AROUND THE BLOCK
Commentary
(With a bit "Twisted News" at the end)
Is Trump’s phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky Ukrainegate’s
smoking gun?
Tapes? That was then. Phone call? This is now. 18-1/2-minute gap?
So ‘70’s. Whistleblower complaint? So 2019.
Is it possible that the “anonymous” whistleblower...you know, the
one who lodged the complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General
saying, the complaint is both of “urgent concern and credible,” and “relates to
one of the most significant and important of the Director of National
Intelligence’s responsibilities to the American people”...is our new age
Alexander Butterfield?
Now that the Wall Street Journal…you know the Rupert Murdoch-owned
daily whose news department is, thankfully, independent of the paper’s editorial
department’s Trump-loyalists…has reported that on a phone call on July 25th
with Ukrainian president Volodymyr
Zelensky, President Donald Trump pressured the newly elected leader eight times
to investigate alleged corruption in Ukraine involving former vice-president
Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and Biden himself. (July 25th, by the way,
was the day after Robert Mueller’s halting Congressional testimony which Trump
considered a complete vindication of his malevolent behavior)
The WSJ reported:
“President Trump in a July phone call repeatedly pressured the
president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden ’s son, according to people
familiar with the matter, urging Volodymyr Zelensky about eight times to work
with Rudy Giuliani on a probe that could hamper Mr. Trump’s potential 2020
opponent.
“’He told him that he should work with [Mr. Giuliani] on Biden,
and that people in Washington wanted to know if his lawyer’s assertions that
Mr. Biden acted improperly as vice president were true, one of the people said.
Mr. Giuliani has suggested Mr. Biden’s pressure on Ukraine to fight
corruption had to do with an investigation of a gas company for which his
son was a director. A Ukrainian official this year said he had no evidence of
wrongdoing by Mr. Biden or his son Hunter Biden.”
OK, I know some of you are going to say, “fake news,” “lame-stream
media,” “witch hunt,” “it was only ‘people familiar with the matter.’”
Right. And, as expected Trump spent the weekend obfuscating (in
the unlikely event that Trump actually reads Around the Block, some
assistance is in order: obfuscating means, confusing, blurring, muddling, AKA, "doing the Trump.")
According to the New York Times, “President Trump on
Saturday dismissed reports that he urged the Ukrainian president to investigate
former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son as little more than a ‘witch
hunt’ and his dealings were ‘perfectly fine’ and routine.”
And in a tweet, Trump said, “Now that the Democrats and the Fake
News Media have gone ‘bust’ on every other of the Witch Hunt schemes, they are
trying to start one just as ridiculous as the others, call it the Ukraine Witch
Hunt.”
Well, that was then, a full day (an eon in Trumpworld’s meandering
rationalizations) before Sunday’s latest entry into the Trump blabbersphere.
“President Trump acknowledged on Sunday that he raised corruption
accusations against Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during a phone call with
Ukraine’s leader, a stunning admission as pressure mounted on Democrats to
impeach Mr. Trump over allegations he leaned on a foreign government to help damage
a political rival,” the Times reported.
Ah yes, the old “that was then, and this is now” trick.
I’m not even going to get into the intervening day or so when
Trump toadies, personal lawyer Rudy “America’s Brayer” Giuliani and Treasury
Secretary Steven “What Me Worry” Mnuchin went on TV to defend their liege’s
behavior. (I’m not going to get into it because it’s so much more enjoyable to
watch/listen to these guys in action than read their incoherent arguments – see
these links below, if you have the intestinal fortitude. But warning, what they say may
be harmful to anyone over five years old.)
Giuliani: With Chris Cuomo on CNN
Mnuchin:
But back to Alexander Butterfield and the anonymous whistleblower.
(Before I go on, I don’t know about you, but I’m getting uncomfortable calling her/him
the “anonymous whistleblower.” So, until this individual is identified, I simply
will refer to him/her as Walter/Wendy Whistleblower or simply Whistleblower.)
During Watergate, John Dean became famous for uttering the words “there
is a cancer on this presidency.” But, if it wasn’t for Alexander Butterfield and
his reveal that Richard Nixon was secretly taping Oval Office meetings and
phone calls, Nixon would not have lost the support of the public and his
Republican colleagues, he would not have been worried about certain House impeachment and Senate removal, he would not have resigned and the cancer would not have been excised.
On July 16, 1973, Alexander Butterfield, a Nixon White House aide,
told the Senate Watergate Committee in a televised hearing that Nixon had
ordered a taping system installed in the White House to automatically record
all conversations. Special Counsel Archibald Cox, a former United
States Solicitor General under President John F. Kennedy, asked District
Court Judge John Sirica to subpoena nine relevant tapes.
Nixon refused, citing, you guessed it, executive privilege and the
separation of powers while also claiming the tapes were vital to national
security. (My goodness, is this starting to sound familiar? Can you say, “déjà
vu all over again?”)
Next came the Saturday Night Massacre and the revelation that
there was an 18-1/2-minute gap in one of the tapes. And the rest, as they say
is history.
We’re taught in school to learn from history, so we don’t repeat
history’s mistakes. I fear that lesson is lost on our current president and his
gang that can’t shoot straight. (Actually, fear is the wrong word; I'm pleased, in this case at least, that this crowd doesn’t know history because I’m anticipating that they
will repeat Nixon’s lurid history, public opinion will turn – but maybe not GOP
sycophantism – and we’ll finally have enough support to impeach this latest “cancer
on the presidency.”)
So, imagine if you will, the next few days.
Trump and his miscreants (note for the Trump gang: miscreant
means, bad hombres, criminals, lowlifes, AKA, “Mexicans”) continue to obfuscate
(there I go again), changing their story on a daily (hourly, minutely(?) basis,
finally leading to the release of Walter/Wendy Whistleblower’s complaint.
And guess what? There are 18-1/2 sentences redacted from the
complaint! After a week or so of dithering while she calculates the political pros
and cons of an impeachment hearing, Nancy Pelosi acquiesces, the hearings go
forward and the evidence is so compelling that even the GOP senatorial
bootlickers have to vote to remove Trump. And stunningly, in the uncovering of the
evidence, it is also revealed, unequivocally that Vice President Pence was also
complicit in all the Trumpian high crimes and misdemeanors and is removed as
well.
And Nancy Pelosi becomes PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!
And we finally, after 2-1/2 years, can have a good night’s sleep.
And we all live HAPPILY EVER AFTER!
Except, of course, Donald Trump and Mike Pence, who are in prison.
And, Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Jared who also are in prison. And,
Tiffany, well no one really knows where Tiffany is so she might not have
received the news.
But, including Melania, who says, “FINALLY!” And, Barron, who
says, “Mommy, you mean I never have to see Daddy again? Hurrah!!”
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