via washingtonexaminer:
Why are House Democrats stonewalling questions about the identity of the Trump-Ukraine whistleblower?
Start by taking them at their word. Perhaps they really are concerned about the whistleblower’s personal safety. They also know that, beyond a limited prohibition applying to the inspector general of the intelligence community, no law bars anyone, in politics, media, or anywhere else, from revealing the whistleblower’s identity. So they worry.
But there is more to the story. Should the whistleblower have connections to prominent Democrats, exposure of his identity could be embarrassing to the party. And perhaps most of all, reading through the impeachment investigation depositions that have been released so far, it’s clear that cutting off questions that could possibly relate to the whistleblower has also allowed Democrats to shut off any look at how the Trump-Ukraine investigation started. Who was involved? What actions did they take? Why did some government employees think President Trump’s July 25 call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky represented a lost opportunity, or poor judgment, while others thought it represented wrongdoing requiring congressional investigation?
Democrats do not want the public to know. And in that, their position is familiar to anyone who has watched Washington for the last two years: The Democrats’ determination to cut off questions about the origins of the Trump-Ukraine investigation is strikingly similar to their determination to cut off questions about the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. In both cases, they fought hard to keep secret the origins of investigations that have shaken the nation, deeply divided the electorate, and affected the future of the presidency.
From their point of view, it makes sense. Democrats were rattled by Republican efforts to uncover the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. The Steele dossier, the use of spies and informants to target the Trump campaign, the Carter Page wiretap, the murky start to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation — Democrats resisted GOP attempts to reveal them all. But in 2017 and 2018, Republicans controlled the House. Then-Chairman Devin Nunes used the power of the House Intelligence Committee to unearth key parts of the story. Nunes’ efforts eventually led to a Justice Department inspector general investigation whose results, expected in the coming weeks, could further damage the Democratic Trump-Russia storyline. And then there is the ongoing criminal investigation led by U.S. Attorney John Durham.
But Democrats now control the House.
Well, that needs to come to an end.
The origins of the Ukraine investigation into Trump start, as with the Russia collusion hoax, back in the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign. When Trump hired Manafort to his campaign, Ukraine freaked out. Manafort had worked with Russians and pro-Russian elements in Ukraine in previous years, and the idea of such a person having the ear of a future president terrified certain people in the Ukrainian government. Ukraine may have been one of the few governments in the world to consider the possibility of Trump winning, and so they colluded with the Clinton campaign to release dirt to undermine Manafort. Ukraine approach Clinton’s campaign with the dirt. Clinton’s campaign leaked it to the right journalists. The dirt got published. It worked. Within weeks of being hired, Manafort was fired in the wake of embarrassing revelations about his finances and work with the Russians. Afterward, and long before Russian collusion became a thing, a follow-up article even exulted about how the Ukrainians, Clinton campaign, and media had colluded to bring down Manafort.
Fast forward to now, and the Democrats still have an ally in the Ukrainians. It’s no coincidence that this latest effort to bring down Trump revolves around Ukraine. Democrats, the Deep State, and Ukraine made this happen. Deep State actors within Trump’s circle in all likelihood set up the phone call and set up Trump so that he would slip into their trap. They dangled Biden, whom they didn’t really want to nominate anyway, as bait, and waited for Trump to pounce. Trump didn’t pounce nearly as much as they expected, and it’s not even clear that what Trump did or could have done is illegal given that investigating obvious corruption isn’t a crime. Thus, Democrats have had to spin, obfuscate, and twist every bit of evidence and every witness to concoct their narrative.
The simple rule of modern Democrat politics is this: Whatever Democrats accuse anyone else of doing, they are already doing it themselves. Why do they make the accusation? In their warped world, because they themselves are doing something, others must be doing the same, and accusations serve as useful distractions from one’s own wrongdoings.
h/t GR