin, a move Obama rejected because he feared it would provoke Putin.
Thus, removing Trump would benefit Russia, proving that, for Dems, Ukraine’s security is just another pawn in their war against the president.
Liberalism is without principles. And top-notch snake oil salesmen peddle it. Democrats are pitching this as a stand for institutional integrity when they’re the ones at the center of the rot in American politics and life. The anti-Trump deep state, which was previously dismissed as rumor but now accepted, is at the core of this institutional rot. No one trusts these clowns. It’s one thing if it’s Congress, but it’s another when agencies, like the FBI, whose professionalism and impartiality were hallmark characteristics in their investigations, are cast into doubt—there are problems. And this is all because some people didn’t like Trump or the 2016 results.
In fact, that’s at the heart of this whole circus. Democrats still cannot accept the 2016 election. This is an attempt to undo the results. There’s also a tacit acknowledgment that their 2020 crop cannot beat Trump, especially if the economy continues to roar. And they’re willing to sell out whole nations and appease Putin in order to make that happen. Yeah, that’s a really great moment in American patriotism there. Cue the eye-rolls. Cue the disgust. Cue the disgrace that is the Democratic Party.
