Pence: I Participated in the Ukraine Plot But Only As a Patsy

[swag]

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/pence-i-participated-in-ukraine-plot-but-only-as-a-patsy.html

Pence: I Participated in the Ukraine Plot But Only As a Patsy
By Jonathan Chait

Vice-President Mike Pence is knee-deep in the Ukraine scandal. He is floating the absurd defense that, while he did participate in Trump’s plan to extort Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden, he was completely ignorant of what he was doing.

Although President Trump “used Pence to tell [Ukrainian president Volodymyr] Zelensky that U.S. aid was still being withheld,” the Washington Post reports, Pence’s aides insist he had no idea what he was actually being used for. “Officials close to Pence insist that he was unaware of Trump’s efforts to press Zelensky for damaging information about Biden and his son,” the Post notes. Pence, by their accounting, is like a man who delivers a ransom note to a bank teller, failing to place any significance in the fact that the tellers have their hands in the air, the bank patrons are lying on the floor, and the guy who asked him to bring the note to the bank had a mask and a gun.

Pence’s involvement in the plot was extensive. White House officials had him cancel a planned trip to Zelensky’s inauguration. One of Pence’s top advisers was on the July 25 call when Trump made clear his demand that Zelensky open investigations into various Democratic officials, including Biden, whom Trump named on the call. Pence was given the transcript of the call before his September 1 meeting with Zelensky, when he reiterated Trump’s threat.

Pence’s defense is that, even though the readout of Trump’s call with Zelensky was in his briefing materials on his trip to Europe, he did not bother to read it before the meeting. “Officials close to Pence contend that he traveled to Warsaw for a meeting with Zelensky on Sept. 1 probably without having read — or at least fully registered — the transcript,” the Post records.

[Zoonart]

1. My dope was an innocent dupe.

[Firestorm49]

2. Bullshit! The "Oh, I'm so innocent" crap is nauseating,

and oh so predictable from this low end party.

[lark]

3. REally, the line is - Vote for me, I'm totally stupid and incompetent?

WTF Pence, this is beyond weak.

[saidsimplesimon]

4. Mother and the congregation will forgive him, Praise Be.

[lagomorph777]

5. But verily, his God shall smite him.

[Collimator]

6. So, he says that he didn't do the required reading.

About as plausible as the "Dog Ate My Homework" defense.

[BHDem53]

7. Dense pence.

On the fence?