The House Intelligence Committee has heard testimony from several people — national security officials and diplomats — supportive or not of the interpretation that President Donald Trump conditioned military aid to Ukraine on the opening of an investigation against Hunter Biden’s company, Burisma Holdings, Ltd. (Hunter Biden is, of course, the son of former Vice President Joseph Biden.)

As the Republican members of the committee ably pointed out, none of these witnesses had direct proof the president had “bribed” or “extorted” Ukrainian officials to get an investigation of Burisma. The most celebrated witnesses, from the Democrat point of view, were (1) Fiona Hill, an NSC official and daughter of a British coal miner who attended university in the Soviet Union; (2) Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Soviet-born U.S. military official; (3) EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who changed his interpretation of the president’s actions after leftists organized threats to his hotel business; and (4) David Holmes, a State Department bureaucrat who “righteously” reported overhearing an embarrassing phone call between President Trump and Ambassador Sondland; — a kind of testimony as discreditable in its telling as all tattletale.

Congressman Will Hurd (R-Texas) impressed some non-partisan observers by saying that all the witness testimony — if taken at face value — failed to prove bribery or extortion. The president’s actions were irregular, unfortunate and messy, of course; but everyone is familiar by now with Trump’s style of governance.

If one spends time listening to Rudy Giuliani, however, a darker idea of the witness testimony comes into focus. Ukraine is a place where nearly all officials are corrupt, and the corruption is not strictly limited to Ukrainian officials. Furthermore, American diplomats in Ukraine are responsible for overseeing the way U.S. aid is used — to prevent embezzlement. This assigned task in itself requires an almost superhuman integrity and uprightness. We should not be too surprised if reports from the Ukrainian side suggest that the embezzlers of U.S. aid shared their booty in the form of kickbacks to America’s financial-aid overseers at the U.S. Embassy. In fact, Giuliani claims that he has Ukrainian witnesses who can provide damning counter-testimony to the Democrats’ narrative; — but the United States Embassy in Ukraine has blocked their visa applications so they cannot travel to the U.S. and testify.

All of this, of course, is related to the pre-existing Trump-Russia collusion allegations. As President Trump’s lawyer, Giuliani went to Ukraine looking for exculpatory evidence. He was not running a “separate channel of U.S. policy.” Lawyers are allowed to investigate matters on behalf of their clients, even if their client is the president. Is it messy? Yes. The personal interests of heads of state are, by the nature of the thing, often intertwined with the national interest. These interests cannot always be disentangled. To say that a president acts in his own personal interest when he seeks to investigate a rival is not proof of wrongdoing. It is proof that ours is a system of checks and balances in which countervailing interests keep each other in check. In other words, this is a process our Founding Fathers favored and built into the Constitutional system.

The dangerous precedent of the Democrat impeachment maneuver is found in their claim that any check on them — any investigation into their corruption — is itself a crime. If the public accepted their premise, we would not be a free country for long. In that case, honesty itself would be criminalized. The only possible whistleblower, then, would be the whistleblower whose testimony kills an investigation. Such is the case for impeachment.

This brings us to an obvious point: If Joe Biden is innocent of wrongdoing in halting the investigation into Burisma, what do the Democrats have to fear? Shouldn’t they welcome the chance to exonerate their man? But no, they characterize any effort to renew the investigation as criminal. Concern that Joe Biden misused his power is no concern at all. It is “a conspiracy theory.”

The President of the United States doesn’t have to be nice to the President of Ukraine. The President of Ukraine doesn’t have to do “the right thing.” The negotiation that may or may not lie between one thing and the other is not a criminal transaction. It cannot be criminal. But take a look at the following video:

If this doesn’t raise serious questions, then nothing does. It cannot be a crime for the president to seek answers in this matter — even if Joe Biden is running against him.

If it is criminal to seek an investigation of Burisma, then what are we to make of President Obama’s investigations into candidate Donald Trump?

We must uphold our system of checks and balances.

13 thoughts on “A Brief Comment on the Hearings of the House Intelligence Committee”

  1. Jeff

    Just informing you in regards to the Hong Kong District Council and Legislative Council elections, it is a farce. A lot of Hong Kong people are taking to social media warning that the Legislative Council election candidates are members of the Chinese Communist Party and people that are warning about this are being accused of being Pro-Chinese Communist Party.

    Jeff can I have your opinion regarding this?

    Also in page in the 2047 or Now and 2047 or Now V1 PDF, I forgot to fix a small error in page 19:

    The original sentence is:

    The Author is going to state the elites of Hong Kong which include Property Developer’s,
    Banking Elite, Media Owners and etc are in the control of the Ministry of State Security.

    I forgot to change it to

    The Author is going to state the elites of Hong Kong which include Property Developer’s,
    Banking Elite, Media Owners and etc are controlled by the Ministry of State Security.

    1. Communists accusing anti communists of being communists is a new kind of active measure. Just like Russian stooges in America accusing Trump of being a Russian stooge.

  2. Jeff

    Not sure if you have seen this, its a interview on RTHK with Martin Lee, he praises the US Congress and Senate for passing the Hong Kong Freedom and Democracy Bill and he is in favor of the Visa Waiver in the Hong Kong Freedom and Democracy Bill. By the way we have another confirmation that Martin Lee is a Chinese Communist Party Collaborator, he has ties to the NPC which is the National People’s Congress in China and he was also part of the Basic Law Committee that drafted the Basic Law for Hong Kong which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUTrBmnMHas

    Jeff can I have your opinion or commentary regarding this?

  3. Jeff

    Just informing you, the Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Movement/Hong Kong Independence Movement mainly the Hong Kong Democratic Party which is collaborating with the Chinese Communist Party has won the Hong Kong elections

    https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1494208-20191125.htm

    Jeff can I have your opinion regarding this as many local Hong Kong people were on social media saying that voting for the Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Movement/Hong Kong Independence Movement was voting for another movement controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, those that were saying it were basically labelled as ‘Pro-Beijing’ when they are not.

  4. By avoiding unrest and trusting voters to support them, protesters scored a bigger victory than if they had disrupted the polls. They also demonstrated that far from devolving into anarchy, as some on the government side have claimed, the protest movement can — unlike the police, Beijing or the city’s leaders — control when and where the unrest takes place.
    https://news.wsifn.com/index.php/2019/11/25/hong-kongers-the-depths-of-their-discontent-and-their-power/

  5. Jeff

    Not sure if you can offer a commentary since Donald Trump has signed the Hong Kong Freedom and Democracy Act into law

    1. There is little doubt the bill was veto proof; yet Trump should not have signed it under any circumstances. There is no excuse for anyone who puts their name on it. This does not make America great. This bill is a Trojan a Horse, as sure as any. He obligates the country to accept an untold number of refugees from China, a country that could send us spies, criminals — whole units of soldiers dressed as civilians. Perhaps it is mere icing on the cake, with so many Chinese nationals here studying at our universities. It seems only a matter of time before the country is colonized; but then, it is progressively paralyzed in its counterintelligence capabilities, in its defense capabilities, in its awareness of who is against it. A country cannot be so naive, so thoughtless, and survive.

      1. Jeff

        I have been heavily on the belief that the Chinese Communist Party wants the Hong Kong Freedom and Democracy Bill passed. I have been told by relatives living in Hong Kong that Chinese State Media are praising Trump for signing the Hong King Freedom and Democracy Bill into law.

    1. Lech Walesa has been named by a police official, in a Polish court, as an agent of the Communist secret police. This is controversial to mention, of course. In 1992 I met a leading figure in Fighting Solidarity who explained to me that Walesa was known as an agent of the Communist regime in years past, and that Solidarity itself was infiltrated and taken over by the communists. That is why Fighting Solidarity was formed. Whenever you form an anticommunist group they immediately target the group for infiltration.

  7. Jeff

    Lech Walesa has also stated he is willing to travel Hong Kong as well to fight for Democracy. I have a feeling that the Hong Kong Incident is nothing more than a staged theatre play.

    Lech Walesa was also on a Podcast at the Albert Einstein Institute giving advice to so-called ‘Pro-Democracy Protesters’:

    https://www.aei.org/multimedia/wth-is-going-on-in-hong-kong-solidarity-hero-lech-walesas-advice-for-pro-democracy-protesters/

    Lech Walesa stating he is willing to travel to Hong Kong:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/25/he-helped-end-soviet-empire-now-lech-walesa-wants-help-hong-kong/

  8. Jeff

    Not sure if you would be surprised, I have been told by a Hong Kong person on Twitter that the Hong Kong Protesters are coordinated via a forum and a twitter account that is known to be set up by Ministry of State Security agents called LIHKG and they have a presence in social media:

    https://twitter.com/LIHKGPicks

    Jeff, can I have your opinion or commentary regarding this?

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