Reflections on the whistleblower's report. Part 2

The Democrats are the real thugs in this episode, employing the methods of Lavrentiy Beria, the head of Joseph Stalin's secret police apparatus, the NKVD, who famously said: "Show me the man and I will show you the crime."

Even before he was inaugurated, the Democrats decided that Trump must be removed from office. Ever since, they have been desperately trying to manufacture a charge that can serve as a pretext for his removal. The first charge they trotted out was that Trump colluded with Russia. Now that it has been shown that that dog won't hunt, they have invented another charge, namely, that Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to manufacture dirt about Biden. And, isn't it funny how all these charges seem to be emanating from the American "intelligence" community and how the CIA's requirement that whistleblower reports be based on first hand information was mysteriously eliminated before the whistleblower's report, based on second hand hearsay, was submitted?

The current impeachment inquiry will not be an impartial and unbiased investigation into the question of whether a crime has been committed. Rather, the Democrats already know what verdict they will reach. They reached that verdict on election night in 2016. What we will be seeing in the House of Representatives is not the administration of justice, but merely a show trial, like those in the Soviet Union during the 1930's, a trial whose outcome has been predetermined. And yet, we are being told that it is Trump who is undermining the American republic.

Reflections on the whistleblower's report

The whistleblower's report has all the hallmarks of a deep-state, CIA, Brennan-run operation.

Attempts will be made to construct the same kind of hagiography for the whistleblower as was constructed for Christine Blasey Ford: the whistleblower will be portrayed as a noble, apolitical, disinterested individual who is only trying to do his civic duty in the service of the best interests of his country. Of course, the fact that there are "‘some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate" vitiates this hagiography. In addition to questions about the possible political bias of the whistleblower, other questions to ask are:

• Did the whistleblower receive professional assistance (in particular, legal assistance) in preparing his report? If he did receive assistance, what are the political and government connections of those who assisted him and who paid them?
• Why was the requirement that whistleblower reports must be based on first hand knowledge of wrongdoing eliminated immediately prior to the release of this whistleblower's report? Who was behind that change? Who were the officials from whom the whistleblower obtained his information? If all of the whistleblower's information is secondhand and derivative, then, it is worthless. The only way for investigators to discover true information is to learn the identity of and speak with the primary sources. Why did these primary sources not themselves come forward as whistleblowers? (The principles that apply here are well known to textual critics. Suppose you are trying to reconstruct an ancient text (say, one of Plato's dialogues) from three sources, a manuscript written at the end of the 9th century AD (Codex 39) and two other manuscripts from the 13th century AD that can provably be shown to derive from Codex 39. In this case, only the evidence from Codex 39 is of any value, since the evidence from the other two manuscripts is derivative.) Of course, if one takes this analysis to its logical conclusion, only the transcript of the phone call has any value, since everything derives from it.
• The only information that the whistleblower provides that cannot be derived from the transcript is the claim that the transcript was moved to a more secure server. Who issued the order to move the transcript to a more secure server? As Chris Christie pointed out yesterday (see here at minute 12), if that order was not issued by the President, but by some lower level administration official, then, Trump needs only to fire that official. Trump cannot be impeached for an action that he did not authorize.
• Did the whistleblower inform Democrats (and not Republicans) in advance that he was going to deliver his report, allowing the Democrats time to make preparations and plan their strategy? For example, did Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff have advance notice that the whistleblower was going to deliver his report? This is another ploy right out of the Blasey Ford playbook. In the Kavanaugh hearings, the Democrats sat on the knowledge of Blasey Ford's accusations for months without disclosing it to their Republican colleagues. If the Democrats were given advance notice, this would explain the haste with which they are pressing forward with the impeachment, denying the Republicans adequate time to examine and investigate the charges and the whistleblower.

The following statements have been used repeatedly by the Dems and the fake news media to characterize Trump's statements in the phone call:

Trump attempted to use the influence of the presidency to pressure a foreign power into manufacturing dirt about a political opponent.

Trump attempted to use the influence of the presidency to pressure a foreign power into meddling in the 2020 elections.

Such wording does not appear anywhere in the transcript and these characterizations of the transcript are entirely false and misleading, as misleading as the blatant mischaracterization of the call transcript that Adam Schiff delivered in front of the Judiciary Committee on Friday (see here at the 4:08 minute mark). Rather, what is clear from the transcript is:

Trump attempted to use the influence of the presidency to pressure a foreign power into assisting in an investigation aimed at discovering the truth about possible corrupt actions by a prominent American politician and his son.

In no place in the call does Trump suggest that the Ukrainians should manufacture falsehoods or seek to influence the outcome of the 2020 elections. Rather, Trump's goal is simply to obtain the cooperation of a foreign power in conducting an investigation designed to arrive at the truth. One of two things is true: either the Bidens behaved corruptly or they did not. If an investigation were to conclude that the Bidens behaved corruptly, that would be a good thing for the American people to find out and it would therefore have been good for Trump to push for such an investigation. Conversely, if the investigation were to conclude that there is no evidence of corrupt behavior, that would likewise be a good thing for the American people to learn and it would likewise have been good for Trump to push for such an investigation. We have just exited a two year period where the Mueller investigation, initiated on the flimsiest of pretexts, determined that there was no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Trump. What do the Bidens have to hide? Why was it good for the Democrats to advocate for the Mueller investigation, but it was bad for Trump to advocate for a similar investigation of the Bidens? Do the Dems find it objectionable that it was foreign operatives from whom Trump was attempting to obtain information? But, weren't foreign operatives the source of the Steele dossier, which formed the basis of the Mueller investigation? How is it that the Steele dossier supplied reasonable grounds for investigation, but Giuliani's affidavits from Ukrainian officials do not? As the Dems are about to find out to their great chagrin is: what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

(Trump's advisor Steven Miller was attempting to make some of these very same points this morning on Fox News Sunday (see here at the 4 minute mark) when he was cut off and not allowed to finish by Chris Wallace.)

The whistleblower himself offers the very same mischaracterizations of the content of the call in the first paragraph of his report:

[T]he President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.

This is not intelligence gathered by a CIA operative, but simply spin offered up by an obvious partisan. If this so-called intelligence officer offers personal opinion in place of intelligence and misrepresents the contents of the call in his opening paragraph, how much faith should we place in the rest of his report?

As for the question of whether there was a quid pro quo, explicit or implied, if there was a quid pro quo to obtain the honorable end of discovering the truth about possible corruption, then, this would seem to me to be an appropriate use of presidential power. American presidents are always using the power of the American presidency to obtain honorable ends. The most obvious example of a quid pro quo in this entire episode was when Vice President Biden withheld $1B in US aid to Ukraine until the Ukrainians ("Well, son of a bitch") sacked the prosecutor who was investigating Burisma, the company on which Biden's son was a board member. If Biden's action as a Vice President to withhold aid until he achieved his end was a legitimate quid pro quo deployed to pressure a foreign country into taking an action in the interest of the United States, then, certainly Trump's action as President to withhold aid until he achieved his end of persuading the Ukrainian president to help him determine the truth was appropriate.

The fact that Trump used Rudy Giuliani as an agent to interact with a foreign government was also perfectly appropriate. Being the personal lawyer of the POTUS, Giuliani is not exactly a private citizen. And, even if he is just a private citizen, past presidents have used private citizens as American envoys in a variety of situations and for a variety of reasons. Furthermore, given the fact that the deep state is so obviously infested with partisan agents, who was Trump supposed to trust? Finally, Rudy Giuliani is the perfect person to run such an investigation, being a former United States Associate Attorney General and United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York with vast experience in investigating and rooting out criminal corruption. (Warning to the Democrats: You have impugned Rudy's integrity; he is now fighting mad; you have awakened an old rattlesnake who is going to counter attack with every bit of legal experience he can muster.)

Likewise, the movement of the phone call transcript to a more secure server was also perfectly understandable, given that the transcripts of other Trump calls had been leaked to the press. How is a president supposed to conduct foreign policy if foreign leaders are concerned that everything they say may be leaked to the New York Times or Washington Post?

Finally, the attempt to portray Trump and Giuliani as criminal bosses or mafiosi is an ethnic smear against Giuliani and a racist insult to all Italian Americans.

In sum, the whistleblower's report is just the next chapter of the same playbook the Democrats trotted out in the Mueller report and the Kavanaugh hearings. It didn't work then and it won't work now. What is shocking is how the Democrats continue to shoot themselves in the foot. Not only will the Senate never convict Trump, but the Dems have, in effect, destroyed the candidacy of Joe Biden, their only possibly electable candidate, and thereby guaranteed Trump's reelection.