In response to The New York Times reporting on the leaked manuscript from former National Security Advisor John Bolton&#8217;s upcoming book about his time working for President Trump, Bolton&#8217;s former chief of staff wrote a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ambassador-bolton-withdraw-your-book-fred-fleitz">scathing op-ed for Fox News</a> that denounced the book for setting a &#8220;dangerous precedent&#8221; while demanding he withdraw it from publication until after the 2020 election.
&#8220;It was crushing to read weekend press reports that my friend and former boss John Bolton plans to publish a tell-all book on his time as President Trump’s National Security Advisor,&#8221; Fred Fleitz begins in the lengthy op-ed. &#8220;The book reportedly will be published in March 2020. Given the importance of protecting a president’s confidential discussions with his senior advisers, I strongly disagree with Bolton’s decision to release the book before the November presidential election and call on him to withdraw it from the publisher immediately.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/critics-hammer-bolton-after-book-pre-order-goes-live-following-leaked-manuscript-published-by-nyt">reported</a> by The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ryan Saavedra on Sunday, the Times wrote that Bolton alleges in his book that President Trump told him to freeze the $391 million in military aid to Ukraine until officials agreed to investigate Joe Biden&#8217;s corruption and 2016 election meddling.
Though Fleitz commends John Bolton for his service after knowing him for 30 years, praising his work in the State Department and in the Trump administration, he ultimately feels that Bolton&#8217;s book undermines executive privilege and will ultimately discourage future presidents from discussing important matters of foreign policy in confidence.
&#8220;Presidents must be able to candidly consult with their advisers without worrying they will leak these discussions to the press or obtain high-dollar book contracts to publish them,&#8221; Fleitz says in the op-ed. &#8220;A book by a former national security advisor ahead of a president’s reelection bid may set a dangerous precedent since it could discourage future presidents from seeking advice from expert advisers on sensitive national security matters.&#8221;
&#8220;This is why executive privilege exists: To allow the president and other senior officials to keep certain communications and internal deliberations private if disclosing them would disrupt the functions or decision-making processes of the executive branch,&#8221; he continues.
Not only does Fleitz slam Bolton for seeking to publish the book in the first place, he also takes issue with Bolton&#8217;s decision to submit it for review with the National Security Council (NSC) despite knowing how prone the agency is for leaks.
&#8220;It also is inexplicable how such a sensitive manuscript could be sent to the NSC in the middle of the impeachment process,&#8221; he argues. &#8220;Under such circumstances, a leak of the manuscript was all but certain. If a manuscript of this sensitivity was to be published at all, this should happen after the election, not in the spring of 2020,  I don’t understand the need for a former national security advisor to publish a tell-all book critical of a president he served, especially during a presidential reelection campaign that will determine the fate of the country.&#8221;
Fleitz concludes his op-ed by referencing former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who chose to publish his book “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War&#8221; that was critical of the Obama administration only after the 2012 election. In fact, Gates waited until January of 2014 to publish it.
&#8220;Gates established a principled precedent on how senior advisers to presidents should write about their experiences,&#8221; concludes Fleitz. &#8220;Given Ambassador Bolton’s long and distinguished record of government service, I believe it is vital that he follow this precedent.&#8221;

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton Delivers Keynote Address At CSIS Forum

John Bolton’s Former Chief Of Staff Slams Him: ‘Withdraw Your Book,’ ‘Sets A Dangerous Precedent’

2016 election

2020 Election

Donald Trump

Impeachment

Joe Biden

John Bolton

New York Times

Obama Administration

Robert Gates

State Department

Last night, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, a constitutional attorney by training who has been a <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/11/19/alexander-vindman-condemned-himself-in-his-impeachment-testimony/">frequent</a> <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/11/26/why-trumps-ukraine-demands-werent-remotely-illegal/">commentator</a> on Democrats’ current partisan <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/13/obstruction-of-congress-is-an-utterly-ridiculous-impeachment-charge/">impeachment</a> <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/19/pelosis-newest-dirty-trick-putting-trumps-senate-trial-on-hold/">effort</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR6O_a8m-8A">joined</a> “Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler” on One America News Network (OANN) to discuss the Democrats&#8217; increasingly hard push to ensure that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-bad-trump-presidents-dismissal-john-bolton-josh-hammer">former</a> National Security Advisor John Bolton is called to testify during the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
&#8220;Democrats may decide to call Bolton to testify about a possible quid pro quo between Trump and Ukrainian officials regarding an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, even though the articles of impeachment are already published.&#8221; The Daily Wire&#8217;s Emily Zanotti <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pelosi-threatens-to-call-john-bolton-to-testify-in-house-even-as-dems-vote-to-send-impeachment-articles-to-senate">reported</a> earlier this month. &#8220;Senior Democrats raised the possibility of subpoenaing Bolton last week, after Bolton himself admitted that, if asked to testify by the Senate, he would comply (though he did not speak on whether he would do the same for a House subpoena, and referenced Republicans specifically).&#8221;
&#8220;The theory seems to be, according to a plan of action outlined by former advisors of President Barack Obama on the left-leaning site, <a href="https://crooked.com/articles/subpoena-john-bolton-democrats/">Crooked</a>, if Bolton is called to testify in the House and provides information critical to the case against the President, that Senate Republicans will have no choice but to allow witnesses at Trump’s Senate impeachment trial,&#8221; Zanotti continued.
Last week, The Federalist&#8217;s David Marcus <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/14/john-boltons-testimony-would-not-be-the-smoking-gun-democrats-need/">argued</a> that even if Bolton testified, his testimony would hardly be the smoking gun that Democrats seem to think it would be. &#8220;[W]hat can John Bolton possibly say that would prove Trump’s intent was malicious, and not genuine concern about taxpayer dollars falling into corrupt hands?&#8221; Marcus asked rhetorically. &#8220;Is he really going to say, &#8216;The president told me he doesn’t care about corruption, he just wanted to get that pesky Joe Biden and get him good?&#8217; Is there anyone on the face of the planet who thinks that such a conversation could have taken place?&#8221;
Hammer joined Wheeler&#8217;s OANN program to discuss the same topic. Hammer agreed with Marcus that there is no plausible scenario in which Bolton&#8217;s Senate testimony would be a smoking gun.
<blockquote>[Bolton] is clearly not going to provide any kind of smoking gun testimony for the reasons that you just outlined. &#8230; [M]y boss at The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, had a good, pretty lengthy <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair/">column for National Review</a> back in October [on this]. There are two theories as to what happened on the now-infamous July 25th phone call between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. The first theory Ben calls the &#8220;Get Biden Theory&#8221;; the second theory is what Ben calls the &#8220;Miasma of Corruption Theory.&#8221;
So on the first hand, Trump is just trying to politically &#8230; get his opponent, Joe Biden. The second hand, he&#8217;s actually trying to attach corruption-related strings to the doling out of taxpayer aid. My reading of everything that&#8217;s happened so far is that this second theory, the &#8220;Miasma of Corruption Theory,&#8221; is more likely. Possibly, the &#8220;Get Biden Theory&#8221; is right, but as you say, the only reason — or the only way that we would ever be shown that is right — is if John Bolton was literally told by Donald J. Trump, president of the United States, &#8220;I am doing this to get Joe Biden.&#8221; That&#8217;s not going to happen.</blockquote>
Hammer also elaborated on Twitter earlier today.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Schiff is gaslighting us. What “evidence” is being hidden?<a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@benshapiro</a> laid it out well at <a href="https://twitter.com/NRO?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NRO</a> in Oct. There is the “Get Biden Theory” and the “Miasma of Corruption Theory.” There is one thing and one thing only distinguishing the two: Subjective intent. <a href="https://t.co/0wPsbGalBv">https://t.co/0wPsbGalBv</a>
&mdash; Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1219692018668130304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 21, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Any purported “evidence” that does not directly speak to that subjective intent — what lawyers call mens rea — is, in actuality, no evidence at all.
&mdash; Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1219692427335950343?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 21, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
WATCH:
<iframe title="John Bolton is no Smoking Gun" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fR6O_a8m-8A?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hammer OANN 1.20.10

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: John Bolton Is No Smoking Gun

Democratic Party

U.S. Senate

Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky

Tomorrow will commence the third presidential impeachment trial in the history of the United States Senate. And on the eve of such a rare and solemn institutional undertaking, it is still not entirely clear what exactly President Donald Trump has done to deserve such a fate.
At the outset of this saga, House Democrats spent weeks promoting an oh-so nefarious &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221; that transpired during Trump&#8217;s now-infamous July 25 phone call last summer with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It turns out that abstruse Latinate didn&#8217;t poll-test well — and never mind that such a &#8220;quid pro quo,&#8221; when cabined to a public official&#8217;s lawful exercise of his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-trumps-alleged-impoundment-of-ukraine-money-doesnt-make-for-an-impeachable-offense">constitutional authority</a>, amounts to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-there-is-one-terrific-impeachment-defense-that-the-white-house-is-not-making">constitutionally protected free speech</a>. Democrats next engaged in the hilariously public floating of bribery — which is actually enumerated as a presidential impeachment criterion in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii">Article II, Section 4</a> of the Constitution — before deciding that they simply lacked the grist to advance such a claim. Democrats ultimately settled on the mealy-mouthed, amorphous gibberish of &#8220;abuse of power&#8221; and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-obstruction-of-congress-is-an-utterly-ridiculous-impeachment-charge">utterly nonsensical</a>, constitutionally illiterate &#8220;obstruction of Congress&#8221; as their charges of choice.
As Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro and I have each <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-todays-judiciary-committee-impeachment-hearing-is-yet-another-waste-of-time">observed</a> countless times since Democrats first glommed onto the Ukraine phone call as possible grounds for impeachment, it is true that actually committing a black-letter crime is not a constitutional requirement to impeach a sitting president. &#8220;High crimes and misdemeanors,&#8221; the catch-all presidential impeachment criterion enumerated in the Constitution after treason and bribery, was a well-known term of art in the English common law. Alexander Hamilton <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp">explained</a> in <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp">The Federalist No. 65</a> that it encompasses &#8220;offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.&#8221;
True, the Hamiltonian language presents a necessarily political and malleable standard. But it is also true that the Constitution&#8217;s Framers did not view everything as a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-stop-calling-everything-impeachable-offense-josh-hammer">potentially impeachable offense</a>. To wit, the Framers <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-founding-fathers-debate-over-what-constituted-impeachable-offense-180965083/">expressly deliberated</a> whether to make the far lesser &#8220;maladministration&#8221; an impeachment criterion before rejecting it out of fear that it could lead to highly partisan impeachment proceedings motivated by either a mere policy disagreement or the raw pursuit of political power. Hamilton certainly understood that, writing in the same Federalist that impeachment would &#8220;seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused.&#8221;
Accordingly, even though the actual violation of a law is not constitutionally required, Democrats&#8217; current partisan gambit represents the first time in the history of the republic that an impeachment has nonetheless been attempted without the undergirding of a legally violative act. President Andrew Johnson violated the Tenure of Office Act — an unambiguously unconstitutional statute, but technically a statutory violation nonetheless. President Bill Clinton, investigated for years by former independent counsel Ken Starr, committed perjury. President Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace before a formal House vote on impeachment, was knee-deep in the Watergate scandal.
What exactly has President Trump done? He acted in a ham-fisted and sloppy manner on a phone call with a foreign leader when it came to the conducting of his foreign policy — an action squarely within his well-established <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-trumps-alleged-impoundment-of-ukraine-money-doesnt-make-for-an-impeachable-offense">constitutional bailiwick</a>. True, he should not have mentioned Joe Biden by name. But ultimately, Trump tried to attach <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair/">corruption-related strings</a>, however clumsily, to the doling out of one of the most consistently <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/03/11/foreign-aid">politically unpopular</a> items in annual federal budgets: Foreign aid.
The conduct upon which Democrats are now attempting to impeach the president is orders of magnitude less destructive than the conduct upon which the Framers would have considered impeachment justified. It reeks of the sort of petty politics and jostling for power that led the Framers to conscientiously reject the far lesser &#8220;maladministration&#8221; as a possible grounds for impeachment. What&#8217;s worse, House Democrats rushed their process due to political timing and, in their rush, have <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-12-09/opinion-trump-impeachment-hearings-democrats">fundamentally failed to make their case</a> to the American people. They have <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2020/01/20/democrats-have-failed-at-impeachment-trump-will-remain-president/">failed at impeachment</a>, and they have no one to blame but themselves. And in their recklessness, Democrats have also set a deeply pernicious precedent for the future of the Constitution&#8217;s carefully calibrated separation of powers framework.
Alas, let the trial commence.

House Speaker Pelosi And Senator Schumer Hold News Conference On DACA Case

HAMMER: What Exactly Are They Impeaching Him For, Again?

Adam Schiff

Charles Schumer

Constitution

Federalist

Jerry Nadler

Despite Mark Galli’s recent claims in <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1577118452556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEhuGnDa89zSOJWekCYIVaIqckiQA">Christianity Today</a>, the overwhelming majority of both evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews reject the notion of impeaching the president and plan to vote for him in 2020. It is not hard to understand why.
Regarding impeachment, we begin with the same presumption of innocence given to every defendant. That is not merely a quirk of American jurisprudence, but a biblical principle summarized in the Sayings of the Fathers (1:6): “Judge every person favorably.” We are obligated to see the behavior of others, including the president, in a favorable light until we know otherwise.
Could the president’s call with his Ukrainian counterpart be seen as improper? Yes. But it could <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair/">also have been a reasonable request</a> for an investigation of criminal activity. At this rate, we will never know.
One cannot assert the president was wrong to want an investigation of Joe Biden’s involvement in Ukraine’s judiciary until we know both that Biden’s behavior was unquestionably above-board, and that the president knew or should have known that this was the case. Otherwise, we must presume (there’s that word again) that President Trump was genuinely concerned about the involvement of the previous vice president in Ukraine’s well-documented corruption. That does not become less appropriate merely because Biden is running for office again — if anything, just the opposite.
Then we must consider that President Volodymyr Zelensky, along with several other officials in both administrations, has insisted all along that there was no coercion, no bribery, and no “quid pro quo.” Galli’s assertion that President Trump “attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents” remains dubious, at best — not “unambiguous,” as he claims. We are therefore morally obligated to presume it is false.
The way to have defeated that presumption was through impartial examination of conduct on both sides. Democrats instead rushed to their partisan debacle, strongly suggesting that the truth did not lie with them from the outset.
President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment did not involve a special counsel — probably because they didn’t exist yet. This is the first time the House of Representatives deliberately bypassed an independent investigation prior to impeachment.
Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor looking into the Watergate scandal, served for over six months until Richard Nixon had him fired — which triggered the House of Representatives to begin impeachment three months later. Six months after that, Nixon’s resignation brought it all to an end. Do the math: 15 months after the prosecutor was appointed, the House had yet to hold a single vote.
Ken Starr was already serving as special prosecutor long before Linda Tripp contacted him with tapes of her conversations with Monica Lewinsky. Yet it took Starr nearly eight months to produce the report that cost Clinton his law license. The House launched formal impeachment proceedings a month later, and then took two months to adopt articles of impeachment. The process took ten months overall, shortened both because the special prosecutor was already hard at work and because of the obvious evidence of illegal activity.
Last week’s impeachment, by comparison, took less than two months from beginning to end. Mueller taught Democrats that a special counsel concerned for law and justice could not be relied upon to reach their predetermined and preferred conclusion. Instead, the House bypassed its own rules for involvement of the minority party and inclusion of exculpatory evidence, bandied about charges of bribery and “quid pro quos” and then, in apparent desperation, called it unlawful for a president to assert executive privilege. While Democrats wore dark clothing and were told to restrain themselves in the chamber, their actual mood was best exemplified by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MN)’s video, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-democrat-rep-tlaib-posts-video-celebrating-impeachment-vote-trump-responds">chortling</a> as she went to “i<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-fresh-face-dem-congresswoman-were-gonna-hank-berrien">mpeach the motherf*****</a>.” And no wonder: Impeachment was Democrats&#8217; only notable accomplishment for the year.
As Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) so aptly put it, the standards used were so inadequate that they couldn’t secure a conviction for a parking ticket. Most Democratic senators will similarly express contempt for the presidency, the presumption of innocence, the democratic process, and the rule of law all with one shameful vote, but it is inappropriate in the extreme for Galli to advocate for such a travesty — and in the name of biblical values, no less.
What, then, of the next election? It is a sad fact that in a democracy, a presidential election is in some ways a glorified popularity contest. The president proved himself an expert at securing free coverage, which helped him win the nomination over more mainstream politicians. But a president’s personal failings, until they rise to the level of an impeachable offense, cannot override our primary concern when selecting a candidate for that office: The policies he or she will promote, and the impact those policies will have upon all Americans.
I recently commented that the Coalition for Jewish Values would like to demonstrate lack of partisanship by castigating the president for an objectionable policy decision, but he has stymied our efforts by not making one. On life, family, marriage, conscience — and, yes, Anti-Semitism and Israel — he has not merely satisfied, but has exceeded, any reasonable expectations. Just as relevant is that the Democrats who would replace him opposed each and every one of those policy choices. That is why the pro-values community remains likely to vote to re-elect the president in 2020, and why it should do so.
&nbsp;
Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the managing director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1577118452556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEu2s6hwO2BttmAJk9V5rKcz_yh6w">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>, and co-editor of the Orthodox Jewish journal <a href="https://cross-currents.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://cross-currents.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1577118452556000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHLGJT10b-69pv-fjRcdthOir71xA">Cross-Currents.com</a>. Opinions are his own.

President Trump Delvers Remarks At White House Mental Health Summit

MENKEN: Supporting The President Is The Moral Choice

Christianity

Judaism

Religion

CNN, which is often hostile in its coverage of President Donald Trump, admitted on Thursday that Trump was &#8220;correct&#8221; when he said on Thursday that Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee had &#8220;purposely misquoted&#8221; his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/impeachment-inquiry-12-12-2019/h_456ffc5c9aec1234abb882fb30f230b8">CNN</a> reported:
<blockquote>
During the debate over impeachment articles, Rep. Escobar, using an analogy to stress the alleged problem in Trump’s phone call with Zelensky, said “I want you to do me a favor though.” This quote replaces the word “us” found in the memo on the call, with the word “me.”
Rep. Jackson, when quoting the memo of the call, said that the quote was “I would like you to do a favor though” — removing “us” from the quote.
</blockquote>
Trump responded to the two Democrats falsely quoting him by tweeting: &#8220;Dems Veronica Escobar and Jackson Lee purposely misquoted my call. I said I want you to do us (our Country!) a favor, not me a favor. They know that but decided to LIE in order to make a fraudulent point! Very sad.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Dems Veronica Escobar and Jackson Lee purposely misquoted my call. I said I want you to do us (our Country!) a favor, not me a favor. They know that but decided to LIE in order to make a fraudulent point! Very sad.
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1205150488280350720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
CNN&#8217;s fact-check of Trump&#8217;s tweet stated: &#8220;Trump is correct that the call was misquoted during today&#8217;s debate over the articles of impeachment in the House Judiciary committee.&#8221;
In his July call with Zelensky, Trump said in part:
<blockquote>I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike&#8230; I guess you have one of your wealthy people&#8230; The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you&#8217;re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it&#8217;s very important that you do it if that&#8217;s possible.</blockquote>
This is not the first time that Democrats have falsely quoted the president during the impeachment hearings as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff did the same thing during an earlier phase of the impeachment proceedings. Schiff <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-democrat-adam-schiff-makes-up-quotes-from-trumps-ukraine-call">stated</a>:
<blockquote>And what is the President’s response — well it reads like a classic organized crime shake down. In essence, what the President Trump communicates is this: We’ve been very good to your country. Very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what, I don’t see much reciprocity here. You know what I mean? I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you though. And I’m going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? Lots of dirt, on this and on that. I’m going to put you in touch with people, and not just any people. I’m going to put you in touch with the Attorney General of the United States — my Attorney General, Bill Barr — he’s got the whole weight of American law enforcement behind him. And I’m going to put you in touch with Rudy, you’re going to love him. Trust me. You know what I’m asking, so I’m only going to say this a few more times, in a few more ways. And don’t call me again. I’ll call you when you’ve done what I asked.</blockquote>
Schiff was widely condemned for his behavior and eventually apologized after being called out by Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY).

President Donald Trump Holds White House Summit On Child Care And Paid Leave

Trump: Democrats ‘Purposely Misquoted’ Me In Impeachment Hearing. CNN: ‘He’s Correct’

Today, the public-facing portion of House Democrats&#8217; impeachment <del>inquiry</del> witch hunt shifted from Rep. Adam Schiff&#8217;s (D-CA) Intelligence Committee to Rep. Jerrold Nadler&#8217;s (D-NY) <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/04/house-judiciary-committee-holds-trump-impeachment-hearings/2592069001/">Judiciary Committee</a>. The law school professor witnesses, We the People were reliably informed beforehand, would be testifying about whether or not President Donald Trump&#8217;s conduct on the now-infamous July 25th phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky amounted to an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-stop-calling-everything-impeachable-offense-josh-hammer">impeachable offense</a>. The three law school professors range from the outright leftist (Pamela Karlan and Noah Feldman) to the merely liberal/civil libertarian-leaning (Jonathan Turley).
It is not even remotely obvious why such a hearing is necessary or even helpful. On the contrary, the hearing is actually a monumental waste of time.
As I have noted countless times in both <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-stop-calling-everything-impeachable-offense-josh-hammer">these columns</a> and my weekly &#8220;Election Wire&#8221; newsletter (<a href="http://lp.dailywire.com/getelectionwire/">subscribe here!</a>), the Constitution&#8217;s Framers quite helpfully explained for us exactly what they meant by the ostensibly obscure, but actually English common law-rooted phrase describing the broader ambit of offenses that might be deemed impeachable: &#8220;[H]igh crimes and misdemeanors.&#8221; As I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-sondlands-testimony-reveals-the-error-of-the-white-houses-impeachment-defense-strategy">explained</a> last month:
<blockquote>
<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii" data-reader-unique-id="22">Article II, Section 4</a> of the U.S. Constitution defines the jurisdiction of impeachable offenses as being &#8220;treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.&#8221; In using the phrase &#8220;high crimes and misdemeanors,&#8221; the Constitution’s Framers employed a well-known phrase with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors#Britain" data-reader-unique-id="23">rich history</a> in the English common law tradition.
In <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp" data-reader-unique-id="25">The Federalist No. 65</a>, Alexander Hamilton helpfully defines &#8220;high crimes and misdemeanors&#8221; as being &#8220;those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.&#8221; By contrast, the men at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 expressly considered the much lower impeachment threshold of mere <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/27/how-founding-fathers-saw-impeachment-high-crimes-misdemeanors/" data-reader-unique-id="27">&#8220;maladministration&#8221;</a> before deciding against it. Put another way, the Framers specifically deliberated the possibility of constitutionally permitting impeachment for something as trivial as a mere policy disagreement or partisan squabble before rejecting that possibility outright.
</blockquote>
Why do we need three left-leaning law school professors — who, by definition of their ivory tower perches, all emanate from one of America&#8217;s leading institutional bastions of <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1202289044316655616">sclerotic and ideologically monolithic groupthink</a> — to tell us something that no less a Founding Father luminary than Alexander Hamilton quite clearly told us himself? Why, for that matter, do we need weeks of subpoenas, depositions, and hearings to recount first-, second-, and third-hand accounts about a diplomatic phone call for which the transcript is &#8230; <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1196802983423565825">literally already public</a>?
Indeed, virtually everything about the Democrats&#8217; partisan impeachment pursuit is a sham. We already know that impeachment is an inherently political, and not criminal, process. We already know that, while the Framers rejected a lower &#8220;maladministration&#8221; standard for impeachment, they nonetheless left us a purposefully malleable political standard that implicitly relied upon <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed51.asp">independent-minded</a> legislators exercising the contemporarily all-too rare <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/10/the-virtue-of-prudence">virtue</a> of prudence. Perhaps most importantly, we already know that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will be able to corral her troops to formally impeach the president around Christmas time, but that this hopeless stunt is destined for death on arrival upon its elevation to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell&#8217;s (R-KY) Senate.
All of this is a huge waste of the American people&#8217;s time. But it&#8217;s not like Congress has <a href="https://www.heritage.org/constitution/articles/1/essays/2/legislative-vesting-clause">anything better to do</a>, right?

HAMMER: Today’s Judiciary Committee Impeachment Hearing Is Yet Another Waste Of Time

Jerrold Nadler

U.S. House of Representatives

Along with the transcript of the two leaders&#8217; famous July 25 call showing no &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221; imposed by President Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky&#8217;s repeated <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-ratcliffe-to-impeachment-witness-here-are-all-the-times-ukraines-president-said-there-was-no-quid-pro-quo">public denials</a> of any such arrangement continue to undermine the Democrats&#8217; impeachment efforts. In an <a href="https://time.com/5742108/ukraine-zelensky-interview-trump-putin-europe/">interview</a> published by Time magazine on Monday, Zelensky — even while expressing some frustration with Trump and his administration — further drove the nail in the coffin of those hoping he would somehow change his tune on &#8220;no quid pro quo.&#8221;
In a loaded question, Time reporters tried to get Zelensky to offer something incriminating about Trump&#8217;s decision to delay U.S. security aid to Ukraine. &#8220;When did you first sense that there was a connection between Trump’s decision to block military aid to Ukraine this summer and the two investigations that Trump and his allies were asking for?&#8221; a Time reporter asked. &#8220;Can you clarify this issue of the quid pro quo?&#8221;
But, as he&#8217;s done consistently, Zelensky rejected any talk of the potential corruption investigations being linked to the U.S. military aid.
&#8220;Look, I never talked to the President from the position of a quid pro quo,&#8221; said the Ukrainian president. &#8220;That’s not my thing. … I don’t want us to look like beggars. But you have to understand. We’re at war. If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us. I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo. It just goes without saying.&#8221;
Zelensky&#8217;s &#8220;not about a quid pro quo&#8221; comment came after Time&#8217;s reporters asked impeachment-themed questions that hit on tensions between the Trump administration and Ukraine.
&#8220;[I]n the context of the impeachment inquiry, [Ambassador Kurt] Volker has left his post, as have other officials who supported Ukraine within the Trump Administration. In that context, how do you see the U.S. role in the peace process? How has it changed in the last few months, and how do you see it going forward?&#8221; Time asked.
&#8220;First off, I would never want Ukraine to be a piece on the map, on the chess board of big global players, so that someone could toss us around, use us as cover, as part of some bargain …&#8221; said Zelensky. &#8220;As for the United States, I would really want &#8212; and we feel this, it’s true &#8212; for them to help us, to understand us, to see that we are a player in our own right, that they cannot make deals about us with anyone behind our backs. Of course they help us, and I’m not just talking about technical help, military aid, financial aid. These are important things, very important things, especially right now, when we are in such a difficult position.&#8221;
He continued:
<blockquote>&#8220;The United States of America is a signal, for the world, for everyone,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;When America says, for instance, that Ukraine is a corrupt country, that is the hardest of signals. It might seem like an easy thing to say, that combination of words: Ukraine is a corrupt country. Just to say it and that’s it. But it doesn’t end there. Everyone hears that signal. Investments, banks, stakeholders, companies, American, European, companies that have international capital in Ukraine, it’s a signal to them that says, ‘Be careful, don’t invest.’ Or, ‘Get out of there.’ This is a hard signal. For me it’s very important for the United States, with all they can do for us, for them really to understand that we are a different country, that we are different people. It’s not that those things don’t exist. They do. All branches of government were corrupted over many years, and we are working to clean that up. But that signal from them is very important.&#8221;</blockquote>
Time then made a point of bringing up Trump recently describing Ukraine as &#8220;corrupt,&#8221; asking, &#8220;Do you have a plan for changing his mind?&#8221;
&#8220;I don’t need to change his mind,&#8221; said Zelensky. &#8220;During my meeting with him, I said that I don’t want our country to have this image. For that, all he has to do is come and have a look at what’s happening, how we live, what kinds of people we are. I had the sense that he heard me. I had that sense. At least during the meeting, he said, ‘Yes, I see, you’re young, you’re new, and so on.’&#8221;
The Democrats&#8217; impeachment inquiry was sparked by a whistleblower complaint based on second-hand knowledge of Trump&#8217;s July 25 call with Zelensky. Though Democrats have alleged that a quid pro quo was imposed by Trump, the transcript released by the administration, along with the complaint, revealed no such arrangement.
&#8220;There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that,&#8221; Trump told Zelensky during the famous call. &#8220;So whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-ratcliffe-to-impeachment-witness-here-are-all-the-times-ukraines-president-said-there-was-no-quid-pro-quo">WATCH: Impeachment Witness Asked About All The Times Ukraine’s President Said There Was ‘No Quid Pro Quo’</a>

Ruffalo

Even While Criticizing Trump, Ukraine President Slaps Down ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Claim

Citing &#8220;two people familiar with the matter,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/us/politics/trump-whistle-blower-complaint-ukraine.html">The New York Times</a> reported Tuesday that President Trump was informed about the whistleblower&#8217;s complaint about his alleged &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221; with Ukraine before he decided to release U.S. security aid to the country.
&#8220;Lawyers from the White House counsel’s office told Mr. Trump in late August about the complaint, explaining that they were trying to determine whether they were legally required to give it to Congress, the people said,&#8221; the Times reported.
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&#8220;The revelation could shed light on Mr. Trump’s thinking at two critical points under scrutiny by impeachment investigators: his decision in early September to release $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine and his denial to a key ambassador around the same time that there was a &#8216;quid pro quo&#8217; with Kyiv. Mr. Trump used the phrase before it had entered the public lexicon in the Ukraine affair,&#8221; the Times continues.
The Times also notes that the Office of Legal Counsel concluded that the Trump administration &#8220;did not have to hand over the [whistleblower] complaint&#8221; due to executive privilege. Despite that ruling, Trump decided to release the full complaint along with the transcript of his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, maintaining consistently that he has nothing to hide from the &#8220;perfect&#8221; call.
The Times report was published the same day that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-impeachment-witness-deposition-reveals-why-they-were-told-to-hold-ukraine-aid">transcripts</a> were released from the deposition of White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official Mark Sandy which undermined the Democrats&#8217; claim that Trump was withholding the aid as an attempt to &#8220;bribe&#8221; Ukraine into investigating alleged corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
In response to being asked what explanation the White House gave OMB official Michael Duffey for why the aid to Ukraine was being delayed, Sandy said Duffy told him it was &#8220;the President’s concern about other countries not contributing more to Ukraine.&#8221;
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Trump made a similar statement in a series of tweets on Monday, stating that he &#8220;held back the money from Ukraine because it is considered a corrupt country, [and] I wanted to know why nearby European countries weren’t putting up money also.&#8221;
&#8220;The D.C. Wolves and Fake News Media are reading far too much into people being forced by Courts to testify before Congress,&#8221; Trump wrote in the posts Monday. &#8220;I am fighting for future Presidents and the Office of the President. Other than that, I would actually like people to testify. Don McGahn’s respected lawyer has already stated that I did nothing wrong. John Bolton is a patriot and may know that I held back the money from Ukraine because it is considered a corrupt country, &amp; I wanted to know why nearby European countries weren’t putting up money also. Likewise, I would love to have Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and many others testify about the phony Impeachment Hoax. It is a Democrat Scam that is going nowhere but, future Presidents should in no way be compromised. What has happened to me should never happen to another President!&#8221;
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The Democrat-led impeachment inquiry was prompted by a whistleblower&#8217;s complaint alleging that Trump imposed a quid pro quo in an attempt to &#8220;pressure&#8221; Ukraine to investigate his political rival. However, Zelensky has repeatedly stated that there was no pressure, and the transcript of Trump&#8217;s famous July 25 call with Zelensky shows that while Trump did ask him to &#8220;look into&#8221; the Biden corruption allegations, no quid pro quo was issued.
“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that,” Trump told Zelensky in the much-analyzed call. “So whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”
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<div id="story-ad-1-slug" class="css-l9onyx">Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-heres-the-real-reason-i-held-back-money-from-ukraine-blocked-impeachment-testimony">Trump: Here’s The Real Reason I Held Back Money From Ukraine, Blocked Impeachment Testimony</a></div>
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NYT: Trump Knew About Whistleblower Complaint Before He Released Ukraine Aid

President Trump explained in a series of tweets Tuesday his rationale for temporarily withholding $391 million in U.S. military aid from Ukraine and preventing some Trump administration officials from testifying amid court orders that they do so.
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&#8220;The D.C. Wolves and Fake News Media are reading far too much into people being forced by Courts to testify before Congress,&#8221; Trump in a series of posts Tuesday. &#8220;I am fighting for future Presidents and the Office of the President. Other than that, I would actually like people to testify.&#8221;
The president then highlighted a few key figures who he said would back up his handling of the Ukraine aid situation.
&#8220;Don McGahn’s respected lawyer has already stated that I did nothing wrong,&#8221; he wrote &#8220;John Bolton is a patriot and may know that I held back the money from Ukraine because it is considered a corrupt country, [and] I wanted to know why nearby European countries weren’t putting up money also.&#8221;
&#8220;Likewise, I would love to have Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and many others testify about the phony Impeachment Hoax,&#8221; Trump continued. &#8220;It is a Democrat Scam that is going nowhere but, future Presidents should in no way be compromised. What has happened to me should never happen to another President!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The D.C. Wolves and Fake News Media are reading far too much into people being forced by Courts to testify before Congress. I am fighting for future Presidents and the Office of the President. Other than that, I would actually like people to testify. Don McGahn’s respected&#8230;.
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1199352946187800578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8230;love to have Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and many others testify about the phony Impeachment Hoax. It is a Democrat Scam that is going nowhere but, future Presidents should in no way be compromised. What has happened to me should never happen to another President!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1199352977934487553?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The Democrats are accusing Trump of &#8220;bribery&#8221; in an attempt to &#8220;pressure&#8221; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged corruption involving the Ukraine-based energy company Burisma Holdings and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
Allegations of wrongdoing on the Bidens&#8217; part have been swirling for years after Hunter landed a lucrative position on the board of Burisma despite having no direct experience to warrant the role other than his father&#8217;s newly appointed role of overseeing U.S.-Ukraine relations. The former vice president famously <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/09/27/flashback_2018_joe_biden_brags_at_cfr_meeting_about_withholding_aid_to_ukraine_to_force_firing_of_prosecutor.html">bragged</a> to the Council on Foreign Relations in January 2018 about getting Ukraine&#8217;s top prosecutor, who had been looking into Burisma for alleged corruption, fired by threatening to do exactly what the Democrats are accusing Trump of doing: withholding U.S. money.
<blockquote>BIDEN: I’m desperately concerned about the backsliding on the part of Kiev in terms of corruption &#8230; [I]t just happened to be [Ukraine] was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to — convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t. So they said they had — they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to — or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said — I said, call him. I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a b*tch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.</blockquote>
During their famous July 25 call, Trump asked Zelensky to &#8220;look into&#8221; allegations of corruption involving the Bidens. &#8220;There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that,&#8221; Trump told Zelensky. “So whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.&#8221;
The Democrats say that Trump was imposing a quid pro quo in the call, but Trump and his defenders say the transcript shows nothing of the sort and point to Zelensky&#8217;s repeated public assertions that there was no such pressure applied to him by the U.S.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-texas-republican-exposes-democrats-failure-on-trump-bribery-claim">WATCH: Texas Republican: Here’s How Many Times Impeachment Witnesses Have Even Mentioned ‘Bribery’</a>
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Trump: Here’s The Real Reason I Held Back Money From Ukraine, Blocked Impeachment Testimony

For weeks now, I have been pushing the message on my weekly Election Wire newsletter (sign up <a href="http://lp.dailywire.com/getelectionwire/">here</a>!) that the White House&#8217;s current impeachment defense strategy is misguided. Rather than focus on the procedural and semantical debate over whether a &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221; took place on the impeachment inquiry&#8217;s underlying Jury 25th phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, I have argued that it would be far preferable for the White House to <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1197163856482713603?s=12">defend the underlying substance</a> of the phone call as failing to rise to the Constitution&#8217;s impeachment criteria.
Following U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland&#8217;s testimony today in front of the House Intelligence Committee, I feel vindicated. After all, Sondland&#8217;s testimony today focused <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sondland-yes-there-was-a-quid-pro-quo-for-white-house-meeting">disproportionately</a> — perhaps nearly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ambassador-sondland-strikes-at-democrats-impeachment-narrative-trump-told-me-he-wanted-no-quid-pro-quo">exclusively</a> — on the question of whether a &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221; took place when Trump broached the subject of investigating the corrupt nexus of the Bidens and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-hammer-on-tipping-point-with-liz-wheeler-the-hunter-biden-foia-bombshell">troubled Ukrainian energy company Burisma</a> in the context of doling out fresh U.S. foreign aid to Ukraine.
The debate over whether a &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221; transpired has been at the very heart of Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff&#8217;s (D-CA) impeachment inquiry, and it seems to be the consensus Democratic Party stance that such a &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221; would be ipso facto (hey, the English language has other Latin loanwords, too) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-stop-calling-everything-impeachable-offense-josh-hammer">impeachable</a>. Accordingly, President Trump and his defenders in both the Republican elected official ranks and conservative punditry have centered their defense of Trump&#8217;s actions around the argument that no &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221; took place on the July 25th phone call.
This is a tactical error that ought to be remedied. But the good news is that it is not too late to change course.
Let&#8217;s start with first principles. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii">Article II, Section 4</a> of the U.S. Constitution defines the jurisdiction of impeachable offenses as being &#8220;treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.&#8221; In using the phrase &#8220;high crimes and misdemeanors,&#8221; the Constitution&#8217;s Framers employed a well-known phrase with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors#Britain">rich history</a> in the English common law tradition.
In <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp">The Federalist No. 65</a>, Alexander Hamilton helpfully defines &#8220;high crimes and misdemeanors&#8221; as being &#8220;those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.&#8221; By contrast, the men at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 expressly considered the much lower impeachment threshold of mere <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/27/how-founding-fathers-saw-impeachment-high-crimes-misdemeanors/">&#8220;maladministration&#8221;</a> before deciding against it. Put another way, the Framers specifically deliberated the possibility of constitutionally permitting impeachment for something as trivial as a mere policy disagreement or partisan squabble before rejecting that possibility outright.
The White House, congressional Republicans, and Trump-friendly conservative media alike should reorient their impeachment defense toward arguing that Trump&#8217;s conduct on the July 25th phone call with Zelensky simply does not rise to this elevated &#8220;high crimes and misdemeanors&#8221; constitutional criterion. The White House and its defenders should make the point that the absolute worst-case interpretation of the phone call is that of an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-the-new-york-post-alexander-vindman-condemned-himself-in-his-impeachment-testimony">ethical disagreement</a> over how — or how not — presidents ought to attach strings to the doling out of U.S. taxpayer-funded foreign aid. In no world, the White House should argue, does Trump&#8217;s conduct in attaching <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair/">legitimate, corruption crackdown-tied strings</a> to the U.S.&#8217;s doling out substantial foreign aid to Ukraine constitute, using the Hamiltonian language of The Federalist No. 65, an &#8220;abuse or violation of some public trust.&#8221; This argument would be politically popular, to boot: Americans <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/03/11/foreign-aid">routinely poll against foreign aid</a>, and agreeing with the premise that <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GlennBeck/videos/3094994400515040/">strings should be attached to foreign aid</a> is therefore a winning message for Republicans as we head into the heart of election season.
It is not yet too late for the GOP to change tactical course. But Sondland&#8217;s testimony today really ought to serve as a wakeup call for the White House and its congressional allies that they should do so sooner rather than later.

Gordon Sondland testifying

HAMMER: Sondland’s Testimony Reveals The Error Of The White House’s Impeachment Defense Strategy

Gordon Sondland

Hunter Biden

White House

During the first day of the public impeachment inquiry, the Democrats led off by calling one of their key witnesses, acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor Jr., who in his opening statement laid out his reasons for believing that President Trump was trying to pressure Ukraine into investigating his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.
When Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe had a chance to ask Taylor some questions, he pointed out a crucial detail that Democrats have attempted to downplay or outright ignore: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly denied that any quid pro quo or pressure was involved in his talks with Trump about investigations into the 2016 U.S. election or allegations of corruption involving the Bidens and Burisma Holdings.
As many on the right, and even CNN legal analyst <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1194722850088898563?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1194722850088898563&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fbrettt-3136%2F2019%2F11%2F13%2Feven-cnns-jeffrey-toobin-thinks-its-a-problem-for-dems-that-neither-witness-had-direct-contact-with-the-president%2F">Jeffrey Toobin</a>, have pointed out, one glaring problem with Taylor&#8217;s testimony, as well as the second witness interviewed Wednesday, is that he had no direct contact with Trump about the issue, thus any claims he presented about the president&#8217;s actions and intentions are second-hand at best. In one of his questions for Taylor, Ratcliffe noted this problem while also presenting first-hand, direct quotes from the other world leader involved in the situation, Zelensky himself.
&#8220;President Zelesnky went on to confirm a number of things: that there was no pressure, that there were no conditions, that there were no threats on military aid, that there was no pressure or conditions to investigate Burisma or the 2016 election, that there was no blackmail, that there was no corruption of any kind during the July 25th call,&#8221; Ratcliffe noted to Taylor Wednesday (video below).
<blockquote>RATCLIFFE: Again, from his official press release: &#8220;Therefore, there was no blackmail because it was not the subject of our conversation with the President of the United States. There were no conditions on the investigation, either because of arms or the situation around Burisma company.&#8221;
[Zelensky] told Reuters, &#8220;There was no blackmail.&#8221; He told the L.A. Times, &#8220;There was no pressure from the United States.&#8221; He told Japan&#8217;s Kyoto News, &#8220;I was never pressured, and there were no conditions being imposed.&#8221; He told ABC News and the BBC, &#8220;I&#8217;m against corruption. This is not corruption; it was just a call.&#8221;
The Ukrainian President stood in front of a world press and repeatedly, consistently, over and over again, interview after interview, said he had no knowledge of military aid being withheld, meaning no quid pro quo, no pressure, no demands, no threats, no blackmail, nothing corrupt.
And unlike the first 45 minutes we heard from the Democrats today, that&#8217;s not second-hand information, that&#8217;s not hearsay, it&#8217;s not what someone overheard Ambassador Sondland say. That was his direct testimony.</blockquote>
After quoting Zelensky repeatedly denying any kind of pressure or a quid pro quo, as Democrats have alleged that Trump imposed, Ratcliffe asked Taylor if he had &#8220;any evidence&#8221; that Zelensky was &#8220;lying&#8221; to the press.
&#8220;Ambassador Taylor, do you have any evidence to assert that President Zelensky was lying to the world press when he said those things?&#8221; Ratcliffe asked. &#8220;Yes or no?&#8221;
Taylor replied, &#8220;I have no reason to doubt what the president said in his speeches.&#8221;
Among those who highlighted the moment online was Donald Trump Jr, who tweeted out video of the exchange Wednesday:
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“The Ukrainian President stood in front of a world press and repeatedly, consistently, over and over again, interview after interview, said he had no knowledge of military aid being withheld, meaning no quid pro quo.&#8221;<a href="https://twitter.com/RepRatcliffe?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepRatcliffe</a> destroys dem arguments. <a href="https://t.co/Xg7tPnTJ1I">pic.twitter.com/Xg7tPnTJ1I</a>
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1194719985161179146?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Ratcliffe&#8217;s reference to &#8220;someone overhear[ing] Ambassador Sondland&#8221; appears to be a reference to Taylor&#8217;s previous statement Wednesday in which he revealed a new piece of information not included in his Oct. 22 testimony. Taylor said one of his aides recently told him that while at a meeting with Sondland he/she &#8220;could hear President Trump on the phone&#8221; inquiring about &#8220;investigations.&#8221;
&#8220;Last Friday, a member of my staff told me of events that occurred on July 26,” Taylor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/impeachment-witness-my-aide-overheard-trump-asking-about-investigations-when-he-was-on-phone-call">told</a> congressional committee members. “While Ambassador [Kurt] Volker and I visited the front, this member of my staff accompanied Ambassador Sondland. Ambassador Sondland met with Mr. [Andrey] Yermak,” a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Following that meeting, in the presence of my staff at a restaurant, Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kyiv,” said Taylor. “The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone, asking Ambassador Sondland about ‘the investigations.’ Ambassador Sondland told President Trump that the Ukrainians were ready to move forward.”
“Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine,” Taylor continued. “Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for.”
Many media outlets have highlighted the moment as a significant piece of evidence, but Republicans have noted its vagueness and third-hand nature as another example of information that would not stand up in court.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ken-starr-giving-damning-indictment-of-democrats-impeachment-hearing">Ken Starr Gives Damning Indictment Of Democrats’ Impeachment Hearing</a>

William Taylor

WATCH: Impeachment Witness Asked About All The Times Ukraine’s President Said There Was ‘No Quid Pro Quo’

John Ratcliffe

William Taylor Jr.

The nation&#8217;s eyes were on Washington, D.C. on Wednesday as the public impeachment inquiry, spearheaded by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, officially began. In a new wrinkle added to his previous testimony, William Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine — who has been referenced as one of the Democrats&#8217; &#8220;star&#8221; witnesses — said he was recently told by one of his aides that President Trump inquired about &#8220;the investigations&#8221; during a phone call with Ambassador Gordon Sondland. The aide knows this because he/she was meeting with Sondland and &#8220;could hear President Trump on the phone.&#8221;
&#8220;Last Friday, a member of my staff told me of events that occurred on July 26,&#8221; Taylor <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/11/13/778824788/read-william-taylors-opening-statement-in-public-impeachment-hearing">told</a> congressional committee members at the hearing Wednesday. &#8220;While Ambassador [Kurt] Volker and I visited the front, this member of my staff accompanied Ambassador Sondland. Ambassador Sondland met with Mr. [Andrey] Yermak,&#8221; a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
&#8220;Following that meeting, in the presence of my staff at a restaurant, Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kyiv,&#8221; said Taylor. &#8220;The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone, asking Ambassador Sondland about &#8216;the investigations.&#8217; Ambassador Sondland told President Trump that the Ukrainians were ready to move forward.&#8221;
&#8220;Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine,&#8221; Taylor continued. &#8220;Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for.&#8221;
Taylor then explained that he was presenting this new information now &#8220;for completeness&#8221; because he did not know it at the time he gave his deposition on October 22.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
WATCH: Amb. Taylor reveals new details of a call between Amb. Sondland and President Trump.<a href="https://t.co/uESXYQxKt9">https://t.co/uESXYQxKt9</a> <a href="https://t.co/GYYgE1SGvr">pic.twitter.com/GYYgE1SGvr</a>
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNightlyNews/status/1194657660148297728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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That Trump was interested in Ukraine investigating alleged Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election as well as corruption allegations involving the Bidens is no secret. Along with releasing the whistleblower complaint that laid out the accusations that Trump tried to &#8220;pressure&#8221; Ukraine into &#8220;digging up dirt,&#8221; as Democrats&#8217; put it, on his political opponent by withholding military aid, the Trump administration also released the transcript of the July 25 call referenced in the complaint.
In the transcript, Trump indeed asks Zelensky to &#8220;look into&#8221; the alleged corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, but offers no &#8220;quid pro quo,&#8221; as initially alleged. &#8220;There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that,&#8221; Trump told Zelensky. &#8220;So whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.&#8221;
A key figure in the Democrat-led inquiry has been Sondland, who is generally viewed as a &#8220;pro-Trump&#8221; figure. In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/04/us/politics/ukraine-text-messages-volker.html">text exchange</a> that was leaked early on in the Ukraine story, Sondland stressed to Taylor that there was &#8220;no quid pro quo&#8221; for Trump&#8217;s requested investigations:
<blockquote>[9/9/19, 12:47:11 AM] Bill Taylor: As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.
[9/9/19, 5:19:35 AM] Gordon Sondland: Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during his campaign I suggest we stop the back and forth by text If you still have concerns I recommend you give Lisa Kenna or S a call to discuss them directly. Thanks.</blockquote>
In other exchanges with his fellow diplomats, the idea that the investigations were a top priority is clear. In his early testimony before congressional investigators, Sondland said that he at one point came to &#8220;presume&#8221; that the aid and the investigations were connected.
Sondland <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nyt-pro-trump-diplomat-makes-substantial-update-to-his-impeachment-testimony-on-quid-pro-quo">told</a> committee members last week in additional testimony  that he thought withholding aid from Ukraine was &#8220;ill-advised,&#8221; but was unsure &#8220;when, why or by whom the aid was suspended.&#8221; By early September, he said, he began to &#8220;presume&#8221; the aid was linked to the anti-corruption investigation statement the White House wanted Zelensky to issue.
&#8220;I presumed that the aid suspension had become linked to the proposed anticorruption statement,” said Sondland.
Sondland explained that in his discussion with Zelensky&#8217;s advisor Yermak on September 1, which took place while Vice President Mike Pence was meeting with  Zelensky, he told Yermak that the U.S. military aid &#8220;would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks.&#8221;
&#8220;I said that resumption of the U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,&#8221; he said, according to the additional testimony.
Republicans have pointed to the fact that Ukraine did end up receiving the aid, without having begun an investigation, as evidence that there was no quid pro quo, as Trump has maintained.
Read Taylor&#8217;s full opening statement for the congressional hearing Wednesday <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/11/13/778824788/read-william-taylors-opening-statement-in-public-impeachment-hearing">here</a>. 
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-adam-schiff-makes-questionable-claim-about-ukraine-whistleblower">WATCH: Adam Schiff Makes Questionable Claim About Ukraine Whistleblower</a>

WATCH: Impeachment Witness: My Aide Overheard Trump Asking About Investigations When He Was On Phone Call

Here is everything you need to know, to-date.
<ul>
<li>April 2014: Hunter Biden <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/66271/timeline-trump-giuliani-bidens-and-ukrainegate/">joined</a> Ukrainian energy company Burisma.</li>
<li>August 2014: Ukrainian Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/66271/timeline-trump-giuliani-bidens-and-ukrainegate/">opened</a> a corruption investigation about Burisma.</li>
<li>Fall 2015/Winter 2015–2016: Then-Vice President Joe Biden first <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/66271/timeline-trump-giuliani-bidens-and-ukrainegate/">made a public issue</a> out of alleged prosecutor-related corruption in Ukraine.</li>
<li>February 2016: Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which had Hunter Biden as a board member at the time, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-hammer-on-tipping-point-with-liz-wheeler-the-hunter-biden-foia-bombshell">sought to utilize</a> Biden&#8217;s stature as a means to secure a U.S. State Department meeting.</li>
<li>March 2016: Then-Vice President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/hunter-bidens-ukraine-gas-firm-lobbied-state-department-to-end-corruption-allegations-emails-show_3137480.html">pressured Ukraine</a> to fire the prosecutor involved with investigating Burisma.</li>
<li>June 2017: Rudy Giuliani <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair/">visited Ukraine</a> and met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko.</li>
<li>January 2018: Joe Biden was <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/09/27/flashback_2018_joe_biden_brags_at_cfr_meeting_about_withholding_aid_to_ukraine_to_force_firing_of_prosecutor.html">filmed bragging about</a> how he forced the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor he did not like by threatening to withhold foreign aid to Ukraine.</li>
<li>August 2018: Giuliani was <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair/">hired</a> by a company run by Ukrainian business tycoon Lev Parnas.</li>
<li>Later 2018: Giuliani pressured Lutsenko to open corruption-related investigations about the Bidens and Burisma.</li>
<li>January 2019: Giuliani met multiple times with Lutsenko and, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukraine.html?module=inline">The New York Times</a>, allegedly pushed Lutsenko on the Bidens, Burisma, and then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.</li>
<li>March 2019: Lutsenko <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair/">opened two investigations</a> — one on the Bidens and one on Burisma. The Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukraine.html?module=inline">alleged</a> that Lutsenko also accused Yovanovitch of corruption.</li>
<li>April 2019: Trump <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair/">reportedly told</a> Fox News host Sean Hannity that Attorney General William Barr might investigate allegations about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election.</li>
<li>May 2019: Yovanovitch resigned as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.</li>
<li>May 2019: The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/us/politics/giuliani-ukraine-trump.html">reported</a> on an upcoming Rudy Giuliani trip to Ukraine.</li>
<li>May 2019: Giuliani <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair/">expressed</a> his belief in the theory that Ukraine actively assisted the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential election.</li>
<li>June 2019: Giuliani <a href="https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1142085975230898176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&amp;ref_url=safari-reader%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com%2F2019%2F10%2Fthe-two-theories-of-trumps-actions-in-the-ukraine-affair%2F">tweeted</a> that Ukraine was &#8220;abused by Hillary and Obama people.&#8221;</li>
<li>July 25, 2019: Now-infamous <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf">phone call</a> took place between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.</li>
<li>September 24, 2019: <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf">Transcript</a> of phone call released between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.</li>
<li>September 24, 2019: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/us/politics/democrats-impeachment-trump.html">announced</a> that House Democrats would seek to open an impeachment inquiry against President Trump.</li>
<li>September 26, 2019: Whistleblower complaint about the Trump-Zelensky phone call <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/26/us/politics/whistle-blower-complaint.html">revealed</a>.</li>
<li>October 2, 2019: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/us/politics/adam-schiff-whistleblower.html">Revelation</a> that Rep. Adam Schiff&#8217;s (D-CA) office had been in contact with the whistleblower.</li>
<li>October 17, 2019: <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/17/770714277/read-gordon-sondlands-opening-statement-to-congress">Written testimony</a> of U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland includes: &#8220;President Trump was skeptical that Ukraine was serious about reforms and anti-corruption, and he directed those of us present at the meeting to talk to Mr. Giuliani, his personal attorney, about his concerns. It was apparent to all of us that the key to changing the President’s mind on Ukraine was Mr. Giuliani.&#8221;</li>
<li>October 22, 2019: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/22/us/politics/william-taylor-ukraine-testimony.html">Written testimony</a> of top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine Bill Taylor notes: By mid-July, it was becoming clear to me that the meeting President Zelenskyy wanted was conditioned on the investigations of Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. It was also clear that this condition was driven by the irregular policy channel I had come to understand was guided by Mr. Giuliani.&#8221;</li>
<li>October 29, 2019: Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who serves on the U.S. National Security Council, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/11/08/777514772/read-testimony-of-alexander-vindman-the-white-houses-ukraine-specialist">testified</a> that the White House&#8217;s released transcript of the Trump-Zelensky phone call had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/30/politics/alexander-vindman-testimony-white-house-transcript/index.html">crucial omissions</a> with respect to the Bidens.</li>
<li>October 31, 2019: House <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/31/us/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry-house-vote.html">voted</a> to establish the procedural rules governing the impeachment of President Trump.</li>
</ul>

Map of Ukraine

The Complete Timeline Of The Trump-Ukraine Story

Rudy Giuliani

Comments by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a press conference Thursday &#8220;should end this Democrat Scam,&#8221; President Trump says — if the Democrats and their allies in the media weren&#8217;t committed to it.
&#8220;The President of the Ukraine just stated again, in the strongest of language, that President Trump applied no pressure and did absolutely nothing wrong. He used the strongest language possible,&#8221; Trump tweeted Thursday. &#8220;That should end this Democrat Scam, but it won’t, because the Dems &amp; Media are FIXED!&#8221;
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The President of the Ukraine just stated again, in the strongest of language, that President Trump applied no pressure and did absolutely nothing wrong. He used the strongest language possible. That should end this Democrat Scam, but it won’t, because the Dems &amp; Media are FIXED!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1182289435955777537?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
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In a &#8220;press marathon&#8221; Thursday, President Zelensky, the world leader on the other end of the line during the famous July 25 call that sparked the Democrats&#8217; impeachment inquiry, once again stressed that &#8220;there was no blackmail.&#8221;
As evidence, Zelensky pointed to the fact that his government didn&#8217;t even know that the U.S. was withholding $391 million in military aid until weeks after the call.
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&#8220;There was no blackmail.&#8221; Ukrainian President Zelenskiy says he didn&#8217;t know U.S. military aid funds for Ukraine had been blocked until after his July 25 call with President Trump. <a href="https://t.co/UwG46WeFmD">pic.twitter.com/UwG46WeFmD</a>
— Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (@RFERL) <a href="https://twitter.com/RFERL/status/1182284021306462210?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
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As BuzzFeed&#8217;s Stephen Miller <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/ukraine-unaware-aid-holdup-month-after-trump-call">reported</a> last week, Zelensky&#8217;s government &#8220;was still checking its bank account for US aid for a month after the Trump call.&#8221;
&#8220;The Ukrainian government didn’t know it was being held up in Washington by Trump, according to the two Ukrainian officials,&#8221; Miller reported. &#8220;Nearly a month after the call — which Zelensky has since described as &#8216;good&#8217; and Trump has called &#8216;perfect&#8217; — the Ukrainian government was left stumped when they received word that the aid had in fact been suspended.&#8221;
&#8220;Ukraine finally learned about the holdup in late August, nearly a month after the call, according to Olena Zerkal, the deputy foreign minister who was acting minister at the time of the call,&#8221; Miller explained. &#8220;And they only found out from a &#8216;letter sent to us from our Washington Embassy&#8217; that provided no explanation for the move, she said. Zerkal said she couldn’t remember the exact date of the letter, but it was before <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/28/trump-ukraine-military-aid-russia-1689531" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Politico</a> broke the news of the holdup on Aug. 28.&#8221;
A U.S. official confirmed the timeline to BuzzFeed and noted that Ukraine wasn&#8217;t informed about the delay in aid because the administration expected to resolve the issue quickly.
According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-ordered-hold-on-military-aid-days-before-calling-ukrainian-president-officials-say/2019/09/23/df93a6ca-de38-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The Washington Post</a>, Trump ordered the aid to be withheld a week before the July 25 call. Trump has says that he ordered the aid to be withheld because the U.S. is attempting &#8220;to make sure that country is honest.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s very important to talk about corruption,&#8221; Trump said last week. &#8220;If you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?&#8221;
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who is at the center of the impeachment inquiry, likewise used aid to force Ukraine to address corruption — at least that&#8217;s his explanation for his demand of the Ukrainian government to remove the prosecutor who investigated his son&#8217;s company.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ukraine-president-were-ready-to-investigate-ukraines-alleged-meddling-in-2016-u-s-election">Ukraine President: We’re Ready To Investigate Ukraine’s Alleged Meddling In 2016 U.S. Election</a>

US-POLITICS-trade-agriculture-diplomacy

Trump: What Ukraine’s President Just Said ‘Should End This Democrat Scam’

During a &#8220;press marathon&#8221; on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the topic of his famous July 25 phone call with President Trump, including one of the &#8220;favors&#8221; Trump mentioned: to look into &#8220;the whole situation&#8221; of Ukraine&#8217;s role in the 2016 U.S. election.
&#8220;Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country,&#8221; <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446">Politico</a>&#8216;s Kenneth Vogel and David Stern wrote in a January 2017 report that has since been cited by multiple administration officials. &#8220;Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.&#8221;
During his call with Zelensky, Trump asked for a &#8220;favor&#8221; that included looking into &#8220;this whole situation with Ukraine&#8221; in 2016, including the role played by Ukrainian-based cybersecurity company Crowdstrike, which the Democratic National Committee used to review the hacking of its emails.
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&#8220;I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it,&#8221; Trump told Zelensky. &#8220;I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike&#8230; I guess you have one of your wealthy people&#8230; The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you&#8217;re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it&#8217;s very important that you do it if that&#8217;s possible.&#8221;
While <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/08/gop-theory-that-ukraine-set-up-trump/">The Washington Post</a> says that &#8220;evidence so far indicates there is nothing that took place in Ukraine that even begins to compare to the Russian intervention in the 2016 election&#8221; and slams Republicans&#8217; Crowdstrike suspicions as a &#8220;crazy stuff,&#8221; the Trump administration and some Republican congressmen, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), believe there&#8217;s more there than the media would like to admit.
During his &#8220;press marathon&#8221; Thursday, Zelensky announced that his government is &#8220;ready to investigate Ukraine&#8217;s alleged meddling in the U.S. elections,&#8221; referencing the 2016 election, Eastern Europe Correspondent <a href="https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1182261326992871424">Christopher Miller</a> reported Thursday in a <a href="https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2019/10/10/siren-president-zelenskiy-says-were-ready-to-investigate-ukraines-alleged-meddling-in-the-us-elections/">series of tweets</a> issued during the press conference.
Zelensky also addressed his new attorney general that will be heading up future investigations.
&#8220;This is a new, young team, we&#8217;ll have a new attorney general, an open, honest person, 100%. This is my man, I said. I meant it was a person from my team, not from the old attorney general&#8217;s,&#8221; he said.
Asked by Miller about Ukraine&#8217;s potential meddling in the next election, Zelensky told him, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to interfere in any way in the U.S. elections and I will not be doing it&#8230; Elect your own president and do not interfere in the future elections of an independent Ukraine. With due respect for the United States and America&#8217;s policy, we are not serving the latter&#8217;s purpose, as we are an independent country. However, we do not want to lose our relations, we wish to strengthen them instead.&#8221;
Zelensky also once again confirmed that he did not even know about the U.S. withholding military aid until after the phone call with Trump, undermining the Democrats&#8217; claim that Trump was using the aid as &#8220;pressure&#8221; to force Ukraine to &#8220;dig up dirt&#8221; on Joe Biden.
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Zelenskiy today also confirmed he didn&#8217;t know US had held up $391 million in military aid when he spoke to Trump on July 25. Here&#8217;s my reporting on that from last week, with comments from then-puzzled Ukrainian officials. <a href="https://t.co/I4Z59fsUvD">https://t.co/I4Z59fsUvD</a>
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1182267730872942592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Trump has since responded to Zelensky&#8217;s statements Thursday as more evidence that the Democrats&#8217; impeachment inquiry is a &#8220;scam.&#8221;
&#8220;The President of the Ukraine just stated again, in the strongest of language, that President Trump applied no pressure and did absolutely nothing wrong,&#8221; Trump tweeted. &#8220;He used the strongest language possible. That should end this Democrat Scam, but it won’t, because the Dems &amp; Media are FIXED!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
The President of the Ukraine just stated again, in the strongest of language, that President Trump applied no pressure and did absolutely nothing wrong. He used the strongest language possible. That should end this Democrat Scam, but it won’t, because the Dems &amp; Media are FIXED!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1182289435955777537?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Below is the much-analyzed section of the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-transcript-call/index.html">transcript</a> of the July 25 call in which Trump asked for the favor to the look into Ukraine&#8217;s role in the 2016 election and alleged corruption involving the Bidens:
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<blockquote>Trump: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike&#8230; I guess you have one of your wealthy people&#8230; The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you&#8217;re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it&#8217;s very important that you do it if that&#8217;s possible.
Zelensky: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I can assure you.
Trump: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that&#8217;s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what&#8217;s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There&#8217;s a lot of talk about Biden&#8217;s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it&#8230; It sounds horrible to me.
Zelensky: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all, I understand and I&#8217;m knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.
Trump: Well, she&#8217;s going to go through some things. I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I&#8217;m sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It&#8217;s a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, their incredible people.</blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sen-cotton-has-some-questions-for-the-intelligence-community-ig-regarding-the-whistleblower-complaint">Sen. Cotton Has Some Questions For The Intelligence Community IG Regarding The Whistleblower Complaint</a>

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