Thread by @JewhadiTM

Dems’ Surreal Impeachment Circus Rolls On

Case built on hearsay, innuendo and manufactured “crimes” crumbles before our eyes.

frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/ho…

The way things are going, the Democrats will need all the comfort they can get from the therapy dogs who were brought to the Hill by Pet Partners, a therapy-animal registration organization, and the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council.

The Ukraine case narrative @HouseIntel have been trying to build against Trump, centering on his July 25, 2019 call with Ukrainian President Zelensky and Trump’s alleged use of “irregular” channels to push his personal political agenda, is turning into a quagmire.

As @JonathanTurley, prof of law at George Washington U, who testified as a constitutional expert in the Clinton impeachment hearings, wrote, “Democrats want to move forward on a barely developed evidentiary record and cursory public hearings" on a single Ukraine allegation.

He added, “If Democrats seek to remove a sitting president, they are laying a foundation that would barely support a bungalow, let alone a constitutional tower. Such a slender impeachment would collapse in a two mile headwind in the Senate.”

The Democrats are trying to establish what some of their more outspoken members have charged variously as President Trump’s “abuse of power,” “extortion,” “bribery” and a “shakedown.”

They base their accusations of presidential “crimes” on the shaky allegation that President Trump used the leverage of withheld security assistance and the dangling of a WH meeting to improperly advance Trump's personal political interests over US national security interests.

What has emerged, and will likely continue, is a desperate attempt by the Dems and their friends in the media to use mainly hearsay and circumstantial evidence from foreign policy and NatSec establishment "witnesses" who don’t like the direction of Trump’s policy towards Ukraine.

The Democrats have some fundamental problems that undermine their case. Much of their case relies on secondhand, thirdhand and even fourth-hand hearsay evidence.

The bizarro world they inhabit is illustrated by this nugget from Democrat Rep. Mike Quigley, describing his understanding of what constitutes credible evidence: "Hearsay can be much better evidence than direct ... and it's certainly valid in this instance."

More substantively, the facts we know of so far run contrary to the Democrats’ narrative. President Zelensky was not aware that any security assistance had been withheld at the time of his July 25th call with President Trump.

President Zelensky and Ukraine’s foreign minister have backed up President Trump’s denial of any improper linkage of the release of the security assistance to opening investigations in Ukraine of the president’s political opponents.

President Zelensky said publicly that he did not feel “pushed” by President Trump. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said, as reported by Reuters, “I have never seen a direct relationship between investigations and security assistance.

Yes, the investigations were mentioned, you know, in the conversation of the presidents. But there was no clear connection between these events.” In any case, the security assistance was released less than two months after the July 25th call with no investigation strings attached

Zelensky didn't make any public announcement committing to opening investigations that Trump requested during "the call" re: Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and the role of @JoeBiden/Hungter with the corrupt Burisma Co. while Biden served as Obama's Ukraine point man.

House Dems banked on their star witnesses’ credibility, based on their years of public service during Republican and Democrat administrations.

However, whatever we may think of the two experienced diplomats’ credentials and professed patriotic desire to serve their country, their testimony revealed no firsthand evidence regarding President Trump’s actions or intentions.

They both admitted during cross examination that they never spoke directly with President Trump. They did not listen themselves to the July 25th call.

They had no firsthand knowledge of the president's motives in temporarily withholding security assistance from Ukraine, which in any case was not mentioned at all during the July 25th call according to the call memo.

There is no real bombshell here. There has not been any bombshell since the House Democrats/@RepAdamSchiff began their travesty. Instead, their political theater is turning into a bomb that @DevinNunes described as a “low-rent Ukrainian sequel” to the Russian collusion hoax.

The Democrats and their media pals can spin all they want. Their manufactured narrative of alleged wrong-doing by President Trump is collapsing under its own weight.

(via Joseph Klein)