Lol

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If Morrison admits he viewed Trump's action as illegal, then Morrison incriminates himself as a knowing participant in the coverup.

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Do you ever stop and think about what you are saying? Puff puff pass.

Rockdoc said:

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Lol

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No it's got to be true. He lied under oath to keep from admitting that he knew that a crime was committed.

You think you know more than he does? You think he was lying? Naked Picture Chasing Schiff rolled the dice and he crapped out with this witness. You justifying it doesn't make it so.

MetoliusAg said:

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Easy to see why Morrison reportedly testified he personally viewed the (illegal) quid pro quo as improper but not illegal. If Morrison admits he viewed Trump's action as illegal, then Morrison incriminates himself as a knowing participant in the coverup.

I'm not a Deep State Truther, but if I was, I'd be wondering right now whether Morrison is another of the numerous Republican Establishment embedded in the WH and Executive Branch who want to bring Trump down.

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So now you are trying to cast doubts on Morrison when he didn't give you exactly what you wanted by trying to tie him to the Deep State Rino Division? Wow the somersaults Dems do for their narratives is inspiring if nothing else.

FriscoKid said:

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Rockdoc said:

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Lol

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No it's got to be true. He lied under oath to keep from admitting that he knew that a crime was committed.

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Makes perfect sense /etcetera

MetoliusAg said:

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Easy to see why Morrison reportedly testified he personally viewed the (illegal) quid pro quo as improper but not illegal. If Morrison admits he viewed Trump's action as illegal, then Morrison incriminates himself as a knowing participant in the coverup.

I'm not a Deep State Truther, but if I was, I'd be wondering right now whether Morrison is another of the numerous Republican Establishment embedded in the WH and Executive Branch who want to bring Trump down.

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Repeating it over and over doesn't make a non-crime a crime.

Give it up. This was your big star witness who even resigned to give this testimony.

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"There's nothing wrong or illegal with a President holding up $350M of foreign aid to extort/bribe a foreign country's govmt to investigate and smear the President's chief political rival."

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^
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That's not a hill any rational person with integrity would voluntarily choose to defend. But for Trump and Giuliani's quid pro quo scheme, it's one of the few remaining (and btw, very flawed) arguments still available to their defenders.

When that argument fails, there are a couple of arguments Trump defenders will turn to:

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"Okay, yes, we admit it, it was wrong for the President to use $357M of foreign aid to extort/bribe a foreign country to investigate and smear the President's chief political rival. But it doesn't rise to an impeachable offense."

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"The HoR impeachment inquiry process was improper and unfair, so when the Senate trial begins, a motion to dismiss the case on these grounds should be made, followed by the Senate voting and agreeing to that".

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Jmho: as things currently stand today, the majority of Republican Senators would vote to dismiss or not convict Trump based on one of these.

So the report is he confirmed what Bill Taylor said, but his opinion is that it was improper but not illegal? Is that right? Saw a post that said he didn't agree with Taylor, but haven't seen that anywhere else.

On Bill Taylor, he never said he thought it was illegal either. He described the relationship with Ukraine, but when pressed to give a judgement on the legality of what was going on and whether or not it was a quid pro quo, he had his "I don't speak Latin" line and told congress it was their job to make that judgement.

MetoliusAg said:

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Quote:

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"There's nothing wrong or illegal with a President holding up $350M of foreign aid to extort/bribe a foreign country's govmt to investigate and smear the President's chief political rival."

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^
|
That's not a hill any rational person with integrity would voluntarily choose to defend. But for Trump and Giuliani's quid pro quo scheme, it's one of the few remaining (and btw, very flawed) arguments still available to their defenders.

When that argument fails, there are a couple of arguments Trump defenders will turn to:

Quote:

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"Okay, yes, we admit it, it was wrong for the President to use $357M of foreign aid to extort/bribe a foreign country to investigate and smear the President's chief political rival. But it doesn't rise to an impeachable offense."

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Quote:

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"The HoR impeachment inquiry process was improper and unfair, so when the Senate trial begins, a motion to dismiss the case on these grounds should be made, followed by the Senate voting and agreeing to that".

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Jmho: as things currently stand today, the majority of Republican Senators would vote to dismiss or not convict Trump based on one of these.

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Should we give military aid to countries who don't provide aid for criminal investigations?
Is it illegal for a Republican administration to investigate a Democrat? How about a Dem investigating a Republican?

I 100% expect these questions to go unasnwered

It appears these libs are having trouble with this latest development. Lol

agsfan said:

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So the report is he confirmed what Bill Taylor said, but his opinion is that it was improper but not illegal? Is that right? Saw a post that said he didn't agree with Taylor, but haven't seen that anywhere else.

On Bill Taylor, he never said he thought it was illegal either. He described the relationship with Ukraine, but when pressed to give a judgement on the legality of what was going on and whether or not it was a quid pro quo, he had his "I don't speak Latin" line and told congress it was their job to make that judgement.

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Morrison also pointed out key factual inaccuracies in testimony provided by William Taylor, a State Department official who works in the U.S. embassy in Kiev, Ukraine. Morrison said that, contrary to Taylor's claims, Morrison never met with the Ukrainian National Security advisor in his private hotel room.

Morrison also said Taylor falsely claimed that Ambassador Gordon Sondland demanded a public statement from the Ukrainian president committing to investigate Burisma, a controversial Ukrainain energy company that paid Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter millions of dollars to sit on its board.

"My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland's proposal to [Ukrainian National Security Advisor Andriy] Yermak was that it could be sufficient if the new Ukrainian prosecutor general not President Zelensky would commit to pursue the Burisma investigation," Morrison testified.

Morrison testified that the transcript of the phone call that was declassified and released by Trump in late September "accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call," and that he was concerned that the substance of the call would be leaked to the media. Morrison said he immediately informed a NSC lawyer about his concerns that the phone call would be leaked. Democrats have alleged that security measures taken to prevent leaks of the top secret call transcript prove that Trump should be removed from office.

He also told lawmakers that the national security process worked as designed in the case of the military funding that Congress appropriated for Ukraine.

"I am pleased our process gave the president the confidence he needed to approve the release of the security sector assistance," he said. "I am proud of what I have been able, in some small way, to help the Trump administration accomplish."

Sine poena nulla lex.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/31/nsc-official-tim-morrison-to-schiff-i-was-not-concerned-that-anything-illegal-was-discussed-in-trump-ukraine-phone-call/

Just to add the link to what will25u posted above.

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Morrison testified that the transcript of the phone call that was declassified and released by Trump in late September "accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call," and that he was concerned that the substance of the call would be leaked to the media

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^^^^^^^^^
Can you read?

C@LAg said:

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this thread has such a high level of comedy from the usual suspects.

they are so ****ing oblivious it is both sad and entertaining.

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Why do they keep falling for it though? It's like some kind of mental illness. I'm being serious.

Sine poena nulla lex.

Where are those quotes from?

What if said investigation ultimately exhonerates the Bidens? Is that positive news considered a campaign contribution from Ukraine, or from Trump, using the same logic that is being used to attack Trump?

Also, since the liberals were posting here that if a few republicans in the Senate backed impeachment would it be bi-partisan. They seemed to think so...

"Two Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with all Republicans showing bi-partisan disapproval of the resolution."

Morrison's statement about his own state of mind may conceivably provide some semblance of cover (i.e., self-exculpatory rationale) for Morrison's own actions.

But it didn't provide any exoneration for the illegal actions of Trump, Mulvaney, and Giuliani.

And quite frankly, even Morrison's defense of his own behavior is very weak, given that he viewed the contents of the phone call to be alarming enough to warrant being improperly hidden away on a special NSA server reserved for highly-classified natsec stuff.

He will get Trump this time. Just wait. When he doesn't he will call everyone racist and then come back with another username.

MetoliusAg said:

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Morrison's statement about his own state of mind may conceivably provide some semblance of cover (i.e., self-exculpatory rationale) for Morrison's own actions.

But it didn't provide any exoneration for the illegal actions of Trump, Mulvaney, and Giuliani.

And quite frankly, even Morrison's defense of his own behavior is very weak, given that he viewed the contents of the phone call to be alarming enough to warrant being improperly hidden away on a special NSA server reserved for highly-classified natsec stuff.

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LOL. Keep spinning.

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Jmho: as things currently stand today, the majority of Republican Senators would vote to dismiss or not convict Trump based on one of these.

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Dude. Every Republican but Romney will give him a pass. And hell, there's a decent chance Romney does too.

Found Morrison's opening statement
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tim-morrison-testimony-read-the-full-text-of-white-house-officials-opening-statement-to-impeachment-committees-today/

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Opening Statement of Timothy Morrison

Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform

October 31, 2019

Chairman Schiff and Members of the Committees, I appear today under subpoena to answer your questions about my time as Senior Director for European Affairs at the White House and the National Security Council ("NSC"). I will give you the most complete information I can, consistent with my obligations to the President and the protection of classified information. I do not know who the whistleblower is, nor do I intend to speculate as to who it may be.

Before joining the NSC in 2018, I spent 17 years as a Republican staffer, serving in a variety of roles in both houses of Congress. My last position was Policy Director for the then-Majority Staff of the House Armed Services Committee.


I. The Role of the National Security Council

From July 9, 2018 to July 15, 2019, I served as a Special Assistant to the President for National Security and as the NSC Senior Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Biodefense. In that role, I had limited exposure to Ukraine, focusing primarily on foreign military sales and arms control. On July 15, 2019, I became Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security. In this role, I serve as the lead interagency coordinator for national security issues involving Europe and Russia.

It is important to start with the role of the NSC. Since its creation by Congress in 1947, the NSC has appropriately evolved in shape and size to suit the needs of the President and the National Security Advisor it serves at the time. But its mission and core function has fundamentally remained the same: to coordinate across departments and agencies of the Executive Branch to ensure the President has the policy options he needs to accomplish his objectives and to see that his decisions are implemented. The NSC staff does not make policy. NSC staff are most effective when we are neutral arbiters, helping the relevant Executive Branch agencies develop options for the President and implement his direction.

In my current position, I understood our primary U.S. policy objective in Ukraine was to take advantage of the once-in-a-generation opportunity that resulted from the election of President Zelensky and the clear majority he had gained in the Ukrainian Rada to see real anti-corruption reform take root. The Administration's policy was that the best way for the United States to show its support for President Zelensky's reform efforts was to make sure the United States' longstanding bipartisan commitment to strengthen Ukraine's security remained unaltered, it is easy to forget here in Washington, but impossible in Kyiv, that Ukraine is still under armed assault by Russia, a nuclear-armed state. We also tend to forget that the United States had helped convince Ukraine to give up Soviet nuclear weapons in 1994. United States security sector assistance (from the Departments of Defense and State) is, therefore, essential to Ukraine. Also essential is a strong and positive relationship with Ukraine at the highest levels of our respective governments.

In my role as Senior Director for European Affairs, I reported directly to former Deputy National Security Advisor, Dr. Charles Kupperman, and former National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton. I kept them fully informed on matters that I believed merited their awareness or when I felt I needed some direction. During the time relevant to this inquiry, I never briefed the President or Vice President on matters related to Ukrainian security. It was my job to coordinate with the U.S. Embassy Chief of Mission to Ukraine William Taylor, Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker, and other interagency stakeholders in the Departments of Defense and State of Ukrainian matters.

My primary responsibility has been to ensure federal agencies had consistent messaging and policy guidance on national security issues involving European and Russian affairs. As Dr. Fiona Hill and I prepared for me to succeed her, one of the areas we discussed was Ukraine. In that discussion, she informed me of her concerns about two Ukraine processes that were occurring: the normal interagency process led by the NSC with the typical department and agency participation and a separate process that involved chiefly the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. Dr. Hill told me that Ambassador Sondland and President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, were trying to get President Zelensky to reopen Ukrainian investigations into Burisma. At the time, I did not know what Burisma was or what the investigation entailed. After the meeting with Dr. Hill, I googled Burisma and learned that it was a Ukrainian energy company and that Hunter Biden was on its board. I also did not understand why Ambassador Sondland would be involved in Ukraine policy, often without the involvement of our duly-appointed Chief of Mission, Ambassador Bill Taylor.

My most frequent conversations were with Ambassador Taylor because he was the U.S. Chief of Mission in Ukraine and I was his chief conduit for information related to White House deliberations, including security sector assistance and potential head-of-state meetings. This is a normal part of the coordination process.


II. Review of Open Source Documents in Preparation for Testimony

In preparation for my appearance today, I reviewed the statement Ambassador Taylor provided this inquiry on October 22, 2019. I can confirm that the substance of his statement, as it relates to conversations he and I had, is accurate. My recollections differ on two of the details, however. I have a slightly different recollection of my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland. On page 10 of Ambassador Taylor's statement, he recounts a conversation I relayed to him regarding Ambassador Sondland's conversation with Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Yermak. Ambassador Taylor wrote: "Ambassador Sondland told Mr. Yermak that security assistance money would not come until President Zelensky committed to pursue the Burisma investigation." My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland's proposal to Mr. Yermak was that it could be sufficient if the new Ukrainian prosecutor generalnot President Zelenskywould commit to pursue the Burisma investigation. I also would like to clarify that I did not meet with the Ukrainian National Security Advisor in his hotel room, as Ambassador Taylor indicated on page 11 of his statement. Instead, an NSC aide and I met with Mr. Danyliuk in the hotel's business center.

I also reviewed the Memorandum of Conversation ("MemCont') of the July 25 phone call that was released by the White House. I listened to the call as it occurred from the Situation Room. To the best of my recollection, the MemCon accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call. I also recall that I did not see anyone from the NSC Legal Advisor's Office in the room during the call. After the call, I promptly asked the NSC Legal Advisor and his Deputy to review it. I had three concerns about a potential leak of the MemCon: first, how it would play out in Washington's polarized environment; second, how a leak would affect the bipartisan support our Ukrainian partners currently experience in Congress; and third, how it would affect the Ukrainian perceptions of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed.


III. White House Hold on Security Sector Assistance

I was not aware that the White House was holding up the security sector assistance passed by Congress until my superior, Dr. Charles Kupperman, told me soon after I succeeded Dr. Hill. I was aware that the President thought Ukraine had a corruption problem, as did many others familiar with Ukraine. I was also aware that the President believed that Europe did not contribute enough assistance to Ukraine. I was directed by Dr. Kupperman to coordinate with the interagency stakeholders to put together a policy process to demonstrate that the interagency supported security sector assistance to Ukraine. I was confident that our national security principalsthe Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the head of the National Security Councilcould convince President Trump to release the aid because President Zelensky and the reform-oriented Rada were genuinely invested in their anti-corruption agenda.

Ambassador Taylor and I were concerned that the longer the money was withheld, the more questions the Zelensky administration would ask about the U.S. commitment to Ukraine. Our initial hope was that the money would be released before the hold became public because we did not want the newly constituted Ukrainian government to question U.S. support.

I have no reason to believe the Ukrainians had any knowledge of the review until August 28, 2019. Ambassador Taylor and I had no reason to believe that the release of the security sector assistance might be conditioned on a public statement reopening the Burisma investigation until my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland. Even then I hoped that Ambassador Sondland's strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by leaders in the Administration and Congress, who understood the strategic importance of Ukraine to our national security.

I am pleased our process gave the President the confidence he needed to approve the release of the security sector assistance. My regret is that Ukraine ever learned of the review and that, with this impeachment inquiry, Ukraine has become subsumed in the U.S. political process.


IV. Conclusion

After 19 years of government service, I have decided to leave the NSC. I have not submitted a formal resignation at this time because I do not want anyone to think there is a connection between my testimony today and my impending departure. I plan to finalize my transition from the NSC after my testimony is complete.

During my time in public service, I have worked with some of the smartest and most self-sacrificing people in this country. Serving at the White House in this time of unprecedented global change has been the opportunity of a lifetime. I am proud of what I have been able, in some small way, to help the Trump Administration to accomplish.

Thank you for your attention.

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I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed.

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MetoliusAg said:

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Prosecutors often refer to this type of behavior as "consciousness of something something", iirc.

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LOL

MetoliusAg said:

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Easy to see why Morrison reportedly testified he personally viewed the (illegal) quid pro quo as improper but not illegal. If Morrison admits he viewed Trump's action as illegal, then Morrison incriminates himself as a knowing participant in the coverup.

I'm not a Deep State Truther, but if I was, I'd be wondering right now whether Morrison is another of the numerous Republican Establishment embedded in the WH and Executive Branch who want to bring Trump down.

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It wasn't illegal

Do you even read your own posts?

According to the reporting coming out today:

-- While offering self-serving testimony intended to excuse his own post phone-call actions and protect himself from potential charges of obstruction and conspiracy, Morrison confirmed in his testimony that Sondland told Ukraine they needed to investigate Burisma or they wouldn't get the military aid.

-- If the reporting is accurate, then Morrison confirmed the more serious of the two quid pro quo extortion / bribery scenarios. (Mulvaney already publicly confirmed the other one.)

-- With regard to Trump's, Mulvaney's, and Giuliani's culpability in the illegal quid pro quo scheme, it doesn't matter whether Morrison thinks it was legal or not. The evidence + statutory language + a trial are what determines that.

I'm not a lawyer, but it's difficult to see how Morrison's confirmation of the illegal quid pro quo scheme is good news for Trump, Mulvaney, & Giuliani. It pretty much assures there will be Articles of Impeachment.

mrad85 said:

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Rockdoc said:

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Do you even read your own posts?

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Cut and Paste - No need

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You're right. You can tell it's cut and paste and he doesn't even read it.

MetoliusAg said:

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Morrison's statement about his own state of mind may conceivably provide some semblance of cover (i.e., self-exculpatory rationale) for Morrison's own actions.

But it didn't provide any exoneration for the illegal actions of Trump, Mulvaney, and Giuliani.

And quite frankly, even Morrison's defense of his own behavior is very weak, given that he viewed the contents of the phone call to be alarming enough to warrant being improperly hidden away on a special NSA server reserved for highly-classified natsec stuff.

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What laws were broken?