November 3, 2019

Whew. There's a lot here to unpack.

First, let us just acknowledge for the typical Fox News viewer, Pirro's views have the decidedly incorrect imprimatur of "justice" and legal expertise. It's a little like thinking Ronald McDonald is a culinary expert.

This particular clown, however, offers up a vociferous (does she have the ability to control the volume of her voice?) defense of Donald Trump that can only invite the question of whether she believes this only of Donald Trump and/or Republican administrations or would she be this insistent for a hypothetical Hillary Clinton presidency?

Don't laugh. We all know she would be one of the first with a pitchfork for a Democratic president.

In the end this is about a conversation our president had with the president of Ukraine.

To be clear, it's not. It's about Donald Trump abusing his office to demand a foreign leader assist him in his personal political future, a pattern for which there is some evidence he has done with other nations as well.

And to be honest with you, it's none of your damn business what was said.

The Constitution would argue that. Abuse of office is EXACTLY in the wheelhouse of Congress' constitutional mandate of check and balances on the Executive Branch.

We are not entitled to know what Barack Obama was promising Putin through Medvedev in that hot mic moment. And we are not allowed to know what the quid pro quo of Barack Obama was when he gave $150 billion to the ayatollah. Or are we just supposed to assume he was playing Santa Claus with Iran?

If we were not entitled to know, why did Pirro seek to profit personally about it by writing a book? Ironically, given how slavering Trump has been about Putin, that event did cause a lot of conservatives at the time to worry about "being soft" with Russia and question President Obama's ability to work in our national interest. Funny how that changed, innit? And the Iran deal has been a long debunked conservative talking point, untethered to facts. But factual analysis is never important to a Fox News anchor. It only hurts them.

A phone call with Ukraine involves policy. If you don't like the president's policy, vote for someone else.

First of all, Americans DID vote for someone else, by the tune of 3 million more votes. It was only the manipulation of the Electoral College that put this fraud in the office, by virtue of less than 80,000 votes in three states in a nation of 330 million people.

But your guy himself DENIED that this was about policy. He pretended that this whole kerfluffle was due to unnamed others telling him to call the president of Ukraine. But it doesn't matter. The very fact that the White House Legal Counsel sought to put the transcript of the call under keycode security and instructed Alexander Vindman to not speak to anyone about the call is straight up admission that the call was problematic ("consciousness of guilt", suckers! A little like tax fraud, eh, Jeanine?)

The guy on the other end of the phone says there was no pressure.

Yeah, hostages are well known for being absolutely truthful about their tormentors, right? Give Zelensky his due. He knew EXACTLY how to work Donald Trump, bringing up his victory and how smart his political tactics are as the entry point into asking for the aid for the Javelin missiles.

The transcript makes it clear there will be was no pressure. The guy on the other end didn't even know military fund weren't available. So how can there be a quid pro quo?

When we get an actual transcript, instead of the ellipses-ridden summary (remember, Vindman said that the ellipses covered over material points and when he tried to get the correct information added, it was removed again), maybe Pirro has a point. But the fact that they won't release it should tell you that she doesn't.

And I am tired of protecting this whistleblower.

Pirro isn't protecting anyone. Least of all this nation.

Barack Obama fired the whistleblower in "Fast and Furious." And this whistleblower is just a punk trying to get his leftist credits.

The whistleblower in the "Fast and Furious" scandal claimed he was retaliated against for coming forward, but despite the Republicans in Congress spending millions of taxpayer dollars and several years exhaustively investigating "Fast and Furious," (something Pirro had not a bit of problem with) they were never able to prove that. "Fast and Furious" ended up being a badly conceived tactic by the ATF during both the Bush and Obama administration that didn't make its way all the way up to the Oval Office until the Republicans needed a scandal to smear Obama with. Once they became aware of it, then-Attorney General Eric Holder ended the program. And with all other conservative smears, "whistleblower" John Dodson did not go through proper channels, but leaked to right wing blogs and Senator Charles Grassley. He joined Pirro in personally profiting off this sad moment in American history by writing a book as well.

And claiming without evidence that the current whistleblower is a "leftist" is just more of the same of the Trump defense book: just kill the messenger, because they know the message is indefensible. Of course, maybe Pirro's argument is that only leftists respect the Constitution and rule of law. In which case, I totally agree.

He's white noise totally irrelevant to the conversation which in itself is the best and only evidence. To all of you out there, get over it.

In that the whistleblower doesn't need to come forward any further since his version has been corroborated by multiple witnesses (and admitted to by Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney), I'd suggest that the person who need to get over this is Jeanine Pirro.

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