Last week, we discovered that the President of the United States was using federal money to \u201cleverage\u201d foreign nations for help in his 2020 campaign.\u00a0\u00a0To paraphrase House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, \u201c\u2026you want money to defend yourself against Russia, I need you to do me a favor.\u00a0\u00a0Give me dirt on Joe Biden.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The evidence of Trump\u2019s conversation really isn\u2019t in dispute.\u00a0\u00a0The White House itself provided a summary of the transcript with him saying it.\u00a0\u00a0They wrote the summary themselves. It will be fascinating to see the actual transcript, currently buried on a super-secret, super-secure computer normally used for America\u2019s highest security operations.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s not likely to be more favorable to the President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in the past week, we discovered that the Trump Administration is even more deeply involved than simply the President doing his lousy \u201cGodfather\u201d imitation to President Zelensky.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three highest ranking Administration members aren\u2019t \u201cthe adults in the room\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0Vice President Pence, Attorney General Barr, and Secretary of State Pompeo are all being dragged into the abyss ofBreitbart<\/em> backed nonsense.\u00a0\u00a0They are focused on re-writing the history of the 2016 election, and looking to somehow rig 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The highest officers in the American Government are spending their time investigating the farthest alt-right conspiracy theories. While they\u2019re doing that, they are trashing international confidence in the United States, and engaging in the kinds of acts that could put their jobs and careers on the block along with the President\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two different alt-right schemes supposedly going on in Ukraine. The first is the Administration\u2019s attempt to trash former Vice President Joe Biden, the \u201cproximate cause\u201d of the impeachment inquiry. We know that Trump himself was pushing for damaging information. And we know that Rudy Giuliani, acting as a surrogate for the President, has been pushing that narrative on the Ukrainian government for months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But Vice President Pence has a piece of this story as well. He met with Zelensky in September, discussing US aid to Ukraine. He presence was also used as leverage on the new Ukrainian government, with Pence cancelling his planned attendance at the Ukrainian inauguration in May. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry was sent in his place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ukraine is not just a possible source for dirt on Biden. In the alt-right world, Ukraine is the alternate site for election hacking in 2016. The story goes, that despite the exhaustive findings of the Mueller Report, the actual hacking came from Ukraine and was backed by the Democratic Party, liberal b\u00eate noire George Soros, and, of course, Hillary Clinton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After Mueller indicted fourteen Russian operatives and described down to the street address in St. Petersburg how election interference occurred, the facts seemed set. But the Trump Administration, led by Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr, are determined to re-write the narrative, leaving Russia out. Russian leader Vladimir Putin told Mr. Trump he wasn\u2019t involved at the Summit in Helsinki, and Trump, Giuliani and Barr are intent on proving him right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attorney General Barr is currently in Italy talking to their intelligence leaders. His goal seems to be to find a \u201cdeep-state\u201d conspiracy in US Intelligence to stop the Trump candidacy. He has already pressured the Australian government for information, and has two other on-going Justice Department investigations looking at the issue. US Attorney John Durham leads one, analyzing the FBI counter-intelligence investigation of Trump campaign operatives. Inspector General Michael Horowitz leads another, looking at the same issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s all about Carter Page, his contacts with known Russian agents, and a FISA warrant. It also involves George Papadopoulos\u2019s drunken conversation with the Australian Ambassador, and the more than one hundred contacts the Trump Campaign had with Russia.\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s mostly about the fact that the FBI dared to investigate a campaign for President that was apparently colluding with Russia.\u00a0\u00a0That campaign won the Presidency, and the levers of power that comes with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barr tries to exact revenge for the Trump Campaign. Pence quietly pressures Ukraine to \u201cplay along\u201d. What about the State Department?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a man of acknowledged brilliance and ambition.\u00a0\u00a0He sees himself as the Republican candidate for President in 2024.\u00a0\u00a0But surprisingly, Pompeo was on the call, listening to President Trump pressure Zelensky for cooperation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it makes sense. Giuliani states that he has had help from the State Department for the two years he \u201cinvestigated\u201d Ukraine. He specifically got help from the US Special Envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, as well as the US Embassy in Kyiv. Volker resigned this week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The President of the United States withheld US taxpayer dollars to extort information from Ukraine, information to further his own 2020 campaign. But he didn’t act alone. The Vice President and the Secretary of State actively participated in pushing Ukraine. And the Attorney General is seeking revenge for imagined 2016 affronts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump isn\u2019t acting alone.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201cadults in the room\u201d are enabling this renegade President.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pressuring Ukraine<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Barr\u2019s Revenge<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Enabling Trump<\/h3>\n\n\n\n