OPINION:
In the aftermath of Donald J. Trump’s unexpected victory over his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016, U.S. presidential election little media time was spent reporting his proposed agenda for the country. Usually incoming presidents are afforded a honeymoon period, with the media highlighting lifetime achievements and upcoming goals. Presidents sometimes have their highest approval ratings on inauguration day as the country excitedly rallies around a new beginning.
No such thing happened with President Trump. Instead the idea that he had won the election by colluding with America’s long-time arch enemy Russia was floated, and caught fire with a liberal media still stunned by the loss of the once inevitable Hillary. The narrative went something like this. Trump and his campaign had sought and received help from the Russians in collecting damaging information on Clinton. To hear Clinton herself tell the story, it’s the primary reason she lost.
Despite a glaring absence of facts to back up the claim, the story grew legs of its own. Speculation became the daily currency of cable news and print media. That speculation grew more and more outlandish as “Russia collusion” became the mantra to derail any and all things Trump. Prominent Democrats and former intelligence officers claimed they had personally seen mountains of evidence that clearly implicated the President. Talk of impeachment grew from fringe conversation to a seemingly foregone conclusion based in large part on the talk of Representative Adam Schiff and former CIA Chief John Brennan.
After a nearly two year, $30 million dollar investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and a team of 13 Democrat attorneys, it was found there was no evidence linking Trump nor his campaign to Russia in an effort to sway the presidential election. While it is nothing short of delightful that the truth eventually came to light, lost in the 22 month process was reporting on tax cuts for nearly all Americans reporting on a thriving economy and several other upbeat stories.
Every President enjoys some victories. Trump was robbed of recognition for many of his by a story that turned out to be fictional in nature and the media frenzy that surrounded it. So effective was this tool of mass hysteria that Democrats have apparently decided to enlist a willing mainstream media in the same exercise yet again.
This time it isn’t Russia, it’s Ukraine.
An unnamed former employee of a US intelligence agency lodged a complaint upon leaving said agency claiming he or she heard that President Trump had an inappropriate conversation with a foreign leader, possibly promising something in exchange for political assistance with dirt on Democrat frontrunner Joe Biden. Sound familiar? Trump allegedly asks foreign nation to help him win election.
There are some real problems with the story right out of the gate. We don’t know who the former employee is. We don’t know why he or she left the intelligence job. We don’t know how he or she heard of the alleged conversation President Trump supposedly had. We do know that this employee didn’t hear the conversation personally. CNN, no fan of Trump, acknowledged as much last Friday when Stephen Collins reported the so-called whistleblower “didn’t have direct knowledge of the communications.” Even better, the information learned by the former employee was not even obtained during the course of their work. Where did this mystery person hear of it? Gossip around the coffee machine? Over drinks after work? We don’t know.
So someone who once worked for the government heard something from somebody and that’s now trumpeted as the new grounds for impeachment of a President?
Let’s do a quick review of the Russia scandal and compare it to the Ukraine claims.
It was alleged that Trump and his campaign engaged Russia to try and win the Presidential campaign of 2016.
In reality, the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC provided funding for a foreign national, Christopher Steele, to be hired to help them find dirt on Donald Trump. Steele assembled a dossier of information from the Russians, intended to destroy Trump’s election hopes.
It appears Trump was accused of the very thing that the facts show was done by his opponent. The media has consciously chosen not to report this in any meaningful way.
In the burgeoning Ukraine story, President Trump allegedly threatened to withhold much needed funding in a conversation with Ukraine’s newly elected President unless he acquiesced to Trump’s wishes.
In reality, former Vice President Biden has publicly acknowledged doing exactly that to Ukraine himself. While serving as Vice President, his son, Hunter Biden, was making as much as $50,000 a month consulting for Ukraine. A prosecutor there began investigating Hunter Biden and his company. As you can imagine, Joe Biden was not happy.
In Biden’s own words, “I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to—convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t.
So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired.”
The modus operandi of the Democrat Party appears to be to exercise an underhanded tactic and then accuse the opposition, in this case, Donald Trump, of doing the exact thing they have already done. No one disputes the Hillary and the DNC paid for the Russian dossier on Trump yet there is no outrage. No one disputes that Vice President Biden publicly acknowledged in January of 2018 that he threatened to withhold funds from Ukraine unless they bent to his will, yet there is no outrage.
In fact, news networks of all stripes cover for Biden instead. President Trump spoke at the United Nations General Assembly on Monday about religious rights. He concluded his remarks at 11:58 AM. Two minutes later at noon time CNN ignored the message of religious rights that are squelched in so many corners of the globe and instead launched into a Ukraine story assuming Trump’s guilt. CNN finished their report with the statement “There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Joe or Hunter Biden.” Shortly after 3 PM Shepherd Smith offered a nearly word for word similar clearance of the Bidens on his FoxNews show.
Neither network felt compelled to point out that there is no evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump. Within the same 90 second of reporting both CNN and Fox News applied one set of rules to Joe Biden and a completely different standard to Donald Trump.
That’s not news; that is advocacy.
All the usual suspects are once again beating the impeachment drum. The same Congressman Adam Schiff who lied about having mountains of evidence on Russia collusion is now pushing a narrative that perhaps impeachment is the only answer to the Ukraine story. Multiple Democrat presidential candidates are calling for impeachment including Senator Warren, Senator Harris and Senator Sanders. On again, off again Republican William Weld, who is running a long-shot campaign to take the GOP nomination away from Trump in 2020 went a step further, floating the idea that Trump may have to be executed for treason.
During the mass hysteria of the Russia investigation I pointed out repeatedly that there wasn’t a shred of evidence. Prominent opponents of Trump ignored the truth, insisted on pushing a fictional storyline and the end result was two years of chaotic nonsense. Equally as bad was the lost voter and news viewer trust.
Politicians are slow learners apparently because the new Ukraine hysteria is more of the same. An anonymous person with second hand alleged knowledge that has not been proven nor corroborated by anyone has again flipped the madness switch. Unproven allegations have the President’s critics calling not only for his removal from office, but has at least one calling for his death.
These are sad times indeed. Like or dislike Trump, surely no logical person can support this banana republic approach to governing and to reporting. Wild accusations are delivered as news with no vetting, no research, no corroboration. Legitimate facts, like Biden’s admission or Clinton’s payments to Fusion GPS are virtually ignored.
Stop. Take a breath. Ukraine is nothing more than Russia hoax 2.0.
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