How many times in your life have you asked someone, "hey can you do me a favor and get me x?"
How often do they respond with, "You want a quid pro quo, don't you?"
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How many times in your life have you asked someone, "hey can you do me a favor and get me x?"
How often do they respond with, "You want a quid pro quo, don't you?"
Jarhyn
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How many times does a criminal, fully committing criminal extortion, fully prosecutable for this criminal extortion, say "do me a favor" and it's just understood that there will be consequences if the other party does not?
In fact,
"The official and the payor need not state the quid pro quo in express terms, for otherwise the law's effect could be frustrated by knowing winks and nods." Justice Kennedy in Evans v. United States, 504 U.S. 255 (1992).
Jimmy Higgins
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Paraphrased in context.
Ukraine: We are totally ready for those missiles.
Trump: Yeah, I need a favor.
blastula
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I've just spoken with some representatives from ICANN and I'm happy to report that you have officially won the internet for today.
Koyaanisqatsi
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And then I'll give you y.
That's the precise definition of a "quid pro quo." And extortion.
Then why is it taking over 20 witnesses and days of hearings just to "prove something so simple?"
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Because they want there to be no doubt, no way to pretend that it didn't happen or that the evidence isn't there.
Jimmy Higgins
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Did someone just ask why there too many witnesses to this abuse of power?
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You mean like someone who complained that the Mueller investigation went on too long, but are more than happy to wait far longer for "Crooked Hillary" to be investigated?
The quid pro quo has been basically admitted, now they're at the it-wasn't-wrong stage of denial.
It's part of the social contract. You help me when I ask for help, I should expect to help you when you need it.
Besides, that's not even the issue. If the request was for something America wanted this would be ordinary diplomacy. The problem is that he's trying to trade government money for personal things, not government things. In the business world that would land you in the pokey.
Elixir
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Associated Press, on the facts:
Trump explicitly ordered U.S. government officials to work with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani on matters related to Ukraine, a country deeply dependent on Washington’s help to fend off Russian aggression. The Republican president pushed Ukraine to launch investigations into political rivals, leaning on a discredited conspiracy theory his own advisers disputed. And both American and Ukrainian officials feared that Trump froze a much-needed package of military aid until Kyiv announced it was launching those probes.
Those facts were confirmed by a dozen witnesses, mostly staid career government officials who served both Democratic and Republican administrations. They relied on emails, text messages and contemporaneous notes to back up their recollections from the past year.
Associated Press Opinion:
Stitched together, their hours of televised testimony paint a portrait of an American president willing to leverage his powerful office to push a foreign government for personal political help.
MY opinion:
Republican politicians willing to go along with the Trump "drug deal" are demonstrating their willingness to betray America, its institutions and its democratic system in order to hold onto their personal power and wealth. They are peddling lies that help an adversary. It's known as giving aid and comfort to an enemy. In post WWII America, they'd have been shot. By the Republican Party.
Jarhyn
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In fact, in the business world just the APPEARANCE of having done such a thing will get you fired.
zorq
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I don't know where you get your news from, but, if there was any confusion on the matter... your ass doesn't count as a reliable source.
It's been obvious from day 1 that the Senate isn't going to do their job. The inquiry will at least publicize his misdeeds and increase the chance he will be voted out.
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The IC released their report.
Report | Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Impeachment latest: House Intelligence Committee releases impeachment report on Trump and Ukraine — live updates
Of some note is that it documents various phone contacts between Nunes and Parnas and Giuliani.
None of those contacts were necessarily a problem, except that he never disclosed them at any time during the hearings.
Report | Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Impeachment latest: House Intelligence Committee releases impeachment report on Trump and Ukraine — live updates
Of some note is that it documents various phone contacts between Nunes and Parnas and Giuliani.
None of those contacts were necessarily a problem, except that he never disclosed them at any time during the hearings.
Jimmy Higgins
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Anyone getting shades of Iraq and Chalabi?