Trump

Discussion in 'Taylor's Tittle-Tattle - General Banter' started by Moose, Jan 18, 2016.

  1. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Link?

    The one I've seen doing the rounds and available through the White House website has "CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation.· (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion" along the bottom.
     
  2. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

  3. another_mrlizard

    another_mrlizard Squad Player

    Did Trump call it "the ukraine?"

    No, he's not that ******* thick.
     
  4. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    There is no full transcript.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ne-call-unlikely-to-be-verbatim-idUSKBN1W935S

    Worth noting that the whistleblower stated they raised the alarm based of multiple actions. The not-actually-a-transcript might not even be the focus of the whistleblower's report.

    To reiterate: the whistleblower cannot remain anonymous, and they will be identified as things proceed. This means the person who raised the alarm did it knowing it would mean the end of their professional career, plus death threats and harassment from the dregs of the internet.
     
    sydney_horn, Moose and UEA_Hornet like this.
  5. Irishorn

    Irishorn Gael Force

    That’s the one I’ve seen. I just put the qualification of the accuracy of the transcript to the civil service getting their excuses in early. Perhaps there is a more accurate version to issue.
     
  6. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    A nameless Republican senator has apparently stated in a private conversation that if a vote was held in secret, 30 Republicans would vote in favour of impeachment.

    Very interesting stuff.

    https://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitche...ators-would-vote-to-impeach-trump-69890117795

    The chap being interviewed is a Republican, by the way....a former GOP advisor.

    The House and the Senate have apparently received the whistleblower report now. I'm expecting fireworks over the next week.
     
  7. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

  8. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    Isn't the telephone call 'something else' as the big thing is the whistle-blower's statement/report...
     
  9. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

  10. I think, this time, he is fooked.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  11. Washington Post
    We now have the seven-page declassified whistleblower complaint alleging misdeeds by President Trump with regard to Ukraine.

    Below are some of the key takeaways and allegations in it.

    1. The White House allegedly tried to bury the Trump-Zelensky call
    The whistleblower says the White House went outside the normal process to prevent officials from reviewing the rough transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky — the same rough transcript the White House released Wednesday amid pressure.

    The complaint says officials told the whistleblower that they were told to “lock down” all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript.

    “According to multiple White House officials I spoke with, the transcript of the President’s call with President Zelenskyy was placed into a computer system managed directly by the National Security Council (NSC) Directorate of Intelligence Programs,” the complaint says, noting that it’s an isolated computer system for “codeword-level intelligence information.”

    It says officials believed this was an abuse of the system because it was done “solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive — rather than national security sensitive — information.”

    This, notably, would fly in the face of White House claims that its release of the phone call Wednesday was done for transparency reasons and that there was nothing wrong with the call. The call contains no apparent sensitive national security information, yet it was allegedly buried.

    The whistleblower also says they were told this was “not the first time” something was handled like this.

    2. Trump allegedly dangled a meeting with Zelensky as a reward
    There has been plenty of speon whether military aid was the potential quid pro quo Trump used to get Zelensky to launch his chosen investigations, including one involving the Bidens.

    The complaint doesn’t dwell upon that too much, saying it wasn’t clear Ukraine was even aware that aid was being withheld. What it does say is that officials believed Trump dangled a meeting with Zelensky — something the Ukrainian leader badly wanted — as a reward to “play ball.”
    “During this same time frame, multiple U.S. officials told me that the Ukrainian leadership was led to believe that a meeting between the President and President Zelenskyy would depend on whether Zelenskyy showed willingness to ‘play ball’ on the issues that had been publicly aired by [former Ukraine prosecutor general Yuriy] Lutsenko and [Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W.] Giuliani.”

    The whistleblower clarifies, though that, “I do not know who delivered this message to the Ukrainian leadership, or when.”
    The Post has previously reported that Trump has resisted the idea of meeting with Zelensky. But on the July 25 phone call with him, after Zelensky suggests he will pursue the investigations Trump wants, Trump indicates they will plan a meeting in Washington.

    “Whenever you would like to come to the White House feel free to call,” Trump says on the call. “Give us a date, and we’ll work that out.”

    On Wednesday at the United Nations, Zelensky said in an apparently joking manner of the still-unscheduled meeting: “And I want to thank you for invitation to Washington. You invited me, but I think — I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But I think you forgot to tell me the date. But I think in the near future.”

    3. Two ambassadors allegedly worked to contain the potential damage
    The whistleblower describes two U.S. officials — U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations Kurt Volker and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland — trying to mitigate the potential damage caused by Trump’s efforts.

    Separately, the whistleblower alleges that Trump also pulled back a planned visit to Ukraine by Vice President Pence for these purposes.

    “I learned from U.S. officials that, on or around 14 May, the President instructed Vice President Pence to cancel his planned travel to Ukraine to attend President Zelenskyy’s inauguration on 20 May; Secretary of Energy Rick Perry led the delegation instead,” the complaint alleges. The whistleblower says it was "'made clear’ to them that the President did not want to meet with Mr. Zelenskyy until how saw how Zelenkyy ‘chose to act’ in office.
    “Based on multiple readouts of the meetings recounted to me by various U.S. officials,” the whistleblower says, “Ambassadors Volker and Sondland reportedly provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelenskyy.”

    The whistleblower adds that they were told:

    • that State Department officials, including Ambassadors Volker and Sondland, had spoken with Mr. Giuliani in an attempt to “contain the damage” to U.S. national security; and

    • that Ambassadors Volker and Sondland during this time period met with members of the new Ukrainian administration and, in addition to discussing policy matters, sought to help Ukrainian leaders understand and respond to the differing messages they were receiving from official U.S. channels on the one hand, and from Mr. Giuliani on the other.


    4. The whistleblower nailed the July 25 call
    Republicans are already attacking the credibility of the whistleblower and noting that almost all of their allegations rely on secondhand information from other U.S. officials.

    But the whistleblower’s characterization of the July 25 Trump-Zelensky phone call, which they were not party to, is spot-on according to what we saw in the transcript released by the White House.

    The whistleblower wrote on Aug. 12, long before the call was released Wednesday, that they were told Trump pressured Zelensky to:

    • initiate or continue an investigation into the activities of former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter Biden;

    • assist in purportedly uncovering that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine, with a specific request that the Ukrainian leader locate and turn over servers used by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and examined by the U.S. cyber security firm Crowdstrike, which initially reported that Russian hackers had penetrated the DNC’s networks in 2016; and

    • meet or speak with two people the President named explicitly as his personal envoys on these matters, Mr. Giuliani and Attorney General Barr, to whom the President referred multiple times in tandem.


    The whistleblower also notes Trump lent his support to Ukraine’s former prosecutor general, which is also on the call. And they note that Trump only mentioned the two investigations, which is true.

    That suggests they did their homework.
     
  12. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    Unanimous votes in the House/Senate regarding viewing the whistleblower report.

    I suspect this means one of two things: either the GOP know it's bad and are now looking to save their own careers, or it's a setup intended to blow up in the Democrats' faces.

    Given that Coates suddenly and unexpectedly ran for the hills (along with most of his team) about the same time as he heard about these events, the former situation seems more likely.
     
  13. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    This just keeps getting more and more surreal.

    Apparently info relating to conversation was moved to a non-standard server on a different network to try and obfuscate the contents of the discussions.

    I seem to remember another recent furore over a politician who kept government data on a non-standard private server...
     
    UEA_Hornet and sydney_horn like this.
  14. The New York Times has new information on the identity of the whistleblower, who is reportedly a CIA officer previously detailed to the White House.

    The Times reports:

    The man has since returned to the C.I.A., the people said. Little else is known about him. His complaint made public Thursday suggested he was an analyst by training and made clear he was steeped in details of American foreign policy toward Europe, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of Ukrainian politics and at least some knowledge of the law.

    The whistle-blower’s expertise will likely add to lawmakers’ confidence about the merits of his complaint, and tamp down allegations that he might have misunderstood what he learned about Mr. Trump.
     
  15. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    Jeff Flake has stated on camera that he knows THIRTY FIVE Republican senators want vote to convict Trump in an impeachment trial.

    If you don't know who Flake is, until recently he was a Republican senator from Arizona. He knows the sitting Republican senators very, very well and is highly credible with regards to the general feeling among his former colleagues.

    Public opinion on impeachment up thirteen points in the last two days.

    Trump is in major, major doo-doo.
     
  16. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    It was mentioned by Trevor Noah / Sam Bee that a a lot of Trump's 'phone calls have ended up on this 'Hilary' (TM) server...
     
  17. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    I think right now the GOP would happily see the back of Trump if it meant they could keep control of the Senate in 2020. The impeachment stuff helps either way - even if it doesn't kill him off it probably enthuses his base, which could bolster the senators in light red states.
     
    Arakel likes this.
  18. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    I havn't really followed this latest Trump misdeed allegations, I don't like him and on the face of it he has done wrong.

    But in the wider scheme of things, I think it is not a positive step to have politicians phone calls recorded with the intention that they can be potentially used to score political points.

    It is easy to demand it in the name of "transparency", etc, and it can be difficult to argue against that, but I am uncomfortable with it, as much good is done behind the scenes to diplomatically avoid confrontations becoming more serious, and inevitably those conversations will involve some give and take bartering. If that option is removed, I fear that there will be less jaw-jaw, and more war-war in the future.

    It might serve current "opposition" purposes to use this information, but they have to remember that it may well be themselves under similar scrutiny in the future, just when they may be wanting a quiet chat with an adversary, rather than a public discussion.
     
  19. hornetgags

    hornetgags McMuff's lovechild

    I remember Flake, he is an ardent anti-Trumper - he's not running in the next election cycle IIRC.
     
  20. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    Correct, one of the few who has consistently spoken up against Trump.

    It's possible he's lying, but balance of probabilities is he's telling the truth. He undoubtedly has contact with the other Senators.

    I think the Republicans would gladly see the back of Trump and would far prefer a President Pence. The trick for them is finding a good reason to latch onto so the Trumpsters don't lose their minds.

    Anything remotely concrete and I suspect they'll dogpile him with gusto. There's no real endgame in defending a guy you despise when his replacement will be a guy who is one of you.
     
  21. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

  22. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

  23. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

  24. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

  25. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

  26. He's totally lost it...


    [​IMG]

    Donald J. Trump
    @realDonaldTrump


    As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over...
    4:38 PM · Oct 7, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
    13.1K
    Retweets

    38.1K
    Likes
     
    Moose likes this.
  27. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Nut job.
     
  28. Trump has justified throwing the Kurds under a bus because "they didn't help out in Normandy". I mean, what the actual ****?
     
  29. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    Yes, the man is a grade A tosser.

    Not that we didn't know that already.
     
  30. "She was driving on the wrong side of the road ...it happens, you know, the opposite side of the road, many people do it..."
    [​IMG]
     
  31. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    One of the first consequences of Turkey’s green lighted invasion is that Assad has reached out to the Kurds inviting them back to the Government side. That’s going to be hard to resist and risks all out conflict between Syria and Turkey.
     
  32. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Not a great morning for Trump. Already two diplomats he has instructed not to testify to Congress on the Ukraine issue have decided to ignore his demands and have said they will anyway. One of whom was involved in some pretty incriminating texts. And a federal appeals court has upheld a lower court decision that his tax records should be released to a House committee after it subpoenaed them. The latter leaving him facing another likely Supreme Court battle.

    Plus the polls like dire as it stands. 51% told a Fox News poll this week they support his impeachment. Fox News!

    And the abandonment of the Kurds has gone down like a lead balloon too, both within the military, his own party and with the public at large.
     
    Arakel likes this.
  33. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    That in particular was just a SPECTACULAR own goal.

    At a time when the impeachment bandwagon is really starting to get going, he does one of the things guaranteed to seriously piss off Republicans.

    Absolutely jaw dropping stupidity. He simply can't help himself.

    He's given Republican Senators something they justify to their voters as a reason to vote to convict. If you believe the likes of Flake, that's what they've been waiting for behind closed doors.

    President Pence has got to be looking really good to them right now.
     
  34. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    This is well worth a read on Trump's actual relations with senior military leaders:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/military-officers-trump/598360/

    Some of it is gobsmacking.
     
    luke_golden and Arakel like this.

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