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[Telgin]

This administration would be hilarious if their incompetence wasn't so scary.

[Dunamisdeos]

This administration would be hilarious if their incompetence wasn't so scary.

They'd be scarier if they weren't so incompetent, too.

[Naturegirl1999]

This administration would be hilarious if their incompetence wasn't so scary.

They'd be scarier if they weren't so incompetent, too.

Yep, I’d rather they be incompetent and not get what they want done, then them be competent and turn this country into the Republic of Gillead

[Reelya]

EDIT: The thing is, there's already plenty of stuff from before that's objectively worse than this and impeachable. The only reason the Dems dragged their feet is that they care more about their own status than about damage to the public. But this one really hits them where it hurts them, an overt illegal attack on them and their chances of getting elected. So now they're mad. Not saying they won't fuck up again, but at least they have some motivation to try to do something about it.

If they'd started impeachment earlier how would that have played out however, in terms of the next election. Say they took Trump down 1 year ago, Pence would be in charge now and the Repuplicans would probably already have a good idea who they're actually going to run in the next election, and the not-Trumps would already by securing donors. Impeach him so that it hits right in the middle of the 2020 Republican primaries is the best bet for unseating the Republicans. "sooner" isn't always smartest.

If Pence had ended up in charge then you'd have a problem that Pence could run from 2018-2020, then from 2020-2028, so you would have exchanged 8 possible years of Trump (which isn't actually that likely since he's so incompetent, more like 4 years) for 12 years of combined Trump/Pence, while giving Pence the lead since he'll be so obviously not as a bad as Trump as to get a halo.

[Dunamisdeos]

I believe they've come out and said that the recent Ukraine incident is not going to be the focus of their impeachment proceedings, though it was the final straw for them.

[Reelya]

Well my theory is that it's less last-straw, and more strategically-timed-straw to do the Republicans the most damage possible for the 2020s, since it'll take time to takes effect and Trump will still be the nominee.

[Trekkin]

I believe they've come out and said that the recent Ukraine incident is not going to be the focus of their impeachment proceedings, though it was the final straw for them.

Do you have a source for that? I've seen articles quoting Democrats saying that Ukraine will be the focus of their investigation, but Trump has presumably had more than one phone call with Zelensky.

[Baffler]

I believe they've come out and said that the recent Ukraine incident is not going to be the focus of their impeachment proceedings, though it was the final straw for them.

Do you have a source for that? I've seen articles quoting Democrats saying that Ukraine will be the focus of their investigation, but Trump has presumably had more than one phone call with Zelensky.

I hope so. The transcripts show that Trump did nothing wrong there, and it will surely increase the visibility of this, the actual crime in this situation.

[Reelya]

Yeah, amateur youtube video turns out to be as partisan bullshit as you'd expect an amateur youtube video to be, and not actually a credible news source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Shokin

Shokin was appointed General Prosecutor of Ukraine on 10 February 2015. He became deeply unpopular and was accused of blocking major cases against allies and influential figures and hindering the fight against corruption in Ukraine. Various street protests demanding Shokin's resignation were held and his Deputy Prosecutor, Vitaly Kasko, resigned on 15 February 2016 denouncing the corruption and lawlessness of the Prosecutor's office. US Vice-President Joe Biden lobbied for Shokin resignation and the Obama Administration withheld a billion dollars in loan guarantees for the time Shokin held office.
...
Since 2012, the Ukrainian prosecutor general had been investigating oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, owner of the oil company Burisma Holdings, over allegations of money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption. In 2015, Shokin became the prosecutor general, inheriting the investigation. The Obama administration and other governments and non-governmental organizations soon became concerned that Shokin was not adequately pursuing corruption in Ukraine, was protecting the political elite, and was regarded as "an obstacle to anti-corruption efforts". Among other issues, he was slow-walking the investigation into Zlochevsky and Burisma - to the extent that Obama officials were considering launching their own criminal investigation into the company for possible money laundering.

First up, the guy who made the video can't even get his dates straight. It says this started in 2006 in the video, but 2016 in the description.

Also the facts seem to be that the investigation started in 2012 against the oligarch  Mykola Zlochevsky. Hunter Biden then openly joined the board of Burisma Holding in 2014. Skokin then took over as Prosecutor General in 2015, but he actually shelved the investigation against Mykola Zlochevsky. There's no actual evidence that he was investigating Biden at all.

Also the main issue is that

In 2019, President Donald Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, claimed that Vice President Biden had actually sought the dismissal of Shokin in order to protect his son and Burisma Holdings.
...
In July 2019, Trump ordered the freezing of $391 million in military aid shortly before a telephone conversation with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he repeatedly urged Zelensky to speak with Giuliani, possibly about launching an investigation into the Bidens.

So he freezes US aid to hold another country hostage and tries to get them to coordinate through a person acting as Trump's personal attorney rather than through official channels such as the state department, to launch some kind of witch-hunt against a person who's the most likely direct political rival of Trump in the next election.

[Baffler]

Yes, I'm sure the whole deal with Biden's son was pure coincidence.

[PTTG??]

Trump supporters will insist that it is the presidents right, nay, duty, to perform droit du seigneur.

That said, the issue as I see it is that Trump used the office of the president to attack a political rival. If that is not a high crime or misdemeanor, then those words have no meaning. Biden may be about the worst thing that the Democratic party has to offer right now, and hell, his son might have benefited from his position, but we cannot allow trump to further subvert the norms of our nation by once again using the state as his private army.

Nor should we pretend that the Biden accusation was the only thing that the whistleblower mentioned; this one one of several complaints.

Arguing that this was all aboveboard is to argue that the break-in at the watergate could have been justified.

[Reelya]

Yes, I'm sure the whole deal with Biden's son was pure coincidence.

However the problem with that narrative is that there was no investigation into Biden in Ukraine. He openly took the board job when the firm was already under international investigation by both the UK and US governments, along with the Ukrainians, because the owner was trying to bring in transparent international governance. At the same time, they also brought in Polish ex-president Aleksander Kwaśniewski as a member on the board, who "Since June 2012 Kwaśniewski and Pat Cox lead a European Parliament monitoring mission in Ukraine to monitor the criminal cases against Yulia Tymoshenko, Yuriy Lutsenko and Valeriy Ivaschenko."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksander_Kwa%C5%9Bniewski

So, the entire point was that after the 2014 change of government, they brought in prominent EU and US people to head the board so that they could make a break with the turmoil and the period which was under investigation and set up transparent governance. The point wasn't to bring these people in and involve them in dirty dealings, and there is no actual evidence that the post-2014 board was ever investigated for such dealings.

[sluissa]

Just to note, it is kind of true that Ukraine, while likely part of the impeachment inquiry, will not be the whole story. This is still, at the moment, a continuation of Jerry Nadler's inquiry that he started weeks ago. It simply now has the official backing of more people, including Nancy Pelosi. This isn't impeachment yet. This isn't even a vote on impeachment yet. This is committee work to look through the evidence and see if there's any specific actions they want to use as grounds for a vote on impeachment. However, being that it's official congressional business, that gives them a little more power, not much, but a little more, to ask for records and documents to be turned over.

[Baffler]

Yes, I'm sure the whole deal with Biden's son was pure coincidence.

However the problem with that narrative is that there was no investigation into Biden in Ukraine. He openly took the board job when the firm was already under international investigation by both the UK and US governments, along with the Ukrainians, because the owner was trying to bring in transparent international governance. At the same time, they also brought in Polish ex-president Aleksander Kwaśniewski as a member on the board, who "Since June 2012 Kwaśniewski and Pat Cox lead a European Parliament monitoring mission in Ukraine to monitor the criminal cases against Yulia Tymoshenko, Yuriy Lutsenko and Valeriy Ivaschenko."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksander_Kwa%C5%9Bniewski

So, the entire point was that after the 2014 change of government, they brought in prominent EU and US people to head the board so that they could make a break with the turmoil and the period which was under investigation and set up transparent governance. The point wasn't to bring these people in and involve them in dirty dealings, and there is no actual evidence that the post-2014 board was ever investigated for such dealings.

There indeed was evidence that Hunter Biden was being looked at, and not for spurious reasons either. That's not even the issue at hand though - Joe Biden's role would be important if it really did shake out that way (which I obviously think it did) but it's not about him. If he did put the pressure on that way because of his son it's extremely fucking shady and reflects very badly on him but there would never be any way to prove that he did it for that reason and wasn't just acting in line with the administration's desire to replace him. What is going on is that the new prosecutor, as you said, let the case fall away for no obvious reason. Trump wanted to reopen this high profile corruption case, something that he clearly and obviously has the authority to do and can hardly even be argued to be a bad idea, and asked the President of Ukraine to make sure that Ukraine's judicial system worked smoothly with the USA's, also something that he clearly and obviously has the authority to do and can hardly even be argued to be a bad idea. Democrats jumped on this and closed ranks around Joe seemingly without even actually knowing what was going on, and accused him of withholding military aid to Ukraine over the issue (proven false) and being politically motivated in reopening the probe, which is honestly just hilarious.

[Doomblade187]

Baffler good friend. Can we please get a citation for the military aid being probably not witheld over the issue?