Official LRC President Donald J Trump Thread

kibitzer wrote:

Okay, my usual thought experiment (bearing in mind that I've never pulled the Democratic lever for any office in any election):

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If in 2011 Barack Obama had solicited the aid of, say, Serbia in digging up some dirt on his likely GOP rival-to-be in the 2012 general election . . . what American would not be OUTRAGED to learn of it? And think it was worthy of impeachment?

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And if a Trump supporter would have been outraged then, WHY are you not outraged about a similar situation now?

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This whole Ukraine business might not end up being much, in the grand scheme of things: I've consistently opined that having committed PROVEN election-finance felonies, for which your co-conspirator is currently in prison, was much more salient.

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But I'd be really interested to know how the Trumpists have managed to be okay with the President's dealings with Ukraine. Not an argument this time, I'm really curious--so no changing the topic or what-abouts, please--what is it about this situation, compared to the hypothetical one in 2011, that makes it okay?

celery wrote:

Trollminator wrote:

Ok so here’s the basic summary for anyone willing to just look at trump’s action and nothing else. He called the Ukrainian President and specifically asked him do him a favor and look into his political rival. He then used as leverage taxpayer funded military aid to pressure Ukraine to comply with his personal request. Then, the conversation incorrectly filed away in an attempt to hide it - a clear abuse of the classified system. It’s very hard not to see this as clear and unconstitutional abuse of power.

The whistle blower did their job. Anyone who comes across criminal activity must report it through the right channels, which is exactly what this individual did. It’s of course concerning that the dozen or so other people that were aware of the conversation never raised the issue.

I will happily respond to any poster who can argue how trump can be deemed innocent in this incident. For everyone else pointing fingers at irrelevant people, conspiracies and blaming the system - you’ve got nothing. If you don’t like this rule of law country, feel free to GTFO.

Here is a my reply to your arguments; I'm not trying to convince you to agree with these arguments, I'm just telling you how the pro-Trump people see things.

Trump and his team genuinely think something corrupt might have happened in Ukraine when the Prosecutor was fired at the behest of Biden and the Obama team. So Trump, acting in what he though was the benefit of the country and justice, asked the Ukraine President to investigate it.

At the same time, Trump believes the government is inundated by people who are surreptitiously working to undermine him. So a few days after the phone conversation, he chose to limit who had access to it because he knows people would get the wrong impression from the phone call. Further, if he thinks there really is corruption by Obama/Biden, he would want to have this investigation kept on the down low so the anti-Trump, pro-Biden/Obama people within the government can't start undermining it. The fact that a whistle blower drafted up a 5 page hypothesis trying to prove Trump should be impeached, is evidence that Trump is correct in thinking there are people working to undermine him within the "deep state."

The withholding of aid money to Ukraine could be from two motivations, that are not mutually exclusive. The first motivation is in line with Trump's often stated goal of paying less money for European security when the other rich nations of Europe are capable of doing it themselves. There is explicit evidence for the first motivation.

A second motivation could be to encourage the Ukraine President to investigate the crowdstrike and Biden issues. There is implied evidence for this second motivation, but as yet, there is no explicit evidence for this quid pro quo.

Even if the second motivation is true, this is exactly the same thing as what Biden already bragged about doing, so it is not illegal in and of itself. It would only be illegal if Trump knows there was no corruption by Obama/Biden, but asked anyway for an investigation. A sort of "show me the person and I'll find the crime" sort of thing. But if Trump genuinely believes there was past corruption, then asking for Ukraine to keep investigating is in line with what Trump thinks is good for the country and is what his supporters want him to do. He sees it as him trying to "drain the swamp."

In the same way, if Biden asked for Ukraine to fire the Prosecutor because he genuinely thought the Prosecutor was corrupt, then there was nothing illegal about Biden using the US money as a quid pro quo in 2016. But if Biden's real motivation for having the Prosecutor fired was to protect his son, then that would be an illegal use of taxpayer money. Those who like Obama/Biden assume he was working for the best interest of the country and not for personal gain. Just the same, the Trump supporters see all his activity as him trying to drain the swamp.

So that explains what the Trump supporters are thinking, here is my personal take;

None of us really knows what's going on, because we can't see inside Trump's and Biden's head. Secondly, we don't really know what's going on in the Ukraine government so how could any of us really know if the Prosecutor should have been fired or not. Various government agencies or media outlets will try to say things one way or another, but since they all have an agenda, there is no way to know who is and isn't spinning the facts. Likely, they all are.

The use of tax payer money to induce foreign governments to do our bidding is a practice that creates moral hazard for our politicians and we should all be outraged that there is any foreign aid whatsoever. When our politicians use foreign aid as a quid pro quo, they might be genuinely operating in a way that they think is good for the country, but on the other hand, they might be also seeking something of personal benefit. Since we elect our leaders, they will always have a mixed motivation to be doing what is good for the country, and good for re-election. Whether you think a particular politician committed treason, or acted as a faithful public servant, is entirely determined by what you already think of that politician.

The bottom line is that all foreign aid is a betrayal of the citizens of this country. Under the constitution, all foreign treaties and aid was supposed to go through congress as a ratified treaty. This would keep it in the public eye and lessen the opportunity for personal gain for the politicians. This is why early in the republic, foreign entanglements where understood to be a bad thing. But that ship sailed a long time ago, to all of our detriment.

So what the Trump haters are outraged by in the Ukraine phone call is just the normal modus operandi of our broken government. When a person they hate takes part in this activity, they see it as treason. The same thing happens with Republicans who despised Obama. They thought the hot mic to Russia "I'll have more flexibility after the election" was treasonous, when of course it wasn't. Each side selectively applies the Constitution and wails in outrage when they are talking about the other team. It's all a joke. And if you are cheering on the other side's guy going to prison, and ignoring that your own guy should also probably be executed, then you are just as caught up the corruption as the politicians you hate.