If the information being reported by the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal concerning Trump and Ukraine's President is substantially correct, Trump has (arguably) committed an impeachable offense. (Note that I stress the word "if".)

The tantalizing question: Just who is this "whistleblower" person? Isn't it interesting that John Bolton is either fired (or "resigns") as National Security Adviser one week - with Trump kicking him in the teeth on his way out the door - followed almost immediately [the next week] by news about this whistleblower complaint. (Even if the whistleblower is not Bolton, he surely had knowledge of this person and was probably privy to the details of his or her complaint, so Mr. Bolton could easily have tipped off the press - after he was ingloriously fired.) If it is Bolton, this would be another delicious case of what goes around coming around.

The old bromide about hell having no fury like a woman scorned may need to be modified: Hell hath no fury like a National Security Adviser scorned.

Ukraine Could Badly Damage Both Trump and The Democrats

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-ho...-the-democrats

Jonathan Turley is a Georgetown University law professor. He does not have a reputation for being a partisan hack. If most of what Professor Turley is reporting about Joe Biden's son is substantially correct, I would guess that this is more damaging to the Democrats than it is to Trump. After all, we've become accustomed to allegations of self-dealing with respect to our Commander-in-Chief. It's another thing altogether when it begins to appear that the favorite to be the Democratic nominee is (or may be) involved in the same kind of behavior.

Biden's reaction (yesterday) to a question from a reporter about his son's business dealings with Ukraine got an interesting response. Biden appeared peeved, right on the edge of losing his cool. He indignantly insisted that the reporter was "asking the wrong question" implying that this was all about Trump and had nothing to do with his son. In other words, Biden was trying to evade the question. When a politician tries to evade a direct answer to a direct question, it makes one wonder if we're not hearing a replay of Bill Clinton insisting that he did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky ...

The next Democratic debate might be worth watching ...

Biden has admitted that he pressured the Ukrainians to stop investigating his son.
Trump has admitted (right?) that he pressured the Ukrainians to go back and investigate. Big scandal but is anybody trying to hide anything?
Here is Biden admitting to it. The whole story smells worse than normal stories due to the two-sided nature of it.

Yeah trump withholding congressionally allocated financial aid in exchange for an investigation by a foreign government to a political opponent is pretty egregious.

But you know that nothing is going to happen right?

Your first sentence is false.

I'm not so sure about that ... Do you really think Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, et al. are going to let this slip by in the next Democratic debate? (That's a rhetorical question.) They will surely have campaign surrogates not-so-subtly suggesting that we don't want a story like this being rehashed when the Democratic nominee is facing Trump in the Presidential debates. The latest polling in Iowa is showing Warren neck and neck with Biden. This kind of news will not help the former Vice President and his [formerly] squeaky clean image.

I doubt if the press - especially "conservative media" - is going to let Joe have a free pass on this one. Remember what happened to Gary Hart once the press got on the scent that maybe the candidate wasn't being fully upright with them? (Hart was a frontrunner too - until the wheels came off.)

Deep fakes or semantics?

You're making a distinction without a difference. Biden insisting that the Ukrainians fire the prosecutor who just happened to be investigating his son is tantamount to admitting that he "pressured" the Ukrainians. Threatening to withhold a billion dollars in promised aid if that prosecutor was not fired can certainly be interpreted as pressure. Whether or not he admitted it is irrelevant. The action is what counted.

No. I watched your linked video (and have followed this story a bit) and neither in the video nor elsewhere has Biden admitted that he pressured the Ukrainians to stop investigating his son.

US policy at the time was that the Ukrainian government should fire then-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin because he wasn't prosecuting government and business leaders for corruption, and Biden was the point person for the Ukraine, but admitting to that isn't admitting to what you claimed. Here is an article from Just Security that lays out some of the background:

Seeing as Luckbox claimed that Biden admitted to a crime and to betraying the country, whereas what he actually admitted to is legal and following general US policy at the time, the distinction seems like a huge difference to me.

Also, Biden's son was not under investigation.

BTW, I watched the first few episodes from Servant of the People (on Netflix), and it was pretty good. This is the Ukrainian show about a school teacher that accidentally becomes president, and whose star is now the actual president of Ukraine.

Well I'm sold. It's a political hack-job and Trump is now caught up in it. Biden innocent. I think this is the beginning of the end for Trump.
Narrator: Real life corruption meets political theater. Nothing will happen.
It's good for Warren though.

This actually says something fwiw.

It's just the same business we've seen repeatedly: Trump engages in criminal behavior with the grace and intellect of of a drunken rhino at a dinner party. People around make up a few lies so his supporters can feel good about still supporting him. Anyone doing whistle-blowing or pointing out that he is a really bad excuse for a president is obviously an enemy of the state.

In the end his vocal core is going to go around and scream about Biden. They don't want truth, they want excuses. I'll bet you it took like a max of 10 seconds for the skepticism to pass and and be replaced by eagerness over finding something to cling on to.

For what it worth, I only blame Trump for his incompetent and corrupt actions as a president. All the rest of this giant incompetent mess is on the rest of us.

As for who the whistle-blower is, who knows. If he is using a quarter of a billion dollars of government funds to get foreign political governments to campaign for him, the reason behind the whistle-blowing could be something as novel as a semblance of integrity.

Yup the left keeps going we got him this time and yet.....

Did Trump do it? Of course
Biden gonna take more of a bad hit than Trump

They are all so filthy dirty.

?

Well let's say if I didn't have much faith in the integrity of Ukrainian politics I'd call it a joke but since I don't actually know much about his rise to power I'll retract my statement.

From Just Security
So Trump's source for this Biden scandal is a revenge lie by the corrupt prosecutor the United States insisted Ukraine replace. With Biden the point man for the Obama policy. The new prosecutor is actually prosecuting corruption that Shokin failed to prosecute. So truth is, if Hunter were guilty of something, Joe prompted Ukraine to put in a prosecutor who would actually prosecute him.


PairTheBoard

It would appear that Joe Biden was just really concerned about corruption in Ukraine and was willing to let the chips fall where they may in regards to Hunter and Bursina Holdings.
I mean if the entire West was against that prosecutor he must have been pretty bad because everyone knows no corruption in the West. But Ukraine still holding on to those glorious post-Soviet days.

Another shocking revelation here: it turns out that our resident media skeptic is 100% on board with Giuliani's talking points? So unexpected!

Fortunately that doesn't actually matter.

It actually does. Trump's dealings with Ukraine are sounding increasingly dubious, the response from his team has been admissions about some key facts mixed with accusations towards Biden.

Those accusations are being amplified into discussions and debate on the subject world-wide by hundreds of thousand of people. Such misinformation is a very, very powerful political tool. It has already derailed this thread.

We've seen this play before. Tens of millions of American voters believe their sitting president was exonerated by the Mueller report after being unfairly targeted for investigation. This is also a result of politically weaponized misinformation.

You speak a lot about being skeptical of the media. You don't seem to realize that people like you and me are currently playing a part in what constitutes the most powerful media so far in history, namely social media. And unlike traditional media, this one's trustworthiness doesn't hinge on anybody but ourselves.

I greatly resent and am hugely offended by your comparing my President to a drunken rhino. You need to apologize to drunken rhinos everywhere for your callous comparison.