Dear America,
Now that articles of impeachment are being voted on in the House Judiciary Committee--presumably they will pass along party lines, both in committee and on the House floor--it is necessary for the American people to stop listening to the embarrassingly partisan sanctimony coming out of the two parties and inform themselves as to the facts. This is the url at which you can read the "MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION" released by the Whitehouse. As you can see, it comes directly from the Whitehouse with no outside alterations:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf
The part of the conversation--and I would remind you that this is a memorandum, not necessarily a verbatim transcript--that is relevant is the last six lines of the first partial paragraph on page 4. It reads in part,
"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 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."
But read the transcript for yourself. Don't take my, or anyone else's word for what it says. And if you do read the whole thing you will notice that there is no mention anywhere of the corporation, Barisma, which is the one on which Hunter Biden was on the board. The only other persons or entities mentioned by Donald Trump in connection with the investigations Trump was requesting were "Crowdstrike"--which is referenced in a somewhat incoherent context: "this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike..."--and Giuliani and Barr as Zelensky's contacts on the matter. There is no direct reference to the 2016 election, though Trump does connect the investigations he wants to Robert Mueller's investigation, which obviously occurred after the election.
The second article of impeachment will be for obstruction of justice relating to Trump's prevention of the appearances of some witnesses served with congressional subpoenas: Don McGann, whom Trump asked to get Mueller fired; John Bolton, Trump's former national security advisor, and few others who either defied Trump by testifying or have their subpoenas currently before the courts. The fact that Trump instructed McGann and a couple of others serially to get attorney general emeritus Jeff Sessions to fire Mueller is essentially undisputed. The Trump camp, which means the Republican Party, says that it was within Trump's power to do so, believe that to be a defense. But the Democrats argue that it is a question of why, not whether. Their point is that Trump was attempting to stop a zealous prosecutor from proceeding out of fear that he, Trump, would be implicated in election tampering. It's the improper motive that renders Trump's effort to interfere with the investigation of Robert Mueller that is the issue. In criminal law that would be called "mens rea," or, a guilty mind.\
Of course this will all play out in a much more complicated fashion when Trump is tried by The Senate, but it is important that you, America, keep your eye on the bouncing prize, not on the bouncing ball. We cannot allow them on either side to distract us from either the real issues or the facts, which are all essentially on record already. I must admit that I see the facts as already sufficient to demonstrate the guilty mind of our sociopathic president. His demonstrable corruption of spirit, narcissism, megalomania and amorality are, I must admit, beside the point relative to his impeachment. The question is did he do the deeds alleged, whether you call them bribery, treason or high crimes and misdemeanors, and to determine that, The Senate will have to determine Trump's state of mind when he did the deeds...no easy task when you consider the chaos in his brain that his behavior demonstrates.
It's going to be dirty work. But someone, in this case The Senate, has do it, and we have to do it too.
Your friend,
Mike
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