Impeachment Hearings Begin...

[Mystic Wanderer]

This comes from the New York Times. I'm surprised, being as it puts a large stain on the Obummer administration.

Obama administration knew Hunter Biden was shady, witness admits

Of all the supposedly shocking revelations that have emerged from the impeachment hearings this week, here’s one that the Democrats in Congress hope you don’t hear about: The Obama White House knew that Hunter Biden’s extremely lucrative appointment to the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, which occurred the month after his father was named the administration’s “point person” on Ukraine, reeked of corruption — and they didn’t do anything about it.


In Congressional testimony Friday, former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch confirmed for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), that in 2016 the Obama State Department privately ran her through a series of practice questions and answers to prepare Yovanovitch for her Senate confirmation hearing.

Stefanik confirmed that one specific question Yovanovitch was asked to prepare for was, “What can you tell us about Hunter Biden’s being named to the board of Burisma?” Incredibly, Yovanovitch later testified that the State Department told her to deflect any questions she might get about Hunter Biden and Burisma by referring Senators’ questions to the vice president’s office.

This admission regarding her senate confirmation prep session was startling, and it flatly contradicted a prior statement Yovanovitch had made in the hearing: “Although I have met former vice president several times over the course of our many years in government service, neither he nor the previous administration ever raised the issue of either Burisma or Hunter Biden with me.”


Rep. Stefanik proceeded to hammer this point. “For the millions of Americans watching, President Obama’s own State Department was so concerned about potential conflicts of interest from Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma that they raised it themselves while prepping this wonderful ambassador nominee before her confirmation,” Stefanik said. “And yet our Democratic colleagues and chairman of this committee cry foul when we dare ask the same question that the Obama State Department was so concerned about.”

This is not a trivial point. Central to the case for impeaching Trump is the assertion he was targeting a political rival and had no legitimate basis for investigating Biden’s potential corruption.

If the Obama administration thought the vice president’s son as much as a $1 million a year and, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported, dropping Hunter Biden’s name to get meetings at the State Department was a problem, well, the case for impeachment is much harder to make.

It also speaks to the circumstances which triggered the impeachment hearings. Various national security and State Department bureaucrats have emerged from the woodwork to condemn Trump’s alleged quid pro quo with the Ukrainian president.

If the State Department was concerned about corruption in the vice president’s office in 2016, why were they directing bureaucrats to avoid answering questions about it? Where were the whistleblowers and patriotic truth-tellers then? One unavoidable conclusion is that congressional Democrats and federal bureaucrats developed their sudden interest in the White House corruption only after Trump won an election.

And there you have it.  It's just an opinion piece, but so are all the witnesses in these hearings; facts and evidence be dammed.

[Ninurta]

Odd, isn't it, how bureaucrats are trying to steer the ship of state, trying to wrest control of our future back into their own grasp, eh? Can someone point out to me where the US Constitution authorizes bureaucrats to make laws, make national security decisions, or any of the other things that they are doing/attempting to do at this very moment? I'll wait while you look that part up...


.

[Mystic Wanderer]

Here is a video of the full 6+ hours of the second hearing.
I won't be watching this one either. I'll be doing something better with my time.    

[Mystic Wanderer]

It's Monday, and from what I heard, this week is supposed to be packed full with "witnesses" for the sham impeachment hearing.

First up on Tuesday, we have a deep state plant, Molly Montgomery.

Of course the whole Shifty Schiff Sham is based on lies and misinformation from numerous Deep State plants.  Lying Schiff’s Tuesday witness, Molly Montgomery, is another Deep State plant who was removed from the White House with ties to whistleblower Eric Ciaramella and George Soros.

George Soros? That right there should tell people all they need to know.

Deep State member Molly Montgomery was on CNN a few days ago where she claimed that morale at the State Department was at historic lows.  This apparently was due to budget cuts.  CNN was more than happy to promote this.  Montgomery said (which she later posted on her Twitter account):

Well, morale is at a historic low at the State department and this is because Secretary Tillerson and now Secretary Pompeo have championed budget cuts. Their staff have engaged in politically motivated harassment and retaliation and abusive behavior and they failed to fill key positions. And so the State Department really, far from having swagger, is limping along at the moment.

Watch my interview with @jimsciutto and @PoppyHarlowCNN on @CNNnewsroom this morning on Foreign Service morale and why political leaders should listen to their diplomats: https://t.co/AWqXQLmOkG
— Molly Montgomery (@MollyMontgomery) November 11, 2019

Montgomery next beamed on Twitter of an event at a DC Jazz Club where fellow Deep Stater and former Ambassador in the Ukraine, Marie Yovanovich, was cheered upon entering the club after her testimony on Friday in front of the Schiff Sham:

.@natsecHeather every once in a while I guess there is a standing ovation in diplomacy. On a day when the President attacked a mid-level Foreign Service officer on twitter just for doing her job, this one brought tears to my eyes. #BravoMasha #FSProud https://t.co/Ic0N7rRwgs
— Molly Montgomery (@MollyMontgomery) November 18, 2019

Montgomery left the White House in 2018 after she worked for VP Mike Pence for a year. 

She then landed at the far left Brookings Institution where she proudly displays her time spent with VP Pence:

Molly Montgomery is a nonresident fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, where her work focuses on Central and Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, and trans-Atlantic security. Montgomery is also a vice president in the Europe practice at Albright Stonebridge Group.

A veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, Montgomery served most recently in the White House, where she advised the vice president on strategy, policy development, and engagement toward Europe. Her other assignments included U.S. Embassies Riga, Sarajevo, and Kabul and U.S. Consulate General Dubai. At the State Department, she served in the Office of the Secretary and the Office of Eastern European Affairs.

But this was no doubt before the VP learned who she really was – a Deep State plant.

In May 2016, whistleblower Eric Ciaramella sent a confidential email to his colleagues at the State Department rated with high importance.  Ciaramella included a number of individuals in the highly redacted email, including Molly Montgomery, Kathleen Kavalec, Victoria Nuland, Charles Kupchan and Elisabeth Zentos.

At about this time, Ciaramella was busy obtaining USAID in the Ukraine.  He also found time to meet George Soros lackey Olga Bielkova, in DC, along with Zentos in April 2016.  Bielkova met John McCain’s assistant David Kramer on the same day.

Liz Zentos and Eric Ciaramella were also part of the “Committee on Loan Guarantee to Ukraine”. The series of emails regarding the loan guarantee to the Ukraine were sent on May 27, 2016, one day after Eric Ciaramella’s email above sent to the State Department confidants including Molly Montgomery.

Since then Montgomery has actively worked to undermine the Trump Administration.  Last week she further trashed the Trump Administration –

Marco Werman: Molly, you’ve been listening today to Marie Yovanovitch. Like a lot of people, what’s jumped out at you?
Molly Montgomery: Absolutely. Well, first off, let me just say that Ambassador Yovanovitch is a profile in courage, as are George Kent and Bill Taylor, who testified yesterday. And I think what comes across so clearly in her testimony today is just what the United States is missing out on by sidelining its career officials.

What do you think the long-term consequences are for US diplomacy of her testimony?

Well, it certainly has made clear to the American people and to the world that our foreign policy and the State Department are in shambles. And I don’t think you have to look any further than the way she has been treated and others in the State Department have been treated to understand why. I fully agree with her characterization that the department has been hollowed out. And unfortunately, diplomacy is a craft that takes years, if not decades, to learn. And so that expertise will not be able to be replaced quickly or easily. It’s a real loss to us.

“Well, it certainly has made clear to the American people and to the world that our foreign policy and the State Department are in shambles.”

These Deep State hacks like Ciaramella, Nuland and Montgomery are really disgusting people.
People of integrity would never say the things that Montgomery said about the current President and his team.  It’s clear these people are far left spies working to destroy the current administration.

Are y'all ready?
I'll tell you what I'm ready for; the IG Report, so we can put an end to this circus and waste of our tax payer dollars!

Source

[Mystic Wanderer]

House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) “acted in concert” with Politico to leak allegedly false information from the impeachment inquiry as part of a “scheme” to advance the “inquisition” against President Donald Trump, according to an explosive defamation lawsuit filed by a senior Trump White House official on Monday.

Read the story here:  Source

[Ninurta]

First up on Tuesday, we have a deep state plant, Molly Montgomery.

 Last week she further trashed the Trump Administration –

Well, it certainly has made clear to the American people and to the world that our foreign policy and the State Department are in shambles. And I don’t think you have to look any further than the way she has been treated and others in the State Department have been treated to understand why. I fully agree with her characterization that the department has been hollowed out. And unfortunately, diplomacy is a craft that takes years, if not decades, to learn. And so that expertise will not be able to be replaced quickly or easily. It’s a real loss to us.

“Well, it certainly has made clear to the American people and to the world that our foreign policy and the State Department are in shambles.”

Source

State NEEDS to be hollowed out! It's filled with politically polarized career bureaucrats that should find an honest job to make a living instead of freeloading on the taxpayer dime. That is probably why morale is low - they're suddenly thinking they might have to start working for a living - maybe even at an honest wage! Never mind the fact that CIA usually runs out of embassies world-wide. "The Men in the Gray Flannel Cammies" may have to drop back and punt, rethink some of their more egregious misuses of "diplomatic immunity". Heaven forbid they actually have to go out in the field occasionally and work with field agents out in Indian Country!

That's some Grade A bullshit that "diplomacy is a craft that takes years, if not decades, to learn" - you are either a natural, or you're not. You can either do diplomacy, or you can't. It can take a couple of months to get up to speed on local culture, but to do that you actually have to get out in it and rub some elbows. Years or decades? My ass! Yovanovitch HAD years, and never got it right - else Ukraine would not have had such a low opinion of her. Political freeloading got in her way - not any sort of lack of time to develop "diplomatic tradecraft".

Diplomacy ain't what those bureaucrats are worried about - they never worried about it before, so why start NOW?

.

[Just Looking]

 I have been absent for a couple of months so I am sorry if this is a repeat of anything already posted.



In 2017, Joe Biden’s niece, Caroline Biden, stole $100,000 through a credit card scam, aka, GRAND LARCENY,
was able to cut a deal with DEMOCRAT NY prosecutors and got off scot free without jail time or probation. This
was her second arrest. She was able to deal her way out of that one too.  She has also been to rehab numerous times.
 
https://nypost.com/2017/06/09/joe-bidens...card-scam/
 
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/joe...ne-n227811
 
Then he divorced his wife, mother of his three daughters, after a year long affair, to marry his brother’s widow.
 
Over the course of the divorce, Hunter drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from the couple's assets by "spending
extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs and gifts for women with whom he
has sexual relations), while leaving the family with no funds to pay legitimate bills. It actually was worse than that, all
outlined here:
 
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/new.../98638454/
 
And this is all on top of the BILLIONS his father dubiously arranged for him from communist China and Ukraine.
 
https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/inside-the...dens-kids/
 
Biden ’s daughter with Jill, Ashley Biden Krein, has been arrested several times for drug charges. While he was Veep,
she was videoed snorting cocaine but the news media decided to not to publish the video. She hid out in the Veep Delaware
home for a week or so until things calmed down.
 
https://nypost.com/2009/03/30/parties-po...dens-past/
 
Okay…..all God’s children got problems…but damnation, what if these things had happened to the Trump children???? 
The Trump kids are truly beyond reproach. Biden has a passel of miscreants. But the Republicans are not interested in
subpoenaing all of the Biden children bank and credit card accounts, are they? Why haven't we heard any of this from the
networks, or read it in the "great" national newspapers?

 

[Mystic Wanderer]

Thank you @"Just Looking".   Could you go back and edit your post and change the post to a different color? All that's showing up are the links. I'm using the dark background. Maybe you're using the white where it all shows up? 



As a reply to your post, I just have to say, if your name is Biden, you can get away with all kinds of things that the rest of us would be thrown in jail for and have the key thrown away.

I hate hypocrisy!!!  And it runs like a river in the DemoRat party!

[Mystic Wanderer]

Here are the four witness hearings from today.    

[Ninurta]

Where was Molly Mongomery? I thought she was supposed to testify yesterday. Did she get a case of the sniffles or something and have to postpone?

.

[BIAD]

I can only guess at the frustration of Nunes, Jordan and others on the panel at the way the Hearing is being held.

Vox reported regarding Nunes' questioning of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s testimony has:

"...Nunes did not defend Trump’s conduct on the merits.
Instead, he used his time to push the very same conspiracy theories about the Bidens that Trump tried
to leverage the Ukrainian government into validating with investigations, grill both Vindman and Pence
aide Jennifer Williams about whether they leaked to the media, and raise questions about why Vindman
was reluctant to answer questions that could out the whistleblower..."

Conspiracy theory...?!!



Biden did a quid-pro-quo, he explains it in the above video that was displayed in the 'secret'
Hearings before the inquiry!

F*ckin' Schiff should be ashamed of himself and for the Bidens... well, they get a pass because
they're deemed better than regular folks.

[Mystic Wanderer]

One of the most important issues in President Trump's impeachment defense is also one of the least explored: To what degree were Trump's concerns about Ukraine valid? It's well documented that the president fixated on Ukrainian activity in the 2016 election and on the Bidens' actions in the Burisma matter. Democrats and many in the media dismiss his concerns as "conspiracy theories." But to what extent were those concerns, in fact, legitimate?

If they were even mostly legitimate, then Trump defenders could say: "Look, he had a point. Even if one thinks he handled the issue inappropriately, the fact is, what was going on in Ukraine was worrisome enough for a United States president to take notice." That would not change minds among those dead set on impeachment, but among others, it would make the case for impeachment and removal much harder to make.

Of Trump's two concerns — 2016 interference and Biden/Burisma — the 2016 part came first and is the foundation for Trump's later concerns about the former vice president. So leave the Biden part for a later article and focus on Ukraine and the 2016 election. Republicans insist Ukraine did, in fact, try to interfere in the American political process in 2016, and they point to five examples:

Read them here:  ANALYSIS: What if Trump was right about Ukraine?

[Ninurta]

I can only guess at the frustration of Nunes, Jordan and others on the panel at the way the Hearing is being held.

Vox reported regarding Nunes' questioning of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s testimony has:

"...Nunes did not defend Trump’s conduct on the merits.
Instead, he used his time to push the very same conspiracy theories about the Bidens that Trump tried
to leverage the Ukrainian government into validating with investigations, grill both Vindman and Pence
aide Jennifer Williams about whether they leaked to the media, and raise questions about why Vindman
was reluctant to answer questions that could out the whistleblower..."

Conspiracy theory...?!!



Biden did a quid-pro-quo, he explains it in the above video that was displayed in the 'secret'
Hearings before the inquiry!

F*ckin' Schiff should be ashamed of himself and for the Bidens... well, they get a pass because
they're deemed better than regular folks.

Well, you see, there is "good" quid-pro-quo and there is "bad" quid-pro-quo in American diplomacy. The "good" is fine, ok, hunky-dory, and is used each and every day in US diplomacy with no negative connotations or repercussions. It is actually encouraged as just another tool in the diplomatic toolbox. The "bad" form is very, VERY bad, and can get the Top Dog removed from office, at a minimum. It gets lesser beings imprisoned.

So the issue is how to tell the "good" from the "bad". Some would say that it's a matter of whether personal interests or national interests are being promoted. In this case, the Biden quid-pro-quo advanced NATIONAL INTERESTS (and his personal family interests), and the alleged presidential quid-pro-quo advanced (national interests) and HIS PERSONAL INTERESTS. So, it's largely a matter of where the capitalization falls - the American Socialists want to capitalize it as I have above, and their opposition wants to switch the polarity on that... but the problem for the Socialists is that they have yet to establish that any kind of quid-pro-quo even happened on the part of the president, and Biden actually bragged about HIS quid-pro-quo, so they have to find SOME way to cover that.

Same goes for the phrase "conspiracy theory" - there is a "good" kind and there is a "bad" kind. According to American Socialism, the conspiracy theory that Trump was a Russian agent is the "good" kind, and the conspiracy theory that Biden had a Ukrainian prosecutor fired which protected his son's job is the "bad" kind. The Socialist problem there is that one of those conspiracy theories has been validated by the perpetrator himself and proven true, and the other has so far not even met with any supporting evidence at all. I will allow the reader to determine for himself which is which.

So, in summary, it's the same exact thing in both cases, but where the emphasis and adherence to either falls is a matter of whether one wants a totalitarian government controlling each individual life to take over America or whether one wants individuals to exercise freedom and their own judgement in their personal lives. The battle lines for Civil War II in America have been drawn - they're just having a Schitt-Show to try to change how many are behind the front on either side. It's a numbers game, a propaganda war for the hearts and minds of the average American preparatory to issuing weapons. You don't want to arm the "bad guys", only the "good guys".

It's a matter of perspective.

One man's "freedom fighter" is another man's "terrorist" - i.e. "good" and "bad" are alleged to be in they eye of the beholder, and may depend on "situational ethics".

.

[BIAD]

Well, you see, there is "good" quid-pro-quo and there is "bad" quid-pro-quo in American diplomacy...

From the current viewing of this mockery, such quid-pro-quo is second in the queue behind
word-trickery to put flesh on the bones of this schiff-show!!

"In a hypothetical, would you agree with me in something that you stated earlier would be the opposite?" 


Chairman, I yield my time.

[Ninurta]

From the current viewing of this mockery, such quid-pro-quo is second in the queue behind
word-trickery to put flesh on the bones of this schiff-show!!

"In a hypothetical, would you agree with me in something that you stated earlier would be the opposite?" 


Chairman, I yield my time.

I'm starting to wonder if you are watching these hearings real-time over there in the UK - that particular and exact exchange just took place a few minutes ago!

[BIAD]

I'm starting to wonder if you are watching these hearings real-time over there in the UK - that particular and exact exchange just took place a few minutes ago!

It's just a benefit of being an MI6 agent   (Shit!)

Yep, I'm watchin' it and if I'd been Sondland, I'd have told them that I'm going for a beer
and when they've finished in their kiddie sandbox, give me a call.



Aww crap, now Shifty's doing his theatre.

[Mystic Wanderer]

Here are the hearings from today, over 7 hours for you to destroy your brain cells watching. 

Have at it! 

[Wallfire]

The Left is moving all over the world to take power using islam, climate change, LGBT, and PC. They have infiltrated many organisations like the Green party's. At least here in Europe we are starting to fight back, but im not so sure that the people of the USA understand what is going on and that they need to start to fight back. Like in Europe the left will keep pushing until they win or a war is started

[BIAD]

Here's a thing that amusingly has connections with our time-travel thread and the ongoing Hearings involving the Bidens.
Via a link kindly provided by The Mystic Wanderer in the 'Shout Box', I clicked onto a BBC link that was in the original
post.

We tend not to ferret about in old articles, but the BBC  piece titled: 'Vice President Joe Biden's son joins Ukraine
gas company' from May 2014, paints a different picture from what we see today.
Check out this chunk of the article.

'... All this could be explained simply as a foreign energy company looking to increase its visibility in the US
and spur investment, writes the Federalist's Mollie Hemingway. State-controlled companies currently account
for 90% of Ukraine's gas production, but this year Burisma became the nation's largest private producer.

Hemingway adds, however, that there may be another, less savoury possibility:
The most disturbing explanation is that the company is attempting to curry favour with the US government by
enlisting the services of the close family friend and campaign bundler of the secretary of state and the son of
the vice president.

After all, Archer notes on one of his company's web pages that his firm's "relationship network creates opportunities
for our portfolio companies which then compound to greater outcomes for all parties".

She concludes that this seems like a "cliched movie plot": "a shady foreign oil company co-opts the vice president's
son in order to capture lucrative foreign investment contracts".
The White House has emphasised that the vice president's son's new job will have no influence on US foreign policy.

"Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer," Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for the vice president, told the Wall
Street Journal. "The vice president does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company."

"Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer," Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for the vice president,
told the Wall Street Journal. "The vice president does not endorse any particular company and has no
involvement with this company."...'

BBC:

Who'd have thought that Hunter's dad would later go on and threaten the Ukraine Government to fire
a lawyer who was investigating corruption in the same company his son worked for -by holding back financial aid?
 
Time... it doesn't remind you of the past in the present!

[Mystic Wanderer]

Here are the only videos I could find on the hearing today.  I think this is the last of them. Whew! Thank goodness!