"The reason why I would not make the deal [to be an impeachment witness]— and the bottom line is this is a constitutional issue and we’re not going to turn it into a farce, into some kind of political theater.
They’re trying to turn it into political theater, but I want no part of being any part of that."
Joe Biden, in Iowa, yesterday.
Too late, Joe. You are in the play.
Either you make yourself the hero or Trump will make you the villain. Choose now.
Yesterday the House managers spent an hour explaining that the charges against Joe Biden were debunked.
The simple Democratic story is that Ukraine has been fighting political corruption for decades. A prosecutor--Viktor Shokin--was ignoring flagrant corruption and failing to prosecute it, including where it might be found in Burisma Holdings, the largest Ukraine natural gas company, on whose board Hunter Biden sat. Officials in the US, Europe, organizations like the International Monetary Fund, wanted that prosecutor removed to be replaced with a real corruption fighter. Joe Biden was assigned a lead role in communicating this to Ukraine. The prosecutor was removed.
Therefore, the House managers asserted, what Joe Biden did was exactly correct and blameless, and as it regards his son, Hunter, removal of the prosecutor tended toward stronger anti-corruption prosecution, not less, and therefore promoted American interests. Hunter Biden is irrelevant, or in any case, certainly not helped.
See? Everything is OK. The accusations against the Bidens were "thoroughly debunked."
No.
The problem is two part. One is the simple reality that Hunter Biden was a very well paid Burisma Holdings board member--$50,000 per month--holding the job for no obvious apparent purpose other than to provide a public connection to high US officeholder. It is a payoff. It is some version of "protection." This is real.
The second is how it allows Trump, Giuliani, every Republican senator, the entire GOP media base of Fox, Breitbart, talk radio, and GOP voters to talk about Democratic hypocrisy and corruption that is simpler to understand than the high crimes and misdemeanors charged against Trump. Trump's crimes are complicated. Hunter Biden just sat there and cashed a check. It puts the Biden's in Ukraine. That is enough to raise questions.
Questionable is a very powerful word. It is exactly what Trump wanted to extract from Ukraine, public confirmation of an investigation. Being able to reference an investigation by a third party would be the hook onto which Trump could hang questions, which morph into accusations. Questions, to be addressed with investigations, give credence to accusations.
Here is Rudolph Giuliani showing exactly how this works:
Giuliani: "I was given information about Ukrainian corruption, by two informants, you're going to find out who one of them is, possibly the second, they told me there was a great deal of collusion going on in Ukraine, to fix the 2016 election, in favor of Hillary, that what happened in Russia was a big hoax, that it was actually the Democrats projecting what they had actually done in Ukraine.
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I don't know if it is true or not, they gave me witnesses, the two prosecutor generals, the current one and the last one, I've since interviews ten of them. . . .
The embassy was involved in gathering dirt on Trump, Trump Junior, and Manafort. They were involved in turning over falsified evidence, absolutely completely falsified.. . . I will present evidence of shocking crimes, at the highest levels of governments, while the Senate is listening to a totally phony group of stories about non impeachable offenses, it's like trying somebody for not-a-crime. It's a total waste of money. Its a complete show on the part of the Democrats, and they should be sued for conspiracy to defraud the United States, and they should pay for that hearing."
Isn't this all just a smokescreen of diversion?
Of course. Trump does not want a referendum on his corruption. He wants a comparison of his corruption versus Biden's and the Democrats'.
Of course. Trump does not want a referendum on his corruption. He wants a comparison of his corruption versus Biden's and the Democrats'.
Giuliani and Trump pounding the table with accusations of conspiracies are more than enough to please a political base, people inclined to believe that Obama was born in Kenya, that Hillary ran a child brothel in a pizza parlor as a side business during her campaign. It gives cover to Senators. It makes impeachment all about Democrats, not Trump.
The unsolvable problem is that Hunter Biden was, in fact, in Ukraine, getting paid a lot, by a company that Democrats say was corrupt, or at least worthy of being investigated for corruption.
Biden cannot hide, nor say he refuses to be involved, nor call it a farce. He and Hunter need to create a counter story. He is in the play. He needs to be the hero. Otherwise he will be the villain.
Voters won't just ignore this. Trump won't let them.
Voters won't just ignore this. Trump won't let them.
5 comments:
Astute followers of my comments will know I predicted the Biden disaster last year. I didn't even know about Hunter, my concern was more generalized.
It has come to pass.
That queasy feeling you got when you heard the announcement of his candidacy has persisted and blossomed into full on nausea. I predict your symptoms will worsen. Sorry about that.
There is absolutely no way VP Biden can successfully defend his family's involvement in Ukraine. More pertinent is the question: "What were you thinking?" Was it some combination of hubris and denial that has led the VP to this ignominious cul de sac? Did no one warn him?
It's not fair, but as the Brits say "There you have it". This will dominate and overshadow his campaign from here on and the simple reality that he must address it, as he is now being forced to do, Democrats being Democrats after all, becomes the defining narrative for voters going forward, regardless of the facts.
This is the Republican's gift to our political discourse; Swiftboating, Birtherism, Emails!, "Death Panels", Wiretapping, "The Deep State" and now Ukraine.
My prediction: Hunter and Joe Biden on 60 Minutes...
Hunter has sure put his old man in a bind.
Hunter may very well be the real reason for Biden's initial reluctance to enter the race for president. And now his worst nightmare has unfolded and there's no way out; not easily, anyway. Perhaps Biden's feelings were perfectly correct, and he should not have subjected his family to yet one more tragedy. I would recommend he exit the race; there are enough good candidates without him.
In that same Iowa appearance yesterday, Joe Biden also said once again, still with a straight face, “No one has suggested my son did anything wrong”. His wife Dr. Jill has been quoted, “I know my son’s character. Hunter did nothing wrong”. Okey-dokey. One wonders what imaginary suggestion of wrongdoing Jill was responding to.
Meanwhile, Hunter is living in a $12,000 per month rental in the Hollywood Hills with the woman he impregnated after impregnating and abandoning an Arkansas stripper, after abandoning his own brother’s widow, for whom he abandoned his own wife and kids. He’s claimed to have no income to the Arkansas family court judge, while stonewalling several orders from the judge to submit his personal financial data after he first denied paternity altogether. After being dishonorably discharged from the military for drug abuse, he somehow avoided criminal charges when his abondoned rental car was found with a cocaine pipe and his late brother’s government identity badge.
But Joe and Jill know Hunter’s character, and we can all trust that the Bidens are clear of corruption in Ukraine. Youbetcha.
Rather than doing their homework and selectively voting for promising new faces running for office, American voters attempted to "drain the swamp" that has become Washington DC by voting for a lying, misogynistic adulterer who seems to fervently believe that he knows better than anybody else about everything. And he has imposed his will on a wishy/washy congress who are far more concerned with keeping their jobs than honorably serving their country, oath be damned.
While the entire impeachment process is something of an exercise in futility in terms of ridding the nation of this bigoted man with the hideous comb over hairdo, it will at least force GOP senators to consider that history will regard them collectively as a "dereliction",(willful neglect of their duty and all principle." )
Bob Warren
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