I recognize that few people are going to do more than scan the headlines about the impeachment inquiry ongoing hearings, and instead are likely to rely on social media to simply confirm what they already believe.
In my mind, it just makes it more important to set aside some time to digest the details here, especially in this age of social media-driven disinformation.
I’ll present a few links here so that you don’t have to go searching for them.
The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report
Report of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Pursuant to H. Res. 660 in Consultation with the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
This report is vital because it spells out the factual basis for impeachment that emerged from the committees’ investigation through a series of witnesses.
It is divided into two major sections, one focusing on the president’s “misconduct,” and the other on the president’s obstruction of justice.
The Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment.
Report by the Majority Staff of the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Part VI of the report, pages 38-52, address several fallacies spread by supporters of the president. Even if you don’t want to read any of the history, do read this section.
“How the Schiff Report Deals With Disinformation,” Lawfare Blog.
As an aid to understanding the debate, which is on a different order than understanding the factual basis for charges that the president violated his constitutional duties, I highly recommend the article discussing the difficulty of directly addressing the wild conspiracy theories that are being spread to deflect the progress of the impeachment process.
Here’s a taste.
Research suggests that the more a claim is repeated, the more likely people are to believe it, even in the context of a debunking. So stating that “the DNC server is not in Ukraine” could lead readers to have more, rather than fewer, doubts over whether the server actually is in Ukraine, much less whether there is a physical server at all. (This has proved difficult to navigate for media outlets struggling to report on the president’s falsehoods.) There’s also what social scientist danah boyd (boyd styles her name in lowercase) has termed the “boomerang effect,” in which a media outlet’s effort to debunk a false story prompts those who don’t trust the media to believe that the story must be true. In a 2018 report, Whitney Phillips, a researcher at Syracuse University, described concerns among journalists that reporting on disinformation and far-right extremism risks giving “oxygen” to harmful theories and ideas. Amplification of these ideas—even in debunking or criticizing them—risks “lending credence to false narratives” and “makes it very difficult, if not impossible, not to benefit those looking to manipulate” the public conversation. At the same time, not amplifying this material means giving up an opportunity to correct the public record with no guarantee that the false narrative will disappear.
It’s a very important discussion, well worth wading through the article. And it’s a whole lot shorter than either of the Congressional reports, too.
Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.
Report by the Office of Inspector General, Department of Justice.
From the Executive Summary:
As part of our review, we also sought to determine whether there was evidence that political bias or other improper considerations affected decision making in Crossfire Hurricane, including the decision to open the investigation. We discussed the issue of political bias in a prior OIG report, Review of Various Actions in Advance of the 2016 Election, where we described text and instant messages between then Special Counsel to the Deputy Director Lisa Page and then Section Chief Peter Strzok, among others, that included statements of hostility toward then candidate Trump and statements of support for then candidate Hillary Clinton. In this review, we found that, while Lisa Page attended some of the discussions regarding the opening of the investigations, she did not play a role in the decision to open Crossfire Hurricane or the four individual cases. We further found that while Strzok was directly involved in the decisions to open Crossfire Hurricane and the four individual cases, he was not the sole, or even the highest-level, decision maker as to any of those matters. As noted above, then CD AD Priestap, Strzok’s supervisor, was the official who ultimately made the decision to open the investigation, and evidence reflected that this decision by Priestap was reached by consensus after multiple days of discussions and meetings that included Strzok and other leadership in CD, the FBI Deputy Director, the FBI General Counsel, and a FBI Deputy General Counsel. We concluded that Priestap’s exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision.
There’s just a whole lot of important information floating around out there, and we have more ready access than anyone at any time in history.
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Like many matters in human life, politics contains a large element of ‘taste,’ or aesthetic appreciation for what attracts and repels. It is very hard, ultimately impossible, to evaluate political matters ‘objectively’ as they inherently involve promises and predictions of the unknowable and indeterminate future. Instead our political judgements are a form of action with unpredictable results. If we go into the impeachment evaluation with the primary documents being the impeachers, not the defenders, we start with ‘Orange Man Bad,’ and the defenders of truth and virtue labeling other views as ‘false narratives.’ And if we go into the evaluation from the President’s side (who has clear Constitutional authority in foreign affairs) and may, indeed, as all Presidents do, benefit politically (which doesn’t mean necessarily ‘personally’) from actions taken in contact with foreign leaders, the impeachers may appear ‘bad.’ The fact is, it’s a battle of narratives with varying degrees of truth, and it’s a power game to see whose narrative will win. This web author I like to follow because he has a reporter’s background and interest in finding the original documents. But the blind men around an elephant is an image we can’t erase from these political goings-on. Lucky we live Hawaii while the national disputes rage on!
If the Republicans are going to defend Trump by repeating debunked conspiracy theories they run the risk of turning “GOP” into “Goebbel’s Old Party,” after the WWII Nazi who practiced “the Big Lie” idea that repetition leads to belief.
Thanks Ian, It’s great to have it here to read as time allows. I feel like this is all I do these days, but reading the original information is essential to really understanding where we are as a nation.
Final poll’s close November 3, 2020!
Will go way out on a limb and predict Hawaii casts all of it’s delegates for the Democratic nominee!
Quite, Possible Hillary Clinton SOS! Money can’t make flower’s Bloomberg. Shades of Ross Perot!
Dems control house. Republicans control Senate. Lawfare is part of the Dems apparatus. There is equivalent machinery on the other side.
There will be impeachment then the case will be tossed in the Senate. I have no interest in watching a chess game being played to a draw. Then watching you all tell me why you are right and the other guys are bad. You all need to grow up.
I’m surprised that you’re coming out as a modern nihilist. You just don’t care to look at the evidence that has been emerging. The most meaningful not coming from Democrats, but that’s obviously not of interest to you because, as you’ve announced, you don’t care. No interest in the facts? Fine. Your choice.