slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

By Jennifer Rubin. Mrs. Rubin is an American neoconservative journalist who writes the "Right Turn" blog for The Washington Post. Previously she worked at Commentary, PJ Media, Human Events, and The Weekly Standard. Her work has been published in media outlets including Politico, New York Post, New York Daily News, National Review, and The Jerusalem Post.
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When listening to President Trump and fellow Republicans throw around accusations against Democrats and the media or advance defenses for Trump’s impeachable conduct, there is a better than even chance they are misleading if not downright lying. In some cases, we discover the lies because other individuals are caught lying.

Roger Stone was convicted, among other things, of lying to Congress about his conversations with WikiLeaks’s Julian Assange. He falsely claimed: He had no emails, documents or texts relating to WikiLeaks; he never sought damaging information (i.e., emails) about Hillary Clinton; never contacted WikiLeaks through intermediaries; and never contacted the Trump campaign about WikiLeaks. The last lie — denying contacts with the Trump campaign — raises the question as to whether President Trump lied in responses to Robert S. Mueller II.

At the trial we learned about Stone’s numerous contacts with the campaign: Rick Gates, who served as Trump’s deputy campaign chairman, testified Tuesday that Stone began discussing Clinton leaks with the campaign in April 2016 and that from May onward Gates understood Stone to be the campaign’s intermediary with WikiLeaks. By July 2016, Gates testified, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said he was updating Trump and others regularly and directed Gates to keep following up with Stone. After Trump ended one phone call from Stone at the end of that month, Gates testified, the future president said to Gates that “more information would be coming.”

In his written answers, however, Trump claimed he had “no recollection” of conversations with Stone about WikiLeaks nor did he recall knowing Stone had discussed WikiLeaks’s email drops with the campaign. Perhaps Trump’s memory is addled; if not, it appears he lied to Mueller.

Likewise, in the Ukraine matter multiple witnesses gave testimony that suggests that Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland has been telling falsehoods under oath. Some he has remedied, such as his initial statement that he had not communicated to the Ukrainians that military aid was dependent upon their opening an investigation into the Bidens. However, we now know from at least one other witness that Sondland’s denial that he spoke to the president or to the State Department was false. (He spoke to both.) One wonders if he’ll share a similar fate as Stone, the former Trump confidant who this week was found guilty on charges of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.

The Trump lies relating to Ukraine are numerous and serious, although not delivered under oath. CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale has documented 45 Trump lies concerning Ukraine including:

Trump did not ask [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky for anything on the call. (Trump asked Zelensky to look into former Vice President Joe Biden, look into a debunked conspiracy theory about Democratic computer servers, and speak with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr.)

Zelensky criticized former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch “out of the blue” on the call. (Trump brought up Yovanovitch first.) . . . .

The whistleblower was “sooo wrong.” (The rough transcript and witness testimony have proven the whistleblower to have been highly accurate.) . . .

Schiff might have been the whistleblower’s source. (This is nonsense. The whistleblower said in the complaint that information about the call came from “multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call.”)

Other Trump lies include his denial that United States military aid was held up, his bizarre accusations that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) was the whistleblower’s source and his unfounded allegations that former vice president Joe Biden “stole” millions of dollars from foreign countries and pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor when H****r B***n was still under investigation.

House Republicans continually traffic in lies — e.g., Ukraine interfered with our e******n, Joe Biden’s conduct pressuring removal of a delinquent prosecutor was illegal or corrupt, Trump was concerned about Ukraine’s corruption in general.

On procedure, they’ve lied about the depositions (routinely used in investigations), claiming they violate “due process” or amount to a “Soviet-style” star chamber. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) lied in claiming she was prevented from asking questions. (In fact, she was permitted time during the five-minute questions by members but the ranking Republican, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, was not permitted under rules of which she was familiar to yield some of his time in the 45-minute opening round.) Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) falsely claimed not producing the whistleblower violates Trump’s Sixth Amendment rights.

At times, Republicans deliberately ignore evidence in front of their eyes. They seem to have settled on the theory that Trump never communicated to Zelensky that aid was tied to investigations of Biden, Burisma and Trump’s crackpot Ukraine interference conspiracy. Trump, however, raised these items in the phone call (“I would like you to do us a favor though"), as we know from the rough transcription. (In transcripts of depositions we learn from multiple officials they were alarmed about injecting Trump’s political agenda into U.S. foreign policy.)

Trump also spoke to Sondland about the investigations, according to testimony, and in one instance was overheard by multiple State Department staffers. (Other officials testify that Sondland repeatedly claimed he was acting on Trump’s behalf and directly conditioned aid on the Biden investigation.)

Republicans’ lies are so numerous and obvious that one requires only a minimal amount of fact-checking to see that they lie because they have no t***hful factual defenses nor valid constitutional argument. The facts are the facts: Trump conditioned aid to an ally in a war for its sovereignty on production of dirt to smear a political rival. He has refused to allow key witnesses to produce documents or to testify, thereby obstructing Congress. He has sought to intimidate and threaten witnesses including the whistleblower and Marie Yovanovitch, sending out the message you will be targeted and smeared if you provide evidence against him.

As for the Constitution, we know that “bribery,” enumerated as one of the grounds for impeachment in the parlance of the Framers, includes asking for or giving personal favors in exchange for political acts. That is precisely what occurred here. Obstruction and witness intimidation are obviously "high crimes."

House Republicans have become so invested in crackpot theories, bogus procedural complaints and constitutional illiteracy that they will never recognize the president’s wrongdoing. They are as incapable of upholding their oath, which requires impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors or bribery, as he is. Both Trump and his House enablers are unfit to serve since personal and political considerations obliterate their ability to detect the t***h and thereby to uphold their public obligations. It would be refreshing if House Republicans simply admitted Trump violated his oath but that they are unwilling to abide by theirs and remove him. The candor would be preferable to the non-stop lying.

It remains an open question as to whether Senate Republicans are willing to ignore and distort reality so as to avoid v****g to convict a president of their own party. Unfortunately, we find it highly unlikely that more than a few (if that many) would concede that Trump and the right-wing echo chamber that protects him have been spinning a web of lies for nearly three years.

steve66613

Meh....just more BS diatribe from the Washington Compost....a false source of information. Not really information.....butt-hurt opinion!

2quick4u Loc: Somewhere in central Tx...

What a total line of crap...not one shred of believable and admissible evidence..in a real court of law anyway..was presented throughout this entire d********g spectacle. What has become crystal clear now though, is you dims have fallen far short of the mark and now have a much larger problem on your hands... how to hold on to the tail of this formidable orange tiger and not be eaten in the process. Bon appetit!!

Liberty Tree

She has always been a Trump h**er.

moldyoldy

You got just the response that I expected.
I deserve a drink now.

Liberty Tree

We thought you had already had too many.

DaWg44

Give yourself a break. Buy a bottle of Bookers bourbon, put it in the freezer for at least 24 hours, cover the bottle with a bag of ice if you don’t have a yard & have to go to a park. Sip out of a shot glass & see the trees, birds, clouds, sunshine, take several long slow sniffs of Bookers, & then pick up something from nature, flower, rotten limb in Winter & do the same.

After 3 shot glasses this same way, if you don’t feel better, you are a lost cause.

Do not drive at all if you have one sip.

moldyoldy

I never heard of Bookers bourbon.

Mikeyavelli

Jennifer Rubin has always been a lefty g*******t masquerading as a conservative and accepted by g*******t conservatives as a necessary colleague of compassion for the lefty causes.
Romney Ryan and McCain would permit socialism in 20 years, but Rubin wanted socialism in 4 years instead of the lefties immediate demands.
She is a beacon of conservative confusion.

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

I'm wondering what "right wing echo chamber" she means. Fox...The Blaze?

Every show, every day, on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC and even NPR use the exact same words to slam Trump and us.

People who are busy earning a living and are in the habit of catching highlights from sources they've trusted for years without going into a great deal of research themselves are susceptible to this kind of brainwashing and the completely maggot infested Establishment knows it and are counting on it.

moldyoldy

Did you ever think that maybe you have it backwards, and Q***n, alex jones and breitbart are doing the brainwashing?

Mikeyavelli

Anyone with two eyes and a schumerhole can see that the kommiecrats and the international left are doing anything they can to remove Trump from office.
You are cheering it on. You need a crime though. One that would convince 65 million Trump supporters that he is a criminal.
You kommiecrats don't have that.

DaWg44

It is not sold in corner liquor stores, have never seen it outside The South, never really looked anywhere else. My kids, grandkids, give me a bottle for Christmas every year. It is not cheap, $50.00/bottle, but certainly not anywhere near the top prices

I used to buy one bottle/year. Five years ago, after fielding years of trying to answer kids over what I wanted for Christmas, my wife told them Bookers, but one bottle has to be the present from all of you.

I still only get one bottle a year, makes me happy, makes kids, grandkids, happy, means they don’t have to shop, know it will cost each of them about $15.00 & I will toast them with the last of the previous bottle @ Christmas.

I celebrate the real achievements of our kids & grandkids by having a shot on the patio, w/ the dogs, cats, birds on their feeders, deer in the field, wh**ever is around in season. I used to do same when I got a new position, more money, my wife got a promotion, always offered her a shot. She has always turned it down, joined me with her Wild Turkey Reserve.

Anyone who wants to go someplace unusual for vacation needs to go to Bardstown, KY for the bourbon festival. The museum there is fantastic, shows things almost no one knows about Prohibition. You have free t***sportation from hotels & back, good food, music, & get to taste bourbons only the very, very, rich could afford to buy.

I am not suggesting anyone start drinking, don’t mean to offend anyone, but if you are already drinking bourbon or Tennessee whiskey, you might enjoy Bookers.

moldyoldy

You know trump is a criminal

JW

What is the crime?