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the national interest 7:17 P.M.
Pence: I Participated in the Ukraine Plot But Only As a Patsy
By Jonathan Chait
Vice-President Mike Pence is knee-deep in the Ukraine scandal. He is floating the absurd defense that, while he did participate in Trumps plan to extort Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden, he was completely ignorant of what he was doing.
Although President Trump used Pence to tell [Ukrainian president Volodymyr] Zelensky that U.S. aid was still being withheld, the Washington Post reports, Pences aides insist he had no idea what he was actually being used for. Officials close to Pence insist that he was unaware of Trumps efforts to press Zelensky for damaging information about Biden and his son, the Post notes. Pence, by their accounting, is like a man who delivers a ransom note to a bank teller, failing to place any significance in the fact that the tellers have their hands in the air, the bank patrons are lying on the floor, and the guy who asked him to bring the note to the bank had a mask and a gun.
Pences involvement in the plot was extensive. White House officials had him cancel a planned trip to Zelenskys inauguration. One of Pences top advisers was on the July 25 call when Trump made clear his demand that Zelensky open investigations into various Democratic officials, including Biden, whom Trump named on the call. Pence was given the transcript of the call before his September 1 meeting with Zelensky, when he reiterated Trumps threat.
Pences defense is that, even though the readout of Trumps call with Zelensky was in his briefing materials on his trip to Europe, he did not bother to read it before the meeting. Officials close to Pence contend that he traveled to Warsaw for a meeting with Zelensky on Sept. 1 probably without having read or at least fully registered the transcript, the Post records.
So Pence didnt read or understand the vital background information he needed before this important national-security meeting. He didnt hear the widespread alarm rippling through the administration that Trump was acting improperly. He somehow failed to pick up on Rudy Giulianis repeated public boasts in the New York Times, on Fox News, on Twitter, and in any media he could find that he was pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in his personal capacity as Trumps lawyer. He somehow accepted at face value Trumps claim of being deeply concerned with corruption in Ukraine despite Trumps record of greeting corruption in almost every other country he deals with with something ranging from indifference to enthusiasm.
Most amazing, Pences defense is that when he delivered Trumps threat in the meeting with Zelensky, Pence had no idea that corruption was code for ordering up investigations of Trumps domestic enemies. A top Pence staffer rejected the charge that the vice-president was conveying an inappropriate or coded message from the president, notes an obviously skeptical Post.
If Pence is so ignorant that he could be pulled into an extortion plot without having any idea what he was doing, while missing numerous public and private signs that would have spelled it out, he is too dumb to serve as vice-president or even to be allowed to use metal cutlery. There is no way Pence is quite that stupid.
more...
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/pence-i-participated-in-ukraine-plot-but-only-as-a-patsy.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=s1&utm_campaign=nym&fbclid=IwAR0it59XgW3Grq1zhbjqF2cTbT_jm-0QDeinKdTVCG3bH8d55GR2-Gc5BEg
Autumn
(45,120 posts)just in case.
Leghorn21
(13,526 posts)struggle4progress
(118,350 posts)llmart
(15,553 posts)Today's recap:
Trump has the biggest meltdown of his tenure (so far) in the WH and Pence says, "I'm too stupid to understand what's going on."
Wow. Just wow.
RainCaster
(10,916 posts)And he should be.
C_U_L8R
(45,021 posts)And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Kellyann that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married... But then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll, I'll, I'll set the building on fire...
Blue Owl
(50,506 posts)ooky
(8,929 posts)They're all too busy lying.
ffr
(22,671 posts)He'd use such language as "corruption" to mean fabricate dirt on the Bidens.
It's all related. If this is Pence's defence, it won't stand up, because we already know he knows that's how tRump directs.