Year: 2019
Trump’s Biggest Crime Against America
“All of these arguments, ranging from the weak to the false, obscure the core reason for the impeachment inquiry, which is that the Trump administration was engaged in a conspiracy against American democracy. Fearing that the 2016 election was a fluke in which Trump prevailed only because of a successful Russian hacking and disinformation campaign, and a last-minute intervention on Trump’s behalf by the very national-security state Trump defenders supposedly loathe, Trump and his advisers sought to rig the 2020 election by forcing a foreign country to implicate the then-Democratic front-runner in a crime that did not take place. If the American people could not be trusted to choose Trump on their own, Trump would use his official powers to make the choice for them.”
— Adam Serwer
The Republican National Committee REALLY Liked Don Jr.’s Book
$94,800
New FEC disclosures show a single large RNC payment of $94,800 to Books-a-Million in October, a few days before Triggered was released, the New York Times reports. An RNC spokesman confirmed that the expenditure was connected to their promotion of Donald Trump Jr.’s book.
Hill Predicted Ukraine Mess
“I did say to him, ‘Ambassador Sondland, Gordon, this is going to blow up’. And here we are.”
— Fiona Hill, in testimony before the House impeachment inquiry.
Fiona Hill Takes Down Three Republican Congressmen
“I don’t believe there should be any interference of any kind in our election… That’s actually why as a nonpartisan person and as an expert on Russia and an expert on Vladimir Putin and on the Russian security services, I wanted to come in to serve the country to try to see if I could help… We’re here to relate to you what we heard, what we saw and what we did. And to be of some help to all of you in really making a very momentous decision here. We are not the people who make that decision.”
— In a stunning moment at Thursday’s impeachment hearing, Fiona Hill asked whether she may respond to Republican attacks, after three GOP congressman in a row used their five-minute question allotments to criticize the impeachment inquiry and its witnesses, Axios reports.
Study Finds ‘Fake News’ Has Real Cost: $78 Billion
$78 billion
Cybersecurity company CHEQ conducted research with the University of Baltimore, which found that the epidemic of online fake news now costs the global economy $78 billion annually. The report, which analyzes the direct economic cost from fake news, also estimates fake news has contributed a loss in stock market value of about $39 billion a year.
Timeline: Hunter Biden, Burisma and the Trump Ukrainian Scandal
Key Points: Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of directors of Burisma, a Ukainian energy company, in April 2014. His five-year term ended in April this year.
Burisma was founded in 2002 by Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky. In 2010, Zlochevsky was appointed minister of ecology and finance under newly elected pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovich.
There appears to be an inherent conflict of interest in the appointment of an energy baron to head the Ecology and Finance Ministry, and Zlochevsky and Burisma have been investigated many times over the years for tax violations, money-laundering and self-dealing via the ministry.
In 2016, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko stated that there was never a hint that either Hunter Biden or Joe Biden did anything wrong in relation to Burisma. He repeated this in a May 16, 2019, interview with Bloomberg News. “Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws — at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing,” Lutsenko said, “A company can pay however much it wants to its board.”
