A few breaths after grousing that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani "Seems to think I'm judge and jury here," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, the California Democrat, almost comically delivered the verdict, telling ABC News on Sunday that "What we have seen already is damning" and falsely claiming that in his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump used "The full weight of his office with a country beholden to America for its defense to try to coerce that leader to manufacture dirt on his opponent and interfere in our election." A few sentences later, Schiff said what Trump did in the phone call was "Ask for foreign interference in our election."
On its board sat his son Hunter Biden, as his firm "Received regular transfers into one of its accounts - usually more than $166,000 a month - from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia."
Even more stretching came from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who on Sunday told CBS News, "There's an implicit threat in every demand that the president of the United States makes." If you accept that assertion, there isn't a president in history whose private communications could have withstood the scrutiny of his political opponents.
The Zelensky call provides no evidence of wrongdoing, and so Schiff promises, "We're gonna find out what other communications were also improperly hidden in this classified system that's meant to contain the most highly sensitive, classified information involving covert action, not the president's misconduct."
He has something more: a solemn responsibility to preserve for future presidents the ability to conduct candid discussions with foreign allies, friends - even enemies.
A president must be able to engage in "Persuasion, badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages," as the Washington Post's Mary McGrory described Lyndon Johnson's no-holds-barred style of leadership even before becoming president.
Trump or any other president allowing Congress to fish around in classified White House computer systems would be a direct threat to future presidents' ability to use the office to protect the country.
https://issuesinsights.com/2019/10/01/releasing-more-call-transcripts-will-cripple-future-presidents/
On its board sat his son Hunter Biden, as his firm "Received regular transfers into one of its accounts - usually more than $166,000 a month - from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia."
Even more stretching came from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who on Sunday told CBS News, "There's an implicit threat in every demand that the president of the United States makes." If you accept that assertion, there isn't a president in history whose private communications could have withstood the scrutiny of his political opponents.
The Zelensky call provides no evidence of wrongdoing, and so Schiff promises, "We're gonna find out what other communications were also improperly hidden in this classified system that's meant to contain the most highly sensitive, classified information involving covert action, not the president's misconduct."
He has something more: a solemn responsibility to preserve for future presidents the ability to conduct candid discussions with foreign allies, friends - even enemies.
A president must be able to engage in "Persuasion, badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages," as the Washington Post's Mary McGrory described Lyndon Johnson's no-holds-barred style of leadership even before becoming president.
Trump or any other president allowing Congress to fish around in classified White House computer systems would be a direct threat to future presidents' ability to use the office to protect the country.
https://issuesinsights.com/2019/10/01/releasing-more-call-transcripts-will-cripple-future-presidents/
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