The White House has released a transcript of the conversation President Trump had on July 25th with Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky. This is the conversation billed as so shocking, such an egregious abuse of power, it demands the removal of the Trump from office. “Treasonous,” some shouted. “A betrayal,” said Nancy Pelosi — before she even knew what the president had said.

Well, here it is. Read it for yourself. But take a shot of expresso. It’ll help keep you awake. Anything shocking? Anything impeachable? See anything that rises even to the level of “Tell Vladimir I’ll have more flexibility after the election”? 

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

 

A brief summary: Our president schmoozes their president. Their president schmoozes our president. Trump gripes that European countries should do more to help Ukraine. Zelensky agrees. He says he wants to drain the swamp in his country. And speaking of corruption … 

The Russia Hoax and CrowdStrike

Trump makes vague reference to the Russia Hoax. “I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.”

He specifically references CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike is the progressive tech company that the DNC brought in to examine the DNC computers. (Brought in via Perkins Coie — the law firm Hillary Clinton used to pay for the Steele Dossier.) The DNC refused to give FBI and Homeland Security access.  The FBI never accessed the server and admitted in a court case, they never even read CrowdStrike’s report. Only a redacted draft.

CrowdStrike blamed hackers working for Russia for grabbing the DNC emails that WikiLeaks would later publish. Part of the Russia hoax was insisting Trump’s campaign knew about the hack and had teamed with Russia. Again, the same people paid for the claim Russia was behind the DNC hack and the Russia Collusion narrative. Funny how that works. 

Trump mentions how “They say a lot of [the Russia Hoax] started with Ukraine.” This is true. As we wrote about the other day, the Obama Administration asked Ukraine for dirt involving Paul Manafort … right as Manafort was starting to hang out with the Trump campaign. And Ukraine was actively working with the DNC, which, as Donna Brazille said in her book, was completely being run by Hillary’s campaign by that time. 

Zelensky assures Trump the matter’s important to him as well. In fact, he recalled the Ukrainian ambassador, who was involved in the 2016 nonsense. He’ll replace him with a new one.

There’s a lot of talk about Rudy Giuliani.

Talkin’ Joe Biden

Then the conversation briefly does turn to Biden and his son. Specifically:  “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution [of his son], so if you can look into it. It sounds horrible to me.”‘

Zelensky promises his new prosecutor will look into  it. “He or she will look into the situation specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue, the issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and we will work on the investigation of the case.”

In other words, the case involves Ukraine corruption and American corruption. Trump volunteers Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr to be point-men. You want to drain the swamp? That’s exactly what it looks like. 

Finally, there’s a lot more schmoozing. The ol’ “I’ve got friends in Ukraine!” “I’ve got friends in the United States! Can’t wait until we can meet!” “Whenever you want to come to the White House, feel free to call!” diplomatic song and dance. 

And that’s it. That’s your big threat to democracy. 

DOJ Says No Campaign Finance Violation

Remember the whistleblower who’s complaint started all this. The whistleblower’s complaint was taken seriously.

The Department of Justice looked into it because the Intelligence Community’s inspector general cited a “potential violation of campaign finance law.” Even though neither the inspector general nor the whistleblower “had firsthand knowledge of the conversation.” The DOJ’s conclusion: There’s no there there.

Relying on established procedures set forth in the justice manual, the department’s criminal division reviewed the official record of the call and determined based on the facts and applicable law that there was no campaign finance violence and that no further action was warranted. All relevant components of the department agreed with this legal conclusion, and the department has concluded this matter.

DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec also stated that Barr had never spoken to Trump about the Ukraine investigating Biden. Nor did Trump ask Barr to contact Ukraine or Giuliani. 

Meanwhile, call it a technicality, but DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel also determined that from their POV, the whistleblower complaint failed on two points. The complaint needed to involve a member of the intelligence community. Trump is not. Second, the activity did not pertain to ongoing intelligence operations. Thus the “complaint did not meet the standard of an ‘urgent concern’.”

However, more telling, as Fox News first reported, the Inspector General discovered the whistleblower had “some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complaintant in favor of a rival political candidate.” 

Going From Here

So our Top Ten Quick Takeaways:

1. Trump’s “do us a favor” line the media is running mad with concerned Ukraine’s (admitted) involvement in the 2016 election and Russia Hoax. Not Biden.
2. Ukraine’s president wants to “drain the swamp” of his country, start a “new chapter,” and clean out the old corruption. 
3. No quid pro quo.
4. No campaign finance violation.
5. The conversation raised no “urgent concern.”
6. Remember the news stories about Trump pressuring Zelensky eight times to investigate Biden. A lie. 
7. The president is not a member of the intelligence community, so you can’t go running to the IC inspector general.
8. Trump spent more time talking about travel arrangements than he did about Joe Biden.
9. Trump reported what Joe Biden did, in fact, boast: He threatened to withhold a billion in aid if they didn’t fire the prosecutor investigating his son. 
10. The person filing the complaint had a political bias against the President. (Even the person’s lawyer donates to Biden and Clinton.)

In an honest world, the Democrats would apologize. At the very least, they’d admit there’s nothing unusual about the call. In a sane world, Democrats would just walk away. Or as they have done with so many things the past two years that have also proven to be false, pretend they never made a huge deal of it. Go onto the next scandal that will topple Trump. 

They don’t. As expected. Adam Schiff calls it a “classic mafia-like shakedown.” Elizabeth Warren, whose whole schtick is fighting the marriage of big money and politics, isn’t interested in Biden’s blackmail of Ukraine, or Biden’s son cashing in on his connections. Peter Schweitzer lays out 7 essential facts that should have Warren flipping her wigwam. Instead, she calls the transcript a “smoking gun.” 

Facts? Facts? Who Wants Facts?

Facts? We don’t need no stinking facts. Nancy Pelosi said, “Trump asked a foreign government to help him in his political campaign.” (He did no such thing.) This after admitting she still hadn’t read the transcript.

So drumbeats for impeachment continue. “I don’t know what the timeline will look like,” says Adam “I’ve Got Proof of Russian Collusion” Schiff, “except that we all feel a sense of urgency.” 

Not because the president did anything he shouldn’t have done. Urgency because, day-by-day, they know 2020 is slipping away. 

Meanwhile, President Zelensky and President Trump met up this afternoon at the United Nations in New York City. Said Zelensky, “It’s better to be on TV instead of the phone …. ” And more to the point, “nobody pushed me” to investigate Biden and his son. 

 
Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream and co-author, with @JZmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. You can follow him at @StreamingAl. And if you aren’t already, please follow The Stream at @Streamdotorg.