Hill Testimony Validates Trump Election Tampering

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: HalWesten

Your argument that all testimony is “hearsay” is inaccurate. I myself have personally watched maybe 5% of the entirety of witness testimony and I assure you it’s many first hand accounts of what happened. So, even though that is anecdotal, I don’t agree with you.

Further hearsay evidence is not always excluded even in criminal or civil court hearings. I can link you a list of over 30 exceptions to the general rule from the FRE manual if you’d like.

I accept that your politics are what you say they are. You may be reacting to my use of the phrase “party line” so allow me to be more specific. My issue with your argument is that you are merely rhetorically “waving your hands” at dozens if not hundreds of hours of direct testimony and discounting it without dealing with any specific challenges or critiques.

Yes, there are several exception that can allow hearsay being admitted. However, I didn't anything that would exempt what I heard during the hearing. A great deal would have bee objected to as hearsay or conjecture, and those objections would easily have been upheld.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: HalWesten

Your argument that all testimony is “hearsay” is inaccurate. I myself have personally watched maybe 5% of the entirety of witness testimony and I assure you it’s many first hand accounts of what happened. So, even though that is anecdotal, I don’t agree with you.

Further hearsay evidence is not always excluded even in criminal or civil court hearings. I can link you a list of over 30 exceptions to the general rule from the FRE manual if you’d like.

I accept that your politics are what you say they are. You may be reacting to my use of the phrase “party line” so allow me to be more specific. My issue with your argument is that you are merely rhetorically “waving your hands” at dozens if not hundreds of hours of direct testimony and discounting it without dealing with any specific challenges or critiques.

Let me try to clarify my opinion. Of the testimony we've been able to see and read, the vast majority of the parts relating to Trump's supposed QPQ and the rest of the accusations were, in fact, 2nd, 3rd, 4th hand hearsay that has no legal standing. Before you say "it's not a trial", my original point was that it would not stand in any court of law and I stand by that opinion.

I'm not disputing the professional qualifications of the witnesses, their work record or anything else about them other than their "well I didn't actually hear it myself, but so and so told me..." garbage testimony. Schiff brought out the absolute worst witnesses he could have because other than Sondland's statements that he spoke TO Trump about the specific issue, none of the rest of them did. Talking to Rudy or Pompeo or the others, or being on the phone call and interpreting it as bothersome, upsetting, etc. is meaningless. The only thing that should matter and be allowed is actually hearing Trump's words and seeing his actions. Not what you interpret them as, but as they actually are.

We can agree to disagree, I've listened to almost all of the public testimony over the last two weeks and I'm telling you there just wasn't anything there that rises to anything near impeachable. Even with the extremely loose definition of the Dems.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: HalWesten

Your argument that all testimony is “hearsay” is inaccurate. I myself have personally watched maybe 5% of the entirety of witness testimony and I assure you it’s many first hand accounts of what happened. So, even though that is anecdotal, I don’t agree with you.

Further hearsay evidence is not always excluded even in criminal or civil court hearings. I can link you a list of over 30 exceptions to the general rule from the FRE manual if you’d like.

I accept that your politics are what you say they are. You may be reacting to my use of the phrase “party line” so allow me to be more specific. My issue with your argument is that you are merely rhetorically “waving your hands” at dozens if not hundreds of hours of direct testimony and discounting it without dealing with any specific challenges or critiques.

I listened to the entire testimony, every single day, all day. I listened to every excruciating detail, watched body language, facial expressions, ticks, tone. I then flipped between MSNBC, CNN and FOX to listen to the "experts". I don't know what 5% you watched unless it was Adam Schiff running with his bloviation. The media coverage is all over the place. It is more than clear that MSNBC and CNN are foaming at the mouth to see the President impeached... because they have NOTHING else they can report and NOBODY watches them otherwise. It's disgusting. FOX is not shy to say the President can be an ass, he has a unique approach to foreign policy, but he didn't violate the Constitution.

Every single person that spoke, spoke about what they "heard" from someone that was not the President himself. Over and over and over, "I believed", "I felt", "I presumed", "I assumed", "I thought".... who f#$king cares about that! This is impeachment we are talking about. The one person who did talk to the President, Sondland, admitted directly that the President did not tell him aid to Ukraine was attached to anything other than the mandates that were already put in place for anti-corruption and previous investigations into corruption that went back to the 2016 election.

Now you have an FBI official that has been accused of altering the FISA documents. (bet he's a Hillary sympathizer / Trump hater) You have Hill knowing that a Ukraine former jounalist "played" (according to Hill's testimony) Steele, the person who created the dossier that led to the FISA warrant. That is far beyond criminal.

The confusion is where everyone thinks Trump asked for investigation into a political rival. He did not. He asked for investigations into the Steele dossier. He asked for investigations into the hundreds of millions of dollars in US money that went missing into a Ukranian gas company (Burisma) that has been an ONGOING investigation for years. He asked to investigate if Hunter Biden, in said gas company responsible for embezzling US tax money, had any involvement with the corruption. He asked the Ukranian president to make sure that this corruption was rooted out before giving more money and aid, for fear that it will continue to be abused by powerful oligarchs and corrupt officials.

But I guess you have to listen to the other 95% to have heard that, huh?

~Namaste

a reply to: Grambler

She admitted she heard Ukrainian parliamentary member Leshchenko was a source for Steele’s dossier

Heard from whom?

Mr. Zeldin: Dr. Hill, are you aware of any interaction between Mr. Steele and the Ukrainians - -

Dr. Hill: I'm not.

Mr. Zeldin: - - involved in the dossier.

Dr. Hill: I have no knowledge whatsoever of how he developed the dossier, none. I just want to state that.

originally posted by: Grambler
Hills testimony showed something else

She admitted she heard Ukrainian parliamentary member Leshchenko was a source for Steele’s dossier

She admits she now knows the dnc paid for the dossier

She admits the dossier was a rat hole and Steele was duped

She admits it would be improper for a political party to pay foreign officials for dirt in opponents

Given this, how can she claim there was no Ukrainian interference?

Nice points
She was a fountain of information

As a sidenote....

Steele was "ex" British Intelligence.

So, British intel was involved in the Ukrainians' election tampering of a republican candidate....

Way back in January 2003, W. Bush said in his state-of-the-Union Address that, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

That was the "16 words" that the CIA said should never have been included in the SotU speech.... and that were untrue and British intel was not involved in Bush's WMD in Iraq fiasco.

It's almost like British Intel is working against republican presidents.

Or is that just paranoia on ATS?

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

He asked for investigations into the hundreds of millions of dollars in US money that went missing into a Ukranian gas company (Burisma)

How do you know this? Is that in the "transcript" of the July 25th phone call?

He asked for investigations into the Steele dossier.

How do you know this? Is that in the "transcript" of the July 25th phone call?

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

That’s called an appeal to your own authority.

It’s also anecdotal.

a reply to: Graysen

There are some similarities, however, here is the important difference:

Steele was not working for the British government nor was he an agent of any foreign power.

Steele was a contractor for an American company that utilized his international connections to provide “intel.”

Further, going to the the hypocrisy rampant here, let’s remember that Mr. Trump has said that he would have no problem using dirt from other countries in a campaign.

a reply to: HalWesten

Thanks for your clarification.

In fact, you can’t prove any of that, it’s your opinion. As I said you are relentlessly repeating the talking points of your chosen media sources. You haven’t offered any evidence that anything would be excluded from a court, you’ve just said that ... you’ve made a claim that is not substantiated.

Your claim is based here: hearsay evidence is automatically excluded from a court of law.

That is not factual.

Federal Rules of Evidence Manual

Consult Article VIII for several chapters on what “hearsay evidence” is allowed in a court.

The other fundamental flaw in your argument is that Congressional hearings are not courts of law, and hearsay evidence is heard ALL THE TIME.

Another flaw, by the way, is that if you are so desperate to make a connection between the legislative process of impeachment and a courtroom, the trial will be in the Senate, this farce is more comparable to the indictment process.

originally posted by: Graysen
It's almost like British Intel is working against republican presidents.

Or is that just paranoia on ATS?

Whichever it is, you have tipped your partisan hat.

You’re not looking for facts, you’re supporting a position.

a reply to: timequake

Thank you for a succinct and complete argument to your point.

1. Hearsay evidence is allowed in Congressional hearings all the time. In fact, one might argue that they are based on hearsay. (Which is why I personally despise them ... moving on.)

2. Impeachment in the House is a Congressional hearing not a judicial process, i.e. court-of-law.

3. Again, you’re gesturing to HOURS of testimony and giving us your summation. Fair enough. That is your opinion and it is valid for you, but not for the rest of us per se.

Here’s my opinion: Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that the impeachment proceedings go forward because the American Electorate cannot be trusted to make the right decision. That fact invalidates the ENTIRE process. That is the point at which to argue effectively that this is illegitimate, in my opinion.

Complaining about hearsay is merely a Republican talking point and is not a strong argument at all.

Much less, summarizing hours of testimony with no examples from that testimony ...

The Steele Dossier was not fabricated by the Democratic Party, but was created by a long-term past contact of both the FBI and State Departments.

The Steele Dossier has not been proven nor disproven to be true in sum, however, the critical contentions that official Russian state actors worked to compromise the American Presidential Election in 2016 have been verified.

The Steele Dossier was used, along with other corroborating evidence, to begin the investigations that became the Mueller investigation, which definitely had results and findings consistent with Russian interference in our elections and resulted in the conviction of multiple Trump Campaign members on crimes associated with Russian election interference.

originally posted by: RexKramerPRT
a reply to: OccamsRazor04

So where is the outrage at the Republican candidate/challenger who started the whole Fusion/Orbis/Steele arrangement? Why is it only a problem that the DNC used that research?

Because it's bad to slam a dead man, especially a war hero. But if you want to throw McCain's dead body under the bus, that's on you.

originally posted by: network dude

originally posted by: RexKramerPRT
a reply to: OccamsRazor04

So where is the outrage at the Republican candidate/challenger who started the whole Fusion/Orbis/Steele arrangement? Why is it only a problem that the DNC used that research?

Because it's bad to slam a dead man, especially a war hero. But if you want to throw McCain's dead body under the bus, that's on you.

Didn’t The Free Beacon first contract with Fusion, and then Fusion offered their findings later to the Clinton Campaign?

a reply to: Phage

I stand corrected

Nellie ohr testified Leschenko was a Steele dossier source

A member of the Ukrainian parliament accused in his home country of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was identified in congressional testimony in October as a source for opposition research firm Fusion GPS.

Nellie Ohr, a former contractor for the Washington, D.C.-based Fusion GPS, testified on Oct. 19 that Serhiy Leshchenko, a former investigative journalist turned Ukrainian lawmaker, was a source for Fusion GPS during the 2016 campaign.

dailycaller.com...

So the fact was not in dispute and hill was told it, which still raises the point I made on that post

a reply to: Phage

Is a demand or quid pro quo in the transcript?

Is there any reference at all to trump wanting an investigation to help him in the 2020 elections in the transcript?

Ok case closed then

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: Graysen



Further, going to the the hypocrisy rampant here, let’s remember that Mr. Trump has said that he would have no problem using dirt from other countries in a campaign.

I think you agree with me in my stance that I actually had no problem with Hillary getting dirt from Steele or the Kremlin

Politics is dirty, getting foreign dirt is fine by me

Now if a candidate says “I will give you foreign aid win I win “ or promises some other sort of policy, that’s a problem

And Obama’s intel community using that unverified foreign dirt to spy on trumps team is an enormous problem

But as far as I am concerned Hillary did nothing wrong here


Now, this is actually irrelevant though

Because despite what me or you or trump think, there has been a consensus reached by the intel community media and most politicians that this is foreign election interference

It reloads 3 year investigation into trump, and so there should be investigations into yjis every time it happens, not just when the intel community or Dems feel it can hurt trump

a reply to: Gryphon66

That was not the critical contention in the dossier

Almost everyone with n so ledge of elections and Russia knew that Russia is almost always interfering in our elections

The dossier made almost no specific revelations on this that were not published knowledge

The critical contentions in the dossier, that led to it directly being used to spy on trumps associates was that trump team members were conspiring with Russians to steal the elections

That was not true, as three years of investigations showed

And yet the fbi under Obama used this info before verifying any of it to spy on trumps team, and the media reported the allegations for years

Ironically because the source of the dossier was Kremlin agents, the info given to the dossier ended up becoming the most successful meddling in the election and our country the Russians did

a reply to: Grambler

On the contrary, if what the Trump Campaign tried to do (get “dirt” from the Russians) is illegal, then what Fusion GPS did is just as arguably illegal, with the distinction that Steele was not a representative or agent of a foreign government as far as we know.

No I would say it as either both should be illegal or neither should. If it’s vetted information (which would be rare) then I’d listen to it, if not, it’s gossip and propaganda. For example, in the Steele material, I think the “pee tape’ crap was probably nonsense (as I’m 100% certain if that existed we’d have seen it by now) but the claims that Russian agents were actively seeking to infiltrate the election process were not.

The intelligence community did not “rely on” the Steele dossier to do anything. It was, as I understand it, one in a constellation of concerns that have since turned out to be completely valid.

Hillary did nothing wrong? Hmmm... I couldn’t say that. Knowing what a control freak she is, she knew everything that was happening, she knew the provenance of the Steele material (as I believe Mr. Trump was aware of the situation with Stone/Wikileaks/DNC hacks) and cannot be said to be “clean.”

However, she’s not going to pay for it, and frankly, as it appears, neither will Mr. Trump. The Elites don’t pay for their crimes.

Situation Normal All Fricked Up.

(Christ I hate not being able to use adult language, LOL)