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from the the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The view among the national security officials was unanimous: Military aid to Ukraine should not be stopped. But the White House's acting chief of staff thought otherwise.
That was the testimony of Laura Cooper, a Defense Department official, whose deposition was released Monday in the House impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.
"My sense is that all of the senior leaders of the US national security departments and agencies were all unified in their - in their view that this assistance was essential," she said. "And they were trying to find ways to engage the president on this."
Cooper's testimony was among several hundred pages of transcripts released Monday, along with those of State Department officials Catherine Croft and Christopher Anderson.
Cooper told investigators that, in a series of July meetings at the White House, she came to understand that Trump's acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was holding up the military aid for the US ally.
[...] When she and others tried to get an explanation, they found none.
[...] She said it was "unusual" to have congressional funds suddenly halted that way, and aides raised concerns about the legality of it. The Pentagon was "concerned" about the hold-up of funds and "any signal that we would send to Ukraine about a wavering in our commitment", she said.
Cooper told investigators that she was visited in August by Kurt Volker, the US special envoy to Ukraine, who explained there was a "statement" that the Ukraine government could make to get the security money flowing.
[...] "Somehow, an effort that he was engaged in to see if there was a statement that the government of Ukraine would make," said Cooper, an assistant defence secretary, "that would somehow disavow any interference in US elections and would commit to the prosecution of any individuals involved in election interference."
For a handy reference to the documents that have been released concerning this, npr has posted Trump Impeachment Inquiry: A Guide To Key People, Facts And Documents:
Written words are central to the Ukraine affair. The significance of the whistleblower's original complaint and the White House's record of its call with Ukraine are debated, but the text is public. Here are the documents to refer to as the inquiry proceeds:
Texts and memos
- Call:The White House memorandum (Sept. 25)
- Aid:The Pentagon letter on military aid to Ukraine (Sept. 25)
- Complaint:The whistleblower complaint (Sept. 26)
- Texts:Batch of texts between diplomats released by House Democrats (Oct. 4)
The whistleblower's complaint has largely been corroborated by witness testimony, public statements and media reports. See how the document checks out — with a detailed annotation of the text.
Testimony released by Congress following closed depositions
- Christopher Anderson, former special adviser for Ukraine negotiations
- Laura Cooper,deputy defense secretary
- Catherine Croft, former Ukraine adviser on the National Security Council
- Fiona Hill, former White House adviser on Russia
- George Kent, deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs
- Michael McKinley, former State Department adviser
- Gordon Sondland,U.S. ambassador to EU
- William Taylor, acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine
- Alexander Vindman, top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council
- Kurt Volker, former Ukraine envoy
- Marie Yovanovitch, ex-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @05:05AM (3 children)
They're "debunked rumors" in much the same way that DNC acted unfairly during the 2016 election (with regards to Bernie) are "debunked rumors."
Biden's son was getting upwards of $50k/month to "advise" on a board in Ukraine in a field he had absolutely no knowledge or experience in. His son is a complete and absolute loser. My favorite is him getting a military commission. Biden's son is too old to receive a commission, has a drug record, and also lacks any military education or experience. Any alone is sufficient to preclude military commissioning, all three though...? Biden managed to get him a special exception to receive a rare 'direct military commissioning' which had a special ceremony at the whitehouse spearheaded by, of course, Biden. His son was kicked out of the navy a month later after testing positive for cocaine. He's the purest embodiment of a corrupt politician's silver spooner kid. Even better is his "consulting agency." Guess when it was started? Pretty much on day one of daddy winning the vice presidency. If you think this was even remotely on the up-and-up, then I have a bridge to sell you. The reason Biden has started slipping fast in the polls is specifically because people know the allegations against him are true. The reason for dissonance in actions and words is because of partisanship.
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In my opinion what happened is that the DNC already long since knew about Biden's games for his son, which I imagine are probably an open secret along the same lines as Weinstein's sex games Hollywood. Then they learned that Trump was actively investigating such in a way that would likely produce evidence, and so they had to make a decision. They had two main options. The first would be to prepare a compelling defense/spin against the allegations which were likely going to be Trump's 'October surprise', but this comes with two problems. The first is that it might not work since the allegations are pretty damning, and also quite real. The second is that if sufficient evidence were gathered, it might not just be an October surprise but the starting of a real criminal trial. So I think they went for option two - disable the October surprise by making the issue public knowledge ASAP. And in choosing how to do so they took a page from Saul Alinsky: "Accuse your opponent of what you are doing, to create confusion and to inculcate voters against evidence of your own guilt".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @07:34AM (2 children)
If you think the above post is trolling, you're emphasizing the issue. Here [wikipedia.org] is the Wiki entry on Hunter Biden. None of the above facts were in any way misstated or taken out of context.
Hunter Biden is absolutely and completely unqualified for the positions he was given. The Direct Military Commissioning is tangential, but also some of the most direct evidence of this. He was literally disqualified from this position in at least 3 different ways. Direct military commissions are generally used for things like granting commissions to e.g. physicians. Joe Biden abused the system to try to make his son an officer in the military. His son then fucked that up by deciding to continue to use cocaine while an officer. One can only assume he thought his father could make the drug tests disappear. That or perhaps he slipped, fell, and some cocaine just accidentally found its way up his nose.
The one and only way he ended up on the executive board of a Ukrainian corporation pulling in > $50k a month is due to Joe Biden using his influence to get him on that board. And the key problem with this is that the corporations obviously do not engage in these behaviors out of the good of their hearts. They expect "favors" in return. This is what corruption really looks like. You don't need to bend words, try to find hidden meaning in them, or rely on partisan whistle blowers. It's like the congressman who threatened to throw a reporter "off this fucking balcony", on camera [npr.org]. These people become so used to having such immense power that they don't bother trying to hide the things they're doing because in general high level politicians are not held accountable. At least in Congressman Balcony's case, he did end up in prison - all be it on a slew of unrelated charges.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:11PM (1 child)
I think Biden just the type of the iceberg. Eg, this "whistleblower" seems to be the previously unknown "Charlie" who was acting as an informant for Strozk and Page. The entire thing is a deflection operation: https://saraacarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2019-04-25-CEG-RJ-to-DOJ-Surveillance-of-Trump-Transition-Team.pdf [saraacarter.com]
The only reason anyone would even risk being involved in this farce is that they have been up to no good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @05:03PM
The whistleblower is either Melania or Ivanka or both.