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Home » This is the sort of thing the Democrats won’t be leaking…

This is the sort of thing the Democrats won’t be leaking…

The New Neo Posted on by

…and the MSM won’t be reporting in the same way.

Because it favors Trump:

A top National Security Council (NSC) official who listened to President Donald Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky testified to Congress today that he did not believe Trump had discussed anything illegal during the conversation.

“I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed,” former NSC Senior Director for European Affairs Tim Morrison testified today, according to a record of his remarks obtained by The Federalist.

Morrison testified that Ukrainian officials were not even aware that certain military funding had been delayed by the Trump administration until late August 2019, more than a month after the Trump-Zelensky call, casting doubt on allegations that Trump somehow conveyed an illegal quid pro quo demand during the July 25 call…

Morrison also pointed out key factual inaccuracies in testimony provided by William Taylor, a State Department official who works in the U.S. embassy in Kiev, Ukraine. Morrison said that, contrary to Taylor’s claims, Morrison never met with the Ukrainian National Security advisor in his private hotel room.

Morrison also said Taylor falsely claimed that Ambassador Gordon Sondland demanded a public statement from the Ukrainian president committing to investigate Burisma, a controversial Ukrainain energy company that paid Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter millions of dollars to sit on its board.

So, how does the NY Times tell the story? Like this:

A National Security Council aide testified on Thursday that a top diplomat who was close to President Trump told him that a package of military assistance for Ukraine would not be released until the country committed to investigating Mr. Trump’s political rivals, corroborating a key episode at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

The closed-door deposition by Timothy Morrison, who announced his resignation on Wednesday on the eve of his appearance before impeachment investigators, suggests that a Trump-appointed ambassador proposed a quid pro quo in which security assistance money allocated by Congress would be provided only in exchange for the political investigations the president was seeking. His account confirmed the one given last week by Ambassador William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, during his Mr. Morrison briefed Mr. Taylor on a series of communications involving the president and his ambassador to the European Union, Gordon D. Sondland, according to his prepared remarks for Thursday’s appearance, which was reviewed by The New York Times.

“I can confirm that the substance of the statement, as it relates to conversations he and I had, is accurate,” he said.

The headline states “White House Aide Confirms He Saw Signs of a Quid Pro Quo on Ukraine.” That directly contradicts what the Federalist reports. What’s more, about 500 words into the slightly-over-1000-word Times story, the text rather abruptly contradicts the thrust of its own headline and opening paragraphs (probably assuming most people have given up on reading the story by then, thinking they’ve already gotten the gist of it) by adding this:

In his opening remarks, Mr. Morrison resisted drawing conclusions about Mr. Trump’s involvement, and in subsequent testimony he made clear he did not view the actions of the president or others involved as illegal or improper. Instead, he characterized their behavior as bad foreign policy of the sort that could potentially squander a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” afforded by Mr. Zelensky’s election.

“Ambassador Taylor and I had no reason to believe that the public release of the security sector assistance might be conditioned on a public statement reopening the Burisma investigation until my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland,” Mr. Morrison said. “Even then I hoped that Ambassador Sondland’s strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by the leaders of the administration and Congress, who understood the strategic importance of Ukraine to our national security.”

So the whole “White House Aide Confirms He Saw Signs of a Quid Pro Quo on Ukraine” headline appears to be referring to what Sondland told him was Sondland’s own opinion on the matter.

And of course, all we have to go on is the word of leakers and reporters writing for various non-objective media organs rather than seeing and hearing for ourselves what Morrison (or any other witness) said.

What a travesty and an outrage the proceedings are. Every American should feel that way, no matter what political side he or she is on. But of course, that’s not the case.

[NOTE: The Times adds this sly dig at the WaPo after the Times finally manages to put in those paragraphs about Morrison’s opening remarks that seem to exculpate Trump: “Mr. Morrison’s intention to corroborate Mr. Taylor’s account was first reported by The Washington Post, though it did not report his opening statement.” In other words, the WaPo left out even that little bit of truth about the opening statement that the Times allowed to sneak in there.]

Comments

This is the sort of thing the Democrats won’t be leaking… — 27 Comments

  1. It is pathetically amusing to see the little bitch slaps the NYT and WaPo give each other even though they are both essentially DNC propaganda outlets. I guess they think it makes them look “fearless” and “independent”.

  2. “. . . as bad foreign policy of the sort that could potentially squander a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” afforded by Mr. Zelensky’s election.”

    I want to say, “And? Has it?”

    Not that we can see.

  5. Ann:

    Oh yeah, and tons of people reading the Times and the WaPo articles (or the first portion of them) are going to make a beeline to the CBS website to read the full opening statement.

    Riiiight.

  6. And can there be any doubt that William Safire’s Agnewstic mantra will, given the current incendiary age, need to be updated to, “Nattering nabobs of nihilism”?….

  8. Undercover Huber makes a thread (here in Threadreaderapp form), analyzing Peter Strzok’s sworn FBI exit interview.

    Conclusion? Strzok lied to the FBI under the same citation as Flynn was charged with.

    What was the lie? Strzok told the FBI that his partner Pientka was “primarily responsible for taking notes and writing the FD-302” on the Flynn interview. Huber shows through evidence examination that this is highly unlikely. Strzok “primarily” wrote it/fabricated it, with editing help from Lisa Page.

    Boo!

  9. I’m not sure it favors Trump because Morrison does not dispute William Taylor. They just disagree on a conclusion of the facts. But he’s not somehow more legit than Taylor or Vindman.

    Morrison said “I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed,” but then he also said he “promptly” told White House lawyers about the call, fearing that if it were to become public, it would fuel partisan tensions and thereby jeopardize US-Ukraine relations. Indeed, it has fueled partisan tensions. But whether or not what Trump did was illegal is not the main point of the hearings. The main point is if he pressured a president of another country to get dirt on a rival and if used quid pro quo to do it. It can still be impeachable even if it’s legal. Constitutional scholars have agreed that impeachable offenses aren’t limited to crimes. There is really only disagreement on the nature of what constitutes an impeachable offense. University of North Carolina law professor Michael Gerhardt said [back in 2017] “The major disagreement is not over whether impeachable offenses should be strictly limited to indictable crimes, but rather over the range of non-indictable offenses on which an impeachment may be based.”

    So is the phone call impeachable? Maybe, maybe not. That’s why there is an investigation. Yes, a very political one but impeachment is almost always political.

  12. ..all we have to go on is the word of leakers and reporters writing for various non-objective media organs…

    There’s a transcript, as Ann points out. So lets look at this from the Federalist:

    Morrison said that, contrary to Taylor’s claims, Morrison never met with the Ukrainian National Security advisor in his private hotel room.

    According to the transcript, they met in the Hotel’s business center.

    LOL…the Federalist is a real piece of work.

  13. Montage, I did notice how you used “investigation” and “impeachment” as if they are the same thing. Funny, but they aren’t.

  15. I’m not sure it favors Trump because Morrison does not dispute William Taylor. They just disagree on a conclusion of the facts. But he’s not somehow more legit than Taylor or Vindman.

    The transcript of the call was released weeks ago.

  16. NYT: President Trump shared an altered photograph of himself awarding a medal to the military dog injured in the raid that killed the Islamic State’s leader. The dog appeared to have been edited over a 2017 Medal of Honor recipient.

    LOL . . . NYT wigs out on a funny meme.

  17. https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/10/31/vindmans-policy-difference-with-the-president-is-what-has-trump-over-the-target-taking-flak/

    Vindman’s policy difference with the president is what has Trump over the target taking flak
    By J.E. Dyer October 31, 2019

    In the wake of Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman’s testimony in one of Adam Schiff’s closed-door hearings on Tuesday, something is now clear. Vindman responded to a subpoena not because he had something to add about the 25 July phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky, but because he was willing to express a policy difference with Trump.
    …
    “The interagency” refers to the coordinated view on policy matters signed up to by the cabinet departments and agencies relevant to a policy issue. A process of interagency consultation has become standardized in the federal government over the last 40-some years, modeled primarily by the use of the interagency framework in national security policy-making. For the NSC, perched atop that particular summit, “the interagency” is a point of religious orthodoxy.

    The disagreement between Vindman and Trump – whom Vindman acknowledges he has never spoken to – is conveyed succinctly in a few excerpts from Vindman’s opening statement, …”In the Spring of 2019, I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency. ” …

    With “outside influencers” presumably starting with Rudy Giuliani, this is about the president using others to execute his policy because the interagency consensus funneled through the NSC calls Trump’s policy a “false narrative.”

    Regardless of the president’s name or the content of his policy, we are justified in asking where the interagency consensus gets off doing such a thing. The interagency consultation process works for the president, not the other way around.

    But to understand what’s going on, we need to shift focus to what the content of the policy is.
    …
    Trump isn’t asking Ukraine to start investigations. The investigations were already started.

    Trump is asking Ukraine to continue with investigations that other Americans have blocked U.S. access to, and/or exerted pressure on Ukrainian prosecutors to drop (as the Obama administration reportedly did in 2016).

    Trump is countering pressure that has gone against his policy priority. Any such pressure since January 2017 has been unauthorized because it didn’t come from Trump or any agent of Trump’s actual policy. Pressure from Trump or his agents is authorized, by definition, even if the agents include Rudy Giuliani. That authorization comes from the American people, who made Trump Pressurer-in-Chief on 8 November 2016.

    But there’s a reason why the Americans who tried to block information from Ukraine, or pressure Ukraine to drop investigations, wanted the investigations dropped.

    That’s the target Trump is over. That’s why he’s taking flak. It’s because there was a reason why some Americans wanted Ukrainian corruption investigations dropped, and the information from them stymied.
    …
    As an adjunct to that clear point, let’s add the following. What Trump has done in the big picture here is choose to set a national priority higher than the one the interagency consensus is assuming. The interagency consensus would say our priority is papering over any differences with Ukraine – no matter what they are – in order to make public shows of solidarity.

    Trump is in effect saying the U.S. national priority is getting to the bottom of U.S.-involved corruption in Ukraine, starting with its connection to meddling in the 2016 election, but not necessarily ending there.

    Trump can say that with perfect legitimacy, regardless of his interest as the candidate affected by the 2016 election shenanigans. If that kind of foreign collusion is going on, papered over and unaddressed, it is a national security emergency for the United States. It cannot be ignored in favor of what the interagency consensus prefers.

  18. Well, sometimes, it IS better not to leak….
    For example, DO NOT by any means leak this!
    (‘Cuz if you do, these heroic beauties will be in danger from the usual suspects.)
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50248549

    Looks like Trump should be getting a whole slew of medals ready for these fellas and invite them to the WH for an official ceremony (preferably on the WH lawn).
    https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/31/politics/conan-dog-baghdadi-raid-trump-white-house/index.html

    File under: GOAT

  19. The headline states “White House Aide Confirms He Saw Signs of a Quid Pro Quo on Ukraine.” That directly contradicts what the Federalist reports.

    From Morrison’s opening statement:

    I had no reason to believe that the release of the security sector assistance might be conditioned on a public statement reopening the Burisma investigation until my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland.

    The NYTimes characterization is correct. The Federalist’s is propaganda.

  20. Manju:

    Nope.

    He himself saw no such thing. He has no direct knowledge of anything of the sort. Nor was he asserting that it was the case.

    The part of Morrison’s statement you left out:

    I was not aware that the White House was holding up the security sector assistance passed by Congress until my superior, Dr. Charles Kupperman, told me soon after I succeeded Dr. Hill. I was aware that the President thought Ukraine had a corruption problem, as did many others familiar with Ukraine. I was also aware that the President believed that Europe did not contribute enough assistance to Ukraine. I was directed by Dr. Kupperman to coordinate with the interagency stakeholders to put together a policy process to demonstrate that the interagency supported security sector assistance to Ukraine. I was confident that our national security principals—the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the head of the National Security Council—could convince President Trump to release the aid because President Zelensky and the reform-oriented Rada were genuinely invested in their anti-corruption agenda.

    Ambassador Taylor and I were concerned that the longer the money was withheld, the more questions the Zelensky administration would ask about the U.S. commitment to Ukraine. Our initial hope was that the money would be released before the hold became public because we did not want the newly constituted Ukrainian government to question U.S. support.

    I have no reason to believe the Ukrainians had any knowledge of the review until August 28, 2019. Ambassador Taylor and I had no reason to believe that the release of the security sector assistance might be conditioned on a public statement reopening the Burisma investigation until my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland. Even then I hoped that Ambassador Sondland’s strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by leaders in the Administration and Congress, who understood the strategic importance of Ukraine to our national security.

    I am pleased our process gave the President the confidence he needed to approve the release of the security sector assistance. My regret is that Ukraine ever learned of the review and that, with this impeachment inquiry, Ukraine has become subsumed in the U.S. political process.

  21. Manju LEFT OUT important context from a quote!!!!???? (Context that would disprove the “point” he/she was trying to make???)

    I can’t believe it.

    I simply can’t believe it…..

  24. Our own Manju seems quite a bit like the NYT / WaPo selective leakers, twisters of meaning.

    The Dem media have a narrative – Trump is bad because … why?
    They then look for news, and how whatever news they look at answers the question. “Possible News” gets reported when the reporters can answer – this news shows how bad Trump is. Even if we report only a twisted version of the news, our version is what is printed, and what most of our readers are going to hear first, and most will believe.

    It’s close enough to the truth.

    Fake, but accurate.

  25. He himself saw no such thing. He has no direct knowledge of anything of the sort. Nor was he asserting that it was the case.

    The Times headline that you are objecting to doesn’t assert that Morrison had direct knowledge of the quid pro quo, only that he saw “signs” of it.

    And indeed, in his opening statement, he says that Ambassador Sondland, the very person who told Ukraine that security assistance was “conditioned on a public statement reopening the Burisma investigation” told Morrison that he had done so.

  26. “Even then I hoped that Ambassador Sondland’s strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by leaders in the Administration and Congress, who understood the strategic importance of Ukraine to our national security.” Morrison

    Has this been answered publicly yet?
    Or, is there a definitive answer in some of the UNleaked testimony?
    What’s the evidence for Sondland’s probity?
    Just being Ambassador (or LTC or anything else) doesn’t automatically make you the Embodiment of Truth.

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