Today is the last of the 3 days allowed under the rules for Opening Statements from Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio’s defense team.
Like Herod, I am unimpressed.
Not that I’m casting UCcBP (Haven’t you been reading? The Media has gone all acronyms and Mr.) in any martyr role, just saying he’s not so good at Transformations and Water Walking. I’m thinking he went to one of those Magic Schools for Failsons and Squibs.
Prove to me that you’re divine – change my water into wine
That’s all you need do, and I’ll know it’s all true
C’mon, king of the Jews!
Jesus, you just won’t believe the hit you’ve made round here
You are all we talk about, the wonder of the year!
Oh, what a pity if it’s all a lie
Still, I’m sure that you can rock the cynics if you try
So, you are the Christ, you’re the great Jesus Christ
Prove to me that you’re no fool – walk across my swimming pool
If you do that for me, then I’ll let you go free
C’mon, king of the Jews!
…
So, if you are the Christ, yes, the great Jesus Christ
Feed my household with this bread – you can do it on your head!
Or has something gone wrong? Why do you take so long?
C’mon, king of the Jews!
Hey! Aren’t you scared of me Christ? Mr Wonderful Christ!
You’re a joke, you’re not the Lord
You are nothing but a fraud!
Take him away – he’s got nothing to say!
Get out, you king of the Jews! Get out of my life!
Agree totally with that “Get Out” thing. Don’t care where you go, just don’t stay here.
In the last 24 hours the ground has shifted because of the Bolton Book. Some Republican Senators have realized that and decided that the level of known unknowns is uncomfortably high, “supposedly”.
There is speculation votes have moved on witnesses. I’ll believe it when I see it and I’m not holding my breath.
What Trump allies and Republicans said about quid pro quo before the Bolton news
By Philip Bump, Washington Post
Jan. 28, 2020
“From a quid pro quo aspect of the phone call,” Graham said in a statement released by his office, “there’s nothing there.”
Speaking to Axios a month later, though, Graham suggested that his exoneration of Trump didn’t extend much further than that call.
“If you could show me that Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call,” Graham said, “that would be very disturbing.”
On Sunday, news broke that such evidence existed, in the form of a revelation from a new book by former national security adviser John Bolton. In the unreleased book, Bolton alleges that he was told by Trump in August that aid to Ukraine would be held until Ukraine began investigations sought by Trump that would benefit the president politically. In other words, Trump wanted a this-for-that, what the ancient Romans would call a “quid pro quo.” Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland made that explicit in a conversation with a senior aide to Zelensky on Sept. 1, telling the aide that movement on the investigations would free up the aid.
The Bolton revelation has shaken up the impeachment trial underway in the Senate. Not too much, mind you; there is still only a chance that Bolton will be asked to offer testimony and only the most remote of chances that the Senate will vote to remove Trump from office. But the Bolton news did offer an uncomfortable contrast for a number of Trump allies between what they said about quid pro quo last year and what they should now understand about the situation.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), for example, was explicit after the rough transcript came out. “There was no quid pro quo,” he said to reporters. “You’d have to have that if there was going to be anything wrong.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said something similar: “It would be troubling if any president did a quid pro quo with tax dollars … but so far we don’t have evidence that’s happened.”
“[W]hat’s apparent,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said in a statement, “is there is no quid pro quo that the president asked for anything in return for U.S. aid to Ukraine. It was a fairly straightforward, diplomatic conversation.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) suggested that the Democrats had moved too quickly on impeachment. “Democrats started an impeachment process before they knew the facts,” he said in a statement. “Nothing in the transcript supports Democrats’ accusation that there was a quid pro quo.”
Others similarly set “quid pro quo” as the line beyond which Trump’s behavior would be considered unacceptable.
“I don’t see a quid pro quo in here,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told a local news station. “I see a conversation between two leaders that is pretty broad-ranging. I just don’t think this rises to impeachable on the conversations I’ve read.”
“If you read the transcript closely there is no quid pro quo,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said in a statement. “I looked at it, and I thought surely there had to be more in there to invest this much time and energy.”
Others were slightly more moderated but ended up in the same place.
“The memorandum released by the White House today reveals no quid pro quo,” Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) said in a statement. “While the conversation reported in the memorandum relating to alleged Ukrainian corruption and Vice President Biden’s son was inappropriate, it does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.” Note the through line: There’s no quid pro quo and does not rise to being impeachable.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) made a similar distinction.
“I don’t see the quid pro quo that the Democrats are claiming,” he said in an interview on Fox News. “In fact, I actually believe that if Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats had taken another 24 hours to make their decision and actually looked at the facts, which is the transcript itself, they might not have moved forward, because there is no quid pro quo.”
“I just don’t understand,” he added later, “how they can say it’s because there’s a quid pro quo and then we find out there’s not a quid pro quo that they are still proceeding.”
“So just a few days ago the Democrats were breathlessly on TV saying, ‘You’re going to see an illegal quid pro quo. It’s going to prove that,’ ” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said in a separate interview on Fox. “Well, you look at the transcript — there’s no illegal quid pro quo in that transcript.”
If you weren’t counting, that’s 10 Republican senators who expressed at least some concern about a quid pro quo in relation to Ukraine before the revelation that Bolton alleges precisely that. While those senators are of particular interest at the moment, of course, they aren’t the only allies of Trump’s whose position on quid pro quo has been somewhat undermined.
Yesterday the ‘D’ List Dream Team pretty much ignored it but like a festering boil it’s only gotten worse and the big question for Republicans is where they want to be when it pops.
Note: My Doctor associate (not Dr. Pimple Popper which is a truly horrifying and disgusting show on one of those Discovery Channels) tells me the proper term is “draining”.
You know, like a swamp.
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