Not Much: December 2019

My Opinions regarding the House impeaching Donald Trump

Donald Trump has a history of wrong doings, such as illegal and unethical behaviors.
He's been allowed to be above the law for too many years.
On Wednesday evening(Dec.18,2019) Trump's House impeachment was televised.
I listened to the Republican's words.
They refused to acknowledge that Donald Trump did violate the Constitution.
They do not want to acknowledge the evidence.
Because they have the voting numbers taking Trump's trial to the Senate will most likely result in Republicans voting against impeachment-for what Donald Trump really did get caught doing.
Trump really did Abuse his powers and obstruct justice.
I do not know why the Republicans will not be honest with themselves and America.
I do know that unqualified, unfit for the job; Trump will continuing being allowed to be above he law.
If elected for a second term Trump will continue making America worse.
Donald Trump will also continue breaking laws and violating ethics. ______________________________________________________________________
Note: In my opinion-this is how it looks and sounds to me:
In a nutshell this is just one brief example of Trump and his administration:
1.
Trump abused his powers by his attempted actions with Ukraine.
Trump would give them the approved money if they would investigate Presidential Candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter and Hunter's business dealings involving or with a company. Trump's goal was to include using Ukraine for the purpose of Trump having a strong chance at wining the 2020 Election.
Without Trump Congress made sure that Ukraine received that money.

Note:
I think that President Obama had concerns regarding his VP's son- Hunter Biden's business dealings.
I was not following what decisions President Obama made regarding Ukraine.

2.
The obstruction of justice includes, but is not limited to Trump attempting to withhold evidence that could prove that Trump and/or his administration violated laws and/or ethics.
Some Republicans, Trump and his administration were attempting to alter the evidence and make the proof of what Trump did become non-existent.

In another nutshell, it appears that Trump is a traitor to the USA.

Donald Trump's actions are worse than Nixon's Watergate.
Trump has a history of being allowed to be above the law.

National Security
Former White House officials say they feared Putin influenced the president’s views on Ukraine and 2016 campaign
By Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey and Carol D. Leonnig
Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019 at 5:09 p.m. EST
Article Link https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/former-white-house-officials-say-they-feared-putin-influenced-the-presidents-views-on-ukraine-and-2016-campaign/2019/12/19/af0fdbf6-20e9-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html
Link To https://www.washingtonpost.com/
My Opinions:
The article reads like a repeat of how Trump thinks.
The article adds that Trump did get some of his information and thoughts from Twitter.
Social media is not a informative-news resource.
Then there's a repeat look of Trump's feelings, his views, his obsession's, his thoughts and his not letting go of Election 2016.
In the past, Trump has stated that he did win the election.
______________________________________________________________
National Security
Former White House officials say they feared Putin influenced the president’s views on Ukraine and 2016 campaign
By Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey and Carol D. Leonnig
Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019 at 5:09 p.m. EST
Article Link https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/former-white-house-officials-say-they-feared-putin-influenced-the-presidents-views-on-ukraine-and-2016-campaign/2019/12/19/af0fdbf6-20e9-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html
Link To https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Several Quoted Excerpts:
Almost from the moment he took office, President Trump seized on a theory that troubled his senior aides: Ukraine, he told them on many occasions, had tried to stop him from winning the White House.
After meeting privately in July 2017 with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Trump grew more insistent that Ukraine worked to defeat him, according to multiple former officials familiar with his assertions.
The president’s intense resistance to the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia systematically interfered in the 2016 campaign — and the blame he cast instead on a rival country — led many of his advisers to think that Putin himself helped spur the idea of Ukraine’s culpability, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.
One former senior White House official said Trump even stated so explicitly at one point, saying he knew Ukraine was the real culprit because “Putin told me.”
Allegations about Ukraine’s role in the 2016 race have been promoted by an array of figures, including right-wing journalists whose work the president avidly consumes, as well as Rudolph W. Giuliani, his personal lawyer. But U.S. intelligence officials told lawmakers and their staff members this past fall that Russian security services played a major role in spreading false claims of Ukrainian complicity, said people familiar with the assessments.
The concern among senior White House officials that Putin helped fuel Trump’s theories about Ukraine underscores long-standing fears inside the administration about the Russian president’s ability to influence Trump’s views.
This article is based on interviews with 15 former administration and government officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer their candid views about the president.
Trump, the official said, offered no proof to support his theory of Ukraine’s involvement.
It is unclear where Trump first got the idea of a Ukrainian connection to CrowdStrike. At the time, the notion was not yet being widely discussed on Twitter, his social media platform of choice and a fertile bed for disinformation, according to social media experts.
Trump has returned to the false Ukraine-CrowdStrike connection many times, arguing that the company had covered up Ukraine’s hacking of the DNC and that it had even spirited the DNC server to Ukraine, former White House officials said.
Privately, officials tried in vain to convince the president that CrowdStrike was not a Ukrainian company and that it would be impossible for the server to be located there, a former administration official said.
One of the officials who Hill said tried to convince Trump, former homeland security adviser Thomas P. Bossert, publicly pleaded with the White House in September to drop the Ukraine theory, which he called “completely debunked.”
Bossert pointed to Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, as a persistent source of the server claim. “I am deeply frustrated with what [Giuliani] and the legal team is doing in repeating that debunked theory to the president. It sticks in his mind when he hears it over and over again.”
An early coolness
Trump’s suspicions about Ukraine manifested in other ways. Early in the administration, then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was eager to secure a White House meeting with Trump — ideally before he met publicly with Putin — to demonstrate U.S. commitment to defending Ukraine against Russia.
But Trump resisted the meeting, according to former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the matter. White House aides were confused: Ukraine was an ally in a war against a country that had just undermined the U.S. elections. Meeting with Poroshenko was a “no-brainer,” one former official said. “It was utterly mystifying to us why Trump wouldn’t agree.”
Another former official said it was clear from the beginning of Trump’s presidency that he wanted to improve relations with Russia and form a bond with Putin.
Kelly tried to get U.S. experts to speak to Trump before his scheduled calls with the Russian president to push back on some of Trump’s misconceptions, the official said.
Some wondered whether Trump’s coolness toward Ukraine was intended not to offend Putin.
Poroshenko came to the White House on June 20, 2017, to meet with Vice President Pence. Trump had a short “drop-in” with the Ukrainian leader, allaying some U.S. officials’ concerns that he wouldn’t bother to say hello.

A private meeting
At the time, U.S. and Russian officials didn’t disclose the conversation. During the meal, Trump left his chair and sat next to Putin. Trump went alone, and Putin was assisted by his interpreter.
For some White House officials struggling to understand Trump’s obsession with Ukraine, the Hamburg meetings were a turning point.
Three former senior administration officials said Trump repeatedly insisted after the G-20 summit that he believed Putin’s assurances that Russia had not interfered in the 2016 campaign. The officials said Kelly, national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson all tried to caution Trump not to rely on Putin’s word, and to focus on evidence to the contrary that U.S. intelligence agencies had collected.
Trump repeatedly told one senior official that the Russian president said Ukraine sought to undermine him, the official said.
There was no evidence that Putin pushed the Ukraine theory with Trump in their official phone calls and meetings, which were witnessed by interpreters and aides, several former administration officials said.
However, White House aides were not part of Trump’s private conversation with Putin in Hamburg, or a later meeting he had in Helsinki for two hours with the Russian president, when they were accompanied by only their interpreters.
Trump also took steps to conceal the details of his formal meeting with Putin in Hamburg, taking the notes away from his interpreter and instructing her not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, The Post reported earlier this year.
In the wake of Hamburg, top leaders were dispatched to try to convince him that Russia interfered in the campaign. On different occasions, Kelly asked Bossert, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and his principal deputy, Sue Gordon, to brief the president on the intelligence community’s Russia assessment, said former officials with knowledge of the briefings.
They did not convince him.
A year after Trump met Putin in Hamburg, they reconvened at a summit in Helsinki. After his one-on-one with the Russian president, Trump expressed doubt that the Kremlin interfered in the campaign.
“My people came to me, Daniel Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it’s Russia,” Trump said at a joint news conference, standing beside the Russian leader. “I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the server.”
Intelligence officials were stunned that Trump would publicly side with Putin over his own advisers. His comments also revealed that he still clung to his suspicions about Ukraine.
“I really believe that this will probably go on for a while, but I don’t think it can go on without finding out what happened to the server,” Trump said.

The narrative takes hold
In her public testimony in the impeachment proceedings, Hill, the NSC’s former Russia director, admonished lawmakers not to take the Kremlin’s bait.
“Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did,” she said. “This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”
Hill implored the lawmakers not to help Russia’s campaign. “In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.”
Last month, RT rejected the idea that Russia had promoted such a narrative, noting that Putin said in July that he did not think the actions of wealthy individuals in that country amounted to “interference by Ukraine.”
More recently, however, the Russian president has expressed satisfaction in the new focus on Ukraine.
“Thank God no one is accusing us of interfering in the U.S. elections anymore; now they’re accusing Ukraine,” the Russian president said at a news conference in Moscow in November. “Well, let them sort this out among themselves.”

Not Much

Friday, December 20, 2019

My Opinions Regarding The House Impeaching Donald Trump

My Opinions And Quoted Excerpts FromThe Article Former White House officials say they feared Putin influenced the president’s views on Ukraine and 2016 campaign

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Blog Post Of Quick Chatting

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