It's No Accident That Democrats Keep Accusing Trump Of 'Bribery'

[babylonsister]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/democrats-bribery-impeachment-pelosi-schiff?fbclid=IwAR0P3CwchoMqIO-Ux6Y069FXNKSn0NBhOq5GPUWD77SP4mz1RS_OFUebLhI


It’s No Accident That Democrats Keep Accusing Trump Of ‘Bribery’
By Kate Riga
November 14, 2019 12:07 p.m.


“Bribery” is the new “quid pro quo,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) made clear during her weekly press conference Thursday.

“The bribe is to grant or withhold military assistance in return for a public statement of a fake investigation into the elections. That’s bribery,” she said, noting that the term is “in the Constitution attached to impeachment proceedings.”

Link to tweet

Pelosi is carrying out a new tactic also seen in the phrasing of House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and committee member Jackie Spier (D-CA) this week.

Their word choice is no coincidence.

Article II of the Constitution reads: “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Democrats appear to be recalibrating their messaging to tie President Donald Trump’s actions directly to impeachment. And the switch-up likely has other benefits as well.

snip//

The vocabulary change may also help Democrats puncture a Republican talking point. Republicans have, by and large, been successful at getting their preferred names for recent political situations to stick — think “no collusion” during the Mueller investigation, or “read the transcript” for the edited White House memo of the Trump-Zelensky call. Now, it’s “no quid pro quo.”

Their messaging, while lacking any nuance and usually at least stretching the truth, sticks. Now Democrats will see if “bribery” strikes the American people as more egregious than “quid pro quo” — despite the fact that both terms are catchalls for the same behavior.

[Historic NY]

1. qui munera libenter accipiunt

if you can say it.

[exboyfil]

2. Waiting for them to argue

It was extortion and not bribery. Of course extortion is not nearly as serious as lying about having consensual sex.

[BuffaloJackalope]

3. They're using the word "bribery" because that's what it is.

"Quid pro quo" is the obfuscation stretching the truth.

[tirebiter]

4. Purely and simply bribery

Just like it says in the constitution...treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors...NAILED. Now lock him up.