Name:   MartiniMan - Subject:   WSJ Op-Ed-Why the Impeachment Rush Date:   9/30/2019 2:18:41 PM

If true, this could explain a whole lot about why the mountain out of the Ukraine molehill telephone call.

True, much media and political effort has gone into sometimes close and often willful parsing of President Trump’s July 25 conversation with President Volodymyr Zelensky —ironic when you consider Mr. Trump’s well-known linguistic promiscuity—not to mention the celebrated whistleblower complaint, which contains no firsthand information. Little notice has been given, however, to another document lying in plain sight: a Justice Department press release issued the day the conversation transcript became public.

That Justice Department statement makes explicit that the president never spoke with Attorney General William Barr “about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his son” or asked him to contact Ukraine “on this or any other matter,” and that the attorney general has not communicated at all with Ukraine. It also contains the following morsel: “A Department of Justice team led by U.S. Attorney John Durham is separately exploring the extent to which a number of countries, including Ukraine, played a role in the counterintelligence investigation directed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. While the Attorney General has yet to contact Ukraine in connection with this investigation, certain Ukrainians who are not members of the government have volunteered information to Mr. Durham, which he is evaluating.”