BREAKING NEWS: Trump Attorney Voluntarily Acknowledges That Hypothetical Situation Identical to Impeachment-Case Situation Would Mean the President Had Acted Wrongly
(See thread for explanation.)
(See thread for explanation.)
1/ Sen. Angus King (R-ME) posed this hypothetical: a president conditions the release of military to an ally on that ally saying something about a political rival of the president that's untrue. This is—I cannot emphasize this enough—*exactly* the case before the Senate. Read on.
2/ In June 2019, Giuliani associate Yuri Lutsenko—the Ukrainian Prosecutor General—publicly declared there was *no* evidence of *any* wrongdoing by *either* Biden or his son in Ukraine. A month later, Trump demanded Zelensky say there was enough evidence to open a criminal probe.
3/ Senator King is CORRECT that his hypothetical is identical to the present case, because in both cases military aid is withheld to an ally until that ally makes a false accusation against a rival of the president. And Philbin *admitted* such conduct from a president is "wrong."
4/ It is imperative that someone somewhere pick up on this and acknowledge publicly that this happened—the Democrats posed the Ukraine case to Trump's counsel *with only the parties and country involved changed*, and Trump's counsel *admitted* that it would be *clear misconduct*.
5/ Philbin dodged King's question the first time—and when it came up a second time, I was *sure* he'd be smart enough to dodge it again. It's clear from his answer that the reason he messed up and admitted Trump's wrongdoing is that he was irked by something Schiff had just said.
6/ They can walk this back if they like—they have to—but they *can't* say (and this is one of the rare instances in which one can't say) that they misheard the question, were confused or misspoke. It was Philbin's *second time hearing the question*, so he knew what he was saying.
7/ It's remarkable that Shokin has been mentioned so frequently—when all one needs to say about him is that he was fired in part for *not* investigating Burisma, not because he *was* investigating Burisma—but Giuliani associate Lutsenko, Shokin's successor, rarely gets mentioned.
