I continue working through a backlog of hundreds of "Good Morning Liberty" podcast episodes (at last count, I've broken below 200). I've been irritated by the pro-Trump tilt, especially on the impeachments. I don't want to repeat myself on these issues, but there are nuances that merit a response.
First, I did get an insight into Nate Thurston's nuanced view as he discussed his 2020 vote (for Jorgensen). That might seem obvious for a libertarian podcaster, but he explained that he was so incensed at the mainstream media tilt against Trump, he was sorely tempted to choose Trump, as a protest against the mainstream media. He didn't say this but it's implied: "If the Dems and their mainstream media enablers went after Paul Ryan for throwing Grandma over the cliff (over entitlement reform), just imagine if we elected REAL fiscal conservatives/libertarians trying to put some teeth in social welfare reform..."
There is a discussion over the Dem Russiagate conspiracy theory rubbish. There are 2 principal points here. First, to a large extent, Trump brought this on himself. He openly invited Russia to expose Hillary Clinton's missing emails. You never, ever ask an adversarial power for a political favor. People are going to wonder about some quid pro quo, what the Russians would demand in return. You don't have surrogates, including one of your sons, meet with Russian surrogates during the campaign. Trump would later argue that the request for Russian assistance on emails was just a "joke". Nope. It was just part of an inexperienced, incompetent, undisciplined politician. Encouraging Russia to expose possible national secrets is not in the national interest, and Trump's impulsive judgment is a legitimate voter concern.
Second, Trump's blatant abuse of the Justice Department during the Mueller investigation was improper, suspicious, and counter-productive; in the eyes of most middle-of-the-road voters: where there's smoke, there's fire. If Trump were innocent, he would welcome an independent investigation likely to exonerate him. His impulsive, unconstitutional attempts to control the investigation vastly exacerbated the situation, and he has no one to blame but himself. An unfettered investigation would have likely backfired on partisan Dems. Consider this relevant assessment:
[W]e believe that the President’s conduct demonstrates a flagrant disregard for the rule of law — a disregard that is in direct conflict with his constitutional responsibilities, including his commitment under oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Information in the report also reveals that the President is willing to abuse presidential authority to pressure or remove Senate-confirmed officials for purposes that undermine lawful functioning of government and to direct subordinates to falsify the record on matters he knew were or likely were under investigation. The report’s details add to an existing body of information already in the public domain documenting the President’s violations of his oath, including but not limited to his denigration of the free press, verbal attacks on members of the judiciary, encouragement of law enforcement officers to violate the law, and incessant lying to the American people. We believe the framers of the Constitution would have viewed the totality of this conduct as evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Now on an episode which included a clip of Trump's 2 first impeachment charges, Nate and Chuck tried to turn the Trump's extortion of the Ukraine President back on Biden, while laughingly dismissing the idea of Biden as Trump's political rival. Let's be clear: Biden ALWAYS polled well against Trump, and Trump knew it; Biden's candidacy was based principally on his electability; he did not have Hillary Clinton's unfavorability factor and a divided party after Comrade Bernie's popular campaign; Biden would likely have a highly motivated base against Trump and would likely retake Trump's rust belt states (WI, MI, PA). Biden had strong support in the politically relevant black community from serving as Obama's VP for 8 years. What incenses me here is that Nate and Chuck were directly quoting Trump talking points, pointing out Biden's slow start in the primary campaign. That was not the case at the time that Trump extorted the Ukraine President.
Nate and Chuck stupidly accepted the moral equivalency of Trump's extortion of Zelensky (in conjunction with Trump's unilateral suspension of Ukraine aid signed into law, despite at least two investigations by DoD/State Department of Ukraine certifying Ukraine compliance with anti-corruption provisions for the aid), with Biden's apparent threat to cut off about $1B in aid to Ukraine, allegedly by Giuliani et al., to protect Hunter Biden's lucrative position on the oligarch Zlochevsky's Burisma board.
This is so ludicrous from so many points of fact, one hardly knows where to start. First of all, Biden's stand against Ukraine corruption was consistent with US policy and he was not alone in pressuring Ukraine's parliament: IMF had threatened to halt $40B in loans over Ukraine government corruption.
Second, Biden had been pushing for Ukraine corruption reform and reform of the energy industry even before Shokin was hired as Prosecutor General in 2015:
So, Mr. Biden threw himself into what seemed like standard-issue vice-presidential stuff: prodding Ukraine’s leaders to tackle the rampant corruption that made their country a risky bet for international lenders — and pushing reform of Ukraine’s cronyism-ridden energy industry.
“You have to be whiter than snow, or the whole world will abandon you,” Mr. Biden told the country’s newly elected president, Petro O. Poroshenko, during an early 2014 phone call, according to former administration officials.
However, Shokin did not improve much over his failed predecessor:
Within months, though, the State Department began suspecting that the office of Mr. Poroshenko’s first prosecutor general was accepting bribes to protect Mykola Zlochevsky, the oligarch owner of Burisma Holdings, the gas company where Hunter Biden was a board member. In a February 2015 meeting in Kiev with a deputy prosecutor, a State Department official named George P. Kent demanded to know “who took the bribe and how much was it?”
The prosecutor general was fired soon after. But it wasn’t long before the new prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was drawing allegations of corruption, including from State Department officials who suspected he was shaking down targets and intentionally slow-walking investigations to protect allies.
Now Biden on Ukraine energy reform was mostly focused on the state-owned Naftogaz, not Burisma:
“The position regarding getting rid of Shokin was not Vice President Biden’s position; it was the position of the U.S. government, as well as the European Union and international financial institutions,” said Amos J. Hochstein, former coordinator for international energy affairs at the State Department and one of the few administration officials who directly confronted Mr. Biden at the time about his son.
Ukraine’s energy industry, the country’s geopolitically crucial economic engine, was a central point of contention between the Obama administration and Kiev. Mr. Biden and Mr. Hochstein, echoing a similar effort by European officials, pressured Mr. Poroshenko to reform the operations of the state-owned natural gas company Naftogaz, which controlled about two-thirds of the country’s energy resources.
In past posts, I've pointed out that the British had frozen millions in Zlochevsky's assets on suspicion of money laundering but needed documentation from Shokin's office; not only didn't he cooperate, but he sent the oligarch a letter clearing him. Shokin was not happy with Biden's role in his demise and claimed Biden stopped him just as he was getting ready to go after Burisma. If you believe that, you'll believe Popeye's friend Wimpy will, in fact, pay you on Tuesday for today's hamburger. I have also written how Ukraine prosecutors and leaders denied any contact from Biden on the investigations into Burisma.
Hunter Biden himself says his dad was wary over the Burisma connection, saying something to the effect "I hope you know what you're doing." He left Burisma after his term expired. What Joe Biden did on Ukraine, if anything, put Hunter's position at risk; in fact, Ukraine reopened the Burisma case after firing Shokin.
I still don't like the optics of Joe Biden letting Hunter Biden serve on the Burisma board, because you don't want the APPEARANCE of a possible conflict of interest, e.g., Zlochevsky paying a bribe through Biden's son as a shield from prosecution.
But what Trump did was infinitely worse. He abused his foreign relations authority as POTUS for political dirt on Joe Biden. That was, full stop, unethical, illegal, and unconstitutional.
As for the second charge (obstruction of Congress). the fact is Congress has oversight authority of the Executive Branch, and Trump was staving off a lawful inquiry with blanket assertions of privilege. I think an argument can be made that the Congress jumped the gun in not providing the courts sufficient time to rule on likely Trump abuse of privilege. I also think one could question the partisan nature of the subpoenas. I would have probably preferred other charges against Trump but this charge was easier to prove.
