The Patriot Post® · Ukraine First?

As I thought more about Wednesday’s testimony during the House impeachment hearing, I found myself getting angry. Let me explain why.

The two key witnesses selected by the House majority to kick off this high-profile spectacle, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent and Ambassador William Taylor, are experts on Ukraine. 

It was clear from their remarks that they both have a real heart for Ukraine. They really want to help Ukraine and are very concerned about President Trump’s views and policies.

They weren’t quite so concerned when Barack Obama promised to show Vladimir Putin his “flexibility.” They didn’t become part of a sham impeachment effort to oust Obama after he did next to nothing when Russia invaded Ukraine. 

Kent and Taylor seemingly think they are in charge of Ukrainian policy and that the president should be taking orders from the permanent bureaucracy at Foggy Bottom. They couldn’t be more wrong. 

The president’s job is to look out for America first. He doesn’t work for the State Department. He sets the policy; they follow orders.

President Trump had well-founded concerns about sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Ukraine. By all accounts, it is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and foreign aid is your tax dollars. The president has an obligation to make sure it’s not stolen. 

Moreover, Donald Trump has long believed that Ukraine was more of a concern for Europe than America. And, believe it or not, Robert Mueller investigated the president for that opinion. 

Trump was talking to the newly elected president of Ukraine and he wanted to find out whether President Zelensky was committed to rooting out corruption. 

He also wanted to inform Zelensky that there was an investigation going on in our government (the Durham investigation) to figure out how much the previous Ukrainian government colluded with the Clinton campaign to interfere in the 2016 election. 

Trump asked Zelensky if he would work with the Department of Justice to get to the bottom of it. And, by the way, the Bidens appear to be involved.

President Trump had every right to ask for President Zelensky’s cooperation thanks to a treaty on mutual legal assistance signed by Bill Clinton.

This is what the left is trying to impeach the president for, even though there is an election less than one year away.

By the way, George Kent testified Wednesday that he still believes Burisma — the Ukrainian company that paid Hunter Biden $50,000 a month — deserves to be investigated for corruption. Why isn’t that “breaking news”?

A House Divided

Here’s how craven this impeachment sham is: America is a deeply divided country, and because the left is not sure it can win next November, it is trying to bring the president down now. It is trying to cancel the last election with one of the most serious punishments our politicians can impose. 

Radical progressives are willing to further rend the country in their desperate desire to prevent Donald Trump and Mike Pence from getting four more years — four more years to bring the country back from the brink of socialism, back from the social radicalism and international weakness that we experienced under Obama. 

Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, the #NeverTrumpers, and their media enablers should all be ashamed of themselves.

The Hearsay Hearings

My friends, it is difficult to overstate just how weak the Democrats’ case truly is. 

Neither of Wednesday’s opening witnesses have ever talked to the president. They never talked to White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. They never talked to Rudy Giuliani. Nor were they on the July phone call with President Zelensky. 

In one of the more revealing moments Wednesday, Ambassador Taylor admitted that he had little of substance to offer when he said, “What I can do here for you today is tell you what I heard from people.”

This is a huge problem for the Democrats. And don’t take my word for it. Even CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin says it’s a problem.

Taylor and Kent testified previously behind closed doors. They spoke for hours and hours Wednesday. And the only thing of any substance to come out of it was … more hearsay — that one of Taylor’s aides allegedly overheard a conversation at a restaurant between the ambassador to the European Union and the president.

This hearsay would never be allowed in any court. But the left’s excitement over this additional hearsay is just more evidence that it is desperately trying to manufacture something that doesn’t exist.

Taking on Russia

While Democrats were playing partisan games on your dime, what was the president doing Wednesday? He spent hours attempting to negotiate extremely complicated foreign-policy matters with the very difficult president of Turkey.

As you may know, Turkey is a member of NATO. The United States has a critical airbase in Turkey with dozens of nuclear weapons. But the Turkish nation that joined NATO in 1952 is not the same nation today.

While the modern state of Turkey has been seen as a secular bridge between Europe and the Middle East, President Erdogan is an Islamist whose sympathies do not align with the West’s.

In recent years, Erdogan has been cozying up to Russia, which the left claims to be so concerned about. While Democrats were trying to impeach him, Trump spent his day trying to stop Russia’s advances