No. of Recommendations: 9
bighairymike:
Blackmail, to be successful, requires the mark to be aware you are in fact blackmailing him, eg you do this or I'll do that. Trump never said or implied anything about delaying aid to Zelensky. Claiming trump threatened Zelensky is just an example deep state spin.Well, let's go to the transcript:
Zelenskyy:
"We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps. Specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes."Trump:
"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. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it."So Zelenskyy said he was ready to buy more missiles and Trump said we needed a favor first that's going to benefit his campaign (not America). That would certainly imply delay.
Trump:
"The other thing, 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." Zelenskyy:
"Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation..."Trump pushed the Ukrainian president to get his country’s prosecutor to open an investigation into former vice president Biden and his son, Hunter, and Zelensky
promised to do what Trump was asking — launch an investigation into the Bidens.
That sure sounds like Zelenskyy knew he was the mark but then I'm in the Deep State (we like caps, please).
BTW, points to you for getting in that Trumpy Deep State reference.
nytimes.com - Trump ukraine transcript 