Thread by @usacsmret

Alleged bad thoughts are not crimes—at least not outside George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984." dailysign.al/37BEVDX via @VDHanson @DailySignal

@VDHanson @DailySignal Mueller found no grounds for a criminal referral on obstruction of justice. But he repeatedly hinted that Trump had thought about obstructing the non-crime of collusion.

@VDHanson @DailySignal Now, Trump is accused of the thought crime of considering the withholding of military assistance unless Ukraine investigated possible Ukrainian tampering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and also former VP Joe Biden’s intervention in Ukrainian politics on behalf of his son.

@VDHanson @DailySignal Two questions arise from hours of impeachment inquiry testimony before the House Intelligence Committee:
One, did Trump cut off military assistance, prompting the compliant Ukrainians to launch investigations to ensure that endangered military aid was not curtailed?

@VDHanson @DailySignal Two, did Trump reverse prior U.S. foreign policy by cutting off military assistance, thus threatening the security of Ukraine?

@VDHanson @DailySignal Regarding question No. 1, military assistance was delivered to Ukraine after a delay. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy never announced investigations of the Bidens or election tampering.

@VDHanson @DailySignal No. 2... the Obama administration’s policy was to deny significant military assistance to Ukraine. Even non-military aid was apparently leveraged by Biden to force the Ukrainians to fire a prosecutor whose role in looking into Hunter Biden’s company is still murky.

@VDHanson @DailySignal In other words, Trump is accused of thinking about cutting off aid as a lever to force Ukrainian investigations. Yet the prior administration never extended significant military aid and threatened to cancel non-military aid over a bothersome prosecutor.

@VDHanson @DailySignal That disconnect prompts another question: Is thinking about cutting off military aid to Ukraine a greater crime than declining to provide Ukraine with significant military aid?

@VDHanson @DailySignal Trump is also accused of the thought crime of contemplating bribery. Critics allege that Trump wanted Ukraine to do him a “favor” of inestimable value by launching those investigations.

@VDHanson @DailySignal Trump supposedly used the gifting power of the U.S. government to obtain a personal political benefit to his 2020 presidential candidacy.
But that premise is shaky on a number of grounds.

@VDHanson @DailySignal Trump did not receive any such investigatory help from Ukraine. Yet even if Ukraine had announced the investigations that Trump had sought, ....

@VDHanson @DailySignal ....the fact that Joe Biden chose to run for president in 2020 does not exempt him from government scrutiny of his suspect behavior with regard to Ukraine when he was vice president.

@VDHanson @DailySignal The public did not learn about the bad optics of the Bidens in Ukraine from Trump-pressured Ukrainian leaks. Instead, Biden publicly bragged of his own clout in strong-arming the Ukrainians—and ostensibly about how tough he would be as a future president.

@VDHanson @DailySignal Any benefit to Trump of showcasing Biden’s bad behavior came not from thinking about pressuring Ukraine, but from Biden’s own braggadocio.
Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, smeared Joe Biden’s reputation.

@VDHanson @DailySignal Trump has been accused of thought crimes, not actual crimes. Trump can be indiscreet, even crude, in his speech. But alleged bad thoughts are not crimes—at least not outside George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”