From Kane County’s Republican County Board Chairman, a retired State Senator:
Please Print the Transcript
If American citizens and voters are going to be subjected by extreme, partisan Democrats to the water-torture and divisiveness of impeachment hearings based upon interpretations, so-
called “parodies”, and outright lies, the least that our free and fair press can do is publish the actual transcript of the short conversation between Ukraine President Zelensky and U.S. President Trump. (This is what the Wall Street Journal did on Thursday 9-26-19.)
It will take a person less than eight (8) minutes to read, then you decide for yourself if a General Election for the Presidency of the United States should be nullified by what was said in those 6-8 minutes as Nancy Pelosi, Bill Foster, Sean Casten, Lauren Underwood, Raja
Krishnamoorthi, and others propose.
Truly the “do-nothing” Impeachment Congress!
These are the same powerful elected officials who have concentrated their congressional majority and efforts for the past year on political posturing and obstructing the President, rather than attending to legislative solutions to healthcare coverage, comprehensive immigration reform, international trade agreements, border security, national infrastructure, and sustaining improvements in our economy and employment.
After you’ve read the transcript, please watch Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff’s shameful description of what he pretends was actually said. What he concocted is a false and flimsy excuse to submerge our country into a sewer of destructive conduct and impeachment rhetoric.
We are only a short thirteen (13) months from the next presidential general election.
Let the voters of America decide, rather than a group of frustrated, angry, and effete politicians.
I ask this publication to demonstrate its respect for the intelligence of its readers by merely publishing the Trump-Zelensky conversation transcript on one of their front pages, easy-to- find and easy-to-read.
It is unimaginable that ANY congressperson has not read every bit of documentation of Trump’s Ukraine Call.
It is only by reading with your own eyes that you can see the yawning abyss between what it says and what Trump says it says.
Declassified by order of the President
September 24, 2019
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation
Subject: Telephone Conversation with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine
Notetakers: The White House Situation Room
Date, Time, and Place: July 25, 2019, 9:03 – 9:33 a.m. EDT Residence
CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation.
(TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion.
The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Officers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place.
A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation.
The word “inaudible” is used to indicate portions of a conversation that the notetaker was unable to hear.
Classified By: 2354726
Derived From: NSC SCG
Declassify On: 20441231
The Memorandum of Telephone Conversation is 5 pages.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf
The real scandal is when Joseph Robinette Biden, AS VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S., coerced the president of the Ukraine and threatened to withhold help from the U.S., unless a prosecutor investigating a company that his son worked for was fired. Joe Robinette’s son had a job(?) paying well over $50,000 per month with a Ukraine energy company and Joe’s son had ZERO credentials in the energy business. Joe Robineette Biden must be investigated by the U.S. Senate for his quid pro quo with Ukraine. There is still time to do this.
Our incompetent, six-times-bankrupt, sexual-assaulter-in-chief, current leader of the republikkklan party, broke the law, yet again. Yes, release the transcripts; 399 days to get rid of this orange buffoon, or perhaps less…tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock, meeeeeeeeooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…
Trump is guilty and is bringing down our entire party.
We are witnessing the end of the GOP.
I’ve read the transcript. In my opinion, it evidences a clear violation of Section 30121 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. (Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA, Pub.L. 92–225, 86 Stat. 3, enacted February 7, 1972, 52 U.S.C. § 30101 et seq.)).
52 U.S.C. § 30121. Contributions and donations by foreign nationals
(a) Prohibition
It shall be unlawful for—
(1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make—
(A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election;
(B) a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or
(C) an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 30104(f)(3) of this title); or
(2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national. (Emphasis added).
As is clear, § 30121(a)(1) addresses prohibitions relating to a foreign national, while § 30121(a)(2) addresses prohibitions relating to any “person”.
Under § 30121(a)(2) what is, among other things, prohibited is the mere “knowing” solicitation (Congress again dropping the ball on including a culpable mental state) of any “thing of value” from a “foreign national” (which includes a foreign country (see 22 U.S.C. § 611(b)) in connection with any U.S. election. (In this context, “knowingly” means that a person has actual knowledge that the “thing of value” is being solicited from a foreign national. See 11 C.F.R. § 110.20(a)(4)(I) (Knowingly means, among other things, that a person has “actual knowledge that the source of the funds solicited . . . is a foreign national”). And “solicit” means, among other things, “to ask, request, or recommend, explicitly or implicitly . . . [the providing of] anything of value. A solicitation is an oral or written communication that, construed as reasonably understood in the context in which it is made, contains a clear message asking, requesting, or recommending that another person make a contribution, donation, transfer of funds, or otherwise provide anything of value.” (11 C.F.R. § 300.2(m)).
Notable is what a violation of the prohibition contained in § 30121(a)(2) doesn’t require. It doesn’t require quid pro quo (it ain’t a contract). It doesn’t require pressure, real or imagined, actual or perceived. It doesn’t require that such “thing of value” actually be received. Simply asking for a “thing of value” from a known “foreign national” in connection with a U.S. election is prohibited.
With respect to the element of a “thing of value”, the law doesn’t attempt a definition, probably because any definition would be tautological. (After all, how would you define a “thing of value” ? As being “something of value” ?) However, the very terminology (“thing of value”) indicates the intended expansiveness of the concept. And no matter how construed (no judicial decision has addressed whether research or similar information constitutes a “thing of value” under the campaign finance law), in view of the fact that campaigns oftentimes expend large sums to uncover such information, it can hardly be asserted with any seriousness that information detrimental to a political opponent falls outside the purview of a “thing of value”. (See,e.g., Mueller Report, pp. 187-87 (“These authorities would support the view that candidate-related opposition research given to a campaign for the purpose of influencing an election could constitute a contribution to which the foreign-source ban could apply.”)).
And with respect to the “in connection with a Federal, State, or local election” element, it would seem self-evident that soliciting detrimental information on a prospective opponent in an up-coming election satisfies such requirement.
I would be interested in anyone being able to illustrate that what the transcript evidences (and what the White House admits) doesn’t constitute a violation of Section 30121.
As for removing a duly elected President by impeachment, well, that’s a mechanism approved by the framers. And, if memory serves me correctly, didn’t the Republican Party attempt that within recent memory ?
Suburban RINO : you are a sad-sack transsexual who needs serious help.
Trump is the Answer to your psychosis!
Bred you again amaze me with your complete and utter historical revisionism. Biden, working with U.S. Defense and state officials and in league with multiple U.S. allies pressured the previous Ukrainian regime to remove corrupt officials, which they did.
Incidentally Hunter Biden had been investigated and and cleared at that point so you could say Joe got the guy who cleared his son fired.
Many of the intelligent Republicans are bailing on Trump.
However, there aren’t any on this blog.
Dented blah, the moron-democrats just insured Trump’s victory and the folding of the master-crook Biden’s campaign.
From being appointed senior MBNA vice president (two years out of law school), to a gift of a 2.8-carat diamond from a Chinese energy tycoon, to Burisma Holdings . . .
Late Summer 2006: Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden, purchase the hedge fund Paradigm Global Advisors. According to an unnamed executive quoted in Politico in August, James Biden declared to employees on his first day, “Don’t worry about investors. We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden.” At this time, Joe Biden is months away from becoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and launching his second bid for president.
The unnamed executive who spoke to Politico charged that the purchase of the fund was designed to work around campaign-finance laws:
According to the executive, James Biden made it clear that he viewed the fund as a way to take money from rich foreigners who could not legally give money to his older brother or his campaign account. “We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash ready to invest in this company,” the executive remembers James Biden saying.
Both James and Hunter Biden have denied to Politico that James had ever made these comments.
Up until that time, Hunter Biden had been employed as a consultant to the Delaware bank MBNA, with a $100,000-a-year retainer, according to the New York Times. The bank hired him fresh out of law school and in less than two years promoted him to senior vice president. Biden also separately worked as a lobbyist until 2008, founding the firm Oldaker Biden & Belair, where he represented mostly universities and hospitals but also drug companies such as Achaogen Inc. and Pulmatrix Inc., and the music-sharing company Napster and online gambling sites.
Hunter says he has never lobbied his father on any client matter. But the potential for the appearance of a conflict of interest allegedly troubled the senator at one point. According to court records in a lawsuit filed by former business partner Joseph Lotito, Joe Biden wanted Hunter Biden to find a different line of work because his presidential campaign would be greatly complicated if he remained the father of a Washington lobbyist.
Much more here: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/hunter-biden-comprehensive-timeline/
Read the law.
The reason for the solicitation is irrelevant.
The mere solicitation, whatever the purported reason, good or bad, is a violation of federal law.
You can imagine the parade of horribles possible if foreign actors were allowed to influence American elections.
George Washington must be rolling over in his grave at the very thought.
Didn’t Obama get involved with the Isreal’s election trying to oust Netanyahu? Trying to influence a foreign election to benefit himself. The waters are convoluted way before Trump ever showed up!
Hush Sobeit, don’t you dare blackguard Obongo! He could do no wrong. Soon the homosexual exPresident will issue his broadside against the Trumpster,
The real scandal is…how brilliant my Political Science and Sociology professor is. Stay tuned…tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock…