{"id":128880,"date":"2019-09-30T11:37:01","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T15:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=128880"},"modified":"2019-09-30T11:38:16","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T15:38:16","slug":"bidengate-trump-had-full-legal-authority-and-presidential-power-to-make-requests-to-zelensky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=128880","title":{"rendered":"BIDENgate: Trump Had Full Legal Authority and Presidential Power to Make Requests to Zelensky"},"content":{"rendered":"

Civil War On<\/strong><\/h1>\n

by James Howard Kunstler<\/p>\n

Someone in Impeachmentville is not paying attention. Of course, diverting the rubes is exactly the point of the latest CIA operation to negate the 2016 election. Has nobody noticed that there is treaty between Ukraine and the USA, signed at Kiev in 1998 and ratified by the US Senate in 2000. It\u2019s an agreement on \u201cMutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters.\u201d Here, read the cover letter for yourself:<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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What part of the following do Nancy Pelosi and the news media not understand?<\/p>\n

The Treaty is self-executing. It provides for a broad range of cooperation in criminal matters. Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state\u2026 ([etc]<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How does this not permit Mr. Trump asking the president of Ukraine for \u201cassistance\u201d in criminal matters arising out of \u201ccollusion with Russia,\u201d as specified within the scope of Robert Mueller\u2019s special prosecutor\u00a0activities? For instance, the matter of CrowdStrike. The cybersecurity firm was co-founded by Russian ex-pat Dmitri Alperovitch, who also happens to be a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, an anti-Russian think tank funded by Ukrainian billionaire, Viktor Pinchuk, who donated at least $25 million to the Clinton Foundation before the 2016 election. Crowdstrike was the company that \u201cexamined\u201d the supposedly hacked DNC servers, while somebody in the Obama administration prevented the FBI from ever seeing them. Does this sound a little like part of the origin story of RussiaGate? Is that not exactly the potential\u00a0criminal matte<\/em>r that the current attorney general, Mr. Barr, is officially investigating?<\/p>\n

Perhaps, under the year 2000 treaty, Mr. Trump was within his rights to ask the new President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, for assistance on that. And also, the question of former vice-president Joe Biden\u2019s levering US aid to Ukraine in his demand to fire the prosecutor investigating\u00a0the company, Burisma Holdings, that just happened to hire his son, Hunter, to a $64,000-a-month seat on the board of directors, not long after the younger Mr. Biden was kicked out of the US Navy reserve for cocaine use \u2014 what a sterling fellow!<\/p>\n

The foregoing ought to be self-evident. Speaking of failures to pay attention, Director of National Security (DNI) Joseph McGuire testified in Rep. Adam Schiff\u2019s House Intel Committee last Thursday that the \u201cWhistleblower\u201d and his or her allies in the Intelligence Community who fomented the latest crisis \u201cacted in good faith.\u201d Admiral McGuire omitted to mention that the IC\u2019s Whistleblower complaint rules were surreptitiously changed sometime around August 2019 to allow second-hand hearsay in Urgent Matter\u201d complaints, where formerly it had been prohibited. The change was only posted on an IC website on Sept 24. Did Admiral McGuire not get the memo on that? Was he out of the loop? After all, he is merely in charge of the entirety of US Intelligence operations. Who kept him in the dark?<\/p>\n

Now there is yet another new \u201cbombshell\u201d out of the CBS\u00a060-Minutes\u00a0<\/em>show (reported by Scott Pelley) alleging that the \u201cWhistleblower\u201d had been placed under federal protection due to \u201cthreats\u201d made against him or her. We\u2019re to infer that the \u201cWhistleblower\u201d is in a\u00a0safe space<\/em>\u2014 perhaps hiding out in the CIA\u2019s Diversity and Inclusion offices, with some teddy bears, crayons, and chips ahoy to keep the heebie-jeebies away. Only, one of the \u201cWhistleblower\u2019s\u201d own lawyers, Mark S. Zaid released a letter today saying that the\u00a060-Minutes\u00a0<\/em>report was \u201cnot accurate and misinterpreted the contents of our [earlier] letter.\u201d Mr. Zaid added in a tweet that CBS was \u201cliterally making stuff up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, let CBS and the \u201cWhistleblower\u2019s\u201d pro bono lawyers slug that one out in some safe space. More to the point, how long do you suppose the charade of protecting the \u201cWhistleblower\u2019s\u201d identity will go on? If impeachment moves to a trial in the senate, Mr. Trump will enjoy the right of being faced by his accuser. But I don\u2019t think we will have to wait that long. Rep. Schiff (D-CA) has already declared that this person will be called into a closed session of his committee. The chance is about zero that his or her identity will remain unknown. By and by, the \u201cwhistleblower\u2019s\u201d confederates in the CIA will also become known and the perfidy of this latest CIA operation in the ongoing coup will be understood.<\/p>\n

UkraineGate is the equivalent of Fort Sumter in Civil War 2.0. Charges have been flying and tempers flaring for three years now, much as they did between 1858 and 1861. Once again, what seems to be at stake is the integrity of the Union. As in the previous enactment, one side is dangerously deluded, and that is liable to lead to its destruction.<\/p>\n

___
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