The opinions expressed below are strictly my own and come from the viewpoint of a 50-year amateur political cat who has never missed a vote and cares deeply about his country. I am an open minded conservative liberal or liberal conservative. I own guns. I favor unions. And I am deeply committed to human rights.
If you have a problem with any of this, then just scroll on by.
I have NOT turned on the TV since this morning when I watched about 90 minutes of DNI Director Joseph McGuire and his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee and the subsequent questioning by come committee members. The observations are strictly my own.
The hearing opened with the Chairman stating very clearly the issues at hand which were two-fold; 1) A President who swore to uphold the laws and 2) a President who swore to protect and defend the Constitution. It was the opinion of Chairperson Schiff that that President, in his “strongarm tactics” with the President of the Ukraine, had broken the law and then failed to uphold the security of our nation and its Constitution. I am not agreeing or disagreeing.
The Ranking Member, Devin Nunes, seemed more interesting of finding out who is leaking the President’s privileged conversations with three different heads of state (the President of Mexico, the Australian prime minister and now the President of Ukraine) than addressing the President’s tactics and use of US foreign policy and aid as tools to “influence” the actions of a foreign power and to bring “dirt” on potential political rivals.
Then the Director had his opening statement. And from here, you get my opinion.
The Director acknowledged receiving the IG (Inspector General) report and the complaint. And as the Director explained, by the same statute that says all and any whistle blower complaint must be forwarded to the Congress within seven (7) days, a definition of the terms used by the IG as “credible” and “urgent” was necessary to understand his actions. The Whistleblower Protection Act says that for an action to defined as “urgent”, it must meet three criteria: 1) It has to involve an intelligence operation; 2) that operation has to be shown at risk because of the actions of the persons involved; and 3) that person must be inside the intelligence community. The Director explained that since the President is “outside” the intelligence community, the Whistleblower complaint might not fall into the “protected” and “urgent” category. And if it is outside that definition, the Director further to find out if the conversation described in the complaint was “privileged” as defined by “executive privilege”. The Director further explained that all members of the Executive Branch are bound by executive privilege rules until they are released from them and (emphasis added) THAT INCLUDES ANY AND ALL CONVERSATIONS HE HAD WITH THE PRESIDENT REGARDLESS OF SUBJECT.
It was on this basis (awaiting the executive privilege decision which would then make the complaint valid if it was waived) that he did not forward to the complaint within the required seven (7) days as required by the Whistleblower laws.
I can understand that logic. And to whom was the Director to approach but the White House Counsel’s Office to see if they were going to exert executive privilege and the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel to see if the Whistleblower Statute applied.
Now here’s the rub… everyone is focused on the phone conversation. And as soon as the phone transcript was made available, it was no longer protected by “executive privilege” and now fell within the Whistleblower Statute. According to the Director, as soon as that happened, he sent the complaint to Congress as required by law.
BUT FOLKS, IT ISN’T THE PHONE CONVERSATION THAT IS THE PROBLEM. THE WHOLE PHONE KERFUFFLE IS JUST A SMOKE SCREEN. IT GETS WORSE!
The crux of the whistleblower’s complaint is this… THE PRESIDENT’S CONVERSATIONS WERE LISTENED TO BY 12 OR SO PEOPLE. And those people were so concerned about the tenor of the conversation, that the White House ATTEMPTED TO BURY THE TRANSCRIPT as “code word classified” so no one would find the smoking gun. And the whistleblower said, “that’s not right… and not only that, this is not the first time the White House has buried transcripts”. And that is the basis of the complaint.
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE PHONE CALL!!!!!!!
IT’S ABOUT THE ATTEMPT TO HIDE THE TRANSCRIPT OF THAT PHONE CALL THAT SEEMED TO IMPLY “WELL, UKRAINE, WE HAVE BEEN VERY GOOD TO YOU AND THERE HAS BEEN NO RECIPROCITY… SO I’M GOING TO ASK YOU A FAVOR. I’M GOING TO HAVE YOU TALK TO RUDY (YOU’LL LIKE HIM) AND TO MY ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR ABOUT THIS JOE BIDEN BUSINESS.” In other words, it would be a shame if something happened to your country…” This is asking a foreign government to become involved in trying to influence the outcome of a US election.
As I said above, it’s not about the phone call. It’s about trying to hide that phone call and its contents that should concern every levelheaded person in the US.
Thank God for whistleblowers. And thank God, that Director McGuire considered all the options, so it didn’t turn into a runaway freight.
So, here is my thought. Impeachment should proceed. The President should be impeached and forced to answer for these actions. And when the Senate votes, the GOP Senators will have to do one of two things: 1) own up to massive destruction that Trump has done to their party and convict him and take back control of his party OR 2) vote not to convict and destroy what’s left of the old GOP. Either way, every Senator will have to go on the record as standing with a criminal who has no interest in anything but his own ego and legacy regardless of the law or stand up to that same criminal and say “enough is enough. WE will not tolerate this destruction of our Constitution!”
Simple as that… the GOP Senators will be forced to stop waffling on the edges of supporting Trump or opposing Trump. AS we have seen for the past 2 ½ years, no one will stand up to the bullying because they fear for their elected offices.
That time is past. Time to man up and either save the Constitution or be directly complicit in its destruction.
Which will it be?
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