BYRON YORK: TRUMP’S NOT ACTING GUILTY:
In short, Trump appears to be making no effort to conceal what he said to Zelensky, be it about his belief that other countries should bear more of the burden of foreign aid or what he wanted Ukraine to investigate about the 2016 election and about former Vice President Joe Biden and son, Hunter Biden.
So what to make of a situation in which one side says the call is a smoking gun, while the other screams “READ THE TRANSCRIPT”?
“Look at the circumstantial evidence surrounding this,” former independent counsel Kenneth Starr said in a recent interview. “[Did Trump say,] ‘Bring him in, bring him in here, and I want to talk to him privately?'”
No. Instead, Starr explained, Trump chose a phone call, rather than a one-on-one meeting, to make his points with Zelensky. Remember when the president was accused of being secretive in a one-on-one conversation with Vladimir Putin with no one other than translators within earshot? This wasn’t that.
“There were 17 people on the phone, including the secretary of state,” Starr continued. “The president was so, shall I say, open and transparent about it that that goes to his intent. There’s no corrupt bargain, or an attempt to achieve a corrupt bargain, as I see it.”
Yeah, that’s because it’s all bullshit, like the “Russian collusion” narrative whose place it took.