Another Liberal talking point challenged.

Ukraine’s Former Top Prosecutor Swore He Was Fired Over Refusal to Drop Biden Probe (this article is being linked by Real Clear Politics)

“The truth is that I was forced out because I was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma Holdings, a natural gas firm active in Ukraine, and Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was a member of the Board of Directors,” Shokin wrote.

“I assume Burisma, which was connected with gas extraction, had the support of the US Vice-President Joe Biden because his son was on the Board of Directors.”

Shokin said Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president at the time, came to him multiple times and asked him to close down the probe into Burisma but the prosecutor refused.

“In my conversations with Poroshenko at the time, he was emphatic that I should cease my investigations regarding Burisma. When I did not, he said that the U.S. (via Biden) were refusing to release the USD  $1 billion promised to Ukraine. He said that he had no choice.”

Now both the original prosecutor AND the original investigator are on record as saying that they were in the middle of a corruption probe of Burisma at the time Biden demanded to the Ukrainian President that Shokin be fired. Whether or not Shokin was fired specifically because of Burisma could still be considered an open question, but the investigator has stated (also for the record) that his probe was pulled by Shokin's replacement and closed prematurely.

Mother Jones and the New York Slimes have both provided stories citing unidentified anonymous sources, who know people who work with people, who know government people who are thought to be familiar with the subject matter who swear that Shokin was fired because he wouldn't investigate Burisma.

So which of the following narratives should we believe

• The actual prosecutor and investigator who said they were fired and pulled from Burisma because of pressure from Joe Biden?
• Unidentified anonymous sources familiar with people who were familiar with things, who tell us that Joe Biden was pressuring the firing of Shokin because he wasn't actually investigating Burisma? 

I guess we can all decide for ourselves.

Another reason to be proud to be a Democrat!

Imagine being a member of Antifa blocking and harassing an elderly woman using a walker & actually thinking YOU are the one fighting "fascism."pic.twitter.com/jpbiV34RuI

— Jason Howerton (@jason_howerton) September 30, 2019

Here is the question we should be asking!

So if the so called "whistle blower" complaint was so serious, why didn't any of the actual "first hand" witnesses of accounts actually come forward? pic.twitter.com/0aHSJ72mc1

— C.H. Truth (@C_H_Truth) September 29, 2019

Read this article...

Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire 
Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton.

“Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.”

This is pretty much Politico (who is no friend of Trump) explaining all of the manners in which the Ukrainian Government worked with the DNC during the 2016 election, and how it was that they put Paul Manafort "under the radar" so to speak.

The difference between this article and most of the articles Politico writes about the President is that there is an actual interview with a couple of named sources. While they do toss in a couple of reference to "people familiar" and "government officials" they at least have sources willing to come forward.

But it's clear that there was plenty of evidence that the DNC partnered with Ukraine to gain an election advantage. But of course, the liberal law states that this is perfectly legal when you are attempting to defeat the bad orange man.

Headlines! Headlines! Headlines!

- Republicans rake in $15 million of donations over Trump impeachment threat

- Embarrassing Leaks Led To Clampdown On Trump’s Phone Records 

- If Dems Impeach Trump, A GOP House Will Probably Impeach The Next Dem            President

- Was The Whistleblower’s Complaint Revenge For Ukraine Ambassador’s                  Dismissal?

- Maher on Biden-Ukraine: “if Don Jr. did it, it would be all Rachel Maddow was          talking about”

- The “Whistleblower Complaint” is the real 2020 election interference

Thinking ahead to 2020! 

- Joe Biden Is Trying To Keep The Impeachment Inquiry’s Focus On Trump 

- Elizabeth Warren's rising popularity has been limited to Democrats 

- Pelosi: Impeachment worth losing House in 2020

- Impeachment could throw Democratic Control of House in doubt 

- Pelosi Not Concerned If Democrats Lose Majority Over Impeachment

So get this...

Schiff and the Democrat are quite literally wanting to allow the complainer to testify (in private) with those members of Congress involved with the "impeachment hearings".

They are arguing that we cannot allow anyone to know who he is or question him about his known partisanship, motives, and whether or not he had reached out to any Congressional members prior to making his compliant.

While obviously this would be a move to make sure that the complainer is not discredited or that any illegal coordination was not exposed, the Democrats would have you believe that it's a matter of safety.

The problems with this logic are too many to list. But suffice it to say that the number one problem is that there is absolutely zero legal reasoning for this person to be allowed to avoid a public hearing where both Democrats and Republicans would be allowed to interview him for all of America to hear!

Regardless of the fact that the complaint was made public, the author of the complaint still does not enjoy any whistle blower status based on the interpretation of the statute by the Office of Legal Counsel.

Liberal Hypocrisy and liberal stupidity

Liberals are upset that President Trump talked to the Ukrainian Government about reopening a corruption investigation into a company that had Hunter Biden on the board of directors. This was prompted by Joe Biden himself admitting on a YouTube video that he had the Supervising Prosecutor in question fired and that the new Prosecutor immediately put an end into that investigation.

But they are not upset that President Obama actually got the Ukrainian Government to reopen an investigation into Paul Manafort. This was prompted by nothing more than Manafort being named the campaign manager for the opposition Presidential Candidate. A pure political move designed entirely to harm a political opponent.

Liberals are upset that the NSA moved sensitive conversations between Trump and foreign leader to a secured server away from the rank and file members of the CIA and other operatives. They are upset with this in spite of the fact that no fewer than four sensitive conversations with foreign leaders were illegally leaked to the press by CIA criminals, damaging our relationships with these four countries.

But they are not upset to learn that the NSA did the exact same thing during the Obama administration. They were also not upset to learn that their Presidential Candidate in 2016 actually moved "all" of her conversations to a private server that was set up in a bathroom, all to avoid any oversight of any of her correspondences.

The bottom line is that they want to literally impeach a President for less problematic behavior than they defended when Democrats did it. I simply cannot tell if this is more hypocrisy or just plain stupidity.

Sunday Funnies

So why not ask the logical question here?

So what events triggered the investigation into Trump's campaign manager?

So Paul Manafort had long been a political consultant who worked with the Ukrainians. He had a lot of large financial movements, made a lot of money, and those actions had demanded much attention over the years. Make no mistake, all of his financial transactions had been reported and reviewed by the SEC, and his tax returns had been audited by the IRS. Moreover, at two different times, those reviews and audits were pushed into nearly a full scale investigation into his activities. Twice the American Government took the extra step to open a specific inquiry into his actions and at least once the Ukrainian Government took the same steps. In all of those cases, the investigators did not ever recommend any sort of criminal charges.

So the question becomes, what happened in 2016 that led to a joint effort between the American Government and the Ukrainian Government to reopen these investigations? Paul Manafort did not do anything differently business wise. In fact, most of the eventual charges against him were from actions that took place long before 2016.

The one and only logical reason for the extra-interest in Paul Manafort was his new found status as Donald Trump's campaign manager. In fact, the decision to reopen the investigations into Paul Manafort was made shortly after he joined Trump's staff.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy noted at National Review on Thursday that then-President Barack Obama’s administration asked Ukraine to investigate Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, in 2016.

McCarthy notes that “the Obama administration’s law-enforcement agencies pressured their Ukrainian counterparts to revive a dormant corruption investigation of Paul Manafort” in the middle of the 2016 presidential election.

Obama administration officials urged Ukrainian prosecutors to investigate Manafort — which amounted to “effectively meddling in the American presidential election.” The results were soon clear: leaks about Manafort’s activities in Ukraine began to appear in the U.S. media, spun in the worst possible light. He was replaced at the Trump campaign and became a target in the phony “collusion” narrative.

The reality is that the previous Administration set up meetings between our AG, Investigators, law enforcement leadership and the Ukrainian equivalents. They asked for their help in reopening the investigations in Paul Manafort. At one time three Democratic Senators sent a letter to the Ukranian Government accusing them of not doing enough to help out with the investigation of Paul Manafort.

So that was all perfectly acceptable, as long as it was a Democratic President doing so in an attempt to defeat the bad orange man. But when the bad orange man does something similar, the left screams and hollers for impeachment. Moreover, the Obama administration actually followed through with the investigation. The American and Ukrainian officials did actually meet, and they did actually follow through with a politically damaging investigation into Trump's campaign manager. There is actually no investigation of Joe Biden at this time. Only talk.

We are talking about Obama and gang actually engaging in the act vs the idea of Trump simply "soliciting" the act.

Can anyone explain why that is not blatant partisan hypocrisy?

Trump more popular than Obama?

Well nobody is going to accuse Nate Silver of conservative slant!

According to @NateSilver538's 538, today is the first time that Trump has a higher overall approval rating than President Obama at the same point in their presidencies pic.twitter.com/epabjB87Rt

— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) September 27, 2019

This is what it's come to logically for the left

They seriously believe it's their right (if not their responsibly) to leak harmful information about the President. https://t.co/xOsHo3XBwK

— C.H. Truth (@C_H_Truth) September 28, 2019

So let's say the Democrats actually decide to follow through?

Well... so what? 

The reality here folks is that by now, there is not a single American who doesn't understand that our so called Congressional leaders are literally nothing but raging partisans who work 24/7 for their Parties and pretty much ignore the people.

Democrats used a set of arguments that by their own account has destroyed any actual meaning that impeachment holds. As we were all taught in Jr High, impeachment is the legal manner in which an office holder is removed from office. In the case of the President (who otherwise cannot be indicted while sitting in office) the impeachment replaces the legal process if it is determined that he commits and is guilty of a crime (High Crimes and Misdemeanors). The House has the responsibility of what would otherwise be known as the indictment, while the Senate actually holds a trial to determine innocence and guilt.

But Democrats have worked double time to create a new standard (that replaces the High Crimes and Misdemeanors) by declaring that impeachment is a now a political (not legal) process and therefor Congress can pretty much make any determination about what is and isn't an impeachable offense. As described in a post the other day, we have had actual elected Democratic office holders who have  demand that actions such as these were impeachable:

• Criticizing football players for kneeling during the national anthem
• Mocking someone 
• Creating chaos and division
• For being abnormal
• For calling some countries shit holes

Now clearly this is an attempt to "lower the bar" so to speak, in order to determine that they can simply decide to hold an impeachment hearing whenever the President does something that they do not like. They are making the case that breaking the law is no longer a requirement for impeachment. 

Now the problem here is that this is a lose/lose argument. For those who actually understand the Constitution and respect the rule of law, they will inherently see an impeachment hearing to be political fodder and a complete disrespect to our Constitution and rule of law. Those who agree that impeachment is not necessary "legal" openly lowers the bar to the point where an impeachment from the House and an acquittal in the Senate will be nothing more than political theater. Moreover the former will certainly not take kindly to the latter's flippant views regarding the constitution and our political process.

Let's be perfectly clear here. 

Nobody "actually" believes that the President committed a crime here. Plain and simple.  The idea that this phone call constitutes a crime is just plain silly. People can pretend differently all they want (they can even tell a pollster they believe it because they hate Trump)... but everyone deep down knows that they are just pretending. 

Moreover, it never really mattered if a crime was actually committed. 

When Pelosi stepped up to announce her decision to hold an impeachment inquiry, it was quite literally a day BEFORE we were going to see any of the evidence of the allegations in question. If Democrats believed that a crime had actually been committed and that this was necessary to hold an inquiry, then they most certainly would have waited the two days to see the transcripts of the calls and the whistle blower complaint. The fact that they wouldn't wait is an obvious indication that they pretty much "knew" that the complaint was going to fall well short of what was needed to show a crime. They had decided that this was the issue (right, wrong, or indifferent) to make stand on. Had they waited and tried to make the move after the transcript and complaint was made public, then they would have most certainly lost people. But doing so when they did, was basically crossing the bridge and burning it behind them. 

So here we are. The Democrats have shown their hand. They want to hold impeachment hearings (or whatever) in spite of knowing no crime was committed. They will pretend and they will lower the bar and they will concoct some silly theory that others will pretend to believe, all because they hate the bad orange man. 

And it will not matter one bit to the President or most of America. Because it won't mean what it used to mean and people will know it's a farce. The only thing that will be harmed in all of this is our Constitution and our inherent respect for the rule of law and likely the reputation of the Democratic Party. 

And then there were twelve!

Try as they might... they couldn't hold her back!

Tulsi Gabbard qualifies for the third debate with a new Iowa poll!

Today she is in the news for explaining exactly why Liz Warren is not qualified to be President. Yeah, last time she went after someone in a debate it was Kamala Harris, and Harris has yet to recover. We'll see who she ends up paired up with, as it now appears to be a two night debate with six on each night.

Meanwhile a new Harvard Harris poll still shows Joe Biden in the lead. But even in this poll, his support dropped four points in the past month (from 32 down to 28). Warren's support is up five (from 12 to 17).  However, national polls won't matter much at this point. Biden will need to do well in Iowa and New Hampshire and probably win one or the other to remain the frontrunner. 

The polling for the Democratic nomination has been all over the place. Biden leading by 11 or 12 and then polls showing Warren in the lead. I am not sure this is as much of a deal with one poll or the other being "outliers" as it would be who these pollsters are actually polling.  I suspect the more you drill down into who will actually show up to caucus or vote in a primary, you will see a much different result than polls that are just polling Democrats in general. 

I've made this same argument

The “Whistleblower Complaint” isn’t a whistleblower complaint, it’s a closing argument

In the coming days, we’re likely to find out more about the whistleblower. An exclusive interview with the Washington Post, a la Christine Blasey Ford, seems likely with or without a reveal of identity.

It’s too soon to say conclusively this was a CIA analyst or other intelligence community member, but if that turns out to be the case, then the implications are frightening. It will show that the worst conspiracy theories about the “deep state” were not conspiracy theories at all.

If CIA or other intelligence operatives are using their access to sensitive information in order to interfere in our political process, then that is a lot more frightening than a President raising the widely-reported corruption of his political opponent with the president of the country where the alleged corruption took place.

This is a lucid manner to describe things. This is a deep state actor who appears to be very upset that he/she is no longer "in the loop" in terms of gathering information on the President's diplomatic and other privileged conversations. He/she was likely someone who was a previous "leaker" to the media, and now is upset that what the President is doing is being hidden from his/her view (as it should be).

The first portion of this post describes how legal and detailed the complaint was and how it doesn't read like a real whistle blower complaint. Once you read the complaint, it's clear that it is short on real first hand information, and long on someone making a political argument against the President's actions. The President's actions (according to past precedent and pretty much all reasonable legal interpretations) was in no manner illegal. Whether it was politically motivated, or otherwise unethical could be a question to ponder, but there is no statute against the President (or other members of the Administration or intelligence community) seeking help from foreign leaders in investigations.

The idea that it is a "closing argument" is based on the idea that the complaint is written pretty much entirely in third person form (as an attorney might describe events). You would expect that the client would speak in first hand experience, but alas, the whistle blower in this case does not have ANY first hand experience. Therefor he/she is writing this as if they are prosecuting or arguing a case against the President based on second or third hand information.

* Just a note: at least one of the named sources was not even subject to listening in on the conversation as the complaint suggested. So as it stands, the complaint also has serious inaccuracies (which is probably why the statutes covering whistle blower complaints requires that the information be first hand). 

Lastly, the idea that some member of the CIA has the power to just "hear some things" and come forward without any proof what-so-ever of the allegations, and have them turned over to Congress, so that Congress can make political hay out of it should be an alarming idea for anyone even remotely interested in the rule of law. So far all the complaint has gotten correct was the portion that described perfectly legal events. Pretty much all innuendo of law breaking has either been debunked or is lacking any evidence what-so-ever.

McCarthy spot on!

Democrats in Congress and the media pretend to swoon over conduct they accepted when Obama did it.

But more to the point, the relationship of dependency intensified in 2015 due to the flight to Moscow of Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych. At that point, a new Ukrainian government more to the Obama administration’s liking, under President Petro Poroshenko, came to power. It was desperate for American help, financially and security-wise, which is why Vice President Biden was in a position to pressure it into firing the prosecutor who was conducting a corruption investigation of Burisma, the energy company that had appointed Hunter Biden to its board and was lavishly compensating him.

During the . . . early 2016 weeks when [Alexandra] Chalupa [a Ukrainian-American and DNC operative] was tapping her Ukrainian sources and giving Democrats a heads-up about a potential Manafort-Trump alliance, NABU [Ukraine’s anti-corruption] investigators and Ukrainian prosecutors journeyed to Washington. There, the Obama administration arranged for them to huddle with the FBI, the Justice Department, the State Department, and the White House’s National Security Council (agencies that coordinated frequently throughout the collusion caper).

Andrii Telizhenko, a political officer at Ukraine’s embassy in Washington, later told The Hill’s John Solomon that the U.S. officials uniformly stressed “how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united.” The officials also indicated to their Ukrainian counterparts that they were keen to revive the investigation of payments by Yanukovych’s ousted Party of Regions government to an American political consultant — i.e., the FBI’s Paul Manafort probe [that was reportedly closed without a recommendation of charges in 2014] . . .

See the way the game is played: When the Obama administration leans on Ukraine for help in an investigation of political opponents, the Democrats and the media say, “But look how corrupt Paul Manafort was!” When the Trump administration leans on Ukraine for help in an investigation of political opponents, the Democrats and the media say, “Abuse of power — impeach him!”

This has been one of the most disingenuous arguments I have seen. The whole "I would have condemned Obama had he done the same thing". The truth is that Obama could have gun down a group of school children in front of a row of cameras and the left and the media would have figured out a way to declare that the school children  had it coming.

The fact is that what Obama did was pretty much the same thing as what Trump is being accused of, with only difference being that the original investigation into Paul Manafort was not shut down for any political reasons. It was shut down (both in the U.S. and Ukraine) for lack of evidence of a crime. As it stands, a Democratic operative tied to Manafort was just acquitted in a DC court of much of the same thing that Manafort was convicted for, in spite of much of the evidence being exactly the same. So the Manafort situation either proves that the DC jury pool (of 95% Democrats) was out to get him, regardless of the evidence or that same jury pool was not going to find a Democrat guilty regardless of the evidence. Either way, politics played a bigger role than the facts in those cases.

So, yeah... Obama did the same thing as Trump and nobody from the left (or right) called for his impeachment. That's because prior to Trump being elected President, we were basically a country of adults. Now, half the country are crybaby toddlers who are still throwing a temper tantrum because the bad orange man won. They will look for any dishonest hypocritical reason to call for his removal of office.

Reason number two why IG was wrong to call report "credible"

There is not any question that the report in question is second hand. In fact, none of the information is first hand. Meaning by the own guidelines, the IG was incorrect to view this as "credible" and the DNI was correct in not classifying it as such.

This is looking more and more and more like the IG was either incompetent, partisan, or coerced into this.

National Director of Intelligence did not threaten to quit

So one of the big stories (or should we say fake news stories) came from the Washington Post and alleged that they had anonymous sources who stated that the DNI threatened to "quit" if he wasn't allowed to come forward.  However both the White House and the Director completely denied anything of the sort. In fact, not only did Joseph Maguire deny the report, he was quite possibly the main player in dismissing the complaint as not a matter under the Whistle Blower statutes, .

Now, WaPo has circled the wagons and claim to be "standing by the story" even as there appears to be straight obvious evidence that the story was wrong. What is equally troubling here is that the story doesn't even make any logical sense to begin with. Why would the same person who could have simply turned this information over to Congress (as was his authority) not do so. Then, threaten to quit later if he wasn't allowed to?

Moreover, if Maguire was really the sort of stand by his principles guy that would threaten to quit and go public if we wasn't allowed to go to Congress, what possible good would denying it do? Certainly if the situation "did" happen, then he would have already been in an adversarial relationship with the President and would most likely be on his way out anyways. At that point there would be nothing to lose by backing up the WaPo story, or at the very least simply not saying "anything" about the story what-so-ever, thus leaving the public to believe it wasn't true.

But he didn't do either. He denied it.

Which would make absolutely zero sense, unless the story wasn't true.

I guess it depends on who is following the OLC

Well there you have it...

The Office of Legal Counsel was Mueller's full excuse for Volume II of his report.

But I would suspect those who thought it was binding law in that case will think it's irrelevant partisanship in this case.

— C.H. Truth (@C_H_Truth) September 26, 2019

After reading the complaint... I cannot disagree!

As of Wednesday morning, when the Urkaine phone call transcript was released, the public knew more about what transpired on the call than the whistleblower knew when he/she filed the complaint.

— Brit Hume (@brithume) September 26, 2019

Thread for cutting and pasting on the Whistle blower subject.

All other cutting and pasting will be removed from the comment threads of other posts!

Whistle blower Complaint released

Read the PDF - provide your "own" opinion!  

Most of this seems to be stuff we already know. 
A lot of innuendo and assumption. 
The complaint seems to to center around: 

• The call 
• Giuliani 
• allegations of Ukrainian 2016 election interference
• Hunter Biden investigation
• Biden pressure to end it

 

The main concern seems to be what we already know. That Trump wanted Ukraine to look into whether or not Biden pressured Ukraine to put an end to the investigation of his son Hunter. It doesn't appear to alter anything or provide anything "new".

The biggest issue out of all of this for me (and likely something that others will hound on) is the fact that Rudy Giuliani seems to be playing far too great of a role for someone who does not actually have an official state role to play. I believe that the President should seriously weigh the good that Giuliani provides him (which isn't much IMHO) versus the problems he has caused (which are many IMHO). Take Giuliani out of this equation and there may not have been any complaint at all. It's not the actions, but the problem is that the actions come from Giuliani. I suspect that if an actual administration official had taken the same actions, that it would have not have been scrutinized to any real degree.

But certainly there is no smoking gun that shows any actual new evidence of quid pro quo, nor does the whistle blower really suggest that he has such evidence.  The fact that Democrats are suggesting that the document provides for the need to continue the  investigation  "election interference" into these allegations suggests that they were not able to actually find any smoking guns here either. But it's enough fodder for the Democrats to justify their continued strategy of "investigate, investigate, investigate".

At the end of the day, either the electorate will reward them for this effort or punish them for not doing much of anything else for the past three years.

Now I have heard everything?

I read that the President engaged in an "illegal solicitation of an investigation" stated as if that was actually a real crime. Now let's forget for a second that such a crime doesn't actually exist on any statute anywhere.  Even if it did (and it doesn't) it most certainly would not and could not apply to people who actually (by definition of their job) have authority and responsibility to make determinations on investigations. Which most certainly the President of the United States has.

But let's imagine that such a fake statute actually "did" exist. What would make the solicitation of an investigation illegal? Certainly the investigation would first have be found to be completely unwarranted. People who have committed crimes or otherwise put themselves into positions to be investigated by their own actions, have no legal recourse to challenge the premise of an investigation. They (based on certain due process) are allowed to challenge the means of the investigation and to expect that their constitutional rights are respected.

But if you are suspected of breaking the law, and there is legitimate cause to investigate, then there can be nothing "illegal" about such an investigation.

So would the argument be that the situation in the Ukraine with Hunter Biden not be a valid investigation? Certainly at one time there were prosecutors and investigators who believed that there was something there. According to the actual investigator of that case, he was pulled off the case by the new Prosecutor (approved by the Obama administration) and the case was never reassigned. The new President of Ukraine seems to believe that there was a cover up of this situation and claims to want to get to the bottom of it.

To be completely blunt. The MSM suggesting that the case was investigated and closed is a blatant crock of shit lie. It has no basis other than the original statement provided by the people who ended the investigation. Seriously, if we simply accept the excuse of everyone who is accused of wrongdoing, then we would never find a single person guilty of anything. Not sure exactly how brain dead you would have to be to take those statements at face value.

But let's compare apples to oranges here and ask ourselves the question of the day. If fundamentally unwarranted investigations driven by political (not legal) goals would be considered illegal, then how many of the current investigations into the President (who is also a political candidate just like Biden) would be also illegal? Given that the President cannot be charged with a crime and given that the idea of impeachment is completely pointless. Given that he has been exonerated of the Russian Conspiracy allegations by at least three Congressional and one Special Counsel investigation. Given that none of the investigations have found any actual law breaking by the President. Then it's 100% entirely clear that each and every one of the investigations into the President is politically motivated.

Doesn't that make them all "illegal" based on the same standards that apply to declaring the Hunter Biden Burisma Holdings investigation to be illegal?

Should we stick a fork in Joe?

From plus fifteen to down two?

Of course every time you think you can count someone out, they come back. But I think for Biden much of his appeal is that he is simply seen as the frontrunner and the guy most likely to beat Trump. The problem is that he might not still be the frontrunner and it's no longer certain that he is the best chance to beat Trump. The Ukrainian situation has not helped him, and more to the point it sort of opens some eyes to the fact that there may be more to his long tenure that might come out before everything is said and done.

So the question is whether or not Biden has been leading because he has been leading, or is he leading because a majority of Democratic primary voters like his moderate appeal to the middle? I strongly suspect that people are not that excited about Joe mainly because he isn't a big thinking liberal with big grand ideas. I suspect that they are supporting him in spite of and not because of the fact he is a moderate during the time of the extreme liberal.

So like many, I have suggested that Slow Joe Biden is simply not a very good candidate. He is not good on the stump. Not good in debates. Not good at campaigning. The bigger problem for Joe right now is that he needs to figure out a way to get to fifty percent to win the nomination. When he was in the mid to upper thirties, that didn't look too far off. Now that he is sinking down into the twenties, it looks like an uphill climb especially considering that the bulk of the support is for group of liberals right below Biden.

Why the whistle blower complaint is not really a whistle blower complaint.

Well this is actually quite simple and quite impossible to argue:

The complaint does not arise in connection with the operation of any U.S. government intelligence activity, and the alleged misconduct does not involve any member of the intelligence community. Rather, the complaint arises out of a confidential diplomatic communication between the President and a foreign leader that the intelligence-community complainant received secondhand.

So, sure... it makes sense that a whistle blowing complaint is derived from within the organization that you work for. That is what makes it a whistle blowing complaint. You are complaining about something within your own company or organization. You are also complaining about something that you have first hand knowledge of and can prove. 

The alleged misconduct is not an “urgent concern” within the meaning of the statute because it does not concern “the funding, administration, or operation of an intelligence activity” under the authority of the DNI. Id. § 3033(k)(5)(G)(i). That phrase includes matters relating to intelligence activities subject to the DNI’s supervision, but it does not include allegations of wrongdoing arising outside of any intelligence activity or outside the intelligence community itself.

In other words, you are not a whistle blower if you are complaining about something that happened outside of your organization. Then you are simply a complainer (especially if you have no real proof). In the case of reporting something that you believe might be a crime, well the idea then (as most school children would understand) is to go the authorities.

Accordingly, should the DNI or the ICIG receive a credible complaint of alleged criminal conduct that does not involve an “urgent concern,” the appropriate action is to refer the matter to the Department of Justice, rather than to report to the intelligence committees under section 3033(k)(5).

So, there was never any solid legal grounds for the IG to even report the matter as an urgent concern or go to the DNI with a complaint under the pretense that if involved  the statute 3033. The IG is either incompetent, partisan, or was rolling over due to some political pressure from the rest of the partisans in the intelligence community.

The problem is that everyone with an IQ over room temperature understands that what the President did would not be seen by the Department of Justice as anything close to criminal. There isn't a criminal case to be made without a vivid imagination and a huge suspension of disbelief. 

List of reasons the Democrats have given for impeachment

86 reasons

• 1 For potentially ignoring court orders on his travel ban 02/01/2017 MSNBC Joaquin Castro
• 2 Because "we have to" 02/06/2017 Grabien Maxine Waters
• 3 For "creating chaos and division" 02/06/2017 CNN Maxine                  Waters
• 4 For potentially supplying damaging information 02/20/2017 MSNBC Jerry Nadler
• 5 For trying to "undermine Hillary Clinton and therefore undermine our                democracy" 03/23/2017 Grabien Maxine Waters
• 6 Because his "motives and actions are contemptible" 04/15/2017 NTK Network Maxine Waters
• 7 For "collusion" 05/11/2017 MSNBC Maxine Waters
• 8 Because "he regards himself as above the law" 05/14/2017 ABC Lawrence Tribe
• 9 For firing Comey 05/15/2017 MSNBC Al Green
• 10 For allegedly disclosing classified info to Russia 05/16/2017 The              Washington Free Beacon Maxine Waters
• 11 For Comey saying Trump asked him to drop Flynn probe 05/17/2017 MSNBC Jerry Nadler
• 12 For being "mentally unstable" 05/22/2017 MSNBC Ron Reagan
• 13 Because they've been able to "connect the dots" 05/28/2017 MSNBC Maxine Waters
• 14 Because "a plurality of polls" supports it 06/07/2017 ABC News Al          Green
• 15 For being "abnormal" and possibly "crazy" 07/07/2017 NTK                      Network Maxine Waters
• 16 For banning transgenders from serving in the military 10/11/2017 Grabien Al Green
• 17 For "disrespecting and disparaging women" 10/11/2017 CSPAN Al          Green
• 18 For saying NFL athletes should stand for the national anthem 10/19/2017 CSPAN Al Green
• 19 For being "friends" with Putin 10/24/2017 CNN Maxine Waters
• 20 For being "a clear and present danger" to Americans 10/25/2017 MSNBC Tom Steyer
• 21 For "putting the health and safety of Americans at risk" 10/28/2017 MSNBC Tom Steyer
• 22 For being an "inciter" of "ethnocentrism" 11/08/2017 CSPAN Al          Green
• 23 For promoting "xenophobia" 11/08/2017 CSPAN Al Green
• 24 For inciting "bigotry" 11/08/2017 CSPAN Al Green
• 25 For being an "inciter" of "hatred" 11/08/2017 CSPAN Al Green
• 26 For "undermining the federal judiciary" 11/15/2017 Grabien Steve            Cohen
• 27 For mocking a disabled journalist 11/16/2017 Bloomberg Maxine          Waters
• 28 For the "Access Hollywood" tape 11/16/2017 Bloomberg Maxine          Waters
• 29 For "threatening the media" 11/18/2017 MSNBC John Yarmuth
• 30 For "taking money from foreign governments" 11/26/2017 CNN Tom Steyer
• 31 For "dereliction of duty" 12/03/2017 MSNBC Ted Lieu
• 32 For being incompetent 12/04/2017 MSNBC Ezra Klein
• 33 For bringing "dishonor" upon the United States 12/06/2017 CSPAN Al Green
• 34 For being "psychologically deranged" 12/16/2017 MSNBC                     Richard  Painter
• 35 For being "racist, sexist, and Islamaphobic" 12/30/2017 MSNBC Anushay Hossain
• 36 For not believing in the Constitution 12/30/2017 MSNBC Karine          Jean-Pierre
• 37 For being "unfit" for office 01/08/2018 MSNBC Tom Steyer
• 38 For saying some countries are "shitholes" 01/14/2018 MSNBC Al          Green
• 39 For his aides talking to Russians 01/26/2018 CNN Cory Booker
• 40 For urging Sessions to investigate Hillary 02/28/2018 MSNBC Chris Hayes
• 41 For not being respectful 03/04/2018 MSNBC Maxine Waters
• 42 For being "the most dangerous president in American history" 03/05/2018 MSNBC Tom Perez
• 43 For name calling 03/12/2018 MSNBC Maxine Waters
• 44 For A.G. Sessions firing Andrew McCabe 03/16/2018 MSNBC Danny Cevallos
• 45 For violating the "emoluments clause" 03/20/2018 MSNBC Tom              Steyer
• 46 For possibly considering "firing" Mueller 03/23/2018 CNN                     Ted Lieu
• 47 For being "unwilling to make it clear" Russians can't hack America's                  "critical infrastructure" 03/26/2018 MSNBC John Garamendi
• 48 For being "unworthy" and "despicable" 03/27/2018 MSNBC Maxine          Waters
• 49 Because "we have the grounds to do it" 06/27/2018 CNN Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
• 50 For staffing Trump Tower with park rangers 01/16/2019 MSNBC Rashida Tlaib
• 51 For the BuzzFeed report on Cohen 01/18/2019 MSNBC Eugene   Robinson
• 52 For the "so many things" he has done 01/20/2019 MSNBC Maxine          Waters
• 53 Because Virginia's governor wore blackface 02/08/2019 CSPAN Al          Green
• 54 To prevent his re-election 05/04/2019 MSNBC Al Green
• 55 Because the "system of checks and balances is at risk" 05/15/2019 C-SPAN Al Green
• 56 To prevent a "monarchy" 05/15/2019 C-SPAN Al Green
• 57 For not releasing his tax returns 05/16/2019 Campaign Ad Tom              Steyer
• 58 To put a "stain" on his presidency 05/25/2019 MSNBC Karine                  Jean-Pierre
• 59 Because it's "critical to our national security" 05/27/2019 MSNBC Richard Painter
• 60 Because it would be "crazy not to do it" 05/30/2019 CNN John              Hickenlooper
• 61 In order to "set a precedent" for future presidents 06/01/2019 MSNBC Karine Jean-Pierre
• 62 Because we have a "moral obligation" 06/02/2019 CNN Cory              Booker
• 63 Because it will help "educate" and "inform" the American public 06/03/2019 MSNBC Mike Quigley
• 64 Because the president "is leaving us no choice" 06/04/2019 CNN Dan Kildee
• 65 Because it's our "constitutional duty" to "have this debate" 06/08/2019 MSNBC Seth Moulton
• 66 For failing to "produce evidence" 06/10/2019 CNN Steve Cohen
• 67 For saying the press is the "enemy of the people" 06/10/2019 CNN Steve Cohen
• 68 For saying he'd take "dirt" on rivals from foreigners 06/13/2019 CNN Steve Cohen
• 69 For Kellyanne Conway's alleged Hatch Act violation 06/14/2019 MSNBC Richard Painter
• 70 To ensure Robert Mueller's work is continued 06/19/2019 NTK              Network Katie Porter
• 71 For being "above the law" 07/11/2019 C-SPAN Al Green
• 72 For "inhumane" conditions at the border 07/15/2019 MSNBC Rashida Tlaib
• 73 For "high crimes and misdemeanors" 07/15/2019 MSNBC Ilhan              Omar
• 74 For administration officials defying congressional subpoenas 07/16/2019 C-SPAN Ann Kirkpatrick
• 75 For saying fellow Americans should "go back to other countries" 07/17/2019 C-SPAN Al Green
• 76 For Trump crowd's "send her back" chant 07/18/2019 CNN Al          Green
• 77 For attacks on the judiciary 07/19/2019 MSNBC Steve Cohen
• 78 Because we're in a "constitutional crisis" 07/25/2019 C-SPAN Al          Green
• 79 For offering to host G7 summit at Doral 08/31/2019 MSNBC House          Judiciary Committee
• 80 For influencing the decision of the new FBI building's location 08/31/2019 MSNBC Mike Quigley
• 81 For publicising his own assets 08/31/2019 MSNBC Mike Quigley
• 82 For suggesting a company for Army Corps to award wall production                  contract 08/31/2019 MSNBC Richard Painter
• 83 For talking like Hitler 08/31/2019 MSNBC Richard Painter
• 84 Because every new impeachable offense makes it harder to take action 08/31/2019 MSNBC David Cicilline
• 85 For investigating Hunter Biden 09/22/2019 CNN Adam Schiff
• 86 For "hijacking" American foreign policy 09/23/2019 MSNBC Chris            Hayes
• 87 For betraying his oath of office 09/24/2019 Politico Nancy                  Pelosi

Still no movement on the impeachment front

Only the totally crazy Americans are in favor of impeachment (37-57)

Poll Shows the Majority of Americans Still Don’t Want Trump Impeached
https://t.co/DkBRGl4KHH

— RedState (@RedState) September 25, 2019

New Report: Whistle blower a partisan anti-Trumper

WH to release document showing intel community watchdog found whistleblower had 'political bias,' official says

A senior Trump administration official told Fox News late Tuesday that the administration will release a document showing the intelligence community inspector general found the whistleblower who leveled an explosive accusation against President Trump concerning his talks with Ukraine had indications of “political bias” in favor of “a rival candidate” of the president.

Portions of the transcript released

So this is what is out so far:

If this is a crime, then the moon is made of swiss cheese!

Trump

I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.

Zelensky

Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us.

Trump

I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, 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.

Zelensky

The next prosecutor general will be 100% my person. The issue of the investigation of the case, is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case.

Again, nothing resembling any Quid pro quo or even any pressure. There was no badgering and there were not eight demands that Zelensky investigate Biden. The rumors of the Whistle Blower complaint turned out to be largely overblown (once again) from what happened in reality.

It would appear that Zelensky likely initiated the contact between his assistant and Rudy Giuliani. This fits in with the original allegations (from Ukraine) that information was provided to members of the intelligence community and it was passed to the Southern District of New York Prosecutors office, and nothing happened.

Zelensky appears as eager as Trump does to engage in the investigations as to whether or not the Prosecutor in question was fired under political pressure and whether or not the Hunter Biden situation was swept under the rug. If it was, then once again, this is a major scandal for Obama/Biden and not for Trump. 

For those Democrats who are so investigation happy. It would seem that they should join us all in demanding that we find out if the Obama Administration (and Joe Biden in particular) engaged in political pressure in having the prosecutor fired and the Hunter Biden case terminated. 

Democrats pivot again...

Will anyone really know at this point what is going on?

So Fat Jerry Nadler and his House Judiciary committee has been running impeachment inquiries for some time. It's thought to have something to do with the Mueller report (possibly volume II) but nobody seems really sure.

Now Nancy Pelosi has announced that the full House will also start impeachment "inquiries" which are not to be confused with an actual full blown impeachment hearing that ultimately results in an impeachment vote. Pelosi has been more than careful to not push this thing to that particular brink (at least so far). It's all still a fake deal, far short of what we have seen in previous real and actual impeachment hearings.

But these new announced impeachment inquiries (coming on the heels of the recent brush up over Ukrainian conversations and some unknown "whistle blower" compliant) seem to imply that Pelosi made this decision to investigate these recent events as the main articles of impeachment. Otherwise, it would only appear to be a duplication of what is already being done by Fat Nadler.

The reality is that the Country has long moved on from the whole Russia thing. It was a grand and glorious bust for the Democrats, and the only thing it accomplished was to forever tarnish the reputation of Robert Mueller. The fact that the House Judiciary committee attempted to make fodder of the allegations of obstruction (regarding an investigation that uncovered no crimes of any sort) has fallen on deaf ears.

So now the gambit from the left is that the general public will really care a lot about this next thing, which at this point, we really don't know what it even is. In what has to be likely the dumbest political move "eva" the House members pressured Pelosi to make a call the day before they apparently will actually see the information that they want to impeach the President over.

Act now... then look at the evidence and see if your decision was good or bad in hindsight? I mean, they couldn't wait a day, two days, or even a week to see for sure what this was all about? Nope. Toddlers have no patience.

The President is acting rather confident that the release of these transcripts along with the rumored release of additional transcripts from Obama and Biden (ideally released at the same time) will blunt most of this. The whistle blower complaint at best will simply reinforce what is already alleged (which isn't much) but at worse will reinforce the criticism that he/she didn't have any first hand knowledge of anything.

The fact that the Whistle blower is being represented by partisan Democratic attorneys is similar to what happened with the whole Kavanaugh hearing. It immediately makes the entire allegation appear political and partisan. Would have been much better off coming forward without "any" counsel than come forward with liberal counsel tied to Clinton, Schumer and others.

Unless the transcripts literally show the President making threats to withhold aid in exchange for reopening the investigation, there is no "there there". The Democrats cannot continue to lower the bar to the point where they suggest that an Administration cannot ask questions about possible wrongdoings of American Politicians. Especially in light of the video of Biden admitting to coercion and the fact that the investigator who was on the Hunter Biden case still suggests that his investigation was stopped in midstream and shut down illegally.

There is no reasonable intellectually honest way to fool anyone long term with semantic tricks of simply renaming actions into something else. You cannot simply call something election meddling when it's not election meddling and you cannot deem election meddling a crime without defining the actual law that is being broken. Perfectly constitutional and legal actions do not become crimes because you call it as such.

Democrats pressured Ukraine to reopen investigations

 Investigations into Paul Manafort had been halted
   (So did Democrats engage in election meddling?)

Sens. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Patrick Leahy of Vermont wrote in the letter to Yuriy Lutsenko that a recent New York Times report said his office "effectively froze investigations into four open cases in Ukraine in April, thereby eliminating scope for cooperation with the Mueller probe into related issues."

The May 4 letter requests that Lutsenko answer three questions, which include inquiries about whether the office did attempt to "restrict cooperation" with Mueller's probe and "if so, why?"

It also asks if anyone from the Trump administration encouraged "Ukrainian government or law enforcement officials not to cooperate" with Mueller's investigation, and if that probe was "raised in any way during discussions between your government and US officials, including around the meeting of Presidents Trump and Poroshenko in New York in 2017," a reference to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

So it's ridiculous to make a case that asking the Ukrainian government about Manafort investigations constitutes "election meddling" but that is basically how the same sort of actions are being labeled today as pertains to Trump.

In both cases (Hunter Biden, Paul Manafort) the Ukrainian Government had ended probes. In both cases, there were allegations that these probes were ended because of political pressure from an American administration with something to lose if those probes continued.

I am absolutely certain that this letter from these Democrats was framed at the time as the absolute correct and just thing to do. If there is the potential that our American executives pressured a foreign power to end a probe (for political purposes) then certainly others within the government are allowed to ask questions about it.

But as is pretty much always the case, the blatant hypocrisy of the Democrats and the liberal media rears it's ugly head. While it's perfectly reasonable (and probably deemed necessary) to question why probes into Manafort ended, the left see it as completely unreasonable (and potentially illegal) to question why probes into Hunter Biden ended.

Hypocrisy is the bedrock of liberalism. Without it, they hardly survive!

It's only going higher!

This is why the Democrats are so desperate for any new scandal!

Oh... and let's not forget, the same people who were leaking this situation to the press already know what the Horowitz report is going to say. If it was good for their side, they would be leaking that instead of this (which make no mistake, is an attempted distraction).

Ukraine may reopen Burisma's case

Also will dive into how much monkey business was in play to prevent legitimate investigations

Valentin Nalyvaichenko, a former head of Ukraine's domestic intelligence agency and a member of Ukraine’s parliament, says he expects the corruption case of the Burisma gas company—two cases were opened and dropped by various prosecutors over the years —to be revisited. Hunter Biden, the son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, was a board member.

Nalyvaichenko said his country will be best served by pursuing an investigation related to the alleged Burisma’s multi-million dollar corruption deals, not because of Trump’s pressure but because Ukraine wants to know the truth about its own corruption, whether the founder of Burisma, Ukraine’s ex-minister of natural resources Mykola Zlochevsky from 2010 to 2012, had paid to squash the earlier investigations into the way he acquired gas licenses.

Prosecutor Sergiy Gorbatyuk investigated the founder of Burisma company, Mykola Zlochevsky, for three months in 2016, until Prosecutor General Lutsenko made a decision to drop the probe. First Lutsenko took the case away from the investigators, then closed it down illegally, Gorbatyuk told The Daily Beast on Tuesday.

“There would not have been any question [about pursuing] such cases today, if Lutsenko did not interfere in the investigations,” the prosecutor said. “I hope that with the change of management at the prosecutor general’s office there will be no illegal interferences and this case as well as other probes will be investigated strictly in accordance with the law.”  (LINK)

Now this may or may not have anything to do with Joe Biden or whether the United States Government threatened to withhold aid if certain people were not fired. But it may be a bad thing for Hunter Biden. Regardless of what certain people are saying (that the probe was dropped  for lack of any reasonable standing) it would certainly appear that the probe was never fully engaged, much less completed.

If the Ukraine decides (on it's own) to investigate Burisma, then most certainly the claims that Trump had no legitimate reason (other than to "gather dirt" on Biden) to call on this sort of action falls to the wayside.  The tin foil hat brigade will no doubt go crazy, claiming that this is the "result" of Trump's pressure, when in fact there will (again) be no evidence of such.

For the past three years or so, all we have heard from the Democrats defending their hair brained conspiracy allegations against the President is that any attempts to avoid or otherwise undermine any investigation is an action of "hiding something". Certainly if Hunter and Joe Biden have nothing to hide, then they should welcome Ukraine finally deciding to finish their investigation into Burisma for no other reason than to clear Hunter Biden's name.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander?

Funny thing is the guy who grabbed the gun could be arrested too!

I could watch this forever pic.twitter.com/aNJzXS2KWO

— Jessica Fletcher (@heckyessica) September 23, 2019

Not sure if this is better than the other video I watched, when the Antifa from Portland decided to throw rocks at the local ICE offices, only to have ICE officers come barreling out in full riot gear and assault rifles. While the Portland Police officers are apparently on some sort of permanent stand down to Antifa, the Federal cops have no such order (and are not under the authority of Portland).

From the video there appeared to be several Antifa roughed up, cuffed, and hauled away. Not a one of them actually stood and fought, they all took off in a dead run. Just were not fast enough or agile enough to not get caught. 

Imagine the following

Trump goes to China to talk shop. Within days Donald Jr gets a billion dollar investment from the Chinese Government to help with a private business. Later, when Trump is in Ukraine, he pressures them to fire a Prosecutor who just happens to be investigating Donald Jr's company as well as a company run by the Koch brothers. Trump brags on video that he threatened to withhold a billion dollars in aid, and his audience laughs when he tells them that the Ukrainian President followed suit and fired the guy.

Now imagine that more specifics regarding this incident was provided to members of Congress by representatives of the Ukrainian Government. Imagine that  Congress decided to possibly work with Ukraine on investigating whether or not Trump and his Administration was trying to squelch an investigation that affected a Trump family member.

Now imagine that the Trump administration and the media accused them of "conspiring with a foreign government to dig up dirt on the President". Imagine that these accusations went all the way to the idea that these members of Congress are should be impeached for "election interference". Imagine the idea that these members of Congress should be impeached just for the mere discussion of investigating something that looks obvious to everyone to be an unethical and corrupt action.

Nobody in their right mind would accept that sort of nonsense. Everyone would demand that Congress look into even the slightest idea that Trump did something wrong. The fact that the investigation would involve a foreign government or have a negative effect on Trump's reelection chances, would not matter one bit.

But you look at it the other way around, then suddenly the logic is that the original behavior is not at issue. Whether or not American politicians used their power to spur foreign investment or squelch foreign investigations is no longer important. The only thing that is important is that such an investigation might harm a Democrat who is running for President, and therefore it becomes "election interference".

Only someone badly infected with TDS would be able to intellectually sort this clusterflick out.

Whistle blower recap:

• The story is the result of an anonymous leak from a former intelligence official. The speculation centers around the possibility that it was either Brennan or Clapper. 
• The so called whistle blower did not (according to multiple reports) have first hand knowledge of the events. They were acting on a rumor that they heard. 
• The Director of National Intelligence did not consider this to be an official "whistle blowing" case either due to the fact that the person did not have first hand knowledge, the activities of the President are not covered under the statute, or both of these reasons.
• The whistle blower complaint involved an alleged phone call where the President asked the Ukrainian President about an on again off again investigation into a company associated with Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden. 
• The whistle blower complaint does not (according to all sources) involve any allegations that there was any threats, coercion, or quid pro quo involved.
• The President denies making any threats, withholding any funding, or otherwise asking for anything in return for any actions regarding the Ukrainians and any investigations.    
• The Ukrainian government officially denies that there was any discussions with the President that involved threats or coercion regarding this (or any) investigation. 
• Several rounds of aid have been provided to the Ukrainian government from the US Government during the Trump reign, and none of that aid is currently being withheld. 

Moreover

• The Ukrainian government had originally brought this topic (the allegations of Obama administration pressures) to the the attention of people within the intelligence community, but were met with disinterest.
• The Ukrainians continued to reach out and this is where the decision was made by the President to involve Rudy Giuliani, rather than someone else within the intelligence community. 
• Make no mistake, this was the President "reacting" to information brought to him. Not the other way around. 

All of which is to say that there is a great deal of smoke being fanned here for political purposes. At the end of the day there isn't even a real valid complaint of anything that would be remotely considered illegal. Certainly nothing that rises to the level of what is alleged of Joe Biden and the previous Administration in regards to having a prosecutor (in charge of two politically motivated investigations) fired in exchange for Aid (that had already been approved by congress). 

To be clear, there is literally nothing illegal about the President of the United States asking questions regarding investigations into American wrongdoing, especially when those concerns were brought from the Ukrainians in the first place. There is actually nothing illegal about the President suggesting or asking that investigations continue, if there is a reasonable reason to believe that Americans committed wrong doing. 

Investigations are not "election meddling" or "digging up dirt". If investigations into political candidates are considered as such, then most every Democrat in the judiciary committee is guilty of an abuse of office for continuing to "election meddle" by "digging up dirt" on the President (and RNC candidate for President). Each and everyone of these pointless and repetitive "investigations" become (by their own definition) a form of "election meddling" and "digging up dirt". This (by their own definition) would not be an appropriate manner to wield the investigation arm of Congress.  

The hypocrisy has gone from obvious to so over the top that it's accepted as the norm.