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Wednesday, September 25, 2019

The Call Between Trump and the Ukrainian President

The transcript/memorandum of the phone call between President Trump and the Ukrainian President has been released.  If you want to read the entire thing, here's the link 

It's not very long.  It's not very detailed.  There's no pressuring by Trump of the Ukrainian leader.  In fact, the Ukrainian president says that he is trying to clean up Ukrainian politics and to end corruption.  He's appointing a new prosecutor who won't be biased or corrupt and who will look fairly into the company (of which Hunter Biden is a director).  In the words of Ukrainian president Zelezny, he's "trying to restore honesty" to the situation.

There's certainly no quid pro quo like the various media and Democrats have claimed.  All that upset about Trump holding up aid and then using that to pressure the Ukrainians turns out to be a total lie.  The military aid isn't mentioned except that Trump talks about how much more the USA is planning to do with Ukraine.  Trump also suggests to the Ukrainian leader that he speak to Angela Merkel and other Europeans to try to get them to help Ukraine more.  The Ukrainian president says he is already doing that.

They also discuss the replacement of the American ambassador to Ukraine.  President Zelezny of Ukraine thanks President Trump for recalling her.  He points out that the US ambassador was a fan of his predecessor and did not get along with the new leader.  He says that a new ambassador will greatly improve relations.  In other words, the idea that Trump canned the US ambassador because she was preventing an investigation into Biden is just wrong.  The Ukrainian president wanted someone new.

I haven't bothered to read the commentary on this transcript yet.  It's such a nothing burger that we're likely to get nothing but spin.

The only thing that has been confirmed by the transcript is that President Trump properly described the call for the last week.  He said that he had mentioned the prosecutor and that Biden had gotten him fired.  Trump also said that it would be helpful if the Ukrainians were to investigate to find out the truth of what happened.  That's it.

No matter how this gets spun, there is nothing wrong with what Trump did.  He asked a foreign leader to investigate what happened in that leader's own country.  The foreign leader agreed that it would be good to investigate and said that had already appointed someone new as a prosecutor who, he hoped, could restore honesty to the situation.

That's it.  No more.  And yet, this is the conversation that has Democrats and media people calling for impeachment.  One crazy even wants Trump executed for treason.  Gimme a break.

I wonder what will come next.  Will Pelosi launch a committee to investigate if Trump should be impeached for eating two scoops of ice cream for dessert rather than only one?

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