MULTIPLE UPDATES: My Prediction: Ukraine Damage Will Go Deep

Yes, my prediction is that the damage from the Biden-Ukraine scandal--and that's what it is, despite the efforts of NeverTrump bloggers to cast a shadow on Trump--will not be confined to Biden. It will be used by Trump to play up issues that will resonate with and expand his base.

Democrat corruption is one of those issues, of course. Every Blue State voter knows all about that, and this Hunter Biden story is crasser than most, because Hunter is such a despicable person and his father is such an enabler.

Democrat corruption also plays right into the issue of "privilege". What could be more privileged than getting to fire prosecutors who are looking at your ne'er do well kids? Only white Dems get to do that. But, come to think of it, who but white Dems get to lie about their ethnicity to get great paying jobs at elite places like Harvard--with no consequences? They even get to run for president without being challenged on that. But Trump's gonna change that once the campaign starts in earnest. Every middle class person who's paying through the nose for college tuition will hear about that, and about the liberal elites who cheat their kids into those colleges the middle class can't get into.

In a less direct way, this will also play into the immigration and tariffs issues. The nation will likely sense the connection between liberal preference for foreigners over the American middle class--and the Dem tendency to enrich themselves through foreign dealings. Yes, Hillary will be a topic (cf. link, above), and none of this will help the hoity toity Warren.

Finally, if Biden is eliminated before the primaries even start--and I'm betting on that--the Dem race will be a cut throat contest of extremists. Both Warren and Sanders will be competing for the biggest share of the same pool of liberal extremists--because that's who votes in Dem primaries now. Warren is a shrill, hectoring, extremist on virtually any issue you can name, and the country will be treated to her trying to outdo the unrepentant socialist Sanders.


UPDATE 1: Nunes to Maria Bartiromo:

Rep. Devin Nunes: These stories first originated, first originated back when Hillary Clinton was trying to make sure Biden didn’t get in the race. So now that these have been ressurected, I don’t know who came up with the scheme, maybe there really is this whistleblower is not a partisan. We want to hear from that whistle-blower but it sure looks like the scheme has backfired. And like I said it looks like this is the end of Biden’s campaign. I really do.

Interesting. Warren is said to be close to Hillary. Getting advice from her. Yeah, go figure.


UPDATE 2: Uh-Oh! More Hillary, via GP, Former Ukrainian Secret Service Official Leaks Info on How Ukraine Funded Clinton Campaign with Stolen IMF Money. The Prozorov blog is in Ukrainian, but you can get lots more details beyond the excerpt below by following the link:

Vasily Prozorov is a former employee of the Ukrainian security service SBU. On his blog Ukraine Leaks, he reveals how former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and Oligarch Victor Pinchuk may have helped divert IMF funds to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. 

By Collin McMahon 

Vasily Prozorov was an Ukrainian security service (SBU) staffer from 1999 to 2018. Since 2014, he was an expert consultant in the SBU’s main anti-terror unit. In 2018, he fled to Russia. The Ukrainians now call him a traitor. Writing on his blog Ukraine Leaks, he says that in 2016, the Ukrainian government openly supported Hillary Clinton and tried to help her defeat Donald Trump. 

“Former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko was terribly afraid of a Republican victory, believing Donald Trump would change Russia policy and lift sanctions, reducing support for Ukraine and robbing Poroshenko of his Western power base,” Prozorov writes. “Ukrainegate is a criminal conspiracy of representatives of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the leadership of Ukraine in the person of Poroshenko, aimed at preventing Donald Trump from winning.” 

“At that time, I worked at SBU HQ in Kiev,“ says Prozorov. “I remember the panic that gripped the power structures in Ukraine after Donald Trump’s victory. They expected immediate retaliation from Washington for Ukraine’s participation in the attacks on Trump. Many politicians deleted their social media posts criticizing Trump.” However, as it turned out, the phony Russiagate witch hunt kept the Trump campaign from doing anything that could look like “collusion” or “obstruction” abroad. Now, however, the Ukrainegate conspiracy is starting to unravel.

The IMF as a giant Establshment slush fund? I guess that makes sense, right?


UPDATE 3: Lindsey Graham tells Maria Bartiromo that he wants "DOJ"--I think he means, Bill Barr--to investigate "all things Ukraine." Including Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election and Biden involvement in Ukraine. Just like we looked at all things Russia. Ouch! Whose idea was it to bring up the whole Ukraine angle?

UPDATE 4: Oh, this from The National Interest is good. Americans don't give this much thought, but imagine how this looks to the rest of the world that actually follows world news. Imagine how it looks to Putin, and Russians generally. Imagine how it looks to Iranians, and Middle Easterners generally.

“You need to know that the New York Times and the Washington Post seem to be solidly behind Joe Biden as the establishment candidate. So, I see this as a sort of preemptive move just in case it turns out that Biden and his son are guilty of corruption. Now let’s be clear: if they are innocent, they should have nothing to fear about this,” explained Ray McGovern, a former CIA official of twenty-seven years who has previously chaired the National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President’s Daily Brief. “The New York Times and the Washington Post have a record of blowing up stories to discredit him or to prevent more damage to the Democrats and that’s what I see here.” 

Regarding the inspector general contradicting the DNI Chair, McGovern commented that it was the first instance of it he’d seen in his career. “Usually the IG will defer to the acting head of the CIA or head of the DNI apparatus. This time this fellow went forward. Now the essence of the complaint is really kind of strange. To be a legitimate intelligence complaint it has to involve an intelligence matter. And if it’s Trump talking to Zelensky, what intelligence matter would they be talking about? Unless it’s that, the Inspector General himself overreached and that can be brought back by lawyers in the Department of Justice,” he told the National Interest. 

The Biden family’s connections to Ukraine that were allegedly discussed go back to the ouster of incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. In a leaked phone call weeks prior to the coup, then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nulaand discussed with then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt toppling the government. They also discussed who might lead it. “We want to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing,” said Pyatt. Nuland responded, Biden is “willing.”

“It was in February when Yanukovych was overthrown, and just a few months later (in May), Joe Biden’s son and a close friend of John Kerry’s stepson, they both join the board of this Ukrainian gas company. And the name of that was Burisma Holdings,” said Joe Lauria, editor of Consortium News and a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. “So just after an American-backed coup, you have Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden and this John Kerry family friend joining the board of probably the largest private gas producer in Ukraine.”

“[T]hey installed the new government, and as the bounty of this coup, Joe Biden’s son personally profited. He would not have gotten that job if Yanukovych was still in power,” Lauria told the National Interest.

UPDATE 4: Don Surber gets some good licks in, as well as some shrewd observations:

Who launched the Ukraine scandal? It was a brilliant piece of passive-aggressiveness that while appearing to be another attack on President Donald John Trump, ultimately is the latest attempt to bring Joe Biden down. 

The narrative is that President Trump asked Ukraine's president-elect to investigate Hunter Biden's crooked wheeling and dealing. 

The press was outraged that a president would interfere like this. 

But readers said, hey, wait a minute. Didn't Joe Biden do something worse as vice president? 

...

To protect his son from going to prison for corruption, Biden withheld a billion bucks in aid. 

Obama approved this. Why do you think he sent Biden instead of going there himself? 

Biden is problematic for Democrats. He is about as presidential as a rock and almost as smart, but he appeals to two important voting blocs in the Democrat Party: black voters and moderates -- and by moderates, I mean old white people. 

The Squad may be happy to dump the latter but elections are simple addition and subtraction. Democrats still need white votes. Hillary got 37% of the white vote in 2016 and lost. 

Democrats need to replace Biden with someone you can present in public without wincing.