When faced with criticism from Republicans over her undeniably politically driven, secretive, and unjust impeachment inquiry, Nancy Pelosi called for backup from the media which her party controls. This was a big job, so she enlisted the New York Times. And they did not disappoint.
In one of their most partisan, farfetched assaults on Republicans to date, the “paper of record” summoned the age old adage “Accuse your opponent of that which you are guilty.” It sounds like one of Saul Alinsky’s rules, but it dates back to at least World War II.
In an op-ed published on Friday entitled “The Crisis of the Republican Party: The G.O.P. will not be able to postpone a reckoning on Donald Trump’s presidency for much longer,” the editorial board excoriated Republicans for continuing to support President Trump. The cover photo shows the “Peace Statue” which is located near the U.S. Capitol and depicts “Grief weeping on the shoulder of History.”
The piece opens by comparing Republicans of today with those who allowed Sen. Joe McCarthy to continue his campaign against communism through their silence in the 1950s. The Times’ editors write:
The Republican Party is again confronting a crisis of conscience, one that has been gathering force ever since Donald Trump captured the party’s nomination in 2016. Afraid of his political influence, and delighted with his largely conservative agenda, party leaders have compromised again and again, swallowing their criticisms and tacitly if not openly endorsing presidential behavior they would have excoriated in a Democrat. Compromise by compromise, Donald Trump has hammered away at what Republicans once saw as foundational virtues: decency, honesty, responsibility. He has asked them to substitute loyalty to him for their patriotism itself.”
What Democrats have lost sight of is that Trump is not “looking for dirt” on an opponent. He has two very legitimate reasons for his inquiries.
First, he’s looking to hold people accountable for the grave injustice that was thrust upon him and which consumed the better part of his first term. There was a concerted effort to frame him for a crime he didn’t commit. Those who are complicit are acutely aware of this. As they feel John Durham getting closer to the truth, they are panicking. For a time, they thought they’d gotten away with it.
This was a perversion of justice on an epic scale. What sane person wouldn’t want to discover who was involved and how it evolved? We need to expose this fraud so it doesn’t happen to a future president.
Hillary Clinton, who commissioned the opposition research from which this whole narrative sprung, was until her defeat a master of manipulation. It no longer works for her. Last week, she tried to spin a false narrative around Tulsi Gabbard. Since by now Hillary’s name has become synonymous with corruption, her effort was cut off at the knees.
But that how it starts. It’s that easy. “You know, it sure looks like Trump is getting cozy with the Russians.” When that message gets repeated over and over again by influential and respected government officials, and then agencies like the FBI and the CIA pick up the mantra, it takes on a life of its own.
Then, enemies within Trump’s own party see an opportunity to “get back” at him, it fans the flames even further. For example, one of Trump’s bitter 2016 rivals, former Ohio John Kasich, jumped on the bandwagon this week to say, with great sadness of course, that he believes Trump’s statements to Zelensky rise to the level of impeachment. In fact, the Times’ editors wrote that Republicans should follow the lead of men like Kasich. They also suggested Justin Amash, best known as the only Republican Congressman to call for Trump’s impeachment. Further, on the Fourth of July, Amash declared his “independence” and left the Republican Party. The Times’ choice of two of the President’s most outspoken critics as leaders we should look to emulate speaks to the weakness of their argument.
And second, Joe Biden leveraged $1 billion in U.S. aid to force Ukraine to fire the prosecutor who was about to question his son. Yes, I know, Biden claims the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was corrupt. However:
1. Biden has no evidence of Shokin’s corruption.
2. Biden had a strong motive in silencing Shokin. Parents will go to great lengths to protect their children.
3. Ukraine is known for corruption. If Shokin posed no threat to Biden, what was the point of insisting on a six-hour deadline. Why was it so urgent that he be fired immediately? If Shokin were corrupt, so were a thousand other Ukrainian officials. Why Shokin? Why immediately?
4. Shokin appeared in a court of law where he signed a sworn affidavit stating otherwise.
5. Biden has a history of both embellishing and even fabricating stories.
There are compelling reasons to suspect Biden of wrongdoing. Even if Biden were not running for President, there’s more than enough smoke here to warrant an investigation.
The editorial says:
There was a time when Republicans like Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa said that soliciting foreign election assistance would be improper. But most congressional Republicans have taken to avoiding such questions as the evidence against Mr. Trump has piled up.
Okay, let’s talk about soliciting foreign election assistance. Hillary Clinton and the DNC commissioned a Washington op-research firm, Fusion GPS, to hire former British spy Christopher Steele to tap his foreign contacts to compile an unverified document of stories about candidate Trump (truth not required). This spy had his foreign information hand delivered to the FBI by the fourth highest ranking DOJ official, Bruce Ohr, who acted as the backchannel. Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, was an independent contractor who worked for Fusion GPS to dig up dirt during 2016 on members of the Trump family. Testifying under oath before Congress, Nellie Ohr admitted much of her information came from a Ukrainian source. She put together a dossier of her own in the summer of 2016 which her husband delivered to the FBI on a thumbdrive.
The owner of Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, had several Russian clients, one of whom was Natalia Veselnitskaya, one of the Russians who initiated and attended the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump, Jr. in June 2016. Simpson had dinner with Veselnitskaya the night before the meeting and after the meeting.
Although it hasn’t been definitely proven yet, evidence suggests the FBI sent spies into the Trump campaign. They arranged for Joseph Mifsud to meet with George Papadopoulos in Rome and London. This information will become more clear after the IG report is released which is said to be this week. A full accounting of everything that occurred on foreign soil is beyond the scope of this post, but it is vast. And it allowed the perpetrators to circumvent U.S. laws.
The editors continue:
Yet Republicans will not be able to postpone a reckoning with Trumpism for much longer. The investigation by House Democrats appears likely to result in a vote for impeachment, despite efforts by the White House to obstruct the inquiry.
So do it. Go ahead and impeach him. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi likely has the votes. What is her hesitation? As most of us are aware, the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is not even official because Pelosi has refused to hold a vote on the House floor to open it. She called a press conference to announce her impeachment inquiry, yet she won’t pull the trigger. On Friday, she announced that she “would not be holding a vote anytime soon.”
She has several good reasons for not doing so. First, it will leave Democratic members of Congress from districts where Trump won vulnerable. Second, once a formal floor vote is taken to open an impeachment inquiry, Republicans, who have been shut out of the process entirely, would gain the power to issue subpoenas and to question witnesses. The Democrats are very happy with their unofficial unilateral impeachment. Third, once the House votes to impeach, they will lose control of the narrative. The impeachment inquiry would be then in the hands of the Senate. The House Democrats would become irrelevant. And the matter would be treated much differently by the Republican controlled Senate.
The Constitution’s framers envisioned America’s political leaders as bound by a devotion to country above all else. That’s why all elected officials take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. By protecting Donald Trump at all costs from all consequences, the Republicans risk violating that sacred oath.
Please don’t lecture us about sacred oaths and devotion to country. Your words are hypocritical, misguided and pathetic. Nothing is sacred to Nancy Pelosi or her front man, Adam Schiff, except for their insatiable hunger for power. Democrats don’t love America, nor do they respect the rule of law.
They’ve tried everything they could possibly conceive of to destroy this man. They were counting on Special Counsel Robert Mueller to deliver for them. When his investigation failed to result in an indictment, they chose Ukraine-gate.
Our founders never intended for impeachment to be used as a political tool for one party to take power from another. It was “supposed to be reserved for truly abominable misconduct.”
The New York Times has jumped the shark. Perhaps it happened when they tried to rewrite history with the launch of the 1691 project. Or maybe before.
Along the way, the left forgot one of Alinsky’s most important rules. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
This fraud has dragged on too long.
Barr and Durham are closing in, and they will be exposed.
And, like they say, history will remember it.
Republicans face a simple question: is the president allowed to pressure a foreign country into interfering in our elections?
History will remember their answer, or their silence. #TruthExposed https://t.co/ps02g1AlYL
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) October 20, 2019
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