Testifying today in the House Intelligence Committee. 67-year-old National Intelligence Director Joe Maqurie defended his handling of a whislteblower complaint about a July 24 phone call between 73-year-old President Donald Trump and 40-year-old Ukranian President Volodymyer Zelensky. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) accused Maguire of stonewalling, refusing to hand over the whistleblower complaint to Congress. Maguire explained that neither he nor Trump told him to delay handing the complaint over to Congress but he followed protocol preserving the president’s privileged communication. “The White House did not direct me to withhold the complaint,“ Maguire said, refuting any characterization that he stonewalled. “I believe everything involved in this matter is totally unprecedented,” referring to the Democrat and media attempt to find impeachable offenses.
Before Trump took office Jan. 20, 2017, the FBI was actively involved in a covert counterintelligence investigation of Trump for alleged ties to the Kremlin. Democrats charged that Trump colluded with the Kremlin to win the 2016 election. When Trump fired 58-year-old FBI Director James Comey May 9, 2017, former Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein appointed May 17, 2017 73-year-old former FBI Director Bob Mueller as Special Counsel. Mueller spent 22-months investigating Trump, a continuation of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation probe, releasing his final report Mach 23. Mueller found that neither Trump nor anyone in his campaign, coordinated with Russia to gain an advantage in the 2016 presidential election. Yet the FBI and Mueller continued their investigation until there was nothing left. Democrats refused to accept Mueller’s findings, continuing to look for impeachable offenses.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sept. 24, before announcing an impeachment inquiry against the president, that her decision was not political, based purely on her Article 1 oversight powers identifying abuses of power by the president. Pelosi’s been under mounting pressure from her caucus to impeach Trump on whatever grounds deemed appropriate. When the whistleblower complaint was released today, it implicated Trump in asking the Ukrainian leader to investigate 76-year-old Democratic front-runner former Vice President Joe Biden and his 50-year-old son, Hunter for corruption in Ukraine. Hunter served on the Board of Bursima Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company, making $50,000 a month. Joe reportedly asked, while Vice President, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin for investigating Bursima Holdings.
Whatever happened in Ukraine, Trump wanted to find out the extent of the Biden’s involvement in Ukrainian corruption. By anyone’s metrics, earning $50,000 a month for work on a for-profit board is extravagant in Ukraine or anywhere else. Yet the media and Democrat Party find nothing unusual about it. Democrats believe that Trump’s action to ask Volodymyer to investigate the Bidens violates federal election law and the U.S. Constitution. Republicans aren’t convinced that Trump committed any crimes, asking a foreign leader to investigate corruption by U.S. citizens. Democrats have leaped to the conclusion that Trump held up military aid until Volodymyer gave him the dirt on Biden. Trump has denied any quid pro quo, something confirmed to the press the Ukranian president. Yet the whistleblower complaint alleges that Trump withheld military funds until he got the dirt on Biden.
Democrats on the House intelligence Committee weren’t happy over the fact that Maquire would not break his confidentiality with the president. Asked by Rep. Jim Hines (D-Conn.) whether of not the president told Maguire to not release the whistleblower report to Congress, Maguire cited privileged communication. “Did you ever speak to the president about this complaint/” asked Hines. “My conversations with the president, because I’m director of National Intelligence, are privileged,” Maquire told Hines. “And it would be inappropriate for me because it would destroy my relationship with the president in intelligence matters to divulge any of my conversations with the president of the United States,” Maquire said, letting the committee know he was limited in what he could say. Democrats tried to implicate Maquire in a conspiracy cover-up with the president, something he rejected.
Getting great coverage in the anti-Trump press, the whistleblower report confirms nothing, other than hearsay about the July 24 phone call transcript Trump released of his conversation with the Ukrainian president. If you consider the president, under Article 2 power, responsible to find corruption overseas, what’s illegal about Trump inquiring about suspicious activities with Joe and Hunter Biden? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) have all convicted Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors. Former U.S. Atty. Joe DiGenova thinks Trump can ask any foreign leader about anyone suspected of corruption. Democrats insist Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors asking the Ukrainian president to look into the Biden’s activities under Poroshenko’s watch. Without the Mueller Report, Democrats finally got their “smoking gun.”
