Ukraine First, The Hearsay Hearings, Taking On Russia, Deep State On Display, Nunes Demands Answers

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer: Ukraine First?
As I thought more last night about yesterday's testimony during the House impeachment hearing, I found myself getting angry. Let me explain why.

The two key witnesses selected by the House majority to kickoff this high-profile spectacle, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent and Ambassador William Taylor, are experts on Ukraine.

It was clear from their remarks that they both have a real heart for Ukraine. They really want to help Ukraine and are very concerned about President Trump's views and policies.

They weren't quite so concerned when Barack Obama promised to show Vladimir Putin his "flexibility." They didn't become part of a sham impeachment effort to oust Obama after he did next to nothing when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Kent and Taylor seemingly think they are in charge of Ukrainian policy and that the president should be taking orders from the permanent bureaucracy at Foggy Bottom. They couldn't be more wrong.

The president's job is to look out for America first. He doesn't work for the State Department. He sets the policy, they follow orders.

President Trump had well-founded concerns about sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Ukraine. By all accounts, it is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and foreign aid is your tax dollars. The president has an obligation to make sure it's not stolen.

Moreover, Donald Trump has long believed that Ukraine was more of a concern for Europe than America. And, believe it or not, Robert Mueller investigated the president for that opinion.

Trump was talking to the newly-elected president of Ukraine and he wanted to find out whether President Zelensky was committed to rooting out corruption.

He also wanted to inform Zelensky that there was an investigation going on in our government (the Durham investigation) to figure out how much the previous Ukrainian government colluded with the Clinton campaign to interfere in the 2016 election.

Trump asked Zelensky if he would work with the Department of Justice to get to the bottom of it. And, by the way, the Bidens appear to be involved.

President Trump had every right to ask for President Zelensky's cooperation thanks to a treaty on mutual legal assistance signed by Bill Clinton.

This is what the left is trying to impeach the president for, even though there is an election less than one year away.

By the way, George Kent testified yesterday that he still believes Burisma -- the Ukrainian company that paid Hunter Biden $50,000 a month -- deserves to be investigated for corruption. Why isn't that "breaking news"?

A House Divided
Here's how craven this impeachment sham is: America is a deeply divided country, and because the left is not sure it can win next November, it is trying to bring the president down now. It is trying to cancel the last election with one of the most serious punishments our politicians can impose.

Radical progressives are willing to further rend the country in their desperate desire to prevent Donald Trump and Mike Pence from getting four more years -- four more years to bring the country back from the brink of socialism, back from the social radicalism and international weakness that we experienced under Obama.

Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, the #NeverTrumpers and their media enablers should all be ashamed of themselves.

The Hearsay Hearings
My friends, it is difficult to overstate just how weak the Democrats' case truly is.

Neither of yesterday's opening witnesses have ever talked to the president. They never talked to White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. They never talked to Rudy Giuliani. Nor were they on the July phone call with President Zelensky.

In one of the more revealing moments yesterday, Ambassador Taylor admitted that he had little of substance to offer when he said, "What I can do here for you today is tell you what I heard from people."

This is a huge problem for the Democrats. And don't take my word for it. Even CNN's legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin says it's a problem.

Taylor and Kent testified previously behind closed doors. They spoke for hours and hours yesterday. And the only thing of any substance to come out of it was . . . more hearsay -- that one of Taylor's aides allegedly overheard a conversation at a restaurant between the ambassador to the European Union and the president.

This hearsay would never be allowed in any court. But the left's excitement over this additional hearsay is just more evidence that it is desperately trying to manufacture something that doesn't exist.

Taking On Russia
While Democrats were playing partisan games on your dime, what was the president doing yesterday? He spent hours attempting to negotiate extremely complicated foreign policy matters with the very difficult president of Turkey.

As you may know, Turkey is a member of NATO. The United States has a critical airbase in Turkey with dozens of nuclear weapons. But the Turkish nation that joined NATO in 1952 is not the same nation today.

While the modern state of Turkey has been seen as a secular bridge between Europe and the Middle East, President Erdogan is an Islamist whose sympathies do not align with the West's.

In recent years, Erdogan has been cozying up to Russia, which the left claims to be so concerned about. While Democrats were trying to impeach him, Trump spent his day trying to stop Russia's advances.

Deep State On Display
Today, the House Intelligence Committee (an apparent contradiction in terms) held its first public impeachment hearing against President Trump. Here are some initial observations.

• This process is all wrong. The House Judiciary Committee is the appropriate venue for such investigations, not the Intelligence Committee. But Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler fumbled his opening attempt so badly that Speaker Pelosi was forced to hand the impeachment football to Adam Schiff.
• The chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, has repeatedly discredited himself. (Here and here.) Schiff insisted over and over that there was "ample evidence in plain sight" of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. But Robert Mueller, with 500 witnesses and 2,800 subpoenas, couldn't find it. As Rep. Devin Nunes put it, the Ukraine hoax is a "low-rent sequel" to the Russia collusion hoax.
• The so-called "whistleblower" who triggered this constitutional crisis is nowhere to be seen. Schiff refuses to produce him. In short, the president is being threatened with impeachment from an anonymous source that he cannot confront or cross-examine.
• Schiff claimed that he does not know the identity of the whistleblower, even though his staff met with him. Schiff also claimed that he was determined to keep the whistleblower's identity confidential. Well, how can Schiff do that if he doesn't know the whistleblower's identity?
• The "star witnesses" Schiff called to kick off these public hearings -- Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent and Ambassador William Taylor -- are career bureaucrats who have never spoken to the president and did not participate in the call with the Ukrainian president.
• I heard these gentlemen repeatedly express their opinions and their disagreements with the president, but they weren't elected to anything. They don't get to set policy. That's the president's job, not theirs. Their participation in this impeachment farce is evidence of the Deep State's arrogance and resistance to the duly elected president. That is the real constitutional crisis confronting America today.
• Kent and Taylor claimed that they were concerned about aid to Ukraine being held up as it was fighting Russian aggression. But as we have reported before, President Trump gave Ukraine lethal military aid that Obama refused to supply. In fact, during previous testimony, Taylor said he was pleased with the Trump aid package and called it a "substantial improvement" with "serious weapons" that sent "a very strong political message that . . . Americans were willing to provide more than blankets."
• The Democrats are alleging that Trump was "extorting" the Ukrainian president by demanding an investigation of his political opponents and thus inviting foreign interference in our elections (a rehash of the Russian collusion charge). That's false. The president was asking the Ukrainian leader to investigate the Democrats' well-known corruption and political meddling in Ukraine during the 2016 election.
• Ukraine's President Zelensky has denied feeling "extorted" or pressured by Trump's call, and Zelensky told Ambassador Taylor that he was "happy" with the call the day after it took place.
• Rep. Jim Jordan demolished Ambassador Taylor's "clear understanding" of a quid pro quo by noting that the ambassador was in multiple meetings during which the alleged "demand" for political investigations never came up.

These proceedings are a complete sham that have turned into a carnival-like atmosphere. There's no crime here and we have known that for weeks.

Congress has far more important things to do, like passing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, the defense budget, funding border security and lowering healthcare costs. Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking all those things and ignoring the people's business as they chase the impeachment unicorn.

Nunes Demands Answers
Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that the impeachment proceedings should stop until we get answers to three questions:

"First, what is the full extent of the Democrats' prior coordination with the whistleblower, and who else did the whistleblower coordinate this effort with?

"Second, what is the full extent of Ukraine's election meddling against the Trump campaign?

"And third, why did Burisma hire Hunter Biden and what did he do for them, and did his position affect any U.S. government actions under the Obama administration?"

As Nunes noted, House Republicans are powerless to get answers to these crucial questions because Schiff shot down their witness requests and in the House the majority rules with an iron fist.

But there is no reason why Republicans who control the majority in the Senate can't pursue these issues. Perhaps Senator Richard Burr, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, should spend less time trying to tax student athletes and more time taking on the Deep State!
-------------------
Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families and here.

---

Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Deep State On Display, Nunes Demands Answers,
To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!