President Trump strikes me as supremely confident during this whole process.
Is that because he knows he did nothing wrong?
Yes.
Is it also because he has the dirt on the Democrats and is just playing with them as he teases out the process and let’s them spin in the wind?
I think so.
And I think we’re starting to see signs of it already.
Earlier today President Trump released the entire phone call transcript – nothing to hide!
And now he has released the whistleblower complaint.
Take a look:
From the HuffPo:
The White House on Wednesday released a redacted version of the whistleblower complaint related to President Donald Trump’s call with the leader of Ukraine in July.
Only some members and staff of the House and Senate intelligence committees have thus far been allowed to view the complaint, which was released to them ahead of Thursday’s hearings with Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire.
REAL LIFE. REAL NEWS. REAL VOICES.Help us tell more of the stories that matter from voices that too often remain unheard.Join HuffPost PlusSenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the document “troubling” after viewing it on Wednesday.
“I’m even more worried about what happened than when I read the memorandum of the conversation,” he said. “There are so many facts that have to be examined. It’s very troubling.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also read the complaint on Wednesday evening, her office said.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) called the concerns raised in the complaint “urgent and credible.”
“The complaint itself is a five-alarm concern,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday after viewing the document.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said he found the allegations in the complaint “deeply disturbing.”
“I also found them deeply credible and I understand why the inspector general found them credible,” Schiff said, according to CNN.
Some Republicans also expressed their concern after reading the document. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah called it “troubling in the extreme,” while Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said its contents were “inappropriate,” according to The Washington Post.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) urged caution on both sides of the aisle but noted, according to CBS: “Republicans ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons to say there’s no there there when there’s obviously lots that’s very troubling there.”
Dan Bongino Exposes Obama, Mueller and Comey: “The Biggest Scam In American History”
Trump tweeted Wednesday that he supports “transparency on so-called whistleblower information.”
The release of the document comes one day after Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the launch of a formal impeachment inquiry.
The release is the latest gust in a political whirlwind that has engulfed the White House this month after a series of bombshell reports about the phone call. The Wall Street Journal first reported last week that a whistleblower within the intelligence community had filed a complaint after Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25 and reportedly pressured him to investigate the family of one of Trump’s main political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden. News organizations have since reported that the president ordered his administration to withhold nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine in the week before the phone call took place.
And from Vox:
The White House shared the whistleblower complaint that has spawned an impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives with members of Congress late Wednesday.
Some in Congress who have seen the complaint have called it troubling, with Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) saying it “reinforces our concerns” and is “deeply disturbing.” After reviewing the document, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) said, “Republicans ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons to say there’s no there there when there’s obviously lots that’s very troubling there.”
Previously, the White House resisted calls to release the complaint, making the decision to send the document to Congress largely about the administration getting ahead of increasing scrutiny around fears President Donald Trump endeavored to strong-arm a foreign leader into investigating his potential presidential rival in 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Already on Wednesday, the White House released a version of its recollection of the president’s call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, which is reported to be the subject of the whistleblower’s complaint. Fox News also reported late Tuesday night the White House was preparing a document that makes the case the whistleblower had “political bias” in favor of a rival candidate.
But it’s notable the release of this document is happening now. The report should have already been released to Congress members given the inspector general for the intelligence community classified it as a document of “urgent concern,” which, as Vox’s Andrew Prokophas explained, is “a legal standard that normally requires congressional oversight committees be notified.” Its release was halted by Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, a move some legal experts have said was illegal.
Maguire has denied doing anything illegal, saying in a statement, “I want to make clear that I have upheld my responsibility to follow the law every step of the way.” He also worked to praise the whistleblower, writing “the men and women of the Intelligence Community have a solemn responsibility to do what is right, which includes reporting wrongdoing.”
Initially, the White House supported the decision not to send Congress the complaint, but according to the New York Times, officials there have changed their thinking, now believing cooperating with Congress could help negate the House’s official impeachment inquiry. President Trump is said to back the complaint’s release as well, reportedly because he does not believe it contains anything truly incriminating and because he, too, believes it will effectively counter the impeachment inquiry.
The administration may also allow the whistleblower to speak to congressional committees. A lawyer for the whistleblower sent a letter to Maguire Tuesday notifying him the official hoped to give congressional testimony; government lawyers responded with a letter telling the whistleblower the executive branch is working to find ways to make that testimony possible, while also protecting the whistleblowing process and executive privilege.
What we know about the whistleblower’s complaint so far
Despite it having been reviewed by members of Congress, it is still unclear exactly what the whistleblower’s complaint contains as it remains classified. A September letter from the intelligence community’s inspector general to Rep. Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, wrote “[it] relates to one of the most significant and important of the [director of national intelligence’s] responsibilities to the American people.”
Later reporting by the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and others found that the complaint included concerns about a phone call President Trump had with Ukraine, during which he reportedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “about eight times” to partner with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani — who does not hold any official government office — in an investigation into Joe Biden’s role in the firing of a former Ukrainian top prosecutor.
Giuliani has argued, despite there being no evidence to support this, that Biden lobbied to have the prosecutor fired in order to protect his son, Hunter Biden, from an investigation into a Ukrainian company Hunter sat on the board of. It isn’t clear whether there was an active investigation into that company at the time of the prosecutor’s dismissal, but it is clear that prosecutor was fired for not being aggressive enough in his anti-corruption investigations.
Trump has said one of the topics he and Zelensky discussed on the call was a delay in the transfer of almost $400 million in US funds for Ukraine’s military, meant to bolster that country’s ongoing conflict against Russian actors. Congress approved the money early this year, but it wasn’t disbursed until September, leaving many on Capitol Hill and in Ukraine wondering what was behind the delay. Trump has given various reasons for this delay, including that he was concerned about corruption and that he wanted the US to give Ukraine less and NATO allies to give more.
Meanwhile, President Trump seems not even remotely worried.
"Supremely confident" is how I would put it.
The way you only act when you know you've done nothing wrong AND you know you have the dirt on the other side.
He's having fun, posting things like this today:
And then there was this.....
President Trump opened up and showed everything on his end, and now he's flipping the tables on Biden.
He wants the same level of transparency from Biden's situation, and something tells me it won't go as well for Sleepy Joe!
Join the conversation!
Please share your thoughts about this article below. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion!