Trump Only F*cked That Ukrainian Chicken Because He Loves America So Much

It's the Newt Gingrich school of patriotism.

Welcome back, Wonkers. We regret to inform you this fine Monday morning that Donald Trump is still president, the Ukrainium One fuckery continues unabated, Democrats are still dithering about how many crimes Trump has to commit before they'll do impeachment for real, and Republicans are clomping around on national television in fishnets and clear heels purring that they love that corruption, the dirtier the better, baby.

In case you've been hiding under the covers, the president of the United States got caught redhanded trying to force the brand new president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to frame Joe Biden for corruption. In fact, he brought it up  eight times  in the course of one phone call on July 25, at a time when the White House was blocking the release of $250 million of congressionally allocated funds for Ukraine because of concerns about corruption, despite the fact that the Pentagon had already completed its review and determined that the funds would be used for non-corrupt purposes. Then five minutes after the whistleblower complaint dropped, the White House had a come to Jesus moment and decided that Ukraine should get the cash right away, plus another $140 million for ... well, no one knows why. Also, Rudy Giuliani is BATSHIT INSANE. 

But you knew all that because you read this here mommyblog religiously, of course. So, before the next crazy bombshell drops, we'll do a quick Ukrainium One rundown.

Let's Get That Idiot Out of the Way First ...

On Saturday, Donald Trump waddled out to the helipad to confess that he sure as hell did ask Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Trump, looking very red, basically admits he asked Ukrainian President Zelensky to look into Biden during call that… https: //t.co/QmybiZSFqC

— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1569162969.0 

The conversation I had was largely congratulatory. It was largely corruption — all of the corruption taking place. It was largely the fact that we don't want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son, creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine.

Got that? President Wordsgood congratulated the Ukrainian president on the corruption, and warned him that he didn't want Joe Biden creating the corruption. Which was already there. In the Ukraine. Not in Trump's brain.

The EU, the IMF, and the White House all agreed in 2016 that Ukraine state prosecutor Viktor Shokin was wildly corrupt , but Joe Biden's fuckup son has been trying (and largely failing) to make money off his dad's name his whole life. And thus it is ILLEGAL CORRUPTERY for Biden to do his damn job and pressure Ukraine to fire Viktor Shokin, who had long since abandoned any investigation into the owner of the company that employed Hunter Biden.

And he's still at it this morning, pretending that Shokin was some kind of folk hero.

..Breaking News: The Ukrainian Government just said they weren’t pressured at all during the “nice” call. Sleepy Jo… https://t.co/VPlkdADk18

— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1569197036.0 

(For an interesting splainer on the way Ukrainian prosecutors have functioned as shakedown artists who hold power by protecting the president's enemies, check out this Washington Post Opinion piece by Ukrainian anti-corruption activist Serhiy Leshchenko.)

Also, Trump said he was considering releasing the transcript of the "beautiful, warm, nice conversation" he had with Zelenskiy. And he would have "no problem" with Rudy Giuliani being called to testify before Congress about his freelancing for the United States government. Look for those two things to happen ... NEVER.

And not for nothing, but Donald Trump's DC hotel took in $270,000 from Saudi lobbyists between December 2016 and February 2017. The Saudi royal family booked so many rooms at the Trump property, which he leases from the federal government, that it increased revenue by 13 percent in the first three months of 2018. Politico reports that a party of 25 Saudi royals stayed for a week this summer at Trump's Scottish Turnberry Resort. And those are just the reservations that reporters have managed to shake loose. Meanwhile, Trump has rewarded his pals by looking the other way when they literally hacked an American resident to death, and now he's going to park American troops in their kingdom as a warning to Iran.

So maybe Donald Trump is the last person on earth who should be lecturing anyone about using the resources of the American government to award friends who offer him private compensation. The second to last person is Failson Jr., who is out there flogging the shit out of this Biden nonsense. That is, when he's not out there flogging the shit out of the Trump Towers Delhi. As CREW points out, DJ offered a sweetener to Delhi condo buyers in the form of a face-to-face meeting with himself. And just last week he flew a planeload of Indian buyers to America for a meeting in New York.

Via Tribeca Developers LinkedIn  

Heckuva coincidence those Indian buyers getting facetime with the president's son the same week Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an official visit to the White House, huh? Not that he would ever think of selling access, perish the thought. 

The Whores

Mike Pompeo had his skirt all the way up around his danglies for his sitdown with Margaret Brennan. But he's got other clients to service, so he just mashed up the fake Biden corruption story with the fake election interference story. It's not like any of it's true anyway -- might as well just save time and jam 'em together, right?

.@margbrennan asked @SecPompeo if it was appropriate for @RudyGiuliani to call for a Biden investigation, and Pompe… https: //t.co/YxyUoZIRwj

— Face The Nation (@Face The Nation) 1569159978.0 

And, lest we forget, Ol' Mike is Secretary of State, and the State Department played matchmaker between Rudy Giuliani and Zelenskiy's aide Andriy Yermak in Madrid just days after the July 25 phone call where Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to gin up some bullshit on Biden. So if this scandal gets going, Pompeo's danglies might just be headed for the meat grinder.

And speaking of white dude balls, Steven Mnuchin went the whole Basic Instinct for Jake Tapper on State of the Union, insisting that it would be a "terrible precedent" to allow the House Intelligence Committee to see the complaint. Which is a weird way of saying follow the damn law and do what's been done with every other whistleblower complaint for years. But Mnuchin is into some weird shit. ALLEGEDLY.

.@jaketapper presses Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on President Trump's call to Ukraine's president and reports… https: //t.co/bQB9wgQkJd

— State of the Union (@State of the Union) 1569158752.0 

Naturally, the rest of the GOP treason squad fell obediently into line behind their Naked Emperor, insisting that pressuring foreign governments to frame your enemies is just good, sound policy, and also the whistleblower must be a Deep State Democrat or a liar or maybe doesn't exist. Or if they couldn't bring themselves to do that, they just made like Texas Senator John Cornyn and lied their balls off.

"I just frankly can't imagine why people have lost their minds so much over these daily reports of one thing or another," he told the Washington Posts's Phillip Rucker, claiming there was "no direct evidence" that Trump instructed Zelenskiy to look into Joe Biden. No evidence other than Trump's own explicit admission, that is.

Then Mitt Romney stuck his head up for five seconds to let us know that he definitely, 100 percent knows this is some evil, corrupt shit going down.

If the President asked or pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rival, either directly or thro… https: //t.co/kQI3mij2EN

— Mitt Romney (@Mitt Romney) 1569177291.0 

But don't worry, he'll be back to doing it anyway by the morning. Spineless little weenus gonna spineless little weenus.

Rudy Will Never Stop

Was there a quid pro quo where Trump said "no frame, no aid"? Definitely not! Or, you know, maybe.

BARTIROMO: Did the president threaten to cut off aid to Ukraine? GIULIANI: No, no. That was a false story. BARTIRO… https://t.co/rqPX9YVc8v

— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1569240253.0 

By tonight, he'll be on Hannity shouting that they broke it down into twelve easy payments, labeled it a "retainer," and cut the checks from the Trump Organization.

The Democrats

Miss Nancy is trying our patience mightily right now! Asked on Friday if the latest revelation that Trump tried to use American tax dollars to bribe the leader of a foreign country to frame his political rival made her more likely to support impeachment, a Pelosi adviser told NBC's John Harwood, "No. See any GOP votes for it?"

Which is NOT HOW CONSTITUTION GOES, MADAME SPEAKER! Article II does not say the president "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" unless the members of his own party object, in which case, it's all cool. Either the laws mean something, or they don't.

Then Sunday, Pelosi sent a letter to House Democrats inching a little closer to impeachment. A very little. She says if DNI Maguire -- who was required by law to hand the whistleblower complaint over to Congress once the Intelligence Committee Inspector General deemed it credible, but instead kicked it up to the White House and the Justice Department -- doesn't hand it over by Friday, SOMETHING BAD will happen.

If the Administration persists in blocking this whistleblower from disclosing to Congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the President they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation .

We'll believe it when we see it. House Intel Chair Adam Schiff seems to have hit his limit as well.

Rep. Adam Schiff says that if the reports about Pres. Trump’s conversation with Ukraine are proven true, then impea… https: //t.co/qM6uywDu5m

— State of the Union (@State of the Union) 1569161174.0 

Elizabeth Warren has been calling for impeachment since April. Because she's NOT A GODDAMN COWARD. And now? She's calling out the people who can do the thing.

After the Mueller report, Congress had a duty to begin impeachment. By failing to act, Congress is complicit in Tru… https: //t.co/uRBMsdKcyI

— Elizabeth Warren (@Elizabeth Warren) 1569022699.0 

The Ken Dolls

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, KEN VOGEL? This guy bought Giuliani's bullshit hook, line, and sinker back in May, when he penned a breathless story for the New York Times on "the Bidens' Ukrainian work," despite the fact that Joe Biden never did any work in Ukraine. In a matter of hours, Bloomberg totally debunked Vogel's smear, demonstrating that the investigation into the oligarch who owned the company which paid Hunter Biden (lotta degrees of separation, but Ken doesn't mind!) was shut down a year before Shokin was fired.

And yet, there he was on MSNBC bitching that Rudy Giuliani wouldn't shut the hell up and let him hype this piece of crap into a real story.

Here's @kenvogel of the New York Times saying on MSNBC that he views Joe Biden son's work in Ukraine as "a signific… https: //t.co/OJw0iRlnNO

— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1569013784.0 

Like, there is a story here. We've told some of it. There is more to be told. We are going to continue to sort of pull that back. That said, the way that Rudy is inserting himself into it is both not helpful, I think, to Rudy and to Trump because it kind of jumbles it. He's getting the facts wrong, and he is making it appear as if this is just a partisan hit job, whereas if he would just kind of leave the reporters to do the work on it, I think that, you know, potentially this story might be taken more seriously.

WHY WON'T RUDY GIULIANI LET KEN VOGEL HELP DONALD TRUMP?

That's okay, Ken. Donald knows you're pulling for him.

This is the real and only story! https: //t.co/4z8eOcm6PA

— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1569070435.0 

But this is really going the extra mile! Wow, you're an inspiration to Kens everywhere!

Re Biden and his son and Ukraine: When Biden helped forced the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor, all evidence sugge… https://t.co/9KDGvgeLmN

— Ken Dilanian (@Ken Dilanian) 1569179942.0 

NBC's Ken Dilanian is going all in on this bothsides shit. Sure Donald Trump is committing major crimes , but Joe Biden's son did something unambiguously legal but kind of unseemly, and isn't that basically the same thing?

 Oh, those delicious, buttery males! 

[ WH Transcript / WaPo] 

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