Friday Talking Points -- Collusion, Collusion, Collusion!

[ChrisWeigant]

This has been an extraordinary week, in a presidency chock-full of extraordinary weeks. Call it extra-extraordinary, we suppose. The country went from hearing vague things about Trump stonewalling a congressional committee to full-on impeachment in a matter of hours, it seemed. Or days, at the longest. We went from zero to impeachment in record time, giving Trump a new superlative to brag about: fastest scandal ever.

Because this situation is so extraordinary, and because Democrats are all currently missing such a gigantic messaging opportunity, today's column will be an extraordinary one as well. We're not going to spend a whole lot of time here in the introduction, because everyone already knows exactly what is going on, so none of it really needs repeating. We've just got a few short side issues to raise, and then we're going to move quickly on. This week's talking points are unique as well, because instead of seven discrete talking points, the entire rant is essentially devoted to one single word. You can probably guess what it is, from this week's column title.

Before we get to that, though, there are a few points worth making that few others have even noticed or commented upon. These points are presented in no particular order, without any attempt at segues between them:

The first is the absence of Barack Obama. He needs to get off the sidelines, plain and simple. Joe Biden didn't go rogue and pressure the Ukrainians on his own initiative, from all accounts, it was not only an official White House policy but it was in fact the same goal that most of Western Europe was had with the Ukrainian government. So Obama needs to state this now, in explicit terms. A simple tweet would be enough, at this point: "Vice President Biden did exactly what I told him to do in the Ukraine, and it had absolutely nothing to do with his son, period." This would be the strongest possible defense for Biden, which is why Obama really needs to jump into the fray, here. It is not showing favoritism in the primary race to defend what his own vice president did, after all.

The most astonishing thing about Trump's position right now is that he's essentially pinning all his hopes on Rudy Giuliani being able to keep his big fat mouth shut. This, quite obviously, is insane. Can anyone picture what Rudy's going to say if he's questioned by a congressional committee for five or six hours? He can't even make it through a ten-minute television interview without digging his own legal grave, so seeing Giuliani randomly explode during hours of sworn congressional testimony is almost certainly going to be amusing to watch. Giuliani has drunk so much Trump Kool-Aid that he is convinced that everything he does is above reproach and totally justified -- so why shouldn't he just admit to it all? That's a heckuva legal strategy you got there, to state the painfully obvious.

A few frightening prospects have occurred to us, and it's nowhere near Hallowe'en yet....

Terrifying Scenario (1): the House impeaches Trump and Mitch McConnell decides that he's just not going to hold a trial in the Senate. The Constitution is vague on this point, and McConnell is certainly capable of such blatantly partisan and self-serving inaction while leading the Senate (see: Garland, Merrick). If McConnell refuses to act, there's not much anybody could do about it.

Terrifying Scenario (2): Donald Trump resigns the presidency before the Senate trial can take place, then Mike Pence pardons him. Trump then has all the time in the world to focus on his 2020 campaign, because there would be nothing stopping him from running. The Senate does indeed have the power to bar someone from ever holding office again, but they could only do this if they voted to remove Trump from office -- so if Trump quits before that can happen, he'd still be eligible.

Terrifying Scenario (3): Trump asks for and receives Mike Pence's resignation. Then Trump refuses to name a successor. This would almost certainly guarantee that he would never be removed from office by the Senate, even if he were to make good on his threat to start shooting people at random on Fifth Avenue while the Senate vote was being held -- because without a sitting vice president, Nancy Pelosi would be next in line for the presidency. What Republican senator is going to vote for that outcome ("Madam President Pelosi..." ), no matter what Trump is proven to have done?

And finally, a bit of comic relief, in the form of a Trump tweet:

To show you how dishonest the LameStream Media is, I used the word Liddle', not Liddle, in discribing [sic] Corrupt Congressman Liddle' Adam Schiff. Low ratings @CNN purposely took the hyphen [sic] out and said I spelled the word little wrong. A small but never ending [sic] situation with CNN!

First rule of being a grammar cop: always check the grammar in your own snide putdowns. Like spelling "describing" correctly, for instance, or recognizing the difference between an apostrophe and a hyphen. Oh, and "never-ending" properly does have a hyphen in it. Sheesh!





OK, we're going to try to make our awards section the shortest it has ever been, because both awards are so patently obvious this week.

The Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week, hands down, was Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. She has resisted pulling the trigger on impeachment for a long time now, but she finally got the scandal she's been looking for all along: one that is simple, obvious, and indefensible. It was a bit nerve-wracking when Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry a day before the call readout was released, because Trump at that point could have decided not to do so, or the readout could have been a bust. Thankfully, neither happened.

Support among House Democrats for impeachment soared this week, as roughly 90 of them got off the fence and announced their support. Pelosi now has a solid majority in favor of starting an impeachment inquiry, which she did not have when she announced it. So her timing, in retrospect, seems to have been just about perfect.

Pelosi showed leadership, and her previous reluctance to begin impeachment has inoculated her from the charge that she's somehow "rushing to judgment."

Well done, Speaker Pelosi, well done.

{Congratulate Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on her official contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.}





This one is also pretty painfully obvious. The Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week (assuming he's a Democrat, of course) is none other than Hunter Biden. Joe Biden had one son that had a stellar career both in politics and in the military. But Beau's not around any longer. His other son got kicked out of the military for testing positive for cocaine and then willingly sold his last name for $50,000 a month to a Ukrainian oil oligarch, obviously so the Ukrainian company could leverage it as influence with his dad. Hunter knew nothing about the oil or gas business, and he knew nothing about the Ukraine. So why was he worth $50,000 a month? His last name, plain and simple.

Relatives cashing in is a problem in politics and always has been (see: Billy Carter, for just one example). Selling your name to the highest bidder on the open market of access to the powerful is more than just a little disappointing, but we'll leave it to you to come up with the proper term for it. For us, he's this week's winner of the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week.

{Hunter Biden is a private citizen, and we do not provide contact information for such persons. Even if we did, we doubt he'd listen to you unless you paid him tens of thousands of dollars a month.}




Volume 544 (9/27/19)

OK, as promised, we've got an extended rant this week rather than our usual talking points. Sometimes things seem painfully obvious to us when everyone else in the punditocracy and the political world seems to be missing seeing what is right in front of their faces. This is just such a time. Please feel free to cut and paste the following (or any portion thereof) and immediately send it to any Democrat who might actually listen. We think it's pretty sound advice, and we care not one whit for getting credit. We would just dearly like to start hearing this meme go viral among Democrats -- that would be thanks enough.



Collusion, collusion, collusion!

Democrats are missing an enormous messaging opportunity right now, but fortunately there is still time for them to improve. Donald Trump himself teed this one up, and it's just sitting there waiting for Democrats to knock it straight down the fairway with one mighty swing. He has set himself up for this attack in such blatant fashion that I'm actually downright astonished that nobody else seems to have realized it yet. That needs to change and it needs to change now, because there is one devastating word that needs to be applied to the entire impeachment effort and Ukraine scandal, and that word is: "collusion."

For over a year, Donald Trump used "No collusion!" as a sort of mantra, repeating it so often it became somewhat of a joke. Each and every time he was asked about Russia's interference with our election, he trotted out the "No collusion!" response, in almost parrot-like fashion. By doing so, he defined the term forever in American politics. Collusion didn't happen, Trump insisted, meaning that neither he nor his presidential campaign worked directly with or had any involvement with whatever the Russians were doing. He might have been aware of it, he might have publicly encouraged it ("Only joking!" he would later claim), and members of his campaign might have met with a whole bunch of Russians, but none of that mattered because there simply was no (provable) collusion with them, according to Trump.

Trump repeated "No collusion!" until he was blue in the face, in fact. He trotted the line out on a daily basis. It was his "get out of jail free" card. Didn't matter what those pesky Russkies were up to, there was no collusion, therefore the whole thing was a witch hunt, period.

So why, pray tell, has the word disappeared this week?

In all the massive and extensive coverage of the Ukraine scandal and the impeachment inquiry that I have personally read or viewed or listened to, I've only come across the term once. Once! And it was from a Republican, no less. Salon interviewed Richard Painter, who was the chief White House ethics counsel under George W. Bush, and asked him whether Rudy Giuliani was in violation of the Logan Act, which bans private citizens from conducting diplomacy in the United States. Here is Painter's answer in full:

I believe he is. Giuliani would argue that the president of the United States gave him authority to do this, and he's just doing it on behalf of the president. But in reality, Giuliani is working for the Trump presidential campaign. This is actually collusion. This is documented collusion between the president's campaign and a foreign power to get dirt on his political opponent in the 2020 election. This is the same thing that Donald Trump was accused of doing in the 2016 presidential election. Donald Trump is just doing it all again.

Later, when asked if Trump thinks he is king, Painter called Trump "worse than Nixon":

This is much worse than Richard Nixon because Trump, unlike Nixon, is enlisting the assistance of a foreign government. Trump is using his power as president to seek to coerce the government of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and to make allegations which have no grounding in fact. Trump is doing this against his possible opponent in the 2020 presidential race. This is outrageous. Donald Trump needs to be impeached. Attorney General William Barr is referred to multiple times in that transcript, where Trump indicates that Barr will be making the calls to the Ukrainians. Rudy Giuliani will be making some of the other calls. If Attorney General Barr agreed to either make any of those calls or in fact made any of those calls, he ought to be impeached as well.

The key statement needs no editing -- and it needs to immediately become the main talking point of every Democrat from Nancy Pelosi down to the local dogcatcher: This is documented collusion between the president's campaign and a foreign power to get dirt on his political opponent in the 2020 election.

Donald Trump is colluding with a foreign government to help his chances of being elected. There is simply no other way to put it. He blatantly asks for "a favor" from the leader of another nation, and the two favors he asks for are dirt about Hillary Clinton's email server (which he's been obsessed about, for going on four years now) and dirt about Joe Biden, who at the time was the odds-on favorite to be the man who runs against him next year. Ignore all the other peripheral stuff and attempts at distraction by Trump and his minions, because all of it is absolutely meaningless. Trump was just caught doing exactly what he repeatedly denied doing with Russia in 2016. He is colluding with a foreign government. To get dirt on his political opponent. Period. That's the entire ball of wax, right there, and it needs to be at the heart of any Democrat making the case for impeachment. Ignore the fluff. Brush aside the meaningless hairsplitting and character assassination. Don't go down the Republican talking point rabbit hole at all. Instead, focus on the bedrock unethical behavior: collusion. With a foreign government. To get dirt on an opponent. Collusion, plain and simple. The word collusion needs to be repeated by Democrats just as often and just as annoyingly as Trump using the phrase "No collusion!" ever was. Collusion, collusion, collusion!

Of course, Republicans are already throwing up various smokescreens to avoid having to admit the blatant collusion of the president. Their biggest push is to discredit the whistleblower. To that I have a further response for Democrats to use, for each and every complaint or conspiracy theory: "So what?" Here's how to deploy this strategy:



"The whistleblower had only secondhand knowledge of what went on."

"So what? The whistleblower is employed by the intelligence service, and thus it is part of his or her job to collect reports, sift through them, and determine what is likely true and what isn't. That's their job. The whistleblower heard from at least a half-dozen sources with firsthand knowledge what went on, and he or she reported it, as required by law. The whistleblower's report of the call readout is almost identical to the actual readout the White House released, so the only available evidence so far indicates that the whistleblower got the details exactly right."



"Secondhand reports are nothing short of hearsay, and are not admissible in court."

"So what? This isn't the end of the investigation, but the beginning. There is plenty of time for Congress to interview those directly involved and find out exactly what they have to say. The whistleblower's report is not a draft for articles of impeachment, it is instead a roadmap for where the investigation should go, and nothing more. Nobody's going to rely on the whistleblower's word when it's easy to question those directly involved under oath. So what if the whistleblower's report isn't admissible in court? All the evidence gathered as a result of this report will be, so the point is a ridiculous one to even try to make."



"The whistleblower was politically biased!"

"So what? He or she didn't use the information politically in any way. There are plenty of avenues the whistleblower could have taken if his or her entire motivation was to cause Trump political harm. She or he could have leaked the whole story to the media. He or she could have turned the story over to congressional Democrats, or one of the Democratic presidential candidates. But that's not what happened. The whistleblower did exactly what the law requires, by filing a formal complaint and not leaking the story to anyone. That is not the action of a partisan, but rather the actions of a professional. If there was any desire to merely cause political harm, then we would have first seen this whole story in the New York Times or the Washington Post, and there never would have been a whistleblower complaint."



"But the whistleblower was politically biased, so anything in his complaint is tainted by politics!"

"So what? The whistleblower is not the judge or jury. The whistleblower is not the prosecutor. The whistleblower isn't even the cops who investigate the case. The whistleblower is the guy who dropped a dime to the cops, and nothing more. The whistleblower may end up being a minor witness, at best. Think of it this way: if the cops get a tip that a crime has been committed, then they investigate the crime and build an evidentiary case on their own. They don't just take anyone's word for it, they conduct an investigation to learn the facts to build their case. The prosecutor tests this case until it is ready for prosecution. The judge and jury weigh the evidence presented in such a case, and when all that happens it does not matter how the case came to the cops' attention in the first place. Here's a hypothetical example: say a notorious heroin kingpin walks into a police station and accuses the city's mayor of running a competing heroin distribution ring. What are the cops supposed to do? Ignore him because he's a known criminal? Or do they go ahead and launch a massive investigation and collect reams of evidence? If the mayor is indeed guilty of heroin dealing, then who cares how the cops became aware of it? Sure, the informant has his own agenda by making the report -- the elimination of a competitor in the (black) marketplace. So what? Does that mean the mayor should be allowed to continue breaking the law? No, it does not. It simply doesn't matter what the whistleblower's motives were, because the crime is still the crime, independent of how it was brought to the authorities' attention."



"The whistleblower should have just kept his or her mouth shut."

"You have got to be kidding me. President Trump is president, not king. He is not above the law, period. When previous whistleblowers have leaked sensitive information, such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, everyone said that they 'should have gone through official channels.' Well, that's exactly what the whistleblower did this time. He or she raised the issue with superiors, and then formally filed a complaint. The inspector general then took over investigating the claim, and found it credible and urgent. This is exactly what is supposed to happen. In America no one is supposed to be above the law, period, and the whistleblower used the appropriate channels to raise his or her concerns."



"The whistleblower is disloyal and treasonous."

"Oh, please, spare me the crocodile tears. While Donald Trump may not understand it, when people work for the United States government, they do not swear an oath to the president, but instead to the U.S. Constitution. The president is not the country, no matter how much he may like to equate the two in his own twisted mind. Being disloyal to the president to uphold the Constitution is nothing short of patriotism, and it's offensive to hear the word 'treason' applied to it. 'I was just following orders' is no longer a valid defense, period. The whistleblower might have been disloyal to Donald Trump, to which I say a big fat: 'So what?' He or she was loyal to what matters -- the United States Constitution -- and that's all that matters."



This "So what" strategy can be used to knock down pretty much everything in the Republican smoke screen, in fact, and not just the character assassination against the whistleblower:



"This should all be covered under executive privilege!"

"So what? There is no executive privilege when a crime is committed."



"There was no quid pro quo, therefore everything's OK"

"Actually, there was quid pro out the quo's wazoo. Let's review. Right after the Ukrainian leader states his intention to buy some more missiles: '...we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes,' Donald Trump jumps in with: 'I would like you to do us a favor though....' How much more quid or quo do you need, for Pete's sake? This is the quiddiest quo I've ever seen, in fact. But let's just put all that aside, and assume that an eight-year old cannot tell exactly what Trump is doing here. To do so, you'd have to have the I.Q. of a houseplant, but whatever. Let's assume your thickheaded interpretation of it is the correct one and there was no quid pro quo punching you in the nose in that call readout. My answer would still be: 'So what? So what if there isn't a quid pro quo? Because there was still obviously collusion.' Trump and Giuliani are colluding with a foreign country to get dirt on his political opponent. Who cares whether Trump was using the cutoff of military aid as leverage? Who cares whether he was dangling a White House meeting as a carrot? So what? Because the collusion still obviously exists. The one thing Trump swore up and down he never did with Russia is unquestionably documented in the Ukraine call readout. It's collusion, plain and simple, whether there was a quid or a quo ever even involved."



Donald Trump constructed and nourished his "No collusion!" gift, which he sent to the Democrats with a big label on the side that reads: "PETARD, handle carefully." The whistleblower has now lit the fuse on this petard. All that remains is for the Democrats to slip it right under Trump, so that it can go off and hoist him (hopefully) right out of the Oval Office. To paraphrase Bill Clinton's old campaign advice: "It's the collusion, stupid."

Even Chris Christie gets it, apparently. While being interviewed on television right before the call's readout was released, Christie said that it would be bad if the president had said: "Listen, do me a favor, go investigate Joe Biden." Boy, he hit the nail right on the head! "I would like you to do us a favor, though..." might just become the epitaph of the Trump administration.

Democrats should feel free to talk about all aspects of impeachment, but they should always begin in the same place: "The call proves Trump colluded with a foreign country to get dirt on a political opponent." Throw in anything else after making this point, such as all the other things any articles of impeachment might contain: Obstruction of justice. Contempt of Congress. Blatant violations of the Emoluments Clause. Attacks on the freedom of the press. Threatening White House officials with the death penalty. Cruel and unusual punishment of children caught crossing the border. Lying repeatedly while in office. Committing a fashion felony with all those insanely-long ties. Well, OK, that last one might be going a bit far, but you get the general idea.

Trump dug this hole himself. He spent over a year insisting: "There was no collusion," which only served to cement in everyone's mind the core idea that if there had been collusion, then Trump would have been in trouble. No collusion, hence nothing bad happened. Wrongdoing equals collusion, period. Once again: Trump himself dug this hole.

All it will take now to sway public opinion towards removing Donald Trump is to turn the tables on him. Who cares what smoke Republicans are deploying to try to explain away the inexplicable? So what if the whistleblower is a Democrat? None of it matters. None of it. Because none of it has anything to do with what has already been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

All the Democrats have to do to make this case is to start using one single word, ad nauseam. That's it. It's not rocket science. There was collusion, plain and simple. The rest of it is arguing about how the deck chairs on the Titanic should be arranged, because the collusion with the iceberg already happened. [OK, I just re-read that sentence and have to apologize. Heh.]

Seriously, though, why has this word not been spoken this week? Why are Democrats missing such a golden and ripe opportunity? It's rare when a talking point is this downright obvious, in fact. Here's hoping that sooner or later the Democrats can figure this out, because it might be the key to turning public opinion in their favor.




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com
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[abqtommy]

1. tRUMP and the reTHUGS are the KKKonspiracy KKKats.

That's where it's at!

[Pachamama]

2. Got to seriously disagree with you on your reference to Hunter Biden as most disappointing Democrat

It's one thing if you choose to name an elected person from the Democratic Party....but someone's kid?

Sorry....you lost me on that one and I think its inappropriate.

[Cha]

4. Ikr, Pachamama.. Thank you!

[Cha]

3. Shame on your "talking points" trying to smear Hunter Biden..

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Tom Steyer backs rival Joe Biden around impeachment inquiry, says he 'should be left out of this'

“This is an attempted smear by the Trump campaign. Just the way he tried to smear Hillary Clinton,” Steyer said in an interview with Yahoo News Thursday, defending his political rival. “I think that Mr. Biden should be left out of this. I don’t think he’s done anything wrong. I think a bunch of newspapers looked at it and decided he hadn’t done anything wrong.”

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=294531

“I think it’s very clear that the president is very afraid of Joe,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). “And so he’s going after Joe and his family for political purposes and I’ll stand with Joe against any president who acts that way.”

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287293997

**BREAKING ** Former Ukraine prosecutor says Hunter Biden 'did not violate anything'

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287293616

14. This is good - Bullock on CNN: "an attack on Biden is an attack on all Democratic candidates"....

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=294467

[Beartracks]

5. It's incredible that Republicans claim if you don't think Trump is a Perfect Being...

... who is the Second Coming of Jesus, uses the best words, farts rainbows, and turns everything he touches to the most beautiful gold, then YOU must be biased.



============

[tblue37]

6. Excellent! nt

[SunsetDreams2]

7. Seriously?

This Smear against Hunter Biden is disgusting. You had to dirty him up talking about Cocaine use and being kicked out of the Military. Then once he was dirtied up you claim he sold his name for money so this Ukrainian company OBVIOUSLY could have influence with his dad or something or other. Why not add an insinuation in there against his Dad Joe Biden? That’s implying that in turn Joe Biden can be bought I guess.

Oh but apparently that wasn’t the entire point of this OP. The Democrats are getting it wrong in your opinion because they haven’t been using a word “Collusion”. If only they would use that word everyone would understand how serious this is or something like that. The Democratic Party started an impeachment inquiry about a serious issue that is so OBVIOUSLY an abuse of power to anyone paying attention. saying the word Collusion is absolutely not going to make a difference.

The Trump Demise Train has already left the station. The Democratic Party is doing just fine .

[Karadeniz]

8. FABULOUS READ! Why aren't we screaming collusion?!? Thanks for posting thid!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

9. A big, fat K&R!