"Crooked As Hell"? You Be The Judge
Earlier today President Trump told an assemblage of journalists that they were "as crooked as hell." Harsh? Maybe not.
Consider this tweet regarding the call transcript of the conversation between President Trump and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. Focus on the ellipsis in the third paragraph that's highlighted in blue . That ellipsis represents a gap of 526 words.
Alex Griswold Verified account @HashtagGriswold
@HashtagGriswold
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The highlighted ellipsis in this NPR story represents 526 words https://www.npr.org/2019/09/25/764164340/trump-asked-ukrainian-president-for-a-favor-on-biden-doj-says-no-charges …
12:12 PM - 25 Sep 2019
Now, I didn't take Alex Griswold's word for it. I followed the link to the article. The passage is slightly different--now. It could have been edited. I didn't bother checking because the effect is the same. Here is the passage as it now appears:
"I would like you to do us a favor," Trump asked President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to the official account released on Wednesday.
Later in the conversation, according to the memo, Trump said:
"I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation in Ukraine .... 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 so if you can look into it ... it sounds horrible to me."
The only change is to the second paragraph, and it appears to reflect an awareness on the part of the author, a Ryan Lucas , that he was caught redhanded. If that's the way dishonest journalists are caught. He changes "Continued Trump" to "Later in the conversation." Everything else in the passage remains the same. If the reader doesn't actually refer to the transcript itself, they'll be left with the same false impression. In other words, rather than coming clean, Lucas simply attempts to finesse his deception.
The definite impression given by Lucas is that the "favor" Trump requested--what Trump thought "this whole situation in Ukraine" was about--was Biden and his son. In actual fact, the "favor" Trump requested had to do with the alleged Russian hack of the DNC server and the DoJ's ongoing investigation into the Russia Hoax--as is apparent from the reference to "the Attorney General." Here's how the passage of the conversation actually goes. I've highlighted in red the portions that Lucas omitted from this paragraph, but the omitted portion stretches on--and on across several paragraphs--for 526 words to finally connect up with Biden:
The President: I would like you to do us a favorthough 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[insert ellipsis] 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. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.
You can get the full relevant content of the transcript here: Woops! Dems Score Own Goal . The point is that Lucas gives his readers the very definite impression that the whole point of the conversation was The Bidens, Father and Son. If you don't believe me, follow the link to the full article . You'll see that Lucas continues presuming that impression that he has deviously foisted on his readers.
Crooked as hell? I'd say, Yes, absolutely.