Democrats are scrambling. Having leveraged (read: gambled) what little political capital and credibility they still have on the risky business of impeaching a president they seem to know they can’t beat, they are grasping at straws to hold the narrative together — grasping and failing. With President Trump announcing Tuesday that he plans to release the transcript of his first call to the president of Ukraine “before week’s end,” it appears the grasping and failing of Democrats will continue.
After going out on a very fragile limb in claiming that President Trump’s July 25 phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was grounds for impeachment, Democrats found themselves embarrased by the facts when President Trump released the transcript of that call. The transcript clearly shows that the claims of Democrats that the call was an example of “quid pro quo” corruption and an impeachable offense were pure bunk.
As this writer covered in a previous article written for the print edition of The New American and later published online, the Ukrainian Quid Pro Quo Narrative was birthed by a “whistleblower” who wanted to remain anonymous, though he has since been reported to be DNC-connected CIA analyst and former National Security Council staffer Eric Ciaramella.
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As a result of Ciaramella’s complaint — in which, the Washington Times reported, it claimed that the president attempted “to press Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son ahead of the 2020 presidential election” — Democrats shifted the focus of their impeachment hearings fron Russian collusion to interfering in a U.S. election. Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — who is long on imagination and short on facts — went so far as to “read” an early (and partial) version of the transcript of that call before the House Intelligence Committee on September 26, making the call into what he described as “a classic organized crime shake down.”
Not only did the transcript show that Schiff is well-deserving of the the nickname “Full of Schiff,” it also showed that none of the claims made by Ciaramella had a shred of merit. As the wheels began to fall off the Ukrainian quid pro quo narrative, Democrats attempted to glue them back on by claiming that the real evidence of quid pro quo was only implied in that phone call, since it had been brewing for some time. In other words, the implied quid pro quo can only be clearly seen and recognized in the context of previous communications between the Trump administration and Ukraine.
This brings up two important points.
First, if the only way to recognize the implicit quid pro quo in the July 25 call is to have the context of previous communications showing a long-in-the-making arrangement between Trump and Zelinsky, how did Democrats recognize it? Do they claim to have access to those communications, or do they employ the services of a modern version of the Amazing Kreskin?
The second point may serve to answer those questions. That point is that Democrats appear to have — once again — fired all of their guns and missed the mark, because President Trump is calling their bluff by releasing the transcript of his first call with Zelensky. The president announced via Twitter Thursday morning, “I will be releasing the transcript of the first, and therefore more important, phone call with the Ukrainian President before week’s end!”
Since any long-in-the-making quid pro quo would likely be part of that call, the president’s willingness to release the transcript seems a clear indication that Democrats do not know what they claim to know. Instead, they seem to be in a position where — having gambled what they could not afford to lose — they have to continue gambling in the vain hope of breaking even.
Each new chapter in the impeachment saga reveals more and more of the underhanded nature and mendacity of Democrats. As one prediction and claim after another proves false, the Democrats who seek to impeach President Trump thrash about looking for something — anything — else to predict and claim. The net result is a continued loss of credibility. Sooner or later, they have to hit bottom.
Given recent comments by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), impeachment may be a longer shot than even House Democrats would like to believe. Graham told Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures that for the Senate to take up the impeachment (if House Democrats can even pull off an impeachment vote), both Ciaramella and Hunter Biden would need to testify before the House as part of the proceedings. He went so far as to say, “If they don’t call the whistleblower in the House, this thing is dead on arrival in the Senate.”
In gambling, the sage advice is “never bet against the house.” In this case, Democrats in the House have pitted themselves against the White House and appear to have overbid their hand. And Trump — by his willingness to release another transcript — appears as dedicated to being transparent in this matter as are Democrats dedicated to being deceptive.
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