The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: ORANGE Gettin' PEACHed, Nation Goes BANANAS

[Marksman]

@anon38180840

@Koss

I predict this post will not age well. I hope I’m wrong. After reading the whistleblower report, I’m not seeing anything particularly damning. This feels like the other inflection points in his presidency like the Trump tower letter or the big indictments. His approval takes a temporary hit, and this is all forgotten about within 2 weeks.

Key difference: you’ve got Trump himself on the phone with the president of Ukraine. We all remember all the details of the Russia scandal, but the lack of that smoking gun pointing right to Trump created layers of detail on top of layers of detail that confused the general public.

This one’s simple. The President of the United States used the power of his office to try to coerce Ukraine into investigating one of his political rivals (plus the DNC). The White House then tried to cover it up. There’s a huge likelihood of quid pro quo, which isn’t even needed for this to be worse than Watergate. Then to top it off, Trump had Giuliani (and possibly Barr) running around, likely circumventing the State Department, as his international crony.

There will be somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen people with legal exposure on this. At least half of them will be names 99% of Americans had never heard of before today… Thus they have less political capital, less ability to rely on fame, less ability to afford lawyers and less ability to rely on the GOP to protect them. Translation? They’re way more likely to cut deals, testify honestly, and bury this president.

Yeah plus people are not emphasizing Giuliani in all this. He is Trump’s personal attorney. He doesn’t represent the White House, the presidency or the United States. Him being all over this stuff solidifies all this was done solely for Trump’s personal gain. One can’t argue this was the president just enforcing the law via his personal attorney.

[Marksman]

@catfacemeowmers

Are we reading different things? Nothing in this report even sounds unusual to me beyond the fact that they stored this thing on a separate server which, holy shit who cares.

Give me like the 2-3 sentence summary of this that is going to sound bad to your average American?

The report triggered the release of the phone call of the transcript. You see nothing wrong with Trump’s call with Zelensky? Because…

[ViridianDreams]

@anon10396289

@kerowo

The first or second thing in the “transcript” that was released was the statement that it wasn’t a transcript, but a summary of the transcript. The WB complaint says the actual verbatim transcript was placed on a different service to keep it from going to other people in the government and is meant for things with national security implications.

It’s nice to know you still are keeeeeeeding shit up by not bothering to actually read the shit you’re talking about.

I did read it, though it seems you didn’t. It doesn’t say that it is a summary of the conversation. This is what it says:

“CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Oficers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the coversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation. The word “inaudible” is used to indicate portions of a conversation that the notetaker was unable to hear.”

So it’s not a summary as you say. As I’ve said before, all reports I’ve seen indicate that this is the only transcript, and it seems to be the “word-for-word” transcript that the whistleblower complaint mentions: “especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced – as is customary – by the White House Situation Room.” As the quoted warning of the transcript says, it was produced by White House Situation Room staff. I’ve seen no reports that another more complete transcript exists, if you know of such reports please link to them.

I read “produced” in this context to mean that it’s customary for the White House Situation Room to produce such records, not that they produced it in response to a subpoena.

[Marksman]

@anon38180840

@catfacemeowmers

Are we reading different things? Nothing in this report even sounds unusual to me beyond the fact that they stored this thing on a separate server which, holy shit who cares.

Give me like the 2-3 sentence summary of this that is going to sound bad to your average American?

The President of the United states abused the power of his office to pressure the President of Ukraine into investigating his political opponents, and in so doing he subverted US foreign policy and jeopardized national security. He directly attempted to initiate collusion with a foreign country into United States elections, and we have a transcript to prove it. Upon doing so, the White House immediately engaged in a cover up that demonstrates that the president immediately knew he had done something wrong and tried to keep it from ever coming to light.

Plus, likely quid pro quo - there will be hearings to attempt to prove that, and if they prove it, I really think he’s going down. As it currently stands I am 100% sure he’s getting impeached and I think he gets votes to convict from multiple Republican senators.

The problem with Russia wasn’t that it wasn’t bad enough, it’s that it was so complex it was hard to explain to average voters. This is simple. It’s not as bad as Russia on its face, although one could argue that because he’s doing it as a president and not as a candidate, that makes it worse. But regardless, it’s bad enough and it’s simple and it’s already proven.

The Democrats just woke up to impeachment on a silver platter, and it’s so simple it’s going to be hard to mess it up.

Yeah the Russian thing would have gone differently if there was a transcript of trump asking Putin to interfere in 2016 in exchange for removal of sanctions.

[Marksman]

@catfacemeowmers

Did you guys read the report? (Sorry I don’t mean to sound like Nun)

Like 80% of it is quoting shit that was published already in the news, or quoting interviews trump and Rudy gave. It’s hard to argue “this was a coverup, as evidenced by this interview that aired on CNN in June where Rudy admitted to doing it”.

Like. The most damning fact in this whole thing, by far, is that they tried to withhold the whistleblower complaint from Congress.

Not sure why you keep disregarding the meat of all this just because it was shown in the transcript.

[anon10396289]

@Riverman

He definitely could have run out the clock with dubious privilege claims. Releasing is so strange.

Right. I think Trump straight up thinks that he won’t lose support on this and Democrats won’t be able to successfully impeach and convict him. I think he’s right, but who knows. I’ve certainly been wrong before (most notably: general election 2016).

[otatop]

@kre8tive

I’m still trying to fathom the decision to waive executive privilege.

Lewandowski was claiming constitutional executive immunity for conversations he had as a private citizen, yet they release this obviously incriminating call and the even more damning complaint.

@Riverman

He definitely could have run out the clock with dubious privilege claims. Releasing is so strange.

I wonder if he interpreted Pelosi telling him “Tell your people to obey the law” after he asked to “work something out” as her saying that if they released the information, the Dems would drop their impeachment inquiry.

Seems dumb enough, anyway.

[anon10396289]

@ViridianDreams

@anon10396289

@kerowo

The first or second thing in the “transcript” that was released was the statement that it wasn’t a transcript, but a summary of the transcript. The WB complaint says the actual verbatim transcript was placed on a different service to keep it from going to other people in the government and is meant for things with national security implications.

It’s nice to know you still are keeeeeeeding shit up by not bothering to actually read the shit you’re talking about.

I did read it, though it seems you didn’t. It doesn’t say that it is a summary of the conversation. This is what it says:

“CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Oficers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the coversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation. The word “inaudible” is used to indicate portions of a conversation that the notetaker was unable to hear.”

So it’s not a summary as you say. As I’ve said before, all reports I’ve seen indicate that this is the only transcript, and it seems to be the “word-for-word” transcript that the whistleblower complaint mentions: “especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced – as is customary – by the White House Situation Room.” As the quoted warning of the transcript says, it was produced by White House Situation Room staff. I’ve seen no reports that another more complete transcript exists, if you know of such reports please link to them.

I read “produced” in this context to mean that it’s customary for the White House Situation Room to produce such records, not that they produced it in response to a subpoena.

I read “produced” as a thing that the White House Situation Room made.

[kerowo]

The first or second thing in the “transcript” that was released was the statement that it wasn’t a transcript, but a summary of the transcript. The WB complaint says the actual verbatim transcript was placed on a different service to keep it from going to other people in the government and is meant for things with national security implications.

It’s nice to know you still are keeeeeeeding shit up by not bothering to actually read the shit you’re talking about.

I did read it, though it seems you didn’t. It doesn’t say that it is a summary of the conversation. This is what it says:

“CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Oficers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the coversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation. The word “inaudible” is used to indicate portions of a conversation that the notetaker was unable to hear.”

So it’s not a summary as you say. As I’ve said before, all reports I’ve seen indicate that this is the only transcript, and it seems to be the “word-for-word” transcript that the whistleblower complaint mentions: “especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced – as is customary – by the White House Situation Room.” As the quoted warning of the transcript says, it was produced by White House Situation Room staff. I’ve seen no reports that another more complete transcript exists, if you know of such reports please link to them.

Idiot.

[ViridianDreams]

Ok, maybe I’m misunderstanding you. The complaint makes like there is a transcript of the conversation somewhere that has yet to come to light. Is that not the case?

[Marksman]

@anon10396289

@Danspartan

It’s the coverup. Coverups spread like a virus, multiplying and metastasizing a number of individuals. Some of whom will NOT be willing to go down with the ship. As the rope tightens, multiple folks will act in their own self interest and testify against the others.

From a crime perspective, the crime is worse than the coverup but from a liability and exposure standpoint it’s the cover up.

Love the karmic justice of improper server abuse.

Releasing the transcript of the conversation in full is an odd coverup, no?

This only happened after the whitehouse realized this was going to come out and if they CONTINUED to obstruct and continued to cover up it would be game over. They are hoping because now they shared it that they had not been hiding it for months.

It is a Hail Mary attempt to avoid cover up and obstruction accusations.

[vincent]

https://twitter.com/TwitterMoments/status/1177215146428686337

[Koss]

@Marksman

Yeah the Russian thing would have gone differently if there was a transcript of trump asking Putin to interfere in 2016 in exchange for removal of sanctions.

Two things with this.

1. It can be spun that there was no direct quid-pro-quo in that phone call, and this spin my be effective. Trump never comes out and says it. There are still some dots to connect. Trump asked about Joe Biden and offered help. There are rumors that Ukrainian aid was delayed for unknown reasons by Trump himself. Yes, these dots are pretty easy to connect by anyone with half a brain. But the GOP and their voters don’t want the dots connected, and/or they are very stupid, so they won’t see it.

2. I’m not convinced that even if there was smoking gun evidence of Russian collusion that the GOP doesn’t handwave it away and acquit.

[Marksman]

@eyebooger

@anon10396289

Releasing the transcript of the conversation in full is an odd coverup, no?

That was not the “transcript of the conversation in full”.

By some estimations it might have only covered half the call.

[anon10396289]

@ViridianDreams

Ok, maybe I’m misunderstanding you. The complaint makes like there is a transcript of the conversation somewhere that has yet to come to light. Is that not the case?

Everything I’ve read says that there is only one transcript of the conversation and that transcript is the one that was released.

[catfacemeowmers]

I’m not disregarding it. I’m saying that to most people asking the president of another country to investigate what is probably a legitimate case of corruption that took place in their country is not going to be the huge smoking gun that everybody seems to think it is.

Like if Obama had called Merkel in 2015 and said “hey we’re hearing a lot of chatter that Trump has been laundering money using a German bank. I want to ask you to do us a favor and look into that” - I don’t think there would be a lot of people screaming about how outrageous that was. It’s illegal, there is an obvious concern that type of thing influencing other actions of the administrations, but it’s not something that would have raised a bunch of red flags.

[anon10396289]

@Marksman

@eyebooger

@anon10396289

Releasing the transcript of the conversation in full is an odd coverup, no?

That was not the “transcript of the conversation in full”.

By some estimations it might have only covered half the call.

It definitely didn’t include the Ukrainian president speaking Ukrainian or Trump’s translator speaking Ukrainian, so sure half sounds about right.

[LikeClockwork]

@catfacemeowmers

investigate what is probably a legitimate case of corruption

Wat

[ViridianDreams]

@catfacemeowmers

I’m not disregarding it. I’m saying that to most people asking the president of another country to investigate what is probably a legitimate case of corruption that took place in their country is not going to be the huge smoking gun that everybody seems to think it is.

Like if Obama had called Merkel in 2015 and said “hey we’re hearing a lot of chatter that Trump has been laundering money using a German bank. I want to ask you to do us a favor and look into that” - I don’t think there would be a lot of people screaming about how outrageous that was. It’s illegal, there is an obvious concern that type of thing influencing other actions of the administrations, but it’s not something that would have raised a bunch of red flags.

This is my feeling, too.

[catfacemeowmers]

It’s been widely reported that the Ukrainian guy speaks fluent English.

FWIW I agree with you that the “word for word transcript” most likely refers to the document that was released yesterday and not some separate document, although I don’t necessarily trust that the one we saw yesterday hasn’t been altered from its original form.