By Daniel Bobinski
“The Democrats doth protest too much, methinks.”
Hamlet. Act III, Scene II. 2019 adaptation.
Nancy Pelosi’s dramatic tone was planned and well-rehearsed. “No one is above the law,” she said. The Speaker also said, “No one comes to Congress to impeach the President of the United States.” That was a blatant lie, but Pelosi was obfuscating, as usual. She held a vote to move forward on impeachment hearings without even reviewing the documents she was referencing as the reason to do so.
It was weird. How can a Speaker of the House be so devoid of intellectual honesty? Wait. Never mind. This is the same woman who said we needed to pass the Obamacare bill before we could see what was in it.
Equally weird was Adam Schiff going completely off the rails reading a wildly fabricated transcript, and then being called out a few days later by left-wing media personalities for deciding to move forward with impeachment hearings without waiting to see official documents. Schiff told them, “There’s no reason to wait. This doesn’t depend on what the transcript says. What the President has already admitted was all we needed to know …” Then Schiff spewed lie after lie, appearing to quote Trump, but using words Trump never used.
Can these people have any less intellectual honesty?
The Democrats went from three years of fabricated, exaggerated indignancy to a tactical display of illusory patriotism, complete with a backdrop of American flags. It is definitely theater. The problem? It’s nowhere as good as Shakespeare. It’s more like a badly written elementary school play.
I’ve been a management-leadership coach for 30 years and a certified behavioral analyst since 2003. Never have I seen adults working in a professional capacity be so childish, immature, petulant, rude, erratic, and yes, paranoid. And I mean every word of that.
I wanted to know what Pelosi, Schiff, et. al. were trying to hide, so I started reading old news articles. In Part 1 of my findings, I showed how our tax dollars are going to Ukraine and Ukrainian contractors via curious pathways and suggested we get answers about who in Washington is benefiting from that flow of money. I didn’t have to wait long for answers. As I finished Part 1 and started writing this piece, the news media exploded with information on the magnitude of corruption in Ukraine – and its connection to the Washington Swamp and the Deep State.
Presenting Facts; Asking Questions
By way of review, I’m not making specific accusations. I’m simply reporting what’s been in the news and asking questions. As a friend of mine said:
“How easy would it be for Congressional representatives – and Vice Presidents – to send military aid money to countries, and then make connections for their children or their friends to get high-paying jobs or contracts with the Ukrainian government? And how easy would it be for Congressional representatives to “suggest” to Ukrainian government officials that they hire specific companies – companies run by people who donate heavily to these representatives’ re-election campaigns?”
Right now I want to know what’s been happening with our tax dollars because I’m not a fan of corrupt people lining their pockets with my money. In the timeline of events that follows, it would appear that motivation for the impeachment theater stems from corrupt people trying to hide their crimes. Whether that’s true is not for me to say, but I think it’s fair to consider the facts and look for answers. After all, it’s our tax money that’s at stake here.
Zelensky Elected
In April of this year, Volodymyr Zelensky was elected President of Ukraine. Zelensky and Donald Trump are birds of a feather. Like Trump, Zelensky was heavily involved in TV, but not only as an actor. He was also a producer and director with his own production company. Also like Trump, Zelensky wanted to root out corruption, emphasizing that he wanted to restore trust in politicians. Zelensky won with 73.22 percent of the vote and assumed office on May 20.
An Ambassador Removed
On May 7, President Trump recalled Ambassador Marie Yovanovich from Ukraine. I found no articles connecting Yovanovich with the DNC soliciting dirt on Trump in Ukraine during the 2016 campaign, but word was that Yovanovich was creating barriers that slowed and/or prevented testimony by Ukrainian officials that would have provided information on Hunter Biden’s activities with Burisma Holdings.
Most ambassadors are career diplomats, but ambassadors always serve at the pleasure of the President. So, when I read that Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Eliot Engels (D-NY) protested Yovanovich’s removal as a political hit job, saying it was Yovanovich who was working to root out corruption, my first thought was, “The Democrats doth protest too much, methinks.”
Question: An ambassador is supposed to represent the United States. Why was Yovanovich slowing and/or preventing visas from being issued to people who were being asked to testify in a federally related investigation?
A Hint Hidden in the Transcript
On July 25 of this year, President Trump called President Zelensky to congratulate him on winning the election. Later, in the firestorm that followed the “leak” of that phone call, did you notice the media focused only on what Trump said about the Bidens? Illusionists call that a misdirection – making you look somewhere else so you don’t see what’s really going on.
Let’s look at page 4 of the transcript again. When Trump is requesting Zelensky look into why Ukraine stopped a prosecution related to Burisma Holdings, he also says,
“The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that.”
In Zelensky’s response, he says his new Prosecutor General would be starting in September and that the case is important for restoring honesty [to his country]. He then references “the woman” Trump spoke about:
“… as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.”
English is not Zelensky’s first language, so a simple interpretation might be, “Thanks for being the one who said she was bad. I probably wouldn’t have brought it up, but I totally agree with you.”
Question: Why was Yovanovich on the side of the previous Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko? In July, Poroshenko was charged with 11 counts of criminal corruption, including high treason.
By the way, the transcript used the name Ivanovich, but there are no records of any Ambassador Ivanovich. However, Marie Yovanovich was appointed by Obama to serve as ambassador to Ukraine in 2016, and she was there until Trump removed her this past May.
Question: The people who wrote and subsequently edited the transcript knew full well the ambassador’s name. Might they have purposefully misspelled it to avoid drawing attention to her? If so, why?
Inquiries from the Office of Management and Budget
On or about August 6 of this year, the Office of Management and Budget (part of the Executive Office of the President) sent a letter to the US Department of State and the US Agency for International Development. In the letter, these departments were informed that funds for certain programs, “… shall be unavailable for obligation until three business days after the Office of Management and Budget receives an accounting from your agencies of the current outstanding unobligated resources ….”
In plainer English, the OMB said, “You aren’t getting any more money until you can tell us what you’re doing with it.”
Among the programs listed was the Foreign Military Financing Program, which, according to their webpage, has to do with, “procurement of defense articles and services for foreign countries and international organizations.” This includes money sent to Ukraine.
So again, in plainer English, Trump's OMB wants to know, “What has Ukraine been doing with our tax dollars?”
Corruption Investigations in Ukraine
Ukraine’s Zelensky ran on the promise of rooting out corruption, and he didn’t let any grass grow under his feet. Remember the timeline: Zelensky said his new Prosecutor General would be taking office in September.
On November 20 the Ukrainian news agency Interfax-Ukraine reported that the new President’s party is shining a light on at least one beefy instance of corruption.
In a press release by Interfax-Ukraine, the American investment fund Franklin Templeton Investments was connected to $7.4 billion that went to the “family” of corrupt ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych (who held the office before Poroshenko).
"[T]he Yanukovych 'family' illegally obtained $7.4 billion and laundered the funds through an investment fund close to some representatives of the U.S. Democratic Party in the form of external government loan bonds."
Yes. That Democratic Party. The one led by Nancy Pelosi.
It should be noted that then-President Yanukovych was removed from office by a 328 – 0 vote in 2014, in what became known as the “Ukrainian revolution.”
Interfax-Ukraine also made another interesting statement in their press release:
“[Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Dubinsky] said that the presidents of Ukraine and the United States should combine the efforts of the two countries to establish facts of corruption and money laundering with the participation of citizens of both countries.”
"’President Zelensky must pick up the phone, dial Trump, ask for help and cooperation in the fight against corruption and fly to Washington. The issue of combating international corruption in Ukraine with the participation of citizens, businessmen and U.S. officials should become a key during the meeting of the two presidents,’ he said.”
Question: Trump and Zelensky won their elections with promises to “drain the swamp” and “restore trust” in politicians. Might longstanding Deep-Staters (who have a lot to lose) plot, plan, and act to prevent these two Presidents from cooperating “in the fight against corruption”?
Democratic Connections to the Corruption Investigation
In addition to Franklin Templeton Investments, a company called Blackrock Investment Institute has also been identified in the Yanukovych money laundering operation. All Americans should be interested in what Ukrainian MP Andriy Derkach has to say about this, as reported by Interfax-Ukraine:
"The son of Templeton's founder, John Templeton Jr., was one of President Obama's major campaign donors. Another fund-related character is Thomas Donilon, Managing Director of BlackRock Investment Institute, shareholder Franklin Templeton Investments, which has the largest share in the fund. It is noteworthy that he previously was Obama's national security advisor.”
Let that settle in for a minute, then take a bite of this:
Adam Schiff’s Financial Disclosure Report, filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives, shows that he has income from both BlackRock and Franklin Templeton Investments.
Coincidence? Perhaps. But perhaps not. And frankly, the income listed from Franklin-Templeton and BlackRock is not a large percentage of Schiff’s overall wealth. However, it does connect Schiff to those companies, and if Schiff receives other income from Franklin-Templeton/Blackrock-linked money (such as money laundered through Ukrainian politicians), THAT would be enough to motivate Schiff to act all psycho, lying with a straight face and moving to impeach without reviewing actual evidence.
I’m not making specific accusations, but I do think the possibility needs to be considered. Otherwise, why obfuscate and misdirect using a degree of intellectual dishonesty that’s not seen in responsible, mature adults?
As previously stated, “The Democrats doth protest too much, methinks.” The reasons Democrats have given for Trump’s removal from office are so paper-thin and intellectually dishonest, anyone who has ever participated in high school debate can see the inherent, sophomoric weakness of their arguments.
Pelosi Connections
I opened this column talking about Pelosi, and I close with talking about her, too. My question is this: Other than partisan reasons, why would Pelosi be so quick call for impeachment when she has previously said impeachment was a bad idea?
The one thing that keeps popping up in recent search records is the activities of Pelosi’s son, Paul Pelosi, Jr.
There’s a video that shows Pelosi promoting her son and his work with a company called Viscoil E&O, Inc., which is no longer in business. Yes, Pelosi flew her family to Ukraine in 2017 and yes, Pelosi Jr.’s company did business in Ukraine. A lot of suspicious activity, but no corruption red flags that I can tell. So, what is Ms. Pelosi’s motivation for pushing forward with impeachment? By digging back further I found a possible reason.
Question: Could Speaker Pelosi be afraid the Trump administration will investigate her for insider trading?
In a December 2011 Roll Call article, we learn that Pelosi used her position as House Speaker in 2010 to promote an energy company. According to Roll Call, Pelosi didn’t announce that “one of the men in the group was her son's boss and a partner with her husband in more than a half-dozen investments.”
The article describes one timely deal from that relationship that netted the Pelosis more than $100,000 in 2009 and then outlines many more “coincidences” that suggest Pelosi made a lot of money in what appears to be insider trading.
But wait, there’s more. Investment Watch tells us that that in 2014, Pelosi’s husband purchased between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in a green energy company that wasn’t doing so well. A few weeks later, the company announced a merger and the stocks soared 29 percent. This just happened to be at the time President Obama was pushing a lot of green energy initiatives.
Question: Might anyone in the Obama administration and Nancy Pelosi have talked about what was happening in the green energy sector? Also, why hasn’t the Securities and Exchange Commission dug any deeper into Pelosi's profitable “coincidences”?
Review the Evidence, Not the Character Assassination
The Deep State is deep, and so is the Washington Swamp. No doubt there are myriad motivations for wanting to remove Trump from office. Kickbacks, money laundering, and insider trading are just a few of the activities it looks like people are trying to hide. Americans need to review the evidence that’s out there and not be swayed by the Left’s character assassination of Trump.
People like Robert Redford can write op-eds trying to convince Americans that Trump is attacking the values America holds dear, but they provide no facts. As an actor, Redford should be familiar with Shakespeare. Specifically, Hamlet. Act III, Scene II. There’s a new line in the 2019 adaptation.
“The Democrats doth protest too much, methinks.”
Thanks to @HNIJohnMiller and @CoreysDigs for providing information that was used in this column.
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Daniel Bobinski, M.Ed. is a certified behavioral analyst, best-selling author, columnist, corporate trainer, and a popular keynote speaker. In addition to working with teams and individuals to help them achieve workplace excellence through improving their emotional intelligence and improving the way they do training, he’s also a veteran and a Christian Libertarian who believes in the principles of free market capitalism while standing firmly against crony capitalism. Daniel writes on both workplace issues and political issues for multiple publications. Reach Daniel for help with your workplace through his website, MyWorkplaceExcellence.com. For things political, use @newbookofdaniel on Twitter.
